Well played Grandma, well played.

Mum posted a reminder on facebook today that not only is this weekend the festival of Imbolc and St. Brigit's day but that it is also the source of her mother's middle name. My maternal grandmother was born in 1914 on January 31st. Custom in Ireland at that time was to name your child with the closest religious feast day (perversely, the roman catholic church was the original culture jammer). So on January 31st, 1914 an infant girl named Marie Brigid O'Sullivan launched into this world for a much too short life. She died of skin cancer in her 50s after a lifetime of tanning (which is still a strange fascination of women in Ireland, despite all evidence that this practice leads to skin cancer). My grandmother was also the victim of torture known as symphysiotomy. The long term effects on her health due to this horrific procedure we might never know but she got sicker and sicker after each of 6 live births and had to remain hospitalized for a very long time after her last child was born in 1957 (her pelvis had to be rebroken since it hadn't healed correctly after the procedure).

I have written about my maternal grandmother before. She was a fantastic storyteller (or in Irish, seanchai). How do I know this? Well one of my earliest memories involve her telling me the story of the food growing in her backyard.  She was dying and Mum went back with me and my infant sister to spend a few months with her. We were the only grandchildren she ever got to meet. I am the eldest of 18 grandchildren (and a still growing posse of great grandchildren and two great great grandchildren) on my maternal side so there is a huge gap in our lives due to this loss. I remember her pointing to the fruit trees and her telling me that they were planted in that location in order to maximize the sun they would get. Grandma literally planted the seed of my food justice activism because I remember being fascinated with how much thought went into something like the fruit I enjoyed eating.

Despite her early death one particular story of hers continued on in my life and has had a lasting legacy. I had an early talent for mathematics and was often told the story of how my grandfather was also gifted in math and had scored in the top 10% of the national Irish exams in math. Alas, as the only son he had to forgo studies in the subject in order to support his mother and sisters after his dad died just as he was finishing secondary school. As a child, Mum was given strong encouragement by both her parents for learning to do arithmetic in her head so she wouldn't be stuck serving tables. Grandma often told her the story about her dad as an explanation for the talent she was displaying. This encouragement helped her to excel in maths and is was what enabled her to have a successful career as a corporate accountant. And this encouragement also helped me excel in maths and I felt so proud obtaining the mathematics degree in 1990 that my dear grandfather was unable to obtain.

So imagine our surprise when in 1996, after my grandfather passed away, we were all back in my mum's childhood home in Ireland clearing out some bedroom cupboards and we came upon Grandpa's Leaving Certificate. His standing in Maths? Ordinary level/pass.

So today dear Grandma, I am having a good chuckle in your memory as I unpack into a new house and hang up my two framed degrees (one math, one engineering) obtained via a story you told to your daughter and that she passed along to me. In the parlance of today's world:  well played grandma, well played.

Obsessive Garlic Disorder

I developed a serious case of this newly identified (to me) syndrome this past weekend.

I attended Mooseman: a precompression Burning Man regional event. Five days of survival camping in the forest of Haliburton. No water. No electricity.

The first 36 hours of the event were like a roller coaster of new experiences - both positive and negative, both personal and interpersonal. The first night I met some truly lovely people around a very large fire held in a large circle of stones. The following day I experienced a few interactions that were less than ideal. My physical challenges were brought home to roost and I considered leaving in case they worsened. The team of onsite Rangers helped mediate what was a challenging and baffling situation for me and I ended up staying due to their support. Two of the 10 Burning Man principles were driven into me throughout the beginning part of my experience at Mooseman:  Radical self-reliance and Radical inclusion.

On the Saturday of the event after I had rested (I was exhausted from the emotional roller coaster and physical demands of survival camping set up!) I ventured back to the sacred circle. I was told that there was garlic braiding down at the main house (the owner of the property) and that it was a lot of fun.  I decided I would rather take a walk through the forest which was set up with four theme camps and I wanted to see what they looked like in their finished state (I saw the skeletons of these camps on a Thursday night walk about).

The effort put into these theme camps is dumbfounding and humbling. One of the camps, Powder Monkeys, had a pirate theme and the decorations and plounges were so creative. This camp also hosted a Baconade on the Sunday morning and everyone who participated in that achieved Peak Bacon. There were two types of bacon, bacon dip, bacon brownies, bacon apple pie, bacon/cheese roll-ups, bacon chocolate chip rice krispies, etc.

On the way into the forest there was a Toga Toll Camp. These lovely people provided a candy tray that they also took throughout the event at times. There was bug spray on offer and other provisions if needed. Did I mention that all Burning Man events operate on a gift economy basis? No money exchanges hands. Every participant is expected to gift what they can and high octane volunteerism is the norm.

I didn't spend as much time as I would've like to at the Big Rig Rockin Robin's Truck Stop Jamboree. They had built a replica of a truck complete with a truck stop diner and a country store that I shoplifted a pocket knife from (I had lost mine). They had some fine trombone jamming happening on Saturday night when I was there.

Lastly there was a Hammock Camp at the end of the forest trail. Peace and tranquility was found in one of the hammocks hanging there :)

On Sunday afternoon after dancing in the forest for a few hours to some wonderful beats I remembered the garlic braiding and wandered down to the main house (past the coffee cafe which served delicious free coffee all weekend long!). Outside of the house was a circle of chairs and instruments of garlic disorder. I stood and asked the three people about what was going on and shared a bit of my food justice passion with them. Doug, the owner of the property, saw a fellow food spirit and he eagerly invited me to sit down and try cleaning some garlic myself. Silvie, another Mooseman attendee, patted a chair and proceeded to show me how to clean the garlic (rub the stalk and bulb with love to remove the dirt, trim the hairy end and brush out the dirt). In the course of learning this new skill, Doug, Silvie, another young man and I got into a wonderful conversation that alternated between philosophy, therapy, camaraderie and hilarity.

After a few minutes of this pleasant learning - interactive engagement Doug became perturbed while I was talking. I wasn't staying on task since I use my hands while I talk. He told Silvie to take me down to the shed to see the enormity of the garlic cleaning task at hand.

Have you ever seen 1700 bulbs of garlic in various stages of 'processing'? Doug had already informed us that it takes 20 passes through human hands to fully process garlic (now you know why most of it comes from China since it is so labour intensive!). So when I rounded the corner into the shed I saw how massive the operation was and how many uncleaned bulbs there were - well, that was when the disorder struck me.

I returned with Silvie and spend the next few hours mastering the art of conversing while cleaning garlic bulbs at a steady rate. I was rewarded with a fine meal from Lynn (Doug's partner) that included potatoes freshly harvested from their garden and the opportunity to braid my very own set of bulbs which I later purchased on my way out of the event.  The ideas, love, inspiration and garlic imbued soulfulness of the experience will last my lifetime. In fact, the whole weekend will. The final of the 10 principles of Burning Man was cemented into my heart that afternoon and sealed with the burning of the Moose effigy that night:

Immediacy

Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience. (source)

Unbraided but cleaned fruits of our Obsessive Garlic Disorder

Lack of Imagination regarding 21st Century Slavery

I had the good fortune to hear Gustavo Esteva talk live here in Toronto twice this week. Also, I saw a series of disturbing videos this week on Migrant Labour in Canada (here is a 53 minute National Film Board of Canada film from 2003, and sadly, things have gotten worse, not better, since then). I am also deep in the midst of setting up another Impossibly Single event with the theme of Prostitution so am introducing myself to a whole new lexicon and expanding my knowledge of feminist theory.

The perpetual learner in me is thrilled for the new content I am pouring into my brain but I also feel that I am drowning in the bleak reality of 21st century slavery. I'll do a future post on prostitution after becoming better informed and will just focus on the Migrant Worker issue in this post.

It struck me this week that technology and our world's increasing reliance on  it is managing to divide humanity in new and creative ways. The improvements in the technology of getting one human to another place and the cost of travel relative to income in the Global North have created a global marketplace for human trafficking that is unprecedented in scope and destruction. We are excelling in technological progress while regressing in morality.

Here are some facts I've amassed after absorbing lots of new info this week:

1. Migrant workers are not allowed to form a union. They work 7 days a week and well over 8 hours each day. Labour laws do not apply.
2. Recent immigration changes have  increased the number of migrant workers in Canada to 350,000. That's 1% of our population. The 1% that have no rights (see fact 1) as opposed to the 1% that own our corporations. The perverseness of this dichotomy is elegant to my mathematical mind.
3. If a migrant worker complains to their consulate they are told to behave better. Consulates are for corporations. When will we get that, finally?
4. If a migrant worker complains too much they will be refused a renewal by their 'owners'. Yes. That's what one of the farm operator's called them in that documentary I linked above. Some farm operator's call their workers "Little Donkeys". For every migrant worker that gets kicked out of the program there are many more people waiting behind them for a position. The politics of poverty and our food system is clearly evidenced by this sad reality.
5.  Migrant workers pay EI but claim no benefits. Instead of removing the requirement that they pay these benefits, why don't we work towards paying them during the off season like the fishery workers receive in Newfoundland?

One of the many powerful ideas Mr. Esteva discussed was regarding Corn (Maize) and it's relationship with people. Corn does not grow well on it's own. It needs cultivation by people to prosper. Humans, over millenia, have created a knowledge base around corn in Mexico.  This knowledge involves hundreds of varieties of maize and the best environment for their growth. The campesino movement, which is expanding globally, wants this knowledge base to be preserved. There is a deep understanding of people in the campesinos of the symbiotic relationship between maize and humans. The corn needs people and in turn the people need corn. If we do not preserve this symbiosis, our species will die.

Ironically, he also noted that scientific research is showing that North Americans contain more corn in their bodies than Mexicans. Corn additives are everywhere in the North American diet and many additives in our medications are derived from corn too. North Americans are, literally, people of the corn while the people of the Campesinos are more metaphorically people of the corn. More importantly, the people of the campesinos know that the need to fuel our bodies with pure healthy food trumps corporate interests. They have managed to survive the development binge of the late 20th century and defy chemical 'progress' when it comes to agri-business. This leaves the people of the campasinos, who grow 70% of the food consumed on this planet in non agri-business conditions, well suited to teaching the rest of us how to return to the land. Return to the maize.

Mr. Esteva also noted that the biggest crisis facing humanity is our collective lack of imagination.  We need new ways to solve big problems. In other words, we need some moral innovation. Less big business, more subsistence plus (way down on this page). Basically subsistence plus is "a new approach to ending hunger and impoverishment while protecting small-scale farmers and the environment" (from the link). It is a concept developed by prominent Canadian intellectuals and food activists Wayne Roberts and Michael Sacco (who is also the founder and owner of Chocosol). Their approach is truly imaginative and I'll be writing more about it on my Lettuce Connect blog in the coming weeks as part of my newly launched series on the Cupcake Economy.

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