Colombians Harvesting Hope

So I have two types of friends: music festival veterans and those who are completely alien to them.

And then there is my mother, who innocently asked me: "is that like a Woodstock or something?" and my answer had to be: yes, mother. The pathetic, run-down version people of my generation have to settle for. And we're not even talking about Bonnaroo or Lollapalloza.

Harvest of Hope had its debut two weeks ago, in some fairgrounds close to St Augustine. The purpose? To help migrant workers. This is the only organization to do so in such a direct way by helping them not with funds that end up who knows where, but directly to get back to Mexico, or to find medical aid.

Yet in spite of all this benevolence, the truth was the festival managed to rate amongst my favorite random three-day events. I had never been to a music festival, since the ones I have ever found interest tend to run through the summer, and I have yet to spend one of those in the US. This particular one, though, was oh-so-conveniently close and affordable. My friend had to go and take pictures for a publication so we made a plan out of it.

Originally, it was supposed to be four girls, to be classified as absolute rookies, sharing a tent and improvising a campsite. We ended up shacking up with a group of Colombian grad students, veterans, to classify them in one of the above categories, who singlehandedly saved our very inexperienced asses. Thanks to them we were probably the better prepared campsite with decent food and shade, which without a doubt became an important factor throughout the weekend.

We arrived to set camp together with 1000 other tents and fellow campers or what we warmly began to call "harvesteros", into a dust-bin shamelessly called a camp site. I was sick and later thankful for it, since my olfactory sense was relentlessly impaired and apparently, music festivals are quite the smelly places.

While these guys cooked dinner in a portable grill, us girly-girls had fun finding suitable ground for our Walmart-purchased tent.

And then there was the big "chillout" tent, which we flamboyantly decorated with a Colombian flag and a PACE flag, which is peace in Italian, but was a rainbow nonetheless. Later we heard a very drug- influenced fellow camper muttering, "they are Colombian AND gay?? They MUST have cocaine!" We did not. Nor mushrooms, acid, hallucinogens, or all the other substances we kept getting asked about throughout the weekend. Whether it was the flags, or we were just part of the constant overall drug swapping that was going on, will remain unknown.

That first night was Girl Talk, and it was fabulous. The overall energy was high; people were fresh and ready to party. The remaining three stages remained unvisited by our group that first night. The crazed out DJ with the random hipster dancers kept us hypnotized for the entirety of the show, and we were dazzled.

The next day the transformation began: We slowly began mutating into hippies. The non-showering, the shedding of clothes, the intense heat, the ambiance of eternal, worldly love... maybe all of it together had the desired effect. Who knows.

First was the beach though. An essential break to all the dirt and madness. St Augustine beach was good sun, freezing water and fabulous wind. Good, good stuff.

During the next days the highlights were certainly Propagandhi, Against Me!, Tokyo Police Club, Wild Sweet Orange.... The audience? Even though most of the people could easily be divided among the Punk, Hippie and Hipster scene, there were various exceptions that were pleasurable to the eye. Children rocking out, for example. I remember spotting a little girl of about four, who stood onstage for all of Against Me! and shook her hips like there was no tomorrow. Or the random homeless dude with the rat that managed to hang with everyone in the campsite. Or the soul-healing shaman. Or the dudes walking around with rainbow-colored umbrellas offering free shade. There was too much randomness and not enough time for it all to sink in. At night the campsite was madness. Drum circles, streakers and wanderers were no exception.

In the end, after three days of sun, rocking music, great company and surprisingly good food, we were left with an aura of happiness and overall well-being that would last us for the rest of the break.