Walking goats through the forest to their pen and back, that was basically our job as volunteers in the small village San Sebastián, Mexico. The area is known for their beautiful forests, and the neighboring village San José and San Mateo are the more visited ones, whereas San Sebastián only gets very few tourists. The village trio is spread through the hilly landscape with many valleys, it takes a good 2 to 3 hours to walk from one to another. We had stayed in San José for a few days before volunteering, so we had already experienced some beautiful hikes around the area.
In San Sebastián we stayed with Anika who makes goat cheese and organizes the local village markets. She has 6 goats who stay in a shed next to her house overnight and have to be taken to their pen on a piece of land in the forest every day. Bringing them there in the early morning and picking them up again just in time before the afternoon rains was our main job. The daily walks through the forests together with the goats and the family’s dogs were a very enjoyable routine activity, one that can hardly be called work. It did take time though, the goats could be stubborn and took every chance to stop and munch on whatever plants around the path. What would be a 45 minutes walk by ourselves, could take up to one and a half hours with the goats. Most of the time we managed quite well to lead the pack, one of us in front to give the pace and one of us in the back to push. We didn’t get tired of it at all, the surrounding forest was beautiful and the interactions with the animals sweet and fun.
In the afternoons it mostly rained, the rain started around 1 and a few times we got caught in it on the way back. Since we were in the mountains at more than 2km altitude, it was actually quite chilly and not very comfortable to get soaked. The goats felt the same way as us and when the rain started they would start running. When reaching home again they were happy to get back to their dry shed and we were happy to get back to our lovely cabin. The cabin was spacious and most importantly it had a fireplace that we used extensively after the day’s “work” was done. In the 2 weeks we stayed, it quickly felt like a home that welcomed us wholeheartedly. Anika and her daughter lived in their house right next to us and we shared a kitchen that was also our main area for socializing.
During our time we developed quite a bond with the animals, especially Shiwen did not get tired to play with the dogs. They were always extremely excited to go out with us and the goats in the morning, running freely through the forests must have been their daily dose of heaven. It brought a very active energy to our days right from the morning. The goats were friendly and playful too, they way of running while playing was pretty ridiculous. To bond with them however, was not a thing of a just a few days, they were very close to Anika and followed her very easily, but to follow us it took much more convincing and the occasional use of a leash for the stubborn ones. Still, it was mostly harmonious, light hiking, an all in all wonderful daily routine. We also tried milking the two adult females once, but it really is much harder than it looks… Shiwen helped out a little with the cheese making and we got to see first-hand how long the process of going from milk to the final product can take.
Originally we planned to stay for 9 days which we extended by another 3 to see the monthly village market just before leaving. Some days before the market we went to the other villages by foot to hang some promotional posters. Both journeys were big, proper hikes that took a day each, taking us off the beaten paths. It was a great way to really map out the area in our heads and get talking with some local shop owners. Our visit to San Mateo coincided with a weekend-long mushroom festival, so the atmosphere was much more vibrant and lively, totally in contrast to our first visit 2 weeks earlier where it seemed like a sleepy village in the mists. When the day of the local market in San Sebastián came, we actually mostly just helped with setup and teardown of the stands and spent most of the day taking out the dogs in the forest for one last time. The goodbyes at the volunteering projects can be tough, even just 1-2 weeks of working together usually result in connections deeper than the ones from encounters while on the move.