August 7, 2012
The farm is in the dessert of the Almeria region - dry crickety canyons and green valleys between and very little water. We wake up in the dark between 6 and 7 in the morning, me and Beatrice (a WWOOFer from Martinique) from our cool cave in the hillside, to eat a tostada and have a cup of coffee with the others from the farm (Luis the owner and his friends Ana and David). We work outside until the sun makes itself unbearably present and I am sweaty and covered in dust, at which point we share the role of cooking up a lunch in the house. The hours after lunch are dedicated to siesta. I either sleep or read or study the new spanish words I am hearing, to later finish my hours of work in the evening when the temperature and the light of the setting sun are perfect.
Ana wants to see aloe everywhere, and I have nothing against it. Aloe is not native to Spain, but it grows very well in this region. Aloe is used in for everything skin related - after sun for the skin, to calm bug bites. Oh the bug bites!! I have mosquito bites, flea bites from the dogs, and spider bites. 20 and counting on each limb.
We are now 6 WWOOFers, and finding sleeping space is getting a bit tricky. We set up a tent yesterday for Jennifer from Scotland, arranged the caravana for Dimitri from Barcelona and Jens from Germany, while Marino from Almeria gets the little cabaña and Beatrice and I continue to share the cueva. Lots of people to share tasks and lots of people to cook for.
Some of the Castellano I am learning:
¨Higo y queso, sabor de beso¨ - Fig and cheese, taste of a kiss.
¨Podria comer un gitano cagando¨ - (I´m so hungry) I could eat a shitting gypsy.
One of the owner´s friends, David, who lives on the farm is an albañil, a construction worker and mason, and he says that his profession has provided him more than a lifetime´s worth of dichos y piropos (sayings and catcalls). Too bad I can´t also show you the corresponding hand gestures.
I have a day free today because the owner Luis, his girlfriend, some of his friends, and three other WOOFers worked together this past weekend renovating a boat in Cartagena, a port city about three hours north along the coast from Gádor. The boat belongs to a volunteer maritime ecology association to which Luis belongs to. My work on the barco consisted of sanding and polishing the rudder and some of the wood inside the boat. I was happy to see Cartagena because it is not far from Mazarrón, where I will be working this year come October.
Just be careful when indulging in the fruit here - I was told the first day not to eat chumbos and grapes in the same day because it would make me constipated. The days being so long, however, I forgot one afternoon that earlier in the day I had eaten grapes and so then ate some chumbos in the afternoon. I learned the hard way NOT to do that again. The reason being that both chumbos and grapes have many small seeds, so by eating many of each fruit, you create a blockage within your bowels.
The many lives of a chumbo...