The Final Chapter of the Study Abroad Program: Research Project.

   

Prelude: I’ve heard that Grandma Norma has been printing out these blog posts and reading them with friends. Hi Grandma! Thanks for supporting my adventures. You are missed and I will call you as soon as I can. This blog post is dedicated to you!

For the past few weeks I have been living in Coorg, a beautiful forested area that is well known for it’s coffee plantations and other crops.
Kate (from the study abroad program) is rooming with me in the house. Nisha, our housemother, has been accommodating with the zealous Coorg hospitality, which is found in every home we have visited. They almost treat us too nicely.



Nisha and Muthamma drying rice in the front yard.

Nisha’s children are young teenagers so it’s been interesting hearing them bicker in their own language. I’m not sure if they’re speaking Kannada or Kodava for there are many languages spoken in this region. Our housemother tries to convince us to learn the Kodava, but we just started learning Kannada! Indians seem to know at least three languages, sometimes five or six. People have to if they want to communicate in different regions. The idea that people of India remain united is astounding considering the language barriers people must face to communicate.

           

The remaining family members are a set of teenage twins (it’s interesting to watch them bicker) and the grannie named Muthamma. She’s a charming elder lady who smiles constantly, doesn’t speak much English, but seems to enjoy our company.

Every time I go out of the house the neighbors dog, whose name I can not remember, follows us all the way out to the main road and then starts whining when he wants us turn around. He usually gets bored and makes his way back to the house. This dog is my new friend, as my host mom says J I call him Cow-Dog because of the black and white spotted coat. My goal is to teach him fetch, even though I have a research project to attend to, this matter seems far more imperative.

Research has been going slow, but Coorg has proven to be a comforting home so far. It gets so relaxing that I tend to forget that I’m in a forest area, which holds many a’ dangerous wildlife:

In our homestay house there aren’t fans so I like to leave the windows open for a breeze, but doing that often brings in unwanted guests…

Kate and I with ice-cream facial hair

Internet Hunting

In Coorg there are plenty of trees, coffee bushes, and birds, but if you want to use the internet you’re out of luck. For a while, I believed that I was dependent on the internet to get research done. India forces you change one’s attitude to: “Just go with it”. Things here are constantly up in the air and you never really know how things work.

The following is a long tale of internet hunting (it’s a lot harder than you would think):

There is no internet at the home I am staying at in T. Shettegeri, so on my first day in Coorg I went for a run to find some- someone will have a café somewhere, right? I ran into townmomentarily forgetting that I am white-skinned, but the towns people definitely didn’t let me forget. There were stares all around directed at the crazy foreign girl running around asking people for internet.After asking about five different shops, one man came to my rescue and said there was one in Srimangala, the next town over. Continuing my run/internet hunt I finally came across the internet place that is conveniently right across from the bus stop. It was closed. The people who owned the shop said that it opened at four. I came back at four. It was closed. Unbeknownst to me, this was just the start to the never-ending internet hunt.

Internet cafés in Coorg are usually:

1.                  closed

2.                  open, but the internet isn’t working

3.                  open, but the power has gone out

If you want to use the web here the only way to get to it is with a 50-minute bus ride to the closest city, and even then it might not work.

It is frustrating, but now I’m appreciative of the easyinternetaccess back home a lot more. Living under these conditions brings me a bit closer to the way of life for most Coorg people, whether I like it or not :p

Nagarahole National Park and Irpu Falls

Nagarahole National Park is one that holds tigers, elephant, and other animals. It’s one of the places where the Karnataka Forest Department works, so I was hoping to get an interview there for my project. The research project involves the attitudes and practices towards the environment, and since it’s the departments job to look after forests, I figured this would be a great place to snag an interview. Luckily one man from the department was able to answer a few questions!

In India usually the only way for one to experience a national park is through a safari ride, Kate and I weren’t interested. It would have been nice to walk around and explore the park, but I was satisfied with the interview I got.

Next were the Irpu falls. The falls are located in a small town near to the national park. There were fun signs propped up everywhere reminding people to not through their garbage on the forest floor and animal facts and such. All of the signs were hand painted here’s one of my favorites with the endangered lion tailed macaque.

The falls were HUGE. Kate and I were feeling adventurous and climbed around the rocks near the bottom of the falls; the spray from the crashing waterfelt refreshing. This area of India is easily the coolest the air had been in the daytime since arriving.

Easily one of the best parts of Coorg so far J

The last part of our Coorg exploring day was a trip to a tea plantation. We learned about the conditions of the tea workers and a bit about the way the company is run.

Tea workers and tea farm

Wedding                                                                                       

Kate and I got ready for our first Indian wedding! It was an excuse to wear our saris again, even though we both agree that wearing these is a bigger hassle than it’s worth.

In the reception the close family members of the husband surrounded him and through rice at him The husband followed that up by touching the elders feet as a sign of respect. Afterwards the family of the bride performed much of the same thing with slight variation.

Dress: The men wear white clothes with a long black shirt over top, a white turban with a gold trim, and a red sash with a ceremonial knife tucked in the front. The women relatives had bright colored saris with matching headscarves.

 

Traditional warrior clothing

Ladies in line for feast



Food: The food was traditional Coorg style: chicken and pork with vegetarian options as well, with two different kinds of rice  at each meal.

Ceremony: The actual wedding ceremony took on the next day from 10am to about 10pm, an all day event. The main events of the day were the meeting and blessing of the bride and groom and the Ganga pooja. All of the people that attend the wedding line up to bless the bride and groom and give presents or money for the couple to have to start their life together. There were hundreds of people in attendance so this event took a few hours. Before giving the gifts the guest through rice at the bride or groom. Kate and I both were told to give Rs. 110 to the bride because the bride was a relative of Nisha,

Ganga pooja

The Gangapooja consisted of the bride and a couple of the women relatives dancing lasted 2½ hours. The bride had to walk very slowly from one side of a room to

another with water on top of her head while people danced around her

Sometimes it can last even longer, for example, Nisha had to perform this for five hours at her wedding! The people dancing represent them trying to “stop” her from reaching her destination. This acts as a test for the bride to show her dedication to the marriage (more or less). It seems to be more of a practice of tradition these days. Kate and I didn’t participate in this; why does she have to work so hard while people are dancing around her? Even though it’s a tradition, our feminism picked up from the Vivekananda Gender and Society course gives us a bias in situations such as this.

Music/Dance: The music at both the reception and the ceremony was ceremonial Coorg music; a couple of wind instruments, a few drums, and a few other percussion instruments. It had a steady rhythm and the melody was repetitive. People had a particular style of dance to go along with it. The dance itself was very lively and consists of simple dance moves easy enough for anyone to do. Here’s an example of the dance and music:

It reminds me of receptions that take place in the U.S., although, I wasn’t expecting “Shout” to be playing anytime soon… 

These are just a few highlights from Coorg so far. Next time will be my trip to Madikeri, along with a new coffee plantation I visited.

15 days till America :D