Month: October 2007

Dear friends and family,

A warm congratulations to my lanky cousin Lars Negstad and my new cousin-in-law Melissa Townsend on their new life together! I wish I could have been there for the wedding.

My time at Mudumalai is coming to an end! It’s hard to believe it – the clouds and the hills and even the elephants all give this place a feeling of timelessness. But sure enough, my five weeks here have gone by in a flash. We’re actually getting out just as the northeast monsoon envelops us in water. This is one area in India that gets both monsoons, and from the feel of it I will never be dry again until I leave here. But it’s actually nice – back in Chennai I was mostly wet with my own sweat whereas here I know it’s from the rain.

My project is wrapping up nicely and I’m trying to read as much as I can from the PhD theses here relating to my project. There’s a sad urban legend about a new PhD putting a twenty dollar bill in his thesis in the library and coming back ten years later to find it still there. Unfortunately the same thing is true for the guy who wrote the thesis I’m reading right now. Not only is it in pristine condition, but there’s no way I’ll be able to find a copy of it when I get back to the US to write my research paper, so I’m trying to absorb as much as I can!

The past few days have been relaxing. On Satuday we watched dozens of winged termites emerge from a hole in the ground one by one and then be snatched out of the air by the waiting birds. It was a massacre – good fun! Later that day we took a bus up to Ooty, the “Queen of Field Stations,” and bought lots of homemade Ooty chocolate, and I even found dental floss! My adviser was confused and horrified when he first saw me flossing, making me think I would never find another roll in India.

I just watched the Sun light up the tips of the Nilgiris (“Blue Hills”) across the small valley and realized how much I’ll miss it all – the funny people, the hills, and especially Boma, my tracker! But soon it’s on to see still more of this country. Here’s what’s next for me: a couple more days here in Mudumalai, then off to Bangalore for a couple of days in the Institute’s Library for research, then it’s a two-week travel break! Agra, Mumbai, Kochi, and Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. Then, it’s the second and last five-week research project in Pondicherry, where two others and I will be in a mosquito (disease) control lab. Then, off to the beaches of Goa for just a couple of days, and then back home to the US!

Nandri (thanks) to everyone who is reading or responding to my emails. I’m still enthralled with India but it’s nice to know I have my people back home.

Thanks again – from smelly, damp and ever your loving
Isaac H.

Dear friends and family,

India is still surprising me. Back in Chennai, the surprises were along the lines of near-death experiences in rickshaws, contorted beggars, and poo-rivers. Here at Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary it’s the wildlife that continually offers something new. Just last night we stopped to wash off the jeep in a stream after the field work was done, and suddenly we saw an elephant crashing around in the bamboo 80 feet or so away from us. And the Malabar squirrels, the langurs (monkeys), and of course the birds are completely new. That’s to say nothing of the bugs! The rain of the past few days has seen a proliferation of bugs, including these tiny winged ants that have invaded my room. Luckily they are very easy to kill, though not so for the cockroaches. It’s been a real slaughter for the past couple of nights. Oh, and the leeches! When we go out in the morning it’s still so damp that they actually crawl about on the ground. I’ve only had one blood-sucker so far, though. And no ticks yet.

The people provide surprises, too. Last week the village kids came to my door when I was reading and yelled “Isaac. Isaac. Isaac!” until I finally went out. I never should have showed them where I live… For some reason they had collected four baby chicks that had fallen out of a nest, and they wanted me to take them. They’re now under the care of Gita and have taken to rice and sugar-water. The kids are funny – every time I see them they demand that I give them pens, which makes me wonder whether some unscrupulous St Olaf student in the past gave the kids a lot of pens and ruined it for the rest of us. But maybe not – Boma, my tracker, also shows a keen interest in my writing utensils.

Where the people and wildlife overlap there are surprises of the more dismaying kind. The other day, on a morning survery, I saw a brahminy myna, and two minutes later – no joke – a pariah kite. Apparently the caste system rules in the bird world, too!

I have to mention my project! The bird survey went very well – field work is finally over! Yesterday we finished up the final transect in the scrub forest in the coffee plantation nearby. So now it’s a little relaxation during today’s holiday of Dussehra, and then on to putting together all the data. It’s hard to believe that next week I’ll be leaving this place! We’ll spend a couple of days in Bangalore in the Intitute’s library before heading off on travel break.

In other news, I’ve finally found a way of making this little part of India my own. For the past two weeks I’ve been getting up before sunrise for a little run in the chill morning air. It’s so nice – there’s no one out at that time except for a few people walking mysteriously in the bushes or collecting cow dung dropped during the night. It’s nice because exercising outside at any other time makes you a huge spectacle for the hundreds and hundreds of people that are always about. Even when we drive by in a jeep, people drop everything they are doing and watch us until we’re out of sight.

Sorry for not updating in a while – it’s extremely hard for me to get computer time here. You can bet on a flood of excited emails once travel break begins!

Isaac H.

A little poem I wrote yesterday afternoon:

Kill off your tigers,
Turn your rivers to shit,
Choke the baby girls
And go lynch a Dalit.
Stare and ogle, yell and leer,
Live a life of demon-fear.
And why can I judge, why am I so free?
The answer’s clear, it is our GDP’s.
You eke by while we advance,
Due to harsh and cold and random chance!

This one reflects my own progression of reactions to some things I’ve encountered in India. Reading the newspaper, I am disguseted by the steady obliteration of habitat in this tropical country. I am also easily frustrated with the staring, the religiosity, and the awful treatment of women (and killing of female fetuses and babies). But when I take a step back I must admit to myself that the fundamental difference between me and the average baby-killer, monkey-god-worshiper, or caste bigot is only in our wealth. The poor will always seek refuge in religious superstition. They will always be torn apart by senseless societal divisions. And yes, the poor will always be driven to extremes of survival, even if it means killing a female infant to prevent the family from being destroyed by another economic burden. And as I said in the poem, being born rich of being born poor is decided only by this indifferent thing, chance, and nothing else.