hey everybody,
i´m here in spain still, at a place called el xop, which is catalan for the poplar. I am just outside of Lleida, a city in Catalonia, living with a family, Xavier, Nuria, and their 17-year-old son, Albert. I am learning so much Spanish, being here, where they speak Spanish almost all the time. Of course, it is still hard for me to understand sometimes, and very hard to speak in Spanish. It takes me about 5 minutes to say a couple sentences, and probably an hour to tell a story. Well, that may be an exaggeration, but let´s just say, i end up starting a lot of sentences in spanish, and finishing them in english. This is okay when i´m talking to the 2 other wwoofers, one who is from Australia, and the other who is from France. But if i´m talking to the family, i have to try to say it all in spanish. So, it is challenging, but good. i really like it here.
This weekend, a bunch of other wwoofers and friends came to the el xop for an exhibition by one of the wwoofers. She was showing parts of her journals from her wwoofing/travelling experiences and a bicycle trip from germany to northern spain. It was a lot of fun, fiesta, music, dancing, eating...and her drawings are really nice. This is what i really love about travelling, you meet so many people, especially other travellers, and exchange so many great ideas and experiences with each other. I am meeting people from Germany, France, Holland, Quebec, Brazil, Australia, and of course Spain, oh, and even a woman who grew up in Boulder, even though she´s been living in Puerto Rico for the last 8 years. I love it.
So, other than partying, i´ve been working pretty hard too, weeding, raking leaves, other garden work, and laying down stones for a patio. We are also working on this pyramid project. They found this pyramid, saw it on the side of the highway, and found out whose it was, and they said they could have it. So they are going to put this pyramid, 6 meters by 6 meters on the edge of the garden. It is going to teach people about sustainable sources of energy. Now, i´m not exactly sure how. This is part of the problem with not really speaking the language of the people i´m working with. Anyway, i´m sure it will be wonderful, and right now, we are just working on preparing the ground where it is going to be put, digging a hole, and moving plants, etc.... I hope before i leave, i will be able to learn how to make soap too, since this is something they like to do here.
A few days ago, Nuria´s aunt got lost. This is a very old place, and she is the last one of the original family that lived here who is alive. It was a little scary, but in the end we found her, but i wrote a little something about it because the whole situation was quite surreal.

Oh(de to) Lola!
Where did you go?
You were sweeping only a few minutes ago.
Now we are calling and maybe you hear.
But you don´t care.
You have somewhere to be.
Maybe you told us yesterday at lunch,
you were planning a holiday.
But nobody listened, said
"oh Lola, she just talks:
habla bla bla bla"
Everyone is worried
searching searching searching
the neighbors were all here.
the police and their dogs.
Even a helicopter deployed from Barcelona.
You were in the newspaper.
Lost woman. 88 years old.
Almost 24 hours you were gone.
We all knew everything would be fine,
but then it started to get dark, cold...
But we still thought everything would probably be okay.
I thought, but i wanted to take a picture of you,
with the parrot on your shoulder,
puppies at your feet.
I dreamt they found you,
sitting under a tree.
In the morning, someone found you
with dirt all over,
talking your talk.
You were fine, of course.
And now you´re back sweeping.
sweeping and talking and laughing.
You just went for a walk.
No pasa nada.


So, i don´t know where i´m going next yet, but i´ll be at el xop until at least the end of the week.
I love you guys, and feel free to comment, even just to say hi, just so i know people are reading this thing. Love you all...