weekend update

So the reserve is absolutely stunning and the work is pretty great. Our first morning Shane had to take the donkey down the hill to sell the milk to the locals while I weeded the vegetable garden and got a couple beds ready to plant in. The schedule is fairly light so far but we´re going to change things up next week so that we´re up early enough to actually milk the cows and feed the pigs and collect the chicken eggs before our usual tasks start. Friday morning I was woken up by a bat flying at my head. he got in a window that popped open throughout the night and shat all over my room... and I almost did too!

We then went and harvested mandarines and oranges from our orange grove and peanuts from the garden. In the afternoon we did a three hour hike throught the jungle, about an hour of which was along a very thin path with a very steep drop to the one side... what a treat!

This morning Shane and I left to go into town (Santo DOmingo) and saw some monkeys on our way down the hill as well as checking out the coffee that we´ll be harvesting on Monday. Í promise to upload photos soon but it might have to wait until we get into Quito next weekend. Shane has a date with our volunteer co-ordinator for next Friday night so I´m hoping that it´ll go well without interrupting our travel plans too much. I´ll try to write a better description or something soon too but I really am at a loss for describing the way of life and the landscape around here besides the fact that food grows everywhere and people are really nice and helpful despite the fact that we´re both not very strong with our spanish... fortunately we start lessons next week as well. Hope everyone else is doing well too!

love you all