Misty Mountain Top

It's been extremely rainy here lately, so I haven't been assigned much work to do. Ja-Ja and Chérif are taking this opportunity to do lots of errands, such as getting baby plants from other farmers. They have an arrangement or system with a few other farmers in which one farmer will grow a lot of one type of plant from their seeds and then distribute them as baby plants to the other farmers in this network. Then, during the next month, it's somebody else's turn; another farmer distributes their baby plants to the other farmers in the network. I think that they do it pretty much only with lettuce, but I'm not sure. Even so, I've ever seen so many lettuce varieties in my life here! Tomatoes, too! Chérif told me that they get all of their tomato plants from South America, which I thought was interesting. I think that they do that because they know that they are organic plants. They also get there organic sugar from South America because France does not produce any organic sugar. Thus, in order for the family to sell fruit preserves at the market with their organic certification, they are waiting now for the sugar to arrive. Sometimes it takes a long time because customs agents think that the powdery substance from South America could be hiding something else, if you know what I mean.

So we've been doing a lot of waiting on the farm, especially for the rain to go away. I got cabin fever a bit and decided to go running, even when it was still drizzling a bit. Of course, it then poured later on in my run, but c'est la vie. At least a got to see beautiful scenery! The clouds were low around the mountains, which gave the forests a very calming and mystical feel. I later watched a French film with French subtitles, too, so I've been working on my French. I bonded a lot with the other two volunteers here as well. This experience is definitely producing relationships that will last for a long time. I hope so, at least!

I hope to have more news in my next post. There are still lot more fields to collect hay at, so I will hopefully be more active and productive soon. Tonight I am going to watch a highly-anticipated soccer game: France vs. Italy. Watch it if you can, or the highlights later on. It ought to be a thriller! Both of these great teams are fighting to stay in the tournament (this game is for the elimination of the loser). It's crazy! (C'est fou!)