Unavoidable Adventure: UHDP - A bit borring of a blog post

After midcourse we ventured back into agro-world and spent six days at the Upland Holistic Development Project, or UHDP. This program works with small villages to improve agricultural practices and quality of life. They teach about organic and sustainable agriculture, hygiene and sanitation, and even women’s empowerment activities. We girls shared a giant room filled with bunked beds, so we basically had a sleepover every single evening.

I made a natural pesticide out of galangal root, lemon grass, and neem leaves all massed together and steeped like tea. It was supposed to be for a day, but for the constraints of time, it was closer to 10 minutes. We made Effective Microorganisms (EM) which is basically a plant slurry hyped up on salt and molasses so the microorganism population skyrockets as it sits for a month (it smells like bad homemade wine). This can then be used in the pig food or anywhere that microorganisms would be helpful. We also made pig food, out of sliced bamboo shoot and molasses. This they mix with the dry pig feed so they spend less on the commercial product and the pigs get full on natural nutrients.

We helped build a house! And by that I mean a mud house was build and we put aesthetically pleasing mud on the outside while simultaneously getting our feet attacked by biting/stinging ants and attempting not to fall off the edge to get around to the other side. We mixed the mud, rice husk, and water together with our feet. Consequently, it was a very messy, yet fun day.