Sunday, December 26, 2010

Wwoof India




The house




Banana and coconut orchard

After two months on the road in India we grew a little tired of visiting tourist hubs where too much was customised for tourists, from the Western food to the hippie clothes. We felt like we were just seeing the tourist India, the sliver of the country that is set on display for us. What were forts and sights really showing us of the "Real India"?

So naturally our solution was to go WWOOFing (volunteering on organic farms, organisation WWOOF; World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), this is how we met and seems to be our saviour in many ways! We thought this would both give us an insight in the exotic plants grown here and also be a doorway to see the Indian community from the inside.





We got even more than we anticipated, a lovely Indian family that welcomed us into their home and took us to many functions. We got a good insight to the local culture and traditions going to various temples and a wedding. We were invited to many feasts where we got to sample up to 20 items of traditional South Indian food! Everything was served on plates of cut up banana leaves and everyone ate together sitting in a row on the floor.

Us with our host Mahadevi
The extended family
Feast

Feast

The bride and groom about to walk around the fire.
Our room
In the house lived the mother, her husband and the husband's mother. The family spoke only a little English which was enough to get along with everyday needs, though it sometimes brought some misunderstandings! In their garden they had coconut trees, banana trees, areca nut trees, pepper, tapioca, pineapple, mango trees, papaya trees, cashew nut trees and various vegetables. We got to harvest both coconuts and papayas, most food cooked in the home contained coconut and we were feasting on a papaya a day plucked straight from the tree ourselves! The mother cooked the most delicious meals and we all ate together sitting on the floor and scooping the food into our mouths as they traditionally do - with our fingers only! The father of the house was a man of few words and every evening he would call us to dinner by an obscure grunting sound! 

Laundry time!
Who needs soap and a brush when you can wash up with ash and a chunk of coconut husk
A thing that strikes you in India is people's good personal hygiene, which can seem surprising in a country that otherwise is dirty and dusty and a grime-free spot is hard to come by. Being nicely groomed and respectably dressed is of utmost importance, especially for the women. Women wear brightly coloured sarees and dresses, often alternating with a different one everyday. Dressing nicely is very important to everyone, even poorer people and people living on the streets will have a nice dress (which can sometimes be confusing to distinguish the poor beggars in fine clothes). People bathe and wash their clothes everyday.
All this became evident to us when we were on our first wwoof farm. As we were getting dirty everyday it seemed pointless to give too much attention to getting clean, thus showering a little less frequently then one normally would do. So one morning our host inquisitively pointed out why we had been wearing the same clothes for three days straight and indicated that she herself changed hers everyday! Funny to think that us coming from countries of utmost cleanliness have what is considered to be bad hygiene in India!

Patrick get to the centre of a coconut

Tara grooming a small banana tree
Neighbour harvesting Banana leaves for plates

Young pineapple




Tara planting a Papaya tree
Patrick having rice with tasty sambar. Yum!

Tara having some dosa's and coconut chutney


Patrick with some rare orange coconuts

Our host Mahadevi, getting the husk off a coconut
Areca nuts.
Cutting the grass, the old fashioned way
Tamarind

Patrick poking down a papaya
Rice

Lunch!

Adding another layer to the pavement. Yet another great use for cow shit.
Tara about to be devoured by the 'Malabar Giant Aloe'
Black pepper vine climbing a tree


Papayas
Chaff from rice

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Goa

Patrick digging into idli sambar rapped in a jackfruit leaf
Generally Speaking, India's roads are largely dangerous, undeveloped, and pot-holed, with the traffic appearing unbelievably insane to the uninitiated. So traveling by India's excellent railway system is usually advised, giving a much more comfortable and rewarding experience. But when we booked a sleeper compartment on a 16 hour overnight bus journey to take us from Udaipur in Rajasthan to Mumbai, the booking agent assured us that the highway was modern and smooth - "no bumps". Why we were gullible enough to swallow this bullshitting one can only wonder, I guess as this was our only option, the trains being all booked, we were only too eager to believe. This night on the bus gave us no sleep but on the contrary, aching bodies, grime from feet to face (the seats had scarcely seen any kind of cleaning probably ever) and red bleary eyes from scarcely an hours sleep. All night long there were bumps causing us to constantly be flung up in the air and come smashing back down. At times the driver would slow down indicating that a great massive monster of a bump was coming up ahead, it was we could do to prepare ourselves for those ones...

Sleep compartment. Never again!

Getting to the train station outside of Mumbai where our train to Goa would depart from was another story. Mumbai local trains are nothing less than hazardous as the concept of a full train does not exist. It was quite terrifying to see how people violently pushed, shoved, elbowed and used any technique to get themselves on the already overcrowded train. It was the closest thing I've seen to a riot or a murder. 3500 people die every year on Mumbai's train system, with people falling off, getting caught under trains, etc. The only way of getting off is to start making your way through the mass three stops before your own.

At Goa's biggest train station, Madgaon, we saw an excellent setup. A restaurant split in two with a 'veg' and a 'non-veg' (meat) section, both with separate kitchens!



Wild banana tree. Spot the bananas!

Bamboo beach hut in Goa

Bamboo beach hut in Goa
After an uneventful day in Mumbai we headed south for lazy beautiful Goa. With palm trees and sandy beaches, we didn't do much more than eat, sleep and bake in the sun.



Goa


We rented a scooter and whizzed around Goa's backroads

Tara next to a young pineapple. Spot the pineapple!

Patrick ready for Thali three




 
Working on our tans    
  
Hell room
Tara and Ahmed cooking up some delightful dahl
 
Finishing off our lazy days on the beach in Goa we got our senses going with a bit of traditional Indian cooking. Our teacher was a lively young Indian chef called Ahmed, he rambled vast quantities of recipes from memory and claimed he had about 4,000 recipes stored in his head! We spent 7 hours in the kitchen and learnt to cook many mouth watering dishes such as dahl, channa masala, aloo palak and Indian breads like chapatis, naan and puris. Afterwards we were stuffed so full from everything we cooked. The food was excellent, using a vast variety of spices; usually up to 10 in every dish. On our homecoming some of you may end up victims to our attempts at the recipes we have learnt, beware or rejoice.