Five days and 15 curries later (#tummytroubles) we have finished our workaway.com stay at the Spice Garden Farmhouse in the region of Wayanad. Getting here was a bit of a struggle as the busses in Kerala dont seem to have the destinations written in English anymore and the people dont seem to speak much English either (how selfish of them).
The farm produces lots of different things such as coffee, many different spices, coconuts, bannanas, rice and some other fruits. It seems to be almost fully self-sufficient with the cow manure and decomposing cocunut husks providing the fertiliser while the coconut parms and other wood provids the fuel for cooking.
Our days typically consisted of having a curry for breakfast at 8.30am and then working from about 9.30am until lunch at 1.15pm. We would then have a rest for a few hours before doing another hour of so of some light work in the afternoon (eg. watering the plants). We would then relax until dinner at 8.30pm before heading to bed. We didn’t venture far off the farm in our time off as it is pretty remote and we were usully pretty tired from the work which mostly consisted of moving something heavy (piles of coconuts, coconut parms, wood, rocks, dirt etc.).
There were a few other workers who were all related to our host (Santosh) in some way and who were all between the ages of 50-70 and and had been working on the farm for most of their lives. Santosh said that he was a third generation farmer however he considered homself more of a businessman and most of his income came from some real estate consulting he did. Santosh had two dughters, both of whom were not interested in working on the farm but were instead keen on studying (environmental science and archeology). He attributed the shift away from farming to the reduced profitablility of small scale farming (due to stagnant prices and increasing costs of production) and well as greater availability of other options. Santosh came across quite traditional (eg. was of the prefferance that he would arrange his daughters marrigaes) but was also very nice and generous with his time.
Overall we have had a fun, relaxing and interesting week but we are looking forward to choosin our own meals again. Onwards to Kochi.
Haz & Rac Travels 