As part of her WPI fellowship, Silvia Ruano, a big city newspaper reporter, spent several days as the guest of the Rod and Sue Cloose family in rural Solway, Minnesota, and The Pioneer daily newspaper in nearby Bemidji. In many ways, the experience reminded her of home. (This article was reprinted with permission from The Pioneer.)

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Farm life widens perspective

By Silvia Ruano, WPI '01
Staff Reporter
El Norte
Monterrey, Mexico

BEMIDJI, Minnesota — Big, wide open to the World, so expressive they almost talk, simply beautiful. Such are the cows’ eyes.

I can now say with absolute certainty that, should someone ever compare my eyes to those of a cow, I will not feel offended but praised.

This thought could sound too simple to be the point of a journalism text, but it is not. So, after living among high buildings, avenues saturated of cars, people relentlessly running from one place to another, so worried by the race of the clock’s hands that they’d never take their time to rest for an instant, you open your eyes and see from another perspective those small details that form the essence of life.

In Solway, you can do all this and more and no extra effort is required. You just have to let yourself be carried by the natural beauty of its landscapes, the scent of its cultivated fields, the easiness and warmth of its people a heavenly combination to my eyes, too accustomed to the gray environment and the isolation of a big city.

I owe my visit to this hidden though wonderful corner of the planet to my participation, along with nine other journalists from Brazil, China, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, India, Pakistan, Uganda and Philippines, to a fellowship program sponsored by the World Press Institute. As part of this program, I’ll be spending four months in the U.S. to delve deeply into the daily life of its inhabitants and, of course, the way journalism is practiced here.

While I’m luckily enjoying the tranquility and the landscape of this northern Minnesota area, my fellow students are presently scattered in several farms around the Twin Cities (of Minneapolis and St. Paul.)

When the WPI program started, exactly a month ago, all I knew was I’d visit Solway. I hadn’t a single clue about its location on the map or about what I would do visiting one of its farms. Truth is, nobody, even among Minnesotans I consulted, could tell me anything about it.

But afterwards, with Bemidji as a landmark, it was easy to find my destination on a state map. Rod and Sue Cloose, my hosts here, picked me up in St. Paul and, from the point we got on the road leading to their house, I knew this experience would be unforgettable.

Few people surely pull over to see the landscape from the road on their daily way, when it becomes part of a routine, but things here are completely different for me. The green color saturating anything that can be seen and a clean, bright blue sky combine better than a renowned artist’s painting.

And what shall I say of the old barns which show up now and then in the landscape and whose brick-like red faces create a perfect contrast with the surrounding panorama?

With them, I came back to the days of my childhood. When I studied at a primary bilingual school in Mexico City, my reading books were full of drawings of these barns, fields, white picket fences, so far unseen for me except in those pages.

When we got to the Clooses’ house, the landscape became even more beautiful with their 90 cows, the barn, the milk, the yogurt, the joy of their five kids (Amber, Amy, Max, Rob and AJ), the warmth of their four cats and two dogs.

I felt at home again, so close to Mexico.

The fact is, life in this country seems to flow in such a cold way. At least, apparently, everything in America, especially in the big cities, seems extremely clean, bright, new, perfect. But here, like in Mexico, there’s also a certain degree of disorder. Houses, walls, utensils and objects of everyday life don’t smell of new, don’t shine like plastic.

There’s no artificial smell here. The cows, the wild rice in hotcakes, a freshly baked cake, the eggs, the milk, the corn, the hay, the sunflowers and even the air all spread their own aromas.

The deer crossing the paths or grazing in the pastures are not afraid of people taking the time to observe them and the surrounding nature which conveys a shining of its own to everything.

This is the reason why in Solway the brightness is not artificial. Here, it is more important to be than to have; therefore, the heat of the hearts is sufficient to color the World.