July through Mid-August update

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July 1-August 12

July was a very busy month for us, but not a very interesting month to talk about: we got more than a fifth of my desired interviews done in July alone! We also had some joyfully social activities with some friends: a pair of Australians, an American, and a fun, and very knowledgeable Dutch woman who has been coming to AV for several years for a few months at a time, plus other friends. We did some Pondi trips, and B has posted some pics of those excursions on FaceBook. We had a few dinners too, potlucks at our house here in Gaia, or at other peoples’ houses: many of our friends are house-sitting, and the houses are beautiful, open and somewhat palatial.
House-sitting is a topic I’ve touched upon here before, without really explaining it: In AV, half of the residents are not Indian residents, so that for visa reasons they must leave the country for a few months every year- unless they hold a special AV exception in the form of a five-year or longer visa. These are not common, and even those who do have them frequently leave for the north, or to another country due to the harsh climate. I’ve mentioned before the climate here is hard on Westerners, and personal experience and those of people we speak to agree this is so .
So due to this yearly migration in the summer, or in the monsoon (some AV prefer the summer due to the lower tourist population), or due to visa reasons or emergencies with family in the home country, there are a lot of empty houses. This is a little paradoxical, since AV also has a ‘housing crisis’ that sometimes prevents people from meeting residency requirements and thus becoming Aurovillian. There are housing services here, but the person leaving must contact them in order to have their house made available, and for various reasons some do not- preferring to control who has their home while they are gone, loan it to a friend or to rent it out.
So, if you are savvy in the ways of Auroville, you can thrive here by moving erratically from house to house, sometimes not paying rent, or only paying a maintenance rather than guest house prices. We chose not to do this, since the continuous moving is distracting and draining, and the uncertainty of living this way was not appealing to us. We also got a great deal here in Gaia, and didn’t want to lose it for the sake of free lodging for a month somewhere, which would then require us to find housing all over again.
These houses have amazing spaces; kitchens and open air rooms and open lofts to let the air flow through. Not needing glass windows and even walls allows for some unique home environments! The design of some houses here is unbelievable- beauty, use of space and interesting materials that allow artwork to be part of the structure… wow. So we were having a great time in July/August visiting some of these homes. We didn’t get a lot of pics, but we’ll try to before we leave.

August has been more of the same, that is, interviews and heat. The weather is changing to cooler (about 90-100F instead of 100-110F) with some rain. This month we started out with a water shortage: our windmill pump broke. This resulted in us losing all the water out of our tank (we didn’t know it was broken, and turned on the valve to refill from the main tank). We barely had enough to wash dishes and a small ‘bucket shower’. A couple days later saw it fixed, but we started to get a bit sweaty-stinky before we got our showers.
Aside from further breakthroughs in a non-major portion of my research, we had an adventure that some of you may have seen on FaceBook; the rescue of a trapped hawk. That shook down like this:
We had tentative plans to go to an American ex-patriot’s house to hang out do internet stuff and so on. But she called in the early afternoon, and put it off for a couple hours.
Eventually we called and then set up to meet her and walk to her place- where she is house-sitting (with internet!). While there we updated my computer, a fact that the computer seems to have taken to mean “work worse” >😞 ..although that smoothed out as the computer adjusted, I’m happy to report.
Anyhow, we hung out with her and just talked. She got a call from someone- turned out to be one of the friends we made when we first arrived here, a young German solar volunteer! So he came by and we started talking about food. We decided to go to New Creation for pizza. Just as we are leaving, B mentions the phone is upstairs. We decide that we should have it on us, rather than just leave it, and she discovers a hawk has gotten caught in the anti-bat mesh around the keet roof.
The roof is a triple-thick keet design and like the rest of the house, beautiful. However, to keep bats from roosting in the overhang the owner put up some nylon mesh. This little hawk (bigger than a merlin, like falcon size) was hanging upside down in the net. Both talons were stuck, but one was only a little stuck. That one came free when I put a t-shirt over the hawk’s face and it let go of the net and grabbed the shirt. I took off my shirt and with B’s help covered its face so we could try to get the other set of talons free. Hmm. She also had a wickedly curved beak with a notch in it- probably to sever bones. So I talked about the beak and the talons to keep others away while I got some scissors from our friend (while she was taking pics) to cut away the netting. The trouble with nylon net is of course that it doesn’t degrade, so if it stays wrapped around the hawk’s toes it can eventually cut off circulation and she could lose the toe or foot- especially a risk if it is wound tight, as this was.
With B’s help- holding the flashlight or the t-shirt or both when and where I need it- we got the little hawk free. Later, our German friend expressed concern over the net: “Did you cut it?”
To tell the truth, I didn’t give the net a thought, except that it was in the way of the hawk getting free. Our friend thought about it and then said she’d just mend it, no big deal.

Another thing that happened that night was I had a minor moped accident: to keep you from worrying, no big injuries- a leg full of bruises and a scrape on my shin. We were borrowing our friend’s 50cc moped and the thing would stall every time we went from dirt to road or vice versa. As we were heading back there was one section of ‘road’ that transitions a few times from pavement to dirt before giving up entirely and just staying dirt. This dirt is loose and sandy, and the bike stalled as we went from a small paved section back to a puddle of loose sand. B jumped off as we went down, but I ended up with the bike on my leg- that wasn’t the injured leg though- the top leg bounced on the metal and got banged up. We didn’t notice the bruises until the next day.
B says the accident was because I didn’t have my big, 1000cc bike. I think it’s cuz a friend we saw at the pizza place had taken a tumble earlier in the day. He’d said that at least the accident of the day was done and we were all safe now, and our other friend said “Hey, the day’s not done yet!”
Humpf.

Had another minor moulou adventure too this month. The short story is we went to a remote area in the middle of Auroville (yep, in the middle) and as we were leaving we found a thorn in my tire:
In the LJ post, you'll see a pic of the 3cm long thorn...
At least it was easy to spot. Sometimes these guys are in the middle of the road, and get in your sandals, too. Many people walk around barefoot, and I sometimes do too, but the prevalence of such hidden treasures in the earth here means I usually wear my thick-soled Chaco sandals (for that reason, and the vipers).

Speaking of vipers, I promised a second installment of the Animals of Auroville. This time, it is my writing, and about snakes- B’s been busy with her work- and I want to explain about some of the non-insect denizens we live with.
Snakes: India is famous for snakes. There are four extremely venomous snakes in India, and none of them are rare. They are: Cobra (actually, four separate species of cobra), Common Krait, Russel’s Viper and the Saw-scaled Viper. We have seen none of these, or to be more precise, we have seen what could have been a cobra, but we have chosen to label it ‘rat snake’ since they look alike and we couldn’t tell the difference (rat snakes are everywhere). One evening B was certain she heard the distinctive rustle-crackling noise a viper gives when you approach too closely, but it was dark and she –wisely- chose to move away rather than investigate.
The snakes we have seen include (I invite you to Google-image search these, of course):
Beaked Worm Snake- supposedly uncommon, they are easy to identify, handle, and are all over the place out here.
Common Trinket Snake- these guys are frequently seen on our water tank, or on our walkway, sunning themselves.
Indian Rat Snake- they get big, cobra-size in fact, and I have seen them at over 5’ long and close enough to readily i.d.- as I mentioned, they look like cobras, unless you can either handle them, or provoke them (neither a wise option).
Russel’s Kukri Snake- A slender and pretty little snake.
Striped Keelback- this is a fresh-water snake, and the one we saw would sun itself with just its head out of the water on a rock near a friend’s kitchen.
Dog-faced Water Snake- this was the first identifiable snake we saw. I saw it, actually, since B was ahead of me on her bike. At the time I thought it had fallen/jumped out of a tree!
Bamboo Pit Viper- this beautiful bright green snake crossed the road right in front of us while we were on the scooter. We were close enough that I could have caught it, if I’d tried. Luckily, I didn’t. It is by far the most venomous (confirmed) snake we have seen so far.
That concludes the snake tour of Auroville, at least for what we’ve seen so far. I still hope to see a cobra, but I’m not searching for them either. We’ve seen a lot of vibrant (and earth-colored) lizards, and mammals, plus birds, but that will wait for another time.

Finally, we have been contacted by the official outreach branch of Auroville! Yep, with 11 weeks left here, we finally get in contact with the group in charge of outreach for writers, film makers and others- including researchers. I meet with them next week.
Hey, one of the principals of AV is “divine anarchy”. No kidding… :P
The nice thing is they still may be able to set me up with some resources, and even get me an official badge, so that I can more easily explain that I have AV’s endorsement for my research. I don’t know why I haven’t been sent to these people before now, but I am simply going with it, as I have learned that is the ONLY way to deal with India in general.

So that concludes this installment of the blog. We are, as of the 12th of August, 10.5 weeks from departing, and there is still much to do! We will soon be planning to pack up our stuff and prepare for the journey outwards: it is our hope that we can get in a little tour of the temples of Tamil Nadu before we go, depending on time and money resources. Wish us luck!
Peace,
Beryl & Stacey

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