Help Ex

We met a lady named Penny at Mathew and Heather's house. She was there enjoying their blow up hot tub. Penny has lived in Orgiva for about 2 years now. She's from Ireland and bought a house right outside of Orgiva in town called Ticola. It just so happened that she was looking for some Help Ex/ Work Away helpers to do some gardening and painting. That was right up our alley so we took on the job. Help Ex/ Work Away is a deal where you work 4 hours a day in exchange for food and a place to stay. Penny took us in right away for another storm was on it's way. Penny's house is beautiful with her place upstairs and a guest spot downstairs. Downstairs also is a spot where she opens up a shop and sells items that she brings over from Guatemala. All the stuff is full of color. Our place was cozy with a wood stove and kitchen. It was perfect for us. We each got our own sleeping space. It poured for the whole weekend with sounds of explosives due to the Christo celebration downtown. The explosives went off all during the day and night. Orgiva spent 20,000 euros on the explosives. It's one of their biggest holidays here. We stayed inside enjoying the cozy wood stove and cooking up delicious meals. We did however, on Sunday set out to play music and sell art in a spot called "The Grove." It's a part of Orgiva with Eucalyptus trees all around and a bar/cafe outdoors. The event is called " The Rastro" where people sell used items and handmade stuff. We heard it was cancelled due to the rain but wanted to check the spot out anyway. There was about 10 venders in which case there's usually 100. The sun came out for a bit and I had my biggest selling day yet. We had fun meeting all different kinds of people. Lots of them loved my hand made things which made my day. The Rastro goes on every other Sunday so we were stoked we hit it up.
Monday, we started working on Penny's yard by picking all of her olives out of the tree. Then we did gardening and made her place weed free. Penny held a thrift store by donation for her singing group that she's in. The group is called "The Singing Song Birds." Joe and Chris played music outside on Penny's patio that over looked onto the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains. I had a great time meeting people and enjoying delicious homemade cake. I even saw Siriya there who's 82 years old. I met her earlier on my way into town a couple of days before while trying to find our way to Mathew and Heather's place. We were lost and asked her for directions but she too had just arrived to Orgiva a couple of days before us. I had a long chat with Siriya on how she is 82 years old and traveling the world by herself. At 81 she walked 295 kilometres through the Camino de Santiago that took her 40 days. Siriya has published 4 books about her travels. One of them she gave to me called "My Camino @ 81 Year's. It's Never Too Late." She's a real inspiration. I took a picture of us to never forget your never too old or it's never too late to travel. It was amazing meeting Siriya. She has such a big smile and is full of life.