Maya Mountain Research Farm - 12/12/09

Well life on the farm for the past month and a half has been wonderful. The MMRF farm is accessible by hiking an hour, climbing down a steep slippery hill, then crossing the river, or you can get a very enjoyable dorry (dugout canoe) ride, which is how I arrived there. It is an agroforestry farm which basically means that the trees are planted out to resemble the functions and design of a forest, but the species planted are chosen for their various attributes, to make the forest system as productive as possible. The trees planted here produce food for animals and people, firewood, lumber, medincinal use, and ornamentals. Chris is the guy who runs it an he's super knowledgeable but I'm convinced he has adult ADD (no offense Chris). Rachel is the farm coordinator an she's amazing. She deals with crazy shit every day with such grace it's incredible. Hannah is the kitchen intern from SF and is a little rasta lady. She's so chill and wonderful to talk to, not to mention a stellar cook. The three of us form a little trio which works out well. While on the farm I cleared out and started to plant in this big terrace garden that hasn't ben touched for over a year because it was his ex wifes domain which means it was really overgrown. We also cleared out another completely overgrown herb garden near the kitchen, cleared out and planted inthe bega with lots of veggies, transplanted countless plants and trees, and harvested from the agroforestry system nearly every day. We also did lots of work in the kitchen, including harvesting cacao, making ginger beer, and hot sauce. THe kitchen is powered by a seriously tricky and at times frustrating wood stove. The property is lined by a glacier blue river which is a freakin godsend after working a seriously hot and sweaty day. On most Thursdays we go into PG to work with the Red Cross onthe elderly feeing program which I love. The old people are so sweet. My home was an open air thatch hut with a hammock onthe porch. It got some getting used to, being alone and far away from anyone else at times, with no walls to protect me, but I came to really love it. From time to time there was unexpected excitement. Chris sliced his ankle with the chainsaw and bled a bunch. It was seriously gross but Rachael and Hannah took over and bandaged him up. A couple of white trash weirdos also came to the farm; one was supposed to be the garden intern for 6 months and his girlfriend was coming along for the ride. Chris has a strict no smoking on the property rule which the intern repeatedly broke and one morning Chris sent them packing, which would have been eventful in itself but the reaction that it got from this guy was totally bizarre. He was screaming about how they should be allies and brothers in permaculture because permaculture is a minority. He was arguing about money stuff and just kept on ranting. This guy seemed a little off, like developmentally off, neandrathal - esque if you will. So the whole scene, which was appauling, was also a big source of entertainment because it was just so strange. Ah the people you meet travelling, never dull. Another interesting development on the farm was the fact that the farm was trying to kill me. I know that's a rather strange statement, but I think it's true. When Rachael and I went to the source of the river I fell, punctured my hand in two spots, and bruised a nerve that left me without the use of my hand for at least a week. I had a really ba fever that left me bedridden for a couple of days followed by back pains and a rib that popped out of place and made it difficult to breath for a day and night. And for the grand finale, on my last day of work I got bit by a bullet ant on my eyelid, which feels like a bee sting, and it made my eye completely swell shut and I looked like Quasimoto. Whatever. On my last day I went to Saul Garcia's farm, another agroforestry farm, which was beautiful and amazing. I really loved MMRF and I was sad to go, but I will be stopping back on my way up from Guatemala to Belize City to fly home.

It's just madness - 11/23/2009

Finally I am at the Maya Mountain Research Farm in Belize. It was a ridiculously bumpy path getting here, to say the very least. My last week at Neverland actually included working with vegetables, FARMING! Which was really nice. Tina has still not graced us with her presence which not only annoyed all of us but Silvia and Andres (the workers) as well. The woman apparently doesn't have her shit together, oh well. Eventually Rebecca and Andrea, my dear friends and only companions in the valley's wilderness, took off for Guayquil, which was sad. I was left with this new guy who had arrived with two other girls but they only stayed one night and then left which was weird but, whatever. He was super nice but a bit scatterbrained and lost which led to "really deep," soul searching, figuring out the world man kind of conversations that interested me very little. However, this week included zero drama or natural disasters, so I can't really complain. Eventually I made it back to Vilcabamba and stayed there a day or two longer than I had planned, but the weather was nice, it was so relaxing, and my hostel had a wonderfully clean pool. I went to Cuenca for the night and then headed up the long road to Quito. I was really ready to leave Ecuador, which is not to say that my six months there wasn't incredible, because it was. But I was a bit lonely, ready for another volunteering site, and I felt that I had seen essentially everything I wanted to see in Ecuador. So on the day of my departure I got my tickets and checked at the airport, headed for migration when they told me I couldn't leave the country. Homicidal is probably the best adjective to describe how I was feeling at this point. Apparently Ecuadors dumb ass embassy was supposed to tell me to register my visa within 30 days of my arrival in Ecuador and that I needed to get this ID card thing called a censo in order to legally be in the country and to leave. But they didn't tell me any of this, and without it I couldn't board the plane. (insert numerous expletives here) So I left, fuming. Honestly, I just wanted to get the hell out of Quito, but first I had to take care of all this bullshit. Stupid stupid embassy! Well, I would have been more than happy to take care of all this stuff that day but, as fate would have it, it was a freaking national holiday and all of the government buildings were closed for not one but the next TWO WHOLE DAYS! So I had to just sit around in Quito some more; I hate Quito. That night, just to add to my misery and anger, I went to go get some Indian food where they served me glass in my food that broke one of my teeth. Awesome. I really just couldn't believe I had to deal with all this. But I did. Two days later I ha to get up early to go to the bank and deposit a $200 fine into the account of the Migracion Policia, then go to the migracion building, figure out what I needed. Oh, BIG SURPRISE, I didn't even need the damn censo because my visa was four days over the expiration and I could have just paid the fine at the airport. (insert numerous expletives here, again) Fuming once more. I had to change my flight which of course wasn't without difficulty, I had to argue my way out of paying a $250 change fee, but ended up paying $150 to make up the difference in my flight. Then i had to run back to the Policia de Migracion. Finally, everything was resolved and I was leaving the next morning. I threatened the Migracion officer that if I couldn't board the plane tomorrow I was coming to find him and he was going to fix it. Luckily that wasn't necessary. The next day went smoothly, even though I was super nervous that something was going to happen again. I enjoyed numerous magazines in the Miami airport and a bagel, then made it to my hotel in Belize City where everyone was super nice and empathized with the madness that I had been through. Early the next morning I hopped on a bus to Punta Gorda which was my jump off point to get to Maya Mountain Research Farm.

Lucky me, I got to experience a once in a year event - 10/17/09

I can´t believe we´ve experienced more excitement to tell about, but it´s true. There´s only three of us left (and still no Tina) so every night we are doing our best not to creep ourselves out about being in the dark, in the forest, an hours hike from help, and with these obnoxsious dogs that do not stop barking at nothing all night. This is no small feat and usually unsuccessful. Nature decided to make it even harder. I went into my room with no wall and Andrea and Rebecca went into their´s. I was laying in bed, trying to relax, when all of a sudden it soudned like giant boulders were rolling down into the valley, then it was dead silence, not even the bugs were making noise, and then my bed started shaking. It lasted like 20-30 second which maybe doesn´t seem like a lot, but I challenge you to experience the smae thing under our circumstances. After the rumbling and shaking I was so terrified I couldn´t move. I yelled outto the girls and asked them if they had felt that too, and they had. I ran into their room where we all freaked the hell out and vented our frustrations that we were left alone, in the middle of the woods, to deal with one natural disaster after another. I eventually built up the courage to go back to my room, but I had a terrible sleep. The past few days we have been working on constructing an extension to the table. Right now there are benches on all four sides, but the actual table only reaches three of the benches which is not only just a poor design, its also super annoying. So us three ladies have been putting our carpentry skills to work and it´s been really enjoyable. We also found this part of the river that has a tiny little waterfall that falls into a calmer pool area with giant rocks all around and purple flowers floating everywhere. I´ve been bathing there every day and I feel like I have my own private spa; it´s gorgeous.

Fire, Fire on the Mountain - 10/13/09

Yet another unwelcomed exciting day in Neverland. No one could ever say this place is boring. We were all hanging around, enjoying our Sunday morning with some breakfast and relaxation. Chloe and Bruno came up from the path and told us, quite exasperated, that the mountain was on fire. Oh god. It is dry season and covering the mountain is just dry grasses. We ran out to get a better view of what was going on and literally an entire mountain, on our side of the valley, was ablaze and racing down the mountain, burning up everything, and in a hurry. We were all alone. Tina is still in the US and Andres (dude that comes during the week to tell us what to do) doesn´t come in on the weekends. So literally we were running the farm all by ourselves. On the one hand, I love this. It´s like we were just given an entire farm, with a fully stocked kitchen, and animals to boot, and we are just set free to do what we please. On the other hand, we have little idea of what the hell we are doing and there is nothing in the way of an emergency instructions manual. So we see the mountain burning up and we decide that, rather than take chances with our lives, it might be a good idea to pack up and go into Tumianuma. I was real unenthusiastic, to underexagerate, to undertake the voyage of hell for the third time in two days, but, it was a better option than burning alive. I packed up my beast of a bag in record time. We decided to take the three dogs, the donkey , and the horse. I was doing everything I could to get the kittens to stay in one of the donkey´s saddle bags, but they would have none of it; they were just breaking my heart. So we were all packed up, ready to go , and we managed to walk up to the spot where we were checking ou the fire before, and it started to rain a bit. We decided to wait and see if the rain would do the trick. Chloe and Bruno decided to take a horse into town and ask Andres what we should do. While they were gone we ate our emergency supply of cheese and banana bread. Always prepared! By the time they returned, the fire was non-existant, the donkey was angry, and we were all laughing at oursleves for overreacting. Andres sent word that we had nothing to worry about which was entirely apparent by then. We were doubled over laughing thinking about what the people of Tumianumba would say if we arrived, fully packed up, with all the animals in tow, freaking out about a nonexistant fire. To be fair, the mountain is completely scorched, but it defintiely didn´t reach the farm. Disaster averted. Today we chopped down a bunch of fica trees to make space for cows on the property. Fica trees have massive thorns, about two inches long, covering every branch, and the thorns have these awful microbes that stinch like a son of a bitch when they stab your, oh lets say, shin, hand, hip, arm, or really any other body part. And the little microbes don´t stop stinging for hours. I was not pleased at all but I have made it clear to Andres that I will no longer be working with the fica during my stay at Never land. He was very understanding.

Never Thought I´d Find Never Land- 10/10/09

After being booted from the Rhiannon Community (I still can´t believe it, evil bitches) I decided to try my luck at another WWOOFing farm called the Never Land farm which I had heard really wonderful things about. Also, I don´t think they kick out their volunteers... However, my coming to the farm was about as dramatic as it gets. I took the ridiculously long journey down to Vilcabamba, stretched over two days filled with incredibly uncomfortable bus rides and really crappy hostals. FInally the day arrived to venture onto the farm which required an hour long hike through the woods. In Tina´s email (Tina owns the farm, she´s a midwife from the US) she said that taking the 4:30 pm bus to the village where the path starts would be adequate time to arrive while there´s still light. Wrong, so totally wrong. The bus was ever-so-slightly late which in Ecuadorian terms basically qualifies it for being on time. I arrive to the jump off point, Tumianuma, with my (at least) 60 lbs back pack, another small backpack, and another small bag. Upon starting my trek I passed a very old man who asked me if I was going to Tina´s place. When I said yes he seemed concerned and said I was starting out quite late. It doesn´t take a genius to figure out I should have taken that as a sign to turn back immediately, but of course I didn´t. At first I was more or less enjoying my hike although I was sweating like a pig and gasping for air on the uphill bits, my bags weighing me down. This part of the country is so beautiful, my absolute favorite; so I really welcomed the exercise and views of the valley. The directiosn I had ben given were on the vague side but I was assuming it would become clear where I should go, so I continued on the path. So wrong again. I was walking for like 20 minutes when I took a wrong turn. At the time I obviously didn´t know it was a wrong turn, but it was. The path started getting a bit hairy and I realized that it was getting darker and quickly. I knew that the farm was by the river so I decided even if this wasn´t exactly the right way it would get me there. I´m walking and walking and it´s getting quite dark now and I come to a metal gate. The directions specifically say not to go through an metal gates and if I come to a metal gate I´ve gone the wrong way. Shit. NOw I started to panic. I had passed some houses on the way so I fugred I could just yell for help, but no one answered. I started freaking out a bit because now its getting really dark and I´m 15 minutes in the wrong direction. In Ecuador it gets dark crazy fast. I decided to high tail it back to the main path. I arrive and it´s night time, I mean it is really really dark. There´s a house so I go up to the gate and screamed as loud as i could, hoping someone will hear me. No one was there. NOw I´m absolutely panicked, sweating, with a million pounds on my back of crap I have to carry, alone, in the wilderness, hyperventilating, choking out tears every few seconds, and I have no tent. Oh, and my flashlight batteries are nearly dead. I considered the possibility of just setting up my mostquitoe net and sleeping bag for the night but that´s a freakin joke. I´ve just barely resolved my issues with being afraid of the dark. And, literally, there are poinsonous snakes and tarantulas common to the area. So I decided since I have no idea how to get where I´m going, I´m just going to have to take the path back which I know, and try it all over again in the morning. So I´m walking, again with all of my stuff, at break neck speed (for the situation), still sweating, still screaming for help, and I actually cannot see more than three feet ahead of me. All I needed was a camcorder and foundtains of snot coming out of my nose and I could have been in the Blair Witch project, but I pushed those thoughts out of my head. I fell twice over rocks I couldn´t see. The first time my adrenaline was at an all time high so I shot right back up. The second time I was so tired and closer to getting back, so a tad more relaxed, and the weight from my pack pinned me to the ground for a while. That sucked. I also skinned my knee and shin pretty badly and the bruises that are still forming are sure to be nothing short of impressive. Finally, exhausted and sweaty, I arrived back in Tumianuma and went to an old couple sitting on their porch. In one sentence I told them I got lost I need a place to stay is there a hostal please help. These people were so nice, brought me water, and offered me a bed in their home. I relaxed on their porch, helped them fix their DVD player (press the power button), and we watched a DVD of music videos by indigenous Ecuadorian musicians. It was god awful, that DVD. The next morning they gave me coffee and crackers which I wolfed down after not having any dinner the night before. One of their daughters offered to take me up to the farm for $5, as long as I took the heavy bag and she took the two light bags. Not exactly the most altruistic move I´ve ever witnessed, but my whole body hurt, my knee was throbbing, I was tired, and scared of getting lost, and I really didn´t want to carry all those bags, so I agreed. She was moving a hell of a lot faster than I was but she delivered me to where I needed to go. There was only the one small obstacle of crossing a super sketchy rope bridge before I arrived and was greted by the breying of a donkey. It´s the most excitement I´ve had in a long time and I hope for some really comparatively dull moments in the future. When I arrived I was told TIna is actually in the US, that they havn´t really been doing much work and we have the weekend off (I arrived on Friday). The guy in charge barely gies us any direction, so a bunch of us went raspberry picking for half the day and thenjust kind of hung out and cooked meals. I think this is one of those places where if you tell them exactly what you want to do, you can do it. This works for me but I get the feeling that some of the other people are frustrated. Oh well. There´s a lot of fruit and avocado trees, lots of animals. We´re basically in a valley with a beautiful river right next to the site. I have my own room in a rather odd, open air building, that looks like it´s either unfinished or been destroyed. It´s a little creepy because I don´t really have a wall on one side, just sheets, but with my mosquitoe net I think I´ll be okay.

Rhiannon Commune-ity - 9/4/09

My first few days at the Rhiannon Community have been lovely. When you´re driving through the country roads and towering mountains, all you can smell is the eucalyptus trees. Never mind the fact that they are completely sucking the life out of the soil, they smell damn good. The house is pretty huge and so beautiful, including a yoga studio, wood floors, and killer views. They´ve only been here a year, but they´ve managed to get some changes done with a giant chicken tractor/vegetable garden, a greenhouse, composting toilet and shower house, greywater system, and a laguna for some inexplicable reason... literally nobody gives me an answer as to why it is there. There´s also a tipi, a sweatlodge, and a yurt that are pretty cool. We do four hours of work a day and our afternoons our free. We also have extra chores outside of work and mine are putting out the goats and donkeys in the morning and evening which is quite strenuous compared to taking one bag of trash to a trashcan 30 paces away, but the animals are pretty awesome, and bags of trash are not. So I guess it´s a pretty good job. We have no electricity and alll vegetarian meals. It´s at about the same elevation as Quito, right near the equator, usually sunny, and obscenely windy. So far I really enjoy the work. The people who own the place, Helen and Nicky, don´t really know any better what they are doing so you basically get to do whatever you think might work for situations like worm composting and wind fencing, which clearly I am no expert on but it´s awesome to have a place to experiment. I also love the word burning stove that we use every night and bake cakes in, delish!

Adios Rio Muchacho - 9/1/09

Finished up our last week at Rio Muchacho, it was really sad to leave everyone, we´d become a pretty tight knit group. But I´m excited to move onto new things. One of the days we took a hike through a nearby village. The hike itself was really pretty, passing through river beds and farms, however, the first part of the trip we were walking through a bunch of brush and got absolutely covered in tiny tiny ticks. You would look down at your pants and there would literally be thousands of them. When you tried to brush them off you could only get some of them; the ohters would be all over you hands,socks, legs, shoes, stomach, face... god it was disgusting. And they don´t brush off all that easily so you really have to scrape them off your skin. It was so gross and resulted in a lot of us looking like we had the chicken pox. Another cool thing we did was learn all about bees and harvesting honey. An apiculturalist (I think that´s what their called) came to the farm and then we all put on these big white bee suits and went to the bee boxes to pull out the boards that had huge collections of honey comb. There were thousands of bees everywhere and the buzzing was unnervingly loud. It´s a little (a lot) scary at first because its really difficult to believe that the suit you´re wearing could actually fully protect you. Also, the bees are africanized so they´re really aggressive and Nicola told us that when she got stung it was the most painful thing ever. Not so encouraging. But no one got stung, and we all ate delicious honey. We got a really strange volunteer our last week. She was supposed to stay at least 3 weeks but then deicded that she was only going to stay for 3 days so that she could go be with her boyfriend who lives in the States. She thought it would be a great idea to just go to Quito from Canoa right away, go straight to the airport, and hop on an earlier flight. It never occurred to her that she might not be able to just hop on a flight right away because she´s always seen at least one empty seat on all the planes she´s been on... dumbass. She was also shameless in just asking for peoples stuff like someone´s full pack of cigarettes, or their last bite of food, or, and this is the weirdest, if I had any extra underwear to give her... No I don´t have any extra underwear and why in gods name would she want it!? Freak. I also had to tell her not to smoke in our room and then explain to her why it might not be the best idea to smoke in a house made of dry bamboo and thatch. Then there was her painfully annoying habit of constantly asking questions and especially when she would sit in on our class and ask for an explanation for everything - things we had already covered, things that had no relevance, things that were painfully obvious - which was so irritating to the rest of us that had paid for and attended the entire class. Unanimously decided, she sucked. After we all left, Steve, Tania, Jo and I went to Mompiche. Mompiche is paradise; it´s a small and minimally touristy beach in the north that has lush, jungley vegetation up until a white sand beach that stretches for miles. We got there at 7 pm which is when they turn all the power out for an hour each evening,which was really disorienting. Immediately we found a hostal which ended up being a filthy dump. They led us through a kitchen that smelled like everything was rotting, up a creepy staircase, to a hallway where a fat old man in tiny underpants was leering at us from the doorway. The room looked like a crack house - no windows and a bathroom that had no door and was not really separated from the rest of the room. I hated it so much. I slept on a towel all night too, ugh. We spent one night there then Jo and I moved to a super chill, clean, nearly empty hostal in which the sleeping area and the toilet were two distinct areas. Major upgrade. On the last night Jo and I wandered into a surfers bar and had so much fun, the guys there were hilarious. We also ditched these two obnoxious guys who were trying to guilt trip us into hanging out with them by telling us that we would be liars if we didn´t have one drink with them because we told them that we might earlier. I yelled at him and told him that we would not be having a drink with them. I guess I´m a liar now. Funny enough, the guy I yelled at ended up being on my bus to Quito and we shared a ride in the cab from the terminal to the city... in silence... guess he´s still unhappy about that drink. Now I´m onto the super hippy farm in Malchingui called the Rhiannon community (you can google it) where there is no electricity and no internet for miles, so i´ll be a bit out of touch, but hopefully it´ll be great!