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Brian Smith
Joined: Dec 10, 2003
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Rural Experiences
March 31, 2004 - 08:55 AM
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This is more of a reflection thread:
What are your experiences in rural life/rural living?
Make sure to include lots of detail in your descriptions and focus on some specific events.
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Jessie Giles
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Fantastic
April 1, 2004 - 01:45 AM
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My experiences of rural living have been fantastic and extremely joyful, though I am one to dislike cities.
I was born in and raised 'up in the hills' of Apollo Bay, Victoria, Australia, A small township which was prodominitly a fishing and farming town, though in recent years has become a very big tourist destination. My family choose to live a very quite life. My sister and I were taken out of school and my parents home educated us. We lived on a 5 acre A Grade Demiter registered biodynamic property about 15 km from town. We grew alot of our own food and owned our own business, which was a biodynamic herb and flower garden and a country retreat bed & breakfast.
We lived very isolated from the town, which in its self was very isolated. Though we lived isolated by choice. As I got older I wanted more, though as a child up until around the age of 10, it was the best way to grow up I can imagine.
When I was 13 we moved a long way inland to the centre of Australia, on to a small aboriginal community called Santa Teresa or Ltyentye Apurte. That was very remote and rural. But agian fantastic.
Last year we moved into the larger township and biggest town for a long way round, Alice Springs. And I am finding it extremely difficult living within all the traffic and people, though I enjoy having the interaction with lost of different people and playing sports, going to the cinema and in general just hving access to alot more services than what I did have living very rural and remote.
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Brian
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Re: Rural Experiences
April 1, 2004 - 01:51 AM
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My family loved for almost a year in Senatobia, Mississippi. It's a very small town with a lot of cotton farmers and is about 30 minutes from Memphis where we had moved from. I do miss the slow pace and especially the quiet and the almost complete absence of traffic. I now live in Raleigh, NC but recently moved to a house on the edge of town. I love it out there compared to the apartment I left that was one block from the biggest mall in the region. I am disappointed to see development in my area though. They are putting up a drug store down the road and are putting up apartments all the time. Good old "urban sprawl".
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gzusbmine
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Re: Rural Experiences
April 1, 2004 - 02:13 AM
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I live in Elizabeth City, NC. It is rather rural in this area. Lot of flat land and miles of farm land. I love living in a small town. It is comfortable and quiet most of the time.
People have a misconception that rural kids don't do much and can't get into much trouble. They think you can't find drugs for miles. That is wrong here in my county and surrounding counties. It is no secret farmers grow marjiuanna in their land. We even have a cocaine ring out in newland (a name for an area out here, not really a city). In Currituck, a county next to us, just got busted for having a meth-lab.
Just cuz its rural doesn't make it safer and better to have a family here. It usually makes it worse. With nothing to do b/c we are so small, drugs, sex and alcohol are the social events. The worst thing is some adults are in on all the "fun."
Don't get me wrong. I love Elizabeth City and living in a small town. It is comforting to know your neighbors. It is nice to not worry if your kids go to the park alone. It is great that everyone is very friendly and peaceful. Everyone tries to look out for another.
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Alejandro Hernández
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Rural vs. Urban, macro vs., micro?
April 1, 2004 - 03:35 AM
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I have lived in several rural communities in Mexico because of my job, with diverse rates of poverty: from extremly to moderate, and those that have high economic rates.
Of course I agree with you guys that you can live a peaceful and quiet life in a rural place than in a city. Even more if that city is really big!
But after almost three years of traveling along in my own country, I discovered that there are more elements in rural life. In Mexico, people from cities are more active, less worried about others; in general, there is a kind of apathetic attitude towards people (of course it depens of the city). And in rural places, people are more open, friendly, interested for others,etc.
However, when you spend enough time in a rural community and you begin to be familiar to the habitants of that place, and viceversa, you can see that there are not too much differences between personalities, attitudes, end even thougths.
I mean, in the macro-scenario there are differences, but in the micro-scenario, you are dealing with people, and people at the deepest of themselves, are substantially equal. This curious phenomena of the macro versus micro is very complex and fascinating.
It can be compared with fractal theories, specifically Mandelbrot's Julia phenomena:
"If you zoom in on a portion of a Julia set (any one), you will see the same detail, but repeated on a smaller and smaller scale. The detail doesn't change, just the size. Because the detail in the Mandelbrot set (there's only one) is an amalgamation of all Julia sets, the detail you see when you zoom in is based on the precise location you're zooming, so different areas zoomed in on will show different detail - logically enough, often similar in shape to Julia sets taken from that area. Mandelbrot detail is never the same twice, and there are some very exotic and bizarre shapes in the set. You can technically keep zooming forever, but these days one is limited to the precision of their computer and their patience" (See the image: this is a bad animated gif image, but if it woul be ok, you'll see a perfect sinchronization between the macro and micro views, you cannot at some time to determine wich part are you watching...).
[Of course we must be very carefult when comparising topics between sciences... but do this can allow us to imagie and discover new things!]
The point is that rural and city life can be very different and at the same time very similar, depending how you look at this.
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Brian
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Re: Rural Experiences
April 1, 2004 - 04:11 AM
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Gzus: Actually I work for the NC Courts and my job is to take tech support calls from all 100 counties in NC (I spoke to Eliz. City the other day!).
I really enjoy my job in one respect (I don't however like being tied to a desk) because I get to speak to people in the most ruralest, podunt counties you can imagine. The thing that gets me is that these are the nicest people I could ever hope to know! I often end up just chatting it up with somebody out in a countrified courthouse in the middle of nowhere and have fun doing it. They all think I'm performing a miracle when I take over their computers remotely and start monkeying around to fix it.
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Udara
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Simple and uncomplicated lives :)
April 1, 2004 - 04:59 AM
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Rural life can be the finest living style and I do have some rich experience in rural areas of Sri Lanka. We are trying to cultivate ICT in rural vicinity, Sri Lanka
and hopefully the values would remain unchanged even with the advances of technology.
Simple and uncomplicated lives, ah, what can be finer than that? 
Cheers,
Udara
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Christine Oldfield
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rural experiences
April 1, 2004 - 10:46 AM
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I didn't 'grow up' in a rural area or on a farm, but I have spent considerable time living and working in rural areas primarily in developing countries (Brazil, Mozambique, India).
When I reflect on my life in the villages I think mostly about the speed of things, and how much slower they are in rural areas than in the cities. I seem to recall I had more time to reflect on the events of the day, more time to talk casually with neighbours, more time to notice the change in the weather, more time to think. I miss that the most.
Somehow cities are so distracting with bright lights, sounds and so many things to do, places to go. There is so little opportunity to have the space to discover things unexpectedly.
Has anyone had this experience?
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gzusbmine
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Re: Rural Experiences
April 2, 2004 - 07:00 AM
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BrianK: That is my favorite part about living here. Everyone is so nice. One thing you learn quick is if you come across a rude person, you immediately know they're not from around here. The older people in our area are so funny about technology. I can just imagine them seeing the mouse moving and windows opening up magically on their computer. We the younger generation think hardly anything of it, but our older generations are almost dumbfounded. I am sorry your tied to a desk. That is my fear in life. It seems almost inevitable. My mom works in the court system. She is an advocate for abused women. The people in the court system are very friendly here, but so is everyone. The police are always telling my mom about the scary things people can do remotely on computers. She comes home and gives me a lecture about chatting online, which I never do. I just post on discussion boards. I always laugh at her rantings because I am know more about computers and the dangers than she does yet she is always coming home telling me like I don't know. Ahhh...parents.
The best part about living in this area are your neighbors. We could go to parks freely without any worry or any supervision because all the neighbors were looking out for you. Living south though, there is still a lot of racism and self-segration. I live mostly in a white neighborhood. In the past five years, only two black families have moved into our area. There is a conception among the older white people that once a black person moves in the whole neighborhood goes to crap.
Interesting story on racism still in the south: There is a place in North Carolina called Cruseo Island near wilimington and whiteville. The last public (that does not include the ones that apparently still go on) hanging on record was in the 1980s. My sister married a man from there. He said these people in cruseo island are very racist, and because three of the sheriffs were from there they could get away with hanging black people as warning to other blacks not to come near their property. They are also a bunch of inbreds or so they say. I am not sure I believe the story, but I do know the area is very racist. They past around the "n" word without blinking. Up here in Northeast NC, if you are white, you can't do that. It is seriously looked down upon. The social consequence is enough to keep people in line.
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Michael Newton-McLaughlin
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Re: Rural Experiences
April 2, 2004 - 08:54 AM
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<<It>>
Thats awesome.
So my experience with rural areas... has been relagated to when I travel. I've had the priveledge to drive all accross America... and have been through some pretty... deserted and rural areas. It was good to see the inside of america.. the heartland as its called. Most of the time people just take the consensus of NY, D.C. and L.A. and think thats America.. but its not.
America is being in a thunderstorm in the middle of Utah. There are few things that can bring such thoughts and emotions.
America's beauty rests not in her pillars to corporate capitalism, aka the industrial cities, which have their own allure... but it is in the redwoods of California and the evergreens and rockies of Colorado.. the mesas of New Mexico, the apalachians in the mideast, the swampy sunsets of Louisiana, and the green plains of Nebraska... and until that gets commodified and sold off to the highest bitter, I'll keep fighting the system that threatens it.
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Alejandro Hernández
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Teachers in rural areas of Latinamerica are the worst paid (in spanish)
April 5, 2004 - 02:49 AM
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México D.F. Lunes 5 de abril de 2004
Ganan docentes hasta 30% menos que en zonas urbanas
Preocupante situación de la enseñanza rural en América Latina, dice ONG
La educación rural en América Latina podría "entrar en un espiral descendente", debido a la aplicación de una política que no incentiva el trabajo de los docentes en regiones marginadas y que "castiga" sus ingresos, limita su acceso a la capacitación y a la posibilidad de un ascenso en la carrera magisterial, afirma un análisis del Programa de Promoción de la Reforma Educativa en América Latina y el Caribe (Preal), organismo internacional no gubernamental.
En el estudio Remuneración de los docentes en 12 países latinoamericanos, se indica que en ninguno de los países analizados se compensa el sueldo mensual por trabajar en áreas "difíciles", mientras que en la mitad de éstos, la percepción económica de los maestros rurales tiene una desventaja que va de 10 a 30 por ciento en comparación con los docentes que laboran en escuelas urbanas.
"Este padrón contrasta marcadamente con el de los países de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico (OCDE), en los cuales se asignan ajustes de sueldo o gratificaciones por el desempeño, la ubicación de las escuelas y las funciones docentes o administrativas adicionales, lo que genera gratificaciones que varían de entre 15 y 20 por ciento de los sueldos"
Luego de un análisis de las variables que inciden en la remuneración económica de profesores en América Latina, como experiencia, grado de estudios y años de educación, se concluye que la situación de los maestros en zonas rurales "no es tan buena como la de sus colegas en zonas metropolitanas", lo que agrava las carencias que existen en la enseñanza y la falta de infraestructura para la educación básica.
Agrega que debido a una "estructura de incentivos adversa", los maestros rurales pueden estar "significativamente rezagados" de los profesores asignados a zonas urbanas, además de que se tiene indicios, asegura, de que una menor remuneración "atrae a personal menos calificado".
Esta situación impacta en la experiencia y años de escolaridad de quienes deciden iniciar su labor como maestros en zonas rurales y marginadas, pues en la mayoría de los casos tienden a exhibir menos años de estudio y experiencia, lo que podría generar que la educación rural "entre en un espiral descendente si no se toman medidas para atraer y retener a los buenos maestros".
LAURA POY SOLANO
La Jornada: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/040n2soc.php?origen=soc-jus.php&fly=1
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Tajudeen Akinwande
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My teen as a village boy
April 7, 2004 - 06:56 AM
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I could vividly remember in my teens as a village boy in my community. It was a life in which myself and my contemporary then felt we are at the top of the world. it was after my secondary school education when I gained admission to higher institution in Ibadan to study fine art that I now see the other side of life. In the village then, our lives was filled with all excitements of having things the way we always like to have it despite the fact that we, as young as we are then we lack so many things that we really need to brings us up into the outside world beyond ours. We go to school normally, the way we taught it will be in any part of the world. This then was a distance of about four kilometers of trecking to and fro. Then, we do have highly dedicated teachers that they so much belief in in us then as youths who has a lot to achieve in life. They identified us individually to which career we ought to pursue when we grow up in life, which now I could boldly tell you today is perfectly worked out with most of us that we still maintain our contact till today.,
It was when we leave the village life after our secondary school education that we now realised that we haved missed a lot as a village teenagers. Apart from the social life of the city that we missed and was boldly written on us, the lack of good roads, good classrooms, lack of electricity, pipe borne water and above all, it was then once in blue moon that we get in contact with television set talk less of watching movies. It took us sometime in our higher instutuion days before we could adjust our life to the city.
All been said, it was a very humble beginning for most of us as a village teens then. We were taught how to respect all that are older than us in age, we were taught how to have high level of compassionate for a fellow humanbeing, we are properly tutored by our highly dedicated teachers not to be afraid of life challenges, very sound academic background as there were no distractions then and we always after coming first always in class, asit was then a taboo to come second. The village serene, the birds that wakes us up early in the morning with their beautiful songs, the quietness of the village, the good neighbourliness, the freshness of all food we consumed, the plays we engaged ourselves with under the moonlight, the way festivals were celebrated in gougeous way and above all the joy of been able to carry all these along with us into the life after village makes very proud and boldly admit all our different background in lfe.
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Olawuyi Olusola Akanbi
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My experience
April 7, 2004 - 08:01 AM
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I grew up in an urban area but I happened to attend a boarding school located in a rural area, Mokuro, Ile-Ife. The facilities we had in my school contrasted that of the surroundings but the scenery was great especially at night when the lightnings from my school covers the village. There were hills surrounding my school and we guys would go there once in a while to 'cool off' I enjoyed the views daily exodus of farmers to the town especially when they have to relax in front of my school after a busy day displaying farm produce like fruits (my favourite).
Unfortunately there was this inter-tribal war in the neighbouring town (Ile-Ife)few years ago while I was still in secondary school and spread to the community so the youth had to join in the conflict. There is now a reduction of guys that go to the farms now (A minus for the community in that there is little revenue generation through farming).
I respected the care-free life of the inhabitants of that community. No law, no sin. Every body was their brother's keeper unlike in the cities where you mind your own business.
If only the rural community can have the basic facilities,living there would be better: clean air, no pollution, low crime rates, etc
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SLOVENC
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Re: Rural Experiences
April 8, 2004 - 01:43 AM
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I live in a village outside of Kamnik. living here is very peacefull,the ppl are nicer than those in towns and everything is simple. But of course there's not much to do for kids my age,neither in the nearby town. so it's kida sad so a lot of the youths go to Ljubljana to party.
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Conor O'Brien
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Re: Rural Experiences
April 9, 2004 - 09:44 AM
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every sumer i go to Cranberry lake, NY it is a rural area but lots of torists go there my great grand parents bought a house there and its 150 years old with no TV no pc's so i live in a rural area every year for 3 months between skewl. its 1 hour away from a mall and its 40 mins to the nearist mcdonalds. so its rural compaired to where i live most of the year
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