Buffalo with her loot.
Buffalo on its knees, trying to get feed just out of reach (purposefully). She manages. Above is the buffalo with her loot.
Me with a 20-25 day old baby goat. His (?) sibling in the background
Ditto.
Monkey is running across the roof at the bottom
Chilli plants in the foreground, eggplant, and cattle feed 
The chillies hanging from the bush.Chili plants: are beautiful. I don’t know how I thought those chillies would grow, but they hang very elegantly from a bush-like plant.
The monkey almost peed on my head: indeed, if I had not been quickly alerted to the presence of the monkey high in the tree tops I almost certainly would have been unceremoniously splashed by the langoor (black-faced monkey). This was at a wedding in the village. Additionally, when I was at my former host mother’s house in Jaipur a monkey jumped down on the balcony right outside the window and took a quick sit. I tried to get a picture, but she ran away too quickly. I got a distant picture of the monkey on the rooftop. Monkeys really are a factor of life in India, and usually in not a fun way. People have to watch out for monkey stealing their food, attacking their children, or both, among other threats. Indeed, the deputy mayor of Delhi was killed a couple years back when he fell off his balcony after being attacked by a group of monkeys. No laughing matter. I will try to get a picture of the huge community (200-400) of monkeys that lives at the entrance to the road that goes to our field site. They just sit around and wait for some sort of waste food to get thrown their way, or perhaps to steal some food. I have attached a photo of a monkey running across the roof in the city. It is at the bottom of the picture.
Pouring the Wheat: Going back to the earlier topic of rural charm, I really find all of the going-ons in the village fascinating, especially since most of them have to do with the production and processing of food, of which I was largely ignorant before coming to India (the first time and now). Specifically, last week I was there when we purchased some wheat in the kernel form from some neighbouring farmers. First of all the weighting implement was interesting, as it was a simple balance which an older man lifted of the ground by hand when the weighing was to be done. The man appeared to be in his 60s (though I have a hard time guessing ages here, as I think the harsh living conditions in a rural desert village takes a toll on people and makes them seem a bit older), so it was quite an effort for him to do this, but he managed well. We then took the wheat outside where there was a gentle breeze, which was critical for the next step: pouring the wheat. The wheat was poured from the top of a man’s head (the older man’s son’s head) and fell to a tarp below. Using the breeze, this separated the weak kernels and chaff from the healthy kernels, as the former were light and easily blew away and the latter were heavy and fell directly beneath the pourer. I have seen these simple methods for processing food time and time again in India, from bouncing daal to separate the big pieces from the small, to using screens to get remaining chaff out of the wheat flour, to the above described process. They are simply ways that the villagers of the area (and, I imagine, of India) achieve what is probably done by machine in the US. Definitely a contrast and very interesting. I love being connected the land and the process of food production; it is invigorating. On a side note, a small child, probably not much more than a year, got absolute joy out of sticking his hand into the waterfall of wheat coming down during the pouring of the wheat. He was so cute, with his fat cheeks and big smile as he stuck his hand into the flow of wheat, with the earnest curiosity and desire for sensory stimulation that only babies and small children have. Precious.
Nomads (again): So, a couple of days ago (Thursday the 11th) a flock of mostly sheep, some goats, and a few camels descended on the village. All-in-all probably close to a thousand of them were here. Unfortunately, my camera was broken, so I could not get a picture. I assure you, though, it was a sight to behold to see all of these sheep being shepherded about on the fields of the village, their heads down in search of grazing materials, their long ears flopping around (cute animals, again). The proud and majestic camels also searched for food and watched a game of cricket being played by the locals (they seemed to be relatively a relatively rapt audience; then again, maybe they were just blankly looking on as they chewed their food). The nomad family pitched their tent at night and slept in the fields. The nomads and their activities seem to be accepted by the people here, who let the nomads’ sheep graze on their fallow fields (could this happen in the US?). I was told by Gopal that in western Rajasthan, which is very dry desert, there is only one growing season – the monsoon growing season - of 4-5 month duration. So, the nomads spend this time at home, tending to their fields. After the moisture is gone, they take to the road and make a loop through Rajasthan and all the way up to Uttar Pradesh and then come back come (I think this loop must be at least 1000 miles), all with their animals in tow. Difficult lifestyle. Easy for me to be enthralled by the sight of all the sheep, but it really is difficult for them.
Disturbing the pig kingdom: after attending a wedding I was sitting around while the groom’s family unloaded the dowry when I saw a few baby pigs scamper over to a muddy stream area. As I have a great interest in baby pigs I decided to follow them to this area. Little did I know that I was entering a magical place, a pig kingdom, where tiny pigs, medium pigs, and large sows would come out of the woodworks no matter where I stepped. Indeed, I was surprised by how many pigs came out from behind all sorts of little plants and made squealing noises and ran off due to my intrusion. I felt a little bad about causing this ruckus, but it was worth it to see the pigs scamper about.
Rural sharing: one refreshing part of rural life is how open all of the people are with sharing their vegetables and other crops with friends. Very often we walk away from a friend’s place with a large sack of vegetables, sometimes enough to eat for several days. Different, and nice.
Low-level sickness: after having a cold linger for some 2 weeks now and observing that many of the people seem to have similar symptoms I am beginning to think that there is usually some sort of constant low-level sickness in the villages. The exposure to the elements, close living quarters with animals, less than ideal hygiene (not much soap is used for washing hands), as well as lack of nutrition could all be contributing factors. Definitely something that must be factored in when trying to push development and improvement in education rates in the area.
Malnutrition: I feel bad that in a previous post I mentioned that I was able to beat almost everyone in arm wrestling because strength is not an Indian value. While this is largely true, I was oblivious in overlooking the fact that most of these boys are in some way malnourished. It’s embarrassing, but I guess I hadn’t fully thought about it since few people are starving, as such. However, there is almost no fruit in the villages, as well as little protein-giving substances such as lentils, milk-products and meat. The latter two are often present in the homes, but are then sold on the market for money so that the money can go further on cheaper foods. Indeed, when I thought about it I realized that almost all of the calories comes from bread (and perhaps ghee and oil), as most meals consist of chappatis (like tortillas) and some sort of vegetable, which has little to no calories. At least the vegetables have vitamins, I guess. However, it is clear that the villagers suffer from the lack of protein and fruits in their diet, often being weaker than they should be given their size, age, and manual workload. I am ashamed to have misperceived this fact.
“Goats can eat anything, their stomach machine is so strong”: this is more or less a direct quote, translated, from Rohitash. It is true. It came up after I had been chewing on some unmilled wheat kernels for about ten minutes before they broke down and could be swallowed. I was told they were to give weak kernels and chaff to the goats. Given my difficulty in chewing and breaking down the kernels, I was very impressed that the goats could do such, especially since there was a considerable amount of this leftover stuff. He told me, and I have seen most of this, that they can eat trees, vegetables, clothing, paper, whole kernels of grain, and even stones, and it won’t cause any problems to them. In fact, right after this I saw some goats in Dantli ki Dani battling it out for a piece of paper that both of them seemed to really want to eat. Entertaining. I have also seen goats try to eat a metal tractor blade, a motorcycle blinker, and a bed frame. They are obviously not very discriminating.
“Twenty years behind”: I was talking to my friend Peter (who has been my go-to guy on all of this website an internet stuff) about the status of computers and the internet in the village area, telling him that the workers had read the words “e-mail”, “cyber cafe”, “internet”, and “digital”, but in no way had any idea what these words meant (indeed, they didn’t know what the “e” in email stood for, and how email was different from regular mail). Upon hearing this, he was surprised given India’s supremacy in call-centers and software development, and he commented that it seemed like the villages are where the US was about 20 years ago in terms of computer/internet knowledge. This definitely seems about right to me. Need to work on this. See the related post on youth work in the village areas and how they are taking to the computer.
Buttermilk: do you know why it’s called buttermilk? Think before you look below for the reason.
So, to make butter, you take yogurt, which is milk cultured with bacteria to get solid matter out, and you churn it. What is left at the bottom is fished out and is butter. The remaining liquid is buttermilk, which is either drank or is mixed with fresh milk to continue the process (as the mixture will become yogurt soon – day or so I think). This simply truth struck me as profound when I first learned of it by seeing it in the village area. Perhaps the only thing that was profound was my ignorance of the whole process of food production. I had always wondered why buttermilk was called as such, as it was bitter and kind of rank (to a child) and nothing like the tasty butter I knew and loved. It is these simple connections and enlightenments that I appreciate when I am here in India. Indeed, as they often say in development circles, the foreigner in working in development most often gets far more out of the process than he or she gives. True for me, for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment