A Quiet Day of First Times

It started as an almost boring day, if you can call boring the morning panic when you find out that you haven't finished your homework. Luckily I woke up at six, so I had plenty of time to do it and also to rehearse the last lesson. But there was not enough time to make pancakes. Another attack of panic - well, not really panic but more a sort of "angst" to come at her door emptyhanded. Should I just put few apples and pears in the basket? No way, I have to make something original. With my hands. Something quick and with ingredients I have. So I came up with pears and caramel, with a dash of cinnamon. Did it for the first time ever. They came out un-fucking-believeably tasty.

After the lesson she asked me if I have time to help her on her rice field for the harvest. Are you kidding me? Harvesting rice in the traditional way? No machinery involved, handcutting and so on? It will be a pleasure! In fact I've never been in a rice field yet. Near it, yes. In it, no. My first rice harvesting!
On the way to the field we met a little chap, riding his bamboo stick. Just after we passed the house of his parents who were looking for him .



It was only yesterday that the little chap aknowledged that he likes me much. We had dinner together, a bunch of people, and he said that he likes "the uncle". After dinner I took him in my arms and went my way home. His parents were amused as he really didn't care about it. It only missed that he waved them goodbye... but it's too dark to my home and I really didn't want to scare him (but maybe he wouldn't be scared at all) so I eventually turned back till we were still in the light zone and returned him to his daddy.
This morning no time to play. First get a better technique with the 낫,
the Korean sickle, till now I used it only for weeding. And enjoy in the beauty mudpack for my feet. Tying the bundles was more troublesome, at last for me. 미정씨 taught me in a minute but I found out that my thumb, which is very important in the process, is quite bigger then hers and thus useless. It's too complicated to explain in words, you just have to take my word for it that I was funny using my index finger instead.



After lunch I had a sort of pleasant-unpleasant experience. Another first time, of course. 미정씨, she is the younger sister of my teacher, took care of my knees. You see, I still have troubles while sitting crosslegged. Not that my legs are stiff or the kind, it's that both my knees were badly injured at some points of my life. I can walk miles, but put on the floor and after ten minutes I'm uncomfortable. After twenty I'm in pain and after thirty I just can't do it more. So she came out with some nasty looking needles and fluffs of moxa. I was ready for my first moxibustion. (Also acupuncture, when it comes to that) The needles went in my knees smoothly (five points on each), but burning the moxa (mugwort) was... well, it was burning the fluffed moxa on the points where the needles were stuck. But that was not the unpleasant part of the experience. The point is that at the end of the session my left knee started to hurt. Badly. It's better now and we may have found out where's the problem so we should retry tomorrow.
When we went back to the field I was bitten by a Korean dog. For the first time. And then I had to build some bamboo scaffolding to hang the rice bundles - guess what, I did for the first time!


For dinner I was invited - again, not for the first time. This time I overdid my caramel pears, adding also apples, for it was a dinner for me and four ladies.

They laugh when I refer to them as ladies and they show their humble farmer's clothes and callous hands. I laugh back even louder since to me each one of them is worth more than millions of empty headed beauties from a big city.