vivero

A tip to anyone who might be a future Peace Corps Volunteer. When you schedule a meeting for whatever reason, it is almost always more advantageous to have it at someone else's house. Invite ten people and for whatever reason sometimes no one will show up to a meeting, or maybe one or two; however if you schedule the meeting at someone else's house you are way more likely to have at least that person be there plus the one two or three that might have showed up anyway. Also by having it at someone else's house that person will be more likely to remind other people of the meeting and encourage them to go and actually want them to go. Sometimes two or three is enough where one or two is not.

I showed up at Alberto's house at 3. I take the required seat and we talk for a minute about the project we are about to start. He is a big big man but moves in the tattered hammock as it were a part of his body that allows him to hang not but 3 inches above the earthen floor. It's a few minutes after 3.
“Ah the thing is where is everyone else?” Alberto says to me.
“I think Rudy and Edgar are at their houses I'll go get them.” I stand up to go, their houses are within shouting distance so it's no big deal.
“But Don Mateo. We need a saw and I don't have one.” He looks at me with complete sincerity, with the hidden message 'an other day'
“Well do you know someone who has one cause I bet we can find one?”
“No I don't.”
“Ok well I'll ask the guys at the Amate tree.” Alberto swiveled back around in the hammock towards the tv.

“Cousin!” I say outside of Rudy's house. He starts laughing and comes out.
“Cousin! You ready?” He says back. Rudy is a little older than me and wears a Yankees hat.
“Let'g go Alberto's waiting at his house.” I notice some old boards with thin film of old cement on them. “can we use these? And do you have a saw?”
He rubs his chin and looks at the ground. “Yea, we'll take the boards but I don't have a saw.”
“Ok, I'll ask under the Amate.” I walk over to the Amate tree where lots of the men from the community are lounging. There are about 12 guys sitting around or laying around on the rocks from my age to old guys.
“Hey does anyone have a saw, or know where we can borrow one?” They all look towards one in other in confusion and all claim to not have one. I felt a little like Hansel asking the crazy witch in the ginger bread house to borrow a cup of sugar; I was somewhat sure that everyone or at least every other person would have one since so much stuff in the community is made from wood. But I guess a lot of people just use a machete where I would try to use a saw. After a little discussion Juan Pablo was fingered as having one. So I walked over to his house and he happily lent it to me, I walked back to Alberto's house passing by the Amate waving the saw in the air. It was under the same amate tree in June I proposed the project of starting a fruit tree nursery, it went over pretty well—who doesn't like fruit? In August the Fruit Tree Committee and I went in for training on how to start a tree nursery at the Army nursery in San Vicente.

So why does the Army have nursery? El Salvador borrowed a lot of money during the civil war, as part of the debt forgiveness program El Salvador must reforest a certain percentage of the country (98% of it being deforested at the time). The soldier in charge of the nursery was completely hospitable and taught us what we needed to know more or less, and gifted us with 500 plastic bags for planting trees. We decided as a committee to keep it simple and start with only one kind of tree and the next year expand. So our goal for this year is to grow 500 papaya tree, gift one or two trees to every house and sell the rest for a quarter or two to have money to expand the nursery the next year and maybe treat the committee to something for their work. The first step is to make a seed tray, which is what we need the saw for.

Although it was just the three of us making this seed tray it felt great to be building something useful. After fiddling around and deciding how to make it we started cutting the wood, they used a range of baffling techniques to measure and build. After a few minutes of cutting with Juan Pablo's saw Alberto started on about how the saw wasn't sharp enough. “Chepe! Bring me your saw!” He bellowed. His neighbor came out of his house with a hand saw that looked much newer and handed it to Alberto over the barbwire fence, and Alberto started sawing away much faster. I almost don't even bat an eye at stuff like that anymore, what are you gonna do?

After about an hour the seed tray was done. It's not the prettiest thing in the world but to me it's a yacht.