Naya sal mubarak ho!

Hi all,

I’m back in Chandrapur now. My time here has almost finished. And it is about time to move on. The schools are closed these days, and I think Ramrao can now handle the lessons on his own. Considering the water project, I will visit the municipality again, to see if I can get the maps which are promised to me. Last time I went there, the geologist was gone for other work to Nagpur. The main problem with the water as far as I found out now, is that there isn’t enough water to provide agriculture the whole year. Only enough to harvest rice in the monsoon season, and maybe some other products in the winter season. But the summer season is very dry. Then even the trees in this area drop their leaves. When there is no agriculture, people go into the jungle to make money. The handicraft is one of the project offered to make money in a different way. But I doubt if providing water the whole year could be a solution to this? Are people willing to do agriculture the whole year and is that possible with this soil types? Enough to research I guess… But for myself I need to think about the goals and the motivation to do this kind of work, because:

Imagine; Misschien wat kort door de bocht..maar ik wil m toch maken….

In Holland currently we have a problem what we call the “individualisering” van de samenleving. That means something like that our society is becoming more and more individualistic. I don’t know exact researches on this, but I think some problems coming from that are our housing problem (everyone living on its own in a house, where in India 15 people would live in), burn-out, being alone/lonely, which I think might become a new health problem in Holland. (only imagine, when you went ill there is now one to take care of you…so where do you go?). The Dutch government is searching for solutions on this and is also stimulating ‘families’ and caring for each other. Imagine now that some Indians come here to teach us about how this goes in India and that we should implement this way of life in ours. Because it is better for us and will safe our society and solve our housing problem. What will our reaction be??  Hmmm that’s what I thought. But I think that concerning these things we really can learn something from India.

Last Friday Ramrao took me to a temple. (Ramroa is hindu, but the family I’m staying with are moslim). That was a complete different experience comparing to last year’s visits. Then I always went to tourist or semi tourist places. And also I never knew what to do, because I’m not a hindu. Now I got some explanations with it. But also a lot of looking. Being a foreigner in this small town you get a lot of attraction. Especially when dressed Indian style, full make-up. (shannoo is erg goed in het epileren met een touwtje..pijnlijk, maar wow!...dat ga ik thuis ook maar eens vaker doen). So I’m providing the people here with a lot of work looking angry at all the man here taking pictures of me, staring at me or talking about me. (I’m glad I don’t understand there talking).

In Mohurli I took care this time about my own cooking, washing and housekeeping. Good to experience how much time that consumes and how tiring only housekeeping can be. It is really a job. But boring to me! I tried some new cooking I learned an made my own Chapati’s! Felt a real Indian housewife for three days…But combined with the work for SCF that was really tiring… so I even went to sleep Indian style. (middagdutje en om half negen slapen).

Saturday Ramroa took me trough the jungle on the bike. Halfway I was realizing that these tigers are out here and would be able to catch us. Because we where going the same roads as last time on the jungle round…So that was an exiting drive. Especially on the way back we discovered prints of a male tiger in our tire tracks. So probably the tiger was following us. When I asked Ramroa what you do when you see a tiger: his answer was: That’s up to the tiger. I’m glad we didn’t meet one. I started to realize that all these gates are not there to protect people from the tiger…

Monday Shannoo came to accompany me on another jungle round. This time unfortunately just on tiger far behind us, but a lot of other animals. I made good pictures of a kingfisher finally…And a rough ride….Coming home another toilet problem started.. so my dinner was just existing of parles-c and a bottle of water…The problem continued and this time it went even more worse, but I want go into details about that…We spend the night in Mohurli. And in the morning went back to Chandrapur where I will spend the last days. Celebrating 31…Curious how that will be!

Op de terugweg kregen we een lift van een van de gidsen. Hierover heb ik nog een mooi verhaal te vertellen in Nederland…Dit is een soort oude jeugdliefde…en zoals ze in Nederland wel eens zeggen oude liefde roest niet…het is erg grappig om dit te zien en te horen hoe dit hier speelt…Niet zo heel veel anders als in Nederland…behalve dat er hier niets gebeurd, omdat dat ook gewoon echt niet kan! Dat even voor de duidelijkheid! En de rest vertel ik nog wel eens als ik terug ben bij een goed glas wijn.. ;-)

For now I wish everyone in Holland a good celbration of 31/1…I will celebrate it 4.30 hours earlier…Een gelukkig 2009 alvast!

Naya sal mubarak ho!