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.