Sick Days

It’s tempting to avoid writing negative entries onto this blog, about difficulties with my academic work, or homesickness, or the inevitable “Delhi belly,” which we’ve renamed the “rainforest runs.”  It took a lot for Matt and I to get here.  For me, it took a year of stressed-out academic rigor and work, months of planning and purchasing plane tickets, and saying goodbye to family and friends.  For Matt it was some of the same, and also a leap into the unknown in the name of love, and putting off his own academic goals.  So to look at the leap a few months in and not know if it was worth it is a tough thing. 

Let me backtrack.  Up until about two weeks ago, we were committed.  Life wasn’t perfect here on this farm in India, but we were going to make it through to the other side.  We would come home in May, with a Masters degree for me to look forward to, and likely enrollment in a Masters in Biology program for Matt.  But then the Indian government started squabbling, and soon enough our plan began to crumble.  Add to that a lingering stomach sickness I haven’t been able to shake, and turbulence in my family at home, and it seems like we’re struggling to keep up our resolve to stay.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about priorities.  I don’t quit on things easily, especially not something I’ve committed a lot of energy and money into already, like school.  But after a point, when it seems like so many things are pulling at you to do exactly what you’re not doing, when do you switch gears and move forward?

It started with a U.S. Consolate General warning that ended up in the inbox of our visitors, Michael and Taylor.  “Oh no, is this going to affect us?” they worried.  Due to last year’s 26-11 attack in Mumbai, which involved at least one terrorist with a United States passport traveling back and forth from Chicago to India, the government here is cracking down.  Every foreigner not on a business visa or student visa (I’m on a tourist visa because I’m not connected with an Indian university) has to leave after 180 days in-country for at least two months now.  “Shit,” the doctor I visited yesterday said when I told him I was about to be ejected from the country. 

That’s the first strike against staying:  we legally can’t.

As I mentioned, I visited a doctor yesterday.  I met Dr. Devraj just over a week ago, after Matt and I spent an hour looking for Madikeri’s private hospital.  ‘It’s at Thimmiah Circle,’ one woman told us, so we jumped in a rickshaw and headed that way.  When we got there, another man told us it was near the bus stand, back down the hill.  We started walking, weary and weak from the stomach sickness.  It didn’t help that we kept running into a raucous political parade, with music and dancing and a packed pickup truck full of whoever had just been elected.  “We won!” one dancing man with his arms in the air shouted to us as he passed, beckoning us to join in.  

We kept walking, and eventually found it, this clean, disorganized hospital tucked away behind the seedy theatres of Madikeri.  The first time around, Dr. Devraj prescribed me an anti-parasitic and told me to change hotels.  Not possible, I retorted, though Matt and I committed to preparing all of our own food from now on.  One week later, my stomach still in runny knots, he prescribed more antibiotics, and potentially a colonoscopy, at which I silently thought to myself, and later shouted to Matt, “not in F-ing India!” 

That’s strike two:  I’ve got to get healthy.  We’ll see in a few days if this new round of pills can turn that one around.

The third and fourth strikes, I’d rather not share too much about.  One is that my parents are (quite happily, it sounds) getting a divorce.  It would be nice to not be on the other side of the world when my family structure is shifting so suddenly and so wholly.  The other is that my work is not nearly as fulfilling as I had hoped it would be.  The NGO I came here to work with seems to be quietly withering away, and we’ve lost a few competent Indian interns who could have helped out quite a bit.  If this last challenge had occurred when my visa wasn’t about to expire, and my health wasn’t so precarious, I would have soldiered on.  It’s not the first time I’ve joined the scene of a NGO that has nothing going on except for its registered status, but it’s a different context here, and now my time is limited.

It could be, also, a case of the homesick holidays.  Christmas came and went with a lot of effort to bring some hominess to the other side of the world.  We had presents, a tree (well, a branch that resembled a Northeastern pine), and special food like homemade pierogies, German pancakes, and pumpkin pie.  But we also had some tears, and a lot of missing family accompanied by nearly half a dozen skype dates, with Matt’s extended family on both sides, and now my own split-up family. 

Now that we’re on the other side of Christmas, we’ve been thinking about the New Year, and how we can make the most of our situation.  Since we’ll have to leave by the end of February (after 180 days), it may make more sense to return in January and enroll in classes to make up the lost time.  Or maybe it’s better to push on through, to find some closure with our work here, and finish out at least six months of this intended yearlong endeavor.  Personally, I’m hoping for some clarity before the year turns, so we can look forward to a fresh month, and practically a fresh decade, with some future plans that feel good through and through. 

Photos:  The rallying flag of Madikeri's political procession, given to me as a Christmas gift from Matt; stockings hung up on Christmas morning, thanks to Santa (aka our awesome other intern, Lauren)

A Visit with Old Friends

We had our first States-side visitors come through about a week ago, and all of us – Michael, Taylor, Matthew and I – had a chance to see some new parts of India and catch up on the past three months. Old friends from Philly, Michael and Taylor arrived in Mumbai and headed south to Turtle Bay, a quaint little beach resort on the eastern coast. After a few days of sleeping off their jet lag, playing cricket with villagers, and eating their first tastes of Indian food, they headed our way. When Matt and I picked them up in Madikeri, they had just come from a local bar, where Taylor drew some stares, I’m sure, over her glass of Kingfisher. This was very Philadelphia of them, and it warmed my heart. I still haven’t worked up the gumption to sit and drink in one of those Madikeri dives.

After excited hugs and a true feeling of displacement (Michael and Taylor in INDIA?!!), we jumped in our friend Charlie’s auto, four-to-a-rickshaw, and climbed up the hill to the Retreat. Up in the rainforest we spent a few quiet days hiking, dining around campfires, and catching up. We even put them to work a bit:  Michael helped Matt out with the new Rainforest Retreat website, and Taylor enthusiastically helped harvest the latest crop of green tea.

Soon enough, we decided to split from Mojo Plantation, and head to Mysore. After checking in at the brand new Hotel Ritz, we set about exploring. First there was the Mysore Palace, home of generations of Mysore maharajas, and embodying the inclusive spirit of India: Islamic spires coupled with Hindu temple architecture and topped off with a Catholic-inspired dome. Belgian and British floor tiles cozied up against solid silver doors, and dozens of optical illusion maharaja portraits rubbed shoulders with hand-carved stone elephants complete with moving parts. When I asked how the Palace was built, in other words, who paid for such opulence, our guide replied that they found a gold mine not far from Mysore that paid for the entire thing.

Next we set out for St. Philomena’s church, where I bought a few unexpected Christmas ornaments from the adjoining liturgical store. After that, we were off and walking through the streets of Mysore, for essential oil extracts and sandalwood, musical instruments and saris.

Our greatest find of the trip was undoubtedly the bright and bustling Dasara Fair that we happened upon later that evening. Now, Dasara is the biggest annual festival in south India. Schools close down, temples go nuts creating outlandish electric floats depicting religious stories, and Indians of all faiths pour out of their homes in the dead of night to dance in the streets on this Hindu holiday. But Dasara happened nearly three months ago, in the very first month of our culture shock. So it seemed a little odd that the Dasara Fair would still be in full operation as we approached the end of the year. Undaunted by this calendrical fact, Mysoreans of all ages and occupations flocked to the belated festival on this balmy Friday night, like any American schoolboy to the county fair. And like a county fair it was. Dozens of shops lined the entranceway to the store, and we immediately stocked up on gifts for Christmas and beyond. We were the only foreigners in the fairgrounds, and happily gobbled up the Indian prices on pashmina scarves and elephant print bed sheets before the vendors could figure out that we expected them to quote a much higher price. After that we explored the food court, with its giant pooris and unknown curry dishes. There was even a temporary Cafe Coffee Day set up inside, the Indian equivalent of Starbucks, stocked with microwaveable chicken rolls and thick slices of death-by-chocolate cake. We couldn’t resist.

We moved on to the agricultural exhibits and educational booths, which included odd collections of taxidermy and tourism. At one, we witnessed the month-by-month progression of bovine fetal development through square portals of preservatives and glass. At the same booth, we also got to see the objects most commonly found inside an Indian city cow’s stomach (loads of unidentified metal objects, to say the least), and we had the opportunity to purchase a live emu egg for just 1500 rupees (about $30). We considered bringing it home as a gift for the farm, but instead carried on through the truly gigantic fairgrounds.

For some time we had been eyeing a gigantic tiger head built up at the back of the fairgrounds. Now we walked toward it, until we stood under its gaping mouth. After paying a 25 rupee entrance fee (the fair itself cost us just 10 rupees, so that’s saying something), we walked through the tiger’s mouth and found a mountain to scale. But first, we had to deposit our shoes, which meant something holy was coming.

Here is what we found along the mountain:

First, we waded through a Himalayan river. I assume this was a cleansing ritual before our ascent up the sacred peak.

This is how I knew we were supposed to be in the Himalayas. We must be somewhere in or near Kashmir for turbaned Indian army officials to be planted at strategic points to guard pilgrims.

One of several small shrines along the way. This one, Matt felt particularly drawn to.

After the final ascent, we walked through another holy river, and then on through a dark cave.

I had known this was coming ever since we had deposited our shoes a whole plastic mountain ago. But Taylor didn’t, and she entered the shrine laughing. We were all caught a little off guard after the hilarity of the climb. Perhaps even more exciting than the 25 rupee “ride” we had just completed was the view we got on the other side.

Although we did much more in Mysore that night and the next day, the Dasara Fair wowed us with its peculiar mix of the agricultural, the scientific, and the religious, with both its joy and solemnity. We wandered wide-eyed in this serious and silly microcosm of India for several hours, through the “Scery House” and past the Om Shakti bouncy slide. When we finally left the fairgrounds, we had been over-stimulated and impressed, and we found ourselves exhausted by the fun and the reflections it provoked.

The next day we continued to explore, rising early to beat the crowds at Chamundi Hill, and spending the early afternoon seeing tigers, elephants, and apes at the Mysore Zoo. While we found some interesting things during our explorations of the city, it was the company that made it really special. After spending three quiet months very far away from old friends and family, Michael and Taylor rejuvenated me, reminding me that life goes on at home, and when we return States-side, our old community will be there waiting for us.

After one final lavish lunch, the four of us jumped into a rickshaw and directed the driver to the Mysore bus stand. Matt and I pushed our way through the madness of the city bus stand and delivered Michael and Taylor to a deluxe Volvo bus headed straight to Bangalore. From there they would head on to Nepal to visit some other old friends, where I was sure they would work some similar magic refreshing and rejuvenating in a far off land. Amidst hugs and hurried goodbyes, we promised to see them in six months back in Philly. “I can’t wait to see you there!” I shouted, and they were gone.

Character (and Cultural) Sketch: the labor problem, and one energetic Indian

Farm life isn’t always easy, and it’s certainly not lazy. As Americans, we feel the long workdays and the lack of regular weekends acutely. The Indians around us almost always work longer, harder days than we interns do, and we rarely hear them complain. So it came as a surprise to me when Kumar, our closest neighbor and the most happy-go-lucky of all the Indians I know, announced to me that he was leaving the farm for good, today. “Erin acha,” he hollered to me between our open doors. “I’m going to Mysore!” I came out of our room and peered into his, where he stood packing the last of his possessions into one stuffed duffel bag. “When will you come back?” I asked. Not coming back, he told me with a grin, and continued to fold and stow his remaining t-shirts. I was taken aback, not quite believing Kumar but having no reason not to. The last time he went to Mysore, to help his family hang a door on their new house, his 4-day trip turned into a whole month away. The farm struggled while he was gone, shuffling day laborers from the farm to the guesthouse to fill his shoes. When he returned, we were all happy to see him, not just because of the extra set of hands, but because of his energy and positive attitude.

Kumar is a man who runs. He is not a tall man, but he has strength and stamina. One of his tasks on the farm is to ferry the food cooked in the kitchen in big white bags holding big silver tiffins down the hill to the guesthouse dining area. When you’re sitting at the dining area, or walking down the path toward it, you know it’s Kumar coming because you can hear his steps falling fast on the earth before you see him. When you finally do see him, his face is painted with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen, his happy eyes framed by a stylish mop of shiny black hair.

He was smiling even as he told me he was quitting his job. “Too much work,” he said. “Too much problem.” He doesn’t speak flawless English, but I understood enough to make out that he had been cleaning the floor of one of the cottages when his supervisor scolded him for not doing some other job quick enough. As a recourse, he had packed up his bags and intended to march up the hill to the main house and quit. He would catch the evening bus to Mysore, back to his family and the big city. “Talk about giving notice,” I said to Lauren as he started up the stairs.

Kumar is from Mysore, but he’s been working the guesthouse circuit for a few years now. He came to Rainforest Retreat from Turtle Bay, a low-key resort on India’s west coast. I went to Turtle Bay about a month ago, and could picture him jogging lassis out to visitors lounging on the beach. Now, he was dressed in his best city clothes – black jeans and a black t-shirt – and I could tell he was looking forward to a return to the city of his youth. He, the only single man working at the farm, lives a relatively solitary life here at the Retreat. While the other two or three extended families live in a connected house down the path from our place, Kumar lives in a single room adjoining our double intern cottage. He dines in the kitchen after the food goes down for the guests, and otherwise hangs out with the farm staff. He has friends here, certainly, but his family is elsewhere, and word on the farm is he is soon to be married.

Twenty minutes later, Kumar came hopping down the stairs carrying two solar lanterns meant for the guests staying far out in the farm at Plantation Cottage. “Still working?” I said to him. His face, still smiling, belied defeat and satisfaction at the same time. He had been convinced to stay.

Labor is a problem out in rural India. Farmers’ kids are getting good educations, and running off to the city to work in IT or architecture or any number of industries. Their families proudly see them off, and rightly so. But then the farm blanches, and the farming community falls to its knees. There is cardamom left unpicked out in the fields, and tea plantations whose tender green shoots are becoming overgrown, and the tea bitter, for lack of manpower to pick them quick enough. So I can imagine how Kumar’s statement that he would leave the farm evoked dialogue among his employers, and compromise. The new deal, he told me, would give him two or three hours of off time every afternoon. If he didn’t get it, he said, he would go to Mysore, and be gone.

We feel it too, this desire for time off, for personal time and space. But on a farm in India even that feels excessive. As I thought about Kumar’s predicament, I realized how circular the problem is. As more and more farm laborers leave for the cities, the few that remain must carry a growing burden of intensely demanding farm work. This in turn burns people out, stimulating a second exodus away from the farm. We were seeing it on a personal level, but it exists all over India and the developing world, I’m sure.

When Kumar came down the hill, I was sitting on our front porch pulling cardamom off the cut panicles that make up the very last of this year’s harvest. I was doing this because we don’t have enough labor on the farm. Five or six burlap sacks full of these panicles, severed a dozen each from the base of every cardamom plant on the farm -and there are hundreds- sat waiting for someone to sort through them and pull off their fruits. Two women who work on the farm, and one guesthouse volunteer, had been sitting for two days pinching the fruits from their stems. I sat down to get a little more done before the sun went down. Kumar came and sat with me, grabbing a bundle of panicles himself, and then Muttu joined in. The three of us sat for an hour, chatting and pinching the shiny green fruits into a wooden basket. Kumar and Muttu went back and forth in Kannada, gossiping about farm work, and the need for rest (I caught that much), and the pros and cons of working here (I guessed). I interjected now and then, but mostly just marveled in the moment. And in that dialogue I let go of my desire for more time to myself, solid weekends to revel in, and free time to read, write, and relax. I’m in India after all, and with such a labor problem, it’s just as important to keep busy as it is to relax.

Celebrations of Thanks and Harvest

Matt and I celebrated our anniversary about a month ago, and because we couldn’t remember the exact date that we met, and because we had to work on what we thought was the actual special day, we decided instead to celebrate Anniversa-week.  This took the pressure off a bit, a good thing when you’re living in India.  Holidays are tough; they require creativity and dedication, or else they’ll likely float by half a world away and a day behind.

So when Thanksgiving rolled around, the holiday surprised me by stretching itself into a week of harvest celebrations.  It began with our own small American way of celebrating, with pumpkin pie and stuffing, and then six days later took on the form of Huthari, a local holiday in praise of the coming rice harvest.

We three Americans had a hard time explaining our coming holiday.  “It began back when the European colonists had just arrived on the shores of America.  They were starving, and the Native Americans took pity on them and shared their food with them.  They had a big feast, and Thanksgiving was born.”  One of us interjects – “And then the next day, the colonists forgot all about it and started killing the Native Americans.”

But it’s about family, we would say, and relaxing, cooking together, and sharing food.  We called it a harvest festival, and that got across, because India is a country of harvests and festivals, and soon enough the local Coorgs would be celebrating their own version of the same thing.

We were a bit wary of what our beloved holiday would look like in India.  We already knew there would be no turkey, even though our farm is home to two very ornery turkeys.  We would have to be creative to make pie happen, and without a random assortment of family, what use is Thanksgiving anyway?  Despite all of this, I couldn’t let the last Thursday in November pass without at least spending some time in the kitchen.

In an attempt to discourage a twinge of homesickness, I spent the day in the field.  I wasn’t doing just any kind of farm work, but focused on digging sweet potatoes out of the ground.  It’s not quite sweet potato season around here, and because the sweet potatoes were an afterthought last year, allowed to grow between a thick planting of mango ginger, they were long and skinny, and buried between a bountiful crop of ginger.  We got three baskets of mango ginger out that day, and about 20 scrawny sweet potatoes.  But the satisfaction of harvesting our own Thanksgiving meal overcame the quantity.

Later on, Matt helped pluck a plump pumpkin off an overhanging vine, and I used my mom’s recipe, with a bit of improvisation, to make a pie.  In the absence of evaporated milk, I stirred a thick chunk of jaggery (unrefined sugarcane juice) into a saucepan of warm milk.  The pie went into the toaster oven, and I prayed that the electric current wouldn’t switch off, which it did.  Still, after two hours of attempted baking, out emerged a beautiful representation of home.  Lauren whipped up some tasty sweet potatoes and stuffing, and we brought our version of Thanksgiving down to the dining area to share.  Along with Anurag, Sujata, and Maya, we ate with a mother-daughter pair from Holland, and a pair of Indian guests.  Matt toasted to Thanksgiving, and we all tucked in, ending our holiday around a roaring bonfire.

A few days later, Sujata started telling us about Huthari.  Linked to the lunar calendar, Huthari marks the beginning of the rice harvest in Coorg, and like most festivals in India, it involves all kinds of firecrackers and fireworks.  Because we don’t grow rice paddy here at Mojo, Sujata arranged for us to visit some friends of theirs who do.  Lauren, Matt, Maya, and I set off after dinner, walking the kilometer to Vimmaiah and Meenakshi’s in the startling moonlight.  When we arrived, two little girls greeted us with a show of sparklers, and we settled into a spread of snacks and sweets – milk halwa, pakora, and banana chips.

After some time, we were ushered into the family’s shrine room for a puja, and given our first-ever bindis – that little dot between the eyes.  As it often happens in a foreign country, we were swept into the ritual without knowing what exactly was going on.  Vimmaiah’s family left the shrine room in a small procession, and we followed along, all the way across the farm’s drying yard, over a small stream, and into the edge of the rice paddy.  With limited flashlights, random fireworks, and the full moon sending off light overhead, we picked our way to the paddy and into a kind of magic.  The Indians ahead of us started hollering, shouting boisterous “Polydeva”s to the gods of rice and harvest, and waving thin machetes over their heads.  By the light of a small oil flame, Vimmaiah then reached into the paddy, grasped a large handful of the dried-out rice crop, and cut it at its base.  After gathering an armload of the holy stuff, we all turned and walked back to the house.  The young men of the family continued to set of fireworks, and small explosions of light and sound burst around us and the cut rice.  The short ritual was over, the offering of rice was divided up, and we went home with ten stalks of rice wrapped in mango leaves to hang on all the doorways of our homes.  Though quite different from our own feast of thanks, Huthari closed our week of thanks-giving with a bang, and with a nice memento to hang over our door.

“There’s nothing like following a man with a rifle into the jungle”

Trip to Kerala, Part I

Last week, Matt and I took off from the farm for a week’s trip through Kerala.  Known for its backwaters, its communist government, and – to some – its literary prowess, Kerala is India’s southernmost state to the west.  The state meanders along the Arabian Sea, connecting Karnataka to India’s southernmost tip at Trivanduram.  Apparently, Kerala attracts 90% of the 10% of tourists who choose to visit South India over North India.  I had been eager to visit the place since setting foot in the south, mostly because it is home to the story and the characters that once entranced me in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.  So when I heard about an agriculture and export conference in Kochi, Matt and I jumped at the chance to take our first big trip through a new part of India.

Our first impressions were of motion and comfort.  We had taken a bus from Madikeri three hours south to Wayanad, to spend a few days looking for wildlife before heading toward the coast and down to Kochi.  As we passed through Kutta, the last town in Karnataka, and headed into Kerala, our rickshaw suddenly sped up, and Matt and I stopped bouncing into each other.  Well, we thought, the roads are certainly better in Kerala. 

We were greeted by breakfast and coffee at the guesthouse we had booked, and ushered up to a tree-house bungalow.  Wooden walls! we noticed happily, after months of cement rooms necessary to withstand the hefty rains of Madikeri.  The bungalow was built on wooden stilts, and attached to a real live tree.  It was raised, we mused, in case a wild elephant came crashing through the coffee plantation. 

We wasted no time, jumping at our first opportunity to explore the Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary across the road.  We did it safari style, piling into a covered jeep with two French tourists and two Indian guides, one in front and one behind.  As we entered the reserve through a big iron gate and drove through the first towering stands of teak trees, I imagined I could hear the wildness of India breathing huge sighs of relief.  Here was a natural place thoroughly protected by the Indian government, in a country that is hungry for space for its bulging population.  Not only is it a fairly large wildlife refuge, but India has done well in connecting it with several other nearby national parks to create a massive, continuous habitat for the big and small animals that desperately need it – elephants, tigers, giant squirrels, deer, and monkeys, to name a few.  Helping to cement its longevity, India also uses the area to create several streams of revenue, such as tourist dollars and profit from carefully sustained teak “orchards” grown within the reserve. 

Our experience confirmed the wildlife’s relief.  Almost as soon as we were 100 meters into the reserve, our safari driver slowed down.  “Spotted deer,” he whispered, pointing to a herd of fifteen or twenty deer, full grown fawns to my North American eyes.  And then, “Hanuman langur monkeys,” as he pointed up into the trees.  Within another ten minutes we had spotted the elusive luna moth, a trio of bison, a sambar deer, and a malabar giant squirrel.  And then, as we rounded a bend and headed deeper into the jungle, our guide in the back of the jeep called for the driver to back up.  He cut the engine and we all leaned out the open windows, listening.  There was crashing in the brush just beside the road, and I could see young stands of bamboo waving wildly against some mighty force.  Elephants, the guide mouthed to us.  And we all leaned a little further out the windows of the jeep, straining to see the cause of all the ruckus in the brush. 

Soon another jeep pulled up behind us, and we moved on.  Hearing the elephants was powerful in itself, perhaps even more than seeing them right away, as it made me begin to understand the vast appetite of the animals, and the sheer power of the lumbering beasts.  They pull whole trees down when they’re snacking, and make no effort to quiet either their footsteps or their munching. 

Partly because of our unrequited encounter with the elephants, and partly because of a longing to connect with the reserve in a more personal way, Matt and I splurged the next morning, and hired our very own guide and guard to take us, on foot, into the reserve.  This is a rare privilege, and to do it you have to pay for these two men, one a local tribal guide, and the other a man touting a rifle, to personally walk you through the place.  The duo in serious brown uniforms added some clout to our small entourage, and as we stepped past the gate, rather than rumbling past it in a jeep, I immediately felt a sense of adventure overcome me. 

We walked along the road for a while, spotting an isolated langur monkey here and there, and marveling at tiger prints and bison droppings.  Soon enough, our guides pulled up short and stopped to listen.  Silence, and then a muffled crushing of sticks and leaves and bamboo.  We looked for the source, and there, not 50 meters away, a tall, skinny bamboo stalk wavered and fell, and was shortly dragged away into the undergrowth.  This time, we knew what stood behind the brush.  Matt and I walked back and forth along the road, testing views from every angle, and getting short glimpses of a fanning ear, a dusty gray back, and a tail whipping back and forth.  After a few minutes, our guides motioned to us.  They were looking for openings in the brush to creep into, and one of them, the man with the rifle, Anu Kumar, said to us, “we go in, behind them.”  Through this shortened sentence, I assumed this meant that Anu Kumar was going to circle behind the elephants and flush them out so we could get a better look.  This seemed somewhat risky, but feeling grateful for our gutsy guide, I said, “okay, good luck!”  But then he beckoned for us to follow. 

Looking back at me, Matt said, “there’s nothing like following a man with a rifle into the jungle,” and we plunged into the brush.  The guide cut a quiet path with his machete, leading us through a swampy area and around the backside of the elephants.  We emerged on raised ground covered by trees and shrubs, and looked across a small stream to a herd of four wild elephants.  They hadn’t noticed us at all, or maybe they simply weren’t concerned.  There was one huge male, with long white tusks and two massive humps on the top of his head.  Three smaller females, not three quarters his size, stood around him.  All four chewed slowly at the pile of bamboo they had pulled down, first shaving off the bark and then sucking out the fiber within.  They waved their giant ears, and curled their wiry tails back and forth along their bodies, and it was a perfect display of elephantine calm.

Shortly, Anu Kumar started pulling on our sleeves, beckoning that it was time to go.  He was worried that a jeep would drive along the road and spook the small herd our way.  It was a valid concern, but after a minute of entrancement in the company of such calm wildness, I didn’t want to go.  He continued to coax us out, and we turned to backtrack along the makeshift path only two or three minutes after finding our view.

That was only the beginning of our trek through the jungle, but a description of each and every moment would hardly be blog-friendly.  We spotted dozens of tiger prints and even a pair of leopard prints, and encountered a half-dozen malabar giant squirrels.  These creatures, perhaps the most beautiful to be seen in this stretch of rainforest, are reddish-orange and nearly as big as a German Shepherd.  They run along the rainforest canopy like the most adept monkeys, and when they turn to look at you from their treetop lookout, their faces are circled like a raccoon in whites and browns and blacks.  Their bushy red tails follow them like a final flash of brilliance as they disappear into the forest.

Thankfully, Anu Kumar did not need to use his rifle even once during the trek, although we did get attacked by a hoard of wild beasts.  The leeches, my personal bain of the rainforest, finally got the better of me, devouring both Matt’s and my feet during one particularly moist stretch of trail.  Their ferocity would leave their mark for the rest of our week-long trip to Kerala, as their nasty little bites swelled up and had me itching for the next six days.  But it was worth it – for the elephants, and the squirrels, and all the other creatures we encountered, and for the experience of walking absolutely vulnerable into a wholly wild place, except for the presence of a guide with a gun. 

Photos: 1- Entrance to the Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary; 2- Luna Moth; 3- Entering the jungle with our guides; 4- Elephants!; 5- Sweet relief from the leech bites

Character Sketch: Farm Foreman, Kannada Teacher, Serious Spitter

In the morning, Anurag leans out the door of his house on the hill and shouts, “Muttupandy!”  It has a lilting ring to it, the second half tumbling over itself and rising at the end with a British twang so it becomes Muttupanday.  I hear it cascading down the hill, received by a short “eh?!” in reply.  Muttu is the able-bodied foreman of the farm, and is responsible, among other things, for helping Anurag and Sujata’s young daughter make it to the school van each morning.  He rises early, I know, to wash his treasured vehicles, the school van itself and a blue Maruti scooter, and then strides up the hill to begin his work day.

Muttu is a spitter, in the best sense of the word.  He does it out of habit, leaning to the side and sending out three or four tiny bullets of saliva every minute or so.  They become punctuations in our conversations about local farmers, the work to be done on the farm, or (his favorite subject) American cars.  They are small sunflower seed spits through his teeth, and it’s a conversation in itself. 

A few days ago, he guided the creation of a new compost pit – cow dung, then diluted cow urine, then green biomass and a half-bottle of Effective Microorganisms mixed with water.  Then more shit, watery piss, and weeds.  He leapt around, pulling bags of dung from our hands to sprinkle it out evenly over the pit, or he squatted off to the side directing us. 

He taught us a few words in Kannada, too.  Eenu beeku neeru means simply, more water is needed.  Nannigey eenu neeru beeku means I want more water.  We ferried water back and forth from the nearby rainwater collection barrel, filling bindigays (green plastic big-belly buckets) and scuttling back with them perched precariously on a shoulder.  The local women we work with walked off with machetes in their hands and returned with a head-load each of weeds:  ferns, grasses and leaves they tied neatly into a bundle the size of a small refrigerator.  I couldn’t wrap my arms around it if I tried.  Three times they brought a load each, and we dutifully unwrapped the grassy knot and distributed the matter across the dung.

Muttu is from Tamil Nadu, but he’s been living in these hills of Karnataka for twenty years.  One son lives with Muttu here, and with his two aunts, an uncle, and two small cousins.  Muttu’s other son lives with his wife in their village in Tamil Nadu.  When I ask him why he likes it here, and why he stays, he says it’s the cooler weather in Madikeri, and the quality of the work.  Rather than doing the same thing every day, here he gets variety:  one day he’s up in a tree shade-clearing, and the next he’s laying a foundation for a new cottage.  I marvel that it’s enough to keep a man from his family, but then I remember that his family is here – sisters and brothers, son and nephews.  In a sense, a spouse is just the icing on the cake. 

Muttu is the guy who’s been taking me around on these farm visits every few days.  He knows most of the farmers in this area, and for him most of the “interviews” are like casual visits to catch up with friends.  When he likes the family we’re visiting, he’ll spend the first hour chatting in Kannada, asking about their farm and family members.  At one farm, we spend at least thirty minutes ogling over a small black kitten that is tumbling around and around the room chasing a ping-pong ball.  After a banana each, and a cup of coffee, we get to business.  ‘Okay,’ he says to me finally, ‘you have some questions?’  He is always direct and to the point.

In ten days the compost pit we helped create will get its first stirring, and in two or three months the multi-layered pile will be a sunken mass of dense, powdery nitrogen.  I look forward to sinking my hands into it then, and helping to lay it under the coffee trees that cascade down the valley on the edge of the pit.  I tell Muttu, “in ten days, you tell me when you’re coming here to mix it, and I’ll come too.”  He wags his head from side to side, grins, and offers an okay. 

Kodagu’s Agricultural Landscape – Clips from my first report

Beware, this is long!  

Because I’m getting graduate school credit for my time in India, I’ve been writing papers from time to time.  Here are some clips from the first of the series, a brief background about agriculture in India, public policy, and the local environment.  Let me know what you think!

Although India embodies a great diversity of livelihoods, languages, and cultures, it remains predominantly an agricultural country.  According to the last census, over 72 percent of India’s population lives in rural areas, and up to 50 percent of income generated in those areas is from farm income.  India was a key player in the Green Revolution in the 1960s, when several developing countries greatly increased food production by adopting new technologies.  Not all of these technologies were sustainable over the long-term, and pesticides and fertilizers introduced during and after that time have degraded soil quality to an extreme level.  As a result, India now faces a complex problem of food production in the face of severe environmental conditions.  In India, there are stories of mass suicides of farmers in Andhra Pradesh who can no longer coax their crops to grow, and of soil in Punjab that can no longer absorb water at all. 

In Kodagu, a region in southwestern Karnataka that is host to one of India’s only tropical rainforest belts, the farmers are many and diverse.  Amongst the large coffee and spice plantations, there are small landholders growing vegetables for home consumption and fruits for the local market, coffee for their breakfast tables and spices for their kitchens; organic cooperatives, research farms, and self-help groups diversify the agricultural landscape.  The NGO I am working with, Worldwide Association for the Preservation & Restoration of Ecological Diversity (WAPRED), has developed an organic research farm near Madikeri, in the hills of Kodagu, and has helped establish two organic growers cooperatives in the region – one locally within the town of Galibeedu, and the other a collection of large organic growers in southern Kodagu.  My placement with WAPRED involves me in a local effort to reverse the harmful effects of “conventional” nonorganic farming by encouraging organic cultivation through education and marketing assistance.
….
With a growing population and diminishing open land, India is struggling to meet its own food needs while developing its agriculture sector to compete in the global market.  Scholars have shown that Indian farmers tend “to apply excessive fertilizer” to their crops, and to spray pesticides to such an extent that natural predators of pests are wiped out as well (Swaminathan 2006).  It is well known that this model of agriculture is unsustainable due to soil degradation, falling water tables, and the harmful effects of the chemicals, which include pesticides banned in the United States.  In contrast, research has shown that growing crops organically can boost farm incomes and at the same time improve the agricultural environment.  In Karnataka, politicians have given lip service to the need to develop sustainable means of agriculture in India, but often these organic pilot projects have fallen to corruption and misappropriation of funds.

In Karnataka, the issue of corruption in the face of good intentions is especially pronounced.  The Karnataka state government has enacted several schemes to improve farming methods and markets over the years, some that specifically attempt to encourage organic farming.  In 2008, the Karnataka state government allotted 100 crore rupees (about 21.5 million US dollars) over the next five years to encourage organic farming in the state.  Meant for the farmers themselves, the money was distributed to 29 NGOs in the 29 districts that make up Karnataka (MeriNews 2009).  Despite many officials in government lauding the program’s success and asking for additional funds to continue the program next year, others have called for a probe into the project.  One spokesperson, A.N. Mahesh of the Chikmagalur District Congress Committee, explained that the funds have gone directly to sympathizers of the majority government, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).  The national newspaper, The Hindu, writes,

Displaying a list of beneficiaries from Chikmagalur taluk, [Mahesh] said most of them were rich farmers and sympathisers of the BJP. He said Rs. 38,000 had been provided for office expenditure each month although most of the organisations did not have an office. He said lavatories were built under the Ashraya housing scheme were being included in this scheme.

In this environment, real progress on agriculture issues has been severely stunted.  Although many farmers voice interest in using organic methods for economic reasons, they continue to receive mixed messages from the government.  Despite the official movement toward organic agriculture, the bulk of outreach and extension services promote the same high-input practices that have rendered Indian agriculture unsustainable.

In Kodagu, a hilly region of southwestern Karnataka, concerns about organic and nonorganic farming are amplified because of the unique ecosystem that the region inhabits.  Kodagu makes up a portion of the Western Ghats, a long strip of rainforest along the western edge of the Deccan plateau extending from the border of Maharashtra and Gujarat through Goa, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, and into Kerala, India’s southernmost state.  The Western Ghats has been labeled one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, and several NGOs and research stations have been set up to document and preserve the area.  At the same time, pressures to expand agricultural usage in the area conflict with any widespread conservation efforts.  Kodagu is home to several Tata Coffee and Tea Estates, one of India’s largest private companies, as well as a plethora of small and large farming operations.  With coffee prices climbing internationally, and the region known for climatic abilities to produce distinctive coffee tastes, it is difficult if not impossible to slow the spread of the farming operations.  While good in some ways for development, the environmental toll could be devastating for the ecological balance and long-term agricultural sustainability of the strip of rainforest known as the Western Ghats. 

Locally, agricultural activities range from large commercial landholdings to subsistence farming of one to three acres.  The main crops are coffee, cardamom, and black pepper, although many farmers also grow a variety of citrus fruits, garcinia, pineapple, and vegetables, either for home use or to sell in the local markets.  The nature and extent of the agricultural activities depends largely on the elevation and rainfall of the area, of which Kodagu has a great variety.  During my time in Kodagu, I will focus on two very different areas for my project work.  The first is the immediate area around the research farm where I live, near the small town of Galibeedu.  This area is located in a high rainfall zone of around 200 inches per year.  The rain dramatically alters the landscape by creating dense jungle valleys interspersed by grassy hilltops.  Because the region sees so much rainfall, yields of coffee and cardamom are generally lower than in other areas of Kodagu, and some crops that are prone to fungus and disease, such as black pepper, are not quite as common.  In this area around Galibeedu, most farms are small, and the markets are local.  While farmers generally do not use heavy inputs of fertilizers or chemical pesticides, they are also not growing their crops strictly organically.  Because the farms are small and the farmers are largely uneducated and impoverished, they have no way to access large or diverse markets that could help them realize better prices for their crops. 

WAPRED has begun to work with this community by reaching out to individual farmers and sharing organic farming methods, and by helping to start the Galibeedu Organic Association (GOA).  GOA is meant to support subsistence farmers in the immediate area as they develop their farms and adopt organic methods.  GOA could be an important link between local farmers and wider markets, especially because many of the local farmers are already growing their produce organically.  If these farmers can access higher prices for their goods, through a cooperative such as GOA, it will help boost farmers’ livelihoods and encourage more farmers to grow their crops organically.  GOA has been slow to start, largely because of a disconnect that exists between the research farm and the surrounding farmers.  In order to address this issue, part of my assignment will be to visit each farmer in the nearby area, discuss their methods, problems, and the markets they use, and begin a systematic outreach initiative. 

As a contrast to this local work I will be doing with small organic growers, I also hope to help develop a new organic cooperative formed by larger, more dispersed growers in Kodagu.  The farms that make up the Organic Association of Kodagu (OAK) are all certified organic farms, and most are located in southern Kodagu.  Southern Kodagu is warmer, drier (seeing 55-100 inches of rain annually), and flatter, and is consequently more productive and generally better connected to state resources and wider markets.  In this region, several farmer cooperatives have already been started and are actively supporting farmers’ access to sustainable inputs and wider, more profitable markets.  OAK was formed in 2008 as a resource-sharing network, and the farmers meet every two months to discuss their methods, problems, and potential solutions. 

At the moment, the OAK members do not formally share market networks, but there is potential for doing so.  Many of the farms sell their coffee in international markets, and receive premiums of 15 percent or more for their organic produce.  They are limited, however, by the difficulty of finding suitable coffee roasters or exporters and by large export minimums of 1,000 bags of coffee, or 50,000 kg.  This is where a strong cooperative could greatly assist the farmers, and potentially set up a way to connect the large and small growers.  Over the long term, these two projects could overlap, in that the small farmers in Galibeedu could eventually access the market networks that WAPRED sets up through the OAK network.  This, however, is most likely beyond my 10-month tenure at WAPRED.  The most I can try for is to lay a foundation for the NGO, and perhaps its future interns, by expanding WAPRED’s outreach initiatives among farmers, by documenting and mapping the local farmers, and by investigating and developing market networks. 

Photos: 1- One of the OAK farmers' coffee, about to be sold;  2- New coffee leaves on a Kodagu plantation

A Beach Vacation and Then Some

Lauren and I took a vacation a few days ago, and ran away to the beach.  We thought it would be a five or six hour ride, one way, but in typical Indian fashion, we pulled into Trasi Village a full nine hours after we left the farm.  We would spend two full days traveling for one day of blissful, pampered relaxation on the beach, and I must say, it was totally worth it.

The beach was nice, and we certainly got our fill of luxury.  We were staying, free of charge, at a beach resort whose owners are friends of the family who are our hosts here.  The resort boasts unobstructed beach access along a stretch of shore untainted by village sewage, yoga classes, massages, and any number of sweet and savory treats.  We happened to be the only ones staying at the resort (it was a Monday and Tuesday night), and had a cozy little cabana right along the beach to ourselves.  When we pulled up at 6 pm Monday evening, we dumped our bags in the room, ordered sweet lassis, and took a stroll in the evening tide.


Sand crabs the size of your fist scuttled across the receding lines of water, and ducked down into their holes as we approached.  A few jellyfish slithered along with the tide, weightlessly washing in and out of the sea.  To our left a gaggle of fishing boats waited ready on the sand, and we watched a group of 20 or 30 men pull the last of the evening skiffs out of the water.  They sang a song as they did it, and though they were far away, the highs and lows of it floated across the coast to us.  We had fried seer fish and pomfret for dinner, and two beers, and went to sleep basking in the sounds of the sea, just meters from our door.

In the morning, there was a walk on the beach, aloo parathas for breakfast, and hammocks to lie in.  We spent the day reading, swimming, and snoozing, rousing ourselves just in time for our Ayurvedic massages.  By the end of the day, we were relaxed and cleansed, and ready to return to our somewhat stress-free life on the farm. 

I said the beach was ‘nice’ earlier because it wasn’t exactly my favorite part of the trip.  We rose early on the third day to get a good start on the trip home.  A local rickshaw driver picked us up, and a kilometer down the road I asked him to take us to the fish market so I could buy dried fish for the staff here on the farm.  We rattled along the main road for a while and then turned into a side street in Kundapura.  Immediately we were greeted by the fresh smell of the sea, and by dozens of women filleting the morning catch.  They squatted over freshly sharpened machetes screwed right into the cement floor, and expertly wove the large and small fish along the blade.  First the scales came off in five or six grinding sideways motions.  Then the fins and tail, and finally in one smooth motion the fish bit down hard on the blade and lost their jaw and guts.  Noticing the foreigners, the women looked up at us and smiled, following us with their eyes even while they kept pace with their pile of fish.  Cats, house crows, and black kites kept watch from the rafters and walls of the market.  They dipped in unobstructed to grab at errant entrails, no doubt helping to keep the place clean.

Afterward we began the hopscotch of public and private buses, from Kundapura to Udupi, Udupi to Mangalore, and Mangalore to Madikeri.  Each ride was a little different, from the weaving, honking madness of the first stretch, to the slow climb of the final leg up into the hills.  I found myself laughing at India’s idiosyncrasies.  Karnataka was attempting to pave what seemed like the full 200 kilometers of the highway from the mountains to the sea, all at the same time.  Patches of dusty, rocky roadwork were just as frequent as rectangles of smooth asphalt.  Along every kilometer of road there were at least two or three road crews raking fresh gravel or pouring piecemeal buckets of tar onto a freshly flattened stretch.  It seemed grossly inefficient at first, but then made more and more sense as we drove along.  It may have been employment for every village that we passed (or at least I hoped that was the case), and in a way it seemed to be an act of a village exercising ownership over their space. 

Halfway through the journey to Mangalore, the bus pulled over along an empty stretch of road and picked up not a person, but three 10 kg tubs of Cashew Kernels – Product of India.  A few hundred rupees exchanged hands with the conductor, and the bus became a makeshift postal unit.  Moments like that wear at my heart and make me love India.  I can’t quite explain why, but it’s something about people figuring out ways to get by, and ways to help each other out. 

Buses in India are by definition uncomfortable things.  They’re crowded and dirty, and the roads are generally terrible.  But buses are also units of connection, shared spaces where foreigners and Indians of all class and creed come together and meditate.  Because that’s what a bus ride is in India, a meditative experience, where all you can do is sit and stare out the window, calm your breath and clear your mind, and wait for the five or nine or fifteen hours to be over.  And so, the bus ride was as much a part of the vacation as the beach, in my mind, and it brought me home feeling refreshed and engaged with the country I’ll be living in for the next many months.
 

Fresh Winds Blowing Through

In the mornings now a strong wind whips through the surrounding rainforest valleys and the farm where we live.  It lulls us to sleep and then wakes us up with the sound of the ocean, a rhythmic lapping at our doors and windows.  At first I didn’t believe that the rainforest had a winter, but here it is, with a refreshing tinge of northeastern fall, with a wind that sweeps through our mornings to begin each day with fresh new air.

Last night, Halloween, was a real treat.  Lauren, Matt, Maya and I carved pumpkins in the afternoon, and then the gals baked for most of the rest of the day- brownies with oats from scratch, and roasted pumpkin seeds.  It was Maya’s first pumpkin-carving experience, and she went at it with creative gumption, carving a dolphin under a crescent moon.  Maya is the 11-year old daughter of our hosts here, and as we make this our home little by little, she is often the one leading us along.  The other day she had me dictate (in Hindi) a letter she was writing to her grandmother, and last night she made my Halloween.  She not only created my entire costume (a puppy mask, made out of bamboo husk), but she also showed me a glimmer of what she loves about her home. 


We were searching for suitable bamboo husks beyond the edge of light thrown off by the campfire when she called me over.  She was crouching by the stream that runs along the side of the dining area, and directed me to sit beside her.  ‘Look up,’ she said, when I had squatted beside her, and there between a border of bamboo leaves rose the waxing moon in a clear sky.  ‘Now take a deep breath,’ she said.  ‘I love the air here….so fresh.’  In my mind I thought- what a lucky kid; she’s barely known another breath of air.  And then I felt sorry for us Americans, all coming from cities and lapping up the freshness here as if it’s something novel.

The crisp new wind has also inspired a general zeal among all of us at the farm.  I’ve been going at my work with new resolve, whether in the garden, at interviews with neighboring farms, or leading discussions about social surveys.  It helps that we’ve been here a few months now, but it’s beginning to feel like I have a place here and a purpose, even if it’s just to figure out what’s going on in the local farming community.

A few days ago I visited a neighboring farm, and for the first time I was on my own.  I was with a translator, of course, and even got a ride on a scooter to the nearest turnoff, but in terms of initiative, questioning, and connecting, it was up to me.  Muthu, my translator, and I left the scooter at a steep fork at the top of a hill and walked down between coffee trees to a dusty clearing in the forest canopy.  Muthu pointed out the new vermicomposting pit the farmers had built last year, and then a round woman with a huge, welcoming smile walked out into the clearing to say hello.  We exchanged greetings and were ushered inside, where sweet tea was put on the stove and the conversation began.

For the past two months, I’ve struggled to find the purpose behind the questions I’ve been asking farmers.  The NGO I’m working with is interested in developing a multi-faceted research project that sets economic and social data alongside biodiversity records.  The idea is to show that different farming methods produce different kinds of biodiversity (and varying levels of predatory animals that will go after agricultural pests), and that this in turn influences the productivity of the farm.  It’s a huge endeavor, and one that none of us are quite sure how to begin.

Part of the problem is our sheer American-ness.  I hear about a research problem and I want to know the methods, the background, and the goals before I start.  I want to fit the research ideas into a neat little package, and go out with a clear set of intentions and a well-vetted survey technique.  With this, I had none of that, and our Indian hosts thought there was nothing wrong with that.  It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a different thing, and it’s been part of the orientation process to get used to it.

So when I left for that recent farm visit, I started fresh.  I decided that I didn’t want to know anything in particular except as much as I could gather from an open-ended discussion of farming methods, awareness, goals, and problems on the farm.  I would revert to my undergraduate training and approach the visit as an anthropologist rather than a graduate researcher.  I would listen and engage, and hopefully connect.

We had tea together, and Parle G biscuits, and the woman’s mother-in-law came in to role herself a bit of paan (betel, a nicotine-ified substance grown right on the farm).  They wanted to know where I came from and pointed out that I looked much younger than the 26 years I declared.  They asked if I was alone, and I stumbled over the answer, saying that I came to India with one ‘husband.’  That seemed to satisfy them, and I decided that I need to practice that little white lie.

The interview meandered among various topics, pausing to shoe away chickens and gather dry clothes off the line outside.  I took pages of notes, and learned more about vermicomposting, coffee price fluctuations, and the ‘sangha’ work-share committees than I had known before.  But most of all, I connected with the women, and with Muthu, who patiently translated all of my questions and answers.  By the end of the conversation, the women made it clear that I was welcome back again, and that they would like to hear about anything that would make their farming easier- whether with prices, or composting, or pest problems.  It was a good start for a needs assessment, and for a year spent among the farmers in this area. 

I could chalk the change up to the winter wind starting things fresh, but maybe it’s instead the perspective I’m gaining on letting things unfold rather than trying to keep them in tidy packages.  In any case, it’s a much more pleasant place to be, and I’ll be happy if I can continue to float on the winds of conversation.

Garden update

Potato and onion shoots are coming up!  I'm particularly excited about the potatoes.  I've never grown them before, and look forward to cooking them in a campfire sometime soon.

We owe much of our gardening success to these little ladies (and sir).  Chickens do the dirty work of scratching around in the soil, eating up all the grubs, and yes, leaving little pods of nitrogen for the seedlings. 

Fancy Footwear, dealers in all things spicy

I had a thought a few days ago that I would post an interesting photo on here every day.  This would keep people up to date on life here at Mojo, and also buy me some writing time when I'm lacking time or inspiration.  Well, I've already slacked on that idea, but I'll do my best..  Here are a few from a recent trip into town.

A local ice cream seller crosses the rickshaw stand in Madikeri.

Come to Fancy Footwear for cheap sandals and cardamom!  I really love this sign.  As part of my preliminary research here, I've been interviewing local shopkeepers about where they get their spices, the arrangements for retail and wholesale, and how they determine prices.  I haven't visited Fancy Footwear yet, but most certainly will.

This sign was painted outside a mosque in Madikeri in English and Kannada.  Nice message, don't you think?

Diwali Lights

Most people in India will tell you that Diwali is full of fireworks, rockets, and every kind of noise.  Knowing Indians will tell tourists to get out of the cities before the Diwali new moon blackens the night sky, or else they won’t sleep for even a moment. 

I know nothing of that.  Although I can still hear (two days later) the remnants of far-off firecrackers bursting into the night, they are no louder than the frogs making their whimpering calls outside my door, and far quieter than the crickets drumming their legs together in the forest across the road.  Here at Mojo Plantation, our Diwali was instead marked by cooking, a campfire, and communal song.

The day started off with Maya and me making candles and diyas (small potted oil lamps) out of a year’s worth of spent candle wax.  We melted white and red and sparkly blue wax in a tin over an open fire.  We twisted fresh wicks from good cotton thread.  We cleaned out small clay pots to fill with the hot wax, removing sticky ash from previous years.  When the fire had turned the multi-colored mass into a fresh, runny, and unmistakably brown concoction, we poured it gingerly (and a bit messily) into our ready candle-pots. 

Later on, Sujata taught me how to make a jam tart.  It helped that I had whipped up an apple tart some weeks previous, but this time we went at it recipe-less, tossing flour and sugar and fresh cream from the cow’s milk into the dough.  Passionfruit jam from last year’s harvest filled the browned pastry shell, and then more cream went on top.  We put it aside for dinner. 

As dusk began to fall, Matt and I left our room to help cook dinner in the kitchen.  Aside from the candles and the baking, the day had felt like any other, with chores and research and this and that.  So when we walked up the stairs to the main house, we were surprised to see a string of lights blinking red and white, and a row of candles lit up along the outer bench.

Although festivals in India seem to have many various meanings, from what I understand Diwali is more or less an extension of Dasara, or rather, a reconciliation of Dasara’s story.  At one point long ago, in the time of the Ramayana, the Ayodhyan King Rama flies to Sri Lanka to rescue his wife Sita, who had been stolen by the evil king of Lanka, Ravana.  Dasara (which we celebrated a few weeks ago, and which Matt wrote about in his blog) marks the day that Rama cuts off Ravana's head and rescues Sita.  Diwali, meanwhile, marks the day that Rama returns to India.  It falls every year on the New Moon because Rama returns on a moonless night, and everyone in India puts out candles and diyas to guide his way home. 

We lit the rest of the candles and diyas, and had a round of drinks.  A neighbor friend of Sujata and Anurag’s (and another organic farmer) who had just returned from Germany came over to share in the festivities, so it felt like a real gathering.  New friends, homemade passionfruit wine, and handmade candles.  The ensuing barbecue (yes, it’s finally dry enough to barbecue!), a plethora of sweets, and singing around the fire made it feel like a real holiday. 

As we head into holiday season as we know it, I’ll be sure to keep Diwali in mind.  For Halloween we’re planning a dance party (for the four of us interns, at least), but Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner.  I’m sure I’ll be missing my friends and family then, but at least I’ll know that we can still create a sense of peace, joy, and community on those special days.

Photo of the day

Well, this is a few days old, but I do think it's blog-worthy.  This is "Kiri," short for Kiringi, one of four lovable dogs on our farm.  He is sleeping right on a chapati.

Wildness in the garden

After a week of traveling to towns and cities, and a week of thinking far too hard about research questions, surveys, and communication across cultures, I have dived back into the more pleasant pace of farm life.  The pace is slow for me because I have the luxury of being an intern here rather than a full-time employee.  I was unhurriedly informed today that the farm is actually way behind schedule:  the girls are still out in the valleys weeding when the second harvest of cardamom should have already begun.  Myself, I am learning the valuable lesson that not everything can be done in one day.  The potatoes and onions I lost the light on today will be planted tomorrow.  The beans that I did manage to seed into the freshly composted ground will have one extra day to grow big and leafy in the coming weeks.

The truth of it is I’ve been absorbing the gardening in a new way.  I’ve been reading an old Michael Pollan favorite, The Botany of Desire, and each time I leave the book for a bout in the garden, I notice new things.  About wildness and order, or seeds and multi-cropping, or even about biotechnology and genetic engineering.  In this, one of his first and most respected books, Pollan deconstructs the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and potatoes from many angles- biological, cultural, and philosophical.  I found myself wishing he would just keep going, and leave us with an atlas of plant histories.  I’m especially interested in how he would tell the story of coffee, or cardamom, or pepper, the main crops in this area. 

Pollan closes his book with a visit to his own late-August garden, which at that point had become “an anarchy of rampant growth and ripe fruit.”  His description reminds me of the farm here, where our cultivated plants mingle with wild tubers, miniature forests of ferns, and all manner of hulking jungle trees.  He writes,

“Whenever I hear or read the word garden, I always picture something so much less wild than this, probably because in common usage garden stands as the opposite of wilderness.  The gardener knows better than to believe this, though.  He knows that his garden fence and path and cherished geometries hold in their precarious embrace, if not a wilderness in any literal sense, then surely a great, teeming effulgence of wildness- of plants and animals and microbes leading their multifarious lives, proposing so many different and unexpected answers to the deep pulse of their genes and the wide press of their surroundings- of everything affecting everything else.”

This relationship is undoubtedly even more pronounced on a farm such as this, where wildness is intentionally integrated into the cultivation process.  I am continually impressed by the choreography of the crops here, at how unassuming hedgerows attract the pollinators that feed the coffee trees, whose fruit-husks mulch the vegetable patches.  Here it seems to always be ”an anarchy of rampant growth,” but I suppose that’s the nature of a rainforest.

It’s humbling to see in action the various biological processes we learn from day one in school, and a gift to be able to participate in it.  There is nothing so refreshing as spending a day barefoot building vegetable beds out of forest soil and cow manure, and then patting fresh bean seeds into it at the end of the day.  Now I just have to hope their green shoots will come up with the same vigor of each wild plant I am surrounded by each day.  

Photos:  1- Seedlings of beetroot, tomato, nurkol, and chili, wrapped in a wet leaf and ready for the garden.  2- Freshly planted seedlings, neatly organized and fenced in, even within the rainforest. 

Indian Road Trip

There’s nothing quite like a good road trip. The rhythm of tires on pavement, greenery flashing by, the here and gone nature of every scene you pass. Add to that the extreme colors, the odd juxtapositions, and the unique (to me) everyday life of India to the road trip, and it becomes something really special. Today we drove to Ponnampet in Sujata and Anurag’s (our hosts) jeep. A luxurious way to travel, the jeep has three full compartments for passengers: front seat, middle, and a back with two padded benches that face each other so that whoever is sitting in the tail end there can commiserate with the other over every toss and turn that the roads of India provide.

We drove to Ponnampet to visit a professor and friend who teaches in the College of Forestry at the University of Agricultural Sciences, a state school based out of Bangalore. He’s an interesting guy who has a large coffee and spice farm that is half biodynamic and half conventional, for research purposes. His farm, some 35 acres all together, is certified organic (though they define themselves clearly as biodynamic), and quite beautiful. When we finally arrived after about two hours in the jeep, we were greeted by an aging Alsatian, a garden of potted geraniums, and the most delicious snacks imaginable. Fresh chocolate cake in brownie-sized bites, spicy peanuts, and the kicker: sweet avocado pudding. I will no longer sequester avocado (known as butter fruit here) to the savory foods list. This pudding was smooth and refreshing, requiring nothing more (in addition to the avocados) than a bit of sugar, small slices of apples and bananas, and best of all, stray pomegranate seeds meant to explode succinctly in a mouthful of subtle creaminess.

After thoroughly gorging our sweet tooths, Dr. K showed us around his farm. We passed a bio-gas pit near the first cow shed, and several heaping rows of compost. At the second cow shed, I got my first lesson in biodynamic farming. Dr. K pointed out eight rectangular pits built right into the floor, and behind them a bag of cow horns. He pulled one out and explained that the best horns to use are those of lactating cows who die of natural causes. I definitely do not understand the whole process yet, but basically what they do is create a mixture of cow dung and some other things, and let it ferment in the horn for a while. On the full moon, they open the mixture and add it to 100 gallons of water, a significant dilution. This they add to their compost, and eventually their fields. It seemed to me like some kind of Effective Microorganism mixture, which we use on Mojo Plantation to quicken the compost and decomposition process, though grounded in biodynamic science rather than laboratory research. However it works, it was utterly fascinating. Dr. K explained to us that when he and his wife first started the farm, they had many problems growing their crops organically. They switched to biodynamic farming because of this, and the problems went away.

Elsewhere on the farm, we saw 50-year old coffee plants looking healthy as ever, a graceful Bronzed Drongo, and black pepper creeping up native forest trees. I even tried a raw peppercorn for the first time ever, and wow! After the initial spicy shock, it became a delicious and cleansing seed to chew on, with a lingering flavor as effective as the best kinds of mints.

After our farm tour, we drove back to the college and then into the hills toward Madikeri. On the way we passed a bus thoroughly run off the road and stuck in the bordering weeds, and dozens of school children in all manner of uniforms- stripes and plaid, kurtas and slacks. While driving between layers of brilliant green rice paddies, Anurag turned up the stereo and we rocked out to the blues. A cross between home and away, the road trip twisted on along the winding road until we finally came back into the rain. The forest grew lusher and the roads more pockmarked until the jeep was entirely splattered with mud and moisture. Back to our new home, we tumbled out of the jeep and into our rooms to crash for a while. The journey, just nine hours or so, had worn us out and filled up our thoughts for a time, as any good road trip will do.