Significant events
Contrary to what my previous posts may have had you believing, my term here in India has not been all delicious food, cute children, cows on the streets and jangly anklets. Those were just the easier things to write about. The other bits, the harder bits, don't have pictures to write cute captions for. There is no "light" way to write about them, no obvious tone to adopt for an insightful or entertaining blog post, no concise concluding paragraph to sum it all up. I could omit them completely, continue on in the vein of cute cultural anecdotes and fun facts about India, but that would feel wrong somehow, as if I were keeping the difficult parts a secret or covering them up. I feel as if I've come to maintain a certain level of honesty and transparency by publishing my writing on a blog, so to leave out the most significant events of my term might feel like I was going backwards. I choose to write on this blog because sorting my thoughts out for others to read is the best way for me to make sense of my life – in the translation, or re-telling of what goes on around me, I learn much more than if I were simply reporting events through mass emails or keeping a diary for myself.
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Solitude Farm
On the second day of service learning at Solitude we started work on the house. The “Sultan of Solitude,” a.k.a. Krishna, asked us what we would like to get out of the experience and what kind of work we would prefer to do. “Whatever’s needed, sir. We are at your command,” we replied. So he sent us off to work on the house. Working on the house meant taking handfuls of mud (dirt, water, some sand, some human hair, and a touch of cow manure) and smearing it over chicken wire and metal rods, stretched in two-foot squares between wooden panels. There were a few other people doing the same thing, and I assumed that they were the experts. Little did I know that they hadn’t been there too much longer than we had. To get the job done, everybody cooperated and shared whatever knowledge or insights they had, and somehow we managed to start busting out some mean mud-panel walls. The first few weren’t very pretty, but they were still quite mean. We went back to the house almost every day for the first couple weeks of service learning, picking up new little tricks and strategies here and there. Soon enough, we found ourselves mud wall veterans, able to help teach others what we had only recently learned, which was very satisfying.
One of the super things about Solitude is that there is a constantly evolving, rotating batch of volunteers. The people I met during the first few days seemed so comfortable and at home that I figured they had been there for years. It didn’t take very long for me to feel about that comfortable, too. Krishna’s theory when it comes to taking in volunteers is that skills, experience, and prior knowledge stand second to having an open heart, an open mind, and an eager willingness to dive head first into the farm—not to mention the well, which we finally discovered during the last, and hottest, week there. During our time at Solitude, there was never a shortage of work, and it was so varied and all-over-the-place that it never became repetitious. Well, working on the house became fairly repetitious, but it was sloppy-muddy-fun enough that my interest never subsided.
Working with the land was what primarily attracted me to the farm, but the whole experience turned out to be deeply satisfying in unexpected ways. The place had a true feeling of community, despite the fact that many people might have only known each other for a matter of weeks. Plus, the lunches they serve there were highly enlightening in themselves. Whether farming, eating, or building walls from organic materials, my time there was a time of building a new relationship with the land, with myself, and with a dynamic new community of people. Super!
-Gordon
Solitude Farm
This is Annie's blog entry...
I believe that my experience at Solitude taught me about a multitude of components intrinsic to running an organic farm with a clear vision for social- and self- sustainability. Being present on a daily basis and open to interactions with whoever happened to also be there gave me the chance to engage with both travelers from around the world – who shared their stories – and with the local Tamil villagers – who shared their love and language. I loved being able to work with my hands and to get dirty – covered in dirt or cow s*** or mud or sawdust – and found it to be a truly refreshing way to get out into Auroville, away from my classes and out of my room at Mitra. Solitude is a truly inspiring place. I sincerely believe in their vision and in their ability to live very differently from both the average Aurovillian and the average American. In the end, being able to participate in the community around Auroville on a daily basis provided me with a sense of grounding and understanding that would have been difficult to find elsewhere.
WELL Paper
“Good morning!” I holler as I climb the crumbling concrete stairs. “Hello! How are you!” respond eight of the most beautiful women I have ever come to know. They sit in a circle lining the edges of the small dark room. Newspapers, scissors, hammers, rulers, and small metal tea cups are scattered all over the room. Stacked high are hand woven baskets made from recycled newspapers. The women have spent many hours crafting the baskets by hand, while giggling and teasing one another the way sisters would.
I was welcomed into this group of women a little over six weeks ago. They belong to an organization called WELL paper; Women’s Empowerment through Local Livelihood. These women were chosen from multiple Tamil villages, all eight women immigrants to the Auroville area. They have all been taught how to weave beautiful baskets out of recycled newspapers. With the guidance of Orly and Danny, the founders of WELL paper, the women have been taught not only crafting of baskets, but empowerment methods and marketing skills, to eventually send them on their way of completely running their own business.
Currently the women are through with their trainings and sit together six days a week creating baskets. They receive orders from Orly and Danny and are responsible for producing the numbers they request. Together these eight women make up an unstoppable team, each woman has a special place in their group, and all are equals. The past couple of months I have been sitting with these women for a few hours five days a week. We struggled to communicate, none of the women speak very much English, and I do not speak more than two words of Tamil. Somehow we found our way through these barriers, through laughter, songs, smiles, and the pure feelings of friendship. These women have given me more than they will ever know, I have become stronger through their endurance, more accepting of myself through their empowerment, and more open to life through their incredible curiosity and their welcoming smiles. These women have made my trip to India so enriching and beautiful, and I will be forever grateful to them.
Pitchandikulam Forest
Pitchandikulam Forest is a 63-acre patch of land on the outskirts of Auroville, India. Founded in 1973, Pitchandikulam�s mission was, and continues to be, the revival of the bits of Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest (TDEF) that are still in existence. Throughout the centuries the TDEF has been almost completely wiped out by the many civilizations that have occupied the area. Today no more than 500 acres of undisturbed TDEF remains.
Today Pitchandikulam Forest is an environmental education facility for the local community with a focus on the teaching of conservation, identification and use of indigenous medicinal plants. They have children�s learning programs visit the forest and educational walks where information is displayed artistically on slates of stone painted by artists. Pitchandikulam also has many outreach projects up and down the east coast of India, within the Kaliveli Bioregion. They have planted gardens and built environmental education centers at some of the poorest schools in the area.
I chose Pitchandikulam Forest for one reason but became committed to it for quite another. My original idea was that I could learn about and work with indigenous plant remedies. It became apparent to me that the learning I would be doing would have little application for me at home and, because of the language barrier, I would have very limited contact with villagers themselves.
At this point I became highly invested in doing something for the many women�s groups Pitchandikulam holds. I researched to do a comparison of environmental footprints between four homes. Two in the United States that could, together, represent the �average�, and two in India, one from a Tamil village and a middle class home in Pondicherry. This information was then to be passed on to the women�s educational groups to help illustrate the differences in practices between the United States and India, and how certain practices are more sustainable than others.
Alexa
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Discipline Farm
Auroville is an intentional community in southern India. People from all over the world come to live here with the notion of realizing human unity. Auroville has also become a place for people to develop innovative ways to live sustainably in a holistic sense (spiritually, ecologically, personally). The working units that have sprouted up in this community reflectively promote different aspects of sustainability. Living Routes is a study abroad program that has for the last ten years been bringing groups of students to immerse themselves into this life and these practices for a few months. Service-learning is the most integrative part of our program here; it is basically a morning internship chosen by each individual student where we are given the chance to work with an Auroville based project or business.
We both chose to go to Discipline Farm for our service learning. Discipline Farm is a mostly fruit-producing organic farm that was established about 35 years ago. It is currently run by Jeff (originally form Australia) with help from Morugan (India) and Gino (Italy). We were drawn there by a desire to learn more about organic farming and the friendly, informal atmosphere of the farm. During our time at Discipline, we were presented with a myriad of different tasks that brought us all around the farm. We learned about and partook in some of the more alternative practices of the farm such as the process of vermi-compost and trying to manipulate some tomatoes into growing hydroponically. We also partook in the more mundane tasks required to run a farm, such as weeding basil, transplanting papaya and passion fruit seedlings and feeding the cows. We both learned a lot about agriculture in southern India and about methods to make farming much more ecologically friendly.
(Alex and Kelly)
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Solitude Farm
Food has never tasted so good! I don’t think I ever fully appreciated what goes into a meal until I started working at Solitude. Solitude is an all-natural, organic farm that serves lunch five days a week for Aurovillians and guests. The meals, served on banana leaves, consist of the heartiest local grains, like varagu or samai, along with sambar, sautéed pumpkin and fresh salad. The food itself is incredibly healthy and tasty, but what makes it so delicious is having been a part of the whole process of creating the meal. From planting, mulching and weeding, to harvesting, cooking and serving, I was able to watch the seeds travel all the way from the soil to hungry mouths. Everything tastes so much better when you are really connected to what you are eating.
My favorite task at Solitude was making the salad, which is nothing like making salad at home, where I toss some pre-washed vegetables together with vinaigrette in less than 10 minutes. At Solitude making salad starts around 10 a.m. Other volunteers pick the tomatoes and lettuce while I forage barefoot for chicken spinach beneath the banana and papaya trees. Sometimes the sprinkler goes off while I’m collecting and I get a cool, refreshing shower. After I have a nice big bucket full of beautiful greens I sit down to pluck the leaves from their stems. I double wash everything with water from Solitude’s well and mix all the vegetables together for a beautiful salad with a simple salt, lemon and oil dressing. At 12:30 when the volunteers and workers come in from the fields and the guests arrive for lunch, you can really tell how much the food is appreciated. There is so much positive energy and love that goes into every part of the process, your taste buds can really tell.
-leigh
My Work as A Pale Male at WomenPower
Throughout this semester I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with Auroville Village Action Group, specifically the WomenPower program. WomenPower uses microlending clubs as a basis for economically empowering Tamil women. With over 700 clubs and nearly 3,500 women in all of the clubs, WomenPower has built a strong reputation and becaome a powerful social force around Auroville. WomenPower also hosts many seminars, workshops, and Women's Days to introduce health issues, breaking caste barriers, and to inform the women about important topics that directly affect them.
I originally came to WomenPower thinking I would get the opportunity to test out what I learned in Econ 101 and 102 by working with microlending in action. I soon discovered that Anbu (the WomenPower Coordinator) and destiny (whoever she is) had other plans. I was mentioning one day to Anbu at the very begining of my work about what my background in Sustainable Development consisted of. When I mentioned I hoped to learn more about solar energy in Auroville she pulled out her cell phone (which I'm pretty sure has everyone in Auroville in it) and she said "We should get a solar cooker from CSR!" Now I was surprised when she already had a contact and an interest to build the cooker and even more shocked when she gave me 10,000 Rs to carry it out!
Now 6 weeks later the cooker is still under construction at CSR but hopefully it will be done soon. However questions around the solar cooker inspired another project that consumed most of my time with AVAG. While I was pondering how to introduce a solar cooker to Tamil village women I began to talk with various people around Auroville and eventually came up with a plan to implement Global Warming Awareness seminars for AVAG groups. These seminars took place on the 27th and 31st of March during two of the monthly meetings with over 100 club representatives at each meeting. For the seminars I asked Lourdes at Botanical Garden to give a global warming powerpoint in Tamil, Ganesh with his fuel efficient wood burning stoves, and Minh from CSR to present alternative energy potential at the seminar. The seminars both turned out really well with everyone showing up, the power going out for just a minimal amount of time, and the women all stayed attentive and engaged. It was interesting to discover that none of the women had ever heard of Global Warming before but when we explained it in terms that linked up with the changes around this area, they seemed to understand the basics. I could write many more stories of inspiration from the 3,500 women I worked with this semester but this gives you readers a general idea of what I did there. I know that despite the incredibly long out to AVAG headquarters everyday I will miss it terribly especially when there is no substitute for that atmosphere of inspiration and potential.
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Martuvam Healing Forest
Martuvam Healing Forest began in 2002 by a man named Sivaraj, with help from the Netherlands based Isaimayam Trust, along with the Pitchandikulam bio-resource center. The healing forest was planted with herbs, bushes and trees that are used in the Siddha-system of medicine, a traditional form of south-Indian healing that is similar to Ayurvedic herbal healing. According to Sivaraj, his intent in creating the healing forest was to revive traditional healing practices by providing healing services to the surrounding villages, as well as to restore and protect the land contained within the forest. In addition to the herbal aspect of the forest, Sivaraj is engaged in several other outreach programs, including the energy blanket project, where profits earned from the blankets made at Martuvam support the community art school he is constructing. Also, every week a group of handicapped children and orphans from Pondicherry come to Martuvam to escape the city and experience nature.
A typical day of work at Martuvam consisted of working with local Tamil villagers on the ongoing projects happening at the healing forest. We helped to build a community kitchen, from start to finish, that will be used for supporting the various outreach projects Sivaraj intends to hold at Martuvam. While working on the kitchen, we learned the specific methods of Tamil construction, including digging holes with small hand shovels and metal rods (used to loosen the clay soil), carrying sand and rocks in metal bowls on top of our heads, mixing cement, and layering bricks using a string as a level. Not only was this a physical challenge, it was a social difficulty as well because the people we worked alongside spoke little to no English. .. and would sometimes shout at us in Tamil as if we understood.
Mungai, Sheila, Sukumar and Mono, the Tamil workers, were apprehensive about us at first, but gradually warmed up to us, even to the point of renaming us Pepsi and Miranda after two of India's soft drinks. They enjoyed asking us about our lives in America (through our regular game of conversation charades) and often found humor in poking fun at American culture. They also enjoyed pointing out our social faux-paus, such as wearing toe rings (which in Tamil culture is a symbol of marriage. Aside from the physical experience of working at Martuvam, learning how to cultivate relationships that overcame both cultural and language barriers was the most valuable lesson we learned at this service project (as well as learning not to take ourselves too seriously...).
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Pete's Solitude Entry
This is Pete Wackernagel's blog entry.
Solitude is a farm who's primary vision is centered on self-sufficiency. This is vastly important to our studies of sustainability because self-sufficiency is effectively the apex of the pyramid of sustainability. They do not talk about sutainability at Solitude as a goal or as something that they are working toward, because this is irrelevant. Self-sufficiency lies beyond sustainability, and thus it is not even an issue. Sustainabilty is something for governments to discuss and to show minimal progress toward. It is something for corporations to seize on because they think that their coopting of this buzzword will increase their profits. Sustainability surely is necessary, but its usage is now so mainstream and tame that it begins to lose meaning. Sustainability can be discussed and even moved toward in a cursory manner within the realm of the market, under the gaze of the greatest deity of today, the dollar. Self-sufficiency is the truly radical expression of sustainabilty, and it is at this end of the spectrum of sustainability that Solitude stands. Self-sufficiency is the only way that any farm, institution, or organization of any sort can truly remove itself from the inextricably thick, binding web of the international economic system, and it is this total amputation that is necessary for sustainability to be attained in a real manner. Solitude is moving in the right direction.
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