Tuesday, and Biogas Users

Today's trip to the field revolved around users of biogas again, and seeing the positive side of the biogas project. Manni took us to several houses where the families are using their biogas units effectively. All of the visits we were making today were in response to maintenance calls that people had made, as one element of the biogas project at the moment is that SEDS provides maintenance services free of charge.

People had different maintenance needs, including replacing the biogas pipelines where they had been damaged by monkeys; replacing a corroded gate valve on the top of the biogas digester chamber; cleaning out corrosion inside the gas cooker itself, and so on. Shammy is an excellent repair man with a very practical and enquiring mind, and he seems able to turn his hand to any kind of repair that is required. Often a family member will be keen to watch Shammy work so that they can learn some of the maintenance tricks themselves too.

So many colourful temples we drove past

Many homes have intricate designs like this chalked or painted on the floors near their doorways. I think it is to baffle evil spirits and prevent them from entering the home.

Running a new gas line from the biogas digester to the cooker in the next home

Plucking a chicken

At this house and their neighbours people were busy cutting the heads off chickens, draining the blood, then dunking them in hot water to make it easier to pluck them. The final stage was to hold them over some small flames to singe off any remaining small feathery bits. At first I found this very confronting to see, but when I thought about it, the village chickens do have a much better life than the ones we see crammed in cages at markets, or chickens in 'developed' countries which are deprived of freedom and light, pumped full of chemicals to make them grow - sometimes to the point where their legs break because they can't support the weight of the bird, and made to live in their own filth before slaughter. These village chickens look healthy and fit as they roam around freely and happily with their chicken friends, until they meet a very quick ending. The chickens are also appreciated as living creatures and a source of food, so far less is wasted and the animals do not suffer and die simply to become rubbish.

Cattle with bells on their horns for the festival. 

So many colourful temples we drove past

So many colourful temples we drove past

Another family proud of their biogas flames

A pit full of enriched slurry for natural fertiliser after it has come out of the biogas digester chamber

A family proud of their biogas achievements

Manni and me, or "black and white" in Manni's words! 

Shammy doing maintenance on another biogas cooker. Some of the kitchens are painted wonderful bright colours.

Village home bathroom facilities

In between, we went to a village for lunch where there was a bit of a festival occurring. I don't know if it was the same event for which we had seen people preparing chickens and the cattle with their horns decorated with colours or bells. Where we ate was at a school, at an event held for the retirement of the headmaster. We once again delicious biryani and payasam - although we had arrived late and so this time we missed out on all the chicken.

Crashing an event for lunch - we almost missed out as we had done so much before lunch and arrived quite late

Lunch is over, on to the next homes

The next stop after lunch was to the final village of the day, where we visited three sets of neighbours who all use biogas.

These two cheeky cuties could not get enough of having their photos taken!

Neighbouring families who are all successful biogas users

At one of the houses, I had a good chat with a lady called Pushpa (below), while we drank coffee. She had learned English in school, but was not confident to speak to me at first. With patience, friendliness, and kind understanding of each other and our language barrier, Pushpa gradually started to ask some simple questions of me. As she got more confident to talk, I was able to ask questions of her too. With Manni helping to fill in the gaps when we needed translation, Pushpa and I shared some details of our lives. Pushpa loves using the biogas because it is free to access, she is very satisfied with the SEDS maintenance service because she can just call up and they will arrange to come out and fix whatever the problem is. She finds that the house is cleaner than if you cook on a wood stove, and she has to spend less time gathering and preparing firewood. Pushpa uses her spare time while her two children are at kindy to sew sari blouses, which earn her 70 rupees each. This is about $1.40 Aussie dollars, or maybe 80p in British money. It seems so little to us, but to Pushpa in the village it is considered good money. This led to a conversation about the relative costs of things in rural India compared to metropolitan Australia, during which I learned that the cost of my flight from Brisbane to Bangalore was more than most Indian villagers could expect to earn in over a year. So although the cost of living is different and a small amount of money can go along way here, our buying power as Australians or Brits is enormous compared to rural Indians.

The necklace Pushpa is modelling in this photo is her wedding necklace, the Indian Hindu equivalent to a wedding ring. She showed me the necklace when I asked to see it, and some humour definitely transcends cultural divides as she was very approving when I said that I would need to get my husband to buy me one!

Heads of the households

After drinking our coffee with Pushpa, we were called over to another neighbour's house. They had also made us coffee, which we took gratefully. The hospitality in these areas really puts us westerners to shame!

I finished today on a sugar high (Indian hot drinks are made with plenty of sugar) and feeling really good about my conversation with Pushpa. I was feeling very reflective about my economic position as even a not-very-well-off westerner, and I had reflected during our conversation about some of the things I had learned on my Graduate Certificate of Human Services, in particular during my Global Inequalities subject. I used this learning to be mindful of our relative situations, some of the negative effects of overt inequalities, and to be truthful but trying not to plant seeds of dissatisfaction due to the inequalities between us. I was glad that we had connected as women, and shared some laughs together as we talked. Pushpa seemed really nice, and I was grateful for the chance to talk to her and glad that I had been respectful and mindful as well as honest when talking with her.