We came on the back of a motorbike, with my backpack straining against my back. In the morning Shiva took Jan back to Jaisalmer and left me and Claudie alone in the desert with his brother's family.
We lived in the desert with Moto, his ailing mother, his wife Shandni, and their three children (6 years, 3 years, and infant). Not to mention a downtrodden sandy-colored dog named Anda (“egg”), a cow and two calves, and a handful of goats. The house one stone and cement block and three huts made of mud and cow dung, clustered around a packed-mud/dung courtyard. The chickpea field is several kilometers away, a 30-40 minute walk across open scrubby desert.
Living in the Thar desert is difficult, in plain ways. To drink, we draw water from a concrete tank in front of the house in a shiny silver pail on a rope (but don't drop the rope, because it's not attatched on the other end!). To bathe, wash clothing, and repair the house, we take from the pond (rainwater accumulated July-September), which serves as watering-hole for the goat and cow herds. It's a 10 minute walk to the 'lake', where we wade in the soft kneaded mud, adding our feet to thousands of hoofprints in the mud, and fill 10-liter metal jugs with brown-grey water, which we carry back on our heads, water sloshing down our necks and faces. The day is measured out in steps down and back up the path to the rapidly-diminishing pond. Water is too precious to waste on things like washing dishes, so we use sand.
The sun is harsh during the day and the nights can be very, very cold. The night I spent in a grass hut next to the chickpea field, I could see my breath in the air. I layered all the warm clothing I brought, saying a prayer each night to the Merino gods.
While we were fetching water on my first working-day, Claudie informed me that though the farm is mostly organic, they are spraying the chickpeas this year because the insects are especially bad. I felt cheated and disappointed, but not surprised; life is hard here, and they don't want to take any chances at losing the crop. I spent one day weeding in the chickpea field, glaring up at Moto's distant figure walking down the rows with a backpack sprayer. I planned to make a fuss, since I didn't sign up for front-line exposure to pesticides. But It didn't become an issue, since most of the weeds had already been pulled and that afternoon was the only one we spent in the field.
Life moved along in an unhurried, steady way like the gait of a lazy cow, but I was constantly anxious, since I was never sure what would be expected of me. Whenever idle, I felt like I needed to be doing something to earn my keep. After we finished weeding the chickpeas we were mostly entrusted with small tasks and home-improvement projects. We swept the courtyard, gathered firewood, ground wheat flour by hand, milked goats. Claudie and I spent one day putting up a roofless structure for storing goat-n-cow food, constructed out of supple sticks and rope, then moved all the grain into the new structure. We also spent one day helping Moto to cut grass for a new thatched roof. Most of our time, though, was devoted to refinishing the house with a mixture of sand, water, and cow shit on the walls. (When they talk about cow shit, they call it “cow shit” in English, without crudeness or shame; for them, that's the word to call it.) So we fetched jug after jug of water, and then fetched pans of sifted sand, and mixed both with big piles of wet cow shit using our bare feet on the floor of the courtyard. We spread it on the walls of the house with our hands. There's a feeling at first of complete, utter revulsion, when skin first touches crap, and then a sort of resigned disgust that turns into prideful stoicism. Which in turn gives way to a gross fascination and finally a sort of visceral enjoyment at the texture between fingers and toes, muddy and smooth. In short, it's AWESOME.
Christmas came and Shiva came from Jaisalmer to throw us a little party for it; we built a campfire at the grass hut (Shiva's “farmhouse”) and made dal, rice, and rota, little round biscuits cooked in the coals. Shiva brought real chocolate cake from town, and homemade whiskey from his brother's stash. We walked back, staggering, through the dark, scaring each other with desert ghosts and the threat of wild boars. New Year's Eve passed unmarked, though I woke up early to salute the sunrise on the first day of the year. “One Year Ago Today....” I thought about it. Two years ago today....three years ago today I shaved my head bare. Two years ago I drank champagne in the freezing cold at the top of a sledding hill. One year ago today I was struck horizontal with the worst hangover of my life, in St. Petersburg, Russia, with friends I hope to see again someday. On January 1st we walked 6 km to the highway and flagged down a little truck to bring us to Jaisalmer for 20 Rupees.
Claudie's company was indispensable to me. We talked about our experience, whether it was good or bad. Often it was both—extremely frustrating, challenging, but simple and rewarding. A full belly at the end of a day of hard work. Hot tea in the cold morning. And I learned. Our position was a strange one at the farm. On the one hand, we were guests, and in India the guest is god. So we aren't allowed to help cook, and we were always served our meals and chai before the family. On the other hand, our purpose for being there was to work, and we had to earn our keep. We were the low ladies on the totem pole, so we are given all manner of menial tasks. The women, who have domain only over their own children, and the children, who have never had power over anyone, delighted in ordering us around. I felt a little like the dog, Anda, who walks with his tail slung low around his bum, for he knows his place is low. It was discouraging and dismaying that no one bothered to learn my name but addressed me & Claudie both as “gori”, which means “white-skinned person”. So...when I went into the desert my name changed from “Madam” to “Whitey”. Charmed, I'm sure. We felt like outsiders, gawked at by the children, who, even when we were elbow- and ankle-deep in cow shit, jabbed their hands out at us asking “10 rupees? 1 rupee? School pen? Photo?” Only Moto and his older brother Mogu spoke any more English than that. One of the goat-herd boys would stride by with a big smile on his face repeating the only words he knew--”Hello! Camel Safari! Camel safari hello!” The experience was not pleasant, but I can't say it was bad.
It's hard to begin to talk about it; the structure of life is so different from any I've ever experienced, and it seems like there's no way to translate the daily tasks and necessities without providing a floor plan, without diving into a series of nesting explanations, descriptions, and definitions that set the stage and provide the context for what little story I can offer. And there are too many stories I feel that I'm leaving out. The story of the food meeting my digestive tract and two days of horrible, dehydrated stomach cramps, the story of my clothes being dirty, dirtier, then cleanish, then dirty. The story of the kids and their sticky fingers on the fretboard of my ukulele. The birds flying in and out of our room whenever we opened the door. The goats bleating. The story of the sun rising, climbing, and slowly trekking across the sky.
Now Claudie and I have decided to cast our lots together for awhile, since we're both traveling alone. We've been living in Shiva's guesthouse in Jaisalmer for three days, cooking and cleaning and unsure if we're supposed to be paying for our room or not (we'll find out when we leave, I guess). A few local characters have learned our names and shake our hands as we walk down the street. If you stand still in one place long enough (and long enough is not long at all) someone here will offer you tea and conversation. You could spend a lifetime in Jaisalmer on front stoops and in little shops, sipping chai and talking about the world. But we're leaving tonight on a train back to Jodhpur, where we can catch a cheap bus to Udaipur. I'm happy, though these past days I've felt comfortable and at home. I'm starting to get itchy to move on.
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