Marase

MARASE- TBA PROJECT

Marase is one of the villages on our Mysore taluk map and the experience in this village is worthy of a blog post. We arrived at the village, about 25 km outside Mysore City, and Praba met with some of her local contacts. The woman was so ecstatic to see us and informs us that there are three TBAs in the village, a gold mine for us! Praba and Sattya went to interview one woman, while Mercy and Fazila went to the another, and this left Rani and I to do the 3rd. One catch, they don't really know where she is, but they assure us we will find her in '2 minutes, no problem'. Rani, our village contact, and I head out to the fields to find this TBA.

Rani thinks she sees her, and the local woman concurs.



Somewhere by that big plume of smoke, I think.



The pictures do not quite grasp the wetness or the wildlife present in these fields. You guessed it, more snakes, my favorite. We finally reach the group of farmers, who are doing some 'slash and burn farming' and lighting fields of dry grass on fire.



Turns out the woman is not here and these people have not seen her recently. So, we're off for some more walking through the farm fields. Right next to these fields were some coconut and palm tree orchards. Very nice, but really muddy. Rani was wearing her nice shoes and was not at all happy.





As we were walking, the woman asked me if I liked sheep. I responded "Yeah, of course I like sheep, especially the small ones. So cute." After these words were out of my mouth, she took off towards a flock of sheep, and snatched one up for us. I did not know this is what she had in mind.



After some more walking, we finally reached the TBA. She was out tending to her flocks of sheep and goats, but she did not mind doing the interview out in the field.



The TBA was great, but has not done many deliveries recently. She was eager to answer our questions and gave some interesting responses. The data will be good, even though it may not be completely up-to-date.



Dogs and chickens were hassling Praba while she was finishing her lunch. I decided to 'protect' her with my stick. Don't worry, I didn't actually hit anything, but there is some truth to the saying 'Speak softly and carry a big stick'.



(This dog had a limp leg, so he was allowed to stick around. He would be embarrassed knowing there is a picture of him doing this on the internet.)