It has been a rice-filled week and gaining a perspective on the Navdanya farming process has yet to come to fruition. Regardless of the painstakingly obvious language barrier, I have been able to participate in work on the farm on a daily basis. One of my fellow interns jokingly made up a statistic on the spot that 93% of communication is non-verbal, yet this week has proven to me that this actually might have some truth. With a few nods and points, myself, along with a few other interns have successfully aided in the cleaning of rice for an entire week. My initial questions upon arrival such as: How was this planted? When will this be harvested? How do these varieties differ? have been replaced by the many hours it has taken me just to learn and ask: Ap kya nam hai? Ap kya tikh hai? Yah kya saf hai? (What is your name? Are you ok/how are you? Is this clean?).
Although cleaning rice is just as tedious as any other farmwork, it is not quite as enjoyable because I am not able to participate in the conversations. The workers are definitely friendly and help at my meager attempts to speak Hindi, however once something funny happens, or the conversation graduates from What is your name? Where are you from?, I get lost. However, I do get to participate in the chai breaks, so for now that and observation are enough for me. The work involves picking up handfuls of rice at a time to sort out all the rice that has not fallen out of its husk and any rocks that remain in the pile. From what I have observed the rice, once removed from the stalk (cheval) is put onto some sort of conveyor belt machine (the only machine I have seen on the whole farm) that then shakes the rice so much that the husk falls off. It does not get every piece of rice, though and this is why we have to sort out what the machine missed. This rice is sold to markets in Delhi, Bombay, and Dehradun, and the cleaner it is, the more money Navdanya will reap from its sale.
However, I am not hopeless. My confidence level in only a week has nearly doubled and my knowledge of the farm will continue to grow along with my Hindi vocabulary, which I have been practicing daily. Navdanya's participation within the local community is also not fully apparent to me. From what I understand, many of the farmers we have been cleaning rice with travel in an hour or so everyday to work on the farm and do not have a farm of their own at home. However, Navdanya does work with local farms in the area to distribute varieties of seeds and farming practices in order to maintain indigenous knowledge and culture. I am very interested in how many of these tedious crops are grown without using machinery and hope to explore this on the other farms, as well.
rice to be cleaned
Although cleaning rice is just as tedious as any other farmwork, it is not quite as enjoyable because I am not able to participate in the conversations. The workers are definitely friendly and help at my meager attempts to speak Hindi, however once something funny happens, or the conversation graduates from What is your name? Where are you from?, I get lost. However, I do get to participate in the chai breaks, so for now that and observation are enough for me. The work involves picking up handfuls of rice at a time to sort out all the rice that has not fallen out of its husk and any rocks that remain in the pile. From what I have observed the rice, once removed from the stalk (cheval) is put onto some sort of conveyor belt machine (the only machine I have seen on the whole farm) that then shakes the rice so much that the husk falls off. It does not get every piece of rice, though and this is why we have to sort out what the machine missed. This rice is sold to markets in Delhi, Bombay, and Dehradun, and the cleaner it is, the more money Navdanya will reap from its sale.
However, I am not hopeless. My confidence level in only a week has nearly doubled and my knowledge of the farm will continue to grow along with my Hindi vocabulary, which I have been practicing daily. Navdanya's participation within the local community is also not fully apparent to me. From what I understand, many of the farmers we have been cleaning rice with travel in an hour or so everyday to work on the farm and do not have a farm of their own at home. However, Navdanya does work with local farms in the area to distribute varieties of seeds and farming practices in order to maintain indigenous knowledge and culture. I am very interested in how many of these tedious crops are grown without using machinery and hope to explore this on the other farms, as well.
Beautiful baby calf - the only cow I am not afraid of here.
Millet and corn laying out to dry.
cow dung and urine being mixed by hand for the compost layer cake (layers of dry material, green material, cow dung/urine mixture, then covered in earth for 40 days)
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| cleaning rice! |
all the men rushed from cleaning rice to the rice machine once they realized it was broken
rice to be cleaned
Hi Kim! Just came across your blog this afternoon and am loving reading it!! Sounds like you are at the start of a fantastic experience! Keep the posts and photos coming, I look forward to reading more!!
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