Day 10: Finishing the Biojardinera
- Natalie Babic
- Jun 23
- 3 min read
Today I woke up around 6:30 am, got ready and had breakfast, as usual. For breakfast I had one of the tamales being sold at bingo night. Autumn, Ibeth and I headed over to the corner store where David picked up all of us and we headed to the job site.
Today we were all working at the biojardinera (bioswale) again. We started off with bringing the remaining small rocks down to the biojardinera in bags. We formed an assembly line to bring it down the steep hill safely and effectively. After we finished laying the rocks, some people from the group started collecting plants to plant in the biojardinera. Their roots will help filter the gray water coming from the house. I am excited to see how much the plants grow by the time the next engineering abroad team comes in January. The other people in the group started digging small trenches for the PVC piping to bring the water down to the biojardinera. We also cut and glued more PVC for all the turns and drop downs as well as fitted up the grease trap. The grease trap is a bucket where gray water flows in, heavy solids sink down and lighter objects float up. There is an exit tube placed in the middle of the water, where the cleaner water is. This way, you only get contaminated water flowing into the biojardinera, not solids. Then the family can clean out the grease trap whenever necessary.
If solid waste flowed in the biojardinera, there could be obstruction of water flow. The biojardinera is also meant to filter liquids, it won’t do anything for solid objects.
Once all the PVC work was done and the biojardinera was planted, we just filled in the holes around the grease trap and covered the pipes with soil as well to protect them from the sun. After that, we were done! We celebrated and took some photos all together with the biojardinera (see below).
Once our work at the biojardinera was complete, we went back to the host families for a quick lunch around 12:30 pm. We had yummy chicken, rice, beans, and chopped vegetables (I think chiote mixed with some other stuff). After lunch, David picked us up and we headed to the Tami Lodge for another sustainability discussion.
We started off with discussing the 17 UN sustainability goals and how they related to the work we were doing in Providencia and the work Green Communities is doing as a whole. One of the things we discussed was “clean water and sanitation”. We related that back to the work we did at the biojardinera, and how the water coming from that home is now cleaner than it was before and is no longer contaminating the natural water supply. We also discussed how farming organically and ecologically (the type of farming Green Communities is supporting and developing) helps protect the water supply. With conventional farming methods, pesticides and top soil flow into the rivers and eventually the ocean and damage water and everything that depends on it (damaging water = damaging all living things). We further discussed how our planet does not depend on us, but how we depend on the planet. All of the destruction, over exertion of our resources and pollution will only bring harm to us. Once we are gone, nature can repair itself, but in order for us to continue on as a species we need to take better care of the things we need to live.
After our discussions, we had some free time in the lodge to buy coffee and other treats. We all bought a lot of coffee bags of coffee from the ecological organic local farms. I also bought some hot sauces and jams that Doña Flora makes (the woman who we built the biojardinera for). We also saw the Canadian students who are staying at the Tami Lodge currently and said our goodbyes to them.
David drove us all back to our home-stays around 4 pm. Autumn, Ibeth and I took showers then relaxed until dinner at 7 pm. For dinner we had “Sopa de Leche” which was very good. After dinner we played card games and Jenga with Wardy, the young dreamer in our homestay. He will be spending the night with his sister tomorrow and at school during the day, so we won’t see him anymore before we leave. So we all said our goodbyes and are now getting ready for bed.
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