Hello loves!
Ah, where do we even begin? The Rhiannon community farm is simply amazing. We feel like it is truly a gift to be here.
We arrived on February 1st to warm faces & welcoming arms. There are currently 13 of us living & working here, including the two women who own the house & farm, Nicky & Helen. The number of people who are here varies, as they've had between 8-30 people at any given time. Nicky & Helen are amazing - full of life, energy, passion & vigor. They are new mothers of a precious & beautiful two month old baby girl, Satia :) (So I guess there are 14 of us! haha) Everyone here has so much character & personality, and we all vibe together really well. When we arrived most of the other volunteers had already been here for 3-4 weeks so they have helped show us the ropes. The work on this farm, the climate, the people and the experience here is a lot different from living on Marco's farm last month but both have been incredible experiences.
The way Rhiannon is run is definitely based on more of a family/community structure - you have to pull your own weight & contribute. Work hard, play hard! We have a rotating system for who cooks the meals & every morning get together quarter to 8 to assign jobs for the day & discuss anything that needs to be covered. The jobs vary from turning compost, digging new swells, mulching, cleaning out the irrigation pipes, etc. We're 3km North of the Equator here (rad little fact!) & the climate is really dry. Because of this, we have to do a looot of manual watering, which we've found to be the hardest job here/a great arm work out haha We basically carry around 25 lb. jugs of water & try to manually water the entire farm haha We have some wonderful animals around that we take care of each day, including 6 dogs, 1 kitten, 6 chickens, 3 huge pigs & 1 donkey! The donkey's my favorite, her name is Ursula & sometimes I sneak her carrot bits & give her little donkey kisses :) She's adorable. I sing to her when I'm out moving her around in the field & taking care of her.
Everyone works hard here! Including the preparation of meals. Cooking for 13 people is no easy task! It's a vegetarian/vegan community so it's been a fun & creative challenge to try to not make the meals too monotonous working with the food we have & along the vegetarian/vegan lines. The food always turns out tasty though & it's fun to eat with such a big family! There are always at least 2 people on duty for cooking the meal so it's nice to have help & company. Nicky & Helen have had volunteers coming through here for the last three & a half years so they have a pretty solid system down & papers up all over the house explaining how to do things. It's by far the most sustainable community we've ever lived in & we're loving learning more about organic farming & sustainability. They recently just printed out some old photos of when they first bought the land & how it looked before they prepared any of it & it was such an inspiration to see these two incredibly strong women following their passion & turning a dream into reality. It's an inspiration to be here, not only to see their lives & be a part of it, but also to build meaningful relationships with the other volunteers who live here. Everyone who is here has such a deep respect & love for mother earth & all of her living beings, and truly lives their lives in accordance with this compassion & care.
It feels impossible to fully express the impact of this place or the sincerity in which they live & work with nature & this life. We re-use & recycle every possible thing we can, trying to limit as much as possible the footprint this place leaves on earth. We make soap out of citrus peels, build outdoor huts with bags of sand & donkey shit, recycle our own urine to contribute to the limited water supply for watering the trees, save avocado, mango & plum pits to plant again later, give nearly all the left over food we have to the pigs, use solar energy for all of our electricity & use all old plastic bottles or containers as planters for new seeds. There is no refrigerator here, and the electricity is limited. We have to ask to charge anything before we do so, and charging the laptop is pretty much out of the question because it takes up so much energy. The nearest town is Malchingui, Ecuador, which is a really tiny, spread out town that has about 2 main streets & 3 Internet cafes. We have to take a pick-up truck in 15 minutes to get to it, or ride our bikes for half an hour. It doesn't have much to offer though so we really only go in to pick up some veggies & use the Internet. We have 2 days off a week but it varies which days so we don't have a consistent schedule of when we're working & when we're off.
While our last farm was on the edge of the Amazon with lush green & jungle trees, this farm is more desert-like, with dry land, open skies & amazing views. We can see a handful of huge, incredible mountains & volcanoes simply by looking out our living room window. The city of Quito can be seen as well, & it glows like little golden gems at night. Words cannot describe how truly breathtaking this place is. There are hammocks set up all over the land to relax in, and half of the volunteers sleep outside in tipis that are scattered about the farm. Everything here, from the linings on the tipistemscal in their backyard as well, along with a mediation hut surrounded by a tiny little "laguna" (it's dried up haha), and a hut for massage & reiki sessions. Nicky is a yoga instructor, masseuse & Reiki practitioner so she leads yoga classes sometimes & offers her services to those who are here.
Jackie & I truly feel like we are here on this farm for a specific reason in this journey & at this specific time. The spiritual energy & focus here is amazing, and last week in particular was full of ceremonies & classes. Last Wednesday Jackie & I completed a short but intense two day Reiki Level 1 course. Reiki is a holistic healing tool & practice in which you work as a channel of pure Reiki, allowing the healing energy & love of the Divine to work through you & on the chakra system of whoever you are performing Reiki on. Nicky only offers this class about twice a year, and we really felt like we were here at the time she was offering it for a reason. Being particularly interested in a career in alternative health care & healing I felt like it almost just fell into my lap & that it was something I was meant to be introduced to. Jackie too felt like it really came into her life at this time for a reason & strongly connected to Reiki & the light & love that comes with it. It was an intense but amazing two days. We did an extensive amount of meditation & chakra exercises, learning all about the history of Reiki, it's practice, it's protocol & it's healing abilities. An amazing, foundational belief in Reiki is that every single person has the power to channel this energy, but we so often lose connection with this innate ability & connection to the Divine that we don't always realize we can. Another foundational belief & necessary truth to reinforce in Reiki is that we are not the healing energy, we are just the channel, calling upon the highest good of the person we are working with to bring healing into their chakra system. Reiki has 3 levels, and it's recommended to have 6-12 months in between each level to let the effects and practice of each one really sink in. After completing Reiki 1 we are attuned & certified to practice on family, friend & ourselves.
To quote Nicky directly, "Last week was a spiritual fucking week!" hahaha We really enjoyed the Reiki classes and participating in a temscal, full moon ceremony & shamanic ceremony. Each were truly incredible, unique, and moving experiences. Perhaps in the future we can have more conversations about them but as Veronica so kindly reminded me last time, if we want to keep our readers, we have to keep our entries shorter hahaha
Know we are well & thriving, loving life & this journey :) We send love to each of you & un beso y abrazo grande!
A & J
