Plenty: Because there is enough, if we share.
By the mid-1970’s, The Farm was feeling pretty strong. The Farming Crew was able to provide most of the food needed to feed everybody. The construction crew was well established and covered up with work, enough to employ close to 100 men, producing steady income for the community. But the real mission was not to create the ultimate hippie commune, but to make a difference, pushing idealism to the limits under the phrase, “out to save the world.” It was about giving back.
As expressed by Stephen and understood by everyone there, the members of The Farm were the product of America’s middle class, for the most part white kids who were the benefactors of the European colonialism that had been exploiting the rest of the world for the last several centuries, exterminating native cultures while plundering the world’s resources in our wake. Now spiritually aware and conscious of our position in the planetary hierarchy, Stephen communicated that this generation had a shared responsibility to somehow make amends by assisting those left behind in their effort to catch up and achieve what we believed should be basic human rights: clean water, adequate food, shelter, education, health and medical care.
The first discussions along this line of thinking took place at Sunday Services while Stephen was still in the penitentiary, but able to come home on weekends. We were socially and politically conscious about the crippling impact poverty and hunger could have on a culture, on a people, and to be in solidarity with those folks every member of The Farm literally signed a vow of poverty. We were living on about a dollar a day. Everything you wore was a hand-me-down. We were dedicated and committed to making a difference in the direction of the planet. Again it seemed time to do more than talk about changing the world; we had to actually do something about it.
If the world’s resources were distributed equitably, there would be enough for everyone. Not just enough, an abundance, plenty. And so in 1974 The Farm went through the necessary steps to set up our first nonprofit and named it Plenty. The next step was to raise the periscope, look around and like some super hero jump into the foray and see where we could help. It simply made sense to start out somewhat close to home.
First, as we started educating ourselves, we learned that there were neighborhoods in Memphis, and in Lawrenceburg, our closest town just down the road, which in the previous decade under President Johnson’s War on Poverty had soup kitchens and food banks that were shut down under the Nixon administration. We started hauling some of our extra sweet potato crop and distributing food to the people there.
A tornado touched down in nearby Alabama and members of The Farm were dispatched to help in the cleanup efforts. While engaged in this work, members of The Farm hooked up with folks who look like our Amish neighbors that were from the Mennonite Central Committee. Soon after, the Committee contracted Plenty to purchase black beans to supply Cuban refugees in South Florida that had been struck by a hurricane.
The Mennonite Central Committee was involved in projects all over the world, places like Honduras and Haiti, and the members of The Farm directly involved with Plenty began to realize the vast scope of work that could be done.
Early one morning in February 1976, members of The Farm’s electrical crew were listening in on their ham radios and when suddenly they heard distress calls coming out of Guatemala where a violent earthquake had destroyed virtually all telephone lines and standard forms of communication. Because the earthquake took place in the middle of the night, the walls of the adobe homes had collapsed on people in their sleep, killing over 25,000. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless and the country’s infrastructure was in shambles.
Understanding the sense of urgency, The Farm dispatched a woman who spoke Spanish that was also doing medical work through The Farm’s Clinic, along with her husband, to assess the situation and see if there was any way we could be of assistance.
One of the first things we learned was that there was no EKG machine in Guatemala. All had been destroyed. Hospitals could not do brain scans or evaluate someone’s condition if they had a concussion. We started sending people to all the hospitals in Nashville asking if there were any extra EKG machines. Through that research we learned of a machine in St. Louis and a couple of men were sent up there in a pickup to get it. We were able to put that on a plane, again dispatched by the Mennonites, which was taking supplies to Guatemala.
But even more important was the change in perspective that took place in the community when The Farm’s representatives returned from their travels and gave their report at a Sunday morning service. Their assessment started an important discussion within The Farm that challenged our sense of justice and commitment. To express our solidarity the help people understand our way of life, Stephen had begun referring to us as “voluntary peasants.” But now we had to come to terms with the difference between a voluntary peasant and involuntary peasants. With an involuntary peasant, at any time, any one of us could run back to our parents, go back to college, and rejoin America’s middle class. With an involuntary peasant, the line between life and death is a delicate balance, with high infant mortality rates and shorter life spans resulting from a myriad of preventable causes. We had to come face to face with the fact that thousands of people would die unless they received help.
At the same time, That Farm had to ask itself, “Can we really do global outreach when we don’t even have our own infrastructure in place?” Most of houses on The Farm were still without running water. Many of us were still living in buses and tents.
Despite these shortcomings, we also had to recognize that compared to much of the world, we were still quite rich. We lived in a land of wealth and abundance and this was an opportunity staring us right in the face, a chance to give back.
With so many homes destroyed and people displaced, it seemed clear that one of the most important ways Plenty could help was by building houses. Right away several carpenters and their tools were flown down into the action without really knowing what they were going to do. Almost by chance, pretty quickly The Farm’s carpenters ran into somebody who suggested they go to the Canadian Embassy. Introduced to the Canadian Ambassador, they learn that a freighter is on its way loaded with over 100 tons of building materials such as press board, roofing tin, two by fours, hammers and nails. There were no plans of what to do with the materials when they arrive. The Farm’s lead carpenter starts drawing on a piece of paper and after a couple minutes, hands the paper back a design for a house and another for school. An agreement was made on the spot for Plenty to be in charge of the distribution and utilization of the building materials.
San Andreas Itzapa, a small town about an hour outside the capital Guatemala City, had been almost entirely destroyed and was identified as an ideal location to get started. The materials were delivered and dropped off at a soccer field. Farm carpenters established work crews to fabricate walls and roof trusses at a central location, components that could then be assembled and tied together on-site for each home. Because they had no previous experience with this type of construction, the Mayan volunteers were trained to use the tools and the basics of wood frame building, Altogether Plenty and the Guatemalan volunteers built over 1200 homes in this one village.
Now with a proven track record, Plenty’s partnership with Canada continued, moving on to build schools and government municipal buildings. Back on The Farm in Tennessee, the excitement grew with more and more people dispatched to work in Guatemala. The support team was expanded to include mechanics to keep the construction vehicles moving, people to cook and manage the base camp, as well as folks with medical experience to keep everyone healthy and functioning. By the second year, the camp’s population had grown to over 100.
When word around the Mayan villages began to spread that among the Plenty volunteers were people with medical skills and medicine, the sick and dying began arriving asking for help. The most heartbreaking were the infants, babies ravaged by dysentery and malnutrition. Not all survived, but many were nursed back to health with not much more than tender loving care and a little soy milk administered through an eyedropper.
As Plenty’s reputation to perform medical miracles grew, the demand for assistance increased exponentially. One of the construction vehicles was commandeered to serve exclusively as an ambulance. Volunteers from The Farm who had no formal education other than basic training at The Farm Clinic were energized at their ability to save lives.
Unfortunately, their efforts did not receive a warm welcome from the Guatemalan government and powers that be. Plenty volunteers were authorized to do construction, not medical care. Their dedicated service to the poor and often marginalized Mayan people began to appear in stark contrast to the less than stellar medical services provided by the government. As is often the case in the Third World, there are also issues of power and authority. Now two years in after the immediate disaster, the situation was no longer one of mass chaos and Plenty’s low-profile had turned to an annoying blip on the radar screen of local authorities. In order to continue working, Plenty agreed to stop all medical service and moved the base of its operations further into the Guatemalan highlands, to the town of Solola, located 3 hours drive from Guatemala City.
A large home on the edge of town with a several outbuildings and a few acres of land were rented to serve as Plenty’s new headquarters in Guatemala. The house had electricity and running water, but the 10 foot high, plastered adobe walls were laced with cracks from the earthquake. It was decided that it would be unsafe to use the house as living quarters. Instead the crew, now down to about 40 people, would sleep in the outbuildings and in small cabins constructed from some of the leftover building materials. The house would serve as a central kitchen, laundry facilities, hangout space and offices.
To coincide with the move, Plenty took on one of its most ambitious projects to date, again stepping just outside the lines of normal, reconstruction projects.
As members of The Farm dove headfirst in the culture of Guatemala, it became apparent that the population of the country was about 80% Mayan indigenous people controlled by the 20% Ladino or people of Spanish dissent, descendants of the original colonial powers. The government, the land, and the entire economy were in the hands of the small minority. As Plenty’s volunteers came to better understand the ways of the Mayan people, they learned that the Mayan communities had continued to maintain their own system of government which used village elders, known as Acaldes, to arbitrate disputes and make decisions for their villages.
Plenty came up with the idea to construct a municipal building to serve as a central meeting place for the elders. Located right on the town square, directly across the street from the state government building, The Indigenous Municipal, or Indijena Municipalidad, was built to empower the Mayan people of Solola, as a way to help preserve their culture against the onslaught of Western domination. On the second floor, in addition to the offices and meeting rooms, Plenty also installed an FM broadcast station, making it possible for the Mayan people to communicate with themselves in their own native language.
Around the outside perimeter of the building’s first floor are a half-dozen small storefronts, little tiendas, who pay rent and generate an income for the building, providing funds for continued maintenance and upkeep. The building’s location places it at the center of the town’s biweekly marketplace, a focal point for the international tourism that plays a vital role in Guatemala’s economy.
Deborah and I were among those sent down in what could be regarded as the second wave of volunteers from The Farm. I had studied and received my amateur radio license specifically so that I could travel to the Third World and serve on a Plenty project. Deborah had trained in The Farm Clinic as a lab technician. She was able to use a microscope to identify parasites and do blood work to track infections. We both had skills that were considered essential for the team and we jumped at the chance to go, arriving in December 1978 with our two children, Jody and Leah, ages four and two. It turned out to be one of the defining experiences of our life.
As Plenty matured as an organization, it began to recognize many ways the earlier medical work was more about treating symptoms than in real solutions. Medical emergencies like dysentery were the result of unclean water and poor sanitation. The Mayan people were often very small and short in stature, not because of genetic differences, but from malnutrition. To create lasting change, Plenty’s work needed to address the root causes and problems.
After experiencing firsthand how soy could enhance the health and well-being of a sick child, Plenty began to explore ways to introduce the noble soybean into the local diet. Several farmers were sent down from Tennessee to conduct trials and see which types and varieties of soy would grow best in the climate and altitude of the Guatemalan Highlands. Plenty volunteers with experience in the preparation of soy foods began hosting demonstrations in the villages surrounding the camp.
In the rural Mayan villages of the late 1970s, there was no electricity and the gasoline mill for grinding corn had yet to be introduced. Mayan women would grind the corn by hand on a large stone “metate”, just as they had for centuries. The Plenty volunteers conducting the soy demos were able to grind the soaked soybeans in exactly the same way. The ground soy pulp was then added to a pot of water and cooked on the fire. Straining the liquid through a cheesecloth, the pulp was removed and cups of hot soy milk sweetened with a little sugar were passed around for all to try. Next, a little lemon juice was added, transforming the liquid into curds and whey. The high-protein curds or soy cheese, better known as tofu, were flavored with a little seasoning and passed around for everyone to sample.
Taking things one step further, the crew acquired a machine for making soft-serve ice cream. The typical ice cream served in the local markets tasted awful. It was full of chemicals, artificial flavor and very little milk. In contrast, the soy ice “bean” was rich and creamy, flavored with local fruits purchased in the market like mango, lime, and blackberry. Five gallon buckets of this nutritious dessert were taken to schools throughout the region and free samples given to all the children. It was an instant hit!
Impressed by the potential of soy to combat the country’s nutrition problems, the Canadian government provided funding for the construction of a soy “dairy” to produce, distribute, and sell soy products. The operation would become a small cottage industry for the village of San Bartolo.
To ensure the quality of its products, the soy dairy would need to have clean water. This was at a time when everyone in the villages hauled their water directly from the streams and creeks that flowed down the mountain sides. It was also standard practice for people of the villages to simply defecate or relieve themselves out in the cornfields or behind a wall outside their home. Consequently, the water from the surrounding streams was polluted, and the primary source of intestinal parasites that plagued everyone.
Members of Plenty followed the flow of a nearby stream high up into the mountains to its source. The owner of the land was contacted and persuaded to donate the water from the spring to the village below. The mouth of the spring was encased in cement to prevent the entry of any groundwater and contamination. The water flowed down the mountainside through pipes to a several thousand gallon cement holding tank built by local Mayan masons hired by Plenty. The village provided the volunteers needed to dig the trenches and lay the pipe, installing a water spigot at every home. Again the force of gravity was used to carry the water from the tank to each location so that the entire system used no electricity, pumps, or moving parts that would need future maintenance. The soy dairy had its clean water!
Because the people from the village of San Bartolo would serve as the staff to operate the soy dairy, it seemed an opportune time to educate them about the importance of proper sanitation and basic things like the importance of washing hands. In addition to the more formal discussions held at the meetings with the villagers, Plenty volunteers also performed skits. A few cornstalks were placed about the room and two women from Plenty sat on the floor to act out having a picnic. In came Mr. Fly, dressed in black tights and a pair of wings. Rubbing his hands together like an evil villain he proclaimed the joys of eating “mierda,” or shit, buzzing over to touch the tortillas of the oblivious picnickers. The crowd was in stitches but the point was made.
Soon each home in the village had its own hand-dug latrine covered with a cement top and lid, donated to the project by another organization. Now with the residents of San Bartolo able to wash their hands and have clean water to drink, for preparing meals, and for bathing, we could see that this was the type of development which could have a lasting impact.
Inspired by the success of the water project, Plenty looked for more places to replicate the pattern. A few more systems were installed for other small villages and then the opportunity to develop a system serving three villages and a total of 10,000 people came in to play, perhaps the most ambitious project of Plenty’s time in Guatemala. A local Guatemalan engineer was hired to help develop the plans and ensure the project’s success.
Fire and Water
One water project took place outside Plenty’s usual sphere of influence, at a village located several hours on the other side of Guatemala City. The location’s lower elevation, combined with deforestation to produce an intense heat that had turned the area into a virtual desert. Without trees on the hillsides to hold the water, the local streams had dried up to a mere trickle. Women from the village stood in long lines taking turns for the trickle to fill their water jugs, carrying the murky liquid back a mile or more to their families. Desperate, village leaders who had learned of Plenty’s work with water came asking for help.
Moved by their plight, Jeremy, one of Plenty’s volunteers, hiked through the steep hillsides, searching until he could find a spring that could serve the village. After a water source was secured, a truckload of pipe was delivered and the project began in earnest. Because the location was such a long distance away from our base in Solola, Jeremy and Plenty’s other volunteers would live in the village for a week at a time, sleeping in the storage building that held the pipe, preparing their meals on a portable gas camping stove. Getting ready to cook the evening meal, the stove was refilled and the can of fuel set off to the side. After the stove was ignited, the flames suddenly followed the vapor trail many feet through the air, reaching the can of fuel which had not had been sealed with its lid. Panicking, Jeremy rushed to grab the burning can of fuel carrying it outside the building, splashing the flaming liquid down his legs. Burning fuel also landed on a foam mattress, setting it on fire. Despite all his efforts, the building and all of the water pipe inside burned to the ground.
To smother the fire on Jeremy’s legs, the people from the village rolled him in a pile of sand. They loaded him into the back of a pickup truck and drove several hours to a hospital in Guatemala City. Although there was an American style hospital in the city that served the wealthy elite, Jeremy was taken to the General Hospital which administered to the majority of the Mayan people. Because his wounds were not life-threatening, Jeremy was giving a couple of aspirin, placed on a bed, and left in the hallway.
It took many more hours for the other volunteers to get back to the Solola and report the accident. Plenty’s medical person and I were dispatched immediately to find him.
We found Jeremy delirious with pain, abandoned in the hallway surrounded by the chaos so typical of urban city hospitals. We quickly moved him into our vehicle and took him to the other hospital. Although the villagers had been trying to help, the sand was embedded throughout his third-degree burns making the process of cleaning his wounds extremely difficult. After several days we were able to bring him back to his room in Solola where he spent several months in recovery. His bandages and dressings had to be changed every day. All I could do was to try to be there as a friend. I would sit with him each day to keep him company and try to take his mind off the pain.
As the months wore on Jeremy eventually recovered. The water pipe was replaced and the project completed. Everyone learned a lot about dedication and sacrifice, perseverance and the strength of human spirit.
Regime Change
Meanwhile things were also not going so well in Guatemala, the land of eternal spring. Further south in Nicaragua, the brutal dictator Somoza had been driven out by a people’s insurrection called the Sandinistas. Just over the border El Salvador was engaged in a brutal civil war. Guatemala’s government, controlled by a series of military dictatorships since a CIA backed coup had overthrown a progressive, democratically elected, civilian government in the mid-1950s, was deeply concerned it could be the next domino to fall to communist backed rebels.
During his term, the U.S. Democratic President Jimmy Carter had denied Guatemala military funding or aid because of its dismal human rights record. When Carter lost his reelection bid to Republican Ronald Reagan, the political climate in Guatemala changed almost immediately.
Within a few weeks after the election, military checkpoints began appearing at the roads leading into every major city. Buses headed into the capital were frequently stopped at random points along the highway. Everyone on board was told to get out while soldiers searched for weapons and looked for anyone they considered some subversive.
Plenty’s camp in Solola was situated in the mountains above Lake Atitlan, one of the largest high elevation lakes in the world. Much of the mountainous region had no roads accessible by cars or trucks, making it an ideal hideout for the rebel insurgency. The Guatemalan military’s presence in the area increased dramatically, with several new army bases. Helicopters armed with machine guns flew low in the sky daily over the Plenty camp.
Even more disturbing, were the actions of the death squads and massacres that began to take place on a weekly basis throughout the country. Every newspaper contained photos of the body dumps, men women and children slaughtered and left to rot.
Initially, the death squads left the gringos alone. There was some concern on their part that this could draw the attention of international media and become a public relations problem for the Guatemalan government. Instead, they would go after the Guatemalans working for aid groups, sending a message that your help was no longer wanted.
This became apparent when the Guatemalan engineer who had been hired to do drawings for the water projects returned home after day of work at the Plenty offices. His neighbors approached him with grave news, “The death squad was just here looking for you.” He quickly gathered up his family, a few possessions, and came back to us seeking money to leave town and relocate in another part of the country. We felt responsible, that we had endangered the family through his work with Plenty. Of course we gave them whatever funds we could spare.
After the earthquake, the reconstruction effort was organized as an official part of the Guatemalan government, with its own department and cabinet secretary, a man who was sympathetic to the plight of the poor. This meant that representatives from Plenty were required to make frequent trips to the capital for meetings in government offices, often the targets of bombs and firefights.
People we knew or had connections with were being accosted by police, severely beaten, or simply disappeared. Our men with their long hair and beards were the symbols of rebellion. Hippies in general were considered subversive.
Stress had become a constant undercurrent, and there came a point when we realized it was over. We were all gathered in the living room on a Saturday night, just hanging out, when the conversation started. It became clear that most of us were beginning to feel very paranoid. I know I was starting to have bad dreams. I mean, we were there with our kids and didn’t feel safe anymore. It was time to go.
Within about a month, Stephen came down with The Farm’s Greyhound bus and loaded everyone up for the long ride back to Tennessee. Three men stayed on for a short while to tie up loose ends, but for the most part the projects were ready to stand on their own. Plenty hired a few Guatemalans to maintain continuity and to manage any projects that would need additional attention.
Moving On
Although the work in Guatemala was over, this did not mean the end of Plenty. Plenty’s directors began to look around to see where the organization might go next. Two volunteers and their families went to work in Bangladesh. Plenty partnered with the Fri, a sailing vessel manned by hippies from Europe, doing a tour of the Caribbean. A few Plenty volunteers joined the crew, visiting the islands to identify new places where Plenty could continue its work. Projects were started by volunteers in Jamaica and with the indigenous people on the island of San Lucia.
The South Bronx
In 1980, Plenty came to the realization that there were places in the US with conditions very much the same as the Third World, including New York’s South Bronx.
On a trip to England, Stephen had learned about squatting, a situation where members of the counterculture would move in and take over abandoned buildings and houses. Not long after his return, a group in the South Bronx who had taken over a building began to receive media attention in the news, making it the headquarters for their urban peacekeeping patrols. Inspired, word began to circulate through The Farm’s population that Plenty was seeking volunteers to locate an abandoned building and open a city center in the heart of what most of society saw as America’s abandoned wasteland.
Seeking a purpose and a mission, it was decided that the Plenty team would open a free ambulance service, using people trained on The Farm as emergency medical technicians (EMT’ s) and paramedics. Response times from the New York City ambulance service to the South Bronx were dismal to nonexistent. The area was considered too dangerous. Plenty’s effort would illustrate that America’s urban poor deserved the same level of respect and care as anyone else in the country.
A search party was sent into the city to scout out a location. In short order they found a multistory building and formulated a plan to use the bottom floor for the ambulance service and rooms on the upper floors as living quarters for the crew and their families. With a base of operations established, it wasn’t long before a crew of about 30 was in place, with donated ambulances meeting city specifications on call 24 hours a day. The effect was instant and obvious. Lives were being saved, from gunshot wounds and stabbing victims, to the forsaken elderly and sick children. The bold move soon garnered its own media attention, with a front page story in the Wall Street Journal and prime time coverage on an NBC news/magazine show.
To gene rate income that could support the operation, people with construction skills acquired contracts to replace and retrofit windows in buildings throughout the city. Keeping the spirit of The Farm alive, the Bronx group had its own rock ‘n roll band, extremely talented musicians and singers performing from the open space on the building’s roof. The crew even had its own midwife who began delivering babies as an additional service for the people of the Bronx.
Naturally, the crew of mostly middle-class white kids attracted the attention and curiosity of its neighbors. The operation demonstrated that when you treat people with respect, respect will be given. At no time were any of the crew hassled, the ambulances vandalized, and very quickly they were integrated and welcomed as an essential part of the community.
Just as had taken place on The Farm in Tennessee, the crew began offering classes, training people of the neighborhood to become licensed EMTs. Local volunteers began taking shifts and became part of the ambulance crew. Those who acquired licenses used their new status to find employment with the official New York City ambulance service. With now staffed with residents from the Bronx, the New York ambulance began responding to calls. After five years, response times to the South Bronx were on par with what could be expected for any other part of the city. The Plenty ambulance service was able to close its doors.
The Right Livelihood Award
In 1980, Stephen Gaskin, representing Plenty International, became the first recipient of the world Right Livelihood Award, and internationally recognized and prestigious alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize.
Making a Difference
It would be pretty safe to say that Guatemala experience and the work with Plenty represented the peak expression of The Farm’s vision. The community learned and benefited so much more than if we had just raised money and sent that down. We learned what it meant to be truly part of something that is larger or greater than ourselves.
Before the formation of Plenty and our experience in Guatemala, The Farm was fairly isolated. We didn’t read newspapers or watch TV. Our attention was focused almost exclusively on building the community. Through Plenty, we came to understand the endemic poverty from cradle to grave that billions of people around the world endure, that the things we had been learning in taking care of ourselves here in Tennessee, installing water systems, nutrition, primary medical care and midwifery, were now skills that we could apply and desperately needed by so much of the world.
Back Home
Meanwhile the people living at the remaining satellite city centers and Plenty projects had no idea of the tremendous upheaval and turmoil coming to a head back at the mother ship in Tennessee. The Farm was on the brink of collapse, and not even those living on the land realized what was about to happen.