The Gift of Time is Timeless

December 20, 2024

We arrive in boats on the Coco River to the Miskito indigenous community of Pamkawás. We climb up the bank and meet the women and girls who have navigated the hilly terrain of this rainforest community, carrying pails and bags of rice on their heads and in their arms, to wait their turn to mill the rice with the community’s rice threshing machine. The machine is newly minted having been made possible only recently through the generosity of Change for Children donors.

We ask the women how they like the machine. Enthusiastic accounts ensue of how profoundly their lives have changed. Elena tells us about how she has more time to dedicate to her large and growing family. Reynilia chimes in about how she is now able to make rice cake, breads and rice pudding that she sells in the community to supplement her household income. Lucia – who is 75 years old – tells us how every part of the rice is well used – they save the husks that are discarded by the machine to feed to their chickens and pigs.

Osmari (pictured below) is ten years old and is the only girl in her family of 5 siblings. She is very grateful that the rice threshing machine has arrived in her community and tells us that she now she gets to sleep later in the morning (until 6AM!), because she does not have to pound rice with the traditional wooden pila method for hours before going to school. She is happy that she is now able to dedicate more time to her studies and to helping her mom.

We are also happy that this innovation has connected girls in Pamkawas, and five other communities in the region, to the gift of time, reclaiming  hours of precious childhood days.

Bosawas Central America and the Caribbean Food Sovereignty In The Field Indigenous Peoples Nicaragua