I apoligise, some of this is duplicate. I didn't feel like going back and editing.
My First Week
So the fear, shock, I am in over my head has hit. Landed in Chennai at 1:40am on 4/3.Completely lost. Fortunately enough people were friendly and helpful to direct me to where I needed to be. This is not a user friendly airport. Sat on the floor most of the night. Kept my eye on a cockroach that seemed to want to be right where I was.Nowhere to plug in my computer and no wifi.Boo L
I am now sitting on the final leg on my flights heading for Madurai. It is 6:17am and hot and humid. Fortunately it is not unbearable.So tired.Been up about 30 hours. Computer is about to die.
Maduria’s airport is a lot less threatening. And it is clean and bright. Austen was waiting for me to take me to breakfast and then to a guest house. I am staying there over night and will be taken to the farm tomorrow. First impressions include dirt and an amazing amount of palm, coconut, and banana trees. Then the drive begins. My Dad was not kidding. The driving here is insane. All sorts of everyone and animals were on the roads, obeying what appears to be the absence of traffic laws. The horns are always blaring. Whole families manage to fit onto scooters. It is quite impressive. The poverty is striking. There is trash everywhere.
When I get to the guest house I meet up with 2 other volunteers. Katrina, from Denmark, is with the Care project which I will be starting in June and Ashook, from england is on the farm with me. It is good to know that there will be at least one other person with me on the farm. I promptly pass out till lunch then again after lunch till dinner. I still manage to sleep most of the night. Or about 5 hours.Hard to sleep in the heat. The next morning, I learn about India time. They say 9am. What they really mean is somewhere within 2 hours or so after 9. The three of us were ready at 8:30.
The rest of the morning and early afternoon was driving and paperwork. We got to the farm at around 2pm and started working at 2:30. Couldn’t tell you what we did. I think we tied hay and moved it somewhere. I think that was Monday. I did find that there were 5 more volunteers. Teun, Frank and Tim from Holland, Nemo, from France and Anna, from Denmark. Fortunately they all speak English rather well. Raisa is the program coordinator for the Green Village Organic Farm, and the lead farmer is Kumar. Only Raisa speaks English.
I am located in a small village out in the sticks. It is called Chinnupatti. We are about 5km from the small town of Batnagundu. There is a small internet café in Batnagundu, about the size of a closet with 4 computers. No wifi. Most of the people here have never seen a white person. We are stared at and surrounded pretty much wherever we go. The children come up to us and want to touch us or try and speak to us. Some of the adults just stare. We can’t decide is they are disapproving or what. Chinnupatti is filled with very nice open people. They are very interested in learning about us and pleasing us. The children are always at our gate waiting for us to come and go for work and meals. If we pass them,or many of the adults on the street, they come running or yell a greeting. The host family is amazing. I don’t think I have ever eaten so much. The food is all very good. We get chicken once a week. Otherwise it is purely vegetarian.
The Farm
The Green Village Organic Farm just started in January. It is 2 acres that belongs to a local family.Our challenge is to convince the locals that organic farming can be profitable. They have no interest in the environment. They care about profit. So we are trying to show the quality of harvest and less work that comes from organic sustainable farming. The Green Village Farm is currently sustainable. By next year it will be self-sustainable, which is very cool. Aside from the cow we purchased this week, the only thing we need outside of the farm is seeds. Soon we won’t need those either.We are also working on small plots on two local farms, showing the side by side the difference in using organic fertilizer and compost. I have never been so intimate with cow dung before.
Life On The Farm
My day starts at 6:45am and we work in the cooler temps till 8:30am. Breakfast is from 8:30- 9:30, then back to work till 12:30. Lunch then break till 2:30. Usually naptime. We then work from 2:30-4:30 or 5. Really Fucking Hot. We have been at about 38C. Dinner is at 7:30. We pass out around 9-10. If I am lucky I sleep till around 6am. The power is shut off daily from 6am to 9am, so there is no hope of sleeping past 6am. If I am really lucky, I might get a shower in the morning. The guest house I am staying at doesn’t seem to have running water consistently. Let me tell you, in this heat, running water is a blessing. Shower temps are usually cool to whatever the temp is outside. A cold shower is a treat. A toilet that flushes is also nice.
Working on the farm is hard mostly because of the heat. We work mostly in bare feet. The responsibilities range from watering a wide range of herbs and fruit trees, with the 2 watering cans that we have. There are a number of plants scattered all over the farm and on the main road. We only have 2 water sources. Planting new seedlings in cups or in the nursery, planting and maintaining the lentil, foder, or various other plots.Taking the cows for a walk, playing with cow dung in various forms, and tending to the smaller animals on the farm. There are a few chickens, ducks, and goats. The day I arrived we also got four baby parrots to take care of. One of the local temp farm workers brought them in. He said that the parents abandoned them. It has been fun feeding them.
We have been on 2 field trips so far. The first was to a cattle market. I have never seen anything like it. A huge mass of people, and even more cows. It was crazy. Spent the morning in the blazing heat wading through cows. These cows were very calm. The joy of the experience was that all of us were being watched and examined like we were the cattle. Again, many of the people there have never seen a white person before, so whenever we stopped to look at a cow, we were surrounded. We were followed around by some. It was very odd. Our day started at 4:30am. We got the market at around 8:30. I think we ate at 10, I was about to pass out. It really sucks when you can’t just get water or food from a vendor. I think we got home around 2pm and started back to work. We are going back to the market later this month to pick out a cow for a local orphanage.
The second field trip was to an orphanage to plant some lentils. This was great fun. We planted a small plot and were able to get the children involved in what we’re doing. All the children wanted to know where we were from and what our names were. I was often surrounded by 5 plus kids asking questions and trying to teach me words in Tamil. I am hopeless with languages. I have also found that many of the children I have encountered are not familiar with the United States or USA. Some of them are familiar with America. I have settled with saying that.
So after a long week, once were done at the orphanage, we all ran off for a weekend away. We took a small cab which we fit seven of us plus backpacks to the local bus station. Took the bus back to Madurai, grabbed another taxi to a different bus station and took a night bus to Kochi, Kerela. The bus had a/c. We all froze. A seven hour trip. We couldn’t have been happier to get off thebus into the heat at 4 in the morning. We then argued for a while with a rickshaw driver about where we wanted to go, then finally were on our way to our final destination. Cherrai Beach. It’s a tourist town that doesn’t open till about 9am. We camped out on the beach. A few went swimming in the Arabian Sea. Beautiful weather, the water was warm. After we found a place to stay, we spent most of the day swimming and being watched by Indian tourists. We eventually found the bar. Yay for tourist towns. I can drink beer. Granted all they had was King Fisher. But it did the job.
We were quickly bored by the tourist town in the off season and headed back to Kochi the next day. Kochi is a very cool place. Very tourist friendly without losing the charm of India. We walked around town, went to a Martial Arts performance, hung out with the fishermen on the docks. We even found some real coffee and chocolate cake. I am dragging my Dad there for the cake. There was also a Rastafarian Indian guy. Very strange. We hung out with him at the Tree House Bar Saturday night. He was very lively and drunk.
Week Two
Getting settled and more comfortable with my surroundings. We are now getting regular running water which is good because it is getting hotter. The power goes out randomly which makes the heat a joy when there is no fan or cross breeze. Three notable things happened this week.
Wednesday, the 13th was National Election Day. Everyone had the day off including us. This would have been great if we were allowed to leave the Village. Instead we were confined to our section of the village and the farm. There was concern that if there was any riots or violence in general we wouldn’t be safe. So it was a nice day off.
Thursday was National Volunteer’s Day. You might think that that means we would have the day off. Nope. It means that we go out in the community and volunteer. So we planted 20+ trees and herbs around the village. We got a great response from the village. Women and some men were arguing over who got what plant, where the property lines are, who was going to water the plants, etc. The children followed us around fighting over who was going to fill the water cans, or pour the water on the plant. They all wanted to help carry tools or plants. Many just wanted to be in our space and play and ask us if we remembered their names. We had been concerned that the community wouldn’t want to plants or care for them, so this was a great response. Later is the day when we were back on the farm, the kids followed us to help there. Again this is great. Our focus has been to show the adults that farming can be profitable because unfortunately they care more about profit than the environment. We are working with the children to educate and gain their interest in conservation and organic farming.
Friday we went to observe the Vet’s Volunteer Day in Madurai. This was a day where the locals could bring their animals in for sickness or just vaccinations free of charge. It was great fun to watch Vet students, interns, and the lead Vet chancing and dodging the cow to stab it with an injection. People came with cows, goats, birds, and a monkey.
We learned on Friday and in to the weekend from other volunteers that the Eco-Farming project is probably the best project to be a part of in regards to outreach to the community. And it seems to be one of the better living situations. Aside from the periodic lack of running water and no internet, and the fact that we are out in the middle of nowhere. We are the best fed and most organized projects with the most opportunity to work with the community. I have heard fromthe Vet volunteer's that they have maybe two hours worth of work a day and are board. The Medical volunteers have no direction. so have to come up with stuff to do on their own and the care projects are hit and miss. the treatment of the children in a couple of the facilities is frightening. hoping I wont end up in one of those locations for my next project.
Weekend trip to Kanyakumari
Tourist Town, but beautiful. Located ot the southern tip of India where the Indian, Bengal and Arabian Seas meet. This was a Projects Abroad outing. We went to A Fort, cant remember the name at this time, the King's Palace, and the beach. All very cool to visit. Too much time in the bus for the weekend, and too much time with other volunteers. Too many and a handful of them I wasn't so fond of. Made very happy to return to the farm.
Thats all for now will post the next two weeks soon, I hope.
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