Well, we're sure you're all wondering if we're alive. And we are, we pretty much just gave up on the blog. Sorry...
But you know, that's how it goes! And now we know we will never attempt to have another blog the next time we go traveling. And yes, there will be a next time :)
Coming home has been a long awaited transition, and with it less than 24 hours away, we are just grateful for the amazing amount of love and support that we feel from you all. More times than we can count, we've heard from our loved ones how excited they are to have us coming home, how proud they are that we have done this journey, and how much they can't wait for us to be back. It's been absolutely incredible to feel this flood of light & love, and we are truly grateful for all the prayers, the thoughts & the hugs you've sent our way. Thank you.
What is there to say? No one blog post could ever sum up how incredible this journey has been. We have met some of the most inspirational people, seen some of the most beautiful parts of this land, and dived deeper into ourselves than we ever could have imagined. It simply would not have been possible to go the length & depth we've gone here without one another.
A fellow traveler once wrote, "I travel not for the sake of being a tourist, but to discover the beauty of life — to remember that I am not complete." We have seen, experienced, lived & breathed that Otro Mundo Es Posible, that another world is possible. We know that this is just the beginning.
Time to fly. Time to return. Cheers to freedom, y'all. See you on this side or the other!
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
"Will Work For Food" - Farm #3
Hello Family & Friends!
Happy Juuune! We recently just passed our 6 month mark of being abroad - crazy! It's been so wonderful :)
We just finished up 3 weeks on Farm #3! It was located four hours outside of Cusco in a beautiful, lush part of Peru that we are going to call the jungle. We're not sure if it was actually the jungle... but it looked one & damn there were lots of bugs. haha To our surprise we found ourselves back along the trail we had actually hiked with Jackie's family to Machu Picchu! Jackie's internal GPS sensed the familiar surroundings on our drive there. We showed up & realized we had actually had lunch at the restaurant next door, which belonged to the farm owner's brother! Because of this, we saw tourists come through the area every day, and each day smiled at their perplexed face that said, "what are white people doing working here?" haha Some of them even took pictures of us working. Hilarious.
It was fun though to be on the other side of things & see the hard work & effort the families in the pueblo have to make in order to host the hikers. The work these Peruvians do is no joke, and during our time there we worked right alongside with them. In some of the cases I think we actually surprised locals with being females & cutting down trees with machetes on the street. We like it though, keep them on their toes & break some gender stereotypes :) It was a coffee farm & we picked coffee almost every day, and also got some weird looks from locals when we had to hike down the mountain with the bag on our back full of coffee beans. It was about a 30 minute hike up each day to the farm & most days we hiked down too, although sometimes we got lucky and caught a ride. We picked coffee, peeled it, washed it & dried it out. Then Tati, the owner, & her parents, who lived with us, sent it into the city to get roasted. It was great to learn about the coffee process, although the work was a bit monotonous. We swear we must have picked over a thousand coffee beans during our time there haha
While we'd love to say it was wonderful, that'd be lying. It was a great experience and, of course, there are always lessons & growth that comes from each place, but in comparison to our other adventures, it was hard. And not in terms of labor but in terms of living. When Tati smiled she was brilliant, but most of the time she was exhausted, over worked & not open to the laughter & light we tried to shed onto the place. Regardless, we kept each other sane by joking with one another & reminding each other of the incredible nature around us. Sometimes when things are hard & shitty, you just have to laugh. In lieu of this lesson, we present you with the following recapitulation of some of our favorite moments on the farm, in all of it's ridiculousness & humor.
1. Jackie's face turns into Quasi Motd. Thank yooooou bug bites, it's not like we don't already feel like frump balls.
2. Sweeping leaves out of planters due to Tati's OCD. May I remind you, we live in the jungle. AKA - there will always be leaves.
3. Grandma, who we actually started calling Grandma, throwing volunteers off the mountain to pick three berries on the top of a tree. Note to self: you need life insurance to work on this farm.
4. The conversation that occurred every single night, "Jack, do you think we're gonna get fed tonight?" "I dunno Gel, should we ask?" "I dunno, I don't wanna upset her." ..... Feeling like orphans & gaining a whole new understanding of what the sign "Will Work For Food" means.
5. Touching a poisonous caterpillar on my first day picking beans, and being told it was because I wasn't picking coffee correctly. Apparently, you're suppose to bend over the tree & check for caterpillars first. She did not tell us this. In response to the pain she told me it can spread up my arm & to my heart, telling me, "Let me know if it spreads past your hand."
6. Never really finding out what would have happened if the pain spread past my hand and up to my heart. Would I die?! We're still unsure.
7. Becoming terrified of picking coffee.
8. Going next door to the "store" and buying instant coffee... because we ran out of coffee in the house. I'm sorry, I thought we were working on a coffee farm?
9. Grandpa running to the shower in his undies!
10. Jackie saying out loud, to no one in particular, "I suck at using a machete." Tati's low blow, unnecessary response, "It's not the machete's fault." Ouch. We know Tati, we know!
11. Loving when guests would come stay at the "lodge" because that meant we were guaranteed dinner.
12. Having to carry down Grandma's coffee beans in addition to ours = continually falling down & body slamming the mountain.
13. Beginning to laugh in an attempt to not cry.
14. Scenario: volunteer #1 in the kitchen stealing a piece of bread to satiate hunger pangs. Volunteer #2 on the look out for possible sitings of Grandma or Tati.
15. Grandma pissed we're "sleeping in" until 8:30 on Sunday... our one day off.
16. Jackie being taught how to close the refrigerator door.
17. Secretly feeding the hungry, meowing cats with the thought process, "We know you feel. And if I have the power to feed you, I will feed you!"
All in all, we believe every experience is a good experience & there is always something to take away. On that note, it's a part of this journey that won't be missed. :)
We're currently about to wrap up our time in Peru and head over to Bolivia. We're really excited for these next few months in Bolivia and whatever it has to bring! Can't wait to continue the journey :)
With laughter & gratitude,
A & J
Happy Juuune! We recently just passed our 6 month mark of being abroad - crazy! It's been so wonderful :)
We just finished up 3 weeks on Farm #3! It was located four hours outside of Cusco in a beautiful, lush part of Peru that we are going to call the jungle. We're not sure if it was actually the jungle... but it looked one & damn there were lots of bugs. haha To our surprise we found ourselves back along the trail we had actually hiked with Jackie's family to Machu Picchu! Jackie's internal GPS sensed the familiar surroundings on our drive there. We showed up & realized we had actually had lunch at the restaurant next door, which belonged to the farm owner's brother! Because of this, we saw tourists come through the area every day, and each day smiled at their perplexed face that said, "what are white people doing working here?" haha Some of them even took pictures of us working. Hilarious.
It was fun though to be on the other side of things & see the hard work & effort the families in the pueblo have to make in order to host the hikers. The work these Peruvians do is no joke, and during our time there we worked right alongside with them. In some of the cases I think we actually surprised locals with being females & cutting down trees with machetes on the street. We like it though, keep them on their toes & break some gender stereotypes :) It was a coffee farm & we picked coffee almost every day, and also got some weird looks from locals when we had to hike down the mountain with the bag on our back full of coffee beans. It was about a 30 minute hike up each day to the farm & most days we hiked down too, although sometimes we got lucky and caught a ride. We picked coffee, peeled it, washed it & dried it out. Then Tati, the owner, & her parents, who lived with us, sent it into the city to get roasted. It was great to learn about the coffee process, although the work was a bit monotonous. We swear we must have picked over a thousand coffee beans during our time there haha
While we'd love to say it was wonderful, that'd be lying. It was a great experience and, of course, there are always lessons & growth that comes from each place, but in comparison to our other adventures, it was hard. And not in terms of labor but in terms of living. When Tati smiled she was brilliant, but most of the time she was exhausted, over worked & not open to the laughter & light we tried to shed onto the place. Regardless, we kept each other sane by joking with one another & reminding each other of the incredible nature around us. Sometimes when things are hard & shitty, you just have to laugh. In lieu of this lesson, we present you with the following recapitulation of some of our favorite moments on the farm, in all of it's ridiculousness & humor.
1. Jackie's face turns into Quasi Motd. Thank yooooou bug bites, it's not like we don't already feel like frump balls.
2. Sweeping leaves out of planters due to Tati's OCD. May I remind you, we live in the jungle. AKA - there will always be leaves.
3. Grandma, who we actually started calling Grandma, throwing volunteers off the mountain to pick three berries on the top of a tree. Note to self: you need life insurance to work on this farm.
4. The conversation that occurred every single night, "Jack, do you think we're gonna get fed tonight?" "I dunno Gel, should we ask?" "I dunno, I don't wanna upset her." ..... Feeling like orphans & gaining a whole new understanding of what the sign "Will Work For Food" means.
5. Touching a poisonous caterpillar on my first day picking beans, and being told it was because I wasn't picking coffee correctly. Apparently, you're suppose to bend over the tree & check for caterpillars first. She did not tell us this. In response to the pain she told me it can spread up my arm & to my heart, telling me, "Let me know if it spreads past your hand."
6. Never really finding out what would have happened if the pain spread past my hand and up to my heart. Would I die?! We're still unsure.
7. Becoming terrified of picking coffee.
8. Going next door to the "store" and buying instant coffee... because we ran out of coffee in the house. I'm sorry, I thought we were working on a coffee farm?
9. Grandpa running to the shower in his undies!
10. Jackie saying out loud, to no one in particular, "I suck at using a machete." Tati's low blow, unnecessary response, "It's not the machete's fault." Ouch. We know Tati, we know!
11. Loving when guests would come stay at the "lodge" because that meant we were guaranteed dinner.
12. Having to carry down Grandma's coffee beans in addition to ours = continually falling down & body slamming the mountain.
13. Beginning to laugh in an attempt to not cry.
14. Scenario: volunteer #1 in the kitchen stealing a piece of bread to satiate hunger pangs. Volunteer #2 on the look out for possible sitings of Grandma or Tati.
15. Grandma pissed we're "sleeping in" until 8:30 on Sunday... our one day off.
16. Jackie being taught how to close the refrigerator door.
17. Secretly feeding the hungry, meowing cats with the thought process, "We know you feel. And if I have the power to feed you, I will feed you!"
All in all, we believe every experience is a good experience & there is always something to take away. On that note, it's a part of this journey that won't be missed. :)
We're currently about to wrap up our time in Peru and head over to Bolivia. We're really excited for these next few months in Bolivia and whatever it has to bring! Can't wait to continue the journey :)
With laughter & gratitude,
A & J
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Machu Picchu & Family Time!
Hello Hello Hello Loved Ones!
Ah - how is everyone? It's been awhile, hasn't it? We realize the length between entries are growing & hope this absence hasn't worried or concerned you at all - we are completely & fabulously well :) I read a quote once that said, "There is velocity in escape." & while this isn't an escape, it is an adventure, an exit from one reality into another, and it does appear we're becoming more and more enveloped in the journey & all of the lessons & experiences it has to offer. Which is a wonderful thing! Aside from our lack of communication... haha So if there is to be an excuse for our absence, it would be diving in deeper, feeling this life stronger & expanding further into the love, light & lessons of the universe.
The second half of March was spent hopping south along the coast of Ecuador, soaking up the sun in Puerto Lopez, Bahia, & Montanitas. We ended our time in Ecuador at a cute & quiet town called Vilcabamba where we celebrated the closing of nearly 90 days in Ecuador!
We began our time in Peru on the north-west tip of the coast in a wonderful place called Mancora. Planning to stay only two or three nights, we ended up staying a week in this surprisingly piece of paradise. We left at the end of the month and headed south where we were excited to go meet & greet Jackie's family to South America!!! A family trip down here had been talked about since before we even left, and having planned the trip since January, we were all excited to finally have them here for 10 days to explore a bit of Peru & hike Machu Picchu together. :)
Kevin, Jackie & I took a 23 hour night bus straight from Mancora to Lima where we met up with the family & began the adventures together. We spent the first two nights in the country's capital taking in the culture & city vibe. After a couple of days we were ready to move on to something more tranquil so headed to Cusco where we would book our 4 day, 3 night Incan Jungle Trek to Machu Picchu! We spent a few days in Cusco adjusting to the altitude and enjoying the Peruvian culture & lifestyle. While we loved & enjoyed Cusco, we were all excited & anxious to start the big trek, as it had been one of the main parts planned in the family trip together & we knew it would be a physically challenging & rewarding few days. The night before we left we had a quick briefing with our tour guide about what to bring & expect & woke early the next morning to begin the journey :)
There were a wonderful 17 of us on the trip together & we all vibed together well & had a blast. Our tour guide, Kenneth, was simply hilarious & although at times his informative talks took a bit of focus to stay tuned in to, he was a light & helpful spirit who helped lead us down rocky paths, across rivers & bridges, through train tracks, down zip lines, across mountains, in the rain, and the whole time doing so with a smile. We started the first day with mountain biking in the morning & hiking in the afternoon. The nature we passed through on our bikes was breathtaking & we all smiled & yelled in delight at the beauty that surrounded us. It was raining so hard at the original drop-off point that we had to continue a bit further to begin biking. While it rained on & off during the time we biked, we were lucky the air wasn't too bitter or cold. We biked for the morning & then finished the day with hiking a few hours that afternoon. Our first night we stayed with a wonderful family in their home in the middle of the Andes where the closest neighbor was at least a 15 minute hike away. The family was open & generous, welcoming the group into their home & cooking us a delicious dinner & breakfast. This was really great for Jackie's family to experience because while we loved seeing what Lima & Cusco had to offer, this authentic experience of staying in someones home & seeing how the people here really live was something Jackie & I really wanted them to see. They loved it too & were in awe of how simple & beautifully they could live. They sold us beer from their fridge and that night we bought out their entire supply :)
The second day was just straight hiking, a total of 7 or 8 hours, and according to a group members pedometer, about 22,000 steps. To say the least, we were tired by nightfall. Ending the hike just as the sun was setting we closed the day with some amazing thermal baths that were in the middle of nowhere & built just along side the river. We relished the relief for a couple of hours before we headed over to a small little pueblo where we'd be staying in a hostel for the night. We found out it was tradition here for the hikers to go out to the local discotecas & bars, so we did! To say the least, at least half the group was hung over the next day & two hadn't even gone to bed yet.
Day three was a big day for those scared of heights, as the first half of the day involved six different zip lines between some of the most beautiful mountains we've seen. The weather had seemed to be smiling just for us as we zipped through the blue skies & green mountains, screaming half in fear, half in pure delight (depending who you were haha) as we soared through the air feeling free, free, free. We hiked the rest of that afternoon to the tiny town Aguas Calientes which sat at the base of Machu Picchu - we had nearly arrived :) We spent that night in a hostel & woke before sunrise the next day to begin our ascend to Machu Picchu. You had the option of either taking a 20 minute bus ride up to the top where you enter Machu Picchu, or to hike at a vertical incline for 50 minutes up to the top. We figured we'd made it this far, we had to finish it with our own two feet. It was probably the hardest hike we've ever done, but completely worth it.
It feels almost silly to even attempt to convey the power & beauty that is Machu Picchu. We were simply in awe of it's surreal & serene being, exemplifying patience & intelligence at it's best. We could hardly believe we were there and even now looking back on pictures we laugh at how it looks like we were just cropped in haha It was beautiful & moving, and we all felt it's power in our own way. Jackie, Garrett, Kevin & a few of our new friends made the brave & final trek up to Huana Picchu, a mountain of Machu Picchu that has an incredible view after hiking up a thin, rocky & vertical trail. Mental toughness was needed just as much as physical strength to get up this mountain, and they took on the challenge. The energy up there was absolutely incredible. When they arrived at the top it was so abundant & strong that a women's hair was literally standing up on her head! Jackie just smiled & opened her arms to it, letting the power & beauty sink into her, breathing it in. She found a rock to settle down onto for a moment to do a short meditation, and when she came down from the mountain her face was absolutely beaming. We smiled & just hugged without words, grateful for the experience to be there, and for the brilliance of mother nature around us.
It was so wonderful to have family here. We were thrilled to share a small piece of this land, culture & experience with them, and even more so, deeply grateful for the support, love & enthusiasm our parents have for us. Jackie's family came so excited & willing to explore & experience this life with us - open minds, open hearts. By the end of our time together they had completely embraced our vagabond, backpacking lifestyle & were leaving behind with us their toothpastes, socks & bug repellent! Haha :) It's the basic things we treasure & when you carry your entire home on your back you have a whole new appreciation for warm showers, clean clothes & a bed that doesn't have sand in it or a mosquito net around it haha We were so happy that they jumped right on board with our back-to-basics attitude & when the time came for them to return home, we all shared teary good-byes & warm, big hugs that said without saying how amazing our time together had been.
Jackie & I are currently back in Mancora, Peru working at a hostel for the month of April. We didn't really realize we were coming back here & practically found ourselves back at the hostel's doorstep saying, "Alright, I guess this is our next step!" We had had such a wonderful experience here in March we knew there were still things for us to learn & experience here. There is such a sense of community here & we all just float along together, supporting one another & sharing the sunshine. Jackie & I have begun making bracelets, hair wraps & dream catchers that we've begun selling for money to help support ourselves while down here. It's been a wonderful place to cultivate creative & artistic energy, and we're participating in a creative writing, Reiki & energy exchange workshop here at the end of the month.
We're learning, growing, dancing & expanding, enjoying the ride regardless of where it takes us, listening to the universe & following where it is leads. We hope you are all well & blooming beautifully into Spring. Our next stop is a farm located four hours outside of Cusco, Peru for the month of May, and after that a bit of traveling around in some cities in the south.
Sending all our love,
A & J
Ah - how is everyone? It's been awhile, hasn't it? We realize the length between entries are growing & hope this absence hasn't worried or concerned you at all - we are completely & fabulously well :) I read a quote once that said, "There is velocity in escape." & while this isn't an escape, it is an adventure, an exit from one reality into another, and it does appear we're becoming more and more enveloped in the journey & all of the lessons & experiences it has to offer. Which is a wonderful thing! Aside from our lack of communication... haha So if there is to be an excuse for our absence, it would be diving in deeper, feeling this life stronger & expanding further into the love, light & lessons of the universe.
The second half of March was spent hopping south along the coast of Ecuador, soaking up the sun in Puerto Lopez, Bahia, & Montanitas. We ended our time in Ecuador at a cute & quiet town called Vilcabamba where we celebrated the closing of nearly 90 days in Ecuador!
We began our time in Peru on the north-west tip of the coast in a wonderful place called Mancora. Planning to stay only two or three nights, we ended up staying a week in this surprisingly piece of paradise. We left at the end of the month and headed south where we were excited to go meet & greet Jackie's family to South America!!! A family trip down here had been talked about since before we even left, and having planned the trip since January, we were all excited to finally have them here for 10 days to explore a bit of Peru & hike Machu Picchu together. :)
Kevin, Jackie & I took a 23 hour night bus straight from Mancora to Lima where we met up with the family & began the adventures together. We spent the first two nights in the country's capital taking in the culture & city vibe. After a couple of days we were ready to move on to something more tranquil so headed to Cusco where we would book our 4 day, 3 night Incan Jungle Trek to Machu Picchu! We spent a few days in Cusco adjusting to the altitude and enjoying the Peruvian culture & lifestyle. While we loved & enjoyed Cusco, we were all excited & anxious to start the big trek, as it had been one of the main parts planned in the family trip together & we knew it would be a physically challenging & rewarding few days. The night before we left we had a quick briefing with our tour guide about what to bring & expect & woke early the next morning to begin the journey :)
There were a wonderful 17 of us on the trip together & we all vibed together well & had a blast. Our tour guide, Kenneth, was simply hilarious & although at times his informative talks took a bit of focus to stay tuned in to, he was a light & helpful spirit who helped lead us down rocky paths, across rivers & bridges, through train tracks, down zip lines, across mountains, in the rain, and the whole time doing so with a smile. We started the first day with mountain biking in the morning & hiking in the afternoon. The nature we passed through on our bikes was breathtaking & we all smiled & yelled in delight at the beauty that surrounded us. It was raining so hard at the original drop-off point that we had to continue a bit further to begin biking. While it rained on & off during the time we biked, we were lucky the air wasn't too bitter or cold. We biked for the morning & then finished the day with hiking a few hours that afternoon. Our first night we stayed with a wonderful family in their home in the middle of the Andes where the closest neighbor was at least a 15 minute hike away. The family was open & generous, welcoming the group into their home & cooking us a delicious dinner & breakfast. This was really great for Jackie's family to experience because while we loved seeing what Lima & Cusco had to offer, this authentic experience of staying in someones home & seeing how the people here really live was something Jackie & I really wanted them to see. They loved it too & were in awe of how simple & beautifully they could live. They sold us beer from their fridge and that night we bought out their entire supply :)
The second day was just straight hiking, a total of 7 or 8 hours, and according to a group members pedometer, about 22,000 steps. To say the least, we were tired by nightfall. Ending the hike just as the sun was setting we closed the day with some amazing thermal baths that were in the middle of nowhere & built just along side the river. We relished the relief for a couple of hours before we headed over to a small little pueblo where we'd be staying in a hostel for the night. We found out it was tradition here for the hikers to go out to the local discotecas & bars, so we did! To say the least, at least half the group was hung over the next day & two hadn't even gone to bed yet.
Day three was a big day for those scared of heights, as the first half of the day involved six different zip lines between some of the most beautiful mountains we've seen. The weather had seemed to be smiling just for us as we zipped through the blue skies & green mountains, screaming half in fear, half in pure delight (depending who you were haha) as we soared through the air feeling free, free, free. We hiked the rest of that afternoon to the tiny town Aguas Calientes which sat at the base of Machu Picchu - we had nearly arrived :) We spent that night in a hostel & woke before sunrise the next day to begin our ascend to Machu Picchu. You had the option of either taking a 20 minute bus ride up to the top where you enter Machu Picchu, or to hike at a vertical incline for 50 minutes up to the top. We figured we'd made it this far, we had to finish it with our own two feet. It was probably the hardest hike we've ever done, but completely worth it.
It feels almost silly to even attempt to convey the power & beauty that is Machu Picchu. We were simply in awe of it's surreal & serene being, exemplifying patience & intelligence at it's best. We could hardly believe we were there and even now looking back on pictures we laugh at how it looks like we were just cropped in haha It was beautiful & moving, and we all felt it's power in our own way. Jackie, Garrett, Kevin & a few of our new friends made the brave & final trek up to Huana Picchu, a mountain of Machu Picchu that has an incredible view after hiking up a thin, rocky & vertical trail. Mental toughness was needed just as much as physical strength to get up this mountain, and they took on the challenge. The energy up there was absolutely incredible. When they arrived at the top it was so abundant & strong that a women's hair was literally standing up on her head! Jackie just smiled & opened her arms to it, letting the power & beauty sink into her, breathing it in. She found a rock to settle down onto for a moment to do a short meditation, and when she came down from the mountain her face was absolutely beaming. We smiled & just hugged without words, grateful for the experience to be there, and for the brilliance of mother nature around us.
It was so wonderful to have family here. We were thrilled to share a small piece of this land, culture & experience with them, and even more so, deeply grateful for the support, love & enthusiasm our parents have for us. Jackie's family came so excited & willing to explore & experience this life with us - open minds, open hearts. By the end of our time together they had completely embraced our vagabond, backpacking lifestyle & were leaving behind with us their toothpastes, socks & bug repellent! Haha :) It's the basic things we treasure & when you carry your entire home on your back you have a whole new appreciation for warm showers, clean clothes & a bed that doesn't have sand in it or a mosquito net around it haha We were so happy that they jumped right on board with our back-to-basics attitude & when the time came for them to return home, we all shared teary good-byes & warm, big hugs that said without saying how amazing our time together had been.
Jackie & I are currently back in Mancora, Peru working at a hostel for the month of April. We didn't really realize we were coming back here & practically found ourselves back at the hostel's doorstep saying, "Alright, I guess this is our next step!" We had had such a wonderful experience here in March we knew there were still things for us to learn & experience here. There is such a sense of community here & we all just float along together, supporting one another & sharing the sunshine. Jackie & I have begun making bracelets, hair wraps & dream catchers that we've begun selling for money to help support ourselves while down here. It's been a wonderful place to cultivate creative & artistic energy, and we're participating in a creative writing, Reiki & energy exchange workshop here at the end of the month.
We're learning, growing, dancing & expanding, enjoying the ride regardless of where it takes us, listening to the universe & following where it is leads. We hope you are all well & blooming beautifully into Spring. Our next stop is a farm located four hours outside of Cusco, Peru for the month of May, and after that a bit of traveling around in some cities in the south.
Sending all our love,
A & J
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
A Day in the Life
Hello Family & Friends :)
After an incredible month at Rhiannon, our time is up & has come to a close. There really are no words to describe the gift & blessing that was February. We're sad to go, but know that all things must change & that we will carry the people, the place & the experiences forward for the rest of our lives. We're currently on our way to the coast of Ecuador to wrap up our time in this beautiful country. It will be 3 months when we exit on March 17th (ish? that's when we're offically kicked out of the country haha) & it is insane how quickly that time has flown. Starting in Pedernales, Ecuador we'll make our way South until we hit Peru. We're excited & traveling with a new friend, Agnes, who we met on the farm :) She's great & the three of us have a lot of fun & vibe well together. We'll be meeting back up with Kevin as well, which will be awesome. The four of us predict to have a wonderful time flouncing around in Ecuadorian sunshine, eating delicious seafood & getting a new persepctive of the Pacific :)
Although we've left, we had the fun idea to give you all a break down of what a "typical day"at the Rhiannon farm was like. After being asked several times, "Sooo what do you DO during the day??", we realized that even though we stay in touch enough to let you know how we are & how things are going, we don't exactly paint the best picture of what we do. Each day is pretty different, but we'll do the best we can do break it down & give you a glimpse of what our life has been for the last month :)
7:00 AM: Wake up. There's a huge metal bell outside that we ring at 7AM for breakfast. If you're on breakfast duty you wake up at 6AM to make it, boil hot water for everyone, do some AM watering & ring the bell. Every morning we have porridge (or oatmeal? We've tried figuring out the difference between these two for a month and gave up haha), & if the person/people on breakfast are feeling up to it, something else on the side like vegan pancakes, panela tortilla crisps or fried bananas. Regardless, there's always a huge pot of porridge/oatmeal & some fruit cut up in everyone's bowl. I'm not sure why but Jackie & I loved the porridge... to the point that we'd go to bed excited to wake up to eat porridge haha We, naturally, got made fun of for this, but our love for porridge has yet to falter :) jaja
7:45 AM: Community meeting. If you're working, you have to be done with breakfast, washed up & ready to work by this time. We sit for 10-15 minutes in the living room to discuss & assign our duties of the day & address anything people have questions/concerns with. Super casual & straightforward.
8:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Work. For the first hour we typically care for animals. There are always at least four people needed to physically move the pig pen every morning. Aside from that there's usually just one or two people on each animal. The pigs, Michael Jackson (half white & half black jaja) & Morgan freeman (all black, of course) get fed twice a day, once in the morning & once in the evening. Outside the kitchen are four trash bins assigned to chicken food, pig food, organic compost & non-recycable items. If you don't finish a meal, you give the left overs to one of the animal bins. We found this to be lovely as we felt we were never wasting food haha In the morning whoever is on pigs, which was a lot of times Jackie, would grab this trash bin, take half of the left over porridge from breakfast, pick a wheelbarrel full of weeds, made a specific "pig porridge", and fix this all together to feed the pigs. We'd also bring a couple jugs of water out to them each day & shovel up their poop. Once a week we move the chicken pen & clean out their house. Somehow Jackie got assigned to cleaning out the chicken poo every week, soon claiming the name "Poop Lady" haha We check for eggs in the afternoon & make sure they're back in their house by dark. If you're assigned to dogs (Valentina, Suerte, Matt, Choclo & Ila!) you divide up the dog food & make another batch. It takes about 45 minutes to cook on the stove & consisted of dog rice, quinoa, oats, a little bit of pig porridge, salt & lard. You had to mix it often because it would burn quick. You'd give them half the caldron in the morning & half in the evening. If you were on donkey (which I usually was!) you'd feed her twice a day, & move her twice a day. Her food was simple & she just got oats & carrots. While she ate I pet her, cleaned her eyes, cleaned her hooves & picked up her poop. I'd walk her out & tie her up to a spot that had good grass to eat, returning mid-day to move her again. Before dark I'd bring her in & feed her a second time. After everyone finished animals there were a variety of tasks that we'd be assigned: AM watering, mulching, digging, cleaning the fireplace, cleaning the bathroom, making citrus soap, washing kitchen towels, tree care, sweeping the house, planting, harvesting, cleaning out irrigation pipes, searching the surrounding fields for cow poop, turning compost, making compost, garden checklist, etc. Turning compost is one thing, but making it is a whole other. Luckily the day Jackie & I were both assigned to do it we were in giggling & good spirits because that ish can be nasty haha You physically mix together (with shovels) cow poo, donkey poo, pig poo, organic compost, urine, some weeds, some worms, some water & some fire ash. The fire ash is random, we know, we didn't understand that part either haha Jackie was one of the only people who knew how to do garden checklist & got assigned to it pretty often. She enjoyed it for the most part since you get to be in the greenhouse a lot but sometimes she would have to refill the wormery with donkey poo & water it, use decomposing onion & garlic as bug spray to protect the plants, & worst of all concoct chicken & pig poo fertilizers. For this she would have put chicken & pig poo in a sock with her hands & dunk it in water until it was nice & creamy. Yum! Different sections of the farm were named different things so it took awhile to learn but eventually we caught on. The majority of the digging was done in what we call the Cosmic Spiral, our garden in the front of the house. We would cut mulch for a variety of places on the farm in preparation for planting, especially a section called the Star Signs. The star signs are meant to look like the astological signs, which when dug appropriately, should be able to be seen perfectly from arial view :) There was one big swell called Douglas which we didn't work much with and a few orchards we knew simpy as "Left Orchard", "Right Orchard" & "Back Orchard". There was an area called the corner square too, & we mulched that area as well. Planting was always nice & relaxing & felt a bit more meaningful. We got to see some of the things we planted begin to grow by the time we left which is always awesome :) Going on hour long searches for cow poo in order to make compost was surprisingly enjoyable haha we'd just push a wheelbarrel around open fields with shovels, shouting outloud everytime we'd find some, feeling like we'd just found gold or something haha There would always be other random jobs too that would pop up, like fixing cracked doors with rubber, clearing corn fields, weeding the herb garden or greenhouse, etc. (Oh yeah! We had a little garden with all types of wonderufl tea! It was amazing to be able to just walk outside, pick some fresh tea & enjoy a warm cup of it in the morning :)
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Break. The kitchen would rave with non-vegan eaters & eggs would be plenitful haha Pretty much everyone would have a snack, grab some water & relax for a bit.
11:30 AM - 1:30 PM: Work. You'd pretty much go back to whatever you were doing or switch to something else. If you were on lunch you'd stop at 12:30PM to start preparing the meal & do an extra hour of work later. If it was Tuesday or Thursday everyone would stop at 12:30 PM, regardless of if you were cooking lunch, because those were the two big, community watering days & we needed the entire team to hand water the farm.
1:30: Freedom! (Kind of. haha) Lunch would typically be served around 2PM ish & everyone would just chill & relax for the afternoon. If you were on animals, you had to be sure to remember to take care of them later in the evening, and if you were on evening watering, you had to do it before dinner. People assigned to make dinner would start around 5:30-6 ish & we'd usually eat between 7:30 & 8:00 PM. A secret most soon discovered was breakfast was the easiest meal to be on, since options of what to make were so limited & clean-up was so easy, and lunch & dinner usually took in total, 2-3 hours. You were never on a meal alone though which was really nice. And not to pick on men, but it was hilarious to cook in partnership with a man who had no idea what he was doing haha we loved it though, you gotta learn somewhere! And it's not like I have great cooking skills, so it was great to work with others & learn a bit here & there :)
After the work day, people would do various things. We had an awesome snuggle pit which everyone would cuddle up & read on. Sometimes we'd have guided mediations, sometimes we'd have yoga, sometimes people would go on bike rides or runs or take a cab into town for a few hours. Jackie & I led our first yoga class together, unexpectedly, a couple weeks ago & it was successful! Both of us presuming/desiring to one day be yoga instructors, we found a lot of joy & excitement in this experience :)
Just like on our last farm, time slows down significantly & "farm time" is created. By 8PM you're tired & by 9PM at least half the community has gone to bed. There's a pool table that got used a lot, and a few games people would play sometimes, but more than anything people would hang out in the snuggle pit & the couches/chairs surrounding it, either enjoying conversation or a good book. We've loved the simplicity of just sitting around & enjoying one another's company. Sometimes there'd be some drums or guitar going, often times accompanied by some singing. Jackie & I would take time each afternoon to do Reiki on ourselves &, often times, do a bit of writing.
Life was great. Hammocks, mountain tops, amazing clouds & incredible company. It's funny what you can discover when you actually take the time to step away from the chaos, the job, the traffic, the dinner plans, the TV, the ipod, the constant buzzing of events, objects & encounters. There is so much more to us than "what we do". Jackie & I met a girl in Argentina who, when asked, "What do you do back home?" replied, "Oh, a lot! I like to write a lot, I do... & .... &.... aaand then I have a little office job on the side, you know, just to pay the rent." We loved that she defined herself based off her personal interests & hobbies rather than her career title or job position, & have since tried finding a better way to ask people "what they do back home". Of course, careers & jobs have a solid place in someone's definition of oneself & in someone's life, especially if the person is lucky enough to be passionately & genuinely interested in their line of work. It's just our thinking that work is only a part of who we are & only one of the many reasons why we're here.
It's been fun to work each day & wonder what each of you are doing in your daily life at the same moment. We often laugh in amazement upon reflection of what we're doing. We're busy scooping poop & you're busy..... We're feedings the pigs & donkey in the morning & your morning consists of ..... We laugh at the surprise that is life, the beauty in discovering where life has led us & the unknowing nature that preceded each moment. Who knew this is where we'd be, this is what we'd be doing, this is what we would be loving? We are overwhelmed with gratitude for this gift that is life.
My loves, we hope we've helped at least a little bit in bridging the space between your life & ours. We send love & light to each of you, until next time y'all, we'll see you in Peru :)
XO
A & J
(aka your personal donkey & pig pooper scoopers)
After an incredible month at Rhiannon, our time is up & has come to a close. There really are no words to describe the gift & blessing that was February. We're sad to go, but know that all things must change & that we will carry the people, the place & the experiences forward for the rest of our lives. We're currently on our way to the coast of Ecuador to wrap up our time in this beautiful country. It will be 3 months when we exit on March 17th (ish? that's when we're offically kicked out of the country haha) & it is insane how quickly that time has flown. Starting in Pedernales, Ecuador we'll make our way South until we hit Peru. We're excited & traveling with a new friend, Agnes, who we met on the farm :) She's great & the three of us have a lot of fun & vibe well together. We'll be meeting back up with Kevin as well, which will be awesome. The four of us predict to have a wonderful time flouncing around in Ecuadorian sunshine, eating delicious seafood & getting a new persepctive of the Pacific :)
Although we've left, we had the fun idea to give you all a break down of what a "typical day"at the Rhiannon farm was like. After being asked several times, "Sooo what do you DO during the day??", we realized that even though we stay in touch enough to let you know how we are & how things are going, we don't exactly paint the best picture of what we do. Each day is pretty different, but we'll do the best we can do break it down & give you a glimpse of what our life has been for the last month :)
7:00 AM: Wake up. There's a huge metal bell outside that we ring at 7AM for breakfast. If you're on breakfast duty you wake up at 6AM to make it, boil hot water for everyone, do some AM watering & ring the bell. Every morning we have porridge (or oatmeal? We've tried figuring out the difference between these two for a month and gave up haha), & if the person/people on breakfast are feeling up to it, something else on the side like vegan pancakes, panela tortilla crisps or fried bananas. Regardless, there's always a huge pot of porridge/oatmeal & some fruit cut up in everyone's bowl. I'm not sure why but Jackie & I loved the porridge... to the point that we'd go to bed excited to wake up to eat porridge haha We, naturally, got made fun of for this, but our love for porridge has yet to falter :) jaja
7:45 AM: Community meeting. If you're working, you have to be done with breakfast, washed up & ready to work by this time. We sit for 10-15 minutes in the living room to discuss & assign our duties of the day & address anything people have questions/concerns with. Super casual & straightforward.
8:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Work. For the first hour we typically care for animals. There are always at least four people needed to physically move the pig pen every morning. Aside from that there's usually just one or two people on each animal. The pigs, Michael Jackson (half white & half black jaja) & Morgan freeman (all black, of course) get fed twice a day, once in the morning & once in the evening. Outside the kitchen are four trash bins assigned to chicken food, pig food, organic compost & non-recycable items. If you don't finish a meal, you give the left overs to one of the animal bins. We found this to be lovely as we felt we were never wasting food haha In the morning whoever is on pigs, which was a lot of times Jackie, would grab this trash bin, take half of the left over porridge from breakfast, pick a wheelbarrel full of weeds, made a specific "pig porridge", and fix this all together to feed the pigs. We'd also bring a couple jugs of water out to them each day & shovel up their poop. Once a week we move the chicken pen & clean out their house. Somehow Jackie got assigned to cleaning out the chicken poo every week, soon claiming the name "Poop Lady" haha We check for eggs in the afternoon & make sure they're back in their house by dark. If you're assigned to dogs (Valentina, Suerte, Matt, Choclo & Ila!) you divide up the dog food & make another batch. It takes about 45 minutes to cook on the stove & consisted of dog rice, quinoa, oats, a little bit of pig porridge, salt & lard. You had to mix it often because it would burn quick. You'd give them half the caldron in the morning & half in the evening. If you were on donkey (which I usually was!) you'd feed her twice a day, & move her twice a day. Her food was simple & she just got oats & carrots. While she ate I pet her, cleaned her eyes, cleaned her hooves & picked up her poop. I'd walk her out & tie her up to a spot that had good grass to eat, returning mid-day to move her again. Before dark I'd bring her in & feed her a second time. After everyone finished animals there were a variety of tasks that we'd be assigned: AM watering, mulching, digging, cleaning the fireplace, cleaning the bathroom, making citrus soap, washing kitchen towels, tree care, sweeping the house, planting, harvesting, cleaning out irrigation pipes, searching the surrounding fields for cow poop, turning compost, making compost, garden checklist, etc. Turning compost is one thing, but making it is a whole other. Luckily the day Jackie & I were both assigned to do it we were in giggling & good spirits because that ish can be nasty haha You physically mix together (with shovels) cow poo, donkey poo, pig poo, organic compost, urine, some weeds, some worms, some water & some fire ash. The fire ash is random, we know, we didn't understand that part either haha Jackie was one of the only people who knew how to do garden checklist & got assigned to it pretty often. She enjoyed it for the most part since you get to be in the greenhouse a lot but sometimes she would have to refill the wormery with donkey poo & water it, use decomposing onion & garlic as bug spray to protect the plants, & worst of all concoct chicken & pig poo fertilizers. For this she would have put chicken & pig poo in a sock with her hands & dunk it in water until it was nice & creamy. Yum! Different sections of the farm were named different things so it took awhile to learn but eventually we caught on. The majority of the digging was done in what we call the Cosmic Spiral, our garden in the front of the house. We would cut mulch for a variety of places on the farm in preparation for planting, especially a section called the Star Signs. The star signs are meant to look like the astological signs, which when dug appropriately, should be able to be seen perfectly from arial view :) There was one big swell called Douglas which we didn't work much with and a few orchards we knew simpy as "Left Orchard", "Right Orchard" & "Back Orchard". There was an area called the corner square too, & we mulched that area as well. Planting was always nice & relaxing & felt a bit more meaningful. We got to see some of the things we planted begin to grow by the time we left which is always awesome :) Going on hour long searches for cow poo in order to make compost was surprisingly enjoyable haha we'd just push a wheelbarrel around open fields with shovels, shouting outloud everytime we'd find some, feeling like we'd just found gold or something haha There would always be other random jobs too that would pop up, like fixing cracked doors with rubber, clearing corn fields, weeding the herb garden or greenhouse, etc. (Oh yeah! We had a little garden with all types of wonderufl tea! It was amazing to be able to just walk outside, pick some fresh tea & enjoy a warm cup of it in the morning :)
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Break. The kitchen would rave with non-vegan eaters & eggs would be plenitful haha Pretty much everyone would have a snack, grab some water & relax for a bit.
11:30 AM - 1:30 PM: Work. You'd pretty much go back to whatever you were doing or switch to something else. If you were on lunch you'd stop at 12:30PM to start preparing the meal & do an extra hour of work later. If it was Tuesday or Thursday everyone would stop at 12:30 PM, regardless of if you were cooking lunch, because those were the two big, community watering days & we needed the entire team to hand water the farm.
1:30: Freedom! (Kind of. haha) Lunch would typically be served around 2PM ish & everyone would just chill & relax for the afternoon. If you were on animals, you had to be sure to remember to take care of them later in the evening, and if you were on evening watering, you had to do it before dinner. People assigned to make dinner would start around 5:30-6 ish & we'd usually eat between 7:30 & 8:00 PM. A secret most soon discovered was breakfast was the easiest meal to be on, since options of what to make were so limited & clean-up was so easy, and lunch & dinner usually took in total, 2-3 hours. You were never on a meal alone though which was really nice. And not to pick on men, but it was hilarious to cook in partnership with a man who had no idea what he was doing haha we loved it though, you gotta learn somewhere! And it's not like I have great cooking skills, so it was great to work with others & learn a bit here & there :)
After the work day, people would do various things. We had an awesome snuggle pit which everyone would cuddle up & read on. Sometimes we'd have guided mediations, sometimes we'd have yoga, sometimes people would go on bike rides or runs or take a cab into town for a few hours. Jackie & I led our first yoga class together, unexpectedly, a couple weeks ago & it was successful! Both of us presuming/desiring to one day be yoga instructors, we found a lot of joy & excitement in this experience :)
Just like on our last farm, time slows down significantly & "farm time" is created. By 8PM you're tired & by 9PM at least half the community has gone to bed. There's a pool table that got used a lot, and a few games people would play sometimes, but more than anything people would hang out in the snuggle pit & the couches/chairs surrounding it, either enjoying conversation or a good book. We've loved the simplicity of just sitting around & enjoying one another's company. Sometimes there'd be some drums or guitar going, often times accompanied by some singing. Jackie & I would take time each afternoon to do Reiki on ourselves &, often times, do a bit of writing.
Life was great. Hammocks, mountain tops, amazing clouds & incredible company. It's funny what you can discover when you actually take the time to step away from the chaos, the job, the traffic, the dinner plans, the TV, the ipod, the constant buzzing of events, objects & encounters. There is so much more to us than "what we do". Jackie & I met a girl in Argentina who, when asked, "What do you do back home?" replied, "Oh, a lot! I like to write a lot, I do... & .... &.... aaand then I have a little office job on the side, you know, just to pay the rent." We loved that she defined herself based off her personal interests & hobbies rather than her career title or job position, & have since tried finding a better way to ask people "what they do back home". Of course, careers & jobs have a solid place in someone's definition of oneself & in someone's life, especially if the person is lucky enough to be passionately & genuinely interested in their line of work. It's just our thinking that work is only a part of who we are & only one of the many reasons why we're here.
It's been fun to work each day & wonder what each of you are doing in your daily life at the same moment. We often laugh in amazement upon reflection of what we're doing. We're busy scooping poop & you're busy..... We're feedings the pigs & donkey in the morning & your morning consists of ..... We laugh at the surprise that is life, the beauty in discovering where life has led us & the unknowing nature that preceded each moment. Who knew this is where we'd be, this is what we'd be doing, this is what we would be loving? We are overwhelmed with gratitude for this gift that is life.
My loves, we hope we've helped at least a little bit in bridging the space between your life & ours. We send love & light to each of you, until next time y'all, we'll see you in Peru :)
XO
A & J
(aka your personal donkey & pig pooper scoopers)
Friday, February 17, 2012
Rhiannon Community Farm!
Hello loves!
Ah, where do we even begin? The Rhiannon community farm is simply amazing. We feel like it is truly a gift to be here.
We arrived on February 1st to warm faces & welcoming arms. There are currently 13 of us living & working here, including the two women who own the house & farm, Nicky & Helen. The number of people who are here varies, as they've had between 8-30 people at any given time. Nicky & Helen are amazing - full of life, energy, passion & vigor. They are new mothers of a precious & beautiful two month old baby girl, Satia :) (So I guess there are 14 of us! haha) Everyone here has so much character & personality, and we all vibe together really well. When we arrived most of the other volunteers had already been here for 3-4 weeks so they have helped show us the ropes. The work on this farm, the climate, the people and the experience here is a lot different from living on Marco's farm last month but both have been incredible experiences.
The way Rhiannon is run is definitely based on more of a family/community structure - you have to pull your own weight & contribute. Work hard, play hard! We have a rotating system for who cooks the meals & every morning get together quarter to 8 to assign jobs for the day & discuss anything that needs to be covered. The jobs vary from turning compost, digging new swells, mulching, cleaning out the irrigation pipes, etc. We're 3km North of the Equator here (rad little fact!) & the climate is really dry. Because of this, we have to do a looot of manual watering, which we've found to be the hardest job here/a great arm work out haha We basically carry around 25 lb. jugs of water & try to manually water the entire farm haha We have some wonderful animals around that we take care of each day, including 6 dogs, 1 kitten, 6 chickens, 3 huge pigs & 1 donkey! The donkey's my favorite, her name is Ursula & sometimes I sneak her carrot bits & give her little donkey kisses :) She's adorable. I sing to her when I'm out moving her around in the field & taking care of her.
Everyone works hard here! Including the preparation of meals. Cooking for 13 people is no easy task! It's a vegetarian/vegan community so it's been a fun & creative challenge to try to not make the meals too monotonous working with the food we have & along the vegetarian/vegan lines. The food always turns out tasty though & it's fun to eat with such a big family! There are always at least 2 people on duty for cooking the meal so it's nice to have help & company. Nicky & Helen have had volunteers coming through here for the last three & a half years so they have a pretty solid system down & papers up all over the house explaining how to do things. It's by far the most sustainable community we've ever lived in & we're loving learning more about organic farming & sustainability. They recently just printed out some old photos of when they first bought the land & how it looked before they prepared any of it & it was such an inspiration to see these two incredibly strong women following their passion & turning a dream into reality. It's an inspiration to be here, not only to see their lives & be a part of it, but also to build meaningful relationships with the other volunteers who live here. Everyone who is here has such a deep respect & love for mother earth & all of her living beings, and truly lives their lives in accordance with this compassion & care.
It feels impossible to fully express the impact of this place or the sincerity in which they live & work with nature & this life. We re-use & recycle every possible thing we can, trying to limit as much as possible the footprint this place leaves on earth. We make soap out of citrus peels, build outdoor huts with bags of sand & donkey shit, recycle our own urine to contribute to the limited water supply for watering the trees, save avocado, mango & plum pits to plant again later, give nearly all the left over food we have to the pigs, use solar energy for all of our electricity & use all old plastic bottles or containers as planters for new seeds. There is no refrigerator here, and the electricity is limited. We have to ask to charge anything before we do so, and charging the laptop is pretty much out of the question because it takes up so much energy. The nearest town is Malchingui, Ecuador, which is a really tiny, spread out town that has about 2 main streets & 3 Internet cafes. We have to take a pick-up truck in 15 minutes to get to it, or ride our bikes for half an hour. It doesn't have much to offer though so we really only go in to pick up some veggies & use the Internet. We have 2 days off a week but it varies which days so we don't have a consistent schedule of when we're working & when we're off.
While our last farm was on the edge of the Amazon with lush green & jungle trees, this farm is more desert-like, with dry land, open skies & amazing views. We can see a handful of huge, incredible mountains & volcanoes simply by looking out our living room window. The city of Quito can be seen as well, & it glows like little golden gems at night. Words cannot describe how truly breathtaking this place is. There are hammocks set up all over the land to relax in, and half of the volunteers sleep outside in tipis that are scattered about the farm. Everything here, from the linings on the tipistemscal in their backyard as well, along with a mediation hut surrounded by a tiny little "laguna" (it's dried up haha), and a hut for massage & reiki sessions. Nicky is a yoga instructor, masseuse & Reiki practitioner so she leads yoga classes sometimes & offers her services to those who are here.
Jackie & I truly feel like we are here on this farm for a specific reason in this journey & at this specific time. The spiritual energy & focus here is amazing, and last week in particular was full of ceremonies & classes. Last Wednesday Jackie & I completed a short but intense two day Reiki Level 1 course. Reiki is a holistic healing tool & practice in which you work as a channel of pure Reiki, allowing the healing energy & love of the Divine to work through you & on the chakra system of whoever you are performing Reiki on. Nicky only offers this class about twice a year, and we really felt like we were here at the time she was offering it for a reason. Being particularly interested in a career in alternative health care & healing I felt like it almost just fell into my lap & that it was something I was meant to be introduced to. Jackie too felt like it really came into her life at this time for a reason & strongly connected to Reiki & the light & love that comes with it. It was an intense but amazing two days. We did an extensive amount of meditation & chakra exercises, learning all about the history of Reiki, it's practice, it's protocol & it's healing abilities. An amazing, foundational belief in Reiki is that every single person has the power to channel this energy, but we so often lose connection with this innate ability & connection to the Divine that we don't always realize we can. Another foundational belief & necessary truth to reinforce in Reiki is that we are not the healing energy, we are just the channel, calling upon the highest good of the person we are working with to bring healing into their chakra system. Reiki has 3 levels, and it's recommended to have 6-12 months in between each level to let the effects and practice of each one really sink in. After completing Reiki 1 we are attuned & certified to practice on family, friend & ourselves.
To quote Nicky directly, "Last week was a spiritual fucking week!" hahaha We really enjoyed the Reiki classes and participating in a temscal, full moon ceremony & shamanic ceremony. Each were truly incredible, unique, and moving experiences. Perhaps in the future we can have more conversations about them but as Veronica so kindly reminded me last time, if we want to keep our readers, we have to keep our entries shorter hahaha
Know we are well & thriving, loving life & this journey :) We send love to each of you & un beso y abrazo grande!
A & J
Ah, where do we even begin? The Rhiannon community farm is simply amazing. We feel like it is truly a gift to be here.
We arrived on February 1st to warm faces & welcoming arms. There are currently 13 of us living & working here, including the two women who own the house & farm, Nicky & Helen. The number of people who are here varies, as they've had between 8-30 people at any given time. Nicky & Helen are amazing - full of life, energy, passion & vigor. They are new mothers of a precious & beautiful two month old baby girl, Satia :) (So I guess there are 14 of us! haha) Everyone here has so much character & personality, and we all vibe together really well. When we arrived most of the other volunteers had already been here for 3-4 weeks so they have helped show us the ropes. The work on this farm, the climate, the people and the experience here is a lot different from living on Marco's farm last month but both have been incredible experiences.
The way Rhiannon is run is definitely based on more of a family/community structure - you have to pull your own weight & contribute. Work hard, play hard! We have a rotating system for who cooks the meals & every morning get together quarter to 8 to assign jobs for the day & discuss anything that needs to be covered. The jobs vary from turning compost, digging new swells, mulching, cleaning out the irrigation pipes, etc. We're 3km North of the Equator here (rad little fact!) & the climate is really dry. Because of this, we have to do a looot of manual watering, which we've found to be the hardest job here/a great arm work out haha We basically carry around 25 lb. jugs of water & try to manually water the entire farm haha We have some wonderful animals around that we take care of each day, including 6 dogs, 1 kitten, 6 chickens, 3 huge pigs & 1 donkey! The donkey's my favorite, her name is Ursula & sometimes I sneak her carrot bits & give her little donkey kisses :) She's adorable. I sing to her when I'm out moving her around in the field & taking care of her.
Everyone works hard here! Including the preparation of meals. Cooking for 13 people is no easy task! It's a vegetarian/vegan community so it's been a fun & creative challenge to try to not make the meals too monotonous working with the food we have & along the vegetarian/vegan lines. The food always turns out tasty though & it's fun to eat with such a big family! There are always at least 2 people on duty for cooking the meal so it's nice to have help & company. Nicky & Helen have had volunteers coming through here for the last three & a half years so they have a pretty solid system down & papers up all over the house explaining how to do things. It's by far the most sustainable community we've ever lived in & we're loving learning more about organic farming & sustainability. They recently just printed out some old photos of when they first bought the land & how it looked before they prepared any of it & it was such an inspiration to see these two incredibly strong women following their passion & turning a dream into reality. It's an inspiration to be here, not only to see their lives & be a part of it, but also to build meaningful relationships with the other volunteers who live here. Everyone who is here has such a deep respect & love for mother earth & all of her living beings, and truly lives their lives in accordance with this compassion & care.
It feels impossible to fully express the impact of this place or the sincerity in which they live & work with nature & this life. We re-use & recycle every possible thing we can, trying to limit as much as possible the footprint this place leaves on earth. We make soap out of citrus peels, build outdoor huts with bags of sand & donkey shit, recycle our own urine to contribute to the limited water supply for watering the trees, save avocado, mango & plum pits to plant again later, give nearly all the left over food we have to the pigs, use solar energy for all of our electricity & use all old plastic bottles or containers as planters for new seeds. There is no refrigerator here, and the electricity is limited. We have to ask to charge anything before we do so, and charging the laptop is pretty much out of the question because it takes up so much energy. The nearest town is Malchingui, Ecuador, which is a really tiny, spread out town that has about 2 main streets & 3 Internet cafes. We have to take a pick-up truck in 15 minutes to get to it, or ride our bikes for half an hour. It doesn't have much to offer though so we really only go in to pick up some veggies & use the Internet. We have 2 days off a week but it varies which days so we don't have a consistent schedule of when we're working & when we're off.
While our last farm was on the edge of the Amazon with lush green & jungle trees, this farm is more desert-like, with dry land, open skies & amazing views. We can see a handful of huge, incredible mountains & volcanoes simply by looking out our living room window. The city of Quito can be seen as well, & it glows like little golden gems at night. Words cannot describe how truly breathtaking this place is. There are hammocks set up all over the land to relax in, and half of the volunteers sleep outside in tipis that are scattered about the farm. Everything here, from the linings on the tipistemscal in their backyard as well, along with a mediation hut surrounded by a tiny little "laguna" (it's dried up haha), and a hut for massage & reiki sessions. Nicky is a yoga instructor, masseuse & Reiki practitioner so she leads yoga classes sometimes & offers her services to those who are here.
Jackie & I truly feel like we are here on this farm for a specific reason in this journey & at this specific time. The spiritual energy & focus here is amazing, and last week in particular was full of ceremonies & classes. Last Wednesday Jackie & I completed a short but intense two day Reiki Level 1 course. Reiki is a holistic healing tool & practice in which you work as a channel of pure Reiki, allowing the healing energy & love of the Divine to work through you & on the chakra system of whoever you are performing Reiki on. Nicky only offers this class about twice a year, and we really felt like we were here at the time she was offering it for a reason. Being particularly interested in a career in alternative health care & healing I felt like it almost just fell into my lap & that it was something I was meant to be introduced to. Jackie too felt like it really came into her life at this time for a reason & strongly connected to Reiki & the light & love that comes with it. It was an intense but amazing two days. We did an extensive amount of meditation & chakra exercises, learning all about the history of Reiki, it's practice, it's protocol & it's healing abilities. An amazing, foundational belief in Reiki is that every single person has the power to channel this energy, but we so often lose connection with this innate ability & connection to the Divine that we don't always realize we can. Another foundational belief & necessary truth to reinforce in Reiki is that we are not the healing energy, we are just the channel, calling upon the highest good of the person we are working with to bring healing into their chakra system. Reiki has 3 levels, and it's recommended to have 6-12 months in between each level to let the effects and practice of each one really sink in. After completing Reiki 1 we are attuned & certified to practice on family, friend & ourselves.
To quote Nicky directly, "Last week was a spiritual fucking week!" hahaha We really enjoyed the Reiki classes and participating in a temscal, full moon ceremony & shamanic ceremony. Each were truly incredible, unique, and moving experiences. Perhaps in the future we can have more conversations about them but as Veronica so kindly reminded me last time, if we want to keep our readers, we have to keep our entries shorter hahaha
Know we are well & thriving, loving life & this journey :) We send love to each of you & un beso y abrazo grande!
A & J
Monday, January 30, 2012
Adios Marco, Adelante!
Hello friends & family! We know it's been awhile since our last post but don't worry, we're still alive & well!! :)
We've officially completed our first month of farming as we left Quindi Pakcha (Marco's farm) on January 23rd. We can't believe how quickly the month went! It was such a wonderful experience that we will carry with us as we move forward on this journey.
One of the main projects we wrapped our time up with was building a new kitchen for Marco's family! Even after a month of observing Marco in action we were still amazed at how handy he is & how much he can do with so few tools. The entire kitchen was built from wood, using tree stumps as the base to hold up the floor & then wood panels for the floor, walls, window panes, door & steps. It felt great to be a part of creating that new part of the home for the family, and we finished it just in time to have a big family dinner in there on our last night :) We've definitely grown an entirely new appreciation for how hard it is to farm & also how long it takes to build things. We'll drive by farms now & comment on what a nice planting job they did or how straight their rows are haha It's nice too because we're able to recognize more plants & fruits both in mercados & out in nature. We were able to actually watch one of the fields we weeded & tilled start growing the vegetables we had planted! :)
During our last couple weeks on the farm our lovely dog Tony decided to bring us some presents! Anyone ever eaten armadillo before? hahah I guess there are quite a few out roaming around the farm at night & the dogs sometimes catch them & bring them back to the house. Jackie, Maria (Marco's wife) & I were talking in the kitchen of our cabana when we heard a thump & went outside to see what it was, finding Tony's tail wagging with excitement as he placed the dead armadillo on the porch for us to see. Maria didn't hesitate to just pick it up & bring it into the kitchen (we've also seen her kill cockroaches with her bare hands!) We didn't just try armadillo & eat it once, we had armadillo for the next three days! hahah armadillo soup, fried armadillo, boiled armadillo. You name it, we had it. Jackie & I ate the tail one time! It wasn't nearly as hard to eat as Huanta, but we had our fair share of it & by the end we were happy it was gone. Armadillo has a pretty strong scent, as it left a distinct smell in the kitchen for a few days after haha
I was lucky to spend my 23rd birthday on the farm! Our last day was suppose to be on the 22nd, but I asked Marco if we could stay an extra day so I could celebrate there with the family. He warmly welcomed it & we all had a really nice last night celebrating both my birthday & the closing of our time there. We felt like it was such a nice way to close out that chapter, feeling like we were at a place where we genuinely felt comfortable at their house & felt like we had really built some beautiful relationships with the family. It felt like a family BBQ we would have back in the States, with the warm sun out, the kids running around playing outside, people helping out in the kitchen, everyone just laughing & enjoying themselves. We ate the freshest chicken we'll probably ever eat, as we witnessed Marco grab a chicken from their backyard, kill it, pluck it & cook it. Since we knew we'd be with the family on our last night, the night before my birthday we went into Puyo for some birthday pizza :) Afterwards we grabbed some wine & went back to the cabana for a bonfire where Jack & Kev surprised me with birthday s'mores! They're the best :)
After a wonderful month with Marco & his family, we headed East to Banos, Ecuador, a city known for extreme outdoor sports...they're not kidding when they say extreme. Within three days we managed to enjoy their hot thermal baths, go mountain biking, go river rafting, bungee jump off a bridge & go canyoning down waterfalls! We had so much fun! We still can't believe we went bungee jumping. Only here, I suppose it's not totally fair to call it "bungee" since the rope we used wasn't a bungee rope... it was just a regular rope!! I know, we're crazy. But we watched a lot of people do it before us so that we could be sure it was still safe & so that we could see how best to jump. After watching two girls get up there, begin crying, and get pushed off the platform making for a flailing & ungraceful jump, we decided the only way we could do it is if we were committed to flying. Since it wasn't a bungee rope you get stopped with one swift tug, but we realized we could make that tug a lot more graceful if we jumped out & worked with the rope rather than falling straight down & working against it. So, flew we did :) Jackie went first, Kevin followed & then I went. We all did a really good job of not thinking about it and just doing it. Once you're up there with your feet half off the ledge of the jump platform & the guy behind you begins counting you down & all you see below you is this green canyon with a rushing river I think we all inevitably said in our head "Holllyyy shiiiiitttt!!!" but there really wasn't much more time to do anything other than move without thinking & pick up our feet to jump. Jackie & I did some quick, calm breathing before we got up there, what we called "channeling inner bird" :) It was incredible & we are so happy we did it.
Before bungee jumping, we got to go river rafting down el Rio Pastaza :) While we were on the farm we became friends with another volunteer there, Jaime, & we all went to Banos together afterwards. It was his birthday on Wednesday so we all went river rafting for that :) It was a lot of fun, especially when Jackie & I got to be "captains" & sit up front haha No one fell out of our raft, but a few people in other rafts did. Our instructor was really funny & partly insane, yelling at us to keep padeling even when we were in the middle of getting swallowed by the rapids & couldn't see anything haha The boys didn't go mountain biking or canyoning but Jackie & I did! We mountain biked down past a handful of waterfalls & ended at a huge one called Pailon de Diablo where we could hike up to the top of it & stand underneath it. So pretty! We also went canyoning which was awesome but hard!! We had expected it to be a little more smooth, thinking it was more of a glide down the rope, but it's not. haha It was strenuous & actually kind of scary at some points, but worth it. We got to go to some amazing canyons we would have not been able to see otherwise &, aside from slipping & body slamming the rocks a few times, we got to belay down beautiful watetrfalls! The other people in the group laughed at us when we made a face of being scared, saying we were crazy to be scared of this but okay with jumping off a bridge haha
Banos was a fun, little town in itself, beautifully located in a tranquil valley of the Andes. There were a surprising amount of people from Argentina, a few who we became friends with & may stay with when we make it that far South :) We found a cafe close to our hostel that had an amazing coffee called Seven Spices. We went there multiple times haha The market had fresh fruit & vegetables that we went & bought everyday. We've done an awesome job of cooking dinner, which has turned out to not only be healthier but way cheaper. You can buy 3 mangos for a dollar here! Bananas & tomatoes are 10 cents, apples are 25, and the most expensive fruit we've bought have been oranges for 50 cents because they're grown down in Chile. We bargain for everything, from food to clothes to bus fares, & we manage to get the prices dropped most of the time. We've gotten to the point where we can call out a few bus drivers who have tried to gip us of our money! haha We even negotiated bungee jumping! It was originally $20 per person (which is insanely cheap already!) but we got it to $15 since we all jumped hahah
We just spent a nice few days in Cuenca, Ecuador relaxing & rejuvinating. We're heading back up North now to get to our farm for the month of February! (www.rhiannon-community.org) We're really excited for this farm & think it will be a great time.
Thanks for staying with us friends. We hope you're all well!
Lots of love,
A & J
We've officially completed our first month of farming as we left Quindi Pakcha (Marco's farm) on January 23rd. We can't believe how quickly the month went! It was such a wonderful experience that we will carry with us as we move forward on this journey.
One of the main projects we wrapped our time up with was building a new kitchen for Marco's family! Even after a month of observing Marco in action we were still amazed at how handy he is & how much he can do with so few tools. The entire kitchen was built from wood, using tree stumps as the base to hold up the floor & then wood panels for the floor, walls, window panes, door & steps. It felt great to be a part of creating that new part of the home for the family, and we finished it just in time to have a big family dinner in there on our last night :) We've definitely grown an entirely new appreciation for how hard it is to farm & also how long it takes to build things. We'll drive by farms now & comment on what a nice planting job they did or how straight their rows are haha It's nice too because we're able to recognize more plants & fruits both in mercados & out in nature. We were able to actually watch one of the fields we weeded & tilled start growing the vegetables we had planted! :)
During our last couple weeks on the farm our lovely dog Tony decided to bring us some presents! Anyone ever eaten armadillo before? hahah I guess there are quite a few out roaming around the farm at night & the dogs sometimes catch them & bring them back to the house. Jackie, Maria (Marco's wife) & I were talking in the kitchen of our cabana when we heard a thump & went outside to see what it was, finding Tony's tail wagging with excitement as he placed the dead armadillo on the porch for us to see. Maria didn't hesitate to just pick it up & bring it into the kitchen (we've also seen her kill cockroaches with her bare hands!) We didn't just try armadillo & eat it once, we had armadillo for the next three days! hahah armadillo soup, fried armadillo, boiled armadillo. You name it, we had it. Jackie & I ate the tail one time! It wasn't nearly as hard to eat as Huanta, but we had our fair share of it & by the end we were happy it was gone. Armadillo has a pretty strong scent, as it left a distinct smell in the kitchen for a few days after haha
I was lucky to spend my 23rd birthday on the farm! Our last day was suppose to be on the 22nd, but I asked Marco if we could stay an extra day so I could celebrate there with the family. He warmly welcomed it & we all had a really nice last night celebrating both my birthday & the closing of our time there. We felt like it was such a nice way to close out that chapter, feeling like we were at a place where we genuinely felt comfortable at their house & felt like we had really built some beautiful relationships with the family. It felt like a family BBQ we would have back in the States, with the warm sun out, the kids running around playing outside, people helping out in the kitchen, everyone just laughing & enjoying themselves. We ate the freshest chicken we'll probably ever eat, as we witnessed Marco grab a chicken from their backyard, kill it, pluck it & cook it. Since we knew we'd be with the family on our last night, the night before my birthday we went into Puyo for some birthday pizza :) Afterwards we grabbed some wine & went back to the cabana for a bonfire where Jack & Kev surprised me with birthday s'mores! They're the best :)
After a wonderful month with Marco & his family, we headed East to Banos, Ecuador, a city known for extreme outdoor sports...they're not kidding when they say extreme. Within three days we managed to enjoy their hot thermal baths, go mountain biking, go river rafting, bungee jump off a bridge & go canyoning down waterfalls! We had so much fun! We still can't believe we went bungee jumping. Only here, I suppose it's not totally fair to call it "bungee" since the rope we used wasn't a bungee rope... it was just a regular rope!! I know, we're crazy. But we watched a lot of people do it before us so that we could be sure it was still safe & so that we could see how best to jump. After watching two girls get up there, begin crying, and get pushed off the platform making for a flailing & ungraceful jump, we decided the only way we could do it is if we were committed to flying. Since it wasn't a bungee rope you get stopped with one swift tug, but we realized we could make that tug a lot more graceful if we jumped out & worked with the rope rather than falling straight down & working against it. So, flew we did :) Jackie went first, Kevin followed & then I went. We all did a really good job of not thinking about it and just doing it. Once you're up there with your feet half off the ledge of the jump platform & the guy behind you begins counting you down & all you see below you is this green canyon with a rushing river I think we all inevitably said in our head "Holllyyy shiiiiitttt!!!" but there really wasn't much more time to do anything other than move without thinking & pick up our feet to jump. Jackie & I did some quick, calm breathing before we got up there, what we called "channeling inner bird" :) It was incredible & we are so happy we did it.
Before bungee jumping, we got to go river rafting down el Rio Pastaza :) While we were on the farm we became friends with another volunteer there, Jaime, & we all went to Banos together afterwards. It was his birthday on Wednesday so we all went river rafting for that :) It was a lot of fun, especially when Jackie & I got to be "captains" & sit up front haha No one fell out of our raft, but a few people in other rafts did. Our instructor was really funny & partly insane, yelling at us to keep padeling even when we were in the middle of getting swallowed by the rapids & couldn't see anything haha The boys didn't go mountain biking or canyoning but Jackie & I did! We mountain biked down past a handful of waterfalls & ended at a huge one called Pailon de Diablo where we could hike up to the top of it & stand underneath it. So pretty! We also went canyoning which was awesome but hard!! We had expected it to be a little more smooth, thinking it was more of a glide down the rope, but it's not. haha It was strenuous & actually kind of scary at some points, but worth it. We got to go to some amazing canyons we would have not been able to see otherwise &, aside from slipping & body slamming the rocks a few times, we got to belay down beautiful watetrfalls! The other people in the group laughed at us when we made a face of being scared, saying we were crazy to be scared of this but okay with jumping off a bridge haha
Banos was a fun, little town in itself, beautifully located in a tranquil valley of the Andes. There were a surprising amount of people from Argentina, a few who we became friends with & may stay with when we make it that far South :) We found a cafe close to our hostel that had an amazing coffee called Seven Spices. We went there multiple times haha The market had fresh fruit & vegetables that we went & bought everyday. We've done an awesome job of cooking dinner, which has turned out to not only be healthier but way cheaper. You can buy 3 mangos for a dollar here! Bananas & tomatoes are 10 cents, apples are 25, and the most expensive fruit we've bought have been oranges for 50 cents because they're grown down in Chile. We bargain for everything, from food to clothes to bus fares, & we manage to get the prices dropped most of the time. We've gotten to the point where we can call out a few bus drivers who have tried to gip us of our money! haha We even negotiated bungee jumping! It was originally $20 per person (which is insanely cheap already!) but we got it to $15 since we all jumped hahah
We just spent a nice few days in Cuenca, Ecuador relaxing & rejuvinating. We're heading back up North now to get to our farm for the month of February! (www.rhiannon-community.org) We're really excited for this farm & think it will be a great time.
Thanks for staying with us friends. We hope you're all well!
Lots of love,
A & J
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Shaman Farm Ecuador, Week 1
The Shaman farm is amazing. Marco, the Shaman who owns the farm, is an amazing man & we feel so lucky to be here. This blog is going to be long because there is lots to share! So grab a comfy chair & settle in :)
Going into this not totally knowing what to expect, we were eager & excited to begin discovering our new home & friends. After a few days of travel & lots of buses we finally arrived to our destination farm in Paraiso, Ecuador. Marco met us at the bus station in the nearest town, Puyo, where we grabbed a few groceries & took a local bus 30 minutes out to the farm. The farm is beautiful, lush & full of life. About 3 minutes walking off the main road you'll find our cabana up a muddy "drive way" & through the trees. Marco lives in a similar cabana about 2 minutes further in than ours. He built both, and shares the kitchen & outdoor bathroom with us. Our little home consists of 2 rooms, 1 small living space, a kitchen & an "upstairs" where a few tents are set up for other volunteers. There's electricity, a stove, and a refrigerator, so luckily we get a little bit of light & some space to hold our perishable food :) The cabana is lifted about two feet off the ground, but that doesn't stop the bugs from getting in. On our first night we killed over 5 cockroaches in our room, two which were in my bed. After an hour of battling the bugs we decided we needed to just put in earplugs & sleep ourselves into oblivion. Even though we both have mosquito nets, I am still sleeping in my mummy bag. Jackie feels safer in her mosquito net but I'm convinced a cockroach will sneak attack it's way into mine (a natural revenge) and then be trapped on the inside with me. Eeeek!
Aside from the cockroaches & bug bites, we love it here :) Marco has two dogs, six chickens & five ducks that roam around all day. We wake up to the ducks sometimes making noise underneath the cabana. The farm becomes loud at night with insect life, and when the clouds aren't around we are able to see the stars so clear & bright - it's beautiful. There's an old hammock and a fire pit around the corner of our cabana, with the bathroom to the left & Marco's cabana just up the path. His family lives in a house in a neighboring pueblo that we hope to go see eventually. We were kind of bummed we weren't living with, or closer to, his family, but that's okay, Marco is great & we're lucky to have him so near.
Getting to know Marco has been so special. We love him! While we both knew about Shamans, we weren't totally familiar with their culture/way of life. Humble, warm, funny, caring & open, he's shown us how much a Shaman really is just like any other person. Ontop of being a Shaman, he runs his own farm, has ran two half marathons, loves to sing & recorded his own CD, plays soccer, is artistic and has his artwork all over his cabana to work on & sell through out the year, is widely known in the town & has a large & loving family. He has such a calm, leveled energy to him that is soft yet incredibly powerful. Everything he does seems to be in a slower, more meditative way. You can feel his presence in every movement - in the way he speaks, walks, cooks, works, lives. His presence is in every moment & he does everything with care & thoughtfulness. He loves sharing stories & has been totally open to sitting with us & answering questions. Walking through the farm he is always stopping to tell us the name of something or explain the use of a plant. As he's said & as we're discovering, "hay muchas secretos de la selva" - "there are many secrets of the jungle". We've seen him use plants in a variety of ways we wouldn't have expected: eating sweet cana straight from the earth, breaking open a branch and using the red paste inside as warrior paint, using that same paste as a way to soothe burns, using certain leaves as anti-itch remedies for the mosquito bites covering our legs & arms, showing us plants in the field that he uses for wounds. It's been fascinating to learn more about herbal remedies & treatments. While it may be near impossible to ever see or grow some of these plants back home due to differences in climate, it's still exciting to learn about and see them here.
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas full of loving family, delicious food & belly-deep laughter. It was a bit hard to be away for this special holiday but we stayed positive & still enjoyed the day. Christmas Eve we put on christmas music & Kev wore his santa hat around the house as we sang :) On Christmas day we took a bus into the nearest town to use the internet cafe to skype our parents. It was great to see their smiling faces & wish them a Merry Christmas. Jackie was able to skype with the family while they were opening presents so it was almost as if she was really there :)
People here don't say "Merry Christmas" to eachother nearly as much as we do back home. In the States everywhere you go people are wishing eachother a Merry Christmas but here it's pretty uncommon even amongst family & friends. We hadn't realized how much we enjoyed this simple greeting until it wasn't around as much. Christmas dinner was really nice! Marco's whole family came & cooked in the cabana so it was really nice to have people all around us. We were grateful to be able to share this holiday meal with a family & to be so warmly received by Marco's wife & kids. We squeezed in at the table & ate delicious, fresh tilapia, beans, rice & a homemade juice. After dinner a few of us talked in the kitchen & a few of us watched Elf in spanish! While Christmas here may have been different, it was still really nice to spend it with Marco & his family, surrounded by great food & welcoming company :)
Aside from Christmas day the pueblos celebrated Christmas on the days prior with games & festivities. The first day we were here we went to go watch Marco play soccer & afterwards walked up to a church where they were doing some kind of celebration for the Three Kings. After the mass everyone hung around & played games outside on the dirt field next to the church. One game was musical chairs which Kev almost won! He did a total white boy dance move that everyone loved haha. We played "toss the egg", which resulted in yoke all over my shoe, and they also played a game simiar to pinata but here they called it Ollas Encantada. There were home-made little clay pots filled with candy & the blindfolded kids had three chances to swing & break it open. They set fireworks off all the time here, including right outside the church & by the games. We saw a kid who, just the night before, had a firework blow off prematurely in his face & burn off his skin & hair. He looked well for it having occured so recently, but we were still surprised he was out & about, seemingly unphased by the fireworks going off. At the games there was also a lot of drinking, only here it's a bit different. There's 1 cup & whoever has the beer walks around individually offering a cup of beer to you. You have to drink it pretty quickly in order to return the cup so they can keep going around. Talk aaabooouttt geerrrrmmmsss. But, we drank it anyways. We didn't want to be rude! (Or turn down free beer...) While this was the first time we saw this it definitely wasn't the last. They have a hard liquor here called Trago which they do the same thing with. You know those small plastic cups you drink Pepto Bismal with? They use those as shot glasses and, same thing, they go around using just one of them to offer everyone shots. Naturally, we drank that too :) During the day of Christmas Eve we went back & everyone was hanging out, eating & playing soccer. Jackie got to play!!! I'm pretty sure Kev filmed the whole thing game on his camera lol The halves they play here are only 15 minutes long so it was short but painful, kicking Jackie's shins & stepping on her feet. It was still fun though, how many people get to say they played soccer in Ecuador?! Afterwards we went to Marco's friends house where they offered us a meal. And by meal... I mean rat. Ah!!! Although we're not vegetarians, we're not exactly huge eat meaters. Huanta, the name of the animal, is hunted here & offered as one of their most valued foods. We, of course, ate it out of respect, but had a hard time taking it in as it's hair, skin & eyelashes were still attached to the pieces of meat on our plate. Jackie accidentally ate one of the eyeballs. This was not the only occasion we were given Huanta. We were offered it two other times at different festivals & by the end practically gave up being polite & worked more on just keeping it down haha Christmas Eve we went to a dance festival where there were cultural dances & dresses. It was really great to be a part of this & see everyone enjoying themselves. In between some of the dances the floor opened up to everyone & of course we got out there! We danced pretty much all night, laughing, drinking & having a blast. We realized we were the only ones with our own beers, and also the only one's drinking straight from the bottle. We learned later this is because you have to return the beer bottle after you use it. Perhaps this is why everyone drinks out of a cup...woops. And to end Christmas Eve right, we realized we had fleas in our foot. Thank you, Tony (one of "our" dogs). I know, you think we're gross, we do too. It started when Jackie thought she had a splinter in her foot. Kev was trying to pick it out & then Marco came over to see what was going on. He examined it, went out to get a leaf from the farm & came back to pick it out telling her it was a "pulga". Thinking it was all fun & games, I was taking pictures & teasing Jack about it. Talk about karma. After Marco painfully removed half of the flea & Jackie soaked the leaf on her foot for a few minutes, I started looking at my feet too. There was one place that hurt but I just thought it was just a mosquito bite that was irritated from my shoes. When I looked at it closer though it looked a lot like the flea bite Jackie had just had so I called over Marco & he confirmed what I didn't want to hear. Because it wasn't as deep he was able to get out the whole thing, and with it, it's eggs. So nasty! I took a picture of it. hahaha Lesson learned: don't wear sandals outside anymore.
The water we use here is all river or rain water. Along with building the cabanas Marco built a water system that catches the rain and then drains it into the sink. We use this to wash our dishes, hands & rinse off our fruits & veggies. We have a filter we use for our water bottles but with things like the Christmas juice it's inevitable that we drink some of it. So far we haven't gotten sick! (knock on wood) Our shower is also a home-made contraption about 5 minutes walking into the jungle. It's by far the coolest shower we've ever had! I wish there was a way to describe it but I'm not sure even the pictures will do justice. It's completely out in the open & looks onto our favorite, gorgeous tree. He took thin, long trees and carved out the inside making an open wooden tunnel. He put many of these together to run from a nearby river to our shower spot. He is unbelievably handy with his machete (which we've now named his best friend). The fresh water falls from about 3 feet high so we have to squat to get completely underneath it. When it's raining we just go in our bathing suits & rainboots because the walk back is muddy & we don't want to get more clothes wet. Even in the rain Jack & I are always laughing & saying, "This is awesome!!!" lol We love it! Where we wash our clothes is near the shower area too. It has a similar wood "pipes" of river water flowing into a big bucket they set up. We put our clothes in the bucket & hand wash everything. We hang them up to dry back at the cabana but with the constant on & off rain sometimes it takes a few days to fully dry. Underneath both the shower & wash areas they set up slabs of wood for us to stand on as a sort of make-shift floor. Definitely check out the pictures of these - so cool!
We've been working out in the fields for a week now, with time off when it rains. So far we've just done a lot of weeding & tilling the soil. Manual labor is no joke y'all - that shit is hard! We come back feeling like grandma's with our lower backs & knees hurting & blisters on our hands haha It's fun though, we sing a lot :) Somehow hip-hop makes it all the way to Ecuador with us. "From the wiiiindoooooow, to the farm! Til the sweat drop down my balls, aalllllll these chickens crawl, ahhhh weed weed weed weed motha fuckaaa ahhhh weed weed weed weed". Picture us jammin to this, crouched down picking weeds with machetes, half the time in our ponchos & other half of the time sweating, laughing, being exhausted, and talking about how much we would love to be eating In N Out. Hahaha gotta love it :)
Jackie's birthday was so much fun. During the day Marco led us 2 hours into the jungle to a gorgeous little waterfall & river where we lounged around & soaked up the beauty. It was such a treat to get to go do this on Jackie's birthday. The walk over to the river was amazing. We're all in awe of the way Marco navigates the jungle & knows so much about the nature around him. He can make pretty much anything happen with a single machete, it's incredible. We had fun wading across rivers & hiking to the secret spot, removed from everything & simply enjoying the day & the beautiful nature around us. At night we went into Puyo for Jackie's birthday dinner - pizza! We invited Marco & didn't learn until we were there that he had never eatten pizza before. Ever! The man is 49 and has never eaten pizza - something is terribly wrong/sad about this. So of course we were thrilled to be the first to introduce him to the world of pizza! haha It was delicious & he seemed to enjoy it :) Afterwards we bought some wine & came back to the cabana to relax. Kev & I surprised Jack with a little ice cream cake & candles :)
Life is good my friends, life is good. Everyday feels surreal as we settle into this place & call it home. As we continue to get older we learn more & more that "home" has to come from within. This is something we've practiced for years now, but it seems to apply even more so with traveling. Of course there will always be places & people that will really embody the core of what home means to us, but life carries so much change & with traveling like this learning to find home within is one of the only ways we know how to center ourselves. It's fun to explore the area & take it in as our current neighborhood. Sometimes we go running in the morning before work & on one of the routes we pass by a beautiful waterfall. Somehow time completely slows down here. It feels like mid-day by 10AM & late at night by 8. It's so incredible to live here & have running routes that take us by waterfalls & shower outside completely open to nature & hand wash our own clothes & rely on rain water to allow us to wash our dishes & get our hands dirty with mother earth's gift & to breath so deeply with the birds & the stars & the moon.
Happy 2012 loved ones, we cheers to you & wish you well.
XO,
A & J
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