Today I learned how to ride a motorcycle. Ragesh took me to the field across the street, where after stalling about 10 times, I got the feel of the clutch. After a little spin around the field, we went a kilometer or so down the road and back. The motorcycles here are small and efficient, and not the powerful speed demons you find in the US. They don't get ridden much faster than 30-40 mph. (and yes mom, I know thats fast enough to get hurt, but the danger in motorcycles is when you ride like a maniac. Also, there are no seatbelts in the Jeep.)
We have also gone to villages the past two days where Dolly and I have sat in on meetings with local groups of farmers. These farmers are getting incentives from AID Boston to practice SRI in half an acre of their land. They meetings are in Hindi, so all I understand is pani (water). Its an especially dry summer, so a lot of what the farmers are saying is pani this, pani that.
Today's meeting was a little more interesting, mostly because of one farmer who was complaining about monkeys in his fields, along with imitations of what they do. One of the things they do is grab at snakes and play with them until they're dead, listening to the head every now and then to see if they can hear anything.
There was also a funny exchange (translated by Dolly) where Jacob told the farmers that two of them willing to work with water harvesting would be sent to Orissa or Jharkand (neighboring states), to see how they do it there. He asked them if they knew what Jharkand and Orissa were, and most admitted they didn't and one said it was a train station he had been to. It shows the type of life these people live... they know a lot about their local environment, and the neighboring states are just not in any way relevant to what happens in their lives in their village.
As Dolly posted, I was sick on both Thursday and Saturday due to poop water. We do our best to stick to clean (and treated) water sources, but its just not possible to do 100%. The most likely suspect is the canteen, which did test positive for fecal bacteria. We use the water there to wash our hands and dishes, so thats going to cause some illness. Exposure to poop is pretty much inevitable, as there is poop everywhere. There are cows. There are dogs. There are open sewers, and there are even little kids running into the grass for a squat. Luckily, we are prepared, and have enough antibiotics packed with us to handle multiple such incidents.
We have also gone to villages the past two days where Dolly and I have sat in on meetings with local groups of farmers. These farmers are getting incentives from AID Boston to practice SRI in half an acre of their land. They meetings are in Hindi, so all I understand is pani (water). Its an especially dry summer, so a lot of what the farmers are saying is pani this, pani that.
Today's meeting was a little more interesting, mostly because of one farmer who was complaining about monkeys in his fields, along with imitations of what they do. One of the things they do is grab at snakes and play with them until they're dead, listening to the head every now and then to see if they can hear anything.
There was also a funny exchange (translated by Dolly) where Jacob told the farmers that two of them willing to work with water harvesting would be sent to Orissa or Jharkand (neighboring states), to see how they do it there. He asked them if they knew what Jharkand and Orissa were, and most admitted they didn't and one said it was a train station he had been to. It shows the type of life these people live... they know a lot about their local environment, and the neighboring states are just not in any way relevant to what happens in their lives in their village.
As Dolly posted, I was sick on both Thursday and Saturday due to poop water. We do our best to stick to clean (and treated) water sources, but its just not possible to do 100%. The most likely suspect is the canteen, which did test positive for fecal bacteria. We use the water there to wash our hands and dishes, so thats going to cause some illness. Exposure to poop is pretty much inevitable, as there is poop everywhere. There are cows. There are dogs. There are open sewers, and there are even little kids running into the grass for a squat. Luckily, we are prepared, and have enough antibiotics packed with us to handle multiple such incidents.
