yo ho, yo ho, the farmer´s life for me

Wow.  I can´t possibly get everything I´ve done in the past week on here, but I´m going to try to get the highlights at least.

I arrived at the farm without any trouble, really, outside of bewildered stares from people who had no idea why a gringa was on the bus to their teeny tiny little town. Walking up that dirt road to the house was one of the strangest 10 minutes of my life.  My host family lives at the bottom of a gorgeous, deeply green valley.  I was surrounded by huge fat leaves and trees I didn´t recognize as I walked. A river rushed nearby.  At some point, the absurdity of the situation grew to a point where I was no longer nervous.  Sure, I had just come all this way alone. Sure, I had no idea where I was going, with my heavy pack and sweaty pits in tow.  Sure, I was just going to walk up to some house and live there for a while. Suuuuuure. :)

Luckily, the family is extraordinarily nice and welcoming.  They were fairly confused by my arrival because the daughter with whom I´d been emailing had gotten confused and though she was emailing two people, thought she was only emailing with one.  So when TJ, another volunteer from New York, arrived, they thought they were done with company for a while.  No such luck for them!  I wasn´t about to leave having come all this way.  And they didn´t want me to. The family consists of two parents and four children.  The oldest daughter is 17, while the youngest is 8.  I share a room with the youngest daughter, which is proving to be a real challenge for me.  I am pretty used to having some sort of space to call my own, and she is, well, 8 years old to the core.

Outside of my room, though, the farm is absolutely amazing.  It is beautiful beyond belief.  Surrounded on all sides by luscious greenery and plants, and inside by loving family.  Here are just a few of the things I´ve gotten to do this past week:

• I gathered, cleaned and crated probably 700 eggs from our gallinas.
• I attempted to milk a cow or two (and failed miserably so far - I got an inch of milk into the pitcher in 10 minutes, whereas Luz, my host mom, fills a pitcher in less than 3 minutes...)
• I fed some bulls
• I planted cilantro (ew!)
• I tilled a garden with a little thin shovel called a palín
  
• I picked off of a tree or vine right in front of me and ate: passion fruit, bananas, oranges, limes, mandarins, guava, and cas
• I held a chicken for the first time
• I rode a horse
• I played Monopoly in Spanish
• I woke up before 6am every day

There is so much more, but I don´t want to write you guys a book.  I hope as time goes on that I´ll be able to do a few posts to really tell you all about some of these things in detail.  For today, I think a basic day-in-the-life will do:

4:45 am - The TV in the living room goes off at full blast to wake a few of the kids for school. I have yet to remember this is going to happen and every time I am terrified for a moment.
5:15 am - One of my host-sisters comes in to grab something of hers from the room.  I am again startled and mad at myself for jumping again.
5:30 am - My alarm finally goes off and I roll out of bed.  My roommate, the 8 year old, tells me to tell her mom to wake her when breakfast is ready - but she will really sleep through it anyway.  I stumble outside to brush my teeth and am again surprised by the beautiful view at the outside sink.  It overlooks a large stream that feeds the river. A little Dr. Bronners on the face and a glance in the mirror and I´m good to go!
5:40 am -  Collect eggs for the first time.  First from the older hens, who are mean as all hell.  Then from the younger ones who are soft and lay preciously small eggs, but are extremely nervous.
6:00 am - Breakfast! Gallo Pinto, usually - a mix of rice, beans, onions, peppers, and eggs.  Coffee too.  Not ours, but from this valley.  And with fresh milk!
6:30 am  - Work with Luz, my host mom, on a project or two.  Planting, weeding, cleaning the kitchen, etc.  Collect eggs another two times.
10:30 am - Lunch.  Usually salad right from the garden with just lemon juice on top, an egg torta, rice, beans, and maybe some chicken or beef
11:00 am - Clean the eggs, of which there are now probably 350, maybe more.  Break some, feed them to Tigre, one of the two awesome dogs here.  Since he knows I´m inexperienced, he follows me every time I go to wash eggs.  In the middle, be taken to some corner of the yard to be taught about another plant or fruit that grows all around.
3:00pm - Snack!  Rice and eggs maybe, or crackers with sour cream (literally, not the stuff you think of on tacos.) Coffee again.
3:30pm - Freezing Refreshing shower.
4:00pm - Read on Kindle for a while, until invited for anoher job
5:30 pm -  It´s already dark! Watch Fear Factor or a Telenovela with the family for a while, or play cards, or chess, or jacks.
6:00 pm - Dinner.  Usually with some form of meat, rice, and beans. Fresca to drink, which is cooked sugar cane dissolved in water.  Costa Ricans seem to have quite the sweet tooth.
6:30 pm - More games, TV, or reading.
8:30-9:30 pm - Bed! Daniella tells me stories or plans for the color to paint her room until she falls asleep or I do.

Rinse, Repeat.

Okay, I think this is plenty long for today.  I expect I will have internet about every two weeks, so until then, ¡Pura Vida!

(Next time - pictures and an address! I forgot today... In the mean time, though, here´s the closest I could get to finding myself on a google map.  Angosturra is about 10 minutes away from us by car.)


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