I left the farm on Friday after three and a half weeks. Despite my intial complaining, I really loved it and had a hard time leaving. The original plan was to go back in January after some traveling, but I decided it´s best to just leave now. I´ll go to a different farm in January up north in Mendoza.
The last two weeks have been eventful. The old volunteers slowly left and a new, much more laid back group began to arrive. This has made such a difference. If you´re living communally, it´s super important to feel comfortable with everyone and I never entirely did with the first group. Also, we moved into the larger of the two houses, so we weren´t as on top of each other anymore.
My jobs on the farm have consisted mostly of painting and doing the finishing plaster work on the house. I´ve become quite the expert in working in horse poo! Last week, I got to work in the garden, hoe-ing and preparing the land and then planting seeds and seedlings. I´m disappointed that I won´t be able to reap what I sowed, but oh well. It as nice to get a break from the construction stuff. I think the most rewarding projects for me were creating and painting some designs for the house. It was a nice way for me to leve a part of myself at the farm and give something back to the family. I painted a border along the floor for the kitchen and a design to go around the front window of the big house. I did some ranch-y, southwestern type stuff. It´s not normally my thing, but I like it considering the environment.
Other highlights of the past couple weeks were- finding morel mushrooms in the woods around the house, renting a cabaña in town with some of the other volunteers, getting dressed up in a beekeeping hat and outfit and checking out the beehives, going on a hike in El Bolson in the extreme heat and wanting to die (not fun at the time) and getting a personal invite to go with one of the brothers and his family to their friend´s house for dinner.
A couple of weeks ago, I went with the brothers to a community meeting/ party celebrating the full moon. It was on a farm just down the mountain from us. When we arrived, there were like 50 hippie people sitting in a half circle facing the sun. Some were sitting in half lotus meditating, others just sat in silence. There was a kettle of something boiling in the center and I was reminded of the episode of Six Feet Under where Aunt Sara and her friends have a hippie party to celebrate (if memory serves) the solstice. What ensued at the party- some reading of tarot cards, joining arms and standing in a circle and singing together, a community meeting (of which I understood very little) where they formed groups which would go around and help various members of the community with work on their farms. Then after the meeting, the party started. This means a drum circle, a bonfire, lots of communal eating from the same fork out of these huge bowls that got passed around. I felt a little weird because I couldn´t talk to anyone or understand much, but it was certainly an experience.
I became a lot closer to the family in the past few weeks. My Spanish has improved and I became more comfortable speaking English with them. I didn´t like to at first because I hate the stereotype of the obnoxious American who expects everyone to speak English, but I realized that either I speak English or I don´t speak at all, so I had to get over myself. Each of the three brothers is totally crazy and eccentric in his own special way and it´s been a blast to get to know them and their quirks and for them to get to know mine. That´s what makes it hardest to leave.
As I said goodbye and ran out of the house to jump into my cab, Paula, the wife of one of the brothers, ran out after me holding a piece of paper (one of the children´s drawings) that she had rolled up into a cone and filled with lunch for me. It was going to be an afternoon of travel and I hadn´t eaten anything yet. I thought about this as I rode down the mountain away from the farm and I cried.
