Last night, our host invited us by the main house to get to know one another and enjoy a few glasses of some local red. For a couple of hours, we swapped stories on our histories, travels, and experiences with the local culture, along with draining a couple bottles of good wine.
Drinking wine the night before starting work is not always the brightest idea, though it’s rude to turn down an invite from your host, right? Admittedly, the wine-induced sleep was not so restful, but we rose anyway and got ourselves fed and ready to go by 8 am.
No one said the work would be glamourous, so I was unsurprised to spend the entire workday plucking weeds. In a way, it can be quite meditative, though leaning down and pulling up the grassy invaders can become less-than-comfortable over time. However, it is pretty satisfying to turn back and see an area transformed, knowing that it was all you.
Also, I should probably mention that there are 5 dogs here, one of which is only 3 months old, and 3 cats. So, the day did get broken up semi-frequently with some friendly visits. And, when I say friendly, I mean two dogs deciding to play fight on top of you, or put your your whole arm in their mouth while you’re trying to pick things up.
The food situation here isn’t quite up to par at the moment. A lack of a grocery run has meant we’ve had to get creative with what’s been left in the cupboards. There’s no such thing as a tienda within easy reach. Oatmeal, pan-fried bread (I can get creative with a little flour and some spices) with homemade salsa, and a stir-fried pasta with onion, carrot, and cabbage were on the menu for today. Tomorrow, we should get to the market and get some more ingredients to mix it up with.
So, for now, I’m dealing with my first day of physical work in quite some time, on a wine-influenced sleep, and a lack of food to a degree. Luckily, that combination might just be the perfect thing to help me sleep through the songs of the crickets tonight.
