Hungers that be
"Courageous Jenny!" she said as she passed me with a handful of netting. The strawberries need protection from the birds, she said. My hands were cut and the dirt was pressed into the dry creases, not to be easily washed down the sink (the water and some dirt would make it back into the fields through a gray water system at the house). I wiped my face and crumbs of weeds, sand, compost, and strawberry leaves clung to cheeks. "I just wanted to get it done," I said, motioning to the liberated (or at least now visible) strawberry plants. "There's a lot of weeding to do down there!" Farmer Kristien nodded her tanned face and half smiled, half grimaced. Add it to the list, she seemed to say. That list never shrinks really. Weeding is a constant, then there's always something to plant or seed or feed or amend. The goats and chickens and geese need attention, Marius the donkey needs to be tamed if he's to pull the plow to pile dirt on the potatoes. The centuries old barn needs to be fixed, the fences mended. I walked back to the newly constructed addition housing the family, the farmhand, the wwoofers.
"So you're just doing this for fun in your spare time," Erica the wwoofer asked. Even though she was working for free as well, she gave me a look of slight confusion.
"Yup. You learn something different from each farm. Like soaking starts in compost tea. That's new to me," I said, referring to the pumpkin seedlings we planted earlier that morning. "There is always something to take from a day's work. And I kind of like being exhausted at the end of the day for a good reason."
My ten mile bike ride back into the city would complete that exhaustion. I looked down at my hands now holding a glass of wine. I barely recognized them as my own. Finely lined, sunburnt, covered with dirt. Strong and freckled and scarred. I wanted to listen to the stories my hands could tell.
Kristien called me courageous because I stayed in the field longer than anyone else to finish the row. It was a volunteer work day and those who have bought a membership in the unique CSA came to work the land where they get their vegetables. They weeded and hoed and mended and harvested. Their kids played in the inflatable pool and led the tiny goat around on its leash and played swords with fallen branches. Everyone sat down to a long table under the apple trees for a lunch of bread and cheese and salads. At the end of the day the few remaining volunteers raised glasses of wine and beer to congratulate one another in getting through the hot day.
According to Kristien, she would not be a farmer if not for the community aspect. Members can come to the farm anytime day or night (during the winter flashlight beams can be seen darting from plant to plant) to pick their share. They take as much as they will use, Kristien says. It is all based on trust.
For a small farm such as hers with only a couple of farmers, the pick-your-own-veggies concept works. Harvesting, washing, boxing up, and delivering a box of produce once or twice a week into Antwerp would take too much time out of the already busy farming schedule. Plus people get to come to the farm and choose their own produce. Being less than ten miles from a major Belgian city is an obvious advantage that farms further from the city center would find difficult to sustain with a sparser surrounding population. It's not convenient for everyone in the city, but with 60 members in her third season and several news articles about the farm and CSA concept (relatively new in Belgium), they seem to be on track.
My toil is not totally unpaid. Besides the exhaustion I crave (Zot!), I pop into the hoop houses to harvest greens for that night's salad. Frilly red lettuce found itself in my bag (I've been eying it since day one!), followed by a delicately crunchy Bibb-like head. Carrots and red beets and a handful of a spicy mustard were stuffed into another bag and swung happily all the way home on my handlebars.
Biking, farming, biking, eating.
Courageous? Nah. Hungry for nourishment of all kinds? Totally.
"So you're just doing this for fun in your spare time," Erica the wwoofer asked. Even though she was working for free as well, she gave me a look of slight confusion.
"Yup. You learn something different from each farm. Like soaking starts in compost tea. That's new to me," I said, referring to the pumpkin seedlings we planted earlier that morning. "There is always something to take from a day's work. And I kind of like being exhausted at the end of the day for a good reason."
My ten mile bike ride back into the city would complete that exhaustion. I looked down at my hands now holding a glass of wine. I barely recognized them as my own. Finely lined, sunburnt, covered with dirt. Strong and freckled and scarred. I wanted to listen to the stories my hands could tell.
Kristien called me courageous because I stayed in the field longer than anyone else to finish the row. It was a volunteer work day and those who have bought a membership in the unique CSA came to work the land where they get their vegetables. They weeded and hoed and mended and harvested. Their kids played in the inflatable pool and led the tiny goat around on its leash and played swords with fallen branches. Everyone sat down to a long table under the apple trees for a lunch of bread and cheese and salads. At the end of the day the few remaining volunteers raised glasses of wine and beer to congratulate one another in getting through the hot day.
According to Kristien, she would not be a farmer if not for the community aspect. Members can come to the farm anytime day or night (during the winter flashlight beams can be seen darting from plant to plant) to pick their share. They take as much as they will use, Kristien says. It is all based on trust.
For a small farm such as hers with only a couple of farmers, the pick-your-own-veggies concept works. Harvesting, washing, boxing up, and delivering a box of produce once or twice a week into Antwerp would take too much time out of the already busy farming schedule. Plus people get to come to the farm and choose their own produce. Being less than ten miles from a major Belgian city is an obvious advantage that farms further from the city center would find difficult to sustain with a sparser surrounding population. It's not convenient for everyone in the city, but with 60 members in her third season and several news articles about the farm and CSA concept (relatively new in Belgium), they seem to be on track.
My toil is not totally unpaid. Besides the exhaustion I crave (Zot!), I pop into the hoop houses to harvest greens for that night's salad. Frilly red lettuce found itself in my bag (I've been eying it since day one!), followed by a delicately crunchy Bibb-like head. Carrots and red beets and a handful of a spicy mustard were stuffed into another bag and swung happily all the way home on my handlebars.
Biking, farming, biking, eating.
Courageous? Nah. Hungry for nourishment of all kinds? Totally.
Farm
How do you say farmer in Dutch?
Hands in the dirt. Grains and chunks falling over calloused palms, through scarred fingers. The soil is cool and damp under its sandy top layer. Leafy greens and purples burst from the crust and flitter in the wind rushing over Belgian towns with stepped brick facades and plain concrete rowhouses, with cafes where beer is served in goblets and streets smell of freshly baked bread. It blows through overgrown grass fields being diligently mowed down by billowing sheep and cows with charming overbites. It swirls though the banks of canals lined by tall trees and bike paths. It carries the sound of Dutch into the field where I crouch on my knees pulling out dandelions and grass shoots for hours in the warm sun. I am sweating and sunburned and smiling. I am on holiday and working. I am growing and learning how to grow and grasping weeds and words like crazy (zot).
At 5pm with the sun still high overhead we are called to the porch covered in goose poop and overrun by mewling kittens. We are poured Pastis and water, a cloudy anise flavored concoction perfect for a hot spring afternoon and a workday well done, thunderheads building in the distance. A pygmy goat on a chain leash wanders into the fields and starts eating the potato leaves. A flurry of Dutch reprimands fly in his direction, glasses set down and feet set running. He is promptly reattached to a nearby tree and resumes grazing on the lawn. We talk of CSAs and finding purpose, of cohousing and goat cheese and clover under the pumpkins.
We have dirt on our faces and compost under our fingernails and the glasses of Pastis are refilled.
I go from an "I" to a "we" in the matter of a few hours in a day. I pick up a shovel or a bucket of herbs for transplanting and suddenly I am helping to support a community, my/their/our way of life.
We are farmers. We are artists and scientists in the soil. We are the we everywhere. Dirty, smiling, zot.
(boer)
At 5pm with the sun still high overhead we are called to the porch covered in goose poop and overrun by mewling kittens. We are poured Pastis and water, a cloudy anise flavored concoction perfect for a hot spring afternoon and a workday well done, thunderheads building in the distance. A pygmy goat on a chain leash wanders into the fields and starts eating the potato leaves. A flurry of Dutch reprimands fly in his direction, glasses set down and feet set running. He is promptly reattached to a nearby tree and resumes grazing on the lawn. We talk of CSAs and finding purpose, of cohousing and goat cheese and clover under the pumpkins.
We have dirt on our faces and compost under our fingernails and the glasses of Pastis are refilled.
I go from an "I" to a "we" in the matter of a few hours in a day. I pick up a shovel or a bucket of herbs for transplanting and suddenly I am helping to support a community, my/their/our way of life.
We are farmers. We are artists and scientists in the soil. We are the we everywhere. Dirty, smiling, zot.
(boer)
Hey YOU, Distract ME
The magazines are the first thing I notice. Stepping into the terminal, three hours from the Caribbean, from sharing a row with wild haired circus performers and sunburnt tourists, Antiguans with musical accents and crying babies. I can feel my tan fading already as I look down at my proper shoes constricting my feet so recently and continually free of being shod. I stumble through the terminal with my bags full of books, bottles of rum, offshore foul weather gear, spices, dirty salt stained tshirts.
The magazines blare "America!" I want to turn around and climb back on board, back to sensory and technological deprivation, back to floating through time on much more languid waves.
The magazines are everywhere: in rows upon rows screaming down from the walls, in spinny stands, above the chewing gum and neck pillows, between the aspirin and Skittles. The women are smiling and crying, praised and ridiculed. Men grin nervously or grimace, triumphant or accused.
Distraction! America!
Obsession! America!
Fanaticism! Celebrity!
Don't think about your own life!
I found myself drawn to the headlines and repulsed by the impulse to pick up the glossy paper. I resisted, bee-lining past the stands towards the next security checkpoint.
I walked through the terminal with an increasing feeling of dread: It was inevitable. I had to turn on my cell phone. It was a brick for two happy months. Two months I didn't miss it. Could I get away with not re-activating my chaos creating umbilical cord to all those on my contact list, my email lists, my skype lists, my facebook friends? Sure I could, but I wouldn't. I needed to be picked up at the airport and was itching to text a few people.
At my next gate with iPhone on and texts fluttering in, magazines barely registering in my quickly desensitized mind, the smell of my salty morning bath no longer on my airplane dried skin, I vow to keep reading. Not to let go of the last vestige of focus garnered on my stateside absence. Without computer, magazines, TV, (fill in your favorite distraction), I read. Here are some of my recommendations:
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabelle Allende
Pirate Republic by Colin Woodard
Healing Mantras by Thomas Ashley-Farrand
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Nasland
Three Junes by Julia Glass
The Earth Knows My Name by Patricia Klindienst
I am now sitting in a coffeeshop in New York City with two dozen voices competing in the small space. Half that many bodies sit with computers or phones, fingers communicating and pausing to pick up mugs of lukewarm coffee, light and sweet or acidy black. The door opens and swings shut, several languages confuse my ears. Distraction? Yes. But human, full of energy and life, three dimensional, tangible. Welcomed. There is no screen to hold back the reactions, the transfer of energies, the honesty in a scream or a tear that so often emerge in public in New York. Despite the frenetic atmosphere, I can focus.
The voices are drops in the city sea, waves pushing as all along together.
No magazine headlines or cryptic texts needed to communicate with a glance or an electric touch.
The magazines blare "America!" I want to turn around and climb back on board, back to sensory and technological deprivation, back to floating through time on much more languid waves.
The magazines are everywhere: in rows upon rows screaming down from the walls, in spinny stands, above the chewing gum and neck pillows, between the aspirin and Skittles. The women are smiling and crying, praised and ridiculed. Men grin nervously or grimace, triumphant or accused.
Distraction! America!
Obsession! America!
Fanaticism! Celebrity!
Don't think about your own life!
I found myself drawn to the headlines and repulsed by the impulse to pick up the glossy paper. I resisted, bee-lining past the stands towards the next security checkpoint.
I walked through the terminal with an increasing feeling of dread: It was inevitable. I had to turn on my cell phone. It was a brick for two happy months. Two months I didn't miss it. Could I get away with not re-activating my chaos creating umbilical cord to all those on my contact list, my email lists, my skype lists, my facebook friends? Sure I could, but I wouldn't. I needed to be picked up at the airport and was itching to text a few people.
At my next gate with iPhone on and texts fluttering in, magazines barely registering in my quickly desensitized mind, the smell of my salty morning bath no longer on my airplane dried skin, I vow to keep reading. Not to let go of the last vestige of focus garnered on my stateside absence. Without computer, magazines, TV, (fill in your favorite distraction), I read. Here are some of my recommendations:
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabelle Allende
Pirate Republic by Colin Woodard
Healing Mantras by Thomas Ashley-Farrand
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Nasland
Three Junes by Julia Glass
The Earth Knows My Name by Patricia Klindienst
I am now sitting in a coffeeshop in New York City with two dozen voices competing in the small space. Half that many bodies sit with computers or phones, fingers communicating and pausing to pick up mugs of lukewarm coffee, light and sweet or acidy black. The door opens and swings shut, several languages confuse my ears. Distraction? Yes. But human, full of energy and life, three dimensional, tangible. Welcomed. There is no screen to hold back the reactions, the transfer of energies, the honesty in a scream or a tear that so often emerge in public in New York. Despite the frenetic atmosphere, I can focus.
The voices are drops in the city sea, waves pushing as all along together.
No magazine headlines or cryptic texts needed to communicate with a glance or an electric touch.
Consider the tomato
The ripe tomatoes barely lasted their journey, a few squished and split by the time I piled them into the fridge. (I know. You're not supposed to refrigerate tomatoes. I don't when they are ripening but as soon as they are tender and I don't have immediate use- into the fridge they go with all the other overly ripe fruits and veggies.) I have made salsas and stuffed sandwiches. I have adorned salad and blackened them under the broiler for sauce. I am not a huge fan of tomatoes, but these are fresh and local and very tasty. Everyone on board agrees that Caribbean tomatoes are amazing. Here it is April and we have eat-like-an-apple worthy tomatoes bursting from our pantry (my cabin sole).
I just started (and devoured so quickly I just finished) Barry Estabrook's Tomatoland. Talk about a frightening book. I had nightmares last night about the crew bosses of tomato fields in Florida hunting me down and beating me, as some of them have been convicted of doing with their modern day slaves that pick our fruit.
In his riveting book about the tasteless, pesticide-laden commercial tomatoes and the labor force that picks them under horrifying conditions, Estabrook writes that in 1893 the Supreme Court of the United States declared tomatoes a vegetable instead of a fruit so that it would fall under the Tariff Act of June 3, 1883. He doesn't go into detail but the gist is that declaration protected American farmers from the competition they faced from Caribbean growers during the winter season. Florida, a totally inhospitable place for tomatoes, scored then and scored again in the 1960s when the embargo was placed on Cuba and their apparently delicious tomato crops.
So my questions are seeing as I am kind of into this farming thing:
How much could Caribbean agriculture provide for the United States?
Not that we want to take away jobs or increase competition with small farms in the US, but seeing as we are already getting cheap tomatoes from Mexico and Canada would it affect it that much?
Can the Caribbean even provide for itself?
On St. Vincent they grow a huge range of fruits and vegetables from broccoli to avocados to pineapple. Other islands don't have the microclimates and/or rainfall for a huge variety but could probably still grow some things. (Conversation with Roots: "So do you grow anything on Mayreau?" I ask as he hands me a grapefruit. "Not really, not much rain most of the year. We grow ganja though." No doubt. It may be the largest money crop in the Eastern Caribbean. (They do send a lot of bananas to Europe but I have a feeling Bob Marley is more profitable. Certainly on St. Vincent where there is supposedly a grower's collective even though on the rest of the island it is technically illegal.))
Could the islands be self sufficient if there were more young farmers?
On many islands land is available if you are a resident who wants to farm. On the Dominica Carib reservation you are entitled to it if you work it. On Antigua you can get an acre deeded to you from the land trust if you use it for agriculture. You could probably lease more according to my friend who lives there.
Why aren't young West Indians interested in farming? If they are, what are the barriers and challenges unique to the islands?
I have heard that on some islands slavery is still relatively recent in the collective memory and therefore working the fields is rejected by the youth as a sort of retroactive defiance of that forced labor.
Is agriculture or tourism better for the communities of the West Indies?
It is hard to group all of the diverse islands and their cultural backgrounds together, but as a whole what would West Indians chose? There are certainly more opportunities for tourist driven independent businesses in Bequia but what about on a place like Mayreau? It's tiny and hilly but the terracing I've seen down here (& around the world) is proof that you can grow almost anywhere. Maybe dry farming techniques could be implemented?Would people choose less tourists or less money but perhaps a higher quality of life? What does a "higher quality of life" entail?
My pantry is emptying. The last days of my service are here. The fruit plates and salsas are soon to be simply words written in my notebook rather than sweetness on a plate.
Barbuda is off the bow. It is actually a place of community owned land. A community of descendants of former slaves who have held out against development, pushed construction trailers over cliffs in protest, resisted the convenience of KFC. Are they happier?
If only I could get on land to find out- but my own servitude binds me to the boat.
I will get answers someday soon but for now I will bite into one of these juicy mangoes and contemplate what I want to plant in my own garden, on land, out of service.
24 hours
In the past twenty four hours I have been in two countries with water for borders. I have seen a turtle pop its head above the water, been stung by sea nettles, bought a fish from a rasta named Eran in a boat called Ithiopia, and eaten several stringy mangoes while clinging to the boarding ladder before my swim. I have wiped down an entire boat with vinegar water, cursed half-closed hatches as I dragged a seawater sodden mattress up the companionway, tried to even out my crazy pigmentation by lying on the hot teak of the foredeck, and made a sashimi platter with fresh dorado for the recently arrived owners. I have consumed at least a pound of tropical fruit and watched the sky turn white to blue to pink to black and light. I have salt and rain drops co-mingling in my pores. I have an angry red nose and freckled lips. I have seen rasta huts high up in the steep verdant valleys of St. Vincent and wondered why anyone would choose to live in a city. I have thought too much and said too little. I have treaded water while gazing into the clear blue sea and sky and said to myself, "This is my job? This is my life?" with wonder and sweet sadness and amazement all swimming within me.