India: Pancakes, a strike, paddies and a garden

Monday evening I was put in charge of making pancakes for dinner. If you have never had cinnamon banana pancakes, treat yourself to one, two, or maybe even three. You can use whatever pancake mix you have handy, but add cinnamon (I add so much the batter looks brown, but that's with a "less potent" preground type), and chopped banana (the more the better). They taste so good, and the banana almost melts.

I took my pancake and drizzled it with honey, smeared on some peanut butter, grabbed a chilled Choco Danone milk from the fridge (tastes like liquid chocolate pudding), sat a chair by our back door, and ate while listening to monsoon rain and thunder, feeling whifts of wet hit my feet. I sat still long enough I was able to feel the breezes glide over my arms and face.

Treat yourself to a moment like that. I hope you receive a rainstorm soon. I'll send positive energy your way. :)

Monday the entire country of India held a strike to protest fuel prices. This meant any transportation cost much more than usual. Children didn't go to school, and I think many people got a day off from work. We weren't affected too much, but did reschedule one meeting for the next day, and were limited in our lunch options since many shops were closed. We mostly worked at home.

Tuesday morning we went to Charminar to meet with a an anti-sex trafficking organization, Prajwala. I was glad our team went together. From what I've heard, Charminar is a more tense area of Hyderabad, and it wasn't the best to go there the day after a strike.

Wednesday we went to Kowdipally to help with a fuel briquette training. Engineers Without Borders developed a handy dandy iron squisher that reminds me of a cheese press. The Squisher turns organic waste (that's been mixed with a gluey substance made out of ground wet paper--the lignin in the paper makes the glue) into solid "briquettes" that, once dried, can be burned and used for fuel instead of charcoal. I want to duplicate this process in Utah. Can you imagine how it would change the Dutch Oven Cooking Championship? Let's go green, everybody! ;)

My favorite moments from the training were from watching an elderly, heavier village woman. She has the most wonderful smile and laugh. She cracked many jokes (all in Telegu) that got many of the attendees to laugh too. I love her, and I can't even speak with her. I hope some of the photos captured her spirit.

Seeing the differences between villagers really stuck me. One can be happy ANYWHERE with ANYTHING, but one must choose to be. My friend is happy, and laughs often. Other villagers look like they eat nothing but sour unripe mango.

Subhash changed his mind and decided that it would be best to plant a garden on his employee Manya's land as it is ready to plant now (they haven't cleared the boulders from the two acre piece yet). We went and saw it. It is in as beautiful a rural village as National Geographic could wish for. Low, long huts made out of wood with thatched roofs. Large, bulky wooden plows pulled by oxen. The land was beautiful. Some of it was all green with vegetative growth and was being grazed by his water buffalo. Some of it was planted with five foot tall sugarcane. Some was divided into terraced unplanted squares. We picked the driest one with fewest weeds to plant the square foot garden.

We didn't have time to plant that day, but decided to come back the next day, buy seeds, and plant then. We tried to mime a shovel, rake and hoe. That didn't work, so K. drew them out on paper.

They pulled out the large wooden communal plow that levels the land. The "rake" was four feet wide with wooden four inch spikes every four inches, also pulled by oxen. I almost agreed we should plow just so I could say I'd plowed with oxen (I don't know if they would have let me). But to plow with oxen requires dry soil, and we didn't have the time to wait. We decided to go with using just hand tools. The shovels they have are wooden 1 1/2 foot handles with a curved iron disk. You use it by bending over and hacking. I wonder if many villagers have back problems.

Three other favorite moments while coming home: seeing a young teenager sitting on the side of his paddy field bent over a two and half foot wide book splayed open on his knees. I hope he lives his dreams. I also loved watching some villagers herding their cattle almost the same way we do in Wyoming: running after cows with (real) sticks, trying to get them where you want them, hoping they don't get run over by a crazy driver on the road. What impressed me was how three different herds were kept relatively still in the same place, without any sort of pen. First a man brought his herd of white brahma cattle down our road. The next man somehow kept his goats lined up alongside the street while he waited for a break between cars, then brought them up. Then another herd of cattle. It was also the first time I've seen the cattle here "act up". One actually kicked its back heels together while it ran.

I also got to see several men plowing (--I think) their flooded paddy (rice) fields. They were driving large rusted red iron tractor things. Regular wheels were on the back, while the front was a giant rolling iron cage, open on both ends. It looked like they were churning.

We got home about 9:30 pm, again without eating a real lunch or dinner (because they weren't really available. The place we normally eat in at Kowdipally was still closed from the strike the day before.)

Yesterday we (K., N., A.--who is visiting for four more days before she goes back home--, and I) left early for Kowdipally. After a 40 minute game of "Which bus is the right bus we're supposed to take," we headed to Kowdipally. The rest of the day was absolutely perfect. Grey cloud cover all day without rain. A breeze. Oh, the blessings.

We got off at Narsapur to buy seed. Manya and Vankesh (another CARPED employee, speaks the most English) had to travel to meet us, so we wandered through a few textile shops. Then we stumbled upon a seed shop! It was so funny to walk up to the young lady manning the shop (an open air booth is a better description), and to watch her face. (Is that white girl actually walking up to me? No way.) I pulled out my list of seed (English and Telegu names, thanks to Subhash), and we worked through what she had. It was another favorite memory. She had nine types of seed that were available in small packages.

Manya and Vankesh took us to two more shops. We ended up buying a total of 17 types of seed, and using two other packages.

We started planting the garden bed about 2 pm. I find it funny how this project has gone from "plant a quarter acre" to "plant 12 4x8 beds" to what we did yesterday, plant one 4x39 bed. It was good, and I feel, successful. Manya is supposed to train other people how to square foot garden, and K. says she will make sure a like bed is planted on the acre piece.

We marked out the 4x39 bed, as well as each square, with purple string. We hand plowed the squares with these mini scythes they had. I was glad I was able to rework the plans I'd prepped basically on the spot. As we worked, more and more villagers seemed to appear out of nowhere. Several sat around me while I redid the plan. They gawked at the seeds we'd brought (I'm sure some are so poor they can't afford much seed), talking with each other, handling the seed, and some helped plant. At one point K. counted 24 adults with us. We finished planting the garden bed at about 5 pm, and then Manya treated us to fresh chapati topped with pickled mango (very spicy). It tasted so good.

It felt good to work in the sandy loam soil. It felt good to physically get something done. And it felt good when we were done to stand together and get our photo taken (K. has it, I'll see if I can post it).

The most awkward part was at the end when two villagers were handling my cowhide gloves I'd brought with me (but didn't use). Hopefully they were Muslim and not Hindu.

We got home about 9 pm. Exhausted, but I felt good.

I hope to go back before I leave.