[09:36 @ Jungle Lodge, Kanha National
Park, MP, India]
The
Gypsy has developed a starter problem, so no safari today. Instead, I will hold a meeting with Faiyaz
at 10:00. What I have in mind to do is
to draw up a jobs list similar to that in Pradeep’s budget, which I haven’t
shown Faiyaz, and ask Faiyaz to do a cost estimate on it, and further to do one
on the alternative plan we have designed, including outreach. It is nearly 10:00 now. More later.
[18:25] Just returned from a most successful visit to the Baiga village
Chichrunpur about an hour ago.
But
first, the 10:00 meeting. It was also
attended by Anne and Chris, whom I totally trust. It was understood to be a strictly confidential meeting. In general, several items were deemed way
overpriced All deemed the “survey of
visitors” and “project monitoring” to be way too passive to be able to answer
the urgent call of the tigers - basically a waste of money. Most of all, all agreed that the absence of
an outreach program, which limits the contact to only 3-4 villages out of the
178 in the Buffer Zone, to be the fatally flaw of Pradeep’s program, rendering
it impotent.
Tiger
Trust as an organization doesn’t even have its own dedicated vehicle in a place
where, in the absence of phones, not to mention fax and email, the lack of a
vehicle means paralysis. As it is, TT
depends on Dynamic Tours for vehicular use, but only when DT’s Gypsy can be
spared. A good used Gypsy costs about
C$5,000 (aboutUS$3,000). Spread out
over three years, the cost is only C$1,750 per year, although it would have to
be cash up front. Diesel cost would be
in the region of about C$1,000 per year.
We would also need two full time outreach staff, one of whom being
Faiyaz, at C$2,000 per annum each, to reach and maintain contact with all 178
villages in the buffer zone. All told,
even with cash up front for the vehicle, it would cost only C$10,000 for the
first year and C$5,000 each for the second and third years, fuel included. If it is two Gypsies and a full time staff
of four, the outreach cost would be only C$20,000 for the first year including
vehicle purchase and C$10,000 for subsequent years, compared to the $27,000 in
Pradeep’s budget for the “visitor survey” and “project monitoring”, which is
stated to employ only one person for 8 months, with no vehicle. How Pradeep managed to stretch out the cost
to $27,000 was totally beyond us.
Faiyaz also mentioned that not one brown rupee has been released towards
building the 4-acre full scale “medicinal plant nursery”, which Pradeep costed
for $20,000 in the budget. The budget
for the “medicinal plant garden”, referring to just the tiny 30’x30’ plot,
which contains about 20 species, one plant each, which could be tended by a
lodge employee at near-zero cost, was $8,000 in Pradeep’s budget. If we scratched the “visitor survey” and
“project monitoring” and spend the $27,000 + $8,000 = $35,000 on the outreach
program and the nursery, the results would be monumental, with rupees to spare. And what of the other $25,000 in Pradeep’s
budget?
Pradeep
is of course pro-tiger, but first and foremost because his Dynamic Tours
capitalizes on tiger viewing as its main profit draw. It’s almost, though not quite, on the level of a Canadian guide-outfitter
protecting grizzly bears so that they would continue to have grizzlies for
their clients to hunt.
I
have also observed how Pradeep and Faiyaz deal with villagers. Faiyaz relates to them on their level;
Pradeep does so from 8 miles above. The
only thing about Pradeep I can trust is that he would not betray his father
totally, but this does not mean he would not favour Dynamic Tours over Tiger
Trust, and therefore the tiger.
I
reiterate that CIDA’s total annual budget is C$2 billion, of which only C$1.2
million is for conservation (versus development) – less than 0.7% of the total
- of which C$100,000 goes to the WCWC/TTT program. I’ll be damned to let this precious grant be misspent, misused
and/or misappropriated.
I
asked Faiyaz if it was true that he was thinking about leaving Tiger
Trust. He simply nodded. Chris said to me on the side later, “Faiyaz
doesn’t give a damn about money. To him
it is 100% the cause.” WCWC’s kind of
guy.
Speaking
of dealing with villages, we - Anne, Chris, Faiyaz, Janice, Kim, Deleep and I -
had a most successful visit to Chichrunpur.
In our morning meeting, we predetermined that we would not preach, would
not condescend, would not insult, would not impose, would not fault, would not
trick. Around 12:30 Tarun arranged a
picnic lunch for us on the bank of the river behind the Jungle Lodge acreage,
involving 4 helpers. After the lunch,
we started the hike to the village and got there around 14:30.
On
the way along the river, we came across a tree that had been illegally cut down
since our previous visit, which was only day before yesterday. It had already been cut into 5’-long
sections, and imbedded in one of the sections was a wedge made of extremely
hard wood. I took the wedge and
continued walking. (Is it theft on my
part?) Soon, we came upon the villagers
of another village performing a 15-days-after post-funeral ceremony. We introduced ourselves and paid our
respects, and were of course regarded with undiluted curiosity. As we carried on, closer and closer to
Chichrunpur, more and more we saw tree stumps and grazed out pastureland
littered with cow-pies, and of course the cows themselves.
At
Chichrunpur, we were given the royal treatment. The village chief insisted that I sit in the best chair the
village had to offer, a heavy bench seat with back and arms hauled down to the
site of the new well from another part of the village up the hill. Regarding me as the “chief of my tribe”, the
village chief shook my hand with both hands and bowed to me deeply. I returned the salute in kind. I did the talking and Faiyaz did the
interpreting. I thanked the chief for
letting us visit their village. I said
that I represent Canada in general and about 30,000 young Canadians in
particular, that I was there mainly to learn about them so as to learn how to
help them help themselves.
Indeed
they are capable of helping themselves.
The proto-well is the evidence.
In my last visit, it was just started – 10’ in diameter but only 1’
deep. Today, it’s half as deep as it’s
wide.
At
one point, to break whatever ice still remained, I asked Faiyaz to ask the
village teacher whether their held the flat-Earth or round-Earth
worldview. The village teacher, a young
man of about 20, answered that the Earth was round. I then said to those gathered around us at large, “We came from a
country on the other side of the Earth.
If you dig your well deep enough, you may come out in my backyard.” This incited a rippling laughter in those
present, which was about 50, including children. After that, everyone was at ease. I told the teacher, via Faiyaz, that I aim at linking their
school with a sister primary school in Canada, and the Canadian kids can help
them directly. He in turn told the
chief, and both seemed very pleased.
The
chief asked me what I had in mind when I said to help them help
themselves. This was the opening I
needed. I asked Faiyaz to ask him how
he would feel if we showed them how to cook rice and other foods without
burning wood, in fact, without burning anything at all, including even
biogas. He seemed to think that it was
impossible. The I-word, even here. I said further that we could come another
day to give them a demonstration with a portable solar oven, and if they become
convinced, we could teach them how to build a large permanent unit capable of
cooking rice and other foods for all 35 families of the village almost in one
go, and that the families can take turns cooking for the whole village, maybe
once every week or so, and that this would free up their time from wood
gathering and individual cooking so that they could develop other activities
and enterprises. The teacher responded
with something surprising. “If we know
how to build such a machine,” he said, “we could make them in numbers and sell
them to other villages and bring in revenue for our village.” Smart man, even though his own education is
no more than the Canadian equivalent of Grade 3.
We
arranged to visit them again on January 30, Saturday, around 11:00, with our portable
demo solar oven, and that we’ll bring rice and other foods and cook a lunch,
with the oven, for all to share.
We
left the village at around 16:00 to make the lodge by sundown. On the way back, Faiyaz said to me that he
was surprised at how I raised the solar cooker concept so quickly and smoothly
and pressed it home, that he had thought we would have to go by a much more
tangential approach to get to that centre.
I told him that one thing that made it possible was in fact what he
did. Some time during the visit, he
grabbed a hoe and jumped into the then 5’ deep proto-well, and started digging
away with the other two villagers.
Chris followed suit, and then I did too. Between us three, we deepened the dig by another foot. Tough work.
All three of us ended up with blisters on our hands before the layer was
done. Then Anne came down and filled
one of the baskets with the dirt, put it on her head, staggered out of the pit,
and walked the 20’ feet as if on a high wire to dump the content on to dirt
pile where children were playing king of the mountain. The villagers had a good laugh over our
clumsiness. That’s something that
Pradeep would never do. We were given a
warn farewell. The chief said, “Please
don’t forget to bring your camera again when you come.”
All
in all, an extremely satisfying day even though the day began on a note of
discontentment.
On
our hike along the river back to the lodge, Faiyaz asked me what was the next
thing in Omni-Science that Raminothna would like to share with them. I had already thought about that. One morning in Africa – on February 27, 1977
as I recall - I woke up on the bank of a large pond, and recorded in my field
journal the dream from which I had just awakened, about being an amoeba living
in the pond. I recorded the dream into
my field journal upon my awakening, which later was transcribed into my laptop
computer. I told Faiyaz that Raminothna
would tell them the dream this evening.
Talk
later, Christopher.