Immersion Part 1

Getting started

At our last meeting with three church leaders, Volunteer Missionary Movement coordinator Danny and NGO Executive Director Benjamin, Benjamin suggested we take the time to become familiar with the area before jumping into any projects. He suggested we begin with introductions to leaders of civil society (police, mayors, schools, procurdura HR); integration into cooperatives – ngos and organizations – local, national, international; and education about the territories – soil, education, weather, people

After we moved in, we visited the police, mayor, and schools. Then we experienced tropical storm Agatha. Eight miles away from our home, flooding of the Rio Grande San Miguel forced the evacuation of 43 people of a community in the Concepcion Batres jurisdiction. They were directed by the police to a Conception Batres school, a make-shift shelter with only basic provisions for the 43 people in its care.

After visiting the shelter we went to this section of the Rio Grande to witness the actual damage to their homes, fields, crops and orchards. Some people remained in their flooded homes with 12 to 16 inches of dirty and muddy river water everywhere.

We walked around and through previously flooded fields. Fruit trees have rotten fruit hanging from their branches. The new corn crop is now infected with mold. This is a substantial economic loss to the subsistence farmers who are very poor. We continued our tour with members of the directiva. They were still checking on the status of families to determine who had left and who were still in their homes. At the home of the leader of the directiva we met a 101 year old woman who while very fragile was sharp and talkative.

A man was paddling a dug out on our side of the river across the rapid flowing water to San Felipe. The dug outs we saw are familiar to ones we have seen in museums of the Great Lakes.

We left this area to head towards the mountains. We also saw storm damage here as a huge tree blocked the dirt road. Benjamin’s associate got out of the vehicle to help Benjamin maneuver around the obstacle. The road is very rough and we bottomed out on smaller size boulders sticking out of the roadbed. After traveling for 30 minutes by SUV we stopped at a level clearing where we noticed a number of bamboo and thatch huts. Benjamin informed us that these are drying buildings for the crops at harvest time. We continued up the mountain by foot passing many 8 acre fields and pastures. Cattle and herds of cows passed us coming down the mountain. We walked for another 30 minutes, greeting herdsmen who stop to talk with Benjamin and Guillermo. The cows wait impatiently as they are headed to a fresh pasture.

Oikos has developed the side of the mountain into an agricultural area by altering the terrain to provide safe rain water drainage, building spill ways to hold back the speed of the runoff. They have also planted hundreds of trees to provide for the absorption of rain water into the soil. We don’t see any homes. The herders we pass are soiled with leathery skin and missing teeth. There are no services in their community, there is no public school, committing the children to a primitive way of life for another generation.


To be continued: