Chapter 3: Part 3 : Rivers within us

Last night, was the night when we learned that house could be wider than our size of the eye. We had seen our school but not a house like that. We all rose early in the morning, I had awoken more earlier at 6.00 a.m. I took a lukewarm morning bath, wore my brown long skirt with white t-shirt and quater sleeves dark brown summer jacket and low heeled dark brown boots. First day, we were going to look around the farm and learned about our each assigned work that we had to do for a month. So, I got ready and left my room at 7.30 a.m. with my bag. It was a beautiful sight, blueish bright light bulging into the staircase from the big wide windows of the room, all maids and servants of the farm started their works probably at six o'clock. All lights were turned on. I was feeling chillingly good. I went down to long hallway to see the balcony, the rain was stopped, so I took initiatives to enjoy the views of the balcony. There were painted white, garden iron benches with tables, all lined up infront of the balcony to enjoy the views. There were a small greenhouse with herbs and vegetable gardens on the both sides of the balconies upfront. There was a side wide iron stairs from the each balcony to the greenhouse garden. It was simply an artistic sight for me. How long I was standing there, I didn't count but the manager came there to talk with me. He was a mid aged man with clean shaved , strong jawline, sharp nose, black timid eyes like a wild animal without any curiosity, tanned skin, trimmed hair, well dressed, strong mid size man. He wore beige trouser with stripe white half shirt and brown boots. He was looking very charming fresh air to me. We talked about the school, farm, their farm works, farm made produces and greenhouse. He took me to the greenhouse. It was beautiful, small pathway in the middle and all veggies, herbs were on the both sides. He was mentioning it was a gothic greenhouse that produces their household vegetables and herbs. Then we were heading to our breakfast table. Other students all went to their dinning hall then I joined to them later. He took a leave for that moment from me and went to his work. They gave us hot porridge with freshly baked bread, cereal biscuits, mixed fruit with nuts salad in a small cup and lemon tea as a breakfast. After that we were allowed to look around the farm. We where staying at a valley ranch, it was as magnificent as the name could be, pale light blue with black roof was looking gorgeous on those woods, surrounded by hedges. Last night, I couldn't realised that it could be more beautiful than the pictures. The farm gate was one side of the road and the garage was facing towards the roadway, it was at the corner of the ranch, so no one had to handle any dilemmas or an accident of any kind to park their cars, just straight away from the gate and stop. The pathway to the cattle ranch was on the other side of the valley ranch, hidden behind the hedge plants, upfront of the hedges there were flower beds and shrubs on a row beautifully arranged. When they took us in the ranch, we saw dairy cattles and goats were getting ready for giving their milk to greedy human kind, the chicken and hens were eating their breakfast, farmers checking their laying eggs, swans, goose, ducks and ducklings all were kept near the small pond, it was not so deep, no one could try to even die there, as the manager said, there they farming shrimp, tilapia and catfish mostly. Small pond under the couples of coconut trees alongside there were classic style pale blue garden tea table and chair settings looking quite neat. Anyone could have swim in the pond if they wanted to. All big trees were there on the backside of the coconut trees. Fruit and nut trees were those, they even had a grape vines aligned on the slope, the whole ranch was surrounded by hedges and wrought iron fences with alarms, so everything could stay peacefully and secured. We ate some of the freshly baked apple pies and afternoon green tea in the enormous kitchen which was at the end of the dinning hall then our teachers noted us, our assigned everyday duties for a month, til the luncheon time we discussed about our duties. At lunch, they prepared sun dried tomatoes, shrimps, cabbages and mint salad with lemon, cashew nut and white sauce, tilapia fries, shrimp with coconut milk curry, boiled egg and catfish salad, baked spicy chicken, spinach and cottage cheese fry with plain oily rice, polao was the name of it as the maid said then afterwards they gave us fruit salad with homemade mango and vanilla ice cream. We never suffered for food there. They always treated us of their best and we were shamelessly never hesitated to eat. Later, I had to focus on my duties which was assigned in the greenhouse with my roommates for a week and others were assigned in the farm. We all had to take the shifts in every area of farming for our individual practical experiences. We had to work in the morning and at evening we were free from our prison of slavery. But it was a monsoon season, our work changed into a good ideal time to hang around, most of the time we were spending in the valley ranch. The manager saved us from our innocent injustice of nature and showed us the library which was newly discovered by us in the basement of the dinning hall. It was in the dark corner of the room, it was separated by the wall where we imagined a store room of the dinner tableware or dishware. It was a beautiful, luxurious, comfy and a big library, I had to admit it. Well decor screaming out the intensity of importance behind the secrecy of it. Valuable relics, souvenirs from different countries, ancient historic books were all around the room, in the middle leather sofas, on one sides there were tables and chairs for studies and researches, radio for entertainment, indoor board games and table games, fridge for snacks, small bedroom with washroom if anyone get tired of studying could take nap for a while, armchairs, air cooler what else anyone could be interested in when they were enjoying that kind of hospitality. The book shelves were from sky high to floor, they kept staircase as well for the book shelves. After the whole day of work if weather was feeling merciful to us, on the evening, sometimes we did fishing, had enjoyed picnics with our adult boys cooking or sometimes we spent our times on learning things like car driving, swimming or cooking. Other than that we spent our evening on the terrace or in the library. Our couples were spending more times with each other by that time, sometimes we founded them gazing each others for hours who knows for what reasons, sometimes we even couldn't find them for chilled out with us, their love were mesmerizing in the air when suddenly at one point a couple began arguments with each other. It was evolving everyday little by little then oneday one of the adult lover boy screamed at his girlfriend. He was accusing her recent interest on our one of the teacher. That teacher was a good looking guy with his sparkling calm timid eyes, he could scan anyone, he was an earthly person, everything in this world, he could concur with his humane benevolence nature. If he got the permission for doing it by the help of our undying devotional slavery, under his supervision, everything was possible for him. We were all loudly laughing at his accusations. One of his friend gave him ice cold bag on his head if he had any kind of head injury to cool it down, another was saying how could you accused our innocent father of the earth with such an awful crap who could actually take any good looking woman out for a date? His girlfriend was feeling little bit ashamed by their reactions. After that her boyfriend was shyly smiling at his idiosyncratic behaviour. We couldn't comprehended how the time flew out of the room. It was a dinner time. For that day we left our library alone. Later, that boyfriend was creating problems for our earthly teacher, stolen his things to make him feel bad, used innocent leeches to die under his pillow oneday, the next day he was crying out of pain when the manager founded out about that incident, he was furious on the maidens for their negligence about it and ordered them to give him some salt for the leeches, the manager tried to push the oral sucker which was thinner in the end to detach it, repeated it few times then pour salt on it, to dehydrate it, to death. The manager was scolded the servants the whole morning but we all knew who did that because we saw him to collect them from the garden. The good news was he only used two small leeches which were sucking one of his hand or else it could be worse. Afterwards, we all started to look after her boyfriend so he could not do more harmful things out of jealousy. We didn't know if our teacher knew anything about his jealousy but he kept the distance with his girlfriend. At the end of our bon voyage with beautiful memories and pictures, we were headed to our old sweet home with watery eyes.