The church took over the location where I used to have the agriculture site and where the church building is located. Since I moved out, they moved into the casita and the garden.
Just this week they turned the casita into a small vegetable market and internet cafe. They are selling vegetables, such as eggplant and cabbage, and some fruit.
The internet cafe isn't funcitoning, yet, because they are waiting to get electricity (as is most of Los Higos after two and half weeks without power). Joselito, pictured above, is going to work there in the mornings and Laura will work in the afternoons. The have four computers and will be using a satellite internet connection that Joselito installed in his house last fall. The church will split the cost for internet with Joselito. 
My understanding is that the church is hoping to make some money with this venture while at the same time offering some services that the community needs. Many students (like Elvis in the picture above) have to make special trips into town to use the internet to do research for their schoolwork. Having an internet cafe in Los Higos will be more convenient and probably will save them money because they won't have to pay transportation for extra trips into town. In addition, it is often difficult to find fresh vegetables and fruit in Los Higos. This seems impossible, since it so easily grows here, but the truth is that people don't grow as much fruit as you would expect.
6 comments:
Awesome! So Los Higos is really getting advanced if they can get an internet cafe going; that is really neat. Thanks for the update, Arlo.
- Daniel.
It's surprising people don't grow much fruit ... I remember in Calkini that we just picked fruit - sometimes off the side of the road - to eat! And those wonderful oranges in the orchard! I suppose we all have something that would be easy (growing fruit in the DR, starting a bible study or play group, whatever) that we aren't taking advantage of.
Not growing much fruit really is quite odd.
One reason they don't grow fruit might be because of theives. There was a guy who had a field of guava trees in the community and actually pulled them out because women in the community would pick the fruit and take it to town to sell it. It sounds like he wasn't able to harvest enough fruit himself to make it worth it, because they were steeling so much
Wow!
It sounds like things are changing pretty quickly down there!
Do you think the mercadito will be used by the people?
so exciting. wow.
i remember seeing my first pineapple, avocado and grapefruit plants there.
and oh man, ramon once showed me this little apple plant he'd grown from a seed next to the peppers in the greenhouse, hahaha.
when you see them, tell ramon i miss him and a kiss for meri for me
Tamara,
I don't know if people are really utilizing the market that much, but the internet seems to be getting a lot of business.
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