Kids, Dirt and Enthusiasm - a Photo Essay by Linda

The kids taking part in the Saturday morning program in the Social centre want to grow gardens. However land is at a premium in this densely populated village where the tiny casas are stacked almost on top of one another, up the mountain slope.

So Margaret and I and Felipa from the Social Centre went with 25 kids to collect some clean dirt. First, the kids all went home to collect plastic bags, sacks or buckets and then we headed out of the village on a dirt road which skirts along the lake.

Behind the ceramic workshop, up a steep path, was a pile of soil where everyone enthusiastically filled their containers and scrambled and slid down the hill to the road and back to the village.

Once back at the centre, we gave each child a small plastic bag, the kind used by nurseries to grow seedlings. They collected small stones to provide drainage in the bottom of the bags, and loved getting muddy while stirring water into the dirt until it was nice and moist.

Everyone took great care to transplant their seedlings of beans and cucumbers and took them home to look after them until the garden space is readied at the school.  It was such a fun time, full of enthusiasm and hope.

Linda Woodward Stanton