Pig poop - 8/22/09

Rio Muchacho is still incredible. It´s unbeliebable that this will be my last week; time seems to be blowing by faster and faster as my trip progresses. The course is still so fascinating to me. We´ve been talking a lot about compost and permaculture. For my morning jobs I first worked with the horses and cows and then with the pigs. I was a little nerbous about the horses; they get a little worked up when they´re hungry and I would imagine that getting kicked by one would really hurt. HOwever, there´s a donkey in with the horeses and cows that I think is awesome. First, the noises donkeys make is the funniest thing I´ve ever heard come out of an animal. This donkey is also super friendly; it will come up to you and nudge your arm so you´ll pet it. I´m a big fan and he kind of reminds me of Mackenzie. So that weeks job wasn´t so awful. Then, this past week I had the pigs. The pigs are serious pooping machines. I was pretty comfortable with animal poo and even human poo after working in the composting toilets during the first two weeks, but the pigs are completely different. There are 7 small pens, some with two smaller pigs, one with a huge mom pig and her adorable babies, and four massive pigs, thne there are two more giant pigs that hang out in the horse/cow/donkey section that are gross and I don´t like, and then there is the absolutely evil Isidoro. Isidoro is a male pig that is the size of a cow who hasn´t been castrated and is so agressive that he pushed one of hte volunteers to the ground when she was trying to get into his pen to feed him. I hate him, I refuse to go in there and feed him, he can starve or turn into breakfast sausages as far as I´m considered. So the first part of hte job is mixing about a liter of molasses (sp?) with a bucket of water and dish that out before someone starts shovelling; this keeps them at least a bit occupied. THen yo uhave to shovel four of the pens of the poo and put sawdust down. The other three pens you shovel into a different bucket to use the poo for the biodigester which turns poop into usable gas energy. While that´s going on someone mixes up and dishes out the pig food. The pigs sole thought is on being fed so they are unleashing blood curdling screams while waiting for the food. Sometimes they try to nibble on your boots or the shovel or knock over the poo bucket. Sometimes they just have temper tantrumbs, stomping around, squealing like toddlers, which is actually the funniest thing I´ve seen an animal do. The sawdust poo goes to the compost. With the biodigester you have what I consider to be the most disgusting job on the farm. You mix the poo with water and have to pull out the sticks and straw you find in it and then CAREFULLY pour it into the tube that feeds it into the biodigester. If the biodigester is clogged, as it was a couple of day ago, you have to feed a hose through the poopy tube, pull out the now shit covered hose, then turn the tube (about 7 feet long) so it´s standing up right and hit it on the ground until about three liters of smelly pig shit comes flowing out and you are trying not to thing about the droplets falling on your head from the other end of the tube hovering right about you. This was so damn gross. On the last day I got to partake in that as well as poo collecting to make a certain kind of compost called bocashi. We went down the road a bit to an area that was filled with cows and horses. The ground was 100% dried up poop. I had to use this tool which is like a pole with a board perpendicular to it and you drag it on the ground to make mounds so its easier to shovel into bags. One of the workers, Jinsin, was pulling the pole while I was on the ground pushing the board and getting poo dust all over and in my mouht/eyes/nose. I was absolutely exhausted after doing this for like thirty minutes, sweating, and Jinsin was really encouraging by telling me "Tu cara es pura mierda", your face is pure shit, when I stood up. There was a little boy there playing around who was hilarious and "helping" us. He had completely peed his pants and as he was running down a hill, yelling at all of us to watch him jump, he tripped and fell face first into a pile of shit. I was crying I laughed so hard.