Three Vegetables I Learned to Love at Ajamvari Farm

Elizabeth Enslin

Supported by a 2009 Individual Artist Fellowship award from the Oregon Arts Commission, I am finishing an ethnographic memoir - Sacred Threads – on my experiences as anthropologist, Parajuli family member and one of the co-founders of Ajamvari Farm.  Born and raised in Seattle, I earned my PhD in cultural anthropology from Stanford University and currently serve as a graduate advisor in the Master of Arts Program in Environmental Studies at Prescott College, Arizona.

I lived with the Parajuli family while doing my doctoral dissertation on women's organizing in the late 1980s and gave birth to my son, Amalesh Parajuli, in nearby Bharatpur Hospital.  However, my understanding of gardening and farming was mostly theoretical when Pramod Parajuli and I won a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to research agroecology in Chitwan in the early 90s. I describe in a chapter of Sacred Threads how an odd dream and the discovery of a hibernating toad inspired me to get out of my head and get my hands dirty to help the family grow more vegetables.  By working the land, I learned firsthand the challenges and opportunities facing small farmers in Chitwan.   This effort eventually led to Ajamvari Farm, but it also changed the course of my life.  Convinced I no longer wanted to pursue an academic career, I brought lessons from Ajamvari Farm with me back to the U.S. to develop an urban farm with chickens, fruits, and berries in Portland, Oregon.  As a social studies teacher at the Portland Waldorf High School for six  years, I pioneered a program for ninth graders to work on Oregon farms and also helped develop an outdoor program. I'm currently in the process of moving out of the city to establish another sustainable farm in the canyonlands of Northeastern Oregon.

To learn more about me and my creative nonfiction and academic writing, visit my main website at www.elizabethenslin.com.  I also blog reflections on nature and culture at Yips and Howls.