21 March 2010 - More farming (or something like it)...

We have been volunteering on Earth Rose Farm for a week and it has been quite the learning (and eye opening) experience. Before arriving here we had read various travel blogs online about the farm's owners Rosie and Maji (see here). Some people had painted them as loopy hippies and others as incompetent gringos out of their depth on a Costa Rican farm. Both of these views are at least in part true.

Maji (single name only like Madonna) is an aging hippy in his mid 60s living out his dream by owning a farm in Costa Rica, a dream that is somewhat undermined by the fact that he spends six months of the year living in retirement-ville Florida watching the Boston Red Sox on his flat screen TV. He loves the sound of his own voice and has a very specific way of doing just about everything although a heart condition prevents him from doing any of the work on the land. Mealtimes are when he attempts to hold court, chancing his arm at just about any subject and arbuptly changing topics when they don't suit him.

Rosie, his wife, is an amiable and down to earth woman who is always keen to chat and to talk about her gardens and beloved chickens. She is knowledgeable and practical as is evidenced by her management of her three small vegetable gardens - the only successful areas of the farm. She is also a good source for clear concise answers to questions about the work on the farm.

The farm itself is around 45 acres of hillside leading down to a river and is made up of some pasture, fruit trees (bananas, mangoes, star fruit, oranges and different varieties of mandarins) and a lot of neglected coffee plants. Maji is also attempting a reforestation project that aims to see hardwood harvested from the farm over the next 15 years.

On arriving the first thing that alarmed us about the farm was that neither Rosie or Maji spoke Spanish which meant that they are more or less isolated from the local community and from their single paid employee Carlos. Watching them try to communicate with him is somewhere between abject farce and complete horror as Maji mangles both the English and Spanish languages before inevitably turning to one of the volunteers to translate Carlos' responses. Then there is the work - taking direction from Maji is painstaking as he seems to have little concept of what he wants to achieve or in what order. When we asked him about his priorities for the farm he told us that maintaining the coffee plants was one of his top two things to focus on. A day earlier he had been lamenting how the coffee harvest was not worthwhile and Rosie had said that she would like to pull all of the plants out. The volunteers here are often put in the middle between the husband and wife owners meaning that often you are best to listen to neither of them and do your own thing.

Our time here would certainly have been negative were it not for the other volunteers. Christina, Kimberley and Brian have made being here worthwhile and provided some hilarious moments along the way (see picture, ably taken by Brian). We have drunk amazing fresh fruit smoothies and freshly squeezed juices every day which has helped to keep us in a (largely) positive mindset. We have decided to forgo days off in order to fulfill the minimum requirement of 15 working days more quickly, and so have 8 days remaining which we are hoping to make as pleasant as possible.

P.S. No note on our last week would be complete without a mention of the wildlife. We have had both a huge spider (6 inches long) and a whopping scorpion (4 inches long) over our bed in recent nights. This has been supplemented by the late night snufflings of an armadillo who mooches about outside the volunteer dormitory most evenings. Every night heading to bed is something of an adventure. Here's hoping for a few quiet nights ahead.