Crystal’s Adventures

Ohmigosh! I am so busy that I barely have time to blog anymore.

The Fartlekers (my running club) and the Numb Tooties (biking club) now have five days of exercise per week. We’re gearing up for three big bike races in the next two months and our very first marathon this coming December. I just joined the YMCA of Durham, which is the nicest, friendliest gym I’ve ever been to. They have a great yoga class, which will keep me flexible and thus protect me from injuring myself in the other two sports. Haha!

Lately, I have been tearing up the Carolina roadways on my sweet bike. Julia and I rode to work again on Friday, a route which gets easier and easier the more we do it. Saturday was a long run - 9.5 miles with the Fartlekers, followed by brunch at Nosh and then yoga.

Yesterday was a really special day for me. First, I biked 25 miles with five friends through the hilly farm country of northern Chapel Hill. We had fun yelling to each other about the things we’d encounter in the middle of the road. Examples: RAT! CORN! CHIPS! DIAPER! etc. Then we went out to eat brunch and watch those crazy hula-hoopers at Weaver Street Market.

I then hurried home to shower, change and drive over to our awesome hippie church to meet up with a big group of people. Together we (18 women and one man) made up a delegation of Unitarian Universalists who went out to visit a migrant farmworker camp on a tobacco farm in rural North Carolina - about a 1.5-hour drive from Durham.

How ever did I get involved in this, you ask? Well, at coffee hour one day I saw a sign-up sheet that mentioned public health and talking to migrant farmworkers about their health problems.

The visit was coordinated by Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) staff Ana Pardo and Paco Benitez, together with a National Farm Worker Ministry (NFWM) staff member, Alex Jones. These organizations arranged the delegation in response to requests from the farmworkers themselves to speak with people from faith-based communities about the challenges they face as workers in the tobacco fields.

Our leader, Dave, describes the trip well:

“During our tour of the camp, led by Arturo, one of the workers, we were impressed by the relatively comfortable facilities provided. (Editor’s note: the representative from the Farmworker Labor Organizing Committee - aka FLOC - said this camp was much, much more humane than any she had ever seen before.) The kitchen was relatively clean, with three refrigerators, working stoves, sinks, and with screens on the doors.

Very small rooms made up the living quarters. They were not too crowded, with two bunk beds. Each room housed two to four workers. The rooms were not air conditioned, but they did have small fans, and one worker told us that the grower had actually promised air-conditioning next year.(Editor’s note: The grower/farm owner was big white man named Derek Bissette. We didn’t actually get to meet him, but we saw him drive by in the truck. By North Carolina law, the growers cannot ‘kick out’ any visitors that the workers wish to invite to the camp.)

There was a small working washing machine, as well as a couple nearby that had evidently worn out. Note that only a wash basin is required by current NC regulations. Shower and toilet facilities were adequate, with toilet stalls having been built after worker requests - a rarity among camps I’ve seen.

All in all, the situation seemed to indicate that provision of adequate facilities and paying the required $9.02 per hour H2A wage - a premium when compared to the minimum (or less!) wage that is often paid to undocumented workers at other farms - is not incompatible with making a profit.

The worker leading the tour also told us that the grower was careful in applying pesticides to ensure that workers did not enter the fields until adequate time had elapsed, and that water and rest was available in the fields on hot days.

We spread out lunch we had brought/prepared (Editor’s note: I had made tuna macaroni salad), and then we all ate together outside…in the shade of nearby trees. We ultimately broke up into small groups, with a few Spanish speakers among us doing able translation.”

I learned so much during those hours we spent with the workers. We asked them about a million questions (thanks to the interpreters) to find out what their work on the farm is like, what their living conditions are like, what happens when they get hurt or sick, how they communicate with their families back home, what they do in the evenings to pass the time, etc. When I was trying to ask Gilberto about his children, he went into his room and brought out a stack of beautiful pictures of his family back home in the central region of Mexico. I thought it was a lot of fun to learn the workers’ names - Jose de Jesus, Vicente, Sergio, etc.

What I find is that no matter where I go in the world and who I meet, the conclusion I always come to is that people everywhere are essentially the same. We all miss our families when we’re away from them, we all enjoy meals with new friends, we all get sad, scared or embarrassed about the same types of stuff, and we all find humor in the same types of funny things. One of the ladies in our group, Amy, was celebrating her 50th birthday that day. Someone found out about it, and we all sang her happy birthday in Spanish and participated in what the workers insisted was a necessary tradition: the hugging ritual. Amy said it was one of the most special and interesting birthdays she’d ever had, and that she had never had so many hugs in one day.

When we broke into small groups, I had a great time using a combination of 1) my best guesses at Spanish words and 2) pantomiming to ‘talk’ to the workers. It was a cross-cultural train wreck of hilarious misunderstandings. By the end of the afternoon, we had all laughed until our bellies hurt.

We ended the day talking about the needs of the farmworkers. Two wishes that came out of the discussion which stuck in my mind included that they’d like to learn a bit of English so that they can feel more self-reliant while they’re here in the States rather than depending on their Patron for every single thing. They also wish they had some kind of bilingual advocate who could drive them to the doctor and translate for them when they got sick or hurt. They said it’s a real hassle to pay for the treatment, let alone understand anyone in the clinics. I can imagine that the situation is frustrating and scary for them. Finally, the Farmworker Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and the National Farm Worker Ministry (NFWM) described their continuing efforts to advocate for improved conditions and make state laws more fair and humane toward migrant laborers.

When it was time to wrap things up in the big circle, I tried to say something to all of them in gratitude for letting us spend time wth them and for sharing their daily lives with us, but I felt my words were not eloquent enough to do justice to my feelings. I found it really sad to leave them, especially when we were getting into the cars and driving away. They all lined up and waved to us until we were out of site and down the road through the corn fields. I hope we can go back and visit sometime.

See Crystal, top row, fourth from the right.