El trabajo de Jordi
by JONATHAN y CHRISTINE
I knew that we´d be doing farmwork here but I didn´t really know what that meant. I have discovered that I very much enjoy putting my hands in the soil and producing food. I´ve never been this close to my food source before which is simultaneously an exciting but sad realization. How many American children believe fruits and veggies come wrapped in plastic in the neon grocery store and that it´s normal for apples to be imported from New Zeland instead of from a farm in the region?! Planting, moving soil around, discovering different types of planting and picking based on the pattern of the moon, it´s all so fascinating to both of us. Jordi has a large (to me it´s large, around here it´s probably modest) garden from which he produces everything imaginable from kiwis to onions to chard to jerusalem artichokes (which I didn´t know I loved!).
A normal day is to rise at 8am and all meet for breakfast by 8:15, a communal affair with so much food my mind is boggled every day. Several different types of homemade yogurt, homemade bread, salad (always salad at every meal, and it´s a beautiful and varied affair that puts an iceberg salad to shame), soup or leftovers from the last meal, english biscuits, and many kinds of fruits like figs, peaches, plums that he´d canned or preserved from the harvest. Always a basket of nuts is passed around and everyone gets to cracking hazelnuts and walnuts while visiting and telling stories and laughing. The meal usually lasts an hour, although the eating part is not nearly that long. I´m trying to learn to pace myself as I´m in the habit of eating my food quickly and thoroughly and getting up from the table. Now I eat quickly and then sit and stare at the food for another 45 minutes, so I´m trying to be slower about it.
After eating we head over to the garden. Working for Jordi is never dull. There are always fun things to find in his garden while we´re diggin up weeds, turning the soil, raking mulch, and watering the plants. We find all sorts of treasures in the soil…currently for example, I´m wearing a snail shell neckalce that Christine made for me with a found snail shell strung on dental floss. The water is fetched from a canal that branches down through several neighboring gardens and Jordi´s 2 acre barley field, before passing under the lane to the large fields across the road. We´ve been installing an irrigation pipe made from reclaimed materials and preparing the garden for more planting. We cleared and dug up a dormant section that was overgrown with thorny blackberries. He´s also nursing the non-thorny variety too, which we just ate from this morning. Aside from this garden work, other tasks involved cleaning up storage and living houses, as well as helping to bake bread, and reclaiming tiles from old display units. Jordi recycles or reuses EVERYTHING!
For the past week there have been five of us helpers living and working under the same roof: making and eating meals together (although Jordi prepares all the food), going out into the fields and gardens together, working hard and then playing cards and talking in the evening over long suppers that last until 10:30pm. Besides us there are Marie and William, a couple of American recent college grads interested in agriculture and very smart, and Leonard, a Swedish computer programmer of 34 who tired of the business world and is out for his second WWOOFing tour, this time indefinately.
The work is hard but really not that hard. We both have bodies that are getting used to being used, and mostly happy about it. I (Christine) am going through the Ibuprofen I brought with me at a quick pace, and am hoping to lessen that as my muscles get stronger. I´m also trying to train my body to work properly – use my stomach muscles instead of my back muscles when I dig, etc. Never in my life have I appreciated food more than I do right now. We come back from the field around 1:30 or 2:00 for a large meal with all of the aforementioned things from breakfast along with a hearty stew or two, some stewed greens. Lately we´ve been having boiled pumpkin which I really enjoy too. We all take siesta and then head back out to the farm around 4:30 and work until 7:30 or so. It´s all broken up quite nicely and gives your body time to rest and really feels more like two half days than one full day of plowing and digging and pulling weeds and planting seeds. And I can´t even begin to tell you of the satisfaction of looking over a transformed plot of land! Every day when I leave I see how things are changing, and now at the end of two weeks I really see strides that have been made and it makes me feel proud but also a little sad that I won´t be here to see the seedlings pop up in a few weeks. But on to the next farm!
OUR ROOM (though we´ve since moved to the pink mattress in the middle of the room since the original mattress is made of wool and we began to have little moth friends visit us and lay their eggs in our sheets and …..ummmm….. it was kind of gross. But we moved and are in our sleep bags and all is fine!)
CITY CENTER OF BALAGUER. We visited the church up on the hill and the greenbelt is right next to a river that runs through the city. It´s quite lovely to sit and write there and watch people walk over the three bridges that connects one half of the city to the other. It reminds me of Portland.
THE PROMENADE is lined with trees which are now bare but in a few months will be so thick with leaves that apparently one can walk the length of Balaguer and hardly touch sunlight. I imagine in August that is a much appreciated break from what I hear is stifling heat.
OVERLOOKING BALAGUER, you can see the same church in the background as referenced in the earlier picture.
AN ANCIENT FORTRESS WALL that once served to protect the city in medival times. We walked the ancient steps on the left of the newer wooden steps and then got in trouble for it, but I thought it was worth it to take a step inside history. And the views were breathtaking, one could see all the way to the Pyrenees!
We have contacted our next hosts which live on a farm about 6 miles away, more rural. We will stay there for two weeks and then on to France! Thank you for all of your comments, they´re very exiting to read!
Tags: Travel, Tag Index
seeingspain
March 27th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Hi Becky, thanks very much for the info; it is all very interesting. I have a question: how is it you are sending these writings and photos? love,dad
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