Back from the Village

Well I survived my time out in the village. It was actually a really good trip. The village leader that I am staying with is a guy in his mid-40's. Usually he is out chopping down trees, so I didn't get to spend a lot of time with him this week. His father is the former village head and he and I spent most of our time together. He is a great older guy. I can see why they are the leaders of this village because, as opposed to most people out here, they are busy most of the time. Them being busy was great for me because I had things to do almost every day. Most mornings we would wake up and eat breakfast at around 9:30 and then go out around 10am. It sounds kind of late, which it is, but the reason is because we were so high in the mountains that the sun wouldn't come up until then. And it was REALLY cold if the sun wasn't up. So during the morning we would basically hike a little over a mile to the other side of the mountain so we could find some trees to chop down. Uncle He, the former village leader, and I would chop down a few trees, strip off the branches from the top, tie them all together and then haul them home so we could feed the goats with them. And then most days we would go out and do the exact same thing in the afternoon. It is kind of a lot of work just to feed some goats. I didn't mind though. I got to chop down a few trees and it gave me something to do. Most of the time village life is pretty boring, but this week was good because it was different. I was also stretched with language quite a bit. I would read some in the afternoons and Uncle He would always ask what I was reading. It turns out he can't read so I had to tell him about it. There were a few times where I had to use some charades, but overall I think he understood what I was talking about. I've posted the video from week three from our village wedding trip here. This next week Jared and I are taking off for a little vacation down South. Nothing like going from about 9,000-feet in the cold mountains to sunny warm beaches.

Going to the Village

So the village thing has finally come together (I think). I've got somewhere to go this week anyway. I'm actually heading out tomorrow afternoon and I'll be back... I'm not really sure when. Hopefully I'll be back on Friday, but I might end up staying out there until Monday-ish. I'm going to be in a village about an hour outside of town on the side of a mountain. I've done some ag work out here before and so I'm staying with the village head. You would think that the village leader would have a nice place, but that isn't the case. I went out there yesterday and talked to everybody and I'm going to be roughing it a little bit for the next few days. It probably won't be too bad, but it is going to be cold. Last night, even before the sun went down, it was getting pretty chilly. I think it is about 1,000 feet above the valley, so the weather is a little bit harsher there. I hit it off with the grandpa that lives at the house though, so I'm sure we'll be doing a lot together this next week. They have a lot of goats in this village and Grandpa was telling me that I can help him watch the goats during the day. So at least I'll have a little something to do, and I might even come away knowing a little bit about goat ranching (if that is even a term. . .). The people there are really nice though, so I'm sure it'll be a good week. Hopefully this will open up a few doors for me to come back and start up some ag projects in the coming months. I think I'm going to start hitting the ag thing pretty hard once February gets here. I've got a friend coming out to live with me and he has an ag degree and worked on a coffee plantation for a few years. So I'm sure we'll find all kinds of things to get into out here. The game plan is that we're going to get some high elevation coffee test plots going and maybe some pigpens and whatever else we can come up with. It should be fun. Oh, and here is video 2 from the wedding.

Village Wedding

So I survived the village wedding. It was REALLY COLD though. I think it was somewhere around 20 degrees in my room every night. So it feels good to be living back in the valley again. It has actually been really nice here since I've been back. It gets pretty cold here at night, but for living at about 7,500 feet at the beginning of January, it really isn't too bad. Life out in the village was actually a lot more fun than it usually is. Normally in the village I catch up on a lot of reading and usually just sit around, which is all that is left to do if you don't smoke, drink, or gamble. There is actually a lot going on in villages during planting or harvest season, but otherwise, just a lot of sitting. The wedding was fun because there was a lot going on by village standards and we had a friend with us who could speak some English. The first day we were there they killed three pigs, so that provided a few hours of entertainment. Other than that we pretty much sat around by the fire, took pictures and shot video. I'm actually going to post a video a week. The link to this last weeks is here. Act fast though because I'm probably not going to leave them up too long. And heads up on this one, it is the pig killing. So if you're partial to bacon you might want to skip out until next weeks. For the rest of break things are a little up in the air. The game plan is that I'm going to live out in the villages some so I can work on language, go on a little vacation, and then start up some ag projects. I'll make sure and post more details when I have them, the problem is that a lot of things are still up in the air. Hopefully it'll come together soon so I can get the village thing knocked out before I head out of country and then I can focus on growing coffee once I get back.