The best part about being free labor....

I just had probably my best day of service thus far, so I thought it was about time to write y'all now that I have something awesome to say. (Since my last post, things haven't been bad, just commonplace.) Yesterday, my little sister and I chilled all day, kind of studying for her English test on Monday but mostly me poorly translating movies we were watching – it's much more fun to be a big sister than a teacher 24/7. Mom was in the field all day, so we were in charge of dinner. While we were rocking that, she asked if I'd come help in the field the next day.

The only other time I've been asked to go to the fields was with Gulshair last summer, and I did absolutely nothing helpful. We went to the town's bean field, and I watched her prepare the chai break for all the workers. Then we had a few photo ops and her son took me home. But my sister expects so much more from me, so I was pumped to get an invite to actually help.

We woke up around 8, had our chai, packed some chai, then she, mom and I set off. Thinking back, I should've known we had this field, but since I'd never seen it, I didn't really know. We work at the town's field, and in our personal home garden, but our family also has another plot of land a few kilometers south. Here we grow beans and potatoes to eat and sell.

My brother/cousin, Turat, was already there. He lives in Grandma's house on our compound/lot, so I always see him around and at meals, but he doesn't know how to talk dumb enough for me, so we've never spent much time together. Today, we spent eight and a half hours together. That's right – I actually put in a full day's work!

We started with a chai break, of course. Then Kasiette and I filled a couple buckets with potatoes and got to planting. Turns out, the length of Kasiette's foot is the perfect distance to leave between potatoes. However, she was using both of her feet, so I had to guesstimate (my computer's dictionary believes this is a real word, awesome). Turat came along behind us to cover the potatoes with dirt, and almost every time we crossed paths, he'd ask if I was tired. I've never done much manual labor, here especially, but I wasn't tired at all. The more we worked, the more energy I got. Maybe reading the Secret Garden recently kicked me into that mindset, but it was fantastic! I was singing and getting things ready to grow. By the end of our work day, he was taking small breaks to rest, but not me!

Mom left at some point before our next chai break, and Turat disappeared for a little bit, so Kasiette and I killed all the chai, much to Turat's dismay. (I've recently noticed that I am completely and helplessly addicted to chai. At first, I thought it could just be caffeine, but even coffee doesn't placate me (though I still need it for morning classes.) If I don't have at least ten glasses a day, I am not a pleasant person.) We breaked twice more – once for bread, and once to let some rain pass over us – but we were working hard the rest of the time.

Our cousin/neighbor/my student, Ruskeldi, rode my bike up to our field with a big bag of beans just as we were running out of potatoes, so we switched crops. At first, I hated the transition. The boys would hoe a little divot, then we would come along and drop a couple beans a few inches apart. It was tedious and hurt my back, but the weather was warm and the company was fantastic, so I didn't complain.

The boys complained, though, and they developed a much better, faster method where we worked in pairs. They'd hoe a small hole, we'd drop in some beans, they'd hoe another hole, covering the beans we just dropped, etc., allowing for much more continuity in our progression. Bean planting became much more fun, and we raced to finish rows. Ruskeldi and I only won twice, once by default, but the best part about being free labor is no one complains about how (well/quickly) you get stuff done!

Eventually, we ran out of beans, I biked home, had some chai with Grandma, now I'm writing this. Tomorrow, I may help again for a bit in the morning, then I'll go into the city to watch our oblast's soccer team play a game – sounds like another awesome day, right? A couple Nigerians play for our team, and we've been making friends with them. Having someone to cheer for will be fun – it's nice to know I actually live here.

(So I wrote this about a week ago – just couldn't post it because my internet box is a piece of poo. The Talas team won the game! Also, tomorrow is my last day of classes, marking the completion of my first year as a teacher! A bunch more kids passed the test than I was expecting, not that it matters since we make up grades anyways, but that was cool to see. And....oh! Mom, I took your advice on that book project I'm slacking hardcore over - another volunteer is taking over the writing of it, and one of my kids is doing the illustrations for my book and the two books the other volunteer has already finished.)