Student Blogger: Ja’layah H
Today we took a little 30 minute trip to a chicken farm. Once we got off the the bus there were these adorable little sheep that meet us the fence while we waited for the farmer and the representative from Arawak (the major poultry producer in Trinidad). The chickens were in these gigantic pens that held about 8,000 chickens. The chickens themselves were still shedding their baby feathers, which were so adorable but also bad for my allergies. They were also feeding from these tube-like things that hung from a wire. The feed was made from a combination of corn, soya (or soy beans) and fish meal. Now Arawak is a type of company that assists farmers with their development and will provide a type of compensation for when an event occurs such as the flooding that happened in Trinidad a few months ago. Also their farm was Trinidad’s biggest chicken provider for KFC. In case you aren’t aware yet, Trinis really love their KFC.
Student Blogger: Emily H
This afternoon we went to Carmody Hall where we helped plant a grow box for vegetables and herbs. The type of grow boxes we made were created by Jacob Mittleider. Our grow-box was 4”x15”, grow-boxes can be any length but they generally don’t go over 5 feet in width, width depends on how far you can reach the plants from either side. The depth of the grow-box all depends on what type of plant your are putting into it, herbs only need 3 to 6 inches of soil, peppers need around 12 inches and root crops or tuber vegetables need 14 to 16 inches. There are many materials that you can use to construct your grow-box including, bamboo, wood, or cinder blocks, for our box we used cinder blocks. Underneath the grow-box some people consider sheet of plastic but they can retain water and create more bacteria for the plants. We used cardboard for ours, cardboard kills the grass underneath it in two weeks and will become soil for the plants. The soil we used in our grow-box was three parts sand and one part planting soil all mixed together, we used sand so that the water would be able to escape from the box. During the dry season they use more of the planting soil so that the water will stay with the plants longer.
After we had put in the grow-box we had a Christmas party with the youth from the area and got to talk to students from UWI. All of the students from UWI were extremely nice and fun to be around. While we were at the Christmas party there were stilt walkers that were amazing and took our breath away. Our afternoon was a very great experience getting to help the community and get to know them as well.
