PI Day 72 -WWOOF'ing at Herbana Farms

Vocabulary:

• Bolo: Filipino machete
• Damo: grass, also used to describe weeds
• Masaya: Cheerful or happy
• Visayan: Person from the Visayas, part of the central set of islands of the PI.
• Kwento: to tell a story/stories; a story
• Mabaho: smelly
• Suka: throw up
• Pechay: Chinese cabbage

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Ms. Fu-Daddy off line for two whole weeks? To what does the cyber world owe this great pleasure? Well, I’ll tell you. And it’s not gonna be the short version (is there even such a thing on my blog? Maybe when you're lucky), so get ready.

I’ve always had this seemingly random interest in Earth Science. It was my favorite science subject as a young person and I took two courses in Environmental Geoscience as an undergrad and loved the heck out of what I learned. I was fascinated by the way nature moves and works and was moved when I learned more about garbage dumps, pollution, and issues with natural sources. I guess the interest isn’t random when you think about the issues of the Third World, industrialization and globalization –some of my favorite things to think about.

From what I’ve seen, much of Manila is an environmental disaster. I know there are some efforts to improve some of the issues, but the problems are still very visible –dirt, energy, garbage, no recycling, smog, it’s awful. Seeing the city in this state is rough, but seeing the countryside shifting because of environmental issues makes my heart heavy, especially knowing how small our country is and how limited our resources are. Sometimes it’s frightening.

Like many tropical islands, the PI has many natural resources that have become overwrought and tired by both transnational corporate and local interests. When you see the streams and rivers filled with garbage or the land overextended by large scale farming it just makes you shake your head. I recognize that agriculture and businesses provide work opportunities and food for many people, but at the same time there has to be a safer and healthier way to do it.

In addition to environmental justice, I also became interested in food justice as I observed the eating habits of my students and the issues of access to healthy food in our communities. I noticed what my students ate –Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, chips and cookies for lunch, candy for snack. I know, because when I didn’t make time to cook my own meals, I did the same things. When I drove through my students’ neighborhoods or walked into one of the grocery stores in the depths of the hood I noticed the lack of fresh produce. I distinctly remember one supermarket with very little fruit and vegetables with flies swarming around the fledgling produce section. I was so disappointed with the lack of quality. You definitely need wheels or transportation of some sort to get cleaner, fresher food. Meanwhile, in my old neighborhoods in Cambridge and in JP, there were several establishments that sold great produce in addition to beautiful weekly farmers’ markets only blocks from our house.

As I pondered the issues of food and its accessibility in communities of color, I began to look into veganism for both its political and health ramifications. I wanted to see what all the hype was about and found that I probably wouldn’t completely give up animal products, but definitely appreciated what I learned from it. Thinking of all the processed food we have now made me more interested in traditional diets that seemed more natural and healthier for our bodies to digest. In addition to this, I came to learn more about the food cycle itself, not just about biological processes, but also about the social forces impacting food production which in turn impacts our food intake.

When I watched Food Inc. earlier this year, the documentary only served to further fuel my interests. With the perfect timing of God and the universe, I met my friend Dave who recently founded an amazing group called The MOVE, whose goal is to provide opportunities for people in the community more of a sense of where there food is coming from and how it’s produced by hosting trips to local farms and organizing garden raisings. Though I was never able to go on a trip, I was able to help at a garden raising and have always been a big fan of the org.

When I mentioned my interest in working within the environmental/agricultural sector here in the Philippines to Dave, he suggested that I try WWOOF’ing. WWOOF stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. It is an exchange program where one can room and board on a farm in exchange for labor on the farm. This can be done in many different countries and the Philippines has a few organic farms that are WWOOF sites. It so happens that the owner of Herbana Farms in Calamba, Laguna was a friend of my father’s during his activist days, so my parents recommended that I check out his farm if I was going to WWOOF at all. I invited Nen to come with me who has always loved gardening and was the person to invest in our garden in NY the most. We decided to head to Herbana for two weeks and see what we could learn about this process of food production.

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Gil Carandang is the owner of Herbana and is very well known throughout the organic farming community in the Philippines because of his work around Beneficial Indigenous Micro-organisms (BIM) and other organic farming methods. He did a Fulbright in the States and also studied with organic farmers in Korea and Japan. Tito Gil is extremely dedicated to the work and to his farm. While we were there, he could often be seen in one of the farm plots or the garden working barefoot, with a bolo, ripped shorts, a loose tshirt, covered in dirt. From time to time he would sit with us and teach us about some of his methods and I learned a TON from being there.

When I got back from the farm, my loving family and friends kept asking what it was like, how it was, and what happened. At times I felt obliged to give some extravagant, exciting account of how my visit changed my life. But the transformative nature of working on the farm was quiet and subtle like the farm itself; and it was directly connected to the hard work and seemingly monotonous chores of farm life.

The farm is beautiful and huge and when we were walking around on the first day, Tito Gil explained that they had over 200 varieties of vegetation growing there. You would never know it, though. It’s done so naturally, with a focus on the importance of bio-diversity and natural balance, with trees to provide shade and protext crops from the wind, and crop mixing that complemented the types of growth and needs of the different plants to be harvested. Calamba itself is surrounded by Mt. Makiling to the South and Tagatay Highlands to the West. It was a gorgeous view to wake up to and wind down with.

The view we woke up to

The days were quite uniform for us. We would wake up between 6:30am and 7:30 am, have breakfast, do morning chores until 10:30am or 11am. Break and lunch were long, lasting from 11am to about 2 or 3pm, then go back to work in the fields. On our first day there, we learned how to transplant seedlings and how to propagate plant cuttings –very basic and very easy, but like anything else, good practice. In the afternoon, we helped plant some tomato plants in the rain. We did a TON of weeding through our two weeks there.

The Herb Garden after two days of weeding

The farm has an Herb Garden, a Community Garden, and then general plots for planting. The Herb Garden was a MESS before we came. There were herbs everywhere, but the damo had taken over some of the planters and over some of the walking pathways. We spent 2-3 days simply freeing the herbs of the choking weeds. When we weeded, we did it exactly how I’d imagine an old school Pinoy farmer working –squatting, using small knives as trowel, shears, weeder, and garden fork. I swear, my knees still ache from squatting for hours on end. I tell you, I went to bed and woke up sore as a mug almost every day I was there. There were days I couldn’t even lift my arms without wincing and my hands were swollen and sore for most of the two weeks I was there. And imagine, Nen was doing the same work as me and is turning 61 at the end of December!! Gangster!!

Our work tools

The reason why so much of the farm was covered in weeds was because Tito Gil only had two men working while we were there, Tata and Jenzel. He said it would be hard to hire new “boys,” as they’re called (I know, right?! They were definitely grown men) during the holiday season and would be hiring after the New Year. Because there were so few workers, they could only tend to the most important tasks such as planting, harvesting, and watering which was a TON since they basically split the whole farm between the two of them! We were able to help clear some of the damo and plant some young lettuce, tomatoes, and basil in different parts of the farm.

I hadn’t weeded in what seems like ages, so I watched the guys swiftly work on weeding rows and rows of plant beds. It was fascinating watching them

move so effortlessly through the weeds and dirt, while I slowly grappled sloppily with hardened dirt and thick roots. Sometimes Tata even worked barefoot because his tsinellas would get stuck in the mud.Most of my friends know that I’m a pretty strong girl, but my strength is admittedly unharnessed, usually coming out in disorganized, undisciplined bursts of energy. The years of hard labor were clear in their effective, precise and even graceful movements through the beds. I was so jealous of their ability and tried to imitate their movements, only to give myself a ridiculously painful blister on my right hand (sweet). I got a little too excited. On the days it wasn’t sopping wet because of the rains, it was burning hot and we would work til the late morning sun started beating down on us. At first, I would get dizzy from the heat and would have to stretch from my squatting position, causing my blood to rush to my head. The guys of course, just kept going on their merry way! After the first few days, though, I learned to just force my way through the pain.

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Tomatoes we planted with Tata

Tata, who I privately dubbed as the Filipino Jamie Foxx, was a great person to work with. He was always joking, laughing, and chatting about his life, things that he learned about on the farm, and the different plants we were working with –“Masaya” as we would say. Jenzel was definitely much more quiet than Tata but just as efficient in his work style. Both are originally from Davao and both have amazing stories, though I’m starting to think their stories are probably somewhat similar to a lot of the stories of working class people here. While Tata had been working on the farm for two years, Jenzel has only been there for three months. Aside from their smooth and strong working styles, the other thing I admired most about the two of them was their hunger to learn as much as they could about the farming practices being incorporated at Herbana. Both of them felt that they learned so much about natural and healthy methods for farming by working with Tito Gil. They seemed insatiable, sucking everything in, while putting out a ton of time and muscle. After meeting them, I don’t think I am allowed to ever complain about the grind ever again (I probably will, I’m just sayin).

Tata has that high Filipino male voice and his Tagalog has the intonation of a Visayan who always sounds surprised –the last syllable or word of his phrase lilting just so.

He made kwento of all the things that he had done or did in efforts to make money just so that he could apprentice and learn more at different farms throughout the Philippines. He said himself that he really loves learning and knowing more about it all. He’s done everything from drive a tricycle in Quezon City, work in a palengke which he said was so mabaho he made suka. He once hitched a ride and worked a garbage truck just to get to Subic Bay. At one point, he was living in a sub division with his cousins, he planted pechay on an open lot and sold it throughout the sub division. He’s taught others how to make good compost and loves to share everything he’s learned. We constantly heard him on his phone helping people find good jobs. He told us about some of the job agencies that are good and some that are bad –seems you have to be really savvy to negotiate a good job agency! I’m telling you, this guy has done everything and has been through a lot, but he just goes on in his cheerful, matter of fact way and keeps it moving.

Produce harvested by Jenzel

Jenzel is a rider as well. He and his wife both work on the farm. Vianette, his wife, works as a maid in the house and their four year old daughter is often tagging along behind one of them somewhere around the farm. We spent most of our first week with Tata and then most of our second week with Jenzel. The first day we worked with Jenzel, he taught us how to “double dig” a plant bed –a method that keeps the soil loose and aerated, “like a sponge.” I found myself jealous, once again, watching his brisk, certain motions as he used his legs to push the shovel deep into the impacted soil. I have leg muscle, so I thought, “This won’t be bad, I’ll kick ass at this.” Wrong. My first few tries were clumsy and ineffective, yet I managed to break into a full on sweat within the first four minutes of trying to double dig. After digging out soil from about one foot deep into the earth, you have to break up the big chunks of dirt to make the soil more agreeable for planting. We spent a long time using our bare hands to break large chunks of soil (some rock hard) and after a while I felt my hands and forearms tire. Looking over at Jenzel, his forearms were flexing at a non stop pace as he broke chunks of dirt and I thought this was probably the best workout of my life.

Roselle plants in the Herb Garden, the red flowers are edible

While we went through the process of double digging, Jenzel quietly coached and showed us the best way to proceed. He also told us a little bit of his life before Herbana saying that he had worked in the mines after graduating high school. He told us stories of going down into the dark and how scary it was at first. All the workers would try to be in a certain part of the mine for fear of it caving in on them. Jenzel is one of those guys who can fix anything. When the faucet broke in our bathroom and was squirting water out at me (of course it was me) he was the one who climbed on the roof to try and stop the water. When that didn’t work, he simply created a water stopper out of some crude materials –a piece of hose, some sticky stuff, and two plastic bags, and it worked. Quiet, cool, and collected, “Yup, I just fixed a faucet out of nothing, thank you very much.” Lol. Who does that? While he doesn’t get paid a ton at Herbana, he also felt that everything he was learning was worth the work he was doing which is why keeps on at the farm. Respect!

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Towards the end of the first week, Nen started helping Tata water the plants. Back in Herbana’s heyday, they used to have drip irrigation installed in the fields, but had to break them down due to budget restraints. So guess what we had to use…watering cans!! This is not your average backyard garden, or even your porch garden, this is a farm!! And we were using 2-4 gallon watering cans, walking back and forth to the water source to water rows and rows of plants. OMG. At first, I hated the chore with a vengeance. I tried shortcuts, I tried cutting out early, I despised it. Nen, of course, was meticulous and would make me go back and do a row if I didn’t water it well enough. When she could tell I was D-U-N-N, she would tell me to just go ahead and she would keep going. I want to say I felt guilty, but that would be lying. Then, my superficial self started noticing how cut my arms were getting and how I needed to use my core to water well, so not only did I proceed to water with a renewed sense of purpose, I started taking on double can duty while I left Nen with one can. Smh. Oh vanity.

Of course, whenever you get closer to the land, you also get closer to its inhabitants. I tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever accidentally sliced as many earthworms or overturned so many whole ant colonies along with their poor little eggs until I went to Herbana. I really felt badly about the ant colonies because I have a lot of respect for their hard working, little selves. Sometimes, I would just squat next to a colony and watch them move for minutes at a time –they’re a fascinating group, those ants. They work together and they just troop it all day long. They’re also a little terrifying if they’re red!! Do not, I repeat do not interrupt a red ant colony. I did it 2-3 times and it was not enjoyable. I was actually a little scared of the little buggers. Gosh, one tiny, red ant bit me on my thumb and it was itchy and swollen for 3-4 days. Their venom packs a punch!

It seems that insects feel completely at ease with me, as they felt comfortable enough to land on any one of my body parts while I was in bed trying to read. Every now and then a bug would drop down from the ceiling onto my book or me. After a while the frantic swatting turned into a look and a nonchalant flick or insect murder. Though, when huge moths the size of my eyes were flying around I did swat ineffectively until I broke out into a mild sweat –this made for a lot of laughs for me and Nen since I was so ridiculous about it. I don't even allow myself wander to the possibility of how many spiders crawled into my mouth at night. Ewww.

Along with these big moths, the spiders there were HUGE as well. I mean, I know I’m bigger than the spider, but when the spider is half the size of your hand or larger, they do look a little menacing and gross. The best was when I was finishing up my shower, trying to pull on my undies when a large spider decided it would briskly crawl towards me, right at that moment. I let out a yelp that could be heard from the second floor and ran around the spider’s path while risking my neck on the wet tiled floor. I joke you not. Another night, I was in the shower concentrating on cleaning my very painful blister when I turned around to see fur in the open window. Oh yes, my friends, it was a rat being a Peeping Tom. Fortunately for me, it jumped in the opposite direction, away from the bathroom. I would have died had it hopped into the shower with me.

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Yes, there were some funny moments on the farm. With so much time, though during breaks, we also had a great opportunity for some serious study. Tito Gil gave us his training manuals to read while we were there. During our long breaks, we would read up on gardening, farming, and composting methods. I took copious notes on the ideal media mixes for different types of soil and how to make it; read step by step directions on how to double dig and create ideal farm beds; I read how to create my own Beneficial Indigenous Microorganisms to improve soil and plant health; how to ferment different plants in order to create both drinks for consumption and natural pesticides for plants. A lot of it seemed overwhelming scientific, and it was, but it becomes more approachable once you get the hang of it and practice. Fermenting pesticide only takes water, sugar, and some leaves. Anybody can do that!

Milk, sugar, vinegar: some of the basics of making BIM

One of the big things that Tito Gil stresses through building knowledge of organic farming methods is the ability of farmers to have more control over the choices that they make in growing. As you may well know by now self-determination is hugely important to me when talking about the Third World and oppressed communities. For me, one of the major solutions is education and Tito Gil’s methods encourage both education as well as skills necessary to give people the opportunities to make healthy choices –to have choices at all. In one of his essays, Tito Gil quotes Dr. Han Kyu Cho who said, “Farmers have lost their independent authority which they had in the farming techniques of the old days. Farmers became dependent in buying almost everything that they need in farming and they just engaged in farming by role according to the program presented by the seller. I insist to recover the spirit of farmers.” Empowering farmers to have real knowledge over their craft is something that seems so obvious, but like many things has been obscured by different interests that do not always benefit the farmer or the consumers!

It’s ideas like this that make folks like Tata and Jenzel stay, make me want to come to the farm, and makes Tito Gil so passionate about the work that he does. To be able to partake in the process was incredibly valuable. -no, no rip roaring excitement or apocalyptic changes. I’m not going to change my life to become a farmer, but I have gained a quiet understanding of the intricacies of growing and maintaining life and sustenance in a way that complements the consumer and the consumed. If you ever have a chance, I say go ahead and get your hands dirty, or your whole body for that matter!

Last night in Calamba