Fishing Nets and the Backwaters

     I flew into Cochin Airport in Kerala on Wednesday morning. After a long winding and trafficky drive through Ernaluku, the hectic main city, I arrived at my homestay in Fort Cochin. It’s a family-run place very similar to a hostel, but much more personal, especially since I am the only person staying here at the moment. It’s low season for traveling in India due to the heat in some places and .monsoons in others (like here). But that makes it all the better for me – a charming little town with plenty of English and lots to see but off-season prices and lacking the typical crowds. The owner of the homestay has been incredibly helpful, sitting me down with a map when I arrived and getting me oriented to the city – where to eat, how much to pay for transportation, what to see. He’s quite chatty and it’s very interesting to hear about his family, his previous job of working with boating companies and sailing around the world, and his perspective on his country. 

     After getting settled in, I did my initial wanderings of the town. Walked the wrong direction initially of course, as I often do, but soon gained my bearings and was able to navigate. There is very little traffic in the area, which means less honking and lots of being able to walk. There are even sidewalks, through because of the rain they are covered in moss and extremely slippery, so I mostly walk along the streets. My homestay is about fifteen minutes walk from the central tourist area, which is actually really nice (except when it’s pouring and I want food) because I can walk along through the streets of friendly people going about their daily life, not heckling me to stop and look at their shop or eat at their restaurant. I like walking the same routes time and time again in new cities and towns while traveling; it’s always is a good way to get to know an area and get a sense for what it’s like beyond the superficial tourist aspect of it, to pass by the same people and animals multiple times a day, to have a little bit of a home in a new place. 

     I wandered down to the water where the massive Chinese fishing nets are situated, a group of fishermen working and talking along each dock. They typically sell fish to the tourists (their choice) and it is taken to a nearby stall to be cooked. When I told the guy who tried to sell me a fish that I was vegetarian, he said that he’d give me vegetarian fish. I passed him several times that evening and every time he saw me, he jokingly shouted out about my vegetarian fish. Five days later, I walked by again and he still remembered. I walked onto one of the docks with the fishing nets and started talking with a group of very friendly fishermen. It’s low season for them in terms of both tourists and fish, so they were bored and wanted to chat. Before I fully realized what was happening, they had me alongside them pulling on the heavy ropes to get the net out of the water. So I guess I inadvertently went fishing?

 

 It was an entertaining experience, and I spent a little while longer talking to them and watching them work before continuing to stroll down the beach road. Climbed out on a pile of rocks to watch the sunset over the mix of the backwaters and the Arabian Sea. It was more wandering until dinner, enjoying this serene town that’s certainly much better without its normal flood of tourists. 

      The next day I went on a boat tour of the backwaters. I was in a group with a couple from France (who happened to be the only other foreigners with me on the plane froma Chennai) and a couple from India. It was really interesting to talk to the girl from France, as she’s a medical student who recently finished an internship in Pondicherry.  We drove about an hour away and boarded our little boat. Many of the boat trips are motor-run and this causes a lot of pollution, especially during high season, but our boat was rowed by two men, one in front and one in back, regardless of the rain that came pounding down at times. It was impressive how expertly they were able to row the boat – a single stroke looked exhausting, so I can’t even imagine doing it for hours on end. 

     We floated on down the backwaters, through the rivers, into narrow canals, into the biggest lake in Kerala. Past people canoeing by with their catches of fish, women washing their laundry in water in front of their houses, people going about their lives. Some of the houses are connected to roads, whereas others need to go boat. There were a few animals wandering about, but all of them clearly attached to a home, unlike the stray dogs and cats that are all over the mainland. There were wandering goats, the occasional cow, a water buffalo taking a bath, and lots of chickens. The only wildlife that we saw while out were birds, though quite a few of them, singing away.

 Other than that, aside from the occasional motor boat that passed us by, there was just the splash of the oar each time our rower took a stroke, and the sound of the rain pattering down on the water and the tin roofs in intermittent spurts. We would go for a while with no rain and then out of nowhere, there would be a small drizzle and seconds later, pounding rain – we were sheltered within the boat, but our rowers were our in the midst of it, continuing on as if there was no change. 

       We made several stops on our cruise through the backwaters. Extremely touristy, yes, but very interesting nonetheless. The first was at a lime kiln operation, which because of the dust and fumes, wasn’t situated near any other houses or buildings. Fisherman sold the meat of many little black clams in the markets in town and brought the shells here – there were massive piles of shells, which apparently made a convenient place for the workers to dry their clothes. 

 There was a covered room (no windows or doors) with a big open kiln. Inside were rows of burned coconut shells. The workers heated more coconut shells and placed the red-hot shells in a circle in the center of the kiln. Bucket after bucket of the shells, now mixed with petroleum ash, were poured on top of the shells. In between them, dried coconut fibers and more coconut shells were placed. When the mountain of shells had reached sufficient height, we backed out of the room and watched as they turned the generator on, which circles oxygen underneath the kiln and fuels the process. There was a click and immediately waves of white smoke came pummeling out of the kiln, first little clouds and then filling up the entire room and exiting out into the surrounding air. It felt like watching a little experiment from chemistry class in massive proportion. 

This process lasts six hours, after which the coconut portions have all burnt away and what is left is calcium oxide in the form of pure white shells. These shells are mixed with an equal proportion of water and this eventually turns into a white powder, calcium hydroxide. After it’s filtered, it is packaged into 50kg bags and sent off to be used for a variety of purposes – paper, chalk, cement, toothpaste, and to be sprinkled into still water to ward off mosquitoes, to name a few. A bit down the river, we passed by a group of men unloading a massive pile of these bags from their canoe onto a truck. A few of them would lift the bag onto the head of another, and he would walk up a set of stairs, dump the bag onto the pile, and come back for another. All of this in the pouring rain. 

      Our next stop was a home where they made twine rope out of coconut fibers. The fibers were dried and processed elsewhere and brought to the individual homes where it was woven into twine. The woman had a large pouch attached to her waist in which she stuffed a large amount of these fibers. She attached one end to a spinning device and as if by magic, these pieces all came together as she walked backwards across her yard and pulled more fibers out of her pouch. After making two thin ropes which were easily breakable, they were spun together with the magic of the simple spinning apparatus and turned into extremely sturdy twine. This coconut rope is used all over the place, from weaving the ceiling of our boat together to making door mats. I had a bit of trouble paying full attention to the process, as I was a bit distracted by the adorable tiny puppy  (like most animals here, separated from its mother far too young, but at least well cared for) who frolicked and pranced in the pile of fibers, nipped at everyone’s ankles, and jumping up to try to grab the rope as it twisted round and round.

     We walked around on the land a bit and our guide showed us various plants. A tree with the fruit from which nutmeg emerges as the fruit splits open on the bottom. This fruit also contains mace, which is much more expensive. Trees wrapped in vines with buds that will become peppers, and others vanilla. Turmeric roots, with a yellow paste that we rubbed on our bug bites and aside from cooking are also used for skin lightening and sun protection. In the villages near Vizag, I had seen quite a few women and children with their faces tinted yellow. There was also fresh oregano, bitter leaves that are chewed with other spices, tamarind leaves, several poisonous plants, and lots of biting ants. 

     We stopped for lunch on a tiny little island with a few huts just as it started pouring. We ran inside and watched as the sheets of rain poured down into the water around us, pounding away on the tin roof. There was a dog wandering around, not at all phased by the rain. We were given our lunch on banana leaves with gigantic servings of rice, sambar, and three different curries. I was surprised given that it was a tourist trip that the food was actually fairly spicy – the Indians also finished every morsel, but it nearly brought the French girl and me to tears. The dog was more than happy to finish our portion for us. Luckily the dessert was a coconut pudding-sort of thing that took away the burn. The rain didn’t let up, so we squelched through giant sticky muddy puddles to get back to the boat. As we made our way back to the starting point, I was cold for the first time ever in India while being outside!

More later about a bit more of Cochin and a weekend trip to Munnar... though thanks to a memory card that mysteriously has error messages, no photos for now, hopefully will be able to retrieve them later.

Pondicherry and Mamallapuram

Well, I'm way behind on everything, so here's a brief run down of Pondicherry and around Tamil Nadu. I'm in Kerala now, but I'll get to that soon. Pondicherry is where parts of Life of Pi were based, but the movie actually had very few parts that were actually filmed there. We stayed in the French part of town, known around as White Town - not because of the color of the buildings. There were not as many Europeans as I expected given the name, but definitely more than I was used to seeing in Andra Pradesh (the state that I had been in prior).

Overall it was a fairly lazy and laid back couple of days in Pondicherry. Many people spoke at least some level of English, so it was very exciting to actually be able to communicate. In White Town, there wasn't a huge amount of traffic and it was a fairly small area, so I was actually able to walk around. Having not been able to walk at all in Vizag, that meant that I walked until I wore out my feet  in Pondicherry, and then kept on walking more. Just wandering around town, looking at the buildings with French influence, going to a museum and a few showrooms of different art forms made through the Ashram. Wandered around the Sunday market, where vendors bring lots of clothing with small defects to sell for cheap prices. Lots of walking along Beach Road, which didn't have very much traffic and was completely closed off to cars from the evening until the morning. It isn't a sandy beach in town, but the big black rocks were nice to sit on for a view of the sea (as long as I looked past the countless ice cream wrappers scattered between the rocks). The sunrise would have been gorgeous, but I couldn't get myself up and out early enough to see it.

We spent part of one of the days at the animal shelter in Auroville, which is run by a German family and unfortunately doesn't have a full-time vet at the moment, nor any support from the government. A vet was there that day doing some spays and neuters for owned animals, and it was very interesting to observe her and note the differences in surgical technique as compared to what we had seen at the shelter. It was a much slower pace, with only six surgeries taking several hours, but there was a tea break in the middle (I'll miss the chai here so much) and it wasn't the assembly line sort of preparation that we did at the shelter. In between patients, I of course befriended Ruth, the three-year-old girl who lived at the shelter. She spoke only Tamil, so I couldn't communicate verbally at all with her besides the ABCs and 123s, but she still had quite a good time parading me around in circles and gluing herself to me. After five weeks abroad, it was definitely striking how much easier it is to communicate with a toddler than an adult when there's a language barrier in the way.

There's not a spay/neuter program nor any management of the stray dogs in Pondicherry, so there are quite a few of them, though most appeared well fed - likely helped by the many food stands that line the beach. As I was walking back from the beach one day, one dog decided to come along. She declined the bread that I offered her, but trotted on along with me, always checking to make sure that I was still with her. At one point, we came across a gang of five dogs and she stood right against me, baring her teeth and telling the dogs not to approach. I'd seen them before and they were just minding their own business, and they luckily decided not to engage with my little protector. She followed me for about fifteen minutes as I rounded corners and dodged traffic. When I entered the tour office (where there were no tours since I was the only one interested), she sat outside pitifully at the door, pawing and wanting to follow me in until the owners shooed her away. No idea why she wanted to adopt me, but it was quite cute and gave me a nice dog fix. 

Anyway, after the shelter, we headed out into the town of Auroville for lunch (I finally got to eat broccoli!) and to see the Matrimandir. Auroville is an international community based upon spiritualism and human unity. The Matrimandir is a special meditation area in the center of town with amazing architecture. The viewing point was closed that afternoon, but we took an alternate path and got a look at it from a distance. The golden sphere surrounded by twelve petals with gardens took 37 years to build to completion and is quite the sight.

Another day, I took a trip to Mamallapuram, a town full of ancient temples about two hours north. At the bus station, I stood in the long line to buy my ticket (or as it turned out, to buy my numbered seat; I paid the actual fare while on the bus). I got a few strange looks and was soon informed that the ladies' line was on the other side - I had noticed that it wasn't mostly men around, but that didn't strike me as odd because it often tends to be mostly men who are traveling. It was a very nice thing, though, as my line was about a quarter of the length and I soon was on my way. I took an auto between the various sights, visiting Tiger's Cave, Shore Temple (pictured below, gradually eroded by the ocean air), and countless others with long names that I lost track of.

 

Most of the temples were over 1500 years old, and some of them carved out of a single rock. The intricate engravings never fail to impress. After several hours, there was still more to see but the heat (that happened to be the hottest day of my time in the region) decided that wasn't a good idea. It was a touristy area, but people there were incredibly friendly and many of the shopkeepers just wanted to chat and offer me shade without trying to sell me anything. After a late lunch with fresh pineapple juice, I waited under a coconut stand (drinking a coconut, of course) until the bus rolled by to take me back into Pondicherry.

Monkey Heaven and Monsoon Rains

     It was a rough start to work in the villages this morning. People in the first few villages just wanted us to kill the dogs, and there were very few dogs to be found. Kids in one of the larger villages where we only found five dogs told us that recently they had paid someone about $1 per dog to give them some sort of fatal injection. He said they killed 100 dogs, but I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, as most villages don’t have more than 30 or 40. Without much success in our vaccination efforts, the heat felt even more intense. We did do much better in a few of the villages, and downing two coconuts definitely helped too. Despite the really slow start, we were able to vaccinate 49 dogs today, so are staying on target with our goal. One of the villages (probably more of a town) had a lot more owned dogs so those were definitely easier to vaccinate. There were a few pups that were too young to vaccinate but still very good for cuddling – that is, until one left me a nice present in my pocket and on my shoe. I seem to have that kind of luck here. 

     After a long day of vaccination and playing with lots of young creatures (human and goat kids, puppies, and young water buffalo), we headed out towards the hills with our dog catchers to visit a temple filled with monkeys. Yes, I guess my blog is very monkey-centered lately. The driver said that it was 10km away round trip, but it turned out to be 22km each way – still more than worth it. We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant - my first time aside from snacks eating in a non-hotel eatery. It was packed but we got the one empty table and were given plates topped with giant leaves. Our food was placed on the leaves, which can be thrown away and the plates don’t get dirty.  I was very surprised that the biryani and plantain curry, not made to order, were not too spicy and I was actually able to easily eat them! 

      As we drove a bit further up into the hills, it started to drizzle. Up an extremely narrow road through which the ambulance barely fit, back to the extreme greenery and amazing views of the hillside that we had seen on our train ride on the way to Araku Valley. After parking the car, we pulled out the gigantic branch of bananas that we had purchased down in the town below. Yanked all of the bananas off of the stalk to fill a box and a bag, as the branch itself was ridiculously heavy and we had a ways to walk (the picture is after we'd picked more than half the bananas off). It was then that the rain started to come down like crazy. This was my second experience of intense monsoon rains, the first being one afternoon at the shelter where everyone had to stop all of their work and hide inside to watch the downpour.

       We stood under a shelter and were semi-protected from the rain as we watched it pummel down the staircases in little waterfalls. A group of women standing with us decided to brave the rain before we did, and I was impressed as they, in their long saris, made their way up the stairs in the pounding rain. After a little while, the rain calmed down slightly and we too began to trek up to visit the monkeys. After several staircases, we reached another shelter – didn’t do much good at this point when we were already sopping wet, but it was nice to stop for a minute and look down at the world below us, extra beautiful with the rain. 

        A few of the monkeys from the trees above noticed that we were carrying bananas and we soon had a few friends running over to us, chattering their little monkey sounds and wanting one banana after another. More and more monkeys joined them, some juveniles on their own, a few big alpha males, and lots of mothers carrying their babies close. We held sticks in our hands to keep them from getting too close, as they can be extremely aggressive and possessive about bananas; we definitely saw a few monkey scuffles. After throwing bananas out to the group who joined us there, we continued up another flight of stairs to go deeper into monkey heaven. 

By this time the rain had slowed to a drizzle and more monkeys continued to climb down out of the trees. Some sat on the banisters and the walls, others sat on rocks by the river looking out onto the gorgeous waterfall, and others scrambled around near our feet begging for more bananas. The mothers would sometimes put their tiny babies down for a moment, but the babies either panicked and ran frantically back to mom or the mom would notice us watching and immediately snatch the baby up and show us her teeth. We saw one poor monkey with a wire embedded in her hand to the extent that she could not use it. We had dog nets in the car, but monkey catching in an area surrounded by hundreds of monkeys isn’t the best idea, so there wasn’t anything we could do for her. After about fifteen minutes, we had exhausted our huge stash of bananas. The monkeys were less happy about having us in their territory when we had nothing more to offer, so we slowly descended back down the stairs with me at the rear, wanting to stay back and watch them for much longer.

      We went down a side set of very steep stairs to visit another little waterfall. Rock hopped and waded through the river to get to its base, and then walked up another set of stairs to see it from the top. There weren’t any monkeys this far down, but no one was around but our little group. The sounds of the drizzle and the water continuing to rush down the stairs, the splashes of the waterfall, the chattering of the monkeys hidden up in the trees, and the hills and trees forever in the distance. 

      But soon it was back in the car and time to head home. A little ways in, the rain started up again even more intensely. There were times where the sheets or rain were coming down so hard that you could hardly see a few feet in front of you. Luckily people soon moved under shelters so there wasn’t the usual bustle of people on the sides of the road who we were unable to see. Before it was raining or flooding too badly, there were still various animals crossing the road. Luckily chickens here tend to stay along the sides and are found more in the villages than on main roads, but there are constantly cattle and dogs. We had an encounter today where a group of water buffalo decided to stop in the middle of their trek across the road and stare at us through the windshield before their handler got them to move on. As we drove along, we hit a few strangely dry patches where the ground had not seen a drop of rain. I rolled the window down and stuck my head out into the fresh breeze with the dark clouds looming in the distance, and soon we were back into torrential downpours. The roads began to flood, and the car sent tall jets of water into the air as we pulled on through. Motorcylists stopped and waited under overhangs. Somehow the autos continued on, though it can’t have been pleasant so low to the ground and with no doors or windows. 

 The holes in the road were all filled with water, so it was quite a bumpy ride as there was no way to differentiate where to drive. As it got worse, it felt like we were driving through a river, trash rushing by on the sides, muddy waters on the smaller roads, some of them completely flooded. The ambulance turned out not to be water-tight as the rain managed to gush in occasionally at our feet, and we had to keep the windows open slightly to prevent them from steaming up. The driver did a good job of navigating the river roads and we eventually made it back to the hotel. 

     Safe in our ambulance, it was a really cool experience to be out during the monsoon and watch the skies pouring down. But especially given that I’ve spent the last several days in villages with poor infrastructure and have seen awful reports of the floods in the north over the last month, I was extremely glad when the rain stopped soon after we got home. Hopefully the villages weren’t hit too badly and the roads clear up soon. Hopefully there won’t be any unpleasant surprises when we head out there tomorrow for the last time.

Village Hopping

     First I need to throw in a picture of Chitti on my last day at the shelter. The dogs and cows had no clue that we were leaving, but she certainly seemed to. Aside from her sad face, she was unusually gentle and calm with me, just wanting to sit with me. When I walked away, she grasped onto my finger and with her little hand and held on tight, but luckily didn't follow me out of the monkey area.

     Anyway, we checked out of the hotel Sunday night and loaded the car until it was about to burst. Liters upon liters of water, probably far more than we would need, and more than enough food and snacks to last us four nights. Most of the road to Kindness Farm is at least semi-paved, but parts of it are not and involve a lot of swerving from one side of the road to the other to avoid the holes. I’ve gotten used to traffic moving on the wrong side of the road – hopefully I don’t accidentally do the same when I get back home. I am still a bit shocked when on a larger road that has a barrier between the two directions, cars drive on the wrong side of the divide to make a turn easier or to avoid traffic or for whatever other unknown reason. It certainly doesn’t seem to make the other people on the road think twice, it’s such a normal occurrence. 

         After lot of bumps and turns, we pulled up outside what was to be our new home. The room has a cement floor, a few chairs and benches, a fridge, and a mattress on the group. We went about setting up the little room, kitchen area in one corner, suitcases in another, filling it with so much more than I am used to for living out in the middle of nowhere when I usually just have my backpacking pack. The biggest difference between this and most backpacking was quite a bit one – the heat. 

         It was fairly cool in the evening, and we went for a stroll around the shelter grounds, visiting the water buffalo and cattle, watching the sun set into the fluffy clouds. It was really nice to be able to actually walk around in the evening, as usually we are back at the hotel hiding in the air conditioned room and in an area of the city that isn’t particularly safe or desirable to walk around at night. Here, the honking and loud music were replaced by the chatter of the bugs, birds, frogs, and cows. In place of diesel was the sweet smell of the cows, which is actually quite pleasant, as they eat hay and grass rather than corn like most cows back home. The view outside of our room was no longer the swimming pool (which certainly did provide us entertainment) but a sky full of bright stars in the absence of light pollution. 

        We sat out in front of the room for a while until the bugs began to attack, so hiding in the room it was. But the sound of the frogs was much closer than any body of water than we knew of. When we opened the door to the room, two frogs happily bounded around. It was quite the chase but we eventually we were able to send them out and on their way and close the doors and windows. That’s when the room got extremely hot and in combination with the little black bugs sneaking in through cracks in the door and crawling all over the floor and our mattress, it wasn’t the most pleasant night. I did have an amusing morning event when half-awake at 5am, I noticed something on my leg and a moment later saw a cute little frog hopping across the room. It was eventually decided that we would head back to the hotel and do the long commute each day. We’ll leave the hotel at 5am, start work at 6:30 or so, and work until we get too tired. The original plan was to work in the afternoon after a break, but we tried that the first day and the dogs were all hidden away by then, so long mornings make more sense. 

      There’s been a bunch of traffic around Vizag lately because of an upcoming election. One political party has been doing massive publicity and the candidate was in town, we crawled along for part of the journey home yesterday. There are countless posters in the city and spreading into the rural areas of the main candidate dressed in different saris and posed in various positions. Balloons in the sky with their pictures and logos, and little flags hung up all over. There are calves and horses walking the streets adorned in colorful jewelry and attire. Apparently the candidates use the tactic of paying the villagers in a little bit of food and money to come out to their rallies and walk in their parades, so there were hoards of people walking the streets, waving political flags with the candidates’ photos on them. Some were dressed in shirts and hats printed with these photos, and others sat in cars projecting large billboards. It’s odd to me that it’s just one candidate and her party being represented with no counter signs anywhere to be seen, but she must have significantly more money than her opponents. There are such better things that she could be spending her money on, but such is the corruption here. 

       We are driving both out to the villages and around the area in an animal ambulance. The big vehicle actually helps with the bumpiness of the roads and although there is no AC, there is usually a nice breeze as long as we are moving. The driver/catcher takes great enjoyment out of using the siren, both to announce our presence when we get to the villages and to get cars to move aside when we are driving along. In Hyderabad and the busier parts of Vizag, people usually ignore the sirens of ambulances entirely, so I was quite surprised that the cars and autos often move over to let us pass. We have absolutely no emergency, of course, but he has a great time using them – thankfully, they are a lot quieter and less obnoxious than those in the US. When we get to villages, they sometimes use the announcer to let people know why we are there, but it doesn’t spread far enough so a lot of talking (all in Telugu) has to be done as we are walking around catching the dogs. One of the helpers who comes with us usually says ‘hello, hello, hello’ quite a few times on the loudspeaker before he actually starts saying anything of content; it’s quite amusing. As we drive between villages, the driver speeds along the winding roads blasting Telugu music. We often have to cling to our seats or the frame of the open window in the bumpy front seat of the ambulance, but it’s a fun ride and the driver is reasonably safe. I’ve been surprised at how few accidents I’ve seen given the way that people drive here, but I guess they are all just so used to the craziness. 

        We’ve visited 9 villages and vaccinated 101 dogs in the past two days, with anywhere from 2 to 21 dogs per village. The dog-catching part is often very challenging and takes quite a while, as many of the dogs are not very social and incredibly smart, keeping to open spaces (fields or canals) or jumping off the tops of roofs. In our first village, it took us nearly three hours to vaccinate 18 dogs. After that, we decided that we would just circle each village once and catch the dogs we were able to and then move on down the road.

       In one village, we had a collection of kids running alongside us as we navigated the town, some of them helpfully telling us where the dogs might be hiding out. At one point, I was surrounded by a huge crowd of kids when one of our catchers caught a dog and all the kids shouted out (referring to me as Auntie, as many do here) to let me know and ran alongside me as I made my way over to give the injection. In such a rural area, they all had a huge fascination with me. I didn’t get the kind of blank or confused stares that I often get in the city; everyone in the village was extremely friendly but also very curious to have a white-skinned foreigner in their midst.  

                                       

Some of them chattered away at me in Telugu, but I was of course unable to converse with them – I keep accidentally thinking of things to say to them in Spanish, but that wouldn’t be all that effective. The only question I was able to easily answer (as well as ask) was my name, which soon all of the village kids seemed to know and kept repeating amongst themselves. I was also asked what village I was from, and since I had already told them I was from the US and had no idea how to tell them I didn’t live in a village, I responded California.  In another village, the kids were very curious about me but quite shy. When I took out my camera, however, they all opened up immediately and bounced around happily as I took pictures of them, giggling away when they looked at the images of themselves on my screen. 

      As we wander the dusty streets and alleys, cross over the creeks, climb up onto the roofs, and pass through the houses in pursuit of the dogs, it’s really interesting to see the differences between the villages and take in their ways of life. Early in the mornings, everyone is out and about with their typical routines - bathing and brushing their teeth by the water spouts; girls sitting on the stoops in front of the houses as their moms brush and braid their hair before looping it up with a black bow; women stirring pots of food and tea over a clay or cement stove with an open flame. As the day goes on, some people sit with their piles of vegetables for sale, some scrub at their laundry on smooth slabs of cement, and many of the older members of the community sit in the shade and chat. In one village, women sat weaving big umbrellas from plants for people to carry when they go out to work in the fields. A common sight is that of people walking around with large pots on their heads full of water or grain, expertly making their way through the fields or around the village. Regardless of how many times I’ve seen this around the world, it never fails to impress me. 

     Some of the villages are made up of mostly houses, others of huts, and most of some combination of the two. The houses are mostly open with no windows and either no doors or a curtain or gate. Most have cement stoops in front upon which people sit to work or rest. There are dirt paths in between the rows of houses, and sometimes narrow alleyways in between – these are often useful for catching the dogs with one catcher on either side.  There are rows of chicken houses on the outskirts of many of the villages, used for eggs and meat. Mother hens and their tiny chicks also wander the streets, sitting in the shade near the houses. Water buffalo, cattle, and goats are often harnessed on ropes in front of the huts. Vaccinating any of these creatures would have been easy enough, but most of the dogs have free roam and put up quite the chase, aside from the few (usually Pomeranians) who have owners and are brought directly to us, carried or by leash. I often mistakenly find a goat (or once even a chicken, or a piece of clothing in a dark corner) and excitedly think that it’s a dog. 

      We’ve had many different reactions to our presence in the village. To those who did not hear our announcements, it’s often scary to see a group of people walking around with nets and syringes. I once had a man run towards me as I was pulling up the injection, completely panicked that I was going to kill the dog I was about to vaccinate. Many of the villagers have wanted us to kill the dogs, as they are of no economic value and often kill the chicks; one village went so far as to offer to pay us to do the job (to cancel this out, another village offered to pay us to vaccinate the dogs, which of course we declined). I wish we could have something to make the dogs more welcome in their community, but aside from reinforcing the chicken coops, I’m not sure what could be done. Some of the villages have had very few dogs, apparently because they do sometimes have people come around to get rid of the dogs.  A few of the people who own dogs don’t let us vaccinate, many of them afraid of Western medicine, but the majority of the dogs roam freely and don’t belong to anyone, so we are able to vaccinate them as we please. It’s frustrating because these owned dogs would be so easy to vaccinate, but the owners are not receptive to even the explanations of their fellow villagers and get extremely angry at us, so those are a lost cause. 

      Others have been very pleased with what we are doing, helping us quite a bit. We often have someone who takes us around to the places where the dogs like to hide. In one village today, the schoolteacher actually dismissed the kids for an hour break and came along with us, showing us where to go and talking to the people for us. They were much more receptive to what we were doing when they heard it from a respected community member, and we were hugely successful in our vaccination efforts in this village. When we finished, he bought us all cold drinks (despite our refusal) as we sat in the shade to cool down. He called the schoolteacher at a neighboring village to have him be our guide there, but unfortunately we ended up on the wrong road and went to a few other villages instead. In another village, a woman offered us lunch before we left, which we declined – I doubt we could manage the spiciness. 

      In every village, we have a parade of curious people trailing after us. Packs of children in the mornings before school and later on, various men and women watch our show. Some of them laugh hysterically when we catch a dog and seem to be enjoying themselves thoroughly. Others are a bit shocked (but still fascinated) while watching the process, which isn’t the most pleasant thing to see. 

      This afternoon when we finished our vaccinations for the day, we returned to a hut we had visited the day before where a villager was taking care of a dog who had been hit by a car.  She had a broken leg that we could do nothing about, but hopefully she’ll be able to heal up on her own. Cleaned up her wounds and gave her some antibiotics and pain meds. Dogs here are pretty tough, so with the owner’s help, hopefully she’ll improve. Most of the dogs here are actually is pretty good shape, fairly well-fed and without any obvious problems. Since we aren’t able to handle the majority of them, we can’t do exams or anything besides the rabies injection, but I’m very glad to see that most are in good health. 

       After we finished with our little patient, we walked over to the canal and waded in a bit. The day was much cooler today, but it still felt nice to walk into the water. It had been drizzling on and off with thunder in the distance for the previous few hours, and started up again as we stood in the canal. It was very serene there with the raindrops falling on the water, the goat kids prancing around on the banks of the canal, and the occasional worker walking into the water to fill up a bucket. Our driver, who had his head peed on earlier by a panicked dog with good aim, jumped into the water in his clothes to wash his hair. It would have been nice to swim there, but with no change of clothes and a long journey home, that didn’t happen. 

      Two more days of working in the village before it’s time to leave Vizag and explore a few other areas of India. The goal is to vaccinate at least 200 dogs, and hope that people take in what we (well, not me) talk to them about and read the pamphlets. More cool  weather would be a plus as well, definitely makes it easier to walk for hours through the villages. 

Babysitting A Monkey

     I love Chitti, my little monkey friend at the shelter. But one could call it a bit of an abusive relationship. When I walk into the monkey area, she comes running over when I call her and jumps at full speed onto my shoulders or head if I haven’t walked close enough for her to climb onto my arm. She proceeds to use us as a jungle gym, jumping between the trees, the walls, and our bodies. 

My hair must be an especially exciting color, different from what she usually sees here. She loves to tug on it – and she is ridiculously strong for a little monkey, pulling my head back at once point so that it hit the wall behind me (yes, I have this little attack on video). She gives me a monkey hairdo, pulling strands from my ponytail and pulling them over her head as if they are her own. When she gets agitated by the other monkeys around us (most of them extremely aggressive and widening their eyes angrily at me as they bang on the bars of their enclosures) or overstimulated in general, she gets mouthy, but I trust at this point that she won’t actually bite me, though she did (superficially) scratch my neck the other day. She loves to grab my nose with her little hands, but as much as she wants to, luckily isn’t able to steal it from me. She climbs all over me, poking my eyes, sticking her fingers up my nose, flinging herself to and fro, once landing splat on my face. She is definitely a pocket checker and stole a plastic bag from us the other day and ran away to the top of a wall with it, where she stood up and held it upside down over her head to eat all the bread crumbs that were left inside. 

She tried to go for my camera this afternoon, but I told her no way. The other day we finished playing with her earlier than she decided was acceptable, so she made her way via trees and roofs over to the cow area where we were attempting to work. I’ll just say it’s incredibly challenging to focus on deworming cows when a monkey is looming from above, threatening to jump on your head at any moment. 

     Chitti’s first gift to me was a few days ago when she sat on my shoulder playing with my hair and decided to pee down my back. The next day, she left me a little brown present on my shoulder. And today, I got some lovely monkey diarrhea all down my back. The gifts I bring her are a bit nicer. When we brought bananas, she gulped them down and stored them in her cheeks so that she could eat more before I gave them to the other monkeys.

The guava, she discarded after a few bites in favor of the stolen plastic bread bag.  She did enjoy her chopped mango today which was leftover from my lunch. She saw me coming and that I was holding a container of food and stayed sitting where she was on the ledge, holding her little hand out expectantly. I placed a piece of mango in it, which she immediately put in her mouth and held out her hand again. As the mango pieces got smaller and goopier, I placed them into her hand. I was surprised with how gently she picked up the pieces from my hand with her mouth, and then proceeded to lick the mango goop from my hands as if she was a dog, though dogs aren’t able to use their fingers to hold my hand in place. I love monkey behavior, watching all their facial expressions and how they use their hands and how incredibly similar they are to humans; I can monkey-watch for quite a long time. When the mango was all gone and I showed her the empty container, she of course tried to take off with the container, but her hands weren’t big enough to get a good grip on it so I won that battle. As I walked out of the monkey area, the calves were there, eagerly waiting to clean the remaining mango off of my hands. 

 

      This afternoon, a large group of school kids came to tour the shelter. It would be our job to talk to them about the dogs and cats, but first they were to visit the sustainable gas production area and the cows, both of which are near monkey area. During most of our stay, Chitti has been out of her enclosure and has free roam, though she mostly stays in the area around the other monkeys. Knowing my affinity for Chitti, the director gave me the job of babysitting her while the kids walked in the vicinity of her area, as to make sure that the curious little girl didn’t decide to bounce on an unsuspecting victim. Little did I know that babysitting a monkey can actually be quite a challenge. Chitti was sitting on a barrel when we arrived and happily climbed onto my shoulders and began her usual bouncing from place to place. She was actually quite responsive to me, jumping back to me when I called her. She did visit the calves a bit, hanging from trees to tap on their noses and occasionally bouncing off of them. She had fun for a while playing with a rope and some hanging vines. When we heard the voices of the tour coming towards us, Chitti’s curiosity was definitely piped so we moved into a different area. She got a little bored of just playing with me and Viru had to step up as a babysitter as well to increase the size of her jungle gym. 

     After a little while, we heard the voices fade and assumed that part of the tour was over so left Chitti behind to go find the director. We asked around and discovered that the kids were still out in the same area, so I went running back to the monkey child I had apparently prematurely left behind. I had failed as a babysitter, as the director was there in my place distracting Chitti as the children walked on by. I took over again and played little games with her, trying to keep her in place by swinging her hands around and letting her catch my hand as the rest of the kids moved through the area. She sat on my shoulder and decided to let out a nice stream of diarrhea, which smelled awful and I had to wear that around for the rest of the day. She tormented the other monkeys with her freedom for a bit, poking and prodding at their arms and moving away when they reached out to get her back. 

     Then she realized that the kids were still nearby and ignoring my calls, climbing on the wall over to above where they were standing, eliciting screams from the girls. She luckily didn’t bounce down to them and eventually responded to our calls and came back, where I discovered that she let me pick her up under her arms and hold her for a minute in my arms like a baby until she got too squirmy (not there long enough to get a picture). She let me keep a hold on her as we looked from a distance over the ledge at the kids, some of whom were scared and others approached slightly in amusement at the foreigner with a monkey attached to her body. When they walked away, I tried to put Chitti back near the other monkeys. As I pried her off of me, she bounced off of a dog (who shrieked in surprise) before landing on a tree; it was quite the sight. I ran away before she could bounce back onto my head, but I’ll definitely be back to say goodbye tomorrow.

     Well, that was a much longer monkey saga than I intended to write. But so it is with my fascination with monkeys. Covered in monkey filth and carrying with me quite the stench, I walked over to the small animal area, where we started off by talking to the girls about how to properly approach dogs. They all spoke English, which was very exciting for me to actually be able to fully communicate with people. We got Dora (yep, we named her after Dora the Explorer) out from the puppy enclosure. Just a couple of days ago, Dora had been alone in a kennel in an isolated part of the shelter, as had another puppy, but we recently moved them into a more central area called Puppy Pond that had not been in use. We’ve spent a fair amount of time with these two little girls in the last couple days and they’ve warmed up hugely with some human and animal socialization. After we talked about dog behavior and how to pet them, the girls all eagerly reached out their hands to stroke Dora’s soft coat. She was scared at first with so many people reaching at her, but she behaved quite nicely (aside from peeing on my already-disgusting scrub top) once I held her over my shoulder so that she could hide her head. Pictures below are Krishna (street dog puppy) curled up in my lap, and Dora (such a quick learner) practicing her down command.

     We then headed to the social cat room where the girls all stood outside and pet the cats through the fence as we talked to them about cat behavior and handling. They eagerly repeated the cats’ names in a chorus when we told them, and asked quite a few questions about the animals and what we were doing. A few girls were very sweet and thanked me for coming from the US to work with these animals and said that they would donate to the shelter when they were older. We repeated the routine with the group of boys, who at thirteen, were not yet overly obnoxious and while not as engaged as the girls, definitely seemed responsive to what we were saying and interested in the animals, so hopefully we got our point across to them. We were a bit worried when the kids arrived that since they weren’t young, they wouldn’t care to listen to us, but they were surprisingly engaged. I had put Dora back when we talked to the girls about the cats and I was hesitant to stress her out again but she was extremely excited to come out and visit again and licked my face the entire time we were talking to the boys. Puppy breath >> monkey poo. 

     Before the kids left, we took a big group picture. I had to stand in the front and felt awful for the girls who stood around me, taking in the smells of cow and monkey poop. One of the workers (who is a very odd character) told Viru afterwards that she was more appropriately dressed for a photo than I was – I was also streaked in dirt, and my dark scrubs showed that all too well. We followed them out of the gate and watched as they drove away, all sticking their heads out of the bus windows and excitedly waving and shouting goodbye. 

      Tomorrow we’ll do a half day at the shelter to say goodbye to all of the animals, many of whom I will miss hugely, and finish giving rabies boosters to all of the dogs. Then it’s time for a week of working in the village for more rabies vaccination and awareness. Time to transition to early mornings, flaky electricity, bucket showers, and living out in the gorgeous middle of nowhere.