Hindi word of the day: गांव (ganw - village)

Usually I try to include several adventures in each blog post since so much happens here in a week, but I've decided to dedicate the entirety of this post to the tribal village visit because it was the most spiritually enlightening, life-changing experience I've ever had. JUST KIDDING. I bet that Julie read that sentence and almost had a freak-out that I'd finally learned to write a blog the right way. Not yet, Plattster, not yet.

Woooooooo second most polluted! Funny how this headline almost makes it seem like a good thing?

Anyway, all faux-pretentiousness aside, the tribal village visit was actually amazing. We spent two days (which was way too short) visiting three villages in the Thane (tuh-nay) district. Spending a weekend outside the city was a nice break on so many levels. For one, the pollution is not nearly as bad out in the hills as it is in Pune (the second-most polluted city in India), which meant that a) my lungs didn't hurt when I breathed and b) amaaazzzzzing stargazing occured. The scenery of the hills is beautiful, so the six-hour car ride was actually really pleasant (and I didn't get nauseous, even on a really windy, bumpy dirt road! Then again, Rohan wasn't driving, so that might provide the explanation). We were staying at a lodge owned by an NGO called BAIF which we learned a bunch about and were served delicious meals and then got to lounge around on the bench swing and in the gardens during our free time. It was awesome.

The view from the car.

The first village we visited was way the hell down a dirt road and basically cut off from civilization. BAIF had trained the villagers to farm using modern, sustainable methods so that they could make a living. The Thane district is known for having very impoverished civilizations and BAIF helps them learn farming methods that will raise their standard of living permanently by providing them a source of income. We were shown around the farm and got to learn about the way they grow tomatoes and mangoes.

This is a really interesting conservation method the villagers throughout the region use. Instead of chopping down trees, they cut off only the branches and leave the trunk. The next season, new branches will grow from the places where the old ones were cut so that the trees can continuously provide wood. The trees in the foreground are ones that have been cut recently and the ones in the background were probably cut last year.

The people definitely seemed happy and very grateful for having an opportunity to break away from poverty. Nonetheless, it still seems slightly problematic to me that the methods BAIF teaches are all western, "modern" techniques. As the founder of BAIF indicated in a film interview we watched, western=more developed=better. But without a doubt, the farmers living in this village seemed to be much more positive and proud of their lives than some of the other villagers we saw, so I'm not really sure I have any conclusive thoughts on this.

The beans of this tree are used to purify water; studies have shown that they have essentially the same effect when soaked in water as a filter does.

The tomatoes the farmers were growing. Jealous, mommy?

In the second village we went to, we got to tour around a public health center, which was a very intense experience. The center itself was pretty impressive--it seemed to be respected by most of the villagers (including the witch-doctor), it was managed and overseen by councils in each of the 50-some villages it served, and it had a staff of intelligent, well-trained, very dedicated doctors. In the maternity room, we got to see a newborn baby and its mother. Dr. Apte, the Public Health professor--who came on the village visit with us and had actually lived in this particular village for a year working in this public health center--explained that the government actually pays mothers to stay in a hospital during and post-labor in order to discourage women from giving birth at home because this tradition leads to higher rates of infant and mother mortality. As we walked out of the maternity room, however, two doctors rushed a woman into another room and closed the door--and Dr. Apte told us she had tried to poison herself. Suicide accounts for 10 percent of the deaths in the Thane district. We barely had any time to process this information before we were moved along to the next part of the clinic. It was definitely an unsettling experience that I still haven't quite processed.

My favorite part of this village was wandering. We were given the opportunity to walk through the lanes of the village accompanied by Marathi translators. I started talking to one woman outside a store and she invited us onto the porch of her house. Her husband was 90 years old and had previously been a teacher in a nearby village as well as the chief of this village. We talked about their children (they live in nearby villages), politics (each village decides together which party to vote for--this village supports the BJP), and changes in the village over the years (she said the main one was that houses were now built out of brick rather than sticks and cow dung).

Most people in the village own at least one cow. This one belonged to the couple above and really enjoyed licking my hand.

Awwww baby goat. There are baby animals everywhere in the villages.

The kids in the village were shy but loved having their photo taken. They cracked up every time we showed them the photos we had taken.

The third village we visited was an "artisan village." We were welcomed into the homes of two artists who actually support themselves by selling their work, mostly in Mumbai.

The view of the hills from the artisan village.

This woman and her husband make amazing paper maiche art out of recycled paper. Her husband had just taken all of their finished work to a show in Mumbai that weekend, so we didn't get to see many completed projects, but she constructed a turtle to show us the method. She told us that her husband's father supported himself the same way, but that her children probably wouldn't continue the art because they had been educated and were planning on going into other professions.

Making this turtle only took her about twenty minutes.

The pooja room in the paper maiche artist's house. They use drums and other instruments to perform ghazals, a form of song worship. One wall is lined with images of gods and goddesses. They had a big one of Kali, which I was obviously stoked about. Most people in Pune seem to worship Ganesh (or Ganapati).

Getting to see the way 70 percent of Indians live was a really cool experience and definitely made me want to see as much as possible while I'm here. I think I'll be taking a lot more weekend adventures from here on out.

I'll try to do another post tomorrow about this weekend because it has been a spectacularly amazing weekend. For now, enjoy the puppy of the day.

One of the four puppies who lived at the lodge we stayed at. Christie named him Idli.