Originally the school had a herd of 100 cows and 100 hogs to go with them.  The kids did the work, most of them were orphaned after a yellow fever epidemic.  That was what the place used to look like.

Today it boasts a herd of dwarf Nigerian goats.  Ten perhaps.  They milk them to make soap.  They sell the soap at farmer’s markets.  The garden was unkempt.

“If I have a kid that likes to draw, I tell them that’s okay.  You come out here and draw while we work.”  I bet they would draw it even better, if they had to do it, but even to make soap the school looked outside to source volunteers.

Where they were today was complicated.  Long ago they had to quit being self sufficient.  Government regulation forbid eating much of their own food.  Regulation also posed challenges with the school’s religious foundation.  By now the conversation had turned to a whole myriad of buzz words:  non-profit partners, socially-conscious, aesthetic value, increased awareness, pollinator seeds.

I make no claim I understand the complications they face.

In the background, through the nearby trees, I could catch a glimpse of the boys at the school playing ball.  They were dressed in the school’s olive t-shirts with khaki shorts, white and black, and still playing the way the boys that preceded had:  for keeps.  I suspect they used to farm that way too.

The kids still understood what it was about.  Even if farming had now become little more than a curiosity.  Even if the use of the term “farming” was questionable.

“We also have chickens here.  Our goal is that soon we will no longer have to source any chicken feed at all, generating it instead from our leftovers.  We are teaching them about the larger cycle, that nothing gets wasted, and that we shouldn’t consume needlessly.”

I suppose it’s a fine cycle.  Agriculture teaches us an even larger one, though.  To survive we have to find a way to make it work.  If we try hard enough, and the rain comes just right, sometimes we can make it just a little bit longer before that cycle gets the better of us.

Still, they were doing good for those boys.  Waiting in the hallway for the boy’s room just before we boarded the bus, the bell rang, classes began changing, and I was in the midst of them.  Today they are at-risk kids, encompassing anything from ADHD to having been kicked out of schools in the past.

Many knew more about trying to survive than most their age.  Many probably knew it better than me.  It was a shame their glimpse of agriculture didn’t give them a better chance to put those skills to use.  It would have made some of them fine farmers.

“House of Mercy” was the translation for the place.  I had it for the teachers.  For other people’s children, I had what the teacher’s had:  faith.  They had it in them from the beginning.  There was no sense in doing something different now.