Saturday 23 January 2010

True Self-Expression ; My second Wwoofing experience


After surviving my first Wwoof encounter, I decided to give myself a go at round 2.

This would take me to 'Aung Mingala Farm', a practicing Buddhist household located just outside the village of Kendall.

Definitely the best cooking I had experienced so far! Tin, is from Burma. She's quite a remarkable woman. Currently, she's paying for 5 kids to go through medical school back home in Burma, and she affords this by cutting and selling flowers from her garden, making various food items and jams and selling them in the village. 5 kids man. Wow.

My stay there was pleasant all in all. The last few days became a little quiet for me, but overall it was good.

Tin taught me a lot about Buddhist meditation and Buddhism in general. I even took part in a meditation class that she ran, which was pretty awesome. Sweaty, but awesome.




Work was pretty rigid. Start at about 7am, a morning tea break at about 10am, and then working through til lunch, at about 12.30pm. The work was varied, but pretty boring - just things that had to be done around the farm, such as;
Mulching, Weeding the pond (from which I got a beast of a rash all over my arse!), weeding around the flowers and potting/unpotting plants.

Still, the mundane attributes to the work that I had to do was soon forgotten with some of Tin's lush cooking. I swear I must have put on a couple more kilos in cake weight.



Activities for me when I wasn't working was pretty much meditation, yoga, and backflip practice -



The farm was tranquil, and I soon realised that upon my arrival, so I adapted my mindset accordingly. I think if you rocked up to this place expecting a good time or a bit of a laugh, you'd be disappointed.
Eating was mostly in silence, and after a while it became painful. Still, the flavours distracted me from that part, especially after Tin told me that 'you are a noisy eater'. Ah, the bluntness of Asian communication.



I'd give it a 4/5 overall. No near death experiences, but plenty was learnt a long the way, and due to a couple of omens popping up here and there, I knew that's where I was supposed to be.



Check it out if you have the time, but don't go looking to lose weight!!

No comments:

Post a Comment