First groups!

Sorry it's been such a long time since I've updated. Last week I had my first groups, and I've spent my days off this week (Tuesday ad Wednesday) napping, grocery storing, (finally) finishing Harry Potter 6, and cooking for the folks who are working. (I made, by the way, a savory sweet potato pie involving curry powder, coconut milk, and sauteed onions, to go with Ivy's pumpkin soup and blueberry muffins.) But here is a run down of my groups so far.

Last Wednesday I had my first tour. It was a group of 16 nine graders and one chaperone participating in the "Humans and Habitats" program. They arrived, I introduced things briefly, then we watched a video about what Heifer Project does around the world. After the video, we went on a tour of the farm, beginning with the garden and barns, and culminating in a tour of the Global Village. After the tour, we prepared and ate lunch at one of the GV sites. This group got to eat in Thailand. They had a little trouble getting the fires started, but once they did, the food prep went fairly smoothly. Here is the Thailand house:

It is made of bamboo and is representative of homes in the Akha region of northern Thailand. The meal consists of rice boiled in one pot, separately sauteed kale (a leafy green we harvest out of the Thai garden), and two separately made sauces. The first sauce involves toasting sesame seeds, then grinding them into a paste in a mortar and pestle with raw onions and garlic, salt, and vegetable boillon. The other has you roast a tomato (also harvested) then grind that with more onion and garlic, and a couple of (harvested) hot peppers. To serve, everyone gets a bowl of rice, then puts kale and the sauce(s) on top. Here is a picture of fellow-volunteer Maggie when we made this meal during training (and didn't keep everything separate).

It's pretty delicious. After the meal, we sat and talked about what they just ate and the process by which is came to be and how they would feel if they ate like that every day. Then they cleaned up and we headed back to a classroom to do one more activity and then they left.

Thursday I didn't have a group, so I spent all day weeding the completely-out-of-control garden in Peru.

It's terraced, and the rock walls separating the levels have weeds growing up through them, which is difficult, but mostly it's really satisfying to pull out a whole section of garden. This garden grows potatoes, carrots, spinach, nasturtiums (edible flowers), quinoa, and amaranth, and you can finally see that stuff! It was rather buried by the jungle. I guess during the summer they're just so busy with groups that no one has time to weed.

But, speaking of groups, I had another arrive on Friday afternoon. They also saw the video, then we went on a tour of the farm minus the Global Village. After that, we ate dinner cooked by the kitchen together in the dining room, which was delicious, of course. Then we did an activity, then they went to bed in the platform tents. The next day, we got up, they did chores with us, we did a couple of activities inside, then we went and had lunch in a GV site. This time I was in Tibet. The meal there is tsampa. Tsampa is ground barley (which they get to grind themselves), cooked in whole milk (or yak's milk if we were completely authentic) with a whole stick of butter melted through and a bunch of sugar added. There is also a pot of green tea involved. The tsampa ends up tasting like really sweet, slightly chewy oatmeal. Here is the home in Tibet, by the way. It is a yurt.

Then we talked, cleaned, and then did our tour of the Global Village. When it was over, they got a break, then we got back together to tell them what was going to happen that night. They actually slept out in the Global Village. They chose numbers out of basket, each of which had been predetermined to correspond with a GV site. There ended up being five "families" in five sites. The lottery also chose which member of each family was "pregnant" (with a water balloon held under they shirt all night), which was injured (either wearing a glove preventing them from using that hand, or with a dowel behind one knee preventing them from bending that leg), and which was the head of the household (meaning they were the only literate one and the only one able to handle the money). So they went to their respective sites and we gave them dishes and things, but no food. The food had to be purchased at a market. Each head of house got the equivalent of a day's wages in their country's currency and then had to come buy food from me and Nic, who were not above haggling and making deals. Then we left them, they made their own dinner, and spent the night in their country. (We gave them all oatmeal for breakfast, by the way.) The next day they cleaned up, helped with chores (still with their babies and handicaps), then we all got together to talk about their experience and debrief with them a little. Then they left.

That's about all, but here are picture of the rest of the Global Village sites. This is Guatemala. It's was built by Habitat for Humanity in the same way they build houses in Central America.

There are goats, chickens, and rabbits behind the house. And this is Colonias, the area along the border between Mexico and the United States.

This is Poland.

And this is Ghana. You can sort of see Evander the ram looking between the fence.

Ghana and Poland are still being worked on, but they are both almost finished. I also didn't take a picture of Appalachia, but I will. I hope this update finds you all well, and I hope you talk to you all again soon!