Good news, the garden is still doing great! We’ve found some weird bugs, harvested more crops, and climbed up a giant hill to look for an anthill (they are defoliating the basil again), where we were gifted with a beautiful view of all our hard work. It’s been a privilege to work with such good people in such a supportive community. I feel proud of our work and humbled by the community’s response.
In other news, I took a 3 hour walk with one host brother and his uncle, and we found ourselves in another farm on another part of the mountain. It was shrouded in fog, with rolling pastures and trees draped in Spanish moss, and beautiful Jerseys and Holsteins blinking at us as they grazed. In the middle of this place, two swings hung from a wire that was suspended between two of those Spanish moss-covered trees. There was a view of the Aquiares church that made it look like we were in a plane, but really we were standing between two ponds in the pasture. It sounds like a place of utter tranquility, but for the racket that the birds were making as they watched us from the trees. I looked for four-leaf clovers and we found sweet wild strawberries that we shared.
When we went home, there was dinner and then there was arroz con leche, and a horror movie. My host mom gave me feathers that fell from her pet Loras, who talk and sing and imitate people coughing. I am caught up in how good this place is, how natural life feels here, and how I’ll have to leave soon. I have ten days. For now I am enjoying everything, and that is easy to do.
Aquiares Coffee Internship 