Back at Last... To Bangalore!

We've finally returned home to Bangalore after a month of travel and adventure! We've spent all of November romping around parts of rural India visiting different communities and studying ecology and livelihood. We visited villages that have been living similar lifestyles for hundreds of years, unchanged by the rapid globalization taking place, save for when they're displaced to build dams. That actually happens a lot. The government undertakes giant hydro dam projects to supply water/electricity to the urban rich... often with little to no compensation. Or notification or that matter. Villagers have awoke in the middle of the night to find their village flooding had to flee with what little they could salvage. Their opportunities without land are significantly more slime as well.

BUT! We also visited villages who have been practicing agroforestry for many, many years. agroforestry basically means farming organically and usually the nearby forest for timber, medicine, soap, sandpaper, toothbrushes (I know, right?) dyes, and food in a sustainable manner. Their knowledge of the woods is outstanding! Even the children know the uses of hundreds of different plants and they rarely need to visit hospitals because their herbal medicine is so advanced. Although, over the past couple decades pollution has brought on several foreign diseases the villages have difficulty treating.
The village farm without any synthetic pesticides and grow a whole host of delicious crops. Beans, rice, ginger, turmeric, millets, carrots, eggplant, onions, squash, honey etc etc. They said they crop about a hundred crops, ensuring a plentiful supply of tasty, nutritious food year round.

Their rustic lifestyle is enchanting. I've never seen such sustainable, simple, and independent living that co-exists so intimately with the natural world. This experience really made me examine my own life and how grossly it contrasts these simple villagers. I don't grow my own food. I'm completely dependent upon others to supply me with food, cloths, housing, and any other assortment of goods. In return I can (some day) supply currency and services. I've never thought about how unsustainable the American lifestyle has become. Without a complex network of transportation based on non-renewable, everyone in suburbs would probably starve! It makes me question whether the urban life we live now will be possible in 50, 100 years. If we can't fix our energy crisis it won't work.

We also got to spend time with month being tourists, which was fun but difficult. From Delhi we took a bus to visit the Taj Mahal, which was... well, big. Impressive. Ambitious. And I'm told that all the laborers who built it were given fair wages, good working hours, and full health benefits. It just seems so cruel that what was built with the blood of servants and sucked up gobs of money to feel a kings fantasy is now a 'Wonder of the World.” It was a good experience, but I find more beauty and art in India's wild rain forests than in some big chunk of marble.

We also started our unit on religion about a week ago (YES!). We've spoken with Muslim scholars, Christians, monks from Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and visited many temples in between. My favorite was the temple of Hanamon, the monkey god. Why? MONKEYS! They get free reign of the holy grounds. You can probably guess why. They can be mean suckers though, you shouldn't really look at them. Or wave at them. Or carry anything remotely tasty.

Two weeks until home! Know that I cannot wait to see you all and expect several good stories about he past semester. Take care and enjoy the last weeks of the semester!