Biodiesel-ing

Last night, one of the staff members found me alone, typing in the office. He said "Oh, Phoebe lonely. Volunteers all gone." He started gesturing with one hand, raising it to his mouth and leaning his head back with his lips slightly open. "If you need, you tell me." From this I understood that if I wanted alcohol, he could supply it for me. As a woman in Tiruchuli, it is strictly forbidden that I buy anything to drink. Once he had furtively brought me a huge, warm, poorly brewed 40, a kind gesture of cultural sensitivity. I took one sip and poured it down the drain after he left.

"Yes, a bit lonely." I stated, still typing but looking over to him.

"You need a beer?" he asked "I go and buy for you."

I didn't dare mention that the thought of drinking a fizzy and tepid "beer" in my room while sweating and listening to the roar of the fan probably wouldn't do much to make me feel any less alone. If anything, it would only amplify my solitude. I wanted to say "While you're at the store, why don't you pick me up a volunteer, preferably one with cold snickers bar, a supply of gum and maybe a mini-fridge for said beer that we could both share on my balcony." But I just mumbled oh, no thank you, I am all set. I returned to my work, which was the best remedy I'd found for blocking out the absence of others.

I have become fully reliant on work as a great balm for letting the hours pass. The computer is my buddy, and if I'm not on the computer, I am usually found joking around with the staff or drinking chai. Today, however, challenged my happy status quo. A power failure hit at 9:30 am. "Tirichuli no have power all day" stated the Director's son. I winced "But" he continued (and my ears perked up), "the biodiesel plant be having the electricity." I nodded, relieved, and asked if we couldn't make soap at the plant, to which a generous display of nods and head bobbles followed. I idiotically (or hopefully) took this to mean 'of course. '

I was joined by three individuals from an NGO in Chennai on a 'fact-finding' mission. The other day, one of them had given me his business card, which clearly stated the NGO's interest in everything health care related. This did not explain their interest in the biodiesel plant, and though I had politely probed for an explanation, all I unearthed was something about women and crops and children begging in Delhi. Three ODAM staff members were busy testing a new round of biofuel production, and the remaining 4 of us sat on plastic chairs. We were soon joined by a chemist from Madurai who had a fancy belt and a funny way of leaning over the machines to see just what was going on. Although the group from Chennai was purportedly in Tiruchuli to gather learning about biodiesel production, they did a great job of wandering around outside or staring in complete silence. I didn't see a notebook or camera amongst them. For some reason, all the coverings of the machines had been removed, and we watched the steady whir of belts and pulleys and metal wheels. In our chairs, I felt like we'd suddenly become complacent directors on the Bollywood set of Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times."

"Cut!" I wanted to yell "Time to move to the soap production scene."

I waited and waited and started reading a book, made some useless notes. Outside three adolescent goats were busy eating some of the seeds used for biodiesel production, and I wanted to pat them. I approached, they pranced away. Later, I saw a bird happily twittering away on the back of the smallest goat, and was miffed that she got to sit there while I couldn't even kindly rest my hand on the goat's scruffy little head.

Three hours later, a minor soap experiment took place. After heating some black and unrefined glycerin on a camping stove, adding an unmeasured amount of NaOH and stirring the mixture with a sugarcane stick, we had a little vessel of nubby, brown soap which bore a disturbing resemblance to something you'd find in the very dirty part of a pig farm. I sighed. Lunch arrived and I found myself, again, eating off of the bed frame of a cot, this time joined by the NGO crew and the professor. I ate an omelet that had enough salt in it to make another sea dead. I choked it back with a slimy mixture of rice mixed with curd. I thought how very un-spiritualy advanced I must be to care that I had spent the better part of my morning glued to a dirty plastic chair. I won't lie, I haven't discovered the seven wonders of the inner world here, though I have much advanced my knowledge of how to eat sauce with my right hand.

When we were finished, I rolled up my palm leaf. The Director waved for me to throw it away in "that direction", somewhere eastward by the back of the plant where the goats had all but murdered a little set of trees with their munching. Back inside I watched the man from Chennai cleaning his teeth with a sewing needle. I prayed that he would not produce another from his pocket to share with me.

I left at three, graciously attempting to hide my relief and delighted to hear that the power was back up and running. Work, I resolved, is a true gift.

The Office.

Sundays in Tiruchuli. Just when you thought that doing nothing had reached its apex around, say, Wednesday, Sunday is a day when residents move seamlessly from doing nothing, to really, really doing nothing. I, on the other hand, rise at 6 am, buy "coffee" to be put into a carrying tin I keep, and mix in the precious store of chocolate powder offered as a farewell gift by one of the volunteers. After consuming my very unsophisticated cafe mocha, I rush over to the office and get to work. When I'm in Tiruchuli, I work seven days a week, as boredom is the only other alternative, but Sundays are most conducive to being productive. Most of the staff stays at home, or just drops by to take a bath in the garden watering tub. This means: no heated Tamil chattering, constant phone ringing, or forced participation in a very involved and time-consuming game of musical computers.

Despite my newly gained efficiency, the office becomes just that - an office. It is stripped of its character, safe possibly for the crusty towels that cover all of the equipment, or the very scary saber knife that the director has kept by his desk ever since Rambo and her puppies were transferred to protect the biodiesel plant. Otherwise, I could be anywhere, doing research for anyone, on any day. And that's when I start to hate the computer and the sticky keypad. I leave to go back into town. I buy sweets for two old ladies and drink a tea. On my way back, I stop to pat a herd of goats, at least one of them unwittingly voyaging to their doom. Sunday is official goat-cuisine day, and they are making a beeline for the butcher.

I am invited to one of the project manager's homes for lunch. The director and three other staff members join. They are concerned that there is no dining table, and while I make an attempt to explain that I don't mind sitting on the floor, they rush into the bedroom, fold the flimsy mattress in half, and set up my palm leaf (RE: my plate) on the metal surface of the bed frame. They pull up a chair for me and I eat rice and meat and a large pile of onions mixed into curd. I graciously decline "tomorrow's egg eaten today" - a mushy ball taken from the inside of a slaughtered hen. Everyone else watches TV in the adjacent room, and I stick around for ten minutes to watch a real winner of a direct-to-video movie that Reese Witherspoon stars in. Afterwards, I go to my room. It is hot and I sweep. I sit on my bed. I listen to the second song on the Dirty Dancing CD that a volunteer just left me. I pour bleach all around my bathroom, which is presently being invaded by ants. They appear to materialize out of thin air and I'm ready to refute all scientific knowledge about procreation by documenting their spontaneous generation. All the clothes in my cement room are folded neatly. My books are arranged, the bed made, the bathroom situation covered, my work well on its way to being deemed work. And it is only 3 pm.

It is the Great Crossroads. I have the opportunity to say either "hey, today is really boring and I'm all alone because the other volunteers have escaped to destinations with ice-cream that isn't spotted with large ice crystals and I think I'll just sit here to contemplate this," or "Whoo! I love Tiruchuli and the people here and the work I do and it's time to get moving." Which I do. Back to the office. To this blog. And because I still have access to the computer, to drafting an all new proposal on climate change and sustainable livelihoods. Tiruchuli has this going for it: working every day means that one can never lament the end of a weekend.

Getting away from that place I initially got away to

I am writing this from a wonderfully comfortable couch in a luxurious apartment in Abu Dhabi. The (almost illegal) caffeine content of my latest double espresso shot mocha latte grande frappi drinky thing (code for something from Starbucks, which all you Fair Trade groupies can detest me for, but I swear, no other options out here!), while making typing a bit of choreographically challenged exercise, has inspired me to once again clog up the internet arteries with some more musings. While I thought that I might gain some major perspective on the great India adventure during my time in the Emirates, I have instead found that it has become more of a Major Blur. Which makes me wonder if I'm not in a state of Major Denial about going back, since the week's lifestyle that has included a steady diet of fresh fruits, exercise and the much needed presence of a dear, dear friend (xox Alex) has turned my otherwise friend and vitamin and sleep deprived world upside down. If India has been a true opportunity for personal inquiry, it has not been nearly as kind on my physical well-being. I took trips to the village doctor, trying to understand a plague of headaches, sleeplessness, weight-loss and weakness. Oddly enough, the prescription to eat more goat, throw back some vitamins and take a longer afternoon nap didn't quite do the trick. Maybe because the staff seemed to be confusing chicken with goat. Or because the vitamins not only looked just like M&M's, but were M&M's.

Nadine, (another volunteer) and I, started swapping sleeping horror stories "Hey, last night I slept 2 hours! And got up at 4:30 am! And I've had five fake chicory root coffees since! and I can't remember my name!" The ever-important work, once a passion, was morphing into a terrifying and insurmountable chore. During a typical night of insomnia, I miraculously developed a 6 week action plan for a Fair Trade cottage industry soap program. I handed it over to the staff after drinking enough faux cafe to give me the jolt I needed to make it over to the office. They seemed delighted with it. The next day, at 5 am as I was driven to the airport to make the great-escape to health-land (RE: Abu Dhabi), Semai (staff member of the century) remarked "We spent an hour discussing your plan. We will do all we can to help you with this initiative." I thanked him, and (not kidding) thought "Wow, when I'm away, I'll probably do a bunch of work on this." But I haven't spent a moment on the project. I've been working on the more important task of physical rejuvenation, realizing that what I for so long took for granted - my body's well-being - had been effectively eroded in a few short months and with it went many other things as well. Between the intense heat, and a diet based on white rice and spicy yet, frankly, nutrient deprived sauces, not only was I getting physically smaller, but my motivation, was corroding around the edges. I felt a crisis of conscious ebbing my way. From being a woman who constantly defined herself by her ability to "work hard" I was becoming a couch potato with no television. And no couch. I was turning into my own worst nightmare, and although Baptisite and I would simply joke saying that we'd adopted a new way of working that seemed to reflect the relaxed demeanor of those around us, I still wanted to point an accusatory finger and wasn't scared to direct it at myself. And, well, that's what going around the world can do for a girl. The conditions around foist upon you mise en cause of your sense of self. You're one of those snow globes that suddenly gets a vigorous shake after many years of sitting still on a forgotten shelf. Displacement has literally rattled my every fiber, and each flake in this globe of mine represents all those things I thought I'd tamed and tucked away. And there they go, blurring my vision.