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While you all were in the midst of the election at the beginning of November, I was on a mission trip in Guatemala. Our church in Saluda has a partner church in the mountainous northwestern part of teh country. We’ve had this partnership since 2000, and some of us visit the little church, El Buen Samaritano, every two years. I’ve been there 11 times, so the people we see are true friends. 

It is great to spend time with them, singing and exchanging ideas, watching the children grow, and then being with their little children now. It is a fun partnership.

This time, I took no books or knitting or other distractions to occupy my mind during the long bus ride across the country. I simply looked out the window for hours and hours. We started in Guatemala City, which is pretty much in the middle of the country, and headed westward through the land of volcanos. Some of them are still active. Here’s a tidbit of information: after a volcano erupts, the exposed ground at the base of the volcano is too hot to touch for more than five years. I tried just touching the ground and burned my finger, and I was SO surprised! 

After going through the central part of Guatemala, we got to the mountainous western section, which is very much like our mountains here. I noticed that the tiny homes along the road are nearly stacked on top of each other, with steep walls made of red clay. My thoughts upon seeing these houses built on the side of a cliff was, “Why aren’t they falling down?” 

Since we had just experienced Helene’s catastrophic landslides, seeing those little shacks secure at the top of a red clay cliff definitely caught my attention. Then the answer came to me: It’s clay, and clay holds together. 

Clay does not absorb water; it is not at all porous. For that reason, clay is not the best soil for growing most of our row crops here in western NC, like corn, tobacco, vegetables, and hay. Sugar and corn are the main crops of central and coastal Guatemala, but that’s not where clay is the predominant soil type. In the mountain region where we went, it’s all clay and rocks. And what is the only crop that can be grown commercially in that region? Coffee.

Coffee seedlings must be planted by hand, with each seedling planted three feet or so from the next. Red clay is very nutritious but requires slower root growth because the clay soil is so dense. It takes the young coffee plant between three and four years to produce its first fruit, which turns red and cherry-like when it is ready to be harvested. Depending on the type of coffee plant, that cherry-like coffee bean takes between six and 11 months to ripen. Then, it must be picked by hand and dried in the sun. In short, it’s a long, labor-intensive process. But, thanks to the stability and nutrition of the clay soil, coffee plants can live eighty years.

Have we ever thought about the fact that, historically, our soils created the community economy and lifestyle where we live? The old timers in Saluda did not make moonshine because they were big drinkers; they did it because corn is one of the few crops that can grow on steep slopes. And we have good, clean spring water – basic ingredients for moonshine, which happened to be very profitable during prohibition. It also helps that it is easy to hide in Saluda’s steep ravines, out of sight of the revenuers.

Look at the landslides of Helene. Look at the soil. None of those landslides are bright red. So, don’t try to stack houses here like they do in the mountains of Guatemala unless you want them to slide down the mountain. Let’s clean up what Helene has left us instead!