School covers more than the basic Three Rs. There are classes in music, religion, and dance, as well as sports and other group games. I've been particularly impressed with Don Jesús' strategy of organizing alternative children's parties whenever the adults are having an adult party. This year the state has also supported a school garden.

I'm not sure that I entirely approve of taking kids out of the classroom to put them to work on something that occupies them much of the time they're not in school. It seems like there's a colonialist attitude at work here, as if farming is the only thing these kids can expect to do when they're older. I admire Don Jesús, but he doesn't know as much about gardening as the parents in the community.

Obidia and Nolasco are both using a tool we call an azadón, or, in Enlish (I think), "heavy hoe". An azadón, crossed over a machete and an axe, is the symbol of the community. Of the three tools it is by far the most important; so important, in fact, that I really can't imagine how farmers in the North manage without it.