There is no hot water, except the stuff you boil. And you don't boil water unless the wood-burning stove is already in use because you don't want to waste fuel. There is no sugar, except for a little, teeeeny bit of honey allotted to each person every day. No meat. No butter. No cheese. Everyone except Bruno (the weaver) is vegan, which means we eat vegan. The bread is all hand-made and really dense and dark, with a tough crust. The toilet is a 'composting toilet' comprised of a bucket in a wooden box with a supply of sawdust to cover each 'offering'. The compost pile is a few feet from my cabin door. There is no wifi. There is no fridge. The house and outbuildings are old and in disrepair. There isn't any heating either. Everything seems to be dirty; it's like the inside of the house isn't considered different from outside, and when there is no hot water available, 'clean' doesn't quite ever happen.
BUT I'm not sleeping in a tent! I have a little cabin with a little bed inside. The bed is placed diagonally because Sebastiaan, one of the founding members of the community, is sensitive to magnetic forces within the earth and when he spent a few nights in the cabin with the bed against the wall, he couldn't sleep well. He used a pendulum to figure out the optimal placement for the bed, which happens to take up the most space. But I don't really need space, and I've been sleeping like a baby, so I'm not going to argue.
this is the view from my door!
you can see the compost pile with a woven
wall of branches around it, top left.
the inside of my dwelling, complete with kaddy-corner* bed
see bucket of sawdust, right.
i took a picture of it clean, for all of
you with weak stomachs.
And the toilet isn't so bad. The compost pile doesn't smell either--I think it's all the sawdust. I'm just not looking forward to my turn to dump the bucket of poo after lunch.
Maybe that's why I've become such an avid dishwasher. It may also be that the thought of my dishes being washed in cold water with a slimy rag and a bar of soap makes me want to die or take over the job to be sure it gets done right. Kate, Sebastiaan's other half and the person in charge of visitors, seems to share my squeamishness for the filthy state of things. She makes sure I get some hot water for the dishes, and every day I've used the last of the dishwater to clean some other surface in the kitchen. Once I tried wiping down the wallpaper above the sink, which is grey with soot from the smokey stove, but the drips from the little patch I started on were black. I decided to stop and save that project for another day.
Happily, they don't eschew the use of salt. And instead of butter, there is oil for our bread. And the bread isn't that bad, especially when fresh. The food is quite tasty in general, if rather repetitive. Every morning we sit around the table, discussing plans, and cut up the day's veggies. Potatoes, green onions, carrots, radishes, spinach, sometimes other greens... For lunch we have salad, cooked greens (spinach or otherwise), rice, and lentils. For dinner we have soup made of potatoes and greens. My first day I gathered wild nettles (yes, nettles; the plants that have fine little pokey hairs that stick in your skin and itch like mad) for the evening's soup. Imagine that! You can eat nettles!! The soup ingredients are boiled while lunch cooks and then get pureed with a food mill (now I want one) while we clean up afterwards. It's a very efficient method of food preparation.
bread and butter and rooibos tea for breakfast.
happily i bought some yogurt and there are quick oats too.
happily i bought some yogurt and there are quick oats too.
This is certainly a new way of life, but I'm adaptable and brave, and it isn't that bad, once you get used to it.
*Is "kaddy-corner" even a word? Meaning diagonal? From corner to corner? I've been wracking my brain to think if I've ever heard it in real life.. Did I make it up? Is it "kitty-corner" instead?
Kitty not kaddy. :)
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