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rainbowgardener
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Very cool thing I am doing outside the garden.

I just wanted to share this, because it is very important to me. I have been accepted on a peacemaking team trip to the US-Mexico borderlands for Feb 2016. (you can see the organization here: https://www.cpt.org/ ) Their mission is to partner with local people in crisis/ conflict areas to transform violence and oppression. On this Borderlands trip, we will witness the impact of the US militarization of the border, where people are getting killed almost daily. We will observe, query, discern, contribute, be witnesses and supporters, learn, and then bring home this story of human struggle and hope. We will meet with migrants, local residents, activists, law enforcement. We will walk desert trails, visit detention centers, and go back and forth across the border.

The mission really has two parts: to make what contribution we can while we are there, helping people, facilitating dialogue, sometimes being a human shield to protect people and to be witnesses and to share as widely as we can what we see and experience while we are there (CPT also sends delegations to Columbia, South America; native peoples in BC, Canada; Iraqi Kurdistan, Israel/Palestine. I am hoping having gained experience on this trip, to go on one of the Middle Eastern ones in 2017). We will be journalling and blogging our trip and then will write and talk about it when we get back. If anyone would like to know more or get the blog address, once we have one, please PM me!

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applestar
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Wow, and WOW! :shock: You are an AMAZING WOMAN. :D

I will definitely read more about these details at leisure.... Of course, the first thought that came to MY mind was "February? Wouldn't that be a busy seedling growing time for rainbowgardener especially since she's moved farther south...." :>

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rainbowgardener
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Yes, indeed, I should have lots of seeds planted by then. I will just have to trust my partner, Jamie, to take care of the seedlings while I am gone. I doubt I will have much in the ground, so it will just be the indoor stuff under lights. It will be ten days, Feb 10 - 20.

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rainbowgardener
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So, I have been on this trip and back. Most of it is off topic for a garden forum. But I thought I would show you some pictures of a community garden we visited. This was in Agua Prieta, a border town just across the wall from Douglas, AZ.
Very poor town, with mostly dirt roads. But a lot of self-help efforts going on. This one was a women's cooperative. They had the big community garden they shared, with chicken coop. There was a community center building the women built with their own hands out of adobe bricks they made themselves. In the center, they had workshops and classes on a variety of topics, teaching the women a lot of skills and crafts, with a small shop for them to sell their products. We had a meal there they cooked for us, with mostly their own garden produce.

Overview of part of the garden
DPT community garden.jpg
Hoop house for shade
DPT hoop house.jpg
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The purplish leaves are vegetable amaranth
DPT hoop house2.jpg
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Irrigation. Note the mesquite trees, grown next to a lot of the beds. They are not leafed out yet, but in the summer they provide shade and mesquite is a nitrogen fixer.
DPT irrigation.jpg

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rainbowgardener
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Here's their chicken coop. I love how everything in Mexico is decorated and colorful. Who paints murals on their chicken coop? :) These people are so impoverished and yet they find time and paint to do this.
DPT chicken coop.jpg
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Growing corn in dry country. Corn is planted in the gully and watered just before the rainy season, so that by the time the (sometimes torrential) rains come, they are well rooted. Then the water is channeled through the gully and the corn gets a ton of water. Old corn stalks are used for mulch so that the ground stays moist for awhile
DPT corn wadi.jpg
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They have two of these rain cisterns, I think at least 500 gallons each, which feed the irrigation system.
DPT rain barrel.jpg
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DPT rain barrel 2.jpg
A keyhole garden the women built with their adobe bricks
DPT keyhole garden.jpg
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ButterflyLady29
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Very neat! Thanks so much for posting the pictures. It's amazing how despite the climate those people are still growing a lot of their own food. And I love seeing how people have learned to cope with their own weather issues.

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applestar
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Wow! Lots of great ideas that we could learn from, Rainbowgardener. It must have been so intriguing. 8)

So having gone to this one, do you think this is something you want to continue to participate in? It's a whole another level from volunteering to help clear weeds in national parks. I say again, you are amazing.

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rainbowgardener
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Yes Christian Peacemaker Teams* has a delegation to Israel-Palestine and one to Iraq-Kurdistan I would love to do one of these. Here's what they say about them:

Palestine-Israel: Road closures, home invasions, checkpoints, separation barriers, and the presence of militant Israeli settlers near Palestinian villages threaten Palestinian human rights. Although the situation for many Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel is grave, the Palestinian and Israeli nonviolence activists remain steadfast, building a nonviolence movement of hope and resilience. CPT delegation members will gain a perspective on how ongoing issues affect daily life, and will experience the power of Palestinian and Israeli citizens overcoming what seem to many to be permanent obstacles.

Delegates will meet with Palestinian and Israeli human rights representatives and peace workers in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. They will visit Palestinian families whose home and livelihoods are threatened by expanding Israeli settlements. They will travel to the city of Al Khalil (Hebron) and the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills and experience firsthand CPT's work alongside Israeli and Palestinian partners. They will challenge the structural violence of the Occupation through nonviolent public witness.

Delegates should be prepared for some physical rigors, such as hiking in rough, extremely hilly terrain, heat in the summer and damp cold in the winter, and generally long days.

Iraq-Kurdistan: The Kurds of northern Iraq faced discrimination, terror and death under the regime of Saddam Hussein. After the 1991 Gulf War, they gained a measure of autonomy and safety under U.S. protection. Therefore, as the security situation deteriorated in rest of Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, thousands of displaced persons fled to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) area in the north, where it seemed safer. However, northern border villages have recently been the site of military attacks by Turkey and Iran.

CPT's delegations will be based in Sulaimani, in the KRG. Delegates will meet with representatives of non-governmental organizations, human rights groups, displaced persons, and government officials. They will gain a perspective on the challenges facing people in northern Iraq and the impact there of violence in other areas of Iraq and along the borders of the KRG. The delegation will participate in the work of CPT's longer-term project of reporting on human rights abuses and supporting local reconciliation. Some physical rigors may be involved.

When they talk about physical rigors, you should take that seriously. They didn't even say that about my trip, just be prepared to walk in the desert. But as a little old lady, I found some of the days quite physically challenging. Not only desert walking, but a bit of rock climbing, lots of up and down hills.

These trips are longer and more expensive (partly because they include the airfare from whatever US city they gather at to the Mid-East). So it will take some saving up and more time fundraising.

*Note. You do not have to be Christian to go on one of these, they just want you to have some sort of spiritual foundation for the work. Every day includes some meditation/ prayer/ devotional/ mindfulness. These folks are not fundamentalist/ Evangelical Christian, they are liberal Christians or sometimes other faiths.

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rainbowgardener
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So here's my next thing!
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I applied for and have been accepted to a three day leadership training in Texas, put on by Climate Reality, Al Gore's environmental Group. It is to give people materials and training to be organizers/ educators on environmental and climate change issues. To be accepted you commit yourself to doing ten activities in the next year-- making presentations, organizing events, etc. Al Gore will be there in person one of the days, so I will get to meet him!

LIcenter
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Sounds exciting, and no doubt in my mind, a very noble cause.



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