Day 17: Jillian






Today was the first day of our final service project — planting. We planted banana trees with Miriam, Wayland’s host mom, as our guide and teacher.

 

I has assumed we would be getting a little bag of seeds, but we headed into the forest with nothing but shovels and a wheelbarrow. We started by collecting the “seeds,” which were actually just other banana plants. We looked for small banana plants that were close together or in the shade of bigger trees and dug them out. These plants, being in non-ideal locations, would likely never produce very much fruit or would be difficult for the community to harvest. Miriam used a machete to cut off the majority of the stem and leaves, leaving us with the root ball which would serve as the seed for the new plant.

 

With our seeds in tow, we then searched for a place to plant. We came across an open space in the sun and started to dig. We dug holes and then fit the seeds into the ground, being careful to make sure the seed (root ball) was fully covered and that the start of the old tree stuck out. Throughout the morning we managed to plant about 20 banana trees that will hopefully thrive in the sunny area we picked out.

 

Bananas and plantains are staple foods here in Yorkin. There are many different types of bananas and plantains, and they are all used for slightly different things. There are some to boil, to fry, to make into pudding, and to make into bread. And finally, there are bananas to eat raw — bananas that are so much sweeter than the ones you can buy in Seattle.


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