Crazy Start to the New Year

Life has been quite busy and crazy since returning to HDC after our Christmas break. We spent a lot of time last week catching up on work after being gone for two weeks.

Last Thursday night and Friday, Jess, Margaret and I went to Jess's house to help her family butcher a beef and a pig. In return, we would be taking back to HDC a quarter of a beef. The best part of the experience was Friday morning, when we went along with Jess's dad to the butcher shop. It was very picturesque - an old butcher shop on a farm, quite cold, although a large wood stove at one end attempted to provide adequate heat. It was flurrying and blowing almost the whole time. Soon after we got there, we saw a half dozen deer run through a nearby field. Walking in the door, the smell of raw meat was almost overpowering, although we quickly became used to it. Later, the shop smelled of lard and cracklings (which we did too, by the time we left). We trimmed the meat all morning, which in itself was quite the experience. In the afternoon, we ground the hamburger and made sausage. We got to try some of the fresh sausage cooked on the wood stove, as well as some of the cracklings. We went back to Jess's house and started the packaging process, and were treated to a supper of freshly made hamburgers.

After that adventure, we rushed home and jumped in the shower to scrub off the overpowering scent of the butcher shop, and then greeted two friends from EMU and one of their girlfriends who had come to visit. We had been through training last fall with the guys, and as always happens, we spent plenty of time reminiscing about our times together at HDC, but also took the time to catch up on what had happened since we parted ways. We sat in a room by the fire for several hours, drinking Nepali tea, and went to bed late, happy, full, and for some of us, wide awake from the caffeine overload.

The next morning, we welcomed even more visitors, and by the end of the morning had almost 15 people from our training. Everyone wanted to know what the others had been up too, and again, we shared so many priceless memories from HDC. We have gone our separate ways (mostly), but once we get together, it's so easy to talk to each other. Our time together during training gave us a special bond that cannot be easily forgotten - it's awesome.

Sunday night, seven GO! participants came for a few days of training. Two girls are going to the Czech Republic, and five others will be going to Peru. I was especially excited for those five because they will be going exactly where I went with my family for a month in 2002. It was nice to have people in the house again, and it was great to see their enthusiasm as they're getting ready to go.

This coming Sunday, HDC will be getting a new staff member, Rachel. She will be joining as Cook and Kitchen Coordinator, which means that my days as Kitchen Coordinator are drawing to a close, and I will now only serve the role of Office Assistant. Rachel will be sharing a room with Margaret and me. Our current room definitely did not have room for another person, so Margaret and I spent a lot of time this week cleaning our new room and moving our stuff in. It's a much bigger room with another smaller back room attached (which we have jokingly been calling our walk-in closet).

I was particulary grateful for the sunshine and heat today - HDC is usually cold due to the fact that it's a large house and hard (and very expensive) to heat. However, the cold was taken to a new level this morning, as the heat recently stopped working. Repairmen came to fix it, after it got down to a crisp temperature of 44 degrees - inside. Don't wory, it's working again, thankfully.

So many different and random things happen throughout my week - I love the variety and craziness of it all.