Rural village stay Part II - Indian village life

Thursday, November 06, 2014
Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India
  


    We are now roughly three weeks into our Indian adventure and have just finished part two of our 16-day program with our director for this portion of India, Rishi Chaturvedi, whom we call Rishi-ji . Part two took us to the white city of Udaipur, famous for its expansive picturesque lakes. We arrived around 9:30 at night by train and were picked up at the station by Rajubhai and Vinodbhai, the proprietors of Bhagwati Hotel and long time friends of Rishi-ji. We had a late dinner of spicy thali and then went off to bed.

  The next morning we met for a simple breakfast provided by the hotel and consisting of bananas, toast, omelets, and tea before heading out to explore the Udaipur fort and palace. Like all of the Indian forts and palaces, this one had it's own unique history and architecture from intricately carved sandstone screens and winding halls to a tiger cage out front and a low wall where they would hold tug-of-war contests between elephants. Afterwards we wandered back to Bhagwati through the curving medieval-style streets of the old city. For dinner that evening we were treated to a long walk through the large garden just across from the hotel to one of the lakes where we hopped on a boat for a short tour before getting out at another dock and ascending several flights of stairs to a roof-top restaurant where we could look out across the water . This lake contained two islands built up to resemble small palaces and were in fact part of the royal residency in the past, and are now used for high class weddings and retreats. At night, all lit up, they look particularly lovely with the back drop of the water and the moon rising over the Rajastani hills. That was Sunday.

    On Monday, we paid a short visit to a local NGO (Non-Government Organization) to learn about the local Adavasi culture and the programs they implement to support the needs of these people. The literal translation for Adavasi is ancient-people, and is largely used in reference to the migrant workers who travel from their home villages to the city in pursuit of work to support their families. That afternoon, we packed up and headed to the village area of Jhadol, just a two hour bus ride south of Udaipur where we would spend the next week learning about rural life in India and participating in some volunteer work at a local school.

  On our first day we visited the main school run by the RBKS administration team, to meet the local board members and principals as well as visit a couple of the classes . After lunch that day we loaded up into a couple of Jeeps and traveled further into the hills to visit a remote village where we were greeted with drumming and flower and tika adornment. Following the drummers we found ourselves moving into the village proper where we had some brief traditional dance and then a meet and greet / Q&A session with the residents there.

They then proceeded to guide us around the village to see the various homes, families and farmland where they make their lives. All of the cows were colorfully decorated from a recent festival with wreaths wrapped around blue or red painted horns. We tasted some fresh peanuts just pulled from the ground (did you know they were a root?!) and got to hold a peacock chick and baby goats. Then it was back to our guest house above a local teacher's college for dinner and sleep.

  The next day began our experience as spoken English teachers and wall plastering laborers. A general schedule that we maintained for the next four days . We spent our mornings teaching English in the classrooms of an all girls boarding school and then playing games with them afterwards. With the relatively low amount of conversational English available this was certainly a challenge, but everyone stuck with it and we observed a small bit of progress in those few days, if only in teaching a couple of new games and some new vocabulary.

    After lunch we lent a hand to plaster the walls, which presented challenges of its own. We were, however, able to complete several walls with the help of local wall-plastering specialists.

  During these few days the team stayed with several families in the tiny village of Shivpura, just across the street from the school, and maybe a five minute walk away. There was almost no English spoken in the homes, so communication was tricky, but positive relationships were certainly developing by the end of the stay, particularly with the children of the families . Our team had hopes of getting to play a more active role in assisting with family chores and farm work, but as the farming season is coming to a close and most of the harvest already complete there was little to be done in the fields. The girls spent some time helping to clean up their houses and taking care of the children and Andy and Jacob got to try their hand at beating dried corn ears as a method used to remove the kernels from the cob. I believe Sofia and Emily had a chance to try some chapati preparing.

  October 31st came and went while we were out there in rural India, and we managed to pull together a great little Halloween festival. As a team we had pumpkin carving, costumes, and trick-or-treating. And, Rishi-ji was able to hire a DJ for a rockin' Halloween party that we shared with the girls from the school, and some of our host families. It was a good time!

  In the late afternoon of November 2 we had a farewell ceremony at the temple in Shivpura to share our thanks and goodbyes with our host families and other villagers before our last night .

    The next day we had a debrief with the RBKS team regarding our experiences. Then, after chai, we loaded back onto the bus to make the dusty two hour journey back to Udaipur for another short stay at Bhagwati Hotel.

  On our final day with Rishi-ji we visited a local Batik shop to learn about this unique Indian art and try a little bit for ourselves. This is a very intricate process of decorating cloth and creating textile design. For using bees-wax on cotton, you start with a sketch on a specifically sized piece of paper and then transfer that to the cotton sheet by placing a piece of carbon paper between the cotton and your sketch and tracing your sketch with considerable pressure. Then, using paint brushes, we painted melted beeswax onto our lines on both sides of the cotton sheet before putting it through a dye wash. The final step is boiling and washing out the excess dye and wax to reveal the final design. And the collection of final designs in this group was pretty fantastic!

  That night we had our final dinner with Rishi-ji at a great thali place in the city. We said our final goodbyes, and appreciations for our time with this amazing, kind, and passionate person and for the wonderful experiences we were able to have because of him.

  At 5:30 the next morning we found ourselves Rishi-less at the bus station in Udaipur, waiting for the charter that would carry us to Jodhpur and further along in our Rajasthani adventure. And that , my friends, is a story for the next blog.......

- Heather Bell 

 




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