Faldo, our first apprentice writes about his experiences on our farm

Our Adobe blocks drying with Servillio in the back.  Sevillio and his brother have a contract to form the blocks at about 90c per block.

Among the Elements.

I find myself writing those words under the shade of three different trees in one of the numerous pastures of Finca Sagrada, by a warm and pleasant afternoon. Wherever I look around I see beautiful abrupt mountains colored in different shapes of greens with soft purple spots thanks to the current flowering of a grass that indicates the start of the summer. Almost all the way to the top of one of them there are small patches of color that seem to be moving. They are! They are cows.
I arrived here a month ago. And what has been fascinating so far, among other things, is the connection with the four major elements.
I'll start with the Earth. And I sure did get the opportunity to get intimate with it. Be it for clearing up around my shelter, digging beds or the BIG hole for the dry composting toilet. Two things struck me so far. First is the diversity of soils, which takes me back to my winemaking days and the notion of "terroir". On an area no larger than a couple acres one can find black, nutrient rich earth, moist humus top soil, pure sand by the river bed and mixed sandy soil as you go away from it. And the king of all at the moment: the Adobe. Bright reddish fine soil, found on the steep side of our mountain which turns into dark chocolate once mixed with water and dried into the shape of a brick. The second particularity of the soil here is that it shares its space with the mineral worlds: Rocks. They are everywhere: above and under the ground. They come in all shape and size. And there is nothing like hitting the ground with full strength with your shovel only to hit an unshaken rock. It is good personal work if you think of the rock as your ego. So you just dig them out and use them later to design your beds (veggies), paths, walls, oven, benches, meditation seat etc...

Faldo's shelter before the landscape work

One of the views from the shelter

Then comes the Sun...The Fire. It has its habits around here and doesn't like to change them much. It'll always rise at the same time and at the same spot everyday. Same for setting. But what it lacks in flexibility is replaced by power. Even though a full sunny sky is a rare occurrence, thanks to the clouds traveling the Andes on their way to the coast, when it does hit you, you will feel it through your shirt. A hat is non negotiable, even for locals.

The Air. Constantly pushed by the wind through the four or five surrounding valleys, the Air is gentle, never too cold, never too hot. The wind can be fierce though. Thanks to our altitude (6000 ft) and remoteness of our location the air is clean, pure and readily available for that so precious next breath in...

The Water. It is very present on this land. Even though we are supposed to have switched to Summer, it is rare when there is not at least a few drops falling from the sky everyday. But the water is more noticeable here by its sound. Be it the gentle whisper of the small canals dug for irrigation, the soothing flow of the stream, where one can bathe divinely (using biodegradable soap only), or the raging roar of the river a few hundred feet from my bed. I did not sleep well the first few nights I was here, and was attributing this to the newness of everything. But I have to say that using earplugs has seen a tremendous increase of the quality of my sleep.

I could go on and on and tell you about the animals, from hundreds of different kind of insects, spiders, butterflies, dragonflies, fireflies,birds, cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, horses, cows. I could tell you about plants, trees and flowers. I could tell you about the human beings that inhabits this land, locals and foreign. I could tell you about the Spirits of Ancient Souls, fairies and other forces that seem to radiate through every stone, piece of grass and cow dungs. I could tell you about Steiner, biodynamics and etheric forces (actually not quite yet). I could tell you about the night sky filled with...well stars (no UFO yet).

Even our cow patties have a smile

But I won't...yet. What I will tell you is that there is no other place on Earth I would rather be right now.

Con mucho Amor y Paz,

Faldo.

Thats Cristian standing in front of a pile of brush we had to burn off

Three weeks ago we bought our first milking goat, Chocolate.  She should have a kid in about six weeks; in the meantime she is a bit lonely. Soon we will buy five more goats.  This should be an adventure, as a neighbor, Patricio, has an uncle about a  five-hour drive away who has goats to sell. I think we will make it an overnight trip. Four of us guys, Cristian, Patricio and Faldo - our new Biodynamic homesteading  apprentice - will be  navigating down some very back country roads with me. With six goats, we will have milk to spare but our lives will change. Having to milk every morning will mean that we need somebody on the farm full-time.

Faldo in his shelter. It includes the kitchen

View from the shelter

 

Recently we harvested our first coffee.  As we were so busy getting Faldo’s shelter ready, I hired a local woman to pick all our coffee bushes.  We are drying three five-gallon buckets of coffee beans on our front porch right now.  They are slowly turning from red to black.  Once they are dry we can have the outer flesh removed and then they can be roasted.  We should get about forty pounds of roasted coffee.

Widening the path for the burro

This week I am going to get two beehives.  We will collect them as it gets dark, drive back to the farm and carry them across the single-log bridge in the dark.  Should be interesting.  Faldo has promised to help. I think we will have to hang the hives from a pole stretched between us, as we carry them across the stream.

Adobe soil

We started on our first adobe cabin last week.  We found some beautiful adobe soil on our mountain, about a quarter mile from where we will build. I made a contract with Servilio, a young man from Tumianuma, to build the blocks. For $400 he will build 500 blocks.  We made some special wooden carrying boxes for the burro that have bottoms that drop out when you pull a rope and that’s how Servilio can transport the adobe.  Then he will add water and make the blocks with wooden forms.  They need about two weeks to dry.  Then we can build the cabin which will be four by four and a half meters with a nice porch.  With all the labor and materials it should cost about $1,800…pretty reasonable for nice housing.  We do not need windows because half way up the front will be screen, which lets in lots of light.

Working hard to get the adobe

The kitchen shelter is about finished.  We were short some plumbing elbows for the hot water, so Faldo still has no shower.  If I forget some supplies, like plumbing fixtures, it is a three to four-hour round trip to buy the part, so we just wait for the next weekend. Bathing in the cold stream is much more invigorating anyway.

Creating Ritual on Earth Day

Today I received an email from the Pachamama Alliance reminding me about Earth Day and how we can give thanks to the earth through a simple ritual.  Each person can find a special gift like a flower or some candy and all these gifts can be placed in a beautiful arrangement on a white cloth.  The cloth is then carefully folded, tied with a string made of natural fiber and burnt in a sacred fire. A song or meditation can be added to further deepen the experience.  The site chosen for the ceremony is of prime importance.

Our mountain in the background

Holding a meditation in the past

We have a beautiful spot on our farm overlooking the river where in the past I have  done many guided meditations.  Here, on Tuesday morning, the first time we can gather our budding community, we will gather. Recently, Leisha Naja fell in love with our land and is creating a beautiful forest space where she camps three or four days a week. Today we spent time with our new apprentice, Faldo Ballario, a wine maker from California, who we think will fit in with our land and community. Both want to deepen their connection to the Earth and its spirituality.

For my part, I am trying to see how we as a group can work on a deeper level with the nature spirits and the beings of the Earth. I feel very deeply that we are being given a window through which we can move into the etheric realm.  This is the realm of spiritual formative life forces, creative forces that bring life to mineral substance and organize it into the plant world that we know.  If we open our spiritual eyes of perception, then we can see these forces.  To me, this is what 2012 represents – Birth 2012 as Barbara Marx Hubbard calls it,  being born into the possibility of a new consciousness for humankind.  This will not necessarily happen overnight and certainly not automatically.  But for those who try, there will be help.

By creating sacred ritual, we open new dimensions and create spaces where we can co-create with the nature spirits and the spiritual beings of the unseen world.

This can be something as simple as creating a ceremony such as I described above.  In addition we will find a short verse that we can say together as a community, to start each new day.  Awareness and gratitude towards the beings of the unseen world, for all they do to make this world possible, is appreciated by these beings.  They long for our cooperation, and a first step for us will be to honor them for creating our beautiful Finca Sagrada. Asking for their help and offering ourselves as vessels to help them…that is our intent.  As you know, intention is everything.

In the meantime, we have been working hard to finish our first shelter and kitchen.

We are improving the bridge.  Instead of a wire to steady us we have installed a bambo pole.

Just about finished with the improvement

Our burro with two hundred pounds of cement crossing the stream.  He is so great.

 

Working on the roof

The rains came back but we are busy building our first shelter for apprentices anyway.  It’s about 5 meters by 4  meters (16 by 13 feet) and will have a tin roof, a sand floor and be wrapped with screen around the four ficae corner posts.  There’ll be rock walls from our fields about a foot or two high.   One side will have a simple kitchen counter with a four-burner stove top, sink and drain rack. It will even have hot and cold water but no electricity. One corner will have a tent to keep heavy rain out and there will be plenty of room for a table and chairs. As the temperature always stays between 60 and 85, this is all we need down here. 

At night you can look out at the field of fireflies, listen to the river and marvel at the stars.  My only worry is that it is not burglar-proof.  The best we can do there is to construct some heavy cupboards that we can padlock. This should deter most folks from just picking up a pot or pan as they walk by. People do walk along the river that is our boundary.

This will be the view after we take away all the dead stuff in the forground

Another view with the river in the back

Our garden is growing fast.  Virtually all the new seedlings of lettuces, brasicas and roots came up fast and are doing well.

The nice thing for me is that Susan came back after being in Cuenca for two weeks.  She was doing a Spanish immersion course.  She took four hours of personal Spanish lessons every morning, plus homework afternoon and night, which was lessened in intensity somewhat by living with a lovely Ecuadorian family.  I won’t mention how much I missed her meals and got a little gnarly at the end.

Doing a blog once a week or so amazes me.  We can keep all our family and friends up to date while enjoying life in this remote valley. We can do our little bit about showing folks how it is possible to live with a light ecological foot print. Five years ago I would not have thought that living without a refrigerator, TV and mailbox would be easy and enjoyable.  But it is.  Even more amazing, Susan agrees.

The river as we walk in to the farm

At first look, my life’s work doesn’t seem to have anything to do with manifesting a peaceful, sustainable, thriving and intercultural Biodynamic homestead like Finca Sagrada in Ecuador.   But Walter wants me to write a weekly blog.

Susan in her business life

What can I say?

Here’s my dilemma:   My mission in life is greening the global economy.   (Of course, my real mission in life is practicing union with God with my soulmate, Walter.   The other is just my external mission.)

In service to that greening the economy mission, I’ve found servant leaders to join into collaborative groups to do that over the last 40 years.   I call them “KINS Innovation Networks,” KINS signifying that “we are all one.”

KINS are self-organizing networks of key, collaborative, high-integrity leaders from widely diverse fields who come together by invitation to achieve inspiring innovations while enjoying their kindred spirits.  (See CapitalMissions.com for the data or read my book, The Trojan Horse of Love, for the story – free at CapitalMissions.com.)

What does that have to do with Finca Sagrada, a very remote farm in Ecuador?

Celebrating with a group of friends on our land. 

I don’t know.

But the funniest thing has been happening lately.   Spirit has decided to join the party.   Here is that story.

After Walter and I spent half of the last two years travelling in America to help towns use KINS and Biodynamics to go green, KINS members started suddenly appearing in Vilcabamba, Ecuador recently.   Just in the last couple months, a key organizer of the KINS in Tampa Bay, Fl and the co-founder of the KINS-Rogue Valley, OR (Ashland) both announced by email out of the blue that they’d be arriving in Vilcabamba.   Our course we invited them to Finca Sagrada.

Once here, we walked the land with them, described our vision, Walter did a shortened Earth meditation, we fed them a good lunch and they were on their way after a day on the sacred Earth of Finca Sagrada.

Both have now decided to move to Ecuador and one – maybe both - to Vilcabamba!   They said they became infused with our vision that, in the words of the indigenous prophecy, “neither the people of the North nor the people of the South are safe until the Eagle and the Condor fly as one.”   They said they experienced how that can feel in their bodies on our farm.

Meanwhile, last week I just started a KINS I am more excited about than any other, working with leaders of Four Years. Go. including its co-founder, Lynne Twist.   While past KINS have included top servant leaders buried  in powerful places in the old paradigm and designing paths to the new paradigm….this network intends something stunning.    We intend to be a pilot others can copy so that tiny networks for sustainability can self-organize around the world to serve the great shift.   All of this is being done free and with joy.   I’ll describe it in future blogs.

For now, I just ask that you stop for a moment in your day, push your chair back from your computer and send this prayer up into the Universe:

Walter and Susan deepen their collaboration for the highest good of Finca Sagrada that the Eagle and the Condor fly as one over our farm.

Our sacred Ceibo tree by the river.  This is the best meditation spot on the land

Thank you!

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Finca Sagrada.

Susan leaving the cabin on Friday, back to Vilca with our gear, for the weekend.

 

Although getting things done down here can be frustrating, like dealing with bureaucracy or our farm road being closed because of all the rain, when the sun shines life is easier.

Two weeks ago we bought an incredible horse called Torito, or little bull, for Susan.  Her lifetime dream had been to own a horse and now, at 70, it is fulfilled.  Torito enjoys our company and even saunters over to us when we enter his field.  We do bribe him with Panella I should admit (that’s the raw sugar cane after it is boiled down).  His trot is incredibly smooth, yet he is strong going up and down mountain paths and carrying heavy loads.  

We did have one disappointment when we first got him.  He refused to cross the metal bridge we need to cross to get to our farm.  Luckily a neighbor came and he offered to ride him through the river.  He knew the low crossing place, about a quarter mile up the river.  I stood on the bridge watching as they crossed.  It was a bit embarrassing, as if I was the gringo playing at being in the Campo, but we made friends.  The next day I came back with another horse to lead the way and after a bit of coaxing, he crossed. Now he’s fine.

Last Saturday, we had a Menga to improve the path along the river to our farm.  A Menga is a work party where neighbors get together to fix or improve a community asset like a public path and everyone works for free.  About ten local people own property or live on our side of the river and showed up to help.  The path takes a good hour to walk and had deteriorated seriously in the rainy season.  Also, the grass had grown long and people were worried about poisonous snakes hiding along the edges.  Cristian, our Ecuadorian partner, has a dream of being able to drive his motor bike out to the farm, so he organized the Menga.  Susan and I promised to pay for lunch for all who showed up and Tina Marshall, our neighbor, provided nine volunteers plus all the juice and water folks might need.

With nine volunteers and about nine neighbors, we got quite some work done but did not finish.  I really enjoyed working with the neighbors.  My Spanish is not that good yet so a few times they teased me but they appreciated that I worked hard and covered the fifty dollar lunch cost.

 Food is most important for a Menga to be successful. It also gives an opportunity for neighbors to be social.  Unfortunately most of the farmers around here are in their sixties and seventies because their children cannot afford to stay on the land.  As everywhere else, they have to go to the cities or Spain or the States. I hope to create programs growing valuable herbs to make the land profitable for our local farmers.

A simple lunch. A big bowl of soup, lots of rice, a litle pork beans and some ahi sauce, all for $2 per person

Enjoying lunch under the bridge for shade

Our greenhouse is on standby.  I cannot find any more large bamboo close by and so will just wait for the rains to finish and then buy regular wood.  That will be much easier to handle.

One spot of joy was that we did finally open the road that lets us drive to our farm instead of walking in from the other direction.  Once again, Tina’s nine volunteers helped with all the hand work. We cleared three streams, which meant moving big boulders out of the way.   We had to cut up a tree that had fallen on the road and we cleaned up about ten small landslides.  The tough part was that we were about an hour and a half walk away from the farm by lunch time.  We were promised that lunch would arrive, but it didn’t catch up with us until 2:30.  By then we were famished and had about run out of steam, but all in all, it was a successful day.  On Monday I will try driving out if it does not rain too much.  Below are some of the views.

Until the stream goes down, this is our bridge.  For the locals it's no trouble.  Just cut down a tree and string up a wire for balance

Volunteers getting ready to move a rock

A view of the valley

One of the streams we drive through

Tina providing lunch of the 4 wheeler

Next week is Holy Week. I will be by myself as Susan is going to Cuenca for two weeks of intensive Spanish.  I will lose Cristian as well as he needs to help a cousin get her visa for Spain, where her mother works.  I’ll work in the garden but, without Cristian there, it’ll be somewhat of a vacation for me.  I’ll have time to wander the farm, enjoy nature and meditate more.

I’m really looking forward to it.

Sunrise from our cabin

Susan enjoying the morning

From Susan

With our vision statement for Finca Sagrada now in focus, people we know
from our work starting KINS Innovation Networks in the States started just
Showing Up. We’d get emails saying they were arriving at Madre Tierra,
our favorite hotel here, and asking to see us. So what could Walter and I
do but start inviting folks out to Finca Sagrada?

This was no small feat because right now is rainy season and we can’t now
drive right to the farm. Instead there is a car ride of 30 minutes and a walk
on a mountain trail of about an hour. Despite this, people were insistent
about seeing the farm, so we designed “A Day in Chirusco Valley” for them
to experience Finca Sagrada.

After the walk in, we take them to our bottom land between our stream and
the river running from Quinara to Tumianuma. We have a whole corner
of a dozen pastures and woods there. After walking down to the river, we
show them the site where a psychic has told us an ancient Vedic temple
connected to Stonehenge was located…with scattered rocks to prove it.
Then we wind up by our beloved Grandfather tree, a Ceiba tree, the farm’s
most powerful meditation spot.

Once there last Monday, Walter talked to our seven guests about our plans
to hold the space for an intentional community to manifest. We’ll finish the
greenhouse we’ve started and grow the garden area out with four simple
shelters for our apprentices nearby. Our existing burro, cow and horse will
be joined by chickens, goats and bees and we’ll cook for each other on a
very simple kitchen we’ll throw up soon.

Students from an earlier workshop preparing a seed bed

When Walter finished describing these plans, it was my time to talk. I told
them what we had experienced after the attack on us in our home Nov.
29, 2009 by the three armed commandos. After we left the hospital and
began recuperating, we stopped what we had been doing before that and
waited until Spirit spoke strongly to us. Several months later, Spirit told us
to become global nomads for several years, traveling to towns trying to go
green to help them.

We began doing this, Walter teaching Biodynamics and me teaching
KINS Innovation Networks (see CapitalMissions.com). As we travelled

from one town to another, we began weaving these disparate bodies of
work together. I learned that a KINS grew deeply more powerful when
Walter was doing his Earth meditations to connect KINS members to the
spirituality of the Earth. Walter learned that teaching Biodynamics grew
much more powerful when people learned the collaboration techniques
that are integral to KINS. By the time we returned to Ecuador and
gave workshops on our farm, it made sense to teach Biodynamics and
collaboration together. After all, Biodynamics requires a “whole farm
system” with people collaborating to make that happen.

So last Monday on our farm, not knowing what I was going to say, I started
talking about what it felt like to leave our beautiful large house and start
living out of a suitcase for two years. “Fairly quickly, material goods
started to just ease away and not be important any more,” I said. We were
so warmly welcomed into their homes and fed by such wonderful people,
that there was nothing to miss about “stuff.” We didn’t notice it missing.

Once we got back to Ecuador and the farm, we were lucky that Tina
Marshall let us rent her 1½ room cabin next to Finca Sagrada. It made for
the simplest of housekeeping and the healthy and vibrant land around us
took all our attention, for nature truly heals. When a wealthy friend visited
recently and saw how modestly we were now living, she stuttered, “Susan,
I..I…I don’t know what to say.” My reaction was to feel sorry for her, not
for myself. I feel I have never lived so richly or well, to live within such a
powerful natural world of forests and fields. As the words poured out of
me describing my joy, I realized how very grateful I am for my wondrous
current life.

By then, it was time for a communal lunch for 11 of us, our guests and the
Finca Sagrada team, after which Walter did an Earth meditation and our
guests left. One guest was a founder of the KINS Innovation Network in
Tampa Bay and she was considering doing some fund-raising for them.
She pulled me aside to say she had been powerfully moved by my words,
so much so that she could barely speak and was on the verge of tears.
She said she had been trying to become less materialistic but was having a
hard time with that. I had inspired her to renew her efforts now…and she

intended to move to Ecuador, possibly to Vilcabamba.

I was stunned. My simple story had had an effect I could never have
imagined.

Such power does Spirit move with.

Such power.

Finca Sagrada

One thing that Ecuador is teaching me is to let go.  I thought we could build the greenhouse in four weeks.  Well this will be the fourth week that we will not work on the greenhouse.  We’ve had carnival week, no work, then four days of organic workshops in Vilcabamba, hardly any work, last week our neighbors’ footbridge got washed out, again little work on the farm. All my help went to help build a new one. Now our supplier of plastic for the greenhouse has no plastic.  They always say it’s coming next week.

We did finish building another raised bed and all our seeds germinated wonderfully.  We even experimented with the carrots.  Two of us put carrot seeds in our moths for five minutes and marked the spot where we planted them. According to Anastasia who lives in the wilderness of Siberia and is described in the Ringing Cedars series, the two sets of carrots will be different due to our saliva and the life force that we imbued the carrots with. Should I eat the carrots that I planted, they will know and supply me with what I need to be healthy.

I love the colours of the work clothes

Our first intern Patrick Byrd joined us last week.  I think his high light was watching a highly poisonous snake being caught and killed.  He then skinned it and is curing the skin now. It’s a beauty about five feet long.

He has decided to build his own shelter, where he will sleep and do most of his cooking. Lunches are usually shared and in our cabin. One of Patricks skills is cooking so we do eat well when he prepares lunch

Preparing the beds with Emily our dog

Vilcabamba  Mountains

Today I want to introduce you all to my wife, Susan Davis Moora, because last night we just finished our vision statement for Finca Sagrada (Sacred Farm). To do it, we had to interweave our lives’ work to a degree we have never achieved before…and we both believe this will be crucial to the Farm’s success. So I have invited her to do a weekly blog on GrowBD.org.

Susan has spent 40 years helping create “conscious sustainability,” including innovation networks
in social investing, solar, organics, corporate social responsibility, microenterprise and economic
empowerment for women. Her work is detailed on her website, CapitalMissions.com and in her book,
The Trojan Horse of Love. She gifts her book from her heart to others and they gift it from their hearts to
their friends, so her work now travels freely around the world. Download it free from her website and I
know you’ll enjoy it.

Susan writes:

Hi Everyone, and Walter has convinced me to start a weekly blog here. With my background in high
finance, I could never have imagined myself contributing to a blog on Biodynamics and the spirituality of the Earth. It kind of reminds me of the first time Walter brought me to the farm, driving 30 minutes to
get to a very pitted dirt road about to fall off a cliff for another 30 minutes and then to a raging stream.
Getting across the stream was enough of a challenge that I’ve blocked it out ever since and, once I had actually set foot on the land, he told me this was the farm he wanted to buy.

This is a view from our mountain top. Actually Susan has not made it up there.  It's a four hour hike.  Even the horses struggle.

Happy Susan and Walter on our land

I looked at him in shock and said, “I know you’re kidding, right?”

From that beginning, we have come a long long way.

Gradually I started walking the land, before long I started meditating there, soon we found ancient ruins
we think come from Vedic times in the sacred woods there…and the next thing I knew we were living in
a rustic cabin next door during weekdays.

If you don’t know Walter well yet…Watch Out!! He uses a method I call “friendly persuasion” that
seems to work remarkably well with everyone.

My work is about coaching people to go into their higher selves to collaborate about meeting
sustainability goals that are inspiring, daunting and measurable, like “make solar happen for the world.”
(See the story about creating the Solar Circle, described in The Trojan Horse of Love.)

I couldn’t see what that had to do with the farm until the students for Walter’s first workshop on
Biodynamics sat down for their “getting to know you” meeting. As each person talked, they all said a
version of “I’m in a transition.”

“Transition!” My eyes lit up. My special gift in life is to help people find their destiny paths of joy. I
teach that you find that path by trusting your intuition to take risks around your values to find your path.

That’s how it has worked for me!

I was not even on the program but I offered to help the students find their destiny paths in daily sessions
we created. We were successful enough that they told us at the end that they had transformed their
lives.

Now Walter and I have co-created this vision for Finca Sagrada:

We are holding the space for an inspirational community exemplifying conscious sustainability. Walter
is being asked to co-create a biodynamic homesteading experience with others to whom the land is
speaking. I am being asked to teach the emerging community the spirit-based collaboration principles
developed by KINS Innovation Networks over 40 years. The community is being asked to exemplify
intercultural wisdom of the North and the South, honored equally.

Please stop for a moment and push back your chair and send a blessing up into the sky for our success.

One of our boundaries

  Finca Sagrada  

Bario 19 performing.  Bario 19 was specially created for the foreigners. We didn't have a float but the dance group was good

This last week in Vilcabamba and all Ecuador was Carnival Week. It’s a major festival that starts on Saturday and finishes Tuesday. Actually Wednesday is more the truth, as this is the day you go to church for the Christian celebrations.  

One of the more elaborate floats

I went to the Saturday afternoon parade on the packed square. The parade is led by the police band, representatives of the old folks and all the important dignitaries, followed by the winners of the beauty pageant.  They are highly honored in beautiful dresses, crowns and high heels.  Then come the floats. Different organizations such as private schools, dance groups and environmental groups create floats that are built around a pickup truck.  Usually children or dance groups are part of the float.  When the float reaches the grandstand with the local mayor and dignitaries, the dance group performs to very loud music.   At the end, there is a grand prize for the best float.  I believe the grand price is $3,000 which is a year’s salary for many, and there is much honor to winning.

I bet many hours of practice went into this 

The parade is a truly important community event and this year, for the first time, “new residents” (foreigners) were invited to have their own float.  In the past, new residents had not identified much with the ‘small town parade’ culture of Vilcabamba’s Carnival.   This year a good bunch of truly connected folks created good costumes and made a good turn-out.   They really ‘showed up’ for Vilcabamba and Susan and I were proud of them.

The parade is a strange mix of wildness and seriousness.  What makes it crazy is that all the teenagers and some older folks are having serious water balloon fights and spraying foam out of aerosol cans at each other.  The pretty young girls have a grand time being chased and soaked by the high school boys.  I managed to keep clear from most of the kids.  At one stage, my leg got in the way of a balloon but only a bit of foam drifted my way.

Most of the other days the Square is packed with drinking people, water bombs and loud music from banks of speakers…a  good place to keep clear of.  However there are other competitions going on such as Equestrian events with spectacular Pacifino horses from Peru and a rodeo with a fence that the bulls can break and jump through when too provoked.  This obviously is more fun, especially if people get chased.  Unfortunately, some people are sometimes hurt.

Gringos with the best and safest view

On the farm, nothing much happened this past week.  In fact, nobody turned up for work all week (we had agreed to this option in advance).   This was a blessing as we also were ready for a break.  Susan and I did plant our first seeds after Cristian built the rock-bordered beds and Susan felt thrilled.  Thursday was a leaf day, according to Maria Tunes’ research, so we planted lettuce, chard and spinach.  At this stage, we really do not need much in the way of vegetables, so it went fast.  I also stirred some cow horn manure preparation (“500”) and spread that on the garden. This is always a peaceful time for me.  Stirring a five-gallon bucket for one hour is not very strenuous so I could relax and enjoy the evening.

All pictures are from Rual Hernandez Facebook