I never thought I would love doing manual labor on a farm!
Team Soul House (Soul Spark and Lighthouse
From day one, we were handed machetes and given the task of mowing the fields that were currently occupied by squash plants. After a few blisters and continued practice, we got our hand motions down well enough to make an impact on the field.
In less than 3 hours, we had the first part of the field done!
The next work day, we tackled the second part of the field. Jess killed a tarantula with a machete—I swore I would never kill one, but this one came charging out of its hole and was jumping around crazy; for my team’s sake, I whacked him and buried him back in his hole.
Not long later, my hand got in the way, and I spliced my hand just above the thumb—no worries, it wasn’t bad! (Now Nicaragua will be permanently engraved in me :P) With the help of Emma, the Bandaid girl, I was fixed up in no time—with gauze and duct tape! And Emma would like me to mention that she is a professional with all kinds of bandaids, and she’s great a ripping them off!!
Since then, we have dug holes in the ground in preparation for planting plantain and lime trees—and it was not easy. Unfortunately, this part of Nicaragua isn’t dirt…it’s clay. Even after breaking it up, once you apply pressure, it reforms. We worked with broken shovels, which couldn’t bear the weight of the clay. Unfortunately, our hand muscles weren’t any better. But we pressed on, and as a team, we finished our section for the day—even with an unexpected break during a massive rain storm.
It’s so comforting to know that, despite the hard work, these fields will produce fruit that is of greater value than the work that it required. And how true is that in life, too.
