Cucaracha, leche y Canela: A city girl in the farm

It was Sunday morning…my alarm was set to wake me at 4:00 am but for some reason I had woken up a couple of minutes before it started to beep…something beside my window was making strange noises. The alarm went on and I suddenly felt something walk beside my foot….AGHHHHH!!! Jumped out of bed, turned on the light and started saying CUCARACHAAAAAA oh yes… I had friend in my bed…a cockroach just sitting there looking directly at me just like saying “na na na na you can´t catch me”. Ana Maria and I started looking for something to catch (kill) her with, but when we turned our heads the cockroach had already had its sweet escape! We looked and looked but our little “friend” was nowhere to be found. By that time it was already 4:15 and we were going to be picked up at 4:30, so we rushed to change and get everything together for our day at the finca (Farm). We left the house with this awful feeling of knowing that the cockroach was still out there…or even worse… IN there…, but nothing would mess with our excitement of going to the farm. The reason why we had to go so early was because we were milking cows!!!

I’ve lived for 21 years in a city and never had any kind of farm experiences before, but milking a cow was something that had always impressed me. Nothing in my life had prepared me to the experience I was about to go through, it didn’t matter how many times I had watched Animal Planet´s special on cows or how many times I had “milked” my FARMVILLE cows hahaha nothing was compared to this. We met this cow called Patty which was the first cow that approached us; she was extremely friendly, so of course we decided to use her as our guinea pig in milking cows!! Before we started making our milking attempts Josue tried to teach us the best ways on how to milk, but I’m not sure if we actually succeeded. It took me a couple of times before the milk was finally starting to come out and when it did, nothing in the world could stop me from smiling. Of course the milking feeling was weird and for some moments I felt bad for Patty cause I didn’t know if what we were doing hurt her, but Josue said that I was doing a good job. I carried a (probably dumb) smile in my face for a couple of minutes (maybe 20 minutes), I was extremely proud of what I had just done and couldn’t wait to tell everyone I knew hahaha.

Ok, so, cockroaches CHECK, cows CHECK, how about some HORSES ;) ? Ooh yes, it was horseback riding time! I had ridden horses a few times during my childhood but it was more like 10 minute rides in the park while someone walked beside the horse and it was pulled with a rope (for safety reasons). But this was something different I was doing it all by myself, well kind of… there was still someone walking beside me (again safety reasons) but the horse wasn’t pulled by anyone else but ME!!! I had a 40 minutes ride along the farm on Canela, a really nice and well trained horse. When I finally came back to the main house I was once again wearing my proud smile for many minutes.

This was not a typical Sunday but it was a complete success: cows, horses, a really good Honduran lunch, time to play football, a few attempts on fishing and a nice time with CWY Emilie Maccot, Asonog Staff and the girls from the Hamilton-Santa Rosa exchange. I went back home feeling pretty good about my day and realized I had some blog material. Every day we get to learn different things and have really cool experiences and that’s one of the things I like the most from CWY programs. Whether its water consumption, mining companies and its relation to water, Sanitation issues in small communities or HOW TO MILK A COW…there’s always something new and exciting everyday!

Ps. #1 This blog is dedicated to Patty and Canela for their support on my day at the farm ;)
Ps. #2 Why doesn’t anybody ever mention that the next day after riding a horse for a long time, your legs are killing you and you have a sore bum??? :(

Still, theres nothing like a day at the farm!