This reminds me of the community ovens that I've heard about in North Africa and Lebanon, where women make their dough at home and then drop it off to be baked. Though I think the savings there is mostly one of fuel and avoided kitchen heat.

activism, community, food and drink, horizons of the possible, peru, south america, women

Nate

:

Steam rises into air thick with the scent of garlic as women prepare lunch for 120 of Peru’s neediest.

But this is no charity. Obaldina Quilca and Veronica Zelaya – who are on cooking duty today – are also beneficiaries of one of the estimated 5,000 community kitchens run by women in Peru’s capital, Lima.

The kitchens started in the 1970s and persisted through the ‘80s and ‘90s, through dictatorship, terrorism, and hyperinflation that brought Peru to its knees. And now that global food prices have put basic staples out of reach for families across the region, the kitchens that feed an estimated half million residents of metropolitan Lima every day are again providing a refuge.

But their work goes well beyond survival; the kitchens have become a vehicle for collective action, giving women the self-esteem to denounce government shortcomings and demand change. They have risen as one of the most significant women’s organizations in Latin America, and today are on the forefront of protests demanding solutions to a cost of living that many say is reversing recent progress in reducing poverty.

The Internet's so great for taking the observational expertise and puttering potential of hobbyists and letting it easily be converted into hopefully useful scientific data ... one wonders what other reserves are waiting to be tapped.

climate, gardens and cities, global warming, internet, statistics

Nate

:

Participants in BudBurst monitor one or more plants, native or non-native, throughout the growing season. Along the way, they record and report the dates of events such as the first flower or first seed. Like many citizen science programs, BudBurst is modeled after the Audubon Christmas bird count, an annual volunteer effort that has provided ornithologists with a century’s worth of data.

Though some plant experts already have noticed certain species popping up unseasonably early, gardeners may be ideal for observing the subtle waxing of summers or waning of winters. They fill their plots with plants best suited to the weather, so for many, responding to climate change is simply a matter of common sense.

“There’s something about being in the dirt that puts things in perspective,” said Gina Garrison of Forest Park, who plans to monitor plants for BudBurst next spring. “Since planting my garden, I’ve looked into climate change more, looked into what would happen.”

This week I will be posting a series of excerpts from Lamin Sanneh's very important book Disciples of All Nations. Sanneh's sweeping survey of the history of Christian mission has a great deal to teach us about culture and the ways that Christians, at their best, have honored the variety of human cultures. Early in the book he quotes this famous letter from Pope Gregory to Abbot Mellitus, who was about to join the missionary bishop Augustine of Canterbury. Pope Gregory's distinction between temples and idols has deep roots and far-reaching implications for the way we view our own cultures.

europe, lamin sanneh, mission, pentecost and beyond, religion

Andy

:

Tell Augustine that he should by no means destroy the temples of the gods but rather the idols within those temples. Let him, after he has purified them with holy water, place altars and relics of the saints in them. For, if those temples are well built, they should be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God. Thus, seeing that their places of worship are not destroyed, the people will banish error from their hearts and come to places familiar and dear to them in acknowledgement and worship of the true God.

Further, since it has been their custom to slaughter oxen in sacrifice, they should receive some solemnity in exchange. Let them therefore, on the day of the dedication of their churches, or on the feast of the martyrs whose relics are preserved in them, build themselves huts around their one-time temples and celebrate the occasion with religious feasting. They will sacrifice and eat the animals not any more as an offering to the devil, but for the glory of God to whom, as the giver of all things, they will give thanks for having been satiated. Thus, if they are not deprived of all exterior joys, they will more easily taste the interior ones. For surely it is impossible to efface all at once everything from their strong minds, just as, when one wishes to reach the top of a mountain, he must climb by stages and step by step, not by leaps and bounds….

Mention this to our brother the bishop, that he may dispose of the matter as he sees fit according to the conditions of time and place.

This was one of the first Milosz poems I heard, and quite possibly the one that hooked me. I like the link between childhood and vocation -- especially in a time and place where childhood is considered to be far removed from what you ought to do when you grow up.

calling, cultural worlds, europe, horizons of the possible, poetry

Nate

:

Blacksmith Shop

I liked the bellows operated by rope. A hand or a foot pedal - I don’t remember. But that blowing and blazing of fire! And a piece of iron in the fire, held there by tongs, Red, softened, ready for the anvil, Beaten with a hammer, bent into a horseshoe, Thrown in a bucket of water, sizzle, steam.

And horses hitched to be shod, Tossing their manes; and in the grass by the river Plowshares, sledge runners, harrows waiting for repair.

At the entrance, my bare feet on the dirt floor, Here, gusts of heat; at my back, white clouds, I stare and stare. It seems I was called for this: To glorify things just because they are.