Weekends are more fun

This weekend we had a special treat with our family...fungus! There is a mushroom that grows on corn that is considered quite the delicacy in Mexico. One of Jose-Luis´friends gave him a big bag of them so we had 12 people for a big almuerzo! They cooked the mushroom with chiles, onions, and the little bit of corn that had not been taken over by the mushroom and it turned into an extremely appetizing black paste. They put that mixture into tortilla maza and fried it to make empanadas. Then we had a huge meal! It was a great cultural experience.

On Sunday, we got a ride with Anna´s friend Ananda to Monterrey for a Manu Chau concert. We got to see a lot of young people and met our friend Oscar who had led the ecology club to El Chuzo last weekend. The concert was in a gorgeous outdoor park called Huayasca(?). It was a small valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. Very sacred. We found vegetarian tortas which were pretty good. Manu Chau is associated with the Zapatista movement and has a very positive message. He obviously enjoys performing and has an incredible amount of energy. Kind of like a ska-ish Bob Marley.

Everything´s going well at El Chuzo. There´s another group of kids coming this weekend so we´re getting ready for that. There is also supposed to be a Japanese WWOOFer coming but his imperfect English is not understanding the imperfect English on the website so we´re keeping our fingers crossed for him to make it. Bria got her foot stepped on by two pigs today: once while feeding maiz to the pigs and again when she and Dave were carrying a piece of bamboo (get it! Dave´s a pig! ha ha!). The bamboo was part of their water filtration system but it wasn´t sucking up enough grease so they have to change it. Dave also learned how to speak in past tense so he no longer says things like... last weekend at fire i sing bob marley and nobody knows words. We forgot our camera tonight so hopefully we will bring it next time and it will work.

Making Chorizo

Yesterday, we spent about 9 hours cutting dried chiles, peeling garlic, and grinding spices for chorizo. Bernardo and Anna make it every two weeks to sell as their source of income. Today Anna is sick so I got to help Bernardo make chorizo. We started this morning with 4 pig legs and spent a couple hours cutting almost 90 lbs of meat. I´ve never cut meat from the bone so that was a new experience. Unfortunately it´s raining today so the solar panels aren´t working and we can´t use the electric grinder at the house. So we brought everything into town to use their office which has electricity and a computer. We´ve been grinding meat and chiles for about an hour. Work on farms is definitely repetitive but Bria and I are enjoying working with our bodies and it´s fulfilling to be able to see the direct results of what you do. I think after all this work I´m going to have to eat some of the chorizo...

Life at El Chuzo

As of now, we have spent 3 and a half days at El Chuzo. It is a small-scale organic farm and ecology center run by a cute little family that lives there year-round. They are: Bernardo, a Mexican man, almost 30, his wife, Anna, a french woman (she originally came to El Chuzo as a WWOOF-er!), their almost-2-year-old son Numa, and Bernardo´s father, Jose Luis. Jose Luis loves to explain to anyone anything about the inner-workings of farm life.

The farm is maybe 7 or 8 acres but much of it is open land where la vaca (the cow) roams. There are 3 gardens which provide all the organic veggies we could ever eat--especially appreciated after several days of eating very few vegetables! Dave´s stomach is still a little confused.

The farm family also includes Vicenta, grandmama pig, her daughter (whose name I forget), 2 smaller pigs, and 9 tiny adorable baby piglets. Also 1o gallinas (chickens), 2 gallos (roosters), 2 dogs Indra and Elfo ("who thinks he is a man") and a tiny tiny kitten named Cute.

This weekend an ¨Ecology Club¨ from a private school in Monterrey came to visit the farm. There were about 15 screaming little kids and their parents who came to see the farm. Our job was to build the parking lot for them...out of cactus. The spines on these things are crazy hard and go through gloves and into shoes.

It was interesting to get to know people from the Mexican middle-upper class. They had big minivans, listened to European techno ("Skat-man and numa numa yei"), and spoke English really well. We took a ride with them to see the nearby petroglyphs that were between 2,000 and 6,000 years old. A lot of the petroglyphs were circles with lines drawn through the center representing the Equinox (yeah we looked it up), which is when the sun passes directly over the equator.

So today is Sunday which is the day we don´t have any chores which is why we have time to use the internet. The farm is great. We´re enjoying the work (we get to harvest potatoes this week! yipee!), getting to know the family, and speaking a lot of Spanish. We have our own room in the house where WWOOFers sleep and we´re enjoying picking our dinner from the garden. For some reason we can´t upload pictures now so we´ll post some later. Much love!

Pictures from Torreon

A night-time game of Truth or Dare helped take the edge off the uncertainties of our travels.

When you only pay $15 for a room, they sometimes lack certain amenities. The water from the sink went straight into a...bucket that sat underneath it. We had to empty it into the shower drain a couple times so it didn´t overflow and flood our hotel room with gray water.

La Dia de Independencia! Wave after wave of robot-like children marched down the street to the beat of trumpets and drums. For a country that seems so relaxed these kids were pretty serious. There were also soldiers driving around in big trucks with automatic weapons pointed at the crowd but we didn´t think it was a good idea to take a picture of them.

The search continues...

Hi all! I hope everyone is doing well.

Today we said goodbye to Torreón and headed for Saltillo. Actually, when the day started, we did not know in which direction we would be going. Our fate was dependent upon an innocent little trip to an internet cafe...

We had sent out emails to organic farms in the surrounding area the previous day hoping that they would reply "pronto" even though it was México´s Dia de la Independencia.

Two farms returned emails! We decided on a farm outside of Saltillo called "El Chuzo" . Hopefully it wont be flooded when we get there tomorrow...

Try to find a farm?

So after two days of travelling we arrived in Gomez Palacio, a small town west of the also-small town Torreon, to try and meet up with our WWOOF farm contact. We tried calling the night before from Chihuahua but the phone number they gave us was connected to a fax machine. We sent them an email hoping they would meet us at the Gomez Palacio bus station. Unforunately, no one was there (shock!). We frantically emailed them and tried to call again with the help of a local but it was no use. After sitting on the sidewalk crying for 2 hours in the flooding rain we grabbed a taxi and found a nice hotel.

The next morning we tried calling again and (shock!) the phone was working!! A nice man named Arturo gave us the address of their office in Torreon. We have no map of Torreon but luckily the hotel manager helped us figure out which bus to take. The sewer system in Torreon is a little um... non-existant so the there are flood pools around each corner and some of the streets are flooded. We got to the office which was really beautiful and peaceful and Arturo sadly informed us that the farm had been swept away by the nearby river. Unfortunately for our friends at Jardin de Paz, the Mexican Government decided to open a dam for the first time in 17 years and gave them two days to evacuate. Apparently everything is gone. So we now are farm-less. This is kind of a bummer for us but much more so for Jardin de Paz who had spent 2 years working on this project. You can check out their website here.

So we got a hotel and are going to hang out here because tomorrow is Independence Day. After that we have no idea where we will be. We emailed some more local WWOOF farms and are trying to stay in the area because we fly to Chicago from Torreon on Oct. 29. We ran out of a plan much faster than we thought we would but this is the fun of travelling. Don´t worry friends, our spirits are high and we love you!

Hi everybody!

First post? This is too much pressure for us. We need to go on a vacation. Back to packing...