November 12-18: Teaching and Working on The Farm

Teaching and Working on the Farm

The lessons continue with my 6^th and 7^th graders and this past week we worked on using the phrases “I will” and “I won’t” as well as what it means to tag a negative statement on the back of a question/ statement combination, for instance:   You are late for school (the statement), aren’t you? (the question) And then here comes the reply “No, I am not.”  There are times I jump off the book and get creative with the lesson and we are now at the point where the kids are taking the chalk and doing some of their lessons on the board. Both classes are lousy at doing their homework but it is hard to lay blame. Resources are scarce and many of my kids are without books and/or writing utensils but they soldier on and as long as they are in their desk each day we will find a way to get as much English into them as possible.

After my classes I take about an hour walk through the some trails to the farm lower in the valley. I have found a couple of routes to take and change up the routine every few days. The gentleman I work with on this farm speaks absolutely no English but we understand what needs to be done and through hand gestures get our messages heard.  My job is still pruning the plants and getting all of the weeds out of the way.  The crop here in Nepal as you might imagine has a set-up more primitive than what you would see in the States.  I was a little discouraged on Tuesday as I realized maintenance of the plants; stringing them high or binding them to wooden or bamboo stakes was not going to happen quickly. The water weight of a tomato is not supported by the stalk of the plant, never has been and never will be. You have to tend to a tomato as you would a newborn, and constantly monitor when to help the plant up the next vertical step by tying each additional spurt of growth to a stake or to the roof of the shelter or the stalks will break and you lose your fruit. Tomato plants need tons of water too and although we have been getting some rain, all of the crop is wisely under sturdy bamboo and plastic shelters so there needs to be concerted effort to get large amounts of the “Jesus juice”, as I like to call it, (although that wouldn’t fly over here) on these plants.  I did make a call to the VIN office to talk to one of the people who started the ag-farming program regarding the opportunity he was missing and wanted to know what was allocated for resources in the budget, and if there was a chance a larger headcount could be on the farm maintaining the plants.  It was a good conversation.

 This is the first year of the Ag-Farming program in this part of the mountain and the VIN organization sees the same limitations and growing pains (no pun intended). They were able to get me more people out to the farm the next couple of days. There is already a contingency plan to make up any loss the project might incur.

You might be wondering why I am speaking about any form of agriculture in what is, as I type this, 6 days from Thanksgiving.  All crops should be in and planning for 2012 in motion. The notion kinda stymied me too, but, over here, there are a number of weeks remaining before growing season is officially over. Still in the ground is cauliflower, radish, tomato, and even potato.