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Published: September 4th 2009
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Allo All!
Well things are certainly moving along, and in three weeks we'll depart for Mali. In the meantime I have two weeks of volunteering left at the B&B and working in the woods. Gerald reapired his truck so we've been able to work in the woods again, which is what we did yesterday morning. Because we havn't done this since mid-July, I'm not in the best shape for lifting and transporting logs, and my lunchtime I was exhausted. But at least it's too late for the mosquitoes and the temperature has dropped a little so the heat isn't a problem. Gerald and I will work in the woods again today, I'm just waiting on him to do some check-ups on his beloved truck which is possibly at the brink of another breakdown.
This past week we served a dinner for 8 horseriders at the Gite as a part of some kind of equestrian retreat (our next dorr neighbors had a horse farm and they ride there in the day and stay at the Gite). Ginette served her specialty fruits de mer (seafood in a cream sauce, delicious!) which I hope I'll be able to recreate when I come
home. Last Friday I made a complete Shabbat dinner for my host family with Challah, chicken, rice and kugel for dessert, and Ginette like the kugel so much she had me serve it to the guests for dessert. We made a beautiful fruit arrangement and served it with maple syrup! And strangely enough as I was talking with one of the ladies she said her daughter trains at Miller Brooke farm in Perth, and that she knows the twon quite well!
On Wednesday we had our group day, which was really exceptional this week. We visited three farms and got to speak with the farmers ans see their operations. The first farm was an organic farm with a large garden and many different animals including pigs, geese, chickens, goats, sheep, horses, and cows. A woman named Lise owns the farm with her husband and they work together with their 7 adopted children as well as people doing the WWOOF program (http://www.wwoof.org/). She was very kind and the farm was beautiful, surrounded by mountains and so close to the water. The second farm was a dairy farm owned by Lise's younger sister and her husband, who is the 4th generation
in his family to manage the farm. They had something like 70 holstein cows and porduced an immense amount of milk everyday. It was pretty immpressive because they are the only workers aside from one employee who works for a few months each year. Everything was highly mechanized and the cows were basically machines for milk. I was struck at how giant the cows were - HUGE! But I was also a little disturbed that they are cooped up in a little stall all day just to produce milk.
The thrid farm we visited was a potato farm, and it was another family enterprise operating for 4 generations under the same name. It wasn't organic and the farmer sadi he spends $30 000 a year on pesticides. WOW. We climbed on a contraption attached to the back of a tractor that dug potatoes up from the ground and moved them along a little conveyer belt. We sorted through them and removed the rotten, damaged and green ones. The farmer also explained that the supermarkets are very selctive with the size and shape of potatoes, and he has to sort what he sells very thoroughly, throwing out anything that's too
Washing Sadio's hair in the sink
It took us an hour to take her braids out! big, too small, or just a little deformed. He said he put the equivalent of 2000 10lb bags of potatoes int he garbage every season!
I'm still waiting on Gerald to come back with the truck, and seeing as it's late in the morning we may not end up going into the woods. I'm hoping I'll be able to go volunteer at the local school next week and help with the English class. Sadio is very happy as she finally got through to her family on the telephone this morning and got to talk for 10 minutes, for the fiirst time in a month and a half. I'm getting a little uneasy about the communication in Mali, there will be no internet and probably one extremely expensive telephone for the whole village (the majority of people have cell phones). You pay to use the phone, and I think it's about $12 for 5 minutes! It will be very challenging.....
It's pretty crazy as well to think of everyone strating school this week, and to not be there to. I realized that this is the first time since I was 2 years old that I havn't gone school -
it's about time no?
Anyways I'll sign off and write again soon.
Kanben, Celina
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