The morning of our departure, everyone showed up to the club room around 10:30 am to get everything ready. There were lines and lines of coach buses parked along the street for students to take. We brought all of our bags and drums etc out to load onto the bus. The bus ride was maybe three hours long. We got to a location near all of the farming villages and had an orientation presentation. We watched a video on food production in
After the presentation, we were handed two t-shirts, a blow-up pillow, a small towel, and a farming hat, all provided by
getting ready to go out into the fields
We arrived at our village site. We were staying in the village center, which was a small brick building. When we got there there were a few children and a dog waiting for us. The farmers showed us in and we unpacked all of our gear (bags, food, and drums).
The village center had an open room which became the hangout room/eating area. There were two rooms, one off to the left and one off to the right and these were the designated sleeping areas, the girls on the left and the guys on the right. The guys room was separated by sliding rice paper panels and the girls room by a door. We generally keep the guys room open to making our hangout area larger.
in the common area
We were to help the farmers out with various farming tasks. Some people went into the fields to help harvest and clear out plants to make way for the new crops while others stayed back to cook and clean the house. The first day of work I went out to the strawberry farms to help clear strawberry plants. One of the farmers came to get us and we walked along a dirt road until we got to his greenhouse. We were all dressed in our farming attire; long pants, our farming t-shirts, work gloves, and our farming hats. He showed us how to pull out the strawberry plants, some of which still had red ripe strawberries on them. He told us we could eat them if we wanted. It was really hot and steamy in there, as the place was covered in plastic tarp. I started pulling out plants, which were prickly. I realized I was getting hives all over my arms and I couldn't breath very well. I tried to ignore it but it got worse and worse until I was having an asthma attack (I haven't had one in ages). Finally I had to go back. Thus, was my short lived farming experience. We decided I could stay at the house and help with the cooking and cleaning. Groups were supposed to alternate, but I would remain a constant at the house. I got to cook a lot which was an experience, and good preparation for my summer job - fun!!!
doing laundry
I cooked with one of the members Mangsa first; everyone rotated, taking turns cooking meals. I am pretty sure it was his first time in a kitchen, let along cooking!!! The meals were already planned out with cooking instructions, so we just had to prepare it. Our meal was potato soup, rice, panchan or side dishes which were already prepared, and fried eggs. Everyone went out into the fields leaving us to the cooking. It took us about 20 minutes and 3 phone calls just to figure out how to turn the gas on for the stove... Our soup was totally guess and check. The village children, particually one girl who was about 10 years old, who liked to hangout with us helped A LOT!!! She would come in periodically and ask us if we remembered salt etc. Mangsa started making the fried eggs. It didn't go so well. We were supposed to mix the whites and the yolk and then pour it into a pan. When it started browning, we were supposed to fold the egg and roll it up. He put concered effort into it but miserably failed - his egg ended up looking like scrambled eggs. He handed me the spatula and told me to do it. He didn't know that I'm allergic to eggs and really haven't had any experience cooking with them, but I could figure out how to say that in Korea so I gave it a try. Bingo, I got it! I now know I am an expert egg roller. : )
SooAh with two of the kids from the village
The other meal I cooked was with my friend BolBol. We were supposed to make Jajangmyun, or Chinese black noodles. We had everything all set and we realized that there was no cornstarch to thicken the sauce. We called GalSalm, the person in charge of food and he told us they'd forgotten to buy it and to make do without. It tasted fine, but was basically the consistency of water instead of a nice gravy. Oops! There were three kids hanging around that day, and they played while we cooked. They were all facinated with our electronics. Especially our cell phones. To preoccupy them so they wouldn't mess with our phones, I let them use my camera, that resulted in some pretty interesting pictures. It was cute; they were looking at the photos already on my camera. They saw a picture of Chung-gae-chun river in Seoul and one of them asked me in awe, "Is this America?"
Chung-gae-chun river in Seoul, the picture they thought was America
The gross thing about the kitchen was that there were flies EVERYWHERE!!! I have NEVER seen so many flies. There were flies all over the house, but a lot were in the kitchen. The day Mangsa and I had cooked, he had gone in the kitchen, shut the door, and spent a good 30 minutes in there swatting and killing flies. He killed everysingle on of them. He came out with a triumphant look but as soon as we started cooking, more came.
Our daily schedule was to wake up around 4:30 am (most of the time we didn't actually go to bed until 11 or 12 at night). Go outside and do group calesthetics to Avril Lavines song, "Girlfriend" coreographed by MooGong! ;)
Then we would get to work, either in the field or doing chores/cooking around the house. There were strawberry fields, melon fields, and rice patties. As for house work, we had to clean the floors with wet rags, hose out the bathrooms, sweep the front steps, tidy-up the inside, and do meal preparation. There was a mid-day break when the people working in the fields would come back. They had rest time and then we had lunch. There were lyrics to folk songs taped up on the walls and we often practiced them in preparation for the festival/feast on the 10th and final day down there; sadly, I was back in America by then. : (
Then everyone would go back out and work at bit more until dinner. Some of the village kids were always hanging around wanting to play with us. After the work was done in the evening, we would go outside and play games with them. (The boys in the village liked to play with those dung beetles that have the large black pinchers - they'd keep them in their pockets while they biked around the area) After dinner, we would have a group discussion and reflection on the days work. This part is a mandatory requirement of the program we were on. On the first day we had each received a handbook with discussion questions and charts etc. and we were supposed to go through it to discuss and fill it out. For me, this was pretty boring because it was a lot of discussion all in Korea. I remember one night sitting there; I started counting files in the room but when got to 200 I decided to stop because knowing that there were more would have been too disgusting... (we had this really cool fly killer that looks like a tennis racket and when it makes contact with a bug it zaps them. I actually bought one on my trip back in October for my dad^^).
look at that asian glow, hehe.
On one night, the farmers we were working with as well as their children came over after dinner to socialize. Everyone sat around in a circle and passed around watermelon and makoli (mmm... my favorite drink...). We sang the folk songs and chatted. It was really fun, but one of the kids from our group (one that I had never met before because he was a pretty in-active member) got really drunk. I guess he did some inappropriate things to the woman sitting next to him and other people from our group had to bring him outside. I have never seen a beligerant drunk before but, he definetly fit the bill. People were trying to calm him down outside, but he wanted to come back inside. Soon after that, the party broke up. All of the adults went home, but the village kids were still hanging around playing a game in the other room.
We started our group discussion/reflection of the day. The drunk guy was in the other room (the same room that the kids were playing in) with 비추 Bichu, who was trying to get him to go to sleep. There would be random busts of yelling. At one point, someone must have pushed the other because we heard a loud crash as someones body hit the rice paper sliding doors, which were shut. The next morning, the drunk kid (I don't know his name because I'd never met him before this trip) fell asleep at breakfast. I think he was really embarassed because he wouldn't look at anyone. Then later, he up and left. By the time people had figured out he had actually left to take a bus back to Seoul, not just wandered some where near by, he was gone.
Later, I found out that the kids were really scared. Honestly, I don't know why they let them stay there... and he had punched Bichu. Yikes.
I think the oddest thing was everyone in Tte didn't know I was adopted from Korea. I had told Dahwa, and word travels fast in that group, so I guess I just assumed everyone knew. Well, I was wrong. The night before I was to leave, it some how came up and everyone found out. All of the girls were so suprised! and HAPPY! wow. They were saying things like, "we liked you before, but now we like you even better!" Given they were saying it in their second language, it was like their fondness of me grew ten fold. It shows how nationalistic Koreans are, in a good way. It seems odd to Americans, but it really matters to Koreans. It's not that they dislike foreigners, but if you are Korean they have an automatic affinity with you. Anyhow, I was talking to one of my friends SooAh and she was saying how she still couldn't believe that I was born in Korea. She say something like, "Wow, now I wanna know what you would have been like if you'd grown up in Korea." She is completely fluent in English because she grew up in Indonesia. I said, "Well, you didn't grow up in Korea either. Don't you wonder what you would be like if you'd grown up here?" She hadn't thought of that. Haha!
Nonghwarl was a great experience. I had so much fun and learned a lot, from how to cook/improvise in the kitchen, to how to kill flies by the hundreds, to the lyrics of traditional folk songs.
