Week 6 2/15/10-2/19/10 Cusco, Peru Geoffrey Strom

This week a lineage was created as Tim and I began to pass on the greenhouse at San
Judas Chico, the girl’s orphanage, to a group of six girls aged 11-16. The director of the school
Berith thought it
was a good idea if
we took the girls
out for a dinner, as
a form of
motivation. We had
previously
interacted with the
majority of the girls
we were assigned.
A couple of the
older girls were
new to us due to
classes they were
taking when we
usually arrived to
work at the
greenhouse. After a
pizza or two we
became much better
friends while being one step closer to a sustainable greenhouse. While the history of the place is
mostly under Tim’s belt, I have seen much progress as the brown ground became engulfed by
green leaves. Our hands on work of installing trellises was productive in training us as well as
the plants. Everyday there is more to learn about optimum care inside an engineered
environment. From this base of knowledge that we have established we are now capable of
passing this lovely project to this group of girls. During the dinner we emphasized that they
should be proud of being able to provide food for the rest of there friends and family at the
orphanage, where 42 girls live. Although we do not know all of these girls a lot have poked their
heads in to see what we were doing at their home. Some of the more adventurous and well-
known girls might even steal a leaf of lettuce to munch on with some salt.
Back to the week at hand, Wednesday was the first class we had planned on giving but
the director had forgotten and only two of the girls were present that day. We prepared a plot in-
between the broccoli and tomatoes for the celery seedlings that had been lingering in our
seedbed. Our two students helped us water, weed and prepared the seedbed for a new round of
plants. This somewhat fallow day setup a great class for Friday when all but one of the girls was
present. The one who had missed both classes, Sonia, had asked for a few days leave from the
orphanage since her parents live in Cusco and Tim and I had unexpectedly encountered her at the
local market after our first class. She was selling ice cream with her younger brother Max from
little carts near the entrance. And while I have seen many children working and selling in the
street it was not pleasant to see Sonia and her brother doing it. After a chat and some treats Tim
and I expected her to be present on Friday as she had confirmed. Unfortunately we started
Friday’s class without her. It was a very productive and educative class planting a new crop of
lettuce in our seedbed, transplanting the lettuce to the prepared plot and killing five of the biggest
spiders I have EVER seen outside of a zoo or pet shop. Since the first crop of lettuce has been
used by the chef we asked the girls what we should planted in its place and the consensus was
cabbage. These girls now know that they are an integral part of the maintenance and performance
of the greenhouse. As the first batch of
tomatoes is only a week or two away
hopefully they will speak highly of the work
they are doing in the greenhouse at the
communal dinner tables.