Farmers, Land.

Using the example of her home village and her brother’s, Uta Ruge tells us about a marshland village in the 50s, a farm today, and how global events impact people’s lives in the country.
“A few days ago, I started getting up at six in the morning like everyone else. I want to see, to hear and smell what it feels like to farm this land today, the farm I grew up on. I put on my work clothes and go outside. I notice that I don’t have to raise my gaze to see the sky. Whether it’s raining or whether it might rain and where the wind is coming from is immediately known, filling your eyes, ears and nose.”
In Farmers, Land. My village and its place in the world, Uta Ruge blends her memories of life in the country in the 50s with her detailed observations of the change in today’s agriculture. She weaves the village’s chronicles into the global historical context and the cultural history that has shaped the farmers’ lives and is shaping it still. She tells of hard work and dependence, of the settlements in the marshlands, of draining waters and the unreasonable demands of the authorities and bureaucracy, of poverty and emigration. But she also tells about supporting and helping each other and celebrating together. She tells of the small children’s enthusiasm as they help out their parents and learn that there’s no remedy for work, apart from doing it…