Day 2 WWOOFing in Italy

Lessons of the Day:

1. Farmers don’t stop for rain
2. Eye protection, face masks, and gloves are for the weak of heart (yet I would still really like to have them!)

Today was wet and cold (I write as a sit in bed listening to the rain rhythmically assault the house all around me. I’m under five blankets and wearing my thermal underwear and the t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweater, and fleece jacket that I have not once fully removed in the three days I’ve been here. I can’t bring myself to face the cold in this unheated house. If you’re on your way to the obvious conclusion, I will assuage your curiosity: yes—this means that, even with laboring outside in the mud, I have yet to shower). For better or worse, apart from taking care of the donkeys, today the rain pushed us indoors to sand rocks. They have recently built a stone guesthouse that is fully erected, and every individual stone on the inside needs to be cleaned with wire brushes.

Lean and I were given wire brushes, an electric sander, and were set to work. Soon we realized that we were short of supplies, mainly eye and lung protection. So we improvised with sunglasses, making it too dark to actually see what we were doing, and scarves tied up over our faces, Zapatista-style. Unfortunately, we did not find the appropriate improvisation to save our hands and now have the blisters and cuts as evidence.