Snapshots of Life--The Farm

Well, I definitely intended to update a bit earlier, but it has already, incredibly, been just over a month!  There is no way I could could even summarize this past month well, because a summary with a few pictures would not do it justice.  So I think what I will do is give a couple of snapshots from life.  

First off, I have arrived and have been living on the Villa Barbara Experimental Farm, a beautiful little patch of land 20 minutes outside of the town of Sincelejo, Colombia--the capitol of the province of Sucre.  It is quite a different pace of life than what I am used to--being outside of town twenty minutes on a bumpy dirt road means that I really can´t travel anywhere on my own but am dependent on others for travel--whether that is by moto or by car.  Moto is the best way to travel here and ironically it takes much longer to get into town by car because the road is so rough.  

Currently my weeks are spent approximately three days working on the farm and three days going into the office of Sembrandopaz in Sincelejo.  The following pictures are just a few snapshots of life on the farm.  It is important to know that these pictures give just a tiny peek into one aspect of life.  I have not taken a bunch of pictures in town or in the office, or of people, because I don't want to put pictures of people on a public blog without their consent.  There is so much more to cover but these pictures will just scratch the surface of life here.  When you see these pictures, you will probably have a perception of what my life is like here, but honestly it is such a limited slice--just a snapshot.  I hope to to talk more about other aspects of life here later, but that will be for later (when I have the magical combination of time and WiFi).  

A view from the porch of La Cabaña, aka the house of my neighbors Lillian and Ricardo who live on the farm and are part of the Sembrandopaz team.  It is an amazing view and although you cannot see in the picture, beyond the hills in the background is the Caribbean Sea. 

Lillian always has new and interesting plants at La Cabaña.

These pictures probably look deceptively peaceful.  This is a view from the porch area of the house of my host family.  Aside from the 9 people living there right now (6 in the family, me, my roommate who is also a volunteer from the States for the summer, and then we have another volunteer from the states coming for another month), there must be at least 40 chickens and roosters living with us (and a bunch of other animals).  In fact, I have not once needed an alarm clock to wake up as these guys will happily do the job--albeit often at 5 am...  Narcisco decided we had too many roosters recently--so what that means is making guiso--or stew--and inviting friends over for a big Sunday lunch.  

Rainy days are the best because it means that it cools down a bit.  Unfortunately, we have been suffering drought recently even though it is supposed to be the rainy season here and it only rains every couple of days (or weeks, at the worst) when previously it would rain every day during the rainy season.  Due to the fact that on the coolest of days, temps will be in the high 70s Fahrenheit and temps in the 90s with high humidity is the norm, rain and clouds are welcome companions here (and mean that we don´t have to water everything by hand--hooray!)

This is the huerta, or vegetable garden.  This is just before we planted it with beans, corn, and some other vegetables.  Unfortunately, not everything did so well but the beans and corn seem to be thriving now.  Part of this is probably due to the drought.

One of my new favorite trees.  Not only do papaya trees look super funky, the abundance of them on the farm means that I often get to enjoy papaya with breakfast or in a juice with milk with other meals.  We have quite a lot of fruit trees here, but right now the main ones in season are papaya, mango, and mamon.  Mamon is like nothing I have experienced before, it is like clusters of tiny limes on the outside, pink and sweet tart, and with a big pit in the middle like a cherry.  To eat them you crack the skin, slurp up the sweet-sour pink fruit, and then spit out the seed.  

Some new chicken friends who arrived into the world about a week after I got here.

Chicky--Lillian and Ricardo's dog.  

Turkeys are surprisingly creepy when viewed up close.  

This is Tomas--every morning he drinks his tacita (little cup) of coffee just like me. 

My host sister, Nicol, turned 13 a couple of weeks ago and had a bunch of friends over from school to cook arroz con pollo--Happy Birthday Nicol!

For Nicol's birthday, we had icecream and other treats--Colombia does it right with icecream in a box--no skimpy little carton here.

So this is a typical breakfast food here in Colombia--yuca and queso--cheese.  Actually, this was my second breakfast one day.  I think we were talking about typical foods in Colombia and my host mom, Manuela, wanted me and Liana (my co-volunteer), to experience it even though we had literally just finished our first breakfast.  We eat a ton of good food here, it is pretty rare that I feel hungry.  Yuca (as pictured) and ñame (which might be best compared to potato except I think it is better and maybe a little more starchy) are two staple crops eaten and grown here.  We eat a lot of rice and platanos (different than bananas, unripe and more starchy) as well, but when one talks about staple foods of the region, it is yuca and ñame.    

I had to take a picture because Dina put a face on my arepa (actually not quite sure if this is technically an arepa, but it is yummy and one of my favorite things to eat).  Fun story: when Manuela learned that Liana and I love fruit, she decided to buy this fruit tablecloth for us (its a cheap shiny, plastic one which we swapped for the red cloth one we had--she said it is easier to clean though--and perhaps she also was impelled to buy it after I knocked over rice and my glass of juice in one meal).

I thought that these rags were so beautiful and also a good analogy to life here.  Here we are so much more resourceful and careful of resouces.  Old bags are recycled to plant new seedlings.  It's not like we can just ship off our trash to a far away landfill every week.  It either goes to the pile on the property or once a week gets driven into Sincelejo.  This has made me so much more aware of trash and the value of resouces.  

One day, Liana and I wanted to make gringa food, so we got the ingredients for banana bread and baked it in the outdoor, wood-fire oven.  Also starring the fruit tablecloth in all of its glory and a chicken--because the chickens are literally everywhere :)

This is the wood-fired oven we had to use to bake our banana bread muffins.  We feared it would be a disaster, but they actually turned out surprisingly delicious, though the batches varied quite a bit with different amounts of wood present.  

Mangoes!!! Enough said.  

We work in rubber boots here to protect ourselves from the culebras--aka snakes.  And also because its messy.  Rubber boots plus paint is a great combination (because I just couldn't leave my paints at home and they probably contributed to making my suitcase overweight--but hey I got one use so far!)

The chicken homes that line our house--we painted them fun colors!