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.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Constructing walls just to smash into them.
It becomes more and more apparent with every day spent on my current farm that I have found a really special place.
Being here excites the same parts of my personality that studying Anthropology in college did. At the risk of emanating an appearance of the charmed Westerner who has embarked on an ethnological study to marvel at the backwards ways of the salt o' the earth dwellers of the southern hemisphere, let me explain to you why I love it here so much, and why it reminds me of the best parts of my major. Anthro presented me with a discipline devoted to dismantling the ways that one assumes the world works. I have always been someone who has found it difficult to take sides in debates because I can often see both arguments easily. I think I naturally find the way to imagine what cultural influences might have led to someone's sense of self and belief system, even if this imagined environment involves situations way outside of my own. And studying Anthropology sharpened my tools of expression and showed me the countless examples of people who have travled the world in search of proof that pretty much nothing is static, nothing is normal, there are endless possiblities in raising children, educating the population, creating and maintaining customs, eating--anything works. And being on this farm has been a welcome reminder.
Most of these little reminders have to do with my learned idea of cleanliness and what cleanliness means to others. There is no soap on the kitchen sink, and the sponge is a greasy rag. Olive oil is present at every meal. Cold water and bare hands do not leave plates and utencils feeling sleek and clean. As a compulsive handwasher, this has presented a challenge for me. He or she whose turn it is to wash after a meal is left with a thick grimey film layered upon wrinkly fingers, and it's an uncomfortable situation for me. We have a composting bathroom which routinely has a layer of dark mud littering the floor, which, of course, is almost certainly nothing but mud, since it's right next to the river which sometimes overflows, but since everyone walks around barefoot (including me), it's unnerving to step into the bathroom and slosh around in warm brown muck while sitting down on a hole directly above a giant bucket of live human feces, even if the brown substance clinging to your feet is absoloutely nothing but wet dirt. Mind games.
Both of these instances illustrate a learned understanding of what it means to be clean. The slimy dishes and the mucky floor are certainly icky for someone who has grown up with indoor bathrooms and dishwashing detergent (or a dishwasher), but they don't actually imply any type of health hazard. What's a little bit of olive oil and dried basil encrusted on a plate really going to do to the system? It's certainly healthier than a Big Mac, which I've heard is the only restaurant that routinely passes Board of Health inspections. No one eats meat here--so sitting in the composting bathroom is probably a heck of a lot safer than opening up a jar of peanut butter in the U.S. and risking getting infected with a poop bacteria. And the composting bathroom never obligates the user to touch anyone else's poop any more than a traditional Western indoor bathroom would--that is, the poop drops a number of feet way down into the bucket, so the only way you would have to touch someone else's do-do would be if they missed the bowl completely--which can also happen in the fanciest of flushing Johns. I like to challenge my own belief systems constantly, whether they are on the deep, political level or on the more superficial poop-and-other-bodily functions level.
And speaking of challenging conversations, there are some beliefs that hold true for me no matter who I talk to. The other day, while one of the seasoned farm volunteers was showing my how to clean the composting bathroom, he put on the big rubber gloves and reached into the hole to pull out the giant bucket of poop and soiled toilet paper. My face made the automatic reactive look it makes when I'm disgusted, and I crinkled my nose and gagged a little bit. The sheer amount of human poop was astounding. I had never come so close to such a mountain of waste. The volunteer made a comment about how we humans are conditioned to be afraid of poop, not to touch it, that from a young age our parents slap our hands and tell us not to go near it, and that it's really all a taboo because poop is not a threat.
Um, excuse me?
His argument was that we don't like poop because we're told it's bad--that really, poop is a fine substance, risk free. I don't agree. I think we're taught not to have a close relationship with it because it's a PUBLIC HEALTH HAZARD. Not so much on an organic, vegetarian farm, but certainly on the grand scale, where people are eating who knows what. There's a reason we wash our hands after we use the bathroom! Now, it's true that the recent health scares involving e coli were actually a result of the poor treatment and processing of sick cows and not simply because a Skippy employee pulled a wipe and run, but still, this is still a poop issue nonetheless. I've learned that everyone here is pretty sure of their own convictions, though, so there's not much use in plodding on with the same argument after some time--I think we've all learned to let it go after the conversation becomes repetitive. Anyway, is that really the point--to talk someone over to your side?
That's what I love so much about this farm; on the grand scale of things, that is, among humans worldwide, everyone existing in this space is more or less of the same political and ideoligical inclinations. We all appreciate a life apart from the industrial production of goods, we value a more locally-focused market, especially that involving our food, we all seem to agree that eating a lot of vegetables and less (or no) animal products is a good idea for a variety of reasons, and everyone here seems to be aware and in support of movements that search for a more humane and just existence for humans everywhere. However, since we're all in the same place, and have all likely come to believe in these ideas through critical thinking and questioning the traditional system in which we were raised, we're a bunch of arguers, and everyone is up for a debate. The possibilities are endless. As I've mentioned before, not a day goes by in the fields, in the warehouse, in the kitchen, when a lengthy passionate discussion is not occuring. The poop argument only scratches the surface. It's so great for my brain to be doing something so manual, like weeding around basil plants, while dicussing the semantics of the word ''ethic.'' Yeah.
The idea that this farm expands minds is not mine alone. The other day, Rudolfo, one of the members of the family, was talking about how the composting bathroom exists maybe more for this very reason than for saving the composted waste to use as compost for the soil. So far, they have yet to do anything with the composted poop. It just sits in a big wooden bin, and then, when the bin fills, it's moved to a big pile outside the orchard. He said something I loved, which was something like this: ''Here on this farm, we've built a lot of giant walls with the sole purpose of people smashing into them. The composting bathroom is one. I have no idea why the hell we save the poop and compost it if we're never going to use it, but I think that's fine. Everyone has to use it, everyone has to clean it, and it's probably been the biggest source of discomfort among visitors. A lot of people have a very difficult time accepting it, but after a while, everyone gets used to it. The bathroom serves as just another one of those walls that we crash into in order to change the way we think about things. Sometimes that's the only way I truly grow from within, not so much gradually, but with giant blows from the walls that other people put up.'' I really like that way of thinking about personal growth and the different ways it is possible. I too enjoy smashing into things. See: my post-graduate year in Burlington, Vermont.
This place seems to be as much a healing refuge as it is a working farm. There always seems to be someone new arriving while someone else is leaving. Many people come here to spend a few days with Amparo, who is the mother of the family and the reason behind the fact that they all moved out here fifteen years ago to build a life around healing through good food. Amparo's knowledge around natural healing is astounding, and I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical at first. However, this lady is legit. Headache? Just mix a few dried herbs (don't bother asking me what they are--my brain is on new plant overload) with onion and honey and boil. Drink. Cured. Or maybe I did that when I had a sore throat. Hmm. I'll get back to you. Whatever I had, it was cured after this mysterious concoction.
One day, just a few days in, while I was crouched over in the strawberry patch, I heard the crunching of grass underfoot which meant that someone was approaching from behind me. I turned around and my eyes met a willowy young woman with a large turban wrapped around her head and a single five foot long dreadlock trailing behind her, complete with wooden bead and some sort of amulet at the end. She was carrying a naked baby with wild tangled curls, and I greeted her and introduced myself. She told me her name, smiled, and kept walking. No other words.
My head was spinning. Uh, who are you? [I like your single dreadlock]. Are you a family member? [Are you a vagabond?] Are you going to help me pick these berries? Who is that bare-bummed child in your arms?
I learned a few days later that she had met Amparo at a raw foods conference in Buenos Aires, and decided to come back with her to learn about the farm. I have learned to stop asking who people are, since there are so many of them coming and going. It keeps things spicy around here. Variety is the spice of life. Or is spice the life of variety?
In other news, I'm back to making cheese, just like I did in Colombia. There is a lovely neighbor who sells fresh raw milk, and it's not nearly as cow-y smelling as was the milk I bought from my Colombian neighbor, which must explain why the mere scent of it doesn't send my stomach into an automatic curdling retch. Either that, or I've finally cured myself of whatever bacteria or parasite I had when I was further north. Whatever it is, I've been having loads of fun with my fellow volunteer friend, David, who was thrilled to go in with me on six liters of milk. The idea was to make yogurt and cheese, but interestingly enough, every batch with the intent to make yogurt has yielded something closer to cheese, and vice versa. All of it has resulted in some very delicious mistake babies. My favorite yet has been a ''yogurt'' that turned into mozzarella, that when left in the fridge and dried out a bit became ricotta. Delicious.
The apple harvest is drawing near, and the apples are getting fatter and redder (or, in the green apple case, just fatter) by the day! I must eat at least 7 apples daily. Maybe this means that I will keep the doctor away for seven times the time that one a day would.
Being here excites the same parts of my personality that studying Anthropology in college did. At the risk of emanating an appearance of the charmed Westerner who has embarked on an ethnological study to marvel at the backwards ways of the salt o' the earth dwellers of the southern hemisphere, let me explain to you why I love it here so much, and why it reminds me of the best parts of my major. Anthro presented me with a discipline devoted to dismantling the ways that one assumes the world works. I have always been someone who has found it difficult to take sides in debates because I can often see both arguments easily. I think I naturally find the way to imagine what cultural influences might have led to someone's sense of self and belief system, even if this imagined environment involves situations way outside of my own. And studying Anthropology sharpened my tools of expression and showed me the countless examples of people who have travled the world in search of proof that pretty much nothing is static, nothing is normal, there are endless possiblities in raising children, educating the population, creating and maintaining customs, eating--anything works. And being on this farm has been a welcome reminder.
Most of these little reminders have to do with my learned idea of cleanliness and what cleanliness means to others. There is no soap on the kitchen sink, and the sponge is a greasy rag. Olive oil is present at every meal. Cold water and bare hands do not leave plates and utencils feeling sleek and clean. As a compulsive handwasher, this has presented a challenge for me. He or she whose turn it is to wash after a meal is left with a thick grimey film layered upon wrinkly fingers, and it's an uncomfortable situation for me. We have a composting bathroom which routinely has a layer of dark mud littering the floor, which, of course, is almost certainly nothing but mud, since it's right next to the river which sometimes overflows, but since everyone walks around barefoot (including me), it's unnerving to step into the bathroom and slosh around in warm brown muck while sitting down on a hole directly above a giant bucket of live human feces, even if the brown substance clinging to your feet is absoloutely nothing but wet dirt. Mind games.
Both of these instances illustrate a learned understanding of what it means to be clean. The slimy dishes and the mucky floor are certainly icky for someone who has grown up with indoor bathrooms and dishwashing detergent (or a dishwasher), but they don't actually imply any type of health hazard. What's a little bit of olive oil and dried basil encrusted on a plate really going to do to the system? It's certainly healthier than a Big Mac, which I've heard is the only restaurant that routinely passes Board of Health inspections. No one eats meat here--so sitting in the composting bathroom is probably a heck of a lot safer than opening up a jar of peanut butter in the U.S. and risking getting infected with a poop bacteria. And the composting bathroom never obligates the user to touch anyone else's poop any more than a traditional Western indoor bathroom would--that is, the poop drops a number of feet way down into the bucket, so the only way you would have to touch someone else's do-do would be if they missed the bowl completely--which can also happen in the fanciest of flushing Johns. I like to challenge my own belief systems constantly, whether they are on the deep, political level or on the more superficial poop-and-other-bodily functions level.
And speaking of challenging conversations, there are some beliefs that hold true for me no matter who I talk to. The other day, while one of the seasoned farm volunteers was showing my how to clean the composting bathroom, he put on the big rubber gloves and reached into the hole to pull out the giant bucket of poop and soiled toilet paper. My face made the automatic reactive look it makes when I'm disgusted, and I crinkled my nose and gagged a little bit. The sheer amount of human poop was astounding. I had never come so close to such a mountain of waste. The volunteer made a comment about how we humans are conditioned to be afraid of poop, not to touch it, that from a young age our parents slap our hands and tell us not to go near it, and that it's really all a taboo because poop is not a threat.
Um, excuse me?
His argument was that we don't like poop because we're told it's bad--that really, poop is a fine substance, risk free. I don't agree. I think we're taught not to have a close relationship with it because it's a PUBLIC HEALTH HAZARD. Not so much on an organic, vegetarian farm, but certainly on the grand scale, where people are eating who knows what. There's a reason we wash our hands after we use the bathroom! Now, it's true that the recent health scares involving e coli were actually a result of the poor treatment and processing of sick cows and not simply because a Skippy employee pulled a wipe and run, but still, this is still a poop issue nonetheless. I've learned that everyone here is pretty sure of their own convictions, though, so there's not much use in plodding on with the same argument after some time--I think we've all learned to let it go after the conversation becomes repetitive. Anyway, is that really the point--to talk someone over to your side?
That's what I love so much about this farm; on the grand scale of things, that is, among humans worldwide, everyone existing in this space is more or less of the same political and ideoligical inclinations. We all appreciate a life apart from the industrial production of goods, we value a more locally-focused market, especially that involving our food, we all seem to agree that eating a lot of vegetables and less (or no) animal products is a good idea for a variety of reasons, and everyone here seems to be aware and in support of movements that search for a more humane and just existence for humans everywhere. However, since we're all in the same place, and have all likely come to believe in these ideas through critical thinking and questioning the traditional system in which we were raised, we're a bunch of arguers, and everyone is up for a debate. The possibilities are endless. As I've mentioned before, not a day goes by in the fields, in the warehouse, in the kitchen, when a lengthy passionate discussion is not occuring. The poop argument only scratches the surface. It's so great for my brain to be doing something so manual, like weeding around basil plants, while dicussing the semantics of the word ''ethic.'' Yeah.
The idea that this farm expands minds is not mine alone. The other day, Rudolfo, one of the members of the family, was talking about how the composting bathroom exists maybe more for this very reason than for saving the composted waste to use as compost for the soil. So far, they have yet to do anything with the composted poop. It just sits in a big wooden bin, and then, when the bin fills, it's moved to a big pile outside the orchard. He said something I loved, which was something like this: ''Here on this farm, we've built a lot of giant walls with the sole purpose of people smashing into them. The composting bathroom is one. I have no idea why the hell we save the poop and compost it if we're never going to use it, but I think that's fine. Everyone has to use it, everyone has to clean it, and it's probably been the biggest source of discomfort among visitors. A lot of people have a very difficult time accepting it, but after a while, everyone gets used to it. The bathroom serves as just another one of those walls that we crash into in order to change the way we think about things. Sometimes that's the only way I truly grow from within, not so much gradually, but with giant blows from the walls that other people put up.'' I really like that way of thinking about personal growth and the different ways it is possible. I too enjoy smashing into things. See: my post-graduate year in Burlington, Vermont.
This place seems to be as much a healing refuge as it is a working farm. There always seems to be someone new arriving while someone else is leaving. Many people come here to spend a few days with Amparo, who is the mother of the family and the reason behind the fact that they all moved out here fifteen years ago to build a life around healing through good food. Amparo's knowledge around natural healing is astounding, and I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical at first. However, this lady is legit. Headache? Just mix a few dried herbs (don't bother asking me what they are--my brain is on new plant overload) with onion and honey and boil. Drink. Cured. Or maybe I did that when I had a sore throat. Hmm. I'll get back to you. Whatever I had, it was cured after this mysterious concoction.
One day, just a few days in, while I was crouched over in the strawberry patch, I heard the crunching of grass underfoot which meant that someone was approaching from behind me. I turned around and my eyes met a willowy young woman with a large turban wrapped around her head and a single five foot long dreadlock trailing behind her, complete with wooden bead and some sort of amulet at the end. She was carrying a naked baby with wild tangled curls, and I greeted her and introduced myself. She told me her name, smiled, and kept walking. No other words.
My head was spinning. Uh, who are you? [I like your single dreadlock]. Are you a family member? [Are you a vagabond?] Are you going to help me pick these berries? Who is that bare-bummed child in your arms?
I learned a few days later that she had met Amparo at a raw foods conference in Buenos Aires, and decided to come back with her to learn about the farm. I have learned to stop asking who people are, since there are so many of them coming and going. It keeps things spicy around here. Variety is the spice of life. Or is spice the life of variety?
In other news, I'm back to making cheese, just like I did in Colombia. There is a lovely neighbor who sells fresh raw milk, and it's not nearly as cow-y smelling as was the milk I bought from my Colombian neighbor, which must explain why the mere scent of it doesn't send my stomach into an automatic curdling retch. Either that, or I've finally cured myself of whatever bacteria or parasite I had when I was further north. Whatever it is, I've been having loads of fun with my fellow volunteer friend, David, who was thrilled to go in with me on six liters of milk. The idea was to make yogurt and cheese, but interestingly enough, every batch with the intent to make yogurt has yielded something closer to cheese, and vice versa. All of it has resulted in some very delicious mistake babies. My favorite yet has been a ''yogurt'' that turned into mozzarella, that when left in the fridge and dried out a bit became ricotta. Delicious.
The apple harvest is drawing near, and the apples are getting fatter and redder (or, in the green apple case, just fatter) by the day! I must eat at least 7 apples daily. Maybe this means that I will keep the doctor away for seven times the time that one a day would.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Argentina farming, one week in, feeling really good about it.
I think that this trip became a whole lot more political since my arrival into this country. Everyone I meet who is in some way connected to the organic and/or local food movement has a lot to say about big agriculture, global food politics, and how they relate to the marginalization and exclusion of certain groups of people. The current farm on which I find myself these days is certainly no exception. Every single day, whether I'm picking zucchini in the fields, planting potatoes, or preparing bunches of chard for the weekly farmers market, I find myself in conversation with one of the volunteers (or, more likely, one of the members of the family who runs the farm) about genetically modified organisms, monocultures, Monsanto, etc. For those of you who are less obessed with this issue than I am and therefore for whom this is a bunch of technical and meaningless jargon, I apologize. For those of you who are into this stuff, you probably understand how interesting and exciting it is to be amidst a bunch of local food pioneers and, on top of it all, to have the opportunity to be a part of a movement taking root (pun sort of intended) down here in South America.
Sidenote: yet another study came out a couple weeks ago about the potentially devastating effects that genetically modified corn (copyright Monsanto) has on the human body. Lab results showed that this corn helped cause significant organ damage in rats. Studies like this come out all the time. Read all about it: http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm
Even the little children who live on the farm know what's going on with global food politics. Alondra, age eleven, who lives on a neighboring organic farm, struck up a conversation with me the other day about the deforestation in Paraguay on the Brazilian border and the giant soy crop companies that are buying out small farms and essentially terrorizing the farms that refuse to sell. Age eleven, this one.
Not only is this farm politically aligned with me, it is also the perfect place for someone who dislikes doing the same thing every day. I never have the same day twice. A couple of days ago, I found myself walking along a long line of freshly tilled dirt, barefoot, dropping little baby potatoes into the ground about 12 inches apart and lightly patting them with the soles of my feet afterwards to push them into the ground. The day before, I was hacking away at the giant weeds that had begun to overtake the eggplant and basil plants. The day before that, I was putting labels and caps on bottles of apple cider vinegar. The day before that, I spent a large part of my day swimming in the river with the little kids from the farm, since they couldn't con anyone else into taking them. Con, please, it was at least 85 degrees outside. I had fun.
I have yet to take a ''shower'' here. Bathing in the river is much more fun. The farm is perfectly located so that the melted ice from the mountains flows down and runs right past their house in the summer months (so, right now) and thus they irrigate by digging trenches that run the water directly to the orchards. And bathing in the river, albeit frigidly cold (melted ice is not exactly tepid), is wonderfully refreshing and really puts some hair on your chest. Uh, I mean, so to speak. It certainly gives me a big slap on the back and a surge of lively energy to my soul.
Everyone here is a big joker, with varying degrees of sarcasm, which I highly enjoy as well. Every meal is eaten together around a long rectangular table, jokes flying, people playing tricks on each other, and at the same time it's a giant free-for-all where arms tangle in reaching for the salad bowl, salt shaker, tomatoes, etc. No one says, ''please pass the...'', it's more of a bark: SALT! SALAD!
I had more to write, but I have to get on a bus back to the farm!
I think that this trip became a whole lot more political since my arrival into this country. Everyone I meet who is in some way connected to the organic and/or local food movement has a lot to say about big agriculture, global food politics, and how they relate to the marginalization and exclusion of certain groups of people. The current farm on which I find myself these days is certainly no exception. Every single day, whether I'm picking zucchini in the fields, planting potatoes, or preparing bunches of chard for the weekly farmers market, I find myself in conversation with one of the volunteers (or, more likely, one of the members of the family who runs the farm) about genetically modified organisms, monocultures, Monsanto, etc. For those of you who are less obessed with this issue than I am and therefore for whom this is a bunch of technical and meaningless jargon, I apologize. For those of you who are into this stuff, you probably understand how interesting and exciting it is to be amidst a bunch of local food pioneers and, on top of it all, to have the opportunity to be a part of a movement taking root (pun sort of intended) down here in South America.
Sidenote: yet another study came out a couple weeks ago about the potentially devastating effects that genetically modified corn (copyright Monsanto) has on the human body. Lab results showed that this corn helped cause significant organ damage in rats. Studies like this come out all the time. Read all about it: http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm
Even the little children who live on the farm know what's going on with global food politics. Alondra, age eleven, who lives on a neighboring organic farm, struck up a conversation with me the other day about the deforestation in Paraguay on the Brazilian border and the giant soy crop companies that are buying out small farms and essentially terrorizing the farms that refuse to sell. Age eleven, this one.
Not only is this farm politically aligned with me, it is also the perfect place for someone who dislikes doing the same thing every day. I never have the same day twice. A couple of days ago, I found myself walking along a long line of freshly tilled dirt, barefoot, dropping little baby potatoes into the ground about 12 inches apart and lightly patting them with the soles of my feet afterwards to push them into the ground. The day before, I was hacking away at the giant weeds that had begun to overtake the eggplant and basil plants. The day before that, I was putting labels and caps on bottles of apple cider vinegar. The day before that, I spent a large part of my day swimming in the river with the little kids from the farm, since they couldn't con anyone else into taking them. Con, please, it was at least 85 degrees outside. I had fun.
I have yet to take a ''shower'' here. Bathing in the river is much more fun. The farm is perfectly located so that the melted ice from the mountains flows down and runs right past their house in the summer months (so, right now) and thus they irrigate by digging trenches that run the water directly to the orchards. And bathing in the river, albeit frigidly cold (melted ice is not exactly tepid), is wonderfully refreshing and really puts some hair on your chest. Uh, I mean, so to speak. It certainly gives me a big slap on the back and a surge of lively energy to my soul.
Everyone here is a big joker, with varying degrees of sarcasm, which I highly enjoy as well. Every meal is eaten together around a long rectangular table, jokes flying, people playing tricks on each other, and at the same time it's a giant free-for-all where arms tangle in reaching for the salad bowl, salt shaker, tomatoes, etc. No one says, ''please pass the...'', it's more of a bark: SALT! SALAD!
I had more to write, but I have to get on a bus back to the farm!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Oats and Beans and Barley Grow
I am sore. My butt, abs, thighs, neck--there's a marked stiffness in my gait, and jogging gives me a Quasimodo-esque quality. My feet are soiled almost beyond recognition; there's dirt caked in my toenails and the few flecks of pink nailpolish are now more of a tan color underneath a thick layer of dirt-dust. I have a slight sunburn under my eyes and on my shoulders, and my armpits smell. My hair is starting to resemble a wig. Either I've developed a crystal-meth addiction and am now living on the sidewalk, or I'm back in the farming world.
I'm back in the farming world! It's so great to be doing something again.
So, I got into Mendoza (Argentina) on Wednesday, in hopes of finding a farm in the area. I must admit that I was feeling more than a little anxious--I had not really planned ahead, and had only begun to start to contact the farms on my list in the last few days. Hadn't taken into account the fact that MANY more people travel to Argentina than, say, Colombia, and in addition, I was entering Argentina at the peak of high season. Also, many of the farms don't have internet access, so it can take up to a week or two just to get a response from someone, and oftentimes, in Argentina, in January, it's a straight-up ''no.'' Well, really it's more of a ''we're so sorry--we'd love to have you, but we're up to our elbows in eager volunteers for the next three months! Maybe next year?'' I received a few messages like this, and started to wonder if I'd actually find anything.
Luckily, I speak Spanish. I called every phone number on the list, and found a farm! The family had been celebrating the holidays with other family in town and thus had not had time to check email or host any volunteers, and I guess I called at the right moment because they told me I could come immediately and stay as long as I wanted. Excellent. I packed up my bags and was out of the gringo-land hostel the next morning (although the hostel wasn't all that bad--I did meet an awesome girl who was into food justice issues and knew what she was talking about. It was so great to have a nerd moment with her and talk about philosophies and politics and not have to explain the history of things).
The trip to the farm was an interesting one. I arrived at the dusty bus terminal (one room, one bench in the center, no people anywhere), where I was told I'd be able to catch a bus to the town where the farm was located. I arrived around 2pm, and to my dismay found that the next bus left at 8pm. Luckily, a nice man overheard me griping over the fact that I'd have to wait six hours in a deserted ghost town, and he offered me a ride. He and his wife were heading that way anyway. So, (parents--close your eyes and scroll down a bit, please) I happily hopped into the car of this unknown man in a deserted town and off we went! We picked up their son on the way (his name was Nacho...actually, a common nickname for Ignacio, but I still think it's so funny that people are named Nacho) and we drove through vineyards and valleys and eventually got to the crossroads where the little farm is located. I thanked them profusely for saving me from wasting an afternoon, and off I went.
I immediately liked the farm. There were little homemade signs all along the road advertising their organic produce, preserves, and juices, and I walked by a giant bathtub with flowers growing out of it as I approached what I assumed was a workshop or at least a place I could expect to find another human. I was greeted by a barefooted french woman named Aurelia, who was another volunteer who had just arrived the day before. I also immediately liked her--she had a fantastic laugh. She explained to me that I had arrived during siesta, which meant everyone was probably sleeping or relaxing (score! We get a siesta here??) and brought me to the kitchen, where I met Jorge, a guy from Buenos Aires but now lives in Australia who had volunteered on the farm a few years ago and is now back visiting the family and helping out as well. He reheated some lunch for me, a delicious mixture of veggies and millet, or some grain similar to millet, and I breathed out an enormous sigh of ''Yes, I'm back in the woods and eating organic vegetarian food with people who don't wear deodorant. I missed this.''
Later, I met Manu, who is a French man who is married to Maribel, who grew up on the farm, and now they both live here. Aurelia, Jose, Manu, and I spent the hotter part of the afternoon in the shade of the workshop putting labels on their signature organic applejuice, which they sell to to restaurants in Buenos Aires and also at the farmers market in Mendoza that would take place the next day. Then, we took a walk out to the gardens and picked green beans, also for the market. I took off my shoes, too, and I really enjoyed walking through the mud and letting it ooze out through the spaces in my toes. I kept singing a folk song from my Sharon, Lois, and Bram tape that I listened to as a little nugget, the one with the lyrics ''oats and beans and barley grow, oats and beans and barley grow, you or I or anyone know how oats and beans and barley grow!'' Not sure why, I guess it just seemed appropriate. I talked about Community Supported Agriculture with Jose in between the bean stalks, who knew all about it, and relished my round two of food system banter.
The suns stays out so late here! I love it! I can't get used to it! It completely throws me off--I mean, it's only been two days, but I'm always shocked to find out what time it is when I'm out in the field weeding or something and the sky is still well-lit and it's 8pm. Amazing. And ohhh, the sky here. First of all, you have a view of the Andes mountains and, early in the morning, you can see the snow at the top. Then, flat, green fields of produce or wildflowers, and then a bit further out, really tall pine trees. The neighboring farm grows sunflowers, and it's purely magical--just sunflowers packed together like corn in the midwest, as far as you can see. At sunset, the sky explodes with purples and reds and oranges, and at night, of course, since we're pretty far away from the city, it's just stars, stars, stars.
I love the mental strength that comes with working on a farm. Yesterday, I had to weed the strawberry plants, two rows of them, probably at least the length of two football fields, promise I'm not exaggerating. That's a lot of time squatting, picking around one type of green leaf to yank up another type of green leaf. It's a daunting task at the beginning, so you have to tell yourself that it's not all going to happen in ten minutes, that it's a task that requires time and patience (I tend to not have much of either one). But it is absolutely the most satisfying thing when, after about an hour or two, you turn around to see the work you've done. Just two neat little rows of clearly-defined strawberry plants. And then to turn your head the other way, you see that yes, there's still so much to do, but comparing the wild, crazy, weedy plants to your left and the clean ones to your right is a constant reminder of how much great work you've done. And, I mean, I like to tell myself I'm growing my gluteus maximus by doing all that squatting.
Next time you see me, this baby will have some serious back.
I'm back in the farming world! It's so great to be doing something again.
So, I got into Mendoza (Argentina) on Wednesday, in hopes of finding a farm in the area. I must admit that I was feeling more than a little anxious--I had not really planned ahead, and had only begun to start to contact the farms on my list in the last few days. Hadn't taken into account the fact that MANY more people travel to Argentina than, say, Colombia, and in addition, I was entering Argentina at the peak of high season. Also, many of the farms don't have internet access, so it can take up to a week or two just to get a response from someone, and oftentimes, in Argentina, in January, it's a straight-up ''no.'' Well, really it's more of a ''we're so sorry--we'd love to have you, but we're up to our elbows in eager volunteers for the next three months! Maybe next year?'' I received a few messages like this, and started to wonder if I'd actually find anything.
Luckily, I speak Spanish. I called every phone number on the list, and found a farm! The family had been celebrating the holidays with other family in town and thus had not had time to check email or host any volunteers, and I guess I called at the right moment because they told me I could come immediately and stay as long as I wanted. Excellent. I packed up my bags and was out of the gringo-land hostel the next morning (although the hostel wasn't all that bad--I did meet an awesome girl who was into food justice issues and knew what she was talking about. It was so great to have a nerd moment with her and talk about philosophies and politics and not have to explain the history of things).
The trip to the farm was an interesting one. I arrived at the dusty bus terminal (one room, one bench in the center, no people anywhere), where I was told I'd be able to catch a bus to the town where the farm was located. I arrived around 2pm, and to my dismay found that the next bus left at 8pm. Luckily, a nice man overheard me griping over the fact that I'd have to wait six hours in a deserted ghost town, and he offered me a ride. He and his wife were heading that way anyway. So, (parents--close your eyes and scroll down a bit, please) I happily hopped into the car of this unknown man in a deserted town and off we went! We picked up their son on the way (his name was Nacho...actually, a common nickname for Ignacio, but I still think it's so funny that people are named Nacho) and we drove through vineyards and valleys and eventually got to the crossroads where the little farm is located. I thanked them profusely for saving me from wasting an afternoon, and off I went.
I immediately liked the farm. There were little homemade signs all along the road advertising their organic produce, preserves, and juices, and I walked by a giant bathtub with flowers growing out of it as I approached what I assumed was a workshop or at least a place I could expect to find another human. I was greeted by a barefooted french woman named Aurelia, who was another volunteer who had just arrived the day before. I also immediately liked her--she had a fantastic laugh. She explained to me that I had arrived during siesta, which meant everyone was probably sleeping or relaxing (score! We get a siesta here??) and brought me to the kitchen, where I met Jorge, a guy from Buenos Aires but now lives in Australia who had volunteered on the farm a few years ago and is now back visiting the family and helping out as well. He reheated some lunch for me, a delicious mixture of veggies and millet, or some grain similar to millet, and I breathed out an enormous sigh of ''Yes, I'm back in the woods and eating organic vegetarian food with people who don't wear deodorant. I missed this.''
Later, I met Manu, who is a French man who is married to Maribel, who grew up on the farm, and now they both live here. Aurelia, Jose, Manu, and I spent the hotter part of the afternoon in the shade of the workshop putting labels on their signature organic applejuice, which they sell to to restaurants in Buenos Aires and also at the farmers market in Mendoza that would take place the next day. Then, we took a walk out to the gardens and picked green beans, also for the market. I took off my shoes, too, and I really enjoyed walking through the mud and letting it ooze out through the spaces in my toes. I kept singing a folk song from my Sharon, Lois, and Bram tape that I listened to as a little nugget, the one with the lyrics ''oats and beans and barley grow, oats and beans and barley grow, you or I or anyone know how oats and beans and barley grow!'' Not sure why, I guess it just seemed appropriate. I talked about Community Supported Agriculture with Jose in between the bean stalks, who knew all about it, and relished my round two of food system banter.
The suns stays out so late here! I love it! I can't get used to it! It completely throws me off--I mean, it's only been two days, but I'm always shocked to find out what time it is when I'm out in the field weeding or something and the sky is still well-lit and it's 8pm. Amazing. And ohhh, the sky here. First of all, you have a view of the Andes mountains and, early in the morning, you can see the snow at the top. Then, flat, green fields of produce or wildflowers, and then a bit further out, really tall pine trees. The neighboring farm grows sunflowers, and it's purely magical--just sunflowers packed together like corn in the midwest, as far as you can see. At sunset, the sky explodes with purples and reds and oranges, and at night, of course, since we're pretty far away from the city, it's just stars, stars, stars.
I love the mental strength that comes with working on a farm. Yesterday, I had to weed the strawberry plants, two rows of them, probably at least the length of two football fields, promise I'm not exaggerating. That's a lot of time squatting, picking around one type of green leaf to yank up another type of green leaf. It's a daunting task at the beginning, so you have to tell yourself that it's not all going to happen in ten minutes, that it's a task that requires time and patience (I tend to not have much of either one). But it is absolutely the most satisfying thing when, after about an hour or two, you turn around to see the work you've done. Just two neat little rows of clearly-defined strawberry plants. And then to turn your head the other way, you see that yes, there's still so much to do, but comparing the wild, crazy, weedy plants to your left and the clean ones to your right is a constant reminder of how much great work you've done. And, I mean, I like to tell myself I'm growing my gluteus maximus by doing all that squatting.
Next time you see me, this baby will have some serious back.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Explosions in the sky
Buenos Aires, I love you.
I love you, of course, for the previous reasons (the night life, the amazing restaurant scene, the constant buzz of the city), but this time, I fell even more in love with you because you were just as charming as ever, even though I did none of my typical city activities. Essentially, I was retired for a week, and you continued to be just as graceful as ever in my temporary prematurely blue-haired state.
The past week was spent at the home of two dear friends of mine, Rosana and Enrique. They were my host parents when I spent the semester abroad in Buenos Aires back in 2005. They accepted me with open arms and we spent the entire week together doing what they typically do as retired citizens: we took walks, we ate dinner together, we grumbled about how the modern world is going to hell, kids these days; we played with the grandchildren; we went to the country club; we went to bed at 10pm. I relished the routines of these days, especially since I had been spending the last month or so traveling around, bouncing from city to city. I got a solid nine to ten hours of sleep each night, I didn´t go out to any bars or clubs, not even once, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
At night, I read much more of my Gárcia Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera), especially with the help of the giant dusty English-Spanish dictionary from the 1950´s that Enrique still keeps around. It was the perfect tool, because the words I need to look up are often rarely-used and of the specific turn of the 20th century time period. Of course, this enormous brick of a dictionary had all of the words I needed, even if their English translation didn´t always help (okay, be honest: do you know what puerile means?). I loved having this book by my side while I read, because it had such detailed definitions as, for example, ´´zarpazo: the sound of a body falling to the ground.´´ Or, ´´bochorno: the color of cheeks aroused by intense passion. Or, scorching heat of midday.´´ Amazing. I would sit hunched over this giant bible-sized dictionary on the edge of my bed, flipping through it for definitions and writing them in the margins of my book. I live for this stuff. Nerd city.
Buenos Aires is as glitzy and glammy as ever. The women are still impeccable, from toenail to eyelash, and I was a sorry state in my dingey farmer tanktops and saggy jeans. Maybe that´s why the piropos (cat calls) were not nearly as intense or frequent this time around. Even Rosana said, ´´I remember you having lots of pretty clothes last time you came!´´ Yeah.
Other things have changed in Buenos Aires. Prices have gone up. I had a minor heart attack when I found out that my favorite ice cream place, Freddo, has tripled in price. The tiniest cone available, which really is about half the size of an American kiddie cone, went from 4 pesos (a little over a dollar) to 12 pesos (four dollars) in four years. I bet you could track Argentina´s inflation quite accurately by paying attention to Freddo prices.
I did not go without the fine dining experience while in the city, however. One day, I made a choco-torta with Rosana and Enrique´s granddaughter, Catalina, who is four. This cake involves only four ingredients: Chocolinas (thin rectangular chocolate cookies--my favorite cookies in the world), dulce de leche, milk, and queso crema, which is kind of like cream cheese. You just dip the cookies in warm milk, line them on the bottom of a large casserole pan, then pour a 1:1 ratio mixture of dulce de leche and cream cheese on top. Repeat two times. It ends up being sort of messy because if you leave the cookies in the milk for a little too long, they crumble and break. You must, of course, eat the broken ones. Catalina caught on quickly; every other cookie ´´broke´´ after a little while, and so we had quite the pile of wounded soldiers to devour. ´´Uh oh, another broken one...guess we gotta eat it!´´ A girl after my own heart. There we were, faces and fingers plastered with chocolate cookie crumbs and dulce de leche. It was not un-delicious.
I also cooked for them one night: made a salad with rucula and radicheta, walnuts, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, figs, with a mustard-balsamic vinaigrette. For the main course, I made a mushroom risotto, and I considered it a personal success because the 4 and 9 year old grandchildren loved it. Catalina even called for multiple rounds of applauses, kept saying ´´¡un aplauso!´´ and would slap her little palms together, albeit irrythmically, four-year-old style. It´s incredibly satisfying, as a cook, when both adults and children are pleased with the meal you make them. I served it with a bottle of Cabernet by my favorite bodega in Argentina, Escorihuela Gascón (they export under the name Familia Gascón but it´s not nearly as good; don´t bother). It was pure nectar. Yeah, the kids were pretty wasted.
Tasteless joke? I liked it.
One of the most magical nights of my life happend this past week, on New Years Eve. It was a quiet night; the three of us ate a delicious dinner that Rosana cooked, and then we sat around drinking champagne and enjoying the silence of the pre-midnight chaos. At midnight, the fireworks began. Fireworks in Buenos Aires are not like fireworks in Boston. Not exactly the highly-controlled firearms that need to be smuggled across the New Hampshire border. Instead, pretty much anyone can buy them, and anyone can set them off. And so pretty much every little neighborhood has their own unofficial display.
Now, Rosana and Enrique live in what I think is absolutely the best part of Buenos Aires: beautiful old architecture mixed with modern buildings, tons of parks everywhere you turn, and the bedrooms overlook the widest avenue in Buenos Aires, unobstructed views all the way uptown, with the Rio de la Plata in the distance. This allows for a panoramic view of the city, and at midnight, we stood outside on the balcony from our fourteenth floor apartment and watched all of the fireworks going off from all angles of the city: the famous obelisk had what appeared to be the city-sponsored show, with timed explosions and matching colored gunpowder, while over in Villa, essentially the shantytown behind the train tracks, everything and everything exploded. Rockets went off in all directions, all classes of fireworks, the white loud ones that go off in your chest, the hissing ones that leave the willow-tree residue, the high-up sparkling ones, everywhere, three hundred sixty degrees of colorful explosions in the sky. It was truly magical. The wind had picked up, which was a welcome relief to the intense heat and humidity that usually plague the city during January, and it was the kind of warm summer wind that swirls around like little tornadoes, wraps its arms around your neck and flips up the hairs on the back of your head, no matter how long your hair is, and twists istelf around your extremities. We stood there, hands gripping the rail of the balcony, looking out into the city, and I had this thrilling energy pulsing through my body that made me feel more alive than I had in a while.
I left Buenos Aires last night on a bus for Mendoza, the mountainous wine country. I didn´t want to leave so soon, honestly, but I do need to get to another farm, and potentially find a place where I can learn how to make wine. This is the place for that. Plus, I know I´ll be back to Buenos Aires, and also, it´s not exactly torturous to be spending some time in this new city. I...sort of like wine.
But, oh, Buenos Aires, how you melt my heart.
I love you, of course, for the previous reasons (the night life, the amazing restaurant scene, the constant buzz of the city), but this time, I fell even more in love with you because you were just as charming as ever, even though I did none of my typical city activities. Essentially, I was retired for a week, and you continued to be just as graceful as ever in my temporary prematurely blue-haired state.
The past week was spent at the home of two dear friends of mine, Rosana and Enrique. They were my host parents when I spent the semester abroad in Buenos Aires back in 2005. They accepted me with open arms and we spent the entire week together doing what they typically do as retired citizens: we took walks, we ate dinner together, we grumbled about how the modern world is going to hell, kids these days; we played with the grandchildren; we went to the country club; we went to bed at 10pm. I relished the routines of these days, especially since I had been spending the last month or so traveling around, bouncing from city to city. I got a solid nine to ten hours of sleep each night, I didn´t go out to any bars or clubs, not even once, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
At night, I read much more of my Gárcia Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera), especially with the help of the giant dusty English-Spanish dictionary from the 1950´s that Enrique still keeps around. It was the perfect tool, because the words I need to look up are often rarely-used and of the specific turn of the 20th century time period. Of course, this enormous brick of a dictionary had all of the words I needed, even if their English translation didn´t always help (okay, be honest: do you know what puerile means?). I loved having this book by my side while I read, because it had such detailed definitions as, for example, ´´zarpazo: the sound of a body falling to the ground.´´ Or, ´´bochorno: the color of cheeks aroused by intense passion. Or, scorching heat of midday.´´ Amazing. I would sit hunched over this giant bible-sized dictionary on the edge of my bed, flipping through it for definitions and writing them in the margins of my book. I live for this stuff. Nerd city.
Buenos Aires is as glitzy and glammy as ever. The women are still impeccable, from toenail to eyelash, and I was a sorry state in my dingey farmer tanktops and saggy jeans. Maybe that´s why the piropos (cat calls) were not nearly as intense or frequent this time around. Even Rosana said, ´´I remember you having lots of pretty clothes last time you came!´´ Yeah.
Other things have changed in Buenos Aires. Prices have gone up. I had a minor heart attack when I found out that my favorite ice cream place, Freddo, has tripled in price. The tiniest cone available, which really is about half the size of an American kiddie cone, went from 4 pesos (a little over a dollar) to 12 pesos (four dollars) in four years. I bet you could track Argentina´s inflation quite accurately by paying attention to Freddo prices.
I did not go without the fine dining experience while in the city, however. One day, I made a choco-torta with Rosana and Enrique´s granddaughter, Catalina, who is four. This cake involves only four ingredients: Chocolinas (thin rectangular chocolate cookies--my favorite cookies in the world), dulce de leche, milk, and queso crema, which is kind of like cream cheese. You just dip the cookies in warm milk, line them on the bottom of a large casserole pan, then pour a 1:1 ratio mixture of dulce de leche and cream cheese on top. Repeat two times. It ends up being sort of messy because if you leave the cookies in the milk for a little too long, they crumble and break. You must, of course, eat the broken ones. Catalina caught on quickly; every other cookie ´´broke´´ after a little while, and so we had quite the pile of wounded soldiers to devour. ´´Uh oh, another broken one...guess we gotta eat it!´´ A girl after my own heart. There we were, faces and fingers plastered with chocolate cookie crumbs and dulce de leche. It was not un-delicious.
I also cooked for them one night: made a salad with rucula and radicheta, walnuts, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, figs, with a mustard-balsamic vinaigrette. For the main course, I made a mushroom risotto, and I considered it a personal success because the 4 and 9 year old grandchildren loved it. Catalina even called for multiple rounds of applauses, kept saying ´´¡un aplauso!´´ and would slap her little palms together, albeit irrythmically, four-year-old style. It´s incredibly satisfying, as a cook, when both adults and children are pleased with the meal you make them. I served it with a bottle of Cabernet by my favorite bodega in Argentina, Escorihuela Gascón (they export under the name Familia Gascón but it´s not nearly as good; don´t bother). It was pure nectar. Yeah, the kids were pretty wasted.
Tasteless joke? I liked it.
I left Buenos Aires last night on a bus for Mendoza, the mountainous wine country. I didn´t want to leave so soon, honestly, but I do need to get to another farm, and potentially find a place where I can learn how to make wine. This is the place for that. Plus, I know I´ll be back to Buenos Aires, and also, it´s not exactly torturous to be spending some time in this new city. I...sort of like wine.
But, oh, Buenos Aires, how you melt my heart.
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