More Chickens

With only a day to visit, we couldn’t afford to have the steam and gas from the volcano keep us from visiting Our Savior’s Lutheran Church chicken project. Our Savior’s and the German Churches are supplying chicken units for the women’s cooperative. With our donation, our project partner provides the family with a coop design and the materials to construct a coop. The family does the work. We were greeted by seven families representing the 25 women of the cooperative, finding that four of the seven have their chicken coops and for one, the chicks were being delivered today. A smaller group of families provided us a rare opportunity to talk to learn more about their community. A visual of these women indicated they were dressed better than our first visit and looked healthier. That is in part to better nutrition and income generation from our projects and ANDA (government water provider) now has drinking water to the community. The community has approximately 300 families and all the children attend school. Classes are offered through the ninth grade. This is a big change from our last visit so we asked another question - is electricity available to the entire community? Yes, electricity is available to all but not all families can afford it or think it’s really necessary. A family receiving these chicken units will repay the community by donating five hens to start another chicken unit. We visited three of the sites before leaving and heading to the agriculture projects else-where on the volcano.

At the end of the visit, two more women shared that they are eagerly waiting for a chicken unit. We are very anxious to finish this project. David y Nancy

This is the new Kindergarten classroom at the Community Central School in Talpa, our most recent education project. With many improvements, it has become the premier school in this area. Children are coming to it from other communities as it has features that are missing in their current schools. On Friday November 11, we were invited to dedicate the new classroom. It’s not yet completed but will be for January classes. The local Sugar Cane Growers Association will provide new equipment for the classroom. The rooms at the left will be a boys and girls restroom, a storage unit and the cove at the right is for the teacher’s desk. The walls will be painted, a suspended ceiling installed, doors and fixtures added. Outside concrete will be poured around the building including the porch where the children will eat lunch. Kindergarten classes will be held AM and PM as the incoming class is over 50. These students seated for the dedication will be the first class attending in January 2017. Schools were typically closed when it rained as the buildings were not weather worthy. With all these improvements, the children attend school in all weather conditions. Better facilities will protect them and encourage them to learn. For many, school will be safer than their homes. The local mayor has been bragging that he is providing all the improvements. His office signed the building permit, that’s all. Our friends placed a memorial on the new building that reads-- David y Nancy raised the financial support for the construction of this building. We love this place, the parents, teachers, students and our project partners, all committed to the education of the children for their lives to come.

David y Nancy

Turtles

We write today to tell you about our new learning experience with one of our project partners.  We greatly enjoyed the personal connection with their current project and were delighted to participate in the action. Please be sure to see the six photos at the end of this journal.  We also have a video to share with you at another time.

Environmental changes impact our entire planet and El Salvador suffers from these effects.  It started with deforestation, progressed to improper agricultural practices, use of chemicals poisoning the land and people, and now the over harvesting from the ocean.

For years, turtle eggs have been in the regular diet of the beach people and then they discovered that the inland dwellers enjoyed them as well and paid good money to have them.

The turtle population is dangerously in decline.  Sea turtles lay eggs every ten years.  The first twenty four hours after hatching, the newborns are at risk as their shell has not hardened and they are prey for birds, sea crabs and large fish.  About ten percent of the hatched eggs survive in the ocean.

An environmental organization FIAES is taking action to protect and increase the population of sea turtles.  Sea turtles begin to lay eggs on the beaches of El Salvador in September and continue thru February.  Stations are located along the beaches with a 24/7 staff to watch for turtles laying eggs.  In some cases the staff must carry the 100 pound turtles closer to their work site and help the turtle dig a nest at the beach.  After the turtle creates a nest, the zone staff removes those eggs from the beach into an enclosed safe zone.

 

The safe zone is a large grid of string creating 200 one foot by one foot squares.  Here the eggs are re-nested for incubation and are documented by type of turtle, date and the name of the “re-nester”.  Then the staff waits forty five days for the baby turtles to dig their way up and out of the nest.  When they reach the surface, they are placed in a tub and held for twenty four hours for their shells to harden.

After twenty four hours, the staff waits for the right ocean conditions and then releases the baby turtles.  The local staff family members (children) call their friends and they carefully place each turtle on the sand.  You can place the turtle in any direction and instinctively it turns to the ocean and quickly heads to sea.  After a wave or two they are out of sight.

The staff keeps detailed records of the number and type of turtles laying eggs and the number of baby turtles released. In the future FIAES plans to place a chip in the turtles to better monitor the results of this preservation project.  Our partner hopes to continue working with them to improve the balance of marine life. 

HFH build completes another begins

The Habitat Build concluded on Sunday, Oct 30, with 14 members of the 16 person team leaving for home.  Flight delays prevented those living on the east coast from reaching home the same day.  We stayed at the beach for another 3 days for a short but enjoyable vacation time.

While at the Build site we had an unusual experience.  It started with us asking our HFH coordinator if the matching funds from my previous employer could be directed to HFH El Salvador or must remain at Americus Georgia.  Wednesday the Director of Development came to the site to talk with us.  He asked us what we wanted to do in El Salvador. We had a quick reply and that is to improve education.

He had a HFH vehicle so he took us to a community hoping to build a multipurpose center.  This small community is where our build took place in 2015. We had the opportunity to visit the family whose home we helped build.  We were greeted with strong hugs and smiles. Then we visited with women of the Women’s Cooperative to hear the story of their problem.

They have been renting a small house where they make crafts to sell and also have a daycare for the little children.  The children entering kindergarten are not prepared, thus the community is providing training in readiness skills.

The woman owning the small house recently married and wants to return home.  The cooperative must find another location.  They have a vision of bringing together children from 3 nearby communities to attend the daycare run by volunteer mothers.

It seems the only recourse is to build but that is not in HFH El Salvador’s 2016-2017 plans. It is a stretch of Habitat’s vision.  On Saturday we received an email that HFH would consider the building as we are committed to fundraising for this new project.  While we are in the very early stages of planning and developing a common vision with HFH, it seems this will be a good partnership

.

Supporting a multi-purpose building also expands our vision.  A program to care for children and get them ready for success in school is an educational opportunity we cannot ignore.  Your continued support can help make this happen.

We would like to have a one week build team for this new project in 2017. Future planning with the HFH staff may include this possibility for permission and support.  If it becomes a reality, you are invited to work with us in El Salvador to experience a different culture, the life of the rural poor, and to help make a positive impact in the world.

David y Nancy

2016 Oct TRIP

We previously wrote about a young girl from the community of our current public school project.  She was sitting next to an adult at a roadside café eating pupusas when a gunman drove past and fired shoots. Joselyn was hit in the throat.  She was hospitalized for months. When the doctors didn’t have the experience to perform surgery, they contacted a hospital in Boston for assistance.  Joselyn had surgery there and will need more to repair her breathing and eating functions.  A recent picture shows her gaining weight and looking much better.

We are writing from El Salvador.  Our first week has been spent with a Habitat Build.   A group of sixteen from around the USA has gathered, some with experience and a couple of first timers.  Thrivent Financial has been building homes in the Santa Ana area since the past earthquake.  While building homes might be completed in this particular community, we hope Thrivent Financial continues its support of Habitat in other locations.  El Salvador is still short over 400,000 homes.

The remainder of our visit will focus on our agriculture and public school projects.  We continue in agriculture as food production is limited and food needs to be imported.  Our projects create small businesses for poor rural families.  Forty nine families participated in the past project, learning the latest practices to improve yields and some were provided rented land.  All total, approximately 150 families have benefit from these small business projects.  Also five women’s cooperatives were established for raising chickens. 

Nine high school graduates were provided scholarships to learn a trade at the technical school in Usulután.  They finish studies in December but the graduation ceremony will be in March and we will have to miss it.

With continued violence throughout the country, many businesses have closed.  Others and our project partners are determining what new practices can be established to protect their equipment, employees and customers.  With that in mind, we have partnered to establish a Technical School for the study of agriculture in the western zone of the country. The students will need a high school education to attend. Our goal is to make this school sustainable, using many of the practices our friend Daniel experienced at Wellspring Organic Farm in Newburg, Wisconsin.

The last week will close with the dedication of the new Kindergarten classroom building that we have been fundraising for this past year.  Forty students will attend in the morning and another forty in the afternoon session.  After the formal dedication ceremony, the first ninth grade class will graduate.  We received a special invitation so our plans include attending to enjoy one our most rewarding projects.  Our donors have strengthened this public school by providing class room dividers, new roofs, windows and an air-conditioned computer lab. In adding the 7, 8, 9 grade classes, our donors have provided the desks and text books for students and teachers.

At our first visit to the school in 2013, the enrollment was 270, now it’s over 500. The students stay in their community to attend school and can avoid all the gang turf wars that are penalizing the education of its youth.  It’s estimated over 80,000 youth stay home as the streets are too dangerous to travel.  This has resulted in schools closing and teachers being laid off.

This is why school projects are so important for changing the future of the youth, families and communities.

David y Nancy 

2016 Planting season

It’s the 2016 planting season.  Wisconsin’s farm conditions are good as the ground is moist and the corn crop is 50% planted statewide.

Two weeks ago our Salvadoran project partners wrote to us advising that it hasn’t rained in their community in 6 months.  Wells that supply drinking water to homes are drying up and the government is providing water to some communities from tanker trucks. The drought that is being experienced in parts of El Salvador was forecasted and there is no relief predicted until July.  That’s cutting into 60 days of what should be the growing season.

If the rains materialize later in the season, the hilly/mountain terrain and years of deforestation prevent the moisture from soaking into the water table.  The overall moisture situation is very fragile.

The government continues to import grains to keep the prices in the market stable.  The prices are actually below last year’s prices according to FEWS.  Without government action to stabilize the price of commodities in the market place, the threat of civil unrest is a very real concern.

With food scarce anyone having produce to sell would be in a favorable position but not in El Salvador.  While our agriculture projects have benefited hundreds of families, the final phase of the agriculture project was to take marketing of the crops to the next level.  Initial plans were to secure commitments from the families for the quantity of products they could deliver on a weekly basis.  They would bring their products to a distribution center and be paid.  Sellers (in the market) would purchase the produce from the distribution center and sell from stands our partner would establish. Everyone in this system would be under contact.  The sellers would keep the revenue from sales and this market plan would have created more jobs.

We had to abandon this plan due to the extreme violence that is currently taking place.  No one is safe.  Women shopping in the market, shop keepers, students, taxi and/or bus drivers and pastors, everyone is at risk of extortion, death threats or cross fire from the gangs.

Our project partners are no exception.  The gang visited their offices and demanded extortion money.  They had to make a payment or risk death.  After the gang left, they gathered the employees and had a frank discussion that the office was closing due to the imminent danger.  The employees responded that without work, they would be better off dead, so they continued to work to train and support the rural farmers.

Later in the month the offices were broken into on a weekend and all electronic equipment was stolen.  The office is surrounded by residential homes, why didn’t someone call the police?  You need to live in El Salvador to understand the culture and their society.  It’s not as simple as ours.

After a difficult 6 months, our project partners are re-thinking what they can do in this war like environment. They have to create a safer environment for their employees.  This means moving the office to a more secure location.  Next they can no longer work in the field; they will need to work in a protected environment like a training center.

For our project partners who have dedicated the last 20 years of their life’s work to benefit others this is a heart break.  We grieve with them as they make difficult decisions for their future and the futures of those they have worked alongside.

David y Nancy

2016 Project updates

We have received a lot of news lately from El Salvador.  Some of it concerns the state of the country and also news from our project partners of public school improvements and our agriculture projects.

Country:

We subscribe to the Famine Early Warning Network operated by USAID.  We were introduced to this network by our friends of Oikos Solidaridad.  It monitors worldwide weather and harvest conditions in order to alert for possible famine conditions.  El Salvador is currently importing corn from the United States and Mexico and its supply of rice is the lowest in many years.  These imports have kept the prices of these staples at historic rates in the local markets.

But even with the current level of imports, FEWNET predicts that  Central America will be in crisis by July 2016 due to the  change of weather (rain) caused by El Nino resulting in a poor harvest.  While the El Nino climate effect is diminishing, the effect on the food supply can’t and won’t change until the 2016/2017 planting and harvest.

Project updates:

The new 9^th grade is now operational in our current school project.  School resumed on January 18.  The first day of school was like a festival.  Families came to see the many improvements and anticipate the future science lab from FEPADE.  Classroom space is now limited and the school is over- crowded.

One of our students from this school was having pupusas at a local roadside vender when shots rang out.  She was next to a man who was targeted and she also became a victim. Yoselin took a bullet to the neck, destroying her windpipe.  A prosthesis was inserted for her to breathe on her own and a tube is inserted into her stomach for feeding.  She will not be able to talk for several years. 

We saw a picture of her last week and she has lost a lot of weight and is very fragile.  We pray that her family can provide the appropriate supplement that will help Yoselin regain her body mass and strength.

Projects in the east:

·         Our older students who attend the Technical Institute in Usulután and San Miguel have also returned for their 3^rd semester. The holiday break was good for them as they are getting stressed at the work load at school and at home.

·         Additional news on the agriculture projects indicates a good harvest is benefiting our participants in the projects.  Earlier in the planting season, the rains did not come and early plants were lost.  But with replanting and training offered by our partners, newer technology (greenhouses) overcame these early obstacles, resulting in abundant harvest.

Unfortunately these agriculture improvements are isolated to a small group of families, totaling fewer than 1,000 residents having connections to the churches in the east.  We are trying to stretch our thinking as to how to provide ongoing training in other zones of El Salvador to overcome the famine crisis that occurs too often.

David y Nancy

It’s cold outside; wind chill is -26, spent Sunday and Monday indoors.  Wisconsin held a free fishing day on Saturday. That means you don’t need a license to ice-fish. Little shanties were scattered around the lake and in front of our house we saw men outside all day.  They looked like giants with multi layers giving them the appearance they all weighed 400 pounds.

I got up at 3:00am and lights were coming off the lake reflecting on our bedroom wall.  I guess the early bird catches the largest fish.

We received these pictures Monday from our partners at Oikos Solidaridad in El Salvador. The volcano of San Miguel is behaving badly again. It started days ago with sulfur gas spewing out and drifting throughout the communities.

Sunday it became more aggressive with ash being released.

The second picture is the effect on the current coffee plants.  The coffee harvest continues as the cherries don’t ripen at the same time, requiring numerous picking schedules that are currently in process.  This industry has been hit with coffee rust that remains a problem and with fewer jobs available for picking coffee cherries. This current release of ash can be devastating for the local growers and pickers.

Picture three shows the ash on the ground of the corn fields.  If it remains a dusting, it can be turned under but if it gets heavier, it needs to be removed as it will become like concrete.

Our friends have endured set back after set back.  It’s exhausting. Yet they start over.

David y Nancy

Public School Project

We returned to our latest school project on this November visit to view the many improvements.  While school ended last week, two classes were meeting.  

In this first picture, the students were having a party to celebrate the end of 5^th grade and next door, second photo, the students were working to prepare the walls of their classroom for painting.

These two class rooms are part of an older building where our funders helped us to install a new roof and windows (notice them in the photo).

Since our first contact with this school in 2012, the attendance has grown from 260 to a 2016 enrollment of 509.  Testing outcomes have soared.

 

Our friends Leonor and Fredy have spent much time securing resources for this school (lower picture).  As a follow-up to our day at school, we visited FEPADE. This is a nonprofit organized by the business leaders (of El Salvador) to improve the quality of education in El Salvador.  FEPADE is funded by Salvadoran business leaders and USAID.

In an earlier journal, we mentioned the Ministry of Education stated that 65% of the schools are not student ready.  At our meeting with Ana, she said it was much worse.

With the funds from the business community, FEPADE has provided regular teacher training, computers and matching funds to the money we contribute for academic improvements.  In a nut shell, our $9,000 for starting the grades 7, 8, and 9 has been matched with another $9,000 for academic improvements.

FEPADE is well aware of these improvements and has challenged us to fund another classroom whereby they can establish a science lab.  This is a major opportunity for any school.

In turn we urged Ana to connect us with a local business man to seed our fundraising for a new classroom that is expected to cost $8,000.  We all left the meeting accepting our responsibilities, knowing that this public school in one of the poorest departments of the country has strong families and well trained teachers.  Together the students and teachers have a common passion for education that energizes us on every visit.

David y Nancy

What's the Buzz

At a farm we visited, there are 65 bee hives.  This is a fairly new and growing initiative that requires specialized equipment, including a smoker, gloves, and protective wear.

Each hive box includes 8 “marks” of frames with a structure for the bees to fill.  To harvest the honey, the overflow of a full mark is scraped into a large barrel; then the mark with its contents is inserted into one of the 4 slots in photo two.  A hand crank spins the marks around and around to empty the honey.  The comb residue is left allowing the bees to begin with a head start to produce more honey. 

How do you market honey in El Salvador?  Well nothing is easy in this country.  Every initative requires research to find a market.

In the bottom picture we are in the part of the city called Zona Rosa.  When we started visiting El Salvador, Zona Rosa was the place to avoid.  Now it is the night place of San Salvador.  You can party all night in its many night clubs or fine restaurants.  The upper and middle class are the clients of this district and new bars and upscale lounges open every year.

A new micro-brewery has also opened in this district.  It has six large vats, providing brews of Pale White, Wheat, Red and Irish Stout.  Four different glass sizes are offered to try all their beer tastes and you can purchase a 6 pack to take home. 

What’s the buzz?  This brewery uses the farm honey for one of its special brews.

The food selection is limited but the food is outstanding quality along with the excellent beer. We’ll go back for more! (Do you see Nancy?)

David y Nancy

New Finca Model

Yesterday we visited a finca, a family owned farm.  This land was a small coffee plantation which is now being worked extensively by the third generation to become a diversified finca that can boast of replacing the older coffee plants with the new rust resistant strain. 

Diversification includes the introduction of various vegetable plants and many types of fruit trees.

The plantation floor is rich in organic nutrients. Historic trees provide a gentle garden canopy that filters the sun and also the horrific rains that can destroy certain plants like red beans.

The roots of the trees are deep into the topsoil which is approximately 4 feet thick.  These deep roots draw water from the ground and drips of water from the leaves keep the garden floor moist, making a great place for plants to grow and for mosquitos to enjoy the visitors (us).

Throughout El Salvador, coffee is grown on 3 zones, the low lands, mid mountain and high mountain zones.  The coffee quality is based upon the growing zone with high-mountain being the highest quality. This coffee is grown in the mid zone.

The ripe red coffee cherries are still picked by hand which requires 15 seasonal workers to harvest this family finca crop.  Other produce include orange, lemon, papaya, banana, plantain and many more fruit trees which are not familiar to us in the States.  

Third photo below is early cacao which will become chocolate!

A goal is for this finca to become a living classroom for families and farmers to learn diversified and sustainable practices.  Training in this garden model will help strengthen the lives of their families.

David y Nancy

Sugar Cane Finca

Its midway into November and the rains continue.  What is good for one crop is not good for another. Sugar cane doesn’t need more rain, it needs to grow and produce more sugar.

We are at a sugar cane finca today to learn about the process.  Cane is still harvested by hand; if the cane is not burned in the fields, gathering is an itchy activity for the workers.  The 8 foot cane is stripped and cut into 3 or 4 pieces.  The pieces are fed into a grinder (top photo with a stalk shown for an example).  The pulp coming from the grinder is fed onto a conveyor and into a large hot tank where it is heated until the sugar is liquid.  As a gravity-fed process, the liquid passes through 3 more very hot stainless steel tanks where impurities are filtered out at each tank. 

The contents at the last and lowest tank are drained into a stainless steel cart and wheeled into the molding room (last photo).  In the molding room, Francisco pours the liquid sugar into wooden molds using the little shovel sitting on the table.  Francisco levels the molds with the wooden pallet (notice his hand), clearing excess sugar from the mold creating a uniform product.

Excess sugar is captured and reprocessed to be used again.

When the sugar begins to harden, the sugar cone is removed from the mold and all the sugar cones are immediately wheeled into a “clean” room where women wrap the small blocks with the husks from corn ears.

The corn is not needed and given to the workers for free as the processor only wants the wrap for their sugar product.

Sugar has received a lot of bad press but this brown sugar is pure, has vitamins and is a healthy product.  At the January harvest and processing, they are going to make sugar syrup for us to use on our pancakes.

This is currently the only modern processor of sugar cane in Central America.  Who would like a tour?

David y Nancy

Rotary and social time

Our Friend Daniel Rivera is acknowledged for his service beyond self in the implementation of the Computer Project in La Granja by the visiting District Governor.  In addition to this project Daniel was also on site for 3 ½ years providing all the support for the sanitation project in the same communities.

Second picture David y Nancy Slinde are acknowledged for their work by improving 5 public schools, by replacing roofing, installing drop ceiling, text desks (student & teacher) new floors, computer class rooms, windows, lightening, air conditioning.

One of the Rotarians was familiar with a restaurant up the side of the volcano from La Granja.  It was a time of sharing by the Rotarians and this is what we learned.

Club Rotario has numerous partnerships with clubs from the United States.   Its youngest members are encouraged to find a project they can work on.  The project may need administration oversight, technical resources, not necessarily funding from the club, but funding might be needed.

A newer member Daniel is working on a plantics project here in the city of San Salvador.  The goal is to teach the children where food comes from and these projects are meant to demonistrate that it can be done in new and different ways.  The sites are at schools, the technical support is offered by a local university and funding is provided by agency from Spain.

Another project is surgery for children with defective hearts.  They shared stories of children before and after surgery-was amazing.  Another current project is prosthetecs for 100 Salvadorans.  Service above self--its why we like it here.

It gets better next week.

David y Nancy 

Computer Pictures

 

After the Rotary meeting on Wednesday, a delegation of 9 traveled to the community public school to inaugurate the computer lab for students and teachers. Club Rotario has 3 partners in this project.  The municipal Mayor’s engineering department provided the electrical work for the stations. The second is a nonprofit “Computodos” that receives used computers from a Rotary Club in San Palo, CA.  Computodos installs new electronics, larger drives and has license from Microsoft to provide its software.  A complete work station from Computodos costs $250. The third partner is West Bend Sunrise Rotary. Using funding tools provided by our Rotary District, Nancy wrote for a District Grant (DG) of $3,000.  The Sunrise Club approved the application and then submitted it to the DG committee who approved it in July.  The top picture is the new large computer room for the students to use at class time.     The second picture is the three computers in the principal’s office for the exclusive use of the teachers. The bottom picture is in a different classroom.  These students will begin early to learn to use computers for basic literacy skills.  Pictured (L to R):  Club Rotario President Omar, District Governor Violeta, Club Secretary Karla, project engineer Daniel and the school principal.  The next step for greater learning is to secure internet for the school and community. Internet service is expensive and carriers hesitate to string copper wire only to have it disappear during the night David y Nancy