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!