Rainy days

So, you remember about that rain I was talking bout a few days back?

Well, it rained, and rained and rained more. Then the earth broke next door, half of the outer wall of the property fell to the ground, and a few metal planks flew away from the roof. On the beach, several cars were taken by the sea, some restaurants were destroyed and my leather shoes got wet.

Worst storm in the last 30, maybe 50 years. Thank you car drivers of the last 100 years for making chile a bit more wet.

Good news is: I started the second course on japanese carpentry and same comment. "I never thought/think/knew something so sharp", "I thought the chisel was crap already"... So we talk a bit of the tools and sharpen the first half of the first day. Then lunch and a finger joint. We needed to work inside because of the rain/mud all over.

I was more relaxed this time, the two guys were older and I guess I got more experience and ended up lending them my dozuki the first day and they didn't break anything and were really good at following instructions. Somehow the age difference made them more respectful than last group... There was not much planing since we really didn't have space in the living room for 3 people working at the same time.

Anyway. The problem is the solution, ain't it? A bit of internet search, buyee, youtube videos, lots of talking. I'm learning lots man, I tell ya. About the human, about lives, people, work... about how special is this that we are doing. And I say we because I like Camus and because I see the course as an extension of what's happening with this talks online trying to reinvent the wheel, but a different wheel since we are not in 1800 anymore but in 2020 and nations are starting to crumble, following the collapse of oil and massive drop out off the conveyor belt. Well, maybe we are not there yet but I feel I'm off.

It's like it worked. It's been 4 months since I stopped working for RCPE and I managed to pull a course on japanese carpentry in the end of the world and teach already to 4 people to sharpen their own shit. Two other didn't make it because of the rain but come next week and there is already 5 other people booked for september and november. 800 views on my ad, 20 mails, and 10 people confirmed to take it. By next week I would have taught more clases per capita than dictum in germany. Just think of that for a minute. And note that this is the only place where you also learn to sharpen saws, japanese way. (Also think of this, you have never seen a sharp saw, either western or japanese and you see them and a 30somethings guy shows you how to sharpen them, and there is no big deal about it. Sharpening becomes natural, easy, second nature. They are not poisoned by blogs or forum sayin that it's difficult, impossible or black magic. For them it's just there, in your face, and if the guy next door can do it, there's no reason for me to not to.)

Victor asked me, while we were sharpening an azebiki outside, if I wanted to build japanese or chilean houses. I told him to look in front:

I like this, I said, imagine it well made, with proper joints, solid, durable, beautiful. The same poverty, but properly made. And that's enough.

I can see it almost, in the middle of those forest in the south of Chile, a well made fence, a beautifully planed tabled. A world made by the human and for the human. A sharp and well used saw waiting in a corner to be used. A work of art that's not art actually, cause there's no author and no gallery. A poem written by and for all, but written not in words but in things. The flavours of the evening, the smell of home wherever you are.

We've been sold into, and we have very wilfully bought, a model of development that only increased the inequalities already existing, destroys the world, and fucking kills and tortures people. I mean Pinochet was not a fucking joke and the reason of it was to impose a certain economic, existential, order in a country. I could pretty well fit there, get the job, TV and the big car. I've got the brains and titles for it, I would be even useful. But man that'd be horrible and boring, and I guess that wrong too.  
When I was living in Paris, one day I was listening to Mauricio Redoles, chilean poet and singer, and he says in a song called "ya no tengo" (I don't have anymore) something like "and finally I understood, that my own freedom was never going to be complete, without the freedom of the people." That day I decided to leave in Paris.

Permaculture teaches you that you need to find lever points. Points where the minimum effort yields the most results. I think I found one. Teaching 1000 people to sharpen properly will do so fucking much for them (pardon my french, too much red wine today), more than having internet in every corner or iphones for everyone. Because their world will get better, as simple as that. Once you know you can plane, you plane. And that's all.

Cheers.