Sunny weather and yet another trip to the airport

I have a dozen of draft blog entries on the past days, but in order to post something at least decided to fill in the gaps later and bring this very day first.

Now I am officially the last trainee in trainee house. Herlina from Indonesia and the yesterday-arrived Book from Thailand spend this weekend here but usually live in their farm about two hours train ride away, Souhei from Japan lives in his project as well, and the community development team consisting of Jill from Luxembourg and Jule from Germany stays with a host family here.

Rusydan from Indonesia was in their team as well, together with his project manager Lewis the four of us accompanied him to the train station, and Lewis, Souhei and me went all the way to the airport as well.

Before that, with the three girls and Lewis we went on a nearby mountain that is currently holding a cherry blossom festival which Jill and Jule are documenting for their project.

Please excuse the various inside jokes!

on my own... not alone :)

 With the other two trainees left, I start my third week as follows:

Monday

6:30 picked up by aunt & uncle at the street in front of the trainee house, around half an hour drive
7:00 sweeping the floor, taking out the goat
7:20 harvesting mountain garland chrysanthemum (山茼蒿 shān tóng hāo)
8:30 coffee break
8:45 harvesting gynura bicolor (紅鳳 hóng fèng, lit. "read phoenix")

11:40 washing dirt and marker labellings off of laminated plates from cleared patches
12:10 taking off gloves & boots, washing hands, helping to set the table, lunch

(Korean style!)

12:30 washing the dishes

12:40 sorting the gynura bicolor leaves collected earlier

14:00 clearing out a whole patch of aged cabbage (after collecting some of better quality) by pulling the plants out and piling them up on a wheelbarrow; once full delivering it to the chicken pen, all in all four times

16:20 while the patch is undergoing the second step of being cleared out, cutting down weeds in the space next to the greenhouse with a knife to prevent them from growing inside

16:40 coffee break

(delicious engagement cake made with red azuki beans -
had to promise uncle I'd send them this exact one when it's my time ;) )

17:00 goat is being brought back to it's stable, preparing the working space

Vegtable packaging: auntie is weighing, I roll up the pad and slide the vegetables in the plasic bag and shake the edges trying to even them out, uncle tapes the bags shut and places them in the basket.

18:30 cleaning up, locking the doors
18:45 driving home

Oh! But what's that? Today we stopped on a night marked and I got to try dang gui mian xian (normaly with duck), noodles in a soup made from Chinese medicine (Angelica sinensis) for dinner.

A first break

Just a quick glance at the three days off.

(Yes, three!)

Since Yunita and Ridho have to be at the mosque at 1:00 pm on Fridays, and the way back from the farm takes such a long time, we got a surprising day off!

How did I use that? I slept until afternoon! Ohhh finally some REST!

On Saturday it was sunny again! Got to know the campus dogs during a stroll into the nearby Tsinghua University.

Rusydan took Herlina and me to some event at the nearby community development center, where he and two new interns from Germany & Luxembourg (who stay with a host family) work.

Nice sight both for muslims and vegetarians:

We are super lucky that this year's Lantern Festival's main city is ours! Went there with my Indonesian housemates Ridho and Rusydan and Sôhei from Japan who only stays in the trainee house during weekends.

 It was so full of people that busses, trains and taxis where basically unavailable. Got our exercise by walking half the way.

Nasi Goreng and the spirit of farming

Today is Indonesian cooking day! We were very punctual this morning and went to the market to buy red onion and tomatoes - all other ingredients we have on the farm!

Of course, till lunchtime there was still much work to be done!

We had to prepare making fertilizer (?) out of the peeled off rice skin...or something like that?

...then continuing the weeding we started yesterday after we had finished clearing the wire off the withered beans...

...and finally: Kitchen time!

...sit dong bao dong bao!! REAL full...

...means: Time for some brokkoli harvesting!

Quick catching up with friends or...?

Playing time is over: Now let's finally get this weeding over with pleeeeaaaase~~

 

They're sprouting!

This work day started later than usual. One of us overslept, so when we got to the street where auntie & uncle pick us up at 6:30 every morning, they weren't there anymore. 

The very first time I visited the farm, together with the local AIESECers on Sunday, we had taken the bus, so I knew how to da that.

I got a private lesson in veggie growing that day! 

Most of the seeds we had planted showed there little round white heads and where therefore ready to enter Phase 2: 給水給陽光 water & sun

 So I moved them to another greenhouse and onto a tray and was showed how to water them correctly. Next time I need to get that on camera. Since the shower head (no idea what the correct term is) keeps falling out it's quite funny to look at I'm sure.

I learned so much today!

First Hakka Lesson / Packaging needs Practice, too!

While ridding the wire of the withered beans, the farmer taught us our first phrases in the Hakka language: 

a gung

(grandfather)

a po

(grandmother)

sit bao mang?

(Have you eaten/are you full? = Hello)

Sit bao le!

(Yes, I've eaten/I'm full)

ngai he... 

(My name is..)

ngai loi nguan kiao hok zhong yu gi choi 

(I've come to Ruan Qiao - the place of the farm - to learn growing organic vegetables)

 He seemed to have had a lot of fun seeing us struggle with the pronounciation.

 

It started raining, so we stopped to go inside... 

Auntie called me over... what happened?

In this farm, the chicken's main job is weeding! After harvesting all that is to harvest in one of the greenhouses, that place is the chicken's temporary home until they ate all of the leftover plants and did a good job digging for worms. As this one got adventerous and jumped out, the whole flock on the other side got exited about it!

Lunch: 炸年糕 (zhà nián gāo), 

rice cakes (lit. "year's cake" - since eaten around Chinese New Year), in it's  deep fried version... so yummy!

 

 

Rice packaging...

...turned out to be quite a challenge 

Some of the bags were not sealed off completely, so we had to cut them open again - one bag costing 20NT (0,50€)... sorry uncle :(

Tired and not as contended as the day be for we brought the goat back to its stall for the first time before we went to have dinner with auntie & uncle farmer.

We'll get better as we learn and practice!