When landless, indigenous, concrete jungle survivor, trauma-filled, broken yet angry and active, Po' peoples of color revolutionaries grow a garden, it takes a special recipe.....
-Begin wit some healing greens-
-fourteen cups of tears from loss and pain and sorrow and borders and eviction and profiling and incarceration,
-some fresh cilantro,
-four quarts of youth warrior love, some carrots,
-a gallon full of trauma from poverty skolaz still in struggle,
-one quart of fear,
-three thousand gallons of chants of resistance,
-onions,
-leeks,
-all of the hard hands of our mamaz who keep on keeping on no matter what,
-lettuce,
-more greens,
-one babies smile who lives down the street after he touches the bottom of a root
-blend together with a liter of hope from all of us together, changing, growing and sharing something that mere colonizer words can not begin to describe.
This was our magical day of Herstory-making as we launched the Pachamama Garden @ Homefulness. Homefulness is a poor people/indigenous people-led land revolution. Pachamama garden is just us, Po' Folks, Elders, Ancestors, Mamaz, daddyz, uncles, aunties, sons and daughters standing humbly, still in struggle with welfare, motel rooms, the cardboard motels, Po"Lice, plantations and the violence of poverty, trying to bring fresh, un-genetically modified food into our hood in deep east Oakland, By Any Means Necessary.
Moving our poor bodies into health, even though we are often struggling with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and obesity due to the poison poor people-food so readily available to us at Mickey D's, Burger King, KFC, the corner liquor sto's, Slaveway, Foods Co
Working together with Take Back the Land, ROOTS, Decolonize Oakland, the neighborhood and so many more, who shared their love and resources and time and trucks and tools and dirt and skillz with all of us, the Pachamama garden at Homefulness now has two beautiful boxes of healing beginnings, hopeful meals, un-poisoned dinners and decolonized dirt.
Starting Oct 4th- Join us every Thursday 1-5pm @ Homefulness as we care and love those roots, dream that soup and bring that healing to our bodies and our hoods, one fresh fruit or vegetable at a time. (PEopleSkool Oakland will be starting with Healing the Hood Garden Media Project including paid mentorships provided for youth and adults- 14-24 to learn investigative journalism and gardening- email deeandtiny@poormagazine.org for more information on this program
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