And what do you know? I’ve managed to start it. Haha
Anyway, as you hopefully would have guessed… I’m still alive!!! The only things I’ve been bitten by haven’t poisonous, I haven’t developed any terminal diseases yet nor have I participated in activities that are likely to jeopardise my health or sanity. So things are going well.
Over the last few days I have been waking up at 5.00 to start work at 5.30. Breakfast is at 7.30 and then the second stint of work is from 8.30 to 12.30. After that you are free to do as you please.
I spent the first morning with Eugenio, taking the goats out to places where they can eat their fill, goat herding in other words. You soon come to realize that they all have there own characters.
You have the leader, a middle aged brown goat with a very un-lady-like moustache. If ever she changes direction, chooses a new spot or simply stands there looking confused, all the other goats seem to feel that that is the right thing to do and copy. You then have the ‘8 Terrors’. They were still youngsters but entering the mischievous age of the teenage years. They spend most of there time attempting to hide from you or re-enact scenes from the great escape and double back so that you spend ours looking for them. Luckily we had the better of them this time and caught them on all four occasions. And you also have the ‘ickle babies’. There are three of them. The twins were a month old but still felt it necessary to seek the comfort of their surrogate mothers (us). The other was just a week old and is so unbelievably cute. 
He thinks that the other two are his mentors and follows them everywhere. But because he’s so small he keeps tripping over things and falling into bushes or even just long grass. This then prevents him from seeing his buddies so he has a paddy as he doesn’t know what to do. I must say it is so funny to watch.Yesterday, I went milking in the morning and that involved milking 15 goats. Although the actual process and technique isn’t particularly difficult, and I seemed to do ok, but by the time you are doing your 5th goat your hands start to ache a little. Actually that’s a lie, by the time I was on my 4th I could barely hold the teat let alone squeeze the thing. But not wanting to lose face I persisted. But I heard that over time you get used to it. I hope so because my hands ached and had no strength for ages. Despite this I really enjoyed milking and that afternoon it was my turn to clean out the goat shed and clean and fill up the water buckets and food troughs.
I’ve also been helping in the gardens with Eduardo. This morning I was busy watering the terraces when, almost to say that I wasn’t doing it correctly, I was introduced to the reason why it is called the rainy season. Although it didn’t seem any heavier than that in England, it seemed to soak you through and through in an instant. I later found out that wasn’t ‘real’ rain and that I should see it when it ‘really’ rains. But even so I thought it was pretty wet.
Oh yes, I turns out, it’s hot in Costa Rica! Who’d have thought? The first full day was particularly warm and I made some fatal mistakes. Wearing black whilst goat herding wasn’t bright (literally!!! hahahah, ok, ignore that little pun, I couldn’t help myself), neither was forgetting to bring water. Then spending the rest of the day outside in the sun wasn’t the most intelligent thing I have ever done either. I did put sun cream on so I didn’t get burned, but playing volleyball all afternoon with the community as well, was just asking for trouble.
That night I started feeling the head aches. It took the whole of the next day and night for me to get over it properly, so that my head stopped swimming, but I learned from my experience. Just for the record, sun stroke isn’t fun. But it’s all good now and I don’t think I’ve ever drunk more water in the space of two days in my life.
Anyway, as they say here…
Ciao
