Nigh Ox Newsletter

December 2000

Giovani Tinoco tests the Martin Ditcher.

Giovani loads a slipscraper.

Jim Harrington controls the grader depth as Duane Westrate drives his team.

Duane shows harness fitting.

An Exciting Exchange with Nicaragua and Honduras

Kalamazoo, Michigan

Even as the snow blew, our friends from Nicaragua and Honduras eagerly studied Tillers' animal-powered tools and practices. Ariel Espinoza and Jhovany Tinoco were driven by a list of priorities topped by more efficient methods for building rural roads. RELATA, their employer, networks Latin American Animal Traction projects. It nurtures the development of rural businesses that support small farmers. About 10 private metal shops are supported in each of three countries: Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. Last year the shops in Nicaragua built and sold 1,500 plows and nearly as many seeders. Most recently, RELATA has fostered the creation of tertiary rural road building crews to contract with municipalities to improve roads long ignored and eroded. These groups are drawn from low-income farmers with the employment generation support of CARE International. RELATA has helped form and equip 25 groups in Nicaragua, 15 in Honduras, and a few in El Salvador. The tools include ox-drawn ripping plows, a 2-wheeled grader, and a dump cart. The farmers provide the oxen and the manual labor. Several groups have built more than 20 kilometers of roadway. CARE finds the animal-powered work is far more tolerable and much faster than handwork.

Upon the arrival of Ariel and Jhovany, we quickly showed them Tillers' array of excavating tools and the Abbey Collection. By the next morning, they had revised their list of priorities for us to work on. Indeed, each morning from November 28th to December 6th, they had refined or added new objectives, as well as more layers of clothing. The core learning goals emerged as:
* Identifying additional road building implements that were low-cost and effective,
* Finding horse collar and harness designs to reduce sores and injuries to animals,
* Solving the problem farmers are experiencing in plowing water catching trenches on sloping fields,
* Designing a better animal-drawn garbage hauling system,
* Selecting animal-powered planting and weeding implements to meet the needs of medium-sized farms, and
* Visualizing new long-term means for training and inspiring RELATA staff.

Ariel is a coordinator of project development. Jhovany designs tools, develops production jigs, and trains the artisans at cooperating metal shops. They both have the ability to appraise the effectiveness of tools and the practicality of manufacturing them locally on limited budgets. They are also committed to making their program work. It was a thrill for Tillers' volunteers and staff to work with them. In spite of our language barriers, they learned quickly and shared many witty observations.

Duane Westrate responded to the challenge of improving horse harnessing. He spent a number of hours over four days helping them learn about good harness and how it affects driving horses. He took them to Amish harness shops, wagon makers, and farms for a little extra inspiration. Both Jhovany and Ariel were impressed with the Amish sense of family and community. Their feeding methods and dairy refrigeration without the use of electricity piqued their interests as well.

A reader of the Nigh Ox, Jim Hutchinson, called to volunteer his skills as a road builder. He and his wife, Connie, drove in from Rockford Illinois and spent a night in the Carroll Abbey Guest House between road-building discussions and demos. He brought very low-cost, but effective, transits to sight level grades along roadways. While it was Jim's first time working road graders behind horses, he teamed up with Duane to put on a very professional demonstration. The practical knowledge he has of roads was readily apparent. In addition to giving Ariel and Jhovany support for the challenges of building roads without John Deere equipment, Jim enjoyed working early tools like the slip scrapers drawn by oxen.

Jim and Duane added a lot of expertise where Tillers' staff was weak and a group of six volunteers covered for staff weakness in Spanish, most generously and on short notice.

Jim and Virlee Weaver had the vision and willingness to present the promise of this exchange to the Rotary Club of Indianapolis where Jim is a Past President. They covered Tillers' "out-of-pocket" expenses. Tillers was delighted to be able to give a full commitment of staff time and Guest House lodging.

In January, as the next step in developing this exchange, Jim Weaver and Dick Wheeler will join Dick Roosenberg on a follow-up trip to Nicaragua and Honduras to help Ariel and Jhovany as they build and test the selected prototypes. Tillers' Fall Appeal is helping cover costs of materials for the project.

The selection of road grading tools included a grading tool that we call the Martin ditcher, a slip-scraper with a rounded cutting edge, a stone boat, and a wood-framed grader with blades at off-set angles. In addition, Ariel and Jhovany are eager to build a garbage hauling system designed around forecarts and light gooseneck trailers.

As they prepared to leave, they stuffed horse harness parts in their bags and packed a dozen books and videos to add to RELATA's library of training materials. RELATA is computer empowered which enabled them to take a PowerPoint report on the exchange and copies of 150 digital images that they shot with Tillers' camera. All this fit on a little ZIP disc. The visual report should facilitate the task of convincing others that there still are low-cost technologies within farm communities and the rural history of the United States that are appropriate to international development.

Tillers looks forward to continuing to support the work of RELATA and especially to help these bright and committed young professionals meet the challenges facing them.