Bonds In Theaters

July 21, 2011March 8, 2017 / Seth Inman / 3 Comments

Here on the southern coast of Nicaragua, I have tracked reviews of the latest Harry Potter movie without yet being able to see it for myself. My parents and brother went to see it in Kerala today. Their review was less about the movie itself than about the fact that being in a movie theater in India is a kind of spectacle in its own right, apart from whatever may be happening on screen. I’ll describe the Indian experience in more detail later; for now I think back in time.

In 2006 my family was living on a small island off the coast of Dubrovnik (that is the view from our home in the photo above). About 150 people lived on the island, mostly the families of fishermen, who only spoke Croatian and maybe a little Italian. The old city of Dubrovnik had a small cinema that sometimes played movies in English. I recall when the latest James Bond film, with a new actor whose performance everyone was eager to review, started playing in this theater–in English with Croatian subtitles. “Casino Royale,” the movie was called.

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What They Do Not Teach You At Cornell Hotel School

July 20, 2011January 2, 2017 / Sung Ho Paik / 2 Comments

A couple of days ago, Michael wrote the post “Monkey Business…”. The post illustrated my surprise seeing 20-ish monkeys, which to Michael was not an unusual event. Over the last week I too realized that a sudden appearance of the Macaque was just a part of daily life here. However, I definitely enjoyed my first encounter of a Macaque family outing. I hope you enjoyed as well.

As I was enjoying the post by Michael, something in the second picture caught my attention after a while. In case like me you did not notice it in Michael’s post, it seems like the Macaques are observing something on the lower right. If you click the picture you will see a larger view.

Did you see the dark ribbon (or it may look to you like a leather belt, if you read Seth’s post on a similar topic)? Continue reading →

A Campesino Breakfast Revisited

July 20, 2011August 4, 2011 / Seth Inman / Leave a comment

About three weeks ago, I was on the Campesino Breakfast Tour when I had the chance to see a boa sleeping in the chicken barn. This morning, the collection and preparation of breakfast ingredients went by without such an exciting event. But since unlike last time today I had a video camera with me, I can share some of the audiovisual details of the breakfast tour that were lost last time. I still recommend reading the previous post for a more elaborate text description than that which you will find here.

When we left the fowl barn and headed to Doña Candida’s traditional Nicaraguan house, Continue reading →

Profile: Jijo & Night Duty

July 20, 2011November 1, 2023 / Gourvjit Toor / Leave a comment

Over the past few weeks it’s been great getting to know some of the extremely friendly, open, and welcoming members of Cardamom County working with them on a daily basis. One such member is Jijo, who I’ve had the pleasure of spending a few night auditing duties with and even going down to the local gym together with a bright red sign and a muscular fellow plastered to it aptly entitled “Masterpiece”.

Jijo actually started out at Cardamom County just short of a year ago, which means this August will be his first year anniversary as a part of the team. Before this, however, Jijo talked to me about his two years at Club Mahindra’s Tusker Trail, which was an enjoyable stay where he acquired the majority of the English skills he holds today through persistence and practice with guests and colleagues. However, because it was more of an exclusive club atmosphere, there were many regular visitors who were mainly originated only from India. Thus, Jijo came to Cardamom County because he wanted to meet many different kinds of people from all over the world including people of different cultures, religions, ideas, and languages to learn new things every day, which also encompasses what is his favourite part about the hospitality industry.

But Jijo’s real passion was triple jumping, and long jump on the side. The sport as he described it requires extreme physical fitness in conjunction with a high level of technicality and a precise balance and coordination of arms and legs to achieve the longest distance possible. Continue reading →

Back to Nature

July 20, 2011July 20, 2011 / Meg Chatham / 1 Comment

I was recently walking around in a neighborhood park, and I saw birds splashing in a pool of water. I watched a pair of squirrels play tag up and down a large oak tree, and I admired an elderly couple walking hand-in-hand in a flower garden. Then, I heard a car door slam and my eyes beheld children entering the park hardly lifting their gaze from their electronic devices as debris flew from their car. As I raced to retrieve and dispose of the litter, my mind quickly volunteered pieces of itself to give to them and their parents. How could this world’s future generation be so oblivious to the natural environment? And especially when global climate issues are so prevalent? Continue reading →

Air up There

July 19, 2011July 22, 2011 / Michael Muller / Leave a comment

Yesterday I finally accomplished a minor goal I had set for myself early in my stay at Cardamom County, namely, hiking to a cross set high in the hills that ensconce Kumily and the low-lying areas of the Periyar. Unlike the ‘Cloud Walk,’ which took us into the forest for a view of the town and the Mannan/ Pelleyan settlements, this hike allowed me to pass households and schools, small Pentecostalist parishes and eye-catching Catholic Churches. This hilltop is nestled amidst privately owned plots teeming with cardamom and pepper plants, the variously-sized plots of largely middle-class farmers (for probably the fifth time this summer I thought ironically of the admonitory cliché, ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’).

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By the Fire (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tiger Trail)

July 19, 2011November 1, 2023 / Michael Muller / 21 Comments

We had reached an impasse, and I was becoming frustrated.

“I understand he’s gained a new awareness,” I said. “What I don’t understand is what exactly that awareness is.”

I had slipped into fact-collecting—or, more precisely, ‘attitude-collecting’—mode, a sort-of aggressive pose I sometimes assume when given the attention of a person whose life has been distinctly different from mine. I admit that this happens more often when I’m in the midst of a culture I think I don’t adequately understand. There’s no judgment inherent to this culling, but there is something predatory about it; if I want your words, to add your Weltanschauung to my reserves, I will work hard to procure them. And if I don’t get what I’m looking for, I can get testy. Continue reading →

Certification of Sustainability

July 19, 2011August 2, 2011 / Seth Inman / 1 Comment

Unlike most of my other posts, practically all the hyperlinks in this post link to an aptly corresponding webpage instead of a picture I took. Also, please note that my previous post on the reserve at La Cumplida has been corrected. You can find the corrections in bold at the top of the post.

La Cumplida’s coffee farm is accredited by UTZ CERTIFIED and Rainforest Alliance. These two organizations are worldwide leaders in assessing and monitoring sustainable practices. UTZ is solely concerned with agriculture—coffee, cacao, and tea farms, mostly. The group states that through their standards, farmers see increases in productivity, efficiency, and quality:

Productivity

“In 2007, before being certified, my farm of 2.1 hectares produced 7,000 pounds of parchment. Now, in 2009, I have a productivity of 11,000 pounds. That represents an income increase.” (Cooperativa San José El Obrero, Guatemala)

Efficiency

“Before certification I fertilized 3 times a year with 80 grammes per plant, now I fertilize two times a year and apply 100 grammes per plant; with this measure I saved labor and fertilizers, while farm productivity has not been affected. Savings have been US $39 / ha”. (Cooperativa Anserma, Colombia)

Quality

The percentage of Class 3 & 4, which fetch better prices, has increased above 80% since certification, unlike 2006/2007 when they only produced 26.1% of class 4. (Rianjagi Coffee Farmers Cooperative Society (RFCS), Kenya)

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Official Friend

July 18, 2011July 19, 2011 / Sung Ho Paik / Leave a comment

I spend much of my non-operations time at Cinnabar, an open-air café at Cardamom County with a perfect view of the Periyar Reserve, to use wifi. There are a few locations at the resort with a strong signal, but my preference is here. I feel welcome. The open air and scenery set the scene; Vishnu emanates a sense of welcome the way a friend would.

Ever since I started my internship here, I have been greeted by Vishnu at Cinnabar the same way most days. He has a great smile that could only be described as genuinely friendly. He also follows local custom and always greets with “Namaskaram sir.” The “sir” part of that felt kind of official and formal at first, but I get it now.

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Ayurveda v. Allopathy

July 18, 2011February 11, 2012 / Michael Muller / Leave a comment

A quick word before my note on this weekend’s three-day perambulation through tiger territory:

From this morning’s Hindu—

Personalised Ayurvedic interventions have demonstrated clinically significant improvement in rheumatoid arthritis on a par with allopathy treatment with the added advantage of lesser side-effects, according to a study…

“We cannot make any tall claims with the results since it was a pilot study and the sample size was small. However, the study got a major stimulus when Dr. Edzard Ernst, the first professor of complementary medicine, called it a blueprint for research in Ayurveda,” Dr. Ram Manohar told The Hindu over telephone…

While the study was specific to rheumatoid arthritis, it also looked into whether complex Ayurvedic interventions could be studied in a clinical trial. The double-dummy, double-blind randomised clinical study has clearly shown the feasibility of further studies of this kind.

I haven’t mentioned in previous posts (though Gourvjit has) that Cardamom County Resort houses an Ayurvedic center, nor have I spent time detailing the history of this local art of healing and wellness. I ought to have, however, because this ‘alternative medicine’ is a conspicuous presence in Kerala, and is one reason many travelers are compelled to come here. Although this study doesn’t prove Ayurveda’s general validity from a scientific perspective, it is a first step in bridging the acceptance-gap between allopathic, Western medicine and this traditional, holistic approach.

Take a look at the article, and look out for future studies on Ayurveda’s efficacy!

The Organic Solution

July 18, 2011July 18, 2011 / Meg Chatham / Leave a comment

When rain seems like only a dream, taps are turned and water begins to flow from sprinklers onto family lawns across the U.S. In many areas, water has not been given the value it deserves making this precious resource easy to take for granted. As the global population and industrialization and urbanization increase, the rising demand for water will only cause more harm to the environment.

The UN estimates by 2025, a combined population of 2.8 billion people across the world will face freshwater drought or “scarcity,” and according to water.org, about 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture; with these statistics, turning the water tap on to quench the backyard will soon no longer be an option.

Water is important to just about every natural phenomenon and artificial activity. The more I think about water the more I realize the countless times I use it throughout my day. I mean it is my drink of choice…and the main ingredient of many other favorites.

So, as water conservation becomes increasingly more urgent, I began to research some efforts geared to the alleviation of the largest use of freshwater—agriculture. The media is saturated with advertisements of drought-resistant and other GMo and hybrid plants. And in response to the ever-changing climate, chemical-producing companies are racing to release the first species of drought-tolerant corn. They claim these genetically modified and hybrid plants may be the answer to a potential food crisis, but they also seem to have an ulterior motive of extorting millions of already economically drained farmers.

While these developing drought-tolerant plants may be one aspect of reducing the stress of water conservation, another solution has already been proven and researched that farmers can do instantly without paying for special seeds from these mega producers. Continue reading →

La Cumplida’s Private Reserve

July 18, 2011June 22, 2020 / Seth Inman / 5 Comments

Author’s Note 19/7/11: The lizard pictured at the beginning of the post has been identified as a pug-nosed anole. The first group of stinkhorn pictures (paragraph 2) are of the species Phallus duplicatus, and the second group of pictures (last paragraph) are of Phallus indusiatus. The green mushroom linked to by the word “others” (paragraph 4) is Hygrocybe sp. and the grey/white ones are Psathyrella candolleana. Credit and thanks for mushroom identification goes to Milo Inman.

The untouched forest of the reserve at La Cumplida is a hilly cloud forest with few trails and many streams that served as much of our path through the trees. My guide, a local named Santos, and I started in the foothills outside of the reserve and entered the forest by climbing up some steep, muddy inclines.

The protected area amounts to 600 hectares, or 1,482 acres. Santos and I had walked for only about twenty minutes when I spotted the first attraction of the day: some stinkhorn mushrooms. Two were just a white line of pulp, but one was still not fully decomposed and looked as phallic as ever, having lost its veil.

Only around half an hour of hills later, Santos stopped me and pointed out a sapling in front of us. He said some words that I didn’t understand, so I tried looking more closely to decipher his meaning. At last I saw the outline of a faint figure sticking out of the tree’s trunk. I slowly approached and saw that a lizard, perhaps the length of my hand, was grasping the sapling and facing downwards, its scales a mottled variety of wood colors, like a camouflaged chameleon but clearly not of that species based on its head shape. The poor lighting in the forest didn’t allow for the best pictures, but I was glad to get a couple, especially these ones of the lizard curiously raising its head at the closely approaching camera lens.

We advanced further into the forest and saw only the dense and variegated foliage around us

Continue reading →

Solar Powered

July 17, 2011November 1, 2023 / Gourvjit Toor / Leave a comment

Over the last couple of days solar panel engineers have been arriving at here in Kumily to gauge the possibility of installing solar panels as well as examining the solar tubing water heating system to increase its efficiency. This involved the measuring and examination of various areas including the open rooftop of the All Spice Restaurant and the wide expanse of organic plantations, including the area cultivating ginger root, turmeric, and two varieties of yam: the typical sweet potato and the elephant yam.

Our team of engineers including Suresh and Santosh listed the various outlets of energy in the resort to help the solar paneling engineers estimate the input that could be provided as a supportive energy source. This included the fans, plug outlets, and the CFL or compact fluorescent lamps that are a very low 6W (watts). The solar paneling engineers mentioned that the last project that they had worked on was quite a large one, which involved a 65kW power source that took approximately six months to complete. As a reference, the nearby 25 meter high power line, which is provided by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), is an 110kW power source. It has not yet been determined how the space can be utilized here and how much wattage it will be able to harness from the power of the sun because as I’m quickly learning, it is a long and complicated process.

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La Cumplida’s Harvest Diversity

July 15, 2011July 15, 2011 / Seth Inman / 2 Comments

Part of the La Cumplida farm diversification involves growing crops apart from coffee. I’ve already mentioned the tree cultivation and bananas, and here I can go into more detail about the wood production and other harvests.

Ferns cover many of the hills in the upper ranges of the finca. Sheltered under black netting to block out the sun, these billions of fronds are handpicked and bundled in different sizes. The vast majority is sent to Netherlands, but other European countries and the United States receive the ornamental plants as well. Why is Netherlands the main customer? Because the country holds the largest flower market in the world at Aalsmeer, has long been the production hub for the European flower industry, and is a major international floral supplier. Many bouquets contain not only blossoms but ornamental leaves as well, and these ferns work well in many arrangements.

Wilfredo led us through the fern fields and told us a bit about its cultivation. One of the problems they have while growing the ferns is fungal disease, which turns them yellow and brown as they die; fungicide and physical culling are necessary to control the spread. About every two months they have new fully matured fronds that can be harvested, bundled up, washed, and bundled again under bags. Then they are boxed and sent under refrigeration to their destination (if I remember correctly, at 7 degrees Celsius). Below is a short and simple video that includes some of this explanation and process.

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Patagonian Expeditions

July 14, 2011December 1, 2011 / Adrien de Bontin / 4 Comments

I am joining Raxa Collective’s creative communications here at the request of La Paz Group, for which I have worked in the past—I have no doubt this will stretch me in new and interesting ways just as my last round of work with that team did. Having enjoyed the posts of the other contributors here, I should note that I am neither in Nicaragua, nor India; nor am I an intern. But my goals are aligned with the goals of this site in ways I will try to demonstrate here in my first post. First, I know some of the other bloggers—I was a neighbor to Amie Inman and Milo Inman for the first half of 2010, they in “casa roja” while I was a few steps away in “casa amarilla”. In fact, our homes were within 50 miles of the southern-most tip of land in the Americas. Second, Michael and I have something in common in that I graduated from Amherst College and I know very well what senior year is going to be like for him. More on that another time. The others I have gotten to know only through their writing, but I am glad to be part of a diverse team.

Back to my neighbors in South America now. I arrived in Punta Arenas, Chile, in October of 2009 dirty, teary-eyed from lack of sleep, and a bit frightened of my near incompetent Spanish. These insecurities, however, left me quickly as I realized that I had arrived in Southern Patagonia, ready for adventure as a liaison between LPG and the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race, a race that is considered by adventure athletes as one of the last true adventure races left in the world. Continue reading →

PaperTrail

July 14, 2011June 24, 2016 / Organikos / 11 Comments

Guest Author: Diwia Thomas

Two years ago, during the economic crisis that swept over world economies, I encountered many women, in my very own social circles, who found it difficult to keep the home fires burning. Their stories were all different- husband’s who lost their jobs, businesses that had to be shut down due to non-viability, sudden disease that struck the sole breadwinner of the family, etc. Whatever the story, the effect was the same. I felt a strong urge to help them out.

Collecting newspaper from my kith and kin, I taught these women the basics of making a newspaper bag, found customers to buy them and PaperTrail was blazing its own trail.

Continue reading →

Why Am I here?

July 14, 2011June 3, 2019 / Sung Ho Paik / Leave a comment

Before I start posting for this blog I thought a self-introduction would help. My name is Sung Ho Paik and some of you might know that a name divided into three parts like that indicates that I am an Asian. I am in fact a Korean. Until I went to the U.S.A. for my high school education, I lived in Korea with my family. I am currently a rising senior at Cornell University studying Hotel management–specifically a Managerial Leadership concentration and Real Estate minor.

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You might wonder why someone like me would spend his precious summer time working in an internship (that is, not a regular paid summer job) in Kumily, India. The answer is simple. Because I CARE. Because my education has taught me that the world that I am living in is not just about me. The whole world is somehow all inter-connected. Yes I do believe in the butterfly effect. Not to the extreme but I believe that the amount of land–specifically natural forests–that we preserve reduces the relative amount of pollution in the world. Continue reading →

Damsel in Distress

July 14, 2011November 1, 2023 / Milo Inman / 6 Comments

Although I was slightly disappointed at not having been able to track any of the more sought-out fauna of the reserve, I was content with the numerous photographs of a wide variety of bizarre and alien-like insects I was able to take during the Cloud Walk. I know that I am one of few who appreciate the seemingly unpretentious and trivial organisms of the class Insecta, and it is my hope and objective to arouse both interest and awareness of the mind-boggling diversity that reside not only in protected areas, but literally in our backyards.

Insects compose well over three quarters of all animal species – there are well over a million species, and the number of new species discovered each year isn’t decreasing despite rapid deforestation. Continue reading →

Monkey Business, if you will

July 13, 2011July 17, 2011 / Michael Muller / 1 Comment

If only to illustrate the contrast between the cool, sleek Nilgiri langur and the pesky, marauding band of bonnet macaque, I offer this beautiful photographic evidence captured by the one and only Sung, whose telephoto abilities far outstrip my own. Sung was (un)fortunate enough to meet this savvy bunch on the roof of the resort restaurant where he had been pleasantly snapping pics of the local bat population (more on them later, I can assure you, esp. now that Sung is on the case). He called to me from across the property, gesturing wildly, and shouting something along the lines of: ‘There are like a thousand monkeys up here!’ Credulous as ever, I thought perhaps there were in fact a thousand monkeys and sprinted from my seat to witness the fracas. (Un)fortunately, I found a mere twenty-ish, a far more manageable pack than the thousand-strong throng promised me. I looked on rather unimpressed. But the high-pitched excitement in Sung’s voice revealed his fundamental anxiety in the face of his first, true encounter with the MACAQUE.

I’ll let these photos tell the story and you, Dear Reader, can be the judge of mine and Sung’s sanity. After all, I do hate to over-dramatize (can’t you tell?). Still, I feel it is my duty as intern, resident, and world-citizen to present the truth as I see it. I should say, however, that about two nights ago I caught the tail-end of a rather tragic Discovery Channel program about the forced re-location of the macaque from one Indian town. I watched these macaque as they were dragged and tricked into tiny cages where they were slammed one on top of another, and it was all deeply disquieting, and just about made me re-think my position towards these struggling sons and daughters of our Planet Earth. I would sincerely regret my paranoia regarding my grey-haired distant cousins engendering an honest fear. Therefore, I hope that, perhaps, their better qualities will also shine through in these photos.

But besides all that garbage, Sung really took some beautiful photos.