277. Himalayan Fair

Himalayan Fair

This is an event I've never greened before because it conflicts with Maker Faire. This year my boss passed on Maker Faire because we were so busy, so I jumped on the Himalayan event to avoid the dreaded Bay to Breakers (B2B) footrace/walk/party in San Francisco. B2B starts too early, stretches all the way across town, and there's a vile tradition of tossing corn tortillas into the air, especially as the "runners" (ha) are waiting to start the race. This would make me want to hit them except that so many are naked.

So instead of walking a few (10?) blocks to the start of B2B, I walked seven blocks to catch the train to Berkeley and then caught a bus to the utterly charming Live Oak Park for Himalayan Fair. This isn't quite as random as it may sound -- a "Himalayan" event being held in Berkeley I mean. Berkeley has a large South Asian population as evidenced by the massive number of South Asian restaurants which have drawn me there for decades -- Indian has been my favorite cuisine, though now I would say Burmese.

I am not familiar enough with the local politics to know how unlikely this mixing of Nepalese, Tibetan, and Indian traditions would seem back in Asia. There used to be a Balkan social club here, which, back in the days before the breakup of Yugoslavia, always made me wonder if it was actually some sort of fight club. Did Serbs and Croats and Albanians really group together to reminisce about the generations of genocidal warfare?

In any event, in Berkeley these populations gather to serve up traditional foods and to sell things of a North Indian/Himalayan character. I can't actually report much about what the non-food vendors were up to as they were setup in a field on the other side of the little creek that runs through the park. I stayed in the food area until it was time to shut down our stations at the end of the day, and by that time the vendors were either buttoned down for the night (on Saturday) or packed up to leave (on Sunday). There was also the local music and, at the end of the day Saturday, a large meditation event with what I suppose was meditative music from a small stage and the contemplative sounds of me sorting down and hauling away the waste from one of our eco-stations at the edge of the zone -- it's not a big park.

Regular food vendors are bad enough (from my waste sorting perspective) but what's worse is when the food is prepared by amateurs/volunteers, which was the case at some of the booths at Himalayan Fair. I was fishing latex gloves out of the compost -- and recycling -- all weekend. Several of the food vendors were eager to feed us, especially on Saturday when it was slower, but I can't help thinking there is a bribery aspect to their largess. "We're not going to pay much attention (if any) to sorting our trash, but enjoy this curry we currently have in abundance." Still the food was good and there were plenty of veggie options for once.

I said it was a small park, and really it's not a big event in terms of numbers, but the dumpsters were placed at the top of the park so there was a lot of hauling up hill. During the day, I would just be hauling a bag or two of compost at a time and tossing them into the dumpsters. But at the end of the day I would fill one of our large toters with bags of sorted trash and then drag the toter to the dumpsters, often up hill. The final haul of the day was from this little nest of Nepalese down by the creek. I was not only carrying the bags of trash (sorted) but also the steel frames that hold the bags. And being food vendors, just as I was about to drag all this all the way up (2 sets of frigging steps, also) the vendor shows me the unsorted trash can they've been using themselves. So I have to pull the bags out and sort this. Finally, after I have refused his offer of nine bean soup three times, it becomes obvious that accepting the soup isn't optional. So now I have a cup of (quite good) soup in my hand while attempting a task that requires two hands. So I have to climb to the top of the slope and set my soup someplace I hope the rats can't get to it before going back and dragging up the heavy toter. 

You would think that, after all this "good work" in what was, at least in parts, a Buddhist event, doves would escort me to my bus stop where the bus would magically appear -- possibly proceeded by an apparition of the Dalai Lama (I originally typed "Deli" Lama, which I really like. "Would you like a pickle with your transcendence?") But no. My transit luck was about normal. The bus that was to take me to the train, passed as I was on the other side of the street so I had to walk ten blocks. I could hear the train leaving as I entered the train station, so I had to wait for the next train -- my usual 20 minute wait at Downtown Berkeley. On the train I decided I would take advantage of my senior rate $3 fare for riding the cable car seven blocks to my house, but the cable car was pulling away as I came up the escalator and there were no more cable cars waiting, so I walked up my hill, as usual.

I'm really close to finishing a juicy section of the Pirenne book, but I need one more day.