Yagoarundi Proyect: protection and diffusion of the biological and cultural diversity of chichiriviche of the coast through permacultural vision.

In this opportunity I want to talk to you about my permaculture project that I call Yagoarundi, and how I fell madly in love with agricultural work, but not before suffering the disappointment of knowing that as much as we love nature, people who live in big urban centers are very far from understanding the cycles of the earth, and we must go through a period of physical and psychological adaptation to be able to really say that we are farmers.

I have with my partner this piece of land of 12,000 Mts2 on the coast of La Guaira in Venezuela. A spectacular oceanic bay with a biological diversity only comparable with the Amazon, but between mountains and the deep ocean.

For 22 years I have shared my life with locals at chichi on weekends, holidays and vacations, and I feel as an organic part of this place. That's how I decided 3 years ago to move from Caracas to Chichi, Leaving my comforts aside to fulfill the mandate of my spirit.

With this work I wanted to honor my ancestors and bring quality food to my home. As I already knew the village quite well, it didn't take me long to adapt to its people, but they see the place where they live in a utilitarian way and not as art, as life. Their relationship with nature is one of dependence, of taking what they need. I confess that this idea shocked me from the beginning, but I kept going.

I am an athlete, and although I had previous experience in agro-ecology schools, but it is not the same to work on weekends in the countryside that dedicating to this activity.
During the first months my whole body hurt, especially my back, I felt sad when I saw how big my task was and how small my person was. I went to college, studied several things, but nothing I learned in school or college helped me with the huge task ahead.

During the first months my whole body hurt, especially my back, I felt sad when I saw how big my task was and how small my person was. I went to college, studied several things, but nothing I learned in school or college helped me with the huge task ahead.

It took me a year to master the agricultural tools, and from not being able to work more than an hour at a time I went on to work full days of 6 or 8 hours. There were times when I sat alone in the field and cried, but I insisted, insisted, insisted. I understood that as silly as it sounds, farming is like one of those machines in the casinos where you have to put and put in coins until the odds are in your favor, but those coins in farming are respect, knowledge, work, patience and mainly love.

So, from the germination process to the bananas we are harvesting right now, my partner and I are taking this venture forward, this new home; between Caracas and the state of La Guaira, between taking care of our herd and falling more and more in love with the land, between the comments of "go ahead" and "you are crazy, you are two women alone". None of that mattered to us, for us it is a task of the spirit, and that is why we are in this community, to say that it is possible.

On some occasions we hired staff to help us with the fence, with the irrigation system or with tasks that demanded a lot of physical strength, we tried to make a brotherhood of work, but many people were only concerned about the money. We consider that some of the people we meet on the road still live on the threshold of physical or psychological survival, and they cannot really understand our message, they do not feel inspired, they do not see humanity as a great brotherhood and that we have to help each other.

We germinated from what we ate, we didn't buy seeds, they were given to us or we exchanged them for food or things of value for the locals.
We did a lot of soil testing the first two years, by the way the soil is type 1, sandy clay loam. We tried to plant peanuts, caraota, auyama, beans, parchita and we planted more than 60 fruit trees and 300 plantain trees in the first third of the land.

We germinated more than 400 species that we gave away and that nobody wanted at first, because the conuqueros and farmers of the area are dedicated to the monoculture of the banana and the avocado because it is more profitable. But we discovered that if we left the sprouted trees anywhere, people would take them away and plant them. So we started leaving them wherever we went. It was something for our reflection.

We worked to build the first yagoarundi module, a space where we could spend the night. We cut wood on the mountain, opened holes, stepped on the ground. Carrying an 80 kilogram wheel for a descent changes your life, that's what I can tell you. I have never slept as well as when I work in the fields.

We have disposed of the resources we have in the forest, but we have committed ourselves to giving back to the earth what it gives us. So we are repopulating the forest with endemic species that are in danger of extinction. It's our way of giving thanks.

I didn't tell you, but the first year we were swindled out of our savings, $3000 we paid for a house that was never built, the preparation of a land that was never planted, we lost a crop of 400 bananas because of the ill will of our neighbors, but we kept going. None of that really mattered to us, or if it did, because it hurt us as human beings, we accumulated a lot of experience from our journey.

Today, people have been appearing in our way who support us in the dream we have, at this moment we are about to make new alliances and to sow more. We do not only want to sow the land, we want to be a fractal of energy that tells people that the land heals, that we have to stop the laziness of living, stop turning our backs on nature and our responsibility as human beings, that we have to take care of our way of life, take care of ourselves, and that the land gives the only health to which we should aspire, THE GREAT HEALTH.