Ramsingh Pura

We spent the morning in a village near the preserve. Here we observed everyday life in a small village: making cow pies for fuel, washing dishes using ash for soap, making chapatti bread, etc. We visited a private grade school K-8 with 120 boys and 80 girls. The day starts with prayer to the Hindu God for Knowledge, Saraswati, followed by singing the National Anthem, and a general lecture from the principal. Today's lecture was about the importance of using iodized salt. We had a chance to see the students practice their lessons - learning English, Hindu and science. Some of the teachers in our group helped with the English lessons. I talked to 2-3 boys, but had trouble understanding their English after "My name is ...." The accent was difficult for me. We then visited a one acre farm growing vegetables and guava. The farmer had two sons and three daughters, none of the daughters had any schooling. He supplements his income as a parking lot attendant for the tiger preserve. His eldest daughter had moved back with her husband because she had troubles with his family. The son-in-law owns a tractor and hires out to the other farmers. One son recently spent $3000 to become a computer technician, but has been unable to find a job in the field. 
We then visited a coop selling shirts and other cloth items. They employ 22 people, who previously had cut firewood or grazed their animals in the preserve before such practices were outlawed. We then had a simple lunch at the coop before leaving on our four hour bus ride.

Girl cleaning dish with ash

Topic: Indian Economy In the seventeenth century, India was one of the world's major economies, but when the British took over they wanted raw material for their factories. Farmers were encouraged to grow indigo and cotton, but, of course, the British controlled the prices. In turn, they sold back cheap factory goods, which put many of the hand-crafted artisans out of business. India became poor. After independence, Nehru believed in socialism and created many state-owned businesses. Some say he combined the worst features of socialism and capitalism. Given their experience with the East India Company, they avoided foreign investment. The only large private industries were those given licenses by corrupt officials. After 1991, India started to embrace a free market economy, allowing many more private firms. A fine example is telecommunications, where there is a lot of competition (calls cost 1/4 cent). Similarly construction, computers, autos and manufacturing have many private and even foreign firms. From 1995-2005 India's GDP grew 8-9% per year. Since 2005, it has slowed to 5-6%. Today, India has the 10th largest economy in the world. But government corruption still is rampant, especially to set up a private business.

Mary getting up on her camel

 We arrived at our camp in the country at about 4 PM. This is where our adventure was to ride a camel. They showed us how to get on, which actually was pretty easy once you got your body set for the camel rising up from his knees. We rode around for half an hour. My problem was getting off. All was okay until the camel rolled onto his side by accident, trapping my ankle underneath him. The driver quickly got him upright and I'm okay. We had a brief cooking lesson about using Indian spices and making two types of bread. Then it was time for music and dancing, by the end of the evening everyone had beat the base drum and danced with our male dancers. Quite a day for interaction!