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.