Some Gypsies Eat Rabbits Sometimes

A few nights ago, I was sitting in the office in the late afternoon writing email and doing research on handmade paper for my project. At some point this evening, one of the staff came into the office and asked me if I had a knife. I said no, but I offered him some scissors that I had seen on the desk. He laughed and left the room. A few minutes later he came back and asked me if I knew about gypsies. I said yes. He then told me that some gypsies live in Tamil Nadu and that they are part of some of the self-help groups that seek microcredit loans with ODAM. He told me that they travel around and catch wild animals for food. He then said that one of the guys from that group caught a wild hare and had it in the backyard of the office. Naturally, I went out to the back of the office had to check it out. There I saw the said gypsy standing proudly next to his catch. The animal had its hind legs tied together and its forelegs tied together, lying on a table and looking rough. It was alive but not happy.

I asked how he caught it and it was translated to me that he caught it the night before. He used a flashlight attached to his head and spotted the rabbit in the dark, threw a net on it, and caught it. He had been carrying it around all day in a wicker basket on his journey to get to our office to meet with staff. I watched the rabbit lying there for a little bit, then beaming, the guy started to sweetly pet the animal on the head. This creature was going to be this guy’s meal for the day. They were looking for a knife so that this guy could use it on this thing. I said "very good" in Tamil and left the man to his rabbit. Minutes later I heard the animal yell, and a rabbit yell is really one of the most eerie sounds to hear. Not long after that I went to go look and the rabbit was skinned and hanging from a tree outside the back of the office. They began their meeting and it was the most unreal sight to see. The staff were all sitting in chairs with this guy while his basic sustenance was literally hanging next to them.

The juxtaposition of the entire situation has continued to astound me. There were so many different elements at hand, I was so humbled by it. Firstly, I recognized again that I have no grasp on others' realities. I have seen gypsies in urban environments, and I have studied hunter-gatherer civilizations of the past, and I have heard of tribal rabbit hunting. With each of these situations, I've categorized and reached conclusions that make those things comfortable for me to be around, talk about, experience. But this event put it all together, and created an entirely different set of realities that destroyed my earlier, unquestioned understandings of those situations. All of a sudden, in the year 2010, a gypsy man from rural Tamil Nadu can catch a hare for dinner one night, travel for hours the next morning in order to negotiate getting a microcredit loan by joining state/NGO initiatives as part of a {developmentese} self-help group program, walk all that way, forget a knife, and ask some American-Tamil liberal girl to help him out. what?!? what just happened!?

In some ways, I feel like Christopher Columbus! I feel like there are entire worlds going on that I discovered, but they've been at it [survival] in their own ways for eons, yet never shared it with me, so now I feel ownership over this newfound knowledge. I am different from Christopher Columbus in that I won't exert my power and resources to exploit them, but I'm sure this sensation must've been the same when he landed in the Caribbean in 1492!


Secondly, I was amazed at how unskilled I am in a practical sense. In the next room, while this man was killing and preparing his food, I was sitting around on my MacBook 'doing important, timely things' for the organization. I had this realization after I read World War Z (a story of the global zombie war, where academics, lawyers, and historians are totally useless for bare survival strategy purposes) last summer. I can't hunt! Can I actually kill an animal with own hands? I wondered also what I would do if I did have a knife to offer. Would I be okay with letting him use it [to kill the rabbit/his dinner]? Ultimately, my answer was yes, but then my sensibilities of a privileged person removed from that process made me cringe at the idea.

Thirdly, I was so excited with this paradigm shift that I couldn't quit thinking about it for hours afterwards. I realized that this is an excellent feeling, and that I would like to spend my life having more of them. This would be most easily accomplished by reading alot, conversing alot, and traveling alot. As someone interested in social development and international globalization, I'm trying hard to be open to letting new realities influence me, to navigate newly voiced (or unvoiced) sensitivities, and to bring what I can offer to these projects in a way that strengthens rather than undermines the power of the 'local'. It's a constant challenge, and makes this the most exciting and hardest work I've ever tackled.

Google Lost Me

Last Friday, my attempts to educate were thwarted. As I boarded the bus I asked the money-collector to take me to Narikudi (where the school is), in Tamil, and he charged me 2.50 rupees. However, crowded next to bustling exits entrances of men women children, I didn’t notice the critical turn. I eventually noticed how the foliage passing by was completely unrecognizable and the terrain around me was different than the terrain near my school. Instead of rice paddies I saw edgy cliffs of shrubs and trees, with the road cutting inside hard red clay. About 20 minutes into the ride I got suspicious and asked the same money-collector again if the bus goes to Narikudi. He looked at me, shook his head, and absurdly gesticulated his shock at my question and said in Tamil, “no no, it goes that way” and pointed in the direction we had just come. This scoundrel charged me earlier to go to a place he knew he wasn't going to take me! I got off and sat at the return bus stop in a "town" called Sedhupuram. The town consisted of a bus stop, a temple, a goatherd with his goats, and a huge cell phone tower- so my coverage was awesome!

Later I went online to look up Sedhupuram's actual location, but to no avail. Even Google Maps didn’t know where I was! This IS roughin’ it! I realized that I've never been in such a remote place all my life, and that this remoteness was a bit intimidating to me. I'm used to having a city-mentality where I expect the worst or best from people here, but seemingly here the intentions and mindsets in a rural space is different... a little less sinister or hospitable than I expect them to be; in truth a lot more indifferent than I'd like to them to be! Nonetheless, after a half hour of watching goats, the wind, and an occasional bicycle pass by, the returning bus came and I boarded it back to Tiruchuli.

When I returned to Tiruchuli, I was whisked away to help plant tree seedlings in the ODAM farm. The organic farm is basically a test nursery for different native plants that could be turned into some sort of entrepreneurial activity for people in the area. We planted teak so that ODAM can nourish these into small trees, sell them at a discounted rate to poor farmers, who can use it for teak wood (which is excellent for making furniture). Other crops include tomatoes, chilies, pulses, pomegranate, lady fingers, neem, jatropha, tamarind, and a ton of other random/experimental plants growing there (even a sad dried-out coffee shrub!) I planted teak saplings alongside some hired hands and was impressed at how long these women (note: they were women) could sit crouched and working. They were undoubtedly puzzled as to why whiteys like us (all four of us ODAM international volunteers were present) would want to do their work, which they were of course happy to share. I’ll write about the experience as an international volunteer and my theories on that when I can wrap my head around it a bit better. In the meantime, I’ll share amusing details and interesting stories too, which is definitely part of this experience. In addition to stumbling on bold new definitions of “progress” and “culture” (yikes!), this experience is much more than these highfalutin musings. Since living in Tiruchuli, I have decided that my favorite animal is really the goat, and that's enlightening enough.

what in the world am i doing?

I ask myself this question everyday, because I’ve finally ventured into the mystifying world of “international development”. I am week 2 into an internship with the South Indian NGO “Organization for Development Action and Maintenance” located in the rural town of Tiruchuli, Tamil Nadu. To speak developmentese, this organization works on “women’s empowerment issues in the rural developing world”.

Specifically though, ODAM is a model for its work: The primary focus of this organization is its support of women’s self-help groups in this region by creating economic opportunities and microcredit loans for rural women and families. The organization started 12 years ago by offering microcredit loans to repressed social groups in the state (particularly addressing those facing gender and caste-based discrimination). Since then, the organization expanded its reach into social development, and in 2005 built a girls’ middle school (for girls aged 10-14 yrs). ODAM acquired government support to finance the school, but the NGO is responsible for its successful operation. Uniquely, this school actually serves as a channel to re-integrate drop-out girls back into the schooling system. Because of the many complicated social conditions families here face as the members of the “rural, poor, outcaste” classes of Tamil Nadu, daughters are often pulled out of school to work as laborers to supplement family income. In many cases, ODAM literally goes to villages to negotiate sending girls to school, often making this a condition to any loan assistance they offer a family or mother. As a result, girls at our school come from a variety of social backgrounds, some with families supportive of their education, while others definitely not. ODAM’s school teaches 6,7,8 standard state curricula, including English (thanks to British colonialism).

In addition to the standard core curricula issued by the Tamil Nadu State Education Board (Math, Science, Social Science, Tamil, English grammar) the girls have 5 alternating courses that teach them various “life skills”. This includes Computer Skills, Physical Education, Art/Drawing, plus a couple more “vocational training” courses that give them skills to potentially earn an independent income (such as tailoring, handicrafts, and cosmetics/salon care etc). To complement the English grammar instruction, administered by a local Tamilian daily, ODAM recruits international volunteers to give the girls practice with spoken English (to make them more competitive candidates for employment in the future). In the mornings, then, I am tasked to go to the school and have class with 6th and 7th standard, with the goal of improving their spoken and listening English skills. In the afternoons I can do whatever I want, literally, and I’m making it up as I go along.

Now, I don’t particularly like the English Language, and teaching it abroad is definitely not something I saw myself doing after all my preparations to advocate non-imperialist forms of international development. Yet I come here to ODAM, and it’s what they actually Want Me To Do, so I’m here doing the Hokey Pokey in the mornings with young Tamil teenie-bops. oy vey.

In the afternoons, I am drawing up a project design that would potentially support the self-help groups and create an economic source for ODAM. A little more background info: So with the opening of the school, ODAM began inviting international volunteers. At some point, some volunteer came up with the idea (and resources for) an ODAM biodiesel initiative to generate local energy production, which then naturally led to a glycerine waste product, which then led another volunteer to launch a “fair trade” soap idea, which some volunteers are now working on to start developing for foreign markets. I came up with the idea that maybe we can make the packaging locally too, out of paper made with cow dung or local plant fibers. That way we can market it as 100% Tiruchuli and keep all profits local. I, of course, am no chemist, but I got ideas! So in the afternoons, I’m spending time on DIY websites on how to make paper and reading blogs on sustainable development projects in India.

My mind races everyday with new understandings of the relationships I’m building to international development vs. local grassroots work, South India vs. the West- and trying to figure out how in the world to reconcile these differences! Everyday I feel like I’m exercising my creativity and problem-solving skills, and I’m learning so much. I’ll try to document ideas on here, hoping to provoke your feedback and interpretations. As of now, pointers on handmade paper production would be cool.

mic test

I've decided to begin a record of my new post-grad experience abroad for those interested in occasionally checking up on me, my musings, and my adventures. I've titled the blog you're so exotic because it's a really strange and purposeful claim that I have been told throughout my life. It's a relevant expression that helps draw out some of my motivations, in a certain sense. I'm interested to figure out what the connotations, assumptions, and implications of this idea can mean both for myself and also in a larger context of globalization and its impact on "development" (since I enjoy those things).

It seems to me, that in the path of discovering the future, one should make connections to the past, and this blog may help elucidate some of those findings, as I unravel this theory for myself. I tend to dislike most blogs, but I finally convinced myself that this public forum will allow me to bounce ideas off of others and share theories with my colleagues in a potentially meaningful way. I do promise that I’ll avoid the urge to write inane “I ate a taco today and it was spicy” entries, so do bear with me. If you read something and can debate it, explain it, justify it, or understand it in a new way, please do and share it with me. Without further adieu, thank you for your attention, ladies and gents, and on with our show!