#6 A Question - An Answer - A Future

This will be my last blog post.... dramatic music, silence.... that I am writing on this farm. Next week it's goodbye and I'm leaving my first farm after 5 weeks. I've been here for a month now and it feels so much longer. The impressions are relentless. I could of course report here on how I perceive my personal development during this time. But this is too private and I have to take these developments up with myself - tough luck, but I can say this much, my English is getting better and better! It's crazy how I can just sit here with people and talk with them. Of course, I still need help and people who speak English will probably cover their ears when I start babbling, but for me this is a huge milestone, finally having found the perfect way to solve one of my biggest weaknesses. For example, last week... Just kidding. We did a lot of activities here again, for example we went to the grounds of the high school in the nearest town. Such a beautiful schoolyard with so much green space. I would have liked such a schoolyard too. In my opinion, it creates a very pleasant school climate, and of course the mountains. Just beautiful. After playing basketball there (not my strong suit), we went out to eat and I had to experience how tipping works here in terms of financial pain :D. Then this Friday was also an extremely important day. The farmer was being checked to see if he will be allowed to continue selling his products next year or not. In preparation, there was a detailed briefing on Thursday and then it started. The most important thing on this day was to disinfect hands. As soon as something else was touched, theoretically, the hands had to be cleaned. If this had been forgotten once, the farmer could have failed. So the tension on Friday was quite high. I was assigned to the carrot harvest (alone - AHHH... my English is not that good yet) and so I cleaned my work utensils and went to my field. Here now an example regarding hand hygiene. I disinfect my hands at the field, I harvest the carrots, I go back to the washing station, because I touched the wheelbarrow, I have to disinfect my hands there, then I have to wash each carrot, bring back the hose, disinfect my hands, as I touched the hose, then sort and pack the carrots, clean the wheelbarrow, go back to the field, disinfect my hands, harvest carrots... Repeat :D So I started harvesting the carrots and then I saw the farmer with the inspector. They walked over the property in my direction. I was furthest away that day and I thought to myself, 'Okay, he passed by the others, so he will probably just see the property once and walk past me.' So I fixed my gaze straight down and pretended not to notice the two men. But then I heard the farmer say, 'By the way, Samuel, this is X.Y.' and I just thought... 'Shit'... 'now I have to greet him'. And then... no joke... I was the first person to be asked questions by the inspector. We knew that the inspector looks at each person's work for a few minutes and then asks questions. The previous evening, I had already thought about how I could explain my individual work steps to him. As a person who speaks English, you were already nervous that day, but I don't speak the language so well yet and almost died :D Why did I have to be the first... And then he asked his questions and I didn't understand a word. I immediately said that I don't speak English and that he should speak slower. He did this and I understood the questions. He asked me what I would do if I cut my hand and what happens to the carrots if blood drops on them. Questions for which I had no preparation :D Fortunately, I said that the carrots are immediately thrown away and that was fortunately the right answer. If I had said that I wash them thoroughly and then sell them, the farmer would have failed immediately, his existence would have been threatened with a high probability, and I would probably have been able to leave 1 hour later. One question - One answer - One future. But everything turned out fine in the end. Afterwards, we went to the District Wine Village to celebrate. It's a wine region where there is a circle in the middle with various regional wines that you can taste. Incredibly beautiful and tasty as well. The evening was rounded off in the karaoke bar. Yeah! :D

Otherwise, everything is pretty routine here. I still enjoy the sun and sometimes climb onto the roof of my trailer. A very good place to sleep and get a tan :D The stars are still fabulous, just yesterday had a wonderful view again and from my bed I can also watch the stars. I love it!

So this post is slowly coming to an end. I will definitely miss a lot here, but a new farm also means a new adventure, new impressions, new experiences, personal development, ....

So goodbye and see you soon!

Your traveler

Samuel