I am outside of the normal world.
Until yesterday I didn´t even have my bearings on where exactly I´d come to - what the road looked like coming in, or what the neighboring farms looked like, what was beyond the hills.
I have dreamed of hairy green pods with three brown things sticking out (chestnuts) and of weeds.
I feel very, very far from everything normal, closed into a small little world with practically no connection to the outside.
Luckily, Pepi and Manolo are pretty cool people, and the day after I arrived, Dehlia came from Barcelona (another WWOOFer). Our hosts are only about 6 years older than me, and share a lot of similar views on life. They have a 20 year old daughter that moved out of home about 2 days before I arrived.
Pepi and Manolo love their country life, and try to do as much as they can by hand, and use organic, and lower their impact on the environment.
They have 3 large gardens, a hillside which we are starting to clear (pulling out small shrubby things) so they can plant fruit trees. Although that will be under the existing oaks. They also have chickens and 2 ducks, several dogs, and 4 cats that sit on the other side of the kitchen window looking in at the stove on all the rainy days we´ve had, watching them cooking.
Most of the week was cold and cloudy with a fair bit of rain - I felt like I was pretty much at home having a Vancouver type of fall. These two don´t like to work outside in the rain, though, partly due to health problems, and so we would race for indoors if it started to rain on us. We canned tomatoes and made tomato sauce one day. They make their own bread, yoghurt and soap.
Sachiko came to visit Saturday morning and stayed over till this morning. They let her work with us for the morning weeding in exchange for staying. Friday and Saturday were beautiful. We walked to town along a narrow cobblestone road high on the hill, with Sachiko yesterday, and finally I´ve been able to appreciate this area.
It is cork and acorn oaks everywhere. The cork oaks have the trunks stripped every 10 years. They make an idyllically beautiful forest. It´s 1-2 km down a cobblestone road with mossy stone fences at the side, from the nearest village (Cortegana). At night there are extremely starry skies and nothing but the sounds of animals. A lot of bells on the sheep and goats (there are none on this farm).
Yesterday we only worked the morning and Manolo made a big lunch because we had guests. An older man and woman, not a couple - both unusual people - who brought cheese and wine and olives, and a lot of joking and life to the place, which is usually somewhat more serious. Pepi and Manolo have told us their difficulties making friends here. They both were born in Andalucia but grew up in Barcelona and so are quite northern in their thinking. Besides that, they are somewhat ¨counterculture¨ being organic farmers and eating healthy and thinking a bit more critically about life than most of their neighbours, who I am told are extremely traditional and closed minded here in the sierra. This pair were a naturopathic doctor and a lady who formerly worked in a hospital and used to drive an extremely expensive Mercedes very, very fast around these roads. That´s all I know about them, besides the fact that although they are Andaluz, they are very open, liberal and think differently.
So how it works is they knock on our doors at 8 am. We sit down for coffee or herbal tea, along with homemade toast and olive oil and tomatoes from the garden, or else butter (in slabs) and homemade fig or apple marmalade. Then when we are all ready, we go out to do one of the various chores I´ve mentioned. We come in again for coffee and a small snack in a couple hours, then work some more till about 2 or 2:30 pm. We get lunch and after that have siesta. They knock on our doors at about 5 or 5:30 or 6. We have tea and then go work some more till sunset. Dinner is around 10. We help get it ready and after it we hang around a bit or just go to bed. Showering seems not to happen too often. That is slightly difficult for me.
Everybody here knows more about flamenco than the average person. Their parents listened only to flamenco when they were young. Manolo for his part mentioned his rebel years where they would wear pointy shoes with some certain other type of clothes and would go down to such and such a street or plaza and do palmas.
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