Market pictures and some shots of the good section of dirt road

Dustin Holliday, the guy from a church in Virginia Beach who has a huge partnership with Pastor Earl and Verbo ministries went out to take some pictures and action shots so he can put together a promotion video for his church.  The partnership between his church and Pastor Earl involves a holistic approach to solving the issues of extreme poverty and spiritual darkness in Puerto Cabezas.  They, with the help of Forward Edge International and Jeff Thompson, are doing everything from drilling wells, building houses, providing opportunities for education in both children and adults, creating a huge opportunity for a clothing business, prison ministries, sports ministries, and I am sure many other things that I have either forgot or don't even know about.

They have recently been looking to expand into helping the agricultural systems in the surrounding communities, so the timing of my trip has been absolutely amazing; I am learning about the Miskito farming techniques and people, establishing relationships, and building their trust so that hopefully in the future I can really help them get more out of their agricultural efforts.  The plan start from the ground up, so the first step is teaching them why these new ideas that I want to show them are beneficial; I will be doing this by working with some of the more progressive farmers in making test areas and comparison trials between the old techniques and my new ideas.

Some of the things I would like to try during my time on this trip include furrowing the land to provide drainage and better water control, bio-char application for improved soil fertility, advanced residue management (in other words not throwing it all in a pile out in the forest to rot), and row spacing/new planting techniques.  I don't expect all of my ideas to work or be accepted, but any little improvement would help me to secure a positive image in the community, which would open the doors for future projects.

I put up some pictures of some typical Miskito market fresh fruit/fish stands, and some pictures of the well maintained dirt road which you encounter when you get within a few mile of Puerto Cabezas; some time soon I will have to get a few picture of the road to Betania so you all can experience a little taste of how tough it is to drive here.  There are also a few pictures of one of the Verbo housing communities that a few people from my mission trip worked on last year.

Baseball Field Progress/Another Hurricane Warning

Hello everyone, the last few days I have been working full time on the baseball field.  Junior is the guy in the Verbo ministry that is in charge of the sports department, so I have been working with him a lot (he speaks English, which is awesome).  We spent a lot of time and money getting the grader to come clear and level the area where the playing field will be, but we did finally get that done a few weeks ago.  Our next project has been marking out the infield; the first time we hired the guy who does the field at the stadium in Puerto Cabezas, but he did not do a very good job, because the distances from first to second and second to third were closer to 80 feet than 90.  When I realized that the field needed to be re done I took a few of the high school guys, the 100 ft tape measure, and a lot of colorful stringy rope type stuff and got to work.  It took a few hours before we could finally get everything to line up, but eventually we did.  The next day I came back with the same crew and we began raking the ground to level it out more and soften it up; when we got to the field I discovered that someone had come and stolen all of the rope and pulled out all of our stakes.  That night I went and bought some kind of chalk stuff so we could mark the lines with a material that people wont steal, and the next day Junior and I marked the field out once more; this time it only took an hour or two, I am pretty sure I could design baseball fields for a living now.  That same day I took a group of the high school guys and to rake everything up, and then the next day I went to buy material to make a fence around the infield, because after we plant the grass we need to keep everyone off for at least six weeks.  It is an uphill battle, but as Junior keeps saying, all of the difficulties and resistance show that God is going to use this sports ministry, and their is a greater purpose behind what we are doing.  I am hoping to go out today to build the fence, and then plant the grass Monday after the storm passes, but I don't count on things working out that way; I have come to except that things almost never turn out the way I plan, so lots of patience and having a back up plan are how I get by.

In other news, there is another tropical storm that is expected to turn into a hurricane some time soon.  It is about 300 miles to the east of Puerto Cabezas right now, and it is currently expected to go to the north of us, but please keep us and all of the small communities that live in the potential impact area in you prayers.

Thank you for your continued support and interest in my adventures and projects,

Austin

Fishing and Rice Harvest in Betania

Today I left for Betania a little after 5:00 in the morning with my friend Johnny; Johnny does not speak English.  We got to Betania a little after 7:00, because the roads have gotten worse over the last week or so, and because we had to do a few things in Puerto Cabezas before we headed out.  When we arrived I saw the man that told me he would take me to his farm when they were ready to harvest rice, so I went to talk to him.  Luckily he speaks Spanish, so between Johnny, him, and I we were able to communicate well enough.  We got all of the fishing gear ready and then headed out (it is very common for the men to fish on their trip to the farm).  We spent the entire morning fishing, but had no luck; we were only able to catch some tiny bait fish.  When it was finally time to get down to business, we went to the first farm area to get some oranges and coconuts.  The coconut tree had to have been close to 100 feet high, but one of the guys that was with us climbed it with ease, and threw down a bunch of delicious coco.  We ate two or three each, first cutting it open with a machete, then drinking the milk, then splitting it in half and scooping out the young coconut meat.  After the coconut break we headed over to the orange tree and loaded up close to fifty oranges (we also each ate a few oranges).  After all of this it was close to 1:00, so we headed out to the area where the rice field was.  When we arrived he told me that when the river flooded after the recent tropical storm, he lost most of his rice crop; when I looked around at the devastated crop it was hard not to wonder how he would be able to come up with enough food to feed his family.  We arrived to late to see the process, but it is basically the exact same process as harvesting grass space plants at Pure Seed; cut the small clumps of rice with a machete, thresh it against a cerated board, and then take it back home to clean out the chaff.  By the end of this trip I was extremely tired, so I was dreading the drive home, which is stressful enough when you aren't tired and you don't have three people riding in the back of your truck.  We finally got home to the Pastor's house, which was a relief, because the diesel was getting really low in the truck.

After dinner Jessica, the house mom at the orphanage, decided we should have a bon fire tonight, so all of the kids got to stay up late to play games, sing songs, have devotional, eat sweets, and dance.  It was a very fun night, and exactly what I needed after the long, full day.  The kids are so much fun to be around; they are so full of life and happy all the time, even though they basically don't have anything.

I am going to get some sleep now; I will try to post some pictures later.

Austin

My Trip to Betania's Finca

My trip to Betania:

On Wednesday, October 6^th I was able to make a trip out to Betania’s finca (farm).  I had told them I would be there the day before, but the truck I was going to drive broke down, so I was a day late.  I got up early, filled the truck with gas, (which is extremely expensive down here especially considering how bad the gas is), picked up my translator John, and then began the hour long drive to Betania on the horrid Nicaraguan dirt roads.  We arrived in Betania around 8:00, parked the truck next to the house of one of our friends from the church, and went to find Nestor, the Wista (judge/leader of Betania).  We found him at his house getting a hair cut from his son, and we were able to bargain that if he took us to the farm, we would give him a ride to Puerto Cabezas.  We began the fifteen minute walk to where the Kayukos (canoes) were waiting in a small river/creek; from there we loaded up into the kayuko and headed out to the farm.  It was about a twenty minute trip in the boats to the first farm location, when we arrived we unloaded and climbed the steep bank to where the Yucca area was located.  All of the yucca had lodged (fallen over) from the recent storm, and they explained that they get some sort of root rot when this happens, which is devastating because it is a root crop.  At this site we ate some fresh cocoa and I got attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes.

The next stop was across the river, about a five minute trip in the canoes; here we found more yucca and a rice field.  At this site they explained to me some of their crop rotations:

1)      1)Slash and burn a section of the forest.

2)      2)Plant beans (not till).

3)      3) Harvest beans and remove all organic matter.

4)      4)Plant rice (no till).

5)      5)Harvest rice and remove all organic matter.

6)      6)Plant a root crop and then go clear a new area to start the cycle over.

They also told me about some of their pest problems, and they told me they are able to get three bean crops per year and one rice crop, two if they are lucky.  I think they were confused when I was asking them when they plant and harvest, because they have such a large window for planting due to the consistently hot and wet weather.  I got to eat some fresh sugar cane, which is delicious, and they gave me some Philipita bananas to take home.  The biggest problem they have in their production system is access to a consistent supply of seed to plant new crops; they try to save some of the previous crop to use in the next planting, but when people start going hungry it is hard to tell them not to eat the seed.

When we returned to Betania, Nestor offered John and I lunch; which turned out to be awesome. It was basically the same dish we always get: rice, beans, and a little piece of chicken, but they cooked the rice in fresh coconut milk, and it was probably the best rice I have ever had in my life.  I gave Nestor and his family some extra soft drinks that I had in my bag and the tuna and crackers that John and I had planned on eating for lunch.  Shortly after we finished eating we hit the road and got back to Puerto Cabezas around 3:00.  Nestor told me I can come back any time to go fishing, and he also invited me to their big Miskito festival; unfortunately I was not able to make it to the festival, but the invitation shows that we have established a good relationship.  I plan on going back sometime this week just to keep myself visible in the community; I found out that they will be harvesting rice later this week, so I hope to experience that.  They will be planting beans in November, and if nothing else, I have a hand planter I can give them which should speed up the process.  I am working on getting them some improved varieties of rice from CIAT, a nonprofit company that does research and breeding in beans, rice, and other tropical crops to help reduce poverty and hunger in impoverished areas.  The only worry I have about doing this is that if they have a bad year or eat the entire crop, they have to go back to what they were using before.

Above is a picture of lodged yucca

Above is a picture of John, my translator, holding a cocoa fruit

Rice field above, and up close shot below

Bananas, sugar cane, weeds

The Miskito culture is fascinating, and I definitely will not have a problem finding enough information to write my undergraduate thesis on their life style, history, and farming techniques.  I want to do everything I can to help them, but it is going to be difficult, especially since I will not be here for an entire crop cycle.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates in the last ten days, I have been busy with school work and all my daily activities; I will do my best to keep the information coming.

Fishing on the Wharf

Today, after the 5:30 am mens Bible study meeting, Johnny, Polo, Moses and I had the chance to go fishing.  Johnny and I went into down town Puerto Cabezas to buy the supplies; which meant that I was able to experience the Moskito Market, which is awesome.  Once we got everything ready and found the fishing poles and reels (in the process I found the leftover seed that I brought down last year) we headed out in a taxi to the port.  Now, as far as I know, foreigners are not aloud on the port; this is clearly specified by numerous signs, but apparently, when you are with the Verbo church it's all good. I only got stopped once; they asked for my i.d., which I didn't have on me, but it was no problem when we told them we were with Verbo.  There were armed guards and muchos hombres borachos on the dwarf, but I have figured out that as long as you are nice and accepting, people here are generally friendly.  We did not catch anything, but we did get to go onto a large fishing boat, because Polo, one of the workers at Verbo, knows a kid who's dad is a captain.  I was afraid to take pictures on the dock, because I didn't want to look like some kind of American activist or spy, so I only have a few pictures that I was able to take from the fishing boat.

In other new, I am going to be going to Betania on Monday to check out there farm (at least that is the current plan).  I am extremely excited, because I will be able to further my research, and get a good grip of what I am going to be able to do to help them out in my short time here.

Thanks for the continued support,

Austin