aloha

So I totally overslept the yoga class I was going to go to this morning due to a food-induced coma from last night.  Shaun, another WWOOFer here at the farm, and I were out working in the lettuce garden, doing some serious trimming because the plants were a mess.  The gardens are maintained by the constant in and outflux of WWOOFers so this one was planted and abandoned.  We have tons of greens growning - arugala, red lettuce, kale, romaine, chard, plus some mysterious ones with no id tags that we put in our salads anyways.  Anyways, Kutira, the woman in charge, was heading over to a neighbors house who had chickens to check them out and we were invited to get out of the garden for an adventure.

We ended up at the home/ginormous garden of the Rust's, an older couple that has a totally badass house on a cliff overlooking a huge bay with waterfalls flowing into it.  Of course, I forgot my camera.  They had chickens and ducks, which eat better than I do (she feeds them rice mixed with bran and wheat germ, plus coconuts and other garden delights).  Plus this amazing yard (all they use to keep out the weeds is plain old salt - it's non-chemical and the grass looks like astroturf, no joke).  And then their garden put where me and Shaun were working to shame - they have everything!  They are like Hawaii's banana experts (currently writing a book) and the woman makes her own vanilla extract (omg soo tasty).  We got an abundance of fresh duck & chicken eggs, cuttings to start our own plants, plus tons of fresh fruits and veggies.  Hence: food coma.

Other fruit I've found around our farm include: monstera deliciosa, pomelo, surninam cherries, and noni; noni by the way is supposed to be amazing for your health, but it is disgusting.  It tastes and smells like cheese.  Not even joking.  Cheese.  And rotten cheese at that.  I know this because I drank some noni water (water with noni soaking in it for days) at the urging of a fellow WWOOFer.  Did I mention that this was not delicious?  Of course I immediately picked some to make my own - hey if it's healthy I'll take noni shots every morning.  On a more positive fruit note, I also ate a star apple from the Rust's garden which has a center that tastes and has the consistency of pudding.

I spent today working on cleaning my little cabin/bamboo shack.  The geckos, cute they may be, shit everywhere.  And since my house is made of 3" diameter poles, there is lots of nooks & crannies for them to leave their shit.  As the crap was here when I got here, I'm counting this day for my hours working on the farm - it was pretty gross.  But now here I am with a clean clean cabin, and I even found this mosquito netting for my bed, which since I washed it can serve as a gecko-shit shield.

I just took a few photos before I head to the shower and then town.  There's a reggae show this guy on the plane told me about, so to escape the country, Shaun, Pamela and I are hitchhiking into town.

So I'm awful at taking photos once I'm living rather than traveling - but I just took these since I spent all day in my house cleaning.  We've got... (1) my house (the other half is the office for the farm, my part is the door and the first 3 windows you see); (2) my little outdoor sink area; (3) inside the cabin... you can see the mosquito netting in the mirror; and then... (4) the noni bush outside my house.  Yuck-o.  

Hope these photos can sustain you until I actually get out to take pictures of beautiful Maui.  It's time to get ready for the concert and wash gecko poo off my knees.  I can hear rain starting in the jungle.  Sweet!  Rain hitchhicking!  This will be an adventure...