I’ve settled in a bit more at Paola’s, and regardless of what my last post seemed like, I’m enjoying it quite a bit! It is very different, definitely. Hopefully I can capture and communicate some of the eccentricity, greatness and eclectic nature of this place while I’m here. I don´t have time to place photos in this post, so here´s a link to the flickr set. Here’s what I think and some of my experience so far:
In the morning we can wake up whenever. I don’t think anyone wakes before 8 am. I’ve woken up from between 7 am and 11 am. So far what I’ve learned about the mornings is that if you take care of the goat milking, you (should) have more of an obligation to get up at a certain time. The cheese making depends on the goat milking and the cheese-makers rest of the day depends on when the goat-milkers finish milking. I know this now as I’m the cheese maker … and the goat-milkers are, shall I say, slackers? Nice kids, but slackers, nonetheless. 
I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It’s kind of the central hub of activity on the farm. For breakfast, we have self-catered access to muesli, long shelf-life milk, sometimes fruit. Fresh eggs if you want them, store-bought eggs as well. Always coffee, either in the common stove-top espresso pot or a turkish-style pot (which is just a small metal pot you put ground coffee in and boil/warm on the stove). Lunch has been self-catering, mainly leftovers from the night (or nights) before. Dinner has been more often than not cooked by one of the wwoofers or Bernardo. I have yet to cook a full meal for the crew. Bernardo apparently “loves” to cook and can certainly belt out some GREAT dishes and feed us all very well.
The first weekend I was here, there was a bit of a shortage of food. Which, at first, kind of made me uneasy. I had come from Mike & Janine’s where food was aplenty. And, the first sunday Bernardo and Paola both went away for the day. Which meant the only people who could drive left for the day (this is aside from Bern, the mechanic, who is usually drunk or drinking, according to rumor). Since they were gone, though, we all decided to have a day off. The first thought on everyone’s mind, at least the one they shared with everyone, was to acquire alcohol. This was not my first thought. My first thought was what are we gonna eat for lunch and dinner and to find food. So almost the entire groups priority was to focus on getting drunk. The decision was that two people needed to hitchhike into Campohermoso, the nearest town with supermarkets, to get supplies. A list was drawn up - mainly consisting of cheap wine and sweets - and Adrian and I sort of were asked/obligated to make the trip. Neither of us had ever hitchhiked before. We had no idea how far it was from Paola’s to Campohermoso (I only knew it was on the road that went by Paola’s farm). Mainly, no one knew if there were even any stores open on Sunday.
I now know what it is to be a hitchhiker, and how infuriating it is to see cars with one passenger, or at least several open seats whiz past you, going the same way, without stopping. We had no other means of transportation, only our feet and no idea how far we had to go in order to get to the stores before they close at 2 pm. (If they were open at all.) I’m not sure I’m a convert to hitchhiking, but I will be much more inclined to stop and give someone a ride from now on. We did get a ride (partially) to and from Campohermoso - both times it was from Moroccans. The first ride was from a painter traveling in his work van. Adrian sat up front and I sat in the back on the floor. On the way back, we rode with three Moroccan men, probably about the same age or a little order than me. The first guy spoke a little English, and the secound group spoke some Spanish and of course, French.
We got to Campohermoso with plenty of time before 2 pm (which is when the stores would definitely be closed, if they weren’t already). Unfortunately, everyone we asked in the street said that no stores would be open. Nothing looked open. We did, however, find a few shops. We found some total crap Don Sim—n box wine for around 1 euro per box, which was a complete rip-off for what this wine was. We bought 5 boxes and I remember thinking when we bought it “if they complain about this shit, I’m going to be pissed.” The wine we found at what seemed to be a Russian-owned store. The sweets - creme filled Oreo-type cookies and these yuck chocolate cake things (like Little Debbies in the States) - we bought at a Muslim shop a few doors away. We spent 5 Euros on wine, and 5 Euros on sweets. We ended up with nothing specifically from the list - we got as close as we could with what was available. We would have needed to go to a big-box grocery store to get exactly what they asked for! I had a rotten attitude by this point because I had also hoped an internet cafe would be open and I could check my email. And, not having gotten what they wanted, I sorta felt like I was letting them down. Needless to say - we got back just fine after the ride with the Moroccans. The other wwoofers weren’t as excited to see us as I thought they’d be. After everyone gathered back at the kitchen, we broke out the wine, hooked up the ipod, and hung out in the kitchen for the rest of the day. Adrian and I cooked some stuff that evening - mainly potato-based dishes as that really all we had left! It was a fun day. And, I felt like I was bonding a bit with my fellow wwoofers.
As far as equipment in the kitchen - as you walk in the door, on the left there’s a cupboard with misc. items, most of which I’m not sure what they’re for as they seem like old food and junk. I do know this is where to find the muesli, coffee, milk, salt, eating utensils, etc. On the two side walls are racks for storing dishes and spices. There’s a three-burner butane fuel-bottle stove/oven for cooking. Above the stove there’s a makeshift iron pot rack mainly plenty of pots containing pots with one handle missing. The back wall has concrete-wall-cubby-holes stuffed with who knows what. Also against the back wall is one end of a pretty nice thick-plank-top table with enough room for 7 people or so. There’s a bench on one side, and on the other, this awesome dual-purpose bench and “cooking box.” This cooking box is one of the coolest things in the kitchen and I need to document it so I can build one some day. It’s a plywood box, exterior dimensions about 5′ x 2′ x 2.5′. It has a hinged lid, and is fully insulated inside with sheeps wool and blankets. I’ll use a cooking rice as an example. The idea is to heat the pot with rice to a boil on the gas-bottle stove to boiling, turn off the burner and put the pot in the cooking box. The box retains the heat and, for anything that needs to simmer, placing it in the cooking box will finish it off nicely without burning or overcooking and will keep it nice and warm until you need it. It is an excellent energy saving device.
Also in the kitchen is a sink. But, no hot tap water and no dish-soap. There’s also no refrigerator or microwave. If nothing else during my stay here, I am learning a lot about myself and setting new limits of minimum cleanliness and sanitation I can stand.
We don’t “wash” dishes per se. We rinse everything with cold tap water. That’s it. Greasy plate? Rinse it with cold water. Grease doesn’t come off? That’s ok - there’s a small jar of gray clay stuff that is supposed to be used to wash really dirty, oily crud off a dish. I’ve used it once and it works, but it’s not a clean feeling like dishwashing liquid leaves, not by a long shot. I’d guess almost all the dishes are used at every meal and are washed after every meal (as long as the individual using them is so inclined). So, really, there’s not really much chance I guess for harmful germs or whatever to build up? I don’t know … I’ve always been a bit of a clean-freak when it comes to cleaning dishes before using them again. There’s no bits of food on anything here when I go to use dishes, but I know things weren’t washed with soap or hot water. It hasn’t really bothered me, the thought of it, but I did and do think of it. And, thankfully, I haven’t been even remotely ill or upset stomach or anything. (Touch wood just in case …)
So, yeah, no fridge either … which means food from the night before sits out over night, all day, etc. Which is another thing I never, ever did. If I left something out overnight, it went in the trash. This food sitting out thing is something that Mike & Janine did as well - leaving the last nights leftover risotto in the pot on the stove and making soup out of it the next day. That was no problem. I just get a little skeptical about the safety of the food after a few days. I don’t mean that there’s week-old food sitting around waiting to be eaten - things usually go quicker than that, but there was a big bowl of lentils that lingered for a while and people ate some every day for several days without any apparent effects. Maybe it’s a vegetarian thing? I guess people wouldn’t dare leave meat out for a day or days? But cooked vegetable dishes are ok? Apparently so.
The no microwave thing isn’t a big deal. When I lived at the house in 11th Ave in Seattle, there wasn’t a microwave and I didn’t miss it and will probably never own one again if I can help it.
There’s no hot-water. Or, rather, no hot water unless you want to work at it or be patient. There’s a couple showers that have black hose coiled on the roofs of buildings for make-shift solar hot water. There’s one bath-room (with no toilet) which contains an old German fire-wood powered hot water heater. It works quite well, as long as you build a decent fire in it’s fire-chamber and keep it going long enough to heat the water sufficiently. I will definitely be on the lookout for one of these heaters if I end up buying or living at a place with plenty of firewood resources. It seems pretty efficient and it’s quick to heat up.
And, that brings me to the toilet facilities. We have a composting toilet with a view. I think I mentioned no toilet paper before. We clean-up “Moroccan-style” with a hand and water from wine bottles (previously emptied of wine). I’m no stranger to the composting, hole-in-the-ground toilet. This one is very different from anything I’ve used and I must photograph it and the view from the seat. I think I’ll write a whole blog post just on the toilet after I take some pictures. I did help clean out one-side of the toilet as it was full. What sounds like a ghastly project was really not as bad as anyone might think. It did not smell horribly bad. There were no turds as it had all broken down amoungst the straw.
The gist of what being here makes me realize - in everyday life, everyone that will read this lives in relative luxury. Even living here is luxury compared to some of the places I saw in Africa. The first week was a bit of an adjustment to this more simple lifestyle. My idea of what I need to feel secure and comfortable has been reset and I could live like this if it comes down to it in the future. This is an invaluable experience I will remember for quite some time, and this is only 1/4 of the way into my stay here. I’ve read about living this way several times and it seemed so distant and surreal. It is, but people do do it and it is attainable!
So, what am I working on here, anyway? The first week our (Adrian and I) project was to build a 5-step stone staircase. I haven’t photographed it yet, which now was a mistake … I wish I had documented the progress and got some photos of Adrian and I working. I’ve done some misc. garden work - digging beds, planting tomatoes and chili peppers. I helped clean out the sewage pipe from the kitchen. Plunged some drains, repaired some tree-protecting cages. And, I’ve been learning to make cheese. I’ve made four rounds of goat cheese so far and Paola seems very happy with the results. I really wanted to learn how, and there is no mystery to making cheese. (I thought there was.) My hands smell like cheese! I like the cheese I’m making. It’s definitely a lot like the goat cheese I’ve bought in the grocery store. Now I wonder how much a goat costs? how much a goat costs to maintain and how much cheese you can get from one? it would be great to have a couple of goats. I like them. I’ve been out walking with the goats, too. Alicia, Adrian and I went. It was a great experience. There’s something about shepherding? (not sure if you call it that when it’s goats?) It was fun keeping them together, going in the right direction. I think walking around the land a bit was nice too, seeing a slightly different part of the area. When we stopped with the goats and let them graze around, it was really nice to just chill and watch the wind blow in the grass, gaze at the sea (at the straight of gibraltar), hear the goats bleating and just enjoy the peace and different life.
Things get done, but there is no rush. When Adrian and I built the staircase in our first week, Bernardo started us off, showed us how to do it, and we took it from the second step onwards. The first day or two, I was definitely project driven, and after the Sunday hanging out doing nothing with the other wwoofers, I started to relax, finally. We finished about a step a day from then on, or maybe half a step. It is nice to not have internet access … I have had moments where I was almost lost as I had nothing to do, usually in the moments the computer fills the gap. Sometimes it does here, but usually just to journal and process pictures, not to surf the internet aimlessly.
And now I have to end this post! I wish I could write more! I´ll work up one to send in the future. Check out the flickr photos!