Padraig Nelyon from Co Clare volunteered at an environmental project in Guatemala, this arcticle from The Clare Champion (Friday, February 6, 2009 ) presents his experience.

Maybe he's overstating it, but if he's not Padraig Neylon is surviving on an infinite diet of black beans and rice these days. However, while the Kilmurry McMahon man is attempting to adjust to a Central American diet, his grasp of Spanish is improving. In fact, he maintains that he can even throw a few words together in the Mayan language, or at least one of the 22 Mayan dialects in Guatemala. On the top of that, Neylon, who is working voluntarily in Guatemala for a couple of months, is attempting to teach Irish to some of his Central American works colleagues.

When he isn't either digesting black beans or slowly mouthing Mayan nouns, the Shannon Gaels footballer is using his surveying skills to draw up greenhouse plans and improve irrigation for Mayan farmers, who utilise the centre where he is based.

Padraig is working in the Utz Samaj (not for profit) training centre for Mayan farmers, which is located six miles from Tepcan, the main city for indigenuos Mayan people. The project is founded solely by donations from companies and individuals. No subsidies are available from the government for the centre nor the farmers. In 2008 the organization trained 70 local farmers, with only two of them being women. This year Utz Samaj is planning to train at least 10 women.

The charity also provides interest-free loans to farmers to build their own greenhouses because banks will not lend to small farmers. These loans are repaid with 25% of each year's crop yield. Farmers who set up their own greenhouse are afforded continued training, which includes crop management, administration and marketing.

Further to this, the Mayan community are helped with their personal development, mainly because they are notoriously shy people and lack confidence. This often leads to the farmers getting trampled on by intermediate buyers (coyotes) who bully them into buying their crops for well below the market price.

"The director wanted typical details of the greenhouses, the entraces and the layout of the irrigation pipes drafted so that he could give the farmers a prototype on paper that they could work to when contructing their own greenhouses.

"They‘re also going to build a new greenhouse in the next year so I have to draw the plan for that one as well," Padraig told The Clare Champion this week. "I'm also giving a hand to the farmers when they want me in the greenhouse thinning to tomato plants and laying the irrigation pipes but I'd say I'm in their way more often than not. My assistance hasn't been requested in a while!"

One of the problem which besets Mayan farmers is water shortage during the dry season. Padraig admits that he didn't have an immediate solution but, with help from Google, he has come up with one. "All of the indigenous farmers that had come to the centre had this problem too. The director asked me if I had any suggestions as to how to improve the irrigation system. I said I'd look into it.

"To be honest, I hadn't a clue. Irrigation isn't a really a hot topic in Ireland. So I Googled ‘irrigation'. Thankfully, there was nothing too complicated in it or I'd be up the creek." Essentially, the plan is to ensure that rainwater isn't wasted and is instead used to irrigate locally. "At the moment the rainwater from the roofs of the greenhouses runs directly from the roof into the ground and there is no facility for water storage. "So now we are looking at installing two large water-holding tanks that would provide the farmers a water source during the dry season when demand in the area is high.

"The water for these tanks would be collected by harvesting the rainwater collected from the roofs of the greenhouses during the wet season. The tanks would then be connected with the existing irrigation system and controlled by gate valves whenever needed. Rainwater harvesting is common enough so there was plenty of information on the internet about it," Padraig said. Unfortunately, water is so valuable that it is sometimes just used for agricultural purpose, leaving families without water for domestic use.

"The area is heavily dependent on agriculture so a lot of water is used for irrigating crops, especially during the dry months. As a result, there isn't enough water for families who need it for basic things like drinking or washing or whatever else they use it," Padraig noted.
Guatemala is the poorest country in Central America. Its wet season lasts from May to October and its dry season from November to April. About 70% of the population live below the poverty line.

Away from the workplace, Padraig lives with a middleaged Guatemalan couple in Tecpan, while he plays soccer some evenings. "My aerial advantage sees me positioned up front. They must have heard about my goal-to-game ratio as a striker with Tullycrine Celtic!" Padraig joked, his memory maybe gone awry, perhaps impacted by his black bean diet.