Life on the Farm

At the end of our long day of fort visiting, we drove into a construction site with 11 partially completed "villas." The owner greeted us and said we should walk around the farm with him, the rest of the farm consisted of a few cows, some tiny banana trees, a stagnant swimming pool, partially completed well, and piles of rubble. After our walk, the owner invited us back to his home for dinner - we rode there in a sweet jungle safari jeep, all six of us, plus two babies, in a standard size wrangler. Once introduced to the whole extended family we were shuffled upstairs to play with the kids while the women cooked us dinner. The language barrier is far less with children, all you have to do is play and make noises and all is understood. The three adorable kids instantly loved Madeleine. The one year old was already adorned with ankle bracelets and earrings, she was the most skeptical of us but soon warmed up.

After an hour of play time the women began feeding us, and feeding us, and feeding us until we had to physically cover our plates. We ate more of the potatoes, flat bread and vegetables than should have been possible, but it would have been insulting otherwise. After we ate, the men ate, and then the children, and we presume the women ate after the kids, but we were already on our way home by this time.

The Well
The next morning we awoke late to the sounds of the well construction and headed over to check things out. The hole for the well was 15 feet across and the current depth was 90 feet. Of the 4 guys working, two were on the bottom filling old metal buckets with rocks, which were hoisted with an almost medieval looking crane hooked to a smoking diesel engine. Every so often they would send a 55 gallon drum down to fill with water which had accumulated at the bottom. the well diggers were weary of us until Paul helped an old woman fill up a trailer with the well rocks. That broke the ice and made everyone smile, we were in.

After an hour and a half of well watching, we headed to the most intricate and beautiful Jain temple yet, nestled in the foothills of the Rajasthani mountains. The site was filled with monkeys and Indian tourists. It also came with a set of rules including: No foreigners until after noon, women can't enter while on the 'mense' period, and we had to be dressed modestly.

While we slept off the afternoon heat, Moin went into the town to buy ingredients to make a dinner feast. The old woman, covered in a colorful pink sari with five pound ankle bracelets and tired eyes, let us sit and watch her make dozens of rotis. Rotis, Indian flat breads, are simply made from wheat powder and water and then grilled on a clay pan over an outdoor fire. Later, we ate our dinner on compostable dried leaf plates. A great evening on the farm. The whole farm staff was extremely hospitable and made our stay a real pleasure.