Hear ye hear ye and hello from the Southern Nicoya Peninsula Bloom in Costa Rica. This is the first Green Wave Bloom Report.

It is summer here in our part of the world, but the May rains are coming soon and we can’t believe how quickly the year has gone by so far.

This year has been busy with unplanned happenings, and those that have not gone as planned. We were hoping to have an inaugural event at The Green Wave house (eco-show home, mini-permaculture farm, and Green Wave office) this past month. However the main farm opened up a restaurant for the surrounding community called Wonderland. To better collaborate, we have decided we will hold showings at the house but move “events” over the Wonderland as it has more ideal entertaining space. However, Wonderland had plans of their own. Our lovely community restaurant wanted to throw an awareness event and fundraiser for a local project around the same time we were hoping to have “Sera Luz”. So our event has been temporarily stalled as we wait for the owners to return from vacation as they left immediately after the last event. Sera Luz is to be an annual event that ideally takes place close to Equinox to celebrate cycles and to honor one of our ex-workers who was killed from a drunk driver who did not see him on his non-reflective bike. The event will be open format and change yearly but part of the event will be a collection drive of reflective sashes that can be distributed as a random act of kindness to community members we see that do not have reflective elements to clothing or bikes as they ride along the roads. Sera Luz means “be a light” and that is what we hope to inspire in our community is for people to approach life with creative solutions to the problems we face in our world.

We have had three official visits to the Green Wave House. In January we hosted a women’s retreat intentional seed planting activation with a nonprofit organization called Groundswell while just weeks ago we had about 30 kids from the Playa Hermosa school come by to check out the solar carport and 100% veggie car! We recently found out how good we have been doing on our power. We are producing more than we use. Our bill is around $5. Ken says "It’s as if we have a meter and no one lives here."

Green Wave House also hosted a tour for two members of Futuro Verde school who are looking to integrate permaculture philosophy into their already holistic environmental education at the school. Due to this visit, Green Wave is working with another organization, Escuela de la Jungla, to create a permaculture integration plan for Futuro Verde. Small step implementation of that plan will hopefully begin in May of the year on or around International Permaculture Day. First steps of this integration will include the creation of a seed bank (some seeds have already been gifted to the school from the Green Wave House seed bank).

Other Green Wave happenings:

Green Wave has inspired partner project Wild Sun rescue to start an ecobrick program and we are excited to introduce this to Futuro Verde as well (which will be presented in their permaculture plan). We will be helping develop a volunteer and guest guide that will include information about this new program.

Green Wave House hosts weekly “movie night” first come first serve to our community (due to limited space in our small, eco home). We are giving away surplus fruit on these nights or other farm goods. On this last movie night, attendees received Ken’s new jam (made of cashew fruit). Receivers of jams or medicines understand we have a recycling policy on containers. Next week we expect to give out dried herb bundles for smudging made of clove basil and Costa Rican wild sage.

Green Wave House has been collecting seeds from our farm and sharing seeds with our community members. So far Green Wave House has gifted small seed bank starting kits to:

• Futuro Verde
• Wild Sun
• Escuela de La Jungla
• Super Mario (local mini-market)
• Private residences

Outside of Costa Rica, Green Wave has the online community of Electronic Music Alliance. We are proud to announce that we are officially challenging our industry to take part in a “Trash Challenge” this year. We are in the last round of the naming phase but challenge announcement, guidelines, and submissions will open during Earth Week. We are currently looking for media sponsors from the industry or even green blog support. We may have some other projects we will share with the Bloom community when they are ready for either feedback or potential support.

That’s the update folks. Thanks for reading. Over, out, and beyond and through. Take time to talk to flowers.

--Janine

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