The rain is a topic often discussed on trips to Nicaragua. Last year when I was in Sabana Grande, Nicaragua the community was in the midst of the drought. The rains had been expected in April or May but when we arrived in June the rains had not yet come. Food was starting to grow scarce for both people and livestock and everyone was starting to worry. The concerns about adequate nutrition during the dry season led our team of veterinary students to collaborate with International Agricultural Development (IAD) students and Design Lab students. The IAD students began working with the community to design silage methodologies. The Design Lab students are now designing a silage chopper with the community.
This year when we arrived the community looked completely
different. What had last year been a hot, sweaty walk to town was now a
sloshing hike through an obstacle course of puddles. The rains had arrived, the
day before we did. As I was writing this the dirt roadways turned into fast
flowing creeks, the grass was green and lush, and farmers were tilling their
fields. This year the weather has led to different conversations: How do you design
coops out of local materials that protect chickens from the weather? What
diseases come at the change of seasons and have the chickens been vaccinated
for those diseases? We constantly hid under overhangs, waiting for the rain to
end so we could go talk with more people about the health of their chickens. Sometimes
the chickens themselves joined us under the overhangs.
Comments
Post a Comment