Sunday Sun..

 
Of all the genres of photography, portraiture is my favourite. Don't get me wrong, I love rambling off road to try and find a unique perspective for a landscape, I love capturing candid moments in street and travel photography, and if all my friends here continue to be under the spell of this strange new desire to watch birds, I might even try my hand at wildlife photography, but without a doubt my photographic heartbeat is for capturing people. Is it that I'm by nature a people person? That people seem by far the most complex, diverse and beautiful creatures on our planet? That attempting to capture the essence of a person on film (or more to the point, my interpretation of that person's essence) seems an almost transcendent pursuit? I truly don't know, but what I do know is that right now I'll take any opportunity I can to stick my lens in someones face and capture a frame full of the beauty of the world.

Play For Nepal..

Back in 2012 we lived in Nepal for a few months while we waiting for our visas to be renewed for India. We had these grand ideas for how we would spend all of our time there but as often the way, life had other plans. My Little Feather was badly ill and so we spent more than a month in Kathmandu (more than twice as long as we had planned) in order to stay near by to some decent medical care and whilst that was a super trying and difficult time, the real upshot was the extra time we got to spend working with a local NGO. They were working with women and children who'd been rescued out off Sex Trafficking through providing homes, job training and schooling and as Wild Flower's degree was in International Aid & Development she was able to lend a hand in some amazing ways. The relationships we built with the women and children (heart crushingly many as young as 4) and particularly the Nepali family running the NGO were really beautiful and continue along in our family and I still proudly display their Gurkha blade they gifted to us when we left in the lounge room of my home.

 

For us here in Pai, most of the people in our community have either traveled to or spent a period of time living in Nepal and as so many of us have friends and family there it's been hitting quite close to home with all the horrible news and footage coming out of Nepal of their recent earthquakes.

It was in that climate of shock and sadness that we all decided we wanted to do something to support and brothers and sisters in Nepal and raise some cash and prayers. The Caveman had been previously tinkering away with an idea of hosting a variety night at our community space and getting performers in from all over Pai and when the news of the earthquakes reached our ears and the idea of turning it into a fundraiser was broached, well, the two seemed destined to be.

 
As with what feels like most of my life these past few years, the straight forward and simple path to running the night seemed to allude us all. We'd been thinking about it for a while and it finally felt like the right time to install the sound system in the Salah (the main gazebo/building) and so spend most of the afternoon getting it and the lights wired for the evening. It was midway through this process that a giant storm cell hit Chiang Mai and off went the lights, wifi and most importantly - fans! The storm had knocked out the power to the whole of Pai but unlike Banaras where power cuts could literally last days, here the longest we'd experienced was only 2 hours and so with more than double that before the beginning of the night we had very little concern.

But alas, as the time to begin came and went and we were still without power we raided our Candle stock piles and lit the place with every candle we could get our hands on. And.It.Was.Beautiful! For half the night I walked around wondering whether I even wanted the power to come back on as the ambiance was so sweet but with it also came the somber reminder of those in Nepal who are still without power and the substantially harder problems they face because of it.

But roughly half way through the night the lights did indeed come back on all throughout Pai and from every direction could be heard the unified shouts of "Woo Hoo!!" During the interval we set up the mics and did a quick sound check before Shoonksworth took to the stage to performed a gorgeous piece with her Tampura and prayed for Nepal.

Then Wild Flower, Dizzy, myself and the true star of the show - Little Feather - joined Shoonksworth on stage for a Bhajan. For me this was undoubtedly the highlight of not just the night, but the year!! I got to play with some precious friends, my wife (for probably only the 2nd time ever! So proud!!) and for the first time with my daughter (so so sooooooooo proud!!). I found myself just looking back and forward between them the entire song and the sight of Little Feather strumming along on her Ukulele and singing at the top of her lungs filled up my heart beyond capacity! I'm one lucky man!!

 
The only other notable moment was about half way through our song when the storm hit Pai and the gale force winds began blowing the rain sideways into our Salah and onto us and the sound system. Sometimes you just can't win hey! But with the sweet sound of my daughter's little voice in my ear I was in too happy a place to have minded.

 
At the close of the night after witnessing amazing juggling acts, guitarists, story tellers, jaw-harpists, tampurists, fire dancers and even a poet who offered an ode to his balls - yes you read that right - we counted up people's donations and ended up raising 11,469 baht to go to Abari who build natural housing structures to provide relief to communities and victims of disasters. Which when you think about it, from only 52 or so 'budget' travelers, +11k is a pretty fantastic figure!

So a huge thanks to everyone who came to be a part of the 'Play For Nepal' night at Shekina Garden! Whether you donated, performed, or just came to lend your support we want extend a heart felt thank you!!

And if you're reading this and haven't already, maybe now is a good time to consider opening up your hearts and even more so your wallets to support the relief effort in Nepal! Cause in the right hands even just a small amount can go a very long way to changing someone's life! 

Live & Uncensored..

Let me just get this out there - my daughter is a delight! Her heart overflows with kindness, her mouth gushes with sweetness and affection, and she possesses an empathy for others that is way beyond her years. Lately this precociousness has served her well as she settles into our new life in Thailand and the poor little thing commences learning her 3rd language in her very short 4 years on this planet. But I'm not sure if it's a result of growing up in multilingual environments, that it's simply her personality or most likely that it's just spot on for her age and development, but lately her a speech has been flush with this raw literalism, comedic non sequiturs and genius linguist inventions (which around here we refer to as speaking "Elkish") that have had me in stitches! It's gotten to the point where I've decided it'd be a sin not to share them as they're simply too good to waste. So with eternal gratitude to my incredible daughter, I joyfully present to you some highlights from the last month of 'Little Feather; Live & Uncensored.'

  

"Mummy, Mummy! I just saw a car spraying water out of it's bottom."

"Don't worry Daddy, Jesus will put the sick away from you."

"Dad, whenever my poo comes out it makes me cold, or warm, or hot."

"Daddy, yester-night when we went over the bridge the moon dipped itself in sauce and that's how it got orange."

"Dad, at school the peepee from all the doodles gets all over the ground and I don't like it very much."

"Daddy, Daddy! I saw a water fountain and it spat out a rainbow!"

"Dad, do you remember the fish with jelly on it? Wobble wobble wobble?"

"Mum, why do you love wearing chicken?"

 

  "In night times Daddy spews in the potty.. Silly Daddy."

"Daddy, Daddy!! What's that noise upstairs? I think it's a Dinosaur! Or Mummy!"

"Daddy, I need a band-aid to put on my finger so the Germans don't get in and make it ouchie."

"Daddy, last time I was sick you forgot to bring me a bucket and all my vegetables came out onto the bed."

 

The Faerie-Pirate Party..

For months now Little Feather has been reminding us that she's going to have her birthday in her new home in Pai. She picked this up from one seemingly innocuous dinnertime conversation from long ago but as with many random things for kids her age it just managed to sink in and scarcely a week has gone by since where she hasn't reminded us of this fact. So the day after landing in Pai she began hounding us as to the specifics of the impending birthday; What presents will I get? What flavour cake will we have? What kind of party can we have? The list goes on.. We opened up most of these questions to her and the answer's came back as 'A new bike,' 'Strawberry,' and most obviously 'a Faerie-Pirate party.'

So then there's me, having been in the country for scarcely little more than a week and still bumbling along with the simplest of things (it took me 3 trips and 4 hours searching just to track down a bath plug!) wondering how in the world we're going to organise a stinking Faerie-Pirate party!! When in steps Wild Flower, aka; Wonder Woman! In the course of ONE DAY she single handedly whips up a strawberry treasure cake, pirate ship watermelon, swashbuckling bananas, eye patches, pirate hats, hooks and a variety of facial hair (both pirate and faerie) and knocked this party outta the park! To give that even more context you have to understand that we don't even have an oven! (Look, you'll have to forgive me but I really can't pass up this moment to brag about how incredible my wife is! Seriously.. she is I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E!!) 

The thing I found the most disconcerting about the whole experience however, was just how easy it was to throw together a pretty decent pirate outfit from the clothes in my cupboard.. I might have to reassess somethings in my life or otherwise I might wake up at 50 and realise I'm walking around wearing a puffy shirt! And I don't wanna be a Pirate!

So if you weren't able to make it (don't worry, we get that it's a long drive from Australia & India & the rest of the world) then here's a little taste of what you missed out on. And even though you can't yet read this yourself, Happy Birthday my sweetest, dearest, strongest, kindest and most incredible daughter! I love you to the moon and back!!

 

My Faerie-Pirate Birthday Princess..

I Saw Your Nipples On The Balcony..

Our Rootop

Our first home in Banaras was the ultimate hippy pad! It was once the servant's quarters for a rich family (the landlord would swear black and blue that it was previously owned by the King of Nepal) and was just two small rooms that were built on the rooftop of a 3 story building. It was hot, dark, cramped, had no privacy, no hot water, no silence, no shower, no way to keep the dirt out, a squat toilet, you had to walk through the landlord's house to get to the front door, it was infested with rats.. ok, so essentially it was a hovel, but it was our hovel, in the city we'd spent years dreaming about living in, and we loved it. It was close to everything, overlooked an ancient religious site that was potentially thousands of years old and had one of the most amazing views of the city! And out of all the mixture of memories we have from our time living in that most wonderful of homes, one most definitely stands out above the rest; our landlord.

His name is Tiwari Ji, but we affectionately just called him "Tooza." He would love to tell you just how important he was and would remind me on an almost weekly basis that Brahmin was not just the top caste, but a Super Caste! I'd find myself half expecting him to finish that sentence by busting out a cape that he'd been hiding under his Lungi! But he and his family were a truly wonderful way to introduce us into Banarsi life and culture and the following three episodes are some of my favourite memories from those early days in Banaras that will give you a taste of the learning curve that lay before me!

Bucket Bath Bliss

 

Episode 1 - Mawiage Is Wot Bwings Us Togever

One day I was walking up the stairs to the rooftop from where we could access our house. As I reached the top I saw our landlord and his twenty-five year old son crouched down in the middle of the balcony busily working away at something that I couldn't quiet see. As I crossed the floor I saw that they were huddled over a pot plant, some scissors, a few rolls of sparkling tinsel and some tape and were busily cutting up everything into smaller bits and pieces. I awkwardly Namaste'd them and proceeded to ask what they were up to and the Son replied that it was a special day because Tulsi was getting married and they were helping her to prepare. 

In my mind, I knew that Tooza only had two sons and that one of them was already married, and also knowing that in Banaras it's not really the done thing for men to have interaction with women who aren't direct relatives, so as far as I could see there was really only one explanation.

"Oh, how exciting! Is Tulsi your cousin?" I asked.

Both men immediately stopped what they were doing. The son's jaw gaped open and he looked sideways at me with that kind of expression that makes you feel like you've just said the stupidest thing in the history of mankind. Tooza rolled his eyes and turned his back on me. The son just began to shake his head.

After standing there for what felt like an eternity with the overwhelming feeling that I had unanimously been voted the biggest fool in the country, I tried again.

"So Tulsi's not your cousin?" I asked.

"No," the son replied. "Tulsi is the pot plant."  



(If like me you needed an explanation, try here)

...Home...

Episode 2 - The Illusion Of Privacy

It was very early one morning when Wild Flower asked me if I'd pop out to a local dukan ('shop') to pick up some milk as we had run dry and our fledgling Chai addiction was demanding to be placated. The sun had crossed the horizon yet still the grey tinged darkness refused to flee and so from out of our windows the world appear glum, wet and hazy. I grabbed a bag and made my way to our front door where I sat down and leaned back against it to put my boots on.

But the very moment my back touched the door something caught my ear! In an instant I was reefed out of the illusion of privacy, and sat motionless with the knowledge that I was not alone.. and I listened. The sound was close, very close, too close. And it was repetitive; just a soft sloshing, slapping, moist sound, right near my ears. On all fours I silently turned and faced the door, my nose just inches from the wood, and knew that someone, or something, was on the other side.

Out the window above I could see the awning which overhung the front of our house by a couple of feet but nothing else, and so slowly, very slowly, I raised myself up higher and set a trajectory for the window. 

As the crown of my head reached the lower limits of the window I held my breath. I was still new to this country, still confounded daily by almost everything I saw, still aware that I had no idea what that sound was and therefore absolutely anything could have been waiting for me on the other side. 

As my eyes finally crested the window sill I peered down into the chasm below, and there he was, in all his glory; dear ole Tooza! Our elderly, bald, bushy eared landlord, sitting in the only stream of sunlight that just so happened to be falling upon our front door step, wearing nothing but a loin cloth and rubbing cooking oil all over his body. 

The soft sloshing, slapping, moist sound proceeded to eminate from our doorstep for further 25minutes.. Suffice to say our stomachs went Chai free that morning.

...Sweet Home...

Episode 3 - I Saw Your Nipples On The Balcony

It had been a busy morning in the Thundersong household as we had a big day planned at the River Ashram and Wild Flower and I had spent most of the morning hurriedly going about getting everything prepared. Some things were coming together well (ie; the pots of amazing food Wild Flower was whipping up to dish out over lunch), other things however.. not so well (ie; the sterilizing of the rubber tops of Little Feather's drink bottles which were accidently forgotten about and left in a pot of boiling water, which when the water evaporated away left the rubber to simply melt in the pot, thus filling the house with the charming and toxic aroma of charred rubber. We literally had to put the melted remains on the other side of the building just to get away from the smell!).

At some point during the flurry we put the last touches on our preparations and were finally ready to go. I put on my backpack and grabbed the large pot of food, Wild Flower hoisted Little Feather up into her sling and together we began our decent into our landlord's house which we always had to walk through whenever we wanted to enter or exit our home. Now that might sound a strange set up, and it was, but after a while you do get a tad more used to having to always walk through someone's home and when you're in a rush instead focus on how to get away with the least amount of small talk possible. But there is glaring problem here; Tooza loves small talk!

Every morning he would race to greet us and the first words out of his mouth every.single.day. would be "I heard your babu crying X number of times last night" *head wobble.* Now if you're a parent I'm sure you can imagine how joyful it makes you feel when someone says such things to you. I would occasionally find myself replying quiet sarcastically that because our daughter was in the same bed as us that we heard her crying X+1 times, but mostly I would refrain and simply return the *head wobble* and ask how his day was going.

But something different happened on this morning. As I stepped off at the bottom of the stairs he raced to greet us in his usual way but this time he did not greet us with his usual story, this time he began with a question, a question which will forever be seared in recessess of my mind! He looked past me to Wild Flower who was only a couple stairs behind and said "No milk for Babu this morning? I saw your nipples on the balcony."

My jaw hit the floor. 

My eyes grew twice their normal size.

My brain exploded. 

As I stood there too dumbstruck to say anything Wild Flower reached the base of the stairs and stood beside me. Without missing a beat she calmly and matter-of-factly replied "Oh yes, I tried to clean them in boiling water... but I burnt them."

I grabbed at the handrail to steady myself from falling.

I tried to force out words; "Did you just..?! But he said..?! How can it..?! What the..?!?!" And for a moment it seemed most plausible that I'd fallen into an alternate universe in which this scenario was so common place that people could discuss it freely whilst being completely nonchalant about it.

But then it dawned on me; Little Feather's drink bottles! The rubber tops (or 'nipples' if you will) that we'd burnt and put outside to get away from the smell..


This moment still haunts me!



We may have moved a number of times since those days back in 2011, but our first home/hovel in India and our dearest Tooza, have captured a place in our hearts and left an indelible mark on our lives which we'll never forget! ...No matter how hard I might try!

Firing Into The Sun..

There is one particular joy about life in Australia which is hard to adequately explain to someone who hasn't been raising there kids in a place like Banaras. If you've always had access to it then like a lot of things you probably don't realise just how unbelievably amazing it is, but if like many of my expat friends who hail from the distant shores of America, Europe and Africa and are raising their kids in North India, well, they know precisely what I'm talking about... Parks!!

Oh the heavenly riches of having safe places where your kids can run around, be entertained and play without the throngs of BHU boys (the local university students) who have already commandeered the broken down Seesaw (which functions like a guillotine more often than not) and the Slippery Dip (which are always broken half way down and end in a series of sharp jagged spears that spell nothing but impending doom), as well as not having to be constantly set at Defcon 1 to prevent the very common occurrence of someone picking up your child and starting to walk off with them because hey, they just wanted to take a photo or to show their family who live 3 streets away the cute white child they found (in our first year in India this happened to us A LOT!).

Just the mere fact that there are child friendly parks is a completely new experience for us. I can really only think of one park in Banaras that's good for little ones but sadly it's about an hour from our place, all other "parks" (of which there are not many) are covered in drying clothes, rubbish, snoozing homeless folk, young lovers trying to sneak a kiss, packs of dogs and a million games of cricket (often it's this and more). Yet where we're living in Sydney at the moment, I have an amazing park at the end of my street where all these photos were taken and another 5 brilliant parks within walking distance. And in our family there's no way you'll ever miss noticing that you've gone past a park due to our park detector, ie; Little Feather, who squeals with delight from the back seat each and every time she sees a park and begin to wax lyrical about how wonderful the park looked and how we should stop whatever we're doing to go play there.. Every. Single. Time!

 
There are so many wonderful things about raising our kids in India but the lack of outdoor places for the kid to play in our city is something I truly lament! Small as it may seem, the simple pleasure of being outdoors with my kids and seeing them excitedly charge from one set of play equipment to the next brings such warmth to this Papa Bear's heart, thus parks are definitely something simple yet special we've been indulging a lot in since being back in Australia. It kind of makes you realise some of the smaller things in life that are worth being grateful for; something I'm actively trying to be more conscious of at the moment. It's so easy, in fact I think it's our species' default, to overlook and undervalue many of the exceptionally wonderful gifts we have and to instead waste our time being frustrated that we don't have more/better/newer/etc. so why not join me in taking a moment to give yourself some freedom and search out with fresh eyes those glimpses of beauty in your life which you've gradually become accustomed to no longer seeing.

As a final thought, someone once told me that you should always take photographs with your back to the sun.. I must wholeheartedly disagree! My love for photography really burst into flames last year and the last few months I've really enjoyed working through an online photography course in an attempt to grow my measly skills into something a little more robust. I've loved that its been challenging me to be more creative with my shots and so when it comes to firing into the sun.. well, is there anything quite so magical?!

Monkey Battles, Garlic Thieves & The Spoils Of War..

December 2013

 
During a recent conversation with my good friend Ragnar about my garden back in Banaras, it occurred to me that I had never posted the final update from the last few months of work in the Resurrection Garden. Somewhere in amongst our relocating back to Australia for 6 months this post quite understandably just got lost in amongst the hubbub of life. So without further a do, I'd like to offer you an insight into some of my monkey troubles, garlic thieves and the spoils of war!   

December 2013

In late December I had broken the back of the manual labor and was mostly in maintenance mode with the Garden so most visits were just about some spot weeding, enjoying a chai on my favourite garden seat and the daily task of removing the neighbour's rubbish (and semi-regular bags off poo). I had already planted out all the beds with the seedlings I'd been growing in my house in the previous months and things were coming along nicely but as things always go in Banaras, an increase in production results in an increase in interest, and not the positive kind.

For a number of months we'd been frequently commenting how great the absence of Bundar (monkeys) had been and how well our gardens were able to get established in their absence. But wherever they had been they had obviously decided it was enough and back to our homes they came, and brought with them plenty of reinforcements. Almost daily I'd be racing up the to gardens, slingshot and warhammer in hand (ok.. so maybe it was just a large stick) to chase them away but ultimately it was a war of attrition and both sides were amply supplied. Oodbilav is a crack shot with our hunting slingshots and would regularly send them scurrying back to higher grounds with their tails between their legs (though usually after they had filled their belly's from our gardens). And even our neurotic landlord went and bought a high powered air riffle and would regularly patrol the property with his young sons taking shots at them. One day he even confessed to trying to shoot one in it's bottom but missed and hit it in the heart! He said that it died soon after and so he wrapped it in a mala made of marigolds and that night, under the cover of darkness, launched it off his roof top and sent it splashing down into the Ganga (Ganges River) 3 stories below.. Ooh how the madness never let up!

February 2014

As it got later into December and the cold really set in, you could see the difference in growth as things really began to slow down in the Garden. Crops that weren't already well established either died off or essentially their growth ground to a halt and as this dramatically effects the flavour of most crops, some of them were forcibly relocated to their new home in the compost pile. To fill in the spaces of those crops that weren't performing well I chanced upon a small gardening store in town that had a new pile of seedling strewn across their counter and I managed to pick up a couple of different types of veggies that went straight into the ground. They didn't perform quite as well as I'd hoped but when you're handed a pile of seedlings that have their roots completely exposed and are wrapped in nothing but strips of wet newspaper, well, you only have moderate expectation (and for AU$0.43 I didn't loose much sleep over it).

The Organic Hairy Canadian

Considering that the River Ashram is a Jesus Ashram, it probably comes as no surprise that Christmas day ends up being one of our busiest days of the year. Each year we hold a huge celebration on Christmas day and invite travelers and friends to join us in all our festivities. In the past 3 years we've had anywhere between 80 and 120 people rock along (last year we had a turn out of people from 26 different countries) and we always put on an incredible feast. Fresh salad is a rare commodity around Varanasi - and a fresh Organic Salad, well, that's an even rarer find - so I'd been holding off harvesting my salad greens for a while as I wanted to share them as part of the Christmas celebrations. And as you can see in the above pic, between Shookdedy Ba-Boooom's garden and mine, come Christmas morning we had a fantastic time in the Gardens harvesting an amazing collection including 8 different types of fresh, crisp, gorgeous organic lettuce which was devoured in no time.

January 2014

 
In January, the cold in Varanasi was at its peak and so as per our tradition we skipped town and heading for the warmer climates of north Thailand to have a couple of weeks holiday, be a part of a conference and catch up with some truly sweet friends who run a community similar to ours in the northern town of Pai. Knowing that I wouldn't be around I used up a great deal of the 80kgs of straw that I had bought months earlier and went to town heavily mulching everything.

Mulch is one of those wondrous things! It's brilliant for water conservation as it keeps the sun from blazing down on the bare earth and drying out your top soil, thus keeping the soil moist and reduces your need for watering by around 60%. It helps keep your soil temperature constant which reduces shock and stress on your plants (particularly helpful for me during these cold months). It helps keep the weeds down and prevents a lot of the weed's seeds from germinating (which is a massive ongoing fight I'm having in the Resurrection Garden) and less weeds means less competition for the nutrients and water that you want going to your dedicated food crops and not away from them. And if you're using an organic mulch such as Straw, Pea Straw, Cane, Bean, Lucerne, etc. as they break down they release organic matter back into the soil which improves drainage and soil structure as well as encouraging earthworms and microbial activity. So if you're new to Gardening then let it be known; Mulch is your friend!

 

December 2013

 
I've tried on a couple of occasions to explain why I put straw onto my garden to my neighbours and Mali ('groundskeeper') but with little success. My Hindis not great so obviously that's a pretty big hurdle, but in Banaras there is really only 2 options when it comes to most things; the way it's always been done and the wrong way - and putting what cow's eat for lunch on top of your garden is quite simply not the way things are done! Shookdedy Ba-Boooom tells the story of her early days gardening at the Ashram when she first tilled the soil, watered and mulched, went inside only to come back later that afternoon to find that the Mali had raked up all the mulch and set it on fire. As I said, mulching your garden is quite simply Not.The.Way.Things.Are.Done!

January 2014

The tomato plants had been growing like a dream and I was keen to built a trellis to help support them grow upwards instead of into the giant tomato thicket they were currently in the process of creating. My neighbours sell bamboo and twine is super cheap around these parts and so with these resources and a bit of research I ended up creating a trellis of horizontal double layers of twine, essentially supporting growth by twisting the tomato branches through each double line of twine for each foot of vertical growth. The trellis was something I'd been wanting to do for a long time but time restraints meant that I just never got around to it. Once the trellis was up I began threading the branches up through it and the finished product worked a treat! The only down side was that in the process I sadly damaged a number of the branches whilst unraveling the colossal mess that their branches were in, so the lesson of doing things before they really need to be done is one which I'll commit to learning.. sometime in the future.. perhaps.. ergh, knowing me probably not.. But once it was done the tomato plants really did continue to grow wonderfully and soon after began putting out hundred of clusters of young fruits which if they were lucky enough to avoid the Bundar charged on to maturity.

 

February 2014

 
In February we returned from Thailand and to be honest, I was a little heart broken coming back into the Resurrection Garden. In the weeks prior to leaving for Thailand there had been a number of wonderful Community Gardening afternoons and the Garden was in the best shape of it's life and was an absolute delight to be in. Upon returning it was like walking into a different garden altogether. With three weeks of my neighbour's uncollected rubbish scattered everywhere, weeds which had gone unchecked and the telltale signs of the presence of veggie thieves, I found it hard to even want to be in there. One of the biggest disappointments was probably the veggie thieves who had helped themselves to my imported elephant Garlic (which was nowhere near ready for harvesting and thus inedible and a complete waste to steal) as I had such big plans to multiply that Garlic and spread it out amongst my local friends who grow their own food so they could continue growing it at their homes. I'll never know who stole it, and even though the safe money is on my landlords - they now own a gun, so I plan to quietly lick my wounds from the safety of my home and never speak of this again!

It took me a couple of weeks before my heart was ready to really invest itself back into the Garden, but once I was ready, I hit it again with passion. And as you can see in the above image, towards the end things began to once again look and feel magical again.

Heirloom Carrots

One aspect of gardening that I'm becoming increasingly excited by is in the arena of heirloom varieties. Whilst I'm still a complete novice in the field I was particularly excited to track down and trial this variety of Purple Carrots. Even though they still had a while to go before reaching full maturity, I'd previously promised Little Feather that she could help me harvest them and as we were only a week away from heading back to Oz I decided it was time for us to put on our Gum boots, march up to the garden and get our hands dirty pulling up a few different varieties of carrot that we'd been growing. Sure they're cheap as chips and take a long time to grow, but eating carrots fresh from the Garden, really, how can you resist?!
 

Rainbow Silverbeet/Chard, Broccoli, Basil, Lettuce, English Spinach, Carrots, Rocket, Kale, Cos Lettuce, Mini Cos, Black Russian, Gross Lissi & Cherry Tomatoes.

 
With only a couple of days left before leaving I decided it was time to get out into the Garden for one final harvest. As you can see from the above shot, it resulted in a fantastic haul of amazing tasting crops and brought a real sense of accomplishment to all the sweat and tears I'd put into this project in the last two years. I've spent so so so many hours in that space, sometimes feeling a great sense of refreshment, sometimes pulling my hair out; constantly battling the monkeys, the rubbish, the weeds, the neighbours, the termites, the years of soil mistreatment, the elements and so to really experience that joy of dig my hands into the earth and pulling out literally arms full of fresh produce really made my heart feel full. I was able to pass out what would have been baskets full of veggies over the wall to my neighbours (yes.. the same ones who send baskets full of their faeces my way) and whilst showing gratitude in these sorts of situation doesn't seem to be a common cultural trait amongst Banarsi folk, I'm pretty sure that somewhere in there there was a bit of love being handed back and forth too. 

February 2014

As a closing though, if you were keen to visit the Resurrection Garden but the thought of forking out thousands of dollars to make the trip to Varanasi doesn't quite appeal to you, I have something which might just be the next best thing. Whilst this is from back in January and certainly isn't as good as being there in the flesh, you do get the benefit of checking it out from the comfort of your own home (which will certainly save you a few rupees)! So have a click on the following link and take a look around (works best on a tablet or smart phone but using the arrow keys on your keyboard is also good) and as my Little Feather likes to say; "Welcome to be here!!"
 
                                                                            >>> The Resurrection Garden 3D <<<