Tuesday, October 23, 2007

In the deep South

One would think that since we live in the most southern US state that we are already in the deep south, but no. Something culturally strange takes place as you cross from Georgia into Florida, where all of a sudden, the deep south becomes a cultural melting pot of the rest of the US, as brought here by the ever abundant snowbirds and northern transplants. So to truly experience the deep south, we actually have to go north into Georgia.

We drove to Athens, GA last week to deliver 4 large foot lockers of bare-rooted fruit trees to a friends place, whose parents were going to visit their brother who is an agroforester in Madagascar. Sound complicated? It's not really. Our neighbours in Gamboula, Luke and Leanne, live in Athens, and Luke's brother is a tree guy in Madagascar. So we drove the trees to L and L's place, as Luke's parents are heading over there and will be delivering them. We had a great weekend with our friends, and were able to debrief with them about our two years in Gamboula. What a treat to sit down and dream together about the future possibilities of working together in Gamboula.

After leaving their house we stopped off at REI in Atlanta; Darren successfully navigating the 6 lane freeway while I shouted directions over the noise of ECHO's old blue Ford van (the doors don't seal). We were like kids in a candy store; looking at all the camping and biking equipment made moving to Victoria this winter not look so bad. Southern Florida is hardly known for its biking/backpacking possibilities.

After picking up 200 potted grape vines we headed into the deep south, into cotton and peanut country, where we were privileged to spend the night at a cozy cabin in the woods. One of my wonderful volunteers at ECHO lent us the keys to their cabin for the night so we could taste a little piece of heaven (southern style) and rest up for the trip back to ECHO. Shortly after finishing supper, the neighbours dropped by (a 70 year old cotton farmer and his wife) and we chatted about what folks in the country like to chat about. (If you don't know what folks in the country chat about then you better get yourself down to the country for a spell). After a long conversation about his family that had recently passed on, we changed the subject and talked about peanuts. This led to an invitation to drive to over to their house to pick up bags of green, boiled, then frozen peanuts. I guess all you have to do is pop them in a pot of boiling water until they thaw and presto!, you've got yourself some boiled peanuts. Yummm. If you don't know what I am talking about, you are missing out. There are more than two ways to eat a peanut.

After picking up our peanuts, touring the locals real estate, and hearing about the grandyoungins, we headed back to the cabin for a peaceful nights sleep. I would go north to the south anytime!