Sorry for the delay!

Hey! I'm sorry for the long delay between posts, here is an update!

It has been a whirlwind adventure for sure. On the 17^th, I became violently ill. Have you seen “Bridesmaids?” It was like that…but for longer. Fortunately, it seems that my body was playing fast and furious with whatever bug was in me, because 24 hours later I was fine. Dehydrated and exhausted, but fine. About 18 hours into my terrible aliment, my internet stopped working. When I was healthy enough to call customer supported, I found out that someone still hadn’t sent in my documents. I would try to keep Sameer from ever selling Tata products again, expect that I really do not have the time to try to figure out how to register a complaint in India. I asked over the phone and this is how it went:

Me: Sir, the retailer who sold me this did not send in my documents. He told me that he did twice and then he never did. This also happened to my friend. How can I register a complaint?

Customer Service Rep: No madam, you need to resubmit your documents.

Me: I know, I want to file a complaint.

Customer Service: Where is your home, madam?

Me: America

Customer Service: Pleased to meet you.

Me: How can I file a complaint?

Customer Service: Just go to any Tata dealer and resubmit your documents.

It could have well been a language barrier. But I also think that registering complaints would not translate even if I said it in Hindi. Nevertheless, it is probably for the best that I’ve been without internet so that I can’t search the CDC web site for what I had.

The next day, my adviser came into Joshimath with a group of students from forest departments over the country. I was sitting in the Joshimath Hospital when he called. I told him that I was just getting blood work done and he came down to basically stare down the pathologist and repeat, “Report normal hai?” Yes, everything was normal. Although, I am a little concerned that the pathologist changed the results out of fear.

I declined to join the group that particular day, but the next two days I rode around the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve with them. It is a pretty intense place, bordering Tibet and filled with a lot of wildlife that could kill me—leopards, snow leopards, black bears, and Tibetan wolves. Fortunately, it being a reserve there is enough natural prey that these apex predators don’t mess with humans. The first day we went to Badrinath, which is a very important Vishnu Temple. I honestly am not a huge fan of holy sites. They tend to be very crowded and dirty. This place as a bit better, because of the high altitude and the dry climate, but it was still pretty crowded. The scariest people in there were the tiny, ancient-looking, Garhwali women who really wanted to get to the priest to bless their food. I would not fight one of them, which was evidenced when I left them temple rather than stay inside.

We then moved onto the so-called “Last Indian Village,” which is much less dramatic than it sounds. Mana is the last Indian village before the Tibetan border. I find it funny that the Indian government still refers to it as the Tibetan border when geography is discussed, but it is China when military matters are discussed. There are huge Indian barracks around Mana. I don’t think that the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve is going to be the way that China would try to take India down. I would guess, although I am unsure, that a large part of what the Indian army does there is to try to get Tibetans through the border safely. There are very large Tibetan communities in Uttarakhand and other neighboring states. From what I have seen, India seems to welcome all Tibetans, but do little else with regards to it’s policy with China.

Mana was very beautiful. The Saraswati river is there, but is always good for a student to encounter. It also begins to look like the Tibetan plateau, although to actually get there we would have needed to get too close to the border. The econological significance of Badrinath and Mana are that they are both areas where snow leopards have been found as well as other high altitude species.

I was exhausted after the day out, especially after having been sick. It was also hard listening to so much Hindi while I was tired and in a new place, but I guess that is what I signed up for. When I got back home, I began to get heavily into the DVD collection that my mother sent me. Jeeves and Wooster as perfect escapism. Why can’t I have a valet in India? Maybe then I wouldn’t wonder why my room smells and then realize that it’s because I haven’t bathed in the past several days. Of course, I’d like to bathe. But it’s hard to do when you’re sick and there’s only cold-water bucket baths available. I did manage to bathe since.

The next day we went to Reni, Lata and got to the trans-Himalayas, which are the mountains right before the Tibetan Plateau. The air is very dry and the vegetation is much more sparse. Most people up there migrate down to the Greater Himalayas during the winter, because it gets so cold up in the trans-Himalayas. It is very much like a cold desert and is actually beautiful, although I don’t think it would be a very nice place to live all of the time. Most of the people up in that area are Bhotias—an Indian tribe that emigrated from Tibet hundreds of years ago. They used to be the traders between Tibet and India before the border closed in 1962, now they have a lot of sheep and trade wool.

That day was particularly exhausting, it was hours in a car over very bad roads. But it gave me a lot of new villages to look into for field sites. Dr. Uniyal introduced me to a homestay that Shazia used when she went up to Lata for her field work. It is a doable drive from Joshimath, but it would be easier to stay overnight if I’m doing interviews there. The terrain is a bit tougher there and most villages are off the motor head, so it will take a lot of energy to do my interviews. But it is a beautiful area, it is where the Chipko movement started. This was a grassroots, women-led movement to save the trees in the area from being cut down. There are tons of pine and cedar forests around the area and it is very close to Nanda Devi. The Nanda Devi Temple is in Lata, which hikers have to pray in before going into the “inner sanctuary,” which is the area around Nanda Devi. I watched a video of researchers hiking in the inner sanctuary, and it did look very beautiful and very dangerous. I will not be going there.

The weather has been amazing, it has actually felt like fall and most days are completely cloudless, with the exception of a few clouds around the mountains. But all Indians are very concerned about me being in the cold. If I know someone well, then I explain Minnesota and they back off. What really bothers me is when local start telling me about America, and that Joshimath is much colder than America. When I explained that America is cold too, one man responded, “Maybe Alaska.” You would die in Alaska, buddy. You would die. You’re not as hardcore as you think you are. So for me the weather is perfect, but even Garhwalis seem a bit bitter about it.

Since then I have returned to Dehradun. I picked up a fellow Fulbright rsearcher from the airport named Alison. She and I are going to be living together, but we’ll both be doing fieldwork elsewhere, so it will be a good home base. I also have been running errands and trying to get my life together after being out in the field. Internet again is an issue, but I have since resubmitted my papers to someone other than Sameer, so I’m hoping that problem will get fixed.

Dehradun is a lot cooler and more pleasant than earlier this month. Of course that means that Jannat is freaking out about the cold. Dr. Rawat, the owner of the house, and his wife are back for Diwali and very nice people. They’re helping Alison and I to get our floor of the house a bit more habitable. We’re pretty much without furniture right now.

I’ll post pictures soon. The Wildlife Institute has better internet than I have, so I’ll upload pictures there.