10/2/2007

prologue-into the mountains of kerala

 

I knew we were in for an incredible adventure when a Toyota LandCruiser showed up in front of the hotel in Calicut. It was one of the nicest vehicles I'd seen in India. The driver was immaculate. He had a steely stare, never spoke, even to the Indians, never blinked and navigated awe-inspiring switchbacks and chaotic city traffic with equal aplomb. He was born to the task. As we started up into the Ghat mountain range from Calicut, wherever we saw a watersource, men were stopped with their trucks. They carried out a variety of activities from washing their trucks to bathing themselves with buckets of water carried from the source. Some even brushed their teeth under the ubiquitous walrus-like mustaches worn by Indian men. I had to ask Tomy Mathews, the president of Elements, the marketing arm of Fair Trade Kerala, why so many mustaches? He seemed to think it was a sign of virility traced back to the warrior caste who wore large handle-bar mustaches for a more menacing appearance. No such thing as an ironic mustache in India. Irony is overrated anyhow. The screeching of rubber tires jarred me from my irony revery as we came close to being run over by weiner mobile shaped buses twisting down the mountain passes. We soon passed some rubber plantations recently planted as a knee-jerk reaction to market prices for rubber going up. You can literally grow anything in this tropical rainforest so farmers are in the habit of ripping out crops and planting more valuable ones until the market adjusts, or crashes, at which point the cycle of tearing out and replanting begins again. Not a recipe for economic health. As we neared a plateau after a seemingly endless series of switchbacks, you could see the progress we'd made by looking down into the valley lush with rolling verdant hills rising like berms in a Sanders bump cake. The sheer density of trees was unimaginable. Monkeys darted in and out of the forest. Once we reached the plateau we discovered a typically Wyanad landscape--a valley floor planted with rice paddies surrounded by forested mountain peaks. This pastoral dreamscape was being threatened, however, by the demand for biofuels created from the oil of palm coconut trees. It makes you wonder if it is more environmentally sound to ripe out rice paddies which collect mountain water and feed the masses with the famous large-kernelled Kerala rice, with an overabundance of coconut trees. They go coocoo for coconut oil. Our coconut cruiser stopped to pick up another member of Fair Trade Alliance Kerala, Paul, on our way to Wyanad Social Services Society in Mananthanady. Fair Trade Kerala already has about 1,500 farmers in its membership and is trying to have some of them join the Wyanad group which is considering Fair Trade certification. The major deciding factor is economics. The WSSS farmers are already certified organic by both Indian and EU certifying agencies. Is the price of certification going to pay back the farmers in higher prices? Keralites have become accustomed to a certain standard of living. Unlike many coffee-producing countries, life there is fairly good. Their literacy rate and life expectancy are much higher than the rest of India and on par with the West. The Kerala Model is something that even the NY Times has covered. Jobs Abroad Support ‘Model’ State in India - New York Times To reinforce the somewhat socialist bent of the area I saw a sign which read, “Indians have Diwali, Americans have Baghdad.” Bush is even in the bush. We couldn’t avoid politics even at lunch. As I have mentioned before, India is a land of endless mom & pop shops. A general strike was called in protest of large retailers (with backing from Walmart) moving in and disturbing the status quo. So every shop and restaurant was closed. No small task in India.  We had to eat at a hotel. There we had what is known as a regular meal. It was anything but regular. The heavy drapes were inexplicably pulled closed in the middle of the day. Tables were full of men tearing into the food with little conversation. What you get in a regular meal is a metal tray with a large compartment in the middle and a bunch of smaller compartments on the top. The top compartments are filled with curries: fish, coconut, hot peppers, shredded cabbage and mango pickles. Into the middle is dumped a load of Kerala rice, easily enough for an average American family, maybe not in the Midwest, though. The waiter then brings gravy and ladles it onto the rice. You take the curries and the gravy and mix with the rice into little edible sized balls you pop into your mouth. As you draw down on your food the waiter returns without beckoning and fills the appropriate compartments until you cry “uncle.” It’s the buffet brought to you. Now there’s an idea I could take home to the Midwest.

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