A normal day

Morning action: Cleaning the bathroom and corridor

Shovelling manure into the wheelbarrow...

...and out, onto the compost heap.

Taking Gaia out to eat.

Mmmm....grass...

The donkeys are also taken out to eat on a rope

Time for a snack! This is Dragon fruit, or Pitaya, the fruit from the Moonflower.

Clearing up in the pasture,
these dead palm branches fall down regularly

Checking the fence and cutting bushes to keep them from taking over.

This is fun! Cutting down banana trees
with a huge knife (machete/cutlass)

Giving the horses water (in the green bucket),
making sure that I don't destroy the recently planted corn.

Sharing territory with horses while relaxing in the shade with a good book.
Perfect end of the working day.

Books read: 25

Pages read: 6747

21. Ants in my computer

In writing this blog post, I am joined by a number of tiny ants. Let me try to explain how this happened.

Yesterday, I was going to my room before lunch, and I realised I didn't have the key to my room. I usually have my key tucked into my trousers when I don't have any pockets in my trousers, and the key wasn't there. It hadn't fallen down into my trousers either, so I was sure it must have slipped out when I ran after the donkeys (who had run around like mad earlier). I tried to look for it in the places I knew I had been running, but finding a key in grass taller than three centimetres is nearly impossible without a metal detector. I gave up and went to tell Stina about it, for my room was locked. She referred me to someone who had spare keys, but the spare key for my room couldn't be found. I was getting desperate and I was beating myself up about losing the key. After lunch, I was told to try all the spare keys in my door, but none of them fit. Then, miraculously, the spare key to my room was found! I don't know where it was found, but my room was open, and I had the key that fit! I was told to return it in the morning again so that they could make a copy of it.

So I did, leaving my room open the whole day. I didn't want to leave my valuables (computer, camera etc.) in my room, so I left it in Kristina's room, which she locked. I left my computer sitting on her bed, and this was where the big mistake was made. Apparently, there were attractive things in that bed for ants, and, of course, they discovered my computer. So they literally infiltrated the computer, and I didn't see them until I turned my computer on. The ants were running to and fro across my keyboard (and screen). Needless to say, I didn't like this one bit. I took my computer out in the hall, shook it and blew on it till I nearly fainted. Then I went inside and started writing this blog post, but all along I've been squishing ants and flicking them away. It makes for some interesting spellings, with 56 in the middle of a  word because an an6t (see there, an ant on the key for 6, just as I was writing the word 'ant') had just walked over those two keys.

Now I think most of them are either dead from the heat from my computer, or killed by me. I hope I don't get an infestation like this again. Who knows what this might do to my computer... Let's hope it pulls through.

Books read: 18
Pages read: 4792

10. Donkey in the kitchen!

Today is Sunday, and you know what that means: a day off! At least from all the normal duties. Also, the clinic is finished, and it is very quiet around here. Today I washed clothes, which came out about as stained as they went in, except that they seemed clean (from the smell and the fact that they had been through a wash cycle).

Later, I went to the kitchen to make lunch, because I had signed up for that meal. We are required to lay the tables and clear up after at least one meal a week, and I had to sign up on Sunday, according to the list. Sunday is the day the students also cook the food, not only clear up afterwards. Here, lunch is a hot meal, somewhat like dinner in Norway. It was quite tiring to cook, as I spent two hours in the kitchen before lunch and 45 minutes after lunch. We were lucky though: there were a lot of leftovers, so we didn't have to cook so much from the bottom up.

After most of the food was made, I was washing up some of the things we had used. Then suddenly the girl I was working with exclaimed: Donkey! I turned around and saw one of the donkeys just walking through the kitchen! She wanted to eat the food we were making, and I suppose she felt that it was all right to just come in the house when she had broken out of her enclosure and wanted to have a poke around. Seeing the donkey in the kitchen just made me crack up. It was so absurd! And so very far from what I could have experienced at home, especially with all the hygienic regulations and germ hysteria in big kitchens. It still makes me smile, thinking of those big ears swivelling around right by the oven. We managed to get the donkey out of the kitchen by luring it with some fruit, and continued making lunch. Lunch was a success, and I was happy but tired when I finally headed back to my room.

So now I am just going to relax and read my book while lying in the hammock in the horses' pasture. And after dinner I hope I will be able to get myself to bed at a reasonable time. I am so tired, and tomorrow I start doing all my chores. That is going to be hard work, so I really want to gather some strength today.

Books read: 17
Pages read: 4582

2. Donkeys

I went on a walk with the donkeys today. I hope you can believe me when I say that donkeys aren't only stubborn, they're also really smart! With donkeys, you only have to convey the message (for example 'don't eat while walking') a few times, and then they get it. And they remember it the whole walk! With other animals, you have to constantly keep watch and remind them, but the donkeys just understood it really quickly. But then, since they are so smart, they also have a lot of opinions. That is why they are so stubborn, I think. Once they have decided something, they stand by it, and nothing you can do can change it (except use far too much force for it to be called humane or even normal).

Today I shovelled more poop. But that is what I will do every day, so there is no use repeating it. It's hard to clear the area we were working on today, because along the ground there are these long root-like things, and they make everything you try to put on your shovel fall off. We are currently clearing an out of use banana field, so there are also all the dead banana leaves on the ground. It makes a simple but disgusting job just that much more frustrating.

I realise I am complaining, and I shouldn't, because it is so wonderful here. I thought I would just give you some facts about the place I am living so that you can imagine it somehow. There are 7 horses here: one gelding and 6 mares. They have a relatively large pasture, which consists of two relatively flat parts with a hilly part between. On one of the flat parts is the shelter where you can find the hammock and the water for the horses. They also have 3 donkeys, 2 chickens, 1 rooster, 14 pigs (6 of them only days old...soooo cute!), some (I don't know how many...maybe 15 - 20) sheep. Five of the sheep are constantly breaking out of the enclosure, they just walk straight through the electric fence (at least that is what it is generally thought they do). There is also a vegetable/fruit garden, fields of banana trees, and also other fruit trees (like guava, which is soo good). The building complex is quite large, but we are only approximately 30 people living here at the moment.

That is all for now, in this abnormally long blog post (for it to be part of BEDA...now I probably won't have anything to write tomorrow) about (at least) three different themes.

Books read: 16
Pages read: 4504