Beautiful Kerala

Hey Guys!

Sorry it has been awhile since I last “blogged”! I just returned a few days ago from a nine-day trip in Wayanad a Northeast District of Kerala.  Everything about this trip was absolutely amazing and full of beauty; I now understand why Kerala is referred to as “God’s country”.  Everything was so green! We were able to do a lot of interesting things such as meet with tribal communities, climb a mountain, meet with several self help groups and much more!  The following is a few highlights of the trip; I hope you enjoy!

The Rural Agency for Social Technology Advancement or RASTA, the NGO, which hosted us throughout our trip, focuses on helping farmers obtain their rights by working with government officials and bankers to help ensure they have land and basic human rights.  In simplistic terms, India’s government is more concerned on obtaining up to date technology rather than helping agriculture growth.  Therefore, the average farmer is extremely poor with barely any security or support; this creates a huge epidemic in the farming world.  Unfortunately, due to this lack of interest by the government many farmers become depress and commit suicide or pull out of farming and live a life of poverty.  I do not get it to say the least.  Why would the government not support the people who every day provide them with the food necessary to sustain their own life?  For some reason the government finds it more important to provide its’ people with the latest I-pod rather than feed the people of their country.  This also provokes a sense of indifference to farmers towards their hard work.  Why should they be the ones providing needs to people when the majority does not even acknowledge their suffering?   Anyway, this is just a glimpse of what I was able to experience from visiting various self-help farmer and women groups. 

We were also able to hike to a waterfall, which was quite impressive. By the time we reached the waterfall, I was drenched in sweat and extremely tempted to jump in the water.  Unfortunately, the water was crowded with half naked boys, which was no surprise, but it was still fun to have the mist cool us off. 

Later in the trip we were able to climb a mountain and venture into a cave.  This was awesome! By the time we neared the top of the mountain I was exhausted, it felt like we were on top of the world.  Close to half way up the mountain there was a cave where we were able to go inside; there we found a lot of ancient artwork on the walls, luckily it was not too cramped or else my inherited Closter phobia might have been an issue.  As Karly and I were climbing down the mountain a group of Indian men were snapping photos left and right.  As I was trying to figure out what was so interesting, I realized the photos were of us.  I’m sure it was entertaining to see an American girl struggling down a rock face. As you can probably tell from my tone I was not at all in the mood to be photogenic.

My favorite part of the whole trip was meeting the tribal communities; I thought it was so cool to see people today continuing to live so simply. One of these communities was located in the hills so we were able to hike to their homes and discuss their way of life with the chief of the tribe.  Each tribe has its’ own language, tradition and cultures and ranged anywhere from thirteen families to sixty.  Between talking to the chief, taking in the amazing views of the hills and checking out their crops I was able to interact with some of the younger children. At first they were pretty shy, but slowly began to come a bit closer to me and then once they felt more comfortable I snapped a few photos.  Afterwards, I showed them and they were absolutely giddy upon seeing themselves in my camera.  This provoked them to do more poses, which was absolutely hilarious.

               Well on a more lighter/comical note Amanda, Karly and I received a new eight- legged roommate during our stay.  This addition joined us midway through the trip.  While we were relaxing one night, Karly decided to go out onto the balcony to get some air.  Immediately after she came shrinking in terror jumping up and down while quickly locking the door from the inside.  In response, Amanda and I quickly began to mimic Karly’s hysterical reaction while I zoomed to the other door and locked it as well.  This lasted for minute and then Amanda started yelling, “WHAT, WHAT, WHAT IS IT KARLY???” As I just had my hands over my mouth still jumping up and down in a craze, supposedly I did not need to have an actual reason to act psychotic.  This isn’t surprising haha!  I should note that Karly’s one huge fear is spiders so she was beyond freaking out at this point; she could only manage to gasp, “SPIDER, HUGE, OUTSIDE DOOR, HUGE!”  Amanda then decided to slowly unlock the door and peer out at this hairy creature, within seconds Karly’s hysteria episode was repeating itself only this time by Amanda.  So by that time I was getting pretty tired of yelling for no reason, so with much protest from the girls I had to look out as well.  Well, I’m sure you could guess my reaction.  Well, soon enough Nazar (our Vishtar leader), a lady from the kitchen at RASTA whom had two brooms in hand for defense and a random young Indian boy raced into the room as I am sure they expected a bloody corpse or something of that caliber.  All three of us shouted, “SPIDER, BIG, OUTSIDE, BIG!”  Haha! Well, the frightening looks of our rescuers soon transformed to looks of humor and calmness.  I guess spiders the size of dinner plates is not alarming news to Indians.  Whatever, it was huge.  Luckily, Nazar had come before our little roommate ate us all three whole!

Well, I hope this scatter-brained blog is somewhat coherent and gives you a partial understanding of my experiences within the past two weeks! On October 7^th I leave for a nine-day trip in Goa and then quickly after have mid-semester break. Hope all is well back in the States!