I know many, many words in English, and a good number of “many” words in Spanish – or at least, as many words as my hungry mind has managed to pull in, mull over, and digest into my now commanding cadence. But I only know one word, with absolute certainty, in Quechua, the language of an estimated 8 million indigenous people in South America. “Ajima,” I can imagine Royner, my guide-turned-friend, saying in his low, resonant voice. It is a catch-all for everything that is good, bright, and beautiful in this world. A village elder with a radiant smile can be described as ajima simply because, despite her weathered skin and weary soles of her feet, she is still emanating joy. And a good crop, too, carried home in weighty kilos, has ajima within it. Resilience, however, is to me one of the truest forms of ajima and a testament to universal human spirit.

I spent my last two summers in Lamas, Peru, an Amazonian town with nearby indigenous communities. My first summer was a study abroad experience that catalyzed an internal paradigm shift. My second experience was the product of funding from Davis Projects for Peace, which allowed me to work in partnership with the Sachamama Center for BioCultural Regeneration (SCBR).

At the request of indigenous communities, the team from SCBR and I built four biochar ovens, which produce a carbon absorbent component that makes up 15% of terra preta or, as in the local language, yana allpa.  Recently rediscovered  by archeologists, terra

preta is an indefinitely fertile, super-compost that has experimentally yielded 880% more harvest than the local rainforest soil with fertilizer. The production and subsequent use of terra preta provides an alternative to environmentally destructive slash and burn, establishes permanent agriculture, and provides food security.

Although the startup costs to build the biochar ovens prove unfeasible for indigenous communities without external aid, once established, they decrease the costs of terra preta production to $10/metric ton. With these biochar ovens, over 220 families in four communities can more easily practice sustainable agriculture, benefiting the global environment and their community health. In the long term, these communities have the potential to exemplify the transformative power of this anthropogenic soil, thus spreading its production and use.

The team was brought together by our local affiliate Dr. Frédérique Apffel Marglin, Professor Emerita at Smith College and founder of the Sachamama Center for BioCultural Regeneration. Dr. Apffel Marglin’s longstanding connection to the local communities of nearly two decades made the partnership possible, and her extensive collaboration with the oven designer, Randy Chung, in the preceding months made the four-week timeline feasible. Before my arrival, they communicated with the village leaders to do two things: 1) Reaffirm that each of the villages wanted a biochar oven as they had readily expressed in the project design phase. 2) Confirm that the village’s designated oven sites were conducive to terra preta production (accessible, central, and near a water source).

In an unanticipated difficulty, communications with two of the villages prompted us to reconsider whether we should build ovens in those particular communities. We did not want to build an oven in a village unless the villagers were wholeheartedly enthused by the prospect, both on the principle of morally-sound aid and bearing in mind that there were other eager, potential recipients. In Alto Pucalpillo, only one very large extended family committed to the use of terra preta. In Molosho, community members had initially chosen a site that failed to meet any of the predetermined qualifications; it was neither accessible, nor central, nor was it near a water source. In a turn of positive news, Alto Pucalpillo decided that they did indeed want the biochar oven and, in addition to the family who was originally interested in the oven, a majority of community members committed to using it.

Getting to know the community members, whether through participating in their planting ritual, playing with the local children, or learning phrases in Quechua, was integral in understanding their way of life. By their graciousness, we were welcomed into the fold of daily life, and caught a glimpse of the hardship they had endured. When this group was conquered, they were pushed to the steepest land with the least fertile soil, where growing conditions were the most difficult. I met community members who walk up to six hours daily to reach and return from their gardens, sometimes carrying loads of nearly 130 pounds on their back. Without other options, adult community members turn toward manual labor to provide enough money for their families to purchase even the cheapest food. In these communities, there is extreme food insecurity and malnutrition on top of devastating, almost irreparable environmental damage.

Ultimately, it is the feeling of connection I shared with those communities that committed me to fighting food insecurity before I even fully articulated it as a career goal. I am even more eager now and unafraid to tackle questions of how and why cycles of destitution are perpetuated. I seek to experience and celebrate the resilience of the human spirit, so universal and particularly tenacious in many pockets of third world countries.  I hope to write, blog, and share my experiences to reaffirm the ajima that I believe is present in all beings in the world.

Let this be a call for all of us to tap into our shared humanity, and address the human story with dignity, truth, and a call to action.

Haisley is passionate about food security, particularly in Latin America. Last semester, she studied abroad in Córdoba, Spain to contextualize her Latin American and Latino/a Studies Major through PRESHCO. This semester, she is studying abroad in Cochabamba, Bolivia through the SIT Multiculturalism, Globalization, and Social Change program. She is currently researching the effect of global quinoa exportation on quinoa-producing families. Haisley completed her work in Peru through the Sachamama Center for Bicultural Regeneration. You can find more information on this center at their website here.

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