WICHTIGES | UNWICHTIGES
13 YEARS AND I STILL DON'T KNOW
Natalie Stypa
31 Aug 2018
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Last September, I spent 10 days in a camp in the Florentine woods. It was beautiful and basic, with no electricity. We cooked over an open fire. There were a couple of us when I arrived. After two days, the others left. I stayed alone.
It was warm during the days. When nights came, a damp chill crept up. I had never built a fire before. I had watched others do it countless times. Male others, for the most part. Whenever a fire was needed, plenty of boys jumped up eagerly. I never had a natural interest in it, and I never developed one. There was no need. But now I was in the forest, alone, and night was falling. I was hungry. I made a salad with beans from a tin. I was cold. I thought of the previous nights spent sitting around the fire, staring into the flames. Fire is company, one of the others had said. I wanted a fire by my side. To chase away the tug of a subtle fear – my solitude in an unknown dark that left me feeling vulnerable. There was plenty of wood. The nights before, I had watched the others using sticks and paper to kindle the fire. So I did like they had, built a structure of thin branches, stuffed scrunched up newspaper underneath, lit the paper with a lighter and blew on the flame to make it catch. The paper was damp. The flame went out immediately. I found a package of little pellets labelled fire starter. I lit one and pushed it into my construction. It burned nicely. Soon flames were licking, demanding more. I had underestimated the amount of thinner twigs needed until the large log would catch. Hastily, I snapped sticks and feed them into the flame, using paper to keep it going when it threatened to go out, blowing my lungs out. In the end I managed. A proper fire, large flames going strong. It was glorious. I basked in its warmth and light. I cooked a pot of brown rice for tomorrow’s breakfast. I felt strong, like I really had accomplished something. In the Casentino, a stretch of wild lands East of Florence, I met a woman who knew a lot about herbs and plants. Not just the ones you can cook with. Also the medicinal ones. She grew them in her garden or gathered them wild to make tinctures, infusions or salves to cure the ailments of family and friends. I learnt to identify a few: artemisia vulgaris, or mugwort. I fell in love with its smell. It helps you digest, especially very fatty food. Plantain. Grows everywhere. Crush its leaves and rub the juice on mosquito bites to relieve the itching. Tanaceta, or tansy. Yellow flowers with a foul odour that smell of cinnamon when crushed. An old remedy to drive worms out off plants, animals, and people. Also used to flavour beer. At the foot of Monte Amiata, a long-extinct volcano in Tuscany’s very South, I made nettle pesto and learned how to pluck the leaves without getting stung. I gathered parasol mushrooms, a giant fleshy variety which is incredibly delicious fried with garlic and olive oil. I met a man who only goes to the shop to buy his espresso. Everything else, he can produce himself. Even shoes. He taught me how to prepare the chestnuts that grow abundantly around there: cut them with a sharp knife then cook in plenty of water with a few sprigs of wild fennel to make them easier on your stomach. During a few months, I acquired knowledge and skills that kept me warm, fed me, made me feel well. Nothing of this I learnt in school even though I went there for 13 years. Looking back, those 13 years feel like a large stretch of time not used fully. What did school teach me that is really useful in my life? Reading and writing, sure. Languages. (A lot of grammar.) Basic math. (If I cut my cake in 12 pieces and there are 6 of us, each can have 2. What else do I need to know?) I remember for one history exam in 12th grade having to memorise all Chinese dynasties, their names and dates. I never learned anything about China’s political system. I never learnt anything about the conflicts and wars close by. I never learnt what happened in former Yugoslavia. I never learnt why Israel and Palestine are at war. And why did Czechoslovakia split? What school taught me is knowledge about the world that carefully avoided contemporary politics. Always under the blanket of objectivity, this absurd concept of people convincing themselves that they are able to disengage from their own life’s influences. I never learnt to build fires, to distinguish between edible plants and those that could kill me, or to make my own medicine. I also didn’t learn to sew clothes. I did have to hem a piece of cloth once. My teacher scolded me for my crooked stitches. That’s bad, she said, Very bad. That was the end of my ambition. And this is really very bad, for it would be a handy skill to have. When you’re not naturally inclined to something, then school teaches you to hate it at best, fear it at worst. Be it handicrafts, mathematics, or French. Or physical education. I was never good at it. My teachers were dreadful. The aging dancer in first grade who had us line up against the wall ordered by height at the beginning of each class. The old man in tight trousers telling crude jokes in 5th grade. The lady in 7th grade who made us run up and down stone steps slippery with fallen leaves till I sprained my ankle. I hated running. I hated gymnastics. A few things I enjoyed, like football or basketball. Why force children to run 3 kilometres when they’d much rather play a ballgame? To rid them of any joy they find in physical exercise? It makes me furious to think how well it worked for me. School taught me to hate sports. It didn’t teach me to enjoy moving my body. I had to learn the hard way, as an adult with a messed-up back. This is what our educational system seems to be exceedingly good at: not encouraging pupils to overcome obstacles. Not unearthing hidden likings. Fostering only talents that shine already, and only if they fit the curriculum’s narrow terms. My passion for art was not kindled by school. I remember being scolded in art classes because my pieces were too ‘over the top’. In 7th grade, a large three-dimensional paper construction in pink that I created with my best friend. I think it was supposed to be smaller and simpler. In 12th grade, I spent hours gluing countless sequins in indigo and emerald green to a spoon I had made from clay. We were to create a spoon that serves a special purpose. Mine was shaped like a seashell, the handle like a fishtail. It was a spoon for eating oysters. I found it beautiful and witty and extravagant. My teacher didn’t think so. She said You don’t use spoons to eat oysters, and gave me a bad mark. Looking back, it is not mild frustration that fills me. It’s deep-felt anger at our educational system for wasting my time with so much useless shit. School should teach us life skills. How to be in this world. How to be well. How to be well with others. It should make sure that if I find myself alone and lost in a forest, I will know how to survive. |