Organic Fincas and Spanish Lecciones

September 29, 2011
Caoba Farms: Live Well, Eat Well...Most of the time.

A wedge of dirt between nail and skin
a smudge of mud on freckled mejillas
wind of a promise:
paired with a Spanish speaker
moving around each day
payment with veggies
“Today is eggplant I think.”

I never saw eggplants,
except en route to dump my weeds
weeds from the same vegetable
as the day before.
Solitary confinement, or only peace?
a faucet gestured towards
after a plea to wash my hands
one man stepping in to save me
-from wobbling wheelbarrows

At least escorted through the gate today
by a man with a gun I didn't recognize

Surprise-addition of myself to the tourist's view
shaking the clean hand of a clean man
with my grubby digits
a bit ashamed I'd not seen more
-more plants
-more land
-more people
or heard more, but no wind of
-cafes with mountain lookouts
-ancestral coffee plant heritage
-cloud milking like Peruvians
- wages for indigenous workers

-or a breath of English-
which was good for me anyways.

Now that I know, it might be hard to go back
to the way it was before.

My Day wasn't much more than:
Stepping on a round Guatemalan avocado,
Mario- as he patted me on the back when passing,
a diligent indigenous man chopping chives,
the only woman (cutting remolacha sprouts),
spicy nasturtium leaves in my mouth,
Australian accent Dave off to Rio Dulce,
leggy, vivacious plants, surrounded by weeds,
with strength choked out of them.

Lately my life has been filled with 4 hours of Spanish lessons (which get to continue for 7 or so more weeks!! I'll be a native soon!)And that's my maestra Brenda in the picture, wearing the friendship bracelet I made her too!

An orchid exhibit, working at the organic farm, Rainbow Cafe, figuring out the best way to dry fruit, and cinnamon-honey pancakes. Oh, and a lot of angtsy-poetical writing since I don't have my guitar here.

And BEETS! I like them. What a surprise since I've heard mostly bad stuff about them. However, the other night we had the tip-toppest enchiladas with frijoles and rice and lechuga and beets and guacamole. I want to have a sheep, steal its' wool and use beets from my garden to make pink socks!

And a wonderful birthday party at the Spanish school; we sung happy birthday in 4 or 5 different languages. Following the suggestion of the Guatemalan Birthday song (Queremos pastel/ we want cake) we dug right in. There's fruit in the cakes here- it's not fruitcake though.