Different Living

Yesterday evening I sat in the community hut and talked with a man named Raj from Rajasthan. We had met earlier in the morning and talked about languages as we mulched seedlings in the reforestation zone. Raj is a musician and a romantic poet who learned Urdu and Farsi in school along with English. Urdu and Farsi are written with the Arabic, as is Uyghur. We sat with notebooks and pens and I wrote out some Uyghur words and phrases and he wrote out some Farsi words and phrases and we read from each other's notebooks, amazed at the power of script. I sang Raj a Uyghur song about a nightingale (nightingale is bulbul in Uyghur, and Urdu, and Farsi) and he translated it back into English for me. Raj- poet that he is- said that he studies languages because when you learn to speak the language of a different culture, you involve your heart in thinking about that culture.

Sadhana Forest, is full of language. About 50 volunteers stay in the thatch huts that surround the reforestation ares. A Czech man rode his bicycle here from Prague. A French mother and her three children are spending their holiday months learning about compost. Six environmental-planning students from Plymouth State college in Massachusetts are here for a Jan-term class. There are garden projects and energy projects as well, but the main aim of the cooperative is reforestation and water conservation. Through the construction of earth dams, water catchment pits, and tree planting the water table beneath the area has risen 6 meters in the past 6 years. 6 meters!

Lukin and I will stay at Sadhana for two weeks. We woke up this morning in our hut which is constructed of bamboo, palm thatch, and rope. Breakfast was porridge and papaya cooked over energy-efficient conical "rocket stoves" constructed to fit one pot and use a minimal amount of wood (one billet feeds 50!). Our food scraps are converted into soil which Lukin and I spent yesterday afternoon spreading on the garlic and gerbera daisy beds. Human waste is separated into bins; the liquid variety is processed into fertilizer and the solid broken down into soil using sawdust from the building projects. The entire endeavor, the 50 of us probably produce in one week the amount of garbage I alone produce in one day of my life in the city. It's inspiring to be immersed in and learning about the possibilities to do things differently. Lukin and I are taking notes!

Of course in all of this aspiration towards sustainability, there is the consideration of the cost. Today we took the bus into the nearby city of Pondicherry and drove past piles of plastic litter and homes of corrugated tin and thatch. The up-front cost of conversion to an off-the-grid life is unthinkable to most. The amount of space that Sadhana uses to produce and break down its food and waste is unavailable to families of 6 or 7 who live one room. The access to grants and start-up capital that have helped Sadhana take flight are accessed through years and grands worth of education. I think about all of this as I mulch seedlings and munch on organic carrots. But there is something to be said for the innovation, and the trial run of it. I read in the Times of India this morning that sales of solar panels in California are higher than they've ever been- in spite of, or because of the recession. Demand increases, prices decrease, accessibility increases... slowly slowly on the large scale. On the small scale, my individual knowledge of what is possible has increased and my skepticism of composting toilets has decreased. I hope that in the coming weeks I take from my time at Sadhana a soil-like ability to absorb the ideas and information that come from immersion in a different way of living.