LIVING PRETTY HIGH ON THE THIRD WORLD HOG

So I was standing in my kitchen this weekend, moving stuff around. I picked up a 15# burlap bag of basmati rice from where it was leaning against the stove and put it on a shelf by the sink. I got that li'l deja vu thing, because it was so much like a memory I had of standing in a kitchen area in a Tunisian house, watching my hostess put a burlap bag full of couscous on a shelf. Here in Momma Culture's West, we're supposed to have fancy canisters for that stuff.

"Hmmm," I thought, "a little bit o' the 3rd world right in my own house," although it demonstrated my commitment to vegan-ness and my commitment to voluntary simplicity at the same time.

Well that thought stuck with me off and on over the weekend. By Monday I had a long list of sorta 3rd world stuff that is a daily part of my life. Molly started teasing me about how I could walk to the doctor, and I had money in my pocket, and I really wasn't living that far into the 3rd world. We laughed and took up the position that, while we are not exactly living in luxury, we're "living pretty high on the 3rd world hog."

Anyway, here's the list:

2 humans and 11 animals in a 900 sq foot dwelling. The dwelling is sheathed in lethal asbestos on 2 sides. The roof is coated with petroleum products.

No clear delineation between the floors in my house and dirt. (Those of you who have been in my house know how this looks.) All the dogs find it hard to clearly figure out whether it's okay to pee by the crack in the floor inside the back door; or whether they can pee on the slightly rougher planks of the back porch, or need to go the additional 48 inches out the back door onto the grass and dirt. Hell, there are recycle bottles in all those places, how's a dog to know? When it rains and the water is pouring off the back porch roof, the dogs find it very easy to make the decision.

Front porch is worse, off the concrete steps it's straight to a kind of mulchy dirt the exact same color as the living room floorboards. Now the reason my floors are so crude is because they've had no finish on them since the house was built in 1947, and we're only in our 5th year of remodeling the house, starting from its derelict, abandoned status. I assume you can find nicer floors in Soweto.

I have livestock in my house. A rescued bunny who lives in a big cage near the living room. There's always a layer of hay and bunny food on the floors. Since my computer is next to him, I'm getting used to the barnyard smell of bunny poop pellets and day-old veggies in his dish. Not much different from folks in the near east who have a rabbit or a goat or chickens who sleep in the house at night …. I s'pose there's a guy in Indonesia who has his computer in a similar setup.

I'm personally responsible for the sewage system and the water supply. I own them, I do maintenance on them. Nobody to call when they break down, just me.

We have 3 gas lanterns and a cardboard box full of candles and several paraffin lamps close at hand for when the power goes out.

Propane. When friends --Sarah and then Terry -- lived with us, just like any 3rd world head of household I was always hauling 5 gallon propane cylinders to get them filled, and then hooking them up to supply cooking heat and hot water to our little RV "guest house". Those cylinders and that activity are ubiquitous in the 3rd world.

We grow a significant amount of our veggies, and our medicinal herbs. Not everything, not as much as, oh, say the folks I knew in rural Greece who lived on an island and relied upon their gardens for half their pharmacopeia. We harvest the wild chamomile in our back yard all during summer. We make salads with the borage. We have apricots, we have grapevines, we have apples. Ed and Nancy supply us with organic veggies from their garden and the occasional happy chicken eggs. All without benefit of an "economy".

We cook with a set of Mexican blue enamel pots for everyday meals, just like they do in Oxaca. (We have some very nice LeCreuset stuff I've acquired, but don't seem to use it much.) My favorite pan is a $4 blue enamel omelette pan I acquired in Tunisia -- I've been cooking with it since 1977. I have a 12" cast iron skillet my mom gave me in 1967, part of the family legacy. I figure somebody in Uganda is whomping up dinner in its twin.

Our Cascades Foothills library is a precious, hard-fought-over facility that we as a little community had to build, stock and run on our own without any assistance from any government, non-profit organization, etc etc. – just like many 3rd world towns all of us know about. (We were allowed to "join" the local county library system, but they're getting the better end of the deal.)

I engage in non-christian ceremonies that give cohesion to our little community. Stuff like Winter Solstice bonfires, Summer Celebrations. Personally, I engage in an elaborate primitive technological ritual -- I am still measuring sunrise on the solstices and equinoxes and other times, ala Uriel's Machine. This, despite the fact that I have on my shelf a book that provides me with the times of all the sunsets, sunrises, moonrises and phases, transits of venus, etc., for every day and any place on earth for more years into the future than I expect to survive. But there are elders in South American villages keeping the same knowledge, more or less the same way. I dunno why. 3rd world, pagan ritual?

I can walk to the doctor, a block away down the rural road; she's not an M.D., but a "Nurse Practitioner" with a bit more of a skill set than an experienced Chinese "Barefoot Doctor". I guess this says more about the positive nature of the Chinese medical system than negative re the US system. My Nurse Practitioner is really very good.

I go to "town" (Eugene) about once or twice a month and acquire the necessities. Sort of like they do in the 3rd world, waiting for `market day' in the nearest city.

It took several weeks for me to diagnose and then fix the problem with my old pickup to get it running again, not having the money or a local repair place, or the wherewithal to get it towed to a mechanic. I can remember a similar logistics problem with the village truck in Korea. -- Of course it's my own personal truck, not exactly the only one for the `village', (and IF I HAD LISTENED TO MOLLY, I could have fixed it in the first few days.)

Now, we also use a ton of electricity; we have a very nice Ford Taurus station wagon; and I can -- so far – pay $3.20 for a gallon of Peak Oil gasoline. (3rd world prices, if you think about it ). We have the choice to avail ourselves of all the consumer products we desire. I communicate with my ISP via a highspeed DSL fiber-optic connection; I get my news via a satellite dish focused on a geosynchronous orbiting electronic miracle. In those Mexican pots, any time I choose to I can cook exotic fruits and vegetables brought to me from every corner of the 3rd world. I am very definitely NOT living a 3rd world existence.

In my life back when, and I was living in Taker, Capitalist Heaven (Vegas), none of those 3rd world echoes would have been present, except for the 2 cooking implements.

I guess the point (if any) is that little 3rd world variables are insinuating themselves into the edges of Mollita's and my life.

Howabout Y'all?