So you want to be Punk?
Oh you want to be Punk? Your heart races when you hear the opening lines of Floyd’s seminal anthem against the man? You’re sick of being a slave to the capitalistic hellscape we find ourselves in watching men rape the earth and pillage our communities for a buck or in the name of their personal God who conveniently thinks you shouldn’t exist? Plant a garden.
I’ve been struggling with some pretty large issues in my current role. HIV/Aids, Malnutrition, Alcoholism, children dying, TB, communities eating themselves from the inside out. No matter what topic I’m chatting about, I can’t escape one simple truth. We are from the earth. Our lineage ties deeply to the soil and there is no way of denying this simple fact. I was walking home from a field clinic mulling over how to bring these topics to people in a way that makes them connect with the issues and take agency over their own health. How to escape the cyclic nature of dependance on grants and donations. If you simultaneously have a culture categorizing people into boxes based on their tribe, community, or culture using words like “violent” “drunks” “lazy”, and having them line up in the street to collect their sack of corn from the back of a truck to simply keep their child alive, they are going to start to internalize these lies. Nobody is simply their past, be that cultural or personal. One of my favorite quotes keeps interrupting my thoughts, Hippocrates, “Let food be thy first medicine”. We find ourselves in a landscape where our foods, our identities are being stolen from us. It’s just as true in Sub Saharan Africa as it is in Latin America or the US where we are getting our nutrition from KFC. We are losing the connection to the process by which we feed ourselves, no matter if we are economically disadvantaged or can afford to eat out every night of the week. So you want to put on your patch adorned leather jacket and protest in front of the governor's office? Fuck that, he won’t listen, spend that time in the same jacket tending to your compost. Use that pitchfork for what it was originally designed for.
The true counterculture lies in those in weather-beaten overalls who refuse to become slaves to the Cheeto CocaCola generation that is killing our children. Yes, there are horrid diseases ravaging the population, we can’t deny that. I’m not avoiding that topic, we are just having a little conversation about something a little more integral and core to humanity. When I’m talking to a healthcare extension worker however and they offhandedly mention how their patients are going off of ARVs because they don’t have anything to eat with them my brain immediately goes to the garden. Why waste our time educating people when we can’t even feed them. None of this matters without the earth. The ability to cultivate and nourish our communities is as integral to health as doctors are to a hospital. It’s why homes are built around the kitchen. It is why almost every holiday comes with a food tradition. Because feeding our loved ones, is nourishing their mind, body, and spirits. It all comes to the garden. I’m tasked with the preventative health topics for this short time, educate in the garden, give your materials with seeds, teach horticulture alongside reproductive health (it’s the same shit y’all).
So when I say that if you want to be a punk, plant a garden. I mean it. Cast off the chains of rising food prices and take off the mask of McDonalds and Yum!. We can and must do so much better. You will find depth in the soil, truth in the patience that comes with watching food grow, and freedom in your harvest.
To end this quick rant, and as an American… Fuck you Monsanto and everything you stand for.
