We’ll be home for two weeks visiting friends and family in NJ and NY, but feel free to call either one of our parents’ houses if you’d like to stay hello. As for those of you concerned for Astro’s wellbeing, we can assure that he is in good hands with a few of our friends in Somoto. He’ll have to wait until 2010 to see the US.
So, what has been going on in our lives? As many know, Jess is a huge fan of gardening. We’ve undertaken several projects in our patio in Somoto (grass, bananas, orchids, etc) and we have a pretty good success rate despite Astro’s omnivore tendencies and the pesky leave cutter ant colony that lives back there. Jess’s biggest problem is bad soil and a lack of safe, dry space to grow stuff. Luckily, Peace Corps has taught us a win win solution to grow veggies, conserve soil, and help get rid of some very pesky garbage. Old Tires!
A tire garden is, very simply, an old tire turned inside out and used as a planter. In Nicaragua, worn out tires are left all over, so it is very easy to come by a suitable tire. An ideal tire has little or no tread, no punctures, and flimsy side walls, which is pretty much as useless as tires get. We visited a guy who owns a few trucks and taxis, and he was able to dig out a tire for us for free. We have read that if you, in the States, are interested in finding old tires you can find them at junk yards and gas stations for anywhere from free to a couple of bucks.
So, we found our tire and rolled it home, which Astro attempted to herd the entire way. He wasn’t very successful, but I’m sure he had fun. The tire went into our back yard, because that’s our only place to do dirty work, but the tire is just as moveable once is has been transformed, so if we were in the States we’d probably have done the next few steps in a garage or driveway.
To get the tire ready for use, you have to cut out one of the walls, leaving about 2 inches of the wall.
Cutting the tire was very difficult for us, but we got it done with a non-serrated knife. It would have been way easier with a reciprocating saw, but hey, you make do with what you got, ya know? With better tools, you can even do fancy designs like scalloped edges and stuff. Anyway, we cut out our side wall in the simplest shape possible: The donut.
Next, we enlisted the service of Ian, our neighborly Peace Corps volunteer. Actually, helping Matt flip the tire was Ian’s payment for spending the night at our place before heading back to his site. Since he’s 7 hours from Managua by bus, it is almost impossible to do in a day. So, Ian and Matt ( and, of course, Astro) got to work inverting the tire. You want to invert the tire because it virtually doubles the space you have to plant in. Also, the shape helps with water drainage, keeping the soil damp, but not too wet. 
Inverting the tire was kind of difficult. You want to start at one point pulling the side you’ve cut out back over the tread and to the side wall you haven’t cut. Then, with someone holding that in place, somebody else needs to work that cut sidewall around the tire, until the whole thing pops into it’s inverted form. This is where the flimsy-ness and old-ness of the tire really come into play. We had a good tire for size, but we couldn’t get it inverted without Jess sitting on the first inverted point and then Ian and Matt wrestling the rest of the tire into place. It was quite an effort. We would recommend that anyone who wants to try one of these should start with a smaller, flimsier ATV tire or riding lawn mower tire. Anyway, here’s our inverted tire:
Next, we laid an old burlap rice sack over the hole and places rocks in the tire to hold the burlap in place. We shoveled about 3 inches of sand on top of the burlap, to help with drainage. Next came about 3 inches of compost that we’ve been making out of our banana peels and other organic waste. Last came 3 inches of good top soil, which we were able to buy at a local nursery. Astro took care of the tire pieces we cut out.
Jess planted some green pepper seeds, some squash seedlings, and some hot chili pepper seeds. Matt stuck a few grape fruit seeds in there too, but who knows if they will go anywhere. Here’s a picture of the tire and some of the growth we’ve had. Despite the heavy rains, the squash is doing well and the peppers are coming along as well. This is about 3 weeks after planting. We’ll see how it looks when we get back from the States. The great part is that the daily thunderstorms will keep it all well watered.
Peace Corps is always working to better the situation of people in the countries it serves. However, the main goal of Peace Corps is to do this in a sustainable way, so that a community won’t always need a volunteer present to ensure a high quality of life. Sustainable Development, as it’s called, is very difficult to achieve and it takes a lot of training, planning, and patience. It is NOT just delivering a sack of rice to a family every single month. It’s also not just giving a family a rice patty in which they can grow there own rice. Sustainable development should be not only good for humans, but also good for the environment. So, that doesn’t leave a lot of options. Fortunately, there are some very good ones out there. That is why Peace Corps sends its volunteers, along with a Nicaraguan co-worker to trainings every 6 months to talk about new ideas in sustainable development. Jess and I are just getting back to Somoto after a 3 day training in Matagalpa.
We stayed at a very nice hotel. And when we say nice, we mean that this place actually had two dials the shower: one for hot and one for cold!! Some of the counterparts that came with other volunteers have never seen anything like that in their lives. One counterpart had never stayed in a hotel before this experience.
These trainings are held in different parts of the country so that volunteers (and Nicaraguans) have a chance to learn a little more about the country they live in. Our training was in Matagalpa, which some of you will remember from our visit to Kory and Heather earlier this year. Matagalpa is almost into rainforest territory, so it is very different from the dry, cactus filled mountains of Madríz, where Jess and I live. On our first full day our group was greeted by an animal that none of us had EVER seen in the wild. Say hello to the 2 toed sloth of Matagalpa!
Here is Jess posing with this guy, although he seemed to be more interested in the leaves of this tree than looking good for my picture. Oh well. The volunteers snapped a few pictures and this guy just kept moseying his way up the power lines and into the mountain jungle.
That evening, to get back to sustainable development, we participated in a presentation by the Nicaraguan non-profit SoyNica.
SoyNica, which is supported by the Presbyterian Church USA, offers trainings on the benefits of soy beans. We received a very informative talk about the nutritional benefits of soy foods, and then watch a cooking demonstration on some of the various ways to prepare soy. We made soy milk, soy cakes, soy sausages, and soy fried rice. Although soy beans are readily available here in Nicaragua, most of our Nicaraguan co-workers had never tasted a dish that used soy, let alone cook with soy in their own house.
Here are a few pictures of our Nica buddies analyzing, taste testing, and talking about what they would prepare when they got back to their homes.
This is Jess’s counterpart (Rubenia, woman on the right) who has been looking for healthier options that she can cook in her house. Several family members have hypertension and high blood pressure, so healthier cooking, which means less frying and less meats and more veggies, is a necessity. Rubenia enjoyed a lot of the dishes and took copious notes on how to prepare them. Hopefully we’ll get to sample some of her creations back in Somoto.
My counterpart, Rosa Elena in the white shirt, is helping to make soy cakes, which were then fried in soy oil. Uh oh! Fried?! Well, soy oil contains no cholesterol, which means it’s a healthier option for frying food.
Here is a picture of Pilar, on the left, and another volunteer. Pilar is actually our Nicaraguan boss. She is a Nicaraguan who works for Peace Corps and is the Director of the Health program. She speaks great English and lived in Toronto, Canada for 4 years. She is actually going to the States in June to visit Washington DC and participate in an activity with Peace Corps. She’s very excited, as she’s only been to Miami and never further North.
So, to wrap it up, a lot of Peace Corps is looking for easy solutions to complicated problems. We love to solve two problems with one idea, and tire gardens and soy cooking both fall into that category.
Tire gardens offer a constructive way to get rid of a waste product that is normally burned, which harms the environment. The tires are built to last forever, so the tire gardens we build today can still be used two or three generations from now.
It also offers a great way to plant and grow vegetables out of the ground, which helps avoid putting pollutants in the form of fertilizer in the soil, as well as ensure that your veggies won’t get washed away by a big storm. Nicaraguans normally only grow corn, beans, and coffee so that they can sell the harvest to pay for other necessities. Tire gardens are an easy way to grow household veggies to ensure better nutrition. Good idea? We say yes!
Speaking of agriculture, too much corn growth is bad for the earth, because it sucks all of the nutrients out of the soil. Nicaraguans, who need to harvest every year, just cut down more forest to plant their corn while the worn out land recovers. Soy beans, when planted in rotation with corn, actually put the nutrients needed to grow corn back in the soil. Because soy is a legume, the plants roots push nitrogen back into the earth, Corn, on the other hand, needs nitrogen to grow. It’s almost as if planting soy and corn in rotation is like a human breathing in and out – and it works pretty darn good. But what to do with the soy beans? Well, it turns out that soy beans offer incredible amounts of protein, good fats, and folic acid. The bean can also be very easily processed to be used as milk, cheese (tofu), meat, and even flour. By adding soy to the Nicaraguan diet we can begin to eliminate some very serious nutrition deficiencies without even changing the taste of a traditional dish. All this, while helping agriculture and helping prevent soil damage and deforestation. Good idea? Thumbs up!
If anyone is interested in hearing more about tire gardens or soy, please feel free to ask. These solutions don’t only work in the third world. By incorporating these ideas and others, the US can strengthen itself as well as better the health of it’s citizens.
If we get good feedback from this post we will try and put a few more Peace Corps project ideas up over the next few months. In the meantime, please look for a post from the States about the wild and crazy world of the USA.
As always, thanks for reading!
