Progressive progress

More changes! So, the job is an indefinite no-go and the project will go full-boar, full-time! We have decided to change our timeline to what was more like what we began with.

The extent of the project will go through June until July and we have set our hopes on our educational front to go door-to-door with our information and kind intentions for better farming and health practices in-house.

We will be working on water collection projects for subsistence farming and the future of the area. After collecting some information on the area with the locals, I have found that it will be relatively cheap ($65-70) to build a small "paço", or water-collection well per family. This one-time investment will allow farmers to use their water to farm in their dry land where water is very difficult to come by. Currently all water sources must be traveled to, often more than one mile, to collect water and it is scarce during the hot summer time, where lots of wells have been reported to run dry.

There is no preparation for the dry season and the plants that had been planted to be watered. The people in the area simply let the plants grow and hope they get sufficient rainfall to water their crops. The problem is, it is not raining enough to see the plants survive, and their return on initial investment collapses completely.

This is where we can come in. We can organize these planting structures and collect water to plan for the dry season and organize crops to see a better yield. :)

Now, it seems we have lost a fair amount of our cucumber crop. Because of my poor farming (rather, my lack of knowledge of cucumber worms), a fair amount of our crop has gone to beetle larvae that wants to eat our corn and okra as well. The growing process is so futile for such plants and we're learning about how to plan for the future of these problems. You can never predict pests when you don't know how things will grow. (What a fantastic life picture!)

We will continue to progress and see what comes. We can now figure how to plan for the future of the area to start with a foundation of a healthy food source and small source of income for those who participate in our program.

Project Rx is full-boar once again! Though the timeline stays short, the work remains the same and we can do what we can in the time being.

Thank you for your prayers and continued support. It's making an incredible difference. :)