“The earth shows up those of value and those who are good for nothing.”
A peasant judgement quoted by Jean Pierre Vernant 1971
“there was heating to counteract the changes in temperature, lighting to lessen the difference between night and day, transport to reduce distances, relative comfort to compensate for fatigue….
“By contrast the peasant is unprotected. Each day a peasant experiences more change more closely than any other class. Some of these changes, like those of the seasons or like the process of aging and failing energy, are foreseeable; many – like the weather from one day to the next, like a cow choking on a potato, like lightening, like rains which come too early or too late, like fog that kills the blossom… – are unpredictable.”
“In fact the peasant’s experience of change is more intense than any list, however long and comprehensive, could ever suggest. For two reasons. First, his capacity for observation. Scarcely anything changes in a peasant’s entourage, from the clouds to the tail feathers of a cock, without his noticing and interpreting it in terms of the future. His active observation never ceases and so he is continually recording and reflecting upon changes. Secondly, his economic situation….”
putting a watermelon into the asequia to cool
“Peasants live with change hourly, daily, yearly, from generation to generation. There is scarcely a constant given to their work. Around this work and its seasons they create rituals, routines and habits in order to wrest some meaning and continuity from a cycle of relentless change…”
drying figs and tomatoes in the sun
“Work routines are traditional and cyclic – they repeat themselves each year, and sometimes each day. Their tradition is retained because it appears to assure the best chance of the works success, but also because, in repeating the same routine, in doing the same thing in the same way as his father or his neighbour’s father, the peasant assumes a continuity for himself and thus consciously experiences his own survival.”
first almond blossom
