Day Three: Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Wednesday, July 23^rd (Farming at Wing Lung and Grassroots Dinner)

Written by Ty Daguay

 
We woke up at 7:30am, bright and early to start our new adventure!  Our first task this morning was to till the soil and weed inside of the greenhouse.  The greenhouse mainly had snake grass and fig trees growing, which covered about ¾ of the space inside.  The weeds were getting pretty big, and the soil seemed really compact (from heavy machinery, or people constantly walking on the soil I’m guessing).  No matter the cause, after 30 minutes of tilling, Miho and Stephanie managed to get the soil nice and loose for further planting!  Sylvia, Felicia and I were in charge of pulling weeds around the fig trees and snake grass.  I wish I had before and after pictures, because the greenhouse looked really clean after we were done with it!

After our morning chores were completed, the grassroots team (Sylvia, Kelli, Anson and I) met in the kitchen to prepare lunch for everyone.  After about two hours of food preparation, we managed to whip up an awesome lunch that comprised of: fried rice with cucumber and ginger, fish patties, boiled eggs, and shoyu noodles with canned pork and beans.  The meal was delicious!

After our stomachs settled down, Bird let us walk down to Little Palm Beach, which is directly south of where our campsite is located.  While over there, we had to collect and bring back little rocks from the beach to help build a solid platform throughout the farm.  With Hong Kong’s crazy heat, it was difficult to imagine why the beach was completely empty.  As we got closer we noticed that there was trash everywhere, the ocean water was murky and dark-colored, and the water was freakishly warm!  Little Palm Beach was not a place to cool off, even though us Hawai’i locals were so tempted to go for a quick swim.  The view from the beach was really pretty though!

After bringing back our little rocks fro Little Palm Beach, the grassroots team set out on the hunt for groceries that best fit our dinner requirements.  Basically, our grassroots team had to follow the lifestyle of low-income families, by bargaining for food like as they do.  With nine people total in our campsite, we were only allowed to use 90HKD to buy for the WHOLE meal.  In USD, that would be about $13 to feed for nine people.  But then again, we have to consider minimum wage and currency to sympathize with grassroots financial income.  Our grassroots team had to even mimic the way they traveled from home to marketplace.  In this case, we had to hike up from the bottom of our campsite at Wing Lung Farm to the top of the hill, and then some to reach the nearest bus stop.  I swear, the hike took about 45 minutes and in the blazing heat nonetheless.  My shirt was completely soaked when we got to the bus stop, but thankfully the bus came right in time (a double-decker bus!) and we sat with the air condition on full blast.  Probably not how typical grassroot families travel, but we needed to be spoiled after our long hike!  The bus ride to the nearest market took about 30 minutes.  We were headed to the wet market, which is basically an open produce market area that many locals come to bargain for cheap food.  They had everything from fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs and fish!  The atmosphere was crazy packed, busy, loud, and hot!  Everyone was shoving their way through a narrow two-way lane.  It was definitely a new experience for me, but I had a lot of fun watching Anson bargain for a cheaper price even if the price was already cheap, haha! 

 

We finished buying our groceries and caught the bus back to Wing Lung Farm, but as we were riding back I felt a piercing headache coming along.  As we inched closer and closer to the farm, I could feel my headache growing progressively worse.  In fact, by the time we got into our campsite, I had to lie down and stick a cooling strip onto my forehead.  My teammates told me to rest as they prepared for our delicious dinner, I felt really bad L!  When I got up from my nap, my grassroots team was already finished cooking and setting the food on the table.  My team made: pork and squash soup, tomato with eggs, sweet potato, and lettuce.  The food was delicious!  I was so proud of them J!

 

 

The night crept up closer, and it was time for us to sleep early for a busy and adventurous day tomorrow!  I sure learned my lesson: bring water wherever you go, heat stress and dehydration is inevitable, even if it’s for a short distance.