“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.
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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.