a techno rainbow.

Stepping onto a town to town bus in India is like stepping into a rainbow (if you'll forgive that sickly sweet image...before you gag, read on). The outside of the bus is painted luridly, with neon flames, flowers, rainbows (funnily enough) and even sometimes a blown up photograph of puppies, kittens or a white baby (?). They always have 'SuperComfort' or 'Deluxe' or 'Grand Bus 2000' painted right across the front windscreen. The bus we caught this morning sported a large photo of the Taj Mahal welcoming us 'to delight'.  Inside fake flowers of all colours festoon the windscreen, sometimes there are little fake pots of little fake flowers on the dashboard. There are pictures of Jesus- brightly coloured, of course- and usually a bit of gold decoration hanging about. It is like stepping into a rainbow that is also a tiny, sweaty, usually dark dance club playing really bad techno music. Very loudly. It sounds awful but it is actually something I quite enjoy, purely because it is so India.

You crowd on while people crowd off, squeezing yourself on to a bus that in any other country would have reached capacity half an hour and 20 people ago. You watch the ticket man struggle down the aisle towards you, past the 30 people blocking his way, the whole thing smelling like sticky sweat because Indians love a bit of polyester and they have not yet caught on to deodorant. The ticket man finally reaches you and you grab on to the roof bars, the bus careening around corners honking its warning to other motorists, and try to fish the equivalent of 20 cents for your ticket out of your pocket without collapsing into the five people surrounding you, with their armpits in your face. You give your money, get your ticket and then the poor ticket man has to make his way back to the other end of the bus, because 3 new people just got on.

The other day when we were on our way home from Kalpetta, clinging on to the roof railings while trying to avoid squished toes, I was watching our bag of shopping that was sitting on the parcel shelf to make sure nothing flew out and hit an old lady in the face as the bus screeched from town to town. I was watching our bag of crackers inch ever closer to freedom, ready to escape its plastic prison at the first chance, and thinking of the only other time in my life when I carried groceries home on public transport. It was in Canada, four and a half years ago, when I lived in Toronto, in my first rented room, on my first overseas exploration. It was a world away from here, in every way possible. Not least because where people on the subway in Toronto gave me dirty looks for clogging up space with my plastic bags full of cheap, shitty noodles, bread and peanut butter (I was 19 and poor...), people on the buses here gladly move out of the way when I am maneuvering my shopping out of harms way and smile tolerantly when I accidentally whack them with said shopping...

I'm about to get sentimental for a minute, so if that's not your thing then go now...make a cup of tea, eat a biscuit. Ok. A lot has happened in the last four (nearly five?) years, since my first tentative, Doc Marten-clad steps into independence in a dodgy neighbourhood in Toronto. And I am happy to say I can look back on everything that I've done, everywhere that I've been and everyone (mostly) that I've met, and smile.  

what is it?

The building is complete, we have moved into our hut and we are so comfortable we have decided to stay here an extra month.

 

So what else is happening at HutLand (as I christened our little cluster of huts underneath the banana trees)? What is it about this place that is going to make it so hard to drag ourselves away?

 

It's sitting in 'The Snackery', drinking tea and eating cookies as we take a break from whatever work we find ourselves doing, to listen to the jungle and have a wee chat.

 

 

 

It's being with the kids: painting, skipping, wrestling, walking or crafting. Or even sometimes, if they are being extra adorable, sitting through a Malayalam movie complete with singing, dancing and cartoon sound effects. 

 



 

 



 

 

It's filling our shopping bags with kilos of tropical fruit that costs less than a cup of coffee at home. It's listening to the coconuts fall from their trees in the neighbour's yard and then sneaking over to try and find them (the day of this picture was a particularly successful harvest).  

   


It's watching the boys play football in the mud and listening to them sing with glee as they beat Will at chess too many times for his ego to handle. 





 



 

It's the incredible food Sudha cooks in her tiny, airless, wood-smoky kitchen, day after day, for all fifty of us. (Of which my camera is not up to capturing properly, but it really is delicious). 

 

 

It's all of these things. And it's listening to the kids sing at prayer time and giggle at most other times. It's working in the morning on whatever project we have (it always, always, always involves digging and moving stones) and seeing the monsoon roll over in the afternoons, ushered in by grumbling thunder.

 

There is lots going on here at the moment, both physically and in our heads. Issues that are here and things that have followed us on the .com, all the way from Australia. Projects that we have started already and things that are still being thought about. Plans for what next? after we leave Our Home. Sometimes at night, when I inevitably wake up for whatever reason and try to gather my thoughts and put them in their appropriate boxes, my brain feels like those people you see in the supermarket, clutching a whiny child in one hand and 3 heavy bags in the other as they frantically try to catch the oranges that are rolling all over the floor after having fallen from the fourth split bag.

 

But then in the morning the sun shines into our hut and we eat breakfast looking over palm trees to the mountain skirted in morning cloud; we work and eat and sit with the kids, see their smiles and hear their laughter. We drink tea. And we are thankful to be here. I really don't know how we will leave.    



 

how to build a bamboo hut.

I know everyone, at some point in their lives, has scratched their head and wondered 'now, just how do you build a bamboo hut?'

Well friends, your days of being lumped together with dandruff and head-lice sufferers are over; I am here to tell you exactly how to build a bamboo hut. 

To start with you need an obliging boy who is willing to climb up into the forest wielding a machete, grab onto roots and branches and hack away at thorny bamboo til you have a nice stack awaiting use as the foundations of your hut (thankyou Will). Then you need to de-knob (haha) it all. This will take a lot longer than you think but don't worry, it is strangely satisfying.  

                                       

Then you need to dig holes and move grass and even stitch together bamboo sheets. You need to make a border of rocks or bricks so you know where your future house will be (actually, this step is completely superfluous but don't tell us that). 

Then you probably need to have a break and try to light a campfire in your new house, with wet wood and lighters that don't work. After half an hour the fire will be hot enough to boil water (just); your tea will taste like bonfire smoke but if you are accustomed to camping this won't be a problem. Plus you will feel satisfied: you have provided, elemental survivalist style- and in your house-to-be no less.

                        

Fortified with smoky tea, you will begin work on the structure. There are two very important phrases you will need to learn when building a bamboo hut and now you will employ the first one: "Ahhh, don't worry, it doesn't have to be exact". So, the walls won't be straight. So, the roof is not two perfect triangles. So what? It doesn't have to be exact.

                                                                                            

Excellent! With the help of shitloads of coconut rope and so many knots, some rough measurements and a lackadaisical attitude, you have the skeleton of your house. Now you need a roof. Get a pile of palm fronds and a group of lads willing to sit on a roof of questionable strength and stability to tie up said fronds and in no time, you will have a roof. The walls are next- this is the easiest part, as they are made from bamboo sheeting that just needs to be strengthened with pieces of leftover bamboo. 

You are really, really close now. Before you do anything else you must wait for a monsoonal downpour to test what manner of shelter your new house actually provides. Now you will learn the second very important phrase to be employed at all times when the first is not appropriate: "It's ok, we can just cover it in plastic (or sticky tape, depending on the situation)". So the roof leaks? No problem, for you have come prepared with stocks of plastic of all sorts. Plastic All Sorts. It's all you need. 

So now you have moved in your things and you keep catching yourself standing by the front door with a goofy smile on your face like a boy unconsciously staring at his first crush. You're just so impressed, you can't quite believe it's finally finished. There are only a couple more things to do (and actually they are completely optional, so if you are already totally smitten you can leave now and hang out with your new structure). If not, then...

                         

Make some windows! Do this however you like, but if you have an embarrassing amount of empty plastic bottles lying around that are burning a hole in the eco-aware section of your brain then you should cut them in half, stitch them together with wire, put up with everyone teasing you about your mad spinster-like hobbies and then impress them all with these babies:

                         

And then, in a comforting circle-esque scenario, get digging again. You are now making a garden bed to give your hut that extra something (and also to stop yourself, ahem other people, from continuing to use the old path even though bamboo has already been planted there and the way is blocked by leftover bricks).      

And now, and now. You have a new home! So what are you still doing here? Go and admire it, inside and out. Show all your friends. Get excited. Get ready for gasps of  'wowww, so much light!', 'amazing triangle-y windows!' and the simply speechless 'you guys....'. You can now call yourself Grand Hutmaster 2000. At least that's what we're doing. 

where do butterflies go when it rains?

For the second night in the row we are still awake at midnight. I know, I know- we are grown ups and that is pretty normal for people who aren't ten and all, but...this is the jungle. We sleep in a hut made of bamboo with palm fronds for a roof. It is glorified camping and everybody knows that when you are camping your days are determined by the sun. And here the sun sets at 7.30. So what's going on??

Yesterday we worked (quite) hard, digging holes and building stone paths and transplanting some peachy hued flowers, and so we celebrated our physicality with a few hard-earned beers. So we were still awake at midnight.

Tonight it was the Our Home talent show (the initiative of some visiting Americans) and we watched our kids sing and dance and impress and entertain us all. Then I played an abysmal (on my part- my 10 year old opponent had nothing to be ashamed of) game of chess and we ate rice with green banana curry and turmeric spiced curd. And then we drank TicTac flavoured vodka. And so we are still awake at midnight.  

And elsewhere...We have been building huts and learning Indian curries (soon there will be a book, illustrations and all) and playing playing playing. Chess, mud soccer and skipping are what's what at the moment. Between us we have it covered. Will is all over the chess; my game is, as I said, abysmal, an embarrassment to the sport. I think I'll stick to skipping. The other night Neha and I did 100 tandem skips. The fact that she and Will managed 248 does not dampen my spirits. I am good at skipping. We have been dodging the monsoon, and admiring the rainbow of enormous butterflies that flit about the plants in front of our huts when the monsoon rests. Now I know where butterflies go when it rains (does anybody else remember that book?). They hide under the leaves of the benevolent trees. Or, if they are unlucky or unprepared, they freak out and fly like mad things through fingernail sized raindrops.

And so it goes with our family in the jungle. Our Home is starting to feel more and more like our home and I am beginning to get worried about how hard it is going to be to leave this place, these people. But that is a fret for future me...right now I am happy to enjoy the love and smiles and insanity of this family of forty.

And this table- the very first thing we built here and of which we are inordinately proud. As you can see...(there isn't a lot you can't do if you have coconut rope and electrical tape.)

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