Epic Weekend Part 3: Crepes and vegetables

Sunday:
Then, despite going to bed at 3:30am, I dragged myself out of bed-with Kelsey’s help-at 8:45am in order to take 2 buses and an hour later, arrive in Las Condes-the rich upper-class neighborhood- to watch my American friend Meghan cross the finishline on her 10K race.


There were a surprising number of runners and supporters at this competition-at least 400 people, which I totally didn’t expect. Meghan had lured us out of bed with the promise of homemade “panqueques”, which in Chile actually refer to crepes. Her host mom did not disappoint, and I was really glad Kelsey and I had been able to show up and support Meghan/eat a delicious breakfast.


However, that was only the beginning of my day, and so unfortunately I couldn’t fall back into bed, but instead ran home, scarfed down a lunch and then waited for like 20 minutes in the rain to make it to my organic gardening class. I sped-walked down the slippery sidewalks in order to get there at 2pm on the dot, only to find that I had read the time wrong and class wasn’t until 3pm! Just by way of explanation, math has never been my strong suit, and since Chileans use military time, I had misread the 15:00 classtime…

Regardless, Stepahanie, the woman who runs the garden and co-teaches the class (both of which occur in her house/backyard) is super sweet and was happy to let me in early and provide me with some delicious steaming tea to warm me up. She reminds me a lot of my friend Evie, she’s petite, with long curly hair, wears clogs and layers funky patterns in a way that somehow remains stylish. Class was wonderful, although freezing since their living room is really drafty. We talked about four kinds of organic agriculture: agricultura bio intensive, agricultura natural (fukuoka), permacultura y agricultura biodinamico… all very different, but fascinating.


The permaculture snake-egg...curious? Google it for more info

At first I really looked down on biodynamic agri b/c it seemed too woo-woo, and mystical (yes this could seem ironic coming from a girl who chants a Sanskrit phrase twice a day, 365 days a year), but then I remembered Prof. Snyder’s class on Religion and Environmental Ethics and that religion is our way of making sense of the world around us, and/or that man is a myth-making creature and ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY THAT I CANT FIND THE EXACT QUOTE!!! Ahhahah ok, well have to go to bed, its 1:17am and my goal was to be asleep by 1am, or 12.. oops. Point is, people seek/crave rituals and symbols and myths, whether they find it in baseball, fishing, gardening, or more traditional religions like Buddhism or Catholicism, so who am I to judge one ritual over another?!

Ok, well,
Love ya!