Simple Living in Ocongate

I'm back in Ocongate teaching a basic English class at the academic summer camp the Ocongate parish is running. Once again that means less access to the internet, so less regular blog posts, but I'm drafting stuff on my computer so hopefully there'll be a reasonable amount of stuff going up this month. I'll be here until the 19th of February.

Right now I'm thinking about the value of Simple Living in relation to life in Ocongate. I think that the time spent here is some of the simplest living in the Andahuaylillas JV experience. The house we stay in has just the basics. There's no microwave or quick-heating electric kettle. Even making tea takes at least 10 minutes on the weak stove. There's no DVD player which means no movie watching (which is a popular pasttime in the Mountain House). So there's not much to do at night besides read, play a card game, or do a puzzle. Rachel and I are doing all three.

On top of the house situation is the food. All our food is provided by the parish. I eat with the students for every meal (breakfast, morning snack, lunch, dinner). In Andahuaylillas, I'm used to eating whatever is served to me at lunchtime on weekdays, but I make my own breakfast and we share the responsibility of making dinner. Here I have no say in any of the food I eat. That's a good thing. It makes the food less of a focus and the company at the table more important. It encourages the humility needed to accept a plate of food that you don't like because you know there's no other option.*

Part of Simple Living is accepting what comes to you. There's a quote on the wall in the Mountain House that reads "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you in life." Nowhere is the practice of that more obvious than here in Ocongate.

*Not even my parents' standard "If you don't like it, you can always make yourself a PB&J."