Thursday, 02. July 2009 by Andrea Martinsen
An important step in our community development process in Llano Ñopo is communicating who we are and what we’re trying to accomplish. If we truly want to get the people on board and involved in this process, we must first help them to understand us. My first three months in site have been occupied largely by lots of home visits to informally let people know about DeadWheat. There have been several barriers to this, however; the first obstacle being that our methodology is not what the people are used to. It is rather abstract for them. Instead of entering Llano Ñopo with a defined list of objectives and needs to take care of and eradicate, we’ve entered with the plan of spending a year just getting to know the community. Another major barrier is language. We are communicating largely in a language (Spanish) that is neither their first language nor mine, and for something as intricate and hard to define as community development, it is sometimes hard to find the right words for me to express myself and for them to understand and translate into their own indigenous language (Ngäbere). The third major obstacle is our own inexperience. While we have our strategies and objectives clearly written out on paper, it is a whole different ballgame carrying them out in the field for the first time.
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Wednesday, 24. June 2009 by Steve Bliss
I grew up in a small Dutch community located in North West Indiana. I have a smattering of church denomination backgrounds that have given me a broad brushed understanding of varying scriptural perspectives and doctrinal derivatives. One of the churches I spent some time in while in high school is First Reformed Church of DeMotte. Last week a group of youth and adults came from that church to help us out with two of our initiatives, Air & Food Security.
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Friday, 19. June 2009 by Paul Day
Paul and I (Paul’s wife, Linda) had the privilege of traveling to the village of Llano Nopo last week (June 9). Our trip had two purposes. First, to meet with a local curandero to continue our research of alternative/natural medicine. Second, to participate in a community meeting hosted by Andrea (on behalf of Dead Wheat International Foundation) to let them know about our foundation, our intent and approach.
We met the local “curandero” (“healing man” or “medicine man”) at the government sponsored clinic where he works three days a week. We met to inquire as to what plants had healing capacities we might include in the aquaponic project we’re considering as part of our work in Llano Nopo as well as other villages in the Comarca. Now, when you think of a “medicine man”, it’s possible that a variety of images might come to your mind. Here is what popped into my mind. Ancient looking with large black glasses with thick yellowed lenses, a necklace dangling chicken heads, a modest loin cloth, grey spindly hair, and, of course, some donkey dung-paste in a jar. You can tell my experiences in Zambia, Africa have colored my expectations.
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Wednesday, 10. June 2009 by Paul Day
We were only part way into our early morning trip to Llano Nopo to drop off materials to build a simple 3-room house-post for our in-community team that we realized that he was probably not going to make it too far off the highway - certainly nowhere near as far as we originally hoped.
He, was Pedro (a nice guy), the driver of the truck transporting cement, blocks, steel beams, and rebar for our Dead Wheat house-post in Llano Nopo. We met up with Pedro about 45 minutes into our adventure just out of David around 4:45am. We were given instructions by Steve to look for a “loaded delivery truck parked in front of a grocery store across from a gas station just after the bridge” that we couldn’t miss. Ken spotted him through the rain under a dull light.
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Monday, 08. June 2009 by Steve Bliss
About six years ago, I had a friend tell me to not worry about the items on ‘the list of things that need done’ that seem to be lagging behind. He said just keep pushing forward on all fronts and those items will have their time of progress. In my current life this idea applies very well. Since I have chosen to engage in rubbing shoulders with demographic that makes up the majority of the world, I have had no end to options of items that can fit on my task list. This has made me be very intentional about our (Dead Wheat) work. I’m pleased that we have a narrow focus and one that addresses base needs. They all revolve around the idea that the people we are interacting with are vulnerable to things outside of their control and/or knowledge base. That is why we have adapted the term security to refer to the nature of our work.
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Friday, 05. June 2009 by Paul Day
Around 4am tomorrow, Ken and I are heading out to Llano Nopo, accompanied by a truck loaded with building materials (concrete blocks, cement, steel, rebar), to begin staging the construction of a small house for Andrea, our in-community worker who is living in Llano Nopo. Andrea has been living in a number of temporary accommodations and is in need of something permanent and more private. I’ll bring back some pictures from our trip. To review a list opportunities you can contribute toward, including this project, click here or click on the PROJECTS tab in the menu above.
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Friday, 05. June 2009 by Paul Day
Just over a week ago, Dan Wiseman visited Steve at the aquaponic farm to check out our progress and continue discussions regarding constructing stoves for a food shelter in a village in the Comarca (just north of San Felix). Let me give you a quick backstory before going further.
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Sunday, 31. May 2009 by Paul Day
For those of you have been patiently asking how you can make a donation to support our the projects - we have good news. We’re delighted to announce that thanks to our alliance with SpringWell Church in the U.S. - we are now able process your donations and provide you with a tax-receipt for your giving. Simply go to our “DONATE” page and follow instructions to make an online donation or a mail-in donation by cheque.
Many thanks to the leadership of SpringWell for making this possible. And thanks to you for increasing our capacity so we can impact more lives.
Steve Bliss, Paul Day, Ken Newton (Leadership Team)
Dead Wheat International Foundation
Republic of Panama
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Sunday, 24. May 2009 by Andrea Martinsen
Training and seminars are in no short supply in Llano Ñopo or in the rest of the Comarca. For example, in the month of May, the people of Llano will have the opportunity to learn in various seminars about the effects of climatic change, about running small businesses, about organizing water committees, and about forming women’s groups from a variety of governmental organizations and NGOs. But to what end is all of this training? Sadly, the enthusiasm forged by chuy’s (what Ngäbes refer to anyone from the outside) and three meals a day usually dies out quickly after the facilitators have left and the food is gone.
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Monday, 11. May 2009 by Andrea Martinsen
As I sat down on my first night here to write about my first impressions of my new home - Llano Ñopo - the only thing that I could get down before falling asleep was, “this is going to be a daunting task.” Now as the initial shock is wearing off after a month here, my mind is a little clearer. Let me begin by explaining how I got here.
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