Friday, March 16, 2007
Current mood: accomplished
As luck would have it, after my travels with Ben around Europe, (and after a great week visiting my friend on the Italian Riviera), one day in early January, I suddenly found myself living at a dump in the center of the small hippie/party island of Ibiza (For those of you who don´t know where Ibiza is, it´s an island right off the coast of Spain, just south of Majorca). But this wasn´t just any old dump; this was a dump DISGUISED as supposed spiritual retreat/organic farm and consequently, as all things THIS fucked up are, it was run by a wacko.
This wacko operated on the principle that everything you truly need shall be provided to you from the universe. So, under this principle, the place itself did not supposedly use money in any way to acquire food or other materials necessary for a somewhat modern lifestyle. (It did however make a business out of repairing pallets and reselling them for money for electricity and car expenses...) Now, I know you´re all asking yourselves if they don´t BUY food how do they then GET food and the other stuff?? Well, by a very entertaining, little-known sport called DUMPSTER DIVING. Which is what I found myself doing on my VERY FIRST DAY in Ibiza. Along with dumpster diving, they also have agreements with some stores and bakeries to take all the old, stale, expired food as well.
Anywho, so the whole system of receiving and recycling that it operated on was, objectively and theoretically actually a very good system. It took a lot of perfectly good material that was otherwise going to be wasted and actually used it. The only problem (and there are always problems in matters this esoteric) is that the wacko, as I have lovingly decided to dub him, took it a little too far. He was unable to turn anything down, whether it was offered to him, or if he simply saw it lying next to a dumpster. This awful habit of his turned this, what used to be a LOVELY spiritual compound, into a living and breathing dump. Everything you could imagine was stacked up in piles EVERYWHERE. Windows, bikes, washer machines, cars, tables and chairs, old signs, TVs, etc. It was unbelievable.
The Toxic Compost of Death
As an independent student of ORGANIC and SUSTAINABLE agriculture the thing that really offended me was *The Toxic Compost of Death* (my term for it anyway, some---ahem, the WACKO, would beg to differ...) which was a very F-ed up experiment of the wackos in composting. His idea was that ANYTHING could be composted. That magically, when you put stuff like old chocolate milk, mayonnaise, sports drinks, potato chips, (hmmm....what else did I compost while I was there???.....) pastries, along with other normal composting materials (fruits, veggies, yard waste) that everything would just break down and decompose into something beautiful and usable. Unbelievable. I´m sad to say that my conjecture is that we were simply polluting not only the earth underneath it, but the ground water as well with that toxic sludge. Sigh.
The German Mafia
Well, honestly, there´s not much to say about the German Mafia, they were just two older German guys, Otix and Gunta, who spent a of time working there, and so had special privileges like a vehicle with which they went out on the town every night, and did a ton of weed. But they were cool.
Honestly, the real highlight of the place, overlooking the dump atmosphere, the old food, the toxic compost of death, no flushing toilets, no hot water or heating, was the other people that had ended up there. There were a lot of really cool, laid back people (all wondering why they were there, along with me, and why they stayed there). The tragedy about the whole place was that there were so many people, 15 in all, and everyone was there to help and work and everyone WANTED to clean the place up and make it beautiful again, but the old wacko (and his henchwoman) would not allow it. He insisted that everything was perfectly fine and that everyone simply had to deal with their own *concepts* as he put it.
Anyway, after two weeks of that¨---LITERALLY PURE INSANITY--- I decided to switch "farms". But to what, well, I´ll be honest, I had some clue. But only a glimmer. Ha. How would life be on a farm being the only woman surrounded by 5 men; 3 of them being gay (and one after my ass)? Well, READ ON my dear friends! READ ON!
4:25 AM
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