Being as it's an itchless, painless fungus, I actually don't know exactly what day that was. I thought it was just a few little sunspots on my shoulders, but after inspecting my back, my doctor informed me it's in fact a benign fungus growing on me. Even if I had mirrors, I wouldn't be able to see my back, so I had no idea what was going on back there! She gave me a cream, which strangely consists of the same ingredients as dandruff shampoo, so hopefully that will take care of it.
So I moved into my new house yesterday, and what an adventure it was. I spent the entire day Saturday cleaning out 50 years worth of the former owners' belongings (no matter what country they are from, old people sure do like to collect junk), not to mention 2 years worth of dust, cobwebs, and insect corpses. It's quite the interesting house, part cement, with the wooden parts infested with termites. 3 bedrooms, a breezeway type area, and a separate kitchen, with the bathroom outside the house, albeit tile with running water! It was a lucky find, even if it is a fixer upper, much like the house I grew up in and will always love. Old house charm, old house problems... Nothing a brand new bed, a teflon pan, and an orange tabby cat can't cure! I'm going to pick him up in a few days, and his name will be Chinola: a yellow, tart fruit that makes delicious smoothies!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Back to the Campo…which is the exact opposite of Back to the Future (written 8.21.08)
Upon my return yesterday from a somewhat extended leave (necessitated by training and meetings, elongated by a desire to spend time with friends), I was met by the distinct feeling that someone has been sleeping in my bed.
My host parents have had lots of visitors in the past week (including their grandson who has doubled in size since the last time I saw him, which makes a strange kind of sense since he has also doubled in age: from 2 months to 4 months), and as my sheets were tucked in very differently than when I left, I have no choice but to believe someone slept there. I hope they at least washed the sheets afterward, but I kinda doubt it…
Coming home this evening (after a long but productive first day back) when the electricity had been out almost the entire day meant coming home to no running water as well, since the loss of power kills our aqueduct. In desperate need of a shower (bucket bath, whatever), there I went, out the back door to fill a bucket with water from our plastic storage bins. Our bathing buckets are heavy once filled with storage water, which is less than crystal clean - the lid doesn't quite keep out all the bugs and dirt. Without electricity, however, I can't really see what I'm doing in the bathroom, let alone what might be lurking in my bathwater. So I clumsily lugged the bucket into the bathroom, ignored the creepy crawlies I had seen floating by light of headlamp, and enjoyed the cool water.
Things always work out in this country somehow…
My host parents have had lots of visitors in the past week (including their grandson who has doubled in size since the last time I saw him, which makes a strange kind of sense since he has also doubled in age: from 2 months to 4 months), and as my sheets were tucked in very differently than when I left, I have no choice but to believe someone slept there. I hope they at least washed the sheets afterward, but I kinda doubt it…
Coming home this evening (after a long but productive first day back) when the electricity had been out almost the entire day meant coming home to no running water as well, since the loss of power kills our aqueduct. In desperate need of a shower (bucket bath, whatever), there I went, out the back door to fill a bucket with water from our plastic storage bins. Our bathing buckets are heavy once filled with storage water, which is less than crystal clean - the lid doesn't quite keep out all the bugs and dirt. Without electricity, however, I can't really see what I'm doing in the bathroom, let alone what might be lurking in my bathwater. So I clumsily lugged the bucket into the bathroom, ignored the creepy crawlies I had seen floating by light of headlamp, and enjoyed the cool water.
Things always work out in this country somehow…
Friday, August 15, 2008
Today
Today I realized that the kids I'm teaching to read may have a hard time retaining information because they're not getting the majority of the vitamins and minerals that they need for mental and physical development. Anyone wanna send some Flinstone vitamins?
Today I laughed at the sight of two motorcyclists with used rice sacks mounted on their bikes as if they were saddlebags, each stuffed with live, medium size, fuzzy pigs.
Today I said no to a ride on a motorcycle (with my bag) in which I was expected to ride squished in between a preteen boy and snaggle-tooth the motorcycle driver. Sometimes, you just have to be a little bit picky. And when I did get on a different motorcycle, I was distracted by the weird but common stickers: one yellow sick-face, and one angry black skull with a third red eye. Strange.
Today I realized that taking these motorcycle rides is like watching a movie of the DR. All the bits and pieces of the view that I see, like someone carrying buckets to a water source or a doña sweeping her dirt yard, seem much less like a part of my life when I'm zooming by and headed to the city.
Today I did NOT smack the man sitting next to me on a bus, as he noisily rearranged his mucus, sucked his teeth, and readjusted his crotch, all the way to the capital. But I really wanted to.
Today, on this same bus, I recognized a sweets-seller who had ridden with me the last time I made this journey to the capital. This really is a small country.
Today I laughed at the sight of two motorcyclists with used rice sacks mounted on their bikes as if they were saddlebags, each stuffed with live, medium size, fuzzy pigs.
Today I said no to a ride on a motorcycle (with my bag) in which I was expected to ride squished in between a preteen boy and snaggle-tooth the motorcycle driver. Sometimes, you just have to be a little bit picky. And when I did get on a different motorcycle, I was distracted by the weird but common stickers: one yellow sick-face, and one angry black skull with a third red eye. Strange.
Today I realized that taking these motorcycle rides is like watching a movie of the DR. All the bits and pieces of the view that I see, like someone carrying buckets to a water source or a doña sweeping her dirt yard, seem much less like a part of my life when I'm zooming by and headed to the city.
Today I did NOT smack the man sitting next to me on a bus, as he noisily rearranged his mucus, sucked his teeth, and readjusted his crotch, all the way to the capital. But I really wanted to.
Today, on this same bus, I recognized a sweets-seller who had ridden with me the last time I made this journey to the capital. This really is a small country.
A Measure of Intensity ( 8.3.08)
In conversation with a friend today, he voiced the opinion that he was a little disappointed because Peace Corps Dominican Republic is not as "intense" as Peace Corps in some other countries, and therefore not as challenging/rewarding for him. I'm of a different school of thought - one that says it's all relative, and it doesn't matter that I don't live among loin-cloth-wearing, teeth-sharpening-aborigines (my anthropology professors will surely kill me after reading this), because I still work hard and do my best to meet adversity head-on every day. Little did I know what THIS day had in store for me.
I had to go to Santiago today, about an hour away, for a meeting about a youth conference that we're planning in my region. Although most of the volunteers at the meeting had planned to stay the night in Santiago, I headed back to my site around 6:00 because I have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning. About 15 minutes into my trip, it started to rain.
We climbed the mountain in a bus. It rained harder. It got a little darker. When I arrived to the point in my journey where I have to switch from bus to motorcycle (really, there's no other way to get home), the sun was setting and the rain was hard and steady. I took shelter under a little palm shack with other travelers and motorcycle drivers, and prepared to wait out the storm. An hour later, in the complete darkness (even summer light doesn't last past 8:00), fully aware that there is a hurricane off the northwest cost of the island that would probably mean steady rain for the rest of the evening, I took the plunge. In a light cotton dress (clearly), with my computer (of course) wrapped in a plastic bag, I set off on the most miserable 15 minute trip of my life. Barreling up and down the mountain-side, soaked to the bone, clutching my bad in complete darkness, I thought about all the other volunteers in the country and what they might be doing at that moment. I happened to be aware that at least 15 were staying the night together in Santiago, and another 15 or so were hanging out and working together in the capital, so I couldn't help but think: dang, somewhere along the way, I made a wrong turn.
When we got to the bottom of the hill where I live, the motorcycle driver left me to complete the rest of the journey on foot. (He wasn't being a jerk - even on sunny days, it's nearly impossible for them to get all the way to my house.) Praying for lightning to light my way with every step, I talked myself home through the pitch-black puddles, calf deep in muddy water. "You're almost there. Come on lightning. I can see the house now." That sort of thing. In the final crossing of the street-turned-river in front of my house, I lost both of my flip-flops.
Well. That was just more than I could take. I stormed (ha) barefoot and dripping wet into the house, put down my soggy belongings, grabbed my headlamp and headed back out the door. I found one flop immediately, and although the other had been carried quite a ways by the raging mud stream, I let out a triumphant "aha!" when I saw the red straps ahead lit up by my headlamp.
The rest is details. Showered quickly, set things out to dry on every surface in the house, ate dinner and talked a bit with my host parents. Unfortunately, in the hustle and bustle of mounting the motorcycle, the books in my backpack did not get covered by a plastic bag. Oh well, they'll dry in the sun.
Moral of the story: it's impossible, and even dangerous to one's stability, to try to compare one's Peace Corps experience to that of anyone else's, in the same country or otherwise. There are good days, and there are bad days. We count our losses and hope for the best. In my case, it was worth it to take the plunge, and the right decision, because had I waited until just this moment, the rain would have still been steadily coming down.
I had to go to Santiago today, about an hour away, for a meeting about a youth conference that we're planning in my region. Although most of the volunteers at the meeting had planned to stay the night in Santiago, I headed back to my site around 6:00 because I have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning. About 15 minutes into my trip, it started to rain.
We climbed the mountain in a bus. It rained harder. It got a little darker. When I arrived to the point in my journey where I have to switch from bus to motorcycle (really, there's no other way to get home), the sun was setting and the rain was hard and steady. I took shelter under a little palm shack with other travelers and motorcycle drivers, and prepared to wait out the storm. An hour later, in the complete darkness (even summer light doesn't last past 8:00), fully aware that there is a hurricane off the northwest cost of the island that would probably mean steady rain for the rest of the evening, I took the plunge. In a light cotton dress (clearly), with my computer (of course) wrapped in a plastic bag, I set off on the most miserable 15 minute trip of my life. Barreling up and down the mountain-side, soaked to the bone, clutching my bad in complete darkness, I thought about all the other volunteers in the country and what they might be doing at that moment. I happened to be aware that at least 15 were staying the night together in Santiago, and another 15 or so were hanging out and working together in the capital, so I couldn't help but think: dang, somewhere along the way, I made a wrong turn.
When we got to the bottom of the hill where I live, the motorcycle driver left me to complete the rest of the journey on foot. (He wasn't being a jerk - even on sunny days, it's nearly impossible for them to get all the way to my house.) Praying for lightning to light my way with every step, I talked myself home through the pitch-black puddles, calf deep in muddy water. "You're almost there. Come on lightning. I can see the house now." That sort of thing. In the final crossing of the street-turned-river in front of my house, I lost both of my flip-flops.
Well. That was just more than I could take. I stormed (ha) barefoot and dripping wet into the house, put down my soggy belongings, grabbed my headlamp and headed back out the door. I found one flop immediately, and although the other had been carried quite a ways by the raging mud stream, I let out a triumphant "aha!" when I saw the red straps ahead lit up by my headlamp.
The rest is details. Showered quickly, set things out to dry on every surface in the house, ate dinner and talked a bit with my host parents. Unfortunately, in the hustle and bustle of mounting the motorcycle, the books in my backpack did not get covered by a plastic bag. Oh well, they'll dry in the sun.
Moral of the story: it's impossible, and even dangerous to one's stability, to try to compare one's Peace Corps experience to that of anyone else's, in the same country or otherwise. There are good days, and there are bad days. We count our losses and hope for the best. In my case, it was worth it to take the plunge, and the right decision, because had I waited until just this moment, the rain would have still been steadily coming down.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
American Dinner (written 8.1.08)
Tonight I had my second exhausting but rewarding literacy class. There's a family that lives near me in a dirt-floored, small house with 5 kids ranging from ages 9-23, none of whom can read. They all failed school this year and will be held back a grade, but they're not getting any of the individual attention they need to move forward. How can they be expected to pass if they don't know the alphabet? Dominican "chisme" (gossip) is an ugly thing, and I've already been told by more than one person that these kids have trouble with information "entering their minds". This, clearly, makes me even more determined to help in whatever way I can, to show the community that they're NOT stupid, and that everyone deserves a chance.
After traveling to the "city" today (the closest community with a paved road and pharmacy), I returned with a laminated copy of the alphabet which I presented to a family of eager students. When I arrived at their house, they were all working together to build a pig sty, but immediately sat down with me, mom and dad included, to practice letters, common sounds, and small words (I actually have no idea how to teach someone to read, so I'm learning right along with them). Mom pretended to be sitting in as disciplinarian, but soon indirectly revealed to me that she doesn't know how to read either. I can already tell this is going to be a difficult, tiring, but extremely satisfying endeavor. I need to get some beginner Spanish books ASAP!
My host dad's mother, who is surprisingly lucid at her age, is currently visiting from the capital. She came bearing gifts (a common custom to which I've quickly learned to adhere), one of which couldn't have been more American if you slapped it with the Star-Spangled Banner and wrapped it in the ole red white and blue: an oversized can of chunky beef stew. My host parents were puzzled, my host mom actually thinking it was a can of juice at first, and then thrilled when they realized it was an American food item, with an English label, that I would be familiar with. My host dad shared it with me for dinner tonight, amidst questions like "so how does it not go bad in the can?" I finished off the meal with a mental note of yet another item that I can add to the list of things to bring as a gift from the city; of things that thrill them and that I would never think twice about.
After traveling to the "city" today (the closest community with a paved road and pharmacy), I returned with a laminated copy of the alphabet which I presented to a family of eager students. When I arrived at their house, they were all working together to build a pig sty, but immediately sat down with me, mom and dad included, to practice letters, common sounds, and small words (I actually have no idea how to teach someone to read, so I'm learning right along with them). Mom pretended to be sitting in as disciplinarian, but soon indirectly revealed to me that she doesn't know how to read either. I can already tell this is going to be a difficult, tiring, but extremely satisfying endeavor. I need to get some beginner Spanish books ASAP!
My host dad's mother, who is surprisingly lucid at her age, is currently visiting from the capital. She came bearing gifts (a common custom to which I've quickly learned to adhere), one of which couldn't have been more American if you slapped it with the Star-Spangled Banner and wrapped it in the ole red white and blue: an oversized can of chunky beef stew. My host parents were puzzled, my host mom actually thinking it was a can of juice at first, and then thrilled when they realized it was an American food item, with an English label, that I would be familiar with. My host dad shared it with me for dinner tonight, amidst questions like "so how does it not go bad in the can?" I finished off the meal with a mental note of yet another item that I can add to the list of things to bring as a gift from the city; of things that thrill them and that I would never think twice about.
Friday, August 1, 2008
A Day for the Records (7.31.08)
The fact that I'm too brain-dead to write is probably a good sign that I should. An epic day such as this need not go undocumented! It all started with an extended stay at the poop farm…
Let me back up. It started with hot-dog buns and hot chocolate for breakfast. THEN it proceeded to the poop farm. I was standing on the side of the road in one of my favored cell phone spots when a friend drove by in a pick-up truck and informed me that he was going to a cow farm to pick up manure. That stuff is like gold around here, especially to an environmental volunteer who constantly needs it for compost piles, so I happily hopped aboard, gleeful that mounds and mounds of drying dung was in my immediate future.
We got to the farm, upon which sits a beautifully renovated colonial ranch house, and approximately 36 enormous milk cows. If you remember that I had been picked up unprepared on the side of the road, my apparel of tank-top and flip-flops doesn't seem quite so ridiculously inappropriate for the task at hand. Be that as it may, I was ill-equipped, and content to sit and watch as my friends shoveled load after load into old rice sacks.
When they were done filling the sacks, we loaded up the bright green pick-up, prettily perched atop the steep hills of the poop farm, and were preparing to leave, when a turn of the key in the ignition produced a stomach-wrenching "click-click-click". This went on for entirely too long, accompanied by some very uninformed tinkering under the hood, and finally they decided the most intelligent solution was to push the loaded vehicle tail first down a muddy hill, lined on both sides by chicken-wire fencing and grasses taller than me, intended to feed work animals. Everyone, including myself, was surprisingly resigned to this idea, which made precious little sense when you consider other options (anyone ever heard of jumper cables?), and until the truck began rolling as a result of vein-splitting pushes, we were all cheering for motion. When the pick-up finally made it over the mini-manure mounds that stood in its way, however, we all realized our error. Too late to do anything but stand dumbly, jaws agape, as the truck plunged its appropriately poop-filled tail-end through the fence and into the tall grasses. I'm still not sure what happened, maybe the brakes went out or the driver couldn't control it without power-steering, but there it was, butt first into the bushes on a mean slope of cow poo.
The rest of the activities that relate to this event were peripheral. In waiting for the "mechanic" to try to start the truck with jumper cables (so they DO exist here!), I walked down to the house and met the owners, and possibly my future kittens. She had the sweetest litter, and I'm going to have a hard time choosing between the classic orange tabby, and the black and grey tabby with white paws. They're by far the healthiest cats I've seen in this country, as Dominicans tend to think of them as either rat traps or food. Unable to get the vehicle moving, we returned to the community by motorcycle, hereby ending my involvement in the poop-capades.
After returning home famished and caught by the rain, I devoured my late lunch and took a bucket bath, which took ages longer than usual because something is up with our aqueduct that has reduced available water to a trickle. Still, I felt like a new person afterward, and decided to start on a fundraiser for a camp to which I'm taking 2 teens. To raise the money we need in part, we're going to sell bracelets made from recycled plastic bags. I was cutting up the bits on my front porch, and on a whim, sent for Alex, a girlfriend who lives nearby, to help me. Alex arrived alright - and with 10 kids in tow. I took a deep breath and prepared for this activity to turn into yet another in which I feel more like a babysitter than a development worker. At least they cranked out a ton of bracelets!
Energy completely destroyed, I prepared for my 5:30 meeting of Brigada Verde, which actually went surprisingly well. We wrote thank-you cards to the hardware stores that have donated materials, planned fundraisers for the camp (because selling 15 cent bracelets just isn't going to cut it), and played dominoes with painted river rocks. Dragging myself home, tired but content, I was greeted happily by my neighbors. My heart was unexpectedly touched by a father son pair who sat on their front porch working on a faulty moped, the former instructing the latter in mechanics; I'm constantly surprised by the comfort I receive from little things.
Let me back up. It started with hot-dog buns and hot chocolate for breakfast. THEN it proceeded to the poop farm. I was standing on the side of the road in one of my favored cell phone spots when a friend drove by in a pick-up truck and informed me that he was going to a cow farm to pick up manure. That stuff is like gold around here, especially to an environmental volunteer who constantly needs it for compost piles, so I happily hopped aboard, gleeful that mounds and mounds of drying dung was in my immediate future.
We got to the farm, upon which sits a beautifully renovated colonial ranch house, and approximately 36 enormous milk cows. If you remember that I had been picked up unprepared on the side of the road, my apparel of tank-top and flip-flops doesn't seem quite so ridiculously inappropriate for the task at hand. Be that as it may, I was ill-equipped, and content to sit and watch as my friends shoveled load after load into old rice sacks.
When they were done filling the sacks, we loaded up the bright green pick-up, prettily perched atop the steep hills of the poop farm, and were preparing to leave, when a turn of the key in the ignition produced a stomach-wrenching "click-click-click". This went on for entirely too long, accompanied by some very uninformed tinkering under the hood, and finally they decided the most intelligent solution was to push the loaded vehicle tail first down a muddy hill, lined on both sides by chicken-wire fencing and grasses taller than me, intended to feed work animals. Everyone, including myself, was surprisingly resigned to this idea, which made precious little sense when you consider other options (anyone ever heard of jumper cables?), and until the truck began rolling as a result of vein-splitting pushes, we were all cheering for motion. When the pick-up finally made it over the mini-manure mounds that stood in its way, however, we all realized our error. Too late to do anything but stand dumbly, jaws agape, as the truck plunged its appropriately poop-filled tail-end through the fence and into the tall grasses. I'm still not sure what happened, maybe the brakes went out or the driver couldn't control it without power-steering, but there it was, butt first into the bushes on a mean slope of cow poo.
The rest of the activities that relate to this event were peripheral. In waiting for the "mechanic" to try to start the truck with jumper cables (so they DO exist here!), I walked down to the house and met the owners, and possibly my future kittens. She had the sweetest litter, and I'm going to have a hard time choosing between the classic orange tabby, and the black and grey tabby with white paws. They're by far the healthiest cats I've seen in this country, as Dominicans tend to think of them as either rat traps or food. Unable to get the vehicle moving, we returned to the community by motorcycle, hereby ending my involvement in the poop-capades.
After returning home famished and caught by the rain, I devoured my late lunch and took a bucket bath, which took ages longer than usual because something is up with our aqueduct that has reduced available water to a trickle. Still, I felt like a new person afterward, and decided to start on a fundraiser for a camp to which I'm taking 2 teens. To raise the money we need in part, we're going to sell bracelets made from recycled plastic bags. I was cutting up the bits on my front porch, and on a whim, sent for Alex, a girlfriend who lives nearby, to help me. Alex arrived alright - and with 10 kids in tow. I took a deep breath and prepared for this activity to turn into yet another in which I feel more like a babysitter than a development worker. At least they cranked out a ton of bracelets!
Energy completely destroyed, I prepared for my 5:30 meeting of Brigada Verde, which actually went surprisingly well. We wrote thank-you cards to the hardware stores that have donated materials, planned fundraisers for the camp (because selling 15 cent bracelets just isn't going to cut it), and played dominoes with painted river rocks. Dragging myself home, tired but content, I was greeted happily by my neighbors. My heart was unexpectedly touched by a father son pair who sat on their front porch working on a faulty moped, the former instructing the latter in mechanics; I'm constantly surprised by the comfort I receive from little things.
The Plight of the Thumbless (written 7.25.08)
You can't eat mangos with just one thumb. Maybe you can if you're a Dominican, or a primate, but not if you're an inexperienced mango-eating American…like me. So when I got back to my site today after a few days in the capital, craving the end of season mangos, I paid no mind to my band-aid covered appendage and dug right in to the sweet fruit that will be out of season all too soon.
My thumb was covered with this "curativa" because last week, in an effort to peel an eggplant with a machete posing as a kitchen knife, I clumsily cut myself. I was using my vegetable peeler, but when my host mom decided it was taking off too much of the inner vegetable, she replaced it with this huge blade. Just as I was thinking, "this is ridiculous, I have no idea how to use this and am going to cut myself", that's exactly what happened. I cut a deep gash in my left (lucky!) thumb, which would not stop bleeding and scared my poor host mom even more than me. I held it over my head, pressed against a piece of paper until it was numb and only slowly bleeding, while simultaneously talking Mamín (host mom) off a ledge - she felt responsible for giving me the knife, and I spent the rest of the day convincing her that the fault was mine. We finally met in the middle and agreed the knife (machete) was the guilty party.
After a trip to the capital to see friends and use the internet (and even steal a dip in the embassy pool!), it's always a bit hard to begin the 4 ½ hour voyage back to my site. Less than an hour into my return, however, my comfortable campo life came back to me and I was glad to be home. Today I did a few interviews, met some new people that live at the other end of my community (which is quite the hike), and after a conversation with a young girl who very much enjoys caring for all the plant-life on her patio, was gifted some lemongrass roots to plant at my house. I told her I had been looking for it for several months and was so excited to be able to grow and make my own tea! I was also gifted some oranges (the people in my community are really generous) which Mamín made into an excellent juice to accompany my dinner. It's so neat to bring things home from surrounding plant-life and watch her turn them into a staple of our diet. As for the lemongrass, we planted it using compost from our pile (hard-work pays off!) and chopped off the tall leaves to make tea, which I can smell drifting my way from the kitchen as I write.
My thumb was covered with this "curativa" because last week, in an effort to peel an eggplant with a machete posing as a kitchen knife, I clumsily cut myself. I was using my vegetable peeler, but when my host mom decided it was taking off too much of the inner vegetable, she replaced it with this huge blade. Just as I was thinking, "this is ridiculous, I have no idea how to use this and am going to cut myself", that's exactly what happened. I cut a deep gash in my left (lucky!) thumb, which would not stop bleeding and scared my poor host mom even more than me. I held it over my head, pressed against a piece of paper until it was numb and only slowly bleeding, while simultaneously talking Mamín (host mom) off a ledge - she felt responsible for giving me the knife, and I spent the rest of the day convincing her that the fault was mine. We finally met in the middle and agreed the knife (machete) was the guilty party.
After a trip to the capital to see friends and use the internet (and even steal a dip in the embassy pool!), it's always a bit hard to begin the 4 ½ hour voyage back to my site. Less than an hour into my return, however, my comfortable campo life came back to me and I was glad to be home. Today I did a few interviews, met some new people that live at the other end of my community (which is quite the hike), and after a conversation with a young girl who very much enjoys caring for all the plant-life on her patio, was gifted some lemongrass roots to plant at my house. I told her I had been looking for it for several months and was so excited to be able to grow and make my own tea! I was also gifted some oranges (the people in my community are really generous) which Mamín made into an excellent juice to accompany my dinner. It's so neat to bring things home from surrounding plant-life and watch her turn them into a staple of our diet. As for the lemongrass, we planted it using compost from our pile (hard-work pays off!) and chopped off the tall leaves to make tea, which I can smell drifting my way from the kitchen as I write.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)