So of late I’ve been working on two things, mostly. First is the exercise and nutrition class that has not been working out so much. I had 3 weeks in which I had seriously good attendance, and the women who came were totally into it. The following week only one woman came. Then the past two weeks NOBODY came. Once because it was raining, then this last time I don’t know why. It’s really hard for me to think that this maybe won’t work out. I know I’m capable of giving this class, I’m full of good ideas, and think that if the women would really make the effort to go, they’d get a lot out of it and enjoy the time they take for themselves. But…they just don’t go, and always give reasons that to me seem, well, stupid. I haven’t resolved how I will deal with this, whether I keep trying to get people to show up, or to forget about it. Probably the first option, though it’s so frustrating to feel like I’m forcing people to go to “my” class, when I started the class based on a need I observed and which was expressed by many people. It’s their class, for them, but I think they see it as they’re doing me the favor of showing up. Should not be like that.
On the other hand, we planted around 100 trees in my community yesterday! This is a major success for me. Here’s how it went. Early June, as you readers may remember, I made a list of things I wanted to get done. Out of that, I decided the trees were very important and not too big of a task to take on. I invited many people, and ended up with a small group of (generally speaking) hard workers, and we decided we could put in the effort to dig holes in the open area around the chapel, and I would get tree seedlings from the Environmental Authority’s extension in the nearby town. It’s too late to raise the seedlings to be planted this year. I gave up the idea of making people commit to a tree nursery to be able to participate, but those who have been participating in the effort actually want to do tree nurseries so we don’t have to wait on trees from the Environmental Authority. So that is actually something we can work on near creeks in the dry season! The Environmental Authority had two types of trees, both can be raised for their valuable wood, but trees are trees and they still do all the important soil-protecting, air-purifying, shade-giving activities before they are cut down in 20 years. For those interested in trees, they are known here as Caoba Nacional (Swietenia macrophylla) and Roble (Tabebuia pentaphylla), the latter being very similar to oak. It’s good to use wood production trees because people see their value. Plus, they always can collect the seeds and raise more. That’s what I love about trees, they are disposed to reproduction, if you just leave them be or put in a small amount of effort, the returns are great. Not like those dumb vegetables which suck up nutrients and still ask for more. Grrr. But I digress.
Our original goal was to plant 50 trees, but digging holes was surprisingly easy. We did it in 30 minute sessions so people wouldn’t balk at the idea of going to a second work session, and were at our goal after just 3 sessions. So then the agent who had the trees said it would be fine to bring even more trees (we ended up with around 100). So we dug more holes, and set the date for planting. It went very smoothly, since the holes were already dug. One of the group members/diggers has been absent for the last week dealing with an illness in the family, so she had a real excuse to not be here planting. However, the very morning that we had agreed to plant, I went to get one of the other planters’ houses and she said she couldn’t because she had to walk with her old mother to the house farther out of town. That is one of those excuses that makes no sense to me, it just sounds like she didn’t feel like doing the work. I’m allowed to believe that it’s a stupid excuse because her mother has been hanging around the house for several weeks and I reminded her yesterday afternoon about the planting, and then all of a sudden she has this extremely important task of delivering her mother to the other house. Despite being down 2 of 5 adult workers, the environmental group came in the truck along with the trees from the nearby town, and we had the help of my host brothers/cousins. We planted all the trees in under an hour! So my overall feeling is good, but I am always left amazed by how I can get lied to and stupid-excused to by people who claim they really want something to happen. Worse, I can’t help but anticipate that those who didn’t show up (I had invited more than 4 people to be a part of this effort, but they never actually came to anything) will have some sort of issue with the way it was done. You can’t not show up and then complain. Well, here you can.
Still, overall I’m very happy there are trees here that weren’t before, that my faithful helpers went home with 4 valuable seedlings each, and that trees may become a constant project for me here, now that we have gotten off to a good start.
Other news, my friend’s park project that I advertised in June got very quickly funded after that blog post. I therefore believe many of you contributed, and assure you that it is now in its beginning stages. I’ll keep you posted, but for now I want to thank you for contributing, all who did. It means a lot to be supported by people back home.
