The Quiet of The Morning

It was a warm windy morning. I awoke to the sound of the banana leaves rustling in the strong wind as the sun rose over the surrounding hills. It is so beautifully quiet here in the mornings. Today is our day off and marks the end of our second week at Pun Pun.

I am settling into our daily routine now and am enjoying our regular work in the gardens. All our farm work is done with hand tools and as the days go by we have hoed, manured, and planted more and more of the 9 acres that is Pun Pun. We water by hand also (with watering cans using water that is pumped into tanks from the pond), so our evening responsibility of watering takes longer and longer, but becomes meditative in it's repetition. We've been planting a wide variety of crops for eating, seed saving (Pun Pun is a living seed center that works to save heirloom seed diversity-- they planted over 100 varieties of tomatoes last year), and for processing as products (banana chips, dried tomatoes, lime soap, wine etc.).

Some of our new ventures this week as we continue to build skills for self sufficency included: composting methods, cultivating microorganisms, wine making, building a solar dehydrator (for dehydrating fruits), and soap making (liquid, and solid). Yesterday we had our first day of Brick making (earth bricks). This consisted of digging a large pit, loosening the soil, soaking it with water, mixing it with our feet, and adding rice husk to tie it together structurally-- this keeps the bricks from cracking. Once the rice husk is stomped in we carry the soil mixure in buckets to be poured into the brick molds. The bricks will dry in the sun for the next 7-10 days. In 2 hours we made a little over 100 bricks. We will need over 1000 bricks to complete the building we are working on (a large yoga/meditation/meeting hall), but have had MUCH help from the local villagers.

Mid week I became the victim of a giant carpenter bee (2 inches long and fat too -- google it). It was late in the evening and something dropped from the ceiling into my collar. It stung me and I immediately doubled over in pain, screaming expletives. It hurt soooo bad i was convinced i was a scorpian. I left the area crying in pain and yelling. It stung me on the back of my head and the pain shot up my neck and down my back. Thankfully Nicole was there to calm me down and spent much of the night convincing me the pain would subside and I would be okay. I have recovered nicely after a few days of feeling like I got punched in the head. I did however get trapped in my room for 10 minutes the other day because another one flew into our house and I was too scared to come out!

much love

katie