Clement and Amee Doyer are the owners of the farm. Clement is from Quebec, Amee is Lisu, from Burma. They grow oranges and pineapple and papaya and rice and rubber. There are palm trees and banana palms and mountains and forest all around. The border to Burma is close and many people working and living on the farm are from there.They have piggies and doggies and chicks and roosters and mama hens. There are large ponds filled with fish, and an even larger "pond" that is pig shit, covered with lilies which grow out of the muck. It is vast and borders a national park so it is very quiet. I use this term loosely as quiet must mean to many peaceful escape from bustling streets and cars and chattering. But quiet here is only a repose during the rooster's napping. Because if there is light out, the 30 something roosters and hens, (not even counting all the babies) are chatting and calling out to each other all live long day. And the other women on the farm are up with the birds, chattering away as well on cell phones or to each other about god knows what but it honestly never ends.
I arrived on a Sunday the day of rest and was introduced to Claire, their friend visiting from Quebec, and Henrikes, a German wwoofer who are both very nice. Henrikes and I got to talking and turns out this is one very small world. A conversation on Gotan Project turned to Argentina, talk of Argentina led us to discover that we both visited there around the same time. And we both wwoofed in Tunuyan. And she wwoofed at the farm that Guillme and Gabrielle went to after they left Madre Tierra. So we had an interesting chat about our mutual friends and about Tunuyan, and turns out she even met Sergio of all people while trekking towards Chile. I tell you SMALL. WORLD.
So the first few days I got killed. Seriously I am out of shape. I was sweating and pounding the water and taking a million breaks. We were hoeing round the orange groves which is long and arduous and frustrating cause you know the weeds are just coming right back. We hauled cow shit to fertilize the trees, we cleaned the lilies off of the pig doo doo, and we hoed some more. The work is hard, but rewarding. My shoulders and back began to adjust(with the help of some daily yoga) and after the hump of day two I was doing good. Sadly Henrikes had to leave but later that very day Byron, a wwoofer from Alberta arrived to assist with the workload.
The work hours are 6/day. Usually up at 715 to eat brekkie of rice and something and get started working by 8am. Work 8 till noon then siesta till 3 or 4 and then work two hours in the afternoon. And boy did I siesta. Long, sweet, two hour hammock naps in the warm breeze. I would wake up groggy and without a shred of desire to pick up a zappo, but I did, eventually.
The food varied from rice and veggies sometimes with mystery meat I would eat around, to potatoes of every shape and size; chips, fries, hash browns, home fries, you name it. Delicious fruit; pomelo, pineapple, tangerine, rose apple, green mango, papaya, banana (the good little stubby bananas right from the farm too), etc. Claire made crepes one afternoon and banana cake the next.
And the evenings were spent watching endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Now in my 'normal' life, this has never been a show of much interest to me. But after suffering through the terrible, creepy, violent movies that are on constantly in Thailand, I welcomed the unoffensive television drama. Clement has a great collection of tv shows and movies and so the nights floated by lazily watching one show after the other while indulging in some delicious fruit or butter cookie.
They have a really cool contraption to heat water for showers. By placing a tea kettle of water on this contraption backed by mirrors and facing it towards the sun it heats the water throughout the day to be used for warm showers. From past farm experience, at least Argentina style, I am content with any water, and therefor was content with cold showers nightly as long as I could rinse the dirt and compost and caca de vaca off of me.
On Friday night, even though we still had to work Saturday, Byron and I started early to finish early and trekked into Ban lo Pahan to get some beers and ice cream. Byron accidentally bought a bottle of Chinese moonshine thinking it was beer, and let me tell you the gulp i took of it set me back for the entire night. Nothing better than a cold(ish) beer after a long day and even longer week working out in the sun. And I didn't even mind combining the taste of my chocolate ice cream with the cool beer, it was perfection.
A week and a half flew by when I think back now, but I remember the time crawling by when I was hoeing and it was only 945 and still two hours till lunch. I had a good time more or less, the good balancing the not so good and the work balancing the well, laziness of my trip thus far. I even saw a cock fight. A legit rooster brawl, it reminded me of the crazy girl fights on Jerry Springer. Where they're held back for a while and then charge, and held back and then charge. Except these roosters would stare down and then fly at each other and stare down and then claw away, hard too till one was bleeding. It was actually a bit scary at times. But pretty cool in the end, when a third rooster intervened, this big regal fucker came in and settled the whole affair. Badass. I also worked expressing oil from niger seed on this massive industrial oil machine which was pretty cool, and the seed comes out in these black cakes that look like play doh or strips of blackened beef jerky, and these are then fed to the pigs and chickens, and the oil is used for cooking. Like the delicious french fries I had cooked in the oil. It had a sweet taste, the taste of the fruits of my labor? haha.
And now I'm back in the real world where I don't get three squares a day and have to pay for my bed and have the liberty to spend my afternoon wandering the city and reading. Its nice to be back, but the farm was a great break from it all, even if it was only a short one. I look forward to the Indian wwoofing experience and all the new craziness that'll bring!
Sawaat De Kaa!
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