Better Off

I’m currently reading a book entitled “Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology” about a guy who was enrolled in graduate school at MIT studying “Science, Technology, and Society” when he decided to take a year and do a kind of “study away”/“in-the-field” experiment where he and his wife moved to a Minimite community to live for 18 months. The Minimites are a sect of Christinaity, related to the Amish, kind of similar to the relation between Opus Dei and Catholicism, i.e. very firm observance of the rules. For the Minimites, this means adhering to a strict ban on any kind of motor-operated machinery and in general practicing a very austere lifestyle. The story follows the author and his wife adapting to life on the farm, learning to maximize human potential and minimize (or really, completely eliminate) dependency on any kind of machinery (refrigerator, TV, motorized farming tools, etc).

As I’ve been reading, it has been truly striking how much the story hits close to home (and by home, I mean my life right now, of course, not Avon). Although I certainly have electricity (as they say, ¡gracias por dios!), many of the concepts in the book that are practiced by the Minimites are extremely relevant to life in rural Costa Rica: working together in manual labor and how the very labor can bring people together, the satisfaction that comes with the self-sufficiency of farm life, extremely close-knit families. It cracks me up that many of the farm references are things that by now are second nature to me. For example, the author and his wife have their own cow, but without a refrigerator, they were wasting a lot of the milk. One of the neighbors told them they had to get a pig. A few months ago I would have wondered, “how is getting a pig going to help the situation?” Now I know, as my host family has an abundance of cows, the many many ways in which the milk is used… and it’s not just for drinking! My host family makes cheese and in making cheese there is a lot of what is called “suero” left over, which is exactly why we have 3 pigs right now: suero is filled with nutrients to fatten them up so that we can then eat them. As my Mom rightfully noticed when she came to visit, when living on a farm, there is special care taken to ensure that nothing goes to waste and having pigs when one has a lot of cows is a case in point.

On a related note: in a previous post I spoke of a home at the way bottom of my community and how the family that lives there is the perfect example of self-sufficiency. As I had mentioned in that post, when I first came to visit, they had just planted rice plants that were to be cut a few months from then. I told them how I had no idea how the process worked and would love to see it and they told me I could come back when it was ready. Well, that day was today (actually, Sept. 23 was that day, but I´m just now getting to post about it)! I trekked down the hill in my big black boots, which are an absolute necessity where they live as there is a ridiculous amount of mud, and came to acres and acres of rice, enough rice for 2 families for an entire year (and judging from my last post, you can imagine that’s a lot of rice!). Talk about back-breaking work—I didn’t know what back-breaking work was before today. Here’s the deal: First you have to cut the stalks of the plant, put them in little bundles, then comes the fun part (it may be back-breaking, but I’m actually serious, it was really fun!): you lay out a big sack and a wooden board and then proceed to take bundle by bundle in your hand, raise it high above your head, and then whack it against the board as hard as you can so that the little grains of rice fall off of the end of the stalk. Repeat for as many bundles as you have in front of (aka a lot). Though this is the toughest part of the job, the rice is still not ready to eat. You then have to use a kind of giant mortar and pestle- like device (called a “pilón” in Spanish—I love all the random vocabulary that I learn here that I don’t even know what the words are in English!) to crack open the little outer shell of the rice and use a special kind of fan to sort the rice from the shell, then it is finally ready for consumption as gallo pinto, arroz con pollo, arroz con leche... I feel like Bubba talking about shrimp in Forrest Gump, but the possibilities are truly endless (and delicious!).

Before leaving, the family showed me how they use a metal press to make a kind of sugar juice (called “caña”) by taking the stalks of the caña and pushing them through the press. This family epitomizes the CR hospitality I always talk about. I had brought them some cucumbers from my host Dad and I’s garden and I left weighed down with pejiballes (CR veggie) and a big container full of the home-made sugar juice, made by yours truly. It was a lovely morning and a perfect example of how the people in my town really typify the concept of self-reliance. The thing most striking to me about this way of life is the satisfaction that comes from eating food that you know exactly where it came from because you have been involved in every step of the process from planting to preparing it to eat. This concept is something I know I will take back with me to the states, even if it’s just growing basil, mint, and other spices in my apartment (wherever it is that I will be living in May 2010… who knows!).

That’s all for now!
XOXO
Tesa