Spring Break Hosting

A group from Jacksonville Florida recently came to visit. They were college professors/Rotary members and some of their college students. We took them to the aldea Rio Palmeras and they had the opportunity to interact with the kids there. They had a great time, and got a glimpse of the need in the aldeas. They gave gifts of coloring books and crayons to the students, which they appreciated. One of the leaders brought a Polaroid camera, a huge hit because many of the people do not have photos of themselves or family. Several family photos were taken this day. Here is a picture of the picture taker, Jeff Michelman, professor of accounting at UNF College of Business.

They also left some clothes to be donated to school children who could use clothes – Patrick tells me the clothes are quality and in good condition. Patrick and I along with Alberto, Hector, Amilcar, and Oscar cooked barbeque chicken for their going away dinner – which they seemed to delight in.

We have been busy hosting lately…Another group came down to visit from St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Edina. For several of them, this was their second, third, or fourth time coming. St. Patrick’s has been supporting the monastery financially, prayerfully, and actively for about 10 years now. They were here for about 5 days. Hermano Pablo came with them from Blue Cloud Abbey – I think Pablo was in the Coban monastery for 20 years before being called back to Blue Cloud – he still knows about half the people in Coban.

This is a picture of us playing soccer on an indoor court – what is called here a cancha sintetica. I’m the one who looks like he’s about to fall over backwards, but I don’t recall doing so. Alberto (employee of Fr. Bernie) organized our first game on the indoor court about a month ago – and we had a blast and have been reserving the court every Saturday since. One of the people from St. Patrick’s played with us this past week – Kevin Smith – who will graduate from the U of M soon. He also left us a fun card game called dominion.

Patrick left back to the states last night on short notice. He bought a plane ticket around 6 pm and left Coban around 8 pm for a flight from Guatemala City leaving the next morning. His grandpa is in the hospital and Patrick wanted to make sure he could visit him in case anything happened. He called me this morning and said he caught his plane okay, so that was good to hear.

My dad’s passport was delayed in coming, so unfortunately he will not be able to come and visit this Saturday, but my mom is still coming and my cousin is already here in Antigua. I will leave early on Saturday to pick my mom up at the airport, and then we’ll begin seeing the sights.

Here are some more recent pictures of the sorghum we planted in front of the new buildings at the monastery. The birds started eating some of the grains, so you can kind of see in the background of this picture a paper bag over one of the grain heads. An idea we have is to grow sorghum for chicken feed in the aldeas. The chicken coops are under construction, and soon there will be about 700 laying hens in Yalchacti and in Salvador Chitzol. The first season of chicken feed has been donated luckily, but we will need to be prepared for the second season. Sorghum is good chicken feed (and eaten in many countries by humans too) – it has a lot of protein when it is not overcooked and especially when not cooked at all. It has lower yields than corn in ideal soil conditions and climate – so we are not thinking of replacing the corn here with sorghum – we do not want to compete with the people’s food supply. Sorghum’s strength is that it is more hardy than corn because it can withstand periods of a lot of water and periods of little water. We may be able to avoid competing with the staple crop corn by planting sorghum in corn’s off season when it is drier. This will eventually add to the people’s food supply because turning grain into eggs is a good deal.

…………………………………………………………………………………..

…………………………………………………………………………………..

Another good agricultural/nutritional deal that Fr. Bernie is looking into is what is sometimes referred to as the tree of life, but more commonly known by its scientific name, Moringa Oleifera. The leaves of this tree contain seven time the vitamin C as oranges, four times the vitamin A as carrots, four times the calcium as milk, three times the potassium as bananas, and two times the protein of yoghurt, according to the document, “Moringa Presentation (Genera)” posted by the organization, Trees for Life International (www.treesforlife.org). Fr. Bernie ordered some seeds from California and shipped them overnight to my mom, so she can bring them down with her when she comes to visit.

Yeah nutrition, health, and trees!

Advertisement