Río Muchacho!

Volunteering at Río Muchacho organic farm was an amazing and eye-opening experience! It was hard, sweaty, and dirty work! We learned so much in just two short weeks. Each day started at 6:15 am, when we would wake up to prepare the chicken, horse, and pig food. My favorite part was mixing it with my hands! We would also clean out the guinea pig cages, and Mike often had the stinky job of cleaning out the poop from the pig pens. We also happened to be there at a time when there were three litters of baby piglets! One pig gave birth to 15 piglets! They were the most adorable little things, and I can´t believe how fast they grow and get strong! First they were just sleeping and eating all of the time, and then the next day they were all awake and bumping into each other like little bumper cars! There were these three that would sneak out to play around during the day...The "Three Lil´ Pigs." They would run around, and then when they found out you saw them, they would run back to their mommy! The little smarties! The chickens were fun to feed too! I loved watching them burst out of their coupe to eat in a mad dash. Everyday we would also harvest different vegetables from the garden. Things like okra, onions, eggplant, broccoli, yuca, beans, cilantro, etc. So many yummy vegatables, and we would eat them for lunch and dinner! During the day, we often planted new vegetables, watered the others, and did some weeding. 

For breakfast every morning we would also have coffee from the farm, and we also made chocolate a few times with the cacao beans from the farm. It was our first experience working on a farm, and now I can´t imagine farming any other way. They have a little eutopia at Río Muchacho. I would definitely recommend it to anyone to go and check it out if you´re ever in Ecuador. I will say I was a bit nervous before going, reading that we would not have flushing toilets and would be sleeping in open cabins. There was a huge spider living with us, and bat that loved to fly around above our heads while we were sleeping, but they left us alone, and the bathrooms didn´t smell half as bad as a port-o-potty. The best part was to see that nothing was wasted. There was no garbage created, and the food leftover was used to feed to the pigs and chickens. One of the owners, Dario, said that poop is the essence of life. Also, a huge thing is to never burn anything. Compost it to make the soil rich! There is still so much for me to learn, but I have definitely been inspired! Lots of veggie eating will be in our future!

On the weekends, different groups would come to tour the farm and we could go with them to experience some fun activities. We made rings out of palm seeds, cups out of gourds, and chocolate sauce from scratch! We also went on a nature walk to this huge ficus tree! Mike climbed very high up it!

We also celebrated New Year´s with the farm. We went to Bahía and saw the fireworks. El Año Nuevo is hugely celebrated all throughout Ecuador. The big thing is they burn big dolls made of paper mache that represent themselves. The burning represents them putting the bads things of the past year behind them. They dress the dolls up with their clothes, and most of them are purchased pre-made with various cartoon characters like minions or Simpson´s. It was a cool tradition! In Quito, the men dress up as widows and walk the streets hehe! The group that we were with also said they usually eat 12 grapes and make 12 wishes for the next year, except we didn´t have grapes at the time. We wished everyone a Happy New Year and gave hugs and kisses at midnight. Fireworks were going off everywhere and everyone was dancing!