This is Bradley Piaskowski, part of the Nourish International group in Nicaragua working for AVODEC. Our group is currently waiting on a presentation for the community on our almost completed chicken coop. This week we cleaned up the chicken homes and brought several chickens in. Also we visited another group that is building a pig farm in a nearby city and helped them clear out the land.
This week on the chicken coop we continued to dig more holes and install several more posts for the house. In addition Bernardo did several of the more technical work for us including building the roof with some help from Steve. When the chickens came in on a truck we carried them to the farm by their legs, up to five birds in one hand. At this point in the project, “two days until the end” we only have to pour cement down to create a floor for the birds under the roof. One of the chickens doesn’t have any feathers and appears like a naked mole rat to our eyes. It’s monstrous. We all left for the other group on Friday and Bernardo/Jorge vaccinated the chickens while we were away.
The other group lives in a small gorgeous mountain community with grass everywhere and incredible views. We didn’t do any work the first day but walked around, played cards and admired the village. The dogs are friendly and love other people. That night we slept to the sound of a thunderstorm. The next day we ate breakfast and played with the children and pet bird. After, we worked in the muddy fields trying to clear it all out and got part of the way through and then left for San Rafael and zip lining. On Sunday we went to a coffee farm where we learned about the coffee beans, rode horses and swam in the lake.
Returning on Sunday we were all exhausted and went to sleep early after the long weekend. Everyone was happy to see us and we were pleased to see the vaccinated chickens and completed roof of the coop. Monday we worked on leveling the ground under the roof for the concrete and played with the children after lunch. At night we played board games with the community and even Bernardo joined in and played