La granja

After leaving Mexico City, Karen and I took a bus 5 hours west to Patzcuaro, where Lisa and Ian picked us up from the bus station. They´re married and in their fifties (I think). Lisa is from the states and Ian is British. They have been living in Mexico on this farm for 4 years, before which Ian was a photographer and Lisa a fashion designer. They bought the farm and100 books on permaculture (which is sustainable, efficient agriculture) and have been figurin things out since. They grow vegetables that no one else around grows and sells them to a fancy restaurant on the coast. They have 4 dogs, 9 cats, 24 chickens, 40 sheep (who aren´t on the farm), and around 30 geese, and a bunch of ducks. So far I´ve been preparing new beds and planting. I´ve planted purple mustard and a special type of fennel.

There are two other WWOOFers besides Karen and me: Damian and Amy. Damian is from Quebec and has been WWOOFing for 3 months in Mexico and Guatemala. Amy is from England and hasnt worked on a farm before but has traveled extensively. And for those who this means something to: she worked in Elephant Nature Park for 6 months, two years ago. We all share a really comfortable room. Damien arrived two days before me and Karen and Amy got there one day after. I think we´re a pretty good group.

So the bad part about this farm is that we´re speaking English most of the time. Lisa can communicate well but Ian doesn´t know much and Amy doesn´t know any. Karen, Damian, and I speak Spanish with each other sometimes, but it´s definitely not the same as living with a bunch of spanish speakers. The best part about this farm, besides that Lisa is really willing to teach as much as possible about farming and permiculture, is that she is an amzing cook and has actually cooked professionally. So each meal is better than what I would usually get in a restaurant. And she´s teaching us to cook. So far, we have made (and I have recipes for) apple cake, a salad dressing, mexican scrambled eggs, rye, caraway, and molasses bread, and clam fritters. There is almost always homemade bread and/or cake in the house.

Overall it´s good so far. We work Monday though Saturday 8:30am-2pm and then some at dusk. There´s not really time to go into Patacuaro, where I am now, after work because its 30 minutes away and you need to take a taxi. Zirahuan is the little town of 500 people that is 1km away from the farm, and which has access to this huge, clean lake, but there isn´t much there, nor is there internet. (This means that I can probably only use internet once a week.) Karen, Damian, and I are strategizing on how to meet people in the town. We might volunteer to teach English a bit, though it´s not an amazing way to learn Spanish. There´s some local antagonism to foreigners who live there, I think mostly because this area is becoming like Florida, just full of retired people who don´t try to mix with the local comunity in positive ways. So I don´t know exaclty what effect that will have on our experience there. I´ll see.