I promise (although I can´t really promise) that this is the last philosophical thing I´m going to put on here for a while. I´ll give it a break, I swear. It´s just that when I have so much thinking time, I´m more susceptible to find things that are meaningful to me on many levels.
So I was at my friend Margarita´s (Peggy´s) house yesterday and she travels with a book called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. It asks simple questions and proposes thoughtful answers.
"Does it matter whether we achieve our purpose, whether we succeed or fail in the world?
It will matter to you as long as you haven´t realized your inner purpose. After that, the outer purpose is just a game that you may continue to play simply because you enjoy it."
Margarita read this quote to me and struck me as unbelievably true. There are times when I think I think I realize a glimmer of what my inner purpose may be, my reason for being in this world. At these moments I feel so carefree, so joyous. One time I was at camp and had just spent the entire rest hour writing in my journal about what I hoped for in life, in my future. Afterwards, I was so inspired and filled with energy that I left my cabin in full sprint at the clang of the bell. Running as fast as possible seemed to be the very best I could do to express the surge of energy and inspiration that filled me at that moment. If this is but a glimmer of my inner purpose, I can´t even imagine the motional fireworks of discovering one´s true reason for being on this Earth. Even if it doesn´t reach me until the day that I die.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Agua: un tema.
Spanish phrase of the month (heard by generally ANYONE in Capilla del Monte every day all the time): "No hay agua." (There´s no water.) We´ve been in a huge drought for about 4 years now. The municipality cuts off everyone´s water supply around 6pm, so you´re out of luck unless you have a well. We do have a well that taps into the underground river, but it´s running out too. Right now we´re in our rainy season, that´s what´s particularly troubling. If water doesn´t come now, then they will be in even bigger trouble during the dry season.
People ask me what I do here on the farm, and honestly, I water. I water every morning, all morning, until our allotted water amount for the garden is gone. This takes about 4 hours. Working this farm is like a constant dehydration WFR scenario. Today I watered the beets 4 TIMES! The soil sucks the water down like a drain.
It´s sad because I just think about all of the wonderful organic, innovative things we could do with the farm and the garden. There just isn´t any water. I beg anyone who reads this to do a rain dance for us down here.
People ask me what I do here on the farm, and honestly, I water. I water every morning, all morning, until our allotted water amount for the garden is gone. This takes about 4 hours. Working this farm is like a constant dehydration WFR scenario. Today I watered the beets 4 TIMES! The soil sucks the water down like a drain.
It´s sad because I just think about all of the wonderful organic, innovative things we could do with the farm and the garden. There just isn´t any water. I beg anyone who reads this to do a rain dance for us down here.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
An Analysis
I wanted to provide a little bit of insight for why the story below feels to pertainent to me right now.
Essentially, I am the stream and the sands are everything new that I experience. I left my home in Carolina del Norte and arrived in Chile wanting to keep a firm grip on my identity while at the same time gaining new insight and knowledge about the Spanish language and Chilean culture. Of course, the possibility of "losing one´s individuality" (identity) when traveling and changing in someway is thrilling but also nerve wracking, considering that you never know how you´ll turn out afterwards.
It did not want to lose its individuality. And once having lost it, how was one to know that it could bever be regained?
The stream (not yet a river, obviously still young) wants to cross the desert in the ways that it knows. The whisper says to the stream that it cannot remain the same stream it is today under any circumstances.
Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one."
Why fight changes when we don´t know how our future will turn out anyway? Traveling, adopting new customs and relinquishing old ones seems to me to be one of the truest forms of discovering which part of me is essentially Gillian. The act of being carried away by the wind, no matter how timid or unsure I may be, will carry on the essential parts of me and leave only residue -- bits fallen off, discarded, no longer important to who I am -- in its path.
I remember being young and in the backseat of a warm minivan during a rainstorm. Perhaps I am coming back with my family from a late night dinner party, or driving home from the airport. Rain batters the windshield as the wipers pump out a persistant rhythmic shlosh. On my window highlighted by the highway streetlights the rain patters, racing down and out of site. One drop falls, picking up speed as it connects with others, zig zagging across the window leaving behind only a trace of liquid residue. In that moment I connect with that one drop and cheer it on as it skids and skirts past all others. It disappears from view and is immediatly forgotten as my eyes dart to the top of the window to cheer on another little stream. Hours of raindrop races pass. And then we pull into our driveway.
Essentially, I am the stream and the sands are everything new that I experience. I left my home in Carolina del Norte and arrived in Chile wanting to keep a firm grip on my identity while at the same time gaining new insight and knowledge about the Spanish language and Chilean culture. Of course, the possibility of "losing one´s individuality" (identity) when traveling and changing in someway is thrilling but also nerve wracking, considering that you never know how you´ll turn out afterwards.
It did not want to lose its individuality. And once having lost it, how was one to know that it could bever be regained?
The stream (not yet a river, obviously still young) wants to cross the desert in the ways that it knows. The whisper says to the stream that it cannot remain the same stream it is today under any circumstances.
Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one."
Why fight changes when we don´t know how our future will turn out anyway? Traveling, adopting new customs and relinquishing old ones seems to me to be one of the truest forms of discovering which part of me is essentially Gillian. The act of being carried away by the wind, no matter how timid or unsure I may be, will carry on the essential parts of me and leave only residue -- bits fallen off, discarded, no longer important to who I am -- in its path.
I remember being young and in the backseat of a warm minivan during a rainstorm. Perhaps I am coming back with my family from a late night dinner party, or driving home from the airport. Rain batters the windshield as the wipers pump out a persistant rhythmic shlosh. On my window highlighted by the highway streetlights the rain patters, racing down and out of site. One drop falls, picking up speed as it connects with others, zig zagging across the window leaving behind only a trace of liquid residue. In that moment I connect with that one drop and cheer it on as it skids and skirts past all others. It disappears from view and is immediatly forgotten as my eyes dart to the top of the window to cheer on another little stream. Hours of raindrop races pass. And then we pull into our driveway.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Tales of the Dervishes
In the past few days I have managed to stumble across 2 of the (I have no idea how many but they´re scarce) other North Americans in Capilla del Monte. They are Margarita (Peggy) and Daniel, both hippies (somewhere between 50 and 60 years old I´m assuming) from California, although Daniel spent most of his life in Hawaii. They´re wonderful. I went over to their place last night and we spent hours squeezing orange juice, talking about life, about traveling (they´ve literally been all over the world), about music, about health and diets, about politics, about everything under the sun, and about philosophy.
Daniel right now is utterly obsessed with a book that he found in a hostel called Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters over the Past Thousand Years. They loved it so much that they made 3 copies, one of which they have given to me to read. It´s full of short little tales that could imply zillions of meanings about life and about the questions life poses. I´m well on my way to becoming just as enthralled as they are.
Here´s a tale that particularly speaks to me at this point in my life as a traveler, as a student, and as growing young woman. Let´s see if you all can guess why.
A stream, from its source in far-off mountains, passing through every kind and description of countryside, as last reached the sands of the desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but it found that as fast as it ran into the sand, its waters disappeared.
It was convinced, however, that its destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now a hidden voice, coming from the desert itself, whispered: "The Wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream."
The stream objected that it was dashing itself against the sand, and only getting absorbed: that the wind could fly, and this was why it could cross a desert.
"By hurtling in your own accustomed way you cannot get across. You will either disappear or become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over, to your destination."
But how could this happen? "By allowing yourself to be absorbed in the wind."
This idea was not acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality. And, once having lost it, how was one to know that it could ever be regained?
"The wind," said the sand, "performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall again. Falling as rain, the water again becomes a river."
"How can I know that this is true?"
"It is so, and if you do not believe it, you cannot become more than a quagmire, and even that could take many, many years; and it certainly is not the same as a stream."
"But can I not remain the same stream that I am today?"
"You cannot in either case remain so," the whisper said. "Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are even today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one."
When he heard this, certain echoes began to arise in the thoughts of the stream. Dimly, he remembered a state in which he - or some part of him, was it? - had been held in the arms of the wind. He also remembered - or did he? - that this was the real thing, not necessarily the obvious thing, to do.
And the stream raised his vapour into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and easily bore it upwards and along, letting it fall softly as soon as they reached the roof of a mountain, many, many miles away. And because he had had his doubts, the stream was able to remember and record more strongly in his mind the details of the experience. He reflected, "Yes, now I have learned my true identity."
The stream was learning. But the sands whispered: "We know, because we see it happen day after day: and because we, the sands, extend from the riverside all the way to the mountain."
And that is why it is said that the way in which the Stream of Life is to continue on its journey is written in the Sands.
Daniel right now is utterly obsessed with a book that he found in a hostel called Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters over the Past Thousand Years. They loved it so much that they made 3 copies, one of which they have given to me to read. It´s full of short little tales that could imply zillions of meanings about life and about the questions life poses. I´m well on my way to becoming just as enthralled as they are.
Here´s a tale that particularly speaks to me at this point in my life as a traveler, as a student, and as growing young woman. Let´s see if you all can guess why.
"The Tale of the Sands"
A stream, from its source in far-off mountains, passing through every kind and description of countryside, as last reached the sands of the desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but it found that as fast as it ran into the sand, its waters disappeared.
It was convinced, however, that its destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now a hidden voice, coming from the desert itself, whispered: "The Wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream."
The stream objected that it was dashing itself against the sand, and only getting absorbed: that the wind could fly, and this was why it could cross a desert.
"By hurtling in your own accustomed way you cannot get across. You will either disappear or become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over, to your destination."
But how could this happen? "By allowing yourself to be absorbed in the wind."
This idea was not acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality. And, once having lost it, how was one to know that it could ever be regained?
"The wind," said the sand, "performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall again. Falling as rain, the water again becomes a river."
"How can I know that this is true?"
"It is so, and if you do not believe it, you cannot become more than a quagmire, and even that could take many, many years; and it certainly is not the same as a stream."
"But can I not remain the same stream that I am today?"
"You cannot in either case remain so," the whisper said. "Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are even today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one."
When he heard this, certain echoes began to arise in the thoughts of the stream. Dimly, he remembered a state in which he - or some part of him, was it? - had been held in the arms of the wind. He also remembered - or did he? - that this was the real thing, not necessarily the obvious thing, to do.
And the stream raised his vapour into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and easily bore it upwards and along, letting it fall softly as soon as they reached the roof of a mountain, many, many miles away. And because he had had his doubts, the stream was able to remember and record more strongly in his mind the details of the experience. He reflected, "Yes, now I have learned my true identity."
The stream was learning. But the sands whispered: "We know, because we see it happen day after day: and because we, the sands, extend from the riverside all the way to the mountain."
And that is why it is said that the way in which the Stream of Life is to continue on its journey is written in the Sands.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Pizza a la Parrilla
If any of you have been following my pictures on Facebook, you´ll certainly know something about my obsession with cultures and the food that they eat. One fun thing about living and working on a farm that is also a hostel is that I get to meet lots of people sometimes we share our meals together. I met this really nice couple (Julia and Juan) and they invited me to eat with them several times. On of the last nights that they were here we made pizza on the grill (la parrilla)... and when I say we made pizza, I mean that we made like 5!
Back home, our family has never been able to fine a pizza crust recipe that suits us. I´m about to solve that problem. Juan shared his recipe with me. It may be a little hard to follow (considering that the measurements are in grams) but I did the best that I could to translate it. It might sound funnily worded, remember that I wrote it translating as he instructed haha. So family or whomever is reading this, here it is.
Ingredients (for 4 balls of dough)
1 kg of flour (non-rising)
50 gr. of yeast (this might need some tweaking because the yeast they use comes in a packet... it isn´t a powder... see what you can do.)
Water with a little bit of salt (called "salmuera")
Vegetable oil
1 kg of flour (non-rising)
50 gr. of yeast (this might need some tweaking because the yeast they use comes in a packet... it isn´t a powder... see what you can do.)
Water with a little bit of salt (called "salmuera")
Vegetable oil
For the sauce
500 gr. Tomato paste
Ground pepper
Oregano
Heat sauce in sauce pan before applying to pizza
Whatever toppings you want (fresh cheese or motzarella)
500 gr. Tomato paste
Ground pepper
Oregano
Heat sauce in sauce pan before applying to pizza
Whatever toppings you want (fresh cheese or motzarella)
To make the crust:
Put almost all of the flour in a bowl. Mix in the yeast, a bit of oil, and a "chorro" (like a dash or a glug) of water... stir with a fork
Mix until you feel that it´s a bit sticky but it shouldn´t be runny at all... it should stick to your hands but have form.
Start adding flour so that it´s no longer sticky, but spongy. Knead the dough.
Put in a big bowl with some flour (so that it doesn´t stick) and cover with a dish towl
For thin crust, let it sit for about an hour and a half
For thick crust, let it sit for less time, like 40 or 45 minsCut the dough into 4 balls, roll each out with a rolling pin (with flour on the counter and on the dough... obvious but I´m putting it down anyway)
Put almost all of the flour in a bowl. Mix in the yeast, a bit of oil, and a "chorro" (like a dash or a glug) of water... stir with a fork
Mix until you feel that it´s a bit sticky but it shouldn´t be runny at all... it should stick to your hands but have form.
Start adding flour so that it´s no longer sticky, but spongy. Knead the dough.
Put in a big bowl with some flour (so that it doesn´t stick) and cover with a dish towl
For thin crust, let it sit for about an hour and a half
For thick crust, let it sit for less time, like 40 or 45 minsCut the dough into 4 balls, roll each out with a rolling pin (with flour on the counter and on the dough... obvious but I´m putting it down anyway)
When the dough is rolled out an into a pizza shape, paint the top with sauce and put into the oven... I think that 475 degrees F is about what you want.
(I don´t know the degrees for the oven considering that we did this on a grill with coals underneath -- also a good way to do this.)... This attached basic pizza dough recipe which might explain a few of the steps I´m trying to say.
(I don´t know the degrees for the oven considering that we did this on a grill with coals underneath -- also a good way to do this.)... This attached basic pizza dough recipe which might explain a few of the steps I´m trying to say.
http://www.cooking.com/Recipes-And-More/RecDetail.aspx?rid=1044
When you look at the bottom and the crust is pretty much all the way cooked, take the crust out and put on the sauce (sauce should be heated! very important!) and the rest of the ingredients! Then put back into the oven until cheese has melted.
Pizza 1: Queso, tomate, abahaca, ajo (cheese, tomato, basil, garlic)
Pizza 2: queso y rúcula
Pizza 3: queso, cebolla, ajo (cheese, onion, garlic) Dad this one had your name all over it.
Juan (chef) with pizza 4: Queso, abahaca, tomate, chorizo (cheese, basil, tomato, fresh sausage)Pizza 5 not featured, but it was cheese.
Monday, January 11, 2010
La Granja Casablanca
Me at the top of Cerro Uritorco, which I climbed with my friend Ruben and inhaled clouds.
Swimmin´hole close to the farm
A fantastic meal made by my friends Juan and Julia (asado from the grill covered in tomato sauce, motzarella cheese, basil from the garden, and tomatoes)
The farm is nestled in between two sets of mountains and is covered in willows, eucaliptus trees(sp?), and beautiful greenery.
More pictures and stories to come!
Monday, January 4, 2010
WWOOFing in Capilla del Monte, Córdoba, Argentina
Hello? Did I accidentally send myself back to Asheville? No, couldn´t be.
I remember having a conversation with Reneé when we were taking a walk one day in Chile and she was like, ¨Do you ever feel like you´ve fallen in love with a place?¨ Well Reneé, I think I do. Coming here feels like I´ve come home.
From what I can tell thus far, Capilla is a small town nestled between two giant mountains and is full of health-loving hippies, backpacking tourists, and generally really friendly people. I really like Capilla. The best way that I can describe it is if you took Asheville, squeezed it down in size, filled it with Argentines, and removed 99% of the tourists/English speakers. It has so many health stores, artisan breasds, cheeses, and jams. Yesterday I was looking to buy coffee and I came across ¨Café de Higo¨-- Fig Coffee. I guess what didn´t really register with me when I bought it was that it was ALL dried fig and no parts coffee. But I like it ok. Other than restarants and tourist shops I haven´t really seen many stores that are exactly alike. It´s not overloaded with pharmacies or panaderías (Viña) nor crowded with people (Mar del Plata). There´s a really safe, relaxed, mountainy feel here that I love (surprise?)
The farm is called La Granja Casablanca (the white house farm) and is in easy walking distance from downtown (several blocks). It´s a campground, hostel, pool, and educational site as well as a farm and a home. Somehow it still manages to feel secluded. Almost like camp. Is this bad that I´m comparing my farmlife to camp, because I keep getting a really strong Rockbrook feeling here. Maybe it´s the fact that I´m sleeping in a bunkbed. The farm is totally green, surrounded by trees and plants with the mountains looming overhead . It´s so beautiful, I can´t believe I ended up here by just selecting one of the closest farms to me.
My job here at Casablanca is to help on the farm with planting, weeding, upkeep etc. I get to use anything out of the garden to spruce up my meals. I only have to work from 8am-1pm daily, at which point I have the rest of the day free to swim in their pool (they have a big community pool that is constantly full of people!), relax, or go exploring! There are lots of trails to hike. Apparently, one hike has like dozens of swimming holes where you can jump in, jump out, drink some mate, and hike on to the next hole. YES PLEASE!
Let me introduce you all to the people in my life (pictures coming later): Sandra and Juan Carlos own the farm and live here with their 3 children (can´t remember their names). Sandra is an Argentine version of Sarah Marion´s mom; tall, thin and tan with dark eyes and short hair. She doesn´t smile much, not to say that she´s not friendly, just that she doesn´t just give her smile away. [She told me that she and her husband gets like 7 or 8 requests from WWOOFers a week requesting to work for them but they are very picky. Apparently they look really hard at what a person writes in their first letter to them to see what it is they want to get out of the experience. I´m only the second WWOOFer they´ve had.] Juan Carlos is lanky, bronzed, tall, very Argentine looking and has seems to always have a cheerful look about him. He was kind enough to invite me into his house this morning to drink yerba mate with him (like strong tea) before work started.
I have met three of the people I will be working with on the farm. The first is Juan Manuel (I think), who is a thin, muscular guy who could be anywhere in age from 19 to 25 and is deaf. He works mostly with the animals . I love watching him because the sign language that they use with him isn´t any traditional language, it´s just hand movements that obviously correspond with whatever they´re talking about. Some do correspond, I recognized the word ¨morning,¨but pretty much watching him converse it like watching an exchange student who knows nothing about a language try to talk navigate themselves around a foreign city, except with less noise. Hugo, a tall middle aged man with gray hair has been assignning me jobs on the farm. He kept telling me not to work so hard today, not realizing that he had assigned a perfectionist to de-weed the tomatoes. Ruben is a broad man with caramel skin and bloodshot eyes. He maintains the upkeep of the grounds (cutting the grass, picking up after the guests from the hostel, etc).
Sounds.
Birds. There is an Argentinian bird that sounds just like a squeeky toy. When they´re all riled up it´s like a pack of dogs have just been set loose in Pet´s Mart.
Spanish. For once, it´s all I hear. It´s all I speak. It´s really hard for my mind sometimes to be constantly swtiching back and forth from Spanish to English. Speaking Spanish is a relief, really.
Children. This farm constantly had happy children playing volleyball, swimming in the pool, hanging out on the playground (or today, as an educational lesson groups of children were escorted around the farm and the animals´pen.)
The Turkey. he doesn´t make that much noise really, but when he does, you know it´s him. It´s amazing how when a turkey speaks, it seems to be in questions. ¨Gobble-gobble?¨
Sights and Smells
The sky stays bright blue and full of big puffy clouds tha may all of a sudden turn gray and sprinkle you with the lightests most refreshing rain that disappears quickly. Speaking of rain, Capilla doesn´t have enough. Córdoba is in a huge drought. The two big rivers on either side of Capilla are totally dry. Dry Creek, you might even say (Newbie group, anyone?)
What I smell as I write this is cut grass (Bandit´d love it), warm earth and a serious lack of pollution. When you´re weeding tomato and basil plants that are as seriously overgrown as the ones I weeded today (word for weeds: Lluyo), you know you´ve found the plant before you see it from that dynamic duo of scent: tomate y albahaca.
FYI: Argentine word for pool: pileta
Favorite current word in Spanish: ¨Crocante¨(crunchy)
That´s me for now. I´m super happy, healthy, and already way comfortable with where I am, who I´m with, and what´s in store for me. It´s happened again, I´ve found myself in one of those places that I was meant to be in.
Pictures will follow eventually. Good thoughts, good thoughts.
I remember having a conversation with Reneé when we were taking a walk one day in Chile and she was like, ¨Do you ever feel like you´ve fallen in love with a place?¨ Well Reneé, I think I do. Coming here feels like I´ve come home.
From what I can tell thus far, Capilla is a small town nestled between two giant mountains and is full of health-loving hippies, backpacking tourists, and generally really friendly people. I really like Capilla. The best way that I can describe it is if you took Asheville, squeezed it down in size, filled it with Argentines, and removed 99% of the tourists/English speakers. It has so many health stores, artisan breasds, cheeses, and jams. Yesterday I was looking to buy coffee and I came across ¨Café de Higo¨-- Fig Coffee. I guess what didn´t really register with me when I bought it was that it was ALL dried fig and no parts coffee. But I like it ok. Other than restarants and tourist shops I haven´t really seen many stores that are exactly alike. It´s not overloaded with pharmacies or panaderías (Viña) nor crowded with people (Mar del Plata). There´s a really safe, relaxed, mountainy feel here that I love (surprise?)
The farm is called La Granja Casablanca (the white house farm) and is in easy walking distance from downtown (several blocks). It´s a campground, hostel, pool, and educational site as well as a farm and a home. Somehow it still manages to feel secluded. Almost like camp. Is this bad that I´m comparing my farmlife to camp, because I keep getting a really strong Rockbrook feeling here. Maybe it´s the fact that I´m sleeping in a bunkbed. The farm is totally green, surrounded by trees and plants with the mountains looming overhead . It´s so beautiful, I can´t believe I ended up here by just selecting one of the closest farms to me.
My job here at Casablanca is to help on the farm with planting, weeding, upkeep etc. I get to use anything out of the garden to spruce up my meals. I only have to work from 8am-1pm daily, at which point I have the rest of the day free to swim in their pool (they have a big community pool that is constantly full of people!), relax, or go exploring! There are lots of trails to hike. Apparently, one hike has like dozens of swimming holes where you can jump in, jump out, drink some mate, and hike on to the next hole. YES PLEASE!
Let me introduce you all to the people in my life (pictures coming later): Sandra and Juan Carlos own the farm and live here with their 3 children (can´t remember their names). Sandra is an Argentine version of Sarah Marion´s mom; tall, thin and tan with dark eyes and short hair. She doesn´t smile much, not to say that she´s not friendly, just that she doesn´t just give her smile away. [She told me that she and her husband gets like 7 or 8 requests from WWOOFers a week requesting to work for them but they are very picky. Apparently they look really hard at what a person writes in their first letter to them to see what it is they want to get out of the experience. I´m only the second WWOOFer they´ve had.] Juan Carlos is lanky, bronzed, tall, very Argentine looking and has seems to always have a cheerful look about him. He was kind enough to invite me into his house this morning to drink yerba mate with him (like strong tea) before work started.
I have met three of the people I will be working with on the farm. The first is Juan Manuel (I think), who is a thin, muscular guy who could be anywhere in age from 19 to 25 and is deaf. He works mostly with the animals . I love watching him because the sign language that they use with him isn´t any traditional language, it´s just hand movements that obviously correspond with whatever they´re talking about. Some do correspond, I recognized the word ¨morning,¨but pretty much watching him converse it like watching an exchange student who knows nothing about a language try to talk navigate themselves around a foreign city, except with less noise. Hugo, a tall middle aged man with gray hair has been assignning me jobs on the farm. He kept telling me not to work so hard today, not realizing that he had assigned a perfectionist to de-weed the tomatoes. Ruben is a broad man with caramel skin and bloodshot eyes. He maintains the upkeep of the grounds (cutting the grass, picking up after the guests from the hostel, etc).
Sounds.
Birds. There is an Argentinian bird that sounds just like a squeeky toy. When they´re all riled up it´s like a pack of dogs have just been set loose in Pet´s Mart.
Spanish. For once, it´s all I hear. It´s all I speak. It´s really hard for my mind sometimes to be constantly swtiching back and forth from Spanish to English. Speaking Spanish is a relief, really.
Children. This farm constantly had happy children playing volleyball, swimming in the pool, hanging out on the playground (or today, as an educational lesson groups of children were escorted around the farm and the animals´pen.)
The Turkey. he doesn´t make that much noise really, but when he does, you know it´s him. It´s amazing how when a turkey speaks, it seems to be in questions. ¨Gobble-gobble?¨
Sights and Smells
The sky stays bright blue and full of big puffy clouds tha may all of a sudden turn gray and sprinkle you with the lightests most refreshing rain that disappears quickly. Speaking of rain, Capilla doesn´t have enough. Córdoba is in a huge drought. The two big rivers on either side of Capilla are totally dry. Dry Creek, you might even say (Newbie group, anyone?)
What I smell as I write this is cut grass (Bandit´d love it), warm earth and a serious lack of pollution. When you´re weeding tomato and basil plants that are as seriously overgrown as the ones I weeded today (word for weeds: Lluyo), you know you´ve found the plant before you see it from that dynamic duo of scent: tomate y albahaca.
FYI: Argentine word for pool: pileta
Favorite current word in Spanish: ¨Crocante¨(crunchy)
That´s me for now. I´m super happy, healthy, and already way comfortable with where I am, who I´m with, and what´s in store for me. It´s happened again, I´ve found myself in one of those places that I was meant to be in.
Pictures will follow eventually. Good thoughts, good thoughts.
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