Buddha's Belly Bamboo & a scooter too!

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February 14- 21

Good day! I am still only updating every 10-14 days, and it just may become my standard. We’ll see how this works out as we go.

B began her “compressed earth construction” class today. It is a six-day-a-week, two-week course on ecologically sustainable building techniques using compressed earth sourced locally (like, from the construction site). It is one of those courses that teaches techniques that are of supposed benefit to the poor, but cost too much for the poor to take- even aside from the cost of equipment to make the compressed earth blocks. However, it is the hope of the people who run this course that these low cost and low environmental impact techniques will translate into less expensive housing and thus be put into the reach of more people. Since the class is made up of mostly architects and construction company or property owners, this may be happening at least in India.

Monday I went to work in the forest, riding my bicycle up that four kilometer-or-so long, but not overtly steep slope. At least at the end of the day it’s all down hill… So I found R, the unit leader, supervising two workers who were waist-deep in a pit they had dug around one of the underground water pipes. Apparently they had developed a severe leak, shutting off the water to a major portion of the land last week Friday. On top of that, I was told, his electric bike (which he usually uses to get around on, since he has a bit of an inured foot) was broken too, as were a motorcycle and some other equipment. He didn’t mention a specific phenomenon, but since he is the one who had told me about it last month, I’m willing to bet he was thinking about it:
You see, I had been told, not only by R, but by others too (long-time Aurovillians) that the week between the Mother’s birthday (21st), and the founding of Auroville (28th) is fraught with ‘heavy’ psychic energies, and that some people experience incredible bad or good luck. Unspoken but implied is that there is some kind of issue or energy these people have, and that it is them, or their karma or whatever, that brings this ‘quickening’ of personal evolution about at this auspicious time. We aren’t there yet, not on the 14th, but some people expect a certain amount of, overflow I guess, to this energetically heavy week.

My job on Monday was cutting down a stand of local bamboo. Now, we have these titanic clusters of bamboo out here- composed of sometimes dozens of thick, but slender, towering bamboo sometimes 5” thick. These bamboo give out huge thorns, and tendril-like creepers that stay suspended for meters away from the cluster- often at eye level, it seems. The trunks of the bamboo are packed in tight against one another, forming an impenetrable wall of thorny, semi-dead, and eerie sounding shadowy bamboo. The noises are because the bamboo is all clustered together so tightly, that as individual trunks die, their solid, dry bodies are supported and rub against the outer ring of living bamboo. I’ll try to get B to post some pictures for the FB and blog crowd. Anyhow, there are other types of bamboo, not as common as the creaky, imposing bamboo. Some of these are decorative, used in architecture- such as in windows as cross-pieces and bars, or in furniture.
One of these bamboo species is called “Buddha’s Belly” because each segment of the bamboo stalk bows outward in the middle. It is prized for the afore mentioned windows, and can be sold pretty reliably. In fact, I had cut one piece that turned out to be a good size for a walking stick- my teak stick had disappeared in the move- but when I found out that it was worth money I put it in the pile of cut bamboo that we had gathered: I am not here to take from the unit I am volunteering for.
Most of the bamboo out here does grow in tightly packed clusters, though, so my job began with snips and a thick cutting tool, half-way between a machete and an axe, which I will call a chopper. With these I cut and trimmed my way in to get to the entwined large trunks. I had a saw, a type we call a bow-saw, but due to the tightly packed trunks, half of my cutting was done with the chopper because the bow saw requires clearance. Also, many of the trunks were interdependently supporting each other, so the more of them I cut, the more under pressure the remaining trunks became. It was a fun morning, with me cutting and hacking away until about tea-time. A little while before tea-time, the intern (let’s call him V for now), was put to similar work on the huge thorny bamboo on the other side of the small house I was working near. His job was to make some space to put a brush pile- the brush being from my job. A short while later, he left for tea, while I took a break under the impressive banyan tree nearby to eat some almonds and drink some water.
R came by, and we talked about the banyan, how it was sheltering the hardwoods that he pointed out to me growing up between the descending branch-roots. We talked a bit about one of his favorite subjects: forest succession, and then he told me that while cutting the bamboo, I should be careful as there is a very rare, endangered young hardwood directly behind the stand. Actually, as we looked, we saw that it was also directly under many of the bamboo trunks I had yet to cut. We decided I would get V to help with that part of the cutting. We then talked shop a little more: I used to do arboriculture in school and for a little while professionally, and for a long time for family and friends. There are several large trees that need to be removed for various reasons, and some of these are leaning dangerously over a couple of the clay-tiled roofs of some of the homes. So we talked various techniques we might use with available materials for a bit. He told me about a few smaller trees I could remove today as well, and then he left, while I went after said small trees.
I went back to work for about ten minutes, and was then joined by V. We took care of the bamboo over the hardwood, and then he went back to the brush pile for a little bit. By the time he was done, I had only a couple pieces left to cut, so he began to strip the bamboo down to just the poles, separating the poles into a pile to be used later for fencing, and the brush to form part of the barricade between the residences and the forest. Eventually, this tangle of old thick moulou and dead bamboo trimmings will be compost, and a wall of thorny hedges will go up- the residential area is almost completely surrounded by this hedge, except the part near where we were working.
It was really nice to work with a young, strong man who just does his job. We worked silently for the most part, side by side, in effortless synch. We finished the job, and clean-up, with ten minutes to go before lunch (here in Revelation, that means we finished at lunch exactly, or a little late!). He sat under the banyan and had a smoke, while I put my tools away and washed the dirt out of my fingers- each finger on my left hand had a slash through the finger pad from the bamboo’s fibers. At one point I had pulled a piece that pulled back, with predictable results.

The next day saw B & I getting up early for our yoga teacher. We had told him that we wanted to start at seven, so B could leave on time for her class. He didn’t show, however, until right before eight am, when the young Frenchwoman who also takes the classes comes. We had already done what we could without him, and left them on our porch to do their class together. Tuesday was an adventure in Kumquat harvesting and more banana orchard care, primarily watering both the orchards and stuff like that. Nice, low-impact work. I didn’t really even see much wildlife- I guess by now they know to avoid places where people have been working the week before, and are watering. This day was a really good day field-work wise too, as the man I worked with was feeling talkative, and knows quite a bit about the wildlife and he genuinely cares about the animals and plants under his care (both something of a rarity out here among the locals, so far).

Wednesday was all about communication: It started at breakfast- I woke up and breakfasted with B out at the AV bakery- they have eggs, although they are served sans bread; you must go into the bakery to purchase it (they also never told us they serve black coffee- we drank “milk coffee”- horrible sweet stuff…). I got a croissant to eat with my eggs, mopping up the yolk with the bread, to the horror of my French friend, who said, “Ah, I have never seen such a thing” he said, and, “you would be able to tell, by this, that you are not French.” I continued to defile my croissant while he tried no to stare- sometimes cultural confusion is fun… ☺
After I left for work, I ran into a resident of Verité, the place I stopped volunteering at for this month (although I am going back next month, when we live closer- more on that in a bit). We talked, but I’m not sure about what… also, while riding my bike in to work, I got a call about a prospective house, from, I thought, the owner. Turns out, she is not the owner, but the owner would like to talk to me as he is uncertain about renting to someone he hasn’t met. She has already shown the place to B, and B has met this man twice now. Now, every time this guy comes up, there is weird communication and behavior: we are from different countries, but in general, it seems as if he is acting as if we are talking about things with different import. Turns out my suspicions were correct in the end… but that was a meeting for after work. I was to meet him at lunch time at Solar Kitchen. In the mean time, I went to work at Revelation.
Wednesday was a slow day, work-wise, and a busy day in my head. I was sent out to water the cowgrass (a tall grass grown primarily for, you guessed it, feeding to cows), two plots of it. This took all morning, and I suspect that having me do it was part make-work and part convenience: make-work in that the workers can do it fine, but they don’t do a thorough job, rather they leave the hose to run, move it between other tasks- so having a person to handle the hose and make sure the process is more closely followed is convenient but not, I think, 100% necessary. I also found a few porcupine quills near a watering hole- actually, the watering hole was from said animal gnawing the aluminum head of the water pipe where it comes out of the ground. I wonder if aluminum affects them the way it does us…?
So, I went and met the ‘landlord’ and it turns out he hadn’t been told that she was showing the place, even though the property is under his stewardship. They are former partners, so I think that figured into the communication breakdown too- although I’d be shocked if my ex-wife started showing my property for rent without my knowledge too! Anyhow, we decided that we were ok, and so now we have a place to stay for March at the very least. The place is back in AV proper, and in the Green Belt, so it should be more quiet too.
Thursday was a chores-and-relax-at-home kind of day, with nothing really fantastic to report (for the blog at any rate) except that B & some of her fellow classmates & I went out to a local eatery and found it to be consistently really good (we had eaten there twice before, but you never can tell…). This makes us happy, as it is genuine south Indian food for a good price too. We also discovered throughout the week that the two closest competitors are also very good…
Friday had me going all the way back into our old haunts at the Ganesh Bakery, only to discover that the two people I wanted to talk to, the two people who are almost always there, were not there. So I hung out for a lunch, then went to La Terrace for some internet and coffee. There, I met some AV friends and had a pretty good time.

Saturday, our instructor showed up and we had a very good lesson. We did the sun salutation, the stretches and a new posture- I forgot what it was called, something like ‘the difficult posture’ or something like that. I have started writing out the poses that he has us do, to help facilitate how to do them when he’s not around. I'm unable to post a pic of my crazy stick-figure drawing skills, but maybe on FB or on the LiveJournal post...

I think technically, some of these are more of a stretch, but since we do it in class, I’m calling it Yoga ☺ Saturday was another very good conversation day- our teacher, my fellow French student and I all talked for a couple hours after class was done. We discussed Yogic philosophy, its relationship and similarities with some Zen philosophies, ahimsa, unattachment and the concepts of loving. I told them about my hedgehogs, because my classmate had asked about my tattoos, and it went from there. Pretty good talk. He does a ten-minute show every day on public TV, and wants me to join him to talk about extending ahimsa to all living things (something I pretty much believe in, within my abilities), and also to join him at a yoga and physical fitness conference. Interesting stuff. I may do it ☺ I also discussed social sciences with my classmate- she is (another) social scientist, and wants to ‘talk shop’ sometime.

Sunday B & I went to the beach café – it was a bad day to go: it was really crowded. We had a pretty good day of being together though anyhow. First, we ate B’fast at the Farm Fresh- since everywhere else was closed. While there, we saw our French friend who is also a fellow student of B’s, who joined us and later still our room-mate, who was there to get a ride into Pondi with a friend. Service was slow: I’m pretty sure they have one cook, and cook each order one at a time. It was good by the time we got it though.
We took a rickshaw into Repos for lunch, and again saw our room-mate, after we had placed our order. Again, it took a long long long time for our food to arrive. Also, as is usual there, tables were in short supply. At first, a man (white, as were most of the patrons there today) with a mustache asked for the third chair at our table, then M, our roomie & her friend showed up, then later his friend came by, so at table 3 we had three parties! I started to get a migraine, so B & I headed up to the top of the beach to get a ride- we had arranged with our regular rickshaw driver (who had driven us there) to pick us up at 2:30, so after waiting a while (with another friend of B’s from her class) we finally called him and got a ride back home. Interestingly, he wanted us just to give him “what you want” instead of naming a price (we gave him 230Rs for the round-trip, usually around 200Rs- we’d have given him more but we were almost entirely out of Rupees by then).

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I didn’t go in to work in the forest. It rained for two days, precluding any real work, and on Monday I was still affected by the migraine from Sunday. I did manage to arrange a couple interviews for later in the week, though, and do a couple as well! Plus, I’ve worked more on some papers I may eventually make readable enough to publish. I’ve also been catching up on some reading, and trying to get some chores done. The real adventure though is come: with M, our roommate, gone for the week the electric scooter is free for the using. That means I get to hone my motorcycling skills on the roads of Auroville! I’m ecstatic, because I really miss motorcycling, and scared because they drive really, um, intuitively, here. Oh, and there are cows, dogs, children, debris, potholes bigger than your tires, and other hazards. But it is a lot of fun to not have to pedal all the time for a couple weeks… Stay tuned next blog for my adapting skills at the breakneck pace of up to 40 Kph!

Finally, in sad news, B is headed home for most of March. Her mother is extremely ill, and B needs to be there. The tickets are, thankfully, no more expensive than they were to come out here – I had been worried that they would be more expensive due to the shorter time we had between purchase and leaving, but I guess two weeks is enough for British Airways (thankfully). Still, that is a hefty chunk of change. I will not be going with her- partly because of the money, partly because of the limited amount of time I have here (my visa is non-extendable), and mainly because she has told me she would like to have me there, but she does not need me there: she will be with her family.

I wish you all happy and safe winter activities- be warm and take good care of each other!
Love and joy,
Stacey & Beryl

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