hot dang, the garden at Las Gemelas elementary school has been planted and is growing! costa rica is a splendid location for gardening with children (or children-like adults) because the soil is often rich, moist, and loose, making it easy for digging and planting. so long as you avoid the telltale shard of glass or plastic bag that made its way into the composition of the soil, you’ll be fine.

once things are planted the kids, and kid-like adults, need not wait to long for some action on the gardens behalf. the school and myself had a 2-week break and upon our return to school we were stoked with the life and progress that has taken root, muahaha no pun intended ;) but seriously, i even caught a couple rocks smiling at our results.

hadas and i are thrilled with the help we’ve had from all of the students and teachers at Las Gemelas. we’ve also had several volunteers come through and lend a hand, including cal and his group from Oregon. WOOOH cal! (cal is one of the “cool teachers” everyone wanted in highschool— cal rocks). OF COURSE, the garden would be nowhere without the help of alberto, the know-all of gardening. on thursday you could find us and another volunteer, marissa, hauling boards of teak from down the street for the construction of our compost bin. yeah we made quick/beautiful work of that compost bin. marissa and a few other study-abroad students from UCSF have been working with environmental issues and art in Punta Banco, right down the dirt road from Pavones. i honestly plan to take photos of the garden this week to show its progress … before the pinche horses somehow make their way in to eat everything.

i don’t trust horses. sorry all you horse lovers. ya got dog lovers, cat lovers, and horse lovers. i can trust a dog, but the latter two, nope. but let’s not leave on a negative remark. a friend of a friend once said “instead of killing two birds with one stone, wouldn’t you rather feed to birds with one seed?” ha! sounds so corny, but yet so comfortably politically correct…haha