A chicken about to get vaccinated

The gardening team
Making rosquillas
Little helper

An ¨aparatus A¨ used to find contour lines for planting on slopes An inverted tire, used to plant in patio gardens, keeps out nasty leaf cutter ants and reuses tires that would otherwise be burned
March for National Day of Independence

Our vegetable garden.

September 23

We have finished our second week of training and it certainly was a long one. They keep us pretty busy from sun up to sun down with Spanish classes and other trainings. This week we learned the basics of patio garden management and planted our very own garden. So far some beans and radishes have popped up and we are waiting to see if anything else will grow.
We also spent a day learning how commercialize basic agricultural products through value added processing. In other words, we made jam, spaghetti sauce, and a couple of medicinal balms and syrups. It was pretty neat to learn how to cook in this environment and it made me feel better about living on my own. We are beginning to work with a youth group at an agro-forest technical college. I think this will be one of the most challenging tasks of training because these are youth who have been studying agriculture for years and we are expected to teach them.
Over the weekend we went to an organic farm way up in the mountains. We learned how to make organic pesticides and herbicides as well as how to protect ourselves from the commercial ones that are sprayed here frequently. The men wear huge pump sprayers on their backs and spray without masks, boots, or even shirts. Most of them mix the chemicals with their hands and use the old bottles to carry water. Scary stuff.
My family is great. Every night we watch a telenovela called Siete Pecados (Seven Sins) and I have come to really enjoy it. My host dad got stuck with a spine from a Carbon tree and had to go to the hospital because it went all the way to the bone, which sounded painful. I also killed a giant tarantula in my room, pretty exciting stuff.

I hope everyone is doing well and I miss yall lots. Take care.