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.