Jerez for two days. Zambombas - Jerezano parties in the street, Christmas parties. 12 hours long. Saw one famous singer sing, in person (Juana la del Pipa). Saw my friend Kim from Toronto's teacher dance (in a tablao).

The 3rd night (second day) slept in an attic (nice) without running water inside. There was a kind of water source, you had to undo it from a tank and switch it on, then put a jug quite a ways away. Out on the rooftop. Boiled an egg Kim or somebody else had left in the fridge.

Sevilla. Stayed at Mara's place. She already had a guest on the couch, so gave me a mattress in her room on the floor. I walked Faro, my sheepdog friend, around Sevilla last night. Christmas lights were hanging between the buildings on the main shopping streets. Decorating the orange trees. Walked him in the morning again. It was warm enough to be in a t-shirt and the perfectly blue skies had returned.

Nearly missed the last possible train to Malaga before my flight out, this evening. I got on the train to Jerez/Cadiz. Someone had the same seat as me, and suggested we check the tickets to be sure everything was okay. Then noted that my ticket was to Malaga and told me I was not on the correct train. I thought I had missed all my flights home. I did not know that the two trains coincided at Dos Hermanas, the next station (after that they go separate routes). I got off and waited for my train, which was 2 minutes behind.

We'll see if I make it tomorrow.

Al

My uncle died. I am sorry for not contacting anyone in person.

I will hear the specific circumstances of his death soon enough. They don't matter. All that matters is that he is gone. The connection we had is what matters, and whether his spirit (if it still exists after death) is at peace.

Last night my heart was heavy and weak and breath came with less ease than normal. He was too young to die. I don't think he has been very happy.

What he told me before I left was some of the best and most incisive advice I've had - he had no patience for senseless suffering people inflict upon themselves or let be inflicted upon them. Across the table at the Peaceful Restaurant he passed me several hundred dollars to help with costs of my trip. In typical style, he tried to stop me thanking him excessively or making any fuss receiving it. An attitude that said, "just shut up and take it". He told me not to let anyone's choice as to how to live their life cause me to suffer. He knew why I was going on this trip. He told me he loved me - not an easy thing to say in a reserved family.

There are some people whose death feels wrong; untimely, and I feel the need to do something for myself, so that their death does not feel in vain. Last night half awake in the middle of the night something changed. I could carry a heavy weight on my heart (my literal, physical heart, problems with which run in the family), or I could remember what he was looking for and what he encouraged me to find.

This morning I told him he could come with me. In some cultures they believe in the presence of their ancestors. It's my opinion that we struggled with the same thing, from the same family background - I already know that same heavy baggage and I felt it physically last night. But what I came over here to do, and he knew that, was to leave it behind. So I will continue, not for his sake because I can only carry my own burden, but for mine, in his memory and with his memory.

Sitting in front of palm trees, sunset over the beach, moon. Canadian guy playing his guitar. Other Canadian guy who helped get me back to normal life, talking last night about the ravages of our respective travels.

It was a shock to enter civilisation, especially the Costa del Sol. I read long ago that it is not as desireable a place to go as it used to be, due to massive construction of big and tacky houses all over the coast. It is quite ugly between Estepona and Malaga. English, Germans, and a mix of Europeans from everywhere else have invaded this area.

But Malaga city center and beach is heaven, at least in the winter. 23 degrees at 1 pm today.

Last night I collapsed into a wicker easy chair on the patio of the Melting Pot hostel. I couldn't handle talking to Peter, the Swede, and took only one look at Franco, the Torontonian and said Hola, and judged him to be a safe enough person to sit in the vicinity of without being bothered. To be quite honest, what I have just been through has been somewhat traumatising, for several reasons: Homayoun's character and criticism, the harshness of life there (made more difficult by his attitude of challenge to those who come "let's see if you have it in you, tonto city person!") and the remoteness.

I am somewhat turned off rural life, though this was an extreme. The other problem is that I continue thinking, possibly stronger than before, that it is ethically, as well as strategically one of very few wise choices as to how to live these days.

Be that as it may, I feel in the lap of luxury in this 10 bed mixed dorm, with clean sheets and some manner of blanket not mired in dust and sweat, soap in the washroom.

More news for today because I have to come down to the mill (which reeks of alcohol freshly distilled), and coger my portatil, which I left on in here. It's 8:00 but as usual seems like some late hour. We just got rescued by Rainier and his Spanish girlfriend Victoria. Ranier is a long time friend of Homayoun, tambien German, who has also lived here 20 some years. He visited today with Victoria, her brother Adolfo and a friend of Adolfo's, Mirian, who got lost with us.

We have been encerrada in this place far from everything for three weeks, we have not even salida de la propiedad, really. Delia was desperate to go to Genalguacil, and I wanted to get out today, being Saturday. So after a late lunch of expensive (if you had to buy them) wild mushrooms, wild boar again, potatoes and salad better than any 5 star restaurant guaranteed, no joking or exaggerating, we decided to walk to the pueblo. I told Delia that 10 km would take longer than 1.5 hours, and that starting at 4 pm we should take a linterna. She pooh-poohed my suggestion and so the three of us started off, luckily with Mirian's cellphone, as Delia's and mine have both broken (yes, we are both incommunicado with the outside world, rather much). We got lost on the way, as the road has a lot of turn offs (gravel and dirt road - not much of a road really) and had to turn back after stopping a guy to ask. A family of mother, son, and grandparents squeezed us in and took us all the way to the pueblo, upon which we all realised we could not have arrived before dark, and didn't know what we would do to get back. But we looked around anyways, and then started back on the road. The only thing I was really afraid of was the cold. Though Delia and Mirian were not very comfortable with walking in the middle of nowhere in the night. It is also a new moon. Luckily, though Mirian had no coverage (yes we really are in the middle of nowhere) she managed to get coverage for other parts and we could contact them here. Two men going out of the pueblo gave us a lift to one particular cross in the road where we started going down to the river, and took wrong turn, ended up having to climb all the way back up and so on it went.
The funniest was the two men telling us we would get lost for sure (which was totally obvious thinking about how many possible wrong turns were on the way (all dirt and gravel roads with few differences), and then asking us where exactly we were going. We had already told them "Alharia, Homayoun's place" because other people in the pueblo know him. These men didn't, and the only other way we had of describing it was, "over there in the mountains," with Delia waving her hand in the approximate direction. We hadn't even a clue as to how to describe which exact road.

Anyways, suffice it to say I have found a relatively wild part of Spain... (I suppose it goes without saying that there are no taxis or busses around here).

I don't know if I said, but Delia and me saw patches where wild boar dug. The group that came last night saw a big one.

Change of plans, going to Estepona with them tomorrow and going to take a bus to Malaga. A ver what happens next. I don't know. Going to meet Sachiko at least sometime early December.

Today collected a huge bucket full of Feijoyas. No se como deletrearlo. Some kind of fruit from South America supposedly.

We had a few rainy days on the weekend and Monday. We got on rain clothes (knocked the dirt and spiders out of old rubber boots) and crossed the valley to pick apples. Delia picked more higo chumbo (which Bijoyini says is prickly pear) and Siri (from Sweden) and her made mermelada out of it.

The boys are gone. It was us three girls until Wednesday and then Siri went too. There was a cold day, where I wore tights under my work pants and a skirt on top, lots of layers. But yesterday and today have been back to long sleeve shirt while working. We've picked more olives, picked madroñas (red fruit that sometimes ferments on the tree), sewed cushions covered in old Afghan woven cloth. Today we spent the first half of the morning hauling what looked like runny pig feed down to the mill where we put it into an alambique (still). A beautiful, huge old clay pot, inside the cauldron holder, fire underneath. Put a copper thingy on top with two spouts. We had to connect it up to some copper tubes going through a wall into an arched pool area. Connections were sealed with bread dough and an old rubber tired was put around the top for insulation. Hours later distilled alcohol is running out the tube that goes through the pool, into a pail below.

Pretty much every kind of fruit or jam that went bad has been put into two blue 45 gallon drums in his crazy scientist room behind the kitchen at the back of the courtyard. That's where we sacar-ed the mushy fermented stuff, into mas o menos clean pails and hauled them down here. Everything in this place is like something out of an ancient story. Homayoun himself, his way of doing things, the stuff he does, and the equipment he uses. He mentions sterilising things, but then on the outside of his bottle that's bubbling away with fermenting madronas by the fire, it is so covered with dust and grime that he can't see what level the ferment is at inside. Our jam that we made goes bad because we didn't put enough sugar in it and left it out on the table in bowls covered with plates. He tells us we are irresponsible, but pretty much everything around here is done in a kind of half-assed way, as far as cleanliness is concerned. People eat right out of the serving dish if it's something that is like a bowl of pomegranate seeds being passed around. Probably lick the jam spoon. Everybody talks about natural dirt not being dirty but then things go bad... hmm...

We still eat lunch outside. It's really quite warm here. Not warm enough to wash your hands under cold tap water in the morning and evening. I have chilblains. I am leaving tomorrow. Going to stay in a hostel in Ronda, and just put it on my credit card. Not sure where to go next. Am a bit exhausted from everything. I think of home lately, but am not sure whether that is the right decision for me.

Yesterday Diego was here with his mules. He brought us a mo-ca de caballo (horse fly - but not the same kind of horse flies we have), to prove what he'd told us: that they can take out slivers. You grab the horse fly by the body and put it over the sliver. It grabs out the sliver with its legs. I didn't have any slivers (amazingly) at that point, so the fly actually pulled out some hairs on my hand! He told us he once use a fly to get a sliver out from the inside of his lip. The slivers you get here are not nice ones like from wood or something. They are tiny, nearly invisible, break easily and cannot be dug out easily with a needle - I dug twice and ended up with only infection for a week. It is not nice working heavily with that. You end up getting slivers from all over the place.

Work has not been so hard the last few days. That is why I find myself with enough energy to go on the internet in the afternoon. Yesterday we cleaned up a gross outdoor kitchen area (Delia and me), and then did some planting of onions. This morning we prepared soil and then planted more onions, and then we whacked the seeds out of pomegranates. There is a very specific method for opening a pomegranate and getting the seeds out. By the way, you probably have never had a pomegranate this good unless you've had it somewhere other than Canada! We sat on a dirt path looking out over the valley doing this.

Last night Merlin made a bath in a bathtub outdoors, raised up on blocks on each end, with a fire underneath. After he finished, the two other guys took turns (in the same water). Homayoun encouraged us to all use it. I didn't think I would but each of the guys in turn raved about how amazing it was so I went for it, laying in a bathtub full of water, dirty in the first place, and after having three grubby guys already in it. It was amazing. Pitch dark, under a sky loaded with stars. So as not to burn your bum, there is a piece of cork you sit on. But when you lay your head back on the edge, the cork makes you float right up. Talk about amazing experience.

Things are not all paradise here. Hygiene is one of the biggest annoyances. I think I've done incredibly well, learning to wipe myself after doing number one, with my left hand, pour water over it (if there is any in the pitcher beside the dirty squat toilet) and then running to the washroom, a ways away to wash my left hand off with the grubby bar of soap floating in dirty water. For number two, Delia and me have so far refused to try the hand-water method, and have rationed our kleenexes to one a day until Delia stole a roll of toilet paper from the boys, who have been more bold about whining a bit until Homayoun relented and gave them some. I have also done very well using an oily, grimy sponge to wipe my dishes under cold water, and have tolerated grabbing a "clean" plate with beads of oil around the rim or greasy fingerprints at every meal. Sometimes I give up and just eat off it if it isn't that bad, other times I quickly wipe it a bit more vigorously with the oily sponge and then dry it on the grimy towel. When I first arrived, I did not think I should wipe oily hands on the dishtowels bit quickly noticed that they were filthy anyways, so now at least I wipe the oil off my hands after doing my dishes. Anyways, I've gotten mostly used to this procedure, and I think that is quite admirable and a very good concession to this lovely, "natural" way of life.

I also have tolerated very well not showering even after days of hard and sometimes dirty work, going for up to 3 days without washing my hair at times.

Homayoun eats the peels or rinds of practically everything. He gives people lectures about it if they are peeling something that need not, in his opinion, be peeled. This would include avocados, apparently. As much as I would love to gorge myself on them, for that reason I am somewhat happy they are not yet ripe.

Basically, Homayoun and the other boys and to some extent, Delia tambien, espouse the philosophy that if it is natural, you don't need to worry. In other words, if the dirt is soil, bugs, mold that comes from this natural place we are in, why bother worrying about it? If it is natural your body's immune system will deal with it. I have to say that while a small bit of this philosophy is a welcome relief to the dorkiness of some North American wrapped-in-plastic, antibacterial stupidity, it is a bit extreme for me. I have often made jam from strawberries that were starting to go soft or a bit bad, like my grandmother did. I get annoyed with people back home on facebook that feel the need to tell me that if the sausage is pork I have to put it in the fridge. Um... duh! Well first of all I am in Spain and it is cured, and Spanish people are not in the dark ages. And anyone outside the darkest part of Central Asia knows that raw pork needs to be in the fridge, for heaven's sake!

I have coexisted quite well with a shower full of dirt on the floor always, that doesn't drain that well, with dust covering the floor of my bedroom, with bed-"sheets" that are totally raunchy with dirt and probably sweat and body grime of previous users, because I have not yet been able/permitted by weather to launder them.

So it kind of gets my goat that people here see me as too clean. I know of people who refuse to pee in the bushes, or sleep in a tent. Who can't handle being without makeup or high heels.

Taking the seeds out of pomegranates this afternoon I felt that it was necessary to try to save parts that were contaminated by rotten stuff. Homayoun is not someone you take the initiative to do things your own way with. But at this point I am guessing as to the standard for things, because so many of his ideas of what is edible, or rather, clean enough to be edible is to put it politely, quite "new" to me. From my knowledge, eating mold is not very good for you and sometimes is the cause of serious illness, depending on the variety - peanuts, for example. Parasites are not all that desireable to ingest. From what I've read, they are even suspected by some as being at least partially responsible for cancer.

He harvests incredible mushrooms, the likes of which I've never seen. All his food is delicious - I can't complain. But I screamed once when he gave me a mushroom to cut up that had a maggot in it. I got a bit of a lecture about nature, so yesterday when he brought in several incredible mushrooms of a size and weight never witnessed by me before, and which appeared like storybook mushrooms with polkadots in them, I obediently cut them in appropriate slices, although they were swarming (literally) with tiny spiders, ants and one other kind of bug. No joking. There were three types of tiny bigs. The polka-dots were big spots that were either bug eaten or slightly bad. But they had dried and weren't all that rotten or whatever. So I sliced these without too much disgust, or maybe ignoring the disgust. But one mushroom was a bit slimy on top and going kind of bad. It wasn't bad enough for Homayoun to get rid of it. All of these went onto drying racks and were put atop the wood stove to dry them. He said if the drying didn't stop the rotting then they would be thrown away after. The dirt on some of the mushrooms is minerals - why brush it off.

When we cleaned the pool/jacuzzi without jets the other day, nobody wanted to bother with the huge and disgusting cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. I insisted. How can you put your arms on the side of the pool, lay back and enjoy looking through the skylights, with huge cobwebs hanging down over you. I was also not to touch the dead plants that hung off the rock walls...

Nobody has a problem eating off the same spoon or cup as the others, and for the most part I don't either but it isn't something I really do totally readily...

Anyways, I just needed to get this all off my back!!!! It is still incredible here and the people are awesome in every other way. Homayoun is mostly awesome but I believe I will have to leave soon because he struggles with a bit of a temper and impatience which I am not dealing well with. We'll see...