cortijo de joaquin

i'm doing some hard work out here. i got my first blister today (since i've been here):

i've been weeding like a madwoman, and i'm not talkin bout kneeling down with no little trowel in a little garden. i'm talkin bout pulling up large amounts of weeds in a vast field where the plants we wanna keep (garbanzo beans/chick peas) are scarce. yes, we are using garden hoes to destroy multiple weeds at once, but the tools are heavy, the sun is hot, and there are a lot of weeds:

the field

the garbanzos with the weeds

the garbanzos after weeding

it's been great a great work-out, though. 

yesterday, i planted my first veggies (since i've been here):

onions

lettuce

and then we went to town for shopping. i found a spanish healthfood store. no matter what country, they always smell the same. #everythingnice

and there are these cheap, little all purpose stores (like dollar stores) which have also been awesome to have around. apparently, they have a similar reputation to beauty supply stores in detroit in that they're usually owned by chinese people:

earlier this week, joaquin whipped out the solar kitchen...!!! never seen this before, but it really works and is totally efficient:

so my day goes like this: 

work at 8am

breakfast at 10am: usually includes bread, chorizo links, cheese, some leftover salad from yesterday, wine, coffee, and cigarettes. i'm typically the only one not participating in the last three. lol.  

more work at 11am

lunch at 2pm: joaquine's wife cooks lunch every day, and we set the table and make a salad. by this point, wine is right on time!

rest around 3pm: maybe wash dishes from lunch, but after that i'm free. i usually spend the rest of the day socializing, studying spanish (thanks lingot!), studying gardening (thanks martha!), watching the cosby show, writing to you, or napping. sometimes i clean or go into town. 

dinner at 8ish pm: leftovers/whatever we can find from lunch from the same or previous day.

bed around whatever time my hand hurts from journaling