Country of Origin: United States
Length of Stay: three weeks
Impressions:
I spent three weeks at the Atitlan Organics farm. My first week we worked on banana circles in Tzununa which will serve as grey water waste treatment systems for local families. The banana circles absorb the rich phosphates in soaps and other household run offs and turn them into food and medicinal herbs. It's part of an externally funded initiative to mitigate grey water runoff into the lake which is partially causing the yearly cyanobacteria blooms. One morning, we climbed the mountainside behind Tzununa to two small villages: Pajomel and Chuitzanchac. We hiked through the river, a small Jocote forest, passed vegetable fields and lots of mountain oaks. After taking a few breaks with some pretty sweet views of the lake we eventually dug and structured 5 banana circles, planted them all and still made it down in time for lunch.
My second week was much more tame, less hiking and lots of farming. I trimmed a few trees in preparation for a rainy season yield, helped move the rabbits to their new home, harvested vegetables and herbs, and prepared our produce for the market on Thursday. Market day was great. We had ample time to unwind from the week and hung out with locals and some tourists. As the morning went by we eventually sold all of our produce and made a really decent profit.
The following week we set up a garden guild. First we cleared an entire section of the farm overgrown with weeds, mulched everything, and set up all the rocks we dug up into a path and different garden sections. Then, we planted medicinal herbs, nitrogen fixers, edible roots and other vegetables and finished it all off with several layers of carbon and nitrogen rich organic fertilizers. Several rainy seasons will eventually turn the whole area into a food forest.
Overall, I learned a lot on the farm, from grey water management using wetland plants like bananas and taro, to preparing produce for a market and planting a small biodiverse space with high yields for personal consumption and healthy benefits for the local ecosystem. I'm really happy I was able to spend a good chunk of time at the farm because there's a lot to learn and it was a great environment to do it in. Another added benefit was the serene landscape of the guest house, we were surrounded by a coffee forest with lots of birds and were only a five minute walk from the lake. I know some people need electronics but making dinner by candle light and waking up early to the sound of bird calls put my mind at ease. That, coupled with the very tangible and delicious rewards of farm work and the nice little hike to the farm in the morning to wake me up and warm up my muscles was vacation enough for me. I would recommend volunteering at Atitlan Organics in a heartbeat, just make sure you carve enough time out of your schedule because you might not want to leave. Also, make sure you visit the waterfall a short ways above the farm, no words to describe that place, you just have to go.
