Melanie

 We first met Melanie because she invited all of us to her full moon fiesta.  She came to visit us at our little cabin on the hill and brought delicious treats.  So the other day, Julia and I decided to return the favor.  We made an orange cake to take as a thank you gift.  We walked through her gates and up to her house and ran into her as she was coming back to her house after a long days work in the gardens, dirty hands, tangled hair, tired stride...I know the feeling.  But her smile was glowing!  Melanie is so interesting to me...Her story speaks volumes about her.

Melanie grew up in Alaska until she was 6 with her Dad.  Her English is excellent.  She then moved to Switzerland to live with her mother and lived there until she reached her twenties.  Her best language being Swiss/German...she loved Switzerland but wanted to explore.  She traveled around and found El Bolson...a gem in the Andes with such an awesome natural energy with all of the surrounding mountains.  She wanted to stay.

I was so crazy about her house.  The light coming in from the windows illuminated the plants and vines.

She traveled around after leaving Switzerland and came to El Bolson and loved it.  She met a woman around the same time who needed someone to keep the house 'lived in', to maintain the gardens and take care of the property.  Melanie was in the right place at the right time.  Her house where she has been now for 2 years, is a little cottage that sits on a campsite, a farm and a lot of land along the Rio Blanco...it's one of the neighboring farms to La Confluencia.  She lives in this little cottage with 3 huge mountain dogs and a kitty. The inside of her house is a cozy living space, cups hanging throughout the kitchen, spice everywhere, plants lining the windows, dried herbs and feathers hanging from the ceiling, succulents in little handmade pots, vine winding up the walls.  She has a super old furnace that is probably one of the coolest things ever...I loved that furnace.  Light entered only through the windows and the house had a calming glow, So did Melanie.  We sat around eating orange cake and drinking hot yerba mate tea while talking about our day.  We saw her gardens and played with the dogs.  What a great neighborhood.