This was the week of sitting, and strangely enough, I feel the most sore I've been since my arrival at the farm. Que interesante.
My week began with a violent bout of vomiting. Yep, my first weird stomach thing since this trip has begun. I think I ate some bad ice cream or something in the city the weekend before, who knows. Or maybe it was the rapid influx of raw milk into my diet. All I know is that I awoke on Monday morning with projectile vomit and dry heaves once my stomach finally emptied itself. Felt like someone was wringing out my intestines. Cramps do not begin to describe. Awesome. Jenn was a dear--she made me some herbal tea and intermittently entered my self-imposed quarantine zone to soak the cloth on my head in more cold water. I spent the better part of the day in an intimate snuggle with a medium-sized plastic bucket. Romantic.
Luckily, I found some antibiotics that I had taken with me, just in case, but since I am such a proud traveler who ''never gets sick,'' I had in effect completely forgotten that I had those little magic pills with me, since I never in a million years thought that I would have a sick stomach. They proved effective, though, and in a couple days I was almost one hundred percent better.
This week marked the arrival of two additional WWOOFers on the farm--a sixty year old Colombian woman named Julieta, and a twenty four year old French woman named Judith. Prounounced Hoo--DEET. I was calling her Hoo-LEET for the first few days, and she finally got comfortable enough to correct me.
Originally, the plan was for Judith to come with Julieta´s daughter, who is her close friend from university, but at the last minute, Julieta's daughter found a job and could not come to the farm. So, she sent her mom in her place, which sounds questionable in terms of the workability of a sixty year old, until you meet Julieta. First of all, she looks closer to forty. Second, she is incredibly fit. She has her own little farm outside Bogotà, mostly flowers, and she is a walking botanical encyclopedia. She arrived to the farm and was shocked to find that most of Cecilia's flowers were in rough shape. Clearly, because Cecilia's priority and expertise is food, not flowers. So Julieta spent the entire week repotting, replanting, and redistributing flowers of varying types and stages. By the end of the week, the farm was a different place. Julieta breathed life into the floral landscape, and I hope she's able to come back in the spring once the flowers bloom.
I loved having Julieta and Judith at the farm. They are true lovers of gastronomy, and we ate (and drank) better than we had in weeks. They enriched our kitchen with wine and chocolate, and Julieta baked this heavy, satisfyingly sweet and savory wheat bread, which was a huge hit. She put on a bread-making workshop for a few of the neighbors so that they could learn how to make a tasty yet healthy bread, and she also made homemade marmelade from the oranges from our own trees. So. good. I made more cheese, but to me it tasted even more like the smell of a cow than the previous ones, so I added a ton of garlic and herbs to it to mask the moo, but it was a futile effort. Tasted kind of like shrimp and cow manure. Julieta loved it though, even licked the knife when it was gone. Must be an acquired taste. Philistine as it may be, I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that I'm more of a pasteurized milk gal myself. The romantic notions I have of sipping a frothy glass of cream straight from the teet may never be realized, and I suppose that's fine.
The week was sedentary partly because we took more coffee breaks, more sweet breaks, more breaks in general. It reminded me not to be such a damn workhorse. Sedentary also because we harvested about 100 pounds of tumeric, and we needed to soak, scrub, and dry all of it. Many hours bent over buckets of these weird little bulbs that look like the love children of a carrot and a ginger root. Scrubbed 'em with toothbrushes. Dyed our hands bright yellow. I took a lot of pictures. I'll show you sometime.
Julieta really made me laugh. She has a weirdly sarcastic sense of humor that I can relate to, and she never ceased to ingnite the belly laugh within me (even when my stomach was not in an ideal state). For example: when she pulled the loaf of bread out of the oven, there was a sprinkling of white flour on the top. She laid the loaf on the table in front of us, pointed to the flour, and said, deadpan, ''Do you guys know what this is? It's coca.'' We laughed, and she kept a straight face. Another time, she emerged from the bedroom with a plastic sac filled with liquid with a hose attached to it. It was one of those Camelback things, kind of like a source of water that you put in your backpack and when you get thirsty, you can just drink from the hose. Cecilia asked her what it was, and she answered,''it's for my infusions. I have to attach it to my vein here [pointed to her inner arm] and inject myself every night.'' Cecilia wasn't sure what to make of that response, and Julieta just walked away. Fantastic.
We drank some good wine this week as well, which is tough to come by in Colombia. It reminded me of how much I love wine, how much I know about it, and yet how much I have to learn. I am absolutely interested in working on a vineyard for a while during my time here, probably in Argentina, where my love affair with the nectar of the gods began.
The Colombiana and Francesa left this morning, and it was sad to see them go, but it was so incredibly ''rico'' to have them here. Good food, good drinks, good laughs. Important.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Sometimes, you just gotta hit the horse.
So, I´ve written before that I´m not a lover of animals (see:post entitled ''Cat Attack''). They frustrate me in the same way that certain humans do; they cannot be reasoned with. They do not follow logic. They cannot understand that, for example, escaping from the chicken coop and running freely down the hill is quite dangerous, and that certain hungry animals, such as our friendly pet dogs Lara and Negro, will be waiting at the bottom with open jaws. I was heartbroken a couple weeks ago when my baby chick, whom Cecilia named ''Ali,'' because I saved it, was eaten alive by Lara. I frequently try to reason with my animal friends, and I even speak to them in both English and Spanish, but so far, no good. Jumeth, our old lady horse, is one of the smartest animals I've ever encountered. She often finds ways to escape through the bolted fence--I'm convinced that she has fingers hidden under those hooves. She escapes onto the lawn where horses typically are not permitted, and at first, when this happened, Jennie and I would try to coax her back into her side of the fence with banana peels (one of her favorite snacks) and whisper sweet nothings into her hairy, twitchy horse ears. Nothing. Then, one day, when Jumeth had escaped yet again, we observed Trinidad, the Dr. Dolittle of the farm, approach her from behind as Jumeth stood munching on some raspberry bushes. Trini is tender and loving with all animals, and I think she really speaks to them. She loves the chickens so much that she refuses to kill them when we need to eat them, leaving the dirty work up to Cecilia (more on this later on). However, this day, she walked right up to the hefty old horse and gave her a big WHACK on the buttocks. The horse whinnied and took off running, towards the hole in the gate from which she escaped. Easy. Jenn and I looked at each other in disbelief. ''Sometimes, you just gotta hit the horse,'' was my first utterance directly following the incident. We've been using this expression ever since. It has many implications; I'll leave it to you to decipher them.
I guess one usage of our new saying is that sometimes you have to do things that might be outside your character, but are completely relevant and necessary for the given moment. This week, for me, was the week of killing things. On Monday morning, when we were feeding the chickens, Cecilia came up to me with a twinkle of plotting things in her eyes and stood over the chicken coop, and appeared to be counting something. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, ''You don't want to know.'' About an hour later, I found two chickens sequestered in the coffee processing hut, underneath baskets which were weighed down by heavy shovels. Jenn and I decided that they were probably going to be arreglado (literally means cleaned; organized), or killed. Oh boy!
I felt conflicted. I eat meat. I am doing this trip so that i can learn about where my food comes from, and I don't just mean plants. So, on one hand, I was elated. On the other hand, I felt sentimental. I have conversations with these chickens, even if they don't listen to me. One of them was selected because she was a ''mala gallina'', or bad chicken, because she laid bad eggs. A bad chicken? You say it like it's a personality flaw! She can't help it if she can't make babies! I had a flash of fantastic childhood urgency, in which I briefly considered lifting the shovels, running out with a chicken under each arm, and setting them free deep below into the coffee valleys. ''Run free, little friends!'' And then I snapped back to reality and realized that this was an important part of the food chain, and that it was a lot more humane than the methods used to raise and butcher the majority of the chickens I've eaten in my life. So, I let them be. I went back to my task of pruning the tomato plants, and I checked back about an hour later. Cecilia had already killed them, boiled them, and was in the process of plucking out their feathers.
I asked Cecilia if I could help, and she was pleasantly surprised. Apparently, most of the foreigners who come to work at her farm are grossed out about this process, and prefer to remain in the dark. Not I. Jenn and I got to work, pulling out feather after feather until all that remained were two naked, sleeping (ok, dead) chickies. After, I helped Cecilia clean one of them out. She saved every single part, most of it for us, and the rest for the dogs. Amazing. Jenn got a little woozy at one point; I turned around and her lips were purple and her face white, and she had to take a few minutes out. I was totally enthralled, brought me right back to high school Biology when we cut open those little pigs and explored their insides. The part that was most nauseating for me was when we plucked the feathers; sometimes, I focused too hard on the little follicles where the hair came out and I would get creeped out (kind of like the feeling I get when I look at the heart of a bell pepper, anyone else, other than Emily, understand this sensation? No?).
We ate the chicken for lunch that same day. So satisfying. So fresh. There is something really peaceful about eating something you helped kill.
Later that week, I bought cow's milk from a neighboring farm, since we only have a goat at ours. I wanted to make cheese. The man who sold me the milk told me to boil it first, because apparently foreigners often get the runs from raw milk. I heeded his advice and when I added the guajo (the enzyme from a cow's intestines that makes the cheese separate), nothing happened. Apparently, this was my second experience with death that week--I had aided in the killing of something again, and this time, it was the bacteria in the milk. So I guess you can't boil milk you intend to use for cheese. I felt sheepish. We did end up with some clotted cream, though, which spreads rather nicely over bread. The remaining milk is similar to skim, which works well for hot chocolate.
We bought more milk later that week, and round two of cheese-making was much more successful. Did not boil it. Did not get diarrhea. Double success.
Jenn taught Ovidio the term, ''OK!'' and now he yells it, seemingly from out of nowhere, at any given point during the day. I'll be squatting over a row of beets, and all of a sudden I'll hear it: OK! I will turn around and see him plodding across the field with a sack of something over his shoulder, grinning and chuckling silently. He's a hoot.
Death and Dying on the Farm. Scene.
I guess one usage of our new saying is that sometimes you have to do things that might be outside your character, but are completely relevant and necessary for the given moment. This week, for me, was the week of killing things. On Monday morning, when we were feeding the chickens, Cecilia came up to me with a twinkle of plotting things in her eyes and stood over the chicken coop, and appeared to be counting something. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, ''You don't want to know.'' About an hour later, I found two chickens sequestered in the coffee processing hut, underneath baskets which were weighed down by heavy shovels. Jenn and I decided that they were probably going to be arreglado (literally means cleaned; organized), or killed. Oh boy!
I felt conflicted. I eat meat. I am doing this trip so that i can learn about where my food comes from, and I don't just mean plants. So, on one hand, I was elated. On the other hand, I felt sentimental. I have conversations with these chickens, even if they don't listen to me. One of them was selected because she was a ''mala gallina'', or bad chicken, because she laid bad eggs. A bad chicken? You say it like it's a personality flaw! She can't help it if she can't make babies! I had a flash of fantastic childhood urgency, in which I briefly considered lifting the shovels, running out with a chicken under each arm, and setting them free deep below into the coffee valleys. ''Run free, little friends!'' And then I snapped back to reality and realized that this was an important part of the food chain, and that it was a lot more humane than the methods used to raise and butcher the majority of the chickens I've eaten in my life. So, I let them be. I went back to my task of pruning the tomato plants, and I checked back about an hour later. Cecilia had already killed them, boiled them, and was in the process of plucking out their feathers.
I asked Cecilia if I could help, and she was pleasantly surprised. Apparently, most of the foreigners who come to work at her farm are grossed out about this process, and prefer to remain in the dark. Not I. Jenn and I got to work, pulling out feather after feather until all that remained were two naked, sleeping (ok, dead) chickies. After, I helped Cecilia clean one of them out. She saved every single part, most of it for us, and the rest for the dogs. Amazing. Jenn got a little woozy at one point; I turned around and her lips were purple and her face white, and she had to take a few minutes out. I was totally enthralled, brought me right back to high school Biology when we cut open those little pigs and explored their insides. The part that was most nauseating for me was when we plucked the feathers; sometimes, I focused too hard on the little follicles where the hair came out and I would get creeped out (kind of like the feeling I get when I look at the heart of a bell pepper, anyone else, other than Emily, understand this sensation? No?).
We ate the chicken for lunch that same day. So satisfying. So fresh. There is something really peaceful about eating something you helped kill.
Later that week, I bought cow's milk from a neighboring farm, since we only have a goat at ours. I wanted to make cheese. The man who sold me the milk told me to boil it first, because apparently foreigners often get the runs from raw milk. I heeded his advice and when I added the guajo (the enzyme from a cow's intestines that makes the cheese separate), nothing happened. Apparently, this was my second experience with death that week--I had aided in the killing of something again, and this time, it was the bacteria in the milk. So I guess you can't boil milk you intend to use for cheese. I felt sheepish. We did end up with some clotted cream, though, which spreads rather nicely over bread. The remaining milk is similar to skim, which works well for hot chocolate.
We bought more milk later that week, and round two of cheese-making was much more successful. Did not boil it. Did not get diarrhea. Double success.
Jenn taught Ovidio the term, ''OK!'' and now he yells it, seemingly from out of nowhere, at any given point during the day. I'll be squatting over a row of beets, and all of a sudden I'll hear it: OK! I will turn around and see him plodding across the field with a sack of something over his shoulder, grinning and chuckling silently. He's a hoot.
Death and Dying on the Farm. Scene.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
What Is This, A Farm For Ants?
With three weeks of farming under my belt, I feel that I can say with confidence that Cecilia´s finca is built for those with slightly more delicate builds than my Norwegian-esque frame.
I think I have finally made my way out of the honeymoon period, and now find myself more settled, and seeing my daily tasks as work (which I enjoy) rather than a beautiful natural gift from Pacha Mama. To be sure, I am still in love with the work I´m doing, but I guess I´m starting to see things from a different (slightly taller) angle. I´ve slammed my head into the doorway of chicken coop countless times, partly due to the fact that I wear a baseball cap and it obstructs my view, and partly because I am by no means a miniature human. Cecilia, on the other hand, is, and as she was the one who built the entire farm from the ground up, I think it´s fair that the size of the animal pens and the holes in the fence that we´re meant to climb through from garden plot to garden plot are more Cecilia-sized than Ali-sized. I frequently get my shirts caught on the barbed wire as I try to wiggle my way under tiny crawl spaces, and my feet hang over the edge of my bed while I sleep. Also, in addition to my title as resident gringa, which I share with Jenn, I have also become the human subsitute for a ladder. Cecilia is thrilled to have a friendly giant at her disposal; I am finding that she more and more often calls me to reach high-up tools in the shed and clear fallen leaves off of rooftops (don´t worry, Dad, the rooftops here are lower than over there) and it´s just funny, I guess, to see oneself as a tool.
I have finally become acquainted with the varying classes of hormigas (ants) that make this region their home. The most common ones are little brown ones, which attack your foot and proceed to crawl up your leg with astonishing speed the moment you step upon the little mound of dirt they call home. These guys crawl into your socks and bite you, but the bite doesn´t really hurt, it´s more annoying than anything else, because you have to roll down your sock and pick them off of you, one by one. And then, there are the big red ones, the ones that latch on for dear life. Their bites burn, real bad. They burrow their antennae´d heads in your sneakers, shoelaces, pants, socks, SKIN, and you have to grab them with concentrated dexterity in order to pull them free from your skin. Plus, they hurt, so it´s almost counterintuitive to be grabbing at something with your bare hands that will probably turn around and bite your finger. This week, they seeemed to be everywhere, and it felt like either Jenn or I were doing the ceremonial ant dance (frustrated grunts and groants, stomping feet, skipping around, hands reaching down to feet and picking, picking). I never thought I´d say this, but I miss our friendly black ants that visit us in Boston in the summertime. They just walk around the house in search of a crumb or two, and you just pick them up with your own hands and show them the door, and nothing happens. They don´t form massive mounds of dirt, dirt which is essentially the same color as the dirt on which their mounds rest, so that they´re essentially begging for some poor unsuspecting traveler to set her feet. Apparently, though, the red ant poop is really good fertilizer.
Poop. I find myself talking about it a lot, lately, both within this blog and in common conversation at the farm. Maybe it´s the ant bites, maybe it´s the relative lack of human contact, maybe it´s the fact that there are few people my own age out on the farm, but I think I´m regressing. Jenny and I make countless jokes around fecal matter, and now that we´re becoming more comfortable with our farmer coworkers, we share them with these guys. Ovidio is a sixty-something machete-toting gentleman whose jobs most of the time entail chopping things down and lugging them from one end of the farm to the other. He is short, stout, and strong, with a slight case of scoliosis (my own diagnosis) so that his right hip is slightly higher than the other, which becomes more pronounced when he walks. His skin has been tanned and tightened from working outside all day, especially on his forearms and face, and he has freckles over the laughter crinkles on the corners of his eyes. His bottom row of teeth jut out from under his top row, and his eyes sparkle with humor and at times mischief. He always wears a sombrero typical of the men of the coffee region, and he´s got a fantastic sense of humor, which is why we have started to joke with him. I don´t know, I feel this sense of childhoodhood freedom when I converse with him, and so the other day Jenny and I were helping him clean out the manmade duck pond and we started chanting ´´Playa de Popo! Playa de Popo! (Poopie Beach, Poopie Beach)´´ and laughed hysterically until we were doubled over with muscular contractions. Ridiculous.
Ok, back to serious stuff. This week, I got to harvest coffee beans, which I´ve always wanted to do, since I´m a coffee fanatic. I took my Ipod down into the coffee trees and searched for yellow, red, and black little granitos, which I tossed with a satisfying PLUNK into the plastic container I wore fastened with twine to my body. It was a fantastic morning, I just rocked out in my little world of playlists and parted branches searching amid the majority of green, young beans for their brightly colored ripe brothers and sisters, bending the trunks back as far as they´d permit without snapping in order to reach the highest ones, which were usually the ripest since they had the twofold advantage of both prime sunlight and were also out of reach of the shorter coffee pickers like Jenn and Ovidio. Later, we ran these beans through a processing maching that de-shelled them, and they are currently laying out to dry. Once completely dry (4-7 days time), we will roast them and grind them and package them! I will save a few for us to roast on our own, over a small fire, so that when I sit down to eventually drink this coffee I will be able to say that I made it. And this will have a much different sentiment than the countless times I´ve said I´ve ´´made´´ coffee before.
I think I have finally made my way out of the honeymoon period, and now find myself more settled, and seeing my daily tasks as work (which I enjoy) rather than a beautiful natural gift from Pacha Mama. To be sure, I am still in love with the work I´m doing, but I guess I´m starting to see things from a different (slightly taller) angle. I´ve slammed my head into the doorway of chicken coop countless times, partly due to the fact that I wear a baseball cap and it obstructs my view, and partly because I am by no means a miniature human. Cecilia, on the other hand, is, and as she was the one who built the entire farm from the ground up, I think it´s fair that the size of the animal pens and the holes in the fence that we´re meant to climb through from garden plot to garden plot are more Cecilia-sized than Ali-sized. I frequently get my shirts caught on the barbed wire as I try to wiggle my way under tiny crawl spaces, and my feet hang over the edge of my bed while I sleep. Also, in addition to my title as resident gringa, which I share with Jenn, I have also become the human subsitute for a ladder. Cecilia is thrilled to have a friendly giant at her disposal; I am finding that she more and more often calls me to reach high-up tools in the shed and clear fallen leaves off of rooftops (don´t worry, Dad, the rooftops here are lower than over there) and it´s just funny, I guess, to see oneself as a tool.
I have finally become acquainted with the varying classes of hormigas (ants) that make this region their home. The most common ones are little brown ones, which attack your foot and proceed to crawl up your leg with astonishing speed the moment you step upon the little mound of dirt they call home. These guys crawl into your socks and bite you, but the bite doesn´t really hurt, it´s more annoying than anything else, because you have to roll down your sock and pick them off of you, one by one. And then, there are the big red ones, the ones that latch on for dear life. Their bites burn, real bad. They burrow their antennae´d heads in your sneakers, shoelaces, pants, socks, SKIN, and you have to grab them with concentrated dexterity in order to pull them free from your skin. Plus, they hurt, so it´s almost counterintuitive to be grabbing at something with your bare hands that will probably turn around and bite your finger. This week, they seeemed to be everywhere, and it felt like either Jenn or I were doing the ceremonial ant dance (frustrated grunts and groants, stomping feet, skipping around, hands reaching down to feet and picking, picking). I never thought I´d say this, but I miss our friendly black ants that visit us in Boston in the summertime. They just walk around the house in search of a crumb or two, and you just pick them up with your own hands and show them the door, and nothing happens. They don´t form massive mounds of dirt, dirt which is essentially the same color as the dirt on which their mounds rest, so that they´re essentially begging for some poor unsuspecting traveler to set her feet. Apparently, though, the red ant poop is really good fertilizer.
Poop. I find myself talking about it a lot, lately, both within this blog and in common conversation at the farm. Maybe it´s the ant bites, maybe it´s the relative lack of human contact, maybe it´s the fact that there are few people my own age out on the farm, but I think I´m regressing. Jenny and I make countless jokes around fecal matter, and now that we´re becoming more comfortable with our farmer coworkers, we share them with these guys. Ovidio is a sixty-something machete-toting gentleman whose jobs most of the time entail chopping things down and lugging them from one end of the farm to the other. He is short, stout, and strong, with a slight case of scoliosis (my own diagnosis) so that his right hip is slightly higher than the other, which becomes more pronounced when he walks. His skin has been tanned and tightened from working outside all day, especially on his forearms and face, and he has freckles over the laughter crinkles on the corners of his eyes. His bottom row of teeth jut out from under his top row, and his eyes sparkle with humor and at times mischief. He always wears a sombrero typical of the men of the coffee region, and he´s got a fantastic sense of humor, which is why we have started to joke with him. I don´t know, I feel this sense of childhoodhood freedom when I converse with him, and so the other day Jenny and I were helping him clean out the manmade duck pond and we started chanting ´´Playa de Popo! Playa de Popo! (Poopie Beach, Poopie Beach)´´ and laughed hysterically until we were doubled over with muscular contractions. Ridiculous.
Ok, back to serious stuff. This week, I got to harvest coffee beans, which I´ve always wanted to do, since I´m a coffee fanatic. I took my Ipod down into the coffee trees and searched for yellow, red, and black little granitos, which I tossed with a satisfying PLUNK into the plastic container I wore fastened with twine to my body. It was a fantastic morning, I just rocked out in my little world of playlists and parted branches searching amid the majority of green, young beans for their brightly colored ripe brothers and sisters, bending the trunks back as far as they´d permit without snapping in order to reach the highest ones, which were usually the ripest since they had the twofold advantage of both prime sunlight and were also out of reach of the shorter coffee pickers like Jenn and Ovidio. Later, we ran these beans through a processing maching that de-shelled them, and they are currently laying out to dry. Once completely dry (4-7 days time), we will roast them and grind them and package them! I will save a few for us to roast on our own, over a small fire, so that when I sit down to eventually drink this coffee I will be able to say that I made it. And this will have a much different sentiment than the countless times I´ve said I´ve ´´made´´ coffee before.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Tranquilo
There are quite a lot of things to report on this week, and unfortunately, I had written an entire post just moments ago when my internet connection failed, the computer shut off, and I lost everything.
Tranquilo.
This word, translated literally, means ´´tranquil.´´ In Colombia, it is an expression which means ´´relax, no big deal, don´t worry about it, take your time.´´ It is important to me to continue to remind myself to be tranquila because sometimes once you lose something, it´s gone. It´s fine. I can re-type this. My intense, type-A perfectionistic, idealistic personality is really getting a good exercise in patience. Latin America is a good place for me to learn these lessons. If all else fails, you can always abandon your work for the moment and go take a nap, or drink a cup of coffee, or work on something else, and go back to it later.
Many things are unpredictable in life, and even more so in Manizales, largely in part due to the ever-fluctuating weather. I might even go as far to say that they experience more of a range of climate than we do in my beloved New England. They even have the same expression we often hear during the winter in Boston, ´´if you don´t like the weather here, wait a minute.´´ Today was a good example.
As today is Saturday, we woke up later than usual. When I crawled out of bed and stepped outside to stretch, I remarked on the great difference between the warmth of the sun at 8am and its heat at 6:30am, which is when we get up on weekdays. The sky was bright and the air was dry. It felt really delicious. Jenn and I made plans to go into the city, so after our morning chores, we packed our bags and prepared for the four kilometer trek down the dirt road to the bus stop. Not one second after I closed the zipper to my bag, I heard the resounding crack and boom of thunder in the near distance. The sky darkened, and the crescendo of falling water approached us, until we found ourselves under attack by gumball sized drops of rain, which fell from the sky with an intensity I hadn´t experienced.
Determined not to let a little (or a lot) of rain hamper our city plans, we trudged ahead anyway, and marched headfirst into sheets of precipitation. About a minute or two into our soggy stroll, a rickety, rusty truck rattled its way down the road towards us and stopped a few feet ahead. The driver rolled down his window and asked us if we wanted a ride down to the bus stop. I peered inside his vehicle and saw that there was already someone sitting in his passenger seat, and that the backseat was stacked with boxes, farm equipment, and bunches of freshly-picked bananas. ´´But, there´s no room,´´ I said. ´´No, the back!´´ he replied. Of course. How very American of me, thinking inside the box of safety and low-risk. Of course there was room--on the back of truck, especially if you grip onto the racks on top of the roof. Jenn and I exchanged affirmative looks and hopped on.
The rain and wind picked up, and it would appear that we got our ride in the nick of time. The dirt road became a mud river, and the water fell with such concentrated showers that it pelted us in the face in sharp needles. I had to keep my eyes closed out of fear of losing a contact lens (or eyeball). I waved to every neighbor we passed, even if I didn´t know them. We certainly were a sight to behold--I can only imagine what the onlookers must have thought. Gangly white giantess and her equally pale compatriote, dangling off the edge of the truck, bodies swaying with each curve and bump of the road. We both had smiles plastered to our faces for the entirety of the five minute ride. It was not unlike what I imagine an Epcot parade to be. We arrived to the bus stop completely soaked, like, we-just-jumped-in-the-lagoon-with-our-jeans-on-soaked. But elated. This is what traveling is all about.
Yesterday was another soggy day, and another lesson in tranquilidad. When I went to go visit my chicken friends at mid-morning, to check for eggs and refill their water, I forgot to close the door behind me. As I greeted my gurrrlfriends and we had our typical repoire (´´awwww gurrrrl whatchu doinnnnnn bwahhh bwwahhhhh gurlll whatchu got in that nest gurrrrrrrl´´[see my last post for insight into this relationship]), about fifteen of them streamed out behind me, a reddish-brown sea of poultry. Crap. I ran out after them, and began to grab them two at a time with impressive swiftness, especially given the fact that three weeks ago I had never touched a chicken in my life. I picked one up by the legs even, since I had read somewhere that if you pick them up that way they become peaceful and dream-like. Not true. The little bugger squawcked and flapped like nothing else, and I hurried to dump her back in her home. Just as I was rounding up the last few, I caught The Bully jumping on top of the babies´ cage, pecking at them, causing their trap door on the top to cave in on top of them, which allowed them to escape out as well. They hopped and peeped around in an anarchous mess, and I had to take a deep breath and find my tranquila before deciding on who to chase down first, and how to do it. I finally grabbed the last of them, put them all back where they belonged, and then sat down to have a one-on-one with The Bully.
I had been noticing that The Bully has been picking on the younger ones for a few days now, so I asked Trinidad, the animal guru at Cecilia´s farm, what the deal was with her. She told me that this chicken had been persecuted when she was a baby, and was certainly at the bottom of the totem pole, of the pecking order, literally. So, there I sat with Bully, and tried to reason with her using kindergarten logic. ´´Don´t you remember what it was like when they picked on you? Why are you doing it to them? Be a role model and break the chain!´´ She cocked her head to the side, and I thought I got through to her, until I caught her moments later picking through the compost heap, which is pretty much closed off, except for a little hole. This heap is where we throw the chicken poop and the leftover feed that has been pecked-through and clogged up with poultry saliva. It was then that I realized that a chicken who eats her own excrement, and the excrement of her brothers, sisters, and contemporaries, probably lacks the mental capacity necessary to comprehend empathetic logic. Ingesting poop and ABC feed certainly won´t increase brain mass. Oh well. I now fully understand the term pecking order. I will write about the social breakdown of the chicken community in later posts.
Other noteworthy points from the week, in bullet point, since this post is already obnoxiously long:
-I learned how to make goat cheese.
-I sorted and cleaned about 50 pounds of dried coffee beans, which are now ready to be roasted and processed
-Horses poop about 30 pounds a day!
-You can eat orange peels, if you scoop out all the white parts and soak them in water for a week, then dry them and sweeten them with a little sugar or honey
-I learned how to make peanut butter, by hand
-Manizaleños also dress up for Halloween. There are armies of little nugget children wandering around the city in costumes, and it´s really cute.
It rains here like I´ve never experienced. Right now it sounds like someone is pouring a dump truck-sized bag of quarters on top of the tin roof of this internet café. I get these wild daydreams of our little house on the farm being swept away into the coffee valleys.
Life on the farm can be simplified into two acts: pooping and eating. We eat, we poop, we throw our poop (and the poop of our animals) on the food we will eat in the future, we feed ourselves this food, we feed the animals this food as well, we all poop, and we throw this poop back on the future food. It´s beautiful.
Our goat is named Navidad, or Christmas, and she is the furthest thing from merry you will ever meet.
Thanks for reading! Tranquilo!
Tranquilo.
This word, translated literally, means ´´tranquil.´´ In Colombia, it is an expression which means ´´relax, no big deal, don´t worry about it, take your time.´´ It is important to me to continue to remind myself to be tranquila because sometimes once you lose something, it´s gone. It´s fine. I can re-type this. My intense, type-A perfectionistic, idealistic personality is really getting a good exercise in patience. Latin America is a good place for me to learn these lessons. If all else fails, you can always abandon your work for the moment and go take a nap, or drink a cup of coffee, or work on something else, and go back to it later.
Many things are unpredictable in life, and even more so in Manizales, largely in part due to the ever-fluctuating weather. I might even go as far to say that they experience more of a range of climate than we do in my beloved New England. They even have the same expression we often hear during the winter in Boston, ´´if you don´t like the weather here, wait a minute.´´ Today was a good example.
As today is Saturday, we woke up later than usual. When I crawled out of bed and stepped outside to stretch, I remarked on the great difference between the warmth of the sun at 8am and its heat at 6:30am, which is when we get up on weekdays. The sky was bright and the air was dry. It felt really delicious. Jenn and I made plans to go into the city, so after our morning chores, we packed our bags and prepared for the four kilometer trek down the dirt road to the bus stop. Not one second after I closed the zipper to my bag, I heard the resounding crack and boom of thunder in the near distance. The sky darkened, and the crescendo of falling water approached us, until we found ourselves under attack by gumball sized drops of rain, which fell from the sky with an intensity I hadn´t experienced.
Determined not to let a little (or a lot) of rain hamper our city plans, we trudged ahead anyway, and marched headfirst into sheets of precipitation. About a minute or two into our soggy stroll, a rickety, rusty truck rattled its way down the road towards us and stopped a few feet ahead. The driver rolled down his window and asked us if we wanted a ride down to the bus stop. I peered inside his vehicle and saw that there was already someone sitting in his passenger seat, and that the backseat was stacked with boxes, farm equipment, and bunches of freshly-picked bananas. ´´But, there´s no room,´´ I said. ´´No, the back!´´ he replied. Of course. How very American of me, thinking inside the box of safety and low-risk. Of course there was room--on the back of truck, especially if you grip onto the racks on top of the roof. Jenn and I exchanged affirmative looks and hopped on.
The rain and wind picked up, and it would appear that we got our ride in the nick of time. The dirt road became a mud river, and the water fell with such concentrated showers that it pelted us in the face in sharp needles. I had to keep my eyes closed out of fear of losing a contact lens (or eyeball). I waved to every neighbor we passed, even if I didn´t know them. We certainly were a sight to behold--I can only imagine what the onlookers must have thought. Gangly white giantess and her equally pale compatriote, dangling off the edge of the truck, bodies swaying with each curve and bump of the road. We both had smiles plastered to our faces for the entirety of the five minute ride. It was not unlike what I imagine an Epcot parade to be. We arrived to the bus stop completely soaked, like, we-just-jumped-in-the-lagoon-with-our-jeans-on-soaked. But elated. This is what traveling is all about.
Yesterday was another soggy day, and another lesson in tranquilidad. When I went to go visit my chicken friends at mid-morning, to check for eggs and refill their water, I forgot to close the door behind me. As I greeted my gurrrlfriends and we had our typical repoire (´´awwww gurrrrl whatchu doinnnnnn bwahhh bwwahhhhh gurlll whatchu got in that nest gurrrrrrrl´´[see my last post for insight into this relationship]), about fifteen of them streamed out behind me, a reddish-brown sea of poultry. Crap. I ran out after them, and began to grab them two at a time with impressive swiftness, especially given the fact that three weeks ago I had never touched a chicken in my life. I picked one up by the legs even, since I had read somewhere that if you pick them up that way they become peaceful and dream-like. Not true. The little bugger squawcked and flapped like nothing else, and I hurried to dump her back in her home. Just as I was rounding up the last few, I caught The Bully jumping on top of the babies´ cage, pecking at them, causing their trap door on the top to cave in on top of them, which allowed them to escape out as well. They hopped and peeped around in an anarchous mess, and I had to take a deep breath and find my tranquila before deciding on who to chase down first, and how to do it. I finally grabbed the last of them, put them all back where they belonged, and then sat down to have a one-on-one with The Bully.
I had been noticing that The Bully has been picking on the younger ones for a few days now, so I asked Trinidad, the animal guru at Cecilia´s farm, what the deal was with her. She told me that this chicken had been persecuted when she was a baby, and was certainly at the bottom of the totem pole, of the pecking order, literally. So, there I sat with Bully, and tried to reason with her using kindergarten logic. ´´Don´t you remember what it was like when they picked on you? Why are you doing it to them? Be a role model and break the chain!´´ She cocked her head to the side, and I thought I got through to her, until I caught her moments later picking through the compost heap, which is pretty much closed off, except for a little hole. This heap is where we throw the chicken poop and the leftover feed that has been pecked-through and clogged up with poultry saliva. It was then that I realized that a chicken who eats her own excrement, and the excrement of her brothers, sisters, and contemporaries, probably lacks the mental capacity necessary to comprehend empathetic logic. Ingesting poop and ABC feed certainly won´t increase brain mass. Oh well. I now fully understand the term pecking order. I will write about the social breakdown of the chicken community in later posts.
Other noteworthy points from the week, in bullet point, since this post is already obnoxiously long:
-I learned how to make goat cheese.
-I sorted and cleaned about 50 pounds of dried coffee beans, which are now ready to be roasted and processed
-Horses poop about 30 pounds a day!
-You can eat orange peels, if you scoop out all the white parts and soak them in water for a week, then dry them and sweeten them with a little sugar or honey
-I learned how to make peanut butter, by hand
-Manizaleños also dress up for Halloween. There are armies of little nugget children wandering around the city in costumes, and it´s really cute.
It rains here like I´ve never experienced. Right now it sounds like someone is pouring a dump truck-sized bag of quarters on top of the tin roof of this internet café. I get these wild daydreams of our little house on the farm being swept away into the coffee valleys.
Life on the farm can be simplified into two acts: pooping and eating. We eat, we poop, we throw our poop (and the poop of our animals) on the food we will eat in the future, we feed ourselves this food, we feed the animals this food as well, we all poop, and we throw this poop back on the future food. It´s beautiful.
Our goat is named Navidad, or Christmas, and she is the furthest thing from merry you will ever meet.
Thanks for reading! Tranquilo!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The Farm, a Week in.
¡La Finca, Al Fin!
So, I´m finally at the farm. I am beginning to see that it will be sort of difficult to post with regularity simply because we are kind of far from things like computers and stores. Which is charming and was certainly the goal of this trip, but yeah, it might be a while before the next post. Also, I now have a mailing address, so feel free to contact me if you want it! I like presents!
Jenn and I arrived 2 weeks ago after carefully following Cecilia (the owner)´s directions on how to arrive at her rural abode. After boarding the local buseta (read:minivan with a few extra seats squeezed in) and winding slowly out of the city of Manizales, through little hilly towns, and finally along the windy country road that snakes around the edge of the valley of coffee fields down below, we finally arrived at a rickety old sign with the name of the town. ´´A walk of fifteen minutes from where the bus drops you off, and you will arrive at our home´´ was what Cecilia what had said to us. I pictured a casual stroll down a dirt path. What she should have said was, ¨after forty five minutes of straight uphill mountain climbing, you´ll encounter a brief break of flat road, and then another steep hill awaits you. This should take at least an hour.´´ So, needless to say, with all of our belongings strapped to our backs, after a brief ´´you´ve got to be kidding me´´ exchange, we began the ascent in silence, like two little goats. Good thing we both used to be varsity athletes. An hour later, we arrived. Sweaty and buggy, but relieved to have finally found our new home!
The next day we boarded a bus with Cecilia to attend an eco agricultural conference in Pitalito, which is in the south of the country. It was an international venue for farmers, vendors, and people from various non profits to meet and learn about what others have been doing around south america in the name of ecology and agriculture. It was really interesting to me because it was organized by a leg of the Colombian government called SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje, or national learning service). Every region of Colombia has an office, and they run a school for children who mostly come from rural families with few resources, and in these schools the children learn all about sustainable agriculture and managing projects, and they each choose a practical focus like business management as well. And, it´s completely free. Really cool stuff. I wish our country had governmental programs that taught kids how to farm! Once the students graduate from the high school, they typically only have to go to university for 2 years instead of four because so many of their credits transfer. This makes university access more affordable as well. Brilliant.
Ok, so like I said, this conference was international. International, yes, but only for nations in Latin America. So, you can imagine that Jenn and I created quite the stir. Everytime I stepped out of the auditorium, someone grabbed my arm to either take a picture of the giant gringa, or they wanted to ask us what we thought of Colombia, or they wanted to practice their English. At one point, we had a giant crowd of about 70 people surrounding us, asking us questions and taking pictures. It was the Jenn and Ali show. I was interviewed for their local television channel, and I was also interviewed by one of their journalist students for their radio station. Famosas. Apparently they don´t get foreigners around there often.
Now, back at the farm, life is more simple. I feed the chickens every morning. The big momma ones make so many glucking and clucking noises when I enter their home to feed them, and it really makes me laugh because it sounds like they´re saying, ´´gurrrrrrrrrl...........whatchu doinnnnnnnn....gurrrrrrrrrrrrrl.....´´ and so I talk to them in the same way. They are large and in charge. Other daily chores involve feeding and milking our goat, whose name is Navidad. She is essentially a dog on crack, with horns. I´m slightly terrified of her, but I pretend not to be because I think animals can tell when they have the upper hand, and then they manipulate you. See last entry on cat attack.
Cecilia also typically has school groups come to visit the farm, and both Jenn and I help out with these as well. I really enjoy working with children, and I think it´s so cool that they get to have these types of experiences at such a young age, coming to a completely sustainable farm and learning about the importance of biodiversity. Cecilia is so charismatic and the children all stare at her, wide eyed, during her presentations. Then we take walks through her trails around the house and learn about the many different plants and animals that make that space their home.
I intend to be at this farm until the beginning of December. I already feel like it´s not enough time.
So, I´m finally at the farm. I am beginning to see that it will be sort of difficult to post with regularity simply because we are kind of far from things like computers and stores. Which is charming and was certainly the goal of this trip, but yeah, it might be a while before the next post. Also, I now have a mailing address, so feel free to contact me if you want it! I like presents!
Jenn and I arrived 2 weeks ago after carefully following Cecilia (the owner)´s directions on how to arrive at her rural abode. After boarding the local buseta (read:minivan with a few extra seats squeezed in) and winding slowly out of the city of Manizales, through little hilly towns, and finally along the windy country road that snakes around the edge of the valley of coffee fields down below, we finally arrived at a rickety old sign with the name of the town. ´´A walk of fifteen minutes from where the bus drops you off, and you will arrive at our home´´ was what Cecilia what had said to us. I pictured a casual stroll down a dirt path. What she should have said was, ¨after forty five minutes of straight uphill mountain climbing, you´ll encounter a brief break of flat road, and then another steep hill awaits you. This should take at least an hour.´´ So, needless to say, with all of our belongings strapped to our backs, after a brief ´´you´ve got to be kidding me´´ exchange, we began the ascent in silence, like two little goats. Good thing we both used to be varsity athletes. An hour later, we arrived. Sweaty and buggy, but relieved to have finally found our new home!
The next day we boarded a bus with Cecilia to attend an eco agricultural conference in Pitalito, which is in the south of the country. It was an international venue for farmers, vendors, and people from various non profits to meet and learn about what others have been doing around south america in the name of ecology and agriculture. It was really interesting to me because it was organized by a leg of the Colombian government called SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje, or national learning service). Every region of Colombia has an office, and they run a school for children who mostly come from rural families with few resources, and in these schools the children learn all about sustainable agriculture and managing projects, and they each choose a practical focus like business management as well. And, it´s completely free. Really cool stuff. I wish our country had governmental programs that taught kids how to farm! Once the students graduate from the high school, they typically only have to go to university for 2 years instead of four because so many of their credits transfer. This makes university access more affordable as well. Brilliant.
Ok, so like I said, this conference was international. International, yes, but only for nations in Latin America. So, you can imagine that Jenn and I created quite the stir. Everytime I stepped out of the auditorium, someone grabbed my arm to either take a picture of the giant gringa, or they wanted to ask us what we thought of Colombia, or they wanted to practice their English. At one point, we had a giant crowd of about 70 people surrounding us, asking us questions and taking pictures. It was the Jenn and Ali show. I was interviewed for their local television channel, and I was also interviewed by one of their journalist students for their radio station. Famosas. Apparently they don´t get foreigners around there often.
Now, back at the farm, life is more simple. I feed the chickens every morning. The big momma ones make so many glucking and clucking noises when I enter their home to feed them, and it really makes me laugh because it sounds like they´re saying, ´´gurrrrrrrrrl...........whatchu doinnnnnnnn....gurrrrrrrrrrrrrl.....´´ and so I talk to them in the same way. They are large and in charge. Other daily chores involve feeding and milking our goat, whose name is Navidad. She is essentially a dog on crack, with horns. I´m slightly terrified of her, but I pretend not to be because I think animals can tell when they have the upper hand, and then they manipulate you. See last entry on cat attack.
Cecilia also typically has school groups come to visit the farm, and both Jenn and I help out with these as well. I really enjoy working with children, and I think it´s so cool that they get to have these types of experiences at such a young age, coming to a completely sustainable farm and learning about the importance of biodiversity. Cecilia is so charismatic and the children all stare at her, wide eyed, during her presentations. Then we take walks through her trails around the house and learn about the many different plants and animals that make that space their home.
I intend to be at this farm until the beginning of December. I already feel like it´s not enough time.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Cat Attack
So, continuing on our romatic exploration of the old historical district of Bogotá, we stumbled upon a ´´Pastelería Francesa´´ (French pastry shop) and, despite the budget we had set for ourselves, moseyed on in for a look and inevitably a tasty treat.
I should have known the place would be kind of expensive, due to the rather high ratio of gringo to latino. Upon entrance, I spotted a crusty-looking white dude with a blondish-reddish beard, writing in a leatherbound journal. I was willing to overlook the potential sticker shock of the establishment simply because, through a little arched doorway, I could see a sunny little courtyard with a glass roof and many hanging plants and little armchairs and other cozy little nooks. A photographer´s paradise. We sat down and ordered some espresso and a couple of little sweets.
Almost immediately upon taking our seats at a little wooden table, a rather lively and feisty cat bounced in to join us. She began doing the ´´scratch me please´´ dance by rubbing her head and body against our legs. I don´t really love cats, nor animals in general so much, but Jenny really does, so she indulged the creature while I kind of scowled at it and used the opportunity to dig into the chocolate tart while she was occupied.
The cat caught my eye, and I swear I saw a plan brewing behind her little slitted irises. She crept under the table and was soon directly underneath me, which caused my chest to tighten slightly. I took my first sip and placed the cup back down. Cat was doing the pounce face. She lurched back, jumped up on her hind legs, and hooked her paw around the edge of the table, hitting the espresso saucer and catapulting my espresso cup (and its entire scalding contents) onto my lap.
I had to trek back into the main room of the café, tail between my legs, to explain rather sheepishly to the barista that I had been attacked by the cat. I showed her the giant wet stain on my pants. Her eyes widened, and I saw her doing her best to hold back a good cackle, but she was quite the lady and instead handed me some towels and brought me a new cup. Awesome.
I asked her if this had ever happened to anyone else before. Nope. Of course it hadn´t. Friggin cats.
I should have known the place would be kind of expensive, due to the rather high ratio of gringo to latino. Upon entrance, I spotted a crusty-looking white dude with a blondish-reddish beard, writing in a leatherbound journal. I was willing to overlook the potential sticker shock of the establishment simply because, through a little arched doorway, I could see a sunny little courtyard with a glass roof and many hanging plants and little armchairs and other cozy little nooks. A photographer´s paradise. We sat down and ordered some espresso and a couple of little sweets.
Almost immediately upon taking our seats at a little wooden table, a rather lively and feisty cat bounced in to join us. She began doing the ´´scratch me please´´ dance by rubbing her head and body against our legs. I don´t really love cats, nor animals in general so much, but Jenny really does, so she indulged the creature while I kind of scowled at it and used the opportunity to dig into the chocolate tart while she was occupied.
The cat caught my eye, and I swear I saw a plan brewing behind her little slitted irises. She crept under the table and was soon directly underneath me, which caused my chest to tighten slightly. I took my first sip and placed the cup back down. Cat was doing the pounce face. She lurched back, jumped up on her hind legs, and hooked her paw around the edge of the table, hitting the espresso saucer and catapulting my espresso cup (and its entire scalding contents) onto my lap.
I had to trek back into the main room of the café, tail between my legs, to explain rather sheepishly to the barista that I had been attacked by the cat. I showed her the giant wet stain on my pants. Her eyes widened, and I saw her doing her best to hold back a good cackle, but she was quite the lady and instead handed me some towels and brought me a new cup. Awesome.
I asked her if this had ever happened to anyone else before. Nope. Of course it hadn´t. Friggin cats.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Día de la Marta
¡Hola from Bogotá!
Well, after a slightly ridiculous series of bumps on our South American road, Jenny and I have arrived safely in Bogotá. Our flight was delayed about three hours due to exceptionally strong winds in Newark. So strong, in fact, that the catering company´s little food truck tipped over (at least, according to the Spanish account. The english explanation left that part out. It´s fun to be able to understand the flight announcments in both languages). Anyway, we waited an hour and a half on the runway, buckled in safely, for the catering company and the airline to make a decision about whether or not we´d even get food. When it was decided that we would be fed, it was another hour and a half of waiting for them to manually load the carts onto the plane. It was quite the production.
Silver lining: The extra time spent on the plane allowed us to meet Marta, the woman with whom we shared our row. She was about the age of our mothers, and we struck up a conversation with her. What an amazing woman--so warm, so loving, so funny, and so welcoming! After five minutes, she had given us her phone number and address and told us if we needed anything, to please call her. I think she was kind of worried about us, simply because we are two young women traveling alone in Colombia without any big strong men to fend off the rif raff. She would not leave the baggage claim until we both had our stuff, and then she waited outside the airport to make sure we went to the ´´official´´ taxi stand. She didn´t get into her husband´s car until we were safely inside the taxi. Nice lady. But this was not our first lovely Marta, oh no.
In the airport, back in Newark, a woman asked Jenny if she´d take her picture. Jenny took the photo and as we were waiting in line to board, we started chit chatting. I kid you not, after no more than 32 seconds, she let us know that if we needed anything, anything at all in Bogotá, that we could call her. She gave us her number and trust, and off she went. Her name? Also Marta. I really love Colombians. I feel so good about this trip.
Our hostel is warm and plant-filled, and it perpetually smells like a wood burning stove and spices. There are sunsplashed patios and multi-colored hammocks hanging from the pillars that surround the little courtyards, and there always seems to be a hot kettle of tea or coffee sitting around somewhere. I´ve met the most lovely poeple and eaten some delicious food (today´s lunch included chocolate completo, which is hot chocolate served with bread and cheese for dipping). We are in the old part of Bogotá, called La Candelaria, up on a hill, and when you start to walk down the hill towards the main plaza and turn around, the view uphill is breathtaking. In the foreground you see this palette of pastel-colored buildings with balconies and spanish tile roofs, and then in the background it´s the rolling green hills that surround the city. Romantic doesn´t begin to describe it.
This has been a fantastic start.
Well, after a slightly ridiculous series of bumps on our South American road, Jenny and I have arrived safely in Bogotá. Our flight was delayed about three hours due to exceptionally strong winds in Newark. So strong, in fact, that the catering company´s little food truck tipped over (at least, according to the Spanish account. The english explanation left that part out. It´s fun to be able to understand the flight announcments in both languages). Anyway, we waited an hour and a half on the runway, buckled in safely, for the catering company and the airline to make a decision about whether or not we´d even get food. When it was decided that we would be fed, it was another hour and a half of waiting for them to manually load the carts onto the plane. It was quite the production.
Silver lining: The extra time spent on the plane allowed us to meet Marta, the woman with whom we shared our row. She was about the age of our mothers, and we struck up a conversation with her. What an amazing woman--so warm, so loving, so funny, and so welcoming! After five minutes, she had given us her phone number and address and told us if we needed anything, to please call her. I think she was kind of worried about us, simply because we are two young women traveling alone in Colombia without any big strong men to fend off the rif raff. She would not leave the baggage claim until we both had our stuff, and then she waited outside the airport to make sure we went to the ´´official´´ taxi stand. She didn´t get into her husband´s car until we were safely inside the taxi. Nice lady. But this was not our first lovely Marta, oh no.
In the airport, back in Newark, a woman asked Jenny if she´d take her picture. Jenny took the photo and as we were waiting in line to board, we started chit chatting. I kid you not, after no more than 32 seconds, she let us know that if we needed anything, anything at all in Bogotá, that we could call her. She gave us her number and trust, and off she went. Her name? Also Marta. I really love Colombians. I feel so good about this trip.
Our hostel is warm and plant-filled, and it perpetually smells like a wood burning stove and spices. There are sunsplashed patios and multi-colored hammocks hanging from the pillars that surround the little courtyards, and there always seems to be a hot kettle of tea or coffee sitting around somewhere. I´ve met the most lovely poeple and eaten some delicious food (today´s lunch included chocolate completo, which is hot chocolate served with bread and cheese for dipping). We are in the old part of Bogotá, called La Candelaria, up on a hill, and when you start to walk down the hill towards the main plaza and turn around, the view uphill is breathtaking. In the foreground you see this palette of pastel-colored buildings with balconies and spanish tile roofs, and then in the background it´s the rolling green hills that surround the city. Romantic doesn´t begin to describe it.
This has been a fantastic start.
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