visiting with families and learning about their farm work.

Our second day in the desert, was my favorite day! 

We got up really early, had breakfast and headed out deeper into the sertão.

We traveled about 2 hours even further to visit with some families whom Diaconia had assisted and to see there farms.  

The first home we went to was of Ivan.

He told us all about his life working in the desert, what it’s like to live so far away from everything, how they live with so little water and we also talked about how Diaconia had helped them. He also told of us family, how he is in his 30s and unmarried. He has a brother who helps him around the farm, and another brother who died at the age of 13.  He had an accident with a male cow who kicked him in the head and killed him. They created a small sancturary/church next to their home with pictures of the boy along with figurines and paintings of saints and God.  I noticed that even in all their sufferings most of them have strong faith and churches are abundant throughout all of Brazil. 

He showed us all around his farm and we were able to see all the variety of fruits and vegetables that he is able to grow. We were all so surprised that so many fruit could possibly grow in a desert! Ivan and his family focus on selling the pulp of the fruit rather than selling the fruit itself.  They have a room in their house where they create the pulp and package it and place it in a freezer. 

He continued showing us around and it was amazing to learn about how a farm in the desert works. We saw how they extract oil from cow manure, we saw how they fertilize soil by the worms who eat the soil and later digest it out.  We also saw the water cisterns , the wells, etc. 

Ivan was so kind as to let us eat so much of there fruit. We literally just ate all the fruits off the trees itself. We tried acerola, guava (goiaba), maracuja (passfruit), pomegranite, oranges, graviola just to name some. 

What is really amazing is that his one tiny little fruit(the one in the bucket), acerola, contains the same amount of Vitamin C as 10 oranges! And it is smaller than a cherry!

After touring the farm, we had lunch with his family!

We had rice, cuscuz with beans, potato/carrot salad, meat, squash, salad, etc. It was seriously so delicious! I think what made it so wonderful was that all these ingredients were fresh from their farm. We also had fresh fruit juice of Guava & Acerola. Yumm..

Later, we had a second farm to visit. So we traveled another 2 hours to visit his farm. They also have a variety of fruits but it seemed like they had more vegetables. They also had a lot of sugar cane as well. He lived there with his wife, and two children-eric, and erica. He said that his farm has been with his family for 200 years! It seemed like they had quite a lot of land with plenty of produce.  Their home was very humble though and did not own a car so had to walk or ride a bike to get anywhere.  After we were done touring their farm and learning about them we had fresh maracuja(passionfruit) juice and crackers in their little home.  

It was so fun getting to know these two families and learning about their lives in the desert and how they as farmers can survive without much water. They both lived in a very rural place with hardly anything. But they both seemed very happy with what they do have.  It was such a wonderful reminder to me about how it doesn’t matter what you have as long as you have people around you that you love. These families seemed so happy and content with their lives even with all their stuggles. They find joy and amusement in the smallest activities such as playing with sticks or playing in the outside shower.  They were happy because they have each other. Anytime we would ask what they enjoyed doing in their “free time” they always responded with spending time with family, visiting family, etc. Even if they had to walk miles and miles in the desert in 100+degree weather, they would do it to see members of their family and they found joy in that.  I’m very grateful for this reminder to always be content with your situation and always see the best in what you have to endure. 

These people are farmers with hardly any water.. 

And they survive. Every day. But most importantly.. They Are Happy.