Bamboo! It's an amazing plant. Beautiful and useful in countless ways. We have 16 varieties growing on the farm now, with a few more arriving last week. This, of course, is a production, and this past shipment was even more involved than normal. Typically the new plants are sent via American Airlines in boxes of moss as cuttings. Last week, however we had plants as well as cuttings so they were sent by ship. In order to prepare for any new plants, the crew takes the tractor and trailer out into the bush and gets a load of nice black soil from the jungle floor. Then, they load the dori on the trailer, drive to St. Pauls, a small village close by, cross the river to the rice fields and fill 20 bags with rice trash (spent hulls). They haul the bags to the edge of the creek and take them across a few at a time. The soil and hulls are mixed together on the farm to make an amazing potting soil. The planting bags are filled, the cuttings snuggled in. But what makes this a real process is picking the plants up from their place of arrival. It's my exercise for the month. Walking circles between customs and BAHA, American Airlines or the port authority. It's a trip! And somewhat indescribable. Essentially, BAHA has to check everything for pests and sign off on it, customs does their check, charges you loads of money, then signs off on it. It sounds so simple! But we end up walking into at least six offices, most of them more than once. (You know how it feels to go to the DMV in the states? Where no matter how may times you call, by the time you get there you are inevitably missing one piece of paper and will have to go though the whole process again the next day? Well, it's like that at each office you walk into). And its not just me doing all this. I have to have the crew head, Nery, with me as the co-signee, and this past time a broker, his assistant, and the driver of the truck we rented to pick up all these plants.
So that's that. It took two days but the shipment was cleared. Nery and I headed out while the broker and the driver were going to load the truck. Two minutes later I get a call from the broker saying he lost the driver and it was our turn to load. Really? How does this happen?!? (the lesson here is never to leave a job until it is finished!) I am frantically calling the truck driver while myself driving an old landcruiser with no power stearing though the madness that is Belize City at 5:00 in the afternoon. I reached him, they found each other. Phew!
Now because the rains have set in early this year and our driveway gets to be a beast in the rain, the plan was to meet the truck at the top and put the load on the trailer to take back to the nursery. But the trailer had been lent out the day before and had not been returned, nor had phone calls. So the truck tried to come all the way in, and he got stuck. This was not a surprise. We tied him up to the tractor and dragged him back out, loading the plants and boxes in the back of our pickup and on the bush hog of the tractor. Several trips later, they were all safe at the house, and the next step of the process began. We filled the planting bags as usual and got 120 cuttings planted. Then we moved to get the plants in, quickly realizing they were larger than any of the pots or bags we had prepared. Well, obstacle 500. But Belizeans are some of the best recyclers and innovators ever and we got it worked out (in the pouring rain, no less).
A few days later, they are all happy and exploding with new growth! It makes it well worth the work.