The Joy of Maize

Lou's been off in the countryside for the last week, getting educated by the community project Hijos Del Maiz (Children Of Maize) Language School, provider of homestays and Spanish lessons in the tiny settlement of Lagartillo away from the luxuries of hot water (and running water for that matter), electricity, internet, mobile phones and all that jazz. Below is the main drag in all its glory.

I went to see how she was doing at the weekend and was surprised at what I found.The village is a community in a true sense, with people wandering in and out of each others houses, something the language students are encouraged to do as often as possible. Everyone is jolly friendly and will natter on at you about anything if you give them half a chance.

Two things that really struck me were how a direct relationship with their surroundings through food growing and production can help them maintain an impressive physical state and how much waste is produced.

When you're living off the land, you know exactly what you're putting into your body; after all, you're the one growing and harvesting crops and preparing the food from them. Food in Lagartillo is very simple (re: tortilla, rice and beans for every meal), but you can taste the simple purity of what you are eating; the effects of its quality are also well represented by the people within the community who have been eating the diet for years.

Erminia (above) is Lou's homestay mother; she's 70 years old and works solidly from 6 in the morning until 8 at night, doing everything from domestic chores to herding cows around a field. Bowling along with a spring in her step, she reduces piles of maize like the recent delivery below (more, we were told, would shortly be arriving) to sacks of corn, putting the medication supported geriatric population of the uk to shame.

Nothing gets wasted in the countryside; the myriad of packaging that has to get stripped off supermarket goods before they can be consumed just doesn't exist on food that was pulled out of the ground, or on the meat of the animal that was grunting or clucking around the house the day before. All paper (toilet and otherwise) and corn husks are burnt in the house's stone oven (below) and the ashes dropped in with the contents lurking in the base of the compost toilet out at the back of the property. Food leftovers go to the animals, and rainwater is used sparingly in place of running water. It is all so straightforward that you can barely believe that the huge quantities of junk that get turned out on to the street from the average UK house every week can't be avoided.

It certainly gives you pause for thought when you see somewhere like Lagartillo, and unavoidably begs the question; at what point did we isolate ourselves within dense populations (when was the last time you hung out with your neighbours?), checking the nutritional information on the side of food packaging to make sure we weren't poisoning our bodies before tossing it into a bottomless bin destined eventually for a landfill site out of sight and mind, before chewing down suppliments to keep ourselves "healthy" and make up for the shortcomings of the aforementioned food? What's missing from this picture?

Esteli, Nicaragua

18th October 2009