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| from left to right- friend, Morgan (my son), Kim (my daughter in law), 2 friends, Austin (my son) and Courtney (my daughter) |
Burning Man: It was fun.
An (admittedly unenforceable) condition of attending: Participants are required to read the survival guide, bring all the food and water they need for the duration of their stay, and prepare for extreme weather. For a number of years now, organizers have been encouraging people to have emergency toilets too. This is an event where vending of anything other than ice is a misdemeanor offense under the terms of the permit with the Bureau of Land Management, with some minor exceptions (for example, large-scale camps can arrange delivery of water rather than requiring every camp member to bring their own water). In short, Burning Man is not a typical festival or a "Fire Festival" type event. "Radical self-reliance" is a core principle people are expected to adhere to -- as is "civic responsibility."
This year, it rained a lot. It got messy and some people got scared.
From what I saw, nearly everyone who actually engaged in the event honestly and on its own terms was fine, with exceptions for people who had child care, pet care or employment situations that were very inflexible back at home, or for whom unanticipated medical challenges arose. Generally, when people in these situations went through proper channels (ie, contacting volunteer rangers, law enforcement or medical personnel), they were able to get some level of assistance to triage their circumstances.
But some of the people who panicked were not given the help they wanted: A man asking to be let out Sunday when it was not safe because he needed to be back in civilization by Wednesday to get to work, when work was less than a day's drive away; a woman asking to be allowed to drive out on Saturday because her husband was 75, with no further explanation -- even though he had also been 75 when it was not raining outside and he did not have any medical needs or issues at home that needed attention; etc.
Some people did have things go wrong - a tent flooded, they ran out of socks, etc. And every time I saw that, I saw other people step up. On the street where I was camped, numerous people walked from campsite to campsite checking in on each other, offering water, socks, etc. One large camp that had a lot of extra space set up a dry secure lounge for anybody whose tent and lodgings were not dry. I ran out of coffee because the closed gate kept me there longer than planned, and within ten minutes of mentioning this fact, somebody had put out the word about my shortage and coffee brewing methods and tracked down somebody who could offer me fresh ground beans out of his supply.
The porto potties were definitely gross, but they did not get to "cholera/health risk" level. The clay-like mud generated by the rain built up and made them disgusting to look at, and because the vehicles were not able to service them for several days event organizers asked people who were able to use jars or jugs to pee in to hold on to piss for a couple days instead of peeing in the boxes to reserve space for poop. (This sounds gross but probably 1/4-1/3 of participants have some kind of piss jar because it sucks to have to walk a quarter mile if you wake up in the middle of the night and have to pee, it's just that most people empty them every morning and instead they did not empty them out.) Some toilets really did get full to the brim, but in every bank of toilets there were always enough available to meet demand, even if it was icky. Next year I will have an emergency toilet instead of just a piss jug to prepare myself.
The people who really suffered were the ones who violated the principles and explicit requirements of Burning Man by failing to prepare, did not ask for or accept help, and then panicked and tried to leave when the roads were completely unsafe. I think a couple hundred folks probably fall into this category, out of the 70,000-80,000 who attended. The suffering they experienced was mostly damage to their vehicles, scorn from other people at the event, and hefty towing fees. And even then, more people got out than got stuck in the mud. But their departures messed things up for the rest of us, because the ruts their tires made in the muddy road caused puddles to pool and compacted the clay so that it took longer for the water to dry up and the roads to be passable.
Since the "roads" we are talking about are all part of the collective consensus reality we create at Burning Man -- places on a vast flat clay plain that was a lake bed in ancient times, designated by cones and flag lines, not pavement -- volunteers were able to plat out a new Gate Road lanes for people to depart on, in order to circumvent the mess made by the folks who panicked.
Burning Man is big enough that it does have a small year-round staff, as well as seasonal paid staff who provide guidance and support in key areas. But the vast, vast majority of the event is put on and managed by volunteers. And every day that it was rainy and chaotic, more volunteers stepped forward to help, both in unofficial and official capacities. I felt an enormous amount of camaraderie and enjoyed the ways we begrudgingly worked together to make, have and find fun in the muck and mud while we were stuck.
In the end, people were actually able to start departing on Monday, the scheduled end date for the festival, although everyone who was able was asked to stay until Tuesday to give the ground more time to dry and to make the lines shorter for those who really needed to go. I had planned to leave on Sunday and drive halfway home, then get the rest of the way to Portland Monday around noon so I'd have a day and a half to do laundry and unpack before returning to work today. Instead, I left Tuesday and drove all the way home, getting in a bit after midnight (ie, 1 a.m. Wednesday morning), and taking a few hours of unplanned time off to sleep this morning before starting work today. I guess I will unpack this weekend.
It will be fine.
Most of what I have seen reported in the media is factually accurate. But it's hard to represent the nuances of an unfamiliar subculture in an accessible way for a mass audience, and most media did not get right the resilience of nearly every participant I met. As a journalist myself, I know that I have failed to represent the experiential realities of others at times even when I have gotten the facts right. It's probably healthy for me to be on this other side of that experience; I hope I remember it and learn from it and maybe even get better at my work as a result.
I've been to Burning Man 11 or 12 times now, and it's often an extreme and uncomfortable event. My first year, temperatures dropped into the 30s at night and I did not have adequate warm clothes. In 2013 or '14, opening day arrivals were on hold for 12 hours because of rain. A year or two later we had high winds with gusts topping 70 miles per hour that tore up tents and knocked over porta potties. Another year in the twenty-teens, the daily high reached 117 one day -- and remember that almost nobody at this event can seek refuge in air conditioning. Last year we had so many days hotter than 100 that overnight lows didn't get below 80 and I spent at least six hours in a medic's tent with dehydration and heat exhaustion. And this year it rained a lot.
Burning Man is in a remote, extreme and inhospitable environment where people are expected to both plan to take care of themselves and also to give generously to others.
Burning Man is also a place where grown-ups go to remember how to play. A little rain cannot stop that. And it did not. It rained. We sheltered, rallied, took care of each other, and we played. Here are some photos and videos from my experiences after the rain fell.
This year was the best time I've had at the event in a long time. It didn't go how I hoped or planned, but what really does in this world? I am so glad that I was there.
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