Tea Time 3: Sick Gardens and Short Shorts

August 31st, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

Enough of this mappery, readers, let us get back to beverages—or rather, to the picking of green leaves that will end up in the bottom your cup.

We surveyed 45 families in our first week, most of them on closed gardens where wages had been cut off, along with most services (food rations, health care, drinking water, electricity, etc.), since 2003. The situation is dismal, as I’ve reported, though people are getting on. Some work on government-sponsored temporary tea crews, some crush rocks for the cement factories in Bhutan (both jobs earn under $1 a day), others scrounge food from the jungle and sell their worldly belongings for rice and a few lentils.
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Tea Time Part 2: Why We are in Birpara

August 25th, 2005 | By Joshua | 3 Comments »

The simplest answer to the question of what my wife and I are doing in Jalpaiguri District, several hundred kilometers off the tourist trail in the farthest reaches of northeastern India is this:
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North to Birpara

August 19th, 2005 | By Joshua | 4 Comments »

Our journey to North Bengal began with a hectic and hot ordeal in Calcutta’s Sealdah Rail Station, where, despite our confirmed a/c sleeper coach and berth numbers, I was required to stand on a long line of frustrated individuals. I pounded one liter of water during my hour on line, and felt like I’d sweated out two. We’d hired a porter who guided us through the process, and he’d planted Tay in a grubby “first class waiting room” where she endured dirt, heat, and constant staring while I sweated it out downstairs.
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BBC Tea Worker Photos

August 12th, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

I’m writing from downtown Calcutta, but absorbed in these pictures of the world we are about to enter. For more background, here’s a fact-finding report by the Center for Education and Communication, a Delhi-based labor organization.

Reporting for Duty

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

No longer tourists nor family historians, my wife and I are now members of the worldwide AJWS Volunteer Corps. As such, we have begun a two-and-a-half month commitment with the West Bengal-based non-profit organization, Jana Sanghati Kendra (JSK, in Sanskrit, “People’s Integration Center).
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Tea Time

August 8th, 2005 | By Joshua | No Comments »

We still have a bit of motion ahead of us, but in a few short days, the next phase of our journey will begin. We know very little about the three-month volunteer assignment that lies ahead — only a few snippets regarding our site and work from scattered, last-minute e-mails. This paucity of information might be frustrating for some, but for the Tranquilo Traveler (and his lovely wife), it’s all pretty exciting.

Here is an article on the tea plantation workers describing the background of the situation in which we will soon be immersed.

Here is what little we know regarding our work and living arrangements:
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