Funny Things We've Been Told Lately

This has been an interesting week for learning about people's beliefs. First we ran into our lab technician at the grocery store, who had done all of Shelley's blood tests during the pregnancy, and still hadn't seen the boys. So he left his cart and ran out into the parking lot to find her. He has 2 yr. old, twin girls and shared some interesting facts about twins. Apparently they have special powers. For instance, if you get onto your twin while holding them, the clothes you are wearing will turn very itchy, so itchy in fact that you can never wear them again. Also, if one of your twins wants something and you don't give it to them, the clothes you are wearing will tear into pieces and fall apart. I'm not sure what it is about clothes, but so far our twins have only been covering ours with various bodily fluids.

Then I was talking with another good friend of ours and she remarked on the lady in the market who gave us the money. She said, "I can't believe she touched your babies with her dirty hands. Babies and children are so delicate that I don't touch them out of respect." Now, this is a very educated Chilean woman, so I assumed she was talking about germs. She went on, "Adults just have such a strong energy that I think they take away energy from children and make them sick when they touch them."

Now, two bits of wisdom from a 15 yr. old Kekchi friend of ours. First I was asking him about the worms in my Zucchinis and what remedy he thought I should use. He told me that I had worms because I pointed with my finger at the first flowers that were growing. He said that that always causes worms.

Then later we were eating with him at Pollo Campero. My wife watched him take a piece of chicken, wrap it up in a napkin, and place it in his shoe. When we asked about that, he said that if you eat a certain part of the chicken it will take away all of your courage and make you afraid of the dark. (Placing it in his shoe was because that's where he keeps his trash until he finds a trash can.)

Name This Bug?

I am constantly being called to kill all sorts of interesting things. Most of the time they are hanging out in the shower, but this was on our suitcase as we were unpacking. It wasn't very big and I guess looks like a spider. Anybody know what it is?

Missionary How To: Make it Unsafe to Return to a Village

Since we were no longer allowed to have services inside the community, we decided we should have them outside the community. You can read about our Micro HERE.

The only other thing we needed after getting the bus was a carport/roof (to have the services under) at our house. Since we weren't using the building in New Horizon for the foreseeable future, I decided the cheapest thing to do would be to take down the lamina (sheet metal) and the wood from there, bring it to our house, and have our albañil (construction worker/mason) put it up here. The only thing I would need to buy would be wood for the columns and to pay the workers. So we took down the lamina that I had purchased, and left covered the house with what was already there when we took over.

I have to interject that the house was offered to us for a period of 5 years, maybe more if they guy went to the states. The owner is the bodyguard for the governor of Cobán and so doesn't live in the village. He said we could build or do whatever we wanted to the building and wouldn't have to pay anything since he was loaning it for the Bible Studies. He doesn't believe in God, but his mom told him to do this. The house had three rooms, a roof over most of it and no floor. So we tore down the back room and made the entire thing much bigger, closed it off and poured a floor. Total we spent about Q75,000 ($10,000) after installing electricity and putting on the big roof. It didn't seem like too much since we would have it for the next 5 years, and I was confident that after that time we could arrange a payment or something for rent if he really wanted it back.

Before doing this, I spoke with the owner to let him know what was happening. Our goal was always to get back into New Horizon eventually, so in my mind we would be returning all the lamina and the building would go back to normal when we were allowed to start up again. The owner asked me to leave the doors and bars on the windows so that his sister could stay there, and while I wasn't happy about somebody staying in "our" building, I didn't want the sister and her baby to be out on the street either.

After taking down the lamina, the owner showed up at our house. Now he wanted us out completely, despite the fact that we still had 3 years left to our agreement. I told him that I would need to get my doors and windows and the rest of my stuff out of the second room and he seemed fine with that, although he would have preferred for me to just go ahead and give him the $1,000 worth of steel and work. When he left he was in a good mood and was grateful that I wasn't going to charge him half of the floor and walls that I had put up...so I thought.

He left my house and went straight to the building where he and two other men proceeded to curse my name that the lamina was gone. This was shocking in and of itself since the lamina was never talked about in a negative light, but the people with whom he was talking was the scary part. One of the men is known as "El Loco." It's never good to be called "Crazy" in Latin America, let alone have that be your nickname. He just recently arrived in the village because he is hiding from the police. He caries a big gun, only smokes marijuana, and sells the same. Why he was there talking bad about me, I'm not sure. It was probably just one Chapin getting another all riled up. Later I saw a teen from New Horizon with a black eye. He had been pistol whipped by...you guessed it...El Loco, for what he said was not smoking marijuana with him and for what another said was stealing his cell phone.

I would like to mention that my treating of somebody in a kind way and "covering up" his crime of stealing a cell phone is against the morals of the community, but harboring a fugitive who smacks around their kids and sells them drugs is perfectly acceptable. And don't get me started on the sexual abuse of their own family members...

We've had people upset with us before, but never waving guns while they did it, so lately we've been a little on edge. I went Wednesday and took down our doors per our agreement from Monday morning. He wasn't in the building, but he had ripped down our sign, stolen some chains and tried to hide the wire and light bulbs that I had left up for his sister (I say tried to hide because he put them in a gutter, not realizing that I'm tall enough to see in the gutter while everybody else needs a ladder.)

I left the wire and bulbs, but while the metal guy was cutting down the doors the owner's mom came by and threatened to call the police for stealing from a house that wasn't ours. The problem with that is that I am the only one with the receipts for anything. It was all a bunch of fluff and when presented with the facts she got mad and left.

So now we decide where to go from here. If we shake the dust from our feet and continue to other parts of Petén, is that because of our own personal wounds, or because it's a safe decision. Or do we continue on and risk being shot at by some drugged up loser after God had clearly tried to tell us that He was shutting this door. There has to be a balance between the two that doesn't involve us getting swallowed by a whale...

Here is the house as we first received it:

The next two show what it was like when we finished it.

And here it is showing how much of the roof we took and what it looks like now:

Missionary How To: Get Kicked out of a Village

So we've been kicked out of New Horizon before, but that was a long time ago so I'll just write about how we got kicked out this time. For those of you who know the story, here's a refresher so that I can give you the juicy new details in a following post.

So you should know that New Horizon is a community of ex-guerrillas (about 500 people) that stated as one of their by-laws that no churches (besides the token Catholic Church) were allowed to exist within the community. When we arrived and inquired about attendance at the Catholic Church we were told that the priest came to the village every three weeks and 4-5 people attended. We were granted permission by the town council (and the next one after that) to hold Bible Studies in the town. Since that time a group of people in the village have vehemently fought to make us leave. There have been many lies spread, but the only time somebody would talk to me directly and tell me they wanted me to leave was when they were so drunk they could barely stand up.

Last September I came back to Petén after being gone a month to check on our house, dogs, etc. I needed to make sure that the system we had set up was working and could continue for an additional four months. My first day back I went to visit some people in New Horizon. As I was leaving I stopped at the store to say hello to the mayor. She pulled me aside to talk to me about Quincho, the guy staying at and guarding our house.

Quincho was accused of stealing a cell phone from a certain group of people from our town 10 minutes from New Horizon. In Guatemala, accused means absolutely guilty no matter what the facts are and deserving of death. Because of this, that group of people had come into the village several times looking for him to kill him. Over a cell phone. Yeah.

So the mayor was concerned that somebody innocent would be standing next to Quincho when this drive-by happened and would also get killed or injured. They were having a meeting the next day to inform the town so that people would know not to stand around Quincho. She assured me that I was not being discussed in the meeting (therefore didn't need to come) and they would not be kicking Quincho out, just giving out the information.

I told Beatrice (the mayor) that I thought I could find the people from whom the cell phone was stolen and work something out, and then Quincho would pay me back for the cell phone from what he was earning. I told her my belief that people should be held responsible for their actions (something these guerrillas never have been), but that the most important thing right now was to stop anybody from getting killed. She thought that was a good idea and thanked me.

So instead of spending the next day varnishing my cribs or fixing things around the house, I went in search of the people. I can't give you any more details than this to protect the innocent (mainly me) but everything was worked out. I arrived in New Horizon to give them the news and realized the meeting had just ended. I talked to several people there including the mayor and the president of the town council to let them know that nobody was going to die over this anymore and everybody was very nice.

It was not until later that I learned (because these hardened ex-guerrillas suddenly become tongue-tied chickens when the white fat gringo shows up) that not only had they kicked Quincho out, we were also prohibited from continuing our activities in the village (mainly Bible Studies.) The mayor accused me of treating Quincho with kindness and trying to cover up his crimes. This is obviously against the morals of the community (as stated in the letter I received) and therefore they had no choice but to ask us to leave.

I hope you can see the absurdity in all of this. Since we have been back I have learned that the rumors have degraded even further. Now the story is that I was the real mastermind behind the cell phone caper and an accomplice in the crime. From the States. Yeah.

Garden Update

About a week ago we ate our first zucchini from the garden and it was delicious! Then all of them seemed to stop growing. After a rather violent storm, several were knocked off the vine and that is when I noticed that all of them were infested with worms. I removed about 12, sprayed all of my plants and am now waiting.

Here are some of the new, wormless zukes growing. I have three different varieties growing, hence the difference in color between the top picture and this one:

Other things are growing as well. Here is my first pumpkin:
And my first green beans. These are very close to being ready to harvest.

And finally my first tomato. Only one plant has started flowering. For some reason it is a week ahead of the other three plants. Now if I can just keep the bugs away...

Update from this morning. Pics of an okra flower and first watermelon growing.

To Kill A MockingRat

Ok, maybe more than one. Apparently while we were gone a rat family decided to move in. At first we thought they were just regular field mice that we deal with every once in a while, but then we killed the first one and realized why it kept knocking things off of our shelves. It took a while to find a suitable bait. At first we were just fattening it up with things like cheese, apples and peanut butter. I think it was carefully setting off the trap, eating the yummy goodies we had left for it, and then resetting the trap hoping I would catch my fingers in it. This thing was huge. It finally met its match with an almond hershey's kiss.

Thinking we had the rat thing licked we settled into a complacent mindset. My wife walked without fear into the kitchen at night, even doing work with her back to the counters, enjoying a rat-less life. Then the power went off. Then we walked into the kitchen with our flashlights only to be greeted by another equally huge rodent. At least this time we knew how to kill it and it was swiftly dispatched of.

Now another rat lurks. It has been more quiet. There haven't been as many "traces" left around, although they are becoming more numerous. The big thing was that this one tore up one of my wife's curtains that hide the areas under our counters since Guatemalans don't believe in/can't afford cabinets and cupboards. So now I am sitting up and waiting. Waiting for that joyous snap that lets you know another one has bit the dust. It is very similar to the sound of the toaster letting you know your PopTarts are ready.

So on that note, anybody know how to keep rats from coming back? We don't use poison because of the dogs (who have apparently signed some sort of peace agreement with the giant rodents.) We've closed up all the places we think they come in, but our doors have to stay open during the day. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Would you try this in the States?

I had to move 11 tables 45 minutes away. To make things secure we used bailing wire to tie everything together and down. Everything got there fine with only minor injuries to the gringo with big hands that kept catching the ends of the wire. In Guatemala this is one of the tamest things you'll see people moving in the back of pickup trucks.

Guate Health Care

Right before we came back to Guatemala I noticed a spot on my arm that didn't look right. My mother, of course, wanted me to go the doctor right away, but without the insurance to cover it I decided to wait until I got back to Guatemala. I asked for a recommendation for a good Dermatologist in Guate from a missionary group we are a part of, and received many recommendations. I ultimately chose Dr. Carlos David only because three different people had recommended him. I have a family history of Melanoma and Basal Cell Carcinoma, so I didn't want to take anything too lightly.

I called with three days' notice and had no problem booking the appointment. Dr. David was very thorough and took careful notes on family history and all other information. He was also concerned about the spot and recommended that it be excised and sent to a lab for Melanoma testing. He usually does surgeries in the mornings, but since I was leaving the next morning for Petén, he asked me to wait 20 minutes while he prepared his room for operating.

The whole procedure was painless and actually fun to watch. He cut very deeply and stitched it back up with 7 stitches. The entire time spent in his office was about 2 hours, and that included consultation, surgery, and payment. The total bill for this was $300, including the lab testing. This happened on a Thursday, and he called me late Monday afternoon with the results that everything came back normal.

I love Guatemala City medical care, especially for non-emergencies like this. Fast and Cheap.

Nobody Respects the Micro

I guess I brought it on myself. After driving here a while you start to prioritize other vehicles on the road. If there is a motorcycle in front of you and another one coming towards you, it's ok to drive in the center of them both to pass. They will instinctively know to get over. If there is a tuk tuk, bus, or micro, you can cut them off to get in front of them because they are going to be slower than you and stop soon anyways.

I knew I did this, but I guess I didn't think anybody else did. Seriously, it stinks being behind a micro because they will stop without warning to either drop somebody off or pick somebody up. This leads to you slamming on your brakes or having to whip around them quickly, for which you get in trouble with your passengers. Also, you feel a little bit secure cutting them off because they are "professional" drivers, and you assume that they have a degree of defensive driving ability.

Now I am the micro driver. Nobody looks to see that it is a Gringo driving. Nobody cares whether or not I will be stopping suddenly or often. All they see is a large Toyota that is not as important or in as much of a hurry as they are. This makes driving much more precarious, and it is something I definitely have to watch out for. And I thought driving was dangerous before...

Buying Land

We have been looking for land ever since coming to Petén in 2007. There are a lot of things to think about, and after almost 3 years of being here we think we know what we want. We looked at a lot of different towns here, and have decided that the best place to live the rest of our lives and raise our kids will be in San Francisco (Petén, not CA). It is 15 minutes from Santa Elena and the airport, and at a crossroad between three roads that take us to everywhere else. It is also a town not owned by certain people of ill-repute (names and details withheld to protect the innocent) and where the professionals (doctors, lawyers, teacher, engineers) who work in Santa Elena, moved to to get away from the gangs and violence. Sounds perfect right? That's what we think.

We found a nice property owned by an influential family in town. He bought a large section of land so that his brothers and sister could all build their houses together. Because of that, there is a private road that cuts through the property. The neat thing is that these other families are pretty young and have new borns as well, so our kids will be able to grow up together. The land right now is a corn field and we are buying 2000 square meters (1/2 acre) for Q50,000 ($6,250).

To get the paperwork done right we have our lawyer (a very well known lawyer) taking care of everything. To get the initial contract and send in the paperwork to get a title in our name cost us Q400 ($50). Once that is taken care of we will pay the other half of the money and the land will be deeded to us. This should be done in the next week or so.

The land is in the shape of a trapezoid with 35 meters across the front and 55 meters across the back. We have met with an architect who will draw up our house plans, give us a 3-D rendering, list of building supplies, expected cost, etc. for Q5,000 ($625), which we thought sounded very reasonable.

I'll keep you posted as things progress. I don't know what you'll be able to tell from the photos, but here's a couple anyway. In this picture the land boundary is from the dog (pretty specific right?) to the fence on the other side.

Here we are standing in the middle. The back boundary is actually 5m past the papaya trees on the right. Those are tomato and jalapeño plants. The owner is an agronomist and really likes growing things. Look at how nice the dirt looks!

You have to read this...

I know some of you who read this blog don't regularly check out my wife's blog too. This is one story you have to go read. Click here.

Old and Young Helpers

I have some really great help at the Bible Studies. Most teens are the typical kind that sit around until you ask them to do something, but we've never asked for help and received a half-way job from somebody. However, children and adults are very eager helpers, usually doing things without us even asking.

I was met one Tuesday night by these two little girls who were very disappointed that we only had one broom and promptly went and borrowed one from a neighbor so that they could sweep together. Then they took my paper towels and proceeded to wipe down all the tables. The funny thing is that their time is on Mondays and there wasn't even a reason for them to be there. After thoroughly cleaning everything, they went home.

The three men in the following picture are 70, 65 and 68 years old respectively. After every Bible Study they stay behind and pick up chairs and put away tables with me. Then the four of us all leave together. Each one has his own story. Aaron, in the first picture, has built two of his own violins using wood and plants (for the strings) that he takes out of the jungle. He tunes them by ear.

This is Fabio. I call him Lucky. He has been shot twice (and is not afraid to show you the scars by the way) and also been hit by a car while on his bicycle...twice. Both times they left him for dead in the ditch on the side of the road. That's what happened to his eye. He comes each night...riding his bicycle. I think after the second time I would give it up, or at least stop riding my bike on the highway after dark.
Eulalio comes with his whole family (wife, three sons, daughter-in-law, grandson and granddaughter.) Every time we visit his house he is working outside, sweeping the dirt or pruning plants. Also, you gotta love his shirt.

Death in Guatemala

Last night, while preparing for our adult Bible Study a lady came by to see how I was doing...well she actually came by because she is a busybody and needed to share the latest town gossip, but at least she greeted me with "How are you and how are the boys?"

She shared a lot of information, but you can't trust 95% of gossip and the only truth she shared was that Lukas Macz died in Sayaxché. Also the family is poor and can't afford to build a tomb.

The Macz family is one of our very regular ones. At least 5 adult and teen family members come each week, do their homework and bring their Bibles. I'd never met Lukas, but he was recently deported from the States and was supposed to be in Sayaxché working.

I wasn't expecting any of the family to come last night, but several of the sisters did. They showed me pictures of him and gave me the real story. Nobody knows how long ago Lukas died, but nobody in Sayaxché knew his family, so they went ahead and buried him there. The paperwork to get him exhumed will take 2-3 months. The family started their 9 days of mourning yesterday.

I have never done this before (for obvious reasons) but knowing they need money for the tomb I asked the open ended question, "Is there anything you need?" Normally you have to qualify that question and not let it be anything, but for this family we would try and do whatever we could. Claudia responded that her grandmother was poor and so they didn't have any coffee or sugar.

It is typical for the family during the time of mourning to have drinks and bread for people when they come over. Shelley and I in the past have always brought that stuff with us, so this was an easy one for us. So tomorrow I'll make 3 gallons of coffee and put it in our cooler (which will keep it hot for 2 days) and we'll go visit the family. I'm sure we'll be helping in other ways soon, but the money to build a tomb is only $20, (I know because we've paid for two other previously). We are taking Mateo with us tomorrow, who is also Kekchi, to help us with any cultural norms that we haven't learned yet.

Pinchazo Pt. 3

For some reason my truck has a real problem with flats. I think I pick up nails when I take my trash to the dump.

When I got home I was shown that one of my rear truck tires had gone flat. I asked how long it had been like this since I was talking to Quincho every week checking on the house. We have friends here who could have come by to get it fixed so the truck didn't sit on a flat tire on one side. He said about 2 months!

So the first thing to do once I got back was to get transportation. I couldn't get the Blazer started after hooking back up the battery, but that was because it was out of gas, even after leaving it with a full tank 5 months before. My truck tires weigh 70 pounds each and it is hard to move a flat tire (especially when one side is actually flat from having a truck sitting on top of it for 2 months).

I wrestled it down the three blocks to the highway where I flagged a tuk tuk to take me to the tire repair place, who worked on it while I took my gas can to the gas station. Once I got back the guy had it aired up, and charged me Q20 ($2.50). He said it was just the inside seal that needed to be fixed.

The next day it was flat again, so I took it to a different place where they immediately found the nail and put in a patch for Q30 ($4) without even taking the tire off. My dad was with me and we had never seen anybody do it this way before, but the guy assured me that his patch would last longer than the tire would. So far so good.

Trying to Find a Windshield Pt. 2

You can click HERE to catch up on part 1. What do you know, the next morning (a Saturday with plans to drive with the family to Guate on Sunday), I called and "fijese" the windshield didn't come. I expected this, so I told them to have my deposit ready and that I was going to come and pick up the Micro and take it to somebody who could do it right.

I then set about trying to find a windshield in Petén. A friend of mine called four different places in Santa Elena that he knew about and nobody had one for our model of Micro (there are TONS of these things on the roads, so I'm not sure how that's possible), but he was going to keep looking. I drove my truck to the city, thinking I could take the Micro to a windshield place and drive home without having to spend another day sitting around. My friend called back after about 30 minutes and told me that he found one in Melchor. Melchor is a border town with Belize and takes anywhere from 1.5-2 hours to get to from Santa Elena. The problem was that there was no box to ship it in, and therefore no way to get it to Santa Elena.

When I told him that I would just drive the Micro there with no windshield he acted like I was the dumbest Gringo he'd ever met. Anyways, he set it up with a friend of his there who could install the windshield and I went and got a pair of sunglasses, picked up the Micro and my deposit, and started driving. I will add that I was nice to the ladies at the Serviteca, because I didn't know what parts of my Micro they still had and I didn't want to burn any bridges and lose parts forever.

You don't fully appreciate a windshield until it's gone... Bugs at 60 miles an hour feel like rocks, and rocks...make you bleed. I think everybody should see Guatemala in this way at least once though. You can hear the people laughing at you; you can smell the horse drawn carts and the soap from the laundry day in the river; you can taste the gravel from the rustic dirt roads... I guess it would be like driving a big not-fun motorcycle.

Side note: my first dicho (axiom) that I learned in Spanish was "En boca cerrada no entran moscas." It means, "Flies don't enter a closed mouth." and it was sage advice for this experience.

So after 2 hours I made it, found my new windshield and the whole installation process was pretty painless. A couple hours later, we discovered the Serviteca still had one of the bars to my grill guard (that they had to remove for some reason before installing the windshield) and my rear-view mirror. Told you so!

The drive back was much more pleasant.

It was when I picked those items up that I informed them I would no longer be spending money at their business.

First Fruits

All of the zucchini's (6 of them from 6 seeds planted directly in the container) have started flowering. Here's a pic of the first actual zucchini growing. This is just 36 days after planting. I know that zucchini is one of the easiest things to grow, but I'm still pretty proud of myself. (Oh, and this pic was the first taken with my new lens. Thanks, Mom!) -Farmer Jim

Trying to Find a Windshield Pt. 1

So I mentioned before that I needed to get a new windshield for the Micro. It did have a lot of cracks in it (several that went all the way to the edge and one from top to bottom), but the main reason was that it was so tinted that you couldn't see out of it! During the day it was fine, especially if you want to drive around without anybody seeing you, but at night you could only see if you were the only one on the road. Any other light from any other source would make it like you were driving blind. This is a problem especially with all of the motorcycles, bicycles, people and horses that roam the highways at night with no taillights.

When taking the Micro to the Serviteca to get all of the usual service things done, I mentioned to the mechanic about fixing the windshield. I really didn't want the place to try and do it, so I just asked if he knew a guy that could come do it while it was there. He said no problem.

So when I went in later they had a list of all the things I wanted done that would have to wait for another day while they ordered the parts. No worries because they order it the same day and so "tomorrow at 8:30am you can drop it off and we'll be done with it."

I should state here that this place is notorious for being late. A job that they say will take 2 hours takes 6. Since this is 45 minutes from my house, I plan on doing lots of other things in the city while I'm there, but I still end up spending many hours sitting in their office which only runs the A/C on cold days...

I waited two days before taking it back. They had my other items that I needed (door handle, turbo belt) but "fijese" there wasn't room for the windshield. But don't worry, we'll have it tomorrow for you.

The problem is that I don't like driving back and forth 1.5 hours round trip and wasting each and every day just sitting around, so I had them fix the things that they could and I waited a week before going back for the windshield.

This is a Friday before a Sunday that we are leaving for Guatemala City. I didn't think too much of this because they said they had the windshield. It was more expensive than other places should have charged me, but the assured me that this came directly from the Toyota agency. It was so specific that they took my registration card out of the Micro and didn't give it back that first day (which could have caused lots of problems in the case of a police checkpoint) just so they had all the right information.

So I dropped off the Micro at 9. They said it was a 2 hour job, but they had to take it to the place where they would install it. This was something I could have done myself, but they were dishonest about that point from the beginning. I went and met with an architect about our new house and when I arrived at 11:30 hoping to pick up my Micro, it was still sitting there! They hadn't even taken it to the guy yet.

So I sat there until 3:30 pm when one of the girls comes over with some really bad news. The way she's carrying on without getting to the point had me thinking they had wrecked it or somebody had stolen it, but it turned out that the windshield...DID NOT FIT!

Oh but don't worry because we're ordering it right now and it will be here tomorrow morning first thing and it won't even take very long because they already have the old one off....Wait a second...You mean I can't drive it home...and you can't put the old one back on because you broke it into a thousand pieces...but I have to trust that you'll have it here tomorrow when you didn't have the first one after TWO days... I told them what I thought about their business practices and then caught a taxi home.

The lady in charge even blamed it on God, saying that everything happens for a reason... While I believe this to be true, nobody has the right to blame their own poor decisions or mistakes on God. God doesn't make people do stupid things.

To be continued...

Composting

To go along with my gardening, I decided to start composting. It is not sustainable to keep importing miracle grow, so we need a permanent solution to better the soil. Plus, I hate trips to the dump and hope that this makes it less frequent. I read a lot online in preparation for this endeavor, but many items in the states cannot be found here, so we had to make it work with what we could find. The open pile is not an option for us as we already have too many bug and mice problems, not to mention dogs that will tear up anything to eat trash. They have problems with their expensive Dog Chow, but trash is always a delicacy.

I found one of these tall drums at a hardware store for Q170 (about $22). You have to be careful because many are used for paint thinner and other toxins, and then are just rinsed out before being sold second hand as brand new. Often, the partially torn off, diamond, HazMat sticker is a dead giveaway on these types of containers. I figured mixing Hazardous Materials with my compost sort of defeated the purpose. Most of the time these are used by people here to store water in.

Lucky for me, our ground is not level, so I had a nice random hill that I could prop my bin on. I drilled five holes in the bottom just on this one side and the bin sits a slight angle so that the water runs off to that side. Then I bought a Q10 plastic bowl that fits perfectly to collect the compost tea. I have another container with a spigot on it that I pour the tea into for when I am ready to fertilize with that (about once every 10 days.) You are supposed to water it down at an 8-1 ratio so that you don't burn your plants. Being in containers, the dirt quality of my garden is really important to me.

I bought a really small pitchfork to stir the pile with. The bin sits in full sun and the inside gets REALLY hot, which is important for compost. I water the bin when I water my garden. I have had a few gnats, but that went away with more dried grass and stirring. In about a month I'll buy another bin and let this one sit. I'd like to have finished compost by the end of April when a lot of my veggies will be done producing and I'll be ready to start new plants.