Updates from the Workplace

Working in India has been a serious roller coaster of successes and failures. Mostly failures, actually. It took me a good three months to understand more or less how things work at KVK, and then developing my own project took obscene amounts of patience and energy and self-initiative on my part. Though I have taken on several small responsibilities at the office and have participated in some short-term projects, all of my attempts at bigger projects have failed miserably.

I remind myself of words of comfort from a former FSD intern - that I am seeing development at its worst. Working at an NGO in small-town India is bound to be frustrating as anything. But I do realize that I have learned much more here than I ever anticipated. And I have learned an entirely new concept of the idea of "work."


Organic Farming

I started planning one organic farming project that I was very excited about. The office staff also seemed excited about it as well. Then, several weeks into it, I asked a question about getting a "package of practices" on organic farming, which means data on organic farming methods, such as amounts of compost needed for different soil types in various villages. The scientist nodded and said, "Yes, yes. We don't have the package of practices yet. They have not finished the research at the university yet." Means? "Means, we cannot advise farmers on how to do organic farming until the research is finished." So KVK won't promote organic farming? "Right." So I can't do this project right now? "Right. We need package of practices before we can do anything. How can we tell the farmers how to do organic if we don't know how ourselves yet?"

So I sourly abandoned that project. In the meantime I have been writing case studies, or success stories of farmers who have benefited from KVK different programs.

Now, I have a new project. I am going to conduct a workshop with some women in a nearby village on vermicomposting. KVK did one training on vermicomposting in this village before, but now years later many of the farmers have abandoned their compost pits. So after I poke around the village and figure out what went wrong, I will attempt to revive vermicomposting and maybe find some way to make it a more sustainable practice. But who knows, any number of things could go wrong by that point.


Afternoon Naps

This is classic India. This week, I was preparing an office Powerpoint presentation and needed advice on which digital picture to paste into a slide. In the afternoon, I peeked into my coworker's office and saw Mr. Mattur asleep at his desk - as usual. He always takes afternoon naps and I never hesitate to wake him up when I need to.

So I yelled, "Mattur sab! Can you come help me with something?!" He swung his feet off the desk and put on his glasses and shuffled down to the computer room.

I asked him which picture. He told me which one.

Then he said, "That is all? Finish?"

"Yes, Mr. Mattur, that's all I need."

"I back to sleep now?"

"Yes, you can sleep."

"Haha, ok! Cause you disturb me! I asleep!"

And laughing, he goes back to his office. He was sort of kidding, but also serious. So he went back to sleep.


Digging for Water

One project I am working on now is the construction of a new model nursery at KVK for the horticultural department to use for trainings. The first step is to build a tube well. I'm not sure what that is, but we're making one.

So we hired a man to come find water on the land where the new nursery will be. The man took a forked stick and held the ends apart very tightly and slowly walked across the field. At one point, the stick started spinning under his tight grip. He repeated the exercise over and over to confirm that he had indeed felt the pull of water underneath him.

Then he tested the location of water with another method. He held a coconut in his hand and walked back and forth over the identified spot. When the coconut rolled and nearly fell off his hand, it meant he was standing over the water.

Then, he confirmed this with yet another method. The water man held the coconut in his hand, placed some rupee bills on top, and lit several sticks of incense. He said a prayer. Then he pocketed the money and gave the coconut to the gardener, who walked about 30 meters away. The gardener put his feet on the coconut and squatted on the ground, balancing himself carefully on the coconut. Then the water man slowly walked with the incense over the field where the water was. Supposedly, when the coconut rolled a little and the gardener fell off, it meant the man with the incense was standing over the water. I'm not sure it ever really worked.

But the man eventually identified the point where we should dig for water. Yesterday we dug down and down and down. No water. The angry horticulturalist called the water man and told him he was wrong. The man replied with some excuse about how the water must have moved to another spot. Anyway we all had a good laugh about it.