Living The Dream

Former Sunbird Trust Programme Manager Ankita Phalle was one of the first team members of the organization. She was a major catalyst in structuring and growing our fledgeling organization. Warmly hosted by team member Amos and his family at tiny Ijeirong village nestled among rolling hills and verdant forests in Noney District of Manipur, she writes about her learning and experience…..

My home in Manipur is in a village called Ijeirong. I live here in a wooden cottage surrounded by greens on all sides overlooking a mountain that reminds me of a picture of Scotland. The wooden cottage was built by Sunbird Trust next to a village home. So I am mainly living with a new family but I sleep and work in the cottage.  If I keep the windows open, clouds enter my room. If I keep the windows as well as the door open, clouds pass through my room. They enter through the window and leave from the door. This is everything I’ve always dreamt of living in, settling in. Yes, as people on Social Media keep telling me – I am living the dream!

However, I have learned that this is not everything there is to this dream. There is much much more. I learned that a remote village in the North East means heavy rainfall for 5 months of the year. A remote village in the mountains also means no water pipeline network that gives you continuous access to water which means it is great to have rainfall as it fills all the water storage drums. But storms result into damaged electricity poles which leave us without power supply for days, sometimes for weeks at a stretch. I am lucky I have solar panels installed in my house but they put on the solar mode for power only for 3 hours in the night when I can charge my devices. This led to me being conscious about my usage of cellphone and laptop. Often, I find myself wondering- what would I opt for if I had the choice, rainfall or the sun? If I want to enjoy the benefit of rainfall filling water drums, I have to lose out on the solar panels getting enough sunlight to be charged to give 3 hours of power supply at night.

I have also learned how to have a hair bath with only one bucket of water. Even though there is abundant rainfall, it is not possible to have a long warm water bath. Due to absence of electricity on most days and no access to continuous water supply, I have to wait for 20 minutes for half a bucket of water to get heated on the wood-fire and then balance the water usage really well between my shampoo, conditioner, face wash and body wash during my bath. And the family tells me that once it stops raining, I will have to walk downhill for 10 minutes to fetch water.

I learned that to live my dream in the mountains, I need to truly accept their culture. Which means eating two rice and curry (boiled leafy vegetables) meals a day. Their lifestyle consists of first meal at 6:30am and second meal at 6:30pm. They don’t have the concept of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. I disliked rice when I lived in Bombay. Here, I started off with carrying packets of bread and butter whenever I got the chance to visit the closest town or city. I have not been eating bread in the morning from a week now. Now I have accustomed my body to eat 3 rice meals a day and I enjoy the taste. I know I have not yet succeeded in adapting their eating habits completely but to go from having rice once in two months to having it thrice a day without any wheat intake in the diet, from removing part of the rice served to asking for more rice, I have definitely come a long way!

I am living a healthier lifestyle than the one I was living in the city. It’s different but it’s healthy. I no longer complain about it either.  I still agree when people say that I am living the dream. But hey, the dream comes with a lot of lifestyle changes and it’s not always rainbows and butterflies. It’s consistent power cuts, creepy crawlies on the bed, rats eating clothes and stocked food, one-bucket-of-water baths, non wheat and cheese meals too. It’s fresh air but 2km long hikes to work too.  It’s organic food but craving for city food and drinks when Facebook pops up a recipe video or a friend puts up a food story on Instagram too. It’s a wooden cottage amidst clouds and mountains but missing the concrete bedroom next to traffic too.