Day 4

Friday, June 13th, it was raining when we woke up this morning. I was worried that the weather would hamper our progress at the bio swale site. However, fortunately the rain cleared out for most of the morning. We first finalized where we were going to start excavating with string and wooden beams. We made good progress. Two to three people would be digging in the hole while the rest would move the dirt away from the hill face to prevent erosion.

When we were about a foot deep, I was using the pickax to loosen up the compressed mud and soil when a patch of old garbage likely buried decades ago. We found broken glass bottles, small viles, and small plastic containers. This slowed progress because one side of the bio swale was taken up in an effort to remove the trash. A few minutes after we resumed digging, I then dug up part of the remains of a wild animals. We found a jaw bone and couple of bones that would be in its limbs. We carefully removed the bones and relocated the animal corpse.

By the time we overcame these hurdles, it was time for lunch. So we returned to our host families to quickly eat lunch in hopes to return to our work sites before the afternoon rain started. Lunch was gallo pinto with rice, chiote, fried hashbrown like potato pancakes and passion fruit juice.

Once we returned to the bio swale after lunch, the soil had dried out from the rain earlier this morning. We continue shoveling out more soil for another forty minutes until the rain clouds moved in and began drench the work site. Tomorrow we hope to continue digging until we reach our desired depth of 1 meter into the ground.

-Aidan