Sun, Seeds, and Chai

Because India is not all hospitals and poverty, and because worried roomies like the one and only Miss. Kathryn Beck among others have launched into "Manda what the hell are you doing" mother mode, I thought it time for “a day in the life.” Just about two weeks into my three month stint, this is what the days in Ramgarh village tend to look like... sun, seeds, and Chai. 

Sun up, Manda up: Around 5:30 the sun comes up, the crows begin squawking (their piercing screeches actually make me miss roosters), and the farmers take to the fields while singing in their eerily beautiful Indian tones. I wake up, push away my mosquito net,  and head to the Forest for a morning run. 

By 7:00 the sun has begun exerting a fraction of its daily force, and the the air grows slightly heavy at about 80 degrees, more than a enough to make a cold bucket bath a welcome part of the morning ritual. 

8:00 the breakfast bell chimes, and the farmers, interns, researchers stumble in for chai tea and a banana, or couscous, or sometimes if we are especially lucky, an indian pancake but always, chai...milky, sugary, delectable chai. 

9:00 I head to the library to do more background research on climate change in the Himalayas, format my interviews and surveys and revamp my questions so that they translate better into Hindi, and of course I shamelessly Skype and gchat if the internet is steady for more than an hour.

The rest of morning is usually marked by me doing whatever activities the farmers and cooks are doing so that I can stealthily make them indulge my research. Whether that is sorting seeds, peeling mangos, riding a rickshaw plow, or simply helping the office write an English announcement for their website, I lure my translator to whatever activity I think will lead me to good interviews, and together we fumble through climate change questions with people who have never heard of this thing called, "climate change”.

 

1:00 Lunch Bell

This is an all vegetarian, very nearly vegan establishment (they don’t allow any eggs but they love milk??? so confusing) so lunch is nearly always chapati ( a whole wheat tortilla type thing), rice and beans, and some kind of spicy vegetable.

By this point the sun has reached its full heinous potential... it is inevitably between 115 and 120 degrees ( I wish I was exaggerating) and the power has likely failed so there is no respite other than to hide in a shady place with nothing but boiling hot water to drink. I’ve tried the bucket bath at this point, but the water is hot, and there’s no point. Most of us just try to go unconscious until the worst is over, but sleep is usually impossible laying in our own pools if sweat with not even a breeze to blow some of the suffocatingly heavy air. 

By 3:00 we’re usually safe from the worst of the sun, and I go back into the field with my translator to get some more data. The work day culminates in the ritual cow milking with this guy... I think his name is Tayluck but I call him milkman and he laughs so I’m stickin to it. We bring the milk back to the kitchen and they make the afternoon chai to hold us over until the 8:00 dinner.







Shortly thereafter, I am spent, some journal writing and reading is all that is left before I’m passed out by 10 pm and tucked under my mosquito net content and ready to do it all over again.

                                      

Sobering Up With the Darker Side of India

Invincibility. That feeling you get when your plane takes off from your own country and carries you away to someone else’s. You might still be shaking out some nerves but no solo journey abroad is complete without that instant rush of invincibility. It’s just you, your destination, your project or plan, and the feeling of independence and adrenalin mixes to create a perfect cloak of confidence that carries you the rest of the ride there. Whether many realize it or not, this feeling of command over life and our choices usually stays present on and off throughout the journey and it is one of the main reasons we travel, to see exactly what we’re capable of outside of the comfy place we call home. But, for me,  an overnight stint in an Indian hospital sobered my invincibility high and left me in complete awe of not only my own vulnerability, but the vulnerability of India. The saddest part is that it was not even me who was sick. 

When my roommate Claire spiked an alarming fever, turned yellow, and passed out we (Team Navdanya) took her to the hospital without question. She came in and out of consciousness just long enough for us to learn that she had not been vaccinated for anything before coming to India, not even hepatitis. At first, I was in awe of how quickly she received medical attention, but soon I was horrified at just what type of care defined that attention. One after another nurses prodded her microscopic veins with needles whose packages I never saw, and when an infection inflamed its way up her arm, I wondered exactly where those needles came from. There was no soap, there were no antiseptics, the sheets were stained with blood, and the air wreaked of human waste from the street corners below. Finally, under the haze of some antibiotic anti anxiety IV cocktail, Claire fell asleep just as the mosquitos descended through the broken window of her room. I stayed up with the night biters, praying to the Gods that I never followed to keep me out of a hospital for the rest of my stay in India. It was the first time in a long travel time, that I felt completely vulnerable. And I did NOT care for the emotion. 

The world outside of Clair’s “posh” private room, was a different kind of horror all together. The moans of India’s ailing were everywhere, some sprawled out on mats on the floor looked closer to death than the dogs on the street, who’s bone skinny bodies panting and covered in flies did not stand a chance to the harshness of Dehradun’s street life. And the only thing worse than the patients moaning for help in the hospital, and the dead dogs in the gutter, were the disfigured children on the street-corners. One armed, or one eyed, it didn’t matter, not a single one was healthy or looked as if they would survive the year. I forgot about my own vulnerability instantly at the site of them but couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps this is why India moves at such a breakneck pace. If the vickrums weave in and out quickly enough, and the buses honk their horns loudly enough, perhaps they, and their passengers can avoid those who are clinging to life below... 

Filling the Gap

My blog has a gap. A gap called Costa Rica. I tried to write from the lovely comfortable Central American safe haven, but felt that while I was happy and surrounded by completely amazing people, my life in Ciudad Colon somehow did not inspire me or make me think about culture and life in the way a blog entry requires. Travel snob, I know, but I am happy to say, that India thus far has challenged that dormant part of my travel mind on every possible level, from the markets, to the spices, to the expectations and disappointments, a bout with Dehradun’s hospital, my first vicrum ride, and above all, being a tall blonde ALONE in India. It has been four days and I already feel that I’ve experienced more than I did in the past 5 months in Costa Rica. 

Life.

Yes, it has only been four days but somehow in this village where the day starts at 5 am and ends at 10 pm with nothing to mark the hour but the call to prayer from neighboring villages or the double Chai bell from the kitchen,  I feel like I’ve been here three months. I can’t really describe my day to day yet, as I haven’t figured out what that might look like, but I can say that the people are wonderful, life is incredibly slow, and I have somehow landed my self on a farm called Nevdanya, in a village called Ramgarh in East Bumblefuck, India. We have electricity and running water for about 2 hours a day and internet comes in and out with the power. Showers are but bucket baths, toilets are little more than a hole in the floor, and food is glorified rice and beans (the spicy version) three times daily... but I could not be happier. 


                                      

The most memorable recent experience other than surviving the trip to this village, was certainly yesterday’s trip to the Dehradun hospital. My roommate Clair who arrived from France the same night that I arrived from New York, fell terribly sick within 48 hours. She couldn’t hold any liquid or food, fainted every few hours, was running a fever of 103 and her skin had turned a sickly yellow color. By all signs, it looked like she had hepatitis. (Unfortunately in France they tell you, you only need a yellow fever vaccination to come to India as opposed to the states where I got shot up  for yellow fever, Hep A, Hep B, polio, meningitis, tetanus, typhoid, and malaria). So without hesitation, my new little Navdanya family and I piled into a four person vikrum and made the hour trek to Dehradun, the closest city. 

Having not set foot outside the Delhi airport during my layover upon arriving in India, Dehradun was my first real run-in with an Indian city. Suffice to say, India is.... intense. I couldn’t help but think as we rambled between cars, motorcycles, and pedestrians that India on first glance seems to me a land of contradiction. Dehradun, for instance was a city of complete rubble and gray dirt pierced by the blazing red and yellow sari’s of Indian woman, a city where impatient vikrum drivers nearly run each other over every four seconds but stop to give an apple to the one armed street child on the corner, a city where the hospital seemed little more than a ward for India’s dead, dying, and deceased but offered Clair immediate attention and treatment that far surpassed many American hospitals I’ve been to where patients wait hours in the ER. 

Steve pointed out how funny it was that I felt close enough after 48 hours to bring someone to the hospital. And it is funny, to think that these people, fellow interns and researchers, were complete strangers just days ago, and that within 48 hours we were bonded strongly enough to make a four-person trip to the hospital together. I believe it to be a type of survival mechanism particularly among women traveling alone to connect quickly. It’s as if you know instantly that you are very very very far from home, in a land that its not necessarily hospitable or safe, and it is a bit crucial, as Clair quickly learned, to  surround yourself with strong friends as soon as humanly possible. 

Clair: The French Firecracker (before the hospital).

So far I’ve got Frenchy Clair, the firecracker from France, Momma Sevitri, the 52 year old American Phd student, Latina Maru, the yoga loving Uruguayan chic (who is currently doing sun salutations as I write), Herua, the Japanese plant whisperer, Celia the adorable Kanuk, Pemitra our resident Indian, who being from non-Hindi speaking Bangalore feels just as alien here as we do, and Fredriko, our Italian Stallion who gets more existential about the world and our purpose here than Aer and I combined in our worst hours or confusion. 

So, here’s to a new subcontinent, new research, new spices, new stories, and a new family.