The Farm

It's a balancing act

Jergu and Verakka

Distributing compost to newly planted trees, baby on the hip

Gettin ready for the day! 

Selma and her son, Rehan

We plant trees (about 4,000 in the first week), harvest crops, weed, pluck caterpillars off plants, haul compost, process grains, sit in the shade chewing tambac, and do it all over again. It has been incredible to get my hands in the dirt. I have become aware of my lifelong amnesia with regards to food processes--how and where I get my life's energy. I have learned to recognize fruits, veggies, grains, legumes, spices, and herbs, which I have been consuming my whole life but could only envision the aisle they occupy in the local grocery store: cashew, black peppercorn, pomegranate, eucalyptus, cilantro, eggplant, tomato, millet, peanuts, spinach, cauliflower, cucumber, allspice, tumeric, bay leaves, curry plants, et al.

After the first few weeks, once my body woke up from its city-induced stupor, my days at the farm began to blend into a harmonious waltz of working and eating, working and eating, working and more eating--and isn't that just the bare-bones essence of life? 

I feel as if a certain meditative effect occurs with this type of existence, being so involved in the production and consumption processes of mere bodily functioning. When I sit down to a meal I can envision the patch of ground from which this vegetable grew; I can feel the aching muscles in my back and the blisters on my hand regaining the energy they expended to produce this meal; I have made a family with the women whose hands grew, harvested, and cooked this energy. I can fully understand now why organic produce costs so much--the human costs it takes to successfully and carefully grow these plants and get them to market is incredible. Luckily, the people here get more than a livable wage and are very well-off for farmhands. 

During the day when my back hurts and the mosquitos are eating me alive and the greenhouse feels like a sauna, I can't help but think of all those people who are slaving away to run the food industry who have to work in much harsher conditions for insufficient wages. I swear if anyone came and spent one week here at this farm they would never again bitch about the cost of food, once they realize that wholesome food is not something that just appears out of thin air. 

Do you ever once, while you are pushing your cart down the aisles of your local Safeway, contemplate the hands that watered and plucked those spinach leaves? We take our food for granted, because we don't even have a connection to this essential life energy in the way that nature intended. Food takes the backseat to money and pilates and WalMart and advertising. 

What if we actually cultivated or personally cooked everything we consumed? I know, it sounds a little "animal, vegetable, miracle," and somewhat insane given our culture. But being in a place where that is the norm. Everyone in this village grows their own crops, have cows for dairy and raise livestock if they eat meat. Things they buy from town consist of bulk oil, wheat flour, rice, sugar, and random spices.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

This is what a day in the life of the women I work with looks like: 

You wake-up before dawn, when the rooster makes its first movements--, make multiple trips to the well, filling up buckets of water for the day. Milk the goat, or cow, or both. come back to the house, start a fire with wood you gathered last night on the floor in the corner of your one bedroom shack; the stove is a pyramid of rocks above the small fire upon which pots and pans can be heated. Breastfeed your rousing babies. Walk to the allspice trees to gather leaves for tea. Pour some water,milk, and chopped tea leaves in a pot, make chai for your husband. Warm some water for your loved ones to bathe with in the bushes. Put some rice on the fire. Walk back into the forest to gather vegetables for breakfast and lunch--green beans, tomato, eggplant, onion, cilantro, coconut, lime, passionfruit, greens, green chillies, okra, curry leaves, mustard seeds (this could take up to an hour to find the right fruiting plants in a permaculture plot). 

Come back, start to make breakfast-- chappati: take a bunch of wheat flour, water, salt, and roll out dough ball pancakes. Set aside. Make whatever subje you had planned. Chop up all your veggies, simmer them in a curry broth with onion, garlic, green chillies. Feed your crying babies. Feed your husband--another round of chai for him. Clean up the dishes by hand with a bucket of water outside your house with crushed soap leaves you gathered last week. Get your older kids washed and dressed for school. Walk them to the bus. Come back. Eat whatever food is left over for yourself. Take the rice for lunch off the fire. Make some tambac to chew--betel nut and leaf, with a dab of tobacco. Take the goats and cows to the fields to graze, let the chickens out with the baby on your hip. Come back. Check to see if the electricity is on at its assigned hour--from 8-9. It is. Fight with the neighbors for the community plug to charge your family mobile. 

At 9am, it is time for work. Labor all day in the fields, gardens, and greenhouses. Planting, hoeing, sowing, harvesting, plucking, stripping, digging, all with your baby on the hip or suckling the breast while you crouch to weed. At 2pm you head back to the house and prepare lunch. Chop. Simmer. Roll. Beat. Serve. Wash. Repeat. You always eat last, usually around 2:45 after everyone around you is good and fed. Sit for 15min, chatting with the neighbors or chewing betel nut, making sure your husbands chai cup is full. At 3pm, work starts again. So its babies and bosoms and blossoms and bounty for another three hours, till 6pm, when you will head home again to begin your slew of chores.

 Refill water buckets if you do washing or sweep the dirt floors of your home, clean the ash piles out of your makeshift kitchen, make chai. Before it gets dark you head to the pasture to retrieve the animals, sometimes your little kiddos will help shepherd with you, the young calves are the hardest to guide. On the way you will gather veggies, fruits, and spices from the jungle or gardens, depending on what catches your eye. 

Around 7:30 or 8, you begin to make dinner. By this time your babies are grumpy and are most definitely vying for a spot in your lap, they will suckle you while you crouch over the fire or shave fresh coconut for a chutney. After your baby is drugged with breast milk you place them in a dupatta you hung from the rafters to sleep--a makeshift crib. Anytime between 9 or 10 you will have dinner ready. If there are guests you would have already served them a cornucopia of fried snacks, biscuits, and sweet tea while they sit crisscrossed on your floor, sharing pains and gains and gossip. You serve the guests first, heaping mounds of food which they have to finish. You will force a second serving on them and offer a third. 

Amidst the chitchat you try to calm your children down and get them to sleep despite the constant racket that is communal living. You clear all the dishes, sweep the floor, and wait for your husband, who is watching TV two shacks over or who is drinking at the village Tasmac. He'll come home for food around 10 or 11, after serving him chai you will be permitted to eat the leftovers. At this point you will make any preparations for the morning and prepare to sleep. You have already rolled out mats on the floor for your children and husband. After washing yourself with cold water outside, you lay down in your nightie next to your husband, placing your hand on your pregnant belly and fall into dreams of Bollywood stars only to be snapped back to reality in 5 hours start all over again. 

I now challenge you to imagine the kind of life you would live if you had to grow all of your own food-- think about that while you contemplate spending the extra dollar or two on your fair-trade, local, and/or organic foodstuffs.