"Dam" Rocks

On Friday, we woke up early and went to the Rincon Claro farm. They're suffering from a water infrastructure problem, which often leaves them without water during the dry season. We asses that their dam was too small, and the irrigation system needed to be repaired, so we went to work to fix these problems! Half of the students began collecting large rocks from the farm and loading them in the back of a truck, while the rest of the students dug out space to lay new PVC pipes. After loading the truck was full of rocks, it drove to a spot about 10 minutes away and unloaded. The students then walked to this spot and began transporting the rocks down a long pathway to the water reservoir. The entire process took us about 3 hours, without our help, it would have taken 2 months.

After completing the work on the farm, the students returned to the school for lunch and workshop preparation. We delivered the business communication skills workshop first, which was met with much enthusiasm! The farmers enjoyed the interactivity of the workshop by role-playing sales scenarios. After this workshop, we held a sales and negotiation workshop to teach the farmers about the various markets that exist and how to negotiate the best price for their products. We had an interactive component during this workshop as well, where we divided into pairs and practiced negotiating the sales price. We concluded the afternoon with a brief English lesson and a successful game of "futbol!"

A Dip in Luxury

On Thursday of our Brigade, we visited the Hotel Bristol Buenaventura (http://www.thebristol.com/buenaventura/eng/travel.html). It is a luxurious hotel located on the Pacific coast of Panama. We were given a tour of the grounds to see the 2 pools and 5 or 6 restaurants on location. The hotel has rooms and well as villas that sleep up to 8 people. The villas are amazing! This is a definitely a place I would love to stay. After touring, we sat down in an air-conditioned gazebo to sample the restaurant's fare and meet the chef. Our intention at this hotel was to assess what products they purchase and in what quantities on a weekly basis, so that we could report to the farmers we are working with. We want them to be able to sell their vegetables to hotels in order to gain more profit. We were served lemon-pineapple smoothies and freshly made empanadas during our meeting. Delicious!

The meeting was extremely helpful, and we visited the beach on the way home to celebrate! While we were swimming, the farmers went shopping. They used their $1300 capital investment to purchase materials for their farms in order to improve infrastructure. After returning home from the beach, we had a large group meeting where we determined what workshops would be most effective for the next day. We assessed what the farmers' needs were and what knowledge gaps existed. We then crafted 2 workshops and an English lesson for Friday. The first workshop would be about business communication and the second about sales and negotiation.

All in a Day's Work

Today was an awesome and productive day! We spent our entire morning at the Rincon Claro farm learning to transplant green onions and culantro in order to make it multiply. It was fun to get our hands dirty and experience the everyday life of the farmers we're working with. We returned home for a lunch of chicken and rice, then got started right away with workshops. We delivered a lesson on basic business and accounting skills so that the farmers can keep track of their earnings and expenses. We followed that with a marketing workshop about potential clients and how to present themselves. We also discussed the idea of creating brochures for a tangible marketing material, and will most likely hold a "hands-on" workshop to make a brochure for each farm. We followed our workshops with an English lesson where we all introduced ourselves ("My name is...") and a game of Pictionary with Spanish and English words. After the lessons we had a community-wide "futbol" game, which was a blast! We followed the game with a delicious Panamanian fried rice dinner. It's Rachel's birthday, so we celebrated with cake and a bonfire. And in case the cake didn't satisfy our sweet tooth, we also made s'mores as a cultural sharing activity. We had a great and fulfilling day in the community of Rincon Claro.

New Year, New Project

We're all getting very excited for our next brigade. We leave tomorrow morning for Panama City, and then will be transported to the community of Rincon Claro on Tuesday. This year, UT Austin is working with a group of 6 farms to help market their agricultural projects to hotels. We'll first be working to sell their products to the Bristol Buenaventura, a gorgeous resort on the Pacific Coast. This process is intended to create a marketing model for future sales, as well as other farms in the area. We emphasize professionalism, local products, and organic farming. Stay tuned for stories about our adventure. It's sure to be a good one!