Greener than Ever

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So the last week would be hard to summarize. I'll do it anyway.


Some days have been incredibly rewarding. I sat in on almost 4 hours of class yesterday at Evergreen State College. The school has an incredible contrast at times. The first class was a freshmen one called Seeds of Change, studying food in a global economy and it's social history as well. We watched a video from Canada called Banana Split which gave an in-depth look into the history of how the banana industry was set up in Honduras, and also how American corporate giants(Chiquita for example) destroyed lives of the locals working there.
An interesting video. Sadly, not all the freshmen students were too interested. One of the T.A.'s forgot to bring the video so it started over 30 minutes late. I tried playing hangman on the board to keep some of the students entertained but many were too raucous and bored; some just left class. Once the video got going though, things were more fluid.

Following this, I met a friend that I did my year in Israel with(Devorah), and we went to the Seeds of Change class potluck lunch which was incredibly tasty, vegan, and just plain friendly. It was raining off and on, so it was nice to be in the 'Longhouse' for lunch and relax. I decided afterwards to join Devorah for her 2 hours lecture, which she asked the teacher if it was fine. It was a bit more honed and real as it was a junior class I believe, and the first lecture was an in-depth look at our social system through the precepts of institutions and organizations (correlating such things as Taxes to IRS, or say Organized Religion to Churches...). I can't say I took in the full scope of this as I didn't really know what the aim was, but I enjoyed the intensity of some of the students to really ask questions and challenge the teacher. The second lecture was a very free-spirited one about the trees in the local Puget Sound area, where we identified quite a few common ones, as well as learned some of their properties. The local Red Cedar is very good as an anti-fugal for instance.

I've been living in a freshmen communal apartment that has been completely frenzied due to an anti-militarization protest at the Oly Port. They've not only been walking in out in the strangest hours of the night returning from shifts of blockading a street, they've come back with complaints of being arrested and pepper sprayed by the law enforcement. Funny world! Well funny may not be the decent description.

I will be updating some pictures as always later, so salaam!

Davey

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