We spent 5 days at the village, living with my brother in law and his wife in their small house on the outskirts of the village. My 85 year old mother-in-law was also staying with us, but we all managed to squeeze in (just about!). Apart from the loud festival music starting at 5am and finishing at 12pm, it was restful! It was so nice waking up with the sun and being greeted by the buffaloes and cows outside, heating our bath water on the wood fire and chatting with the local families and schoolchildren over chai before school began. Leela was in her element, dashing around in the dirt and following the cows and chickens.
My family in Mohadi. From left, Shakuntula, my mother-in-law,
Lalita, my sister-in-law, Leela, and Prabhakar, my brother-in-law
We were very well looked after by all of the villagers. Each day we were invited for food at another person's home and the food was wonderful and much appreciated. Sue would often go for a morning walk to capture the beautiful sunrise colours. Here's one of my favorite shots.
Dogs at sunrise, Mohadi
We spent a whole day with the CNVF farmers. We started with a short workshop, where we talked about what they had learnt at Chetana Vikas. Prabhakar Kadam, our good friend and person driving the CNVF in Mohadi, described the methods to those farmers who could not attend. It was good to touch base after the training and see that it had been very useful for them.
Prabhakar talking about the training at Chetana Vikas
After a short discussion, we headed out to visit some farms. Despite the midday heat, we managed to cover quite a bit of ground. We had a rest under a Neem tree to talk again about the methods we are trying to adopt. We also checked the wells in the fields. It was a poor monsoon last year. Even in January the water was around 30 feet below ground level, far lower than it should have been. Prabhakar told us that every year they must blast the wells even deeper, removing more and more stone, just to get at more water. This is a worrying trend.
Helloooooo... any water down there?.......
Samantha with rubble from recent well blast
I asked why there were so few trees out on the field boundaries and the answer was clear. "Trees cast shadows, which lowers a farmer's productivity". We talked about the effects of removing trees on lowering water tables, which means more energy must be put into bringing up water, again eating into a farmer's budget. They agreed that they usually tend to look at short term impacts, such as shading, and don't know about or consider long term impacts. I intend to talk more about this in another workshop sometime soon to see if a compromise can be reached. What about planting trees that also give a yield on the boundaries ? Fruit? Timber? Something to explore....
Another highlight was being invited to Sarkinnhi, a nearby village. The deputy sarpanch (village head) of Mohadi, Mr Indal, took me to meet the Sarkinnhi villagers one afternoon to talk to them about our CNVF work in Mohadi. We were welcomed with flowers and then I asked questions about their village. At Sarkinnhi, there is a very active homeopathic doctor who has been improving the environmental health of the village for the last few years. Together with a committee, he has been encouraging villagers to install latrines in their homes, as well as educating people about personal hygiene. They have also been planting trees along the village streets and keeping it more clean and tidy. It was really inspiring. I then followed this by asking about their farming, and just like all local villages, people are suffering at the hands of chemical farming. This being a health conscious village, I asked about whether they have been suffering any ill effects due to the chemicals they use. Every farmer agreed that after spraying, they feel very unwell and their skin burns and itches. After a tour of the village, they all agreed that when possible, they too would like to join our project. So soon, we hope to have a Centre for Non-Violent Farming in Sarkinnhi too!
We left the village after five days of enjoyment and I miss it already. We'll be going back in the second week of March to deliver a two day workshop. On the first day, we will look at the basics of permaculture, followed by an introduction to zone 1 / kitchen gardening on the second day. At the moment, I'm buy writing a progress report and preparing the materials for teaching. It's all go.
And one more VERY exciting development has been unearthed this last week. I was emailed about the new Farmers' Handbook developed by Chris Evans and Jakob Jespersen in Nepal. This book will be perfect as an introduction to permaculture and sustainable agriculture here, so we're in the process of working out how to get it translated into Marathi. I will certainly be referring to it a LOT during my workshops!
Some scenes from our visit to Mohadi
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