La frustraciòn en la granja (Thursday December 9 - Day 30)

Usually, I am not one to complain about situations, or even to comment on the downside of a particular circumstance. For a long time, I have lived with the belief that one can and must choose their attitude. Often, the only part of your life that you can control is your reaction. And through this process, you create your reality.

This is, perhaps, why I have felt so out-of-character during these past few days. I`ve been frustrated. Worn. Anxious. This isn`t the infamous one-month travel slump. It`s something else, and thanks to hindsight I think I`ve figured it out.

Collectively, we at the farm have put weeks and weeks of man-hours working on the pool. Yes, I know. My farm has a pool. Strange. But the owners like to swim and they use it as a money-making attraction, charging people 10 pesos to use the pool for the day and charging birthday parties even more. The fact that I am working in a pool and not in a garden does not upset me. Well does not upset me too much. The problem is that, like so many things I have seen in Argentina, this pool is much better conceptually than in reality. Prevention and planning seem like foreign concepts. In stead, people think of an idea, act upon it immediately, and get it done. It may not be done well. But this is a culture with a different concept of time. So if it does wrong the first time (which it usually is), there is always tomorrow to do it again.

So let`s talk about this pool. They had it installed a few years ago and every year (sometimes multiple times per year) they have to drain it and clean it. Why? Because they have no cover to keep out the inevitable dust storms. They have a filter that breaks on a weekly basis. They have layers of paint trapping in fungus and mushrooms. This year, we had the pleasure of cleaning it twice. In October, they painted it white on top of a layer of mushrooms. Within a weak, the paint was pealing and we were stuck with an ugly, dirty pool. We drained it last weak and spent a few days chipping away some of the paint. Yesterday, Jenny and I spent the day on our hands and knees scrubbing the floor with a highly concentrated chloric acid solution. Mind you. We are in a pool, in 95 degree weather, with the sun beating down, breathing in gaseous air for seven hours. At the end of the day, our third looked the same as the rest. And all the while, as we were risking our health for a money-making attraction, we knew that the pool would return to its dirty state after a few weeks. We knew our work was for nothing. As if that wasn`t frustrating enough, after explaining our concerns to the owner, all we could receive was a simple ^No. No hay ningùn problema.^ Double the frustration.

This morning, the six of us got up before dawn in the attempt to finish this pool before the heat of the day. Thanks, South Africa, for this brilliant plan. Jenny knows what it is like to work in the heat of the day, and she wasn`t going to go through that again. After six straight hours, we called it. Are there still mushrooms? Yes. Is it clean? No. For a perfectionist, this is the worst part of it all. I am participating in the cycle. I did the job. I didn`t do it to the best of my ability. The cycle continues. There is nothing more I can do, nor is there anything else I care to do. It`s a pool. I don`t even like swimming!

So how do I feel now? Fine, actually. Great! In fact. I couldn`t convince myself to feel jolly about this shitty situation, but I learned a lot and I was able to acknowledge a really strong emotional reaction. I got to work with a great group of people to try to solve a problem. I became even more excited to be in Patagonia. I got a free high, care of toxic fumes. And I learned that working hard for the sake of working hard is not nearly as fulfilling as working hard for a project you passionately believe in. Today, I experienced the former, and it just wasn`t as enjoyable.