COUNTRY
Communities
Growing in the dust
I Gardening with a difference: how
miss the green of Ireland, but
that gives me the motivation
to work to improve the envi-
ronment here, says Sr Regina
Toomey. Regina has been living in
Lima, in the parish of Cristo Libera-
dor, for the last 12 years. Origi-
nally hailing from a large family in
Mitchelstown, where most of them
still live, she worked as a teacher in
Cork for many years before joining
the Presentation sisters and going
on mission to Latin America.
Regina is now based in the set-
tlements on the outskirts of Peru’s
sprawling capital, where hundreds
of thousands of rural migrants
“invaded” during the 1990s and
secretly built their makeshift houses
on the steep slopes by breaking
rocks by hand through the night.
From a distance, the settlements
look like rows of coloured shoe-
boxes, but on closer inspection they
are like stacks of wooden garden
sheds, separated by crude hand-
made roads and stairs. Everything
is covered in an oppressive layer of
grey dust, and the soil is inhospi-
table to attempts to grow plants or
vegetables.
Juana Pena Pacheco,
Sarita Barron Gonzalez
and Irma Hipolito Vino
Mags Gargan travelled to Peru with the assistance of Misean Cara, which supports the Adsopur project through funding from Irish Aid
8 22 January 2011 COUNTRY LIVING
an Irish Presentation sister is helping
poor communities in Peru by starting
up community hydroponics gardens.
Mags Gargan reports.
MOVING INTO
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
Sr Regina moved here with four
other sisters in 1998 to live in their
own simple wooden house, where
they struggle side-by-side with their
neighbours to gain access to basic
services like water, sanitation and
electricity.
This is the real strength of
missionaries like Regina: they can
see the needs of the community
because they too are members of
the community.
“Our mission was to live inserted
in the reality of the marginalised
people, to listen and analyse what
they needed, and do what we could
to help,” Regina says. “There is huge
value in just being a member of the
community, and the most impor-
tant thing is our re-
lationship with
the people.”
Re-
gina is now
president of
Adsopur, a
grassroots
association she formed with seven
former community leaders in the
settlements of the parish to lobby
on behalf of the community.
FAMILY FIRST
One of their first projects was to set
up a hydroponics garden to combat
malnutrition and create employ-
ment, by teaching the community
how to grow their own food.
The garden project is part-
funded by the Presentation Sisters
and by Operation Uisce, a fundrais-
ing initiative in Ireland started by
Regina’s family.
Her brothers Finian and Denis
spearhead the campaign, but all
the family (Ger, Tomàs and Brian in
Cork, Majella in Leitrim and Mary in
San Francisco) got involved one way
or another.
“My mam and dad, both in their
mid 80s, put incredible time, inter-
est and work into it – keeping strict
account of every penny that came
into Mitchelstown and acknowledg-
ing it,” Regina says.
“Most of the funds were raised
through family contributions and
contributions from ordinary people
in Mitchelstown (Mam and Dad
even got anonymous contribu-
tions dropped in the letterbox),
and through extended family in
Monaghan and Tipperary, where
my parents hail from, and of course
Leitrim.”
HOW THE GARDEN GROWS
The project began with
the members of
Adsopur, along
with some inter-
ested local people,
completing an
agricultural
course
From a distance, the settle-
ments on the outskirts of Pe-
ru’s sprawling capital look like
rows of coloured shoeboxes.
in hydroponics last year, and since
then they have been amazing their
neighbours with the results from
their garden full of pipes and sand-
bags, but no soil.
“In the beginning, there was a
huge amount of work. We had to
level the site, wash the sand and
make the bags for the plants,” says
Marivel Veliz.
She says the garden is like a
child who needs basic vitamins, and
at different stages of growth they
change the formula of nutrients in
the water that passes through the
pipes lined with vegetables.
“So far, we have grown lettuce,
spinach, coriander and basil,”
explains Carlos Arojas. “The tomato
was the most difficult plant to grow,
and people said it could not be
done. But we did it, and it was actu-
ally the first time it has worked in an
urban area. And they are juicy and
tasty!”
COMMUNITY EFFORT
After the success of the first pilot
garden, three local women used
funding from Adsopur to start the
second of what will be a number of
community gardens in the parish.
They are currently growing lettuce,
but they say they will try their hands
at strawberries next.
“It took five people to clear out
the rubble and make the space on
the hill for the garden,” explains
Juana Pena Pacheco. “We spent
nearly two months working with
picks and shovels from 6am, before
bringing the kids to school.”
Juana cares for the garden on a
rota with Sarita Barron Gonzalez
and Irma Hipolito Vino. The three
ladies have had a difficult life, but
you would never guess it from their
easy manner and quick wit.
The garden has proven to be a
form of therapy for them, a fulfilling
place of life and vibrancy, which
shuts the poverty and harsh condi-
tions outside its walls.
“It still takes a lot of work – even
just washing the sand and watering
the plants – but it is worth it,” Juana
says. “You are kept occupied, but
there is life with it. It’s like having
our own little farm. It is a place to
forget your problems.CL