I was in Yunguilla!

I forgot to write two things last time. The night of the beautiful sunset and awkward party on Amantani was the 4th of July, so even though it wasn´t a traditional American 4th, it was still a memorable day. Also, there was an earthquake in Arequipa the second night I was there. It was big enough to wake me up, but it didn´t do any damage. I´m pretty sure it was my first, so that was exciting.

I just spent two really good weeks on the flower farm. I stayed in the home of the farm manager, Gonzalo, and his family, which was great for my Spanish. He and his wife Jasmin have four kids- Kevin is 10, Mireya is 13, Ceci is 15 and Katty is 17 (and away at school in Quito, so she wasn´t really around). The third day that I was there a really nice couple from Colorado came to volunteer as well. Every morning at 6:15 we had breakfast, then all rode over to the farm in the back of the truck. They only grow calla lilies to sell, but they also grow a lot of food for themselves, so most mornings we volunteers spent the first hour or two helping Jasmin and Ceci get the food ready for lunch. We peeled a lot of potatoes and shelled a lot of beans. We spent most of the rest of the time planting a new field of flowers, which meant putting almost 2000 seedlings in holes with some organic fertilizer. We also helped weed and fertilize the older plants. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday they package the flowers that have been ordered. Pretty much all of the orders go to flower stores in the US or Europe, or come in online from individuals. They are extremely picky about which flowers are good enough to send, and throw out a lot with flaws that I would never have noticed. Our only role in the packaging process was to put the plastic sleeves on the acceptable flowers, but it was fascinating to watch them selecting which ones were sellable and which ones should go together in bunches. Besides Gonzalo, Jasmin and the kids, there are seven other employees. Three of them were older men who mostly seemed to just weed and who I didn´t have much contact with. There were also three teenage guys, including two brothers from Colombia who had moved to Ecuador specifically to work on this farm. My impression was that they had worked on flower farms in Colombia, but that there aren´t organic farms there. The non-organic farms don´t have very good reputations for protecting their employees from all of the chemicals they have to use. The other employee was Anita, a thirteen year-old girl who can´t afford to go to school everyday, so she works on the farm Monday-Friday and goes to school only on Saturday. Ecuador doesn´t have free, mandatory public education, so there are a lot of people in her situation. We all ate lunch together at noon, and left at about 3:30. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing the occasional game of uno with the kids, but mostly reading and relaxing. We ate dinner at about 7, then went pretty much straight to bed. One day we helped Jasmin´s father pick strawberries on his relatively large strawberry farm that he works by himself. They were probably the best strawberries I´ve ever had and he encouraged us to eat as many as we could. We ate a lot of fruit there and a lot of potato based soups. I hope that my other wwoofing experiences can live up to this one. The work itself wasn´t always that interesting, but living with the family was great.