Preparing each new and unusual food for the first time, Zapatista students chop even more unusual spices as part of their preparation for consuming plants from the schools’ food forests. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateA Zapatista education promoter and his student cut the tips of chayote vines in preparation for cooking a delicious stir-fry with malanga. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateBoys are expected to fully participate in kitchen duty at Zapatista schools where food is both grown and prepared by the students themselves. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateA Zapatista sautés highly nutrious and tasty hibiscus flowers with onion, garlic, ginger, and jalapeno ~ something neither the educators nor student had ever eaten. They loved it – at least most of them did and everyone tried it! www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateThis giant gnarley root of Malaga will feed many Zapatista students when cooked together with bright, green tendrils of the Chayote squash vine – both foods are excellent food forest plants. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateStudent participation during the “hands-on” kitchen part of this Zapatista Food Forest nutrition workshop during July 2017 was excellent. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateWood fires burn day and night to feed dozens of volunteers working in the Zapatista centers known as Caracoles. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateSpanish is the bridge language used during all the Zapatista Food Forest workshops. These students are working hard to translate the Spanish names into mother tongue of the critically important greens and spices. At the end, almost every plant was translated into Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Tojolabal. For fun, we also shared English language names. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateStudents always take detailed notes at Food Forest workshops. Here young Zapatistas prepare to share information about nutrition and preparation different foods to be grown in their Food Forests and prepared in their schools’ kitchens. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateThe young Zapatista participants in the Food Forest workshops travel long distances and are expected to make detailed presentations to their schools and communities when they return home. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateZapatista educators and students carefully record and analyze information shared during the quarterly Food Forest workshops; future workshops will be guided by the results of this intensive vetting process. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateFood Forest plants rich in minerals, vitamins, and flavor are examined in four languages during the July 2017 workshop in a Zapatista center located in the center of Chiapas, Mexico www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateZapatista students discuss food nutrition issues of minerals and vitamins in front of the greens and spices chart during the July 2017 Food Forest workshop. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateGuest presenter at the July 2017 Food Forest nutrition workshop contemplates the intensity of Zapatista students and education promoters as they tackle challenging subject matter. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateThe traditional Mayan “milpa” of corn, squash and beans remains at the center of Zapatista life, but experiments in bio-intensive agriculture and restorative, Food Forests represent important educational and ecological advances. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateMore than a dozen Food Forest fruits were chosen for making fruit salads in order to highlight the possibilities of enjoying sweet food without consuming processed sugars. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateStudents carefully construct their own fruit salads utilizing a variety of fruits they have never tasted, but which will be included in the Zapatista Food Forests of Chiapas, Mexico. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateZapatista students delight in the naturally sweet flavors of more than a dozen Food Forest fruits during a three-day nutrition workshop which repeatedly highlighted the dangers of processed white sugars. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateA successfully growing cooperative or island of edible and useful plants featuring Malanga (large leaves in front), achira (narrow leaves and red flowers in front) with an erosion barrier of vetavir (light colored grass in back). www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateHomemade fertilizer: Zapatista students mix manure, water, sugar. and powdered milk in the blue bucket; and water and ash in another bucket. The contents of the water/ash bucket will be poured into the blue bucket and mixed well to support three weeks of fermentation. The entire stinky mess will be topped off with a splash of hydrogen peroxide to aid the fermentation and then more water. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateThis beautifully dressed Tojolabal young woman mixed ash and water without splashing a drop – even when she added it to the manure mixture. This fertilizer (called AgroPlus) is prepared on site and then ferments for about 21 days before it is used as a foliar spray within the Zapatista Food Forest. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateZapatista students make the last mixture as ashes hit cow poop! After another endless stirring mixed, hydrogen peroxide is added, and topped with water and the fun begins! It is covered with a cloth and ferments for about three weeks. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateMassive coconut palm fronds destined for a lowland Food Forest fill the back of one of the Schools for Chiapas trucks at the July 2017 Food Forest workshop. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateZapatista students carefully check their donated plants against the inventory control sheet. The plants have traveled from the Schools for Chiapas nursery to supplement the edible forests that schools in this zone are planting and maintaining. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateSome of those trees seem to be flopping over and as tired as all the workshop participate after three days of intensive study and reflection. Note that the Schools for Chiapas nursery has arranged boxed by climate type for the Zapatista schools Food Forests. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateExcited Zapatista students examine their new plants which will quickly be planted in Food Forests near the autonomous Mayan schools participating in this exciting project. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateZapatista students understand that fruit and nut trees are at the center of their Food Forests, however they are also planting a variety of other useful medicinal and nutrient accumulating plants. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateStudents examine the donated plants and check to make sure they are receiving everything they are supposed to. These plants are from the Schools for Chiapas nursery and supplement the edible forests the schools have already planted and are maintaining. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateThese tropical plants like coconuts and malanga will strengthen Zapatista Food Forests at autonomous, Mayan middle schools in the most hot and humid regions of Chiapas, Mexico. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateThis box of mostly medicinal plants is headed for a Zapatista middle school’s Food Forest located in the chilly highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donateCaracoles like this one are centers of education, sports, health, cooperatives, ecological agriculture, and autonomous indigenous government. www.schoolsforchiapas.org/foodforest/donate
