raining desert - Blogabond

3/11/08
Day 7…first full week completed. We woke to the very peculiar sensation of humidity and the sound of pattering rain and thunder. It was raining! Off-season and in the middle of the desert it was cloudy and raining. I can’t explain how bizarre it felt under the circumstances.
But even more bizarre than rain in the desert was this: we did something. Let me repeat that, we did something. Giriji came over midmorning and announced that the jeeps were coming today (to drop off people for training) and that they would take us to Jelu (a village nearby) where several GRAVIS projects are in process.
So we hopped in the back of a jeep with Arunji and we were off. Well, actually we were told we would leave and be back before lunch, while it ended up being we ate lunch and then left: a classic example of Indian timing. But then we were off. We went into Jelu and to a little building with several posters, some books and a bag of USA millet. This was the information center where GRAVIS has a representative and where people can come and look up things from moon cycles, animal care, to home delivery care and AIDS.
Next we drove a bit more and stopped at a woman’s house. They told us she was in a self-help group. She had had a shop. Now she didn’t have it, she might again in the future. She made pots. Her husband worked in the mine. They had financial troubles. GRAVIS had helped. They had to close shop… GRAVIS would help. The story was very confusing even after Dillan asked a number of questions in Hindi.
We went further out and saw a small rock dam and the agricultural area behind it. It seems the agricultural water projects are designed to prevent water from running off too fast. A man came over, greeted us, and invited us to tea at their home. This was composed of several buildings, three for the goats, and one for the humans. As we waited for the tea, awkwardly making conversation, Arunji told them how I was a ‘painter’ bahut accha hai. This bit of gossip arose from him seeing several of the sketches I had drawn in boredom in ‘fort gravi.’ The result was the very sweet man with a gigantic bushy mustache asking me to draw a flower…on their wall. Yep, they pointed to empty blank white walls, and told me to draw a flower on it. Then a stub of a pencil was produced and so I drew it, adding a signature for good measure.

Dillan with villager and a plow

The whole excursion was not so much a field visit as a field tour, and took maybe two hours. It was fun, but then we came back and had no purpose again. Began watching Heroes episodes on my computer to keep entertained.

written by

Drie on March 11, 2008 from Jodhpur, India

from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan

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