Illegal Dumping, Environmental Sustainability & Trash Timelines

Ok so I know I said I was going to post my core values in the next post I wrote on here, but I just have to vent real quick about this MAJOR problem in my neighborhood...

SO why is it that folks feel that it is ok to just dump tons of trash on the street and just live amongst it like its ok?? . Sometimes a trash can can be very nearby and they STILL throw litter on the ground...it hurts me to my heart honestly.

So where I live on my street in the Poppleton neighborhood of West Baltimore, there has recently been increased instances of illegal trash dumping....like on a large scale. When I came home today the latest installment was an entire mattress, a stove AND a refrigerator just DUMPED on the side of the street- I suppose just out of their  sight so they didn't have to think about it anymore. I mean not only was that extremely disrespectful to the people that live on this street and in this area, but it has been PILING up for a few weeks now. I made 2 complaints to Baltimore City already and I have yet to see some results. The deadline for some form of action to take place is tomorrow, but either way I'm going to take further measures by informing City Hall and I have the contact info to the Illegal dumping department (just in case anyone here is having a similar problem the number is 410-396-1536). You can actually be arrested for illegally dumping your trash in Baltimore City- there are plenty of collection sites and resources to dispose of trash properly. The issue in my case seems like there's some foul play from some commercial companies like movers and apartment renovators because there are building materials and rolled up carpets being dumped as well.

 I read a statistic recently that revealed the the United States, which is only 5% of the worlds population, is responsible for 22% of the Earths toxic emissions! Even the thought that all of this trash may end up in a landfill somewhere is scary to me and its a testament to a larger issue that Al Gore touched on in his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. At this rate, I cant even imagine what it will be like here on Earth even in a few short years if we don't become more radically intentional and sustainable on a collective scale about how we trash and recycle.

This week I facilitated an activity with the youth on the farm on trash and looked at how slow or quickly things biodegraded, decomposed, and broke down. We also explored compost and what type of conditions were necessary for a healthy soil to come out of it. Each student picked a piece of trash out of a bin we had previously prepared for the activity, and they were instructed to consult with one another to arrange themselves in a timeline from the fastest to slowest breakdown period of their material. Once they gave their estimates we went over the timeline again and I shared the correct  breakdown times. The activity ended with a discussion on why we use non-biodegradable substances on such a frequent basis (convenience, price, etc) and why its important to be cognizant about the trash we generate ( personal health, our water supply, soil health, etc).

We had an honest discussion, and some people even admitted to littering at times, but shared that after doing the activity felt more aware of how to actually recycle. Some even made a pledge to recycle at least for the remainder of the time they were on the farm doing their summer job! Gotta start somewhere...

 Everyone in Baltimore, as far I know, gets free recycling pick up you just have to check the specific date for your neighborhood at the Baltimore public works website listed here: http://publicworks.baltimorecity.gov/Recycling.aspx

At the beginning of this blog I spoke about hosting a neighborhood cleanup and cookout this summer- and I have finally set a date for Sunday July 27th! In the morning we will be doing neighborhood cleanup and possibly some planting and work in the dirt, and it will end with a vegetarian cookout!

 I'm putting more emphasis on the cookout aspect of the event because I feel very moved to give back to the community, ya'll  looked out for me and my family soooo much when I was expecting my son Lotus and his father and I needed to move. I want to host a space where folks can come,  eat good food and listen to music while relaxing on a Sunday afternoon/early evening with us. There's a core group of folks that are going to be working  on the neighborhood cleanup for that day, however it is certainly an open invite for anyone that wants to be involved. Flyer will be out by this weekend... .Id love to see your face!

I really hope Baltimore city public works comes out to clean up this mess tomorrow like they said they would...Im moving towards having a no dumping sign put up at the site to discourage further dumping- because what's the point of trying to improve the neighborhood when folks have designated this spot as a chronic dumping space??

Building...one project at a time... and starting right in my own community. Peace to all the green thumbers and earth evolutionists that are exercising thoughtfulness in the way that they consume and the connection it shares with the greater good.

I have much hope, and even as a busy working woman, mother, and partner I am confident that a significant impact will be made!

Til next post...

Nicola "the earthy nutritionist" Norman

Talks about Food Justice, Facilitating Learning & "The Unknown"

Glad to be back for another installment of this blog. Its a nice release to share some of my thoughts and process through this medium. Things got moved around a little bit in our program schedule, and I was only able to facilitate the FOOD FIGHT (video posted in last entry) viewing this afternoon. It followed with a spectrum questions activity that involved me proposing a statement, and students deciding whether they agreed or not and standing in line on the invisible spectrum we created. I think it went well. It was a bit unexpected for them (as they expressed) to look at food in that way,  questioning things that seemed so normal to them (and me at times),  like picking up some candy or a bag of chips at the corner store.

Here were some of the questions during the spectrum activity:

-I think that advertising affects the choices that I make when I shop

-I think that in Baltimore City, the color of my skin affects my access to healthy food choices

-I know what Food Justice is

- In Baltimore City which is the bigger killer: gun violence or diet related chronic disease?

So this is just a few of the questions. But the responses I got from these were quite interesting. The last question inspired some to share a few stories about folks they know of that had been shot, and observations about how quickly some resort to gun violence for the most minor things. I found it a bit difficult to  recenter the group between questions, and had to talk over people a lot reinforcing our "one mic rule"-meaning the person who has the mic is the only one who should be talking. At least the questions got them thinking. Just one of the realities of being a facilitator/educator- a lot of times its a game of tact and timing (and sometimes just shutting down the noise). I'm very experimental with it. My experiences here are  certainly leading me into deeper inquiries of classroom management,and noticing my strengths and weaknesses in groups vs. a one on one basis. I love the variety of my life.

But back to today's activity....I heard a lot of interesting things about food access and food environments, and how it connects to race and other factors.

One side of the spectrum shared that healthy lifestyles in the media are always associated with white people, and that even culturally- one of our white crew leaders admitted-was a norm.  He said he would feel uncomfortable walking into a hip hop fried chicken, while black participants admitted that they would feel awkward shopping in certain areas of the city due to feeling single out.  Stereotypes and tensions could come into play, one shared, and that he at times felt targeted and assumed to be in a store  to steal something rather than to purchase nutritious food. Others said that skin color had nothing to do with accessing healthy food and that if one is feeling hungry they don't "consult with their skin color" to make a decision. I shared some statistics from a study that Johns Hopkins did on healthy food access, which found that according to a healthy food measure called the Healthy Food Availability Index (HFAI), predominately black neighborhoods scored the lowest score in 43% of neighborhoods while white neighborhoods only 4%. Also, 19% of black neighborhoods scored the highest in HFAI while 68% of white neighborhoods scored highest in astounding comparison. After further discussion, we sort of collectively agreed that skin color is a factor that affects healthy food access in Baltimore, but it is also very closely connected to income level and geographic location.

I really like the definition of food justice that one student gave: "Food Justice is us standing up for the way we eat"

I then asked  her to read the definition that I had written down, from the JUSTFOOD website (www.justfood.org):

Food Justice is communities exercising their right to grow, sell, and eat healthy food. Healthy food is fresh, nutritious, affordable, culturally-appropriate, and grown locally with care for the well-being of the land, workers, and animals. People practicing food justice leads to a strong local food system, self-reliant communities, and a healthy environment.

I've been noticing myself delving deeper into myself, and thinking more critically about issues around social justice, non profits, and it seems just about everything else in my life. Farming during the day, then coming home to tend to my son and handle household duties is certainly changed the way that I perceive time. I'm reaching a crossroads in my professional life, and reflections of different aspects of myself I see everywhere. Its a time of refinement and emotional intelligence. as What the "real world" is all about seems to elude itself  all the time. Nothing wrong with some change and expansion and the discomfort that comes along with it at times.  Just scoping some things out, and soaking up lots of sun along the way...that's all for now. 

Next post will be: My Core Values


Nicola "The Earthy Nutritionist" Norman

July 14, 2014

Negro Spirituals while farming with teenagers, FOOD FIGHT music video, & more!

Its seems like the days are just flying by, yet each day is jam packed with so much activity, substance and purpose. I must admit it has been a challenge to keep up with all of the powerful experiences and transformations ensuing from it all. Which allows me now to remind myself that intellectualization is not always necessary for everything in life- some things I guess were just meant to "be" and be recorded or "captured".

With that said, it was another magical week at the farm working with the youth. We planted marigolds, hot peppers, weeded the hoophouse, threw straw to make a pathway between beds, and sprayed each other with some cold water to cool off from the INTENSE HEAT THAT HAS BEEN SWELTERING BALTIMORE!!

This program has surely shown itself as a highly fertile ground of exposure and expansion for youth who to us claim would've probably otherwise been "asleep in their bed" if they weren't being employed to work on a farm, learn about nutrition, and go on awesome field trips every Friday :).

Which brings me to an interesting reflection recently. While we were weeding the corn field this past week, some of the teens began humming these rhythmic melodies while working hard- everyone started busting out laughing. Then, one of the girls YOUTUBEs "negro spirituals" and all of a sudden we're hearing in a rhythmic tunes "NO MORE..LORD NO MORE!" (these were the words to the song). The kids took it and ran with it. She turned it off, and they immediately went  into coming up with their own words to the same melody- everyone taking turns adding their own lines to it.

 I was a little conflicted in those moments. Because I wasn't really sure whether or not they were making a mockery of the old tradition of singing negro spirituals during slavery in America where Blacks sung in the fields....for various reasons; or if there was some sort of genetic memory being tapped into. I decided to take on the role of observer and not try and police the way the kids decided to express themselves in that moment,  it actually turned out pretty interesting.

I spoke with my husband and his father about it later that week, and we got into a discussion about  coded language and how it was being weaved into these songs that were sung by many of our Afrikan ancestors during enslavement. Messages such as plans and routes of escaping bondage, spiritually inherited knowledge being shared, and information about lost family members and zones of liberation abroad all were communicated within these songs. I think that my mind had been geared to view such songs as songs of pure sorrow and despair, and though I am not a direct descendant of the Afrikan experience in America from chattel slavery, I was very sensitive about it. This is one of the big reasons why I didn't try to intervene or direct because there could always be something there that I was missing- and many of these youth are direct descendants of this experienced lineage. What I saw those kids do, was to not mock but to reinterpret and write their own songs while they were tending to the field- maybe even connecting in a positive way to their distant African ancestors. The empowering part of that, was that it wasn't for me to decide or define. Work on many levels was being done.

I've often noticed the words "slaving" and "punishment"  associated with farm labor when black folks are doing it- or many times talking about it. I noticed this intensely with the older generations (some who were even sharecroppers back in the day) when I co-founded Morgan State's Organic vegetable garden hearing people jokingly say "slavery is over" or like to organize around it but not actually do the dirty work or growing. I feel it is being dismantled slowly with all of the talk around food justice, food environments and sustainable local food as a movement, but "wealth" as a mainstream topic is rarely centered around what you produce and more so around you can show that you have- currency for buying things that other people made(Needed: A redefinition of wealth & success). The evolution is constant- I can honestly say that I'm not seeing such insensitivity to the slave culture of America and its affect on the black mind today as I did when I was growing up. Africa is becoming more meaningful in young minds, and this is powerful. But that's just from my view, and I feel like I saw that this week with the youth remixing their own spirituals- and also seeing how they GOT DOWN IN THE DIRT!

 It was beautiful ya'll- these kids are EAGER to plant and grow food. In the first week, complaints about farm work (which we do in the mornings and nutrition and leadership activities we do in the afternoons) have dwindled dramatically. I mean, I think its reasonable to expect some sort of complaints of having to do hard work in the field every day (which they are compensated for financially- its an actual job for them!) but in my almost 1 year at the farm, I have never seen such a consistently engaged group.

So for tomorrow...

FOOD FIGHT. Or, Food Justice in the form of a groundbreaking and culturally inclusive video made by SOS (System out of our System) a for/non profit hybrid organization based out of Oakland, CA founded by Ashel Eldridge. visit their website:  http://sosjuice.com/foodfight/

This video, which Ill be showcasing during leadership activities tomorrow touches on food deserts, biological warfare, and empowerment through educated choices.

"FOOD FIGHT FOLLOWS A KID ON A JOURNEY THROUGH HIS HOMICIDAL FOOD REALITY. THE LOCAL CORNER STORE IS KILLING HIS NEIGHBORHOOD-LITERALLY. FROM A MORPHEUS-LIKE GUIDE HE LEARNS THE REALITY BEHIND FOOD HE'S BUYING, AND MUST DECIDE: THE ORANGE CARROT PILL OR THE RED BULL PILL"

Its a moving piece, and I plan to follow the viewing with a discussion, and talk about advertising and product visibility's affect on consumerism and personal choices. We'll also touch on gun violence vs diet related chronic disease as killers in Baltimore city (who's the bigger killer?), and modern day slavery and its impact on our food system.

Its a lot right? Its hard sometimes being so passionate about something and to feel so much, and have to explain it in words, and be organized, and within a certain code of etiquette. And THEN having to channel it through a paradigm that is used to by default being non inclusive of a non-binary or role fitted convention. Or... maybe I'm just growing up. Sometimes I cant tell the difference, but I'm committed to "stay woke" and to share my evolution with the people, and to NOT allow myself to believe that I am crazy for seeing things in the way that I do.Also, remaining open to change as knowledge and wisdom increases within that. That can certainly mean releasing old ideas, and ways of thinking that helped get me through certain times, that I no longer need or that is requiring of more energy than it is giving or sustaining.

Remember to take care of yourselves ya'll. Don't put anything above remaining true to the calls of universal truth. In your works and in navigating politics of food, race, sex, respectability, culture, etc. Keep peace in your soul.

ONE LOVE.

Nicola "The Earthy Nutritionist" Norman

July 7, 2014