Wwoofing in Nan-Ao part 2
I've now slept two night here. The first night, I didn't sleep that well. We're given Tatami mats to sleep on, which are about as hard as the floor, and I'm not used to that, so it was a little uncomfortable. While trying to sleep, I wished I could sleep in my own bed, use my own bathroom etc. I also felt that, although people are being nice to me, I'm kinda left behind in any conversations, and just end up in my own head. I wondered about finishing early and heading back. I decided to try and stick out the week though - after all, sometimes it's good to push through tough things.
The next day everyone got up quite a bit later than the 7.00 I was expecting. Our first job was opening peanuts and dividing them into good big ones and shrivelled or damaged ones. I presumed he was going to sell the good ones, and we could eat the bad ones. As expected, the conversation proceded leaving me behind, although I could tell they were talking about Hong-Kong and some of the mainland chinese people who come there. The Hong-kongese (what is the correct term for that?) girl told a story about a Chinese parent who told her kid to poop in a supermarket, just right there on the floor, and I understood that. I chimed in saying that I'd heard a load of Chinese mothers came to Hong-Kong to give birth, meaning their children could live in Hong-Kong. Then a little while later I mentioned I was worried everyone would be talking Taiwanese, and I was glad there were Hong-kongese and Singaporian people here meaning mandarin was spoken. They then asked me how much I understood and I sumarised what I thought I heard - it was great that they took an interest in how much I understood and felt much more in the conversation from there on in.
That afternoon the farmer said we might be able to work outside, but it was raining too much so we did more peanut shelling. 4 more Taiwanese Wwoofers joined us, and once again I was able to take part in conversations, for example about tongue twisters, and I gave a short inpromtue English lesson connected with one.
One of the girls I'd become closest to at that poiont because we sleep in the same room and her english is good enough she can help to translate sometimes. Anyway she had been bitten a lot by mosquitos, all up her arm and on her face. The farmer bought a load of mosquito coils, and we took a load of them, put them on rocks and lit them. I was sure you were just supposed to have one on all the time, to get rid of mozzies at the time... but then we had to go outside because of all the smoke.
0
TBC - They've just called "grubs up" (in chinese of course!)
The next day everyone got up quite a bit later than the 7.00 I was expecting. Our first job was opening peanuts and dividing them into good big ones and shrivelled or damaged ones. I presumed he was going to sell the good ones, and we could eat the bad ones. As expected, the conversation proceded leaving me behind, although I could tell they were talking about Hong-Kong and some of the mainland chinese people who come there. The Hong-kongese (what is the correct term for that?) girl told a story about a Chinese parent who told her kid to poop in a supermarket, just right there on the floor, and I understood that. I chimed in saying that I'd heard a load of Chinese mothers came to Hong-Kong to give birth, meaning their children could live in Hong-Kong. Then a little while later I mentioned I was worried everyone would be talking Taiwanese, and I was glad there were Hong-kongese and Singaporian people here meaning mandarin was spoken. They then asked me how much I understood and I sumarised what I thought I heard - it was great that they took an interest in how much I understood and felt much more in the conversation from there on in.
That afternoon the farmer said we might be able to work outside, but it was raining too much so we did more peanut shelling. 4 more Taiwanese Wwoofers joined us, and once again I was able to take part in conversations, for example about tongue twisters, and I gave a short inpromtue English lesson connected with one.
One of the girls I'd become closest to at that poiont because we sleep in the same room and her english is good enough she can help to translate sometimes. Anyway she had been bitten a lot by mosquitos, all up her arm and on her face. The farmer bought a load of mosquito coils, and we took a load of them, put them on rocks and lit them. I was sure you were just supposed to have one on all the time, to get rid of mozzies at the time... but then we had to go outside because of all the smoke.
0
TBC - They've just called "grubs up" (in chinese of course!)