Monday, June 29, 2009

2009 06 29. Monday.

2009 06 29. Monday.

At the 7am veggie chop today they were showing a live video feed of the beginning of Devi Bhava from the Coralville, Iowa Amma program. At first there was only I and two other people there. We had a lot to do so it looked we would be working a long time. But soon we were joined by a very nice Finnish lady who mostly gets around in a wheelchair. And soon after that we were joined by an Indian mother and daughter. And soon after that a friend of the Indian mother joined us. Wow. This was really great. Even with all the help we didn't get done till about 8:45am. One of the jobs was to peel a bowl of garlic and that takes a long time. The garlic they get here is small; not like the big garlic available in the US. It was really nice to be with such a diverse crowd all happily chatting away and getting to know each other. We had the 2 Indian ladies, the Indian man, a German guy, a French lady, the Finnish lady and me. Like a little UN going on and a live video of Amma leading the Devi Bhava. A very nice moment. I didn't talk much. I was happy to just listen to all the criss-crossing conversations and watch Amma.

I spoke with Prabana today about the compost project. I wanted to get her understanding of all the jobs involved. But rather than talk about that, Prabana ended up talking for 30 minutes about her vision of the compost project and her concerns with Peter's vision. That's not really what I was interested in but I listened patiently and tried to understand where she was coming from. Prabana wants to keep the compost project very simple and slower while Peter would like to turn the piles more often to more quickly produce finished compost. Also Peter and the Indians would like to package and sell some of the finished compost but Prabana is reluctant to commercialize the project because packaging involves plastic bags and other things that can end up as trash. Because the compost project will grow as we generate more food waste, Peter was talking about getting a small earth mover to easily turn and move piles. Prabana definitely does not like the idea of some fuel burning machine involved in the project. Will be interesting to see how the project evolves with these different visions bumping against each other, especially since I may be helping to manage the project.

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