deshierbando

This weekend saw a lot of family. Leidy and her family came by everyday and hung out. It was good getting to see them. I want to talk to them more often.

On Saturday morning, Julí caught me early on and asked if I had anywhere I was going today. She said, with a big smile, that there was work to do in the Garden. There is a path bordered on one side by citronella (citronela) and on the other by lemon grass (zacate de limón), that leads to the invernadero (hoop house), and little weeds were beginning to sprout up between the plants. She set me to work deshierbando (weeding) with the small machete and gave me a basket to put the weeds inside.

Well, I weeded around the citronela, zacate de limón, jengibre (ginger), and caña india and was just starting on the aguacates (avocadoes) when William joined me. Once he did, we made my work before look like child´s play. He, armed with a shovel and a larger machete, took out the weeds and moss from beneath the largest avocado tree in mere seconds, then went back to redo my work around the other avocado tree. From there, we took on the other shrubs and the mounds and trenches where yuca and tequisque were planted. We were going great guns, despite having a wheelbarrow with a broken handle (I called it the borracho, much to William´s amusement), when suddenly the handle of our one shovel broke. ´Broke again´, really, but it looked like it wouldn´t be fixed this time. William´s father was there too, and he thought it was pretty funny. Then we went inside for lunch.

I went back to work on the signs. Miles to go. And when I am finished with these, Julí wants me to do some for the zacate de limón, citronela, and piña.



SUNDAY:

I spent the morning working on more signs. I drew and painted the three signs Julieta had asked me to do: citronela, zacate de limón, and piña. To do that, I had to sit in the middle of the path, between the citronella and lemon grass for several minutes, looking from one side of the path to the other and trying to straighten out the minute differences. Both citronella and lemon grass are from the same genus, Cymbopogon, of Poaceae. I finally drew citronella with a longer, more unified stalk and with the blades dipping more downwards after growing up; the lemon grass has more separate stalks, with the blades sticking up a bit more and dipping slightly at the tips. The citronella also has a tinge of purple in the stalks. We´ll see if I´m right, years later when a real ethnobotanist shows up to correct my field mistakes.

The piña, surprisingly, took the greatest amount of time. I couldn´t get the leaves right! We shall see if I can straighten it out tomorrow morning - I had wanted to have all three pieces finished by today. My goal is: 3 pieces a day. With only 15 more blocks of wood, that shouldn´t be a challenge.

The family did not go to Church today. Too bad.