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!