When we first got to Bolson, we were staying in town in the tool shed of one Pastor Silvestre, who promulgates the practices revealed to some US American hippies during an acid trip in the seventies and now collected under the title The Chronicles of Enoch. It's hilarious to hear and read corny new-age English phrasology as a sacred language, in fact I often cannot stiffle a laugh.
But despite his far-out-dude philosophy, Pastor (as all call him, I know it sounds freaky) is a remarkably down-to-earth guy, and by far the best patron we've yet encountered. When we first arrived, he said something like, "Listen, I can't feed you because I have kids, and you are like big kids," which makes sense, because like so many folks on the organic farming list, he doesn´t have a farm; and it's expensive to feed people if you don't have surplus produce. So we went to the grocery store and bought some potatoes and then proceeded to experience the most reasonable system for long-term, live-in volunteerism I've yet seen.
Every day, starting the very afternoon we arrived, we went somewhere to do some work and usually, while we were there, eat some food. And sometimes we didn't go anywhere or do anything, in which case we made our own food; and nobody became slowly resentful of anybody else. Pastor is at the center of an exceptional, diverse, urban community of landowners, volunteers, and artists, all with disparate living standards and arrangements but interested, broadly, in Permaculture. Dude himself is an artist who makes wind chimes to sell at the four-day-a-week art fair in the center of town; and we spent many hours in his workshop machining and assembling trade goods. But we also fixed roofs, including the living roof at Blanca Rosa's Hosteria de Permacultura, his mother's place.
In spite of his feeding quip, Pastor did not treat us as kids, but recognized us as adults and was not surprised to find us pursuing our own projects and setting our own schedules as we came to know the area. When we worked for him, he served us rice and sweet potatoes, and sometimes beef, with delicious home-cooked love; and when we found other roofs or other work, he was just as pleased.
Two weeks ago Pastor went to a trade show up north and we moved to Los Repollos. Daniella and Marcello are much more peripherally invlolved in the Permaculture Posse; we met them through Blanca Rosa and are still happilly living in their attic, cutting wood and making trails.
light's coming back my way baby
Burned candles all night,
Bathed and cooked
To prepare for the light.
Gonna earn the summa comin.
People like I like them.
Think about the use of friend.
Warm walk.
Diabetes talk.
Cool ride.
Inside.
Today I'm gonna sing.
And then I'm gonna bring flour
Home to Mama.
The Cabbages
Max and I are staying with an adorable young family about fourty minutes outside Bolson in a nothing of a locality named Los Repollos. They have a beautiful six-month-old baby boy but no firewood cut to heat their house this winter. It's nice to be in a situation where our services are obviously and actually required; Marcello has to go to town almost every day and just cannot possibly accumulate the firewood that Daniella and baby Uriel need. It's also nice to be outside of the city again, working in the woods with an axe; This is what I'm used to doing in June anyways. The other day I hung a neighbor's axe on a native handle that I cut myself; I think it's going to hold but if not, I'll do it again. We have all the time in the world.
Muy Hippie
Ahora estoy 45 minutos afuera del Bolson en un comunidad hippie se llama Shanti. No puedo usar mucho los telecomunicacciones. Yo envio mucho amor.
The Permanance of Permaculture
Fifteen days later and we're still here in El Bolson; there's nothing like a welcoming hippie community to subvert intentions to move. Right now I like wind chimes, machetes, and telephone numbers. For the future I like tree houses, canoes, and the Atlantic. If I love you, I love you very much.
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