Last night I went to a film screening for the documentary "Fresh," by Ana Sofia Jones, which was a critique of the industrial food system here in the United States and highlighted a number of players in the food system, whether they were vessels of change, business as usual, or somewhere in between. The film featured the "eat local", sustainable food champions such as the charismatic hog farmer, Joel Salatin, who was made famous in The Omnivore's Dilemma; Michael Pollan himself; and Will Allen, activist, urban gardener, and founder of Growing Power, among others. It also spotlighted a number of farmers on the other side of the table--for example, a couple who raises chickens for a major poultry enterprise and a conventional farmer who sprays pesticides but draws the line at using GMO's. In the end, my take-away message was that the food movement is on the rise and is taking root in different communities in many different forms, but that at the end of the day, it's up to you as the individual to decide how to be a part of this movement. I was also left feeling unfulfilled.
I hadn't really learned anything new (but, then again, I'm also as choir member-y as you get, so I didn't hold that against the film), but I also experienced the familiar tired, deflated feeling I sometimes get whenever I think about food and social justice (which is often, unfortunately). I looked around the theater and I think every single audience member was white. And if everyone wasn't, the rate was at about 99%. And with regard to the film, it celebrated many food justice advocates, for sure, but once again, very white--in fact, only one interviewee (Allen) was of color, and I was disappointed. The food movement's biggest challenge is overcoming the fact that it's been labeled as elitist and white, and given the fact that this film was coming out a bit later in the game (compared to Fast Food Nation and Food, Inc., for example, which both came out a few years ago), I expected it to represent more than the usual (white) suspects.
I guess I was sort of primed by this article I had read a few weeks ago by Janani Balasubramanian, titled: Sustainable Food and Privilege: Why is Green Always White (and Male and Upper Class). Read it here: http://www.racialicious.com/2010/05/20/sustainable-food-and-privilege-why-is-green-always-white-and-male-and-upper-class/
Balasubramanian touches upon a lot of controversial but necessary themes within the food movement, namely, that it's still perceived to be a white, upper middle class male-dominated field. I don't agree with with everything she says, however. She argues the the movement is largely a white male-led movement, and that conversations about race and gender have been skirted or lost; I argue that there is plenty being done around these issues, but that the food movement has a serious identity problem. It's perceived as such because the great work that's being led by people and communities of color is not getting the attention that it merits.
However, this doesn't solve the problem. The image issue still exists, and as long as food that's grown without pesticides or hormones is seen as boutique and gourmet (due largely to its higher price tag), we aren't going to get very far. The food movement is so fascinating and important to me because it's so universal--we all need to eat, and we all deserve to eat well. So far, though, we've got only a segment of the movement getting the big-time press, while we're seeing diet-related diseases and lack of access to fresh, healthy food that are unequally distributed among black and latino communities in the United States. Going to back to Fresh the movie, I was left in my seat feeling like the movement was making headway, but not in the cross-cultural, inclusive way that true social movements take.
Luckily for us, Jones was present at the end of the screening, and opened up the floor for a question-and-answer session. I squirmed in my seat, wondering if I should bring up this complex issue, whether or not it was the appropriate venue, and decided to go for it. I didn't intend to pose the issue in question form, since there really isn't an answer; rather, I talked about how the movie highlighted some really important issues, but that it featured mostly white activists. I asked her to look around and I commented on the fact that all of us in the theater did not respresent the ethnic makeup of the city of Boston, and I asked her what her thoughts were on food access and white privilege.
Woof. After writing it all down here, I realize that I kind of did drop a big bomb there, and might have come off as a dedicated night-ruiner for this poor woman. I assure you that this wasn't the case--I really just felt like someone needed to talk about access, and about the image of the food movement, and wondered if she had thought about it.
The rest of the session essentially turned into a two-person dialogue between Jones and me, despite the many other audience members. She had handled the other questions with eloquence and grace, yet after my comment, she stumbled over her words, and it appeared that I had gotten to her emotional core. Apparently she had been thinking about this issue, and it made her just as uncomfortable as it had made me. She spoke in circles for a couple of minutes until she got her grounding. Her answer wasn't really an answer at all (but my question wasn't really a question, either). She talked a lot about the need for a cultural shift, for the need for the individual to prioritize food over material goods like cable television and electronics. I agreed with her, and yet I didn't. How do you prioritize food when you don't come from a privileged standpoint? How do you prioritize food when you don't have the luxury of time to stop what you're doing, think about the food system, visit the farmers market, and prepare a gorgeous, healthy meal? I agree that we, as Americans, are used to our food being cheap, and that part of this movement is about education and shifting of priorities, but how do we create this cultural shift she's talking about when we don't all start out at the same place?
What I do know is that we need to keep having these conversations, and we need to recognize all of the many players in this movement. Eating well is connected to health, to ecology, to the preservation of cultural traditions, to the creation of community, to our individual rights to choose what we put in our bodies.
I'm brought back to my memories of the farm in Argentina, when the fields were constantly plagued with chipica, the most annoying grass-like weed that grows underground in a tangled, thick mess of grassroots knots and is impossible to eliminate from the field because everytime you rip it out, you always end up leaving a piece of its root, which is connected to ten million other roots. I understood the term "grassroots movement," fittingly, while I was down there. You build a successful movement, you create networks and connect yourself to other networks until the movement can't be quelled by any one superpower, no matter how hard it tries. This is our future--we just need to keep talking. Keep fighting.
Keep asking the hard questions.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
It's Complicated with Food
These days, I've been working on a project to involve corner store owners in the movement to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables in low income neighborhoods. Specifically, I've been walking around the neighborhood in which I work and poking my head into the many, many locally-owned convenience stores that sprinkle the streets, chatting with the owners about the connection between chronic disease and diet, and talking with them about whether or not they'd like to participate in a community-run project that would help promote the fresh items the stores are already selling and, potentially, find ways to get more attractive-looking produce into the stores at a competitive price.
So essentially, I am the Amazonian girl who barrels into your corner store and bee-lines towards the fruits and vegetables, fondling the tomatoes and avocados and pretending to be blind to the fact that any lingering customers at the register who were previously wrapped up in friendly chatter with you have now stopped their banter and have instead focused their attention on the giant (white) elephant in the room in business casual who is now casually perusing the weekly produce offerings.
During my visits, we talk about business, what sells well [phone cards, lottery tickets, ice cream and candy], what doesn't [fruits and vegetables, bummer. this is going to be hard], and why they [the store owners] think that these purchasing patterns exist. Access? Resources? Structural racism? Vast social inequalities? Personal taste? Commercial interest? I think it might be a little bit of all of these things, but they're not necessarily independent of each other. On the contrary: they're all related. Processed food companies advertise mostly high fat / low nutrition products, specifically in lower-income areas on billboards and other high-traffic spaces. Children are targets especially if they fall within the aforementioned socio-economic bracket: this can be seen in the countless ads on the internet and on television [such as this latest abomination by Lunchables: http://www.youtube.com/user/kidspotential#p/u/3/ozE1yaxmjKs].
Anyway, this is not new information, but it's important for me to continue to remind myself that in our modern life, our relationship with the food we eat is complicated, as are the perceptions of those who observe us in our daily routines. Are we really "choosing" to eat bad food? Or are we buying what we've been brainwashed to think is good? Is it our fault that we're overweight; that we're seeing such a rise of diet-related illnesses when the default [that is, the more accessible, affordable option] is probably made out of some super sugary corn/soy derivative? And when I start thinking about all of the complications around food "choice," I am reminded of personal examples.
A few days ago, I took a trip to one of those big warehouse stores to pick up some things my parents needed. Oh god. No matter how many pallets these stores pack into their fork-lift shelves, it always smells exactly the same--cardboard and mass-produced bread and the smell of television static. What an overwhelming place. I saw a 2 pound bag of organic coffee for 10 dollars. Having spent time on an organic farm in Colombia that had coffee trees and therefore knowing how long it must have taken to pick, process, and roast all of those beans, it was disheartening to think that it all amounted to ten dollars. Yet part of me wanted to throw it in the cart. So cheap! And, hey, the workers are probably treated more ethically than the non-organic supplier. Wait, though. When you're qualifying the word ethical, it loses its meaning. I kept walking.
So I'm probably going to go pay double the price for the exact same thing in a slightly smaller, more aesthetically-pleasing organic cotton satchel and feel warm and fuzzy about my socially-conscious purchasing decision, when in reality the coffee inside the pretty package probably came from the same type of farm. Eco marketing is a huge market, for sure, but that's just it--it's a market. There's a middle person skimming a little bit (or a lotta bit) off the profit. How do you really know what the working conditions were like? I love farmers markets, but there ain't no coffee plantations here in Bah-stan. And I can't afford to import coffee from my Colombian farm mom, Cecilia.
I'm still going to drink coffee. And I'm not a bad person. It's complicated.
Another complicated food example that came from this trip to the big box store: peanut butter. It was on the shopping list my dad had given me. I was skeptical that there'd be a peanut butter there that I'd actually eat [and I wouldn't buy a product for my family that I myself deemed to be unfit] but I took a look anyway. Just Skippy. Chemicals. Ingredients include Hydrogenated Oils. Read: secret trans fat. I didn't learn this until I took a cooking class at work recently, but anytime you see "hydrogenated oils" on the ingredient list, it means there's a little bit of trans fat in that food. See, since trans fats have been linked to cancer and other health problems, food companies have been moving away from using those chemically-rendered solid vegetable fats. But not entirely. They've just reduced the amount that they use. Legally, companies can put "0 grams" of trans fat on their labels if there is less than 0.5 grams per serving. But, if you're like me, and like to sometimes eat spoonful upon spoonful of peanut butter [maybe alone in your kitchen while playing the soundtrack of Les Miserables on repeat], you're not just gonna eat one serving of peanut butter. And therefore, you're not just getting your little trace of trans. You're getting maybe as much as a few grams. Add that up over a lifetime and the "trans fat-free" food you thought you were eating was not that at all.
So I bought the almond butter. Just almonds, nothing else. Yeah, it's fatty, but it probably won't give me [or my mom and dad] cancer. When I finished shopping and brought the items back to their house, I informed my father of my decision to buy the almond butter and the reasons behind it. He was unaware of the hydrogenated trick [as was I until recently], and I watched him go through the same emotions that I had experienced: first, anger ["are you kidding me?!"], then disappointment and distrust ["how could they legally be allowed to do this?"]. He tore through the snack cabinet and had me read the labels of all the snack bars and treats ["this one? this too? check this one!"]. Then we went to the fridge, and his coffee creamer had it, too. And then, the disillusionment and confusion set in. He looked at me and asked,
"So, I have high cholesterol. I'm supposed to drink this instead of cream to keep it under control, but if I switch back to something more natural, like milk or cream, I risk increasing my cholesterol. And if I keep using this non-dairy creamer, my cholesterol will be okay, but I'll get cancer. So what do I do?"
I didn't even know what to tell him. "Switch to 2 percent milk, maybe?" But honestly, what do we do? When did our relationship with food become so complicated? Why is eating [and drinking] a complex, stressful act, filled with either-or decisions and good food / bad food imagery, especially when it seems like we're being told on Tuesday that Monday's superfood is Wednesday's killerfood? How do we begin to simplify?
This is me, simplifying:
The other day, I went to the farmers market near my house.
Ok ok, before I lose you due to the apparent grossly out of touch turn this post has taken [REALLY? She's talking about inequality and is going to go solve the problem at her local farmers market?] please keep reading. I don't think it will end the way you think it will.
I walked around the farmers market for a little while, but what with it being early June in New England, there wasn't much yet, and what was there was a little pricey for me. I almost bought a 6 dollar natural, ethically-imported, locally-made chocolate bar, but decided against it. Went home empty handed.
The next day, on my way to work, I passed one of my favorite corner stores [owned by a Colombian, we always have little chats and sometimes I go in there to buy things I don't need necessarily, like a mango or a giant imported bag of yierba mate]. Something familiar flashed in the corner of my eye from the window as I was about to pass the store. "Jumbo." The colossal Colombian chocolate bar. I took a sharp turn into the door, nearly mowing over a mother and her tiny toddling child. I ran up to the cash register, where my friend was stationed, as usual.
"You have JUMBO?!"
"Yes, my love. Just got in a shipment. Only one box. I have a friend up in New York who imported them and he sent me a box. They're almost all gone" [he motioned to a clearly dwindling stack of those beautiful bricks of cocoa, butter, peanuts, and sugar that comprise the Jumbo].
[Maybe he had 8 more boxes in the back. I could have cared less. In that moment, in my moment, there were only 5 Jumbo bars left in the entire country, and I needed to own one. I forked over the nearly four dollars after gushing about how special these chocolate bars were for me when I lived there, how they brought me such deep satisfaction after a long day on the farm, how I would buy two or three during my trips to the city and savor each square over the days until my next city trip. He clasped my hand in his and told me it had been ten years since he had been home, but that he hoped to go soon.
"When you go back, let me know! I'll invite you to my house!"
Te invito a mi casa.
He doesn't even know my name.
This is why I love Colombia(ns).
Why did I spend 4 dollars on this processed chocolate bar all the way from Colombia when I wouldn't spend six on the fancy natural one at the farmers market? And why, of all things, did I decide to buy a candy bar in a store where I've previously led conversations around healthy eating?
Because I spend money on community. I'd rather hold Pablo's hand any day and gush about our common love of a nation (and its chocolate), apparently, than on a fancy, natural, locally-processed chocolate bar, even if I do think that company is amazing and greatly envy their employees. Plus, Pablo is local--local to me.
And, of course, because it's complicated.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Chica de la...ciudad?
Yeah, it doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? Let's stick with "de la finca," although the term may be misleading, since my days at the finca have come to a close (for now, at least).
Yes indeed; it's been about a month since I've been back in Boston, and I must say that it's been a whirlwind return. I had the divine fortune of acquiring employment in the U.S. whilst abroad--my old organization took me back, this time for a full-time position (I had previously been working there as an AmeriCorps member) and yes, yes, I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have found a job to come home to. And not just a job--a good job; a job I'm excited about, with coworkers I highly enjoy and within a community I already know so well. I'll get to be doing a lot of the same things I was doing before: creating curriculum for food system education, helping to organize the farmers' market, working in our community garden, and working with a local farm to provide CSA's to families at risk for diet-related illnesses. But I'll also be working on some new projects, which I'll be sure to write about once they get off the ground. I started work four days after my airplane landed on the tarmac, and although I guess a few more days off would have been nice, in retrospect, what would I have really done during that hypothetical week or two? Wept in bed during that awful gray, cold, and rainy week we had (this was my first week back)? Contemplated my previous life of sunshine and farms and compared it to my new concrete jungle? Probably best that I just jumped into things, right?
So, here is the big question: do I keep writing, even though I'm not on a farm? My experiences will certainly be less exotic and over-the-top, as they will likely not be filled with earthquakes, cow-herding, and gossiping chickens. But, on the other hand, the point of my trip down to the other America was to learn how to grow my own food, and to see how other people who have been doing it for years make it sustainable. Like I said in my little blurb about this blog, I wanted to fill my figurative farming toolbox while I was down there and then lug it back to the U.S. to create some serious food systems change. Or at least to begin to chip away at the old system. For these reasons, I'm going to keep writing, using this blog as a window into my post-South American life as it relates to my travel adventures. There's so much happening right here that I feel this compulsion to write about it.
If you're into it, come along for ride. If you hate me for having the audacity to suggest that my current city life is actually interesting enough to blog about, well then I hate you too.
Okay, I probably still like you.
And because I still like you, I will include this really excellent website I stumbled across today: 66 Things You Can Grow at Home. It's meant for people who have no land but still want to grow their own. I enjoyed it and found it useful:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/sixtysixthings-growhome-containers-withoutgarden.html
Happy planting!
Yes indeed; it's been about a month since I've been back in Boston, and I must say that it's been a whirlwind return. I had the divine fortune of acquiring employment in the U.S. whilst abroad--my old organization took me back, this time for a full-time position (I had previously been working there as an AmeriCorps member) and yes, yes, I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have found a job to come home to. And not just a job--a good job; a job I'm excited about, with coworkers I highly enjoy and within a community I already know so well. I'll get to be doing a lot of the same things I was doing before: creating curriculum for food system education, helping to organize the farmers' market, working in our community garden, and working with a local farm to provide CSA's to families at risk for diet-related illnesses. But I'll also be working on some new projects, which I'll be sure to write about once they get off the ground. I started work four days after my airplane landed on the tarmac, and although I guess a few more days off would have been nice, in retrospect, what would I have really done during that hypothetical week or two? Wept in bed during that awful gray, cold, and rainy week we had (this was my first week back)? Contemplated my previous life of sunshine and farms and compared it to my new concrete jungle? Probably best that I just jumped into things, right?
So, here is the big question: do I keep writing, even though I'm not on a farm? My experiences will certainly be less exotic and over-the-top, as they will likely not be filled with earthquakes, cow-herding, and gossiping chickens. But, on the other hand, the point of my trip down to the other America was to learn how to grow my own food, and to see how other people who have been doing it for years make it sustainable. Like I said in my little blurb about this blog, I wanted to fill my figurative farming toolbox while I was down there and then lug it back to the U.S. to create some serious food systems change. Or at least to begin to chip away at the old system. For these reasons, I'm going to keep writing, using this blog as a window into my post-South American life as it relates to my travel adventures. There's so much happening right here that I feel this compulsion to write about it.
If you're into it, come along for ride. If you hate me for having the audacity to suggest that my current city life is actually interesting enough to blog about, well then I hate you too.
Okay, I probably still like you.
And because I still like you, I will include this really excellent website I stumbled across today: 66 Things You Can Grow at Home. It's meant for people who have no land but still want to grow their own. I enjoyed it and found it useful:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/sixtysixthings-growhome-containers-withoutgarden.html
Happy planting!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Earthquake Milkshake
This is me plugging back into the virtual world.
It has been exactly a month since I last wrote, which is slightly uncharacteristic of me since the inception of this voyage to the other America. While it is true that my internet opportunities during this timespan have been scant to say the least, I must also admit that when these opportunities did present themselves, I found it difficult to spend more than a few minutes in front of a computer. Maybe the farmer in me has truly taken over; maybe my journey into the woods has affected me more than I thought, but I find myself shifting in my seat even as I type this, simply because I'd rather be outside. Especially when outside, at this very moment, means bright sunshine, two different mountain ranges (one green and round, one jagged and rocky) with tons of hiking trails, and one of the best ice cream shops I've ever visited just two blocks down the road.
Still, as most of you know, I like to express myself linguistically, and a large part of that is writing, so at the same time I feel this urge to attempt to give an account of the happenings of my life in these past four weeks. Shall I start with the earthquake?
The night of the big one in Chile, I was on my farm outside of Mendoza, Argentina, sleeping in the lower compartment of a bunkbed in a tiny wood and adobe casita where all of the farm volunteers slept. I woke up suddenly around 3:30am to a dizzy, swaying sensation. I thought that maybe I had eaten some bad quinoa or something and thus was feeling some vertigo, but after laying awake for a few seconds, the pulsations got stronger, and I realized my bed was rocking back and forth. I thought that maybe my bunkmate Michael was taking advantage of the late night peace to pleasure himself (but, nooo, he wouldn't do that! Would he? Wouldn't he?), and so, horrified, I froze, sucked in my breath, and waited, unsure of what to do. Then I realized that the whole entire house was rocking. Earthquake? Really?
At that moment, I think the other five volunteers woke up as well, and someone asked, ''¿Qué es?'' and I responded, ''¡Temblor! Uh, Terremoto!'' and just as we all scrambled to get out of bed, slamming into each other in the darkness, I heard Amparo, the grandmother of the farm, screaming something across the field from her house and then the loud clanging of the large steel bell that they usually ring to round up the troops. The tremor was so strong that the bell was ringing on its own. It was surreal to hear the bell clanging in the middle of the night while feeling the ground rolling under our feet. Adrenaline pumped in my ears. We all jogged over to the main house and gathered together with the family, who were waiting for us to debrief. By that time, the rocking had stopped, and we stood around, shivering in the dark, chatting a little bit. ''Earthquake,'' they said (duh). ''Everyone okay?'' Yes, everyone was okay. We all went back to bed, but I don't think any of us really slept after that. There were a few aftershocks, but not nearly as strong. Mendoza suffered little to no damage, as in the rest of Argentina.
And then we found out about Chile. About the horrendous damage and loss of life. We weren't even able to get updates on the situation for the first day or two because there was essentially no functioning line of communication. It's so awful. I can't imagine the terror the people in Concepción must have felt that night. And what it must have been like when the sun finally came up.
A few days after the quake, I headed south to Patagonia for the final days of my trip. It really makes me laugh to think about how this trip has gone; honestly, I didn't even think I'd make it to Argentina this time around. When I bought my ticket, my return flight was out of Lima, Peru. Argentina was just too far, I had already been there two times, and I really believed that I had had my fill of the country. Never dreamed I'd make it further south than Bolivia. And then, an impromptu trip to Buenos Aires for my birthday to see my host family from my college semester abroad. And then, (why not?) a trip in early January to Mendoza to perhaps find a farm to work on. Found a farm, planned to stay for maybe a month at most, and ended up staying for two. You'd think that with about three weeks left to get my toochis back up to Lima for my flight, I'd maybe start planning a trip northward. Nope. Patagonia--the south--was calling my name. I mean, come on, it would be pathetic to have spent a collective 8 or 9 months in this country and to have never made it to the south. So, I packed up my bags about two and a half weeks ago, left the farm in Mendoza, and headed down to El Bolsón, in the Rio Negro province, because it sounded nice. Everyone I had met on this trip and past trips said the town was amazing, and plus, there were tons of farms on my farm list located in this area. So I went and hoped to find a farm once I got there, á la my seat-of-my-pants Mendoza adventure. Hey, that one worked out, so why wouldn't it here?
Of course, the farm gods are with me, because I managed to luck out once again. First of all, let me just attempt to explain just how beautiful El Bolsón is. It's a little town nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains and lakes. Everything is green--both flora-wise and politically. Green pine trees line the mountains in the distance, and in the foreground it's trees and flowers and grass everywhere you look. There are loads of hiking trails, which means that they are never crowded, and they wind through forests and alongside rivers and, if you're up for it, straight up rocky ledges. El Bolsón is a 100% smoke free town, meaning you can't smoke cigarrettes anywhere, and there are signs everywhere urging you to pick up your trash. There's also a great sign in the center of town that reads ''Planting native trees helps us to maintain our roots.'' I really like it.
There's an amazing farmers market and crafts fair that takes place three times a week in the main plaza, and it is by far the best open-air market I've seen. You're only allowed to participate as a vendor if you sell locally-produced items; and in this case, local means within about a 60 mile radius. Fresh fruits and veggies, jams, cheeses, artesenal beer, baked goods, BELGIAN WAFFLES, homemade soaps, knitwear, woodwork, books by local authors, and other sorts of artsy gifts can be found here on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and it's a true pleasure to meander through and have a look at the wares. As someone who works with farmers markets and the local food movement back in Boston, I was certainly in my happy place when I took a walk through it the first day I arrived.
So, after exploring the town for a day, I decided that it was time to try to find a farm for a couple weeks. I took a walk through the fair and was immediately drawn to a stand with little round wheels of cheese stacked on top of each other. I bee-lined over to the table and was greeted by a jolly German man who eagerly sliced me off a sample piece and chatted with me in German-accented Spanish. So charming. As I munched on his homemade organic cheese, I let my eyes wander up to the poster advertising his products. I recognized his last name from the farm list, and so I asked him if he was accepting volunteers. He hesitated, but then said maybe, to just give him a minute to call his wife and check. After a rapid-fire German conversation via cellphone, he hung up and turned to me with a sparkle in his eye and said, ''Va a andar'' (it's going to work!). ''Great! When can I start?'' I asked. His reply was, ''Do you want to get in the truck with me after the fair and come to the farm with me today?''
Uh...yep.
I had a good feeling about him. Knew nothing more than the fact that he made cheese, he had a farm, and that they (presumably) have volunteers sometimes. Good enough. The cheese was good--I mean, really good. I don't think evil people are capable of making cheese like that. That cheese was made with love. You can't go wrong with a cheese man. So I said ''sure, let's go!''
Once inside his truck, I asked the questions I probably should have asked before if I were a responsible young woman. How many volunteers do you have currently? (none) Where do you live, exactly? (about 25 kilometers outside the town, up in the mountains) What kinds of things do you do at the farm? (milk cows, feed the chickens, make cheese, jam, bread, do other sorts of tasks around the farm) And finally, I asked:
''How many volunteers have you had so far?''
''¿Sabés que? Sos la primera.'' (You know what? You're the first one)
So I was their first volunteer! They just joined the organization a month ago, so it's all very new to them. I felt a lot of pressure to be a Good Volunteer, in fact, The Best Volunteer, so that they would always remember me as the First, in a good way. I think I did a good job. Except for that time a couple of weekends ago when I left on a day hike and didn't come home until the following afternoon. The weather was awful at the top of the mountain and the ranger advised me to stay the night and not attempt to hike back down until morning when the rain and sleet had stopped. My German family was quite worried about me. Understandably. Way to go, Ali.
I lived with The German, his German wife, and their seventeen year old son. They have lived in Argentina for over 25 years, just living the simple life on a plot of land nestled on the side of a mountain. They have six cows at the moment, which are the most beautiful, cleanest cows I've ever seen. Every morning, we woke up early to hike up the mountain and find them so that they could come back to be milked. Then, after milking, we brought them back up the mountain, where they would graze all day until sundown, at which point we would go find them again, milk them, and send them out for more nighttime blossom snacking.
I got to work with bees and take the honey combs out of the beehive (and I got to wear the beekeeper suit!).
I learned how to make cheese that actually tastes like something someone would buy. I made jam and preserved vegetables for the winter. I learned another way to kill and clean a chicken (I preferred this way to the way we did it in Colombia--much more humane and super quick--just a whack over the head and then a swift chop with the ax). I learned how to make bread, I got to use a chain saw to cut wood, and I consumed more dairy in the past two weeks than I had in the previous four and a half months. Mmm milk. And I take back what I said about raw milk in earlier posts--if the cows are happy, eating well, and well maintained, raw milk is the best milk in the entire world. I am going to miss that milk.
I also learned how to count to ten in German, and also that there are many similar words in English and German. Lampe is lamp! Milke is milk! Shtool is seat! Gute is good! I was like a 2 year old in their home, bursting out with my newfound German vocabulary and counting slowly from one to ten at the dinner table, then looking around for affirmative or adoring looks from my German parents and brother. I think they liked me?
I left the farm yesterday because they only take two volunteers at a time, and their second one showed up yesterday. I guess that's what happens when you, like, plan in advance or something--you get to stay at farms for longer than ten days. Still, it was a great experience, and I think that it will be important for me to spend a few days in town just chilling out, writing, reflecting, and enjoying some serious Ali time before I have to head back to Buenos Aires and then to Lima to fly home...in a week.
Yep. I fly home in a week. Cha-cha-changes.
Oh, hey, just realized it's Saint Patty's day. Cheers!
It has been exactly a month since I last wrote, which is slightly uncharacteristic of me since the inception of this voyage to the other America. While it is true that my internet opportunities during this timespan have been scant to say the least, I must also admit that when these opportunities did present themselves, I found it difficult to spend more than a few minutes in front of a computer. Maybe the farmer in me has truly taken over; maybe my journey into the woods has affected me more than I thought, but I find myself shifting in my seat even as I type this, simply because I'd rather be outside. Especially when outside, at this very moment, means bright sunshine, two different mountain ranges (one green and round, one jagged and rocky) with tons of hiking trails, and one of the best ice cream shops I've ever visited just two blocks down the road.
Still, as most of you know, I like to express myself linguistically, and a large part of that is writing, so at the same time I feel this urge to attempt to give an account of the happenings of my life in these past four weeks. Shall I start with the earthquake?
The night of the big one in Chile, I was on my farm outside of Mendoza, Argentina, sleeping in the lower compartment of a bunkbed in a tiny wood and adobe casita where all of the farm volunteers slept. I woke up suddenly around 3:30am to a dizzy, swaying sensation. I thought that maybe I had eaten some bad quinoa or something and thus was feeling some vertigo, but after laying awake for a few seconds, the pulsations got stronger, and I realized my bed was rocking back and forth. I thought that maybe my bunkmate Michael was taking advantage of the late night peace to pleasure himself (but, nooo, he wouldn't do that! Would he? Wouldn't he?), and so, horrified, I froze, sucked in my breath, and waited, unsure of what to do. Then I realized that the whole entire house was rocking. Earthquake? Really?
At that moment, I think the other five volunteers woke up as well, and someone asked, ''¿Qué es?'' and I responded, ''¡Temblor! Uh, Terremoto!'' and just as we all scrambled to get out of bed, slamming into each other in the darkness, I heard Amparo, the grandmother of the farm, screaming something across the field from her house and then the loud clanging of the large steel bell that they usually ring to round up the troops. The tremor was so strong that the bell was ringing on its own. It was surreal to hear the bell clanging in the middle of the night while feeling the ground rolling under our feet. Adrenaline pumped in my ears. We all jogged over to the main house and gathered together with the family, who were waiting for us to debrief. By that time, the rocking had stopped, and we stood around, shivering in the dark, chatting a little bit. ''Earthquake,'' they said (duh). ''Everyone okay?'' Yes, everyone was okay. We all went back to bed, but I don't think any of us really slept after that. There were a few aftershocks, but not nearly as strong. Mendoza suffered little to no damage, as in the rest of Argentina.
And then we found out about Chile. About the horrendous damage and loss of life. We weren't even able to get updates on the situation for the first day or two because there was essentially no functioning line of communication. It's so awful. I can't imagine the terror the people in Concepción must have felt that night. And what it must have been like when the sun finally came up.
A few days after the quake, I headed south to Patagonia for the final days of my trip. It really makes me laugh to think about how this trip has gone; honestly, I didn't even think I'd make it to Argentina this time around. When I bought my ticket, my return flight was out of Lima, Peru. Argentina was just too far, I had already been there two times, and I really believed that I had had my fill of the country. Never dreamed I'd make it further south than Bolivia. And then, an impromptu trip to Buenos Aires for my birthday to see my host family from my college semester abroad. And then, (why not?) a trip in early January to Mendoza to perhaps find a farm to work on. Found a farm, planned to stay for maybe a month at most, and ended up staying for two. You'd think that with about three weeks left to get my toochis back up to Lima for my flight, I'd maybe start planning a trip northward. Nope. Patagonia--the south--was calling my name. I mean, come on, it would be pathetic to have spent a collective 8 or 9 months in this country and to have never made it to the south. So, I packed up my bags about two and a half weeks ago, left the farm in Mendoza, and headed down to El Bolsón, in the Rio Negro province, because it sounded nice. Everyone I had met on this trip and past trips said the town was amazing, and plus, there were tons of farms on my farm list located in this area. So I went and hoped to find a farm once I got there, á la my seat-of-my-pants Mendoza adventure. Hey, that one worked out, so why wouldn't it here?
Of course, the farm gods are with me, because I managed to luck out once again. First of all, let me just attempt to explain just how beautiful El Bolsón is. It's a little town nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains and lakes. Everything is green--both flora-wise and politically. Green pine trees line the mountains in the distance, and in the foreground it's trees and flowers and grass everywhere you look. There are loads of hiking trails, which means that they are never crowded, and they wind through forests and alongside rivers and, if you're up for it, straight up rocky ledges. El Bolsón is a 100% smoke free town, meaning you can't smoke cigarrettes anywhere, and there are signs everywhere urging you to pick up your trash. There's also a great sign in the center of town that reads ''Planting native trees helps us to maintain our roots.'' I really like it.There's an amazing farmers market and crafts fair that takes place three times a week in the main plaza, and it is by far the best open-air market I've seen. You're only allowed to participate as a vendor if you sell locally-produced items; and in this case, local means within about a 60 mile radius. Fresh fruits and veggies, jams, cheeses, artesenal beer, baked goods, BELGIAN WAFFLES, homemade soaps, knitwear, woodwork, books by local authors, and other sorts of artsy gifts can be found here on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and it's a true pleasure to meander through and have a look at the wares. As someone who works with farmers markets and the local food movement back in Boston, I was certainly in my happy place when I took a walk through it the first day I arrived.
So, after exploring the town for a day, I decided that it was time to try to find a farm for a couple weeks. I took a walk through the fair and was immediately drawn to a stand with little round wheels of cheese stacked on top of each other. I bee-lined over to the table and was greeted by a jolly German man who eagerly sliced me off a sample piece and chatted with me in German-accented Spanish. So charming. As I munched on his homemade organic cheese, I let my eyes wander up to the poster advertising his products. I recognized his last name from the farm list, and so I asked him if he was accepting volunteers. He hesitated, but then said maybe, to just give him a minute to call his wife and check. After a rapid-fire German conversation via cellphone, he hung up and turned to me with a sparkle in his eye and said, ''Va a andar'' (it's going to work!). ''Great! When can I start?'' I asked. His reply was, ''Do you want to get in the truck with me after the fair and come to the farm with me today?''
Uh...yep.
I had a good feeling about him. Knew nothing more than the fact that he made cheese, he had a farm, and that they (presumably) have volunteers sometimes. Good enough. The cheese was good--I mean, really good. I don't think evil people are capable of making cheese like that. That cheese was made with love. You can't go wrong with a cheese man. So I said ''sure, let's go!''
Once inside his truck, I asked the questions I probably should have asked before if I were a responsible young woman. How many volunteers do you have currently? (none) Where do you live, exactly? (about 25 kilometers outside the town, up in the mountains) What kinds of things do you do at the farm? (milk cows, feed the chickens, make cheese, jam, bread, do other sorts of tasks around the farm) And finally, I asked:
''How many volunteers have you had so far?''
''¿Sabés que? Sos la primera.'' (You know what? You're the first one)
So I was their first volunteer! They just joined the organization a month ago, so it's all very new to them. I felt a lot of pressure to be a Good Volunteer, in fact, The Best Volunteer, so that they would always remember me as the First, in a good way. I think I did a good job. Except for that time a couple of weekends ago when I left on a day hike and didn't come home until the following afternoon. The weather was awful at the top of the mountain and the ranger advised me to stay the night and not attempt to hike back down until morning when the rain and sleet had stopped. My German family was quite worried about me. Understandably. Way to go, Ali.
A bridge I crossed during a weekend hike. Stable, secure, yes.
I lived with The German, his German wife, and their seventeen year old son. They have lived in Argentina for over 25 years, just living the simple life on a plot of land nestled on the side of a mountain. They have six cows at the moment, which are the most beautiful, cleanest cows I've ever seen. Every morning, we woke up early to hike up the mountain and find them so that they could come back to be milked. Then, after milking, we brought them back up the mountain, where they would graze all day until sundown, at which point we would go find them again, milk them, and send them out for more nighttime blossom snacking.
And now, the customary ''look what I can do!'' photos.
I learned how to milk a cow with my hands and with the milking machine.
I learned how to make cheese that actually tastes like something someone would buy. I made jam and preserved vegetables for the winter. I learned another way to kill and clean a chicken (I preferred this way to the way we did it in Colombia--much more humane and super quick--just a whack over the head and then a swift chop with the ax). I learned how to make bread, I got to use a chain saw to cut wood, and I consumed more dairy in the past two weeks than I had in the previous four and a half months. Mmm milk. And I take back what I said about raw milk in earlier posts--if the cows are happy, eating well, and well maintained, raw milk is the best milk in the entire world. I am going to miss that milk.
I also learned how to count to ten in German, and also that there are many similar words in English and German. Lampe is lamp! Milke is milk! Shtool is seat! Gute is good! I was like a 2 year old in their home, bursting out with my newfound German vocabulary and counting slowly from one to ten at the dinner table, then looking around for affirmative or adoring looks from my German parents and brother. I think they liked me?
I left the farm yesterday because they only take two volunteers at a time, and their second one showed up yesterday. I guess that's what happens when you, like, plan in advance or something--you get to stay at farms for longer than ten days. Still, it was a great experience, and I think that it will be important for me to spend a few days in town just chilling out, writing, reflecting, and enjoying some serious Ali time before I have to head back to Buenos Aires and then to Lima to fly home...in a week.
Yep. I fly home in a week. Cha-cha-changes.
Oh, hey, just realized it's Saint Patty's day. Cheers!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
La Visita de Los Uruguayos
Last week, our hippy dippy organic vegetarian apple orchard was visited by two meat-eating roughousing Uruguayan boys. Javier and Gabriel, aged twenty-two and twenty, respectively, had shuffled onto our farm with their packs and a tent strapped to their backs and about two hundred dollars to their names, and were hoping to find a (free) place to camp out for a while.
The boys had hitchhiked their way across the Uruguyan border and were hoping to stretch their savings across six months and most of the South American countries (and possibly Central America, and maybe even Mexico, and, heck, why stop there? U.S.A!). Needless to say, these boys were here for financial reasons and not ideological ones. I don't think they had any idea what they were getting themselves into. I'm pretty sure the truck driver who gave them a lift from their last city just knew that it was possible to camp out at this farm, and so the boys jumped out and knocked on the door and that was that. They were not crunchy little idealists who wanted to try their hands at organic farming and vegetarianism, oh no siree.
The sheer youth that these two young souls emanated was a giant gulp of fresh air for my rapidly old lady like self--what with the ache in my knees I'm starting to experience after a day of squatting in the fields, or the truck-like blow of fatigue that hits me at 10:30pm every night, it was nice to be surrounded by two young guys who seemed to be filled with so much unharnessed energy and passion and so little direction or sense of reality. Gabriel was especially fun to watch, and I'm not just saying this because he had the thickest, darkest eyelashes I'd ever seen and two full rows of brilliantly white teeth that would give even the most fastidious Western toothbrusher a run for his or her money. It wasn't his tan, soccer playing body either, although all of these things were certainly not ugly to look at (my mantra was, ''twenty years old, Ali. Twenty years old. Baby.''). What I loved was watching his and Javier's interactions in the fields and at the dinner table with the farm family.
They arrived just in time for our Andean potato harvest. The farm family had bought a bunch of special little seeds the previous season from a Bolivian potato farmer as an experiment in different potato varieties and how they would take to the Mendoza soil, and so last week was time to dig 'em up and see how they turned out. Potato harvesting is...well, it's hard work. You're out in the unrelenting mountain sun, hacking away with your hoe at heaps of dirt under rows and rows of weeds mixed with potato leaves, which often closely resemble the weeds. You must be careful not to chop too deep or too close to the potato stalk, because if you do, you risk chopping a potato in half as well, which you cannot see since it is hidden deep below the soil. After you've freed up a patch of dirt, you must get down to the level and the soil and painstakingly feel through the mountains of cool musty earth for round little balls of potato. There are also many round little balls of dirt, probably put there just to fool you, so once you find one, you must sqeeze it to ensure that is indeed a potato and not a poser. You must dig deep with your fingernails until you are sure that you've found every last one from that stalk, and then you must stand back up and start the careful hacking (if those words were ever meant to be together, it's now) process all over again. It's a lot of sit down, stand up business, lots of dirt under your fingernails, lots of lightheaded near-blackout ''oops I stood up too fast and it's HOT under this sun, I might pass out'' moments, but it's so satisfying to find these gorgeous little red and purple papas.
Anyway, the Uruguayans were the saddest addition to our work team that I could have ever imagined. In fact, I think we all got less done with them around. Every time I looked over at either one of them, they'd be perched under the shade of an apple tree taking a break, munching on an apple, or standing around with the hoe laid horizontally across their shoulders, stretching their backs a bit after an arduous two minutes of work. Every five minutes came the questions of ''when do we finish? when is lunch? when is dinner?'' When these questions weren't asked, the conversation was punctuated by some of the most interesting comments about politics (Gabriel: ''I have absolutely no problem with anything about Uruguayan politics. I'm completely content with our government and the general state of things.''), religion (again, Gabriel: ''I saw this really cool documentary in which it proved that every religion has some sort of Jesus character.'' Me: ''Uh, what about Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam?''), and science (both Javier and Gabriel: ''We don't believe in evolution.'' Me: ''Oh, well that's cool, do you believe in divine creation, then?'' J&G: ''No, we don't believe in God, either. But evolution definitely didn't happen. We were never monkeys.''). I have never met anyone who was an evolution denier who didn't use religious grounds to base his or her point. So fascinating.
At dinner, their poor bodies were clearly suffering from the lack of meat. These boys were daily meat eaters, and they appeared listless after their first day of ''work.'' Amparo, in her lovely mom role, in an attempt to get some animal protein into the bodies of these poor little guys, prepared a giant casserole with a whole lot of eggs, which the boys shoveled down immediately. It was so hilarious for me to experience this clash of culture because it once again reminded me that I'm living among the minorities of the minority here in Argentina, and it's a healthy dose of reality to see that it's not exactly typical, especially down here, to go a meal or two without any meat. I think nothing of heaping piles of potatoes and squash and lentils onto my plate and going to bed with a full, satisfied belly, but these guys were hurting.
They packed up their tents after day two; enough was enough. It was sad to see them go, simply because they were so entertaining to watch and listen to, but it was also sort of a relief because we would actually be able to get some work done. And we did. And the potatoes are so lovely (and delicious).
The boys had hitchhiked their way across the Uruguyan border and were hoping to stretch their savings across six months and most of the South American countries (and possibly Central America, and maybe even Mexico, and, heck, why stop there? U.S.A!). Needless to say, these boys were here for financial reasons and not ideological ones. I don't think they had any idea what they were getting themselves into. I'm pretty sure the truck driver who gave them a lift from their last city just knew that it was possible to camp out at this farm, and so the boys jumped out and knocked on the door and that was that. They were not crunchy little idealists who wanted to try their hands at organic farming and vegetarianism, oh no siree.
The sheer youth that these two young souls emanated was a giant gulp of fresh air for my rapidly old lady like self--what with the ache in my knees I'm starting to experience after a day of squatting in the fields, or the truck-like blow of fatigue that hits me at 10:30pm every night, it was nice to be surrounded by two young guys who seemed to be filled with so much unharnessed energy and passion and so little direction or sense of reality. Gabriel was especially fun to watch, and I'm not just saying this because he had the thickest, darkest eyelashes I'd ever seen and two full rows of brilliantly white teeth that would give even the most fastidious Western toothbrusher a run for his or her money. It wasn't his tan, soccer playing body either, although all of these things were certainly not ugly to look at (my mantra was, ''twenty years old, Ali. Twenty years old. Baby.''). What I loved was watching his and Javier's interactions in the fields and at the dinner table with the farm family.
They arrived just in time for our Andean potato harvest. The farm family had bought a bunch of special little seeds the previous season from a Bolivian potato farmer as an experiment in different potato varieties and how they would take to the Mendoza soil, and so last week was time to dig 'em up and see how they turned out. Potato harvesting is...well, it's hard work. You're out in the unrelenting mountain sun, hacking away with your hoe at heaps of dirt under rows and rows of weeds mixed with potato leaves, which often closely resemble the weeds. You must be careful not to chop too deep or too close to the potato stalk, because if you do, you risk chopping a potato in half as well, which you cannot see since it is hidden deep below the soil. After you've freed up a patch of dirt, you must get down to the level and the soil and painstakingly feel through the mountains of cool musty earth for round little balls of potato. There are also many round little balls of dirt, probably put there just to fool you, so once you find one, you must sqeeze it to ensure that is indeed a potato and not a poser. You must dig deep with your fingernails until you are sure that you've found every last one from that stalk, and then you must stand back up and start the careful hacking (if those words were ever meant to be together, it's now) process all over again. It's a lot of sit down, stand up business, lots of dirt under your fingernails, lots of lightheaded near-blackout ''oops I stood up too fast and it's HOT under this sun, I might pass out'' moments, but it's so satisfying to find these gorgeous little red and purple papas.
Anyway, the Uruguayans were the saddest addition to our work team that I could have ever imagined. In fact, I think we all got less done with them around. Every time I looked over at either one of them, they'd be perched under the shade of an apple tree taking a break, munching on an apple, or standing around with the hoe laid horizontally across their shoulders, stretching their backs a bit after an arduous two minutes of work. Every five minutes came the questions of ''when do we finish? when is lunch? when is dinner?'' When these questions weren't asked, the conversation was punctuated by some of the most interesting comments about politics (Gabriel: ''I have absolutely no problem with anything about Uruguayan politics. I'm completely content with our government and the general state of things.''), religion (again, Gabriel: ''I saw this really cool documentary in which it proved that every religion has some sort of Jesus character.'' Me: ''Uh, what about Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam?''), and science (both Javier and Gabriel: ''We don't believe in evolution.'' Me: ''Oh, well that's cool, do you believe in divine creation, then?'' J&G: ''No, we don't believe in God, either. But evolution definitely didn't happen. We were never monkeys.''). I have never met anyone who was an evolution denier who didn't use religious grounds to base his or her point. So fascinating.
At dinner, their poor bodies were clearly suffering from the lack of meat. These boys were daily meat eaters, and they appeared listless after their first day of ''work.'' Amparo, in her lovely mom role, in an attempt to get some animal protein into the bodies of these poor little guys, prepared a giant casserole with a whole lot of eggs, which the boys shoveled down immediately. It was so hilarious for me to experience this clash of culture because it once again reminded me that I'm living among the minorities of the minority here in Argentina, and it's a healthy dose of reality to see that it's not exactly typical, especially down here, to go a meal or two without any meat. I think nothing of heaping piles of potatoes and squash and lentils onto my plate and going to bed with a full, satisfied belly, but these guys were hurting.
They packed up their tents after day two; enough was enough. It was sad to see them go, simply because they were so entertaining to watch and listen to, but it was also sort of a relief because we would actually be able to get some work done. And we did. And the potatoes are so lovely (and delicious).
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The New Laurita Gordita
Lessons in cross-cultural relations and body image: the adventures of Ali La Grande in Argentina.
In 2005, I spent a semester abroad in Buenos Aires. It was marked by moments of introspection and steps towards self-knowledge, identity crises, label-shedding, and also moments in which many Argentines took the liberty of giving me one very constant label of their own. Grande. Large. Big. As a nineteen year old girl, it was difficult to hear that word associated with me, especially since for women, at least in the U.S., large usually connotes fat. I considered my self esteem to be in a generally good place, especially for a teenage girl, and due to the fact that I had spent most of my life on a swim team, my body never really had time to gain much fat, and thus if people in the U.S. commented on my body (which they rarely did, because we don't talk about those things to people's faces in my culture), they would usually use words like ''very tall,'' ''slender,'' and sometimes, ''muscular.'' I never worried about whether I was portly or not. Until Buenos Aires. People loved to comment on how grande I was. My sheer size delighted people. The cute little boutiques of Palermo Viejo, with their delicately-patterned sundresses hanging in the window, generally carried one or two sizes, the larger one typically being a dress that might fit around one of my calves. The petite ladies behind the counters would often eye me up and down and tell me straight up that they didn't think they carried anything for people as grande as I was. Grande became a large part of my identity while I was down there, and it definitely messed with my mind for a little while.
I'm back in Argentina, and luckily this time I'm a lot more comfortable with the state of my body and the relativity of the word grande. Good thing, because the grandes have been flying at me left and right, along with their sister word, gordita (fatty, chubby) and occasionally, grueso (thick). The family here on the farm is delighted with my size, especially because they had a volunteer here a couple of years ago named Laura, who apparently was my identical twin when she arrived on the farm. They love to talk about Laura because of the massive amounts of weight she lost during her five month stint here. Apparently, she requested a special diet of only vegetables and the occasional fruit: no bread, no flour at all, no sugar, no dairy [no fun] in order to cure a mysterious stomach parasite that she had self-diagnosed herself. Since Laura spent so much time here, and because she underwent such a drastic transformation, the family loves to talk about her. ''Laura was so much like you,'' they say, ''when she arrived. Gordita, white, with a body muy grueso, grande, grande, but after five months, she was tan and very thin! Cured!'' Gordita, just like you. Yep.
Now, I must be fair and state that, down here, gordita is also a term of endearment. It is often used for little babies, and sometimes has nothing to do with how much blubber someone actually has. Also, the only two permanent (non volunteer) women on this farm, Mariel and her mother, Amparo, are not exactly typical representations of the female body. They are both barely five feet tall, eat raw fruits and vegetables as their only source of sustenance, and so their frames resemble Somalian 8 year old boys much more than, say, 30 and 60 year old Argentine women, respectively. If they are the norm, then I'll take grande, please. So, on this trip, grande has become my friend. It reminds me that I am a robust, strong, tall woman who loves her fruits and veggies but who has also been known to consume a bottle of red wine, an entire loaf of country bread, and a big chunk of Vermont cheese in one sitting. Maybe my body would be ''healthier'' (and less grande) if I never ate those evil foods. But they taste so good, and to me, food always has and always will be more than just sustenance for the body--there's a strong spiritual and emotional component there, too. I think I've rambled on enough about what food is to me in my last post, though, so I'll just leave it at that for now. Plus, my grande fingers have more to type.
I've been in sort of a reflective place this past week, especially since I am nearing the end (I fly back home in about a month). I have been thinking about one of the last nights I spent at home before embarking on this voyage, outside, dusk, in my parents' back yard with my family and a few friends, sitting around our wood burning stove, roasting marshmallows and seeking refuge from the mosquitos. Suddenly, a large, hard-shelled flying insect kamakazed itself at full-speed into my head, became tangled in my hair, and stutter-buzzed around in the net it had formed as I shrieked and clawed at my head, searching my scalp for that vile creature so that I could chuck it as far away from me as possible. My whole family just watched, then laughed at me and started to tease me, ''Really, Al, you're going to go live in the countryside of various South American nations, and this is your reaction to a New England beetle?'' I was flustered and frustrated because I knew they had a point. I had never been much of a lover of insects, and that was a theme I had chosen not to think about until that moment. But I also knew that part of the reason I was doing this trip was to be more at peace with nature--I knew that in the tropics of Colombia, which was my first stop, I'd have no choice not to adapt, fast.
I used to flinch and twitch when the sound of buzzing insect wings flew by my ear. I'd get this tic, snap my head to the side, earside down, with the shoulder below it rising immediately to reach it, kind of like a one-sided shoulder shrug with an added head-tilt. It was an immediate, automatic reaction, usually accompanied by swatting at whatever caused the sound, or, if it was a bee or wasp, a quick freeze and sucking in of breath until it flew by me. I secretly hated that part of me; I didn't want to be that person who wanted to save planet earth but was okay with the extermination of any biting or stinging or crawly insects.
And so recently, I came to the realization that I no longer do that flinch and twitch. I don't know when the change happened, but I was squatting along a line of pumpkins and zucchini, severing them from their vines with a knife, when I realized that there was a general hum of flies and other flying friends around my head, and I hadn't even heard them until I took a moment to stop and actively listen to the sounds around me. I don't even hear them anymore. And bees? Not a problem. If they're inside the flower of a plant I'm also working with, I can work around them without the rapid increase in heart palpitation that used to accompany that situation.
Okay, so wasps still freak me out. They are larger than life down here, and they are mean. One attacked my friend Aurelia last week while she was minding her own business. If I see a large nest hanging from an apple tree, I run in the opposite direction. And I still smack mosquitos and paquitas, which are other nasty (but tiny) little blood-sucking beasts that bury their entire heads into your skin. But they're slow and stupid, and you can almost always slap them and kill them, which yields a satisfying blood smatter as well. Well, it's your own blood, but still, the image is carnal and statisfying. A proud fist-pump or war cry almost always follows.
In 2005, I spent a semester abroad in Buenos Aires. It was marked by moments of introspection and steps towards self-knowledge, identity crises, label-shedding, and also moments in which many Argentines took the liberty of giving me one very constant label of their own. Grande. Large. Big. As a nineteen year old girl, it was difficult to hear that word associated with me, especially since for women, at least in the U.S., large usually connotes fat. I considered my self esteem to be in a generally good place, especially for a teenage girl, and due to the fact that I had spent most of my life on a swim team, my body never really had time to gain much fat, and thus if people in the U.S. commented on my body (which they rarely did, because we don't talk about those things to people's faces in my culture), they would usually use words like ''very tall,'' ''slender,'' and sometimes, ''muscular.'' I never worried about whether I was portly or not. Until Buenos Aires. People loved to comment on how grande I was. My sheer size delighted people. The cute little boutiques of Palermo Viejo, with their delicately-patterned sundresses hanging in the window, generally carried one or two sizes, the larger one typically being a dress that might fit around one of my calves. The petite ladies behind the counters would often eye me up and down and tell me straight up that they didn't think they carried anything for people as grande as I was. Grande became a large part of my identity while I was down there, and it definitely messed with my mind for a little while.
I'm back in Argentina, and luckily this time I'm a lot more comfortable with the state of my body and the relativity of the word grande. Good thing, because the grandes have been flying at me left and right, along with their sister word, gordita (fatty, chubby) and occasionally, grueso (thick). The family here on the farm is delighted with my size, especially because they had a volunteer here a couple of years ago named Laura, who apparently was my identical twin when she arrived on the farm. They love to talk about Laura because of the massive amounts of weight she lost during her five month stint here. Apparently, she requested a special diet of only vegetables and the occasional fruit: no bread, no flour at all, no sugar, no dairy [no fun] in order to cure a mysterious stomach parasite that she had self-diagnosed herself. Since Laura spent so much time here, and because she underwent such a drastic transformation, the family loves to talk about her. ''Laura was so much like you,'' they say, ''when she arrived. Gordita, white, with a body muy grueso, grande, grande, but after five months, she was tan and very thin! Cured!'' Gordita, just like you. Yep.
Now, I must be fair and state that, down here, gordita is also a term of endearment. It is often used for little babies, and sometimes has nothing to do with how much blubber someone actually has. Also, the only two permanent (non volunteer) women on this farm, Mariel and her mother, Amparo, are not exactly typical representations of the female body. They are both barely five feet tall, eat raw fruits and vegetables as their only source of sustenance, and so their frames resemble Somalian 8 year old boys much more than, say, 30 and 60 year old Argentine women, respectively. If they are the norm, then I'll take grande, please. So, on this trip, grande has become my friend. It reminds me that I am a robust, strong, tall woman who loves her fruits and veggies but who has also been known to consume a bottle of red wine, an entire loaf of country bread, and a big chunk of Vermont cheese in one sitting. Maybe my body would be ''healthier'' (and less grande) if I never ate those evil foods. But they taste so good, and to me, food always has and always will be more than just sustenance for the body--there's a strong spiritual and emotional component there, too. I think I've rambled on enough about what food is to me in my last post, though, so I'll just leave it at that for now. Plus, my grande fingers have more to type.
I've been in sort of a reflective place this past week, especially since I am nearing the end (I fly back home in about a month). I have been thinking about one of the last nights I spent at home before embarking on this voyage, outside, dusk, in my parents' back yard with my family and a few friends, sitting around our wood burning stove, roasting marshmallows and seeking refuge from the mosquitos. Suddenly, a large, hard-shelled flying insect kamakazed itself at full-speed into my head, became tangled in my hair, and stutter-buzzed around in the net it had formed as I shrieked and clawed at my head, searching my scalp for that vile creature so that I could chuck it as far away from me as possible. My whole family just watched, then laughed at me and started to tease me, ''Really, Al, you're going to go live in the countryside of various South American nations, and this is your reaction to a New England beetle?'' I was flustered and frustrated because I knew they had a point. I had never been much of a lover of insects, and that was a theme I had chosen not to think about until that moment. But I also knew that part of the reason I was doing this trip was to be more at peace with nature--I knew that in the tropics of Colombia, which was my first stop, I'd have no choice not to adapt, fast.
I used to flinch and twitch when the sound of buzzing insect wings flew by my ear. I'd get this tic, snap my head to the side, earside down, with the shoulder below it rising immediately to reach it, kind of like a one-sided shoulder shrug with an added head-tilt. It was an immediate, automatic reaction, usually accompanied by swatting at whatever caused the sound, or, if it was a bee or wasp, a quick freeze and sucking in of breath until it flew by me. I secretly hated that part of me; I didn't want to be that person who wanted to save planet earth but was okay with the extermination of any biting or stinging or crawly insects.
And so recently, I came to the realization that I no longer do that flinch and twitch. I don't know when the change happened, but I was squatting along a line of pumpkins and zucchini, severing them from their vines with a knife, when I realized that there was a general hum of flies and other flying friends around my head, and I hadn't even heard them until I took a moment to stop and actively listen to the sounds around me. I don't even hear them anymore. And bees? Not a problem. If they're inside the flower of a plant I'm also working with, I can work around them without the rapid increase in heart palpitation that used to accompany that situation.
Okay, so wasps still freak me out. They are larger than life down here, and they are mean. One attacked my friend Aurelia last week while she was minding her own business. If I see a large nest hanging from an apple tree, I run in the opposite direction. And I still smack mosquitos and paquitas, which are other nasty (but tiny) little blood-sucking beasts that bury their entire heads into your skin. But they're slow and stupid, and you can almost always slap them and kill them, which yields a satisfying blood smatter as well. Well, it's your own blood, but still, the image is carnal and statisfying. A proud fist-pump or war cry almost always follows.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
You Say Potato, I Say, Eleven Year Old?
We harvested the first of the potatoes this week, and they are the most potatoey potatoes I've ever eaten. They put my pre-farming potato experiences to shame. They are delicate and buttery-sweet and have a thin skin that, when thrown in the oven, gives in when you press against it with your fork. I have been enjoying this added element in our home-cooked meals lately due to the dynamic change in flavor and texture that the potato brings, but I'm also loving that the grandchildren who visit the farm are so tuned-in to actually tasting their food and participating in all steps from planting to harvesting that they make very un-childlike comments about them. Take last night for instance when Alondra, age eleven, stuck her fork into one of them and slowly chewed it with eyes of contemplation. She swallowed, flattened another one on her plate with her fork and smeared it slightly to separate the skin from the white fluffiness in the middle, looked up at her uncle, and said,
''Uncle, look at the texture of this potato! It's beautiful!''
Only on a hippy-dippy, organic farm of food revolutionaries would a child be raised to not only eat potatoes without exorbitant amounts of cheese or salt, but also understand what a good potato's texture should be and to comment on it. I was floored. Not sure why I was so surprised, really; this child eats heaping portions of vegetables like green beans, squash, tomatoes, and chard at every meal, just as she has been since she had her first teeth, I would imagine. It's so interesting to be around children that know exactly where their food came from [their garden, or grandma's garden], what went into growing it, and just what the product should look like before it's ready to be yanked from it's vine or tree or home of dirt. It reminded me of my first week on the farm when Mariel, Alondra's aunt and general coordinator of day-to-day orchard and garden activities, sent me out to the garden to get some lettuce for dinner. She sent me with Alondra, who knew where the lettuce was. The two of us grabbed a knife and walked out to one of the gardens, big girl following behind little girl, stepping gingerly around cabbage and broccoli and pepper plants and onions until we got to the line of lettuce: bright green bundles of leaves which stood out against their dark soil backdrop, especially because we were in the last hours of daylight when certain greens of the plants are illuminated in that mystical irridescent glow of dusk.
I followed closely behind her as she stepped around each head of lettuce, pointing at each one with her knife as she passed by it, saying, ''This one is too young to pick, this one's not ready yet either, too young, too young, too young, AH! That one is perfect!'' She squatted down, sawed off its head, and did the same to the next three or four heads as well. Honestly, the difference in size between the premie lettuce and the ready lettuce was so miniscule that I certainly wouldn't have noticed, or at least it would have taken me much longer as I pained over each one, teetering between making a decision, ''Is it ready? Is it not? Ready? Not? Readynotreadynotready????'' And Alondra just knew, immediately, as if she were deciding between two things so obviously different as carrots and tomatoes. I love this fine-tuned consciousness that comes with spending time a farm like this one. So cool. It makes me happy to know that these children are part of the next generation. Oh god, I sound like a grandmother. When I was a young lass...
So, I think I've established that this farm is more than a little unique. They are certainly not your typical Argentine family, what with their rejection of meat in a country that worships the Sunday family barbeque, with their non-consumption of alcohol and thus wine in a region that produces the bulk of the nation's supply, and of course with their general lack of attention to generally accepted Western-driven aesthetics (they [we] walk around in dirty t-shirts and blackened bare feet, both Amparo and her husband, Enrique, are missing some teeth, etc.). They grow cabbage and onions and carrots in an area surrounded by giant farms that grow nothing but grapes and apples. They would be kind of off-beat in most of the U.S. [welcomed with open arms in my former state, Vermont]. In Argentina, forget about it. So, you can imagine the delightful clashing of cultures that arose last week when Enrique's family came to visit.
They arrived in waves, first two, then three more, then full carloads as the week continued, each with meat, beer, wine, other typically farm-prohibited fixings. They set up their tents across the river, still on the farm property, and spent their week of summer vacation camping out at Enrique's house. My favorite visiting family member was Tio Negro, a short, slightly balding beer-bellied gentlemen in his sixties, who always seemed to be singing some sort of romantic balad as he strolled through the grounds of the farm. Cousins, uncles, aunts, grandchildren wandered through our kitchen at all hours of the day and night to extract their perishables from our fridge, and it was odd to see nearly forgotten goods like t-bone steaks resting next to the leftover quinoa soup. There was something so wonderfully comforting about his family, so delightfully familiar, just a bunch of good people sitting back on their lawn chairs by the river, sipping on beer and blasting the radio and cooking up meat on the grill. I have definitely met them before in some form.
You'd think that two sides of the family with such drastically different lifestyles (or at least eating habits) wouldn't get along. Not so. Everyone seemed to be mutually respectful of the other family's beliefs and ways of life, and it became even more apparent when the visitors invited us all (even the volunteers) across the river on Sunday for a big barbeque. Tio Negro had made a giant six-foot long pizza in the brick oven, along with some delicious grilled chicken. Our side of the river brought salad and grilled veggies. There must have been at least thirty people there in the end, all sitting at one long rectangular picnic table (which was actually about three or four tables lined up), and it was lovely to see everyone come together over a meal, especially when it is food that is the substance that would theoretically divide them. Okay, so the majority of the farm family didn't touch the meat, or the pizza (I made up for what they left behind, don't worry). And the visiting members barely ate any of the salad (fair; although it was made up of tomatoes and lettuce and onions, it also included a variety of delicate yet bitter herbs and greens which most of Argentina would call WEEDS). Luckily, Mariel knew her family well enough to make a special salad for them which included all of the typical stuff minus the weirdo bitter green things. And I did catch a couple of the cousins carefully testing the weirdo hippy salad with their front teeth, then inserting the rest of it into their mouths, and some of them claimed to love the flavor and helped themselves to more.
And this is why I love food. Yes, if people are unflexible and unyielding, preachy and proselytizing, it can be a vice that drives people apart. But in most cases, it's the glue that holds us together, as individual specimens and as a culture. It is a way to share thoughts, explore new flavors, throw a little bit of yourself into a dish that will nourish others (I did not mean for that last bit to be taken literally--please don't throw a little bit of you into a dish if you cook for me). Food is a way to tell stories of the past, it's the medium we use to preserve that of our ancestors, and a space for us all to be creative, to see what happens if we add a splash more of this or a handful less of that. We need food to survive, so it might as well taste good and be enjoyed with people who make us glad we're alive.
''Uncle, look at the texture of this potato! It's beautiful!''
Only on a hippy-dippy, organic farm of food revolutionaries would a child be raised to not only eat potatoes without exorbitant amounts of cheese or salt, but also understand what a good potato's texture should be and to comment on it. I was floored. Not sure why I was so surprised, really; this child eats heaping portions of vegetables like green beans, squash, tomatoes, and chard at every meal, just as she has been since she had her first teeth, I would imagine. It's so interesting to be around children that know exactly where their food came from [their garden, or grandma's garden], what went into growing it, and just what the product should look like before it's ready to be yanked from it's vine or tree or home of dirt. It reminded me of my first week on the farm when Mariel, Alondra's aunt and general coordinator of day-to-day orchard and garden activities, sent me out to the garden to get some lettuce for dinner. She sent me with Alondra, who knew where the lettuce was. The two of us grabbed a knife and walked out to one of the gardens, big girl following behind little girl, stepping gingerly around cabbage and broccoli and pepper plants and onions until we got to the line of lettuce: bright green bundles of leaves which stood out against their dark soil backdrop, especially because we were in the last hours of daylight when certain greens of the plants are illuminated in that mystical irridescent glow of dusk.
I followed closely behind her as she stepped around each head of lettuce, pointing at each one with her knife as she passed by it, saying, ''This one is too young to pick, this one's not ready yet either, too young, too young, too young, AH! That one is perfect!'' She squatted down, sawed off its head, and did the same to the next three or four heads as well. Honestly, the difference in size between the premie lettuce and the ready lettuce was so miniscule that I certainly wouldn't have noticed, or at least it would have taken me much longer as I pained over each one, teetering between making a decision, ''Is it ready? Is it not? Ready? Not? Readynotreadynotready????'' And Alondra just knew, immediately, as if she were deciding between two things so obviously different as carrots and tomatoes. I love this fine-tuned consciousness that comes with spending time a farm like this one. So cool. It makes me happy to know that these children are part of the next generation. Oh god, I sound like a grandmother. When I was a young lass...
So, I think I've established that this farm is more than a little unique. They are certainly not your typical Argentine family, what with their rejection of meat in a country that worships the Sunday family barbeque, with their non-consumption of alcohol and thus wine in a region that produces the bulk of the nation's supply, and of course with their general lack of attention to generally accepted Western-driven aesthetics (they [we] walk around in dirty t-shirts and blackened bare feet, both Amparo and her husband, Enrique, are missing some teeth, etc.). They grow cabbage and onions and carrots in an area surrounded by giant farms that grow nothing but grapes and apples. They would be kind of off-beat in most of the U.S. [welcomed with open arms in my former state, Vermont]. In Argentina, forget about it. So, you can imagine the delightful clashing of cultures that arose last week when Enrique's family came to visit.
They arrived in waves, first two, then three more, then full carloads as the week continued, each with meat, beer, wine, other typically farm-prohibited fixings. They set up their tents across the river, still on the farm property, and spent their week of summer vacation camping out at Enrique's house. My favorite visiting family member was Tio Negro, a short, slightly balding beer-bellied gentlemen in his sixties, who always seemed to be singing some sort of romantic balad as he strolled through the grounds of the farm. Cousins, uncles, aunts, grandchildren wandered through our kitchen at all hours of the day and night to extract their perishables from our fridge, and it was odd to see nearly forgotten goods like t-bone steaks resting next to the leftover quinoa soup. There was something so wonderfully comforting about his family, so delightfully familiar, just a bunch of good people sitting back on their lawn chairs by the river, sipping on beer and blasting the radio and cooking up meat on the grill. I have definitely met them before in some form.
You'd think that two sides of the family with such drastically different lifestyles (or at least eating habits) wouldn't get along. Not so. Everyone seemed to be mutually respectful of the other family's beliefs and ways of life, and it became even more apparent when the visitors invited us all (even the volunteers) across the river on Sunday for a big barbeque. Tio Negro had made a giant six-foot long pizza in the brick oven, along with some delicious grilled chicken. Our side of the river brought salad and grilled veggies. There must have been at least thirty people there in the end, all sitting at one long rectangular picnic table (which was actually about three or four tables lined up), and it was lovely to see everyone come together over a meal, especially when it is food that is the substance that would theoretically divide them. Okay, so the majority of the farm family didn't touch the meat, or the pizza (I made up for what they left behind, don't worry). And the visiting members barely ate any of the salad (fair; although it was made up of tomatoes and lettuce and onions, it also included a variety of delicate yet bitter herbs and greens which most of Argentina would call WEEDS). Luckily, Mariel knew her family well enough to make a special salad for them which included all of the typical stuff minus the weirdo bitter green things. And I did catch a couple of the cousins carefully testing the weirdo hippy salad with their front teeth, then inserting the rest of it into their mouths, and some of them claimed to love the flavor and helped themselves to more.
And this is why I love food. Yes, if people are unflexible and unyielding, preachy and proselytizing, it can be a vice that drives people apart. But in most cases, it's the glue that holds us together, as individual specimens and as a culture. It is a way to share thoughts, explore new flavors, throw a little bit of yourself into a dish that will nourish others (I did not mean for that last bit to be taken literally--please don't throw a little bit of you into a dish if you cook for me). Food is a way to tell stories of the past, it's the medium we use to preserve that of our ancestors, and a space for us all to be creative, to see what happens if we add a splash more of this or a handful less of that. We need food to survive, so it might as well taste good and be enjoyed with people who make us glad we're alive.
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