Generosity

Back in June, I started doing a little summer pruning of our grape vines. They are such vigorous plants that, without a little cutting back, they would block every pathway around our land and even the road that runs past! A few of the prunings fell onto the road and, before I could collect them up, our neighbour Pedro happens past.

"Do you want those?"

"What?"

"The prunings!"

"Well, no... Ummm... They are a pain to deal with. Have to be cut up for composting... Don't like to burn them, and it's too dangerous in the dry season..."

"So let me have them, for my goats."

It's true, there's little for goats to eat during the hot dry summer, and it turns out that these lush green vine leaves and stems are a real treat! So every day for quite a few weeks I put a barrow load of trimmings outside Pedro's gate for him or his wife to pick up. It felt good to find a good use for something we would otherwise find difficult to use. (We hate throwing anything away or wasting it. If the land produces something, we go to great lengths to find some way of using it.)

What I didn't expect was that Pedro's wife would return the favour a few weeks later with a whole wheelbarrow full of produce! There were 15kg potatoes, 10kg onions, dried chickpeas, garlic, cabbage... Surely way more than a few bits of vine were worth.

"Graça de Deus (thank God), we have enough for ourselves and some extra. We always share what we don't need."

It would be a cliche to say this kind of exchange is heartwarming. But it's quite true to say that it makes us feel closer to our neighbours. Giving and receiving creates bonds between people in a way that buying and selling does not. The old ways included a lot of sharing, and communities were strong. Nowadays, our community is fragmenting and many people buy their vegetables and fruit from the supermarket – although the land could provide for them.