This is an entry that I wasnt able to finish on the 7th of November because the power went out before I could save it but I found the draft! Yay!

"Awake, awake great ones! The world is burning with misery. Can you sleep?"



This is the quotation that stared down at me as I laboriously attempted to use one of the work out machines at a local gym in Barrachpore near Kolcuta this morning. I think it is a great call to action.



For the past few days I have been in Barrackpore at the home of Dr. Debal Deb who we have been working with at Basudha. I had to accompany him here because I needed to get on the internet very early in the morning to sign up for classes (Im taking Cultural Anthro, Intl Relations 1, Womens Studies 70, IAD 10, Bootcamp!, and doing an internship in the Eco Garden- holler back if you are taking any of these or have any tasty tid bids of advice youd like to share : ).



We arrived at Basudha, the rice farm we will be working at for 2 weeks located near Durgapur in West Bengal, a few days back and have yet to thrust our hands into the soil. When we arrived, Debal was preparing for the 5th (maybe 6th?) Annual Basudha Festival which was an amazing event to participate in. I am currently composing an article to post on Dr. Debs website about the festivities. Here is a link to the site: http://www.cintdis.org/. The food in Bengal is very different than the food in Northern India. They love sweets, always eat with their hands even if there is no chipatti bread to ease this process, always have a huge heap of rice along with 2 or 3 veggie dishes, and tend to eat dinner really late at night (something that I am not used to at all!). We eat our meals on plates that are made from Mahua leaves which are pinned together with tiny twigs - they also make bowls from these leaves. The house that we are staying in on the farm is made from adobe, bamboo and has a thatched roof. We have been sleeping on the balcony which is a lovely place to crash except for the fact that the sun and sound of people talking alwats wakes you up. Since we arrived, we have been stalked by packs of curious children who just watch us quietly as if we were artifacts in a museum. I think its cute and kind of ammusing but it can feel very suffocating too. I have been trying to use the Bengali phrase book to talk to the kids and they think its absolutely hilarious. Kasey and I sung Sublime to them cos they really wanted to hear us sing. We also got them to sing a traditional song for us so, we're even : ). So far, there has not been any work that I have done at the farm because of the festival and my traveling to Kolcutta. Kasey, however, stayed behind at the farm and is harvesting rice and recording data for some of Debal's experiments.



We have met so many interesting people at Basudha and had numerous enlightening conversations about development, ecologial economics, racism in India, the injustices of Monsanto including many terrible things that I cannot dissclose at the moment.