Himalayan Mountain Village Life

Himalayan Mountain Village Life

I am just arriving to Dehradun after spending about 10 days working in the villages near Rajaji National Park near Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. I was staying with an NGO called Himalayan Consortium for Conservation (HIMCON). Their mission is to motivate communities who live in the fragile Himalayas to preserve their traditional forms of natural resource management. In addition, they are working to empower women by giving them access to income generating activities. They take on small projects and find that living and working in these communities is probably the best form of motivation. 

I was staying with HIMCON in a village called Mala Banas. It is in the Kimsar region where there are about 20 villages close by. The largest village has 400 people, and many of the villages have around 100 people. My plan has been to work with HIMCON, collect data related to my survey and live with the people of the area. I want to learn from them and hopefully find something that I can contribute in return. In most of these villages, I am the first (or one of the first Westerners) to come. Needless to say, I was often getting asked where I come from and what I was doing. A few of the women just wanted to touch my skin because it was so light. They were also interested in my hair. Although it is dark like an Indian’s, it has a different texture.

My day-to-day routine looks like this: I wake up around 7:00am or 7:30am (this depends because it was pretty cold in the morning and hard to get out of bed), I go outside to use the latrine (this is sort of important), then I drink chai, do some yoga, and get ready for the day. In the ten days I was there, I took only three showers. However, I used hot water which was fetched from a local water source (there is no running tap water to the house), and the water was warmed on a fire. [Also, I want to note that cleanliness is implied. The dishes are washed well with minimal hot water and soap.] There are no water heaters, and few people have gas stoves. Most days, I went out with HIMCON to do some of their work. They are employing four women from three villages to help them with their work. Each woman earns 3,000Rs a month (which is about $60 and is pretty good for this area). With them, we did a variety of activities: going to the nursery to count how many fodder plants are still living from being planted in August, measuring trees which are hundreds of years old and finding out the story behind them, cutting branches of trees to plant in the nursery, and planting trees in the fodder nursery. We usually left at 10:00am and got back to the house anywhere between 3:00pm and 5:00pm. I often felt useless during these activities although I would do my best to contribute. However, I often feel like the clumsy, tall, white American girl. Somehow I am always slipping on the paths and hitting my head because houses are made for shorter people. Also, although I spent all this time studying Hindi, the first language here is Garhwali. Everyone speaks Hindi, but in day-to-day conversation they are using Garhwali. This is especially difficult for me. However, I have hopes to understand more from spending more time with them. I think that my understanding has improved even though I still have no clue about the grammar, etc.

Some of the highlights of my time in Mala Banas include the women’s self-help group meeting I attended and the mela. One evening, I went with HIMCON to present their idea of teaching women to sew to a women’s self-help group in Kimsar village. They are going to provide two machines, and one of the women from the village is going to teach the women to sew. They will have a three month class which lasts three hours each day. The meetings will be held in two sessions: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It was really interesting to see the excitement of the women and how they will arrange their other work around this idea. They do not have a lot of free time, which I will discuss later, so this is actually a really big deal. The other thing I did in the village was attend the mela. Every year on the 14^th of January, a big fair is held in Kimsar village (the largest village in this cluster). Basically it consists of food, trinkets for buying, and these odd games played by the men. I got my fill of the food at the mela. I tried the jalabis (fried sugar in beautiful patterns), chow mein, chole (chickpeas), and momos (wontons stuffed with veggies). It was all quite delicious and did not make me sick!

While I was in the village, I made some great connections with the women working for HIMCON by attempting to speak both Hindi and Garhwali. I never knew how excited I would be for people to speak Hindi so I could understand! Almost all of my work was conducted in Hindi because none of the village people know more English than “What is your name?” and “From which country?” Although I did not understand everything, I was able to catch the main ideas. I also really enjoyed working with Bisht-ji’s family. They live in Mala Banas and really are the point people for HIMCON in this area. They have three girls: 21, 18, and 10, and one son who is 20. He started working in a city to earn some money for the family in November, but he came home for the mela. I went with Asha and Nisa (the two oldest girls) to the mela. Nisa also showed me the temples in the village. I also would go sit with their mother in the kitchen (which has no lights and is very smoky from the firewood which is used to make food). Heena was another little girl who is six years old and lives in the room below mine. She lives with an older couple (although I have not figured out the relation) because her mother is almost deaf and does not talk much. Heena has quite the personality. She and Esha (Bisht-ji’s youngest daughter) really like to follow me around. They taught me one Hindi song and do a pretty good job taking care of me and showing me the ropes.

I really enjoy living in this simple village setting. However, for the people who live here year round (although they like it very much), they have a lot of struggles. The women work from 6:00am to 10:00pm doing hard, manual labor. All of the work falls on their shoulders because the men are either playing cards or are working in other cities. The typical woman’s daily routine looks like this:

·         Wake up

·         Bathroom

·         Fetch water (This takes between 30 minutes to an hour, up very steep hills. There is no tapped water in these villages. Some of the villages have a tap which is closer to the houses, but most people walk to the ground water source where tanks have been built. They carry 15 liters of water back on their heads up steep hills. 

·         Make chai for the family

·         Sweep in and around the house

·         Make breakfast (Breakfast does not consist of cereal and milk. Often breakfast consists of an Indian prepared vegetable and homemade roti.)

·         Get kids ready for school

·         Cut wood or grass (in all seasons, except for the monsoon in which they replace this with farm work. The main occupations here are farming and animal husbandry. Women spend 4-6 hours daily collecting fodder for their cows and wood for making food. Many women venture out to the jungle for these resources because they don’t have enough growing in their fields. This means that sometimes they encounter dangerous wild animals which live in the National Park. Pigs, monkeys, bears, leopards, and elephants are notorious for damaging crops and killing livestock. They have even killed a few people in the jungle. I am impressed by the strength and perseverance of these women. Just two days ago, I saw a 50-60 year old woman climb a tree using only a sickle. She climbed all the way to the top of the tree (which was about the height of a 2-3 story house). Then, she lopped off all the leaves for feeding to her cows. After cutting the leaves, she climbed back down, bundled up the leaves, and carried them (about 50kg) on her head, uphill, back to her house. Although I was impressed by this seemingly impossible feat, it is not without its dangers. I met a young girl, no older than 25 years old who had fallen out of a tree and is now paralyzed from the waist down. My reaction to this activity which is dangerous and takes so long is mixed. There are a number of problems which stick out to me initially. For example, cows are not worth the work (they require more attention and care than children); time could better spent. Also, from an environmental perspective, it’s hard to watch a beautiful tree lose all its leaves/small limbs. Also, the danger of it is very scary, not to mention the impact of carrying 50kgs on your head (pelvic problems, etc.). However, the work of these women is beautiful. If anyone knows how to live off the land, it is them. For example, they taught me how to make plates out of leaves and which trees can be used as a rope to tie up the leaves. I have a lot to learn from these beautiful women.

·         Make lunch (Rice or roti and dal or subzee – The malnutrition here seems to be a problem. Having cows helps prevent this because there is so much nutrition in milk and ghee, but the people here are almost all very skinny. However, they seem to get much better nutrition and actually have better cleanliness than the cities. They have fruit trees growing all around them, make millet roti (it’s delicious), eat walnuts straight off their trees, etc. However, the main staple meals do not seem to be enough. It’s always rice or roti and subzee or dal, rarely both. The calories really all come from roti, rice, and dairy products. Some people also have chickens and eat their eggs. This gives a bit more protein.

·         Feed cows

·         Make chai

·         Housework

·         Make dinner

·         Housework

·         Maybe watch a half hour of TV (if you have one and the electricity is working)

·         Sleep 

There is so much more I have to write about this routine and the beauty of this lifestyle as well as the difficulty, but I am going to give you a briefing on the findings from my first round of interviews (3 villages, 30-40 families).

·         There are government schools in all the villages I visited. However, only the largest village has schools that go above 5^th class. In this school, the classes are huge – 100 students per teacher, and often the teachers do not even show up. Many families called schooling here a time pass.

·         The hospital is also in the largest village. However, the doctor, an ayurvedic doctor, does not have adequate knowledge to treat the problems. In addition, he only comes about once a week. A pharmacist is there daily but does not seem like much help. If people really need a doctor, they have to take the 1.5 – 2 hour journey to Rishikesh. People have been known to die on the way.

·         Water is a huge problem. Not only do people get sick in the monsoon (especially) from unclean drinking water which is not treated prior to drinking. But also, the water is much less in the summer. Many people have latrines for their houses, but they only use them during the monsoon because there is not enough water for them. That means they go to the bathroom on the fields for the remainder of the year. Rain fall has also decreased significantly in the past 10 years. This is impacting the crops of this village. A few years ago, there was a drought and people received government rations of food to prevent them from going hungry. 

I know that the life here looks very bleak. However, the people are very happy. They do not want to leave their villages. Migration is a problem among the men who go to cities for jobs. However, they seem to prefer the peaceful, unpolluted life of the village. It really strikes me though how these people are so acutely impacted by climate change and pollution. The water sources they use for drinking water, bathing, washing dishes, etc. have become contaminated with bacteria, causing illness. The reduced rainfall interrupts what is their only source of food (these villagers are subsistence farmers). The people here have a rich tradition of living off the land, taking from it, but also giving back to it. They have temples next to trees, which emphasize their sacredness – these are not lopped. However, climate is changing, and the villagers lack the coping mechanisms and choice. That is where HIMCON fits in. They are trying to plant hardy varieties of fodder which grow without rain. This means that women can spend less time collecting fodder and more time on other activities. They are not trying to change this lifestyle into that of the city with the normal market mechanisms. Instead, they are trying to find a happier medium which combines traditional culture with a little bit of modern scientific knowledge. They lean toward the traditional side and keeping modernism out of the picture. However, they are also realistic. I am very lucky to be working with and learning from them.

I know that this experience living and working in these villages will be difficult, enriching, and transforming. I am going back on Friday. I can’t wait!

Lots of love, 

Margaret

P.S. I have pictures, but could not get them to upload on the blog. I will keep trying if I have the patience. 

What’s coming up:

·         I am in Dehradun working with an NGO and update my survey, etc. before heading back to the villages on Friday.

·         I will be back in Mala Banas for another 10 days or so until going south with Emily for a wedding and the Fulbright mid-year conference.

·         Then, it’s back to the villages for some research and workshops which I am supposed to be planning.