BLUElab Hagley Gap May 2015 Trip

Today we met at 9 again at the square, and Euton drove us to the school. The team is actually not as sore as we thought we would be after the hike. We all agreed that the walk up to Minto is a lot worse than the 18-mile hike.  Euton brought some coffee from his farm for us to buy. Can’t wait to try it!

While in the car, Johann and I had a conversation with Euton about the possibility of introducing composting to the farmers. The teachers expressed that composting is definitely something the community would be interested, and the team has been brainstorming since then. We think it would be cool if we can start a composting station at the community center/clinic or select some families, potentially the host families, to start composting by giving them supplies, and they can spread the words around. Euton thinks the farmers will definitely be interested in using compost because right now, the farmers mainly use goat or cow maneuver, and fertilizers do get expensive. We can’t wait to introduce this project idea to the team in Michigan and see what we can do with it!

For the rest of the day, we finally finished the white boards and will be implementing them in the classrooms tomorrow. We found out that they also function as projector screens, and we can’t wait until the teachers start using them.  During lunch, we had a very good conversation about our ideas for what BMP could do with Joe, Vanessa and Chevanize. We all agree that there are a lot hidden talents in the community, but they are not getting the spotlight. Chavenize thinks that it might be cool if we can start a creative club in the community to encourage artistic expression, and maybe Rohan can sell the products in his store. In the afternoon, Katie and the Julias went to the 2nd grade class room and taught them about sound.



Euton came back at the end of the school day with new screws and glass, so we finished up the lid of the solar dehydrator and applied the caulking to dry over night. After school we quickly measured  and took pictures of the classrooms for the soundproofing sub-team. On the way back home, Euton took a detour and showed us his farm. It was really cool, and he was so enthusiastic about what he was doing. He works full time as a BMP staff and manages his farm in the morning before work as a hobby because he just love farming so much. We got to try his bananas, grape fruit, jack fruit, and peaches. He also showed us all the coffee plants and made us coffee from freshly dried coffee beans. We had it with condensed milk, and it was the best cup of coffee I've ever had.

After school today, we finally got to meet the teachers and had a conversation about what improvement they want to see in the classroom and our ideas for projects. The meeting went really well, and we have so many directions that we can go forward as a team.  In general, the teachers would just love to see a overall renovation of the classrooms which includes painting the walls, replacing the chairs and tables, and having more books and a book shelf.

We had such an action packed weekend! You should sit down in your chair and get comfortable because this is going to be a long blog post. On Saturday morning, we went to the school to work on the white boards and the solar dehydrator. Since we need to leave Monday and Tuesday for testing, our goal was to finish the solar dehydrator by the end of the day. Feeling nervous about completing all the work, we asked Euton for his power drill so we can have two people drilling instead just one. The day started off really productive but by 1pm, the power went out again! Without the drills working, we couldn’t get any work done, so we just headed home early and chilled and napped for the rest of the day.

Saturday was hike day! We started the day off at the very beginning at 12am. We met Rohan, our tour guide, at the square and Euton drove everybody up the mountain at the starting point of Jacob’s Ladder. Jacob’s Ladder is the infamous start of the Blue Mountain hike. It got its name because it is a mile of very steep road. With Rohan leading in the front, the nine travelers plus Joe, Vanessa, and Chevanize started the hike. I was honestly scared that I might pass out from exhaustion, but the hike actually wasn’t that bad! All if us made it through Jacob’s Ladder and took a long break at the view point at Portland’s Gap, which is thehalf way point of the hike. It was about 2am in the morning. All of us were feeling pretty delirious and had intense conversations about fighting duck-sized horses and horse-sized ducks while lying down looking at the stars. After Jacob’s Ladder and Portland’s Gap, Chevanize wasn’t feeling so good so Rohan stayed back with her at the Ranger’s house. After losing our dear tour guide and wonderful companion, the rest of us continued while listening to a combination of Hair Spray, Mumford and Sons, and Kendrick Lamar. We made it to the peak around 4:45am and were soooooo exhausted and sooooooo cold. The eight of us huddled in a circle, curled up and took a nap and slept through the sunrise! It was ok though because it was extremely cloudy up there, and we would not have seen anything even if we were awake. After the sun came out, we explored around. There wasn’t much to look at except for an abandoned blue house. It was so misty, and the house looked haunted. We were sleep deprived too, and thinking back, it almost felt like a dream. We didn’t stay up there for too long since everybody was frozen.  We hiked our way down quickly, wishing for an magical elevator to take us down. The hike in total was 18 miles and 9 hours long. I can’t believe I managed through that as it was my first time hiking.  Euton, our savior as usual, picked us up at the bottom of Jacob’s Ladder.

Beautiful view up on the way to the peak Group picture are the peak! We are grumpy because we couldn't see the sun rise BLUElab on the "haunted" house At Jacob's Ladder Now we are happy because we finished the hike (except for Chevanize's shoe fell apart) Usually Euton would take the hikers directly back home to res,t but we had the go to the Minto School and finish up the solar dehydrator, so we can test it on Monday. We spent a lot of time working on the lid of the solar dehydrator, but when it was time to connect the frame and the glass together, we found out that the hard ware store gave us a mirror, instead of the glass we asked for! We felt pretty defeated, but there was nothing we could do except to go home for now and ask Euton to exchange the mirror for glass tomorrow in Kingston. We also found out that we ran out of caulking and screws, so Euton is getting some of those for use too. Thank you so much Euton!!!! You are our savior!!

After we got home, the team went to Good Vibes to clean up and passed out on our beds. After a lot of sleeping afterward, we had the usual team meeting and talked about what we have to accomplish by the time we leave in 2 days. We talked to Joe, and he said he would be able to test the solar hydrator for us and send us the data if we can’t fit anything in by Tuesday. Thank you so much Joe!!!! You are our savior too!!!