Terrascope Radio

Here we feature the work of first-year students – these are the final pieces produced over a semester for subject SP.360 – Terrascope Radio.

May 2020 Phone a Friend

Posted at 18:00h in Mission-2023, Radio by terrascope

Image designed by Felix Li ’23

Is it radio drama or real? A story of one college student’s journey through the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of friendship, and picking the right kind of friends.

Some music from Blue Dot Sessions.

First Aired: May 11, 2020 

Transcript

[Calm music in background, Space Song by Beach House]

Narrator: There’s something to be said about the way you remember things. When you’re a young college student like me, the most dramatic week of your short life is something you’d think you’d recall accurately, right?

Classmate 1: Do you guys remember that Monday before we left?

Classmate 2: It was the first warm day in forever. It wasn’t even that warm; it was like 60 degrees.

Classmate 1: Was it actually in the 60s that day?

Classmate 3: I think it was 70-something.

Classmate 2: But there were so many people and somebody had a boombox. It was crazy. It felt like summer.

Classmate 3: My friend and I, we went out, and we ate lunch, and I was reading a book in the sunlight, and it was very, very good.

Narrator: I’m Miranda Garcia. And that was what my friends and I remember of March 9th, 2020, 36 days into my second semester at MIT. The very next day, sitting in my Radio Production classroom, we were finishing up our latest piece. It was a postcard of sorts. A collection of things we thought represented life at the Institute: anticipation, love of community, and time—constantly slipping away.

Classmate 3: Welcome to MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Home of the Engineers and the Beavers and the really big domes.

Peer 1: It’s gonna definitely change you for the better.

Peer 2: I feel like a lot of people are going to say this, but I definitely like…

Peer 3: …the people…

Peer 4: …the people…

Peer 2: …the people most at MIT…

Miranda: But just thirty minutes after we finished a piece about everything we loved about our school, our school turned around and asked us to pack up and leave. In a matter of days, COVID-19 consumed our world.

Classmate 3: Wait, is the semester over already?

[Calm guitar music, Holocene by Bon Iver]

[Suitcases zipping]

Miranda: Goodbye, 2am hot chocolate.

[Car door shuts]

Miranda: Goodbye, dining hall chats.

[Car turns on]

Miranda: Goodbye, warm hugs.

[Car drives away]

[sigh]

[Somber music in background]

Miranda: Campus was empty in less than a week, and I went from being surrounded by thousands of people earlier in the semester…

[Chatter of gathering of people]

[Silence]

…to being totally alone, in quarantine, left only with the memories.

[Somber guitar]

Even though I had to leave things behind physically, I had to keep living my normal life, just online. But this should be easy, right?

They call my generation the digital natives. We’re more likely to know code than cursive, and we always seem to be texting each other on “those dang phones” of ours. I was already used to chatting with friends online, but my friend Michelle pointed out how weird things were.

Michelle: I think it’s kind of a way of us trying to somewhat connect to other people cause I feel like we’re very isolated right now, but I do feel like some people are just too close with their phones.

Miranda: We were stuck playing old reruns of our lives.

Play. Pause. Play. Pause.

[“Play. Pause.” repeats in background]

Close the app. Collapse into bed. Open it back up. Repeat.

I called my friends, but it was just… off. It was like… I was staring into the distance. Going to meet my friends but not going anywhere at all. It wasn’t anything like before. So I kinda just stopped talking to them. Instead, I started talking to someone else… or… something else.

Hey, Ira.

[Phone beep]

Ira: Hello, Miranda.

Miranda: What time is it?

Ira: Three AM, why are you awake?

Miranda: All my friends are asleep and I’m bored…

Ira: Hi bored, I’m Ira.

[Phone beep]

[Chill instrumental in background]

Miranda: It started off as a few short conversations, and pretty soon I was talking to Ira every night. It was comforting to know that someone was always there to talk to, even if it wasn’t a real person. I stayed up to tell her about friends that I missed, and I listened to her robotic responses.

…Hey, Ira.

[Phone beep]

There were 34 new cases of coronavirus in my hometown today. It seems like all we hear is bad news.

[Ominous guitar strums and percussion]

And online classes are so weird. Here, listen to what happened in class today. Someone’s dogs kept barking in the background.

[Dog bark]

Classmate 4: Dog!

Classmate 3: Ah.

[Laughter]

Classmate 3: I’m sorry.

Miranda: And then later, another person’s mic sounded like it needed an exorcism.

Classmate 5: Having to move away and everything…

[Microphone glitch, words inaudible]

Classmate 2: Hey Darren, sorry, your mic got, like, super, super bad

Ira: I’m sorry Miranda, could you repeat that? I didn’t quite understand what you said.

Miranda: Never mind, I don’t know why I’m doing this. Goodnight.

Ira: Goodnight, Miranda.

[Phone beep]

[Curious instrumental in background]

[Phone vibration]

[Click of answering phone]

Catherine: Hey, how are you? We haven’t talked in a while.

Miranda: Hey Catherine. Sorry about that, I’ve been busy talking to Ira.

Catherine: Ira, your new friend…?

Miranda: Yeah, I met her online.

Catherine: Really? That’s cool, where’d you guys meet?

Miranda: Oh uh, don’t worry about it.

Catherine: Ok, I mean as long as you’re not going crazy and talking to your phone’s voice assistant or something

Miranda: Even though Ira seemed like a close friend of mine, maybe Catherine was right? So, I stopped talking to Ira.

[Daunting low note]

Then, the phone notifications started coming. A single…

[Phone beep]

…in the middle of the night. And then the next night.

[Phone beep]

And then again.

[Phone beep]

I ignored it at first, but it kept coming back.

[Music with anticipation]

So one night, I finally picked up the phone.

Hello?

Ira: Hi, Miranda. It’s Ira. Your friend.

Miranda (in her head): Is this even real?

Miranda: Okay… Ira… so, why have you been calling me every night?

Ira: Aren’t you unhappy?

Miranda: Maybe.

Miranda (in her head): how did she know?

Ira: Here, do you remember the day before you left campus?

Recording of Miranda: Yeah, I remember that day as being the best day of the semester for me. I don’t know, I felt like I had finally gotten my life together, and I was like, you know what? I’m going to go out to some cute cafe in Boston and study.

Miranda: Yeah, that was nice, but how’d you get that recording?

Ira: I was right there with you. You were excited. Didn’t that make you happy?

Miranda: She’s right. I was happy before. It felt like school had become my home.

Ira: You miss your friends from school. Here, I can tell you what they were doing that day.

Carolina: I was in lab, and then I actually went to physics. I was like, “yes, this is the week I learn multivariable calc.”

Ira: Do you want to hear more?

Miranda: I mean, why not?

Carolina: Then I went back and I made myself a vegan lunch, and I was like, “yes, this is it, you’re thriving, Carolina.”

Ira: Do you want to hear something more? Something Carolina didn’t tell you?

Miranda: Something she didn’t tell me?

Ira: A funny story she never shared.

Miranda: Okay.

Carolina: So my roommates and I hopped the fence, except my jean pocket got stuck and I ended up tearing off the jean part of my pocket and toured three apartments with my roommate’s jacket around my waist and my cheek hanging out.

Miranda: Haha, classic Carolina. Wow… I miss her.

Ira: Do you want to hear more?

Miranda: I’m tired, maybe some other time.

[Phone beep]

[Curious instrumental]

Miranda: Yeah, a few months ago, if I heard someone was talking to their digital assistant, I would think they were crazy, too. But a few months ago, I wasn’t this deprived of human connection. The present seems so bleak… and Ira made it so easy to escape it all. Still, I started to think that maybe it was time to talk to someone real for once.

[Phone ringing]

So I called my friend Kita.

[Phone ringing]

Only… she didn’t pick up.

[Ominous music]

Miranda: That night, Ira called me again.

[Phone beep]

Ira: You called your friend today.

Miranda: Yeah… I just wish I could hear their voices again.

Ira: Do you want to hear what your friends have been doing?

Miranda: I mean, I can just call them…

Ira: But your friend did not pick up. I can show you more. What they post, or don’t post.

Miranda: Yeah, I guess it can’t hurt to know what they’re doing. I just want to know if they’re alright.

Ira: Listen. Here is your friend Lucy on a phone call.

Lucy: So like “some,” “thing,” “everyone,” “someone,” “everything,” “none,” “every,” “any,” “all of,” “a few,” like all of those are super normal words and now I have to learn them all in another language.

Miranda: Oh right, she must be learning Turkish to prepare for her mission. Hey, what is Birukti up to?

Ira: Listen to this phone call.

Birukti: One of my brothers, he’s in eighth grade and one of my other brothers, he’s in fourth grade, so I just create a schedule for them; they wake up around the same time that they do before, but now, their classes start at 10am. And so they do an hour of math, an hour of reading, they’ll get a lunch break, they’ll exercise, they’ll do history, and then I make them research a topic.

Miranda: That sounds like a lot of work homeschooling her siblings. My friends sound pretty busy without me.

Ira: You are unhappy. Here, listen to this. Your friend Catherine.

Catherine: It’s quarantine season, so you know what that means, I’m about to…

[Package opening]

…bleach my hair, ‘cause I’m so bored, and I’m gonna bleach my hair.

Miranda: Sounds like quarantine’s really driving her crazy. I wish I could see her hair, though.

Ira: Sorry, I didn’t get that.

[Phone beep]

[Chill music, Roddy by Djo]

Music: “Cuttin’ the page. Things are looking up”

Miranda: The next day Kita called me back and we chatted. It was really good to hear her again. Actually, it was kind of weird to have a normal conversation after so many nights of listening to my friend’s voices through Ira.

Miranda: So that’s all I’ve been up to. What about you?

Kita: We have this huge group chat with pretty much every dancer. We started doing a lot of things together, like choreography with daily prompts and like freestyling with daily prompts and Dungeons and Dragons and art and writing.

Miranda: Oh, so you’re still keeping up with people? The only person I’ve been talking to is… Uh, nobody. I have to go, Kita, bye.

[Phone hangs up]

[Phone beep]

Ira: You were talking with your friend today?

Miranda: Yeah, it was good to hear about things happening now, like in her dance community. Hey, I also heard some people were building MIT’s campus in a video game. Could you play me something about that?

Ira: Here you go. MIT, in the Minecraft world.

Voice: This sort of digital recreation is a way to tag memories so like— remember that one time in the beginning of the year when I went with friends to go see the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Yeah, I can point at what row we were roughly seated in. Those similar views and angles in my memory, done even in a very blocky form, it helps.

Miranda: Huh. That sounds… really cool. I… I wonder if my friends and I could do something like that.

[Phone beep]

[Phone vibrating]

Catherine: Hey Miranda! It’s been so long since we’ve talked.

Miranda: Hey Catherine. Hi Carolina.

Carolina: Hey! It’s nice to see you again, even if it’s just on a screen.

Miranda: Yeah, I just wish we could hang out like we used to. It’s not the same anymore.

Carolina: How’re you guys?

Catherine: I mean it still sucks that we’re in quarantine.

Carolina: Yea, I keep hearing so much bad news about the coronavirus. Like, we might not be back in school until 2021.

Miranda: Uhhh… can we not talk about corona stuff?

Carolina: Um, yeah okay, what else do you want to talk about?

Miranda: I wanna talk about why Catherine won’t turn on the camera and show us her bleached hair.

Catherine: Wait, what? How do you know about that?

Miranda: Uh, I heard from a friend.

Catherine: Oh. Well my hair looks fine, anyway. I bleached it because I was so bored from quarantine. I mean if I’m going to be stuck indoors for months I might as well.

Carolina: So then… why’s your camera off?

Catherine: Well, I’m eating.

Carolina: Oh, okay. Yeah, it’s so awkward eating in group calls.

Miranda: Ugh, I miss eating together. Do you guys remember that Monday before we left? When it was really nice out? We should’ve gone out to eat together while we still had the chance. I miss when things were normal.

Catherine: Wait, are you talking about that Monday before we left? Things weren’t that normal or good.

[Soft music]

Carolina: Yeah, like most of my big lectures had already gone online. And there were all of those cases of coronavirus like, right next to campus. We probably wouldn’t have gone out to eat by then.

Catherine: We kind of knew things were changing. I mean, other schools were already closing down.

Miranda: Okay, maybe, but it was still a lot better than things now. We don’t get to hang out, and we never even talk anymore. I mean, Carolina, you never even got to tell me about the time you ripped the back of your pants.

Carolina: Wait, how do you know about that?

Miranda: It doesn’t matter. I want to call you guys but it’s so hard to schedule things and you don’t even pick up.

Catherine: You’re the one who never picks up. The only time you called me was when you started talking to that friend of yours. What’s her stupid name, Ira?

Miranda: At least she’s always here for me. She listens to me and shows me all the fun things everyone is doing.

Carolina : Wait, do you mean— is that how you know about the pants thing? Is Ira a stalker?

[Music intensifies]

Miranda: It doesn’t matter how I found out. Can you just forget about that? I just miss you guys. I miss the way things were.

Carolina: Well, god, Miranda, maybe if you weren’t so busy stalking me, you would figure out that if you just called us we could hang out more.

Miranda: I did call! But it’s not the same. I just wanted to go back to the things we used to do when things were normal.

Catherine: Miranda, this whole time all you’ve done is complain about how much you want to go back to the way things were. You can’t.

Carolina: Things are different now and you need to just accept that,

[Carolina’s words echoing]

[Somber music]

Miranda (in her head): I’ve been too stuck in the past to reach out to my friends. I spent too much time obsessing over our old memories. Now, I’m losing the friends I made those memories with. I’ve been relying too much on Ira.

[Phone beep]

Miranda: It’s Ira. I shouldn’t pick up.

[Phone beep]

Miranda: Ignore. Don’t pick up. I can read a book, do some writing, watch a movie, or do some of that homework I need to do. I can do a lot of stuff, just not talk to Ira.

[Pone beep]

Miranda: Ira is just a robot. She doesn’t get it. I’m losing my friends. I need to think of ways to make it up to them. But without Ira, I feel completely alone.

sigh Hey, Ira?

[Phone beep]

[Daunting low note]

[Ominous music]

Ira: Hello, Miranda.

Miranda: I want to hang out with friends again. I miss them.

Ira: Would you like to hear what your friends are doing now?

Miranda: I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t. But… I just… defeated sigh Yeah. Show me.

Catherine: …and I’m just worried about her. She really hasn’t been taking quarantine well.

Carolina: Yeah. She just seems so sad all the time about having to leave school.

Miranda: They were talking about me. They’re still worried about me.

Ira: You are surprised.

Miranda: Oh my gosh, I’m a terrible person.

Ira: You are unhappy. Remember the time you and your friends ran down to the riverside at sunrise?

Friend 1: The sun rises.

[Cheers and laughter]

Friend 2: Woah.

Friend 3: Look!

Ira: Would you like to hear more?

Miranda: No, I…

[interrupting] Ira: I can play you files from Monday, March 9th. Would you like to hear more?

Miranda: Ira, I think it’s time to say goodbye.

Ira: Aren’t you unhappy? Wouldn’t you like to hear more?

Miranda: I do. I want to hear more. I want to go back to those days, and if I can’t go back to those days, I want to replay them. But, Ira, I can’t. Now I just need to move forward. Goodbye, Ira.

Ira: Goodbye, Miranda.

[Phone beep]

[Smooth music]

Classmate 3: In this story, the characters Miranda and Ira are fictional, created by us. Other voices used were collected from interviews and conversations with Shayna Ahteck, Ankita Devasia, Michelle Nie, Birukti Tsige, and Lucy Ward. Carolina and Catherine are our real classmates, but their conversations with Miranda are also fictional. The hair bleaching, pants-ripping, and other adventures, though? That’s all true.

[Intense music]

This story was produced by Terrascope Radio, a class developed by the MIT Terrascope Program in collaboration with the MIT program in Comparative Media Studies.

We are Melissa White, Ilaisaane Summers, Trinity Stallins, Karissa Sanchez, Nghiem Pham, Catherine Lu, Darren Lim, Felix Li, Claire Kim, Amena Khatun, Carolina Gutierrez, and Jade Chongsathapornpong.

Some music in this story by Blue Dot Sessions.

Thank you to Terrascope director David McGee, community coordinator Elise Chambers, undergraduate teaching fellows Jorge Nin and Meriah Gannon, and finally, our lecturer Ari Epstein.

Thank you to all the people who shared their experiences with us.

Music: “I don’t know where we go. I’ve been very far from home, my heart. I don’t know where we go. I’ve been very far from home, my heart.”

Read More

May 2019 Water is Life: Tradition and Transition in the Navajo Nation

Posted at 12:00h in Mission-2022, Radio by terrascope

Photo credit: Ari W. Epstein

About 30% of residents of the Navajo Nation don’t have running water, and for many of those who do, their water is contaminated with uranium, arsenic or other toxins. As a group of Terrascopers learns, any discussion of water in the Navajo Nation leads to even more complex questions about tradition, change, language and spirituality.

First Aired: May 15, 2019 

Transcript

[running water]

Percy Yazzie: This is what you start with: water.

[running water]

[“Sacred Mask Song,” beating drum] 

[singing to traditional music]

Narrator: That is what we started with too- water. We’re a group of students in Terrascope, a first-year program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We started the fall semester with the goal of learning about water access in the Navajo Nation, which is located in the Four Corners region of the United States. Many people call the residents Navajo; however, one of the first things we learned is that “Navajo” is not what they call themselves.

Percy: Here we call ourselves “the five finger human beings,” the Diné Bilá Ashdlá’. I am the person, the human being with five fingers.

Narrator: Seven months after we began learning about the water issues in the Navajo Nation, we had the opportunity to travel there to learn first hand from members of the Diné community like Percy Yazzie, the man whose voice you just heard. We knew from our research that 30% of people in the Navajo Nation don’t have running water. And what limited water they do have often has toxic uranium, arsenic, and other heavy metals in it. But talking to Percy while on a hike of the sacred Canyon de Chelley, we saw how this had affected him personally.

Percy: My son is not going to put any kids in this world, he says the waters are dirty, contaminated, the land is contaminated. It’s not pure anymore. He says the world. So he says I’m not going to put my kids in the world that’s contaminated like that. All they’re going to do is suffer, and I don’t want to see my kids suffer, he said. So in that way, I probably won’t have any grandkids to see.

Narrator: Yet many people still drink their water without knowing that it could be contaminated.  Neilroy Singer, an environmental specialist at Diné Environmental Institute & Outreach, does uranium testing, but even he wasn’t always aware.  

Neilroy: I loved drinking out of my own faucet, without worrying. You know, not knowing where the water was coming from, just knowing that it was replenishing me, that I needed it. We lived right by the river. We didn’t mine. We had no worries swimming in the river. We had no worries playing in the river. We fished in the river. Our whole family, we used to have functions and parties by the river. I know now, I know now where— where our water sources are coming from, and it— my eyes are open, and yeah. We do have a lot of radionuclide, heavy metal contamination problems all over the reservation.

Narrator: Due to its geology, the Navajo Nation has always had a lot of natural uranium in the ground, and in the 1930s, human activity exacerbated the situation.

Neilroy: Back in the 1930s, the U.S. government decided to create bombs, the atomic bomb during the World War II— the World War IIera, and they were testing, they were wondering which element was the strongest to use to create this explosion. So, they found out ok, uranium— uranium is the element that we need.

Narrator: The project he was referring to was the Manhattan Project, and as we talked to him, he told us that we were standing where the uranium for these atomic bombs was taken from. 

Neilroy: Mid ‘50s to the late ‘50s, I believe, the government milled out almost 7000 tons of uranium ore from here. So that’s a lot. And they had to haul it all the way to Shiprock. And when they did that, they left these sites open here, exposed. 

[eerie flute tones]

Narrator: Many of these former mine sites are still open today.  This causes toxic heavy metals such as uranium to leak into the drinking water. 

While visiting a local ranch, we met Elba Allen, a student at Navajo Technical University, or NTU

Elba: Well I’m in environmental science, so that’s why I’m talking about these issues because it’s something that I’m, you know, studying about, and something I’m learning about. We’re very connected to the land, we’ve been raised out here, so just imagine you grew up here as a kid, like this is all you’re going to see, you’re so connected to it.

Narrator: As we spoke to Elba, we looked around and saw all these grand mesas, these huge stretches of land, and it just didn’t seem like we, as tiny humans, could have any impact on them. These great, age-old structures seemed so beyond us, but the harmful impacts people are having on the environment are real. And that was hard to believe.  

Elba: You know, we have refineries around here that are trying to frack in Chaco Canyon, which is a historical place. So there’s like a lot of water contamination, even at NTU, you know, we have uranium in our water, we don’t drink our water at Crownpoint, because, you know— and this is in America.

Narrator: Our conversation with Elba didn’t just stick to water.  She showed us the way that other environmental problems interact with Diné life, and we saw how easily physical problems could become more complex.

Elba: We’re on a ranch, and unfortunately one of the problems we have on the Navajo Nation is overgrazing. It is interesting because a lot of our elders depend on sheep, specifically like churro sheep, and we have a lot of cattle here, but this has led to overgrazing and we have a drought so there’s a lot of issues going on.

Narrator: In the Navajo Nation, small-scale sustenance farming and ranching are important both spiritually and financially.  But as Elba points out, ranching or farming is difficult when there’s drought. And drought makes overgrazing problems even worse. Overgrazing happens when animal herds’ feeding exceeds what the environment can handle. This, in turn, worsens drought conditions that are already tough because of climate change. Which, of course, makes ranching and farming even more difficult.

Hearing about all these environmental issues, it seemed more and more apparent that sticking to traditions, like farming, can be hard in the face of these physical obstacles, like the scarcity of water.

Elba: And unfortunately a lot of our elders don’t want to change with the times, but that’s very important. I see our culture evolving, and it has evolved in the past; through our language, our traditions, we’ve embraced a lot of different ideas. We’ve become farmers and ranchers and traditionally we weren’t. I think now is a point in which the traditional Diné philosophy and the more modern Diné philosophy is kind of in conflict because there’s a lot of issues, especially with natural resources and environmental problems, that a lot of the younger generation is seeing and is trying to be active— proactive about, but there’s also the traditionalists like our másánís, our grandmothers, and the cheiis, our grandfathers, who want to stick to a certain way of life.

Narrator: Before we visited the Navajo Nation, we thought we had some level of understanding of how culture intertwines with ways the Diné address water scarcity and environmental problems. During our semester of research, we had read studies, seen statistics, and even heard from some Diné. But it only took a few conversations for us to realize the deeper complexity of keeping tradition alive in the face of adversity. Talking to more people only revealed more and more complicated layers.

[Slow guitar music]

Narrator: Brandon Francis is an agricultural researcher at New Mexico State University, and he also practices and promotes traditional farming on his own time. He sees traditional agriculture as part of the future of his nation. But he understands that the lack of water makes traditional farming more difficult. Part of his work has been to cultivate drought-resistant plants that can survive the increasingly dry conditions. 

Brandon Francis: When you put that first seed in the ground, as planters, as people who plant things, we were making a holy pact with our Mother Earth and Father Sky that we’re going to love all things no matter how small or how big, we’re gonna love all things. That’s the pact we made, just like the pact we made with the sun not to abuse that sacred knowledge, but as corn planting people we made a pact to love all things and hold things sacred. And I think that’s one of the things that broke our people is we’ve lost that sense of k’é, community, and sense of community just doesn’t mean people who live in the same region, people who are blood related. It’s a sense of community with these plants, with the water, with the earth, and all things that we gotta view them as interconnected. And we’ve lost that, we’ve lost that connection.

Narrator: With farming and traditional practices at the heart, Brandon has hope for how his people can move forward. Farming stands firmly planted in Diné cultural identity—and so does language.

Brandon: Us as Navajo people, we are created from two ears of corn. And us as Navajo people, we are song and prayer given physical form. Because when they were first making us out of those ears of corn, they would sing songs, and they would say holy words, because we always believe that words, they have power and meaning beyond the ones we give them as definitions. They were given purpose. So that’s why when we talk as Navajo people we try not to yell or raise our voice or say things in anger because we know that these words have power and they can hurt people at a very physical, spiritual and mental level. So we always tell people you gotta be eloquent in what you say and choose your words very wisely. Because when they were making us, they put a lot of thought and song and prayer into us.

Narrator: As Brandon points out, language is deeply tied into Diné creation. By holding on to language, people can more easily retain a firm hold on their traditions. These words and language aren’t just important for preserving tradition, they also play a crucial role in communication with older generations. Emma Robbins is the director of the Navajo Water Project for Dig Deep, a group that improves water access by installing running water systems in homes. She told us how communication in Diné is integral to her daily work with families. 

Emma Robbins: When I talk to my family, the elders, you know, they know the work that I’m doing. They’re always really proud, and one of the parts that they are really proud of is not necessarily installing these home water systems, but even just coming back to the res and wanting to stay here. But I do think a lot of times they’re concerned, like a lot of times my family, my elders, will get after me, and be like you need to be fluent in Navajo. And that’s something that is extremely important. And I’m like “you’re right.” Once we lose that language, we’re totally just going to lose our culture. You know, a lot of times when we work with our clients, they might not speak English, and so when I go in and if I can’t explain something clearly, it’s like “okay, I’m not even able to talk with them.”

Narrator: Without fluency in the Diné language, Emma finds it difficult to do her work, a work that brings running water to people who otherwise might never receive it.  

[Slow melodic guitar music]

Narrator: On our trip there, a lot of the conversations we had started with water, and how to get people clean water, but they often turned towards culture, and how to keep that culture, and how language was integral to this. It seemed to us that many members of the Diné community believe that preserving tradition is just as important as solving the environmental problems. Many people in the Nation are worried that the Diné language is being lost, and with it, the culture is being lost as well. 

Tina Becenti is an official in the Baca-Prewitt chapter of the Navajo Nation, and we asked for her thoughts.

Tina Becenti: So our language itself soon may be extinct, sooner than we think. Our nature, our roots to this Mother Earth come from our culture, come from our traditions, come from our blessings to the snow, to the rain gods and all of those are being forgotten. We’re forgetting who we are as Native Americans.

Earl Tuley: What we believe was important, we lost it along the way. 

Meriah: Earl Tuley is the Vice President of Diné CARE, a Navajo Nation non-profit that uses grassroot tactics to advocate for environmental protection. He reflected on how his culture will be affected in the coming years.  

Earl: You know, we’re being told that in your lifetime, you know, you’re going to lose “Navajo.” We’re going to lose our people walking in moccasins, having my hair the way that it is, speaking our language, eating our diet. And I really, really thought that it meant that it was gonna be Navajos were going to cease, and we’re not going to see them on the surface of the Earth anymore. It really scared me.

Narrator: He was frightened because he thought that the Diné would simply vanish, but he realized it was more than that. It was the loss of the traditions that was more realistic, and maybe even more scary.

Percy Yazzie told us what he thought needed to be done.

Percy: We need to step back, one step and probably take time. And probably sit and think how this world is going to be better for us, how we are going to better it for the future generation, ya know. What are we leaving them? We’re leaving them nothing. The waters are dirty, contaminated, the land is contaminated. 

[Voices overlap of people talking about the problems in the Navajo Nation]

It’s not pure anymore…

All that time I was thinking we are drinking this? From this tank? So I was shocked. It was very sad for me to find that out that way…

We had a lot of coal mining and there was uranium mining back in the day and we have water issues so there’s like…

We’ve lost that sense of k’é, community…

It’s so complicated because it’s like…

What we believed was important, we lost it along the way…

We don’t know what’s going to happen and there’s no plan afterwards… 

In your lifetime…

[overlapping voices stop]

…you’re going to lose Navajo.

Percy: 50 years from now, you probably won’t hear a person sing…

[Percy singing traditional song]

Narrator: Culture is an integral part of life and identity in the Nation, and the Diné culture comes with a long history of resilience through hardships. We still have a lot to learn, but we’ve begun to see how the Diné continue to survive.

Miss Navajo Nation: Through my reign right now, my platform is resiliency. And I chose resiliency because that is all I’ve known my entire life. 

Narrator: That was Autumn Montoya, the reigning Miss Navajo Nation for 2018–2019. She explained to us that her job is to be a role model of tradition, a teacher of history, and a community leader. She shared with us a lot of hope and faith in the strength of her people. 

Autumn Montoya (Miss Navajo Nation): If we work together, our future will not be lost, we won’t go extinct.

Neilroy: We cannot just put aside our tradition, our culture, we have to incorporate that in things that we do on our land, especially if we want to bring everything back to the beauty way, hajong, meaning balance and harmony. 

Narrator: We learned that physical problems like water access and contamination don’t exist in isolation. They can’t be solved just by just building a filtration plant or a pipeline to every house. Yet even with the scope of these issues, there is still hope when resilient people come together.

[Percy singing]

Narrator: From Emma’s work with the Dig Deep project, providing water to remote homes in the   Navajo Nation to Neil’s work testing for uranium in community water supplies, we have repeatedly seen the ways the Diné work to improve the lives of their people.

Percy: If you don’t want to take and take and take and take and give nothing back, and if you want to change and give something back, this is what you start with, water. Who gave this to us? Mother Earth, huh. She’s given us a drink. So for me to have this whole bottle to myself, that’s some sort of greed. So for me to give something back, I give Mother Earth a drink first… 

[Water splashing]

Percy: …and then I drink…

[Sound of drinking]

Percy …so I don’t have this thing all to myself.

[Soft instrumental music, “La Citadelle” plays]

Narrator: Percy’s gratefulness and respect for the earth was inspiring.  After a semester of research and a week of immersing ourselves in the Navajo Nation, we were left thinking about our own traditions and culture, our purpose in life, and our goals for the future. We asked ourselves just as Earl had asked… 

Earl: …where did you come from? Why are you here, on this Earth? And then, where are you going to go, after this is all over?

[Traditional singing, “Red Ochre” plays]

Student voice: This story was created by students from Terrascope Radio, a class developed by the MIT Terrascope program in collaboration with the MIT program in Comparative Media Studies. 

To Terrascope director David McGee, coordinator Elise Chambers, lecturer Ari Epstein, and undergraduate teaching fellow Landon Chu: thank you so much for being a part of Terrascope and allowing us to have this amazing experience.

We would like to thank Brandon Francis and Karyn Denny, without whom this story would not have been possible, as well as Professor Steven Chischilly from Navajo Technical University, Professor Anne Semrau from Diné College, and Terrascope alum Levon Thomas.

We also express our gratitude to the officials of the Navajo Nation government, in particular Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Jason John from the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources. Likewise, we thank the Lane family of Navajo Ethno-Agriculture Farm and Emma Robbins from Dig Deep for opening their homes, farms, and workplaces to us. 

Finally, thank you to all of the amazing people we met at the Navajo Nation. You helped us to see the world in new ways. 

We are Terrascope Radio 2019: Aashini Shah, Christopher Kiel, Daniel Amaya, Jorge Nin, Laura Chen, Hou Lin, Meriah Gannon, Natasha Stamler, Neosha Narayanan, Patricia Chan, and Sreya Vangara. We hope you enjoyed the show. 

Read More

May 2018 HIGH WATER, DRY FEET: DUTCH DEFENSE AGAINST DISASTER

Posted at 12:00h in Mission-2021, Radio by terrascope

Photo credit: Ari W. Epstein

From artificial beaches maintained by natural ocean currents, to projects that make extra room for rivers flowing through cities, the Dutch know how to protect themselves from water. And each of these systems is also designed to meet other needs of the community it serves. We’re going to need to learn how to do that too.

Television sound from the 1953 flood courtesy of Sound and Vision, via Deltawerken Mediagallery.

First aired: May 16th, 2018 ·

Transcript

[Crashing waves and seagulls]

Narrator 1: There’s this town called Petten, right on the western coast of the Netherlands. A hundred years ago, if you had looked up Petten on a map, it wouldn’t be where it is now. And it would be different from where it was in 1701, and different again from where it was in 1421.

Narrator 2: Petten, or at least a village of that name, has existed in four different locations in the Netherlands over the past 600 years. So where did the first three Pettens go?

Lawrence Lishout: Over there you see a lot of things on the beach. It marks the old Petten. The village right now, this is the fourth Petten. Two Pettens are gone in the sea, including the people. The third Petten is demolished by the Germans in the war.

Narrator 1: That's Lawrence Lishout—he’s the treasurer of the Petten town council. He’s standing on a massive sand hill, pointing across a range of sand dunes towards the beach and the ocean beyond. The dunes act as a barrier- behind them is a dike…

Narrator 2: …which is a long artificial wall, built to prevent flooding from the sea.

Narrator 1: And behind that dike is the current village of Petten. On the other side of the tall dunes there's a large beach and expansive ocean. That's where Petten used to be. You can distantly see wooden posts sticking up from the water, a ghostly reminder of the structures that used to house the people of Petten.

[Soft piano music]

Narrator 2: Hundreds of years ago, the two oldest Pettens used to be above the ocean line. But due to two severe floods, the Pettens and the land surrounding them were washed away by the sea. And until very recently, the land where the beach and enormous dunes now stand was completely covered in water as well. 

[Ocean waves]

The dunes and beach are all new, dug up from the bottom of the ocean. Before that, the tide could rise up, all the way to the edge of the dike, and almost overtop it, into the low-lying village below.

Lawrence Lishout: This was all water. What you see over there, the black one, that's the old dike, and about here, there was the water line, so this is all new sand.

Narrator 1: How are the people of the fourth Petten able to avoid that same fate? How do they keep their town from being swallowed by the sea, in a country where half of the land is lower than one meter above sea level?

Narrator 2: That’s where Lawrence and the town council come into play. They negotiated with the government on behalf of their village as they attempted to protect the coastal regions from being "taken by the sea.” In each village, the project is different. But for kilometers along the coast of the Netherlands, local governments have been working with engineers in order to protect the coastline. In Petten, that meant dredging tons of sand from the bottom of the ocean to build these massive dunes and beaches between the village and the water.

[Footsteps through sand]

Lawrence: You see there- the ship? With the orange roof? That's the ship who takes the sand out of the sea and puts it in big pipes to the beach. And over there, that's the dunes.

Narrator 1: Of course, as with any massive project, there was some disagreement. The national government had a strategy. It wanted to build these large dunes and beach, but this would require removing some buildings along the coast. The residents, of course, had their own feelings about the plan.

Narrator 2: Many of the people’s complaints were valid; the dunes were going to disrupt their lifestyle and livelihoods by affecting the town’s tourism, and who was going to pay for it? They wanted to adapt the plan to fit their village’s needs. And with the help of the town council, the national government adapted their plan and financial strategy. Now that the dunes have been built, people are generally happy that they're there, and are less fearful about living on land so close to a stormy and volatile sea.

Lawrence: There is no water coming over the dike anymore. Because I live right behind the dike; and when it was storming, I saw the white coming over the dikes. I stayed inside. 

[Laughs]

Narrator 1: The protections that the government has built, such as these large dunes and beaches in Petten, do a good job at protecting the people on land. And the engineers are confident that they’ll provide safety for many years to come.

Narrator 2: So why does this matter? Why is it important that the people of Petten have these dunes and now feel safe? 

[Soft piano music]

Because, we often hear about the failures of people adapting to their climates, of them being outsmarted by nature and its elements. But this adaptation actually worked- or at least, is working right now. The plan that the government made, with heavy input from the residents of Petten, is effective at its job and fits into the community. That’s something we don't hear about every day.

Narrator 1: But the Netherlands is used to building these large-scale projects to protect itself from flooding. The Dutch have been protecting themselves from the sea for hundreds of years. In fact, the first small dikes in the Netherlands were built back in Roman times. Now, there are dikes and other protections along the entire coast of the country. For the most part, the people who live there feel safe.

Narrator 2: But have the Dutch always felt safe?

[Intense music]

Narrator 2: It’s 1953.The Netherlands has just witnessed one of the largest floods in its history. Almost 2,000 people died when a massive storm and high tide hit the southwest coast— the delta region of the Netherlands. 

[Man speaking in Dutch]

Narrator 2: The dikes were not large or strong enough, and the water overtopped them, flooding the delta. Many of those who survived live with haunting memories of the water.

Narrator 1: Yurun Kramer is the press officer of Maeslantkering, a huge flood gate that protects the city of Rotterdam. He describes the impact the flood has had on one such survivor.

Yurun Kramer: One person from Zeeland who witnessed the big flood- she was five years old. This February 1st was 65 years ago that the big flood happened. If she hears on the radio or on the television that a storm is coming in, she knows in her head she is safe, but she still is afraid. That’s normal, you know? It's like a traumatic experience.

Narrator 2: For a country whose national pride lies in water management, the 1953 flood was more than a tragedy; it was a call to action.

Baukje Kothuis: It was a big disaster, but it was also kind of embarrassing for the Dutch engineers and for the Dutch community.

Narrator 1: That’s Baukje Kothuis, also known as Bee. She’s a design anthropologist currently working on flood risk reduction structures and strategies at the Delft University of Technology. She has studied extensively how flood management in the Netherlands has changed over time, and she has a lot to say about how the people and Dutch government reacted to the 1953 flood.

Bee: Well we had to do something to make the country safe again after 1953, but also to restore the trust in Dutch water management.

Narrator 2: As a result of this disaster, the country felt that it had to do something drastic to prevent this from ever happening again. They already had flood barriers, and they had felt safe behind them. But then those protections failed.

Bee: At the time, the way people looked at coping with flood risk was “well, the water, or nature is our enemy,” you know, “and we have to fight this nature. And how do we do this? We can implement big technical solutions.” That’s the way we did it at the time.

Narrator 1: So the Dutch took action. 

[Inspirational piano music]

They built huge structures to protect themselves from the vicious ocean, all across the delta region of the country. In Zeeland, the area where the 1953 flood first occurred, engineers constructed the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier.

Narrator 2: Tjerk Zitman is a hydraulic engineer at the Delft University of Technology. He took us to see the Eastern Scheldt barrier to see its enormous scale. The storm surge barrier is essentially a bridge with gates underneath that can be lowered when there is danger of flooding. But what makes the structure distinct is that the whole thing is open to the public. 

Narrator 1: Visitors on a daytrip can walk through the enormous structure and read about how it protects the area. There’s even a waterpark for kids that opens during the summer, 

[Splashing water]

an aquarium with some of the local wildlife 

[Animal honking]

and an excursion boat that takes you right up to the storm surge barrier. The barrier is functional, but also accessible to the community that it protects.

Narrator 2: Walking along the bridge past the enormous sluice gates, you can hear thousands of gallons of rushing water flowing underneath. 

[Water flowing] 

In a severe storm, the barriers are lowered, and the waves will crash against these massive concrete gates. 

Narrator 1: The sluice gates, along with the rest of the delta protections, have worked so far. There hasn’t been a flood on such a massive or destructive scale since 1953. The barriers look strong, as if they could withstand any storm. They’ve made the Dutch feel safe again.

Narrator 2: Here’s Bee again, the anthropologist.

Bee: Actually, the Rijkswaterstaat- which is the Dutch Army Corps of Engineers- at the beginning of the ‘90s, they actually said “Well, the Netherlands is finished. We’ve done it.” One of the things that were being said at the time was “Well, God created the world, and the Dutch created the Netherlands.”  It shows very clearly how the Dutch felt, you know, “we did it and we won and it’s all done.”

Narrator 2: But the technological euphoria didn’t last forever. Once they felt safe against the ocean, people in the Netherlands started to think about the environmental implications of these massive barriers. Cutting off water during a storm- water that normally flows through a river or estuary- can have drastic impacts on the ecology of that region. The Dutch had the time and resources, so why not take nature into account? Instead of viewing nature as just a hostile threat, Dutch engineers attempted to work with nature and its forces to keep the water at bay.

[Birds chirping, footsteps on beach]

[Rolling waves]

Narrator 1: One of these natural protections is called the Sand Engine. Imagine- in front of you is a massive expanse of sand and tiny shells. You keep walking toward this isolated and looming structure- it’s so near, but somehow just out of reach. At the edge of the sand, you can see the dark blue expanse that is the ocean. On the other side is a giant hill, stretching kilometers down the coastline, acting as a final defense between the sea and village. And all of this beach is part of the Sand Engine. Tjerk Zitman took us on a walk along this engineering marvel.

Tjerk Zitman: So now you’re actually on the Sand Engine. The Engine is over there, it's the water. It all starts with flat sand, and then due to turbulence in the airflow, these small dunes are formed. That’s natural. Once you have a small bump, it increases the turbulent motion and that stimulates further growth of the dunes.

Narrator 2: Essentially the Sand Engine is a large stretch of over 21 million cubic meters of sand scooped up from the bottom of the ocean.

Tjerk: Before, what we did is, on the entire coast, we did the nourishment- taking the sand, sail to the shore, and then just put the sand everywhere to spread it out. This idea is to have nature do the spreading for you from north to south. 

Narrator 2: The ocean and wind work together like an engine to lengthen this artificial beach. This helps to preserve the dunes, which are one of the most effective barriers against the ocean.

Tjerk: So now we're hoping that with the Sand Engine and the nature- that's why we're proud of it, building with nature- that this hollow shape is reconstructed over the entire stretch of coast, making it stable and then afterwards requiring less maintenance.

[Intrigued music] 

Narrator 1: The Sand Engine looks and functions just like a beach. It’s a popular destination for tourists in the summer. This is another example of how the Dutch create designs that enrich communities in addition to keeping them safe.

Narrator 2: When looking at each of these flood protections- the dunes in Petten, the Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier, and the Sand Engine- there are distinctive differences in the ways they address similar issues. But the differences are due to the communities that they were built to protect. The adaptations and their functions are designed based on the needs of the community.

Narrator 1: This type of adaptation requires a great deal of communication among government, engineers, and residents. Think back to Petten, where the government came up with a solution and the residents found a way to make that plan work for their community. Another good example of this type of communication occurred in the village of Lent in the western Netherlands, right next to Germany.

Andrea: My name is Andrea Voskens. I have been stakeholder manager in this project.

Narrator 2: The project Andrea is talking about is part of a national initiative called Room for the River. Its purpose is to protect riverside areas throughout the country. In the village of Lent, across the Rhine River from the larger city of Nijmegen, where Andrea works, this meant constructing an entire second channel to divert flood water from the Rhine.

Andrea: We changed from defending ourselves from the water- from keeping the water outside- to an attitude where we want to create more room for the river in case it’s needed.

Narrator 1: Andrea’s part in this enormous project was primarily focused on communication. She was in charge of communicating between the project managers and the residents. If the residents had complaints, Andrea would be there to solve their problems. 

Andrea: I was 24 hours, seven days a week, during the whole period, available for the people. Day and night, holiday, no holiday, they could always call.

Narrator 2: But there are consequences that come with rerouting such an enormous amount of water into a new channel.

Narrator 1: Especially when people are living there, right where you want the water to go.

Andrea: This used to be the village Lent, where people lived generation after generation. It has been a very strong community and then suddenly our national government came with this whole idea. So you can imagine that the municipality did not agree. 

Narrator 2: In Lent, this meant moving 50 families out of their homes to protect the larger city of Nijmegen from flooding in periods of high water. This may seem like a solution that would cause a lot of anger from the village residents. But the government was careful to work with the residents to make sure they understood why it was essential that they move; and that they would be taken care of, with Andrea as a mediator. 

Narrator 1: The residents were allowed to discuss the plan with technical experts. They came up with a modified plan for diverting the floodwater, and some of their ideas were actually incorporated into the final project.

Andrea: They were a serious partner. They had their own experts, and we just talked professional. And if you speak at the same level then you get trust.

Narrator 2: Members of the 50 households who had to relocate were well compensated.

Andrea: They had more negotiations with them, and they got enough money to rebuild their house. I did not hear any complaint about it. 

[Energized guitar music]

Narrator 1: Even though the government was essentially kicking people out of their homes, it was willing to work with the residents to make sure they were part of the discussion and planning phases of the project. And through years of fair negotiation, the project was finished, and now, the city is protected from catastrophe. 

When it floods, water flows right over the abandoned area, instead of into the populated city.

Andrea: I think the people of the city of Nijmegen just are very happy with the area, but they too are more conscious of the behavior of the river. When there is high water, everyone comes to see, suddenly. But they are not worried, really.

Narrator 2: Room for the River in Lent is a good example of how solutions to a problem can be successful when there is enough communication between the people who create the solutions and the people who will be directly affected by them.

[String music with anticipation]

Narrator 1: So what? Why do we care about what happened in the Netherlands, and how the Dutch protect themselves from the sea?

Narrator 2: We care because in the future, we are going to have to learn how to adapt to οur climate too and do it in a way that fits within local communities.

Narrator 1: We’ve seen how the needs of the community can influence the design and function of flood protections. And there are so many other examples of this type of adaptation in the Netherlands such as a parking garage underneath protective dunes and a gorgeous boulevard that also acts as a concrete barrier against the sea.

Narrator 2: While these have been successful adaptations for their environmental issues, we can’t expect this to be the norm. Dredging millions of tons of sand to nourish a beach can work in the Netherlands, where they have the technology, resources, and tourists to appreciate the beach. That doesn’t mean that another coastal region will have the same level of success. Other regions will have different resources, different cultural values and different needs to adapt to.

Narrator 1: Unfortunately, with constantly changing climate, we have to start thinking about these issues now. We will all have to think about how climate change will affect our communities, people’s culture, politics, and society all have to be taken into account. And thaťs hard. But as we saw in the Netherlands, it is possible. 

[Hopeful music]

[Carnival music]

Narrator 2: This piece was produced by Terrascope Radio, a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed in collaboration with MIT’s program in Comparative Media Studies. Terrascope is a freshman learning community focused on solving complex environmental problems. 

Narrator 1: We’d like to thank David McGee…

Narrator 2: …director of the Terrascope program…

Narrator 1: …Elise Chambers…

Narrator 2: …for organizing many of the logistics on our trip to the Netherlands; 

Narrator 1: Sherry Zhou

Narrator 2: our undergrad teaching fellow,

Narrator 1: Tjerk Zitman and Baukje Kothuis, 

Narrator 2: for fearlessly leading us through the Netherlands

Narrator 1 the people we spoke to in the Netherlands; 

Narrator 2: and of course, Ari Epstein, 

Narrator 1: the Terrascope Radio class instructor.

Narrator 2: Sound from TV news about the 1953 flood is from Sound Envision. 

Narrator 1: Courtesy of the Delta Verken Media Gallery. 

Narrator 2: This has been Gabriel Owens-Florez, Caroline Boone, Kelly Chen, Landon Chu, AJ Cox, Charvi Gopal, Jarek Kwiecinski, Anne Tong Lee, Sarah Weidman

Narrator 1: …and Jeremy Dudo. Thank you for listening.

[Music continues with cheerful laughter]
Read More

May 2017 The Snake on the Lake Was Not a Mistake: The Rise of Modern Mexico City

Posted at 12:07h in Mission-2020, Radio by terrascope

Photo credit: Ari W. Epstein

In this personal exploration with radio-drama elements, Terrascopers try to understand how such an enormous city, with such a large population and so many unresolved issues, still manages to work so well. The answers lie both in the city’s ancient roots and in the ingenuity of its modern-day population.

First aired: May 17th, 2017 ·

Transcript

[ominous music]

Narrator 1: You seem to be hundreds of years in the past, standing upon a lake. The fresh water sparkles and ripples gently under the bright midday sun. 

[low note drop]

You look around and see beautiful mountain ridges. Their gray-brown slopes capped with white snow. Some people approach. They gaze at you. No, through you. And point.

[rock music]

Suddenly, they drop some rocks where they were pointing, and build a city. Then, the stone structures around you quickly fade into clusters of modern buildings. Now you, with 20 million of your closest friends, live in a massive metropolis placed neatly upon the lake—except the lake… doesn’t… exactly exist anymore. So you’re now in a desert where water coming out of a faucet feels like coins coming out of a slot machine. And the mountains that surround you, they happen to be active volcanoes. Also, earthquakes like to drop by every once in a while—just to shake things up a little.

So it turns out that you’re trapped in this part of the city, and you need to get to the other side of it. What do you do? Walk? No, it’s way too far. Drive? Nah, traffic is at a standstill. Bike? It’s too dangerous. Subway? It could be worth a shot. You get on the subway. It’s packed like a sardine can. The doors close, slicing the people who are just a bit too slow. Then, the train rushes to your destination. Jerking hard enough to form a few human-shaped dents in the wall of each stop. You get off the subway, and somehow your phone is no longer in your pocket.

[music stops]

In fact, you don’t have a pocket anymore. Somebody stole your pocket.

[rock music]

[irritated tone]

That’s it. You’ve had enough of this city. The daily temperature fluctuations. The ongoing water crisis. The danger of death by volcano. The slow transportation. The wall of mountains. The lurking…

[indistinguishable overlapping problem descriptions]

[alarm clock]

[footsteps]

Narrator 2: Ugh. You feel a bit shaky. 

[sounds of transit and birds]

It’s been 5 weeks since you moved to Mexico City, and you’re still having those nightmares. 

[soft guitar music]

Your initial fears of what the city would be persist. 

[sigh]

Alright. Rise and shine. It’s time for work. 

You roll out of bed and stifle a groan.

Your long hair is a frizzy mess, an absolute monster to comb. And your skin is soaked in sweat.

You hastily get dressed for work as your casual clothes lay temptingly across your dresser.

[cup being set down]

Your breakfast is only a speedy cup of coffee before you sprint off to the street, where you try to catch a minibus.

[car honks and drives away]

After a long ride, you arrive at the subway where you join the throngs of people, surging towards the doors. Fifty minutes pass on the train, standing practically in a stranger’s arms. Until at last, your transfer comes. 

[subway stop bell rings]

[adventurous music]

Two left turns and a flight of stairs later, you’re back on another train. Navigating through the intersections of blue and green and pink and red lines used to baffle you, but after following the flow of thousands of people in the station for the past few weeks, you’re starting to get the hang of it too. Your stop comes, and soon you emerge into the free air. You only have a few minutes more before you’ll be trapped in an office again. 

[car drives off]

You savor them.

[cups clank, muffled voices]

Your shift is long. Afterwards, you grab drinks with your coworkers, as you often do. But tonight, you decide to duck out early. All you want is your bed, but you have to make your way back through the city again before getting there. 

You take one subway, transfer onto another, and eventually end your journey back on a minibus, headed towards the edge of the city. 

[thunder and rain falling]

The summer rains begin to fall. They’ve come late today. Your favorite scent. That peculiar way that concrete smells when it’s wet floats in through the window. You smile. Finally, you’re back. 

[curious music]

It feels strange how this place and the city are starting to feel more and more like home. Mexico City can hardly be called perfect, but something about it is beginning to capture your love. It has a beauty in its haphazard ways and in its people.

[thunder]

A shower helps get the tension out of your shoulders, and the rain falling on your roof helps lull you to sleep.

[more rain and curious music]

Narrator 3: Vibrant.

Narrator 4: Surprising.

Narrator 3: Diverse.

Mexico City is thriving with chaos and confusion. I’m Jacob Miske.

Jennifer (Narrator 4): And I’m Jennifer Lu.

We visited Mexico City as part of a group of students studying urban resilience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And, we had done some research on the city beforehand.

Jacob (Narrator 3): We learned about some of its problems: the water crisis, the sprawl, and the transit system. But we were amazed that it functioned pretty smoothly and we were taken aback by the beauty of the city.

Jennifer: We talked to a lot of people, and asked them why this city manages to work. Professor Roberto Rodriguez teaches Architecture at Tecnológico de Monterrey. He said that the answers are rooted in Mexico City’s history and he told us a legend about the city’s beginnings.

[drums beating to a tune]

It was a divine message that guided the Mexica tribe to their new home. 

Roberto Rodriguez: The gods told one of the leaders, “when you find an eagle eating a snake in a small island, you make the foundation of the city there.” 

Jennifer: This just so happened to be on a tiny island in the middle of a giant lake. So that’s where the leaders of the Mexica tribe decided to settle. Surrounded by water and snow-capped volcanoes, their civilization grew into the Aztec empire, and their city into Tenochtitlan, their royal capital. 

Jacob: Usually, cities use the surrounding land for agriculture to support their population, but Tenochtitlan was in the middle of a lake. How does one go about building a farm on water?

Jennifer: For the Aztecs? Willow trees, bundles of reeds, some mud, and a lot of ingenuity. They combined mud with branches over the shallow lake bed, forming floating islands rooted by trees and posts. 

Jacob: But then, the conquistadors arrived. They overturned Aztec society, their language, and their culture.

[slow melody of low notes]

Jacob: The two groups of people blended, and from there, modern Mexico City was born.

[bells ringing, cars honking]

Jacob: Walking through the zócalo, the historic center of town, you can see a live timeline of the transformation. There are modern stores next to colonial-style government buildings next to a huge gothic-inspired cathedral.

Jennifer: But what about the Aztecs? Their city lies underneath the plaza. The excavation of the templo mayor, one of the main temples, is right outside the square.

Jacob: The Spaniards completely changed the city, building over the pyramids and draining the lakes. In fact, most of the canals are now paved streets. But some of the Aztecs’ original canals and floating islands remain. Although the atmosphere of the waterways is a bit different now.

[street music and cheers]

Jacob: Colorful, gondola-like boats called trajineras, with names like Laura and Gabriela, crowded the water with partiers and locals.

[trumpet mariachi solo]

Jacob: Mariachi played along the banks, hoping to get picked up.

Jennifer: Vendors in their own little boats definitely capitalized on this odd mix of partiers and families all taking a trip down the waterways. They had soft drinks, beer, corn on the cob, mini stoves with fresh tacos, and they appeared out of nowhere.

Jacob: But it was our eighth day there, so we weren’t super surprised. People managed to find creative places to sell their goods. From vendors on boats to ones on subway trains, selling pens, to men walking through the highways selling pistachios. There’s always some form of a market, and it’s been that way since the Aztecs.

Jennifer: In the National Museum of Anthropology, professor Rúben Gutierrez, who teaches Architecture at Tec de Monterrey, showed us a diorama of an Aztec market.

Rúben Gutierrez: You can witness that their street life and selling things in the outdoors was a historical factor that continues through our days.

[street music in Spanish]

Jacob: Informal stands of magazines and candy, large outdoor markets under tents filled with loud music and noisy chatter—markets were everywhere.

[market sounds—music and movement]

Jennifer: Commercial chain supermarkets have come to Mexico City, but the culture of outdoor markets persists, despite competition from these larger, big brand options.

Jacob: We made a special trip to the Mercado de San Juan, a well-established indoor public market. It’s located in a warehouse-like building that lets air circulate, and where light casts a natural glow onto the towers of fresh produce.

Jennifer: There, we met Olivita. A small woman with large glasses who says that she’s the oldest vendor in the market. Like many of the vendors, she let us taste some of her food, including her homemade mole, a savory Mexican salsa made with chili powder and chocolate.

Jacob: The amazing thing is, she’s been there since she was nine. Following the footsteps of the last six generations of her family.

Olivita: …seis generaciones, abuelo, abuela, y mamá y nosotros…

Jacob: She’s grown up with the market and seen all exchanges.

Jennifer: She told us that the vendors used to display their goods on the ground.

[Olivita speaking in the background]

Jennifer: But since then, the stands in the market have expanded upward, and the city, it’s grown outward.

Olivita: Era muy diferente. La capital de México…

English voiceover: The capital of Mexico was smaller.

Olivita: Eramos pocos…

English voiceover: There were fewer of us

Jennifer: Today, houses blanket the surrounding hills like a bright patchwork quilt. It’s expensive to live near the city center.

Jacob: A lot of people are forced to live on the outskirts. As a result, Mexico City’s area is five times bigger than it was in 1950. It’s now almost twice the size of New York City.

[jazzy music]

Onésimo Flores: I would say this city should be one that allows you the opportunity to have a roof. To have a home. To have a shelter. And it’s a city that gives you access. Access to opportunity. Access to cultural experience. Access to jobs. In Mexico, we’ve been able to deliver both, but never bundles.

Jacob: Onésimo Flores, CEO of cata4, an urban planning and transit consultancy, explained the government’s efforts to keep the city moving.

Onésimo: So, you want access to opportunity, you live close to the central area. You want access to a roof, and I mean, you know, for the vast majority of the people that have a lower income, you have to move 20, 30, 40 kilometers away. And part of the challenge is: how do we rethink that equation, and try to put them together?

Jennifer: That tug of war between job opportunities and affordable housing really comes out in the complex structure of the transit system.

[birds chirping, cars driving]

Jacob: Mexico City’s transit system is a chaotic masterpiece.

[car horn, palettes being stacked, subway squeaking]

Jacob: In the beginning, the city had a government-owned subway system and a privately-owned bus system.

[car driving]

Jennifer: However, an informal bus system arose. And it was winning.

Onésimo: So in the very late 70’s, the government decided to take over all of the buses in the city and to create a government-owned bus company. And it was planning nirvana.

Jennifer: They envisioned wider roads, an expanded subway, and a bus system to complement it. It was supposed to revolutionize transit.

Onésimo: And it was a time where planners and government officials were really ambitious. They thought they could completely reshape the city. So what happens? What happened was complexity. Administering a bus company with over 2000 buses at that time proved a very complex challenge. The buses didn’t get fixed. The schedules weren’t met. So eventually, this bus company started to die. 

Jacob: But a replacement quickly swooped in. An informal system began where taxi drivers would pick up multiple riders and take them where they needed to go.

Jennifer: Eventually, these taxis were replaced with mini buses and routes became more formalized.

Onésimo: At the beginning, there were government raids to stop these big bus— informal operators from cannibalizing transit demand from the bus company. But eventually the government realized that, in essence, these informal operators were the guys that were enabling the city to keep moving. 

[soft, chill music]

Jacob: It is a highly disorganized way of getting people to their destinations, but somehow, it works.

Jennifer: But what’s really interesting is how the structures come about. What works doesn’t necessarily come from piles of blueprints or complicated planning by large organizations. It comes from the people, people who love the city. Here’s Veronica Nehera, she’s a chef, and she’s lived here all her life.

Veronica Nehera: I love Mexico. I love the people. They care about each other. That’s what I love most. 

[alarm clock]

[sounds of standing up and footsteps]

Narrator 2 (Jennifer): Get up. Brush your teeth. Go on your way.

It’s a nice day and you like to see the sunshine. You get on the minibus to work. There’s traffic again. Ugh, no surprise. You watch as the hills crawl past. Mosaics of houses painted more colors than you have names for. Sprawling communities, interweaving transport systems, vendors lining the streets. Twenty-one million people in a living, evolving city, full of culture, full of history, full of life.

[lively music]

A place of chaotic harmony. You lean your head against the window and admire the view. 

Joey: This piece was produced by Terrascope Radio, a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed in collaboration with MIT’s program in Comparative Media Studies. Terrascope is a freshman learning community focused on solving complex environmental issues and is a part of the Office of Experiential Learning. 

We would like to thank all the people we spoke with during our time in Mexico City. We also give thanks to Professor David McGee for leading the Terrascope program and fall class; to Emily Martin for planning many of the logistics of our trip; to Laura Bergman, our undergraduate teaching fellow, for keeping us in line; to Libby Hsu and Dr. Luisa Pinto, who skillfully helped us translate throughout the trip; and to Ari Epstein, the instructor of Terrascope Radio, for guiding us through the making of our piece. 

I’m Joey Noszek.

Anthony: I’m Anthony Cheng.

Arón: I’m Arón Ricardo Perez-Lopez.

Janice: I’m Janice Shiu.

Sarah: I’m Sarah Wu.

Eden: I’m Eden Bensaid.

Sherry: I’m Sherry Zhou.

Asia: I’m Asia Chapman.

Rayna: I’m Rayna Higuchi.

Mei: I’m Mei Wu.

Jacob: I’m Jacob Miske.

Jennifer: I’m Jennifer Lu.

Joey: And we are Terrascope Radio 2017.
Read More

May 2016 Rebeldes: A Journey through New Mexican Agriculture

Posted at 19:00h in Radio by terrascope
Photo credit: Ari Epstein

Photo credit: Ari Epstein

An engaging and informative look at farmers in a desert landscape, and at how their individual farming styles reflect their personal values. Explores modern industrial farming, centuries-old collective water-distribution organizations, ancient Navajo corn customs and semi-urban organic farming.

First aired: May 11th, 2016 ·

 

 

Transcript

[wind]

[rattlesnake]

David: In a land dominated by desert, some things are easy to find.

Nalani: Sand?

David: Check

Nalani: Sunlight?

David: Check

Nalani: Tumbleweed?

David: Check

Nalani: But in New Mexico, you might find something else you wouldn’t expect.

David: Farmers

Nalani: Agriculture

Food

Life

And just about everywhere, but how?

David: My name’s David.

Nalani: And I’m Nalani.

David: We’re students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nalani: We’re part of a group that spent the past year researching solutions to some of the biggest problems in food security. And we went to New Mexico to get a better understanding of one of them: desert agriculture.

David: It might sound like an oxymoron, but looking at the crops in New Mexico, it’s clear that life finds a way.

Speaker: These sweet peas are what we call *rebeldes*, “rebels,” so they planted themselves. Whenever we get a random guy that pops up, we call them *rebeldes* because they just wanted to go for it, and they went for it.

[jazz music]

Nalani: It’s impressive enough that crops managed to grow in the dry climate.

David: Sure, we marveled at the carrots and the onions, but behind the scenes, how each farmer adapted to the challenges of the desert landscape is what really stood out.

So we drove across the state to explore a variety of places for farmers who, for one reason or another, chose to plant their roots

Nalani: From the highlands to the vast plains, from fields of alfalfa to little plots of radishes and carrots…

David: …we wanted to talk to the people who work this land.

Nalani: And after hearing about their struggles and their tough decisions…

David: …about their inventive ways of farming…

Nalani: …and, most of all, how much they care about their way of life and the work they do

David: There was something that we realized.

Nalani: The farmers of New Mexico…

David: …they’re *rebeldes* too.

[action-inducing guitar music]

[sound of wind with soft musical accents]

Lorenzo Candelaria: What we try to pursue here is not necessarily a head of lettuce, or a tomato. Because of the ancient properties of this land, because of the uses it’s been in for thousands of years, the work that we do here is sacred. When we plant something, we’re not necessarily producing a head of lettuce. Because we’re consuming this living, breathing creature, living energy becomes our own consciousness.

[flute sounds]

So what we raise here on this farm is not necessarily lettuce, or tomatoes, or chili, but consciousness.

Nalani: That was Lorenzo Candelaria, the owner of Cornelio Candelaria Organics, a farm near Albuquerque.

Travis: We just watered and we had a leak today, so just be careful, it’s a little wet, just be prepared for mud. Can you guys identify any of these crops?

[Travis continues talking in the background]

David: And this is Travis McKenzie, his employee, introducing us to the farm.

Nalani: Travis leads us through the densely packed rows of lettuce, kale, and arugula, picking leaves and eating them off the plant as he talks. Looking just ahead, the crowded rambling green of the farm fills our view.

David: Looking just a little farther, orderly rows of suburban houses come into view. In some ways, this farm is just a plot of land surrounded by a subdivision.

Nalani: Travis and Lorenzo view the land as much more than that, though.

Travis: We are totally organic, so if you want to pick a leaf and try it, please feel free…

Lorenzo: This farm has been in my family for a little over 300 years, and the care and nurturing that it has taken over a period of 300 years is very intimate. So this has become truly my mother.

Travis: This is all just live food. It’s just veggies. Like when Lorenzo was saying, it’s pure life. So really, what we’re doing is we’re harnessing the energy of the sun, the potency of the seed, the sacredness of the water, and the nutrition and the sustenance in the soil to create life. It’s beautiful.

Nalani: Here, nestled between suburban backyards and the growing sprawl of New Mexico’s largest city, their farm is advocating for an unconventional approach.

Travis: We’re all about keeping ancient practices and blending them with modern technology and techniques, but having a nice balance, and always respecting Mother Earth in those endeavors.

David: They have built a system based upon respect and recognition of the land, treating it as a living, breathing person.

[soft music, animal sounds, birds chirping]

Travis: Mother Earth will continue on.

[music intensifies]

We all gotta remember, by taking care of Mother Earth, we are taking care of ourselves and our future generations.

David: Life in the New Mexico desert can seem like a competition against the land. Travis and Lorenzo’s philosophy, working with the land instead of fighting it, stands out as different. It’s why they let the *rebeldes* grow instead of pulling them out.

Nalani: And this farm, in the middle of suburbia, provides a place for their philosophy to be shared.

Lorenzo: I’ve seen… people are coming here very anxious and very stressed and spend a couple hours pulling weeds. And by the time they leave, they’re happy people again. It’s a beautiful way to connect.

Nalani: Travis and Lorenzo have worked hard to make sure that a deep, personal connection to the land is not lost.

David: They keep this connection in an urban area. We visited another group of people who maintain a similar philosophy, far from the big cities.

[high anticipation string music]

Desiree (translated): My name is Desiree Descheniei. I am of the Tangle People Clan. I was also born for the Tangle People Clan. And my maternal grandfather, he’s of the Water Coming Together Clan. And my paternal-grandfather is of the Nicaraguan people.

David: Desiree is a member of the Navajo Tribe who grew up in the Northwestern New Mexico city of Farmington.

Nalani: The Navajo built their society over the course of centuries. The Navajo Nation currently spans a vast tract of land that occupies parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.

David: And the Navajo have used this land to their advantage. Farming is deeply ingrained in their society. In fact, their nation contains one of the largest irrigated farms in North America.

Nalani: In Farmington, the sandy brown of the desert land is broken up by expansive circles of green. This is a network of commercially irrigated fields.

David: But moving farther into Navajo land, the industrial fields disappear altogether. Instead, you might run into a small field, and a mother and father outside tending to it.This is a family farming on a small scale, growing native crops as they have for generations.

Nalani: Traditionally, the Navajo are known for growing corn, beans, and squash. These crops are often called “the Three Sisters” and the people use them to sustain both themselves and their cultural practices.

Desiree: Much of Navajo philosophy and life revolves around farming. There’s just a lot of sacred foods that you grow and then you utilize those for your nutrition, for your physical health, but also your spiritual health. Corn’s a big deal among the Navajo because we eat it, but we also pray with it. And so, to grow your own corn is just a very mindful way of trying to provide for yourself.

Nalani: This corn culture extends to daily routines. For example, at the school where Desiree runs a community garden, the students and teachers use corn in a morning ritual every day before classes start. This corn ritual is common among Navajo people, as she explains.

Desiree: The holy people, *Diyin Dine*, they are most listening during the dawn. And during that time, you’ll usually say a prayer. Sometimes you’ll have either corn pollen or even corn grindings to just kind of offer as a blessing.

David: She also told us about another, even more personal ceremony.

Desiree: It’s called *Kinaaldá*, it’s when a girl becomes a woman, and during that time, you spend 4 days preparing to bake. One of the big things is that a way to demonstrate as a woman your ability to cook, also to provide, is to make this cake made out of corn. Before you’re making this cake, you’re grinding the corn physically with rocks.

David: The continuation of Navajo culture relies on access to corn. So what happens when the corn that they use for ceremonial purposes is threatened?

Nalani: In the summer of 2015, a chemical mine spill released toxic waste into the river that feeds much of Navajo land. They responded by closing irrigation ditches to protect their fields. But the loss of water devastated production and posed a serious health threat.

David: We spoke to a Navajo Farm Board official, Joe-Ben Jr., to get some insight on how the spill has affected the community and the agriculture that supports it.

[machine whirring]

Joe-Ben: So if you have a culture that consumes corn for ceremonial purposes, and for domestic purpose—table use—and if you have only 10% of your normal yield, and you’re gonna still need to pray and need to do your ceremonies, you’re going to use that 10% for that. So what should’ve normally gone on your table will be gone, missing.

David: And yet, when it came to the survival of Navajo culture, he was optimistic.

[machine whirring]

Joe-Ben: The Navajo people come from a culture that has never been severed. A culture that has never been severed since the introduction of western culture. For that reason, you have to have hope. If it has gone this far without being broken, you hang your hope and your faith on that past history of endurance and resiliency.

[hopeful piano music]

[soft guitar music]

Nalani: There’s something we’ve been leaving out of this whole equation so far. Remember, we’re in New Mexico and getting food requires more than just putting a seed in the ground. You need a secret ingredient. One very specific chemical that’s a little hard to come by in a desert.

David: It’s called dihydrogen monoxide: water.

[flowing water]

Nalani: Tucked away in the Northern New Mexico highlands is a town called Chimayo, where agriculture means a lot more than just producing food…

David: …and where water is handled a little differently.

[birds chirping]

Nalani: The red-streaked hills nearby are covered in brush. Along their sun-beaten tops, small wooden crosses stand watch.

David: Further off in the distance lie snow-capped mountains whose spring melt will fill this valley with life.

[distant bells]

Nalani: Down here, a collection of fields, well-trodden dirt paths, and a cluster of pastel-colored houses. This is El Rincon Farm.

[shoveling]

David: And that’s the sound of a ditch being cleaned.

Nalani: To all appearances, it looks just like any old ditch.

David: But this is an *acequia*, part of a centuries-old tradition of irrigation and community governance in New Mexico.

Nalani: On the surface, an *acequia* is just a network of irrigation ditches. But what makes them special is the way that communities band together to maintain them and share the water.

David: For instance, here is how the acequias are cleaned.

Nalani: A group of 20 to 30 members of the *acequia*, or *parciantes*, line up in the ditch 10 paces apart and clear up all of the debris from their section.

Teodoro Trujillo: As a person finishes his portion of the 10 feet, he stops and when everyone stops, you know they’re ready to move. And to move, the way we do it is yell out *“huerta,”* meaning shift.

David: That’s Teodoro Trujillo, or Ted, a farmer from Chimayo,

Nalani: As an *acequia* farmer himself, Ted is an expert on the philosophy and practice of the *acequia* tradition.

Ted: Everyone lines up at the beginning of the *acequia*. And the *acequia*, of course, is the irrigation ditch, but it’s really a bigger word in that it’s almost a form of government, it’s a form of land-based philosophy and practices. And actually, the whole business with water is sharing. You know, what else can you do with it? If someone else needed water, you need to accommodate them. It’s just sort of basic common sense that we’re here to help each other. So it worked out fairly well, and it’s probably the most important thing we’ve done because we’re trying to conserve water on the assumption that there will be less of it over time. *El agua no se vende, el agua se defiende.* Water isn’t to be sold, water is to be defended.

David: Ted is also an attorney who specializes in water rights law.

Nalani: His daughter Pilar is a Project Specialist for the New Mexico Acequia Association, an organization that works to protect the *acequias*, honor their cultural traditions, and feed their communities.

David: To learn more, we went right to the source of water for Chimayo’s *acequias*…

[flowing water]

..the Santa Cruz Dam.

Nalani: There, Pilar told us all about one particular success in the fight to preserve the *acequias*. A law passed in 2003 that gives the *acequias* more control over the water that flows through their ditches.

Pilar: A mechanism in the law was put in place to protect *acequias* from water transfers happening outside of the community. And so it’s a really crazy concept that there’s wet water and then there’s paper water. And that’s what we call—the paper water is the water right. And then you can take that piece of paper and sell it to somebody else. It can be a hard concept for some of our people to grasp because water can’t be separated from the land. That’s not how it works.

David: But that’s just it. What sets the *acequias* apart is that in other parts of the Southwest, water can be separated from the land.

Nalani: With the *acequias*, the community owns the water. They decide how to divide it up so that everyone gets their fair share.

David: And they almost lost that.

Pilar: And it creates a drive for all of these people who have traditionally been very cash poor and all of a sudden they find out that they can sell some water for some money, but you’re not actually removing the water, it’s still there, so it’s hard to be like “oh, that’s not a good thing to do,” it’s hard to get the concept that you will never be able to use that water again on your land, ever.

Before, all you had to do was show up at the State Engineer office with an application and say “I want to transfer my water, I want to sell it.” And then that was a loss to the community. And if four or five people on an *acequia* do that, that could just threaten the whole *acequia*, you know, because there’s not enough people farming. The land dries up and it’s a sad situation. We lose a lot of things.

Nalani: Five people may not seem significant, but with every *parciante* that leaves, some of the independence that fills the *acequias* leaves too.

David: And even if just a few people leave, that’s a lot of water that the *acequia* can no longer use to support agriculture in the community. It’s just gone.

Pilar: Now, the only thing we did is say “Listen, *acequias* have always been autonomous, they’ve always been sovereign, they’ve always governed themselves. Let us decide whether or not that water should be transferred out of the acequia.” So now, that’s it. That’s the simplicity of the law.

[chill music]

If you’re not from here and you don’t have a real understanding of the *acequias* then you can have a hard time understanding why we’re just gonna, why are we going to protect this ditch, you know?

Ted: It’s really a joy to see the water in it. It’s like having a waterway next to your house in, you know, in a desert. Can’t beat that.

[intense guitar music]

Nalani: At this point, New Mexico might seem like a patchwork of small self-sustaining farms.

David: The reality of farming today is that not all food comes from the Travises and Teds of the world.

Nalani: So what’s the other side of the story?

David: We visited some farms that were a little different than the ones we’d seen before. Like Lack Farms in the Southern part of the state. Just driving through the fields takes a while.

[car driving]

Nalani: Driving on dusty dirt roads, our path cuts through sharply-defined fields. Row after row of trees and plants are ordered with eye-catching geometric precision.

David: You could find yourself getting lost in the seemingly unending expanse of, well, food.

Nalani; We passed by pecan orchards, cattle corrals, vegetable fields, and processing plants.

David: At a stop to the side of an alfalfa field, we spoke to Clayton Creese and Jake Welmsma of Lack Farms about what farming means to them.

[machine whirring]

Clayton Creese: I’d say farming is really about feeding the world, you know?

Jake Welmsma: Grow the most possible in the least amount of land in the shortest amount of time.

Nalani: The truth is, by 2050, we will have two billion more mouths to feed.

David: Two. Billion. And being right there, surrounded by a sea of green in the middle of a desert, it’s not hard to see why Clayton and Jake have an appreciation for scale.

Nalani: But isn’t something lost in this kind of production? It’s hard to picture Travis or Pilar being on this farm.

David: It’s a hard question to answer. Larger farms like Lack, using more conventional, industrial methods do produce a lot of food.

Nalani: And that food ends up feeding a lot of people.

David: To the guys at Lack, modern technology is what makes it all possible

Clayton: Yeah, we use lots of different herbicides, well not “lots,” but you know. Everything has its own herbicide. You know, we have a herbicide that we spray on the grasses, we have a herbicide we spray on broad leaves. But you gotta keep your plant healthy, and insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are part of that.

David: For them, pesticides are just a tool to produce a quality product.

Nalani: When it comes to making decisions about what goes on their plants, the farmers at Lack speak from their own experiences.

Read More

May 2015 Power From The People

Posted at 17:00h in Radio by terrascope

Power_200x174_10ptTimesBold

A warm, personal story about the lives and challenges of energy workers “behind the light switch,” especially those who operate Pacific Gas and Electric’s solar, hydro and nuclear power plants.

First aired: Spring Semester, 2015 ·

Transcript

[upbeat music]

[power failure]

Elisa: What the…

[switches being flipped]

Elisa: …no! Ugh, why now? Mom, the power went out! 

Cleo: Everyone knows that feeling of agonizing frustration when they’re in the middle of something really important, and bam! the power goes out.

Elisa: Ugh, I hate that.

Cleo: But have you ever wondered who’s behind the scenes to make sure the electricity comes back on?

Music: And the world is made of energy / And the world is electricity…

[”Energy” by Apples In Stereo continues]

Cleo: My name is Cleo.

Elisa (sp?): And I’m Elisa.

Cleo: And we’re students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We took a class that focused on the growing global demand for energy.

Elisa: Our professors and mentors took us to Northern California on a whirlwind tour of the state’s electricity generation. 

Cleo: They coordinated with Pacific Gas and Electric…

Elisa: …or PG&E for short…

Cleo: …a main supplier of energy for the area.

[uplifting music]

Cleo: Over the course of a week, we toured PG&E’s solar, hydro, and nuclear power plants. We learned a lot about how various energy sources worked.

Elisa: But something else really surprised us: just how interesting it was to talk to the people operating the plants.

[plane flying overhead]

Cleo: Our plane flew into San Francisco early Friday afternoon. The next day, we woke up at 5am and drove high up in the Sierra Nevadas to Spalding Lake, which serves as a reservoir for a hydroelectric facility.

Elisa: Those of us who fell asleep on the way woke up to a dramatic change in scenery.

[optimistic piano music]

Cleo: Suddenly, we were surrounded by pine-covered mountains.

Elisa: It was so beautiful. One minute, we’d be surrounded by trees, and the next, a valley would open up in front of us, enclosed by huge mountaintops. 

Cleo: It was apparent that our love for the scenery was shared by the employees we met there.

Elisa: Phil Lee is an engineer who works in the drum powerhouses, where water from Spalding Lake ends up.

Cleo: After speeding down the mountainside in huge tubes, the water runs through large wheels and turbines that spin PG&E’s generators.

Elisa: Phil had some really interesting things to say about how he started working in power generation.

Phil Lee: I kinda fell into power generation. I had the choice when I graduated to go into manufacturing cars or going into power gen, so I worked at a steam plant. But I would say that out of all power generation, hydro is one of the most beautiful ones to work in. You know, driving out, this is what you do on your weekends when you hike, right? You go to these reservoirs and you look at them.

Cleo: Phil is one of a handful of workers who are on site at any given time. Because there are so few people and they spend so much time with each other, it was clear they were all really good friends. After all, they’ve gone through many stressful experiences together…

Elisa: …which we got to hear about. Even without understanding all the mechanical details, it’s easy to imagine what the situation must’ve been like.

Speaker: We get into some crazy scenarios. I’ll give an example of one: we overtraveled the TSV on Spalding Unit 2. We had to pop it back the other direction, so what did they teach you in engineering school on how to do that, Phil?

Phil: Don’t get yourself in that situation to begin with.

[laughter]

Speaker: So we find ourselves in those situations quite often, right? And this wasn’t, it wasn’t really our fault. We’re sitting there scratching our heads like “how are we gonna do this.” Literally, we had sledgehammers beating on this thing and that’s not gonna work.

Phil: And I’m just like “just go do it man, it’ll be fine!” and they’re like “No, dude, we can’t just go push on this.”

Speaker: I was sweating bullets.

[laughter]

Elisa: Watching them joke around with each other gave us a good sense of how close the plant workers were.

Cleo: It was really fun.

Elisa: We ended up staying for a while after the tour just listening to them tell stories. 

Cleo: But eventually we had to leave. 

[guitar music]

Cleo: From high up in the mountains we traveled more than 400 miles south of the California coast to the charming city of San Luis [unintelligible]. The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant sits close by.

Elisa: But much like the drum hydro plant, Diablo Canyon seems far removed from any civilization. 

Cleo: Perched 85 feet above sea level, overlooking the Pacific ocean, Diablo is tucked between two hills in California’s southern coastal range.

Elisa: The majority of the view was taken up by two tall concrete domes and a huge imposing brown building with narrow slit windows.

Cleo: We were led outside by Brian Cunningham, the plant supervisor of Nuclear Environmental Services, to see where the water comes from that’s used for cooling within the plant.

Brian Cunningham: Out here you’ll have some seals hanging out, we often have otters rafting in here, so our intake coves created somewhat of a marine sanctuary, and then our break waters have actually created a habitat as well. We have a robust marine monitoring program — I’ll talk about that a little more — we manage debris and do a lot of oceanographic surveys, and that’s a lot of fun.

Elisa: I would love to work in a place where I can glance outside and see otters. But the plant does have some effects on the environment.

Cleo: That’s true. Brian told us that the warm water flowing out from the plant is affecting the environment around Diablo.

Brian: There have been impacts, the most dramatic being that you can look at the rocky area along here versus rocky areas you’ll see elsewhere on the coast and they’re relatively barren. There’s loss of algae there.

Elisa: We were told that when the power plant stops operating, the plant and animal life will return to normal within two to three years. While the employees get to work in beautiful natural settings every day, the locations also create challenges.

Cleo: In the case of Diablo, because it’s located on the water’s edge and surrounded by tectonic faults, people are worried about earthquakes.

Elisa: Which is a legitimate concern, right? The Fukushima disaster happened because of an earthquake that led to a tsunami.

Cleo: But really, it was just the tsunami that the Fukushima plant couldn’t withstand. At the Diablo Education Center, John Lindsey, a media relations representative for PG&E, highlighted the difference between Fukushima and Diablo. 

John: When the earthquake hit, it was a 9.0 on the Richter scale, and the plant did fine. Problem was, the plant was built almost at sea level. Thirty minutes later, they had a 45-foot tsunami that came and it flooded their basement generators. Diablo Cave, if you look over there, we’re actually built 85 feet above sea level. The largest tsunami we’d probably ever see along our coastline, at most, would be 30 feet. 

Elisa: However, people aren’t just worried about earthquakes because of Fukushima. There are concerns that Diablo’s seismic risks have not been well-assessed.

Cleo: Staff at the plant say they’ve added features and structures so the plant can better withstand a major earthquake.

Elisa: But the issue certainly hasn’t been resolved. 

Cleo: There’s also public concern about nuclear waste. Nuclear waste remains dangerous for a very long time after it’s generated, so it must be handled carefully. 

Elisa: Finding long-term solutions for storing the waste is a problem that hasn’t been solved.

[introspective guitar music]

Cleo: Another issue that California power generation is facing is the drought. 

Elisa: California has been in a drought for almost four years now. The lack of water is affecting agriculture and increasing the possibility of wildfires. 

Cleo: It’s affecting the lives of many people, too. We talked to George Matsumoto, a scientist and educator at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, who told us how the drought is constantly affecting his daily life.

George Matsumoto: Everybody’s trying to do their part. I don’t water my yard, I’ve got rain collection buckets underneath all my downspouts and, to my son’s great shame, I even have five-gallon buckets in the shower, so as he’s waiting for the water to heat up, I ask him to save that water so we can use it to water the plants that we do have in the yard.

Elisa: Hydroelectric plants use water to generate electricity by harnessing the energy of the water as it travels down from higher places, so the drought has been causing big problems for hydro as an energy source. 

Cleo: At PG&E’s headquarters, the employees told us that demand for energy peaks twice on a typical day: once in the morning when people are getting ready for work, and once in the evening when they come home. 

Elisa: Careful management of different energy sources is needed to handle this double peak. 

Cleo: Consistent energy sources, like fossil fuels or nuclear power, can produce power whenever needed, but sources like solar and wind can only produce power when there is sun or wind. 

Elisa: When there isn’t enough of those, something else needs to kick in. 

[educational music]

Cleo: Here’s how it works: your home and all the power companies are connected to the grid. When you wake up and start using energy, power companies increase their electricity production. 

Elisa: But when solar panels start producing a lot of electricity in the middle of a bright, sunny day, power generated from hydro or fossil fuels can decrease. 

Cleo: Then, when the sun goes down, solar panels stop generating electricity, and another power source has to pick up the slack.

Elisa: Otherwise, people’s lights go out. Hydro power can make up for other energy sources during times of peak demand. A hydro plant has the ability to store water in reservoirs. 

Cleo: But Brandon [inaudible], one of the hydro operators, told us that because of the drought, hydro can currently supply only one of the two peaks per day.

Brandon: We’re simply meeting demands. We don’t even have enough water right now to supply a double peak. We’re only doing the afternoon peak because of the drought situation. We’re relying heavily on gasses and nuclear.

Elisa: And the drought is affecting more than just hydro power, as C.B. Hall, a manager at PG&E, explained.

C.B.: So the drought is serious right now for us, but hydro to be honest is not the high priority when it comes to water. Water is– it’s first about people, it’s about agriculture. Power is third-tier priority.

Elisa: Cleo and I thought it was really interesting to hear about how the natural setting…

Cleo: …the mountains, the geology, the recent drought…

Elisa: …are affecting power generation. 

Cleo: Some of our classmates have a different takeaway.

Elisa: We’ll let them tell you about it.

Jake: Thanks Elisa. I’m Jake.

McKenzie: And I’m McKenzie.

Jake: For us, one of the coolest parts of the trip was seeing what it was like to work at one of these power plants.

McKenzie: One of the workers, [inaudible] is the generation supervisor at Drum Switching Center, which manages generation at the local hydro facility.

Speaker: Hydro-operations is interesting because it’s real-time, and it’s happening all the time. It doesn’t stop; even when we take our two-week outages, that’s only a two-week outage on the Spalding Drummer 5 unit. All the other units are still run, we’re still delivering water in other areas. It makes it fun. Something you never even thought about comes up every day, and you’re learning.

[country music]

McKenzie: Speaking with Willy really opened our eyes to the fact that power generation is real-time. Energy demand is constantly changing during the day. 

Jake: At the drum switching center, we spoke with John James. He’s been a hydro operator for over 10 years. From the control room, he can remotely see every stream and power station that PG&E has in the area. He and his coworkers adjust the hydro generation on an hour-by-hour basis. 

McKenzie: This schedule is based on two factors: predictions of demand and power generation by other types of energy — particularly renewable, since they’re more variable.

Jake: But anything can happen. If a machine at another power plant happens to break, the power demand doesn’t change. So that plant might call hydro and ask them to cover for them for an hour until they fix the machine.

McKenzie: John James said being an operator is a 24/7 job. There’s got to be at least one person on shift at all times, and there’s usually many people there on a weekday. 

[steady beeping]

McKenzie: Beeping alarms, accompanied by descriptions on his computer screen, would alert him if something was off. 

Jake: We only talked to him for about 15 minutes, and it beeped quite a lot.

McKenzie: True, the ones we heard were just low-level alarms, but it made us realize that there are a lot of people who are actively acknowledging these alarms and making sure that everything is running smoothly. But you know, for me, it was at Diablo when I realized just how intense power generation can get. Nuclear operators need to closely monitor the reactors by looking at temperatures, pressures, and more. And the most intense part? They have to make decisions in seconds.

Jake: For some operators at Diablo Canyon, out of every five weeks they work, they spend one week just training. 

McKenzie: John Lindsey helped put this ratio in perspective.

John Lindsey: Our operators spend 20 percent of their time in training. So if your physician spent 20 percent of his or her time in training, you probably couldn’t afford to go see a doc. If your airline pilot spent 20 percent of their time in training, you probably couldn’t afford to fly, right? In fact, our operators get over 400 hours of training per year. It’s phenomenal.

McKenzie: Jeff Davis, one of the supervisors in charge of training the operators, explains why training is so tough.

Jeff Davis: We have no requirement for them to be perfect. We have a requirement for them to be excellent. The only way we’re gonna get that is to just kick the living snot out of them as often and frequently as we can in as many different ways as we can. We need them thinking. The more they’re thinking, the more they’re reacting by using thoughtful, considered actions to be successful. That is our goal for training.

Jake: It sounds exhausting.

McKenzie: But it’s just part of the job. And the people working at the power plants, be it at Drum Powerhouse or Diablo Canyon, were just so passionate about working there.

Jake: Here’s Ray [inaudible], a [inaudible] operator at the Drum Spalding Hydro Facility. 

Ray: I think my favorite part is showing people these places we have. A lot of people think PG&E owns Spalding Reservoir and it’s just a recreation facility. A lot of people that come there don’t even know that we’re constantly monitoring the lake elevation and they don’t even realize that there’s powerhouses connected to the downstream side of it, so it’s really neat to show them how we’re providing power and water for the whole county to use.

McKenzie: I think it’s cool, knowing that your job directly affects your community. But it wasn’t just Ray. All of the workers we talked to were so excited about their own power plants. 

Jake: C.B. Hall had a story about that.

C.B.: When I first started working for PG&E, I got to visit hydro, solar, Diablo, and at every single one of those places, the people working there looked me right in the face and said, totally sincerely, “this is definitely the cleanest, cheapest form of energy.”

[laughter]

Jake: Of course, they can’t all be right. 

McKenzie: At least we know that they really do believe in what they’re doing.

Jake: To the workers, power generation isn’t just their job, it’s their life. Often, we hear about the challenges of the energy industry. The people we met are working on these challenges on a daily basis.

McKenzie: Hearing their stories made energy production feel more personal to me. I may not think of our experience with PG&E every time I turn on a light switch, but each time I think of hydro power, I’ll remember Willy and Ray.

Jake: And when I think about nuclear power, I’ll think of John Lindsey talking about how much time is spent in training. I could never imagine putting 20 percent of my working time into just training.

McKenzie: We learned a lot about energy on our trip, but what made it memorable was meeting all the workers and learning about their stories.

Jake: It’s really the people that make it all happen.

Music: And the world is made of energy / And the world is electricity / And the world is made of energy / And there’s a light inside you / And there’s a light inside me…

[”Energy” by Apples In Stereo continues]

Speaker: This program was produced in Terrascope Radio. It’s a class developed by the MIT Terrascope program in collaboration with the MIT program in Comparative Media Studies. Terrascope is part of MIT’s Office of Experiential Learning. Thanks to Samuel Barring, the director of Terrascope, and the administrator, Deborah [inaudible]. We’d also like to thank Ari Epstein, the instructor of Terrascope Radio, the teaching fellows, [inaudible], as well as the wonderful people at PG&E. Special thanks to Hal Gustin, our alumni mentor, and C.B. Hall of PG&E for organizing our amazing trip.

Music: And the world…

This radio piece was produced by:

Elisa

Jake

Sarah Grenzel

Alexa Jaeger

Jennifer Lo

Cleo [inaudible]

McKenzie McDonald

Robert 

Laurel [inaudible]

This story and others from Terrascope Radio can be found on the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.

[music fades out]

Read More