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Dear All- and Mike Farmer
While poor people of the area have just had
their thached (straw) roofs blow off their Mud houses ,and their mud houses are
turning into more mud,and people are dying and even more will die from the
diseases to come,we get to hear about the carnage ,and learn about their misery
sitting at our computers.
Into this mayhem that is India arrives one
Foreigner(as they are called) in 2 cars/jeeps with a purpose.He wants the
rocks that fell from the sky.
Mike travels exactly half way around the
world for meteorites,and ends up with a flood,starvation,and disease.Not to
mention he is among people who have never seen a refrigerator- and would not
know what to do with it even if they did see one.
They have never known electricity- unless they
travel to town.
Maybe he can do something to help the poor people
there,even if they dont have METEORITES TO BARTER FOR FOOD.
COWS-
They are a part of the household- almost a member of the family- like a pet
dog is- sort of-
They wander during the day looking for foliage,and in the evening come back
home - to be milked.The reason they are on the road in Mikes way is because they
are lost- or decide they dont want to sit in the flooded area today.They are
trying to stay dry, or maybe their way home is blocked by water.
Milk is the major source of protien and fat for most of India.The milk
extracted is usually gone fast -They dont need refrigerators- there are more
mouths in the household than the cow can fill.
ROADS
Mikes description of the road travel left out this-
As the only decent part of the road is the middle every vehicle travels in
the middle of the road.There is nothing dividing oncoming traffic from your
vehicle.
When you see a vehicle coming- you have to make a quick decision whether
you want to get off the road
or if you want to get him off the road
or if you want to see if he wants to play the who,s going to get off last
game.
The larger (read TATA) usually wins the middle ground.
I must tell you about the TATA tramplers -
(These are 7 ton trucks loaded with 20 -30 tons of freight- i call them
Tramplers) hopelessly overloaded ,usually leaning to one side,engines
over-revving under the load,and they do trample everthing in their
path.
Travelling in rural India can be great
fun.I go as often as i can,doing volunteer Wildlife work while i am
there.
INDIAN HOSPITALITY
If there is one bed in the home- the guest sleeps
in it- the rest on the floor.
If there is one meal- for the whole family to
share- the guest gets it.
It is very very humbling to learn that there is so
much we can learn from these poor people.
The tone of mikes email seems to suggest he has
finally found what enthalls people of the world with India.There is so much to
love - and so much to dislike.
It is a land of paradoxes.
His emails exude a sense of resigned acceptance
about the things he is seeing.makes me homesick just reading his
emails.
Anyway my contact reports that Recovery efforts
have been dismal.The water is everywhere as the mini cyclone from last week
brought the ocean to the peoples doorstep in more ways than one.
MIKE- Ask about when the Arribida is- Millions of
Indian Sea Going turtles come to the very beaches you are near to lay their eggs
and then even more millions hatch and go back to the sea to continue the
cycle that has continued from times immemorial .It is a sight of a
lifetime.
The turtles that hatch here- will only come back to
the very beach they were born - in a few years to lay their eggs.Radio telemetry
has established this recently.
And it took us 2000 AD yrs to discover GPS.The
turtles have us beat by a few million years.
PS- the word Arrabida was coined by the
spanish inhabitants of India-I think it means the arrival.
Regards
Atul kumar
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