REFUGIO: Other Stuff

Now we are at Padre Island, sitting in a coffee shop next to the HEB. WE're uploading the last bit of info from our stay in Refugio. Pio, Lisa, Noe and Saoul were awesome. The following are extra bits from some of the other things we did during our time in south Texas. Exploring the army surplus store in Harlingen, playing with the lost puppy, using broken toilets, etc.
The pond at refugio.

The puppy! Noe found it on the road and brought it back. We had some moments of deliberation over whether to keep it. He stayed there, cute though he was.
His and hers toilets that barely worked. Now they do, thanks to Noah and Sam.
Umm. Funny joke?
Noah trying on something in the army surplus store in downtown harlingen.

Grace's New Boyfriend

It was True Love at first sight.

REFUGIO FUN

Football? Soccer? Whichever to call it, so much bonding took place on the paddie(cow) studded fields of Refugio as we played our nightly games of "pick up" futbol. As the cows looked on, we fashioned our own World Cup here in south Texas with international representatives from Guatemala(Noe), El Salvador(Saoul) and Celo(the rest of us).


Aside from disgruntled cows, rugged landscape, and makeshift goals, what the players feared most was trodding upon the much feared "freshie" in the heat of competition with an auditory 'plop' and the 'ploosh' that followed removal of the foot from the pie. It was these moments that the onloking cows seemed to be wearing a grin.

Jason M.

DAY 8: Paula

Our last day at Refugio. Well, really, our last morning at Refugio seeing as we're planning to leave for Padre Island as soon as we can get packed and ready to go.

Jason and I woke up at 6:30 and one last time went out to attempt to milk the cow. To our credit, Today was the most successful endeavor. Saoul gave her some feed and tied her to a post by the horns. She let Jason and I palpitate her udder and tug on her teats...and had she any milk in her, it probably would have been a much more productive event. Unfortunately, though we've tried a few times to separate the mother and calf during the night (so the little calf wouldn't drink all of the milk by morning), the cow keeps escaping. So now I suppose Saoul is on his own if he wants to pursue the milking, but at least now the cow is a little more amenable/comfortable with the idea.

Lisa donated several green veggies and ears of corn to us this morning and we're all looking forward to corn and a veggie filled stir-fry tonight. mmm...vegetables... well, in just a few hours we'll be done with our time here and off to the beach.

DAY 7: Sam

Flutter, putter goes an engine that doesn't start. Today, Noah and I worked on chainsaws. In total we got 1 whole chainsaw fixed. All of the other ones were pieces of s**t. They have probably been neglected for many, many years.
At this point they are finishing up the last touches of paint. I helped for about 5 minutes out of two days. I have been fixing motors (well, trying to anyway) and being a plumber. Noah and I fixed three toilets here on campus. One of them Jason M. broke so we had to get a new one and install it. Maybe I will be a plumber, but the only way I can find out is to live on.

Sam

DAY 7: Tessa

Today was so fun! For the past two days we've been scraping, peeling, drywalling, primering, and painting a kitchen here at Refugio del Rio Grande. Before, it was peeling and falling apart. And with a touch of AMS magic, its now a beautiful, yellow, clean, functional kitchen! We splurged a little with trip money to make some great people really happy! The two refugees here are really nice and helpful. They seem to enjoy work just as much as we do.

Tomorrow is . . . Padre Island! Hurray! I think were all ready for a little water. It's very dry here and not really anywhere to swim other than a mucky 4ft. deep pond that inhabits flamingos. But nobody wants to swim in that. ^_^ I am going to be fourteen the day we leave the island and head for Austin. I feel like everybody is building great relationships with each other on this trip.

Monumento de los Machistos

A while back, at Refugio, there was a small cultural revolution. The refugees came from a background heavily weighted with machismo. the women who came to this camp wanted to work equally with the men, but the men resisted these ideas intensely, saying that a woman's work was limited to cooking, cleaning, and tending the infirm, young or elderly.

Pio told us that the women of the "machisto revolution" decided to make a monument to the ideas of the men, ideas that they said were "a load of crap." This is it. El Monumento de los Machistos.

DAY 6: Cactus Eating

We are surrounded by cacti! They will conquer us if we do not eat them. So we ate them.

Pio said they were tasty, and he suggested different ways for us to cook them.

First, you harvest fresh green leaves (or whatever they are - paddles?). The brighter the green, the better they are supposed to taste. We searched, but Pio said it was too early in the season for the fresh leaves to come out. Noah, John, Indigo and Tessa harvested several leaves for us.

Then, you burn the spines off in a stove or over a fire. Just a small amount of fire clears the whole paddle of its sharp pointies. Noah and John were excited about taking the work. They did the dirty work, after burning off the spines, of peeling the skins off and slicing the cacti into strips.


The next step was to fry them, and fry we did. It turns out, a skinned cactus is gooey, slimy and hard to hold on to. Analogies ranged from snot to worms to aloe vera guts.

They are tasty, but a little bitter. The first round, we did nothing but fry them. We have several other ideas. Stir fry. Add salt and seasoning. Particularly exciting is chicken fried cactus - breaded strips deep fried! Yummmy!

DAY 5-8: Milking Rosita

Fifteen days before we arrived, Rosita, a half-holstein cow, gave birth. We were talking with Pio and Lisa, and when they found out that we did milking at school, they were excited to institute milking again at Refugio. When there were more refugees, cow milking was a part of the regular chores. Rosita and her baby are sequestered every evening to allow mommy-baby time, and when they were put in the pen in the evening on our first night, we tried to milk her.

Our first attempt was not very successful because she has been in the field all day with the other cows. A number of other calves share feeding on the available mothers, so when we were trying to milk, Rosita had little to give. She kicked at Saoul, and our half a cup of milk got poofibers in it.

We decided to isolate her from her baby and see what would happen. For the rest of the nights, we played with penning and tying up the mama and her vaquito. Rosita pushed out of the fence one night, and jumped it another. Trying to imagine how a heifer heavier our trailer was able to jump a four foot wooden fence is a bit of a mind bender.

We had to tie her head to a post to keep her from running around. Noe suggested we tie her back legs together to keep her from kicking. Sam and Noah were excited to help, and rose early a couple of mornings to help. In all, we got little milk, but Rosita became more amenable to the ordinaros, so lets hope Saoul keeps trying.

DAYS 5,6,7: Painting

This was a big project, and everybody worked hard. First, we scraped the peeling blue paint off the walls. There were foot-square flaps hanging in places. Then, we patched holy walls and ruptured cieling. The drywall mud needed almost 24 hours to be paintable. When it was dry, we applied a coat of primer. After the primer, we painted a nice, warm, yellow on the walls. Then ceiling and trim. This was two and a half days worth of work, interspersed with other projects. we worked alongside Noe and Saoul.

Let the pictures tell the rest.

DAY 5: Border Patrol

we had breakfast this morning at Alicia's Restaurante, where you can get anything you want en espanol. After eating lots of eggs and taters with Pio, Lisa, Martha, Noe, Saul and the AMS gang, we came back to Refugio to plan our service work here.

We came up with some great ideas. At the breakfast, we talked about milking Rosita, helping tend the corn, which is natural indian and cuban corn. Hopefully, we will be able to bring some small shoots back to school to raise in our own garden. We also talked about painting the camp kitchen and repairing toilets.

After our planning, we made a shopping list and set out to town.


Our first, though, was a visit to the Harlingen Border Patrol Station.Jeff and Karen talked to us about their work and showed us some videos about issues on the border. We learned about the deadly cheese - Kids, DON"T DO CHEESE!
Thanks, Jeff and Karen.

We came home, played soccer, pigged out, started painting, worked on toilets, and went to bed.

DAY 5 : Indigo

Now it is morning. We just finished gulping down fried bagels and cream cheese. Paula is playing with the perrito. "arrg," she says as she tugs at the rope grasped in his mouth. Tessa just walked in and asked if i was clerk today.

"No," I said, "just writing."

I have fallen in love with the horses here. I miss home. but all is good.

Indigo