Wednesday 9/14 @ 300pm Sora, Italia
I'm now to the point where I can no longer relay information in a day to day format, but more as I can think of it happening. Apparently, once you've been here a few days, you lose track of time because it is pretty much the same day to day. Yesterday, however, was my favorite day here thus far, and so I'll share those events with you. We all woke up and were working by 8am, but around 830am, the owners asked me if I wanted to work in the fields with Giseuppe and I said of course. We spent quite a bit of time watering plants up near the house, which I thought was the "fields", but after about an hour, we loaded up the tractor and headed down the hill. At first, I was wondering why we needed the tractor, but then i realized the fields were actually quite a bit down the hill and a very steep hill at that. And lets just say, this tractor was no spring chicken. It had to have been at least 60 years old and I could have walked twice as fast as it was going, but Giseuppe made me ride on the back, so I did.
Once we got down the hill, he ended up hooking up two hoses to the tractor and stuck one in the pond and the other fed itself up to the field. Once he turned the tractor on, it sucked the pond water up and that is what we used to water the field. He showed me how to take care of the pumpkins he had and we spent awhile fixing a hose that had a hole in it. This whole time though, when ever I was working too hard or too fast, Giseuppe would just say "piano piano" and make me slow down. Apparently, in Italy, it just needs to happen, but not quickly. For 15 minutes, we even walked to this spot and just sat and rested, even though we hadn't really done too much work.
Also, Giseuppe only speaks Italian, so it is quite the game figuring out what he is telling me to do.
After all the work, we went up the hill, except this time, I couldn't ride on the back, so I ended up riding on the front of the tractor, like a would have ridden a horse. I know, Mom would be all like "was it safe?!". Of course it wasn't safe, but it was fun and since the tractor was literally going 2 miles per hour, I didn't have much to worry about. He also reminded me that one morning, I still need to give the donkey a haircut.
