I haven’t written in a while because I’ve found it difficult to put the experience I’ve been having for the past few days into words. Everything here is in the extreme. I have never seen so many stars at night, so many different shades of green, such big spiders, so many leeches... on me, so many different colors on a bird, so much wild elephant dung (and no elephants yet, but we’re optimistic). I’ve never tasted such pure water.
I’ve also never felt so homesick before. I thought I would be okay, since I travel to India every year by myself, but that India is so different from this one-- there, I’m surrounded by family and I know how to get around on my own. I had independence there. Here, we have to be accompanied back to our cottages because of the threat of male elephants in musth (among other possible threats, including tigers and leopards). We’re essentially in the middle of nowhere. There is no electricity in our cottages. We have to live by the sun, waking up at sunrise and going to sleep as soon as we get back to our cottages at night. We have little rechargeable lamps at night, but it’s still a huge cultural shock to have to live by sunlight like this. It’s only been a week, but I feel like it’s been forever-- in the good and not-so-good sense.
In good news, though, I think I’ve gotten over my fear of bugs, which has been replaced by a crippling fear of leeches.
We have been learning a lot. For the past few days, two PhD candidates from the nearby Forestry College came and taught us how to identify endangered and medicinally important plants right on the sanctuary grounds. We’re now putting together a report of the most critical trees in the area, including photo, video, and notes. The system we have worked out is nice and convenient-- Katie takes notes, I’m on the camera, and Karan’s taking care of the video. We hope to synthesize something useful from all of these things-- perhaps something that could prove useful for the sanctuary when they apply for scientific grants, a sort of “look what amazing things we have here, so come do research here” thing. The sanctuary is, according to the Forestry College experts, housing an incredible number of plants not found anywhere else in this district. Among these plants include plants with anti-cancer, anti-cholesterol, and edible qualities. In one walk, our experts were able to identify 33 critically important tree species. This is truly an incredible place.
Pam and Anil have been encouraging us to think about the balance of nature all the time, letting it dictate how we act, what decisions we make, and how we live our lives. It’s truly amazing how many examples they’ve provided, here and in the US, of animal species have proved critically important for the preservation of an ecosystem but had been carelessly eliminated through the use of pesticides or poor environmental management. Place like the sanctuary are so important because they represent the last bastions of biodiversity (which, as Pam says, is nature’s “insurance policy”).
