Salvacion and a conversation about the meaning of lost cause

After dinners at MLC we`ve gotten in to the habit of having a little english/spanish exchange with Herol and Johny and somehow got on the conversation of the meaning of ``Lost Cause¨ Either as a joke or something that no longer has any hope. So today when we pulled into Slavacion and Herol says Salvacion a lost cause? I had to think. To anyone who hasn`t seen Salvacion you can imagin a sinding dusty road that is currently turn apart by sonstruction. Small wooden shacks that are falling apart. Children running barefoot, chickens and turkeys running underfoot you may thin kjust that. Lost Cause. But maybe what those don`t see as they pass through, or have just gotten used to in everyday life is the fact that there are people here who are brimming with possibility and purpose. The main purposein us going to Salvacion is to establish Biogardens for families becasue it is so difficult to get vegtables here from cusco. The on ly reason we can do biogardens in salvacion is because of Ronaldo, never have I met someone who has done so much good in a community without expecting anything in return. Granted he works for CREES but he has taken a problem. FOund a solution. and is working to make things better.

Today we worked in a biogarden with an entire family as well as a few neghborhood friends. The younger girls would run wire to everyone for the fence. The elder boys tilled the soil with pick axes. We built the fence. Ronaldo took the time to sit down with the younger girls who were about 7 or 8 and taught them about the seeds we would be planting and ther importance and how to take care of them, they hung on his everyword and drilled him with questions about everything including us. I guess it was a nice change of pace, MLC has been a difficult place to work lately I love my project but can rarely ever get anything done, or the research isn`t going well , or I can`t communicate ideas and it was just nice to see a family that was helped by what we had done today. Already the biogardens we established a month ago are produceing food to feed the families on a regular basis, amazing what a little plot of land and some help from an outside source will do.

Some other going on at MLC. Saw a tapir for the first time wiçhich is very adorble cross between a elephant and a hippo. We`ve built two roofs for th eorchid garden and have started the finishing touches on the infastructure. Had o input orchid phenology data from all of june, july, and august because of some mistakes with the template and have been working on my final presentation for the end of the month. Lots of work and keeping very busy.

Just to let everyone know I`ll be leaving MLC on the 25th of September and traveling to Fiji for a few days before my long term work placement in NZ

A quote from today``Ese Vida`` This is life``

-Ronaldo and Herol said at the same time one in spanish and one in english on the truck rid to salvacion