Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The First Farm-Azienda Boccea

Azienda Agricola Boccea is an organic farm in the foothills outside of Rome. We first arrived here on a sunny, cool afternoon. As we entered through the large gate a soft wind rustled the leaves on the olive trees and a wind chime sang quietly in the distance. The patroness of the estate met us at the gate and we drove in her car down a gravel road that curved along a woody hillside, and then dropped into a green valley.

"It has been in my family for a long time," she said as we passed a group of large, abandoned farm buildings with a ghostly air. Later we learned that Mussolini gave the farm to her grandfather, and that it accounts for thousands of acres many of which are uncultivated woods.

Finally we arrived at a large house surrounded by a tall, ancient-looking wall. On one side fields of vegetables stretched on to the surrounding hills, and on the other long-horned cattle roamed through verdant pastures. In the yard within the wall, two large white geese bathed in a pool of water while a stout goat lay in the sun against the wall of the house.

We entered into a large kitchen. Two Italian coffee makers sat on the stove ready for action. In the next room, a group of workers sat around a large table eating lunch. We sat down with them and ate our first meal with the group

***

Usually we wake up at dawn. There's just enough time to make some espresso and eat a handful of olives and some bread before we head outside to start working. If we go to the fields we harvest leeks, fennel, broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, and even chicory, the edible weed used in coffee in New Orleans. Other days we chop wood, trim hedges in the large garden of the guest house, or herd cattle. Whatever work we do, we go at it until about one, when we all eat lunch together. This is one of the best times of the day. Exhausted and hungry we all gather round the table for a hot meal and conversation that lasts about an hour. The meal is always vegetarian and made with ingredients harvested on the farm. Pasta carbonara, hearty bean soup, and cheesy casserole are a few of the main dishes we've had, always accompanied by fresh salad and cooked vegetables (like broccoli or fennel), olives, and bread. It is easy for long periods of silence to set in as we all eat, but as soon as the plates are cleaned conversation starts. Here are the main characters:

Carmela is the boss of the ranch. She's from Romania, and she raised the fat Tibetan goat named "Dalai" like her own child. Now she spends half her time either scolding Dalai for eating eveything in sight or soothing her in Romanian baby-talk. Carmela does a lot of work. It's hard to imagine the farm functioning without her. From gathering vegetables in the field and organizing shipments to stores, to making lunch for all the workers, to preparing endless gifts for the owner's friends, Carmela does it all. She's a good leader, and she's also warm and generous. One day her eyes lit up and asked us, "have you read the Twilight books?" She's read them all five times now. When I asked her if I could borrow a book in Italian, she said, "what kind do you want? I mostly have love stories."

Bogodan is Carmela's brother, and is almost always at her side. Apart from Kate, who's American, he's the only person on the farm who speaks English. He learned it all from TV and music, and he sometimes plays music on his phone when we're working in the fields. Leonard Cohen is one of his favorites. Carmela says that he's married to his computer, and his reticence reminds me a little of a game-addicted adolescent. Bogodan warms up after awhile, and I've come to appreciate his dry sense of humor. Here's one joke he told me in the field:

"Long time ago God and Devil make deal. They say, we gonna let people decide who they wanna worship. The Devil say he will go under the ground, and anyone that want to worship him is gonna go there. And God say he will go in the sky and make the rain and thunder, and those that believe in him are gonna go there." Bogodan looks at me with the faintest trace of a smile. "How many people do you see buried in the sky?"

Antonio is Carmela's husband. He's from Sardinia, the large island north of Sicily. Short and muscular, Antonio has a booming voice that fills the room at lunch and echoes through the valleys when he's calling the cows. He speaks in Italian in a rapid, guttural fashion, now and then breaking into a wide grin followed by a contagious laugh.

Kate is an American who lives on the farm while pursuing a Master's degree at a University in Rome. She has a lot of experience farming and we all have fun working together.

Mahomet (Mohammed) is a political refugee from the African nation of Guinea. He's working at the farm to obtain a goverment license that will allow him to be employed in Italy. French is his first language, and he often drops the endings of Italian verbs, much to the chagrin of Antonio and Italo. Everything Italian amuses him, and he often gets into heated discussions about world politics and Italian culture with Antonio and Italo.

Italo is the farm's mechanic. Barrel-chested and wide as he is long, Italo resembles Clemenza, and he speaks in an almost unintelligible slur of Italian. Everything arouses an impassioned response from him. Something you learn in Italy is that this is just how you are supposed to speak about things. If you give the slightest damn about something it is essential to gesture theatrically with your hands and raise your voice in a melodic rush of words. It is even better if you seem overwhelmed by irritation and anger, punctuating your statements with colorful sacrilegious phrases.

We all eat lunch together and then head back to work until sunset. This is the most peaceful time of the day. As the sun sets over the fields we play with the dogs, gather wood, and build the fire in the house. I usually make coffee for Carmela and myself, while she's finishing up paperwork at her desk. This is when we get to talk to her about food, people, animals, books, and everything else under the sun. Slowly everybody goes to their apartments and only the three of us remain. We like to sit around the fire and drink a little wine, eat some dinner, play cards. There's not a TV, so we have to entertain ourselves. We're always in bed by ten, and up early for another day of work on the farm.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Catching Up

Well, we definitely are not going to go hungry.


This is going to be a very extensive post because there is so much to catch up on. I'll try to go in chronological order...


Washington, DC
My first time to visit our capitol. Arrived in DC November 23rd. Took the Metro to Ali's apartment to meet Erin. We met with Ali when she finished work. It was so nice to be together and I felt especially lucky to see Ali twice in two weeks. The next day, while Ali was at work, Erin and I walked around The Mall. We saw the WWII Memorial, the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial (And Erin, he is STILL following me around. Saw the statue of him at West Minister in London), and the White House. I really enjoyed our conversations there. Which included mixed feelings about WWII, what was Lincoln's real agenda, and conspiracies of the government. I was happy that I wasn't completely in the dark on historical events. I realized that if I only relied on my education of social studies from Arts, I wouldn't know anything! And so, I am grateful for all the documentaries and historical movies Mack and Lewis made us watch over the years. A short but sweet visit. Then off to NYC!

Thanksgiving
This was my favorite New York Thanksgiving. Wonderful food, people, and music. Had a great time hanging out with the family. Thank you all for watching Muppets Christmas Carol. Loved our 4 hour version of The Tunnel. The opera was wonderful. I miss you all so much already!

Fela!
Erin, Ryan and I went to see the musical Fela!

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That only touches a little bit of the greatness of this show. I looked over at Erin almost every 10 minutes with a look of astonishment. Here is a wonderful description and overview of Fela's life I asked Erin to write. We have both been big fans of Fela and Femi Kuti's (Fela's son) music for a while. But this musical reminded us of all the hardships in Fela's life and his fight for a better one.

"Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938-1997) was a Nigerian revolutionary musician-politician and spiritual leader. Fela created Afrobeat music, combining African, Cuban, and American funk and jazz influences. Through his music and direct political action, he challenged the corrupt authority structure of post-colonial Nigeria, and contemporary neo-colonialist globalization. The son of a pastor, Fela criticized organized religion, hearkening rather to the traditional African gods of Nigeria and assuming the role of Chief Priest within his self-declared community. His life is now commemorated in a Broadway production, Fela!, currently being performed at the Eugene Oneill theatre in Manhattan.

In the show, Fela Kuti's presence and personality are evoked in the context of the elaborate stage performance which in life he referred to as the "Underground Spiritual Game". The set is a reproduction of the Afrika Shrine, the music club Fela established in Lagos, Nigeria. The walls are cluttered with political manifesto, symbols of pan-Africanism, and memorabilia venerating the Orishas, the Yoruba ancestor-gods, and Fela's mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a leading Nigerian nationalist and feminist. At any given moment, over 30 performers join actor Sahr Ngauraj as he portrays Fela on the stage. He is accompanied by a full band-- drums, guitars, horns, keys-- and an ensemble of costumed, painted dancers, female and male alike, super-charged with energy and sexuality.

The audience at the Oneill theatre is addressed as if it were the regular gathering at the Afrika Shrine in Lagos, on the occasion of what was to be Fela's final show. Fela speaks to the audience directly, recapping, between jokes and songs, his personal and musical development, and the social and historical scene of his life and the movement that thrived around it. The show hinges on Fela's supplication to the spirit of his mother, killed due to a raid by the Nigerian military, for her blessing on him to leave Nigeria. He wishes to escape the country for his own safety, and to spread his message, and gain fame and fortune in exile. Funmilayo's blessing is denied, in a majestic, magical scene in which Fela meets his mother in the realm beyond the grave. She commands him to stay in Nigeria and fight for his people, even if it means forfeiting his life.

Having been exposed to Fela's musical style and political message through performances of his son, Femi, who has carried on his father's tradition, I came to the show prepared to be confronted with a world for which I have secretly yearned: a world not only of strong, beautiful performers, but, more elusively, one of clear moral ground. Fela, and Femi after him, perform bare-chested; their authority is established, if on no other basis, upon their confident, naked presence on the stage. Deep into their long, intricate, fervent grooves, they sing-talk in pidgin English of the hypocrisy, corruption, brutality, and waste that characterize global politics. They point to the greed of governments and multinational corporations, the harsh legacy of colonialism in Africa, and the world's blindness to that continent's suffering. The irresistible music and performance literally evoke a full-body response to complement a moral and political message that remains valid today. The dancers establish the community encircling the personality of their leader, and demonstrate the vitality and fun with which this community is infused.

I step away from the performance and back into New York City with an empty feeling, a nostalgia for a home I have never known. Many people today, even those who like myself are not old enough to have been there, are wistful for a time when there was a clear distinction between right and wrong, when great sacrifices were asked of the underdog in the name of his or her beliefs, and were joyfully made; a time when beliefs and actions, community and creativity could all be synchronized. Today it seems that we are infinitely more fractured, that individuals are more alienated than ever from the community, the land, and the past, that issues facing society are more nuanced and unrelatable, or so huge, complex, and imminent that we are paralyzed. America seems to have fallen into a deep sleep of denial, in which our outrage and our impulse for collective action flounder under the heavy sedative effects of materialism or paranoia.

We might question whether the issues were ever less nuanced, or communities ever truly solidary, whether the line between right and wrong has ever truly been defined. While the atmosphere of collective idealism evoked by Fela! and mentioned above is not entirely mythical-- there have been many such instances, from the 1960s in the US to the time of early Christianity-- every time, place, and movement carries its own hypocrisies and corruptions. The dichotomies of right and wrong, or good and evil, are always dubious, and have a life of their own within each individual. At times, Fela himself was seen as a tyrant among his community, a womanizer, a diva, another thug politician. The euphoria of communal welfare and the inspiration provided by strong personalities like Fela's at some point give way to the truth that the world we live in is lonely, complicated, and confusing.

Interestingly, there occurs in the show a moment wherein Fela himself belies this truth and his own humanity. Sitting on the edge of the stage, he muses that his life used to seem to have meaning. It was like a fairy-tale, he remembers, or a movie. Things mattered, and things were going to happen. Fela suggests that the narrative thread of his life will be lost if he must remain in Nigeria, where the constant harassment and hostility of the government will destroy everything he has created, and render his struggle meaningless.

There is something very poignant and true in Funmilayo's refusal to condone Fela's escape. If it is true that in life Fela wished to leave Africa forever, to leave behind the Afrika Shrine, along with Nigeria and its parasitical government, perhaps it is precisely that which kept him there that confirms Fela's true status as a prophet. Maybe he would have been merely a thug or a musician on an ego trip, taking advantage of people's dissatisfaction for the sake of his own glorification, had he left Nigeria and attained international stardom, played with Bob Marley, toured Europe and America, and grown celebrated and rich. His journey through the spirit world to meet his murdered mother, and ultimately, his assent to remain in Nigeria, the land of his ancestors and the home of the people for whom he fought, demonstrate that Fela was in touch with an authority that went beyond his musical talent, his natural charm, and his muscular male torso on the stage. He communed with the orishas, he spoke with the dead, and he himself submitted his will to a higher, maternal authority, representing ancestral divinity, Mother Nigeria, and Mother Africa. To carry on the comparison, Fela's request to leave Nigeria is not unlike Jesus's final plea for reprieve on the cross, and Funmilayo's intransigence contains the same final import as God's silent answer on Calvary: the message is that in the face of blind brutality and seeming chaos, when the world seems too frustrating and hopeless to tolerate, in these times, though escape may be desirable, it is impossible. Our world is a closed system, in which we are inextricably tied to our roots.

Despite his arguable shortcomings, we must not forget the courage that was required of Fela to stand up to the unscrupulous Nigerian government and the strong economic interests of the British Petroleum conglomerate. Refusing to leave the table, he offered a new way of thinking which challenged the contemporary colonialist mentality, and established a way of life, a medium of expression, and a vision for the future which all stemmed from an intimate connection with the spiritual heritage of the people involved. It was organic, it was holistic, and it was o-ri-gi-nal: no artificiality."-Erin Lierl

I know it's a little strange to keep going after that but I must...



Gumbo

Here is a picture of the gumbo we made in NYC. It was delicious. Roux took 2 hours. Turkey and sausage.

Eddie Izzard

We flew in to London on our way to Rome to see Eddie Izzard live. He was HILARIOUS. Even with the jet lag we had the best time EVER.

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Just a taste of his genius. Please watch till the end. You won't be sorry.

Rome
Ryan and I spent a wonderful day in Rome and had a very exciting surprise. I will let him tell you the story so that he can write it in Italian. His Italian, by the way, has been a God send. He's been speaking a lot and I think everyone really thinks he is Italian!

Boccea
Wednesday we arrived at the farm. Just an hour and a half trip northwest of Rome. First thing we did when arrived was put down our bags and eat! Rice and lentils, salad, fresh olives, and greens. Carmella, our supervisor, served us mountain sized portions of each. Carmella and Bogdhan (Carmella's brother) are Romanian. They run the farm with Antonio (Carmella's husband from Sardinia), Christian (he is half Italian and half German), and a few other people. Miss Anna is the owner. The story goes, Miss Anna's grandfather was a friend of Mussolini. Mussolini gave this land to Miss Anna's grandfather. He then built the houses that are here. Now, there are only two buildings that can be occupied. The rest are in ruins around the land. We stay in one, and Miss Anna runs a bed and breakfast from the other. Here is the website so you can see...
http://http//www.agricolaboccea.it/default.asp?pag=chisiamo

We've been harvesting the vegetables, maintaining the courtyard, and Ryan had to round up the cattle today. Tomorrow and Sunday are our days off. We plan to use them to relax and do some exploring.

OH! I almost forgot to mention someone very important. Dali. The goat. Already we have wittnessed Dali's mischeviousness of eating things she's not supposed to. I hear almost 10 times a day Carmella yelling at her in Romanian. "No! Dali!" Dali is a tibetent goat that Carmella has had since she was the size of a fist. Now, she's the size of a yoga ball. Probably the roundest goat I've ever seen. I say roundest instead of fattest because Bogdhan tells her when I say she's fat. Then she looks at me with a very disturbing look. She's already rammed into one of the dogs here causing him to only be able to walk on three legs. I'm not taking any chances.

I hope this isn't too long and that you were able to make it all the way to the end. I don't think I'll be able to put up pictures until we return to Rome. Will keep updating on stories though. Love to you all!

Medora

No spell check and too tired to read over. Hope it's ok.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Goodbye Dallas, Hello New York




On November 19th Medora and I played a little going-away gig at The Pearl Cup on Henderson Ave. Accompanied by Mack Price on lead guitar, Alan Hoffman on percussion, and with the unexpected appearance of Dale (don't know his last name) on flute and cornet, the show was a hit. We played songs ranging from New Orleans paeans to Cuban music to a few favorite Irish songs.



Our audience consisted of a large group of family supporters, and a number of regular customers at the Pearl who appeared somewhat surprised by the sudden appearance of a five-piece band in the cafe. Dale's appearance capped it off. A friend of Alan Hoffman's, Dale approached us at the start of the performance, saying that he played the cornet and hinting that he might want to join in. We left it at that, and in the rush of getting started I forgot about him. Fast forward a few songs into the set. We're playing the classic Cuban song, "Chan Chan," with Alan drumming a hot beat and Mack ripping out some long runs. We go into an instrumental and suddenly I hear a flute performing the most amazing solo. I look over and Dale's playing the flute like a snake charmer and definitely charming the captivated audience. Mack and I looked at each other and just laughed. Mack said "let's let them play," and we both dropped off as Alan and Dale played off each other for a solid couple minutes.



After running through our Irish songs and Cuban "Odysseys" we came to the meat of our material -- "St. James Infirmary," "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans," and "When You're Smiling." There were so many times playing those songs that I felt like I was back in New Orleans, sitting in the Spotted Cat or Fritzel's Jazz Pub. After the show a woman from the audience came up to me and said, "do you all have a card or something? I would love to book you guys in the future." It was a great compliment, especially considering that it was our first time all playing together.



I feel so lucky to have had the chance to play with everyone. Medora was really shining all night. I suppose that all of those grueling months of performing in the New Orleans Public Schools are paying off, because I've never seen her so comfortable in front of an audience. She looked entirely in her element, and her enthusiasm for the music and for the opportunity to share it with her loved ones was contagious and irresistible.



Many thanks to Mack, Alan and Dale. Mack really brought the show, and it was easy to see why he was such a badass back in the day with Raebern. Tearing it up on guitar, and bringing loads of energy to the performance, Mack held everything together. Thanks to Alan for providing some much-needed Latin rhythm for the hopeless Gringos to follow. On every song he brought something special and unique to the table. And of course, thanks Dale! I don't know where you came from but you're welcome to snake-charm in my house any day.



And finally, thanks to all of our supporters. You guys were great and it was a real pleasure to share this music with all of you. It hasn't always been easy for us during these months in Dallas, but I have to say that Medora's family is truly special. I am deeply grateful to have them in my life.