Life on the Farm (Part One)

In order to save money and learn more about Malaysia I'd arranged to WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) on an organic farm called the Green Wish Vegi Garden; the premise is that I work on the farm each day in exchange for accommodation and food. From Penang I took a ferry and a bus to the meeting place I'd arranged with my host and he was able to spot me when I arrived because I was the only white person for miles! The farmer, Kenny, and his wife, Lee-May, drove me to the middle of nowhere in the Malaysian jungle to their farm; I could tell instantly that they were gentle, intelligent and kind people as we chatted about our lives. It was late when we arrived so I was shown to my room in a small building away from the main house and as I got into bed the jungle around me was buzzing with the sounds of insects, geckos, frogs, birds and wild monkeys chattering in the nearby foothills. Kenny's fruit and vegetable farm enables him and his family to be almost self sufficient, he makes money by selling small amounts of fruit and hosting eco-tours in the surrounding areas; one of these was arranged during my first day at the farm so I was told I had a day off to go cave exploring with a tour group of Malaysians!

The view as I walk out of my sleeping quarters.

Caving!

The farm is in a valley and here you can see the foothills where the monkeys live (Kenny told me they are large and unfriendly!).

The family has nine dogs and this was Po Po, my favourite.

Each morning I'm required to meet Kenny at the main house for breakfast at 7am which was difficult at first - bear in mind I haven't done any work or had any routines for almost five months now (I'm sure you feel very sorry for me). We work for 4-5 hours each morning with a fruit break at around 10am where they let me sample the farm's myriad tropical fruits including some I'd never even heard of before; because they are organic and freshly harvested the fruit is unbelievably good and I feel like a kid at Christmas because I'm allowed as much as I like! I'm the only volunteer at the farm at the moment so Kenny and I work together to pick papayas, bananas, pineapples and passion fruits as well as various vegetables. We also planted ocre and aubergines, created and distributed compost, covered lemons to protect them from fruit flies and my all time favourite job was when we felled a giant tree and I was allowed to go crazy and hack it up with a machete!

This is where I eat breakfast and lunch each day.

Daily fruit break! On the far left is rollinia - it has the consistency of creamy yoghurt - I am addicted to this now!

Here I am checking to see if any papayas are ready to pick.

Pro: beautiful tropical flowers.

Con: ants everywhere!

The heat and humidity gets more and more intense during the morning making it very sweaty, backbreaking work so we're usually finished by 12.30pm and Lee-May prepares us lunch using the vegetables we'd just harvested. I call this place 'food heaven', not just because of the vast array of tropical fruits but because Lee-May is a fantastic cook and I've been able to try many different Malaysian dishes; her food is so interesting I barely noticed it was all vegetarian. After lunch I have the afternoons to myself, there's nobody around and no WIFI so I've been spending my time reading; this is such a contrast from the past month where I've been surrounded by people 24/7! There are, however, a few things that are disturbing my peaceful afternoons - I've caught bed bugs from the hostel I was in before, I've been feasted on by fleas from the nine dogs on the farm, I've been bitten over 50 times by angry ants on my right bum cheek and I can't count how many mosquito bites I have! I'm so itchy I want to peel my skin off and set fire to it...