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!

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.

Its All About the Poop - 8/10/09

My first week at Rio Muchacho has been incredible. The actual farm itself is so beautiful. There´s lots of thatched roofs, bamboo constructions, incredible gardens with so many flowers and food, a meditation garden, and even the animal section isn´t too bad. On the farm they row a million kinds of fruits and veggies, basically whatever the climate will allow. They have cows, donkeys, chickens, ducks, pigs, horses, guinea pigs, and lots of cats and dogs running around. Our days begin at 6 AM with either preparing breakfast, watering the gardens, or taking care of the animals. My monring chore for the first week was taking care of the cuyes (guinea pigs). On the coast they don´t eat them so on the farm there just a source of organic material (aka poo). The cuye cages are situated on top of the worm composting beds, the cuyes eat lots of grass and other grains, then poop it all out into the worm beds, which the worms then eat and poop out to create nutrient rich humus which is then used to fertilize the plants. So what I actually do is dump the poo from the litle cuye hiding places in the cage into the worm beds and give them food and grass. Then I water the worm beds and the compost. Breakfast is around 730 which is always fruit, muesli, bread and tea. This is probably my favorite meal. Then at 830 am we start the real work. This can be a whole variety of jobs such as weeding, planting, harvesting crops, or, today I shoveled out the contents of one of the composting toilets for about 2 1/2 hours. At 12 we have lunch which is usualy suop with yucca or beans or carrots or peantus or a million different things from the garden. After we have a heap of white rice which is always excessive and then some sort of hot dish, salad, and sometimes more bread and juice. We start working again at 130 where we work on a whole variety of projects from preparing bamboo with machetes for construction to clearing out a plot of land to start a new garden or making chocolate from the coca plant to make a delicious chocolatey spread. We finish at 4, I usually shower unless the electricity is out and we have no water, and then we have dinner between 6 and 7 which is usually similar to lunch without soup. On Wednesday afternoons we have a cultural activity instead of work. So last Wednesday we went to go see an enormous palm that has been taken over by a parasite and has grown these crazy roots and vines so you can no longer see the actual palm. Later we made rings out of seeds. The other part of my time here is psent in my permaculture and organic farming course. I love this course! THus far we´ve learned the theory and pricniples of organic farming and a little about composting. We have class instead of after breakfast work, 3 times a week. We also watch movies the nights we have classes and some of them have been so interesting. THe firs one we saw was called"Peak Oil" and it was about how Cuba had to basicallly change everything to become completely self suficient and more sustainable after the USSR fell. THey changed everything to organic farming, solar power, huge public transport, bikes, an urban farming. It´s really impressive and of course appeals to my mild obsession for Cuba. THe second movie was called "The Future of Food" which was mildly frightening about GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Basically, Monsanto created these GMO sees and patened the gene in the seed, the seed is only showing its good attributes for one season and then they have to rebuy the seed. They started asking o test farmers crops and found that certain crobs were exhibiting the genes of their seed, sue them, an won with the judges saying that the farmers were responsible for making sure these seeds did not get into their fields, even if these seeds were blown in by the wind or pooped in by a bird. It alo talked about the agro and food industry. So frightening and interesting. Al the volunteers are great and I´ve been able to practice my spanish a lot.