Cutting Grass – 9/3/14

                As winter approaches, the villagers around Sona Pani are preparing to last the long snowy winter in the Himalayas. Part of that preparation includes cutting grass to feed their cows (each family here owns 3 or 4 cows that provide milk and manure). Everywhere we go there are women with scythes cutting grass and placing them in bundles that are then placed in a giant net. One of the huge bundles weighs about 40 kg and the women must carry them through the steep and rugged forest paths back to their houses. There are really two types of forests here: pine and oak. The pine forests are considered less healthy because the fallen pine needles prevent an abundance of undergrowth. The pine trees are still used for their sap to make turpentine, but the oak forests are much preferred. The oak forests are where you find lots of grass that the villagers use to feed their livestock (there are also tons of goats here). Recently there has been a movement to preserve the forests around Chandi Matti because of their importance to the rural lifestyle. There is a forest reserve that is about a 20 minute hike away that was just recently created. Most of the year it’s illegal to use it (i.e. cut grass or fell trees), but this week villagers are allowed to cut the grass for 4 hours each day for 3 days. We hiked over there and got to cut some grass for the villagers (we are about ten times slower than them at it) and then Caleb-ji (one of the instructors from Where There Be Dragons) carried the 40 kilo grass sack down part of the mountain for the women. Once the grass is back home the villagers dry it and put it in these huge piles that look like they’d be fun to jump in. I guess the weirdest thing about this whole grass cutting thing is that we’ll be hiking in what would appear to be the total wilderness, but the grass is all cut really short and neatly. I’m always impressed with the women here who carry the super heavy piles of grass on their head down paths that I can barely traverse with just my tiny day pack.

It’s really easy to romanticize the poverty that’s here because of the beautiful clothes that the villagers wear and the stunning scenery, but the day-to-day manual labor of living on steep mountains and farming enough food to sustain the family must be incredibly taxing. We’ve talked a lot about the mass exodus out of the mountain villages and into the cities that has been occurring in the past decade or so and how it seems so counterintuitive to us foreigners. After seeing the slums in Delhi it’s hard for me to fathom how someone could want to leave the clear mountain air and beautiful weather for a hot, smelly, and filthy city slum, but the promise of riches in the cities is really alluring to so many young men who live in these rural areas. A lot of men nowadays are moving to the big cities to work and then send back money to their families in the mountains. It will be interesting to see how this movement away from rural life will affect India in the long run.