Visiting Vichada, the Meta River way

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

There are two chief ways to look at it: A relatively expensive box-ticking exercise or a worthwhile adventure.

I have been telling myself that it was a worthwhile adventure. (As an aside, I could have used the word 'latter' here to avoid repetition, but having read that my mentor-beyond-the-grave, Dr Samuel Johnson, refused to use either 'latter' or 'former', I now feel somewhat uncomfortable using them!)

Once I committed to it, for sanity's sake, I have to be of the mindset that it has been worth it. Otherwise I'll just keep on thinking about the fairly costly nature of the trip.

Orinoco flow: The famous river does give one a desire to sail away; isn't that right, Enya?!

Speed thrills with few frills

I refer to my recent visit to Puerto Carreño, the capital of Colombia's Vichada department. Having tried and failed to go there in March of this year — see Vichada vacillation for why that was — this time I saw it through.

That it was 'mission accomplished' was mostly thanks to the river route being fully open. The mission, discretionary as it was, was to set foot in Vichada, making it the thirtieth of Colombia's 32 departments that I've now travelled through.

In the imagination, a voyage of some 600 km from Puerto Gaitán along the River Meta all the way to the Orinoco, where Puerto Carreño sits rather isolated, surrounded by Venezuela to its north and east, might sound magical. But a leisurely cruise with access to a comfortable cabin and bed this was not.

A speedboat powered by three motors with streamlined seating space, particularly when full with 50 or so passengers, which it was for the most part, was the transport vessel. Incidentally, it was a slightly bigger boat with more passengers and driven by four motors, for the return journey.

For sure, the boat covers ground, nay water, at an impressive pace, but after two or three hours hurtling along, the novelty of the experience largely wears off.

Going at such a speed means that, as a sightseeing experience, it's like being on speed. So I imagine.

OK, there are pit stops along the way — including a navy checkpoint — allowing one to stretch legs and relieve oneself. But for those hoping to get a feel for the flora and fauna of the region en route, they'll be disappointed. The idea is to get to the destination as quickly as possible. It is, after all, a transport service, not a tour operator.

Now, while it was a mini-saga for me to get to Puerto Carreño owing to my aborted attempt in March, it wasn't a case, as regularly happens, of the reality not matching the expectation once it was finally realised. I can happily say that I wasn't left too disappointed on reaching a destination that had long been on my virtual, non-binding must-visit list. It does help, however, that I don't exactly have exacting standards.

'What had been on my mind was getting my hands on a Polar beer, Venezuela's brew-of-the-people and, whisper it, of better quality than its Colombian counterparts.'

And as much as the speedboat journey was more functional than phenomenal, it was part of the adventure all the same. With air blowing refreshingly into one's face for the guts of 12 hours, it must be a healthier way to travel than the alternative of being stuck inside a bus for 36 hours. Yes, there is the option of flying there directly from some of Colombia's main cities, but where's the fun in that?

The main, most alluring attraction in Puerto Carreño itself is Cerro de La Bandera, effectively Flag Hill to give it its English translation. From its summit, which is, I guesstimate, around 50 metres above the town, it offers a good view of the entire surrounds.

Venezuela vision

From it, looking north-northeast, where the River Meta runs into the Orinoco, one can just about make out the nearest neighbouring town, Venezuela's Puerto Páez.

The way it was described to me by some people in Bogotá who had visited Puerto Carreño, it seemed as if one could casually walk over to Puerto Páez.

Jesus Christ no doubt could do so with little difficulty. My walking-on-water abilities, alas, are not at those kind of miraculous levels.

Boats do the short crossing on a daily basis, but seeing as how a return journey would have set me back up to 40,000 pesos — the cost of a night's kip in Hotel Samanare, my place of residence in Puerto Carreño — I decided to stay in Colombian territory.

In the not-too-distant past I would have been eager to visit Venezuela with it practically within touching distance. These days, I'm somewhat less bothered, seeing as how the country has practically become the USA's fifty-first state. One could say it's now merely akin to Miami, albeit a more pleasant, safer version.

I was, nonetheless, expecting there to be a vibrant Venezuela vibe and feel to Puerto Carreño, something that I had noticed in other Colombian towns and cities that border the 'brother country'. This, however, was surprisingly lacking.

OK, there are plenty of Venezuelans in the town, but that's nothing unusual in any Colombian place these days.

What particularly had been on my mind was getting my hands on a Polar beer, Venezuela's brew-of-the-people and, whisper it, of better quality than its Colombian counterparts. The closest I came to one was the sight of a few well-worn, Polar-branded blue beer crates outside a private dwelling. They were serving as support for plants and a few other random items. By the look of them, I wager it's been years since they housed an unopened Polar beer.

Time trials

Time-wise, though, there's no getting away from the fact that Puerto Carreño is more in sync with Caracas than Bogotá. It is, after all, about 1,000 km east of the Colombian capital. So while it's officially on Colombian time, it really feels like it should be an hour ahead.

Now would be the fitting moment to say none of that matters because one forgets all about time in this secluded setting. That would be rather disingenuous on my part.

For the few days I was there, the time of day was rarely from my thoughts. With temperature highs in the mid-to-late 30s in degrees Celsius, the temptation to have a late-morning or early-afternoon refreshingly cold beer or three was very strong. I stoically avoided this, though. The beers had to wait until nightfall.

Killing time involved sweaty strolls around the town, wanders up to Cerro de La Bandera, and what can be termed reflective gazes out at the waters of the enticing Orinoco, interspersed with the occasional, obligatory coffee break.

There are tourist attractions in the greater area, but I was content to stay around the town, largely minding my own business and getting a feel for the place.

That feel is fairly laid-back from what I witnessed. Indeed, that I was generally left to my own devices — aside from the odd, unthreatening indigenous child looking for a handout — is a big plus for Puerto Carreño and its inhabitants. It only takes a pest or two of the human variety to spoil even the most attractive of environments, as I experienced a couple of years ago in another of Colombia's sticky outposts, La Chorrera.

So now that I've done Vichada, to use that sickening, sanctimonious backpacker terminology, trips to Guainía and Vaupés would see me complete my on-the-ground colouring in of Colombia's department map. They're not on my radar just yet, though. I will consider sponsored sojourns to them all the same.
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Santandercito's senseless slaughter — senseless to me, anyway

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

I've long held the opinion that we'd have far more vegetarians in the world if we all had to kill our own animals.

Many of us like meat, but how many of us would be willing or able to slaughter the actual animal providing such fare? I'm pretty sure I'd struggle in any case. And I don't think I'm on my own in this.

Bloodletting: The site where Jairo breathed his last after receiving a fatal stab wound to the heart.

A load of bull

Even though I grew up and laboured on what effectively is a beef cattle farm, our family enterprise is but just the first step in the chain: the cows my father keeps have calves each year that, when they are around a year old, he sells to other farmers who then feed them to 'finish' them, i.e. once sufficiently meaty, have them sent to a factory to be killed for human consumption.

Thus, I was removed from the slaughter. There was no life-ending blood on my hands, not directly anyway.

The closest I came to delivering the fatal blow to one of our herd was when, on an extended visit to Ireland from Colombia, I helped my father take a bull calf to the local factory.

This young bull had contracted a disease that prevented my father from selling him in the normal way — some EU directive was at play, a bovine infection that Europe wanted to eradicate; hence the animal couldn't be sold as livestock to another farm. The young bull's meat, though, was considered fine for human consumption.

So he was locked away from the rest of the herd and fattened up until he was deemed ready for butchering. A few days after his date with destiny, his body was brought back to the family home in conveniently packaged portions and placed in a deep-freeze, to be eaten as our family saw fit.

'The savage nature of it is particularly disturbing. To stab somebody in the heart requires one to be face to face with the target. It also requires physical force to plunge the knife into the body of the victim; one really has to mean it.'

My normally omnivorous mother, who was effectively chief caterer to this bull during his isolation period, couldn't bring herself to eat his meat. The sight of it made her feel sick.

I had less of a connection with him, so I didn't feel as bad eating his flesh. Had I been charged with ending his life, though, there's a good chance he would have received a last-minute pardon. In fact, I felt rather uneasy just forcing him off the cattle trailer at the factory. The little bull, clearly smelling blood, did his best not to follow the path to his demise.

Bloodletting

I am, however, quite a queasy sort. The only time I was allowed to donate blood here in Colombia — see 'Your Irish blood's not wanted here' for more on why I now can't give blood — I became faint on seeing it flow through the tubes and into the adjacent bag. Indeed, the mere thought of it now is making me a little nauseous.

Others seem less bothered by blood. Just as well, or we'd have no one willing to work in the life-saving health sector. Less critically, and perhaps less benignly, we'd also have little to no meat to enjoy.

Unquestionably malignantly, on the other hand, there are those who have no problem with bloodletting for purely nefarious purposes; nothing revelatory in that, of course.

Mercifully, though, most of us will not have our lives brutally cut short at the hands of a crazed killer. Nor do many witness such an act.

Now while Colombia is somewhat more violent than my native Ireland, I like to reassure myself that, for the most part, the killings happen at a safe distance from me. And at that, these days, those who do the killings tend to focus their wrath on fellow Colombians; a case of taking the law into one's own hands in a country where the justice system frequently fails its less powerful citizens.

I still, more or less, believe that as a foreigner I'm less likely to be deliberately killed in Colombia. I can no longer say the same for killings occurring at a safe distance from me.

Brutal beast

At around five o'clock in the evening on Sunday 06 September 2026, the senseless, savage stabbing of Jairo Manuel Avilés Martínez, an acquaintance of mine, happened just a couple of metres in front of me. I had been the last person to chat with Jairo, apart from the man, another acquaintance — for legal reasons, I won't give his name here — who fatally thrust a six-inch knife into his heart. A brutal, cold-blooded, calculated assault, inflicted without warning.

Jairo's murder — for what else can it be but murder? — came just three months after the killing of another acquaintance of mine from Bogotá's Santandercito barrio. However, as I described in Mingling with Colombia's killers, this earlier homicide was gangland-related. It was, to put it crudely, strictly business. The young guy who was killed knew, forced or otherwise, that he was engaged in potentially deadly dealings.

From all that I can gather, Jairo's murder was nothing of the kind. His killer had some sort of a grudge, no more, no less.

The savage nature of it is particularly disturbing. To stab somebody in the heart requires one to be face to face with the target. It also requires physical force to plunge the knife into the body of the victim; one really has to mean it. It's certainly not for the queasy amongst us.

If I were told I had to kill somebody and I had to do it with either a knife or a gun, I'd choose the gun. At least one can put some distance between weapon and target with a gun; not so with a knife.

For sure, many of us at times get angry with our fellow humans to the point where malice aforethought may enter the mind. Some may even consider it more acceptable to do away with another person than an innocent animal. Yet few are capable of following through on these homicidal thoughts.

For most of us these days, the slaughter — be it of animals for consumption or humans because they are considered a threat — happens at a safe distance from our everyday lives. Let somebody else deal with those blood stains.
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Colombia's passive examination system

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

A few years ago, a Colombian ex — of sorts — asked me for some urgent help. She had an English exam to take for her university. If she didn't pass it, she wouldn't be able to graduate.

She had one slight problem, though. She had very little English. Well, she practically didn't speak the language at all.

'The exam must be passed; by somebody, it doesn't matter who.'

Not-very-testing times

Cue a couple of weeks of intense English classes dictated by me to get her up to scratch. That, of course, would have been the more righteous approach. What really happened? I took the exam for her. She still, rather pathetically, had a hold over me at the time. And she knew it. At least she did watch me answer the questions; I'll give her that much.

The way that text-only, multiple-choice exam was set up — fully online, unrecorded, and with a very loose student verification mechanism — it seemed as if the university didn't really care if it was taken by the student who was meant to take it.

In other words, it effectively encouraged cheating, particularly in a country where the overall level of English, as well as the desire to speak it, is low.

Around that time, I did write a piece, Colombian universities' English at all costs, questioning the requirement for a certain level of English in courses where knowledge of the language was far from essential.

'It's not that the student must pass the test. It's a case of — using, pertinently, English's passive voice — the test must be passed . . . by somebody, it doesn't matter who.'

But eight years or so have passed since that old flame asked for my assistance; plenty of time for the universities and language institutes to re-evaluate their procedures and amend them where necessary. Except, from my latest experience, they haven't.

Sound system

For one particular institute, in any case, the acceptance of cheating — or at least playing the system — is even more blatant than what I'd witnessed before.

Here's what happened: An 18-year-old who I've never met — he was given my contact details by a production assistant on a shoot in which I recently participated — asked me to take his test for him.

This time, however, it wasn't a text exam. It was an oral one. Yes, an interview via a Zoom call. Thing is, it can be done without using the camera. The examiner just wants to hear the student's voice.

Thus, with my, um, Mid-Atlantic English accent — or is it still a west of Ireland one? — I assumed the identity of this Bogotá native teenager.

Now, if the one conducting the interview — Laura, a Colombian, who was visible to me throughout the call — genuinely thought that I was an 18-year-old studying English as a foreign language, either she's not the sharpest examiner around or my level of English is not what I thought it was. Or maybe I'm just a good actor, although I made no effort to come across as a rookie learner of the language, as the guy for whom I took the test clearly is.

Perhaps, seeing as how it must have been obvious to Laura that it wasn't an 18-year-old Colombian answering her questions, the oral exam will be declared invalid.

However, from what I gather, it's an accepted practice in certain quarters.

In essence, it's not that the student must pass the test. It's a case of — using, pertinently, English's passive voice — 'The test must be passed — by somebody, it doesn't matter who.'

Deep fake

Yes, I could have declined to take it for this guy whom I've never met. For one, the payment I received for doing it won't tempt me to dine in an exclusive Bogotá restaurant. It's barely enough for a roasted whole chicken in my working-class barrio.

Yet, curiosity got the better of my mild moral objections to this rather innocent fraud. If I hadn't done it, somebody else would have, no doubt.

What's more, if the guy was more tech-savvy, he probably could have set up ChatGPT or the like to do it for him. I'm quite behind the curve when it comes to the use of Artificial Intelligence, but from what I've heard and read, it would be up to such a task. In fact, I imagine an AI version of the student would have been a far more convincing fake than me.

Thus, with AI's overhauling of innumerable areas of human competence, Colombia's passive examination system is perhaps a better reflection of the times than what's considered best practice in other places.
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Colombia's tienda trap

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Whenever I'm back in Ireland, I make it my business to get some Marks and Spencer chocolate-chip cookies. They are, as far as I'm concerned, the best of their kind around. But while I find them truly delicious, I also know that I shouldn't over indulge in them. Too much of a good thing and all that.

A beer a day keeps the blues away, doesn't it?

So it's just as well that the nearest Marks and Spencer department store is a good distance away from my Irish base. Were there one nearby, I'd be tempted to make these scrumptious sweet treats a daily delight on visits to the land of my birth. Although the price of them these days does help to make one think twice before temptation tends to take over.

Indeed, the price of most things in Ireland gives me pause for thought. My Colombian pesos lose much weight in euro-land, notwithstanding the currency's strong performance during the last few months.

Not-so-dear beer

Back in Colombia, while the price of many staples continues to rise, this hasn't really been the case with beer, especially when one takes the steady increase in minimum wage into account. Compared with other products and socialising pursuits, beer is fairly competitively priced.

'Santandercito's at-times hedonistic haunts do put one's temperance to the test.'

In working-class barrios, such as my current abode of Santandercito in Bogotá's far north, one can get a 750 ml bottle of ordinary-but-fine Costeña — my tipple of choice these days — for 3,800 pesos, the equivalent of about one euro. In comparison, the price of a cinema ticket is around 20,000 pesos — over five times more expensive; a standard lunch in Bogotá, about three times more costly. In fact, Colombia is placed towards the top of the list for countries in the world with the most affordable beer.

So, when at a loose end of an evening and not wanting to be in one's quite cramped, shared place of residence — pretty much an everyday feeling — a couple of beers at the local tienda bar is an appealing option.

Yet, like the Marks and Spencer cookies, I know that it's not the healthiest consumption choice one can make. I do, though, only sporadically indulge in the cookies — that I'm only in Ireland every now and again is a significant help, of course.

In contrast, consuming Colombia's competitively priced beer is a far more regular occurrence. And while I'm usually disciplined in the art of moderate drinking, at times I go over my self-imposed limits. Santandercito's at-times hedonistic haunts do put one's temperance to the test.

I used to think that if I had my own well-equipped place, this tienda temptation would decrease significantly. But experience over the last couple of years has told me differently. I generally prefer to be in a public setting for most of the day — or at least out and about — and while panaderías serve their purpose during the daylight hours, by nightfall tiendas are more appealing.

Downwardly dining

That I can take to the tienda with such regularity is mostly due to the fact that I am single, childless and not an employee. Were any of these to change, then so would, most likely, my late-evening routine.

Right now, I don't see those conditions changing, not organically anyway. Thus, it leads me to sometimes think that I'll have to force the change.

In my recent mini-series on Dr Samuel Johnson, I noted how he advised that one should endeavour to 'smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.' Now, I'm not saying that there are no wise or relatively rich folk in Santandercito's tiendas. For one, intelligence comes in various forms. And there are a fair few in the barrio who seem financially comfortable.

It may be just the case that my current preferences are doing little to advance my cause. One slight problem is that I'm not sure what cause I should be advancing towards right now. It's like I'm caught in a trap. Colombia's tienda trap.
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I am neurodivergent. But of course!

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

While I find it hard to see myself back in full-time employment, as an employee that is, any time soon — if ever — every so often I see a job vacancy that piques my interest.

Most of these questions require more than a simple yes or no answer.

And if the application process is not too tedious, I'll apply. My guiding motto in such cases, particularly in relation to journalism and media gigs, is that it's better to be a known unwanted than an unknown unwanted. I used to say loser instead of unwanted, but I now think that's a bit too harsh. Just because somebody doesn't want me, this doesn't make me a loser, does it?

Truth presenter

With that in mind, I figured I might as well let Human Resources at BBC Radio 5 Live know that I'm willing to be considered for the role of Chief Presenter currently being advertised. Were the station looking for just a mere presenter, I may not have bothered applying. I'm above such mediocrity at this stage.

As it is with many major employers these days, the initial application has to be made online via the BBC's own career portal. Having used this portal before for previous applications, details such as my employment history are already saved to my profile.

Normally, the only fields that require attention are questions related to the specific job being advertised at the time. In this latest case, one is probably expected to give a different answer as to why one is suitable to be a Chief Presenter as opposed to why one would make a good Presenter. 'I perform better when I'm overpaid and underworked' is my approach to the former.

Also falling under the BBC's job-specific questions are those related to a candidate's socio-economic background, health and wellbeing. I guess it makes sense. One's health and wellbeing between job applications could take a turn for the worse. Or for the better. (The BBC calls it a Disability Questionnaire but, as we'll see, that's a debatable title.)

'Does a gentle but rather annoying years-long pain where my left leg meets my buttocks count? It is a pain in the arse anyway.'

Nonetheless, it's almost as if these questions are included as nothing more than a box-ticking exercise. There's no scope to go into greater detail. It's like somebody asking you how you are when they actually couldn't care less. They certainly wouldn't want to get a truthful reply.

Differently abled

For example, there's the statement 'I am neurodivergent' to which one is obliged to respond. Like all the others in this section, it can only be answered with either 'yes' or 'no'. My preferred answer would be 'Yes, but it depends what you mean exactly.' We're all neurodivergent, aren't we? What's neurotypical, after all?

Then there's 'I have a learning disability: yes or no?' Well, I probably do. For one, I often think I'm a slow learner. Or I certainly wish I could read faster and still retain much of the information in the process. That I can't do so is something I consider a disability, particularly when compared to those who not only seem to be voracious readers but also have great information-retention faculties. There is the possibility that such types are just better spoofers than me, though.

Next on the list: Do I have a physical impairment or repetitive strain injury? Does a gentle but rather annoying years-long pain where my left leg meets my buttocks count? It is, I can say with certainty, a pain in the arse. Or in that general region anyway. I've been told by people who know more about these things than I do that it could be an issue with my piriformis. 'Sorry, you haven't been considered due to your poor piriformis.' Story of my life.

How about a speech impairment? I do sometimes struggle to find the right words, which can be, um, what's the word . . . Frustrating?

I also regularly pronounce words incorrectly, although the English language does allow a little more wriggle room in this regard compared to my now second tongue of Spanish. I believe, however, that the Spanish world should make more of an effort to accommodate my accent and pronunciation. Come on, if Chilean Spanish is acceptable, then Wrong Way Corrigan Spanish should be more widely tolerated.

So with all these, it would be nice if the BBC's job portal allowed one to give more thorough responses. We are talking about a corporation that has its celebrated Verify fact-checking service after all. The BBC, of all media groups, should know that a question can rarely be properly answered with a simple yes or no.

I look forward to pointing this out in person when I get shortlisted for an interview for this Chief Presenter position.
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Letter to the editor: Trump truths

@wwaycorrigan

My latest letter to the editor, published in the Sunday Independent, 26 July 2026. See photo below or read it at https://www.independent.ie/comment/letters/letters-youd-have-to-pity-the-cows-if-mayo-win-today/a/159172990.html.

It was the editor's decision to publish that the letter, nay email, came from Bogotá rather than Lisacul, Co. Roscommon — from where it did actually originate. I gave her the option, in fairness!

As for the theme, if only we could have have more honest politicians. If only.

President Donald Trump: He doesn't always do what he says, but he's often truer to his word than many other politicians. 

Little joy from the west of Ireland's summer sun

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

'The summer sun was sinking low
Behind the western sea
The lark's loud song was pealing sweet
But it brought no joy to me.'

A brighter future lies just over the horizon. It's hard to reach, though.

So go the opening lyrics to the Irish ballad, The Woodlands of Loughglynn.

It was a favourite of my late Uncle Jackie's. I suspect one reason why he liked it so much is that Loughglynn is a neighbouring village to his — and my — birthplace, Lisacul, with the latter in the parish of the former. So for a man who lived most of his life in England, the song probably made him feel that bit closer to his west of Ireland origins.

Lamenting the death of Irish rebels fighting British colonial forces in the War of Independence, the song's tone is understandably melancholic.

Farm friendly

As I write these words just a few miles from those same Loughglynn woodlands, watching the summer sun sinking low — and slowly — with the sweet song of various birds for background music, the tranquil scene brings little joy to me, if not quite no joy.

This is not, thankfully, because I'm mourning lost comrades in arms. It has more to do with my reminiscing about what were more hopeful bygone times.

For despite all I've done and seen over the last 20 years, returning to where I grew up, the land where I dreamt of a fabulous future, leads me to dwell on all that I haven't yet achieved, and perhaps never will.

Such feelings are even more pronounced when I find myself engaged in the same tasks on the family farm that I carried out in those days when I was dreaming big. What has me back in this scenario is a sense of filial duty together with some gentle persuasion from an exiled elder sibling to lend a hand in his stead.

'There's a certain novelty in returning to the mid-summer chores after a long absence, but being a farmhand indefinitely?'

The various farming tasks themselves aren't the problem; some of them I enjoy, specifically those that I can do on my own, that is to say when I'm not taking direct orders from my 'you're doing it wrong' octogenarian father! The real roots of my melancholic mood in this environment are due to my own uncertainty. Or, to put a more positive spin on it, my employment flexibility and relative independence.

Climate change

Now, this uncertainty is independent of place — I very much have it in my adopted country of Colombia, too. However, it seems more manageable, more tolerable there. There's also the feeling that my life in Colombia seems rather surreal, as I've explained here before. Ireland provides something of a reality check: there are those unwanted 'What do you do in Colombia?' questions, for one. 'Various things' tends not to satisfy the inquisitors. Come on, just ask me about Colombia's climate; I can deal with that one more easily.

Mentioning climate, or more specifically weather, my first July in Ireland in 16 years has, fortunately, coincided with a long dry and fairly warm spell. I certainly wasn't expecting to be basking in the west of Ireland's summer sun. It's usually buried behind thick, cantankerous cloud.

Indeed, as something of a sun worshipper, were Ireland like this most of the time — mid-20s in degrees Celsius with the long daylight hours and not a mosquito in sight (the cumbersome horsefly's bloodsucking attempts are easily thwarted) — I'd almost be tempted back to live here. Almost.

Yet, I know only too well what the standard is. Navigating the colder, darker seasons is one negative; the usual inglorious summer weather another. And then there's the what-would-I-do-in-Ireland question.

Lending a helping hand on the family farm isn't a long-term solution. Nor would I want it to be. Yes, there's a certain novelty in returning to the mid-summer chores after a long absence, but being a farmhand indefinitely? The thought of that brings little joy to me.
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