Adios Marco, Adelante!

Hello friends & family! We know it's been awhile since our last post but don't worry, we're still alive & well!! :)

We've officially completed our first month of farming as we left Quindi Pakcha (Marco's farm) on January 23rd. We can't believe how quickly the month went! It was such a wonderful experience that we will carry with us as we move forward on this journey.

One of the main projects we wrapped our time up with was building a new kitchen for Marco's family! Even after a month of observing Marco in action we were still amazed at how handy he is & how much he can do with so few tools. The entire kitchen was built from wood, using tree stumps as the base to hold up the floor & then wood panels for the floor, walls, window panes, door & steps. It felt great to be a part of creating that new part of the home for the family, and we finished it just in time to have a big family dinner in there on our last night :) We've definitely grown an entirely new appreciation for how hard it is to farm & also how long it takes to build things. We'll drive by farms now & comment on what a nice planting job they did or how straight their rows are haha It's nice too because we're able to recognize more plants & fruits both in mercados & out in nature. We were able to actually watch one of the fields we weeded & tilled start growing the vegetables we had planted! :)

During our last couple weeks on the farm our lovely dog Tony decided to bring us some presents! Anyone ever eaten armadillo before? hahah I guess there are quite a few out roaming around the farm at night & the dogs sometimes catch them & bring them back to the house. Jackie, Maria (Marco's wife) & I were talking in the kitchen of our cabana when we heard a thump & went outside to see what it was, finding Tony's tail wagging with excitement as he placed the dead armadillo on the porch for us to see. Maria didn't hesitate to just pick it up & bring it into the kitchen (we've also seen her kill cockroaches with her bare hands!) We didn't just try armadillo & eat it once, we had armadillo for the next three days! hahah armadillo soup, fried armadillo, boiled armadillo. You name it, we had it. Jackie & I ate the tail one time! It wasn't nearly as hard to eat as Huanta, but we had our fair share of it & by the end we were happy it was gone. Armadillo has a pretty strong scent, as it left a distinct smell in the kitchen for a few days after haha

I was lucky to spend my 23rd birthday on the farm! Our last day was suppose to be on the 22nd, but I asked Marco if we could stay an extra day so I could celebrate there with the family. He warmly welcomed it & we all had a really nice last night celebrating both my birthday & the closing of our time there. We felt like it was such a nice way to close out that chapter, feeling like we were at a place where we genuinely felt comfortable at their house & felt like we had really built some beautiful relationships with the family. It felt like a family BBQ we would have back in the States, with the warm sun out, the kids running around playing outside, people helping out in the kitchen, everyone just laughing & enjoying themselves. We ate the freshest chicken we'll probably ever eat, as we witnessed Marco grab a chicken from their backyard, kill it, pluck it & cook it. Since we knew we'd be with the family on our last night, the night before my birthday we went into Puyo for some birthday pizza :) Afterwards we grabbed some wine & went back to the cabana for a bonfire where Jack & Kev surprised me with birthday s'mores! They're the best :)

After a wonderful month with Marco & his family, we headed East to Banos, Ecuador, a city known for extreme outdoor sports...they're not kidding when they say extreme. Within three days we managed to enjoy their hot thermal baths, go mountain biking, go river rafting, bungee jump off a bridge & go canyoning down waterfalls! We had so much fun! We still can't believe we went bungee jumping. Only here, I suppose it's not totally fair to call it "bungee" since the rope we used wasn't a bungee rope... it was just a regular rope!! I know, we're crazy. But we watched a lot of people do it before us so that we could be sure it was still safe & so that we could see how best to jump. After watching two girls get up there, begin crying, and get pushed off the platform making for a flailing & ungraceful jump, we decided the only way we could do it is if we were committed to flying. Since it wasn't a bungee rope you get stopped with one swift tug, but we realized we could make that tug a lot more graceful if we jumped out & worked with the rope rather than falling straight down & working against it. So, flew we did :) Jackie went first, Kevin followed & then I went. We all did a really good job of not thinking about it and just doing it. Once you're up there with your feet half off the ledge of the jump platform & the guy behind you begins counting you down & all you see below you is this green canyon with a rushing river I think we all inevitably said in our head "Holllyyy shiiiiitttt!!!" but there really wasn't much more time to do anything other than move without thinking & pick up our feet to jump. Jackie & I did some quick, calm breathing before we got up there, what we called "channeling inner bird" :) It was incredible & we are so happy we did it.

Before bungee jumping, we got to go river rafting down el Rio Pastaza :) While we were on the farm we became friends with another volunteer there, Jaime, & we all went to Banos together afterwards. It was his birthday on Wednesday so we all went river rafting for that :) It was a lot of fun, especially when Jackie & I got to be "captains" & sit up front haha No one fell out of our raft, but a few people in other rafts did. Our instructor was really funny & partly insane, yelling at us to keep padeling even when we were in the middle of getting swallowed by the rapids & couldn't see anything haha The boys didn't go mountain biking or canyoning but Jackie & I did! We mountain biked down past a handful of waterfalls & ended at a huge one called Pailon de Diablo where we could hike up to the top of it & stand underneath it. So pretty! We also went canyoning which was awesome but hard!! We had expected it to be a little more smooth, thinking it was more of a glide down the rope, but it's not. haha It was strenuous & actually kind of scary at some points, but worth it. We got to go to some amazing canyons we would have not been able to see otherwise &, aside from slipping & body slamming the rocks a few times, we got to belay down beautiful watetrfalls! The other people in the group laughed at us when we made a face of being scared, saying we were crazy to be scared of this but okay with jumping off a bridge haha

Banos was a fun, little town in itself, beautifully located in a tranquil valley of the Andes. There were a surprising amount of people from Argentina, a few who we became friends with & may stay with when we make it that far South :) We found a cafe close to our hostel that had an amazing coffee called Seven Spices. We went there multiple times haha The market had fresh fruit & vegetables that we went & bought everyday. We've done an awesome job of cooking dinner, which has turned out to not only be healthier but way cheaper. You can buy 3 mangos for a dollar here! Bananas & tomatoes are 10 cents, apples are 25, and the most expensive fruit we've bought have been oranges for 50 cents because they're grown down in Chile. We bargain for everything, from food to clothes to bus fares, & we manage to get the prices dropped most of the time. We've gotten to the point where we can call out a few bus drivers who have tried to gip us of our money! haha We even negotiated bungee jumping! It was originally $20 per person (which is insanely cheap already!) but we got it to $15 since we all jumped hahah

We just spent a nice few days in Cuenca, Ecuador relaxing & rejuvinating. We're heading back up North now to get to our farm for the month of February! (www.rhiannon-community.org) We're really excited for this farm & think it will be a great time.

Thanks for staying with us friends. We hope you're all well!

Lots of love,

A & J

Shaman Farm Ecuador, Week 1

The Shaman farm is amazing. Marco, the Shaman who owns the farm, is an amazing man & we feel so lucky to be here. This blog is going to be long because there is lots to share! So grab a comfy chair & settle in :)

Going into this not totally knowing what to expect, we were eager & excited to begin discovering our new home & friends. After a few days of travel & lots of buses we finally arrived to our destination farm in Paraiso, Ecuador. Marco met us at the bus station in the nearest town, Puyo, where we grabbed a few groceries & took a local bus 30 minutes out to the farm. The farm is beautiful, lush & full of life. About 3 minutes walking off the main road you'll find our cabana up a muddy "drive way" & through the trees. Marco lives in a similar cabana about 2 minutes further in than ours. He built both, and shares the kitchen & outdoor bathroom with us. Our little home consists of 2 rooms, 1 small living space, a kitchen & an "upstairs" where a few tents are set up for other volunteers. There's electricity, a stove, and a refrigerator, so luckily we get a little bit of light & some space to hold our perishable food :) The cabana is lifted about two feet off the ground, but that doesn't stop the bugs from getting in. On our first night we killed over 5 cockroaches in our room, two which were in my bed. After an hour of battling the bugs we decided we needed to just put in earplugs & sleep ourselves into oblivion. Even though we both have mosquito nets, I am still sleeping in my mummy bag. Jackie feels safer in her mosquito net but I'm convinced a cockroach will sneak attack it's way into mine (a natural revenge) and then be trapped on the inside with me. Eeeek!

Aside from the cockroaches & bug bites, we love it here :) Marco has two dogs, six chickens & five ducks that roam around all day. We wake up to the ducks sometimes making noise underneath the cabana. The farm becomes loud at night with insect life, and when the clouds aren't around we are able to see the stars so clear & bright - it's beautiful. There's an old hammock and a fire pit around the corner of our cabana, with the bathroom to the left & Marco's cabana just up the path. His family lives in a house in a neighboring pueblo that we hope to go see eventually. We were kind of bummed we weren't living with, or closer to, his family, but that's okay, Marco is great & we're lucky to have him so near.

Getting to know Marco has been so special. We love him! While we both knew about Shamans, we weren't totally familiar with their culture/way of life. Humble, warm, funny, caring & open, he's shown us how much a Shaman really is just like any other person. Ontop of being a Shaman, he runs his own farm, has ran two half marathons, loves to sing & recorded his own CD, plays soccer, is artistic and has his artwork all over his cabana to work on & sell through out the year, is widely known in the town & has a large & loving family. He has such a calm, leveled energy to him that is soft yet incredibly powerful. Everything he does seems to be in a slower, more meditative way. You can feel his presence in every movement - in the way he speaks, walks, cooks, works, lives. His presence is in every moment & he does everything with care & thoughtfulness. He loves sharing stories & has been totally open to sitting with us & answering questions. Walking through the farm he is always stopping to tell us the name of something or explain the use of a plant. As he's said & as we're discovering, "hay muchas secretos de la selva" - "there are many secrets of the jungle". We've seen him use plants in a variety of ways we wouldn't have expected: eating sweet cana straight from the earth, breaking open a branch and using the red paste inside as warrior paint, using that same paste as a way to soothe burns, using certain leaves as anti-itch remedies for the mosquito bites covering our legs & arms, showing us plants in the field that he uses for wounds. It's been fascinating to learn more about herbal remedies & treatments. While it may be near impossible to ever see or grow some of these plants back home due to differences in climate, it's still exciting to learn about and see them here.  

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas full of loving family, delicious food & belly-deep laughter. It was a bit hard to be away for this special holiday but we stayed positive & still enjoyed the day. Christmas Eve we put on christmas music & Kev wore his santa hat around the house as we sang :) On Christmas day we took a bus into the nearest town to use the internet cafe to skype our parents. It was great to see their smiling faces & wish them a Merry Christmas. Jackie was able to skype with the family while they were opening presents so it was almost as if she was really there :) 

People here don't say "Merry Christmas" to eachother nearly as much as we do back home. In the States everywhere you go people are wishing eachother a Merry Christmas but here it's pretty uncommon even amongst family & friends. We hadn't realized how much we enjoyed this simple greeting until it wasn't around as much. Christmas dinner was really nice! Marco's whole family came & cooked in the cabana so it was really nice to have people all around us. We were grateful to be able to share this holiday meal with a family & to be so warmly received by Marco's wife & kids. We squeezed in at the table & ate delicious, fresh tilapia, beans, rice & a homemade juice. After dinner a few of us talked in the kitchen & a few of us watched Elf in spanish! While Christmas here may have been different, it was still really nice to spend it with Marco & his family, surrounded by great food & welcoming company :)

Aside from Christmas day the pueblos celebrated Christmas on the days prior with games & festivities. The first day we were here we went to go watch Marco play soccer & afterwards walked up to a church where they were doing some kind of celebration for the Three Kings. After the mass everyone hung around & played games outside on the dirt field next to the church. One game was musical chairs which Kev almost won! He did a total white boy dance move that everyone loved haha. We played "toss the egg", which resulted in yoke all over my shoe, and they also played a game simiar to pinata but here they called it Ollas Encantada. There were home-made little clay pots filled with candy & the blindfolded kids had three chances to swing & break it open. They set fireworks off all the time here, including right outside the church & by the games. We saw a kid who, just the night before, had a firework blow off prematurely in his face & burn off his skin & hair. He looked well for it having occured so recently, but we were still surprised he was out & about, seemingly unphased by the fireworks going off. At the games there was also a lot of drinking, only here it's a bit different. There's 1 cup & whoever has the beer walks around individually offering a cup of beer to you. You have to drink it pretty quickly in order to return the cup so they can keep going around. Talk aaabooouttt geerrrrmmmsss. But, we drank it anyways. We didn't want to be rude! (Or turn down free beer...) While this was the first time we saw this it definitely wasn't the last. They have a hard liquor here called Trago which they do the same thing with. You know those small plastic cups you drink Pepto Bismal with? They use those as shot glasses and, same thing, they go around using just one of them to offer everyone shots. Naturally, we drank that too :) During the day of Christmas Eve we went back & everyone was hanging out, eating & playing soccer. Jackie got to play!!! I'm pretty sure Kev filmed the whole thing game on his camera lol The halves they play here are only 15 minutes long so it was short but painful, kicking Jackie's shins & stepping on her feet. It was still fun though, how many people get to say they played soccer in Ecuador?! Afterwards we went to Marco's friends house where they offered us a meal. And by meal... I mean rat. Ah!!! Although we're not vegetarians, we're not exactly huge eat meaters. Huanta, the name of the animal, is hunted here & offered as one of their most valued foods. We, of course, ate it out of respect, but had a hard time taking it in as it's hair, skin & eyelashes were still attached to the pieces of meat on our plate. Jackie accidentally ate one of the eyeballs. This was not the only occasion we were given Huanta. We were offered it two other times at different festivals & by the end practically gave up being polite & worked more on just keeping it down haha Christmas Eve we went to a dance festival where there were cultural dances & dresses. It was really great to be a part of this & see everyone enjoying themselves. In between some of the dances the floor opened up to everyone & of course we got out there! We danced pretty much all night, laughing, drinking & having a blast. We realized we were the only ones with our own beers, and also the only one's drinking straight from the bottle. We learned later this is because you have to return the beer bottle after you use it. Perhaps this is why everyone drinks out of a cup...woops. And to end Christmas Eve right, we realized we had fleas in our foot. Thank you, Tony (one of "our" dogs). I know, you think we're gross, we do too. It started when Jackie thought she had a splinter in her foot. Kev was trying to pick it out & then Marco came over to see what was going on. He examined it, went out to get a leaf from the farm & came back to pick it out telling her it was a "pulga". Thinking it was all fun & games, I was taking pictures & teasing Jack about it. Talk about karma. After Marco painfully removed half of the flea & Jackie soaked the leaf on her foot for a few minutes, I started looking at my feet too. There was one place that hurt but I just thought it was just a mosquito bite that was irritated from my shoes. When I looked at it closer though it looked a lot like the flea bite Jackie had just had so I called over Marco & he confirmed what I didn't want to hear. Because it wasn't as deep he was able to get out the whole thing, and with it, it's eggs. So nasty! I took a picture of it. hahaha Lesson learned: don't wear sandals outside anymore. 

The water we use here is all river or rain water. Along with building the cabanas Marco built a water system that catches the rain and then drains it into the sink. We use this to wash our dishes, hands & rinse off our fruits & veggies. We have a filter we use for our water bottles but with things like the Christmas juice it's inevitable that we drink some of it. So far we haven't gotten sick! (knock on wood) Our shower is also a home-made contraption about 5 minutes walking into the jungle. It's by far the coolest shower we've ever had! I wish there was a way to describe it but I'm not sure even the pictures will do justice. It's completely out in the open & looks onto our favorite, gorgeous tree. He took thin, long trees and carved out the inside making an open wooden tunnel. He put many of these together to run from a nearby river to our shower spot. He is unbelievably handy with his machete (which we've now named his best friend). The fresh water falls from about 3 feet high so we have to squat to get completely underneath it. When it's raining we just go in our bathing suits & rainboots because the walk back is muddy & we don't want to get more clothes wet. Even in the rain Jack & I are always laughing  & saying, "This is awesome!!!" lol We love it! Where we wash our clothes is near the shower area  too. It has a similar wood "pipes" of river water flowing into a big bucket they set up. We put our clothes in the bucket & hand wash everything. We hang them up to dry back at the cabana but with the constant on & off rain sometimes it takes a few days to fully dry. Underneath both the shower & wash areas they set up slabs of wood for us to stand on as a sort of make-shift floor. Definitely check out the pictures of these - so cool! 

We've been working out in the fields for a week now, with time off when it rains. So far we've just done a lot of weeding & tilling the soil. Manual labor is no joke y'all - that shit is hard! We come back feeling like grandma's with our lower backs & knees hurting & blisters on our hands haha It's fun though, we sing a lot :) Somehow hip-hop makes it all the way to Ecuador with us. "From the wiiiindoooooow, to the farm! Til the sweat drop down my balls, aalllllll these chickens crawl, ahhhh weed weed weed weed motha fuckaaa ahhhh weed weed weed weed". Picture us jammin to this, crouched down picking weeds with machetes, half the time in our ponchos & other half of the time sweating, laughing, being exhausted, and talking about how much we would love to be eating In N Out. Hahaha gotta love it :) 

Jackie's birthday was so much fun. During the day Marco led us 2 hours into the jungle to a gorgeous little waterfall & river where we lounged around & soaked up the beauty. It was such a treat to get to go do this on Jackie's birthday. The walk over to the river was amazing. We're all in awe of the way Marco navigates the jungle & knows so much about the nature around him. He can make pretty much anything happen with a single machete, it's incredible. We had fun wading across rivers & hiking to the secret spot, removed from everything & simply enjoying the day & the beautiful nature around us. At night we went into Puyo for Jackie's birthday dinner - pizza! We invited Marco & didn't learn until we were there that he had never eatten pizza before. Ever! The man is 49 and has never eaten pizza - something is terribly wrong/sad about this. So of course we were thrilled to be the first to introduce him to the world of pizza! haha It was delicious & he seemed to enjoy it :) Afterwards we bought some wine & came back to the cabana to relax. Kev & I surprised Jack with a little ice cream cake & candles :) 

Life is good my friends, life is good. Everyday feels surreal as we settle into this place & call it home. As we continue to get older we learn more & more that "home" has to come from within. This is something we've practiced for years now, but it seems to apply even more so with traveling. Of course there will always be places & people that will really embody the core of what home means to us, but life carries so much change & with traveling like this learning to find home within is one of the only ways we know how to center ourselves. It's fun to explore the area & take it in as our current neighborhood. Sometimes we go running in the morning before work & on one of the routes we pass by a beautiful waterfall. Somehow time completely slows down here. It feels like mid-day by 10AM & late at night by 8. It's so incredible to live here & have running routes that take us by waterfalls & shower outside completely open to nature & hand wash our own clothes & rely on rain water to allow us to wash our dishes & get our hands dirty with mother earth's gift & to breath so deeply with the birds & the stars & the moon. 

Happy 2012 loved ones, we cheers to you & wish you well. 

XO, 

A & J