Green Acres is the Place to Be

If there's one thing that living in a big city like DC has shown me, it is the lengths that people will go to to avoid the inconvenience and discomfort of nature. Wind, water, heat, cold, and dirt become simply background noise to our daily lives, nuisances deftly avoided by the use of modern technology. We move effortlessly between our sturdy houses, to our heated cars and air-conditioned trains, to our spotless office buildings where recycled air keeps our days at a balmy 67 degrees. In a way, we have mastered Mother Nature, and made our lives as independent from her as possible.

That's not the case in a place like rural Nicaragua. Here, not only does wind, water, soil, and temperature influence life, in a way, it defines life. Nicaragua is marked by two seasons, the parched and dusty summer from October to April, and the drenching winter or wet season which has come full force this past month and will be here to stay until late September. For farmers in Nicaragua, their lives revolve around the planting, growing and harvesting of their crops depending on the season. Water, wind, dirt, heat, and cold are not just facts and figures for the TV weatherman to report, they herald the arrival of planting and harvest times, feasts and famine, and life and death.

To learn more about these age-old rhythms, our training group has started on some longer-term agricultural projects that we will be working on in the coming weeks. As I mentioned before, Ness, Jonathan, Mary, and myself, the four trainees in Los Rincones, have been tasked with forming a youth group to help us create a vegetable garden and tree nursery. The first task was to create a nutrient-rich fertilizer for use in both our garden and nursery. Rather than make a traditional organic compost, which can take up to 6 months to be ready, we have decided to make Bocashi, a type of rapidly-fermenting compost first devised by Japanese agronomists.

Last week, the four of us embarked upon an epic journey to acquire the ingredients needed for our compost. Jonathan and I took a bus past Jinotepe to a rice warehouse in the middle of nowhere, where a baffled foreman stared at us like we had gringo-colored horns coming out of our heads. From him we bought a big sack of dried rice husks that would serve as the base of our compost and provide nitrogen. Next, we went around to our host families' kitchens to get ash from their wood-burning stoves and dug up some nice dark topsoil from their backyards. Our final stop was the local chicken coop where we were gifted with at least 100 pounds of dried chicken turd, whose rich nutrients would help our plants grow strong and tall.

With a big pile of chicken manure, rice husks, ash, and dirt mixed together, we added a solution of water, molasses, and yeast to start the decomposition process. After covering it with a black plastic tarp we began the waiting game to see if our compost would catalyze. Within 24 hours, our chicken poo stew was cookin' away and breaking down into rich fertilizer. Due to the intense chemical reactions of the decomposition, the pile is astonishingly hot to the touch, steaming from underneath the tarp like some kind of demonic, manure-powered cauldron. It's also quite pungent, stinking up half the neighborhood with its good, organic, earthy perfume. I only hope our neighbors will forgive us in a few weeks when we bring them fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and watermelons from our well-fertilized garden.

The compost should be ready within two weeks, but in the meantime we've begun meeting regularly with our neighborhood youth group who will be helping with our garden and nursery. At the end of July, we'll be taking part in an agricultural fair, showcasing a sustainable farm product that we create with our kids, and competing against the trainees and their youth groups in the other villages. So far we've come up with some good ideas, but have yet to decide between mango jelly, avocado shampoo or coconut candies. I suggested we try to combine all three into an edible coconut, mango, and avocado-flavored shampoo, but my idea was unmercifully shot down by exasperated eye-rolls from Juanita and Orlando.

We have a lot more technical training in the weeks to come and soon we'll be splitting up across the country for a week to visit with other aggie volunteers currently working at their sites. For the first time, I'll get a view of what I'll actually be doing for the next two years. I'll also put my green thumb to the test and see if I can't coax some ripe fruits and veggies out of the ground. Who knows? If I discover a hidden talent for horticulture, you may soon see Dave's Magical Coconut and Avocado-Flavored Shampoo/Jelly/Industrial Cleaner on a store shelf near you.