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.

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!

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.

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.