Kotra Diaries

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June 23rd 2012

Published: June 23rd 2012

Kotra Diaries

In order to complete my project I have been on three trips into the field. When I go into the field it is to a place called the Kotra block. It is 2.5 – 3 hours from Udaipur. I usually get a ride in a Seva Mandir jeep. Take it from me when I say it sucks being 4 people sitting in the trunk of a jeep. There are benches to sit on (no seatbelts), and with luggage it is a pain in the- well you know what I mean. Not to mention how much taller I am than most Indian guys I hang around with and my legs cramp up so much in the trunk.

 The road there is half highway and half one way road. The funny thing about the highway is…listen to this…there are speed bumps. Just when I start to get ‘comfortable’ in the trunk of the car while the Hindi music is blaring in my ears (the speakers are in the back of the jeep where I sit), we hit this huge bump and then keep going. Once we get off the highway it is a one lane road, so we play the usual chicken game. This involves turning corners while leaning on the horn to warn others that we are coming. If anyone is coming from the other direction, both parties honk until someone gets out of the way. It’s great; especially when the oncoming car is a giant truck or bus. After a few of winding turns, we hit the dirt road. I love to roll up the windows in forty-five degree heat by the way. LOVE IT. Finally we reach the Kotra block office.

There is a guesthouse, canteen, offices and sometimes internet. The power goes out periodically throughout the day. There is a river running behind the property. I was tempted to dip my feet in, but woke up on the first morning there to the sound of cows fighting each other. I looked out from the balcony of my room and saw twenty of them grazing and crossing the river. I can only imagine how much cow poo is in the river. Needless to say I have not gone in there.

The first time I went to Kotra, Smruti was already there doing some surveys for her project on the nutritional status of women in rural areas. I arrived with my translator and waited inside our room until seven o’clock. It was so hot in Kotra it was ridiculous; probably in the high forties. I was just about to close my eyes for a nap when I see a six year old Indian boy let himself into my room. He is speaking in hindi at about a million miles an hour and grabbing everything in sight. Including our toothbrush, hair brush, a t-shirt, etc. He would look at them and no sooner had he put one item down he had picked one up again. Then I am trying to tell him to get out but he does not understand a thing. My translator is sleeping in the next room and I don’t want to wake him because of some kid. I mean I can handle this kid right? So I have a plan: I grab my camera and start snapping pictures. I lure him out of the room only to find that he is now my director and I am his photographer. I took pictures. That night, it dropped down to forty degrees. Smruti and I were dying from the heat so she gets up and dips her sheets in water. Okay...weird but I copy her and immediately feel cooler. Next thing I know she has filled the bucket in the bathroom with water and she pours it on the floor!!! It works though. Three buckets on the floor later, the fan and physics work in tandem and the room is much cooler. Nonetheless I slept maybe four hours that night because it was still boiling hot.

The next trip to Kotra we returned together and Smruti was off to complete her interviews. I had a meeting with the fellows. The fellows are volunteers who are working for Seva Mandir on Mautana cases in their respective villages. They help provide support during the negotiations, they try to discourage violence between parties and also keep tabs on all the cases that take place. We were able to determine a schedule and list of the cases I would visit during my research. The power went out for 14 hours starting at 6p.m. We had no fan to create our makeshift air conditioner using buckets of water, and after trying to bear it at 11p.m we took our mattresses and my mosquito net to the roof. The stars in Kotra are unlike anything I had never seen before. We felt a little weird being on the roof because there were already a half dozen guys sleeping there. So we went into our own corner, hung the mosquito net. I wish I had taken a picture of it, it fell on top in this very nice way that made me think of a bed for a princess or something. We both crawled under and slept until the sun rose and was too hot to bear by 7:00 a.m.

Smruti left that evening because she was done her interviews. I started to not feel well because of the very spicy food being served at the canteen. By day 2 in Kotra, my body was really starting to punish me. But something REALLY weird/funny/crazy happened to me that day nonetheless. We stopped for tea in the middle of nowhere and as I was sipping my tea. This really disheveled man walked up to my translator and I. He lit a cigarette with a match, took the match, and ran it on top of his head…then let it burn out on his scalp. Needless to say I chugged the scalding hot tea and was racing to the jeep. I even asked my translator what he was saying, because he was following us as we walked to the jeep, my translator replied: “He says he is going to throw mud at the jeep.” He said this very casually by the way. I doubled my step and jumped in the jeep, there were no windows or roof on this jeep so I was happy when we drove away that I did not have mud thrown at me.

By the end of that day, I was still sick. Do you know what that meant? It meant I was alone, in a place where only my translator (a guy) speaks English…and I needed to tell him about my issues going on. I won’t go into detail but lets just say it was a very ackward moment. Despite feeling sick, I had a job to complete and the earliest jeep back to the city was later the next evening. I spent 2.5 hours riding to a village and back on a motorbike, my rear end was literally killing me, while I tried to conduct interviews. Finally I was able to return to Udaipur.

I will describe what it was like to go to the hospital in another post.

Then when I returned to Kotra the next time, I was lucky enough to have my friend Ravi from the dorms there too. I asked for some less spicy food. Ravi and I watched a movie and the interviews went relatively smoothly that week. I think they were getting sick of me, because the coordinator of the block finally gave me a jeep to take me to complete some interviews. I am always so happy to come home, to Udaipur. I usually come back from Kotra throw my bag on my bed and jump onto it hugging my pillow. Then I gorge myself with mango juice as a reward for surviving the desert.

My last two trips into the field were more bearable. One week, there were 9 employees from Colgate (yes, the toothpaste company) doing research on child malnutrition. They were all from Mumbai, could speak English and it was very fun to get to know a bit about them. I assisted their presentation of the project this passed week (June 20) and it was very interesting. I look forward to getting some pointers on the must-sees of Mumbai when I go there July 14 and 15 for a visit. We were able to split on a jeep to return so it was very comfortable in comparison to the rides I take from Seva Mandir Jeeps. Only thing was I had to tie my backpack with my lap top in it onto the roof. I was so freaked out I added my own bike lock onto it to make sure it did not go flying every time we hit a bump in the road, which occurs very often.

The final trip I had a new translator. It was fun to get to know someone new. He is in law school but off for the summer semester. We hung out the first day because there were no interviews, and went to the river I swore I would never touch and dipped our feet in. I must say the dam further up was open and so where we were sitting the water was flowing very quickly so I did not mind as much. We finished all my interviews the next day and took a bus back from Kotra. It just happened to be a lucky day to get married, so there were a lot of guests who were returning to their villages or to Udaipur after the weddings. The volunteer from the area said probably a hundred weddings would occur that day. Every where we went there were jeeps filled to the brim with people carrying gifts and chairs, all sorts of things! Or there would be a band playing on the side of the road (drums and keyboard hooked up to these huge megaphones on top of the jeeps) while people danced all around. The bus ride was cramped, hot and took about 3.5 hours instead of 2.5-3. Luckily I moved from the aisle seat (with no breeze and only the smell of sweat) to a window seat. I had my arm out the window and I just enjoyed riding through the villages for the next little while.

I think at first, I really was not used to Kotra. But the last few times I went, I would take a moment when we would be riding the motorbike between villages and just think about how lucky I am to be doing this. How many people do I know who will have the opportunity to ride a bike through the desert? While the desert is hot, there are always interesting things to look at whether it is the style of houses, children pumping water and carrying it on their heads back home. Or a heard of water buffalo, who I might add looked very sad because there had yet to find a water hole. I may go back once more. But I don’t think I have to. J In the end it was a good experience to go out into the village and was always exciting.

Note: I really apologize for not posting more often. I have been so busy with the project and assignments for the university. I plan on catching you all up with where I have been and things in the next week or so. 😊 Stay tuned.

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