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Published: August 13th 2008
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Wandering along muddy trails, through barbed wire fences, past cows, horses and pigs feeding in the green rolling hills speckled with banana, mango and avocado trees. We finally stumble upon the farm and see the familiar, pasty white back of our giant Canadian friend Liam, standing under a thatched palapa against the backdrop of the lake. Liam is a good friend of ours from language school in Guatemala and lived in the same house as Andy during that time. He's visiting his girl friend Rachel who's the volunteer coordinator at Finca Bonofido on Ometepe in the middle of lake Nicaragua. Rachel and the rest of the volunteers were surprised that we managed to find the farm with no directions and only the name of the farm to go on. The Internet on the farm was down and the last time we heard from them was over a week ago. Liam assured them that we would show up due to our refined navigation skills. We have definitely gotten a lot better at asking for directions and got lucky a guy we asked knew the tourism director of the island and after a short phone call we had the rough location of the
farm. The small ferry to the island had no room for the truck so we had to leave her in the parking lot at the dock. Our first chicken bus traveling. They're not the prettiest, most comfortable, safest means of transportation, but their cheep, run frequently and go more or less where you need to go.
After greetings and introductions we took a quick tour of the farm before lunch. After filling up on chicken, rice and beans we hiked to a jungle waterfall, picking up some fallen avocados along the way for a snack. The sight and sound of a waterfall is a powerful calming force and I enjoy sitting near the base of the falls and letting my mind calm as the cool spray sprinkles my skin. To be loosely absorbed into natures soothing peace.
We arrived on the farm during the weekend and Chriss, the man in charge and only man on the farm was away on business, so there wasn't much work for us to do. Andy and I did what we could to help out. We hauled and chopped a large amount of wood, the hardest task for the girls on the farm.
We helped de-shell peanuts and cocoa beans, make peanut butter and chocolate, then consume the fruits of our labor with some fresh bananas. Putting a freshly roasted still warm cocoa bean in your mouth with a pinch of brown sugar, then chewing to perfection is in my opinion, the best way to make and eat chocolate. Other tasks we performed included: starting fires, baking bread, escorting the girls to a local dance, eating lots of fresh mangoes and avocados so they wouldn't go bad, and adding compost to the composting toilets.
There's something very satisfying about living and working on a beautiful farm, getting a healthy coat of dirt on your skin, eating fresh fruits and vegetables, not creating loads of garbage that eventually end up in a landfill and being present in the nature and the natural processes of turning water, sunlight and nutrients into food in a sustainable manner.
Many people in our society live separately from these natural cycles of life. This separtaion attributes to the excessive, wasteful lifestyles of our culture. When the garbageman picks up your trash every tuesday, you lose light of the vast amount of waste you create every year. The
majority of the food consumed is highly processed, grown with chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, overly packaged and shipped great distances to the supermarket near you. The food problem in america is not that we have insuficient amounts of it, but rather that we eat too much food that is unhealthy for our bodies. It is fairly easy to buy localy produced, health foods at places like a farmers market, but that extra effort is just too incovinient for many people who just don't care. If we take the time to examine our lives, the excesiveness and wastefulness of the American consumer culture becomes apparent and that by simplifying our wants and needs, we can in fact live more fulfilling lives. Many Americans work hard to accumulate sufficient, often excessive amounts of money, but are left with insufficient time and are not really happy. In their minds, their hard work justifies their consumer habits. Spending a bunch of money on something they don't really need but want. Acumulating vast amounts of stuff. Material aquisition gives them a quick, ephemeral surge of happiness, but how long will it last? Will you get buyers remorse when the $29.99 DVD player you bought
starts to skip after a few months? What happens when your clothes go out of style? When there is something newer better than what you have? This cycle of material contentedness becomes the norm for many consumers in a materialistic society and you find that many people with their free time go shopping for enjoyment. A leisurely walk in the woods is supplanted by a stroll through the concrete, stucco forest of a suburbian shopping mall. Instead of gathering fruits and berries, we gather shoes and gadgets.
How far have your wants surpassed your needs? Where does it end? This endless cycle of consuming is further enhanced by the poor quality and standards of the products in the market. A computer is designed to last 3 maybe 4 years before becoming obsolete. An American car is designed to run until the warranty runs out. Tables and furniture used to be made of thick, sturdy wood that could last for hundreds of years and be passed down from generation to generation. Now people buy a desk from Ikea made of sawdust and glue, made to last 5 maybe 10 years. How many people actually wear through their clothes before buying
new ones. These products, designed to last only a short while help perpetuate our endless cycle of consuming and therefore working. Debt: credit cards, student loans, mortgages, etc. contribute to the consumers need to join and stay in the American industrial machine. To work more than desired. To trade freedom for a nine to five, car, condo and 2 weeks vacation for the rest of their able lives. How can we break free? Is there a viable option hidden in the niches of our society to have sufficient income to support yourself, possibly a family while maintaining ample time and energy to truly live and enjoy life to its fullest? Finding a job that you truly enjoy is part of the answer. On this subject of finding a fulfilling job someone said to look, ¨Where your greatest passions meets the worlds greatest need.¨
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