Today it rained. and the most peaceful cloud set over the hostel. We all stayed indoors today. Sol and Ian made a bed for the two oxen, and at night I could see them all, Jay, Bijay and the four dogs, nestled together on the big mass of hay.

As for the humans, we sat together in the family room and read, talked, worked on the computer, listened to music, and basically did our own things, enjoying our own solitude, in each other's presence. I drew a portrait of Sol and Seba today, and those will be up soon, hopefully along with more portraits of the whole family.

The other day I made lunch! And it amazed me how easy and fulfilling and fun it was to cook in the kitchen. This kitchen has not the best equipped. The pans are old and dented and humble. There is no stainless steel. There are no fancy appliances and top-grade silver ware. The fridge is not stocked, and neither is there an abundance of food. Also, the counters are never truly clean because we live in a rural house without air conditioning and good cleaners.

BUT

I've never cooked a better meal. It seems all new-agey to say this, but this is a kitchen of love. Even though the pans were old, they cooked the food so well, and they didn't stick! Even though the counters were not perfectly sanitized, I could wipe them down and use them as a cutting board (we didn't have a cutting board). Things fell together so easily, the way they should, and I made a meal of sushi wih marinated mushrooms and rice, vegetable pasta, and herbed potatoes.

We have been doing much work in the past few days: laying out the deck, finishing more cane walls.

But the most amazing thing happened on Saturday, when we had a dance party until 2:30 in the morning. Seba had his friends over for the night, and the boys, four in total, set up a bonfire in the yard. They lugged out the television along with some music discs and played spanish dance songs all through the night. Sol, Ian and I went outside and danced for three hours. The fire was huge at times when we added enough branches with leaves. It was a full moon, and watching the sparks fly up into the night was simply sublime. It's too bad I didn't get photos of us dancing. At one point I was so happy that I danced on top of the pile of decking  boards, and then jumped into the tree. Mind you, this was all in a state on non-intoxication. :)

Today was more or less the same. I'm almost done with the bamboo walls--only half an hour of work left, and all the dividers will be installed. Today we found several new bamboo forests. Seba and I went to gather a few canes, and we came across a very sweet father and son harvesting vegetables from their garden. Their patch was small, but still very beautiful. Seba is holding half of the canes here. He's only 12, but he acts 20. 

Ian is finishing up the roof, though apparently this morning he got stuck in it--he was standing inside the roof nailing down planks, and then he realized that he had nailed so many planks down that he couldn't get his knees out. So he escaped by removing one of the planks. I ran into him "meditating" on the roof.

The Hobbit Hole gets cozier every day. My project has been to install cane dividers for each Hobbit Hole. That work is actually quite fun—I go to the bamboo grove and cut down what stalks I need, and then shorten them to size at the farm. To install them I just hammer in two nails on either end, and then after maybe 50 poles, I’ve made a beautiful wall. The canes really do add a nice accent to the Hobbit House, with a mix of earth and greenery.

I had a random idea to make a sign for the World Café out of the leftover bamboo canes. After a lot of experimentation with strings and all different sizes of bamboo sticks, this was the final product. I tried painting the letters on, but that was a disaster. Thanks to the wonderful insight of Ian, we finally decided to use bamboo to make the letters. I learned what “glue” was in Spanish when Sol gave us a tube of silicon to glue down the letters.

So as I’m doing this, Ian is continuing to structuralize the Hobbit House. I gave him my aviators so he could be safe and fashionable as he works.

And this is Bijay. <3 The two oxen plowed the field the other day. It’s a shame I wasn’t there to take photos. More to come. They’re playing futbol at night now.

Futbol

Today we organized the yard, collecting wood and raking the leaves to place over the land. We were about to start a fire pit when a bunch of children came from the neighborhood and started playing futbol (soccer) with our goals. We ended up playing for almost two hours. A few other people joined us and left in between the game, and some of the older kids started tripping on these tiny ones. This just goes to show how tight this community is.