thanks for the comments again, very funny as usual. i DID respond to this lastest batch with a comment of my own.
I didn´t even tell you yet how they call me here. jeremias, pronounced her-eh-me-ass. sometimes jeremy, pronounced cher-eh-me because they can´t pronounce "j" like english speakers. it´s nice to be called jeremias for a change, somehow it seems like a farmboy name to me.
After travelling in western Europe last fall, I figured that cars are uniquely small there compared to other places in the world. but nope, the cars are small here too. and they drive quite fast. are cars generally large only in the US and Canada?
i just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible, a story of a 60´s American family that moves to the congo on an evangelical mission. it is an incredibly-written, believable account of the family´s surprises and challenges in a little congo town and the aftermath of their project of conversion-gone-awry. highy recommended. one of the best books i´ve ever read, i simply couldn´t stop reading it in every free moment i had.
now that i´ve learned much more about how Gaia functions, let me tell you a little about its features. the houses´walls are built of COB, a simple material made of mud, straw, and sand, that hardens quite nicely when dry. the rooves are made of thatched straw (a foot or a foot and a half thick), and the installation process is apparently not easy. Gaia has some friends in neighboring Uruguay who are experienced in this art and come to install the roof of each new house. they will be coming next month to do up the third such roof. the garden here has dozens of plant species, including corn, zuccini, many types of lettuces, beets, quinoa (a very nutritious grain), tomatoes, pumpkin, squash, peaches, lemons, and conquots (not sure on the spelling, a strong tasting purple fruit). they buy most of their grains and some of their fruits and vegetables, although the garden is growing.
what does gaia do with its garbage, you ask? a very interesting story indeed. all food waste and soiled paper is composted on site. paper, cardboard, and wood is burned. metals are reused or thrown in with the plastics. now the plastics. . .are put in the walls of the houses. that´s right, in the walls. as the houses are being built i believe. they´ve come to the conclusion that it´s the most effective, least toxic way of dealing with the plastics. there is no recycling of plastics (or anything) nearby in the towns, by the way. so into the walls they go. in this way Gaia has neither started a dump, nor does it throw garbage on the road to be picked up and forgotten about. there´s a certain comfort i experience when i think of my floss and candy wrappers in the walls of Monica and George´s new house.
i hate mosquitos. their slow, stealthy ways at night; their light landing on the skin so as not to be felt until the bite; and of course the god-awful buzzing sound they always seem to bring right in my ear. their only purpose is to suck our blood in a very annoying fashion. i mean blood sucking is always going to be at least annoying, and perhaps worse, but still. two weeks ago, during the heat that followed a week of rain, they came out in full force. here there are two types of mosquitos: the kind regular to my past experiences, and then a larger, more painful-less annoying type. this second kind is about twice the size of the other, and when i smack them i can really feel the squish of a bug! one more reason to dislike them. i am just so happy there is no malaria here. that is really the final, ultimate key to their evil. my ode to mosquitos: you are tiny flying creatures weighing but a fraction of a gram, and yet you have managed to accomplish a feat few things on earth have been able to. you have earned my hate. (applause). fortunately their numbers have quickly died down during the last week.
on friday the annual two week permaculture course started here. twenty-nine people from nine countries gathered in this little community of a dozen people. permaculture is short for "permanent culture" and is basically the ideals of sustainability applied to a community of any size. it is about working with your local environment (rather than against it, or trying to conquer it) to maximize both its health and yours, using resources wisely and efficiently, with the overall purpose of living within the carrying capacity of your land. in applied terms, this means that the forest around Gaia isn´t slowly diminishing and being cut away, but that it´s growing as fast as firewood is being consumed. the garden´s soil quality is maintained or improving. all the COB used for making a house creates a big hole in the ground, which is then turned into a pond. those are some examples. i don´t yet know that much about permaculture, so feel free to tell me more or do your own research. anyway, back to the course. the total number of people here has swelled to 45, so i´ve been helping a lot in the kitchen. it´s been very enjoyable. i love eating good food, and i love preparing it to make sure it´s healthy and delicious. lots of new recipes here. . .a lot of you would probably find the food a bit bland here, with all the grains and no meat, but of course you can always add your own condiments and toppings. cooking for 45 is no easy feat; it´s three of us working hard for most of the day in there. now i can only imagine what cooking for 150 is like, which is the case at camp glenburn where i work in the summer, for example. anyway, last thursday i was in the kitchen preparing supper. it was the day before the start of the course and a couple participants had arrived. rodolfo, a middle-aged man from the Dominican Republic, wandered into the kitchen asking me if he could help. i said sure, why not, and he cut up some greens for the salad. and then i thought to myself: it feels like a normal, peaceful evening, but this is just an incredible situation. a twenty three year old from US/Canada, in broken spanish telling a man twice his age from the Dominican to cut some vegetables for a salad, in a little community in the middle of nowhere in Argentina.
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