Saturday, May 28, 2016

Village visit

We walked to a nearby village today to meet community members and learn about how they live.
We woke up on Navadarshanam farm and met at the community building at 7 a.m. Gopi lead us through his favorite yoga positions and helped us learn various breathing and mind clearing techniques. We had a yummy breakfast then we walked to the near by village.



48 families live in their community, with an average of 4 people per house hold. Two families welcomed us into their home. It was interesting being in their kitchen seeing the wide variety of spices and their stone fire oven.

 

It was cool how multiple homes had solar panels. We also learned that the cows and the animals live under the same roof as the people, in an area not far from where they sleep.



It was sad to hear that the pattern of rain has changed due to global warming. They used to rely on the 9th heavy rain to be the sign that the crops are ready to harvest. Now with climate change they densely plant the crops, called crop defenseification. They irrigate the plants with a couple buckets of water if there isn't any rain. This makes their yield come later in the year and a lot more labor intensive. The night before, there was a huge thunderstorm, and this morning we saw families mourning the tree that fell down in the storm. After, the man who is the head of village unlocked their temple for us to visit. We walked back to the farm and visited the community co-op. 30 families from the village participate in their trade market. 15 of them live full time on the farm. We got back to our hotel around noon and had a free afternoon. Most of us spent it shopping on commercial street.