Wednesday in Guiotte

Things are continuing to go well for the VIM team as we develop new friendships with community members here in Guiotte and "get our hands dirty" - very dirty - working to help set up a new school garden, the first of many that UMCOR hopes to help establish in communities across Haiti, in cooperation with local Methodist schools. Gardening isn't among the strengths of the Foundry team, but fortunately there is lots of expertise on hand from community members and also from Gontran, a gifted Haitian agronomist working with UMCOR on the school gardens program. Today Gontran showed us, as well as many students and visiting agronomists, how to make "bokashi", a kind of fertilizer that can be produced with local organic materials, allowing for improved yields without costly and environmentally hazardous pesticides. In addition to our time in the garden, we've been welcomed for many walks throughout Guiotte and surrounding villages, which has helped us gain a better sense of the challenges facing this region, the spirit our hosts bring to bear in addressing them, and the modest ways in which our team might contribute to this work.

-Megan