I just had the pleasure of assisting the preview of The 11th Hour in Mallorca, Spain, presented by Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons. It was organised by Guillem Ferrer, a local activist and ex-designer for Camper Shoes, a local company with global distribution who offered their Camper Foundation premises for the screening, presentation and discussion.
A small, constantly changing activist group has sprung up in Mallorca in the wake of a series of annual visits by Vandana Shiva and Satish Kumar. The group is known as Tierra, Alma y Sociedad (Soil, Soul and Society, the three pillars of change proposed by Resurgence editor Satish Kumar). We have been meeting quarterly in Guillem Ferrer's house to put into practice initiatives and projects which are closely linked to the Bioneer's objectives. From these meetings, an Eco-school has been set up, as well as a local chapter of Slow Food, exchanges of woofing and barter sessions to name but a few.
After the screening, attended by about a hundred people of many nationalities, ages and walks of life, Camper provided a good spread of local organic wine and "pa amb oli", coarse bread with olive oil and rubbed with a local variety of tomato. In this case the bread, the oil the tomatoes and the cheese that went with it were all locally produced and organic. The organic movement on the island is gathering strength, and mainly thanks to many solvent foreign residents, can actually make sense economically. (Incidentally, I wrote a book about the mediterranean peasant's diet, Bread & Oil, published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2001 and Grub St Publishers, UK, 2006.) This gave people an opportunity to talk to Kenny and Nina and to each other about the message of the film, which had been recieved with rapturous applause. The Spanish subtitles were very well translated.
Three days before the conference, my wife Carmen and I were struggling with the translation of Kenny's text of the talk, which was quite a challenge. Not only did we have to find the Spanish equivalent of baseball metaphors (Strike out, last to bat) but also many concepts for which we could find no Spanish equivalent--"solving for pattern", which we had to briefly explain. It was difficult but rewarding work because having to consult so many sources to translate the description of what Bioneers are up to, I feel I've just undergone an immersion course in Bioneering.
At our next Tierrra, Alma y Sociedad meeting, I'm sure we will discuss ways to apply some of your methods locally, to Dream Mallorca and collaborate with you all.
All the best from the Greater Balearic island, a hundred miles from Barcelona, and home of the founders of California!
Tomás Graves
