Pugsworth in Alpanderie

late last week we (Dana (the israeli girl ive been woofing with for a coule of weeks) and I) meet the other woofers in town, three black americans, two of whom are muslim converts. On sunday we moved in with them switching farms to make way for two german women who arrived monday (but Ive jsut met in the internet cafe). So we had three days with the five of us (they left Wednesday) which were very stimulating. we talked about racism in the united states and the differences between new york and arizona, and of course about islam which was also fascinating, hopefully we will continue the dialogue via email. I really enjoyed a few days of intellectual stimulation and the most interesting thing I picked up was that discrimination against blacks is much worse than against muslims, in arizona at least, New york is a little mroe cosmopolitan if still racially segragated.

My other bit of stimulation has been reading a biography of Karl Jung, which I borrowed of the local scotish resident. It is very thorough but I think I still getting to the best bits.

the new farm is a big improvement on the last one. most of the work is milking 400 goats with a machine, I mostly doing the sheparding in and out, wrestling with the few that like to jump the fence. This takes about 4 hrs a day, one and a half hrs before a breakfast consisting mostly of pork on toast. In the afternoons we have some good variety, working the 1000 sheep, 100 pigs or in the garden, collecting firewood etc. the days are longer but the work is not as physical as the last place which was a lot of hard labour. the home atmosphere is much better, more conversational and jovial in spanish that I understand, rather than arguments in sapnish that i didnt understand. So My spanish is noticibly improving.

I´ll be here until the end of next week then to Sevilla and cordoba hopefully servas and from there to another farm near cuidad real for a week or two before Madrid, maybe bilbao in the Basque country and a week in france. I think I´m down to six weeks left!



I've just had a great Semana Santa (Easter) here in the south of spain. I've spen the last month in a small village called Alpanderie, 150 people still living a pretty traditional life. I woofed for two weeks on one farm with horses but did mostly labour intensive gardening and raod fixing work (less hours though) then moved to another farm (not organic) that has 1000 sheep, 600 goats and a lots pigs. we spent four hours a day milking 400 of the goats, by machine, thank god. and then did a variety of light tasks in the afternoon. The main thing I learnt in both places was spanish which was great. I shared the whole time with an Israeli girl who has an amazing passion for learning spanish, she would refuse to talk english and spent most of her spare time reading her dictionary or any spanish text she could get her hands, she was really good for me. So it's been great to really improve my spanish but the other farm work was pretty boring, I really lacked mental stimulation. The village was great and it proved to be well worth my while to hang around for easter, a really great traditional community time. young people and others come from Malaga, Madrid and even france to help decorate the village with trees collected communally on Saturday from local gardens in the surrounding hills (did I mention the valley is really beautiful and some parts are so wild they are impassible). Everyone is drinking around the clock for about 3 days but mostly only drunk in that relaxed way that creates such good atmosphere, not totally wasted. Then on the sunday, they start at 8am dancing in the village square through till 4pm when the pagen celebration becomes this catholic procession of virgin and baby Jesus. repeated again at dusk with candles. nothing to serious or pompous but just a community having fun with its rituals, a great time had by all. Then by teh time I left this morning it had returned to its usual quiet self.
I'm now in Sevilla (back amoungst the tourists - doh!) but I have less than five weeks before I have to head home because my ticket expired. The plan from here is Cordoba, hopefully a spanish only speaking farm near Cuidad Real, Madrid, Bilbao and then my final week in france.