Solitude for Service Learning
For the three weeks of the service learning project I chose to spend my time at Solitude Farm. The site functioned as a restaurant, working community, and living commmunity for me, for I worked, slept and ate my meals there. For several people from a local Tamil village it served as a working community only. And, for the "guest" who came for lunch, Solitude served as a restaraunt.
In my experiences there I was fortunate to meet a wide range of people of many different walks of life. Through language barriers I made relationships with people from all around the world; volunteers and workers came from such places as India, Japan, England, and Germany.
standing at the gates
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I was introduced to many new foods and got to play an integral role in their preparation and production. From clearing new vegetable beds and starting tomato seedlings in the nursery, to harvesting peanuts and milling sami millet, I gained insight into how much work is involved in preparing foods. Our work sometimes took place under the most extreme of conditions with intense torrential rains on some days and strong, strong sun on others.
Sitting down to lunch the experience of eating felt different. I would look down at my plate and see the tapioca that I had spent the morning pulling out of the ground or skinning and the millet that I had spun in the mill.
At the end of each day, after washing off a layer of dirt and sweat with soar, blistered hands, it felt very fulfilling to have worked hard. I greatly enjoyed my three weeks at solitude farm, walking away with new skills and relationships, and a new appreciation for the hard work that it takes to make every meal.
working in the ragi millet field
I plant pineapple and aloe with others
I spread peanuts to dry
Andrew Suhre, fellow living routes student, milling sami millet
Me inspecting a rocket gourd
peanuts drying in the nursery safe from monsoons
Andrew Suhre beating ragi millet
rice flowing in the wind
Andy in his delight
photos taken by Scott Hurley and Andrew Suhre
Posted by: Scott Hurley on Nov 11, 07 | 12:49 pm
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