WWOOF!

No, we’re not barking, just basking in our first true WWOOFing experience- WorldWide Organization of Organic Farmers experience that is. Fortunately and unfortunately, we have started off spoiled. Village Farm and Tanya and John are wonderful. What started as a correspondence way back in November, having heard about Village Farm though the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Network, we have been anticipating this stop off on our world-tour-extravaganza for quite a while and the anticipation was well worth it.

Amongst endless great conversation over some of the most scrumptious food I think we will eat over the whole course of our travels, we learned a lot about organic farming, especially in the tropics, plus the wonders of trees like neem and moringa. We picked mangos, bananas, breadfruit, avocados, plums, pineapples and all sorts of different vegetables- some of the fruits we made jam out of, delicious! Much time was spent trimming cacao trees- the tree that produces the delectable thing we like to call chocolate. We got to taste the finished product of the fruits of our labors- a Maya Gold chocolate bar from Green & Blacks. Go out and get one and you’ll be eating from the same trees we so lovingly trimmed.

The one drawback was that the bugs were even worse than at La Florida! We had been warned and before we even arrived, we were covered head to toe in clothing to ward them off, and yet by week’s end we were still covered in bites! The greatest reprieve was the end of the day with time on the dock as the cool breeze blew (too hard for any bugs to be flying!) and the sun went down amongst good conversation and looking out over the Bay of Honduras as manatees peeked their heads out of the water to get a look at us.

At the end of our inspiring week at Village Farm we were about to get on a boat heading back to Guatemala, but as fate would have it we detoured to yet another organic farm- Maya Mountain Research Farm. More or less a WWOOFing experience, this was technically an internship in which we continue our education as to tropical agriculture and organic production. We got to help in planting and harvesting, learning and teaching (like advice on their aquaculture pond), and working on the “cob house”- cob being a traditional building material/method of using clay, sand, water and fibers and building up the walls one layer at a time.

MMRF differs slightly from most organic farms as their main focus is on permaculture and agroforestry. The farm has many different fruits and vegetables and some animals, all working in a symbiotic relationship with each other to make the farm sustainable without the use of pesticides and fertilizers and provides a very healthy impact on the earth. One of the best ways to describe MMRF and their permaculture practices is in this example: a crescent of pineapple is planted just downslope of a breadnut tree. The pineapple holds the soil and all its nutrients helping the tree to grow better. The soil also provides a perfect habitat for leaf cutter ants who feed on the leaves of the bread nut. The chickens feed on the leaf cutter ants and fertilize the tree and the pineapple helping them to easily grow strong enough to support the ants. And of course the eggs and the meat from the free roaming chicken is unbeatable. Everything is diversified so one disease cannot destroy your whole farm and all byproducts are use to strengthen, not weaken, other parts of the agricultural process. A big difference from a chemically laden pineapple orchard or the testtube chicken farm. Pretty cool, huh? We are learning a lot of great things that hopefully we can pass on as the countries get poorer and food scarcity gets greater.

Almost everything we ate while there came from the soil that surrounded us (a notable exception being the delicious pizza night, no cheese producers here). The long and short-term interns Liz, Ashley and Lincoln were great and really made our week, and of course Chris, the man behind the farm of MMRF plus his two little girls. And one of the best things- hardly any bugs! (sigh of relief) It was still quite hot and humid, but that was easily helped by taking a dip in the river that borders the farm, one of our favorite things to do.

So the south of Belize certainly treated us well thanks to the lovely hosts at Village Farm and MMRF- thank you so much and keep up the good work!