We’ve spent the last several days on the farm, living in a camper van, and doing some pretty tough labor. One afternoon we spent pounding rocks into smaller rocks with a sledgehammer and then pouring cement over it. Another afternoon we spent filling in the cracks between tiles in an old swimming pool. Another day we planted trees, and for two days we painted a room with lyme and whitewash.

Kim loved every momemt of it, while I thought the setup reeked of “free labor.”  I think this is the “Tom Sawyer effect” — if you enjoy the work itself, it’s fun, but if you’re doing it as a means to an end, it’s work — and poorly paid work, at that!

Eventually we left the farm and traveled to Granada, an old Muslim city in southern Spain that was ruled by the Moors since late 600 A.D. until the Catholics conquered it in 1492.

It is an incredibly culturally diverse city — it’s common to see street signs written in several languages, including Arabic, English, Spanish and  Portugese.

When we returned home to Madrid, we discovered that Kim has become a public health risk: she has lice.

She discovered this last night after using hair conditioner for the first time since the trip started and discovering four bugs as she ran her hands through her hair.

We looked up lice on WebMD.com and discovered, humorously, that adults most likely to contract lice are “People who live in crowded or unclean conditions and who do not or cannot bathe and wash their clothing regularly.”

Hmmm, let’s see ….. camping in muddy roadside olive groves? Check. Sleeping in a van in the middle of the forest? Check. Wearing the same 2 shirts and 2 shorts everyday for the past month, washing it on the rare occasions where we have an opportunity to be in one place long enough to let them dry? Check.

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