Chicken Death

Welp, I now know how to kill and pluck a chicken. Next week I'll figure out how to gut one. Dead chickens are actually more entertaining than you'd think. And they don't smell awful.

Life Skills

The past two months have been filled with so much learning. I can now use a drill, milk a goat, explain the process of a biodigester, complete a short conversation in Spanish, clean wood of bark, identify the basic differences between pvc pipe fittings, and build a composting system. For me, that's a lot more hands-on knowledge than I've ever had the opportunity to accumulate. Kinda, pathetic, but celebrate with me guys!

However, mostly I've been learning about community, especially how to actively participate rather than simply watching. My fellow students have supported me as I attempt to lead, allowing me opportunity and fixing my mistakes when I fail. Even as we are struggling with frustrations about our upcoming outreach mission to Panama and Columbia, we continue to laugh together. Every one of us comes from a different background, but that just means that we each have a lot to learn about each other. It feels as if every week someone is teasing me about reading so much, but at least once a day I'm snarking at my gun and beard obsessed friends. Seriously, beards. Who knew you could talk so much about them?

I definitely did not expect to learn so much about community while being in the EARS school, but I think that these experiences will shape more of my life than any practical knowledge I get here. Though, it is great to actually feel as if I could implement some of these sustainable development tools - either as teaching tools at home or in the mission field. I needed the practical knowledge before I can make a difference with my own gifts, so EARS has been perfect for me. Occasionally frustrating, yes, but that's part of any school.

Celebrating birthdays. Birthdays = cake, so they are kinda the best days. Except our teachers get annoyed because we all end up late for class or taking a very extended break.

Sleeping in class - all of us in solidarity

Somehow we always end up having massage trains in restaurants. I'm not sure how it started, but it's kinda hilarious.

Traveling to the beach. All the time. 

This is Fast Track, one of my new favourite games. It involves teams, lots of yelling, and a great deal of killing the other players.

The newest big thing on base is the ropes course. It's a bunch of different elements designed to encourage team building in a variety of ways. This particular one, the flying squirrel, had all of us on a rope hoisting the person on the other end into the air. It was definitely fun both running the other people up and being flown into the air. 

Aquaponics

This week my class is learning about, and helping build, aquaponics systems. It's a sustainable system that hooks a fish tank up to growing beds, using the water and nutrients from the fish tank to nourish the plants. It wastes less water, uses a small spaces, removes the need for chemical fertilizer, and produces both fish and plants for people to eat. Really pretty cool, though I must admit at this point I only understand the basics. If you want to know more, contact me at the end of the week and I'll probably be able to tell you much more!

Here are some pictures from the beginning stages (courtesy of Ms. Gloriann). I'll post more when we're done! Hopefully that will be at the end of the week, but it depends on when we can get all the materials.

This is the grow bed in it's initial stages

We divided the big bed up into 6 smaller sections. The pump that bring the water from the fish tanks to the plants will most likely be in the middle so that the water is more evenly distributed.

We're working so very hard! See, we even managed to keep a plant alive. Not really - I'm not sure what type of plant it is or who planted it. It might be a weed. Or spinach. Kinda smells like spinach to me.

Market Day

Every Sunday there is a farmer's market in San Rafael - the town at the bottom of the mountain. So much fun and so much fruit! Would you like 20 oranges? Well, that'll be $3 please. A coconut with a straw to drink the milk? 60 cents. How about a carrot as big as your forearm? Or a zillion green mangoes? Or fresh honey in a recycled whiskey bottle? Yeah, you can find all of that.

Overview of the market.

I love oranges. All the oranges. Every day.

Fresh pupusas. 

It's bigger than my hands. And mouth. And head.

Pictures courtesy of Meghan :-)

Missions

There are Christians that spend much of their lives shouting, "Yes Lord, send me!"

Yeah, I'm not one of those.

Throughout my life, I've repeatedly asked God to tell me to do anything but a) become a missionary and b) go serve in Africa. Welp, it looks like my group is headed on our missions outreach to Kenya and/or Malawi. We will be deciding for certain next week. More details to come!

With my luck, I'll spend most of the time preaching.

Gifts

Christians love to talk about how each of us have gifts given by God, both spiritual gifts and skills that was use in our everyday lives. I've always thought my life would be defined by finding these gifts and then finding a suitable way to apply them.

Funny thing is, I don't actually like many of my practical gifts. Sure, I can do math, but I don't enjoy it. Yeah, I can write a research paper, but why would I spend my life on theoretical knowledge?

I do enjoy writing, music, relationships, building, etc. The list goes on. Naturally, I have little talent for any of these things.

One of the ideas that I'm learning through YWAM is that you can, to some extent, pick your own talents. The human mind is one of God's greatest gifts and I get to choose how to use it, which tends to result in a great number of failures. Life is failure, however, and then standing up again. So if I want to learn to garden, then I can try, and probably kill a great many plants (sorry in advance). If my heart's deepest desire turns out to be raising goats, well, there might be lots of temporarily unhappy goats in my future. If I love to pass my knowledge along to others, there will certainly be many confused students wandering around at first.

Finding that one natural gift might not be my best option. After all, think of all the adventures I would have missed while hiding in a library. Then again, there may be many adventures left for me in libraries, who knows?

Lizard!

Everyone needs more lizards in their lives.