Our first day in Tierra Nueva

Today we traveled by bus for 3 hours from Managua to the village of Tierra Nueva. (New Earth).  Hats off to Oscar our bus driver.  This village is a development project started 6 years ago in partnership with Agros International to lift the community out of generational poverty.  Today there are 173 families that live in the village and work to become sustainable by cultivating various crops including coffee, beans, and paprika -- and to eventually be able to have ownership of the land.

The villagers were so excited to see us to share their progress since we were last here.

We were greeted by Maylan, President of the village Board,  who expressed gratitude on behalf of the village for this project.  She opened her home to us for lunch.  

After lunch they held a welcoming ceremony

This is Chuck with Adrian, our awesome interpreter!

 Then we all (including the kids) trekked at least a half mile down hill to their coffee crops.  The kids were thrilled for us to be there and fought to hold our hands.

This is Carlos (blue jean shirt) who is a resident Agros employee who taught us about the coffee crop. Harvest time is October to January so it is necessary to protect the new buds from a pest called a Broca.  Carlos taught us how to make a trap for the Broca out of plastic coke bottle.  We cut out flaps and inserted a dropper bottle filled with a mixture of ethanol and methanol.  The female Brocas fly into the bottle and cannot get out.  In 20 days they will check the traps and count the caught Brocas.  If there are more than 5 in the trap, the crops may be in danger and they have to use pesticides.  

Back up the hill!

The kids gathered outside our bus and were sad to see us go