#ranchomargot

It was really tough to leave Rancho Margot, but it had to be done. Even though I am traveling and on the road, I felt like I was at home at the Ranch and I wasn't traveling anymore. Even though I continued to learn new things every day, everything had become so familiar and I was starting to feel wanderlust. 

From the ranch, I got a ride with Juan and the painter guy to La Fortuna. I stayed at a cheap hostel in a dorm and spent the night hanging out with Mr. Painter in the town square. We had some really deep conversations about his life in Costa Rica and the art scene and it's so cool to be able to do this in Spanish. Most of my travel has been done in places where I don't speak the language and being able to have a more than surface level conversation with local people is like a different level of understanding and traveling. I love it, I learn so much this way.  

The next morning I headed over to El Tanque to catch the bus going to Penas Blancas, the border of Nicaragua. I met this Israeli guy waiting there on the side of the road and we were instantly friends. I love meeting new people and it continues to surprise me how easy it is for me now to connect with complete strangers. Later on the bus ride I met a really interesting Canadian couple too. 

The border crossing was a serious reality check. Costa Rica is one of the most developed countries in the region, whereas Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America, second poorest in the hemisphere. As soon as we got off the bus there were people clamoring around us demanding that we exchange all of our colones (CR currency) for cordoba (Nica currency) and that we can only pay on the other side with cordoba. Not to mention all the guys offering taxis and pedicabs across the border or special services to make the crossing go faster. I've been in similar madness many times before, but it was still overwhelming, especially after being at the Ranch in a bubble of peace and quiet for so long.

The thing that was most unsettling for me me was there was a guy claiming to be an employee with an official looking badge telling me I need a certain form for entry into Nicaragua and the only way I could get it is if I gave him a tip. Extreme hustling at the border. I didn't pay for the forms and just got them at the window. Naturally, I was the last person in line. 

All the crossing and processing lasted around two hours and then we were trying to find a bus to San Juan Del Sur. Everyone said we have to take a taxi, but I knew there was a bus. We walked outside and there were a bunch of taxi people surrounding us, bargaining, telling us there's no bus. Sure enough, right behind them is a giant bus. I helped negotiate a cab for the Canadian couple while, my new Israeli friend and I hopped on the bus. 

There weren't enough seats so I was standing in the back, leaning over so I could watch the countryside go by. It was a school bus packed with people and this guy walking up and down the aisles trying to sell something. The ride costed 20 or 30 cords, about one USD. We got to our intersection for the beach (La Virgen), the bus slowed down a little bit, they opened up the back door and told us to jump out fast, we obliged. We met a crazy Nicaraguan dude standing there also waiting for a ride. The three of us stood on the side of the road for a while, thumbs out and got picked up by a nice man with a pick-up truck who drove us 20km into San Juan Del Sur. 

We were walking around looking for a hostel and were turned away by two because they were full. We went to the Chabad which is like a community center for Israeli people and it was so wild. There were rabbis there and everyone started signing when we came in to welcome us, they brought us some water and we just sat down and got to know each other. I really enjoy traveling with Israeli people, they have great energy. Most of them are on this year long adventure after serving their 3 year mandatory military service. These guys have literally been through the war and they're just out in the world exploring and being present. The sense of adventure and excitement is exhilarating and even though I can't understand a lick of Hebrew, it's still fun. 

The most striking thing I observed about Nicaraguan countryside coming in was the number of windmills. There were tons of them all along the highway and it was just so unexpected for such a poor country. I don't know how much stake I put into lists like these, but The New York Times has listed Nicaragua as number three in the forty-six places to go in 2013. People say Nicaragua is where Costa Rica was 10-15 years ago and it's on the way up. I love observing this development and I feel like there's lots of opportunity here. 

I was relieved of lecheria and have not been shoveling poop or compost the past two days. I've spending my days working in la huerta (vegetable garden) and in el jardin (garden).

In the huerta, Abilio taught me how to prepare a bed of land so it's ready for planting something new. I went through and broke up the soil with a spade and the smoothed it all out with a rake, ensuring there were no weeds or residual green things growing there. Then he brought out a tray of arugula seedlings he had cultivated in the greenhouse and showed me how to separate them and put them into the ground using my finger to make a hole. I've never planted anything like this before, it felt really empowering knowing that in one month this lettuce will be mature enough to pick and people will eat it.

It was a rainy day and when it would start coming down harder, I'd escape into Abilio's 'office' (it's a greenhouse full of seedlings and tools) and chat with him. We talked about working with the land and being in equilibrium with mother nature and oftentimes our conversation would distract me from working and I'd stay there for a while after it stopped raining.

I finished planting the arugula and then took on the glorious task of weeding. There's no chemicals or anything here and we're in the rainforest so weeds grow everywhere and they can get huge. It's a very physical, tedious task where you get squat down and just pull out everything that wasn't planted there. Not really knowing what everything is supposed to look like, there can be confusion about whether something is a weed or a vegetable. It wasn't so fun for me at first and I felt like it was such busy work. Looking at the size of the vegetables growing and thinking about how fertile everything is, I was thinking to myself does this really make a big difference? What's the big deal? Why not just leave them there and just pick off the good stuff when it's ready?

Abilio enlightened me. The weeds are competing with the plants for nutrients from the soil. The plants will still grow even if the weeds are there, but their full potential will never be realized. This is the natural way of the world. The nutrients in the soil can only handle so much and if they're supporting the weeds, this strips away support for the plants and they won't grow as fast or as big. So, weeding is actually an extremely important activity. Nature teaches me another lesson here about life. When doing multiple things at the same time, it will become increasingly difficult to do any one of them extremely well. This is something I have fought with myself for a long time, always thinking I can handle lots of things at the same time and I have enough energy and bandwith for it all, but it's just not the case, the natural environment even tells us that things simply don't work that way. If I want to reach the full potential of one thing, I must do one thing.

The next day I spent the morning in el jardin helping Dionisio gather up food for the animals. We were in the grounds by the bungalows and the compost water heater and he brought a weed whacker, a wheelbarrow and a rake. He wasn't much of a talker though, he just started trimming things around the trees and flowers cleaning it up and I was just kind of standing there watching, trying to figure out what I was meant to do.

I guess he's probably used to working with people who just know. So, I asked him what I should do. He said just to use the rake to sweep the debris off the sidewalk.

So, I finished this pretty quickly and then asked again what I should do now. Dionisio then told me to wait for a bit until we get to the greener parts and then to collect all the grass he trims so we can feed it to the animals. This was tough manual labor and I was feeling slow today. It was neat though to see the process of where the food comes from for the animals. It's amazing how so much stuff just grows here and how one plant can serve many functions and purposes in the whole system here.

After this, I went back to la huerta in the afternoon to do some more weeding and got to know of more vegetable gardens at the Ranch that I hadn't seen before. It's quite impressive the amount of stuff that is grown here for food, they say that something like 90% of the vegetables in the kitchen are grown right here on site.

Today started out with more shoveling and cleaning of the cow poop. Beto wasn’t here today though so I shoveled and hosed down everything. I finished shoveling everything out and heard the goat’s calling so I figured they were hungry. I went and emptied the old grass from the goat’s pen and put in new grass.

When I was walking away with the empty wheelbarrow, I saw the cutest thing- the baby goat kissed the mama goat. Then I came back to start hosing down the cow area that I had just shoveled.

All of a sudden, I see all these cows charging in through the gates and no one is around. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there and then I saw some guys working on the farm come from behind. They were saying to lead the goats into this one big area, so I moved some gates and the cows herded through where they were supposed to go. I was trying to ask them what was going on because the cows hadn’t come in this early before and what I was supposed to do. I didn’t really get a response so I went to ask Abilio, he said just to finish cleaning with the hose and then help him in the huerta (vegetable garden) later. The only problem was there were still two stray cows that had gotten into the area I was supposed to clean, so I couldn’t really wash it all. I spent some time running around trying to get them out so I could hose everything down. I was washing the pavement and I saw a few cows go out of the square they were all in and some others started following. I didn’t know what to do though, no one was around to guide or give direction so they just kind of escaped as I kept cleaning, doing as I was told. Some time later, the guys came back, noticed some cows were missing and they went and herded them back in and closed the gate this time.  

I was still cleaning and I didn’t even notice that everyone was gone. Fran was walking by and he saw me working and told me it was lunch time that I should go. I wanted to just finish what I was doing though before taking a break so I kept cleaning for another half hour and then went and grabbed some lunch.

I came back from lunch looking for Abilio so I could help him in the huerta, but it was difficult to locate him. I spent a while walking around trying to find him all over the ranch and I finally ran into him. He showed me very precisely how to water the tomato plants under the greenhouse. There is a really delicate way to position your finger over the hose so that you minimize soil erosion when watering the plants. He said after watering the plants that I should take off all the dead leaves so that new ones can grow. I was wondering why they had greenhouses here, I mean it’s the rainforest. I figured everything would just grow naturally, why would you need a greenhouse in an environment like this? There’s multiple greenhouses actually and they’re all huge. Abilio explained to me that it rains too much here and when the water remains on the tomato plant leaves, it creates a perfect environment for fungus to grow and the leaves get sick and die. So, even though they grow faster without the greenhouse in the natural environment, there’s less yield because so many leaves get infected. Pretty crazy huh?

So I watered the tomato plants and the lettuce that was planted around the roots of the tomato plants and was about to finish when Abilio came back and told me I needed to give a little more water. He explained how the tomato plants have very deep roots so I have to give enough water that it seeps down all the way to the roots. I went through and gave another round of water to the tomato plants.

Once I finished watering everything, I started picking off all the dead leaves. It’s a very tedious zen like activity. The plants are huge, probably six or seven feet tall and there’s a couple rows of them, at least a few hundred feet long. While I was picking off these leaves, thinking about how I’m doing this because taking off all the dead leaves makes space for the new leaves and fruit to grow. If we don’t remove the dead leaves, then the new leaves can’t grow. This is such a beautiful lesson from nature. It applies to life and the world, everything. You need to clear away the dead to make way for the new in everything.

Sarah came by and I asked her a question about picking off the dead leaves. She answered my question and then took me on a little orientation of the whole huerta because I hadn’t gotten one yet. She was telling me all about the different kinds of plants and vegetables they’re growing and we were talking about efficiencies and opportunities to make things better. Rancho Margot really is a magnificent place and what is being done here is extraordinary. Juan really has created a living university and there is lots to learn. There is a lot to learn from this example and there is also still room for improvement and for learning. I’m really glad I’m here learning by doing.

The best part of the day was when I came back after yoga, took a cold shower, washed my hands 5 times with soap and still couldn’t get all the dirt off from the garden. My hands smell like the land, it’s wonderful.

The day started off with shoveling more shit and cleaning the cows' home. Today, this task felt much quicker and less laborious than yesterday since I had done it once already and had the process down. In the process of looking for a broom, I discovered that Diego was starting to butcher a cow. I finished up cleaning and came back to mostly observe and help hold things here and there. It was really amazing to watch how careful and considerate he was with the animal. I have this violent connotation of the word "butcher"  in my head and the animal was already dead so no need to be so caring and loving anymore right? It's still an animal though and it deserves respect and it was really amazing being able to observe that during this process. The other thing that really struck me about this experience was how perfectly the animal is built and how everything inside has a distinct purpose, just like us and all living creatures. Our bodies are systems full of intricate cycles and all these tools inside and it all just works together so perfectly and delicately and it's really quite mind-blowing.

After lunch, I learned how to collect the eggs from the hen coop and clean them off. There's 100+ eggs produced here on a daily basis. Some of the eggs I was cleaning off and putting into the carton to be used were so fresh that they were still warm. 

Then, I went and saw the pigpen and was going to feed the pigs, but was pulled away by Beto to help him herd in the cows and the goats. This was a really neat job because I felt like I was a Shepard or something, leading the animals to food. They're pretty smart though and they all know the path so it wasn't quite so Shepardy. As I was observing the goats stop every few feet trying to get another mouthful of grass, I was thinking about how simple life must be as a goat or a cow. All you do is eat all day, go for walks, eat some more, poo, pee and sleep. No worries about money or status or social stigmas, just lots of hanging out and eating mostly. 

I arrived last night into Rancho Margot after a weekend in Tamarindo and today was my first day of work, it was a good day. I had trouble sleeping last night, I'm not sure if I was anxious or what, but I couldn't fall asleep so easily. I wasn't so tired in the morning when I woke up though because I had rested well in Tamarindo. 

I had a little talk with Ivannia in the morning after breakfast about expectations, what I'll be doing, routine, cleaning, etc. Then, I found some rubber boots that had been left behind by former volunteers and got to work.

I spent the morning with Beto. He showed me how to shovel the cow manure, where to put it when the wheelbarrow gets full and how to hose down the ground after I've picked up all the shit. Sounds pretty self explanatory right? However, there are different ways of doing this with varying efficiency. A fellow volunteer from South Africa offered a method he had been using that worked really well. He suggested that instead of trying to clean each stall individually, that it's more efficient to collect the poop together into bigger piles and shovel it all in at once, kind of like batch processing I suppose. I started doing this and it really works well. It makes it easier to shovel since the piles are bigger you can get a fuller shovel each time, meaning less times you have to scoop into the wheelbarrow. 

I had lunch with all of the farm workers and then returned to work aerating and moving already decomposed compost that was basically fertile dirt now ready to be used in the farm. My compadre would break up the compost, I'd shovel it into the wheelbarrow, wheel it around to the other side and then dump it. Another guy was coming by and sprinkling something over it to help the acidity level. It was amazing how hot the compost still was. Even though it had already been composting for months, it was still so hot that there was steam coming out every time we broke up a little mound.