My 4.15 alarm went off as per usual and Devon and I stumbled through the dark up to the volley ball court for morning exercises. However, today our reception party consisted of Ikedo only (the dog). But instead of going down we sat for a few minutes watching the flashes of lightning, illuminating the skies over the opposite mountain range. This happens most mornings but it was nice to watch bright white light uncover the cloud formation for that brief instant.
But then as true teenagers, we saw this as another opportunity to get a little bit more sleep. However, within 20 minutes I was woken again, this time by Nata, telling me that I was washing the goats that morning and we were starting earlier than usual.
Washing the goats. Now this job is great fun. It consists of dragging the goats into the smaller pen to be hosed down, scrubbed clean with soapy water and then rinsed off for good measure. Fantastic fun. They don’t do it very often but the special occasion is marked with some put-out looking goats.
Some of the goats accept their fate and will ‘come easily’ and get it over and done with, but others, well they don’t see it in quite the same way. The sheer terror on their faces gives you the impression that they are thoroughly convinced that they are walking to their doom. They soon find out that their ‘doom’ isn’t anywhere as painful as they are expecting, but is a lot better smelling and very wet. So, as you can imagine I spent must of my time chuckling at them.
The funniest moments were when the males had to get washed. The leader of the ‘8 terrors’ is a young grey male. He has one of those personalities where ego and looks are everything, so getting a ‘bath time’ was something that would seriously damage his ‘cool goat’ reputation. You could see his reputation drop every time white bubbly soap was slapped onto his back. It was so funny. But ‘el macho’s’ (the male goat’s) was ever better/ worse.
We took him from his little hut down into the main hut for his ‘bath time’. So there he was… the top dog (goat) strutting his stuff as he swaggered into the pen. He was there with his babes and you had to remind him every now and then that he was not to go and ‘introduce himself’ to the ladies, with a short tug on his rope. But then it all went down hill for him. In front of all his girls, he was tied up, and then hosed down and soaped! Imagine his embarrassment! Ouch it’s going to take him a while to recover from that blow! But nah, it was really important to stop them getting infections or illnesses and stuff. We found one goat that had a botfly in her, or rather its maggot form. Botflies will land on an animal (or human!!!) and then lay its eggs on them. Then the larvae burrow into the skin and begin to grow! (or at least it goes something like that. Either way, the larvae end up in your skin and they are not pleasant) To get them out you have to squeeze it like a big spot until you get the bug out.
Anyway, after breakfast I went with Christina and Melissa to the old vegetable garden. It’s a little way from the community and I had not been before. It was more of the usual in that I was breaking off new shoots from the main sweat potato plant and replanting it. Unfortunately, it turned out that it wasn’t only plants that like the amazingly fertile soil. I remember wondering why there was a large mound in the middle off the row, precisely where I was going to plant the next plant. As soon as my spade entered the soil, the ground began to move. Or rather the ‘ormagas’ (ants) began to move. I kid you not, there were thousands of them and that wasn’t the only mound around. The girls thought it hilarious that I wasn’t so keen on them and they showed me with ease how to do it. Either way, ‘!!!no megusta las ormagas!!!’ (I don’t like ants!!!). But yeah they were everywhere.But once that was finished I helped weed. The soil was so rich and fertile that it was so easy to pull the weeds up. And, you won’t believe it, especially you mum, but I actually really enjoyed doing it!!! So much so that I turned down the offer to plant plants instead, and continued weeding!!! I think Durika must be getting to me because we all know that I will try every trick in the book to get out of weeding at home, even if that means going to my room and doing some course work. But yes it was so therapeutic.
However, the highlight came toward the end. I have come to love watching the parakeets flying low over the forests. They fly in small groups of maybe 10 or 12 and make a huge racket as they go. But for what ever reason I love watching them. So when we were weeding on the edge of the ridge in the exposed area that is the vegetable garden, and we heard the distinctive calls of the parakeets, we all stood up. And then in an instant they rounded the edge of the ridge and flew straight between us. It was so amazing, they were flying a meter off the ground and simply darted in between us and off into the valley. It felt like something from the movies, and for me it was one of the highlights so far. To be honest it wasn’t that big a thing, but the feeling of them flying amongst us on the edge of a mountain was something magical.
Well, already then I was having a fantastic day, so the birthday party in the evening with dancing and karaoke was just the ‘cherry on top’.
All in all the day wasn’t too far out of the ordinary, but for me, it was something extraordinary and very special.
