A few weeks ago the family here
came together to celebrate the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
(Sept. 1), as proclaimed by Pope Francis with a day of massive reforestation.
Here in Nicaragua deforestation is a serious problem as trees are burned for
fuel for cooking or construction material and simply clear-cut as the country
continues to develop. A nearby farm donated 1,500 tree seedlings to us to help
counter this destruction and care for the land that God gave to us.
The task: Plant 1,500 tree
seedlings on Saturday morning from 8-12.
The crew: The NPH family
around for the weekend; including about 100 kids ages 4-24, 15 tios/tias, 2
directors, 3 volunteers,3 farm hands and the priest.
The Plan: None…
In typical Nica fashion we began a
bit late on Saturday morning with no plan other than “plant”. Surprisingly
enough, however, we managed to organize ourselves somewhat and set to work in a
reasonable amount of time. The directors decided to plant in two main areas-a
hill leading down to the soccer court and a clearing behind the woman’s houses-
and people quickly split up between the two.
Everyone then picked up a job
according to his/her ability. We had pick swinging hole makers, soil patting
seedling planters, bucket lugging water carriers, and measuring stick wielding
markers. The youngest kids were employed as water carriers with containers ranging
from simple 2-liter water bottles to huge wash buckets.
At one point during the morning,
Chad*, a boy from my house was on water duty with Tony*, a five-year-old. They
had schlepped a massive amount of water to where we were planting with only had
a few meters to go and decided to take a quick break. When they moved again a
minute later poor Tony lost his footing and began to tumble down the hill. Tony
had a wonderful grip on the bucket though and in tow came Chad and the bucket. When
the two stopped tumbling they stood up covered in a mix of water, leaves and
dirt and found not a single drop of water in the bucket. They immediately fell
back down in a fit of laughter that everyone around could not help but joining.
By 12 o’clock, we had the system
down pat: Marker marks spot and calls for hole. Digger digs hole and calls
for seedling. Planter comes, plants and calls for water. Waterer comes, waters
and the process starts again. However,
we were hot tired and loosing steam.
With a little mischief, one girl,
Mary* reanimated the adults pretty well. As I took a break from digging my hole
I looked over as a tia (caregiver) called for water and Mary brought over a
bucket. The tia looked down to pat the soil as Mary poured the water. However,
Mary decided that it was the tia who needed watering and with a devilish smile
poured the entire bucket over the tia’s head. The refreshing bath was well
received with only a laughing “Mary!” from the tia. Once again, we all broke
into laughter as Mary’s genius-When else could she pour an entire bucket of
water over her tia’s head without getting in trouble?
By 1:30 we were
all covered in a mix of sweat and dirt and called it a day. A few of the boys
also had hands covered in blisters, of which they were extremely proud and used
to brag about the number of the holes they had made. The next day my arms and
back were sore but I couldn’t have asked for a better way to care for God’s creation.
I don't have any pictures from that day as we were too busy working to take pics but here is just an example of the beauty of God's creation here in Nicaragua (A shot of Volcano Concepcion on the Island of Ometepe)
