Kuttanad with the Bulls

Our past few days have been spent touring around Kuttanad with Profs. Chris and Marijoan Bull, who were staying with us at MGU, getting acquainted with the project. Mr. Bull is on the engineering faculty at Brown and has been a source of technical and administrative support for Rainwater for Humanity. They left with great fanfare this morning (for Mumbai, continuing a conference tour around India).

The SES was quite happy to have him here, (because of the typical level of faculty involvement in India’s educational system, it adds a degree of legitimacy for us as well) and invited him to give an informal talk on his work Tuesday morning. After discussing the challenges in bridging technical solutions to problems with practical social and political implementation, a couple students in attendance responded with impressively critical questions. They pointed out the vastly disproportionate energy and resource consumption of the United States and its hypocritical stance on combating global climate change. Although we hear such arguments put forth by developing countries in abstract terms during WTO and UN negotiations, it was much more striking to hear from local students.

We visited Achinakom again in the afternoon to check on the continuing concrete foundation work. Although most adult men are at their jobs, the villagers continue to perform the majority of the labor.

Prof. Bull explaining handpump functionality to Christina

Foundation for a new house in the village

A couple locals showed Sylas and us around the farther reaches (a couple kilometers away) of the village. The western edges are more isolated than the area around the project site, being further from the paved road accessible only by dirt (often muddy) paths. There were several houses being built, and Sylas explained that the building materials (impossible to transport from the road) were instead delivered by boat along the extensive canal system. We discussed the drinking water situation with a few families in this area, one of which currently draws from a rainwater harvesting tank. It is a 10,000 liter aboveground ferrocement tank fed from roof runoff (the standard design), but is currently being shared between five households. At an absolute minimum drinking and cooking water use of 20 liters per day per family during the dry season, this is vastly insufficient for their needs. They also highlighted the pitfalls of a shared system, mentioning that they alone performed the majority of the maintenance (despite it not being located on their land). Hopefully this shirking of responsibility will be less of a problem for us, with more families to draw from and a more active stake in the system.

Us and the family in question posing in front of their (new) house

With the excuse of vacation time for the Bulls, we joined the Kuttanad backwater tourists for the bulk of Wednesday. After meeting with the university vice-chancellor (the head of the school; the “chancellor” is nominally the President of Kerala), we went on a boat tour of Vembanad lake and some of the surrounding canals. I understand entirely why this region of Kerala is such a popular tourist destination (both domestically and internationally). They tour around the canals and lakes on massive houseboats, taking in the scenery and peaceful atmosphere. Unfortunately, tourism creates substantial environmental and economic problems in the region. Waste from the boats is discharged directly into the lake, further disturbing ecosystems reeling from decades of manipulation and neglect, and those whose livelihoods are dependent on the resources in the region (rice paddy workers, fishermen) see little of the money coming in from tourists.

Christina, Andrea, and I on the boat

Us three, the Bulls, and Mr. Sylas on an island in Vembanad lake

Environmental science students are fantastic guides for nature trips. Sylas and Tom (another student who came) know about seemingly every insect, plant, and bird we encountered, and were able to explain all the environmental processes and human practices shaping the region. Seeing Kuttanad from the perspective of a tourist, however, only makes the case for improving local conditions through self-led social entrepreneurship more pressing.