Cooperative Living

We spent one day meeting with the people of the community and touring around. It's a big deal when gringos come to town, so a lot of neighbors came by to see us. The house we stayed in is off of the road, but most of the others can only be reached by foot. We took a rocky path through the mountains and saw a couple of different houses. We stopped at one where we ate lunch and met with a Circle of Friends and Neighbors. The Circle is one of Fundacion Simiente's big projects. They create co-ops in the community between a group of women. The women receive animals from Heifer Project and pass on the offspring to other women in their Circle. They also learn how to build stoves that use less wood and pipe the smoke out of their houses. Currently, Simiente is working on introducing bio-digesters into the Circles. The house we stayed in had a bio-digester. It uses methane from cow manure (which there's plenty of) to power gas burners. These projects have made life a lot easier for the women and their families.