DAY 2 - Our first actual day

Not quite being able to escape the jet lag we woke up very early today, looking in wonderment out our window at the landscape we’d only seen in black & white the previous night, thousands of shades of green unfurling now dotted with yellow flowers everywhere.

These are the farm dogs we'd already seen yesterday but had not been at all able to remember their complicated Hindu names (which I'm sure I've also severely misspelled here)

Venturing outside we met Jai Dev and the mysterious ‘other helper’, who turned out to be a young bald guy from Ohio called Kyle with a wide smile and an infectious laugh. They were just in the process of leading the two cows to their designated grazing spot, quite a spectacle made better only by the five-day-old calf 'Diwali' hopping about in the most adorable of fashions. We were also introduced to the goats and shown our shared outdoor-kitchen, where we had breakfast and asked Kyle the millions of questions we had about everyone and everything on this farm.

 

Transcribed directly from the whiteboard in the kitchen...
I just think these few sentences sum up perfectly what this place is like

Shortly after that, our main host Judy arrived, a small competent woman with a long plait and swirling skirts, who gave us another little tour of the place as well as some tangerines. Our work for the day consisted only of cleaning the floors, windows and bathroom of our own room which was completed soon and shortly after, Judy took us into the nearest town so we could buy some emerging necessities for our time here like insect repellent and flip-flops (which are called ‘slippers’ here, by the way). We got everything we needed in a Walmart (which was exactly like in the stories – gigantic and, well, American) and then had a little Chinese meal in a place called 'Panda Express' or something, after a rather tedious ordering process in which unfamiliar accents were quite a barrier both for us and the poor little Chinese lady trying to serve us. We were to take the bus back and so waited for a while at the bus stop:

This old Hawaiian guy got up for us to take his seat and sat on the ground despite (or because of?) his back pains he loudly complained about

The bus ride itself ended in hilarity when Sarah after continuous reminding that we were looking for street 23 pulled the stop-string at street 25, but we found the house without problems once we’d gotten off. Pretty good first day!

Our kitchen! An oven! In the middle of nature!