Tuesday, August 8, 2017

The human side of farming

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG, Menfranco general blog. In addition to our own posts about, my life story, and some DIY posts, we are going to publish some world wide public issues that we are writing, about what is happening in the world today and other stuff.
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Welcome to our blog, Menfranco general blog
and this post, the human side of farming
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Farms are very lonely places, it may seem great for a few days, if you are living in a busy city, because they are very quiet places; but in the long run, they are too lonely for young people, if they have to live there all the time. But that is what has happened to me, when I was young.

The human side of farming
Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, how the farms were run then, so, let us continue. Now let us look at the human side of farming, so, let me go back to my own life in the farm, and my experience as a young boy. If we want to understand that better, one needs to see how the ways of living had been set up, from the generations before us for their own needs for one reason or another.
Anyhow, at the time when I was young in Genzano every family had a dwelling in town, no matter to which group of people or families one belonged, we all had a home in town even if it was only a room or a few rooms that we could live-in in the town itself. But the farmers’ families not only had a home in town like everybody else, where their women folks elderly people and children lived; but most of the farmers had also a rustic farm building in the fields, where the farmer would keep his animals, and with the help of his workers if he had any workers he would work his fields from there. The farmers’ children especially those that were to become farmers one day would start working in the farm very early in life, or as soon as they would finish their compulsory schooling years, that in those times were just the primary schools.
The compulsory primary schools in Italy in those times were up to grade five; now, today it would seem that you could not learn much in five years, but in those times, we were taught to read and write, we were taught the four main math operations, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, which are the base of just about everything, we were asked to solve simple problems with them at least ones a week; we were also taught about our human history, even if it wasn’t in small details, it covered old history up to the Christian era, middle age history up to the discovery of America and modern history; it wasn’t a lot, but it gave us just enough to understand that the world changes and one Era ends and a new one begins. Anyhow, now let us go back to tell you my farm life story, because this is the real reason that I am writing this article.
Now, some of the youths whose families were better off financially would start to help in the farm only during summer for a year or two, and then as they became older they would start staying in the farm full time the whole year. But I wasn’t that lucky and at the time when I left school the first time, I was only 10 years old and I was going to be 11 years old during that year, when I had to start full time for the whole year in the farm. At that time young boys were only required to attend school up to grade 5, and I had already done so, so I went to help in our family farm full time. Then a few years later the schooling laws changed, and all the youths had to attend school up to grade 8, or be at least 14 years old to leave school. So, I and a few other boys of my same age were the last of the little educated youths. (Now just to make it clear to our readers during my life, I have read many books and every now and then whenever I have been able to I have tried to continue to study; and even though I have not been to college, I have studied and done some courses in building and quantity surveying. But now let me go back to my farm life story.)
Now you can imagine how I felt in the farm when I was young; I was perhaps the youngest boy around for miles so to speak, and I was of that age when young boys like me would start thinking and wandering about how best one could find a way into society, because one becomes aware of the need to be social and friendly with people, otherwise one would become shy and withdrawn just like I did.
Anyhow, this old way of living in the farms was very hard especially for me, because, since the great loss of my father when I was 5 years old, my family had lived mourning him and a life withdrawn from society; so, now that we were all over that period of grief that any family can have, I felt that somehow, I was a bit more withdrawn that the other boys of the same age. I needed a break more than everybody else, but it was not to be, because I was needed to help in the farm, so, I ended up working in the family farm and I became more isolated than ever, and that was no good for me socially.
My helping (working) in the family farm when I was young was no good for me socially, since there is nothing to learn socially in the farm except farm things, which in the end they might even be put to good use, but only from those persons that would be able to practice farming during their whole life timelifetime.
Farming life of those days was so hard and boring, especially for me at that particular time of my life when I was young. So, nowadays when I think about it, it makes me feel so hurt and unhappy and I ask myself why this had to happen to me, and I feel so hurt that I would like to tell you a story beginning with, ‘When I was young’ just to show you how much harder life was then compared with today’s ways of life.
Now let me add this observation here, while I am editing this article, I have come to the conclusion that no matter how hard life is for anyone of us, we should not despair as we could always try to do better, you see, today I am able to write this article even though I have not been trained to write when I was young, just because I have not given up and I have tried to improve myself whenever I could.
Now that I have explained the ways of life in the farms of those days, mentally I am going over the farm life of my ancestors, who had lived the same hard life as I did and they did not lament about it because they did not know better; and then I think about what it would be the farm life like today compared to old times; you see I want to compare all those things together, just to have a clear picture of what is happening to us. By comparing the farm life of these generations, I have come to the conclusion that I and those youths that as me ended up working in the farms when we were young, we were the last unlucky ones, because today even if a young man ends up working in the farms, they start when they are older and they cannot be as lonely as we were, because today they can have the company of electronic devices, like the radio and the mobile phones, so one can always keep in touch with the rest of the world community.
I think that I have said enough in this post, so, see you in my next post, “my life in the farm”, where I will tell you a bit more about my farm life. See you there.
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Menfranco general blog 
The human side of farming
IS TO BE CONTINUED
Next time with, my life in the farms   

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