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 <<<

Wild Foot At One..

"Running like a mad man down the center of the main road, with no shoes on, in the dead of night, in the south of India, that's what I was doing!" I replied. 

It was our lil Wild Foot's 1st birthday this past week and a large part of me is finding it terribly difficult to reconcile this with reality! One year old! Already! We call him Wild Foot because while he was still in the womb he would relentlessly try to kick the house down, and now that he's out in the big wide world nothing much at all has changed. We had a little 1st Birthday celebration for him with our family and the grandparents and at one point someone asked me what I was doing at this time 12 months earlier. That question sparked a memory of Wild Foot's birth which I had all but forgotten, and probably for good reason.

We live in Banaras which is in the North-East but had moved to Kerala, India's most southern state, a couple of months early in anticipation of the birth so that would could be close to Birth Village, one of India's only natural birth centres. We had an amazingly beautiful Home Birth from Little Feather in Australia and carried no desire to birth in a hospital, be it Australia or India (and especially not when you look at the stats of the ridiculously high rate of unnecessary C-Sections that happen in Indian Hospitals). So we were living in a lovely little house right in the center of Fort Cochin and had to regularly make a very bumpy 45minute trip in the back of an old Ambassador or Auto Rickshaw to the birth centre for our checkups. What became quite obvious was that at some point Wild Flower would be in labour and would need to make this journey, bumps and all, and that to first spend half an hour walking around town in search of a driver who would take us for a reasonable rate was simply not going to fly. Especially if she went into labour in the middle of the night! And so I went to work trying to find a reliable taxi driver (preferably with a decent set of wheels) who would agree to come, rain, hail or shine, and get us there in time!

One thing you quickly learn living in India is that just because someone looks you in the eye and promises you something, doesn't exactly mean that they mean it. Now look, I'm not going to get into debating the rightness or wrongness of this way of acting, but suffice to say it's a reality of life here and so when it comes to a taxi walla promising you that he will come to your house at any time, day or night, and take your pregnant wife to the 'hospital,' well, at best you've got about a 50/50 chance that he's telling the truth, at worst it's a bold faced lie. And so I hedged my bets and got 5 numbers, from 5 different drivers, promising big rupees if they would agree to keeping their phones on throughout the night and coming to get us when we needed them most.

And then one evening it happened; Wild Flower went into labour. Her contractions had been growing stronger over a number of hours and at some point she made the decision and it was time to go. So at a little bit after midnight I stepped out our front door into the warm Kerala night air, punched in the first of five phone numbers on my speed dial... and waited...

It's a funny feeling waiting for someone to answer the phone. You kind of expect that they're not going to answer on the first or even the second ring, but there's this moment that happens around the 4th and 5th ring, and when it happens you know it, and it's the moment of unexpectedly hearing another ring. The window in which you expect someone to pick up is closing, no ones going to answer you, and it feels like you've breathed in the pungent smell of failed expectations mixed with a dash of isolation.

I hurriedly ended the call and dialed in the 2nd phone number. Followed by the 3rd. Then the 4th. And finally the 5th. Pressing in those final numbers was a nervous moment but I remained optimistic because hey, surely 1 out of 5 has to come to the aid of a pretty pregnant lady! But I was wrong, 5 sets of phone numbers had all rung out!

I felt sick to my stomach. The dead quite streets of Fort Cochin did little to ease my nerves and I began redialing the numbers. All of them, again, nothing.

Now not wanting to worry a woman (who has just decided that it's time to go and deliver a baby) with the news that I might in fact have to carry her to the birth centre, I did the only think I could think of; I ran. I ran like a mad man down the center of the main road, with no shoes on, in the dead of night, in the south of India, searching for someone, anyone, who would take us where we needed to go, and as you'd expect, there was not a single soul on the road.

For what felt like an eternity (but was probably just the longest 15-20minutes of my life) I ran up and down every street I came to, feeling sick yet super charged, desperately praying that God would miraculously send a taxi around the next corner, but instead he sent me to the only building that still had the lights on, the local police station. I busted through the open doors and into a typical Indian Police scene; a whole bunch of men with large mustaches sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. I hurriedly explained my situation to the stone faced police officer whose glazed over eyes told me that he could not have cared less about my plight and whose bulging cheeks told me that his mouth was full of Paan which he was in no way willing to spit out in order to talk to me. The officer sitting next to him nodded his head to the side, indicating the road to the side of the building, I looked at him again and he repeated to nod his head in that direction and I took off down the street, a mixture of sweat and curses pouring from my face.

Coming to the end of the street I could hear the sounds of music coming from a building only a short distance away. I ran towards the sound and minutes later came upon a guesthouse with a number of locals sitting around watching television and a beat up old Auto Rickshaw in the driveway. In that moment, that Auto was probably the greatest sight I'd seen in all my life! I ran up to the men, asked whose Rickshaw it was, then began to explain my predicament to the owner whilst he causally leaned back in his chair and lit up a cigarette. He said he would gladly take us... for a price. And when he told me his price (probably the same as what I'd pay for my family to fly back to Australia) I gave a nervous laugh, he knew he had me over a barrel and there was not much I could do about it, but still I postured. I told him I'd pay him about a third of what he offered and without waiting for a response walked over and sat in the back seat, a bargaining trick which only occasionally works, and he slowly and reluctantly stood up, took a long drag on his cigarette and told me to wait while he went inside to get his keys.

In those next moments as I sat waiting, worried how Wild Flower would cope being in labour and having to make this 45minute trip in the back of a beat up old Auto and not a taxi, my heart still pounding and still feeling short of breath, I began a silent dialogue with God. I began explaining the ridiculousness of everything that had just transpired (I guess I thought he needed to be reminded) and expressing some thankfulness that it seemed that at the very least we'd be leaving for the Birth Centre soon. Midway through this conversation I heard the familiar sound of my phone beginning to ring in my pocket and I assumed it was going to be Wild Flower, probably being more than a little concerned that her husband had disappeared off into the night, but it wasn't, the number on my screen was none other than that of missing Taxi walla #3 returning his missed call!

And wouldn't you know it, he was ringing to let me know that he was already on his way!

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that we made it to the Birth Centre and from that point on everything went smoothly (well.. mostly) and that the next day our cheeky, smiley, noisy, cuddly little man was born sporting a righteous looking Mohawk. He's been challenging and delightful and we love him to pieces! This story for you little man, and I'm so glad you're my son!