Tuesday, July 20
It’s the third day of work and I awoke debating why I’m here. I really want to run off and hike, however, I still feel compelled to stay. The set up team is a really a great bunch of people and everyone appears to get along really well. There’s a nice diversity to the crew. In a sense I feel kind of out of place but at the same time totally welcomed and included. I kind of feel like if I were to decide to leave right now the team would be somewhat disappointed and confused by my departure. Despite my hot and cold interest I’m still in. After all, I’m here. I’ll see how the festival shakes out. If my burning desire remains to do a long distance hike then I’ll still have a month to walk myself into the ground.
The great nights of sleep continue in my tent down by the pond and the Chateau is quickly beginning to feel like a home of sorts. It will be this way until the weekend. When the festival begins the empty field behind the chateau will quickly be filled with 1500+ yoga campers.
The weather has been absolutely splendid and the work steady. The days are like this. Yoga is at 6am for those who are interested. 8am breakfast then work until 1 or 2. Break until 3 or 4 then work until 7 or so when it’s time to have dinner. A specific cook is in charge of preparing the food and all of the meals are communal. It’s quite nice and the food is generally very good, always healthy, and served with a choice of several good French cheeses that would be considered a specialty back home.
My motivation for base labor hasn’t been all that great but I’m definitely doing my share. There’s a variety of things to do so unappealing duties never seem to last very long. The work pace and amount of time spent working will gradually pick up as the opening day nears.
Naturally the set up crew is international. Nationalities include Italian, British, French, Canadian, American, Spanish, and German. English is the universal language but it’s not uncommon to throw out words or speak in another lingo at any given time. For example a Spanish man said “Thank You” and without thinking I responded “Dinada”. When a group from the same country are gathered together they’re most likely to speak in their native language otherwise it’s mostly all English. The one area where I feel like I fit in with the crew is that most all are of the “Traveler Thinker” variety and many conversations include stories from past trips and hopes of future travels.
Wednesday, July, 21
Yesterday was Jerome the supervisor’s birthday. At four o’clock nine of us piled into a couple of vehicles and went out for coffee at a local place in a small village about a mile or two from the Chateau. In the village there is a Boulangerie / Patisserie that makes bread, pastries, croissants etc. The village is just a typical quaint small French village and not any kind of tourist attraction, however, the Boulangerie produces some insanely crazily good stuff. Jerome picked up some fruit tarts to celebrate his birthday. While we were having coffee he sliced up a 12 inch fresh blueberry tart that had just been prepared. I don’t know what the heck they do here in France but that blueberry tart was impossibly tasty. In the evening we had more after dinner along with non alcoholic beer. As I consumed the intoxicating flavors I commented that I didn’t think drugs were allowed at the festival.
Today work has picked up. We spent all morning installing pit latrines in the rain. The Chateau has quite a few facilities but not enough toilets to properly serve over 2,000 people for over a week. To combat the issue 40 pit latrines have been dug around the property forests. They are very basic squat toilets with a flat wood floor decoratively painted with a hole in the center. Three lattice sided walls are put together with a shower curtain functioning as a door. The pits in the ground have already been dug so we just had to set things up. Once the festival is over the floor and walls are removed and the holes covered up. They call them eco toilets and in all regards they’ve served well in the past, but on the other hand, I think the festival is kind of cutting corners on this issue.
Tomorrow we will spend all day putting up tents. Today a professional company arrived with a couple of truck loads of parts for the main tent which is being professionally installed. It’s the size of a fairly large pavilion. Tonight I am very tired.
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