Even If

Even if we wanted to, we don’t even have what we need do it with.
There is no infrastructure, tools.
There’s no capital to start a farm business, to get a tractor. 

You literally got to do it with a...with a shovel, a hoe and a pick.

And that’s how we did it. Me and my Auntie and my Partner and my Daughter.
We planted this garden with a shovel, a pick and a hoe.

And I had to re-dig the ditch from the main mother ditch,
The Acequia Madre that traveled through all of these fallow
pieces of land to arrive at the end, which was my Auntie’s land. 

So, I had to literally carry water through people’s land
who were very dysfunctional alcoholic people.
They were family members, violent. 

And it was this dance, it was this weekly dance of getting water to this garden. 

And through that
Me and my Auntie arrived at the end of the season last year and we had this moment.
And that moment was the reason we did all of that together.
It was around the holidays in November.
We all got together and we made a meal.
I invited my Auntie over.
There was just a few of us.
It was during the pandemic. 

And we all went around, we do this tradition where we each give each other
a chance to speak and say something. 

And you know I- I gave my piece and then my Auntie, she said: 

You know, I just want to say that before you were here, I was always alone I didn’t have a lot of energy. I didn’t have a garden. And since you came, we planted this garden.
And I have energy and I want to be outside and you saved my life. You really saved my life. 

And she started to cry.