On farming and other things

So, I haven’t updated our status on San Pedro in a while. We have needed to talk with the community council, and the leader of the community council has been very sick lately. Thankfully she should back in good health next week. We are planning on meeting with her next week, so I should have an update next week. I know I have said that I will have an update about San Pedro a couple of times, but things just take forever here. I thought I was patient when I came here, but that proved to be wrong. This country is teaching me patience to a whole new level.

Anyway, with it being slow I have been able to farm several days. This town produces acres and acres of crops all farmed by hand. Lettuce, cabbage, zucchini, potatoes, cilantro, corn, and tons of other crops are farmed here and I think they only use three tools. At least, I’ve done some farming and only seen three tools. Literally, ONLY THREE TOOLS. The first is a fumigator, basically like a backpack that you wear as you walk through the fields spraying pesticides. The second is an esgardilla. What is an esgardilla you might ask? Is it a tractor? Is it some machine that tills the soil? Or plants the seeds? No. It is just Spanish for a hoe. To get a good image of the third tool you need to go to my mom’s house where she still keeps the Encyclopedia Britannica on the shelf. Grab the “XYZ” volume and look up the word Yolk. Odds are you will see a picture of two oxen strapped together by a yolk. I mean really, that’s all they use to produce acres of some of the most beautiful crops I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing. Anyway, after farming several days, I do have to say one thing. Farming is probably the hardest job on the planet.

Blog Points:
1. Cooper and I went to La Puerta to see if we could get mail delivered to the post office because we don’t have a mailbox. Turns out the lady in charge of that is out of town for a month. So I don’t mean to read into things, but does that mean no one can get mail for a month?
2. If anyone ever offers you a Malta in South America, Just Say No!
3. I met this girl last night who is 21 years old. My friend who is friends with her told me she used to be skinny and now she is fat. True enough she was the fattest one of her friends. Well her nickname down here is gorda. What does gorda mean in English? Fat. So they kept calling her Fat last night, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with that. Could you imagine that in the US?