Day 17, 18, 19: Bio gas and Low Carbon Farming

Monday

I think my time at Zim and Thailand has really helped me just go with the flow. you need to learn to be flexible, and able to change your schedule at anytime. And this is how this morning started. Cait and myself were meant to go check out the bio-gas installations in the morn, but the plans had changed. Now, i was the only one going as we were now going to transport cement in a ute so that people could actually build the bio-gas units. Yet even this was delayed by a few hours. So i just waited near the front gate. Yet the coolest thing happened - 6 mothers/grandmothers rocked up to the front gate with their young children - everyone dressed in their formal dresses and clothing. They look at me and said ‘sir’ and start speaking in Telugu haha. So i had to hand gesture to them to wait while i searched the entire ground for someone who could speak Telugu. Finally i found Roja a young girl who works here and she spoke to them. I found out they were here as they had been accepted to come to SEDS school, and they were here for their interview and collection of details for the database. The education officer came out and he was in charge of collecting their information. After some dialogue they were taken to a table to be interviewed and with the children’s photos taken. The atmosphere seemed a bit tense/clinical, so with the education officer’s permission, i got some lollies (jolly rancher lollipops to be exact) and handed them out to the kids. they were shy at first, but it was great to see the kids accept it and the smile on the parent’s faces. perhaps sweets are a rare thing for the kids, so it was good to just see a smile. 

I couldnt stay long as we had to go do the bio-gas units. We drove for quite some time on the highway heading towards bangalore wen we pulled into what is the equivalent of a service centre - shops would line the highway for ppl to just pull over and get food. It was here where we made the delivery for the cement. 10 bags of cement (i assume 20-25kg each) delivered to a restaurant as they were going to switch to bio-gas. A questionable sight was when we all sat around and watched one man take the bags of cement onto the head of another person, who would then haul the cement to the other side. these were heavy bags and only one person was moving it. As we continu

The farmers, Ronny and I

the ute

bio gas (L-R) input of manure, methane with pipe, output. Sammy is the expert 

kids 

farmers meeting

farms

manni!

ed on our journey, we went to different houses installing people’s bio-gas units. These units are quite clever. They use the owner’s cow manure and then by mixing it with water it funnels into a cylinder which then methane is produced. A pipe is then connected from the house to the person’s stove which then they can use to cook. it saves money, time and women dont need to go out and get wood which can be quite dangerous. The funny thing is that the unit may be close or far from the house. some units can be as far as 100m away. the piping also needs to be placed high, so in some cases, piping is running through trees, through parklands, through ppl’s front lawns and then through the roof to get to the stove. its almost like no planning or care has gone into how they pratically place the piping, its just all over the place. At every place we go to we get offered chai, which is so delicious. And i always hear Telugu as the SEDS crew and villagers talk. and then i always hear ‘blah blah blah “Australia” blah blah (replace the ‘blah with telugu words). haha. they are just so curious about why im hear. We went out to lunch at some shop and unfortunately they served peanuts. So i could only really eat plain rice, but it was still good. 

At night we had dinner with the family and here was an interesting parable/analogy that we got told about Indian mindset/culture. There once were 3 crab catchers; 1 from china, 1 from ireland and one from india (the first 2 countries can be anything, they were just the examples we got told). One day a man came and asked them how could they tell which was their crabs if they escaped the pots. The first said ‘ive painted my crabs blue’, the second said ‘ive painted mine red’. Yet the indian said, ‘easy, whenever one tries to climb out, i’ll just pull it back down’. Then to hear the explanation was incredible and something that has stuck in my mind. Supposedly, if someone tries to do something good, something out of the ordinary, people would unfortunately bring them down. If someone tried to whistleblow  or do something for the good of the people (whether in politics or police) they would be transferred, blackmailed or even killed. i believe Rajen and Manil have copped their fair share as they try and help the local communities here.

p.s. forgot to mention in the previous blog that Bahubali was a 2 part movie. looks like ill be coming back here to watch the sequel.

p.p.s theres also monkeys here which are a pest as they eat crops and coconuts and destroy piping. so theres an air rifle here.

Tuesday

Today was another day of bio-gas units, but this time Cait could come along. It was pretty similar to the other day; we’d go into someone’s house, we get treated like royalty, get given a seat while everyone else stands, we hear the word “Australian” as they speak to each other in telugu, and we are given chai everywhere we go. Man, chai is good!! Im not sure if i mentioned it before, but these bio gas units are all for free. All ppl have to do is make 6 weeks worth of manure mixed with water and put into the unit. Yet to Manni’s frustration ppl werent doing it, so we couldnt do anything. But the cool thing was that places we went to there were kids so we just handed out lollies to kids and took photos. they really really enjoyed that and so did i.

Wednesday

Today we did something similar but different. Similar in that it was related to climate change and how farmers could save money etc, but this was called Low Carbon Farming. i think i explained wot it is in a different blog. So today we got to go out to people’s farms and use GPS technology to plot the boundaries of each farmer’s field. The day started off firstly with a village meeting of farmers who were interested in participating in LCF. Again we were treated as royalty as we sat on chairs while everyone else sat on a tarp. It was really a great sight to see how the community got together to hear wot SEDS had to offer. even the mayor or ponchaiyit came to listen. After the meeting we went out to the farmers’ fields. It was crazy how vast the areas were. some where like 20 acres. it was crazy awesome! great views! The farmers really knew the place like the back of their hand because we had farmers crammed in our jeep showing us who’s field is who’s in this desolate place. Again they’ve never seen an asian before i guess, so everyone just really wanted to shake my hand. they even got photos of me. its almost like the tourist has become the tourist attraction. There was some really good crops growing - cotton, mango, even my arch nemesis ground nut. But the life of a farmer seems so interesting. Again u need to picture urself kinda lost in a desert, and then u see a man or a woman just walking or plucking some crops. We were so far from civilisation yet people were here working and living. Crazy stuff!