First day at the camp.

Tonight is fool moon! big ass fire

The Austrian takes us to the main site of the gathering. Tonight is full moon and should be the peak of the event. We arrive into an open space after an good hour walk through forests. this place is real remote, probably 100s of kilometers of the next big city. because of tonight celebration, today is silent until the first food circle. I use this to get some rest and sleep in this complete tranquility, in the shade of a tree. The camp is not t all dense, people are scattered around, some have put up a real tippy, others build a shelter with wood and a big plastic sheet.
A while later, Helena comes back and tells us it is time for th first food circle there is watermelon and muesli! What i find down at the main circle is quite surprising... All this new vocabulary is too. So as i get down three, some hundreds of people are forming two concentric circles around a huge dead fireplace. They are singing a song about the sun, the sky, the moon and some other quite crazy stuff:). It all looks like a bunch of religious freaks but i cant refuse the kind invitation of one of them to join in. So we are there, holding hands and singing this song of freedom and preparing to get food. After raising our hands above our heads, putting them together and bringing them back down in front of us, we knee down to the floor and put our head to the ground. This feels ridiculous the first time and i actually did not knee down all the way. Thinking back about it now, it is a pretty good ritual to precede a meal. It is like thanking the sky and earth for the food but also and mostly to me it is an act that makes you more conscience that you are about to eat. i mean by there to avoid just get the whole plate down in 5 sec mechanically. Some very healthy food in healthy portions (all the contrary of Serbian food) is served in circle. Muesli first time and you hand out your plate. The people serving the food are going around the circle clockwise and you get the different things in turn. Today it is different sorts of muesli, polenta and watermelon and we get two rounds. A first time and a second time. I will learn that this is not always the case and that some meals are really minimal. We eat, i chat a bit with my neighbors, but getting into all this is not easy.
To integrate better, i join the wood chain and go gathering wood for the big fire of tonight. I meat a Brazilian living in Germany, a Frenchman and a Serbian. After sweating and walking through the wood with big amounts of wood, i wash my hand, with ashes (it is real efficient, or at least it feels real clean and ashes can technically not be dirty) and join the kitchen. 10 to 20 people are cleaning and chopping vegetables. I must have cut 30 tomatoes, 10 cucumbers and 5 whole cabbages that afternoon! you realize ho much so many people eat... next to the chopping table, people are cooking soups and rice in huge pots over the fire. I meet Timothe a French who came to the Gathering by bike. All these people are cooking by the sounds of musicians playing us some incredible song such as I cut the cabbage (but i didn't cut the watermelon) or i dont want no polenta no more... It is a real great spirit here. We then proceed to squeezing the cabbage to release its juice. This is pretty hard work when you sit in front of some 30 kilos of sliced cabbage... The salad is going to be delicious (sauce of salt and lemon juice) and so is the rest of the meal: filled paprika, soups and chapati. The whole cooking is simply done by people who decided to organize todays food. Everybody participates, one or two focalizers keep everybody going in the right direction, together. It is a real good feeling. finally, every thing is about to be ready and we make the first food circle call. At the count of three everybody in the kitchen sings out loud :Food Circle!!! Now!!! This is the second or third call, the previous being done an hour before. The call propagates through out the camp, everyone singing it out. Beautiful communication!
We carry the food to the circle were meanwhile, a huge wood pile has been erected. the sky is a bit gray and threatens to rain on us but for now nothing, just a bit of wind. The wind of change... Tonights food circle is once again a nice one, nice neighbors, everyone is nice and friendly. Or not? That one neighbor does not car about the first or second time and just hold out an other plate every time he gets the occasion to. I am still la little lost in this exotic crowd... we eat, it gets cold, i go back to the kitchen and heat up some remaining soup, delicious bean soup! I meet a couple from the ride, the radio guy and his girlfriend. We drink Mate tea and talk a while. they leave and i meat Lara from Barcelona, chats, laughter, simple interaction with no second thoughts. Beautiful, once again!

The fire is started, huge, it reaches some 10 15 meters. I decide to go a bit up and make a picture from the distance. Cameras are tolerated but not very well seen by everybody in this camp. The nice thing about this camp is that everything is tolerated, something might not necessarily be supported or some idea not shared, but it is still tolerated and respected. It is all based on respect. I love this Utopia. I go to sleep full of thoughts under that new full moon.