Chapter 93: The strain of having nine wwoofers

Yesterday, Jaime and Paloma left. I felt sad to see them go, because we had had such a good, relaxed time together. But they were immediately replaced by two Austrian girls and a French girl. A lot of new names to learn and introductions to remember.

The work this morning was total chaos. First, there was a lot of teaching to be done (the German couple from before came back about a week ago, did I tell you that? I can’t remember). So we had one new girl each to show the routines of Time Out Farms. Then a few people came to look at Tully, the pony that I have been helping Jay train, and Diane asked me to ride him a little, just to show the potential buyers. But he just wouldn’t cooperate. There were too many people watching, too much at stake, he just wouldn’t and I felt like the worst horseback rider ever to have stepped into a roundpen. (The woman liked him anyway, though. And who wouldn’t, he’s such a beautiful little thing. I haven’t asked for the details, but I think Tully might get a new home in a couple of months once Jay has had the chance to train him a little bit more.) Well, and in the middle of that, Russ the stallion escaped and created havock, especially among the mares. And then, when Diane finally had him cornered in a meadow, the two mares that escaped before, Tapestry and Tappen, escaped again. Crazy day. Really crazy day.

And I’ve realised here that it’s hard for me with new people. Not as if I didn’t know that before, but it becomes so obvious here. It’s not that I can’t talk, it’s more that it requires such an effort that I become mentally tired and feel kind of confused after a while. And I become this really boring person. Which makes everything even worse. So I took a brake this afternoon, sitting in my room, listening to the heavy rain outside and streaming four episodes of The Good Wife. Atleast I know when I need to press pause.

So, this evening, an additinal three persons arrived, two German girls who have been here before and a frend of theirs. They’re only here for a few days, but still. We’re nine wwoofers. A week ago we were three. I’m overwhelmed.

At dinner, I only said one thing. The German girls were telling a story about a French guy that they met that systematically used a couple of words completely wrong, like, calling dust ‘weird’ (as in “sweep the weird”). My comment was a reference to the Monty Python sketch about the Hungarian phrase book. Not a single person around the table got my reference. And think about it, we were twelve eating dinner. Atleast one more should know their Monty Python. Instead, I just created an akward silence and then the German girls went on with their story.

Ah, what I wouldn’t do for an hour or two with someone with a similar pop cultural reference frame as my own. I’m not picky. Dad or Natalia would do just fine.