The last three days have been wonderful. My "work" here is not too difficult--just keep the place looking decent, really. And I'm not the only one in charge of doing that. There haven't been very many guests, either. So the first two days I went to the beach, and today I just hung out (it was cloudy and threatening rain all day.)
On Friday, my first full day here, I had my first organic farming experience. There are some sheep, I learned, and I helped herd them into their place. Also, I got to watch some of the young ones get treated for maggots. I guess the maggots had found an entry at wounds that had developed because they were castrated a little late (still, they were only a few months old!) The poor things--it looked pretty painful. They were treating them with tea tree oil, because they're doing everything organically here. Apparently it looked much better on Saturday, so it's working. Unfortunately I missed out on the sheep shearing, as I had to be the one to man the hostel. Oh well, I'll have to have that experience another time.
Yesterday I finally remembered to check out the stars. Boy, were they amazing! You can see so many here. We're really in the middle of nowhere. I saw the Southern Cross, and Orion...but he was upside-down, I think. I also had an authentic small-town New Zealand experience. I went with a Canadian guy staying at the hostel to the Karamea Christmas party--an outdoor picnic complete with fireworks at the end. It was pretty fun, although we really didn't mingle--you could tell it was a clique-y kind of place. Fun to observe, and get free food, though.
Today I went to church...and I thought maybe there wasn't going to be a service, because I inadvertently showed up 15 minutes early and the doors were locked. After a while, some others showed up and told me someone would be coming with the keys. Altogether there were probably 10-15 people at this very informal service. The pastor didn't really seem to have a plan, he just read some scripture, asked which songs people wanted to sing, read a letter he'd received from some friends of the congregation, and unceremoniously passed around communion. It was really interesting to step into their world for a short time, and hard to imagine living someplace like this! I was invited to tea tomorrow night at one of the family's homes, so I'm looking forward to that. They said they may be able to help in finding me transportation to some of the walks around here (there are tons of trails everywhere.)
