Carbondale, CO

We had a lovely time spent with Rose (Dad's mom's sister). It was very low key which was exactly what we needed -- some TV, pizza and hanging out. Pramod and I are really enjoying spending this time with family (and unrelated friends) and getting to know them all better. It makes me realize how important and easy it is to do so. I'm going to have to remember this lesson as we head into our busy lives. Visiting doesn't need to be extravagant, just a connection.

Driving and Las Vegas

I guess we were a little ambitious in our plans. This was our plan: leave San Francisco in the morning and drive 8 hours to Las Vegas (we at least made it that far!). Then spend a couple of hours there before driving the 10 hours straight to Carbondale, CO starting at almost 1 am. There weren't enough hours for me to sleep before Pramod needed to stop driving so I had a very hard time and we ended up sleeping for a few hours in the car at a gas station. We're only about 2 hours later than we had planned though, not too bad.

We've caught up with the winter though. Utah had some snow on the ground at the rest stop but now we're driving through what looks like the badlands again and there's no trace of snow.

Las Vegas! As Pramod says: "It's like being on a different planet". In India, that's what they think America is. I liked the music playing on speakers on the street so that even in walking from place to place it is like a big party. However, I wouldn't want to live in a city with that.

We had allowed $20 eac for gambling. Slot machines aren't too interesting and we don't know how to play anything else so we quit without spending that much.

We saw lots of Elvis, showgirls, a superman, batman, and Kiss. All very showy stuff. Anyway, it was fun and impressing. I'm glad we made our way down there to check it all out.

On our way

Our return journey began Thursday. We had a pretty uneventful flight home and we were met by Jon (grandma's brother) who was holding a sign that said "Becca" on it. We had a nice relaxing and welcoming day and night with Jon and Kathy. Aunt Nancy also came to visit early today and it was great to see her again. We all spent the day chatting, hanging out and preparing for the upcoming dinner.

Strange things about coming back to the mainland:

- It felt weird to be driving on a real highway where people go fast!

- The temperature wasn't cold--certainly not any colder than the chilly Hawaiian nights we were having up on the coffee farm, but the air felt crisp. I'm glad we're going to have a coupld of days of fall before heading off to winter.

A problem with Hawaii is that it never freezes and it is often very wet. Without freezing, even just for a couple of hours in the night, there's no period of hibernation and killing of bacteria and it feels like things never get really clean. Maybe that was due to the accommodations that we had but I'm realizing that I really do like winter.

- It was really weird getting into our car and it felt like a distant but familiar memory.

Dinner last night was great. I spent a while talking to Devon (mom's cousin), playing with her kids, and playing music with Mark. I'm glad my violin was still with me! What a great night it was. We have both really enjoyed all the time we've spent with the Searles clan. Very fun and loving people. Good to finally meet them.

This morning we left really early in order to get breakfast with Katherine in San Francisco. We met Katherine on the first farm when we were in Hawaii. We don't know when we'll meet again b ut it's good to know we have another friend waiting for us in California.

Now we're off to Las Vegas for the night. GPS says we'll be there in 8 hours!

Realization

I realized something great today. I want to go back to school to get my masters in accounting. I just need to do it. Here's how I found out:

I had an awesome weekend with Monica and her friend Shane who moved here int the last couple of months. He has this idea to get a grant from the government to start an avocado farm and visitors center. He says that there are over 100 different varieties of avocado on this island and he would like to have taste testings, raw food and vegetarian cooking classes, etc. He said he has all he needs except for someone to deal with the money. My initial thought was: "what a cool idea, I want that to happen and I would love to deal with the money for that!". And I would!

While this avocado thing may never happen or it may but I may have no part in it, I think my true colors showed themselves. I like math, money and organizing things. I just needed a cause that I'm interested in to call me to it (unlike my accounting teacher at the tech who used to work in food sales... boring!). My next move: Boston to get my masters in accounting!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was unlike any I've ever had before. Pramod and I, along with the other WWOOFers here, were invited to a party hosted by Albert's friend. However, come Thursday morning, we had no idea where it was, what time dinner was at, or how we were going to get there. We did have Albert's phone number, but instead of calling him right away we had a relaxing morning where I read for hours (I finished The Road by Cormack McCarthy).

We then decided that it wasn't important for us to go to the party--so we had the day to ourselves. We went in to town to see the new Harry Potter movie (so good!) then came home to the ham and pecan pie that the farm owner had left for us for Thanksgiving. One of the neighbors had also left us a fish that he'd caught.

Pramod grilled the ham and boiled the fish and I warmed up some leftover mashed potatoes and made a pasta dish which turned out pretty good. While we were cooking, Abby and Jesse (another WWOOFing couple from Oregon) came home from the beach. They had also decided to skip out on ths party. We, plus one more, shared in on the good food and drink. It ended up being a pretty good Thanksgiving.

I realized something too. We didn't actually talk about what we were grateful for, but I did think about it. I'm grateful for Pramod. The thought of being without family for this holiday was saddening to me. However, Pramod got me through that and I enjoyed my day with him. I'm grateful that I have him here with me through everything. He's shared the amazing-ness of this trip with me. He's also been there through my crankiness, sadness, and stress. He's been an amazing travel partner and I'm glad I've had him to share the load with -- both literally and figuratively.

Weekend with Albert

This weekend was for sure the best weekend I've had on this island. -- it included staying in resort-like accommodations, kayaking on the pacific, chanting Hindu style, and swimming with dolphins!

On Friday all of us WWOOFers packed a cooler of food for the weekend. Albert took us all to Captain Cook that evening. We went camping at the farm owner's beach house. This place was amazing! A huge lot with two full houses (the caretakers live on the property for free and do indoor & outdoor work for these people--I'm very jealous of their situation. We all actually camped outside except that Pramod and I didn't bring our tent to the island so we got to sleep in the "tree house" which was so nice!

Albert was also great: he made lots of fish meals on his camping stove for the group, fish that he had caught, and he cooked veggie burgers for me.

The next day we all took out ocean kayaks. By the way, it turns out that I get extremely sea sick, at which time it helps to jump off the boat into the beautiful, blue, warm water. We went over to the Captain Cook monument and snorkeled. We love snorkeling and just watching the fish. On the way over we saw dolphins! Pramod and I got out of our kayaks to swim with them but got scared seeing the nothingness that was below us and went back. That was our dolphin experience for the day--seeing them swimming and jumping from the safety of our kayaks.

That night, Albert and everyone else moved to a different campsite. Pramod and I hitchhiked to a kirtan which we found out about through Monica and her hosts. It was so much fun and we met some really great people who made us feel like Hawaiias a living spot may not be such a stretch. So that was fun and exciting. Pramod also met an Indian man living here who is married to an American woman.

After that night of chanting, we returned to the group at the campside. Not for long: we left them again the next morning to swim at Kealakekua Bay (again) where Monica texted us from to let us know the dolphins were there! And the were just jumping, spinning and swimming around and under us the whole time we were there! It was incredible. I was so nervous to do it but Monica reassured us and we could hear them underwater. I guess they will sometimes actually be interested in a person and swim side by side with them. We didn't get that close, but I'm so happy by what we did get. What a magical place Hawaii is!

Two Step & Kealakekua Bay in Captain Cook

Today Pramod and I went down to Captain Cook to meet our friend from the other side of the island, Monica. Monica is farming in Captain Cook and is also close enough to these beaches to swim with the dolphins in the bay every morning. In fact, someone who lives on the beach calls the farm when the dolphins come, which seems to happen very frequently in the morning. I guess dolphins come into the bay to rest and take care of their young and then the go out to sea to hunt later in the day or at night.

However, the dolphins were not at Two Step or at the Bay when we were there...

TTwo Step is the best snorkling place on this side of the island (we have been told). It was pretty amazing. Lots of fishes. Pramod and I learned how to snorkel under the surface of the water from Monica. Amazing stuff.

Magic Sands Beach

It's called Magic Sands Beach because sometimes, seemingly randomly, the waves will hit the beach and all the sand will be gone from the beach and only rocks will remain. No one I've talked to knows the reason or whether this happens seasonally or annually, etc.

Again, beautiful beach, love learning to ride the waves! This beach is closest to our house so we've spent two days there now.

We also saw sea turtles! They were swimming around in the waves with us just under the surface of the water. Pretty incredible!

First Day off: Kua Bay and the Imu!

I'm going to write about our beaching experiences in separate posts.

We were really lucky to make it out to this beach. We were taken by these people who we met at a party the night before...

Albert, a Hawaiian guy who we work with, had a party the night before to celebrate the lighting of the imu. It was a really interesting process: a fire was going in a pit in the ground all day in order to heat up the lava rocks. Then the fire was put out and ti leaves laid over the rocks. Turkeys in tin foil and a wild boar wrapped in taro leaves and chicken wire. Soaked coffee bags were put on top of everything and then the pit was covered with sand and dirt. The food cooked like this all night.

Anyway, we met this young couple who were shocked that we hadn't seen a white sand beach yet. So the next day they took us 45 minutes away to Kua Bay. It was so beautiful. This was Hawaii! Johnny taught Pramod and I how to body surf. The waves were much smaller than at the black sand beach, but my new wave fears came back to me. However, Johnny's body surfing tips have helped me get over that somewhat. Now, I seem to enjoy the waves more each time that I go to the beach.

We were lucky to get to this beach since it is far from us here on the farm. Thanks for the kindness of others, once again!

Hawaii--Catching up

Tomorrow will begin our third week on this side of the island and I haven't posted at all since we've been here! So here I am catching up on things.

The Kona side of the big island is much drier than the Hilo side. This doesn't mean that there's no rain, it means that it doesn't rain twice a day. It's also less jungle-like. Still very tropical and all of the same great fruits growing for our eating pleasure. Sadly, the best ones don't grow on this farm. We do have banana, passion fruit (liliquoi), and guava. Also papaya but no ripe ones right now.

The farm has its good sides and bad. The accommodations are great! We have our own little 8x8 cabin, built and finished the day before we arrived. The community kitchen is really nice; complete with hot water and electricity (having a refrigerator again has been awesome: leftovers and dairy products!!). Lastly, the common area is overlooking the ocean and we get to enjoy great sunsets daily.

The work, on the other hand, is not great. We're on a Coffee estate and we work 8-4 four days a week (Tuesday through Friday). It's hard work and we are all always exhausted by the end of the day whether we're weed-whacking the whole time (as the boys usually do) or spreading fertilizer pellets on the trees or tediously searching for certain diseased branches on each individual plant. Luckily, that's only four days a week.

On the five days we've had off so far, Pramod and I have been beach side for four of them. The beaches on this side of the island are incredible! Living on this side of the island is MUCH more expensive than the other side. While we could have rented a house without electricity for around $200 a month over there, here its comparable to renting in a city on the main land. There are also many more tourists over here. Kona is filled with fancy hotels and expensive bars and restaurants, but it is so beautiful.

Dad: you asked me if Hawaii is paradise. On this side of the island it definitely is!

Volcanic Island

Earlier in the month, Pramod and I went to Volcano National Park. It was pretty cool (but obviously it didn't rate a blog entry--or I was too lazy). However, the cartoon-y idea of the top of a volcano that I had in my head was extremely inaccurate. It was more like what I picture the moon looking like inside the large crater. We're definitely glad that we went to check it out.

A week or two later, Mike took the two of us out to see the lava flow after dark. There was a new flow that was running right by the road. Because we went late enough, we were able to get as dangerously close to the lava as we wanted (the guard stays there during the day time). The lava was hot! It was so hot! Standing near it was like being way too close to a raging fire; burning our faces. It was well worth it though. We each took some sticks and tried to poke the lava. It was amazing how it looks like it's flowing and it's even red and glowing, but the outside hardens really quickly. In order to get at the lava we needed to stab the stick hard into it. It was like our experience at the glass blowing demonstration in Seattle. The lava would stay on the end of the stick and either harden as it drips down, leaving a pointy glass-like lava rock. Alternatively, if the stick was rotated, the lava would continue as a blob of hot lava which could be rounded by rotating it on the ground. It was pretty amazing and greatly exceeded my expectations.

Today was our last adventure with the lava. These days, the lava flows through a tube under ground rather than over it. The tube leads to the end of the island where is pours out into the ocean. To get to this flow, it is a very very long walk. We were walking for over an hour (one way) in the hot sun. It felt long. If we had tried to go the more direct way (driving on the road until we'd have to walk out to the ocean) someone would have stopped us from going, so we ended up walking along the coast.

There is so much steam where the hot lava hits the water that we wouldn't have been able to see anything if the wind was coming our way. Luckily, it wasn't, so we were able to see some of it pouring (like water from a faucet) out of the earth. We'll see if our pictures do it justice. It was so amazing!

Catching up

Pramod and I are both really looking forward to moving on. We've enjoyed our free time (and we've had a lot of it!), but we're going a little stir crazy. We're leaving on November 1st, to go to the other side of the island to work on a coffee farm, so just a few more days to go.

The kitten has been named Missy. We have gotten a few other WWOOFers at Dharma Farm and on girl, Ingrid from Norway, is more of a cat lover than I am--is that possible? We she actually went out of her way to buy real cat food for her. I can't believe that in the 10 days that she's been around, she has grown so much! She looks much more healthy. Ingrid has promised me that she will take good care of Missy after we leave and that she'll bring her to a shelter when she moves on if there is no one else who will take care of her, so I don't need to worry about that. I bet it's going to be hard to leave her though! She is still the most affectionate cat I've ever met--someone just needs to look at her and she'll start purring.

It's strange how I've felt somewhat disconnected since I've been here in Hawaii, but as soon as our plans to leave are on the horizon I've started connecting. There are a couple of people on another farm who I have really enjoyed getting to know. Monica is someone in particular who I met a couple of days ago but already I feel like I've known her forever. Well, it's good to make connections and I bet that we'll meet again. It's hard for me to feel close to someone and when I do it's even harder for me to leave them.

Also, our last day at yoga--Pramod taught and was highly praised--and out last day at soccer--I played and loved it so much.

Warm Pond -- Queen Anne's

Today Pramod and I went to a warm pond -- a pond that is fed by the ocean but is heated by the lava flow! It was incredible. Not hot like bath water but very warm and so beautiful!

On one end of the pond, there is an opening where the ocean waves come in. Every once in a while there'd be a wave that would be hard to fight (if over on that side of the water) and that added some fun to the experience.

When we just stood in the water we noticed that there were tons of tiny fish. If not moving for long enough the fish would come nibble/suck on our legs. It really freaked me out so I kept

pretty active.

After taking in the view and the water, Pramod and I kept ourselves occupied by dancing in the water and taking underwater videos of it. It was pretty funny.

This was actually the second warm pool we had been to. The other was close to a popular surfing spot, Pohiki. This one was also pretty nice because it was hidden in jungle-like place. It was pretty amazing being there too.

A Kitten in the Kitchen

A few days ago, there was this small cat who came into our living area. It shocked me and I think that my reaction scared the cat away. Later that day, the cat was in the bushes meowing, but when I came over to check it out, the cat walked away again.

It turns out that the cat is not just a little cat, but seems to be a kitten! The next day I found that the cat had slept under the bus and started meowing as soon as it heard our voices. I figured it was probably hungry. What does one feed a cat if there is a lack of cat food? Milk! No milk. Yogurt seems similar so we laid out some for her. She had a little but started meowing again when I was opening bags for our breakfast (perhaps reminding her of dry cat food).

I tried some granola, which she ate a little of, some leftover rice and sambar from dinner the previous night. After much caution on all of our parts (cat included), we figured out that she doesn't meow while being petted. In fact, she is maybe the most affectionate cat I have ever encountered. She comes when called, she cries when we leave, and she'll crawl all over my lap for some cuddling. She must have been in someone else's home before because she is very familiar with human love.

The next morning I was sure that she was gone. I hadn't heard signs of her scrounging around the kitchen at night or growling at potential predators like I had the night before. She didn't meow when we first got up either. She was gone. My reaction showed that I had already become attached to this little cutie. But wait, there she is in a box sleeping with our books and beach towels! She must have been our the whole night before.

She is still with us. It sounds like this may be normal. Mike currently has a cat that he found as a kitten near his house. I'm a little worried about what to do with her though. We have finalized our plans to leave in 2 weeks and I am going to have a really hard time just leaving her there alone to fend for herself. What would happen to her? Should I take her to a shelter? Or try to give her to someone we know here? It's definitely going to be sad to see her go. I am already VERY attached to this little kitten that we found in our kitchen.

Fruit Galore

We are loving the fresh fruits we are able to pick while being here. The different Noni farms have different fruits growing which are open for our picking pleasure! We've picked banana, passion fruit, jack fruit, red and yellow guava, mango, papaya, avocado, lychee. Pramod has also climbed coconut trees to get us some nice coconut juice on hot days.

We've been having the best fruit salads and fruit juices and it has all been hand picked, stored, washed, and cut by us. It's pretty cool.

Pramod also made this incredible sambar from the jack fruit seeds. It was a major, time-consuming pain to peel the seeds, but the food was so worth it!

Changing Farms

I think we're going to go stay at a different farm. There's nothing wrong with this place and we're Unhappy here — but we're not really happy either. Also, we're not learning anything useful for our lives, nor are we enjoying the people that we're meeting very much. Hawaii is filled with people our age, who have been here for years, with no goals except to get by doing the least amount of work they have to and smoking a lot of pot. Pramod and I are too goal driven to live here.

The 2 months that we're here is seeming a whole lot less daunting thinking of breaking it up with a different farm. Before we go, we're going to try to see everything we can on the Hilo side of the island before heading off to the Kona side (which is where we flew into and left immediately).

Chanting

A large part of our time here has been spent at another farm. Some of our food comes from this other farm because we go over at least once a week to help them harvest for their farmers markets (of which they go to 5 a week!).

This other farm is beautiful with something like 17 acres and 15-20 people working on it. They aren't on the WWOOF program though, they get their workers by word of mouth. If the farming was all of it, Pramod and I would probably love living there and helping with the gardening. However, the farming is only a way to sustain them. The main point of this place is that it is for spiritual growth. All free time is spent studying the Bhagavad Gita or chanting on their mala beads. They chant every morning and every night.

“Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare”

We go, along with the other farm (who has the Saturday morning yoga and soccer) on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. They have chanting for over 30 minutes, dinner (which is always great! There is a professional chef living among them), then a spiritual talk led by the guy who owns the farm. Sunday is the Rama Pizza Party which is open to the public and lots and lots of people come (some just come for the dinner part).

Check out this video of the chanting, it's different than any kind of chanting either of us have ever done before. There's only one glimpse of the dancing but you can hear the music (I was trying to hide the fact that I was recording). I left in the beginning of the 2nd call and response so that you can see that with every time the leader sings he is noticably speeding it up. It's awesome. The chanting is a lot of fun! Everyone is singing at the top of their lungs and dancing like we're at a rave. At home I wind down the day relaxing, watching TV. Here we're dancing and singing like there's no tomorrow!

Noni work

The farm here deals with Noni growing and juice making. The owner owns every part of the production--from the tending of Noni plants to mailing off the packaged juice bottles. Pramod and I get to take part in all of it.

Noni plants grow on this island and they seem to flourish in volcanic rock. Though the climate here is similar to India, there are no Noni plants growing there. There are some other countries that grow Noni but not many.

The Noni juice is no apple or grape juice. It isn't consumed for its great, refreshing taste. It doesn't taste very good but it is medicinal. I have heard many rumors about the benefits of drinking Noni juice: 1.) some WWOOFers who used to work here drank lots of Noni juice daily and apparently it showed. 2.) People who drink it say that they feel really good afterwards (and they're pretty sure that it's not just the tiny bit of alcohol present in the juice due to fermentation--this is all boiled out before it is sold to the public). 3.) Someone told me that this juice is being given to cancer patients in China. 4.) A Hawaiian local has "died" 3 or 4 times from stab wounds or gun shots and his grandmother brought him back to life by giving him noni juice!

It is interesting stuff. It sells for like $30 a bottle on the main land. With all these benefits, it seems like they would outweigh the bad taste. We are in a perfect position to benefit from this juice for free. That is true; however, being a part of the mass production process brings me close enough to it to never want to drink the juice again.

I am considering making my own juice, however. It's easy. All you need is the fruit and a container to keep it in. It only needs to sit for a few weeks. We'll see how that experiment goes.

As for the mass production: we go out to one of the 4 farms owned by these people daily to pick up the bags of fruit that have been picked that day by someone living here. These bags, full of hard fruits, weigh like 60 lbs each. Pramod and I ride in the back of the truck while driving to each spot where the bags have been kept. When we bring the fruit back to the factory (I call it that as I consider our work to be factory work rather than farming), and load them into these huge, 500 gallon barrels. As the fruit sit in the barrel, the release the juice. We leave them in there for about 2 weeks. After letting them sit for a couple of weeks, the juice is drained out and we unload these much lighter but much stickier and messier bags into a compressor. There, the fruits are squeezed. The juice is filtered multiple times then pasteurized then bottled. Pramod and I have helped in capping and cleaning the bottles, putting labels on them, shrink-wrapping the lids, and boxing them. That is what our 3-4 hours of daily work will entail.

Tide Pools

Snorkeling at the tide pools. We definitely are loving our waterproof camera.

Check out these pictures. We're still looking for turtles though!

Sunday Surfing!

Shankar goes surfing every Sunday with some of the people living in his house. For our first Sunday on the island, we went with him. The waves weren't great--which was perfect for learning. I only used a Boogie Board, but I caught a couple of waves and had a ton of fun. The kids who grew up here are crazy! I saw an 8 year old boy also with a Boogie Board, the difference was that he actually stood up on his board and was steering it too!

Pramod tried the surf board. I guess he caught some waves too. But like me, he was on his stomach most of the time. He did get onto his kees as some point with Shankar holding the board for him. It's all part of the learning process.

We both had a really good time. We will definitely try to go again!

Saturday Soccer!

Another farm in the area--who we have spent some time with--has Saturday morning activities. From 9:30 - 10:30, someone living on their farm teaches a yoga class and then after there is a soccer game.

The yoga is taught by one of a couple of yoga teachers living on that farm. When I say yoga teacher, I mean someone who has taken a yoga teacher training course. I guess a few years ago, someone came in and gave a teacher training course for anyone who was interested. From our experience in this class, it didn't seem that these people necessarily had their own yoga class. Regardless, it was yoga asana. It felt good to stretch under someone else's guidance and we took it for what it was.

After the yoga there's a soccer game in the park! It's pretty informal--barefoot with as evenly divided teams as possible. I didn't play, but I was excited for Pramod to have other people to be active with. It's good. Pramod even scored a goal!

Beaching it up

On most days, the farm work goes from 2-6 pm. This leaves our mornings totally free to go to town or to the beach or... anything else we may want to do. It seems pretty sweet although I bet it could get old after a while. Since this is our first morning out, it hasn't yet!
This morning, Pramod and I decided to go to the beach which is 6 miles from the main road. Hitchhiking is supposedly really easy here, and since we have no other form of transportation, that's what we decided to do...
One mile later... we're still walking and we have been ignored by several drivers. Our thoughts are moving towards having to walk the whole way AND back every time we want to go to the beach or the possibility of buying cheap bicycles. Finally we were picked up by a nice man from Washington State who retired to Hawaii.

He showed us some sights and then took us to the beach. It's a black sand beach which is “clothing optional” – slightly surprising to see. The water is so warm, but the waves are incredible and it makes swimming difficult. After getting on the other side of where the waves crest, it's easy, but getting back to land from that side was hard! It was a lot of work and of course I got stuck right under a wave. We both made it in and out okay, but I'm not a big fan.

Pramod on the other hand continues to play in the wave as I write this. Whenever I look over he's 1.) diving from the beach into a large wave and when I next see his head pop up, he's been taken way up to shore; or 2.) he stands there to let the wave pass him by but ends up falling and being dragged, spinning, up to the beach. Hey as long as he's having fun! He says that he enjoys the feeling of tumbling in the wave. I don't like that. I think I need to be in control. When I want to breathe, I NEED to breathe. When I want to get out of the water, I don't like the feeling that a force much more powerful that I am is pulling me back in.

Dharma Farm

We met our hosts last night and things weren't looking great. Someone picked us up from the bus stand, she showed us around the house briefly (it was dark, so not much to see – the house is more like a bunch of little houses connected only because they are on the same property). We weren't given dinner (though we arrived at 7 pm), but instead given a key to a cabinet with chips inside. Our room was small and dirty in the way that India is dirty. I'm not trying to complain about the accomidations, just painting a picture. The weather, stickiness after traveling so long, and the unsurety left me with that same uncomfortable feeling that I had when I went to India for the first time. It wasn't about anything physical – more of an emotional reaction to feeling like there's nobody caring for my well being and I am incapable to care for it myself in this unfamiliar place. Little did I know that Pramod, Mr. Capably Independent, felt the same way and that it would lead to a lot of stress the next day.

The next morning, someone was supposed to pick us up and take us to the farm (where we would actually be staying) at 10 am. No such luck. We were pretty much ignored until someone else drove us out there around 1 pm. So we had a pretty miserable day waiting around with this uncomfortable feeling.

Everything got much better when we got to the farm. We were shown around to a few different cabins scattered around the farm. We had our pick of the bunch because there are no other WWOOFers here at the moment. We chose a large school bus with the seats taken out. We're working on getting it all set up as nice as possible. It's connected to the community kitchen (which of course, no one else is using right now). There is no electricity in any of the cabins, so candles and flashlights are what we have.

While at the farm, we met Mike, who will be farming with us. He's the first person we've met who seems to care what's going on with us. That and setting up our living space made a huge difference in how we're feeling. Now we're pretty excited about this experience.