Here in northern Nicaragua there is none of the subtlety that
marks the passing of the seasons in my native upstate New York; the change is
stark and rapid: seemingly overnight, the landscape transformed from
desiccation to moisture, from brown to green. A greener landscape arrived
concurrently with a lighter, more cheerful environment: farmers relieved and able to plant, people's moods lifted.
People here draw a predictive connection between the weather at
the start of the New Year, and the weather for that coming summer. (Here in the
tropics, summer refers to the rainy season, theoretically May–October, but the rains have started late for the last several years.) Elders and
agriculturalists say that the first six days of January ‘paint’ (pintar) the weather trends
for the six months of summer. That is to say, if it rains or even sprinkles on
New Year's Day, then the summer month of May will see heavy rainfall. Come
rainy season, people hold the pintas in mind, and if they hold true, it is said that it was a
year of 'buenas pintas,' or good paints.
These traditional, locally embedded knowledges, while they might
not hold up against our scientific, Western rationality, must possess a certain
truth: they are claims made by elders who have lived and farmed the same lands
their entire lives—eighty years in the case of my host grandfather, Eduvijes. They
have learned through generational passing of knowledge, and from years of
steady observation; they know the land as they know the sky, daily identifying
if and when it will rain and from which direction. From this vantage point, it
makes sense that farmers here would be able to predict the weather with some
accuracy. (The notion of weather predictions provoked me to review the history
and content of the North American Farmers' Almanac.)[1]
The use of the verb paint to predict the rains strikes me as
beautiful and fitting, as it reflects the recognition and artful articulation
of nature’s creativity (ability to paint!). But, of course, there’s nothing
romantic about it: what is at stake every year is that food availability
depends on the rains. Having been here over one year now, in this place where
people rely directly on the land, I more intimately understand the cycle
of the rise and fall of food availability according to season.
I recently listened to an interview with Irish philosopher and poet John O’Donohue that I found uplifting and
particularly relevant to my present circumstance. He spoke of how landscapes
offer time, describing rural, undeveloped landscapes as “places where there is
still time.” Time to do things; time to observe and know one's natural
environment; time for other people.
I am grateful to be living in such a
landscape. ¨Hay más tiempo que vida,¨or, ¨There is more time than life,¨they tell me, which is, of course, antithetical to the notion of time held by the average North American. While I often tire of the slow pace and lack of stimulation, still I think to myself: Why would we want to live in a
world other than one in which there is time?
[1] Traditional/local/indigenous knowledge is a
favorite topic of anthropologists. The literature is vast, but see Nazarea 2006
for a neat example. Nazarea describes the “sensory embodiment of local
knowledge” and the rich meaning and value of these knowledges.
References
Nazarea, Virginia D. 2006. "Local Knowledge and Memory in
Biodiversity Conservation." Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 35: 317-335.
Tippett, Krista. January 2012. "The Inner Landscape of Beauty: Interview with John O'Donohue." http://www.onbeing.org/program/inner-landscape-beauty/transcript/1125
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