I said: “The way the animals roam free gives me such a good feeling. Watching them hunting for insects, at their own pace, coming in and out of view as I work.”

  Zana said: “You make it sound like a petting zoo.”

  I said: “Why is that bad?”

  Zana said: “Last month a pig wandered onto a land mine and exploded.”

  I laughed and thought, in a few moments, Zana would begin laughing along with me, but she did not. Her demeanour made it clear she didn’t particularly care for the way I was laughing. I wondered if she was sad the pig was killed, but felt almost certain it couldn’t be that. This was their revolution, not a petting zoo. This was their revolution and she clearly didn’t like hearing it compared to something cute.

  Zana continued: “Pigs are smart animals. It looks like the other pigs have already learned from the first pig’s mistake. So we don’t think it will happen again. In permaculture they like to say ‘the problem is the solution,’ meaning that by examining any given problem you can begin to find your way through it. We can regenerate the soil over time but not if they keep bombing it. Most of the time I try not to think that way. The problem might be the solution, but here we’re actually turning the proverb inside out. Or sideways. More like the solution is both the problem and the solution. If people are happy on this thin strip of land, if the food is good and the soil keeps growing it, and if everyone knows about this happiness, they will want to stop fighting and live like this instead. When I talk to soldiers from the other sides, when I clearly explain our project to them, I can sometimes feel it in their voices. They want to move here, give it a try. And some of them do. We can’t end this war by fighting it. We need to end war by proving there’s another way for people to live together. By proving it’s what most people actually want. If we design it properly, even if all the people here were to die, every last one, this farm would continue bearing fruit and crops, and keeping the animals alive, for at least another three hundred years. Those are the kinds of time periods we really need to think in. Seven generations into the future and all that. Now every day our lives feel in danger, but three hundred years from now, if we can hang on long enough, until the surrounding conflicts subside, who knows what might be possible. I’m not sure exactly how, but we need to be thinking that far into the future. Watching more and more things be able to grow here each year, you start to get a sense of how far into the future this project might stretch. You’re really just a tourist here.”

  I start to object, but she interrupts me.

  “You don’t see any problem with being a tourist because you don’t actually know anything else. No offence, but it seems to me you’re mostly even a tourist in your own life. A tourist won’t stick it out with us even through our immediate short-term difficulties, much less work hard to prepare the way for the next three hundred years. We’re not asking you for that kind of commitment. But even if you just get a taste of it, you might have something to take back home with you and then later tell the world. Tell the world to stop bombing us so we can begin to create this beautiful place that might even last for another three hundred years. That’s why I recommended you to work on this farm. Because I wanted you to get a taste of it, of one possible future. Do you think you did?”

  I was listening, but at the same time my mind was drifting off, back toward these past few weeks of farming. It was true that if I dedicated my life to farming I would be miserable, in a very different way than if I simply continued to dedicate my life to writing. What kinds of sacrifices was I willing to make? I didn’t know if it was true that I was a tourist, but if it was, perhaps the reason had to do with being a writer, that I visit life only, or mainly, so I can write about it later. Others have made such observations in the past, most likely stated more elegantly and with greater tormented conviction. I tried to bring my mind back to our conversation, so it could focus on Zana’s question. So I could answer it. Did I, during these days of working on this farm, get a taste of one possible future? This book isn’t reality.

  After Zana left, I went back to my work with the plants, animals, and soil. I can’t remember for exactly how many more days, I think it was close to another week. And yet now the work felt different; after her visit, after our conversation—which I soon began recalling as her monologue—I felt myself more actively trying to connect the tasks I was given each day to some larger sense of purpose. Most of the time I was working alone, though there were other times I worked in a small group, and on this particular day it was one of the rare occasions there were only the two of us. I don’t remember exactly why, or if there was even a reason for this state of affairs, but that’s how it was. What I do remember is my partner basically didn’t speak a single word of my language and therefore communication was difficult. But also there was something peaceful about how we were working together in silence. Without saying a word, we managed to establish a natural rhythm. He handed me the necessary things and I arranged them, and then later I handed him the necessary things and he arranged them. We worked like this in silence for many hours, but that is not the reason I have such an intense memory of this particular day. The reason is that, at a moment, everything went black. I’m not sure if it happened all at once or if I simply didn’t notice it at first because I wasn’t paying enough attention. But everything went black and I could feel a sense of animal panic rising within me. I thought maybe we were being bombed or the world was ending in some other unexpected way, until seconds later it occurred to me that what we were experiencing was simply a solar eclipse. (I still don’t know for a fact that it was an eclipse. Maybe there was another explanation that didn’t occur to me at the time and still hasn’t occurred to me.) What I did know, or thought I knew, was that if you were to experience a solar eclipse you should not look up, not stare directly into the eclipsing sun, so I did not look up, instead I looked straight ahead into the temporary darkness and thought about how there must have been eclipses since the beginning of time and how they would continue to occur well into the indefinite future. Wars would come and go, but on some regular rhythm and schedule the moon would occasionally float past and cover the sun, as it had always done. And then my companion, my co-worker, began to sing. It was only much later I realized he must have been singing because he could feel I was starting to panic, and was searching for ways to calm me. Like singing a lullaby to a baby. In the moment all I felt was darkness and his song—a song I imagined as common to the region, but nonetheless, for me, completely new and startling—as it hit me with the full force of an epiphany. I have always loved music. Sometimes I think I have loved music too much. And therefore listening to him sing as we stood there in the darkness was the first time in a very long time, if not ever, that I felt perfectly all right in the world. Maybe that was all the epiphany consisted of. That in this world of injustice and killing and poverty, it was still possible, if only for a moment, to feel okay. And it always had been and always would be. I don’t want to make it sound like this was random. It was his voice that did it to me. The actual sung qualities of his voice that seized the moment of darkness to provide, for me, and perhaps for him as well, an experience of pure grace. He knew what he was doing. I could hear it in the way he sang. He closed his eyes and sang as humanely and directly as he knew how. Then, as quickly as the darkness fell, the light also returned. But I don’t think it makes sense to speak of anything being either quick or slow. Time bent, flapped, and stuttered as he sang, and I have absolutely no idea for how long we stood there in the darkness, for how long he sang to me, perhaps trying to calm his premonition of my rising panic. Now that I try to remember it more clearly, it’s possible I also heard other voices in the distance, also singing the same song or some other song, but this might only be unnecessary elaboration caused by the strain of memory. It felt to me there were other voices singing. Somewhere else, not too far. I couldn’t be certain, and still can’t. The idea that there were many voices is clearly an idea I find entrancing, almost important. I’m not sure why that would make the memory more consequent. As the light returned, he gradually stopped his singing, faded out, smiled at me as I smiled back, hoping my smile was enough to properly thank him.

  I press down the Record button, and we can both hear the tape begin to whir, the now familiar sound of a wheel turning another wheel:

  —You come here and, like everyone else, you see women with guns, find it fascinating and think you have to write about it. But the guns are the least interesting aspect of living here.

  —Then what’s interesting?

  —What’s important is building something you care about, building something you want to protect. The methods you use to protect it, though necessary, are considerably less interesting.

  —I didn’t come here because I was interested in guns.

  —No, you came because you wanted to see how we’re living. How we organize ourselves.

  —Yes.

  —I won’t lie. There are many things I found extremely difficult. Especially at first, closer to the beginning. I’m afraid, like many men of my generation I had fairly backwards ideas when it came to the topic of women. And I’ve always thought of myself as progressive. Extremely progressive. But I had to learn the hard way that I wasn’t as progressive as I thought.

  —Can you give me an example?

  —I fear the examples are all clichés. I mean, I find them embarrassing now. Because I’ve changed, not as much as I’d like to—I still hope to change considerably more in the future. But I have changed, and when I look back at my earlier self I’m embarrassed that I could have been so selfish and so limited. Really clichéd and obvious things: like becoming defensive if I felt a woman had a better idea than me, and instead of getting behind her idea and supporting it, I was wasting my energy, spending all my time searching for reasons why her idea wouldn’t work and we should use my idea instead. It’s really just ego, stupid male ego, and I hope I don’t still do things like that, though sometimes I catch myself, I fear that I do. The ego is powerful, and old habits—the habits we learned as children—they really don’t leave us so easily. And then even more basic things: not wanting to cook, not wanting to look after our children as an equal partner. Feeling I would be less of a person if I spent my time cooking and co-parenting. And the strange thing is I really love to cook. I’ve always loved it. But, I suppose, these are insecurities I learned from my father, through unconscious observation, and he learned from his father and so on; who knows how far back it really goes. But as I said, I guess I just have to keep saying it in order to try to convince myself, I hope I’ve changed and that I’ll continue to change. Because positive change comes through listening, through really hearing what other people say, really considering it, and then changing one’s actions accordingly. So what I try to do, what I tell myself I need to keep doing, is really listen. Really listen to what the women in my life, and in our community, are telling me.

  —How do you think other men you know, other men who live here, are changing or not changing? Do you have any sense of it? How everyone is dealing with this experiment?

  —It’s difficult. It’s really difficult to say. Every person, every case, is different. I get nervous when I start to generalize. It’s clearly possible to say there are a lot of men who haven’t changed at all. But how many exactly? And even when you’re stubborn and you don’t want to change, when the world is changing around you, there’s a way in which you can’t help it. It changes you anyway. At least, that’s what I think. When everything is changing around you, you change as well, though not always for the better.

  —What do you mean? How does it change people for the worse?

  —Some men double down on their previous convictions. Become more macho or less open. I’ve seen it happen. But I really don’t want to dwell on that. I believe it was suggested you interview me because I’m one of the good ones, because I’m trying to be very open about a struggle that maybe a lot of men here are living more in secret. And I just think it’s really important that we talk about it, as much as possible. That we don’t let our fragile male egos lead us into the trap of unnecessary resentment. Because when you talk about it, the first thing you learn is that a lot of people are experiencing the exact same thing as you. You’re not alone. Thinking you’re alone, that you are the only one in the world who feels this way, is one of the easiest ways to resist change.

  —How do you envision this new situation you find yourself in? How do you understand it?

  —It’s strange…five or six years ago I didn’t even know what “structural inequality” was. I’d never heard of it, had no language or way of understanding what it was. But when you start to understand it a bit, well…the first thing you begin to understand is that it’s all so much larger than you. You can change your behaviour, but unless larger, more structural things also begin to change, the problems will keep coming back, generation after generation. And what does it really mean to change these larger structures? Mainly it means changing the rules, the rules we all agree to live by. These rules can take the form of laws, but also of stories, conventions, and social customs. And it all has to eventually change and really we’re at the very beginning.

  The tape runs out. I hear the click of the button popping up from the recorder. It was my last tape. For everything else that was going to happen to me here, I would have to rely solely on my memory. There would be no further recordings to assist in the process. After the interview, I found myself wondering once again, asking myself: Had I changed as well and really how much? If I were to stay here forever, never return home, never write or publish this book, would that create the conditions for even further change? Would I change more here than I would at home, if I were to fully commit myself to this struggle? It was not my struggle, but maybe it could become so over time.

  It was at least ten months of living as a temporary guest on this thin strip of land before I was finally allowed to throw my rifle over my shoulder and join them on patrol. On patrol with me were Goldman, Zana, and Huerta. There were several others out with us as well. I unfortunately didn’t learn their names. I interacted mainly with those I had already interacted with before. I don’t think it was a coincidence that Goldman, Zana, and Huerta were with me on patrol. I think they had been assigned to me. The terrain was rough, rougher than I had expected, and I had to struggle to keep up. I’m not sure how it arose, but at one point they all began questioning me about my journey here. How did I get here? How did I find it? Which direction had I come from? How and why did I begin the journey? And then very suddenly Zana got a strange look on her face, some new and perplexing thought having only now occurred to her, and she said: “But how did you avoid the land mines?”

  I said: “There were land mines?”

  What I said was then translated for all of the others, and I’ve never seen a group of women laugh so hard in my life. They just kept laughing and laughing and it seemed to go on endlessly. Apparently the area I had walked across to get here was drenched in land mines, and the fact that I didn’t step on one and blow myself up was nothing short of a miracle. How did I survive, wandering my way through the land mines? Was it simply luck? Pure and uncanny luck? This book isn’t reality. Goldman then explained to me that there would be no land mines over the area we would be covering on patrol. That with great effort, and at the cost of several lives, they had now all been cleared.

  As we slowly rounded our way up toward the top of a—for me, painfully steep—embankment, I could feel how out of breath I was. None of the others appeared to be struggling. With each step I took, I feared I would slip, lose my footing, sprain an ankle, or some other muck-up my neurosis could not yet anticipate. It was amazing, but not surprising, how routine it all seemed for the others, compared to how nerve-racking I found the terrain. And I wasn’t even considering the possibility we might be attacked at any moment. This stress was the same stress I might have felt taking a hike or mountain climbing. It was not the stress of war. We were surrounded by war, but I was merely struggling with the physical exercise of an extended hike through a challenging landscape. To distract myself, I asked Goldman, really just trying to think of something to say, if she had always been so good with a gun—for example, ever since childhood—and if she genuinely saw any possibility that my marksmanship might eventually improve.

  Goldman: If you want it badly enough, trust me, you’ll improve. Or if your life depends on it.

  Me: If my life depends on it, it might already be too late.

  Goldman: That’s the madness of the matter. You’ll either surprise yourself or you won’t. All that practice will have been worth it or not.

  I thought: Here I am. Finally out on patrol with them. Since I arrived here, it now seemed to me, I’ve wanted this, though now that it’s happening I can’t possibly imagine why, what it represented for me or what I thought it would be like. Putting my life on the line, albeit in a routine and not especially dangerous manner, alongside these women I’ve come to admire so much, felt like both the least I could do and the most important thing.

  Me: You spoke to me before about how it might be different for a woman to kill than for a man…

  Goldman apparently didn’t like where this was headed and was already interrupting me: Look, what we’re doing here, what’s important, it’s not just because we’re women with guns. Before you leave here, you really must understand that. It’s because we’re women with guns putting our thinking and will and energy toward a truly emancipatory project. Working together with men and each other and anyone else who genuinely wants to make it happen. I live for the day when everyone joins us and we won’t need any of these guns anymore. That would be a truly worthwhile goal.

 

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