Shoshanablank’s Weblog

A man I interviewed that used to work at the thermometer factory. This kind of skin irritation is typical from mercury exposure, and also way less of a problem then the other health problems they have to deal with.

I see women carrying tree trunks on their heads everyday. Seriously hard work. I can't even imagine doing this in a sari.

Antony, one of the guys that helps us with our research at the Palni hills Conservation Council. Here he is posin gwith his bike after blessing it on this unique Hindu holiday.

With two organic farmers. He is 84 and she is 76, but they look pretty young!

An inorganic farmer. Life has worn him down, and so have the pesticidesRebecca trying to break a coconut on our front doorstep; it worked!A women I sat next to on the bus. She tried to offer me her fake gold bracelet, but figured out that it would not fit onto my hand.

The Kodaikanal trio in the Western Ghats

As I write this blog post from the computer lab at Kodaikanal International School I am sitting in in very wet pants and wearing damp wool socks with my Chaco sandals. I look outside the window and see only a misty fog that is much more pleasant than the pouring rain that just stopped 15 minutes ago. It is second monsoon season here in the Western Ghats. It has been raining just about everyday, although is usually pretty sunny in the mornings. Rebecca Rand and I are living in a dorm-like house with 3 other girls (2 of them Ole grads). We share one huge room with 5 beds and dressers and have a living room with a little electric heater, a sink, and an electric burner. This house is very cold, but we do have a fireplace and the two of us have been utilizing that resource whenever possible. But, like I said, it’s really wet here, thus we have wet logs= extremely difficult to start a fire. Matt and Tony visited us last week and Tony liked it so much he decided to stay and do research here instead. So now there are 3 of us here, just soaking up the wonderful cool weather and the homemade chocolate of Kodaikanal.

Kodaikanal is very touristy, mainly because it is a cold oasis in a sea full of hot Indian villages. I would compare it to Estes Park (for those Coloradans reading this). When the tourists come on the weekends all they want to do is take photos with us, some of the only white people they have ver seen. It’s also quite annoying when I am running around the lake and hear “Excuse me madam, from which country?” from every 25 year old man that I pass. They are harmless, but cat calls and stares get really old after a while.

There’s really only two long blocks that compose the “town”, with many chocolate sellers and Tibetan shops and restaurants. There are lots of people selling jackets, hats and gloves on the street; since many Indians aren’t used to cold weather they wear earmuffs and full winter coats in 60 degree weather. The International School is located right between these two big streets, in the center of town, and is a boarding school for k-12 students. Many Koreans go here as well as many well-off Indians from the metropolis of Mumbai. There are even lots of Western students and many Western staff members that I have become friends with. Sometimes I go to tea time in the staff lounge just to chat with my new international friends and of course to take advantage of the free tea and snacks! There’s even a free yoga class at this school for staff members twice a week that I go to. This place is really just too nice, I feel extremely spoiled for India.

Among the friends we’ve made in Kodai is Mr. Heden, an older Indian man that works in the IT department at the school. He is helping us to learn some of the Tamil language, and even made us a small cheat sheet that we can use in our travels. He is such a nice man. I can walk down the streets of Kodai and wave to familiar faces, such as the sketchy young tall guy that works in every scarf shop in town or Mr. Chocolate, the Muslim man that speaks very good English and makes his own chocolate. One night Mr. Chocolate told us that although we may have different skin colors we have the same blood, the same internal organs, therefore we are all humans and should be treated that way. Quite insightful for a man that sells chocolate for a living.

So…. my research project: I am researching mercury contamination of the Kodaikanal Lake and nearby waterbodies here. In 2001 a mercury thermometer was shut down in Kodai by Greenpeace, and lots of mercury waste was dumped into the water. I’m taking water samples to see if there’s any still in the water. I’m also interviewing some of the workers from the thermometer factory that experienced horrible health effects. These people had Central Nervous System Problems, skin irritations, kidney failure, miscarriages, and 18 people even died from the mercury exposure. These Indians had no idea that these health problems were related to the mercury they were working with, they just knew that something was causing them all to get sick. It’s really a horrible story, and I just want to make sure that this poisonous element isn’t still hanging around the water that hundreds of tourists visit daily.

Rebecca, Tony, and I just got back from a 2 day trip to Palani, a town 3 hours away by bus, in the plains. We each had research to do here. The people that live in Palani drink the water directly from Kodaikanal Lake, so this was really useful for my research. We slept on cement floors for 2 nights, eating traditional Southern Indian cuisine (idly and chutney for breakfast and rice and sambar for lunch and dinner). I showered on the first night with a bucket of cold water in a cement enclosure outside and our bathroom was a squatter toilet outhouse (without tp of course). We ate dinner both nights at a woman’s hut from the village. Her name was Papatti and her daughter’s name was Devi. They told me that Devi had to stop school in the 10th standard because they just moved from Kerala, the state to the West of Tamil Nadu where they speak Malayam. She can speak Tamil, but can’t read and write it, so she is unable to go to school here. She wishes she could continue studying, but the family is too poor to send her to school in Kerala. A little over 200 US dollars is all it would take to send Devi to school for one year. This saddens me, but at the same time, I know that this girl will most likely get married in a few years, not go on to the university. There are many other places that need more immediate help in India, such as the millions of impoverished people that barely eat one good meal a day.

There are so many problems here (in India) that it can be really frustrating. Among them: horrible roads full of pot holes, poverty, lack of jobs, corrupt government, illiteracy, waterborne and infectious diseases, the list goes on and on. I guess I knew that all of this existed before I got here, but you don’t really notice these things until they are staring you in the face. There are just SO MANY people here and SO MUCH hardship. I wish I knew all the solutions.

Although I may be in pretty decent living conditions now, having high-speed internet and hot showers, just 5km away there are slums. There is a man down the street with polio that can’t walk. He just crawls around and begs all day. I’ll admit that I feel incredibly guilty about my comfortable situation in this country. It just makes me so grateful for what I have. This place will really shock you with realism.