Thought you would like to know about a typical day for me at
Rancho Mastatal...
Wake at 5am, find my head torch and go to the
Biodigester toilet, looking out for snakes and spiders on the way.....get dressed, brush teeth, find the key and unlock the front gate, open up the back kitchen door and turn on the fairy lights (they surround the main building), while doing this I am also trying to avoid the piles of toad poo!
By this time it is 530am, I am normally part of the breakfast crew, there are normally three of us.....the top priority is to turn on the coffee pots. As they say I am a good baker I normally make pancakes or muffins (all are American apart from me and a guy from Portugal), I prepare pineapple, melon and papaya, make pancakes and sieve the
kefir,
kefir is rather like yogurt but contains a bug that needs to caught when sieved and also it does not need to be brought to a certain temperature. Breakfast is meant to be served at 7am, we had everything ready at 7.08am, it consisted of the pancakes, fruit, scrambled eggs, rice & beans, granola,
kefir, sauerkraut and syrup served with either coffee or tea. I have to have two bowls as I can't eat sweet and savoury together, the Americans mix their food...
ugggh!
At 8am we have our morning meeting which normally takes 30 minutes, we discuss current projects, any extra tasks that need to be covered that day and any new guests arriving. I then start baking what they call 'snack', cake to you and me.....we have a large group of EMT (emergency medical technician) students who have been with us for almost three weeks, so I am baking for 40 people, I cook in the solar ovens which take at least five hours to bake the cakes, I deliver them to the classroom and wood shop etc at about 3.30pm and always get a great welcome.
I normally try to get to the wood shop by 10am, today I was working on the headboard for my bed, it is the last piece needing to be planed and sanded.
Lunch is called at 1230pm by someone blowing the conch shell, we had black bean soup,
foccacia bread and salad, all the food is freshly prepared and very tasty, two local girls plus one intern prepare the main meals during the week, at the weekend three interns cook.
In the afternoon I volunteered to be a casualty for the EMT group, I had burnt my hand and had to act the part 5 times over, my throat became rather sore with the screaming, I was given a t-shirt for donating my time.
I normally have a shower (cold) at 530pm and change into clean clothes (not clean really but cleaner than what I have been wearing all day). Dinner is called at 7pm again via the Conch shell, we gather and form a circle, we have a few seconds silence and then depending on how you feel give thanks to others for things they have helped you with that day or take a few moments to think of family/friends we are thinking about. Dinner tonight was Bagels that had been cooked in the cob oven, lots of different toppings including, humus, tomatoes, tomatoes, cheese, cucumber, avocado, peanut butter, pesto and hot sauce, very very yummy.
In the evening, there is what they call ping-pong (table tennis), I normally play cards...at 9pm myself and the two other girls that sleep at the Ranch start closing everything down and announce to those still here that we need our beds, all is quiet by 9.30pm and I fall into bed exhausted.
