Find Joy In Work

“I love Nature because she is not man, but a retreat from him. In her midst, I can be glad with and entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this.” –Henry David Thoreau

Somewhat of a normal workday…

6am – Wake up

6:15am – Making breakfast

6:45am or 7:30am – head out to the community I’m going to visit. Traveling either by foot or on the Ranchera (it’s this big bus like thing, like a universal studios tram). If traveling by foot I have my trusted companion with me, Frijol. She loves going on these adventures. One of the communities I visit, named Bella Vista, is about a 20-minute walk from the main road and like 10 minutes on a muddy, muddy, muddy trail. Did I mention it was muddy? I take ten minutes because I have to decided where I’m going to step and hope it’s stable enough to support me without having my foot go knee deep in mud. About 60% of the time, I guess right. I’m getting better. Thank god for rubber boots! After the muddy trail I have to cross a river. Sometimes I just don’t because it’s rained to much the day before and the current is too strong (aka I’m scared, since the locals cross it no matter what). When its not, I just walk across it, the water reaching my knees at the deepest, and this is because I don’t know the river that well yet, to remember all the shallow spots. Again, I’m getting better. Frijol, meanwhile swims across diagonally as the current carries her slowly down river and then returns to me and jumps around getting me wet and crosses yet again.

7:30am or 8:00am-I arrive at the community and I stop at the person’s home I’m working with or the school I’m working with. Then I usually wait around for like 30 minutes because no one, NO ONE, is on time. Of course, I can’t complain because I am always fed.

8:00am or 9:00am- I head out to the chacra aka the farm. This usually involves muddy hikes thru the jungle, sometimes on paths with logs over streams that are very unstable. Once at the chacra I do a couple of different things depending on the stage, we are in with the farmer. First stage is check out the soil. If the soil is good, we will do direct planting, so the next step would be to have the farmer clear the hectare. Once that is done I return to see if the land is cleared, once its cleared I come back and stake out the land for the direct planting of the guayusa. Lets say the soil is not good for direct planting then I have to tell the farmer that we have to make a nursery. So the farmer has to clear out and area to make a nursery. The next time I return I bring the guayusa and then we plant the guayusa in the nursery. After all this is done, my job becomes a follow up with the farmers to see how the guayusa is growing. As with the farmers that have nurseries in about 3-4 months we can transplant the guayusa in to the hectare of land so I have to have them clear the land and then come back to stake out the land.

4pm or 5pm- I head home to make dinner and spend the afternoon with my host family and Marlon. Sometimes watch the kids play soccer or volley.

9pm or 10pm – bed time.

So this is mas o menos (give or take) a normal work day for me.