then and now

Well, by now most of you have heard of the wonders of my new apartment. "Apartment" is rather generous--it has the feel more of a hotel room with a kitchenette in its size, shape, and amenities than an actual apartment--but who needs space or windows? I am just grateful to have a/c, internet, and, yes, TV (a luxury to which I am unaccustomed in the US). The place I was previously living was much more basic, but quite charming in its own way. Here's a little before-and-after comparison for you:





quite a difference, eh?

The aformentioned kitchenette leaves some things to be desired, but it has allowed me to cultivate some splendid new cooking skills. It has a microwave, a malfunctioning hot plate, and an electric tea kettle. Last week when the hot plate blew one of the household's main breakers twice, it was sent out for repairs. In the interim, I learned how to cook eggs in the microwave and "steam" veggies by pouring boiling water over them. This evening I drained a pot of pasta with a tea strainer.

On an unrelated note, I successfully made my first batch of homemade yogurt overnight last night. This is a very simple skill, but one I've never had any luck mastering in India. All you have to do is boil the milk to kill whatever microbes are in there, cool it to a lukewarm temperature (but, as I've discovered through multiple failed attempts, it must be the RIGHT lukewarm temperature), stir in a spoonful of yogurt, and leave it somewhere warm overnight so the yogurt cultures can multiply. The climate here is ideal for it; in the US you have to use a special little machine that maintains a warm temperature.

The research has taken a turn away from what I was doing before. Having finished a round of interviews, I am now doing some analysis and compilation for the next phase while my research assistant is out of town visiting her family. In all, there will be about a week of downtime. As someone who thrives on staying busy, I am already getting a little antsy. Luckily for yours truly, there is a veritable parade of friends coming through Delhi this week. It's true what they say about India--once you've come here, you always end up returning...

KITTY!!!

...and even more!

Well, as they say, when it rains, it pours. I wanted to get the remainder of my photos loaded before I head off to Goa tomorrow morning, and my PIC (that's short for partner in crime) beat me to it!

I guess it's time to upload the "things I've eaten" section. This one is kinda short. First, green coconuts: the only source of human growth factor besides breast milk, full of natural electrolytes, including potassium, and a day's worth of vitamin c! there were 3 guys outside my old house who sold them...none in the swanky new neighborhood. I have no idea why this is the case, but I miss my daily dose of growth factor.



Next up, the cutest little watermelon in the world. I should be holding a mango, as it's mango season here and they are truly phenomenal. Like bananas, there are hundreds of varieties of mangoes, but we only get a couple of them in the US. The ones here aren't fibrous at all, but are melt-in-your-mouth smooshy and super-sweet. People here go crazy over them. There are mango festivals, and more than one of my patients has waxed poetic about how much they've missed eating mangoes since they got diabetes (they're so sweet that diabetics aren't supposed to eat them).




Okay, I guess that's kind of it for the things I've eaten. Don't get me wrong; I'm eating a lot more than fruit and green coconuts, but not so many pictures. The food here is diverse, clean, and VERY tasty (and fattening!). I've eaten everything from Subway to Thai, and of course lots of North and South Indian food. Now that I'm in my new place I've started cooking more. I'm looking forward to having access to healthier food that I can prepare myself.

Finally, cool things I've done. The first (and perhaps coolest) was my and my roommate's stint as "voice-over artists" for a language instruction CD that the language instition for which she worked was producing. We are immortalized doing dialogues such as: "It was cold in Ladakh, and we had a lot of luggage." "But what about the yak?" etc. It was a lot of fun. Probably the first and last time I'll see the inside of an Indian recording studio.




In other news, bought some rad shoes in Jaipur (guess which ones are mine!).




...and hung out with a lot of cows.




That's about it for the pictures today. More to come, including a comparative piece tentatively titled "Apartment: Past and Present". Stay tuned.

Back from the farm!

Hey y'all (said in my best faux-southern drawlll)

Well after six days I'm back from the farm. It was a lot of very relaxing fun, and now i have a better idea of how many of the families sustain themselves, and

The first photo is of me in my office. Working. Hard. Playing mandolin that is...this is where I would spend three or four hours every afternoon after the morning's activities, when it was too hot, usually, i'd take a nap after lunch, and then play mandolin for an hour or two and then work on the computer for about the same amount of time, typing up notes, working on interview protocols etc...



ok, here's a serious photo of me working...something i didn't learn at home: how to dekernel corn for the frangos (chickens). Hint use a cob or you'll get wicked blisters!




and here's the one of me doing the work that is in my genes!



which wouldn't be helpful without my young assistant "Edennias", who has been very helpful in spelling out plant names and identifying trees, and laughing at my pronunciation...



It was very beautiful out there on the farm (photo taking this morning at sunrise, which one sees when one goes to "hammock" at 8:30)



So...the other question i get from y'all is how's the research coming...well as my adviser says "It's complicated". I'm finding some very interesting stuff related to selective fire practices, tree plantings, forest preservation/deforestation, livelihood strategies, and identity production...all of which is to say it's complicated....for example (they say a picture is worth a thousand words) below is a photo of a castanhera stump in the midst of a banana grove...a relic of forest clearing at some point (it's been very difficult to figure out what burning occured where, and what effect each burning cycle had...a subject for later research)




anyways, these trees are massive and particularly striking over the generally deforested landscape. But what they tell me, their existence within this semi-deforested/secondary forest growth mosaic, is that living trees such as the one below were/are purposefully protected during burning cycles (they use burning to clear the secondary growth selectively so that they can plant the grass seed that the cattle feeds on)



However, it's not just isolated trees, there are pretty significant sections of "natural" forest. However X 2, as us environmental anthropologists tend to point out, "nature" is a cultural production, and forest fragments like this are a product of specific cultural practices, i.e burning or not burning, or burning selectively...



Although fragments in a mosaic, these sections of forest do harbor significant biodiversity, as evidenced by this photo I took of some scarlet macaw and some toucans below (the monkey was too quick for my camera, and unfortuntately the wild cat wasn't quick enough for the gun of the owner of the chickens it had eaten!)








besides the "ecological" import of harboring biodiversity, these forest fragments are also important as they provide land cover, and play a role in carbon sequestration...and providing yummy fruit, such as this birimba






So it was an interesting trip....although I'm not sure I'd agree we're in the dry season....but I guess cultural relativism...right?



Speaking of cultural relativism...anyone hungry for dinner? How about some fresh piranha?



Din din was caught on a little fishin trip we took down to the rio...here's a photo inside the casa of the troops getting ready.Anyone know that old time blue grass tune, goes a little something like..."you gotta line I gotta pole darling...." well, here it is



on the way down to the rio...



and Andre proud of his catch (let's just say it was a good thing I wasn't solely responsible for catching dinner; gringo=0, locals=many)




and a parting shot...papaya with rainbow

Photo mania

Hello all! My dear friend and roommate Beck left India yesterday, and as part of her leaving we exchanged photos. This means I finally have some to share with you! Looking over them, I can clump them into 3 major categories: cool things I've seen, tasty things I've eaten, and interesting things I've done. So here we go with the album...

First, cool things I've seen:


The elephant-shaped topiary in the central park/square thing of the market next to my new shi-shi apartment.



The cutest kitten in India, all claws and teeth. She was rescued from the street and is a ball of pure hunting instinct. She has a spotty belly and a long neck. very wild.



Next on the list of cool things is something that would make my dear father-in-law cringe. Based on my limited experience with wiring (confined primarily to changing out the ceiling fans when we bought our house), something tells me this isn't the best job...


The Baha'i Temple in Delhi, shaped like a lotus and very close to my new apartment. Don't ask me why it's here; as far as I know the Indian Baha'i community is quite small. My friend Sarah and I scorched the heck out of our feet walking up to the entrance without shoes (you have to take them off) in a long line of people at 4 in the afternoon on a 108 degree day. They lay out jute mats, which help a little. The pavement itself feels like hot coals. Inside is just an airy, open seating area. The outside is the best part (kind of like the Taj).






Here are some beautiful shots from the old city market in Jaipur, where Beck and I went a couple of weeks ago for a short trip. This is the city where Dave and I spent the summer after our wedding. Mixed in here are various shots of bangles, digestive tonics, bulk tea and spices (including those chiles)...

I think the things I've done and things I've eaten will have to wait for another post. It's Sunday, so I've got a date with the movie theatre. Off to see the new Star Trek!
More soon!...

Update....finally

Hello all! Sorry for the lack of posts as of late. A combination of things including 1)horribly slow internet connection, 2) Being at a regional education conference for four days, and 3) Just being busy with "work" has somewhat precluded me from frequent updates.

I'm going to try to post a number of photos on this post, with a little bit of text for context (as there has been so much happening I haven't had the time to write the type of long entries of previous times....)



The above photo is of the kids (ranging in age from 11-23)that are part of the Evolution of Rural Youth ( a very rough translation), which is the youth group that I am somewhat embedded in. The picture is taken in front of the casa de cultura, which is their youth organizing space of sorts (and the locale of the major community wide party they had recently-see photos below)



The above photo is of the half-cow (u know in the US we have 1/2 lb burgers, well here they have 1/2 cows) that the kids got as a donation for the party (better than cash here) and we grilled up! Tasty, although it takes a longgggg time to cook 1/2 a cow, like a long long long time.

and the party itself...






The above picture is meant to announce the new diet that I am pioneering. It is entitled "lose however much weight you want by eating (or not) armadillo). I guarantee rapid (and sustained) weight loss if you adhere to this diet (I haven't had the will to though-for those of you who are concerned about me losing my figure)




The above picture is a product of me having extensive time for "deep hanging out" here, which for me tends to mean playing mandolin for about 2-3 hours a day. People here are very "interested" in the mandolin, and me playing it (what they really think i have no idea). But anyways, I tend to serve as a magnetic force that attracts children who love to giggle as they watch me play. These children in particular were fairly funny, the day before I had been playing and they snuck up beside me, and out of the corner of my eye i saw them, but thought the smallest one, who was first in the sneak train, was a giant rat...i jumped, and so did they! They were much better fans than a giant rat, however, and clapped very loudly after every song!

The following series of photos is from two Misticas that the MST youth performed at the education conference.



Mistica are cultural performances/enactions that the MST does; they usually include some elements of poetry, theater, art, dance, etc, and are used to create spaces for reflection, usually around "generative themes" (to follow Freire) which is basically a big word for issues that are important/of concern to them. These ones, as they took place during the education conference, were about....education!



The mistica are often centered around a collection of physical objects, such as the farm tools, literature, rice....


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And what was very special was that I got to participate in a mistica as well!

I got to be a farm worker using a rake, a pretty small role, but i don't think i'm ready for the big time dances yet! Imagine trying to understand choreographed dance directions in another language...



For those of you who made it to the end of this litany of photos and little excerpts, here's a more meaty blog bite for you, sorry no armadillo here...(it was pirated from an email, so sorry to the original recipient) but thought it was pretty informative.

In other news, potential major research step today (I wouldn’t say breakthrough, but definetly big in terms of physical results, and it’s potential impact for future research questions). Basically, I mapped the front/backyard of the house I’m currently staying at, having the mother/father as guides for plant identification. This is in the context of my previous observation (after having seeing a photo of the settlement 13 years ago right after it was founded, when it was essentially a barren cattle pasture), and my visual comparison of that image with today where it is bordering on verdant forested oasis. Anyways, I used the GPS device to mark the location of each tree that the family had planted….and imported that into GIS. Anyways, in their backyard, they had around 120 fruiting plants (including banannas, which aren’t a tree, sugar cane, and medicinal plants: all of which are hard to specifically quantify because they reproduce from the ground on their own), but anyways the point is that the family has significantly transformed the landscape through the purposive planting of approximately 100 different trees that comprise probably 20 different varieties. This is in marked contrast to the landscape behind their fence, which is an open cattle pasture….should be very interesting to look at with some aerial photos over time, and figure out how this fits into the larger reasearch question…anyways, so that’s neither here nor there….


In short...it's been a busy week or so since i last was able to update my part of the blog (thanks to jo for keeping it up on the other side of the puddle). But my lack of entries is only because i've been busy and away (plus the slow connection)

a parting photo of an impromptu music performance! fun times for all