Permanent Agriculture

Living in India has made me hyper-aware of issues I didn't think about all that much before, namely 1. Consumption. 2. Sanitation. 3. Water. In Bombay, a city with so many millions, and India, a country of one billion, it is overwhelming to try to conceptualize the amount of trash and human waste produced. It's no wonder many foreigners who visit India think it's dirty. Without working infrastructure, all the things that are supposed to be hidden from sight--sewers, household waste, loos--stare you in the face. US cities would suffer a similar downfall if we didn't have urban planners laying pipe under our feet or constructing landfills on the outskirts of our cities.

Without infrastructure, Bombay wears its underwear on the outside. I look out the window of our office building in Malad and see a black river, 25-feet wide, banks built with trash, releasing toxic smells. I've seen children playing in this same river, unaware of what how clean water looks and smells. I ride the train and see women and children using the tracks to relieve themselves. Their small houses don't have running water and their communities don't have a toilet. Their only option is to use the space away from their houses--even if they risk being seen by the 6 million people that go back and forth by train, just a couple of yards away. I walk past a slum just a block from my house some mornings, and see the children squatting on newspaper. There's an open sewer steps away. They, too, have no other option.

I bring all of this up to explain my interest in finding new ways to alleviate these problems. My visit in Bali to a permaculture training center and pilot project was all the more relevant. IDEP Foundation works on two fronts: community sustainability projects and disaster relief. They were and still are heavily involved in the post-tsunami Bandh Aceh rehabilitation effort.

I met with the ED of IDEP to talk about their innovative sustainable farming and community-building techniques, including the use of biogas cook stoves, and Wastewater Gardens. Wastewater Gardens® have proven to be far more effective, affordable & long lasting than conventional (high tech) sewage treatment, particularly in remote areas and tropical zones (from their site). Basically, through a series of holding tanks, a wastewater garden can help turn human waste into clean water by using plants as an extractor and processor that pulls toxins out of the mix.

IDEP has set up a site where they can educate farmers and communities about how to grow their own household garden, how to cultivate hybrid rice varieties, how to compost waste, and how to create a Wastewater garden. The pilot project is an amazing example of permaculture, an approach to the development of agricultural systems that mimic the structure and interrelationship found in natural ecologies. It’s one of the most sustainable practices available for the production of food and the preservation of soil and water.



Above, green, green plants are growing in a tank that filters irrigation water. Bali has an intricate irrigation system, but many villagers also use the streams to wash clothes and go to the bathroom. Wastewater gardens help filter the toxins.

Diaphanous

Kul School

The Green School (www.greenschool.org) in Bali is remarkable--a sustainable, environmentally friendly international school set amidst coconut palms on either side of the rocky Ayung River. All of the buildings on-site are constructed out of bamboo, and the classrooms, or learning villages, are open air. I gave myself a whirlwind tour of the grounds on my way to the airport before leaving Bali. A woman I had met the day before invited me for a visit; intrigued, I went.

The captivating bridge, pictured above, is the centerpiece of the Kul Kul school campus, connecting either side of the river, and bridging the school community with that of the locals--both of whom use it daily. It was built entirely out of bamboo by the 30-something designer Aldo Landwehr.

The school is scheduled to open next month. Here's what they say:

We are an international group of educators, environmentalists, and business professionals who have combined our expertise to create a school that will educate a new generation of children. Our students will be inspired thinkers and creative problem solvers, knowledgeable about all aspects of life, and capable of leading a changing and challenging world. They will know about everything from organic gardening to website design, from running a small business to offsetting carbon emissions. They will be people to be proud of, people we can trust to manage and live well in an increasingly complex world.

I spoke to the Head of Admissions who said that they plan to engage the local farmers in bamboo microfinance. They also have plans to build a chocolate factory. While my elementary school was exemplary, I must admit I feel very disappointed that we did not have one of these.

The school is rather expensive--about $10,000 a year--but intended for high-flying expat children, whose parents either have a conscience or were once hippies who have done something right. The idea for the school was initiated by John Hardy, the hippy-cum-jewelry designer-cum-multi-millionaire who funded the school with $5 million last year after he sold off the company.

The property is gorgeous, and one can't help but wonder what kind of creative, interesting, innovative minds might be cultivated here.

Kecak Dancers

Kecak dancing is a Balinese tradition that brings together groups of a hundred villagers each Sunday and Thursday night (and on holidays) for a reenactment of the Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana. One hundred men sit in a circle chanting--functioning as the background music and the stage--as other male and female characters dance in and around the circle playing out the story. The chanting is nearly trance-inducing.

9 AM in Ubud Market

Great Escape

After three days in a convention center in Nusa Dua, Bali, I was ready for a break. The conference--the 2008 Asia Pacific Microcredit Summit--was great, as these things go, and I mentally praised the organizers at the end of each day for having the foresight to transfer the conference location from Pakistan to Indonesia. Not that I got to see much of Bali during the conference. But on the third day I made the sage decision to extend my stay for one day to allow myself a chance to escape the conference complex and see the country.

I went north to Ubud, a little cultural mecca, home to artists and writers and honeymooners and trekkers, and Aussies--they're quite close to Indonesia.
I felt like I was living a New York Times Travel article: "24 Hours in Ubud." I packed in two field visits (for work), a Kecak dance performance, a 3-hour trek, a visit to a monkey forest, a bit of shopping, a motorcycle ride through town, and some sampling of the local organic cuisine.

My only morning in Ubud, I woke up at 6 and went on a walk with a local guide through rice paddies, past streams and clucking chickens. I haven't experienced nature like that in a long time. I felt like I had been beamed down into one of those spa CDs, with the birds chirping, the brook babbling, the breeze blowing, the cock crowing (admittedly, the rooster was a bit incongruous, but otherwise it was an accurate representation of "Solitudes: Track 3, Quiet Contemplation").

My guide, Alec, told me that my name sounds Chinese: Lin-Xie. I had a nice chuckle as the sun rose over the line of coconut palms, a blue-pink sky reflecting in the standing water of the rice paddies.

We walked past little houses and bigger ones, almost all of which had a temple within its compound. The majority of Balinese are Hindu, but I've found it to be an even more fantastical variety of the faith, with deities sometimes represented with bared teeth, bulging eyes, and claws. There are dragons with long, undulating tongues, ogres, Shrek-like, with bulbous noses, old women with low-hung breasts, like deflated papayas--altogether different from India's brand of Hinduism.

Speaking of low-hanging fruit, on the walk we passed an older woman sitting by the road in the little stream that fed into the paddy fields. She was unclothed and doing her morning ablutions. I was shocked and embarrassed, and craned my neck in the other direction, suddenly absorbed in looking at the forest on the opposite side of the road. I haven't seen a naked woman in I'm-not-sure-how-long, but Indian women are not one to disrobe in public. Ever. When they bathe in rivers and streams they artfully manage to remain draped in one end of their sari the entire time, preserving their modesty. Alec conveyed that nudity is not such an issue here, particularly if you're "of a certain age."

We stopped in Alec's village on the way back to town and he invited me to enter his family's compound. I met his wife, Megie, his shrunken mother, his elder brother, sister-in-law, nephew and dog. The entire bunch live together in the same compound in three different houses. Each family cooks and eats separately, but they all live withing a 15-foot radius. Down the street is their temple which is one of many in their one lane village. Megie served me sweet black coffee and sticky rice wrapped in a green, ribbed banana leaf. The rice had been pounded with green pandan leaf for flavor and in the middle of the rice was a delectable mix of dessicated coconut and brown sugar--conceptually, like a Twinkie, but not. It stuck to my front teeth, and the coffee helped cleanse it away.

Chickens ran around at our feet pecking. His nephew giggled and said Slamat Pagi--Good Morning.

Later we found ourselves in the Ubud morning market, passing huge baskets of brown and blue eggs, steroidal papayas, brown salak, mangosteen, spiky durien--all sorts of wholesome foods you can't find at Whole Foods. Baskets of fish, rolls of banana leaves, spices on my left, steamed rice on my right. It all reminded me of my hunger--which was soon satisfied by sliced avocado on toasted brown bread with fresh coconut juice on the side. Miraculous way to start the day.

Farther East

I stopped in Singapore last week on my way to Bali for a microcredit summit. I was blessed with an eight hour layover--the perfect opportunity to see a city I wouldn't otherwise treat as a destination. Friends told me to stay in the airport--"the shopping is incredible." But, I've found that shopping is less incredible when you make an emerging market salary in a developed country shopping arcade.

I signed up, instead, for the free tour of Singapore for passengers with layovers more than 5 hours. It consisted of a bus ride to a boat ride and then back on the bus--all narrated by a happy guide. There are all sorts of talking points I'm sure I could have incorporated into this entry had I not fallen asleep the minute the wheels started rolling on the way to and from the boat.

Here's what I can tell you: Singapore is clean. We all know this, and true to form, there's no gum in sight. Additionally, there seem to be very few people who venture out of shopping malls--underground passageways connect one mall to another. I saw maybe a total of 5 locals the entire tour (could have been my own fault thought; as I said, my eyes were closed most of the time). Other notes: there are quite a few sky scrapers and more on the way. You will be sentenced to death for drug trafficking. And what else? Oh, this is what I caught from the guide: "Singapore is made up primarily of 4 cultural groups: Indians, Chinese, Malays and Others." I didn't realize that Others was an actual group, but according to the guide, it is group 4. This must be the category reserved for "Anglos of Global Origin."

Before the bus tour, I stumbled upon a coffee shop with a sizeable banana walnut muffin with my name on it. As I was perusing their cold food section, I stumbled across this lost soul: TEX-MEX potato salad. Really? I've never even had that in Texas. According to the "barista," the "chef" (this word is being bandied about with a bit too much creative license, me thinks. It is a coffee shop!) worked in the States for a while.

Other Singapore observations: it's a bit like San Francisco, a beautiful city completely devoid of energy or character. That's not a knock against the mass migrators I know who recently moved to SF. Just my opinion of the city of fog...and now Singapore.

Anyway, I whiled away the hours after the tour in the airport, abused the "testers" in the cosmetics stores, bought some Chinese goji berries, gagged as I passed the dried pork store, and seriously considered purchasing some Ginger and Lily Shanghai Tang perfume for $57. And then I remembered that I don't make dollars.

How is Bombay?

One of the first questions people ask when I meet them here is “How do you like Bombay?” It’s a complicated one to answer because on any given day I could love it and be reveling in the unexpected nature of just walking down my street: horse parked by a tree, lazy cow munching on green grass, my wiry, bearded shirtless, sarong-clad neighbor sweeping his stoop, freshly minted kittens meewwing downstairs, jackfruit bulging on my tree’s trunk, green mango teasingly pulling on a branch outside my window, temple bells ringing, temple devotees singing, milk man with the milk, newspaper boy with the newspaper, smile from the rubbish collector, Morning! from the guy completely devoted to washing his orange hot rod, sleepy nod from the guard—or I could hate it and the hardship that living in this city brings: sweating before the sun has made her imprint on the morning, smell of sewage long before you reach the open sewer, screams of buses, grinding of rickshaws, dust in their wake, hijaras (transsexuals) pinching my cheeks, one armed children tapping on my window.

It seems on so many occasions that, like a petulant girlfriend, India wants to make loving her a trial. She makes trouble just to see how much you like her. And then, and only then, she reveals her beauty.

So, do I like it? My answer depends on small, small moments. If my rickshaw driver has been kind and I’ve gotten a seat on the train and the fruit man hasn’t cheated me and my splotchy Hindi worked on the delivery guy—then I like it. But if just two or three things backfire, I’m knocked out of balance. And suffice it to say, red-faced and ornery, I do not like Bombay.

One of these small moments eliciting Bombay affection happened while leaving the house the other day. I’ve started taking yoga classes in the morning, and I walk out of my lane every morning about 6:45 in order to catch a rickshaw to take me to class. On this morning, I tried to flag down one or two, to no avail, and had nearly made up my mind to just walk to class when a rickshaw I had just waved at pulled to a stop about 20 feet ahead of me. A girl poked her head out and yelled, “Yoga?”

Amazing. (Reminder: there are 18 million people in this city; let me repeat...amazing).

“Yes.” I replied. I didn’t know the girl—didn’t recognize her at all, in fact. But, she figured, where else would I be going in snug black Reebok pants at 6 in the morning? She tucked her head back in and moved over so that I could join her on the rickshaw’s brown bench. In one gesture, there was connection, community, openness, we-are-all-oneness, fighting the elements, united we stand, united we fall.

Today, Bombay is okay.

I Smell a Rat

India is, how to say, um, unpredictable. A small bag of clothes was returned to me yesterday; I’d sent them out for ironing. Upon receiving them, I was told, “There is one small problem Madam. With one dress. Only one dress.”

Pregnant pause.

“With one dress, there is problem inside. But other are fine. But, one small, small rat,” he began, demonstrating with his thumb and pointer finger, “ate one dress.” Pause.

“Hmmm? What did you say?” I lifted my black skirt out of the bag, holding it up in front of me. Tip toeing my fingers across the fabric, I pinched it carefully, while thinking about diseases that can be passed through the saliva of small rats. Lo and behold, breakfast, lunch and dinner had been tatter-torn of the back of my skirt.

“But all other dresses are fine, Madam.” Thank you, I’m relieved. “And no charge for these, Madam. No charge.” Thank you again.