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we've been in mendoza for almost two weeks now and haven't done much more than explore the town on foot and make good use of the apartment and its kitchen. there's a central market that we've been frequenting for produce and bread and we like purchasing produce from this cute old woman who speaks english - i think she likes to show off...we visited her for the last time today and i felt a little sad at the idea that i wouldn't be buying produce from her again.
we head out tomorrow night to santiago to meet my parents.
cebada is castellano for barley. people here roast barley to make malta, a drink that reminds me of coffee.the family grew cebada for the first time this year and katherine and i were responsible for pulling up the cebada, tying them into neat little bundles and then letting them sit around to dry. on day 3 of this operation (last friday), i decided it was a good idea to stab myself in the eye with a cebada stalk. accidentally. oh the pain. apparently, eye doctors don´t work on friday afternoons so i went to see the eye doctor this morning after laura pulled some strings to get me an appointment. i don´t understand much castellano, but i think the doctor said i would survive. if not, i should return after a week. my parents are coming at the end of the month!
we decided to stay at la stala till the 11th of november which would make it a month of working and living with the erquiagas. life here has finally become less intimidating on an everyday basis and more routine. i understand basic things like ´did you sleep ok?´, ´would you like more food?´ and ´what did you do!?´. the last one is more of an ongoing joke.
this weekend, i had karate chopped lunch. the family raises rabbits for consumption and the easiest way to slaughter them is apparently to karate chop them in the back of their heads and quickly clean up with a very sharp knife. it wasn´t disturbing but i won´t be raising rabbits in my home. they´re not worth the work. and also, the idea of rabbit feet for luck has become a little bit morbid for me.
we got baby pigs! on the 27th and 28th. we had been waiting for them for a week or so and then they finally arrived. it was like a real life discovery channel documentary. apparently pigs just poop out their little ones which makes human births seem so much more complicated than they need to be. so far 3 pigs have given birth to a total of 28 piglets (i think they have designated sex days here). there were a total of 32 piglets but some of them got aplastado which is castellano for ´plastered´ which also means they got sat on by their mothers and died. they´re way cute. not the dead ones. pictures to follow.
we cleaned out the bunny and chicken houses today which isn´t the most glamorous of tasks. i wear boots of the rubber variety and rake out poop and other unwanted materials. katherine awaits with a shovel to transfer waste material into a cart headed for the compost heap. we´ve done this once before and that time would have been worse if i didn´t get pelted in the face with rabbit pee today. i´m not sure how it happened but i thought i was going to die. emotionally. good thing it was only a single drop otherwise i really would have died.
learning more spanish in the meantime and thinking of heading off the farm in november to tour the country.
life here has been pretty rough, i have to admit. i´m in some internet cafe in clothes that i´ve been wearing for the past 3-4 days (i know, not my style). i not only look dirty, i am dirty. to prove that i´m not actually whining, my pants have spots of pig food on them.
tasks at the farm include feeding the pigs (you probably already got that one), feeding the chickens, weeding a lot (since it´s an organic garden, weeds (and the next door neighbors who apparently steal water) are our nemesis), working in the small vineyard, planting seeds and other tasks of the season. currently, it´s important to trim down the oregano bushes to make way for more oregano. they cut their oregano bushes up to 3 times in the summer then dry it for sale or for their own consumption.i´m trying to learn spanish but currently that´s going pretty slowly and is leaving me feeling a little silly and disconnected. communication with everyone except katherine has been reduced to a series of grunts and shrugs which i have to say, is a little demoralizing and frustrating at best. i miss life where i had time to myself, space to myself, tasks that i assigned to myself and where i understood most things.not all is bad...i´m learning a lot about self sufficiency and i can tell that luis and laura have intelligently chosen to live life off the grid for most part and to take a chance living life as simply as possible. luis was in construction before and built the house where his family lives. they have an indoor and outdoor oven and they´re both firewood powered. the indoor oven is set up to heat up the house as well. the outdoor oven is used in the warmer months. we shower 2-3 times a week when they fire up the furnace that makes hot water possible. they recently constructed an outdoor composting toilet. they compost with scraps from the kitchen but also with pig and cow manure and i´m sure many other things. weeds go to the cows, chickens or rabbits. everything is set up with a lot of thought and everything is reused whenever possible. they´re so far ahead of the curve here in argentina, that i´m constantly amazed whenever i understand.we eat with the family everyday and laura is a wonderful cook. we´ve had plenty of salads from the garden, cheese made from the milk that the cows produce, eggs from the chickens, bread made from scratch, a variety of meat products from the pigs that they raise, sauces and preserves made with last year´s fruit and vegetables etc. two weeks ago, i had the most delicious raw asparagus of my life (sweet, delicious and tender) - they grow around the property.all 4 kids are terrific and sweet - mauricio, antontella, nicolas and sofia. thirteen, 14, 16 and 18 respectively. they help in various ways when they´re around. antonella can identify most vegetables growing in the garden and has taken us under her wing, explaining everything in painful detail whenever she can. last weekend, we travelled an hour north to visit laura´s mother in mendoza. we also visited a friend of luis´, armando. armando has been making wines for the past 15 years and his malbec was delicious and sweet. magical. i´m looking forward to (hopefully) a time when i can communicate better. otherwise, life in rural argentina is very simple, low key and full of learning. oh, and one more detail...we can see the andes from their backyard.
sundays. nothing much usually happens around here on god's day. but katherine and i, we decided to get a little productive. it all started with a mini-lecture from my mom this morning reminding me that i should always leave someone's house cleaner than i had found it. after the elderfoos left to run errands, katherine vacuumed the carpets (2 floors' worth). we were sitting around shortly after when it was decided that we should also rearrange the furniture in the tv room and the living room which are essentially in the same giant room. we did a little couch swapping, plant migration, tv stand relocation, etc. finally satisfied with the new look and feel of the rooms, we occupied ourselves with other tasks (meal planning, list making, hazelnut shelling) and waited.finally, the elderfoos came home, remarked at how clean the carpet looked, walked around for a minute then...mr elderfoo: nancy! what happened in here?!me: we decided to rearrange a bit. what, you don't like it?mr elderfoo: you can't put the tv there, it can't take direct sunlight on the screen. (hmm, curious reason. and also, i shouldn't have spent all that time worrying about feng shui)me: we can move it back...mr elderfoo: nevermind. anyways, when you all leave, we'll move the tv to another room. and we won't be here much longer. (perhaps a polite way of saying, 'thanks, but no thanks'?)also noteworthy: while vacuuming, we found a half eaten dark chocolate mars bar under one of the couches. tsk tsk. also, i guess this means that it's not as good as the milk chocolate original?
today was a day of some amusing elevator situations.
after lunch, i took my mom to the asian grocery store where we bought some produce and delicious egg tarts. being recently anti-plastic, i didn't get a bag for the egg tarts which were already neatly packaged in a clear plastic take out style box. once back, we bumped into this woman in the elevator...
lady: mmm, something smells delicious!
my mom: we got egg tarts, you should try one!
lady: mmm, oh no, i couldn't.
nods all around then silence. the lady continued to eye the egg tarts.
lady: what kind of food are they? (preposterous, i know)
she took one step closer to me.
me: they're like custard tarts and they're sweet and dessert like.
my mom: you should try one!
we reached the 5th floor which is where the lady was supposed to alight.
lady: oh, you're so kind!
then she grabbed an egg tart triumphantly and left. we successfully shared culinary goodness with the world. i hope.
second elevator incident occurred when my mom and i ran another errand this afternoon. we met this dude on our way down and after exiting the building, my mom said she thought that he had looked like someone famous. someone with longish hair, a full beard and with some serious muscles (she even flexed her muscles like she meant it). i had to narrow the options a bit then said, 'hulk hogan?' bingo.
third elevator incident...
we returned from errands and rode the elevator up with this lady and two other gentlemen who were clearly homos (if i can tell, then they're definitely homos). the lady got off on the second floor. floors 4, 5 and 6 had also been selected. this remained a mystery till dude one at floor 4 took a break from his cell phone conversation (about some fabulous party happening at mrs moriarty's that i wish i had also been invited to) to inform my mom and i that dude two had made those ill-advised floor selections. poor dude two. he didn't have a cell phone conversation to return to so he just had to stand there while we visited floors 4 and 5. they finally got off at floor 6. once the doors finally closed, my mom said in chinese (not like they could hear at that point), 'those are your people, eh? one look and i can tell.'
