From Pyrenees to Pennines

I rather enjoyed re-visiting India via my blog the other week. So I went and dug out the diary I faithfully kept. The events it describes have never yet seen the light of day. For the first ten days I was with the group of people my ex-brother-in-law had put together, to explore aspects of rural Indian life, focussing on small producers working in traditional and organic ways. We had no internet access during that period.

I’ve decided to share my diary with you. This will take several Fridays. I’m pleased that I kept such a detailed record of a piece of personal history, and of a country I’d never visited. I wonder how dated this account would seem to the current traveller?

The Wildlife Day

Friday 16th November

What a wildlife day so far! Rat snake at breakfast, pond heron in the trees in the rainforest, and a rufous-bellied eagle (rare).  Lots and lots of different frogs – not bright coloured but fun to see anyway.  L  and I had had fun shining our torches to see those on lily pads very late yesterday.  Immense spiders safely attached to their webs.

Sandy took us on a rainforest walk this morning.  He began by the river, virtually a guided meditation, to help us tune in with the natural sounds, particularly by the water. It was wonderful throughout to hear the forest sounds – the water, the trees, the monkeys (macaques and …..) whom we couldn’t see. 

Some strange plants – the strangler fig lands half-way up its host as a seed, and grows down and up, enveloping and feeding from the host trunk. Eventually the host dies, leaving a tracery of woven branches – which is the fig.  Several of us tried to climb up with Sandy’s help: I was one who failed.

Leeches hugely enjoyed our being there.  They seemed to feast on those who hated them most, while pretty much ignoring those like me, who didn’t care.  The poor bitten victims were pretty bloodied by the end.  Still, I copped for the biting ants instead.

I’m currently on the water tower  enjoying the hordes of dragonfly overhead.

Later.  But then I came down.  Supi had organised another walk.  Down to the water tanks (where we saw two water snakes) and the red rice fields.  They grow old varieties which are slow growing but more nutritious.

Then it was on to the village: no village green around a church (though there was a church) but houses, on the whole well strung out from each other, with crops and land between. During the late 1940s(?) the Keralan Government freed all landowners to sell their land cheaply and all citizens were entitled to 7.5 acres per person (or 15 acres per family).  At first everyone worked the land in a diverse way, growing varied crops for their own use, then selling the surplus.  Now there is more of a monoculture, with families taking whatever subsidy is on offer to plant the latest crop – till it all goes pear-shaped.  A few years back, tea was getting Rs 20+ on the open market: now it’s only Rs 3. And so on.  So we saw tea, coffee, rubber, bitter gourd, banana – various things – all grown as monocultures, and the consequence is that families, without the rich variety of crops, are less well-nourished. 90% literacy means people are fleeing the land too. Young people choose to work in, for example, call centres rather than continue in the family farm. 

Later, M and I offered to help cook.  We chopped onions, tomatoes, okra, and rolled out chapattis, but other than that didn’t feel too useful or learn massive amounts.  But it was fun. 

Later still, M, C and I were taken for a moonlight walk by Lorenzo: rather fast for C’s and my taste, but listening to all our frogs, and stargazing was fun.  Late bed and …. (to be continued in my next….)