Obama?

Today I woke up early to hear if the Presidential elections have been decided or any news about it. I turned the radio on about 7 then was woken by Diana who told me to look outside. I checked out the window and it was snowing! It was surprising for snow because in the Catlins, November is spring, close to summer even. I stayed in bed for awhile since it was warm, and listened to the radio, nothing was going on. Once I got up I watched the snow get heavier and heavier and soon it turned to hail. We were making journals today, and I thought that meant that I would be writing things, which I am horrible at, so I was nervous. It turned out that these journals were vintage books turned into bound blank journals that Diana sells in posh stores in Wellington, Auckland and a few other cities. She goes to book sales and picks up hard cover books with jackets for around $0.50 and brings them home and cuts the bindings off. She then selects a few exciting pages, maybe 5 and takes them out as well. Then the jacket's are cut to size and the front cover along with the inner sleeves are kept to glue back on. I was gluing so I had to make sure that the front picture fit properly, then placed the inner sleeves inside the hard cover. These hard covers are sent off with the inner pages to scatter within new recycled pages and are bound by a man in Balclutha. It is about $7 per book total and Diana adds $10 to each selling the books for $17 to vintage-y stores. They then sell for up to $40 which I thought was crazy! But people can not get enough and she is making new books all the time. The snow worsened as we worked and a neighbor, Carol, stopped by however she was stuck in the hail and needed to seek shelter under a bush along her walk. We took a lunch break and I soon got back to work. In the afternoon Diana and I walked up the road a bit and went to cut down flax. We took the leaves and I cut them up and used them to weave a basket. It was a little difficult to get it perfect, but I think I did a good job of it. Hopefully they will allow me to take it back into the states.

Oh and I have figured out, I think, what is wrong with my ear. The rest of my body is once again covered in bug bites and I itch all over, but my right ear had small bites along the top. They are really little but you can see the bumps and my whole ear is inflamed because of this. It's really annoying and I do not like being bitten, but I guess that is just to be expected when you are out in the wilderness.

We were listening to the radio and soon enough they announced that Obama was leading enough to call him a winner. We quickly went over to Mabel's house to watch the news and saw Obama's winning speech! I was truly hoping that he would win, not just to have a nice change, but because the area I am currently in would have had a fit if he did not. I liked being in a different country for the elections because it has given me a different perspective on the USA. 

Tea tonight was delicious, Keith made falafel which was wonderful and Diana made fresh tubule from things in the garden. We ate that over bread with lettuce and it was a great meal. I am starting to get used to having fresh foods from a garden and really want to have a garden of my own when I get home. Too bad it will be winter when I arrive. Next summer I will start a veggie garden so that I can make salads and things for myself. 

They are almost self sufficient here, as you may have guessed. Keith works 1.5 days a week teaching and Diana is a writer who has written enough in the past to not need to write more unless she wants to. The journals that I helped with today do not take a profit as Diana takes the money that she gains from selling them and invests in others through www.kiva.com which loans small amounts of money to people in third world countries so that they can start their own businesses. They live very simply without a television or much for internet and heat the house and water supply with the wood stove. They do not have an oven or cook top but instead cook either over the fire of with a hot plate or electric pan which I never knew existed. It has been really neat to get to experience life like this, I would never be able to see this side of the world from home.