Final Report: Malnutrition of Tea Workers

November 2nd, 2005 | By Joshua | 16 Comments »

We have completed our report on the malnutrition of workers on six Indian tea gardens. This is the reason we came to West Bengal, answering the call of a local NGO which had been looking for volunteers with public health and writing expertise (my wife, Tay, is a nurse and has completed numerous health surveys in West Africa). Eventually, I‘ll make the full report available for download; in the meantime, I’ve posted the Abstract and a few excerpts below. If you would like to receive the complete report, let me know (jberman@gmail.com) and I’ll be happy to send it.
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Going Organic in Darjeeling

October 29th, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

I’d planned on being a plain old tourist in Darjeeling: Nothing to do but eat, drink, trek the Singalila, and visit the sites my guidebook told me to, (Snow Leopard enclosure, Mountaineering Institute, Ghoom Monastery, etc.). I also wanted to experience the unique culture of Nepalese-descended Indians, who make up 95% of the town’s population, and whose hospitality and cheerfulness are famous. After 10 days, I’ve succeeded in accomplishing all of the above—except the site-seeing and trekking. There are two reasons why:
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A Fuller, Warmer Cup of Tea: Fair Trade 101

October 23rd, 2005 | By Joshua | 5 Comments »

October, I just learned, is Fair Trade Month, conveniently coinciding with my travels in Darjeeling and my discovery of a kinder, gentler side of India’s tea industry.

Where does your tea (or coffee, sugar, bananas, chocolate) come from? Knowing the answer to this question is the heart of understanding what Fair Trade is and why it is one of the most important movements of our time.
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Crumpets and Coal: Our First Proper Tea

October 22nd, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

In Paris, we stayed with a French-Moroccan couple who fed us mint tea (at midnight, after dinner) in traditional gold-inlaid glasses; sweet mint tea followed us to the hookah bars of Dubai; then, in Pakistan and India we were deluged with dood chai—black tea with hot milk and sugar, served anytime, anywhere. In West Bengal, our roommates detested milk and sugar in their ca (pronounced “cha”), preferring their tea bitter, so this is what we drank during our two months in Birpara, where we lived and worked among green tea gardens and golden glasses of ca.
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Outstanding Article about the Indian Tea Crisis

October 7th, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

“A Machete, A Uterus, and Indian Tea,” by Charles Norman Todd, is an excellent breakdown that explains why the workers are starving.

Tea Time 4: The Survey Continues

September 27th, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

The final phase of fieldwork for our tea worker nutrition survey has been frustratingly slow. Our work has been hampered by access problems in the form of both permission issues and physical access (erratic and late monsoon rain keep filling rivers whose normally dry beds we must cross to reach the gardens). With our deadline fast approaching, it looks as if we’ll only be able to complete surveys on five or six, rather than eight, gardens.
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Are Starving Photos Inappropriate?

September 12th, 2005 | By Joshua | 9 Comments »

After yesterday’s post regarding starvation deaths, a creepy feeling gripped my shoulder, and I decided to ask this question out loud. Maybe some of you will respond.
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Empty Cups

September 11th, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

These photos were taken by Debasish yesterday, during his visit to a garden which has experienced more starvation deaths in the last two months than any other. The garden was closed in 2003, reopened last spring, then, a few months later, abandoned again when the manager left the workers without wages or rations.
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Map: India’s Tea Belt, North Bengal, and Birpara

September 7th, 2005 | By Joshua | 2 Comments »

Some will find a hint of the exotic exuding from the place-names and mountain ranges in this latest cartographic creation. Others will see the map-maker’s psychological travails, his attempt to define with a few lines and colors his position in the world (geopolitical and otherwise). Knowing that his incipient skills with the medium can only be improved with practice (i.e. drawing more maps), he nevertheless presses on, painting India’s Tea Belt a young-leaf green, saving mysterious shades of purple for everything beyond unknown borders.

But something went terribly wrong with the map-making experience!
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Cha: Pouring the Perfect Cup

September 3rd, 2005 | By Joshua | 3 Comments »

The suffering of the Dooars tea workers notwithstanding, tea remains a perfectly tranquilo topic. I’ve been focusing on its production (or, in the closed gardens, the lack thereof) but now a word is due on tea’s consumption.
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