The defining moment in my life that shifted the way I was thinking...and brought me to ubuntu.
Great question. Tough to answer.
In the sense of living and breathing and working and playing.
I recently received our September update on Otra Fe - the Food Security project that I was in El Salvador learning about this year.
This project is funded by a Canadian company, but currently managed by three amazing men that I met this year down in El Salvador.
Here's an example of some of their meeting topics in Ahuachapan. (There are two Co-operative projects currently - one in Ahuachapan and one in Texistepeque):
September 4
“Sustainable Agriculture” was the theme of the conversation on this date, in which a great emphasis was placed on care for the Earth on which right now we live as part of 7 billion persons, and there are still many to be born. It falls to farmers to be responsible to secure their food supply.
September 8
We did a circuit of the parcels and gardens to find out how the second planting (principally beans) was making out. There were no apparent difficulties up to that date. On the same day we dedicated part of the afternoon to evaluate the results of the first harvest which was for food corn and to obtain seed corn from native varieties. Everything had gone according to how these men and women had planned.
September 11
At the clinic in Chancuyo Canton, Ahuachapan, Felix Lino met with 20 persons with the purpose of promoting the organizing of the families that participated in the project with an eye to commercialising beans and corn from the first harvest so that a better price for the products could be obtained.
September 18
With 35 persons participating, a gathering was held in a church building on-site with the purpose of sharing the experience of each farmer in the management of the crops established for his or her parcel, principally in management of infestations and diseases, and in identifying distinct varieties of beans.
To me this is fascinating - that a small group of dedicated peasant farmers in El Salvador are truly making a difference. My role right now is so very tiny - to merely take their Spanish and translated reports and to make them accessible to a larger viewing audience. But it is so fun to be involved, to read the reports and recognize all of the faces within them. I sincerely hope I'll get a chance to head back down South this spring / summer to visit them all again.
This project is funded by a Canadian company, but currently managed by three amazing men that I met this year down in El Salvador.
Here's an example of some of their meeting topics in Ahuachapan. (There are two Co-operative projects currently - one in Ahuachapan and one in Texistepeque):
September 4
“Sustainable Agriculture” was the theme of the conversation on this date, in which a great emphasis was placed on care for the Earth on which right now we live as part of 7 billion persons, and there are still many to be born. It falls to farmers to be responsible to secure their food supply.
September 8
We did a circuit of the parcels and gardens to find out how the second planting (principally beans) was making out. There were no apparent difficulties up to that date. On the same day we dedicated part of the afternoon to evaluate the results of the first harvest which was for food corn and to obtain seed corn from native varieties. Everything had gone according to how these men and women had planned.
September 11
At the clinic in Chancuyo Canton, Ahuachapan, Felix Lino met with 20 persons with the purpose of promoting the organizing of the families that participated in the project with an eye to commercialising beans and corn from the first harvest so that a better price for the products could be obtained.
September 18
With 35 persons participating, a gathering was held in a church building on-site with the purpose of sharing the experience of each farmer in the management of the crops established for his or her parcel, principally in management of infestations and diseases, and in identifying distinct varieties of beans.
To me this is fascinating - that a small group of dedicated peasant farmers in El Salvador are truly making a difference. My role right now is so very tiny - to merely take their Spanish and translated reports and to make them accessible to a larger viewing audience. But it is so fun to be involved, to read the reports and recognize all of the faces within them. I sincerely hope I'll get a chance to head back down South this spring / summer to visit them all again.
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