The Village People

We moved out of A'Bad and into a small rural community about two hours away to begin work on our project. The students are doing home stays in three local villages. They're all pretty much celebrities: The main entertainment in town seems to be to take them to different houses to have chai and be stared at by as many as thirty people. Apparently, there was a Peace Corps worker in one village about twenty-five years ago, and people still talk about it. For many of the locals, our students are the first Westerners they've ever met. While this was funny for the first few days, some of the students are badly in need of private time and space. This is particularly difficult for female students trying to read for our seminar. There is a lot of sexism in the village culture, and so some families are incredulous that our students actually need to prepare for class.

The other major hiccup has to do with actually doing sustainable agriculture. The host families are all Brahman, the highest caste. The honor of having foreign guests would naturally fall on these families, and they've been extremely hospitable. However, their wealth means they hire workers for the fields, and don't engage in a lot of the actual practice of farming. Again, the female students get to do a lot of choirs, but mainly around the kitchen, since girls don't typically farm. The boys, well, they play a lot of cricket. We've tried a work around, having the students due interviews on farming practices for a local government outreach center. At the end of this visit, the students will have had once in a lifetime home stays, but probably not too much practical knowledge of sustainable farming techniques.