Pigulca Community Updates

Well, an embarrassingly long time has passed since my last post. And during that time some wonderful things have happened. Mike and I spent lots of time in the community last fall (2009) and then had some health issues that prevented such frequent visits. To tell the truth, I was really concerned about the vegetable gardens. Between the time of planting and our last visit in October/November there was not much rain and the plants grew very little. We next visited in early December 2009, and I was afraid about looking at the garden. I was pleasantly surprised that the garden looked great! We harvested the first radishes and cilantro. The ladies were really excited and we had a meeting where we thanked God for the beautiful harvest.
In January 2010 we were back again, just in time to harvest beets and carrots. The colors of the veggies was gorgeous, but the carrots were very twisted. They had been planted very close together and rather than pull out every other plant (or more), they decided to transplant them further apart. Apparently, transplanting carrots is not the best plan because they really twisted up. The women were very surprised! Again, we had a meeting to thank God for the bountiful harvest. However, I was noticing a trend. Each time they harvested something, they divided it among many families of the community, even those not participating in the project. Thus, each home took home only one or two beets and several carrots- not exactly the economic benefit we were looking for. Also, each time we harvested, I encouraged the women to replant, so that the garden would continue producing.

In February 2010 I tried on several occasions to visit. The visits were great, but meeting with the women in the vegetable project was hard because I could not seem to get everyone together. Finally, when we met in early March, I asked why they had not yet replanted anything. They did not really have an answer, but it seemed that part of the problem was leadership. I encouraged them to appoint a committee, which they finally did. We also discussed options for solving the economic problem, and decided that each woman should plant a garden at her own home. Since it was very dry, they did not really want to plant anything, but I encouraged them to be getting the ground ready so that when it did rain, they would be able to plant their gardens. In April when I visited it had begun to rain, and a few women had begun to plant their gardens. Also, the leadership group wrote a letter to a local flower plantation where a number of community members work requesting plastic sheeting to put as protection around the home gardens. I also noticed that the community garden had been replanted. This picture is Maria G. showing me here garden started in April. More about her in the next update.

In May I headed to the US to finish my masters degree, but I still had questions for the ladies. I asked Mike if he would meet with them to talk about their gardens. He asked them about the re-planting in the community garden. They let him know that they were using it as a nursery and that they would transplant young plants to their home gardens. I thought that was great!
More details in the next update!