Christmas Breeze and Tings Fi Do

After a relatively inactive past week in terms of projects, this week is looking to be quite busy. Lately, I’ve started teaching “Applied Agriculture” to the Junior High Students. The plan was to teach every other Friday but I’m learning that school can be one of the more unpredictable parts of my schedule due to sick and sometimes forgetful teachers and students. Two weeks ago I introduced the the two questions you should always ask yourself before you plant something: What will this plant do for the ecosystem, and, What will this plant do for me? Then we talked about trees in this context. Today (Monday), the extension officer from the National Environmental Planning Agency (NEPA) came to the school and we planted 5 ornamental trees and 2 breadfruit trees. This Friday I plan to talk about soil and follow that with building a compost pile. The school already has chickens so we will be able to use chicken manure along with composted kitchen scraps. The kids will also start a log book for the trees, measuring them once a month and watering them twice a day.

A class like this is important for these students because they have not passed the standardized test that places them in a nearby (or faraway in some cases) high school. This means that many of them don’t read or spell well at all, and tangible lessons are more effective for them than sitting and copying notes. I hope to teach them about Agro Business so that they have something to fall back on if high school is not in their future. I’ve also recently come to appreciate the incredible amount of dedication it takes some of these kids to get to high school. Minimum wage in Jamaica is $5,000 a week, $1,000 a day and most parents don’t have steady jobs, they find work here and there. On average, it costs $700 A DAY to send a child to high school for taxi fare and meals, not to mention the $6,000 a semester school fees, books and supplies. At that rate, it’s hard to blame a kid for missing a few days of school a week, and with the job market, it’s hard to blame the parent either.

In addition to teaching the kids, the demonstration plot sorrel has taken off and is ready to be reaped. In three hours we can harvest roughly 22lbs of sorrel with two people and we’ve done this three days so far. People in Beeston Spring are gladly buying pounds of it as the cool “Christmas Breeze” reminds them to start making plenty of sorrel juice, traditionally a Christmas season drink with ginger. As a result, the Farmer’s Group is actually making money, and we are attempting to mill breadfruit into flour this Thursday as a result of a small (as usual) but productive (as UNusual) farmers meeting last week. Success story, hopefully, to follow.

Also, we have a bunch of pap-chow (bok-choy) coming in and I now have far to much of it to eat by the end of this week. It’s surprisingly delicious with turned (sweet) breadfruit though.

Finally, today after a long day of one thing after the other, I came home jonesing for a shower to find my bedroom door…locked? A turn of the key proved that no, it’s not locked, the forcefully cool, wonderfully revitalizing, spring-like Christmas Breeze had slammed my door closed with such force that the lock mechanism jammed and refused to spring back when I turned the key. So, the housekeeper and I spend 45 minutes prying the doorknob off the door with a large kitchen knife, then, when the problem didn’t fix itself from there, hammered and chiseled the inner mechanism away from the wooden door, resulting in a neat pile of wood chips and metal bits at our feet by the time the entire thing popped out of the door and it swung open. It was the most ridiculous thing I’ve done thus far, maybe, and now I have no doorknob. Hahaha, ohhh Jamaica- I still want to marry your “Christmas Breeze” mostly because it’s a “breeze” and not a “blizzard” and I find that simply adorable.

Pictures of the above activities here:

Sorrel, Kids and Broken Doors VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL