For some reason, these days I wake up before dawn. In the middle of a dream all of a sudden, I am wide awake, and I still have plenty of time before I shall start the day. I usually spend this time listening to the silence, contemplating the warmth and softness of the blankets, watching the dark slowly turning into light. But today I decided to brave the darkness and to do some writing instead. Perhaps this moment of the day will give me more inspiration. As I write, a cock crows (did you know that each language interprets the singing of the cock differently? French: cocorico; English: cockadoodledo; German: kikerikie ), the horizon turns to orange, and the sound of a tractor passes by in the distance.
The other night, with Ben and Antonia we watched “Unser Täglich Brot”, a german movie about industrial food production. It is a series of short shots, with no words, taken across the whole realm of conventional factory production of the various things that we might eat: cereals, vegetables, meat, eggs, dairy. It shows how incredibly mechanized and disheartened this “farming” has become. I usually avoid such movies because I am tired of complaints and prefer to deal and think about solutions, but on the other hand I have recently decided that I shall keep my “eyes wide open”; and I did not regret having watched it. The image is very artistic, the approach neutral, and the result is intriguing, interesting, beautiful. Also, the film made me more aware of the amount of technology that goes into each production step. It seems that a machine has been invented to deal with every possible step of the pig and chicken production industry; and that, behind each machine, sits a totally bored and numb looking worker. I had not quite imagined before that behind each factory chicken there is worker sitting on the production line, whose job has been solely to “cut the flap of neck skin remaining after the head has been chopped off”. I mean, we are concerned about the ethics of producing factory animals, but did we ever consider the ethics of having the factory workers doing such jobs? (According to Ben, the suicide rate in those jobs is among the highest.) As of vegetables: one can after all really wonder about the prowess of plants; it is incredible that the methods used to grow them are able to produce something alive!
Anyhow. At the end of the movie, Ben said, “I got a lot from it, but not about food, rather about humans. We are so amazingly creative and intelligent; it's just incredible, these machines that we are able to invent. But, what do we put this creativity into!!! Also, it's really interesting to see the workers in these factories; how do they feel, how do they think? Perhaps I should work in one such place for one month, to get to know them.”
These days I am thinking, that perhaps I could say the same about my travel. I have not learned all that much about food, but a great deal about humans, or rather, at least, about specific people.
**
Antonia arrived about one week ago, as I was here already. As I showed her the way to our rooms, she carried her backpack on one shoulder, and her bass guitar in the hand. She was very thin, looked quite young, and giggled at most things she said or did. As she was going to be my roommate and coworker for a few days, I was particularly eager to see if we would get along. But right away I thought “Oh, I love her”. My feeling hasn't changed since. She is one of the most considerate, humble, thoughtful, alive, enthusiastic, calm and thorough thinking, hard working, person I have been given to meet.
Antonia is 19, of Irish origin, now lives in Wales. She finished her A-levels this year and took a year off to think about what to study in University. She came to do helpx on farms in Germany because in school she did a course on sustainability, which was “really great”, and which gave her the desire to come and see what goes on on farms aiming at being sustainable. This farm is the third one she is on, and she needs to go back home after this because she has (“actually that's really boring”) "an appointment with the orthodontist for her braces". Antonia has light curly blond hair at ear-length, which falls down on the sides of her face in a gracious style which reminds me of the 1920's, big blue-gray eyes, pale skin. She wears beautiful wool sweaters that she gets from second-hand shops (apparently Britain is the kingdom of second-hand shops). Antonia loves to cook and to experiment with cooking; things to eat and to cook are one of our favorite conversation topics, and we had a grand time baking cakes together. Antonia loves to rake leaves, to weed, to build and to do anything with her hands actually. In her free time she has been fighting with Ben for a book about meat that they have been both passionately reading (Eating Animals), teaching Ben to play the bass, dancing in the garden in the dark with her ipod. We also regularly and intensely discuss about “what can be done”, or rather "how", and she ponders at length about what she should choose to eat (“I think I should stop eating pig, and eat more sheep, isn't sheep good, it just feeds on grass, and that's what we have in Britain. And what about pulses? Hm, they are great, but they don't grow in Britain...”). At the top of her nineteen years, Antonia has a level of awareness that I myself, in my thirties, only recently reached. Both she and Ben (21) seem both quite aware that the problem is also one of lifestyle, and that the solutions are not at all clear for anyone yet; and both of them are eager to think and to come up with new ideas, to change their own lifestyle, to search for compromises.
I am struck by how pessimistic about the future most of my hosts have been until now. Most of those who actually seem to think about the issue, cannot see how things could get better, because they cannot see how people could change the behaviors which are sources of the problems. They don't see that change is happening. I think that the only exception is Joan back in the Ariege, who was the most open and imaginative and positive mind I ever met. He said there was no limit to what we could invent and create, and he was sure that we could find ways to turn each problem into a solution. Interestingly, although I guess not surprisingly, even though he has no training nor does he think of himself as an “ecologist”, he was also the host who made the most extensive use of the various techniques for a low-impact lifestyle. He had solar electric and water heating panels, heated his water only with wood or sun, only had compost toilets, used rain and well water, recycled his waste water, built as much as possible with natural materials. He was the one who really wanted to have the best of both worlds: sustainable life-style, modern comfort (and for that, he did not want to give up concrete :-)). But other than him, the views of all the others hosts I have had, I must say, are rather disheartening. I was quite surprised to hear that even Angelika, here, although she is incredibly cheerful and positive in her every day life, thinks that the chances for the future are rather low. She thinks that being pessimistic is being realistic.
It's hard to see change. Even harder when you are inside of it. The mind likes to focus on fixed punctual memories. But I look at Antonia, at Ben, and I see the change in them. The pessimists will reply “yes, but they are a minority”. It does not matter. This minority, twenty years ago, didn't even exist.
