A move, and for bananas too

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Jan 29- Feb 13

Hi there blog-aficionados! We are publishing this installment from our new (temporary) home just outside of Auroville proper. We are still in Auroville, however, because the community that owns this property is part of Auroville the collective… erm, like many things in collective living, it’s a little complicated. Auroville is actually not just a place, rather, it is many places. Most of these are part of a contiguous collection of properties, with one community butted up against another. There are a bunch of reasons for this, but mainly it is because Auroville has been buying the land it occupies over forty-plus years, rather than as one lump purchase of land. The result is that some property even inside Auroville ‘proper’- the main bulk of Auroville land and considered ‘the city’ by some- is not owned by Auroville, while some property even kilometers away (but usually much closer) is.
It is as if, in buying your home and yard, some few square yards of property here and there- but not necessarily connected to the outside world- was not yours and you had no legal right to it, but at the same time, you had rights to similar plots of yard in the neighborhood, if you can find a way to access it, either through social or legal means. Complicating this is the fact that Auroville is full of Westerners, and therefore, has, in general, more capital than the outside villages. Thus property values have in some cases increased more than 1000% (yes, one thousand), thereby frustrating attempts to purchase and sell land in the area even more.
So the community we are now in is primarily Tamil families, with large cement and earth constructed homes. Each of these has an apartment on the roof, which is tiled and features a nice deck. The communit is about 3-4 kilometers downhill from Auroville city (downhill being a very mild slope, and not noticible unless you are, like us, on bicycles), in a village called Kuilapalayam. This community is near some of the other non-contiguous communities of Auroville, such as the buffet-style dining at Aurolec, and a couple kilometers from the beach (yay!).
The apartment is nice, with a pretty sound-proof bedroom, a kitchen and a dining/sitting room. On the deck is a hammock chair, and a hammock- although that is not (yet) set up due to a lack of places to hang it. The neighborhood is pretty quiet, except at night between nine and ten, which is when Aurolec throws out their refuse- then the dogs start in; fighting for the scraps and howling like deranged werewolves. This caused us concern, but then we discovered the insulating properties of the bedroom, with its thick walls and small shuttered windows, and the ceiling fan which produces just enough white noise to drown out incidental noises.
So we are sleeping much better now, thank you, and eating healthy home-cooked meals for the first time in months! Life is pretty good, aside from the ride in to volunteer in the mornings. I told a friend recently on Skype chat that I had lost over 20 pounds. She is uncertain as to where I lost it from, but I can assure you I’m thinner again. More like I was as a teenager, except now with the gray hairs.
I have begun to volunteer again in the forest, and we have begun our interviewing too, so my schedule for research seems to be mostly on track. This past week I learned the methods and reasons for transplanting a banana orchard. It was fun! Here’s the brief:
You transfer a banana orchard by digging up some shoots- at first I thought this meant the really small ones (like less than a foot tall), but looking at the new orchard, I see that they dug up complete small trees, maybe 1.5 meters or so tall. After planting them, the tops are cut off, and a new shoot grows from there. The orchard needs to move every few years because bananas are very draining on the soil both in water and in nutrients, even if they are composted often.
When R (the forest unit leader) explains things, he uses his whole body to provide emphasis: he mimes the actions, gestures, and puts his hands on the objects in question. It’s a lot of fun to work with him. He went into a detailed explanation, that I thought might be for my benefit, but then I saw he was watching my co-worker, and directing the explanation mostly to him- so it was a lesson for us both- sweet! While he was explaining the process, he picked up what looked like a dead root system at first. R told us, ‘see, how the monkey has eaten all the bananas- but it is ok, because they were not very good.’
So then the morning was spent cutting banana stalks- an enjoyable experience: they are fleshy and moist, and have just enough resistance so that you feel the blade pass through with a meaty *thwap! I saw a lot of wildlife, mostly big, pulpy spiders with huge meaty abdomens. Several times I called my Tamil co-worker over, asking “what is that?”- his response was limited to whether or not it was dangerous. As I have noted before, he doesn’t know the animals, and he is afraid of many of them, such as spiders, scorpions and snakes. We did that until tea time, or 5 ‘til tea time, when my co-worker left for tea. I told him I was going to hang out and maybe read, which he found amusing. First, though, I brought most of the tools back to the shed.
While they were gone I wandered in the nursery, looking at the growing plants. I had the thought that the lychee tree, if it ever did give fruit, would probably die from the effort, since it is really on the edge of its ability and climate. While there I found a largish seed, looking very much like the abdomen of a weevil or aphid. Later I discovered that people eat them, although I haven’t tried it yet.
When my friend came back, I had already begun to trim the grass around the base of the surviving banana trees. He went to get compost while I finished clearing. I had told him I saw a scorpion (a really tiny one) while he was gone- he told me “oh, watch out…” Then I saw a seed in the barrow of compost, so I pointed and said “what’s that?” His reaction was to jump back with hands up off the wheelbarrow. It turns out to have been a tamarind seed. I think he’s a bit of a scared-y cat. I sometimes wonder what’s he going to do with a forest of his own (his eventual goal)? Another worker joined us for a while, watering and going with my co-worker to get compost. When I pointed out a tree frog to the other worker he pointed out a large spider, which he told me was poochie, a word that I think is all-purpose, like “bug” is in English. He didn’t seem scared and asked me if I liked it- I told him that yes, spiders were good for the ecosystem. I like them.

So now, after that short bio-farming lesson I’m going to give you a quick run-down on the past weeks of house-hunting and adventure…

February began with a lot of contact with one of the guests here who is also a sort of New Age energy worker person. He, B & I ended up at the bakery pretty often at the same time, so we fell to talking. He is originally from the US too, so we were able to discuss things with pretty good levels of mutual understanding. It turns out that he works at one of my volunteer gigs, so I’d be seeing him there too, I’m sure, if not for the fact that I have decided to only volunteer at one place for the three weeks we are in this village community. The ride is a bit much as the days are getting hotter, and I can still “drop in” if I am around without committing to a work schedule. This will be helpful for me for another couple reasons, other than the ones I gave above: one, I am still healing up from a month of battling various illnesses and sleep loss; two, I need to start taking workshops, to compare data given in a work context to data collected as part of an intentional teaching environment. We have received invitations for some interesting interactions, such as videotaping a Tamil woman who teaches school-age children about native healing herbs. I can’t let those opportunities pass me by, so gardening will become secondary for a bit.
We have had quite a ride on the Auroville housing crisis- once we decided to move, opportunities began to open and close around us. Many of these were speculative, and some were untenable- such as the boat-turned-thatch hut that B posted last month in her photos. Others were too far away, or just too difficult to manage; like the thatch hut in the woods that had been abandoned for 6 months… and had bees, termites and an open walled outdoor toilet about 10 meters away. That doesn’t seem like too far, until you think about late-night ablutions and vipers, scorpions, spiders and such. It also needed new construction, at an unknown expense, to put a new deck over the door. Oh, and the roof: we were told it was a year and a half old. That means that it would begin to become “old” and thus unreliable right about the start of monsoon season (late July-ish). Part of me misses the adventure that would come with fixing it up, but the other part of me knows that it would probably be worse than it looks, and more expensive in time and rupees than I can visualize.
We had some hospital scares with the host household- our host came down with an incredibly painful and almost paralyzing pinched nerve in his neck. The really scary one though: our hostess one evening asked B “what does chest pain mean?”
She meant, what are the signs of a heart attack? Yes, she had many of them, including pain in her left arm. After some cajoling, B, the younger son and she all went to the hospital. After a couple days of tests and waiting we discovered it was not a heart attack, but a cholesterol build-up in her veins, and some other stuff. We learned that the newest hospital in this region does not have mosquito netting- and no mesh on the windows, but is otherwise not too bad. In the wards, girls and women are allowed to wait with female patients, but not men, not even sons or husbands. We learned that doctors here are like doctors everywhere: a little difficult, but also capable, and very individual. She is much better, and after almost a whole week off (of one of her jobs) she is feeling up to going back to her job in the kindergarten.
B’s birthday was this past week, and unfortunately we didn’t really do too much, since our moving day was the same day. However, I did manage to get our host to bake her a wheat-free birthday cake, and they threw a dinner for her late in the evening. It was made with Ragi, a local grain that is sweet and bakes really well. It also malts well too (for you beer makers out there). A couple other former residents of the house were there too, so it was a lot of fun and, to be honest, I really enjoyed surprising her with the cake. I had arranged it while we were breakfasting at the bakery before the move, and I’m a little surprised I managed to pull it off without her noticing. The next day we counted as part of her B-day too, and we went with a couple friends to the beach café for a nice relaxing lunch.
We are planning on her taking a two-week course in ecologically sustainable building, using pressed earth construction. This starts on Monday, while I will be working in the forest and setting up more interviews.
Another big start for us is yoga classes. We have been given, as a gift for B, a set of 6 lessons with a private yoga instructor from Pondicherry. This instructor is a 51-year old Tamil, who looks like he is thirty-something. We had our first class with him at 8am on Saturday, and will have two a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays for the time we are here in the village. He is very big on explaining the reasons for each posture, and gets a bit metaphysical at times (which I love). This leads to him talking, which for the first lesson is ok, but we have been told to prod him if it happens too much! If we decide we like his style, we can then have him come to wherever we end up for future lessons.
Finally, B gave herself a present too: She quit her volunteer gig at Unity Pavilion. There are a few reasons for this, among them being that she did not come to India for a year to work in an office in front of a computer! She has other volunteer jobs she has been doing, including one with our (former) hostess’s women’s group, and a gig helping a local village musician with his promotional materials and photography.
Ah, yes, I mentioned a room-mate. We are sharing the flat with a Frenchwoman, call her M, who is a friend-of-a-friend of our friend 9the one letting us house-sit). She is a nice woman, Buddhist, with enough English to talk to us if I stretch my French some to translate. It’s pretty cool, actually, and I’m really glad I brushed up on French before leaving the US- although at the time it seemed more annoying than helpful.
So Saturday B & M went into Pondi for a “girl’s day” while I had a “boy’s day” by myself, writing and resting and, when power allowed, even checking my email. Sunday we shopped about in the nearby village, window-shopping and meeting some local merchants.
So where will we end up? At present, it looks moderately good for a cottage in the forest near the center of Auroville. Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for us, and knock on some wood too while you’re at it! No matter what, I have faith that we will get something: after all, when we landed here we didn’t even have any connections to get a room!
In closing, we got bad news Sunday too:
I’d like to ask for some prayers (& etc.) for B’s mom, Beryl Imogene Ouimette, who went back into the hospital and is not doing well at all. Healing, peace and the ability to breathe with ease are welcome, as are all good intentions and thoughts. Thank you in advance.
Peace & blessings to you all,
Stacey

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