And the Winner is….
Departamento: Chalatenango Municipio: San Ignacio Cantón: El Centro
This will be our new home for the next two years. To quote the information initially provided to us by the Peace Corps… “In the chilly mountains of Chalate there is a farming group that needs a lot of help to consolidate projects they have started and provide additional direction. They are working on community organization, organic vegetables, and lombriculture. They have a lot of great agroforestry ideas and are really excited for you to come.”
That’s right, we come down here to the tropics and they send us up into the pines and cypresses at 6,000 to 7,000 feet! Really though, everyone has told us how beautiful it is. It is quite similar to where I went for immersion days and where Katie went for FBT. There will be lots of flowers, including a ton of orchids. I’m not sure if it would actually be classified as a cloud forest, but it will be quite similar to that habitat. I’ll be able to say a lot more after next week, when Katie and I have spent four days there meeting the community, our counterparts, and looking for a place to live.
Katie will be working with a small school (240 kids in K through 9th) in the canton. Officially, Katie is attached to the school because she is environmental education, and I am attached to the community group because I’m agroforestry. Actually though everyone realizes that we will both be working with all of the different groups. The school director (aka principal) sounds very motivated. He attended a meeting with the PC representatives to request that he also get a volunteer. He has seen what a nearby volunteer has been able to accomplish and really hoped to get his school one as well. It is probably this action that changed our site into a good one for a married couple.
I have been having troubles getting the pictures to load properly into blogger, so maybe this is accompanied by a photo of us pointing to our stars on the big map at the training center, and maybe not. If not, you can pull out your handy map of El Salvador and look almost straight to the north of San Salvador, all the way to the Honduran border… there is the highest point in ES called Cerro El Pital (2,700 + meters). We are a couple of km to the east of that.
On a sad note our shower pig left us today to become chicharones. I had just finished giving him a scratch between the ears when the person came to collect him… Our host family was raising him for another who would sell him for the meat. So, even though Carmen took good care of him, she wasn’t upset at his going because she made some good money from him.
This will be our new home for the next two years. To quote the information initially provided to us by the Peace Corps… “In the chilly mountains of Chalate there is a farming group that needs a lot of help to consolidate projects they have started and provide additional direction. They are working on community organization, organic vegetables, and lombriculture. They have a lot of great agroforestry ideas and are really excited for you to come.”
That’s right, we come down here to the tropics and they send us up into the pines and cypresses at 6,000 to 7,000 feet! Really though, everyone has told us how beautiful it is. It is quite similar to where I went for immersion days and where Katie went for FBT. There will be lots of flowers, including a ton of orchids. I’m not sure if it would actually be classified as a cloud forest, but it will be quite similar to that habitat. I’ll be able to say a lot more after next week, when Katie and I have spent four days there meeting the community, our counterparts, and looking for a place to live.
Katie will be working with a small school (240 kids in K through 9th) in the canton. Officially, Katie is attached to the school because she is environmental education, and I am attached to the community group because I’m agroforestry. Actually though everyone realizes that we will both be working with all of the different groups. The school director (aka principal) sounds very motivated. He attended a meeting with the PC representatives to request that he also get a volunteer. He has seen what a nearby volunteer has been able to accomplish and really hoped to get his school one as well. It is probably this action that changed our site into a good one for a married couple.
I have been having troubles getting the pictures to load properly into blogger, so maybe this is accompanied by a photo of us pointing to our stars on the big map at the training center, and maybe not. If not, you can pull out your handy map of El Salvador and look almost straight to the north of San Salvador, all the way to the Honduran border… there is the highest point in ES called Cerro El Pital (2,700 + meters). We are a couple of km to the east of that.
On a sad note our shower pig left us today to become chicharones. I had just finished giving him a scratch between the ears when the person came to collect him… Our host family was raising him for another who would sell him for the meat. So, even though Carmen took good care of him, she wasn’t upset at his going because she made some good money from him.
posted by Jon & Katie | 10:33 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Katie, Hi John,
I'm quite impressed with your projects and thier realization! i especially like the lombriculture project. I also work with, for, around and among worms for more than 3 years, in France. After travelling, I came back to France with the project to promote and developp individual worm-composting systems in France; I reach my goals everyday of my life and have many more projects to acheive in Helping Nature to find her balance back. I have translated Mary Applehof's Best-Seller: "Worms Eat My Garbage" and it should be published by the end of 2006.
I am also working with Art, mixing rubbish, waste and gold...Help Turning Waste into Gold...
Here my websites :
http://www.verslaterre.fr
http://www.tripandtrip.com
Looking forward to reading from you
:)
AgiDoo
I would like to keep in touch with you and your worms venture. I myself would like to have a farm and grow and breed loads of spieces...
What an adventure you two are having! I have just stumbled across your blog as part of a search for blogs on ES. I have just returned from a Habitat for Humanity build in Panchimalco. My group spent a week in San Ignacio as a base for going places like El Pital and Copan. I am keen to follow your blog and to read about the work that you are doing in ES.
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