Cultivating Community at Huerta de Tetuán
Introducing Huerta de Tetuán, an urban garden in Madrid, could best be captured through a snippet of the regular garden banter:
“He’s difficult to work with” - Dani referring to Carlos
“Dani’s fired” - Carlos
When we (Cata and I — shoutout SAIL founder) first started volunteering at Huerta in February, it quickly became clear that everyone there was family. Not by blood, of course, but through their shared love for the garden. They joke around with each other, and no one is afraid to boss the other around (respectfully). Everyone’s mission is to help cultivate a beautiful garden in the center of apartment buildings and, currently, a construction site.
For some backstory, the Huerta opened in December 2013 (hence the 10-year anniversary poster!). Before being a garden, it was a parking lot. It all started as a community intervention project by Madrid’s City Hall, and later the neighborhood decided it wanted the spot to become a permanent urban garden. Since then, it has grown (pun not intended) into a sacred place for its volunteers and a welcoming space for community members.
Today, the garden doesn’t technically have a permit to be operating. This means the local government could technically shut them down at any moment. But the odds are in their favor, seeing that the garden is connected (not by association though) to a small school, and it is very unlikely, in my opinion, that anything could replace the garden. It’s only been about 60 days since I first went to the garden, but I already feel greatly attached to it and can only hope that the Huerta can live on forever.
The garden is officially open two days a week for volunteering but often hosts events outside of those time frames, such as cinema showings, hosting local schools, and parties. The “Heart of Tetuan” (in English) considers itself a neighborhood space that cultivates community, and I definitely think it lives up to that mission.
When talking to fellow volunteers about their experience, everyone is very humble. Almost everyone starts with “I only started ‘x’ years ago, ‘y name’ has been here since day one”. Interestingly enough, everyone seems to love the garden for the same reason. To quote long-standing volunteer Dani, “ I came one day and met some people. I liked the atmosphere and just started coming, and that's it…I like the possibility of doing all types of things like construction, gardening, big parties, and the cinema.” Everyone also echoes that they love interacting with each other but appreciate just being with nature and knowing that they are contributing to this hidden gem.
Image Text: Febrero: Estudiantes de la Universidad de Nueva York en Madrid vuelven a colaborar
My own experience in the garden has been the same. Coming to the garden on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and taking on tasks whose final product I witness is extremely rewarding. Not only that but there is something quite spiritual about the experience. Helping grow plants and repair the social aspects, like the theater benches, of the Huerta gives me the experience of contributing to something so simple that impacts the Tetuán community. And in a more selfish light, I get to escape reality for a bit and feel productive in a non-academic context.
Some of my favorite tasks have been:
Replanting weeds that I removed from the vegetable beds into contained pots and seeing them grow. These pots line one side of the garden and can be seen by passersby!
Removing rusty nails from shipping crates and then screwing the resulting panels of wood to layer the theater benches
Sifting the compost and getting to use the fertile dirt for the vegetable beds
Not only has it been rewarding to see how the plants have grown over the last two months, but it has also been heartwarming to get to understand the dynamics of the volunteers. Admittedly, I haven’t become super close with any of them as the topics of conversation are primarily garden-related, and I feel a bit awkward speaking English to them, but I am grateful for how open everyone has been to Cata and me. They’ve given us lettuce, allowed us to have autonomy over our work and pick what we do, and even honored us NYU students at the 10-year anniversary celebration. They also said they would never forget us after all the help we’ve been with renovating the theater benches, which filled me with pride.
Leaving Madrid means saying goodbye to the communities I’ve become a part of here, and leaving Huerta already makes me sad. But I think that’s just a testament to how much I loved it and how great of an experience it's been. I know that Huerta will live on and continue to bring joy to those who are lucky enough to find themselves there.
