SEA MERCY - SEEDS OF HOPE in BOITACI
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| Long Beans sprouting in that 1st bed |
Loma Loma, Vanua Balavu (Fiji)June 24, 2016
All over Vanua Balavu, the Sea Mercy gardening program, in partnership with the Ramakrishna Mission Fiji and the Australian Aid, has distributed seeds to community gardens. One hundred packs, thousands of seeds: French beans, long beans, butter beans, cow peas, radish, carrots and Chinese cabbage. In the villages of Delaconi, Malaka, Mua Mua, Mavana, Boitaci, Mua Levu, Avea, Susui and (tomorrow) Cikobia, Sea Mercy is sowing seeds of hope.
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| Sea Mercy Volunteers Gretchen and Anita present Vuli with the 1st pack of seeds and instructions |
BOITACI - We’ve reported after our fist visit that the garden was a mess, such a challenge that we even contemplated to change the site. But the Sea Mercy Chain Saw team went into that project like a tornado… Fletcher (S/V Interlude,) Marc (S/V Amelie IV) and Norm (S/V Dream Catcher) let their chain saws loose and within a day had cleared the site of the biggest logs and fenced the garden against the pigs.
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| Sea Mercy Volunteer Norm (S/V Dream Catcher) heads the chain saw team |
On our second visit, the women had already prepared some beds and were anxious for our seeds.
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| Boitaci women, ready for work |
On our third visit, all the seeds had been planted and we started a composting pile. Still the garden’s topography was a disaster. Water had been water logging the bottom of the garden, stumps had been burned and left in place, piles of garbage had been burned, nothing looked right.
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| Sea Mercy Volunteer Anita Damiani checks the spigot: let's order 100 yards of garden hose and a clamp! |
We returned for a fourth visit with three ARC volunteers, three young men happy to help. Within seconds of the Loma Loma Hospital Pick-up truck dropping us off, all the women were in the garden, giving our boys working orders.
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| "Facebook! Facebook!" The young women ordered our boys around and wouldn't let them leave! |
“Take this clump of banana trees, divide it, and replant each tree along the fence.”
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| Replanting the banana trees |
“Clear these burned stumps.”
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| Clearing the stumps |
“Dig a drainage ditch.”
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| This sloping garden needs drainage |
“Level off this pile of soil.”![]() |
| Clearing charred stumps and debris |
Meanwhile, JP was teaching how to seed carrots, a first for all the women.
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| Heavy soil for carrots, added ashes to lighten it up... |
On the edge of the garden, I joined Vuli in sifting though the ashes of the rubbish fire. With her bare hands, she was removing broken glass, spiky roofing straps, melted metal meshing, a charred bicycle chain, blackened tin. We soon used sticks, but that wasn’t doing the job very fast. So I grabbed my folding camp shovel/pick combo out to my backpack. “I dig, you pick!” Within minutes we had sifted through the entire pile of ashes, now clear of solid debris. Vuli looked at my hand tool, the only one in the village. Of course, I left it with her, this little camping shovel her most prized gardening possession.
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| No watering can, no garden hose: Gretchen delivers collapsible water jugs |
When we finally etched a plan for amending the soil, the women were carrying handful of ashes in their bare hands, fault of any other type of bucket or shovel or hand tool, except for the machetes we distributed.
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| First sign of Chinese cabbage |
On our fifth and last visit, Vuli proudly showed us the progress: beans 1/2’ tall, sprouting Chinese cabbage, and a new bed of carrots.
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| Carrot bed, sheltered from the harsh sun and pecking birds |
We didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to the women. On our last visit, they were sitting with the grief counselor. Winston took 4 lives in this tightly close community, scarring children and adults. But Vuli sat with us for a last chat: our pesticide presentation. We left her, our samples of garlic spray and white oil, getting away in our Police ride, cheered along by a throng of chirpy and unforgettable Boitaci kids.
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| Vuli is thrilled with her pesticides and the kids ran along the car, singing their goodbyes (photo Tessa Irvin) |
Until the next village…
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| Boitaci Kids (Photo Tessa Irvin) |
dominomarie
