Zero-Budget Spiritual Farming, Day 2

It’s day 2 of the Zero-Budget Spiritual Farming workshop and the day’s seminar has begun but the speaker is speaking in Malayalam.  I’m feeling a bit restless.  It’s a cool morning and I crave coffee.  Anyway, I’m trying to settle my mind by writing.  

Yesterday was really lovely.  I didn’t get much sleep the night before but got up early to hop a bus to meet my friend Tiji.  She is a PhD candidate from my department researching food security in Kerala.  We then took another us up into the gorgeous mountains for 3 hours.  Somehow after about 20 minutes, the conductor’s seat at the front of the bus freed up and I was nearest so I settled in.  It was incredible.  Sitting solo in front with panoramic views of the sun bursting behind palm trees with gigantic, hazy mountains in the background.  I felt blessed by the opportunity.  I’m a lucky lady.  

Really.  I’m so incredibly fortunate.  I don’t know exactly where my opportunistic nature ends and luck begins but I’m very grateful.  My frequent wish, however, is that my eyes cad live camera mode and you could all experience this with me, visually at the very least.  But even that is not sufficient as it is best for all senses to be engaged in a place like this.  But eyecam would do.  I bet I can find an Indian engineer to work on that.  

The workshop has been great thus far.  Zero-Budget Spiritual Farming by Subhash Palekar.  As he spoke in English I felt giddy because I could actually learn new, interesting information.  Somehow Tiji signed us up to be “delegates” which means we do not have to pay the 750 rupees if we take down and submit notes each day.  It took me two hours in the evening to type my notes and there are 5 more days of this.  I might prefer to pay the $15.  But the pressure of writing notes helps me to engage and better understand, I think.  

Wherever I go, people are curious about the foreigner.  Here it’s been nice because when I meet people I can ask about their interest in Zero-Budget Spiritual Farming and share information about the system of food and agriculture in the US.  

Conversations are engaging.  I’ll probably make a separate blog about the content of the workshop when it’s finished.  For now, this delegate is enjoying.  

The food has been good.  The past 3 days at home we had no cooking gas so I only ate salads, fruit and sandwiches.  It’s nice to have hot vegetarian meals.  Rice 3x/day.  I’m gaining weight, and quite quickly, I think.  This week, I ate 19 consecutive meals of rice and curries like the one here with zero utensils!  It was great practice so hopefully I'm a little less awkward.   

The weather here is cool.  Too cold at times.  It’s a reprieve from sticky-hot Kottayam.  I bought a “Michigan Physical Education” sweatshirt at a shop here yesterday.  But cold-water bucket-bathing is pretty intense when it’s cold outside.  I did not so much enjoy that.