A new day, a new appreciation for the little things. I have now been in Wayanad for a month and time is flying by. Every evening I walk home to Vallat from the Profugo House and I listen attentively to the symphony of crickets and frogs nestled in the hills and rice paddies. Their music is the perfect accompaniment to the fireflies dancing amidst the tops of the coconut trees above me. It is almost
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Hello Friends, After a seemingly unending summer of monsoon rains, the sun has finally come out! This is a big sigh of relief for many in the community in Wayanad, India, including our field staff. Everyone is assessing the damage created by the rains, cleaning up, and making plans for the next agricultural cycle. It’s a season, much like the spring in the US that brings an aura of hope and newness. Our field team
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While we here in the US often identify the summer months with sunshine, warm weather, barbeques, and beach trips, our global neighbors in India welcome the abundance of rainfall known as the Monsoon Season. For the vast majority of families in Prashanthagiri, the season brings relief from high temperatures and a renewed sense of hope for the vitality of their crop production. In addition however, this season also brings about several ailments. The wet, humid
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“Think moonless, think midnight, think darkness… the star spangled sky, against a stark blue-black background. This is what ajrakh, meaning blue in Arabic, is likened to.” This line from an article in the Hindu, gives a fitting visual for someone who is unfamiliar with this art form. “The word” the article states “could have come from “aaj rakh” (keep it for the day), the longer the wait between each process, the finer the result.” The
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I could feel my boots growing heavier and heavier, as if they were becoming the very stones I was climbing up. The moon and stars faintly lit the rocky trail as we approached the summit, weak, weary, and stiff from the cold. I began the hike with friends hours ago in the middle of the night and now we gazed out onto the horizon having reached the pinnacle of our journey, the 14,265 foot summit
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