Buenas noches a todo! Greetings from the Freedom of the South once again. Life is good down here these days as the winter sets in and the families come a bit closer together around the fires in the kitchens. As for me at the moment I’m in Encarnacion recovering from a long month in site finishing off the last big steps of the yerba mate agroforestry project I’ve been working on. As the title would suggest, we’re trying to incorporate more trees in the fields of the local farmers in an economically and environmentally friendly way. Yes, I’ve thrown these numbers out quite a few times, but here’s the whole deal: 55,898 yerba mate mate plantitas delivered between 87 families and 8,147 native trees between 92 families. All told this will cover up to 40 hectares (98 acres as many of you may more easily relate to) in agriculture systems that incorporates trees in the properties of small farmers in one of the most severely deforested regions of Paraguay. A far stretch from restoration of the native Bosque Atlantico Alto Parana, but at least will help to promote a more sustainable system of agriculture that is more economically beneficial to the poor rural farmers of this community while assisting in local goals of restoring biological corridors throughout this region. $10,000 spent well in my opinion!

I hate the fact that all of my recent writings are about this project, but the reality is that this has been my life the last couple of months pulling this all together. I’m really happy about it and I think the pictures tell a big part of the story, so please enjoy.

Well, due to a lack of patience and reliable internet connection I won’t be making this page super lindo with pictures conveniently placed in accordance with their relevant story spatially across my blog… Sorry. But as you can see, we started every morning with varying numbers of volunteers to help load the truck. Some days we had 8 to 10 people, others it was 1 from the community and 3 Peace Corps volunteers.

The cynical side of me wants to tell the story of the truck that wouldn’t start on it’s own and needed a push 90% of the time. This was a task performed frequently with varying degrees of difficulty depending on the number of volunteers present to push, the quantity of plants in the truck, and the slope of the land where the truck was stuck.

We had 13 plastic containers, pesticide bottles cut in half, to load the plants 35 at a time. These boxes were carried to the truck which was loaded up to 2,200 plants at a time. Then unloaded again house to house through all 64,000 plants.

This picture is of the load of 24,000 yerba mate plants that came on a single truck load from a community 40 km away. They showed up at 5pm. I had 10 guys help me unload it until 10 pm. It also involved 6 bottles of caña.

I suppose this last picture tells part of the tale of the night of the delivery. Not pictured, the dude passed out next to the truck who fell back in mid squat to unload some plants and fell asleep. The caña played a significant role towards the end of the cold night.

A lot of people had their kids help out with the distribution. It was pretty fun to get to work with so many different people over the last few weeks.

A couple of other Peace Corps volunteers helped out with the labor with great appreciation from myself and the community! Dirty, monotonous, tiring work but kinda fun at the same time.

The serious side of me wants to say how much it meant to see so many people very happy to receive these plants. While there are a few individuals who still complained that their free plants weren’t good enough or they wanted more than what they got      (the maximum based on participation was 800 plants = 1/2 hectare=significant), it felt great so many times to see the

majority of the families and individuals smiling like this. I love my job.

bent over loading the truck as carefully as possible to try to fit 2,500 natives for a 18km bumpy road trip back to Libertad from the community vivero in Carona’y

Ambrosio: my hero, great guy, my neighbor, worked almost every shift with me over 11 days VOLUNTARILY  to distribute the plants. Also received nearly 1,000 yerba mate plants.

The morning after we got 24,000 plants delivered. What came on one truckload stacked 5 levels high took us 3 days and 12 truckloads to distribute.

And then there’s me. How did I do this?

This will be a story that I will likely remember for the rest of my life. I am so happy to have been able to be a part of this. Thank you so much to everyone who was involved. It’s been amazing to get so much support from such great organizations as PRO COSARA, WWF, Todo Pulmon, Guyra Paraguay, and the Peace Corps.

There are 92 families receiving these plants. many are receiving 800 plants that could produce at least 300$ US of income annually within 5 years (and increasing product yield thereafter) in a country where the national average income is $1,200 per year.

Again, if you’re looking to donate to projects like these, visit www.procosara.org

Anyways, I hope this will be the last blog update about this project, I do have more going on here… I feel like I’ve been talking about it for a bit too long at this point. I have 6 months left in my service here and am not quite sure how I am going to fill my days in the coming weeks. For now, I’m in Encarnacion enjoying a nice hotel, hot showers, lots of good food, and a mattress that isn’t caved in in the middle. Good times all around.

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