Last
Wednesday was our July monthly volunteer gathering, a time when the
volunteers all get together to share a meal, welcome new-comers, and
say goodbye to those who are leaving—a few short term volunteers
and the Knights. So we gorged ourselves on gyoza and shared some
“final thoughts.” One of my first memories of ARI was attending
the August volunteer gathering after we first arrived. It was the
welcome party for Doug and me and the goodbye party for Nicole, the
YASC missionary serving at ARI before us. And I very distinctly
remember thinking “wow, this will be our goodbye party a year from
now!” When I think about me back then and me now, I’m just in
awe. I can’t believe how much I’ve learned and changed and
remained the same.
So there I
was, trying to think about what I might say to my fellow volunteers:
Only one of whom was at ARI when we arrived, and only about five of
whom had come last fall and survived the winter with us. Now we are
about 20-25, age ranging from 19-60ish, coming from the U.S., Japan,
Germany, Malaysia, or Korea. What can you say to such a group? When it came my
turn to say something, all I could do was cry. But crying can mean
lots of things so I had to pull myself together to get out some form
of a verbal message, which I will relay and enhance for you here.
This has
been the hardest year of my life. My darkest times have been here at
ARI. I’ve never felt so lonely, so cold, so isolated, so
misunderstood, and so vulnerable. Winter in this place really was
like the Mirkwood Forest. It wasn’t so incredibly terrible living
through it but once you were beyond looking back, it was dark and
parasitic and you never want to return there. Maybe it was because
the community was so small compared to other times, and the days so
short (no daylight savings!), and the harvest so weak. The life of
ARI was not lively. But now, it is mid-summer and the life of ARI is
most certainly on its way to peaking! Participants are in their
groove, they are confident in their work, most of them now feel
comfortable with the weather (they like it hot!), and they are eager
for more learning. As I mentioned, we have a hearty supply of
volunteers! In addition, there are anywhere from 2-30
visitors/guests/work campers joining each day. And our harvest, wow.
Right now we are harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans (many
kinds!), kangkong, perilla (green and red), spring chrysanthemum,
okra, sweet corn, coriander, radish, turnip, bell peppers, cabbage,
bitter gourd, eggplant, and many more which I can’t remember. WE
ARE ALIVE!
I am so
happy to be at ARI at this time. There is so much life and it is a
happy, happy place. I am sad to say goodbye but happy to leave ARI in
such a happy and lively state. I might feel guilty leaving ARI during
the wintertime, like I was abandoning ship.
And lastly,
as we volunteers know, but maybe you do not, ARI would not function
without us. And this isn’t us tooting our horns but telling it like
it is. ARI’s first priority is the leadership training program for
the participants. The organic farm serves as a giant outdoor
classroom and experimental grounds for their learning. This all may
sound very flowery but for the farm to actually continue functioning
and producing food for all members, it takes a lot more work than one
or two hours a day given through curriculum.
And that is where
volunteers come in. While staff work in their roles and participants
learn theory to enhance their field application, farm volunteers are
weeding, harvesting/threshing/sorting grain crops, and many other
behind the scenes work that even I don’t know about. We also have
office volunteers who sit in front of computers all day (no heating
or AC) while others can enjoy at least being outdoors. They
tirelessly respond to emails concerning admissions and ecumenical
relations, they sort and organize databases, they edit newsletters
and graduate reports, and usually end up having to work through
foodlife work. And then there are kitchen volunteers. Of course our
morning work is preparing lunch every day. In the afternoon, our work
can range from baking bread/processing foods, to cleaning, to sorting
and putting away harvest, to observing fields or sharpening knives.
We all have many works and some days there isn’t even anything to
show for it. But we work together and eventually we see progress. And
we see food on the table and we see applications for new participants
and we know we doing good.
Doug’s
Last Morning Gathering
On
Thursday, Doug had his last morning gathering. I will let him do the
talking: Doug's Last Morning Gathering (video is uploading now, please check back if unable to access link right away!)
Kitchen
Party
Saturday
afternoon was our kitchen party to welcome our new member, Ammy from
Malaysia, and say goodbye to me and Naoki, Japanese man. We enjoyed
Naoki’s homemade pizza, some takoyaki (octopus), and blackberry
cobbler! We were supposed to all dance at a local festival later that
evening but it was rained out
We did dress up in our yukatas anyway and take pictures!
The Last
Week
Oh! I
almost forgot to share that we are now in our new housing! It is far
too clean and big, but we love it! We will spend the rest of our time
here, on top of the hill, waking up with our orange curtains and
beautiful view. Coming up is the farewell farm party Monday night and
my last morning gathering on Thursday. I have many more reflections I
would like to share, some of which I will include in my sharing on
Thursday. But I think this post is getting a bit long. I’ll leave
you with a few pictures from our first tomato harvest!
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