I am OVERFLOWING with joy, the solid hand of God in putting me here, calling me here, creating me just for this opportunity. I might repeat myself and talk in circles but it will all be in attempt at describing everything that is going on in my heart and in my head!
I arrived Tuesday afternoon after a really long day of travel and was met by the lovely Linda who is in my department. She will surely be my motherly figure on base: she brought me a bottle of water and gave me a piece of gum, then took me to grab dinner; SO what my mommy does.
I unpacked and arranged my things, cramming them in between dressers and underneath bunk beds--oooh, yea, here we go dorm life! I fell in love with my roommates already, took about 20 minutes. There are 7 of us in a 10'x20' room. But we have a full size fridge/freezer, hallelujah!! And a kitchenette, kitchen table + chairs, two small closets and a full size bathroom. Praise. The. Lord.
Wednesday I got all set straight with officially being staff! Which means I paid for rent and my ID card. Then, Derek my department lead, and Vernon the department head, started chatting away about God/Jesus-jokes. "It's like joyful repentance, it doesn't make sense, but it sure is good!" Already thoroughly glad to be here!!! There are SEVENTY SEVEN stairs from the bottom of campus to the mid section (we're on quite a hill, the island is a volcano after all) and Vernon bantered on how if you ask for forgiveness on every step you're fully washed clean by the time you've reached the top! (Forgive your neighbor not 7 times but seven times seventy).
There are baby pineapples on their way to becoming adult pineapples--there's not much cuter than a baby pineapple, perhaps maybe a baby panda bear?
There are moringa trees which are the world's next superfood!! The leaves are edible right off the branches and have more protein than beef or chicken (~6-8g protein/100g leaves). They taste different depending on how old the leaves are, the younger ones have a herbal spiciness to them--I think that's if you didn't grow up with Mexican food though because it tasted like a great seasoning. They can be dried and then powdered and added to water, pancake mix, smoothies...whatever you'd like! If you were in extreme survival mode, you could live for a while on just these leaves and plenty of water. But let's not try that one out.
There is a plan/idea/dream/vision to plant about 500 citrus trees on campus--free food!
There is a pig pen with a wash-off area to capture pig-poo + miscellaneous waste. Makes sense, we like to keep that around, right? Hah. Actually its because of the anaerobic bacteria that release methane while they digest the poo, and if we can replace the small capture tank with a bigger one, we might be able to eventually fuel the kitchen. Free cooking fuel!!
If I see a plant I don't like, I can get rid of it. If I want to grow something and its not here, I can ask for it. I am not allowed to remove trees without asking. Though I don't know how I'd manage it without asking for help anyway.
We have plans to rearrange the set up of the garden contents so that they are consolidated into groups (by purpose, prettiness, function, something logical...) so that we can easily have self-guided tours. You know those QR codes on things you use a smart phone to scan? We plan on having those code deals on placards that will link to an audio clip that will play as you walk yourself through our oasis of a polynesian paradise.
We want to build archways/terraces to create an entrance to each of the 5-6 walkways that enter this ATV area.
We have a huge tub for aquaculture: growing fish in water. It's not as simple as it sounds. Right now they are in the process of testing to see if the fish can survive on duck weed (a plant) and another one I can't remember the name of without adding fish food you'd find at a pet store. This is a big deal. Because if you can simply send baby fishies and small seedlings of these plants to other nations with our missions teams, we can be fishers of men and feed men fish! Before that though, we've got to figure out how to provide enough oxygen to these lil guys without adding it ourselves (requires electricity and other apparatus.
We have aquaponics in a different area as well. This means growing food in water and we use fish to supply the nutrients otherwise supplied by soil. We have a steady supply of lettuce for the campus right now but the vision is to have this system expanded big time so grow more and more.
I arrived Tuesday afternoon after a really long day of travel and was met by the lovely Linda who is in my department. She will surely be my motherly figure on base: she brought me a bottle of water and gave me a piece of gum, then took me to grab dinner; SO what my mommy does.
I unpacked and arranged my things, cramming them in between dressers and underneath bunk beds--oooh, yea, here we go dorm life! I fell in love with my roommates already, took about 20 minutes. There are 7 of us in a 10'x20' room. But we have a full size fridge/freezer, hallelujah!! And a kitchenette, kitchen table + chairs, two small closets and a full size bathroom. Praise. The. Lord.
Wednesday I got all set straight with officially being staff! Which means I paid for rent and my ID card. Then, Derek my department lead, and Vernon the department head, started chatting away about God/Jesus-jokes. "It's like joyful repentance, it doesn't make sense, but it sure is good!" Already thoroughly glad to be here!!! There are SEVENTY SEVEN stairs from the bottom of campus to the mid section (we're on quite a hill, the island is a volcano after all) and Vernon bantered on how if you ask for forgiveness on every step you're fully washed clean by the time you've reached the top! (Forgive your neighbor not 7 times but seven times seventy).
Now, for the really good stuff (as if the above summary wasn't good enough!):
I HAVE BEEN GIVEN FULL OVERSIGHT OF WHAT WE CALL THE ATV: APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY VILLAGE. It is a garden-like area that has about 100 plants and trees as well as experimental technologies either working or ready to be fixed (that's my job!).
There are baby pineapples on their way to becoming adult pineapples--there's not much cuter than a baby pineapple, perhaps maybe a baby panda bear?
There are moringa trees which are the world's next superfood!! The leaves are edible right off the branches and have more protein than beef or chicken (~6-8g protein/100g leaves). They taste different depending on how old the leaves are, the younger ones have a herbal spiciness to them--I think that's if you didn't grow up with Mexican food though because it tasted like a great seasoning. They can be dried and then powdered and added to water, pancake mix, smoothies...whatever you'd like! If you were in extreme survival mode, you could live for a while on just these leaves and plenty of water. But let's not try that one out.
There is a plan/idea/dream/vision to plant about 500 citrus trees on campus--free food!
There is a pig pen with a wash-off area to capture pig-poo + miscellaneous waste. Makes sense, we like to keep that around, right? Hah. Actually its because of the anaerobic bacteria that release methane while they digest the poo, and if we can replace the small capture tank with a bigger one, we might be able to eventually fuel the kitchen. Free cooking fuel!!
If I see a plant I don't like, I can get rid of it. If I want to grow something and its not here, I can ask for it. I am not allowed to remove trees without asking. Though I don't know how I'd manage it without asking for help anyway.
We have plans to rearrange the set up of the garden contents so that they are consolidated into groups (by purpose, prettiness, function, something logical...) so that we can easily have self-guided tours. You know those QR codes on things you use a smart phone to scan? We plan on having those code deals on placards that will link to an audio clip that will play as you walk yourself through our oasis of a polynesian paradise.
We want to build archways/terraces to create an entrance to each of the 5-6 walkways that enter this ATV area.
We have a huge tub for aquaculture: growing fish in water. It's not as simple as it sounds. Right now they are in the process of testing to see if the fish can survive on duck weed (a plant) and another one I can't remember the name of without adding fish food you'd find at a pet store. This is a big deal. Because if you can simply send baby fishies and small seedlings of these plants to other nations with our missions teams, we can be fishers of men and feed men fish! Before that though, we've got to figure out how to provide enough oxygen to these lil guys without adding it ourselves (requires electricity and other apparatus.
We have aquaponics in a different area as well. This means growing food in water and we use fish to supply the nutrients otherwise supplied by soil. We have a steady supply of lettuce for the campus right now but the vision is to have this system expanded big time so grow more and more.
So I think there's a lot more going on than what I've mentioned. But I'm tired of typing and you're probably tired of reading these alternative ideas that you don't quite understand. But the basic idea for all that I will be doing, all that the Science & Technology department already does is this: through community-based principles of relationship and love, we aim to develop simple technologies that are useable in the third world. These ideas we are playing with are beneficial to campus (free food, independence from imports that could go awry in weather--disasters like hurricanes, lost cost on the environment--we have very limited resources on an island) but most of all the practicality of these things is exactly what we need. They have to be repeat-able, learn-able, and locally manageable.
This was my final charge:
"Don't think small, dream big. And even then, it might not be big enough"
No comments:
Post a Comment