Little Red Riding Permaculturalist and the Food Forest

The Project marches forward, as Salvatore returned this week to push us onward toward the Celestial City...aka phase I of a food forest.
We had the excellent fortune of entertaining two guests for an extended period in March. Matthew Greenwald, my cousin from Boulder and fellow Permaculture graduate, was here on Spring Break to enjoy Mexican culture, sun, beaches, beauty in general, and help us out a good deal! It was a highly productive week, as we purchased some trees, built a spiral herb garden, and mapped out and dug swales (for those who don't know, swales are on-contour ditches which hold and absorb water). We also were fortunate to have the company of Denny Storer, a retired political science professor from Hastings College, and a good friend of Sascha's. They certainly kept each other entertained and had some Mexican adventures.
Thursdays are special days here, because we get the help of the gardeners for about four hours. I always feel a tiny bit like this is cheating, as I feel the physical labor part is an important piece of what I should be learning, but they dug approximately 50 tree-sized holes in hard-pan, so I'm not going to complain too loud. Although I have to take a moment here to brag about my improving ground pick skills. Matthew, if you're reading this...sssssshh. I tend to be a bit more gentle on the gardeners than Salvatore, but it's his money, so that's understandable. Barring time spent in Spanish lessons, I believe I spoke more Spanish last Thursday than I have on any previous day, as a go-between from Salvatore to Antonio and Fermin. I am certainly not on professional translator level, but I felt pretty good about it. We have our food forest laid out, approximately half an acre in a bowl-shape, with five swales and the afore-mentioned holes for our brand new trees!
Insert related thought here>> I think Salvatore and I work well together because I am a focus-on-the-details, use what we have, keep it low budget kind of person, while Salvatore is the big picture, buy whatever we need and some what we don't, access the advice of experts kind of person. In the end, we keep each other on a straight path.
Back to the story>>Yesterday we drove over to the San Pancho vivero (nursery), the site of our class, and met with two men, Luis and Alan. Luis does bird-tours and also works at Emerald Coast, the investment agency which sponsored the now abandoned vivero. Alan is a biologist who helped design the botanical garden in Puerto Vallarta. We showed them the design which Salvatore and Dianne put together in Boulder with the help of Marco Lam, in which the fruit trees are planted in the center of a cluster of other trees, called nursing trees, which serve the purposes of mulch, canopy, and nitrogen fixing in the soil. They recommended trees, bushes, and groundcovers for us and were all around genial and generous (and Alan is guapo!). Quinn, the caretaker of the vivero, came to help us dig out trees, and we took home around 15, some of which we can take cuttings from. We also went to Alan's home, where he made us a Chaya drink, leaves from several of our new trees which have medicinal value. Alan has a lovely garden with many varieties of plants, where we took our first Noni fruit home, where it promptly ripened by turning to jelly and stinking up the apartment (apparently this means it's ready). I continue to learn heaps and this experience definitely reminded me that I am still in love with gardening!
We have about three more weeks of work to finish all our projects, including phase I of the food forest, finishing our cob benches, and making sure our giant compost bin is in good working order.

Semana Santa...and a few food observations

In Mexico, the biggest and longest holiday of the year is Semana Santa, or Holy Week. I wouldn't even consider Easter to be the most important day, from what I observed. The Saturday eight days before Easter, they arrived. Legions of Mexicans, camping on the beach, constructing palapa kitchens, volleyball courts, fruit stands, ice cream vendors. As the week progressed, more and more arrived, with live music every day, mariachi bands with more than a dozen members. The ocean was dripping with their youth and the beach was baking with men drinking beer. Our beach is a public beach, and I almost proud of that, even if this isn't really "my" community. It is NOT a gated community, and I think the Mexicans should have complete access. A few families to whom Litibu Eco-group are especially friendly set up right on our lawn, playing games, setting up chairs and picnics, getting water from our hose, and using the upstairs bathroom. For anyone who doesn't know, our apartment has no glass in the windows, and no curtains. Only screen seperates us and the endearing sound of an electric generator and the piercing lights which accompany it after dark. I have not experienced that lack of privacy, and while it was enjoyable to watch their celebrations, adorable to watch the chubby little children, and amiable to exchange greetings on the beach, I wasn't sad to see them pack their tents first thing Easter morning. We really are spoiled here! Sascha estimated that there were 2000 people, but I would say less, in a 500 m long beach.
One of the biggest events during Semana Santa is the passion procession, walking around the village to different points and going through the Stations of the Cross. We were both looking forward to participating in this, and made it to town bright and early Friday morning, to find the church locked. We had asked five people the day before, with five different answers, and finally someone confirmed for us it was at five that afternoon. So we returned at five, to absolutely no avail. Now, the fascinating part about Mexicans and time (or distance, or population, or whatever) is that no one knows what time anything is, yet they all manage to be there. It's an amazing system. Luckily, with all the people, we had no trouble catching a ride, and wrote it off to extra exercise.
For our own celebrations, Sascha and I had been planning a trip back to Tequepexpan (see previous post for more info) to participate in a vision quest ceremony, and got as far as Sayulita. Our ride didn't work out, and Sascha was exhausted from Denny's three week visit, and had some back pain. But I, personally, was determined not to let Easter suck as bad as Christmas, Thanksgiving, or my birthday. What is it that makes holidays special days? You do something special on them. Yes, that is what we had been missing, so I planned a surprise for Sascha and hid candy, cookies, eggs, etc in the serenity garden for him to find. We also had a lovely walk on the beach, now considerably more empty, and I made us some chile rellenos for supper, which were much easier than I expected.
Chile rellenos, which are egg battered sweet peppers stuffed with cheese and fried, are the vegetarian staple at any Mexican restaurant (other than the classic quesadilla), but Janet and Miriam (the cleaning women/caretakers of Donnamarie/daughters of friend Carlos) informed us that chile rellenos, camarones (shrimp), and pescado (fish) are their traditional Easter foods. So we came to the conclusion that they really do eat the same things all the time. Sascha's family has goose, rabbit, and lamb with funky potato balls. Maybe it's because their cuisine hasn't shifted to an international palette, so their traditional food isn't on special days, it's still every day. I love rice/beans/tortillas. I even learned to love guacamole. And I admire the cultural value, which every geographical and social group of people have had, of a staple food. Corn tortillas! They go with EVERYTHING. Sascha's favorite combo is Huichol salsa (like tabasco sauce) and peanut butter.
We have eaten some diverse Mexican food. But mostly Mexicans don't eat at nice Mexican restaurants. They eat at comedores and loncherias, where they serve...yep. Rice, beans, tortillas, and probably chicken with a nice sauce which you saw running from a rooster the previous day. It's fresh, and that's no mistake! What judgment am I making about Mexican food? It's delicious, it varies little, but I respect that. It would just be hard for me to do it full time. Our grocery store, the largest in town, is smaller than my parents' living room. A healthy portion of that is taken up by beer coolers and racks of cookies. I will put it up to lack of discipline on our part that we are sometimes fatigued by the lack of selection. The grocer helped me tie my grocery bags on to my bicycle for five minutes the other day, and you can't knock that kind of service.