Today was another long day. Enrique picked me up at 8:30am and I went with him and the mission team that's in town to Enrique's house where the crew finished framing the roof on an addition he is building. Tomorrow, they will add corrugated metal sheeting.
At two, I met with Irma at Carambola Gardens, which, as luck would have it, is only a mile or so from the Pirate's Den. Irma spoke with me at length about erosion problems at the colonia and potential solutions. This might be a good project for increasing interdepartmental collaboration. Erosion is a major concern in the community. Just last year, a small landslide caused one home at the top of the colonia (the Bella Vista region) to collapse onto another below it. Carambola Gardens, like the Colonia, has a creek running through it, which, as she explained to me, rises several feet during the rainy season. The same happens, as local informants tell me, near the ocean by the Pirate's Den. According to my key informant, people in the area have problems with a foot fungus that he attributes to the dirty water that collects on the streets after the rain. He tells me that when he was a boy the water that would swell up during the rainy season ran clear (and not muddy red as it does now), and it was clean enough to swim in.
At any rate, Irma said that if we do a door to door survey of the community to find out how open people would be to a reforestation program and what bushes and trees they would want to plant, the Gardens would be willing to support us with implementation (obtaining seeds and cuttings, youth education). She indicated that this data would be beneficial to her and her efforts. She made a lot of interesting recommendations, which I have summed up below:
- Plant cashew trees: they grow prolifically and need little water or tending and the fruit can be eaten or juiced and the nut roasted and sold.
- Plant fast growing trees that can be used for fire wood; apparently, some residents are chopping down limbs and trees on other people's property, which (among other practices) is not endearing residents of the colonia to the locals
- Plant along both sides of the creek and road and use old pieces of wood, etc. to help bound the water and reduce erosion
- Speak with owners who have larger properties about composting
- Teach residents to gather sea grass after large storms to use as fertilizer for fruit trees (must first rinse well to remove salt or leave it out in the rain)
- Determine the following:
- Would people be interested in reforestation? Why or why not?
- What would they want planted (fire wood, fruit, ornamental)?
- I would add to this: what have people already planted? Where? How are they tending it?
We both agreed that all this is easier said than done. Homes and businesses are pretty tightly packed on that hillside, which severely limits the area available for reforestation. Erosion control would be an excellent source of interdepartmental collaboration. I'm thinking that the geology and sustainable communities programs, in particular, might be a good start.
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