I am now back in Tamil Nada. I have rented a flat here with 3 bedrooms for less than 100 a month. I heard from Skeeter about crowd funding and we are looking for funds to start the nursery plants that are not easy to get here. Also we want to have loan fund where we can finance some of the earth works in return for a no interest loan on the part of the farmers. We will also be starting an ngo and need help with the legal details. I am sitting here comfortably typing early in the morning on my own computer. Again wow. I believe the demonstration for the water project needs at least 20 acres so am getting meetings with villagers set up to see if we can get a mainly contiguous 20 acres to work with. Several of the farmers already have large blocks of land but we also want to work with the small ones.
I left my passport at my last hotel. Actually they took it overnight in order to copy it and forgot to return it to me in the morning. I called the consulate in Channai asking them what to do and they said they could advise me about nothing. Good ole America. I found out that there is a reliable way to send things in India even with a tracking number. No private firms doing this like UPS though. The final details of the flat cannot be completed until my passport arrives in the mail.
I also got head lice probably from one of my 5 dollar hotels. One of the Indian savadars at the meditation retreat decided to treat me with cockroach medication. It caused a severe headache, vomiting and diarrhea but only for one day. Hmm. Clearing up the head lice is an ongoing process. Last time I shaved my head to make the process go faster but in India they really think women should have long hair so I am going through all the nit combing stuff.
Anyway as usual it seems I am finding out how to do all the nitty gritty details you never wanted to learn like living in India without a passport, all kinds of health problems, disc herniation, ear infection, now lice.
Am I attaching here an email that I sent to an ngo who will probably help us with the earth works. This is the detailed stuff we are doing for water conservation as well as how the farmers can earn the money to make up for the delay in returns after planting trees.
in speaking with farmers here in tamil nadu, karnetaka, maharastra, and gourjarat, many of them are having to dig new bore wells every 2 years for a cost of more than 100,000 rupies. many of them will soon not be able to grow food.in my own studies all these years as well as by visiting and reading a vision of natural farming about bhaskar save, i feel i have a method to bring the water back.it includes1) lot of the methods you have used with bunds, reservoirs, check dams, gavions.2) stopping drip irrigation and using flood irrigation to return the moisture to the air3) plant a lot of fruit and nut trees as well as well as jack fruit etc. to have a tree cover probably at least 50%.meaning we will plant trees as if in a monoculture on at least 50 % if the land and then interplant with medicinal herbs, other trees, vegetables. the government of india is paying for farmers to plant trees both for the trees and for the labor and for the manure for them, but the farmers still do not want to plant trees because the yield is a lot less than from what they are planting. we plan to show them how to grow the medicinals and the vegetable interplants. moreover we will form a marketing cooperative, so that the plants not now marketed by them will be able to be sold. with these methods we believe we can not only raise the water table but increase farmers earnings. it is an important part of our program to encourage folks to grow their own food first.
4) plant on key lines (a permaculture technique) trees and plants such as clover which hold the water between monsoons. this method has been developed by me, rather than using a key line plow to plant on the keylines like a plant tractor.5) doing everything organically to save at lest 30% of the water.6) use open pollinated varieties tested in local regions in india, navdanya and vandanna shive are helping with this7) mulching at least one 3 x 3 x 3 feet heap every 30 feet in all the plants.8) hedgerows where among many other things predators of insects which damage plants can survive.