The past couple of days have been quite entertaining, and although I have thoroughly been enjoying myself all week, I have been lacking all inspiration to blog. This is interesting, too, because although I have fallen into a rhythm of comfortability, of actually living in Santiago, at the same time, I do not feel as though I have been idly going through the humdrum of the “every day.” I guess, I will just recap :-)
The past couple of days we have been helping Rolene, a quaker who was inspired to walk from San Francisco to Santiago spreading awareness about living “ecologically sound” with the environment, to transform the garden behind Con-spirando. It is such a beautiful little courtyard, that was basically useless because it was so overgrown and filled with rubbish. So, us three, and occasionally a couple woman that work at Conpsirando, spent two entire days working magic. The project was very tough, including but not limited to removing braches, trees and roots, moving rocks and compost, planting flowers, raking leaves, bundling everything for easy removal, and being creative. Although my body suffered greatly from all of the work, I couldn’t have had more fun getting it all done! It was so nice to be outside and working, at the same time as really witnessing it all come together. It truly was a transformation.
Before:
After:
Helping to work to transform the garden, is a metaphor of how I would also like to transform my soul. To clear out all the junk and debris from my life, all of the insignificant pettiness, and really focus on allowing the sun to shine deep into my spirit. May we all experience transformations in our lives, that open us up to the greater importances in life.
I have also learned that being willing to improvise and being flexible are essential when living in a new place and having to deal with an array of cultural differences. But, improvisation has been most apparent in how Gretchen and I have been cooking/eating these past couple of months. Most recent example of our cooking endeavors involves a pizza kit sent to me by my wonderful friend Sarah. Our pizza-making adventure was truly an experience to remember. Instead of an actual pizza, we ended up with an oatmealy, wheaty, chewy crust with grated cheese on top. (We counteracted the addition of too much water with the use of oatmeal and the lack of a can-opener resulted in a pizza with no sauce) It may sound kind of gross, but it really didn’t taste that bad, after we added butter and salt to it. :-) Making it was a lot of fun though and I probably would have enjoyed eating it more if we hadn’t thought we had to devour the entire thing.
Our final product. Tasty :-) I love that we put it all together while remaining in our dirtied gardening clothes and with dirt clogged fingernails, but whatever.
In conclusion, those are a couple of the fun things we have done these past couple of days. Each day continues to be filled with adventures and random experiences, a tangle of ordinary miracles waiting to be recognized in this crazy maze we call life. What beauty! What deliciousness! Enjoy!
