Its now officially 2010 here, and New Year's Day isn't a work holiday, so everybody who was celebrating last night is now working.

We made some food and had some friends over, the first time we have hosted anyone in this apartment. Dolly and I both cooked, and our guests liked the food, so I let Dolly take credit. Dolly is throwing a much bigger party on Saturday evening, where maybe 30 people will come.

Its hard to believe, but I spent more of 2009 in India than in America, and it looks like 2010 will be entirely here!

Today we have an oxcart on Sambav ashram in Orissa, and ruins of a Bhuddist temple

Dr. Binayak Sen was at JSS yesterday, and Dolly and I had a chance to briefly meet him.

Dr. Sen is an ad visor to JSS, and has a long involvement with rural health care and rural issues. In 2007, due to his criticisms of the state government, he was arrested with bail or specific charges. Basically, the state is arming militias (Salwa Judum) who are killing innocent people, and Sr. spoke out about it. In present day Chattisgargh, that is enough to get you arrested. His arrest drew the attention of Amnesty International, and there were protests on both the first and second anniversary of his arrest. He was released on bail a few months ago after his case was appealed to the Supreme Court (more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binayak_Sen)

Dolly, a whirlwind of curiosity, did most of the talking, asking questions. Dr. Sen spoke in a thoughtful, quiet, and steady manner that reminded me of the way Noam Chomsky speaks - a man who has the command of a lot of facts and information, and is carefully deploying them in most effective manner.

Basically, there are areas of CG where the government has never really had control due to their remoteness and/or lack of interest. Now the government is interested in taking control in order to profit from the natural resources. This puts them into conflict with the people living in a delicate balance with the local ecosystems. So to use the Naxalites vs. The State narrative is inaccurate, and helps in justifying the State's response of deadly force and land clearance (the land clearance being what they're after anyway).

Dr. Sen has to be careful where he goes and who he talks to, because the people who come into contact with him are often harassed and questioned by the government, especially in villages and areas where government control is not strong.

Dr. Sen is hoping for peace, and would like to bring both sides into a conversation, using public pressure to bring them together. There was supposed to be a rally currently ongoing in one of the Naxalite districts, but the government didn't allow it. The organizer is currently on a hunger strike.

I also put these up on Facebook, but these look nicer when they're big... click for the full sized ones!

Setting aside land to preserve the habitat of tigers, a highly endangered species, certainly sounds like a good idea, one that I would normally support. However, the government is in the process of setting up a tiger preserve in a nearby forest area, and it seems like a mess all around.

The first issue that although they have claimed the area has a population of 30+ tigers, local villagers and forest officials say its two, possibly three tigers living in the area. The second issue is that the forests they are setting aside are already populated by aadavasis.

Aadavasis are the aboriginal peoples, much like Native Americans, except they are ethnically identical to the rest of the population. Only culture separates them from the rest of India, and even some of that culture has seeped in. The aadavasis rely on the land to provide them with their livelihoods.

Pretty much everybody who lives in the forest area is poor, and some are members of scheduled tribes/castes, officially recognized as groups needing extra help. These people will be getting some assistance in relocating. Others are just poor, but not a member of any of the designated groups, and they will be receiving much less help even though they need it as much.

One of the outreach clinics run by JSS is in a village scheduled to be moved. They are involved in educating the villagers about their rights, as the doctors are literate and not in as vulnerable a position. There is a risk of them being labeled Naxalites, a word thrown around as carelessly as "terrorist" is in America. It has the same effect of raising fears and shutting down any rational argument, and those to whom the label is applied are treated as unjustly and arbitrarily, outside the normal bounds of the law.

One of the doctors has written some about it: http://ramani-fieldnotes.blogspot.com/2009/12/tiger-reserve.html

For both Christmas Eve and Christmas day we were invited to one of the doctor's houses. On Christmas eve, we brought art supplies to make some ornaments - the children had come to our apartment previously and had fun painting with Dolly, so they wanted to make ornaments with her.

There was a Christmas tree, a live one in a pot. It was not the standard American variety, but it resembled a kind of pine tree. The top branches spread wider than the bottom ones which gave it a vaguely upside-down feel.

The next day we went over for a lunch of fried rice, sweet-and-sour vegetables, and soybean kofta in a soy sauce gravy, with fruit custard for desert. It was a nice get-together, but it didn't feel so much like Christmas, between the weather and the lack of familiar rituals.

Later that night we went to the cloth market and picked out a curtain for our living room. The store we went to had a few small, cramped floors with dozens of rolls of cloth to pick from. We eventually picked colors and patterns that we liked, and they should be made in another day or two.

In the US, fruitcake has become a Christmas joke. I think I have only seen one once, given as a joke gift, and have never been served it. Here in India, it seems to be popular. (Though I still haven't seen it)

Whenever we ask what people do for Christmas here, and what they eat, the first thing said is commonly "of course there's cake" and then they say that they just have a meal, with no particular special dishes. It took a while to figure out that "Christmas cake" is actually fruitcake.

I will have to see if on Christmas, there are actually fruitcakes around and being served.

More contenders for band of the 00's: TV on the Radio, Spoon, Modest Mouse. I never got too into any of them.

The albums I played to death were mostly hip hop: Deltron 3030 (Del the Funky Homosapien and the Automator), Madvillany (Madvillan + Madlib), Mouse and the Mask (Madvillan + Dangermouse), though I played a lot of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Wilco) and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Flaming Lips), too.

I think that Dangermouse is my favorite musician of the decade. He's half of Gnarls Barkley, put together the JayZ/Beatles mashup The Grey Album, produced the Mouse and the Mask and the 2nd Gorillaz Album (both from genres where "produce" means "made the music"). Also produced Beck's Modern Guilt, which is very good, he did an album with Sparklehorse that won't get released, but can be found on the net, and is about to release something with the singer of the Shins.

I don't even know if he plays an instrument, but he makes cool music, and by collaborating with a diverse number of talented musicians, he has managed to create a ton of good and varied music. I think we'll end up seeing more of this in the future - now that everybody with a laptop can make music the line between producer and songwriter will become even more blurred.

Its December 22, and it barely seems like Christmas is coming. Its a much smaller holiday here, trailing the Hindu festival season by a few weeks, so much of the celebratory energy has already been spent. (It does seem as the festival season has finally wound down - wedding season is ongoing, but the disturbances are much more local.) In the main market, there are a few fake Christmas trees for sale, though we go there less than once a week, and this morning we heard Silent Night being played by the church.

This Christmas will be a change for us... for the last 2 years we have gone and cut down as big a tree as we could fit in our house, and then spent Christmas day with family. We have Christmas day off, but

We are told that in the cities (like Bombay) people decorate their houses and generally celebrate more. Though there are some Christians who have cause to observe the religious aspects of the day, I think its popularity is due to a combination of its Westerness and consumerism. Dolly's theory is that Christmas is more popular with the rich, who can afford trees and lights and gifts. This makes sense, and also explains why in this poor area, there isn't much Christmas. The Christian part of Bombay (Bandra) where the most decorations can be seen is also one of the richest neighborhoods.

Not that its a bad thing - Christmas is an over-commercialized holiday in the US, and I don't think even the most evangelical Christian would want only the secular aspects exported. India has a surplus of its own culture, with thousands of years of history, a handful of religions, a dozen languages and countless dialects. The calendar is already full!

We have been a little uncertain about our future plans here, with Dolly switching from agriculture to ???. Happily, some of those question marks are beginning to transform into answers. The doctors have brought up several ideas for what she can work on next, and there is at least some short-term funding available.

The most interesting of the possibilities is Dolly doing detailed case studies of a number of patients with the goal of identifying the socioeconomic factors contributing to their health problems. This would also involve her going to the villages where the patients live to do first hand assessments of the issues they face. She's been traveling to villages for her agriculture work and has enjoyed it, and she's excited about the possibility.

I have not gone to the villages with her, but I have heard her stories. She's not really posting on her blog anymore, so maybe I'll relay some of her stories here in the future.

We have a cook, Choti (her nickname - it means "small") who makes dinner for us. She has a 2 year old daughter Simee, who is also very small and mischievous. She is married to the building's chowkidar (watchman), Shankar, who basically has to hang out in front of the building 24 hours a day. They have a room on the ground floor with no door, and there is a bed in the open area - the rest of the ground floor is parking and storage; the apartments start on the 2nd floor.

Somewhere along the way, the chowkidar became an alcoholic (don't know if it became before or after the mind numbing job). He has run up debts, borrowing little bits from many tenants in the building, to pay for his drinks. At the end of last month, he ran away for a few days taking some of the association fees with him, and Choti eventually went and retrieved him from his aunt's house. A week or so ago, he ran away again, and now no one knows where he is.

Its very sad to see Choti and Simee abandoned, especially Simee, as she is too young to understand what is happening. It also complicates an ongoing issue: Choti isn't a very good cook, and we would like to get a better one - and we have heard of a South Indian cook in the building. All the best food I have had in India is South Indian food, prepared by Dolly's family. It was going to be difficult to get rid of her in the first place, as her family is poor, and on top of that after she started working for us, she quit (or was fired from) her day job, which she said was too far away.

This doesn't have anything to do with India, but as the year comes to an end, I am seeing top albums of the decade, and realizing that most of my favorite music and bands (Fugazi, Nirvana, classic rock) are from the 90's (the years I was in high school and college) or before.

I'm not too into the very mellow tendencies of current indie rock, I don't even know what bands are calling themselves "punk" these days, and most straight-up rock is all Nicklebacky... so that leaves not much left. I could only think of two bands that I would consider for favorite rock band of the 00's: The White Stripes and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The other NY-type rock revival bands (Strokes, Franz Ferdinand) seemed to peak quickly and drop off, and the Arcade Fire has 2 good albums, but I often feel like they're playing a Springsteen cover. (Radiohead has probably made the best music in the decade of any band, but a) they were already well established in the 90's, and b) they moved pretty far from "rock"). Modest Mouse would probably be a contender if I listened to them more.

Out of the White Stripes and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I think I'd lean towards The YYY's... I like the White Stripes and they were certainly more influential/popular, but I don't really listen to them that often, whereas I can play any of the YYY's albums at pretty much any time.

So, I guess my favorite band of the 2000's is The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Its kind of a lukewarm pick, as I don't have any particular passion for them - they kind of win by default.

Click for big

I knew that they played different sports in India than in the US. I knew cricket was popular. I thought soccer was popular (I was mostly wrong - I think I assumed that soccer was common everywhere but the US). But I had no idea that badminton was so popular.

In the evenings, every well lit area is filled with people hitting a shuttlecock back and forth. They play in the streets under the streetlights. Courts have been set up in vacant lots, and some kids in our building have started to set up a court on the side of the building.

Dolly is an avid badminton fan. She played on her team in high school and went to the state tournament. Last night we played for the first time, though she has wanted to since we've been here. She doesn't think hitting it around in the street is "real" badminton though. She wants to play competitively in a gym, free from air currents. She has heard of a gym down the street that has a women's league in the morning, but its hard to get going in the mornings, so I suspect that we'll just play in the yard.

Not too much happening right now. We have a ton of pictures and videos to go through and post, but Dolly is away, and I promised her we'd do that together. I've been learning how to use Phototshop, though, and here's an image created from a photo that I think looks pretty cool, especially in large size.

It has been a little sad in Bilaspur after out fun trip to Bombay with our American friends. Dolly has been travelling for the past week, and after being home for two days is about to leave again for a week, so I am mostly alone in the apartment.

The bright spot is that the weather has been absolutely gorgeous. This is the nicest "winter" I have ever experienced, and that includes four years in Southern California. The evenings are chilly, but a pair of socks and a blanket is enough to keep warm, and the days are all 72 and sunny. The Bilaspurians think its cold, and often wear hats and sweater vests. Everybody has sweater vests.

I don't know if its coincidence or a seaonal thing as well, but it appears to be the time of year for baby animals. There are a couple of puppies occasionally running around campus, and a couple of kittens hanging around the canteen. The small cows we used to see on the side of the road are now joined by even smaller cows, the size of medium-sized dogs

We did not buy our return tickets before we left, as we were not sure exactly which day we would be leaving. When we went to buy the tickets on our first day back from Ajanta, we were dismayed to find that all the trains were booked! To our disbelief, it was a busy few days because of yet another festival! (The number and frequency of festivals had reached the point where it seemed like a joke over a month ago, and they're still going strong.) Luckily, there is some kind of emergency scheme, where a block of tickets is released a few days before, and we were able to get those, although we had to pay an extra 1000 rupees to have someone go to the station and wait in line at just the right day and time.

We got on the train without incident, and when it made it first stop on the outskirts of Bombay, I was surprised to see a crush of people pushing onto the train. Families and individuals of all ages were packing into the train with their luggage, and many people were left on the platform. From then on the train was filled to at least double capacity, with the same scene being replayed at each subsequent station, although with less room on the train for them to fit.

It was a difficult night, as I was on the lower side bunk, and people kept sitting by my feet and stomach. I didn't get much sleep. People were everywhere, including one man who laid his blanket downin the aisle. The train remained crowded throughout the next day, and is wasn't until 1PM that a conductor came through to check tickets. I don't know if the other people on the train had tickets or if it was just a free for all. But we eventually made it home, though now we miss our friends!

Wanted to share an update on our status here: Dolly's work on SRI at JSS will be finished in 3 months, and past that we're not sure what's going to happen. She may stay with JSS in another capacity, or we may move on somewhere else, either another job (for her... my visa doesn't allow me to work) or travel for 6 months or so and then come back.

This change is due to difficulties in working with the resident Agricultural expert, and though funding was secured for a year, Dolly is going to finish up what she is working on by the end of February. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out the next steps sooner than later. All this uncertainty (housing, funding, etc) has been stressful!

The reason we went to Mumbai in the first place was for our friend Aradhna's wedding to her husband-to-be Tanmay. We stayed in her family's guest house, a few km from where her parents now live, and they treated us with amazing hospitality.

We were not the only guests, of course, and the guest house was also used as a meeting/eating place. They had hired a cook for the occasion, so every meal was cooked fresh. He was much better than our cook, and he even made me corn rotis after he found out I couldn't eat wheat ones. I think it also helped that after one of the first meals I liked his cooking... I think I got extra attention after that.

Two days preceeding the wedding was a ceremony known as the engagement, which involves the exchanging of rings. It was a smaller ceremony than the actual wedding, and women got henna on their arms, and there was music and dancing. One guy, who was a distant cousin on the bride's side was dancing like he was auditioning for a Bollywood movie, with a never-ending sequence of over the top moves, complete with goofy faces.

The next day was on off-day, so we went to Bandra, a posh neighborhood of Bombay, to see it and do some shopping. We went to a bazar and Dolly and Pampi bought some shirts, and Jen got into haggling for scarves. We then went down the road where I bought some shirts, and then headed to a very late lunch. Unfortunately all the places recommended by locals were closed until 7, but fortunately we found a very nice place named Basilico.

Basilico was an middle-eastern/italian/american-ish restaurant, with a large and varied menu. It was the first place I'd been in India that wasn't strictly Indian or Indian/Chinese. They had steaks on the menu, but they were only serving pasta and sandwiches, but they had a beef burger, which I ordered. Jen got gnocci, which she said tasted fresh, as in "made after she ordered it", and the other dishes were very good as well. My burger was about cafeteria grade, dry and probably from the freezer, but it was very satisying and the best burger I've had in months.

The next day was the actual wedding, and started in the traditional fashion, with the groom being slowly led in, preceeded by a band and his dancing family. The ceremony was very long, as is common in India, and instead of sitting at attention, people milled around and socialized, crowding around the platform for the good parts.

The ceremony was followed the reception, for which the bridal parties (and many other people) changed outfits. By the end of the night over 800 people filled the reception hall, and Aradhna and Tanmay left a newly wedded couple!

(We don't have pictures past the morning of the wedding... our camera filled up, and we are waiting for the rest of the pictured to be sent to us)

My first impression of Mumbai was not a good one. Getting off at the station, we jumped into a taxi (a real car not just an autorickshaw!) and started our journey to New Bombay, which involved a lot of traffic. Even though it was 9 at night, we were sweating, so the windows were down, and hot fumes from standing trucks and buses poured into our vehicle. This, plus the 20 hour train ride, made me sick to my stomach, and I vomited, which made me feel a little better.

When we arrived at the house, we were greeted by our friends who had come from America, Jen, Pampi, and Sandeep (we were meeting Sandeep for the first time). We were all there for Aradhna's wedding, and were staying in Aradna's childhood home, now her parent's guest house. We had planned to relax for a few days in Bombay, but we were talked into leaving early the next morning for a side trip to the caves of Ellora and Ajanta.

They had booked a car for the two-day excursion, and we left as early as we could to try to get as much time at Ellora as possible before sunset. We arrived in the nearby city of Aurangabad around 2, and booked a couple of hotel rooms. Dolly did a great job of haggling down the rate, and we grabbed some snacks and headed out.

We first stopped at the wrong parking lot, at a fort a few kilometers from the caves. We didn't intend to - we were misled by the UNESCO World Heritage banner, and soon realized our mistake and jumped into the car to head down the raod. That is, all of us but Sandeep jumped into the car. He had been distracted by a vendor selling old coins, and all of our yelling didn't cause him to budge an inch until he selected the specimens which pleased him the most.

We finally made it to the caves of Ellora with about an hour before the sun went down. We took a guide and he brought us first to the most impressive "cave". To call these structures caves is misleading. This was a giant complex, carved out of the solid rock. In the middle was a two story temple, with intricate carved decoration. There was then a 20 meter wide pathway, and the sides had hallways hollowed out, with statues carved into alcoves. We were told that it is the largest monolithic structure in the world.

We then saw a few more caves, including one that had a great resonance for "Om"-like sounds. At the last cave, the guard was about to lock up, but since our guide is an offical employee, he was able to take the keys, and we stayed until the light ran out.

The next morning we left early again, and stopped at the Bibi Ka Maqbara, a tomb that looks a lot like the Taj Mahal, only quite a bit smaller. It was still a beautiful structure with nice grounds, but we didn't stay long as our day's agenda had us going 100km out to Ajanta and then all the way back home.


Ajanta was a lot more slickly run. We paid for parking (by the head!) and then ran a gauntlet of gift shops to the bus, for which there was also a fee, before entering the caves, where there was the expected entry fee.
The caves range from 2000 to 1300 years old, and are situated around the outside edge of a horseshoe shaped gorge. These were rediscovered in the early 19th century by some hunters. The fact that they were rediscovered means that at some point people forgot about them! Ellora grew in popularity and significance, and became the center of activity, but it blows my mind that as a result of that these caves were forgotten.

The caves are not as large, but are in a far more beautiful setting, and they contain surviving paintings on the walls and ceilings and columns, as well as numerous statues. We were not able to stay as long as we liked because we were on the clock, but as the others stopped for a rest, I quickly walked down the far end. Some of the these were less impressive caves, and I was rewarded at the end by a cave with a reclining Bhudda and a number of other carvings.

We endured a long and hungry ride back (the only available food for a long stretch was at Dhaba's of questionable hygene), and arrived back at around midnight. For two days and 1200km, we owed the driver around 9000 rupees - under $200! In the end we were glad we went on the trip, both to see the sights and spend time with our friends.

We've been in Mumbai for a week for our friend's wedding, so there have been no posts. It was a lot of fun, we hung out with our friends from America, saw the ancient caves at Ellora and Ajanta, attended a wedding, were pampered by the bride's family, and I ate a hamburger for the first time in 6 months.

More details will come in the next few days!

I know that it is snowing in many parts of the US, and the first snowfall came over a month ago, but here it was 88 degrees 2 days ago. Today was our first chilly day.

Yesterday when I woke up, it was raining, but by mid-morning the skies had cleared and it was pleasant 70 degree day. This morning started the same way, so I left the house in a short sleeved shirt, anticipating another sunny day. However, it didn't get much past 60, so I was chilly most of the day.

I spend most of the day indoors, but the buildings here are made to allow air to circulate in the monsoon season, and not to keep in warm air on the colder days. Some windows are holes in the wall with no way of closing them, and other windows are permanently open due to the positioning of coolers, etc. There are no heating in the buildings, so that is out of the question.

But I warmed up when I got home with a sweater and a cup of tea, and tomorrow night we leave for Bombay, where the weather report said it was 88 degrees today.

Our food situation has been getting better as we find our way around the local offerings. We have learned how to make proper chutney, and explored some of the unfamiliar spices and vegetables. This information does not always come easy... we have to ask the cook what is needed and we don't always know the words for foods that aren't in America, so we have to go to the store and hope we get the right things. Also, new foods come in and out of season, including the sita phil (pictured) also known as a "custard apple", which has sweet, gooey insides.

We also got a blender (called a mixee here), which means that we have been having much better masalas. Instead of tomato and onion chunks floating around with the vegetables, we can have a thick, flavorful gravy. I also found out how to make a pancake/flatbread out of rice and lentils soaked overnight... basically use the mixee to grind them into flour, add water, and cook like pancakes. We also learned about roasted eggplant (cook it directly on the burner first), and how to make good tomato chutney (use a mortar and pestle, not the mixee).

Jackfruit has also shown up in the local market, and it makes an excellent curry. It looks a lot like pulled pork, and though not as good as slow cooked swine, is a nice dish. Between having a cook make us fresh food every night, and the amount of oil used to cook/fry things, I have put back most of the weight I lost. I still miss the variety of meats, but I will be going to Bombay later this week, and I have been told where to find bacon!

There are two main types of meat available here, chicken and mutton. We usually eat chicken when we eat meat (which we eat every week or two) because it is more consistent in its taste and preparation. Good mutton is very good, and bad mutton is stringy and gamey, whereas good chicken is pretty good, and bad chicken is just tasteless. We have had mutton a few times, both in curries and briyanis (a rice dish), and the best so far has been one prepared by Dolly's cousin for Diwale.

What we found out recently is that the mutton we've been eating isn't sheep! I didn't even know that "mutton" could mean anything else, but what we've been served as mutton has been goat. In retrospect, this makes a lot of sense. There are goats everywhere, and its too hot for sheep. Dolly will now not eat anymore mutton, but I don't see too much different between the two... and in this area its the only red meat around!

There's a donkey that lives by the side of the road in the first town past Bilaspur. There's a main commercial strip, and the donkey stays on the edge of it. Its there almost everyday, and it sticks out because while cows are common, donkeys are not. It is usually standing there, not moving just kind of looking at the ground like a sad animal.

Last week, the doctors noticed it sitting in the same place on the side of the road for a few days in a row. One of the doctors is an animal lover, and the thought of the donkey slowly dying of thirst worried her. She suspected a spinal injury. After seeing it there repeatedly, her husband stopped and talked to the people around to try to find out who owned the donkey and what was happening. It turns out the donkey had some kind of infection but was being treated with bandages and medecine. It wasn't moving much, but was getting up to take water and what not.

It is kind of surprising to see such a fuss over an animal, when there is so much human suffering going on in the same stretch of land. The doctors are very sensitive to that suffering, devoting the majority of their time to addressing it. The surprising part is that after all of that they still have time and energy to check out the condition of a helpless animal.

Dolly is in Dhamtari for a few days interviewing farmers as part of a project to collect stories of SRI farmers across Chattisgargh. That area has some level of Naxal activity, and it seems that lately there has been more focus on the Naxals, Maoist rebels who are active in the remote forest areas.

Yesterday as we approached the JSS campus, there were soldiers sitting every few yards with their rifles. There is an army training compound in the area, and it was part of the training. In the evening a few soldiers waved down our vehicle. I thought at first it may have been a checkpoint, but it turned out they were just tired and asking for a ride.

I started my tabla lessons today. We learned "na", "ghe", and "da", although I spent the better part of an hour just trying to get the basic hit. Learning an instrument is never as fun as actually playing it. Dolly had her singing lesson at the same time, so I got to listen to her first attempts to sing on key in front of an audience.

On Sunday we went to lunch with some visitors. They are from the Tata Trust and part of their management program, and they are here for 6 weeks. They spend a year visiting different parts of the Tata empire as training, and after that they are placed into permanent jobs. They have the phone numbers of two different auto drivers who they can call up for rides. Dolly and I usually just walk to the main road and grab who happens to be there.

On the ride over we saw preparations for yet another festival. We asked the driver what the occasion was, and he didn't know. He said something about how different castes have different celebrations. The festivals are really starting to border on ridiculous - they've been going on for two months, and now they're so many that people don't even know what they all are.

We have pretty much gotten used to the security guys riding around on bikes and blowing their whistles. Now we have new sleep-time disturbances.

Last night was a special occasion, as it was another festival. This one was to celebrate the harvest, and it is a regional festival, and we were told they set off more firecrackers for this festival than for Diwale, which was already a ton of crackers. I had a headache and was try to sleep/relax and it proved to be very difficult with bombs going off feet from my head every few seconds. Some one in our building bought some of those fireworks that have the bright flash and then the loud bang, and they were shooting those off in the street out front. They literally shook the building when they went off, and were set off for hours.

There is a new regular disturbance, however. The highly visible Hindu festival season seems to make the Christians jealous. So every morning, from 6:00 - 6:30, they blast what seems to be Christian pop music from their church, loud enough to disrupt our sleep a half mile away. What's worse, is that we're told that this is for Christmas!!! In October!!! There is also a Hindu call to prayer around 4AM, but that only lasts for 5 minutes and is not as loud

The mixer we got didn't work, so we had to go back to where we got it to have them fix it. We got it at a shop in Gol Bazar, a shopping area about 2 miles away, and we rode our bicycles there after work. It was the first time in a while we had ventured outside our neighborhood on the bikes, and it was during busy evening traffic, and we had forgotten how crazy the roads were.

We started out down some backroads with which we were unfamiliar, and there were dark sections where we couldn't see the road clearly, so we had to go along slowly, hoping we didn't wipe out in a pothole. When we got to the bigger road, it was crowded and hectic, with bicycles, mototrcycles, and cars all fighting for space, dodging cows, piles of garbage, and parked rickshaws and SUVs.

Eventually we got comfortable with the chaos, and the going got a little smoother. The blender was fixed quickly, though our other errand, getting our bikes tuned up went undone because that shop was closed. We also picked out an almaida, basically a closed set of metal shelves with a door on the front like you would put in your basement on garage, except we'll be using it for clothes. Chests of drawers seem to be uncommon here, so this will function as our dresser... and it also means that after 5 months, we are no longer living out of suitcases!

We ate out at a restaurant, Hotel Mahua, we had visited many times when we were staying at the hotel next door, and I was disappointed. Their once-expansive menu had been pared down to one page, the prices were higher, and the food was not as good! So I don't think we'll be going back there, especially since Dolly didn't like it much in the first place.

We now have another hired hand working in our house. A seventeen ywar old girl is now coming every morning to sweep/mop and do our dishes. This pretty much takes care of all of our household chores, except laundry and grocery shopping. I want to hire the laundry too, but Dolly is uncomfortable with the idea of outsourcing all our tasks. I think this is probably the one time in my life I will be able to live like this, and there's no reason not to. I think Dolly will come around to my way of thinking soon enough.

We went shopping for more house stuff yesterday, and the most important things we got were coffe mugs and a mixer. I had been drinking tea out of a metal cup with no handle, wrapped in a hankerchief to keep it from burning my hand. I now have an American-sized coffe mug from which to drink tea, which makes my mornings just a little but smoother. The mixer, which is more important than I had realzied for Indian cooking, doesn't work. We are going to take it back to the shop tonight and are crossing our fingers that it goes well.

In India, as around the world, once work is done, people like to put on more comfortable, casual clothes. Some people put on Western clothes like sweatpants or jeans, but the traditional outfit for this situation is the lungee. A lungee is a rectangular piece of cloth that is wrapped around the waist, much like a towel. It is generally full-length (down to the ankles) and the bottom can be tucked into the waist to make it half-length, ending around the knees.

For Dwilale, it is traditional to get clothes, and I got a lungee. I had been coming home and just stripping down to my boxers, but then I would have to put on pants if someone came to the door or if the cook came. Lungees are appropriate casual wear, much like sweats, and can be worn in relaxed company or even to the store or on the train.

At first, I didn't know how to wear one, and Dolly's cousin had to show me the secret... Indian men wear a thin rope (they say ribbon) tied around their waist. This ribbon stays on pretty much permanently, during bathing, etc, and is pulled down over the top of the lungee to keep it up. The lungee I got is white with a red border and looks like a Roman robe when I put it on. Its comfortable and allows air flow around the body on sweaty days... even though its late October, its still touching the 90's every now and then.

Most of the food we have been eating has been at the JSS canteen or prepared by our cook. The JSS food is prepared fresh, but in large batches and with an eye on cost, so it shares a lot of characteristics with institutional food, though it is still generally better than college food (although as I write that I am craving a low quality, greasy burger and fries). The cook's food is better, but nothing special - the taste is heavy of packaged garam masala.

When we were on our trip, we got fresh South Indian food every day, and it was delicious. In general, the curries were dry, and really well cooked. The vegetable pieces shrunk to small bits, and the flavor was concentrated and intense. One night we had egg curry, which is similar in some ways to scrambled eggs, except wheras scrambled eggs might be cooked for 4 minutes, these must have been cooked for 30. There was also as much onion as egg, and the result was a strong flavor that stood up well with rice (recipe will follow soon - I will try it myself and make sure it works).

Dolly and I went to Vijaywada over the Diwale holiday to visit her aunt and to make a side trip to Hyderabad to retrieve the rest of our luggage. Vijaywada seemed to be a very nice city. It has about 2.5 million people, and was very clean. I don't think I saw any litter, and not even any cows in the city limits. The roads and autos were also much nicer than in Bilaspur, but I think thats more a reflection of the state of Bilaspur than of Vijaywada.

We did not get much good sleep. The first night was on a train, where we arrived in Vijaywada at 3AM. My shoes were stolen by a begger during an afternoon nap. We spent the next 2 nights on buses to and from Hyderabad. The two nights after that were spent at Padama's (Dolly's aunt's) house where the first night we were bitten by bugs. The second night we decided to sleep on the floor, so Padama could have the bedroom, but she insisted on sleeping on the floor as well, and snored loudly, so we returned to the bedroom. The last night we woke at 2:30 AM to catch a 4AM train home.

Dolly's aunt is very punctual with regards to food. Breakfast is at 8AM, lunch is at 1, and dinner is at 8PM. She would wake us up at 8AM, "Babu, babu, black tea, black tea. Dolly, Dolly, coffee, coffee". She would then insist on us showering after breakfast. Other than that she didn't care what we did, and let us nap whenever we wanted. She is also an excellent cook, and prepared us many delicious curries and sweets. The topic of conversation was always the next meal, and I don't think she even bothered to figure out what had brought us to India. Punctual meals were what was important.

I didn't end up with a good sense of what Diwale is about, except that it is the "festival of lights". I also know that its to celebrate the return of Ram from exile, but nothing special was done in the house. In the evening, the city celebrated by setting of firecrackers, to a degree that I had never seen before. It sounded like a war zone, with loud noises coming from all directions, including rooftops and balconies. When we took a walk, every other store and house had a group of people setting off bombs and rockets, from little firecrackers to big glittering explosions in the sky. There was a thick layer of spent fireworks on the side of the road, but amazingly, the next time we took a walk it was all cleaned up.

Might not be any updates in the next week. We are going to Vijaywada for Diwale, and might not have access to the Internet.

The other day we were at the vegetable stand, which is an outdoors under an awning in front of a storage area. The vendor sits on a concrete platform in back of the vegetables, and the vegetables themsleves are in baskets on tiers of tables/shelves. Near the back was some spinach we wanted, and Dolly reached forward to examine which bunches were freshest, and she put her hand next to one of the other baskets to support her as she leaned in.

After a moment, she jumped back with a scream. Then she stopped, composed herself, thought of what just happened and screamed again. "A lizard licked me!" It was evening time near dinner, and so there were many people. They looked over, expecting to so a giant snake or lizard, but all that was there was a cute, tiny frog, whose wet skin must brushed against her hand.

Dolly was so embarassed that she went and hid a few stores down while I finished vegetable shopping.

We've noticed a phenomenon here where people ask us how much everything costs. It started with cell phones and cameras and things we had brought, and we would always give a lower number than what things actually cost because we were a little embarassed, especially after we found out what people made.

It became even more noticeable when the cook started working in our house. Everything new that would come in - the pillows, the table - she would ask how much it cost. Even a packet of litte rice things that you fry, which had the price tag on them - she asked. When we brought in our new refrigerator and were in front of the building, she asked, and then the neighbors came by and were asking the same.

Its not just how much things cost, its also salaries. Especially since for so long we didn't know that was a difficult topic. As Americans, that is an uncomfortable topic of conversation, as both number that are perceived as too high or two lead to different types of awkwardness.

Apparently all that is normal here, and I can give no reason for why.

We are now in possession of transportation, and have four wheels for the two of us. Two bicycles, purchased new for a grand total of $100 for the pair. Both are heavy and metal and single gear, and Dolly's is a pink woman's model with a basket on the front. We are learning to ride in the crazy traffic, in streets full of potholes and cows and drivers heading the wrong way. We are now sometimes among the drivers going in the wrong direction - on divided streets you just go the direction you're headed until there's a convenient place to cross to the proper side of the road. We also survived several roundabouts on the ride home.

Today is cool, which is nice as it had been unseasonably warm for several weeks. We had been torn during that time between sleeping with the door open to allow cool air in and keeping the door closed to keep the noise out. Being a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of town, one would expect little noise, and that is normally the case. The offenders are not hooligans, or animals, or car horns - it is whistles from security guards. Their purpose is unclear; they seem only to be here for show. Some houses were broken into in the recent past, and the security guards are a reminder of the forces of law and order, though they are not actually part of that force. From what I have seen of these gentlemen, they are older and not very large. A competent burglar would have their choice of overpowering or outrunning these guards. Neither would be neccessary, as the guards blow a whistle every few steps, so you know exactly where they are at all times, no lookouts needed. This occurs at all hours of the night, so you may be woken up at 3 in morning by a whistle intended to let the bad guys know to stay in the house they are stealing from for a few more minutes.

Last night was the celebration of Dashara and we went to see the giant Ravan getting burned. Ram, The hero of the Ramayan, defeated Ravan on this day, and so effigies of Ravan are burned in celebration. There were smaller Ravans set up all over the place, in almost every vacant lot and neighborhood center, and larger ones at the stadium and the police grounds. We went to the police grounds because it was closer and we had gotten a late start.

There was a river of people streaming into the grounds, and when we arrived a large crowd had already gathered aroud the giant Ram, about 4 stories tall. We moved to a place with a good view, and I found myself surrounded by crowd 2 to 3 people deep staring at me, and asking where I was from. Dolly moved over to where two policewomen were to escape some of the crowd, and I followed, and then the policewomen started asking similar questions.

A drunken Ram danced and swung his sword on the back of a truck as the crowd waited. I went to take a video of him, and as I was waiting for him to resume his dance, a man approached and started asking the same questions everyone else was asking, and then told me he was from the local TV news and asked me to step over to where his cameras could get me. I don't know if I made it onto the news or not.

Speeches were given, and then some fireworks were set off. They were set off from the same field everybody was standing in, much closer than American safety inspectors would allow. Some ground based fireworks were set off, too - the kind that start pinwheels spinning and whatnot. Eventually, they lit the fuse on the rocket that shot into Ram's stomach. The rocket zoomed off and caught the statue on fire, and set off bombs placed inside it as more fireworks were shot into the sky.

We have spent the past few days running all over town to get our apartment setup. It is also one of the festivals, and displays have been setup on every block to commemorate the event. The day after the festival ends, there is another holiday, celebrating when Ram killed Ravan. I had thought that the festival was leading up to the holiday, but they are unrelated. Their proximity is confusing, but I guess Hindus have a lot of religious mythology going on.

The displays are similar to nativity scenes in the US, but allow for far more variation. They are setup on stages specially constructed for the occasion and so can only be viewed from the front. In all of them there is a Durga in the center, a lion, Ganesh, and someone getting killed. One of them also had rocket ships. Often the approach is decorated with lights, often like Christmas lights, and sometimes with glowing neon poles. They have been up for 9 days, and are so common and large that they block traffic in many places. I can't think of an American equivalent - the closest I have seen is probably Halloween in Salem, where there's crowds out and about, and things to see on every corner (except there's no drunkeness and debauchery, and the celebration is of good over evil).

Last night, on the last night of Navratri we took a rickshaw around to many of the displays (Side note: we have started taking the rickshaws because we have had so many errands, and they autos get expensive. It is also allows nice views of the city). The first few we viewed without incident. At our third or fourth, we stopped to watch some girls dancing the gharba in front. One of the event organizers saw me, and invited me to the front of the display, and we got up close to look. Then he put me on the microphone and asked me where I was from, and started a chant where I had to say "jai" at the end. By this time the gharba had stopped, and I had to shake a dozen people's hands before I was able to leave.

At the next stop, the events were repeated, except I was taken to see a sand castle Taj Mahal, and no one seemed to be paying attention when they put me on the microphone. At the stop after that, where there was a massive crows and the display involved moving parts ("galloping" horses), the secretary of that event invited Dolly and me to some kind of ceremony on Tuesday night.

Tonight, they burn an effigy of Ravan laced with bombs and fireworks. I think there are several of them. We saw one last night that was about 3 stories tall. So I guess there's a touch of burning man involved as well... again without the debauchery.

When emaciated man was brought back to the hospital last week, the doctors immediately recognized him as someone they had treated, and who was in the terminal stages of stomach cancer. It was not a case of him not being treated for economic reasons, it was a case of all options being explored, and waiting for nature to take its inevitable course.

Also, one of the doctors has been keeping a blog definitely worth reading: http://ramani-fieldnotes.blogspot.com/

Its time for another festival, this one lasting for a week, I believe.

We spent Monday night going out to some of the temples, almost like trick-or-treating. You show up, stand in front of the shrine, hit the bell, and get "prasad", which is usually some rice with coconut and sometimes little candy balls. Then you go out to the next one.

The night got off to a rough start, as one of our friends who worked in the lab pricked himself with an HIV positive needle. He was in a hurry to come play volleyball, and didn't notice the patient was HIV positive, and in his haste, he poked his finger with the needle. Normally, the chances of contracting HIV is is about 0.4%, and with anti-viral drugs it drops to 0.01%, which means it is unlikely, but still scary. The drugs themselves also have nasty side effects, and he has to take them for about a month.

While we were consoling the guy who got pricked, the patient with HIV came in to have another test done. After a few miuntes I realized how crazy it was that we were giving all this attention to our friend who has a small chance of catching the virus, we were ignoring the poor bastard who actually had it. The patient started talking to me in Hindi, and I nodded and went along, repeating a few words here and there. If someone wants to talk, I guess its easy to make them think you are listening.

After all of that, we walked out to a few of the temples, and were taken into the village of Ganiyari, which we didn't even know was there! I had thought the village consisted mostly of the small shopping area where the twice-weekly market is held, and then small clusters of mud houses. However, thats because we come through on the "highway" and there's another main road where the rest of the village is.

The village has little stone streets crowded by houses, many of them two stories tall, and some of them three. Most of the houses look well maintained, and much sturdier than the mud houses. It is a cute village, and we will have to go explore it more, and in daylight.

After visiting some small temples, we went to a larger one with a larger celebration. This is a temple we had visited during the last festival, following the sounds of the tablas. They were inagurating a new shrine, and so were having a big event. There were a few hundred people gathered, and they had an "orchestra" - a band and singers playing into the late hours of the night. I left a bit past one, and they were still playing! People stay up all night for good luck, and our friend who got pricked by the HIV needle stayed, so hopefully the gods give him his good luck!

One of the visible signs of the cheapness of labor here are the rickshaws, three wheeled bicycles which are used as taxis. The cycles have no gears to help the drivers, and the drivers themselves (who are also the engines) usually look thin and malnurished.

Dolly and I have only taken these twice, both at times when we couldn't find an auto. The rickshaws are popular because they are cheaper than autos, but it is hard to watch the poor driver struggle to keep the vehicle moving. Both times we got off before we reached our destination, and gave the driver something extra - the first times in rupees, and the second time in chicken curry.

The emotonal reaction to watching the drivers work is strong, but I often wonder how appropriate it is, and if the right reaction is to not use their services.

When passing by the corners where the drivers wait for passenegers, they are often actively hustling for fares. This is how they earn money, and for them it seems that having a customer is better than not having a customer - if the opposite was true they would just quit their jobs. The prices are low, usually around 30rps for the 4-5 km we are usually travelling. That will buy 10 eggs, a kg of flour, 2 kg of dal, 1-3kg of vegetables, or a half-dozen samosas, so its a small amount, but easily covers the calories they burn (not that that should be the standard for compensation). It is also fairly good compared to the gov't jobs program NREGA which pays 100rps for day of manual labor, or at least is supposed to (there is corruption and inefficiency in the system). Although that is rural work, where things are often cheaper. Additionally, the rickshaws are zero pollution vehicles, and the autos are high pollution vehicles.

Anyway, right now the sight of these drivers pulling their loads is too much for us to be part of, although I will be wondering if we're being more cruel by walking by the waiting rickshaw drivers to hop into an auto.

There is a supermarket in Bilaspur, but we don't know where it is. We do our shopping at vegetable and fruits stands, and the the "general stores" for dry goods like rice and flour and sugar.

The result is that we eat mostly fresh, seasonal food. The result is also that there is only so much variety.

There are four fruits currently available: apples, bananas, pomegranates, and an orange-like citrus fruit (which is green) whose name escapes me at the moment. Sometimes you see pineapples and sour mangoes.

For vegetables your choices are: eggplant, okra, cauliflower, a variety of gourds, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, spinach, green peppers and onions.

This is pretty much all I eat, with the addition of rice in various forms, spices, chickpeas (chana) and occasionally eggs and chicken. (I have found chickpeas/chickpea flower to not bother my allergies... I am waiting to introduce other kinds of dals.) Its probably healthy and fairly ecologically sound (though you can't find organic foods here), but it gets a little boring after awhile. I could really go for some tacos or barbecue.

Yesterday as I was filling up my water bottle, I got an invitation to go out to the villages with the village health program people. Having nothing pressing on my agenda for the day, I headed out with them, kicking myself for not bringing the camera that day.

There were four of us in the jeep, and first we went to one of the village health centers to drop off some supplies and pick up another worker. We then dropped one more off at a nearby village and headed to yet another village, where we had to stop and walk about 200m away beacuse there was a channel cut across the road.

This was probably the smallest village I had been to. Ganiyari is a village, but has a total population around 10,000 and a small "downtown" area with shops. "Downtown" in this village consisted of a water pump and a few goats tied to posts and tree roots. I could see 4 or 5 mud houses, and that was about it. There were certainly houses not visible, but its possible the population of this village was well under 100.

We started at a creche, or pulwari, which is basically daycare. The basic function of these is to provide a meal and 2 snacks to the young children to help in the fight against chronic hunger, as malnutrition at this age has lifelong effects. The creche itself was a small hut made of wood (logs, not milled) and bamboo woven into walls. A chicken roosted in the corner, and her nest had eggs, which I assume were to become snacks for the children. The hut had a low ceiling, and I hit my head on the way out.

Before we did what he had to do there, the village health workers (who I'll call VHW's from here on out, which is also the name given to workers *from* the villages JSS trains) had to see a sick woman in one of the houses. She was given an IV drip for rehydration (I assume), and I was surprised that the VHWs I was with were trained to do that. I thought they mostly educated people about safe water and avoiding mosquito bites, but they apparently have some paramedic skills as well (here para-medic is a lot like para-legal... not emergency workers, but trained though not fully qualified as a doctor).

Seeing to the woman took awhile, and after we had a picnic lunch from a tiffin box "downtown." We then headed to the creche, where the children were weighed and measured. The scale they had was the hanging kind, and the children grabbed onto the hook and hung there as their weight was taken. Ones too small to hang were hung from a harness, and I was surprised how well some of the little ones hung.

We then headed to another larger village, with three times as many children, to repeat the procedure. I sat on the edge of a bed in the corner, and was joined by a fearless young'un about 2 years old who showed no fear and smiled everytime I looked at her(?). Many others just stared. Most of the children here cried during the process of being weighed and measured, even though there seemed to be nothing scary and they could see that nothing bad happened to anyone else who went through the process.

The last stop was intended, I believe, to be another creche, and we turned down what was barely a road to yet another village, where we went first to see another sick man. I was unprepared for what I saw, and I had never seen anything like it in person, only in Holocaust documentaries and fund-raising commercials for famine relief. The man, who I am guessing is in his late 50's was the skinniest human being I have ever seen. His elbows and knees were the thickest point of his arms and legs, and the skin pulled tight on his tendons.

Another man, possibly his son, was brought over and the VHW's started asking him questions. He was well-built and looked strong, especially compared to the sick man. He smiled and laughed as they talked to him. My best guess is that they were asking why he had not sought help earlier, and he was smiling in a "you caught me" type of way and explaining the economics of the decision. The house that the old man was in was marked as a "1 rupee/kg" house, which means that they are very poor even in the context of rural Chattisgargh. I could be entirely wrong about this, and I am going to try to find the story from one of the doctors, or have Dolly translate for me when she gets back. He was loaded into the backseat of the jeep, and we piled in and took him to the JSS hospital, so at least he will get treatment.

Dolly went to Mumbai yesterday to visit her aunt, who came over to accompany her sister for a medical procedure. However, the sister's flight was delayed because of a pilot strike, and so her aunt is here alone for about a week. I was originally going to go, but then the itinerary started involving flying all over the place, and it just sounded too hectic and expensive. So I'm here in Bilaspur alone, and this is already the longest we've been apart in over three months!

Last night while I was waiting for dinner and working on the computer, a schoolteacher from down the hall came by with a book for 1st graders to help me with my Hindi. The funny thing is that it has pictures of things like a cow or carrot, and the Hindi word underneath it. The only problem is, I don't know what half of the words are in Hindi! There is a page with birds, and I don't know what a single one is. Luckily I have another book which has the alphabet and the English equivalents of the letters. I think it will end up being useful, especially the parts where it breaks the letters down a few at a time, with the large script handwriting to trace and then write on your own, lol.

The other day I saw a man on the back of a motorcycle holding a goat in his lap. I have seen 4 (maybe even 5) people on a motorcyle, but never a goat.

Last night we had freshly made pakoras, cooked in our own kitchen, as we waited for our curry. Since we have no gluten in our kitchen, I can be sure everything that comes out is gluten free. I think that ultimately the cook will be a money-saver, because there will be much fewer (no?) nights where we say "lets go out to eat - I'm too tired to cook".

Malaria season is just starting. We sleep in a mosquito net with a "mosquito machine" plugged into the outlet, which as best I can tell works like a Glade plugin, but with pesticide instead of air freshener.

We went to the mill to have rice ground into rice flour. It cost 4 rupees for 3 kg. The mill is right next to JSS, and is attached to a traditionally-styled house, the first I have been to. It is living space for an extended family with a private courtyard in the center, with the businesses (the mill and a small store) attached to the front corners. It is a very charming layout, and a very homey way to have a home.

We have found a cook, or are at least trying one out. She is the wife of the building watchman, and we had her over to talk to her yesterday, and she ended up cooking us dinner. It was good, and we didn't have to do anything. She was very quick at cutting and peeling, and made dinner quickly even with a child in her arms.

Her daughter is always running around the building laughing, and one morning followed Dolly into the guest house, called her "Mom" and then Dolly fed her toast. We have heard of her running into other houses as well. The laughing stopped when she saw me, and she mostly clung to her mother's legs and arms in the kitchen, occasionally forgetting about me and running out laughing, only to go running back in once she saw me again. Oddly, she's only afraid of me in our apartment, and out in the halls she runs right by me.

I also played some music yesterday at my soon to be Tabla teacher's house. His wife gives singing lessons, and I brought me guitar and attempted to play with their singing (I ended up just strumming a D chord). I then played with their son, who played harmonium and showed me some classical Indian chord groupings (played in Western style). If you are interested they were: Am-E-Dm-E-Am (with some changes in voicings) and G-F-C-G, which if you shake the order around is 80% of rock music.

The other night we were invited over to one of the doctor's houses, and when we arrived, the place was swarming with children. It was a birthday party, much like a suburban American birthday party. Children from the neighborhood ran around, ate cake and drank soda, while the parents stayed in their part of the house.

The biggest differences were that they clapped during "Happy Birthday" and added another verse ("May god bless you") and that the food included idli sambhar and dahi. This is, of course, an upper-middle class community and so they have adopted certain Western customs, especially ones that appeal to the younger generation. (They have the Disney Channel in Hindi here, so you can see High School Musical and Zach and Cody dubbed, with certain English phrases, especially slang, still intact)

The day before, we had walked down to the Ganiyari market, and as we were hopping the fence by the gate (this gate is always locked, and it is much quicker just to climb over than to go all the way to the other gate) we were joined by a young boy who is the son of one of the farm workers. He didn't know his age, but we guessed about 6. He had said that he was going to look for other small children to play with (he specifically said "small"). He followed us around the market for a little bit, and we bought him an apple, then sent him on his way to find his friends.

It was initially surprising that such a young person would be allowed to wander so far unsupervised, but there's really no dangers for him. He won't get lost, and he probably knows and is known by 80% of the people he passes. This is a small rural community, so children are more independent and the environment is safer. The biggest danger is probably older bullies.

The other thing about the children here is that they are naked a substantial amount of time. The littlest don't wear diapers, and always have their little baby bottoms hanging out. I would be very wary to hold one. They are also naked in the mornings, when we drive into work. They are somewhere in the process of bathing, which will usually require a trip to the communal water source. I imagine that like children everywhere bath time is a process that involves them running around and trying to not to actually bathe, and so in the morning times there are little naked children running everywhere

Our new apartment!

Before coming here, I was in a band. We played out a few times in the month before I left. Download a live show and our "studio" album here: http://www.sethheidkamp.com/music/Saturday/

Yesterday we went to Raipur with Jacob for a conference on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in Agriculture. He had been invited the day before to come as a speaker, and they had agreed to pay for taxi fare, so he took us with him to meet some people at SIND (State Institute of Rural Development) where the conference was being held.

Its about a 3 hour ride to go around 120km, so we left before 7AM, and took Chattisgargh's main highway, which reminds me of a rural county that has not been maintained. Trucks rumble along slowly, and there is enough room to pass them if no one is coming the other way, so its a game of zooming around the trucks and then swerving back into your lane when a truck or car is coming the other way.


When we got to Raipur, we could feel that it was a bigger city than Bilaspur. The buildings were a little bigger and little fancier. The streets were a little wider and more bustling. The stores were trendier and less run down. It was a reminder, after being away from Hyderbad for almost 10 weeks and Boston for 3 months, of the appeals of the city. We also saw an elephant and camel being led down the street.

We had breakfast at the Indian Coffee House, which I had thought was a generic name for the countless places which serve coffee and simple snacks, but which I now realize is the proper name for a chain of restaurants. The restaurants are a cooperative, owned by the employees, and I think this is the reason Jacob frequents them.

The meeting was about information and communication technology, but Jacob had been invited on very short notice, and only had a presentation we had prepared for him that was intended to be used to advocate SRI to the state government. However, this audience was only interested in the use of IT to promote agriculture, and there were no slides on that topic, and really, it boils down to "there's some stuff on the Web, and some booklets, maybe some videos". Jacob was also introduced as "Dr. Jacob" and then he explained that he is not a PhD, and is in fact a University drop-out.

We met that afternoon with the director of SIND, who has some interest in producing an SRI video, which Dolly and I are looking to work on. We then left and went to the Pradan Raipur office to meet their head. The office was very nice, on the third floor of a new building in an rapidly developing upper-middle class neighborhood. The stairs were marble, and the furniture was all new. The chairs were still wrapped in plastic. Pradan is working with 10,000 farmers in Chattisgargh to promote SRI, and also partnering with other organizations to promote it further. So despite the swankiness of the offices, they appear to have a high ratio of usefulness to expense, and have been very effective in the Orissa/Jharkund/Chattisgargh area.

Jacob stayed behind for a meeting with the Agricultural Minster the next day. He met his friend who was arranging the meeting at (again) the Indian Coffee House.

On the way home, we stopped at a "dhaba" which basically means "roadhouse", and is meant for a place for traveler's to stop and eat. This was a "dhaba" and not a proper dhaba, the way there are "diners" and diners in the us. At a "diner", you get served by a college student and pay $7.99 for eggs, hash browns, and bacon (coffee extra). At a diner, you get served by an older woman and/or meth addict who calls you "hon" and you pay $3.99 for you breakfast, including the coffee. I would call this a "dhaba" because it was just outside of Bilaspur, had a landscaped garden in the back, generally appeared clean, and the prices were normal for a decent Bilaspur restaurant. A dhaba might feature a tarp roof and/or dirt floor, running water optional. I trusted it enough to try the chicken masala, which was nice and spicy, and so far has not made me sick. (The kitchen was also an open kitchen, so you can see them make your food, which is usually a good indicator of cleanliness and general hygiene).

A month or two ago, they set up a volleyball net in the field at JSS, and playing has become one of Dolly's favorite things to do. I enjoy playing, too, but Dolly is almost fanatical about it. She's pretty good, and likes to win, but her favorite thing to do is laugh at the other players. Sometimes she laughs so hard that she is unable to hit the ball on the next serve because she is still laughing.
Some of the players are pretty funny. One apologizes to his supervisor everytime his mis-hits, whether the are on the same team or not. We figured out that he is apologizing for the general inconvienience and disrupting the flow of the game. Once he even apologized for one of my bad shots. Other people won't move even a single step to hit the ball, and some just move funny. So, Dolly spends as much time laughing as actually playing.

She also makes very funny faces when she hits the ball. The volleyball is pretty hard, and especially when we first started, we would get bruises on our arms. Dolly hasn't gotten the overhead hit down, so she is dependent on the more painful arm hit, and she makes a face of anguish and pain as she prepares for the shot. She also makes an angry face if she is going to hit the ball, but its not as funny.

She's also the only girl who plays. The other women are certainly allowed to play, but it seems not to be culturally acceptable for them to participate.

We made our first dinner in our new apartment last night. Bhindi (sautee onions and chilis, add ginger/garlic paste, salt, garam masala, and tumeric, cook for awhile, add tomatoes) and tomato chutney (sautee onions and chilis, add tomatoes, salt, pepper, sugar, and cook for awhile) with rice. The freshness of the vegetables, especially the chutney was delicious, and even though the bhindi was cooked, it wasn't cooked into mush like the okra at the canteen often is.

In the jeep in the way home, we heard a story about a patient who had been in the hospital for two weeks with an abdominal infection. The night before he was scheduled for surgery, he ran off, taking his IV drip and nose tube with him. He buried them along the road somewhere and ran off to his village, where he died the next day. The surgeon at JSS is the one I would go to if I needed to be operated on in Chattisgargh, but the thought of surgery must be scary for someone not used to technology.

We had weighed ourselves shortly before we moved to Ganiyari. I weighed just over 60kg (132 lbs) and Dolly weighed just over 50 kg (110 lbs). We weighed ourselves again yesterday, and I was down to 55kg (121 lbs) and Dolly was down to 47kg (104 lbs). The take home lesson is the all you can eat rice and potato curry diet (with occasional diarrhea) in an effective weight loss regimen. BTW, this puts both our BMIs right around 18.5, the cutoff for being underweight.

This morning while shuttling things between our place and the guest house, Dolly heard a guitar and cam running to find me. It was a school boy playing guitar, and his father is an evangelical Christian and as part of their thing they have a rock band. Next door is a drum set, and he says they have bass guitar and amps. So I may have a chance to play some plugged in electric guitar, or at least find a place to buy new strings. And a chance to bang on some drums. (There is also a tabla teacher across the street where I will soon be taking lessons, and Dolly will learn singing).

Before we left Ganiyari on Saturday morning, Sharta, the girl who has a crush on me came by our room to say goodbye. This was the first time she had come to where we were staying. She was talking about how nice American weddings look in the movies, so we showed her some pictures from the weddings we've been to. She started out surprised by the tightness of our friend Germain's wedding dress, and the picture of John way up under her dress to get the garter. We then showed her pictures of my sisters wedding, where many of the pics were me giving Dolly a kiss or holding her close. Sharta flinched visibly each time she saw one of those. (This may have been more due to her crush than to cultural standards) She also asked if (said that) that Dolly wore short dresses, even though by American standards they were entirely appropriate. Her last comment was "I guess you live a different kind of life".

Yesterday there was some confusion as to where the key to the computer room was, so Dolly and I went and hung out in the lab, where we know most of the people (and its air conditioned). Surrinder was showing us the instrument that tests for blood sugar, and someone came over from surgery with a bag with a giant translucent bubble the size of my fist. We looked in the records (India is not as strict as the US in terms of medical privacy) and found that it was an ovarian cyst. Ewww. It was probably still warm.

I had forgot how strong and foul the smell of the city was. We noticed it as we were walking towards the bus stop. In the JSS campus the sanitation is good, and in the village of Ganiyari the population density is low. In the city, the density is high and the sanitation quality is "open sewers" so you are assaulted by new stenches at every turn.

We do have our new apartment, sparsely but thoughtfully furnished by the Doctors and Jacob. Our first night back was spent in the guest house, however, as we did not have a way of hanging our mosquito net. There is a hot water heater in the guest house, so we were also able to take a warm shower, which was nice.

It is also Dolly's birthday today (call her! 9406433262). We went out for chicken (Tandoori and Curry), and I made her a breakfast of French toast (one of the few American foods we have the ingredients to make). Last week we bought cloth for a new outfit, and had it tailored last week. Though the tradition is to wear it on your birthday, she wore it on Saturday instead, as that was our last workday living in Ganiyari, and the German med students were also wearing their new Indian-style outfits.

The med students and Jaya, a village health trainee from Assam were both leaving, and Jaya brought henna, a paste that stains the skin and acts like a temporary tatoo. She was decorating people's hands, and the German girls had some done. One of the henna artists entheusiatsically started on a swastika on one of their hands, not knowing the significance. The German girl, not knowing the Indian meaning (a religious symbol that pre-dates the Nazis by thousands of years) stared in horror, and Dolly did her best to explain to both sides the other culture. She has side of the story on her blog.

Today is our last day on campus. We will spend the night and then move to our new apartment tomorrow. Dolly is very sad about this, as she is a very social person, and has made many friends. I am more ambivalent, as I am looking forward to the comforts of having our own palce, and I have a language barrier with almost all of the people here. That said, we will now have to find a way to spend our evenings, and hopefully find a new circle of friends.

Last night we had a mini jam session with me on guitar and Anil on harmonium. It was kind of messy, as I don't have a good handle on Indian music, and he doesn't have a good handle on western music. The songs to me sounded like random noodling, and to add to the difficulty he very much preferred the black keys, which meant that I had to figure out what key(s) that meant I should be playing in. He didn't know any chord names or which notes were which so I couldn't ask/tell him what to play. We got it sounding good for a while when I did show him C and G and had him playing those. Unfortunately, I don't know when the next one will be, as my guitar will be going back to Bilaspur and we won't be spending our evenings here.

In the past month, I have eaten a simple, mostly vegetarian diet. I have eaten meat once, and eggs about every other day. I have not touched alcohol or taken a hot shower. I have had tea almost daily, but usually only one small cup. I have not watched TV or listened to radio, though I have listened to mp3s. On many days I get up early to do yoga.

What has been the result of all this clean, healthy living? I have lost about 10 pounds, had diarrhea 3 times, and have generally felt hungry and weak. I do not recommend it. I think the main culprit has been the lack of meat and calories. Even a mountain of white rice can only provide your body with so much. Would things have been different if there was sausage or bacon for breakfast every day, and an occasional chicken roast or lamb curry? Possibly... the other things I have not missed so much, but there is apprehension at every meal - will the food be tasty enough that I can eat enough to fill myself up?

The yoga has felt beneficial, and I think I will continue, on those days that I wake up in time. The style of yoga is very gentle and I appreciate the stretching it provides for my back and the rest of my body.

One of the major differences between the socio-economic structures of the US and India is the ratio of the costs of materials and labor. Compared to America, Indian labor is ridiculously cheap, and materials are relatively expensive... steel and glass and other materials are moved fairly easily, levelling out their prices all over the world. People are not as mobile, especially internationally, and so the labor rates vary wildly.

This is apparent in many ways, most recently the other night as I looked at a plate made from leaves held together by little slivers of wood. In the US, the costs of the labor involved would make it much more expensive than paper plates. Here, it is a simple, economical solution. Another is example is street cleaning. They do not use big, hundred thousand dollar machines. They pay old women to sweep them with brooms, probably less than a dollar a day. Imagine how insane it is to spend you whole day literally sweeping the street of dirt and dust.

Overall, it affects the balance of what kinds of things are economically feasible. Working class families can afford a housecleaner and/or a cook, but must rely on a bicycle for transportation. Markups in restaurants are much less, as the labor in the dining room and kitchen is such a small percentage of the cost.

It also effects construction approaches. Heavy machinery is again put aside in favor of manual labor. Need 2 tons of bricks moved up to the 4th floor? Hire a few women to carry them on their heads.

Much of the staff here at JSS, who are performing skilled labor, whether lab work or computer work, get paid around 3000rps/month, or about $60 a month. Thats a long shift at US minimum wage, and some of you make that in an hour. Here, it is enough to live adequately, though not luxouriously or even "comfortably". It is still much more than manual laborers, and is also a reliable paycheck. There is no risk of going hungry, which is a comfort not afforded to a large percentage of the population.

In contrast, our apartment in a high-rise (5 floors), in a nice neighborhood rents for that same $60/month, and we will be getting paid a few times the amount of the local workers. It is a struggle to balance the feelings of worrying how to get by for a month on what used to be a days' pay and the sense of guilt at getting paid so much more than the people we work next to.

We went into Bilaspur yesterday to see our new apartment, pick up a SIM card, and eat some chicken. The apartment is identical to the guest house, and though there's no furniture yet, its pretty nice. We should be able to make a home out of it.

Unfortunately, with respect to the chicken, we were not able to get any, as it was a festival holiday. We knew that it was a local thing where wives fast for their husbands and single women fast inhopes of landing a husband, but we did not know that it was also Ganesh's birthday, and the first festival of festival season. Long story short... on this festival day, no chicken.

We had gone to the restaurant with two German medical students visting for a month. Both are women and very light skinned, and one is almost 6 feet tall and blonde. I thought I attracted attention, but it is nothing like the attention these girls get. Men stopped and stared, or catcalled, and there were flatbed trucks full of young men who all stared and waved. They took it pretty well though, and pointed out that it was all just staring and no one said anything to them or did anything, and they had gotten used to it.


When we got back, we heard the sounds of tablas and singing while we were eating dinner. We were going to go out to find it when our friend Surrinder told us he knew where it was comign from and took us there. The sounds were from a temple where they were singing song-stories from scriptures. I had planned on just sitting by the edge and watching, but that proved to be impossible, as my white skin made me a celebrity. They took us on a tour of the temple, and the various shrines, and there was a very cool and ancient tree growing in the center, with long vines coming down from the branches, which would themselves take root and from new trunks. It was then explained to us that Ganesh was invoked when new things were started, and this (being Ganesh's day) was a day to start new things. I will take it as an auspicious sign that this was the day we saw our new place.

We stayed for awhile until food was served... I don't think they would have let us leave if we had wanted to. Part of these festivals are apparently free food. We sat on long mats, and plates made of leaves were place in front of us. They were made of 4 or 5 leaves, held together with pieces of toothpicks, and must have been assembled by hand. The food was rice and a chickpea curry with a side of fresh salad/salsa. The freshness of the salad (onions, tomatoes, chilis, and corriander) was especially refreshing, as fresh veggies have been very much missing from our diet. After the dinner we, left along with many other people... apparently many people show up just for the food.