Reforestation of the Ecological Park of Funchal

On one Saturday, we decided to go to the Ecological Park of Funchal to help with protection of the natural environment in up in the mountains of Madeira. As we went up, the air became foggy and dense very quickly, and the temperature dropped by roughly 20 degrees compared to the coast and reached a startling level of 1 degree Celsius.

– You see, today, instead of planting trees, we will be extracting the weeds that are taking away the resources from the other plants and hold water from moving downhill – explained the biologist who has been managing the project of reforestation of Madeira for the last 20 years.

They gave us garden hoes and other tools. Me and the other volunteers started to clumsily dig out the weeds. The process was somewhat therapeutic, I thought. It felt a bit like having the power to remove the bad things from your life.

Next to me, working, there was Michael, an extraordinarily tough-looking guy from Macedonia. He looked at the way I work and said, with the tone of a wise man burdened by the obstacles of life which he managed to overcome with his perseverance:

– My father used to say that “the humankind is lazy, so we will always find a way to make tasks easier”. You need to harness the power of gravity by getting the hoe far up in the air first, and then you will not have to use your own strength to cut the weeds – I took his advice, and the work became easier.

Despite this good technique, however, later I ended up accidentally hitting myself hard in the knee with my own hoe. I hobbled up the hill, and luckily, there was a small hut there, with a fireplace, tea, and blueberry jam. The ladies who prepared food told me not to stay too close to the fire for too long, to avoid the temperature shock later. But I just stayed there because I loved staring at the fire.