By Matt
This past month I was able to re-live an experience that was very important to me. It was "Campo week" for the International Development Studies semester students of Calvin College, and they came out to Olancho to spend a week in the community of La Avispa. Kurt and Joanne V.B. (the Calvin Profs who live here in Honduras) along with David and I set up the experience through the Ag and Environment program of Diaconia and invited the 19 Calvin students to spend a week experiencing the rural Honduran lifestyle. This was meaningful to me because I had done the same trip five years ago when I was studying here in Honduras with Calvin's development studies semester abroad program (although I had gone to a different part of the country).
On the first day the church did a big welcome service for the students. There is no electricity in La Avispa, but the church has a little solar panel, and the music was very loud (as usual here in Honduras). In the morning David and I held an assembly in the school where we taught the kids about the water cycle and why the forest is important. Here we are doing a group game that helps them understand how the water cycle works. Some of the kids represent trees, others clouds, others rivers, etc. I am about to cut down the forest with my chainsaw here, which cuts the signal of the water cycle (squeezing hands).
The people of La Avispa had set as a priority an environmental campaign to help get people thinking about not polluting the community and not burning down the forest (deforestation has led to a lot of problems in the community). During this week the whole community worked with us to put up signs around the community as reminders of how we all need to care for the creation so that we all have a healthy and productive place to live. Here a local youth is putting up one of the signs which says "Don't contaminate the environment" (the community chose which messages to display). Another sign says "Welcome to La Avispa, Land Blessed by God, Caring for our natural resources is the responsibility of everyone". Many of the local youth helped out with this little project and it was fun to get to know them. At the end of the week we ended up going with about 10 of them to a nearby church for a youth training of Diaconia with Roldan.
After a community meeting David went with a bunch of people to collect seeds from the cedar trees in the area. Another community priority is reforestation on the steep mountainsides to prevent landslides and erosion and to provide resources such as wood for the community. We also worked with a group in the community to establish a tree nursury which will produce timber trees as well as fruit trees for the community. Below you see how the seed collecting works: David threw a stick way up in the tree to knock open the little helicopter seeds and the youth with the tarps ran to where the cloud was falling. We collected a lot of this very valuable and expensive seed with very little effort. These seeds will help us do reforestation in other communities as well.
On Thursday morning David went and made a wood saving stove (a better design of the usual woodstove that burns 50% or less of the normal wood). This stove is to serve as an example to see if other people in the community would like to change to this design. The woman was very happy with the stove and could appreciate the results immedeatly because very little heat escapes into the kitchen. The strong cement tube chimney insures that there is zero smoke in the kitchen which is often a big problem in these communities. The idea is that if much of the community changes there design, they will cut down less trees in the area and have more time to spend working on other projects.
On one of the mornings we went up to the land of Oqueli, one of our community facilitators. You can see that on this plot he has not burned for several years. The land is steep around La Avispa and we are promoting the use of erosion barriers so that the people don't lose the fertility of their soil when it rains. We also work to change the common practice of burning to prepare the land because burning leaves the soil unprotected from many types of degradation especially on these steep slopes.
I wanted to get a better taste for what it is really like to work the land in La Avispa so I helped chop the weeds to prepare for planting. I also wanted to put my machete to the test. Do this for 6 or 7 hours and you get paid around $5 total here in Honduras.
On the last day in La Avispa we took some time in the afternoon to go look at a nearby cave with the Calvin students and members of the community. It was enjoyable, but full of bats which are not my favorite animals.
From what I can tell the community and the students really bonded well during their time. I know many of the students learned how to make tortillas and wash clothes by hand. I saw some out riding horse too. Some of the students helped out with the community activities such as the signs. On the last night the local Christian Reformed church put on a big farewell service which was very meaningful. Below is a video of the students singing a song to the church in spanish.
In this video the church is singing a song that says: "Goodbye brothers, goodbye. I carry you in my heart"
We did a ton of other things as well, and it was a great week. I wonder if any of those students will come back to visit La Avispa.
