The Cercadillo Project

“Yolanda had an egg!  Yolanda had our first egg!” the village women yelled today.  The first egg!  We’ve been waiting since early December for this moment!

Yolanda proudly said, “This is my egg from my chickens that I fed!  Thank you, God!”

Nine of the eleven families who started raising chickens are continuing to do so, therefore there was an increased excitement in the group, wondering whose chickens will lay next.There have been many discussions about how the ladies will prepare their first egg.  By the way, Yolanda was going to fry hers. 🙂

(Check out the December blog entry for more details of this project.)

As you may remember, we moved our mission base early this year.  One of the many wonderful benefits of the new house is the number of fruit trees in the yard – bananas, plantains, orange, lime and mango.  Today I was able to take the first crop of bananas to share with my women.  Sooooo fun!

Sorry I didn’t get a pic of the stalk before we cut it down and started sharing bananas with anyone who came near the house in the last few days.  Good news – more bananas are ripening as we speak, and the little trees just keep sprouting up, so there is still a chance to post a picture or two in the future.  🙂

A funny thing about the bananas – I really cannot take ANY credit for them.  Before I moved into this house they had already been planted.  God watered them.  The sun ripened them.  We just watched them grow and harvested them when it seemed it was the right time.  It’s very similar with folks in Cercadillo.  I love watching them grow!

Quick survey:  How many of you knew that Canadians buy their milk in plastic bags?  Until November of last year I was unaware of this somewhat interesting bit of trivia.

So why am I blogging about Canadian milk   bags?  And perhaps a more important question: Why in the world do I now have more than 1000 POUNDS of these milk bags in my garage?

      Our women in Cercadillo are going to make mattresses for their families with them!  We started today!

(Three transparent, rather flimsy bags contain the actual milk, while a sturdier outer bag contains the three inner bags.  The outer bag is the one we’re using.)

First the bags need to be flatten and folded . . .

. . . and then cut into loops which are connected into a long chain.

The chained loops are then rolled into a ball, ready to be crocheted into a mat as Ricki is doing here.

It’s definitely a time-consuming project, but our women appear to be up for the challenge. Many of our children sleep directly on the floor or on a mattress with several other family members.  Mothers are excited to have this opportunity to provide a little more comfort for their families.

We will most likely make many other products from the milk bags, but the ladies wanted to make the mattresses first.

 One huge difference in our crafting time today was the presence of children.  When we are making products for our initiative Cafe y Coser con Cristo, the children are never allowed to participate so that we are not engaging in child labor.  However, today since these are family projects the children were invited to work along side of their mothers or aunts or neighbors. Connecting the loops and rolling the balls were easy and entertaining jobs for the children.  It appeared that “a good time was had by all.”

 For us, the journey from Milk Bag to Mattresses started with a “chance meeting” while I was visiting Toronto District Christian School last fall.   Another guest speaker, Angela Kesthley, (Milk Bags, Unlimited) was presenting her project of recycling milk bags.  She makes handbags and mats and has gone to Haiti to teach women to use the milk bags for income crafting.  Angela was responsible for arranging the 1000+  pound shipment of the bags we received last Friday.    Kudos to you, Angela!

As I said earlier, today was Day One for this project in Cercadillo.  It’s going to be interesting to see where this leads!