Day 6: Learning About Mesquite & Amaranth
Hola todos! Wow what a day! Though it was a Saturday, we left for work after a breakfast of watermelon, ham, and pancakes at the usual time to keep up the progress on our dryers. Along the way, we had a new amigo – a local dog – follow us from the entrance of Suchil to our worksite. We cracked jokes about about the newest member of our team, joking that she was thinking about an adjective that described her and what animal she was – referring to the icebreakers we did when we first met the community members.
We worked for a couple of hours, making some good progress on the dryers. I cut some plywood for the sides of Team One’s dryer with Namrata and helped assemble the platform with Carlos, Antonio, and Petri. Currently, Team One’s dryer frame is built and most of the interior pieces are cut and ready to assemble.
After working, we gathered with the community members over snacks (seasonal tropical fruits like mangos and guavas as well as chips and galletas) to ask clarification questions about mesquite process. In order to prepare for our secondary project of improving the mesquite flour production process as a whole, we discussed challenges in the milling process and what the community members currently do with the waste material. We discovered that the community members have innovated many alternative uses for mesquite by-products not used in the flour. For example, seeds that cannot be processed by the mill can be replanted to grow more mesquite trees and the larger pieces left over from sifting can be used as cow feed and a way to attract bees that produce bees that produce a high quality flavorful honey.
Our meeting with the community members was immediately followed by a visit from two representatives (Carina and Pete) from Puente, a local nonprofit that collaborates with Tejiendo Alianzas (the nonprofit we are working with). Puente was started by alumni of Amigos de las Americas and in the Oaxaca region, works with a co-op of local amaranth producers to cultivate, harvest, and sell amaranth. We had an interesting discussion about the importance of developing the right technologies for small-scale farmers such as ways to separate the small rocks from the amaranth seeds and threshing the amaranth.
After a lunch of steak and chilanquiles (like non-spicy enchiladas) with salsa verde, we headed to land owned by Minerva “Mine”, one of the mesquite flour project members who also is a leader in the amaranth co-op in Suchil. Minerva is very much a chingona (in English, a badass). She is one of the very few women who grow and harvest amaranth, which is a very male-dominated field. She also just has an incredible wealth of knowledge about plants, animals, machinery, construction, and even soil. On her land she grows bananas, peaches, amaranth, corn, and higuerillas – a spikey plant with a speckled seed used as an oil in soaps. We received a tour of the amaranth gathering center on Minerva’s property, and learned about how they plant, harvest, clean, and sell the amaranth seeds. It was interesting to compare mesquite to amaranth. Mesquite is considered a luxury product in cooking while amaranth usually is not, and mesquite has a wider variety of uses. An interesting thing for us to learn since we thinking improving storage at the mesquite flour facility may make the overall process more efficient is that amaranth producerst don’t have the same challeges with pests during storage because amaranth isn’t sweet like mesquite. We also learned that amaranth is more valuable when popped and has a pretty high profit margin when used in sweets called alegrías (which literally means “joys”). I hope I get to try some before we leave!
After visiting Minerva, we headed back to hotel for a team meeting and dinner of homemade pizza and hibiscus juice. Though some members of our team have struggled with homesickness and adapting to the fairly packed schedule, we ended the day in high spirits. It was our first weekend-like day in Mexico so far. We dipped our feet into the pool, played barefoot soccer with mandatory celebration dances, and two games where you try not to laugh – the Ha Ha Ha game, and Honey, I love you. We ended the day by playing werewolves and Peanut Butter & Jelly. It’s great because I can see we’re getting to the point where we can tease each other and laugh at each other and ourselves, which has been really awesome for team morale. Tomorrow we’ll leave at 10am for a cultural day of exploring a local archeological site which was an outpost for the Monte Alban site in Oaxaca City and visiting the community museum. I cannot wait!!
