Pictures: Daniel and Alex's turn at attempting to split a coconut tree, purty flowers, the laundary machine (or lack there of), tarantula, Carmen cleaning tiles, wwoofers hanging at the community kitchen
two weeks ago we arrived on a magical slice of land in palenque, mexico--not too far from the ancient mayan ruins...
the farm is owned by manuel, a full blooded mexican born in the states but who wandered back to mexico in the early 70's and drew him to the town of palenque which was then only 3,000 people now 100,00. his land was once 25 acres of pasture land and now it is once again a thriving jungle, due to his reforestation with his own hands! he is even trying to get it protected by the government as a reserve, which would be great.
he and his wife anita (a social activist working to preserve indigenous culture) have built by hand, cement, and mostly recycled materials the few structures that stand there. a community cabin, an open air kitchen, a composting toilet, and their own 2 floored house.
manuel is the man with the plan-- a student of aikido and tai chi for 30 plus years not to mention art projects from a childrens theater to a dojo-- they have only been taking volunteers recently to help transform the farm into an educational center where foreigners can work side by side with locals... learning and teaching about sustainable ways of living and farming.
manuel is anti-money and pro-living and most of all manuel is a storyteller. whether its his own adventures or from the cast back of myths and legends he knows about the ancient mayan magic he has the gift of word and uses it as he sees fit. not hearing enough of them was the biggest drawback of having only a short time there.
the volunteers were a great group which when we arrived included 2 americans, 2 french canadians, 2 isrealis, 1 australian, and 1 german.... lots of philosophical talk to and later we even got free workshops on the mayan calendar from one volunteer--
our work included cleaning tiles, sorting junk as if treasure of: what can be re-used what might possible be re-used, what may never be re-used and what is simply a pile of biting ant infested crap! then thatch sorting--thatch for roofing, thatch for mulching, shoveling and sifting cement and breaking up a floor.....phEW
not too mention avoiding tarantulas the size of my hand and geckos and scorpion skeletons! all to the sound of cicadas and cats and dogs barking and cows mooing and of course howler monkeys sounding like dinosaurs!
it was aMaZing!!!!
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