Un Dia Superemociante!!!
Well, once again we started the day with a loose idea of what we would do. This time though it was because we were waiting on a lot of things that we were hoping to come together but weren't all together sure that they would, in fact, come together. Here's what I mean: Originally, we had planned to have Tio Tomas lead a lesson on bees today. So on Sunday he had brought his beehive to the house so they could acclimate so that they wouldn't sting anybody (this seemed like a good idea at the time). Alas, yesterday the bees were attacked by an army of ants and they fled the hive to look for a new, more peaceful, home. The best laid plans of mice and men (and bees), right?
So, yesterday afternoon we moved on to Plan B: Remember those plants that we picked out over the weekend with Tio Tomas? Well, we tried to figure out a way to get the plants to the school. First, Tanya and Carmen wrote a letter from the "junta de vecinos" (a group of neighborhood leaders) to the department of agriculture officially requesting the plants for the school (they could do this because their mother, dona yolanda, is the unoffical head of the junto). Carmen then delivered the letter to the department's office in San Cristobal. Miraculously, they approved the donation on the spot and we were off and running. We tried to arrange a pickup of the plants but we couldn't get in touch with anyone at the department of agriculture's nursery all afternoon. Tio Tomas told us he would try again in the morning...
Then, will wonders never cease, this morning around 8:00, Tomas called the house and told us he had contacted the nursery and everything was all set. He picked up
Don Tilo, Samuel and Elias and they were off to pick up the plants. Tanya was busy herself. Realizing that we had no way to dig the holes for the plants, she paid a motoconchista a few pesos to go to La Sirena to buy a pickaxe. In the mean time, the rest of us headed off to the school to get the day started. Everyone converged at the school at about the same time and we were ready to go. Here's a pic of Tomas arriving with the plants, though if you've been following this blog, you probably could've figured that out by yourself:
Have I mentioned how stunned I was that all of this actually came together? No? In any event, when the plants arrived, Tanya worked with the gardener of the school to figure out where we should plant them and then Elias, Samuel, Don Tilo and myself dug all the holes for the plants (with the newly purchased pickaxe). I should mention that I, personally, dug all of three holes. Then we brought all the kids over and planted away. We divided the class into groups of three and four and had them work together to peel the plastic bags off the bottom of the plants, place them in the holes, fill the holes with dirt and then circle the new plants with large stones to protect them from wandering feet. The kids were beside themselves, running around looking for plants to plant, actually fighting over who got to do the honors at times, but most of the time really working well together, helping each other out.
All in all, we planted about 90 plants today! Some of them are just flowers but others are fruit trees (cherry, guanabana, mango) that will produce fruit, theoretically, in a couple of years. The final 10 plants we saved to donate to the families of the students at tomorrow's "super giant end of camp celebration" that we have planned. So, we actually did it. We set out to leave something permanent for the school and I believe we actually did just that. Perhaps this dominican go with the flow style actually works...
-josh
For more photos go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52916986@N03/show/