Making chocolate and a few other things...

For me, one of the most exciting things about being away is seeing different plants.... especially ones that end up on our dinner tables in the UK and half the time I have no idea what the original plant looks like or the process it’s gone through before reaching me! In the garden behind our volunteer house in Esperanza there are a plethora of exciting plants... halaconias, birds of paradise, shampoo fruit, bananas, sugar cane, oranges, lemons, guavas, annonas, manzana de agua (both of these last two were new to me), papaya and cacao trees.

We thought it would be exciting to try to use the cacao to make our own chocolate. Here’s how the process went....

The cacao pods grow off the branches of the cacao tree and are ready for harvesting when they turn a browny-orange colour. When you crack the pod open, the fleshy (rather slimy), sweet, white coating around the seeds is the edible part. We fermented both the flesh and the seeds for a few days and then dried them in the sun.

We then took the thin shell off of each seed. I’m not sure the seeds were quite the right dryness however, as shelling took ages and was no easy feat for my finger nails!



Once this was done, we whizzed the dried, shell-less cacao seeds in the Vitamix and ended up with this amazingly fragrant, gorgeously purple tinged cacao powder. Now we just need to add milk and sugar and we have chocolate as we know it! Next time I purchase a luxurious bar of Dairy Milk, I’ll definitely appreciate it all the more now that I know how much work went into just getting the cacao alone!

Apart from trying our hands at making chocolate, we’ve been busy on the farm preparing beds in the greenhouse, planting seeds, transplanting saplings and Ethan has been occupied fixing anything and everything wooden from the chicken house to the farm house window frames.

Fixing the chicken house proved interesting when Ethan found a rather large boa snuggled up next to the chickens. Luckily Marcos was on hand to help catch it. I certainly wasn’t going any nearer than necessary to take the photo!

And cleaning the nursery had a little added excitement when Ethan decided we needed to get rid of the hornet nest!

We’ve also been reminded of how powerful nature is this weekend. Yesterday it must have rained for at least 36 hours straight, which meant the streams that ordinarily bubble across the road with glistening clarity turned into fast flowing, brown torrents that flooded our boots as we endeavoured to walk home. The river at the bottom of our garden raged with all of the extra water it was being subjected to and we could hear river boulders crashing against one another 100m away from our house. Definitely a force to be respected!

So yet again, life here excites me and at the same time petrifies me. There are so many things that we can grow, make and at least start to understand. I’m not sure that I’ll ever grow tired of the excitement of seeds germinating or eating freshly baked bread. All of these things are fragile though in a powerful world that we seek to work with, rather than tame. We could plant thousands of trees and the river could rip them all out in seconds in a flash flood. And it’s not just nature that terrifies me here, it’s the responsibility.... to our potential employees, our local community and people who are supporting us along the way. I guess my conclusion is that not to take the risk, not to try and make a go of things here would be to stick my head in the sand. As long as we do the best we can, endeavouring to be well informed, listening to people, respecting the powerful forces around us and being willing to learn from our experience (and in the best case scenario that of other people too!), then we should be able to be proud of how we live. And along the way it’s important to cherish every moment of beauty, excitement, accomplishment and love, ensuring that we’re journeying towards a life that we want to live rather than leaving somewhere we don’t want to be.

WOOFing in Costa Rica

Goodness! It's been ages since we posted anything! You must all be wondering where we are and what we're up to. For the last few weeks, we've been staying at a gorgeous organic farm up in the mountains, about 45 minutes south of Turrialba, Costa Rica. For lots of beautiful photos and an impressive 6 years of blogging history, check out the farm's own blog at:  http://costaricamountain.blogspot.com/

The house where we are staying is in the tiny,rural town of Esperanza, where we luxuriously have electricity and running water straight from a mountain spring (all of which FAR exceeds our expectations of roughing it!). Each day we walk up to the farm, where Ginnee and Phil Hancock live off the grid, with the River Oro at the bottom of their garden and a view of Turrialba Volcano shrouded in cloud (on a clear day!) off in the distance to the north-west. The pride and joy of the farm is their herd of 30 cows who bask in nearby fields, with their four horses and delightful (but surprisingly strong!) new foal.

Since Ethan arrived last week, it's been a hive of building activity. We've spent the week constructing a greenhouse at the back of the farm house for a kitchen garden. It has a bamboo frame (all of which was grown on farm) and a plastic roof, which is quite necessary given the high rainfall in the area. As always, we've had a lot of help along the way and it's been fun trying to communicate in Spanish! Now we're working on turning the soil and adding compost so that my germinating seeds will have deliciously nutritious beds to grow in. Hopefully in the next blog post we'll have photos of beautifully planted beds and glorious colour bursting from the soil!

When we're not working, there is plenty of land on the farm to explore. Last Sunday, in between bursts of rain, we hiked up to one of the waterfalls on the property accompanied by Orejas, who when she's not sleeping in the quad likes to keep us under close surveillance!

 We're enjoying farm life... It's exciting to see projects that we'd love to replicate in action, such as composting toilets, hydro-electric power, growing bamboo and permaculture gardens that incorporate lots of local edibles. There's a lot of us that can't wait until we have our own farm and start the journey towards living more sustainably and then there's my muscles that are telling me that I need a bit more practice still!!!

 I am going to let Claire do most of the Blogging because she is better at it.  I thought that some people might like to see some of the areas that we are visiting.  The pictures below are from the Darien district of Panama.  Very rural but good soils for the tropics and lots of natural forest remaining (though it's not protected so will probably be cut soon). We had a long day of walking and riding horses around the valley after a 6 am departure and slippery drive in that included a river crossing that could have trapped us on the wrong side if it decided to rain.  We had good luck though and a good (but long) day.

The search begins

Since getting my project in, our time has been dedicated to having awesome people show us potential spots for our future lives here.

In Costa Rica, we looked at a gorgeous farm near Dominical. It’s right on the river, with a cute little wooden house, flat alluvial soils within the river’s meander perfect for a kitchen garden and hillsides with secondary regenerating growth perfect for Ethan to start his reforestation! Whether this ends up being our new home or not, this was a perfect introduction for me.... something in progress that enabled me to start dreaming how our lives might be.... a kitchen garden right on our doorstep, a tree nursery by our back door, hydro-electric generated by a stream on the farm, clean drinking water being piped from a nearby spring, steep forest hill climbs being rewarded by ocean views and pristine beach within a 30 minutes drive. Doesn’t sound like a bad beginning to me!

In Panama, we've seen 360° views of rolling cattle pasture, mountainous backdrops and spectacular waterfalls, all within easy reach of urban hubs that can supply us with all of the agricultural supplies, cold sodas and western comforts we might desire (including a vast array of cake mixes courtesy of the US!). Having visited someone’s house the other day, I’ve learnt that every property can have hidden treasures... after the tennis court, swimming pool and open plan mansion, the property had a steep descent down to the valley floor where there was the most spectacular swimming hole fed by a gushing cascada. Absolutely perfect for a mid-day dip! There are the most beautiful hidden spots here... without car parks, snack kiosks or hoards of the general public (no offence intended to anyone!). I feel extremely privileged to stumble upon them. I can probably keep dreaming though if I expect the same at the bottom of my garden.

As well as learning about the land, people we meet share with us their lives, their work and their passions. In Costa Rica, we met Jennifer, who runs the not-for-profit Community Carbon Trees. The organisation raises trees, indigenous to Costa Rica, in their nursery and then plants them on Costa Rican owned, degraded cattle pasture and ensures their maintenance until the trees are big enough to fend for themselves. To us, the project seems to be a great way to ensure native tree species are preserved, create a community culture that values trees, build the capacity of the local workforce and provide them with invaluable employment, all of which contributes to primary forest higher up the hills being left untouched and carbon sequestration within populated areas. The Community Carbon trees website is well worth checking out if anyone ever fancies sponsoring some trees.

It’s exciting to think that in years to come we too might be speaking Spanish fluently, contributing to maintaining the world’s tropical tree diversity and enjoying the beauty of Central America on a daily basis. We just have to keep looking for the right spot (and work really hard on our Spanish!).

Researching school feeding programmes

Since it's been a month since we left the UK, I really need to get over my blogging nerves and get on with it. So here's what we've been up to recently.....

One of the main reasons why we left in May was so that I could complete my research project and submit by the end of the month. We made it up to Alto Ortiga, where Ethan's cousin, Pete, is a Peace Corps. Pete was absolutely amazing, dedicating tonnes of his time to traipsing round his village asking community members about their experiences and opinions of the school feeding programme and the school garden, translating for my benefit as we went, as well as getting all of the children at school to draw food diaries. All because my Spanish is awful! And because Pete's done an amazingly good job of befriending everyone in his village. Despite doing a lot of chatting, we still managed to fit in time for watching grubs being squeezed out of a goat's eyebrow, swimming in the amazingly gorgeous river and waiting patiently while I tried to demonstrate my equality in the world of lighting cooking fires. With the additional help of another Peace Corps, Kathryn based out of Santiago, we also spoke to the School Nutrition and Health team for the province of Veraguas.

All of this information was speedily culminated into just under 6000 words of a research project over 2 days! Let's say it's not my best piece of writing, but it was submitted in time. In fact with 1 minute to spare before the Info Plaza closed! My conclusion was that Panama has a very well established school feeding system that admirably supplies each child in the country with a significant portion of their calories and micronutrients each day. It's also amazingly well supported by parents, with families supplying firewood for the food's preparation and mothers participating in a cooking rota. Where they exist, the school gardens are an excellent compliment, introducing many children to vegetables they wouldn't otherwise taste in a country that specializes in fried staples, meat and coffee.

However, I felt that the underlying causes of malnutrition... caused by either too few micronutrients or too much fried carbohydrate (and really, obesity is a pretty obvious emerging problem) weren't being sufficiently tackled. People don't understand the value of the fortified foods they're being given, or the reasons behind a balanced diet. I realise that the same criticism could be levied at many people in the UK too. But without an understanding of vitamins and minerals, where's the incentive to grow a diverse kitchen garden? Or to purchase fortified foods that cost more? Or stray away from fried staples that have kept your family going for the generations that you can remember? In addition, there's also a problem of intestinal parasites. Talking to one mother, she said almost all of the children have them. Delightful! But that one has been recognised nationally and WASH schemes are gradually being rolled out.

For me, the whole research project was really interesting. Such a long-standing, well developed feeding programme, with centralised distribution and nutritional content dictated by statistics collected on a yearly basis, contrasted with my experiences in Malawi, where feeding programmes were yet to reach many parts of the country and the majority focused solely on carbohydrate intake. The project was also a great way to engage with a country that might one day be my home.... I can't imagine that the average real estate agent's brochure contains statistics on poverty disparities, nutrition deficits or methods for soil enrichment being used in schools! So to Pete, Kathryn, the people of Ortiga and Ethan for suggesting the project and holding my hand all the way through it.... thank you.

First post

Hello,
This is the first post for a Blog edited by both Claire and Ethan.  In the next few months and hopefully years we will find a lot of exciting and positive changes in our lives.  To make it easier for our international network of friends and family to follow us and our activities we hope to keep this Blog updated.  Happy reading and please let us know if we need to write more frequently or need to address specific topics.  Thanks,
Ethan