Tribal Visit: Health, Humidity & Baby Animals

Sunday

We headed out of Pune around 11am for our “tribal visit” of the semester somewhere in Maharashtra, near Jawhar.  Halfway through the six hour trip, we stopped at an Indian rest stop.  Spoiled by the air conditioning on our cramped 15-person private buses, it felt like I had been smacked in the face when I stepped off into the wall of humidity that awaited me.  As I tried to adjust to the new climate, I looked around to see what an Indian rest stop involved.  There was no Dunkin Donuts or McDonald’s, no arcades.  Instead, there was a beautiful airy restaurant, little candy shops, perfume shops, clothing shops, and a man who brought us trays of chai while we stretched our legs.  The relatively nice atmosphere evaporated when I neared the ladies toilet.  The smell was foul, the lights dim and the lizards plentiful.  Although, I almost prefer the Indian toilet because I don’t have to touch anything.  For those of you who don’t know, an Indian toilet is literally just a hole that you squat over.  Sorry for the details, but it contributes to the overall experience! And of course no bathroom ever has any toilet paper.  The one girl that was smart enough to bring some ended up rationing it out to the rest of us.  Thank you!

We hit the road again, and finally arrived in the evening for some tea and snacks.  Our favorite part of the day.  While we waited for dinner, we watched a man from the Warli tribe demonstrate Warli painting for us.  It’s basically just stick figures using triangles but they look really cool on the finished piece.  The background is usually either mud (red), charcoal (black) or cow dung (green).  After our tribal art lesson, we ate dinner and headed out to the parking lot where we got some more tribal art in the form of music and dance.  They had a musical instrument that somewhat resembled a wooden saxophone and seemed to cover a wide range of sounds.  While one man played the instrument, my Public Health professor did some footwork and tapped the ground with his jingling walking stick.  Once the fire was going, we were joined by more tribal villagers who linked arms and began dancing around the fire.  We attempted to join but embarrassed ourselves with our stereotypical white lack of ability to hold a rhythm.  After our feeble dancing efforts, we were ecstatic to find out that the program had s’mores for us.  Some of us actually started jumping up & down clapping.  S’MORES!!!!!

We roasted our marshmallows, ate our chocolate, and adjusted to the biscuits covered in sugar because they couldn’t find graham crackers.  We even played a little “chubby bunny” where you try to squeeze as many marshmallows as possible inside your cheeks while still being able to say “chubby bunny”.  After the shenanigans, we sat around talking until about midnight enjoying the soft, cool night air and lack of bugs thanks to the fire.  Finally, we reluctantly crawled into our bungalows to go to sleep.

Monday

I woke up around 630am on Monday morning to follow our tribal leader down to the waterfall.  Him and his two friends did not speak any english, and before leaving, we were told to listen to them when they told us not to go any further.  We smiled dutifully and nodded, “of course!” When we got down to the little pool at the bottom of the waterfall, I was dying to go just a little further to the water’s edge.  I looked at our Indian guide and gestured towards the water.  He shook his head, no.  Please? He started laughing, but still shook his head no.  Just a little bit? Pinching my fingers to show what I meant.  Sighing, he looked around at the wet rocks, decided I looked capable enough, and walked a little further, gesturing that I was allowed to follow.  Yay! I made it down towards the water and sat on the rocks with a few others as we enjoyed the sound of the waterfall cascading gently from above and slamming into the pool below.  The fog was just slowly beginning to lift as the sun rose with us and we climbed back up for breakfast.

Following breakfast, we split into two groups and mine headed into a nearby village to check out the Primary Health Centre and Sub-Centre.  Both severely lacking funding, electricity, resources, etc. They are primarily funded by the National Rural Health Mission, so by the government.  However, the Medical Officer said that total health expenditure definitely needs to increase.  They often see patients with malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and many high-risk pregnancies.  There is a “Mother’s Home” where they encourage village mothers to have an institutional birth to avoid un-sanitary conditions that lead to maternal and infant mortality.  They do some really amazing work, and in some of the worst conditions, but there are so many areas that need improvement.  The reason we were able to visit this health centre is that my Public Health professor spent two years of his life living right next to the health centre, completing his degree with field experience in the village.

By the time lunch came around, I was already a dripping sweaty mess, having trouble breathing in the thick, humid air.  After our meal, my group headed to a local NGO/farm where we saw jasmine plants, mango trees and cashew trees.  I was pretty exhausted and miserable by this point so I don’t have too many details for you, sorry!

Guess what’s next? Tea and snacks!  We’re like little kids when we hear the phrase, “snack time.”  Everyone gets very excited.  Without any planned activities, we spent some time avoiding the beetles and moths as large as our hands and chatted for a while.  I dreaded returning to my bungalow that night.  I hadn’t slept at all the night before.  Picture the steam room in your gym at home, then picture dragging in a fleece blanket and a fan and trying to go to sleep.  Oh, and throw in a few large bugs for good measure.

Tuesday

As soon as I saw the sun through the crack in our window, I leaped out of bed, throwing on the least-wet item of clothing I could find, splashing cold water on myself and running out the door headed nowhere in particular.  I grabbed some chai and biscuits and settled onto a chair looking over the waterfall to read until breakfast was ready.

After breakfast, we headed into the village for some super awkward “slum tourism,” if you will.  We split up into groups of about six and walked around the village with the same guide that brought us down the waterfall.  We visited one house, where we spoke with a nice tribal man who answered our questions for us, translated through our program director who was with our group.  The house was actually quite nice.  The cow dung floor was a cool relief from the hot air, and they had beautiful wooden doors and posts throughout the house.  There wasn’t much furniture and I’m sure it’s a bit crowded, but it was by no means a decrepit hut.  We learned that five brothers lived in the house, three of whom were married.  They all worked out in the farms, their main crop being rice.  I asked the man what he thought of us coming to visit, hoping for an honest answer.  He reflected that when Indians go abroad, they visit cities full of skyscrapers and other impressive industrial feats.  When people visit India, they visit nature and villages.  I still don’t know if they like us being there or not, but oh well.

We left that house, walked past a crop of chillies drying in the sun, lots of chickens wandering around with their chicks, and some herds of cattle here and there—most of them resting lazily.  We stopped to check out the area where villagers were making their tools for the farm.  Heating up the metal in a fire, and pounding it to create the perfectly formed sickle.  Then they sharpened them in another station.  We asked if we could take a photograph, and some of them obliged happily, laughing when we showed them the picture we had just taken.  We continued on our journey through the village, and got to see the village schools where children sat in rows on the floor, extremely quiet.  Outside one of the schools, a classmate of mine discovered a cute baby goat and started slyly chasing after it until he was in a position to pick it up.  I was expecting baby-goat to squirm and yell, but he happily sat in M’s arms posing for our cameras.  One of my only instructions in going to India was not to touch the stray animals.  I decided that baby-goat was not a stray, and cuddling him was worth the risk.  So, M handed baby-goat over to me and I spent a few minutes completely enthralled with this adorable little rag doll of a goat.  I sadly handed him over to another classmate, and he remained un-squirming, happily being cooed at by all of us.

We were forced to leave baby-goat behind, and headed back to the “resort” to have lunch and head back to Pune.  The first three hours of the drive were a constant state of turbulence.  Riding a lame donkey piled up with luggage would have been a smoother ride.  My wrist began to hurt from being permanently affixed to the handle on the back of the seat in front of me.  After the rest stop, it was much smoother, with the occasional terrifying moment like when we began driving on the break-down lane of the highway along some cliffs... I had to remind myself that I was lucky enough to have a roof over my head and a seat to sit on through the bumps and swerves.  After all, we drove by countless trucks carrying various cargo with a whole group of Indians sitting on top of the packages or in random corners of the bed of the truck.

We finally made it home around 8pm and the most satisfying part of my day was taking a hot bucket bath, scrubbing the dirt and sweat from the village away.  A day later, and I'm still feeling a little under the weather and sleep-deprived but it was an interesting trip!  Here's some pictures!

Demonstrating Warli painting

Final product (Warli painting)

Dabhosa Waterfall

Primary Health Centre

Jasmine plant

Sharpening their tools

Making friends with the little village girl-child

Baby goat!

So many baby goats!