Building Keyhole Gardens

Last month, we brought over 2 garden specialists from Samoa who trained 20 people to build "keyhole" family gardens. They are built on top of the ground using layers of organic components.






Because this island is built on a coral reef, digging up the ground is very hard work.
This garden was built for the new Iroij (traditional king) a few weeks ago using lots of plant cuttings.

 Neilani's garden has been in the ground for two weeks. It uses banana tree trunks as its' outside structure. Her cucumbers seem to love the environment.

 Richard put two rows of bricks on this garden. You don't have to bend over very far when weeding it. Richard has lots of different kinds of gardens. He may be young but he knows a lot about gardening.

 We had lots of help when we went out to Ajeltake to build Nesia's garden. She chose to use banana tree trunks for the outside structure. Then we put a layer of cardboard and soaked it well.  In this picture we are putting down a layer of coconut husks to help retain moisture.

 Next, went in layers of compost, manure and soil with a top coat of peat moss. Then Nesia chose the seeds she wanted, putting the tallest plants around the "live composter" shown in the middle.

Elder Crooks is just bringing the last basket of coconut husks to line the outside of the garden to make it look pretty. The seeds are in. Nesia just has to water and throw plant scraps into the composter with water whenever she has them. This is my favorite garden so far.

Taiwan Youth Ambassadors Show

 We were invited to a show hosted by the Taiwan Embassy featuring 19 Youth Ambassadors from a variety of Taiwanese universities. They put on a fun, energetic performance which we greatly enjoyed.

The students continually changed costumes and provided a variety of dances, gymnastics and other skilled performances while we watched views of Taiwan on a giant screen.

 We learned about the culture of Taiwan while we watched the performances. The students were very artistic. There were 6 Youth Ambassador groups visiting 43 countries over a period of a month or so.

 This baton twirler was particularly colorful.

Students from the Marshall Islands also performed a dance and then at the end of the night, everyone took the stage including VIP guests like the President of the Marshall Islands, Chris Loeck, who is in the light blue shirt in the front row.

Pilot Diabetes Outreach Series Completed

 Together with our health partner organizations, we completed a pilot series of five outreach clinics at Rita Chapel - one clinic a week for five weeks. The purpose was to identify "unknown diabetics," testing for blood sugar, blood pressure and Body Mass Index.

 Depending on the weather, we had the clinics either inside as above or outside which was much nicer. We usually saw between 25 and 30 adults each night.

 Besides the health screening, we also invited participants to take part in 30 minutes of light exercise and encouraged them to do that every day to help control their weight and diabetes.

We played this game to educate how diabetes affects the cells in your body.

 We also provided "hands on" cooking demonstrations where people can cook easy, nutritious recipes which include lots of vegetables and local foods.

Here are our two weight-loss winners from the pilot series. Each lost more than 6 lbs. over 5 weeks. For every 2.2 lbs a person loses, they reduce their chance of getting diabetes by 5%.