A & C

Winter is Coming Hello to all! We have officially surpassed the 6th week of our journey. Crazy stuff! We had our first official snow day this week, a surprise to wake up to completely white all around us. Something us California (previously Arizona and Nevada) folk are not used to. It lasted for a day and now is gone, but it definitely was a little taste of what the Patagonia winter time entails. This week was not wildly different, with similar tasks including babysitting, pick-ax work on the roads, moving and feeding animals, cutting firewood, etc. Although, trying to find, cut, and trek firewood in the snow was something we have never done before. Let's just say the fingers were a bit chilly. Connor did have a new experience of being the first of us to get shocked by the electric fence for the pigs! Thankfully it was the smaller/less intense fence and he only compared it to a cramp in one of his fingers. For the women out there, I finally got to play some futbol with the guys - a...

  On Our Toes This week's theme is toes. Here in el campo, we are always being kept on our toes! You never know what you might come across, be asked to do, or what the day will bring. Also, due to the amount of walking and wearing rain boots everywhere that don't quite fit our feet, our toes are hurting! I have noticed that both the toes/feet as well as the hands/fingers have been experiencing new ailments and sensations just because they are being used so dang much. There has been a lot of flexibility learned this last week, especially as we see even clearer the cultural differences between here and the United States. Connor and I are learning that we don't always need all the "comforts" that we typically have on a day to day or moment by moment basis. This, of course, includes all the larger items I've already discussed such as not having a heater in our room or as many material items that we typically do in our usual life. But, we have found this theme on a...

ONE MONTH!!!  How has it already been one month here? Time truly is flying, especially when the weekdays are filled with lots of tasks. It is strange to feel both that we are in the routine and also still so new to everything here. Overall, it was a week of challenges and really great moments. As things start to become more routine and not AS new and exciting, it is interesting what needs and wants start to surface. The first few weeks are filled with new people, new experiences, and a new location. You want to be a part of everything and soak it all up. And then, all of a sudden, you realize you haven't had a moment to yourself for weeks. Now it is finding the balance of our own needs in this space. It has also been a challenge to truly be so inexperienced at most of the things we are doing here. Some activities we are figuring out with some good ole common sense and others require a bit more trial and error. Trying to remind myself that the growth is GROWING in these moments when...