Poo

so the other day I was walking down the streets of Pune with some friends to find a coffee shop and with the front of my sandal scooped up the biggest juiciest pile of cow poo you ever did see. i washed it off in the bathroom at the fancy coffee shop. it squished between my toes.

about a week ago I was at an ashram about 2 hours outside of Nagpur. I signed up to do "biogas crew." We walked into the barn after breakfast and Vasant explained how the biogas machine worked then told us we'd be collecting cow poo. no shovels. we used our hands to put it in baskets and take it to the slurry tank. not the end of story. then he showed us the stirring mechanism. it was broken. again with the hands, but with water this time. get all the chunks out! up to our elbows. mmmmmm. but the lights turned on that night...

Sewagram, and the farms

So then comes my favorite part of the trip thus far. We got to Sewagram in the evening of the 4th. We actually stayed across the street from the actual ashram in a guest house. For those who don't know, Sewagram is Gandhi's main ashram where he stayed and did his thing. I don't think I'm going to go into a lot of detail about Gandhi and what he did, but he was a pretty cool dude. We went to evening prayer each night we were there at the ashram and toured around at our leisure. we were only there for two days, which was disappointing, and one of those days we were on field visits. We got to chose between three places and I chose to go to the center for rural technology, a bitchin NGO that gathers appropriate technologies from diverse rural communities around India and disperses them for free (anti-copyright! or "copyleft," if you will). The center was kind of a willy wonka type playground for messing around with different cool technologies. There was a junkyard filled with prototypes for bicycle-powered machines (including a bandsaw and a winnower), a paper making operation, sustainable honey-harvesting experiements, welding and blacksmithing, pottery, and a really really kickass irrigation system.

India: Delhi, A WEDDING, and the Taj

Well, sounds like everybody wants to hear from me more judging by the million emails I got. I'm trying, but this is the first time I've been able to use the internet since I arrived in India. So....what have I been doing?

We started off in Delhi where we were in homestays for 8 days. Delhi is big, noisy, and polluted, but also pretty sweet. I enjoyed it a lot. We had classes at the Indian Social Institute and had many AMAZING guest speakers (one of whom was NOT Vandana Shiva 'cause she was in the hospital. sad). We went on several fieldtrips, to a Sikh shrine and to the designated protest area, which was one section of a city block in an obscure part of town away from all the government buildings.

My homestay family was awesome. Our mother, Lata, was really sweet and loved to feed us lots and lots of food (I'm noticing a trend). We had an 11 year old host sister, Manurut (Manu for short) and a 16 year old host brother, Vikrant. Vinod, our host dad was a little quiet and his English wasn't that good, but he opened up eventually. So right when I arrived at my homestay they asked if we wanted to go to a wedding, so we dressed up in Lata's clothes and went. That noght was actually the henna party, which takes place at the bride's house. Our family was apparently pretty wealthy and the party was at a big fancy farmhouse about45 minutes outside of Delhi. The bride was a cousin of Lata. The party involved Rachel and me being introduced to every family member, admiring the elaborate henna on the bride (it took 5 hours for them to do it and there was actually a portrait of the bride and groom. on her arm. in henna. on her arm. and Genesha. on her arm. it was beautiful), and then dancing for hours with all the cousins and uncles and aunts. crazy dancing. The uncles especially. I'll have to demonstrate when I get home. It can't be described in words. So much fun. So then the next night we went to the actual wedding. it was absolutely fabulous and unfortunately MY CAMERA RAN OUT OF BATTERIES RIGHT WHEN I GOT THERE because i forgot to charge it and Rachel's was dead too so we have no photographs of the beautiful event, but i guess I still gots it my mind. so here's how it went. Rachel and I walked around mostly with Manu, who was a pretty kickass 11 year old, and sampled possibly every dish on the, not exaggerating, football field sized buffet. There were sparkly lights all over and tons and tons of flowers, mostly marigolds. We weren't allowed to dance that night because we were guests of the bride and only the groom's guests can dance on the night of the wedding. We ate food until we were stuffed and then went to watch the procession. The bride was surrounded by her family and everyone was dressed really elaborately, especially the bride who was wearing a dress that weighed more than her covered in metal and glass glittery stuff with a long train and the biggest gold nose ring I've ever seen and lots and lots of gold jewelry. Apparently the heavier the dress, the richer the family. She had at least two people helping her move while she was wearing it. There was a marching band and everything. Sorry I can't describe the ceremony in more detail. There was a lot going on and I didn't catch all the specifics. The bulk of the ceremony happened in a pillow-filled room off to the side with just the close family (well, and us, since we were temporarily part of the close family). oh i forgot, first the bride and groom sat on a couch in front of an crazy techni-color, glittery, flowery pillar display and received congrats from everyone attending the wedding. individually. Then we went to the pillowy room and listened to some of the ceremony, in Hindi, and had our host sister translate some. By this time it was about midnight, so of course we went for second dinner, the whole time trying to avoid our host brother who we soon learned was really annoying and thought he had to protect us or something and was on our heals the entire night telling us what to do and whatnot, which would be cool if it was helpful, but it clearly wasn't and so Rachel and Manu and I played a little bit of hide and seek with Vikrant, but failed to lose him the entire night. Did I mention there was a moonwalk? there was a moonwalk. and fireworks. We left the whole ordeal at 3 AM, and it still wasn't over. We got to take as many flowers from the display as we wanted. The whole experience was pretty amazing and we were the only ones on our trip to see a wedding. I feel pretty lucky.

After Delhi we took a little trip to the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort. Beautiful, of course. and crowded. I wanted to stay for a really long time and imagine all of the cool art I could create inspired by the architecture. I took lots of picture. I promise I'll post pictures one of these days. I just need to find a computer that is fast and modern enough. which would not be the one I'm on now, or most of the ones i've been on since I left.

From Agra we went to Sewagram.....I'm gonna write the rest in another post so it's not so intimidating.

leaving Africa

So I just had a fabulously relaxing vacation in Lushoto. I did pretty much nothing for six days. It was the best thing I could have done for myself. Now I'm preparing myself to head out for India tomorrow morning. I have heard lots of things about it, good and bad. I'm kind of expecting it to be a little overwhelming. But also really exciting. Our classes in Tanzana have mostly been setting up the problems of globalization and development and I think India will be getting at more of the solutions to those problems. We'll be seeing a lot more grass-roots action and social movements plus lots of farms. I'm really excited about the farms because I'm doing my yearlong project on resistance to industrial agriculture and reclaiming traditional agricultural spaces. Lotsof research for me in India. Our country coordinator in India is very cool and a well connected anti-globalization activist (Smitu Kothari, look him up). Apparently he really likes to keep us in class for 12 hours a day though. We've been told to fight for our free time.

I just finished Ominivore's Dilemma. Excellent book everyone should read it. really. I'm about to start reading Deep Economy by Bill McKibbon. anyway. more updates in India

Love,

emma

blog # 3?

Can't believe I haven't written more. The last few weeks have been absolutely crazy. I've been on a dead run. Let's see...last time I wrote I was in Moshi. Since then we went to Arusha and from there we went on a little safari in Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara National Park. Pretty sweet. I felt a little weird, well, a lot weird, viewing animals from a jeep. Actually it felt really wrong. We had lots of lectures about how the form of conservation used in Tanzania, "fortress conservation," is really just alltogether bad. Animals here, people there, and if the people come near the animals the people with the guns protecting the animals will shoot them, the people, that is. literally. lots of violence to protect what some white dude said was important to protect. and not to mention, most of the conservation areas were set up, not because someone was thinking about preserving global biodiversity, but because the pervasive colonial forces (known as "development") that still exist in Africa wanted to create well, "development" and a source of income (so they can be connected to the global market!! unsustainable, sorry) for the area through tourism. don't get me started on tourism. yeah yeah, i know, i'm a tourist, but it still sucks. i'm a part of the problem. tourists take up a lot of resources and local energy, ultimately detracting from the local economies that are the only solution for fighting the detrimental forces of globalization (commodification of culture, ecosystems, resources, the global "commons"). local local local. stay home folks. stay home. yeah so maybe i'm starting to sound like a preachy brainwashed anti-gloablization radical, but yeah. that's the point. if you want to know more, i'll post some of my papers that i'm writing for my classes. back to the update,

After safari we to Arusha again and then headed out to Masaailand. I can't explain everything, but i'll give the highlights: We stayed in a "Boma," a Masaai community. Masaai are pastoralists, which means they keep cows. lots of cows. and goats. but mostly cows. they migrate seasonally with the rains and depending on good grazing areas. they live in circular communities made up of small round huts with a fence around the perimeter to keep out wild animals. The cows stay in the middle of the circle at night and during they day the Masaai warriors take them out to graze. they also keep lots of goats and chickens. they eat milk and blood. maybe some ugali or porridge. but mostly milk and blood. it was very dirty in the boma. well not just dirty. the ground in the boma is made up of about a foot of powdered cow and goat shit. the walls of the huts are made out of shit as well. and the smoke. they keep a fire going all the time in the huts and there are no openings in the walls or the roof so it's incredibly smoky. i slept on a bed made out of cowhide and sticks. wasn't that bad. there was lots of dancing and singing at night, which was beautiful until we all realized that the dance that they were doing was so that the warriors (circumsized males) could pick which of the young, uncircumsized girls they wanted to sleep with that night. did i mention that they practice female circumcision? well, everyone is circumsized when they turn a certain age (usually about 12-15). and wife beating is an accepted practice. and the more wives the better. the boma we stayed in had about 30 huts, one for each wife, and there were three husbands. so, needless to say, it was a bit culturally challenging. when can you stop being culturally relative and make a value judgement? that was the question of the week. they were very open to answering our questions and talking about their culture. we had female translators from another boma in the area, which Fatma (our country coordinator) went to great lengths to find so that the women in the boma would be more willing to talk to us. despite all of the incredibly off-putting aspects of their culture I had a very good experience. i played with a lot of really sweet children and taught them songs and games and they taught me songs and games. children are universal, that's for sure. when it was time to leave after three days i was given lots of jewelry (Masaai are famous for their beaded jewelry) and a chicken. yes, a chicken. I named it herbert. herbie had to stay in Terrat (the village about 4 km from the boma) because i don't think Indian customs would really appreciate a live chicken.

After the boma we went back to Arusha for the craziest week of processing and wrapping up the Tanzania program. I had a million and a half papers due and went a little crazy. now i'm on vacation in the most beautiful place i've been so far. me and my friends michelle and moriah are in Lushoto in the Usambara mountains. it's very relaxing. we're staying in the Karibuni lodge tucked away in the woods. i have to end this entry now because i just met some kids from Earlham by chance in the internet cafe where i'm, writing from. SMALL WORLD!!

Post # 2!!!!!!!!

I'm currently in Moshi in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It's pretty spectacular. Awesome, in the true sense of the word.

School is going well. We have started a unit on agriculture and economics, which'I'm super loving a lot çause that's my thing. We spent a few days outside of Mombo learning about the sisal industry. Sisal, or katani in Swahili, is a type of agave plant that was imported to Tanzania abuot 100 years ago by a German agronomist, and it is used for it's really strong fiber to make rope and whatnot (used to be really important for boat making). It was a major part of the TZ economy until synthetic fibers were introduced and producers of sisal had to come up with other uses for it. It's used in a bunch of industrial processes. A lot of it is sold to China to polish steel (China is the biggest consumer of steel at the moment). We visited farms owned by a very interesting company. Katani Ltd. bought five huge sisal estates from the government (about 20 years ago i think) and gave the land away in 15 acre plots to any farmer that promised to grow sisal according to their regulations. The idea is now really popular in the area because, hey, 15 acres of free land ( and they can grow their own food crops on it as well). well they have to have enough money to maintain it, which isn't actually a whole lot because sisal is pretty drought resistant and low maintenance. It was also really cool because there were almost as many women that owned land as men (very rare here) and they were all organized into regional unions. AND THEN we visited a wicked sweet sisal processing plant where the fiber was extracted and the biomass waste (96% of the leaf, since only 4% is usable fiber) that would normally be thrown away was turned into organic fertilizer and biofuel to power the processing plant and local households. it was way cool and sustainable. well, the process itself was pretty cool and sustainable, but I'm really don't think the whole idea of a cash crop grown exclusively for export into an unpredictable global market is really all that sustainable. In fact, i kinda know it's not. Anyway, we told the sisal farmers we met that we would tell people about sisal, so I've done my job. I'm actually now planning on going back to mombo for my vacation and staying for a little while with a family that owns a sisal plot and harvesting with them for a day. Then we're going to head up to Lushoto, a village in some really beautiful mountains, and stay in a hostel and go hiking.

Since we've been in Moshi (we got here two nights ago) we have been studying the coffee economy. We toured the processing plant here yesterday and tomorrow I'm going to a coffee farm to talk to some farmers. Moshi is my favorite city so far. It's greener and cleaner and easier to get around in. Plus, you know, it's right at the base of the tallest mountain in Africa, which, by the way, is beautiful. Did I mention I'm at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro? you know there's snow on the top. and it's the tallest mountain in Africa. Did I mention it's the tallest mountain in Africa? And that it's beautiful? cause it is.

Friday we're leaving for Ngorogoro crater to start our unit on conservation. there's gonna be lions. and zebras. and maybe a cheetah. and elephants. etc.

oh yeah, and sometimes i miss home, but not too much.

tonight i'm facilitating a student community meeting. we need some serious working on the group dynamic and someone needed to take the lead. that someone happens to be me so i'm busying taking down agenda items for tonight. it's gonna be long, but i'm planning on sneakily doing it quaker style to make it less frantic for me. wish me luck.

love,

emma

Zanzibar

So I've been in Tanzania for about two weeks now. Started off in Dar Es Salaam, the capitol of TZ. Now I'm in Zanzibar, where I've been for about a week. I'm back in Stone Town (Zanzibar town) after a 3 day trip to three different sites on the island. Jozani national park, Jambiani village, and kizimkazi village. we rode there in a dala dala (traditional motor transport) and were in three small groups each visiting a different place each day. we stayed in homestays in each place, none of which spoke english. my swahili is still very limited so the conversation usually consists of "hello," "thankyou," and "what's your name" and a few other random nouns here and there. the beaches at jambiani and kizimkazi were FANTASTIC. white sand, blue water, nice seashells. this morning we went on a boat ride and saw lots of dolphins and snorkled around in a coral reef then toured the village with the local school teacher and interviewed fisherman. All three site visits were focused on conservation and ecotourism. REALLY interesting. oh and in kizimkazi i got to go into the oldest mosque in zanzibar (1184). women aren't usually allowed, so it was pretty cool.

So far I like Zanzibar much better than Dar. it's more historical, less industrial. more tourists though (or "muzungus" (white person) as the locals call them/us). Most everybody is Muslim and we got here just in time for about three days of celebration for Eid. My host family took us out to celebrate downtown and my host mama put henna on my hands and feet. So my host mom is only 23 and my host dad is 25. they are newlyweds and don't have any kids. and they're awesome. i really like them and they both speak english really well, but also are good about teaching us Swahili. Maryam, my host mom, insists that Caroll (the other IHP student staying w/ me) and I call her Mama and she calls us her babies and holds our hands when we cross the street. she feeds us way too much food, packs us lunch when we go to class, worries about us when we're late, brushes and braids my hair and loves to talk to us about her wedding (which coincidently relates to one of our anthro. assignments which is to describe a swahili wedding and how it has changed over time and with globalization). Hamid, my host dad, is very traditional and his family is from Oman. Maryam is more traditional Swahili African, which is still Muslim, but incorporates aspects of other, less monotheistic religion. there is an interesting mix of cultures on the island. lots of arabs, chinese, indian, italians, dutch, germans. i'm learning all about the history and politics. too much to explain. We have been having class in an historic sultan's palace. our coordinator here, Fatma Alloo, is awesome. She's a pretty bad-ass muslim/feminist/activist/journalist. well connected. gets us all the best guest speakers and whatnot. She rented out a clubhouse for us to hang out in and do work called the "bustani" which means graveyard. it's actually in an old muslim graveyard with chickens running everywhere and a secret entrance that you have to pull a hidden string to unlock. there is an excellent library there that she compiled just for us and there are couches and beds and a kitchen and bathrooms with TOILET PAPER. a luxury.

let's see, what else. I guess I never wrote about Dar. we were there for a week and we stayed in the YMCA and had class everyday at the University of Dar es Salaam. Our week in Dar was the TZ foundation week which consisted of several VERY long lectures by guest speakers. I'm gonna be honest, I hate lectures. I think they're a really bad way of teaching. but i sat through them all and soaked up what i could when i wasn't dozing off because it was a million degrees in our open classroom.

When we were in Dar we had a "Health Day" where we visited the Youth Action Volunteers, an advocacy group that oversees government policy implementaion that affects access to health care (I think that's an ok description). Basically they are a grassroots organization that meets with government officials, attends parliament meetings, and does research and surveys to make sure the government is doing its job in providing health care and making sure that Tanzanians know their rights to health care. Well, as part of the day we broke into three small groups and went to visit different hospitals in the area to get a look at some typical Tanzanian health care. it was frightening. seriuosly. i don't really feel like describing it, but i felt like I definately should not have been there.

I haven't gotten sick yet except for a little digestional distress over some octopus soup (we watched a video about the traditional fishing practices in Jambiani in which we saw a woman grab an octpus out of a hole in some coral at low tide, promptly rip it's guts out and beat it with a club on the sand for a good solid minute to "tenderize" it. and i still wanted to eat it) i've also been eating quite a bit of street food. it's delicious and cheap. like less than $2 for an entire meal.

My host mama took me shopping the other day and I got a couple kangas (very culturally important clothing for women. one piece of cloth on bottom as a skirt and a matching one on top to cover head. they all have messages in swahili on the bottom that communicate different things. a sneaky way of saying something to your husband or neighbor or mother-in-law without saying it out loud) and a dress which she then prefumed with incense and oil.

right now i'm tired and wondering how i'm going to get all my work done. it seems to pile up and then all of a sudden i have a million things due in one week. i realize this isn't much different than regular school, but it's ten times harder here. It's hard to balance seeing the place i'm in and sitting inside and doing school work.

enough for now.