She works hard for no money... da-nuh, da-nuh!

Sorry for the lack of postings lately!!! I have been busy with school, meeting new people, attending social events, and doing trabajo voluntario, or voluntary work, to help the farmers in Pinar del Río, a largely rural region that was struck very hard by both Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. We got up at 5 am this morning to get on a guagua (bus) leaving at 5:45 from the FEU center (basically the student activities center), and took the two-hour bus ride to San Cristóbal. They had done a great job of cleaning up after the storm, but still needed help taking care of the “agricultural rebuilding” aspect of the aftermath.

Because Pinar is a largely rural area, most of the land there is used for agriculture of some kind, growing avocados, potatoes, etc. When the storms hit, a lot of the plants were uprooted, and farmers lost their crops. This area is NOT rich, trust me – most people live in what look like one-room bunkers, and a lot of people can’t afford the sturdy building materials of concrete or cinder block, so their wood houses get torn down during storms.

Basically, our job today was to help farmers plant boniato plants (a type of sweet potato). The farmers had assembled cartloads of seedling plants, which we laid into rows of earth, and the farmers plowed over with cow-led hoe. It wasn’t really hard work, but the process was fascinating. It was basically like a service project at school, and there were a lot of foreigners there (apparently foreigners are the only ones they can really convince to sign up for voluntary work, because we’re suckers for these kinds of things).

After we had planted about half of the field, we stopped working and ate lunch (they gave out lunch and water), and then headed back to the central plaza in the town where students with megaphones were shouting out how awesome our solidarity was and how important our work here was. Then students started shouting “Viva la revolucion!” and talking about capitalism and I remembered where I was.

In addition to working, though, I have been meeting a bunch of new friends from the University. It’s starting to get easier to feel like I’m kind of fitting in, and even though I obviously stick out, it’s easier to make friends now.

Love you all and miss you!!!