in the field again

It has been a month since my last entry and I feel I have built up so many things to say. The last entry is something I wrote a while back but have only now gotten around to posting. Since then, I have found it difficult to write about my current experiences. I feel I don’t yet have enough perspective to really understand my three weeks in the field, interviewing farmers and living with a family. But I will give it a little try and have to promise the rest for later.

I am currently in Bangalore again, finishing up a bit of the remote sensing work, but I leave again for the field tonight. Ah, once again, the lovely overnight train ride. I have come to feel almost as home on the train as anywhere else these days. Four months ago, before leaving for India, one of my main concerns was “Will I have a stable place to stay, I place I can feel comfortable in, a sort of home, a place I can be on my own?” And I can say, that like many things in research, I have not answered the question so much as redirected it. Instead of finding a stable place to live, I have learned to be quite fine with a semi-nomadic existence. I currently have my things spread between two places, but the number of places I regularly sleep are about five. If I am in the field late, I simply sleep at my interpreter’s house. If I am at my friend’s house late, I sleep there.

And the needs for solitude and independence? They have not disappeared, but I no longer associate them with the place I sleep. In the U.S. there seems to be a big emphasis placed on having “separate bedrooms” (how many times can I remember telling my brother he wasn’t allowed in “MY” room?) But in the places I have been recently, everyone can sleep anywhere and everywhere. Most of the beds are moveable mattresses, so they are rolled up in the day and can be rolled out just about anywhere at night. And at first, I really thought I would find this difficult, but instead I have found it sort of comforting and warm. There is a certain safety in numbers, I suppose. And not just safety from night noises and creatures (which might have been my main concern as a small child) but also safety from going too far into the depths of my own mind, safety from the loneliness that can be sometimes provoked by solitude. When surrounded by others, their perspective on life and simply their presence encourages me to maintain a certain level-headedness, and that has probably been a very good thing. By and large, I have appreciated my many “homes” and sleeping places of the last few months, even if stability has been lacking. And so, I am looking forward to tonight’s journey.

Since I usually am traveling on my own, I have no pictures of myself in a train. But I do have myself on a chakkeri, or bullock-drawn cart. We were hitching a ride back from the fields after doing an interview. The photo was taken before another four people jumped up into the pile of freshly cut grass. And we were pulled magnificently homewards by the amazingly strong bullocks. I felt on cloud nine.