After work we harvested a few oranges & lemons. Unfortunately, there are only green oranges left on the tree now. So we’ll have to be patient for a while, maybe they’ll turn orange while we’re here. But we have so many lemons.
I have no idea what we’re going to do with them.
There are some strange little animals here. We had no idea what kind of centipede it was.
But a day later, a friend from the Philippines contacted me because of our Instagram story and explained to us that this animal belongs to the millipede family and that we should avoid it as the bite is quite painful and can cause allergic reactions.
Thank you for this information
This insect belongs to the mantis genus.
Nothing really exciting happened today.
We went shopping after work as it didn’t work yesterday.
Yesterday we were still in contact with our host via WhatsApp.
He asked how we were doing and whether there was anything to improve.
As is typical for us, we answered him honestly.
We wrote to him to say that we were generally comfortable. That the bed is far too short for Alex and his legs are constantly dangling out. Of course these are luxury problems, a longer bed wouldn’t fit in this room anyway.
There are also two cameras looking into the courtyard and garden. He assured us that they are only on when no one is in the house. No volunteers and neither is he.
The only thing that really bothers us is that you can’t lock the door to the bathroom from our room. The bathroom has two doors, one from the kitchen and one from our room. If another volunteer comes here, we have to share the bathroom with them, which is a bit silly.
Our host is thinking about a solution. We are curious.
Regarding change, we have written that there is always something to change. But these are mostly personal concerns/opinions.
For example, we wouldn’t mulch the paths between the beds, but let the grass grow and keep them short. We didn’t want to take it to extremes and left it at that. Because this garden, which is supposed to be a permaculture, is not what we see here.
The volunteers are allowed to plant and try things out. A good thing in principle. There are special beds for lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and so on. Nevertheless, vegetables and lettuce grow wild everywhere or because the volunteers have planted them somewhere. We are of the opinion that if I have a lettuce bed and something else grows wildly in there, it has no place there and has to go. Others see it differently. That’s just the way it is.
There is also so much watering here. There are so many weeds. You can’t even manage to get rid of them. Millions and millions of woodlice feel at home under all the cardboard that serves as a pathway and is covered with mulch and are happy to have so much tasty food to nibble on. However, our host insists on “tending” and “looking after” the garden in this way. That’s just the way it is.
We heard that the host was very controlling of the volunteers. Every day after work, they had to send pictures of their progress. Proof photos of the work and so on.
We certainly wouldn’t let ourselves be controlled, we told ourselves. We are old enough and responsible enough not to take advantage of the situation when a host is not on site.
In fact, he lets us do our chores here in peace. After a week, he asked for various pictures of different plants and beds to get an overview of the progress. If we have any questions, they are clarified and if he knows of another task that still needs to be done, he lets us know.
That’s perfectly fine.
Perhaps it really does make a difference whether the volunteers are young or older.