Hello Readers! If you’re out there? I seem to hear the sounds of my own salutation echoing off the walls of cyberspace…hmm. Well at any rate, whether you’re there or not, I apologize in the long delay between entries, it’s getting to be finals time here at FIU and I’ve been a bit busy. While my next few entries will be “vintage posts” referring largely to SOIL and the UMiami course completed in January in Cap-Haitien, I first wanted to include a few other updates and thoughts.
In a previous post I mentioned the idea of a lack of practical experience among university students—mainly myself. I also discussed my own fledgling efforts to overcome that gap in knowledge as it is frustrating and quite simply foolish to assume that one can connect or relate to a large portion of the developing world without some knowledge or experience in growing something.
While discussing this topic yesterday with a fellow student at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference at the University of Miami, I found out that my frustrations are not my own. Though she grew up in rural Colorado with an earthy family in a largely agricultural community, she shared my thoughts on the irony of studying development policy and not having any of the practical knowledge that goes into the on the ground practices. As we continued to chat, I eventually shared with her the story I’m going to share with you: my own micro effort to start to bridge my gap in knowledge. Though it’s not much of a story per se, it has been an interesting experience and one worth noting.
I’m not sure when this great impracticality occurred to me but one day I realized that given all of this tree-studying, I had never actually grown any trees. Sure there was the pine tree they gave us in grade school on Arbor day, but it was already a sapling, I hadn’t taken it in its raw fruit form, dried the seed and started from scratch. I was ashamed I hadn’t thought of it before, I guess part of it has to do with climate—given that trees and plants in general grow much better in Florida than Ohio or New Jersey. Still, this is no excuse for someone who claims to study trees, agriculture and development in general.
My task began and after selecting the species, I kicked myself. I’ve been living in Florida—the citrus fruit capital of America—for quite some time now. There could be only one choice and I need only look to my local fruit bowl…the delicious, plump and incomparable ruby red grapefruit. I also realized that an additional connection—remembering the many glasses of grapefruit juice I’d had in Haiti (I memorized “ji chadek” pretty quickly!—though it’s a bit different species in Haiti, the grapefruit in principal was first cultivated in the Caribbean by a man named Shaddock, hence “chadek” in Kreyol).
After using moderns mans greatest tool (tongue and check)—the Googles, I was able to surmise the process by which I could begin.
I started by eating several grapefruit and choosing what I deemed to be the best and most delicious—this was not hard. I then saved the largest seeds from that fruit, washed them and allowed them to dry overnight on a paper towel. I then began the quest for dirt. While I thought I’d prefer using some kind of compost or peat moss (I have learned SOMETHING from all this research), I had to settle for the darkest soil I could find around FIU. I grabbed my bucket, improvised with a few containers out of the recycling bin and began my search for dirt ( I was also accompanied by my fellow coconut hunter Sandeep, the most mischievous man South India has ever produced). We looked all over campus and finally near the Computer Science/Environmental Studies building, we found some relatively dark and rich soil. We filled the bucket and various containers, returned to my apartment and buried the seeds.
After several weeks it seemed I was religiously watering small containers full of dirt. Nothing emerged but I kept faith. As it began to get warmer I moved the containers to the small area outside my bedroom windowsill. Still weeks passed and nothing happened—I kept watering. It would appear that going away was the best solution as I came back one weekend only to find that small green stalks were emerging from the damp abyss. Finally! While this may not necessarily ensure my green thumb award, it was a good experience in getting my hands dirty. As for how the grapefruit will taste? Check back with me in 6 or 7 years….The point is that the process has begun, green things are growing!
I leave you this week with this “tree-mendous” article from the New York Times about Trees, enjoy...
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/tree-mendous/?hp
PS- Should have photos of my small grapefruit children up soon!
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