Yesterday the kids were off school for some holiday that no one really seems to know anything about. They it's some kind of war date or something but don't know anything about it. So on this day off we took 14 kids to the agriculture company that has been giving us food for the last couple of months.
The company is located about 45 mins away to the North. The place is gigantic, 5000 hectares or 12,350 acres and 2500 employees. Also included is a 24 kilometer water canal and 3 big lakes they use for storing water. This is only their 3rd year in operation and Fred and I were amazed that they got all of that built in 3 years. At this place they grow corn, peppers, and beans. Their experimental crops right now are artichoke and asparagus. They ship their peppers all over the world, mostly to the United States though. So if you use paprika there's a good chance I saw where it came from. Since it never rains where they have their plantations they have drip systems running through all of their corn and artichoke. The peppers get by with the minimal rain and a little help from a canal. All their water running through the drip systems is fertilized so I'm pretty sure I saw the biggest corn in my life. Also they don't have a lot of insects there so instead of using pesticides they just put sugar water in buckets throughout their fields the sugar water attracts all the insects and then they drown.
Another cool thing is that the owners were really into horses. So as a side project they had a bunch of show horses which I guess it a pretty popular past-time in Peru. In their herd they had the horse that has won the most prizes of any horse in Peru. So we all got to take our picture with him.
They also fed us a good lunch while we were there and then let the kids play some games on their soccer field. So overall it was a great little field trip.
Kids with best horse in Peru
Close up of the best horse in Peru
Water reservoir
Man in the black shirt was teaching the kids all about the plants. How they grow, the parts and how to harvest them. It was very interesting. He is also the guy that's been responsible for giving the kids the food. He's a really great guy.
Learning about artichoke. Did you know that what we eat from artichoke is really the flower?
Carving the pumpkin was a lot of fun, I'll have to take some pictures of the final product when it's all lit up tonight. No one here ever carves pumpkins or does anything on Halloween because they all believe it is and evil day, and that if you have any fun you are pretty much worshiping demons or whatever. I'm trying to break that dogma.
