Oranges and goodbyes

Well, Theo and I finally started working! We are working in the citrus orchard behind the monastery with Leonidas. Leonidas is the sole person responsible for the cirtus orchard. They grow oranges, lemons, limes, and mandarines. They even have some avacado trees but they are too small to produce...bummer. So far we've been weeding around all of the trees in the orchard. It takes a long time. We thought we made good progress the first day, but three days later we aren't even half way done with the orchard. We get to use curved machetes which is cool. Not to mention that snack time is only a tree away, literally. If we are ever hungry we just pick and orange. It is quite a process however because we only have huge machetes to peel it. The work isnt too hard and Leonidas is pretty laid back. We make sure to have fun too...which usually includes playing baseball with the bad oranges or trying our martial arts skills by tossing oranges in the air and attemping to slice them in half with our machetes. There is one really bad thing though...ANTS. There are lots of ant hills in the orchard and they bite. They are smaller than the typical ant in the US but they make themselves known. When they bite you feel it and it swells up and itches just like a mosquito bit within a matter of minutes. As Leonidas has told us many times...se pican. Leonidas is a pretty calm and friendly guy, and short. As we were walking on the first day, Theo and I looked at each other thinking the same thing...man he's short. Theo used his hand to estimate his height and he only comes up to our chest. In the afternoons, we take time to sit down and speak Spanish which is very helpful. He answers our questions and helps us with vocab. Not to mention, he is going to take us on hikes on Sundays.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the boys that work in the monastery and play soccer with us left today :( Aparently they work for about a year and then head off to school or whatever else. We had no idea until Wed that they were leaving. It sucks because they were really fun to chat with, they helped us with Spanish, and most of all we got to play soccer or volleyball with them every afternoon. Now what are we going to do? And who is going to clear our dishes? I guess we'll have to work every afternoon now. We did find out that there should be some seminary students or something coming in November so hopefully they are fun and will hang out with us.

Lastly, prayer at 6am is rough. Theo and I are pretty much sleep walking throughout prayer in the morning. As soon as it's over, we go back to sleep for 40 minutes before waking up again for breakfast.

So, everything is still going well, Spanish is still frustrating, and I love getting emails from home, so keep sending them.