Rural visit -- India
We spent the past few days busing all over inner Tamil Nadu. It's been absolutely beautiful, but we've all gotten a little nauseous from the stop and start driving on the smaller, more rural roads.
The main component of our rural visit was a day visiting smaller communities around Tanjore (or Thanjavur). Our group of thirty-five split off into four smaller packs, and headed off in different directions an hour or less outside the main city. My group began our explorations with a stop at a fishery, and continued to the rice fields in the immediate vicinity. The workers at the fishery gave us some demonstrations of their fishing and we walked out into the field to talk to them as they were planting the rice plants. We asked them about fertilizer use in the area and they told us that right now natural fertilizer isn't available in enough abundance to use in their farming, so they use chemical fertilizer, or nothing would grow.
One woman who was planting (only women were doing the planting work, and when we asked they couldn't explain to us why) told us she earns 200 rupees a day, lives with her parents, who arranged for her job working in the fields, and her two sisters, and showed us the sores from the fertilizers on her hands. She said she is twenty-five and still looking for a husband. Standing in the sun it was the very definition of blazing hot, the air was almost completely unmoving, and the women spend hours in that for days bent over in muddy water planting little seedling after seedling. They began singing a little after we walked over and our translator told us they did so to stave off the tiredness and re-energize themselves, but the song was in rural Tamil so she had no idea what they were saying.
After that we moved over to a place where they clean and pack rice for transport. There was a small temple right next to it dedicated to the god of rain. The eight of us walked in and just as we were being blessed by the priest a blast of cool wind hit us through the open walls and for the first time since we got to India it started raining. After the constant weight of intense heat and sun all day that rain really was like a gift from a beneficent god. Honestly, I'm not sure how to describe how happy we were, except to say we got utterly drenched and loved every second of it.
Soaked to the bone we moved on to a little primary school where we sang to the students and they put on a dance performance for us. Then our last stop was in the collection of houses across the street from the school where we talked with the people about their families, agriculture in the area, and their health.
Roaming around the countryside was almost painfully picturesque, the glowing blue sky had white cotton-ball clouds, and the palm trees and rice paddies were alive with color and the vitality of thriving earth. Talking afterwards our whole group agreed, this was one of the most significant parts of our entire experience in India, and we wished we had more time in the area to talk to people, or maybe even do a case study there. I should mention though, that we realized this visit wasn't necessarily at all representative of rural India; the town was still within a comfortable walking distance, and there was a major hospital close by. All the women we spoke to told us they had their children in the hospital, and almost everyone said they would visit the hospital if they needed care.
On another note, while it has been a constant challenge to keep up with news, I would like to say that we have been paying attention to the revolution(s) going on in the middle east right now. And more personally I would like to say, "I'm with you Madison, keep holding out for what is right!!" I was stunned to see articles on the Wisconsin protests for a few days running in The Hindu (which doesn't print much international news to begin with!). Thank you for standing up for the people's voice in politics! :)
Next up, spring break!!
Photos- Our autorickshaw driver Babu on the right, and his friend, our sometimes auto driver, who got hit by a motorcycle
(1-4) The first stop on our rural visit, a yoga ashram in Aliyar, in western Tamil Nadu, on the edge of the Ghats mountain range. Whenever we stood around ooh-ing and ah-ing over the monkeys who also inhabited the ashram, the workers there would come over and watch us. We thought they were there so we wouldn't hurt the monkeys. We were wrong, they were there so the monkeys wouldn't get us.
(5-7) On the road.
(8-13) Next stop, the Brihadisvarar Temple in Tanjore. Built by the famous Chola king Raja Raja the Great, it's walls are covered in writing that document the history of his reign. Sorry about the excess of pictures, we were having fantastic sky days. :)
(14-15) Workers at the fishery.
(16-17) Women planting rice in the rice fields.
(18) Cleaning rice.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
We spent the past few days busing all over inner Tamil Nadu. It's been absolutely beautiful, but we've all gotten a little nauseous from the stop and start driving on the smaller, more rural roads.
The main component of our rural visit was a day visiting smaller communities around Tanjore (or Thanjavur). Our group of thirty-five split off into four smaller packs, and headed off in different directions an hour or less outside the main city. My group began our explorations with a stop at a fishery, and continued to the rice fields in the immediate vicinity. The workers at the fishery gave us some demonstrations of their fishing and we walked out into the field to talk to them as they were planting the rice plants. We asked them about fertilizer use in the area and they told us that right now natural fertilizer isn't available in enough abundance to use in their farming, so they use chemical fertilizer, or nothing would grow.
One woman who was planting (only women were doing the planting work, and when we asked they couldn't explain to us why) told us she earns 200 rupees a day, lives with her parents, who arranged for her job working in the fields, and her two sisters, and showed us the sores from the fertilizers on her hands. She said she is twenty-five and still looking for a husband. Standing in the sun it was the very definition of blazing hot, the air was almost completely unmoving, and the women spend hours in that for days bent over in muddy water planting little seedling after seedling. They began singing a little after we walked over and our translator told us they did so to stave off the tiredness and re-energize themselves, but the song was in rural Tamil so she had no idea what they were saying.
After that we moved over to a place where they clean and pack rice for transport. There was a small temple right next to it dedicated to the god of rain. The eight of us walked in and just as we were being blessed by the priest a blast of cool wind hit us through the open walls and for the first time since we got to India it started raining. After the constant weight of intense heat and sun all day that rain really was like a gift from a beneficent god. Honestly, I'm not sure how to describe how happy we were, except to say we got utterly drenched and loved every second of it.
Soaked to the bone we moved on to a little primary school where we sang to the students and they put on a dance performance for us. Then our last stop was in the collection of houses across the street from the school where we talked with the people about their families, agriculture in the area, and their health.
Roaming around the countryside was almost painfully picturesque, the glowing blue sky had white cotton-ball clouds, and the palm trees and rice paddies were alive with color and the vitality of thriving earth. Talking afterwards our whole group agreed, this was one of the most significant parts of our entire experience in India, and we wished we had more time in the area to talk to people, or maybe even do a case study there. I should mention though, that we realized this visit wasn't necessarily at all representative of rural India; the town was still within a comfortable walking distance, and there was a major hospital close by. All the women we spoke to told us they had their children in the hospital, and almost everyone said they would visit the hospital if they needed care.
On another note, while it has been a constant challenge to keep up with news, I would like to say that we have been paying attention to the revolution(s) going on in the middle east right now. And more personally I would like to say, "I'm with you Madison, keep holding out for what is right!!" I was stunned to see articles on the Wisconsin protests for a few days running in The Hindu (which doesn't print much international news to begin with!). Thank you for standing up for the people's voice in politics! :)
Next up, spring break!!
Photos- Our autorickshaw driver Babu on the right, and his friend, our sometimes auto driver, who got hit by a motorcycle
(1-4) The first stop on our rural visit, a yoga ashram in Aliyar, in western Tamil Nadu, on the edge of the Ghats mountain range. Whenever we stood around ooh-ing and ah-ing over the monkeys who also inhabited the ashram, the workers there would come over and watch us. We thought they were there so we wouldn't hurt the monkeys. We were wrong, they were there so the monkeys wouldn't get us.
(5-7) On the road.
(8-13) Next stop, the Brihadisvarar Temple in Tanjore. Built by the famous Chola king Raja Raja the Great, it's walls are covered in writing that document the history of his reign. Sorry about the excess of pictures, we were having fantastic sky days. :)
(14-15) Workers at the fishery.
(16-17) Women planting rice in the rice fields.
(18) Cleaning rice.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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