A fresh start

When I got back from the states, I was expecting to find a big, weedy mess in the garden. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. However, most of our raised beds were destroyed by rain and an ambitious man weeding with a hoe.

What was nice, though, was the idea of a new start-- most of our old work was gone, we can start anew.

And I've felt since I've come back that I am starting fresh for the most part. I've decided to make some changes in my work at the ag site, so that I can be more focused. I've decided to not continue gardening with children in the mornings, and only garden with Andre's afternoon club. The truth is that I dreaded working with them in the morning and I know I was doing them a disservice by continuing to do so.

I've decided to try to implement an experimental garden on the land surrounding where the afternoon club has their beds. An experimental garden probably looks a lot like a demonstration garden, but the concept is quite different. A demonstration garden comes from the perspective that I know what I'm doing and what I'm doing works. However, if something fails, I lose people's trust-- they assume that you do not know what I'm doing. Instead, I'm planning an experimental area, where I can try out new ideas that may have worked elsewhere to see if they were here, in this climate and culture. If it works, I can suggest it to farmers. If it doesn't work, no one has really lost anything. (The picture doesn't have that much to do with all this, but it's a pic of Yulisa drawing out a map of the garden, which we are using in planning).

I'm also hoping to work more with women in the afternoons. I already have a bible study with some teenage girls and a knitting class. I've talked with some women about forming a committee that could help me plan classes, workshops, and other events that would benefit women of the community. The women I've talked to are already talking a lot about sewing classes and have come up with some cool ideas- like parenting or marriage workshops.