The quintessential entrepreneur

Recently one of my readers asked me how she could visit my friend Gani in Sumatra. I asked Gani and this is what I got back (that’s what I call entrepreneurship!):

If you’re interested in visiting let me know and I’ll connect you to Gani.

HOMESTAY PROGRAM AT COFFEE FARMER’S HOUSE

Programmed by COFFEE FARMERS COOP

In Lintongnihuta Distric

Humbanghasundutan Regency-North Sumatra-INDONESIA

 1.       INTRODUCTION

Humbanghsundutan one of the regency  in North sumatra provincy is located from 2°1-2°28 North latitude and from 98°10-98°58 east longitude, and it is in the center region of North Sumatra province.

Humbanghasundutan regency’s area width 251 765, 93 Ha with altitude betwen 330-2,075 m above the sea level.Humbanghasundutan population 171.686 peoples (2010 source). Humbanghasundutan regency has 10 sub distric namely: Pakkat regency, Onan ganjang, Sijamapolang,Lintongnihuta, Paranginan, Dologsanggul, Pollung, Patlilitan,Tarabintang,Bakti raja.

Agriculture is the biggest income for Humbanghasundutan regency such as Coffee, Paddy, horticulture, and forestry. Coffee is as a mani product  for humbangahsundutan wich is well know in international market cause high quality and coffee from humbang called” Sumatra Lintong Coffee Arabica” Humbanghasundutan can products 5.506,30 ton/year (2009 source).

2.       ABOUT LINTONG COFFEE

Coffee is main income for 90% of peoples of humbanghasundutan, mosly farmers still paractising in traditional way in doing farming. Lintongnihuta district  one of the largest coffee  producers in Humbanghsudutan regency.  the coffee from this distric  high quality and have special aroma  because with an elevation (1410-1470m above the sea level)  and temperature (17° C-29°C ) are very suitable  for arabica coffee. The name of “Sumatra Lintong Coffee Arabica” taken form the name of this distric.

Coffee came to lintong from Java, around 1800-s and large small holder producer process unique semi washes processing technique.coffee from lintong sumatra is known for its smooth, sweet body that is balance and intence.  Farmers usually sell their coffee to local market  in part of “Parchment” and then collector buy and sell it to small holder processing after sun dry and hull the bean  and sell it to exporter in medan. Exporter company then do sortering, packaging and shipping to many countries.

Many farmers actually never enjoy their great coffee. Mosty if they want to drink of coffee they just buy form local market and get blending coffee with very low quality. Where their high quality coffee goes? As usual the best one for exporter and the bad one stay at home. This is reality of coffee farmers in humbanghasudutan. Some of the tourist ( especially coffee lover) when they drop for a while  at traditional coffee shop, they will dissampointed because peoples will serve with strange coffee not lintong coffee or sumatran coffee as they always drunk at sturback, or famous coffee shop in Europe or America.

Very less farmers who enjoy “lintong Coffee” due to expensive and less skill to process it till exellent cup.

But during homestay, we will serve with guinuie” lintong coffee “ for participants prepared by small farmers group in Lintong.

3.       PROGRAM THAT WE OFFE

a.       Homestay at coffee farmers

b.       Coffee field work

c.        Coffee processing

d.       Visit Coffee Luwak farm

e.       Fellowship program with Kindergarten , Junior High School, High School

f.        Sight seeing at Sipincur and lake Toba, Natural Hotspring

 a.       Homestay Program

Participants  will stay at Coffee farmers and living together and doing some farming activities Activities

Generally There is fixed scheduled activities at home participants can follow host family

Cooking, such as raising pig, chicken, water buffalo (Livestock) and weeding, plugging with hoe, coffee harvesting,etc.

-Language .

Mostly local peoples can not speak english nor Ducht, miss communication migh be often during homestay. We will try to aarrange  the host family that has a daughter/son who learning English ( Mosly junior high school and Senior High Schiool learn English at School) so it will encourage them to eager to learn english seriously at school.

With host family who cannot speak english, Body language also very usefull and meaningful to understand each other.

Addition we can provide short “Batak language” course for participants

-Culture:

Most probably, during homestay program. Host family will have or go to some batak culture party such as wedding party, etc..participants can join with them also

Batak peopes really respect culture same as Asian Culture, maybe during visit or join culture party please concern about your dress (Host family will explain that actually)

-Food and Local Market

Indonesian food (especially batak food)  and also  the way to cook, how to serve totally different with erupean style.

About food participant can cook by themselves if they want to cook or together with host famiy. And participants and host family can go together to local market for buying daily food ( there are three local market nearby  lintongnihuta that can reach only 15-20 minutes by public bus :

Name	Open	Location
Lintongnihuta	Monday (4 am-6 pm)	Lintongnihuta	Coffee market,for daily ife market
Siborong borong	Tuesday(4 am-6 pm)	Siborong borong	Coffee market,for daily ife market
Dologsanggul	Friday(4 am-6 pm)	Dologsanggul	Coffee market,for daily ife market

The most inportant thing, partisipants can observe how the farmers sell their coffee to local market. For many foreign peoples enjoy coffee market at local market will be very interesting moment because we could see the farmers selling their coffee to collector and collector then selling to big collector in the same market. A lot of money rotates only for coffee at this local market. Very unique and rare local market.  Participants can take a picture by free, talking with peoples, offer some product or even only observe. How about pickpocket? As long as you always carefully for your items no problems at all and surely we will guide and take care you always.

 b.       Coffee field

All of farmers have small scale coffee farm (0.5 ha-1 ha) at different place. If your host family have coffee farm far from house. Participant can walk or ride motorbike with host family.

At the Coffee farm participants can work together with host family with following coffee activities schedules:

Months	Activities
1,2	Weeding , Composting
3,4,5,	Harvesting
6, 7,8,9	Weeding, Pruning , Composting
10, 11,12	Harvest

1. c.        Coffee Processing

Participants can enrich their knowledge in coffee processing such how the farmers process their coffee and then sell them into local market:

Here Coffee processing that participant can learn:

No	Processing	In charge	Take Place
1	Harvesting	Farmers, participant	Home
2	Fermentation	Farmers, participant	Home
3	Washing	Farmers, participant	Home
4	Drying	Farmers, participant	Home
5	Hulling	machinery	Visit company
6	Drying	Farmers, participant	Visit company, Home Industry
7	Sorting	Machinary	Visit Company
8	Roasting	Farmers, participant	Home industry
9	Granulating	Farmers, participant	Home industry
10	Packaging	Farmers, participant	Home industry

a.       Visit Coffee Luwak farm

-What is Coffee Luwak

Civet Coffee also know as kopi Luwak is the most expensive and covered gourmet coffee in the world, But it comes from a very unusual source, the dropping of Asian Palm Civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), a cat like animal native to Indonesia. Civets only eats the  best sweet ripe red berries, swallowed and processed by civet unique gasteric juice and enzymes. Fermentation take place on digestive system, where some protein adn sugar are removed, the bean passing through and drop out still in form on laces coffee bean with parchment. Fermentation that occurs in the stomach of civet coffee that is preciously waht unique aroma and taste of beans civets.

The farmers then collect , wash sun dry, and processed very carefully to become precious coffee just like every other coffee bean. The source of the beans doesn’t seem to be deterring coffee lovers with kopi luwak (Civet Coffee) selling for up to $ 1, 300 per kilo,making it the most coffee in the world according to Forbes Magazine.

-Who producers this coffee in Lintong?

One of our farmers group called” PETANI KOPI LUWAK LINTONG” producs this very rare coffee by colllecting them form the jungle around coffee farm (Wild Civet Coffee) and by raising luwak. Participans can join to find luwak coffee from the jungle or if they want to see directy the animal, they can visit our luwak husbandry. Participoants can feed luwak animal with banana, cherry, painaiple, and some local fruits. And participatsn also can join to process the kopi luwak until packaging in all manual and traditional way. And of course participants will have many chance to enjoy and drink “ the most expensive coffee in the world” by FREE.

d.       Fellowship Programs

-Kindergarten in rural Area

The inportant of education in rural area slowly development. Since peoples more aware how inportand the knowledge for a better future.

Especially the peoples in rural area. For long time peoples start to have  an formal education only at SD (Primary). Kindergaten (the agesform 3-5 years) as actual formal education only for peoples at city area. Peoples in rural area did not have a chance to get an education from kindergarten.

few years ago, with local goverment and community have started to build such kindergarten in rural area called” PAUD-Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini” mean education for children. Just like play group for childrens to nurture children so that they will be ready to enter primary school.

Many PAUD establised by community such building and some of the tools for children and Community ask and pay young peoples who have an education and already work in the village to take care and teach their childrens. School will start from 08 AM until 10 Am. For a chance participants can visit “PAUD School” to have a fellowship and play with them and talk with their teacher or children’s parents.

-Fellowship program at junior and high School

There are some junior and high school and also vocational school in lintongnihuta. English included as main curriculum. But recenty there some school who learning foreingn language as addition curriculum such as japanese, manadarin, ducht also. With program many students get opportunity to learn international language at school which is very important to keep in touch many peopes and have chance to work in international work in the future if they have skill in speacking of foreingner language.

One of high school in lintong called” SMA N 1 Lintongnihuta” almost every year visited many japanese student because they learn Japanese.  Many students become motivated to be eager to learn  more foreingner language with fellowship program that SMA N 1 Lintongnihuta and Japanese Students did. Beside that, by fellowship program have  created strong relationship and good interaction among students and participants from Japan. Wishing in the future we can make such exchance students program.

For this program participants aso can give some great ideas how to develop education in rural area and have a chance to share with them many thing of course by using foreign language.

e.       Sight seeing at Sipincur and lake Toba, Natural Hotspring

Many hidden tourist spot actually in Humbanghasundutan regency. Some of them like Bakara view, Sipincur and hutaginjang view ( form this place we can see the wonderfull panorama of lake toba from many side. Hutaginjang (About 15 Km from lintong, sipincur about 5 Km from Lintong), on the way to sipincur we can see small scale of coffee farm.

If participants want to relax their body, we can  go to natural hotspiring in Butar (15 Km from Lintong).

 4.       CONCLUSION

1.       Participants (Guests) will see what the real life of staying in rural area to open their mind what actually the peoples need.

2.       Participants can learn about uniqness of batak culture by joining many occation with host family.

3.       With Homestay program both participants (Guests)and Host family would create a strong relationship in the future.

4.       By visiting many school such kindergaten, primay schoool, junior and high school, and have a fellowship with them share education and culture, Participants can learn about the system of education in rural area such Lintongnihuta.

5.       As mostly coffee as a main source, Participants will understand how the farmers take care their coffee farm and then sell it to local market with low price.

Toronto for beginners

For those who are interested my other blog is:

torontoforbeginners.wordpress.com

Forbes India Magazine – Fairtrade in India

Forbes India Magazine – Fairtrade in India.

Coffee farmers, entrepreneurs, eco-preneurs

I recently caught up with my friend Gani, whom I featured in the previous post about coffee. Gani and his friends founded and tried very hard to run APKLO, a coffee cooperative in Sumatra, Indonesia that succeeded in getting Fairtrade Certified. When I first visited APKLO in November 2006, just two years after the boxing day tsunami that caused so much devastation on the island of Sumatra and many other places in Asia and the Pacific, peace had returned to Aceh, which lies at the northern tip of Sumatra. APKLO was located in Sumatra Uttara (Northern Sumatra) just south of Aceh, but just the same the civil war to its north seemed to have kept foreign tourism down and infrastructure in Sumatra Uttara was basic.

The journey up from Medan, the main city of Sumatra Uttara and also the most important port on the island, was long and arduous, and at the same time breathtaking, with terraced rice fields, gorgeous hills in the distance, and the lovely site of traditional buildings of the Batak people who make up the majority of the population of the region where we were headed. On rickety roads in an SUV (thank goodness for being able to hire cars with drivers in the field) we set off from Medan in the morning and had to break journey for the night midway at the town of Parapat on the shores of Lake Toba. The next day, after several hours’ onward journey we reached the small town where the office of APKLO was located. Now, I’ve forgotten the name of this town and can’t find it anywhere on the maps. It was that small. And our ‘hotel’, the most unfortunately and erroneously named ‘Bali Hotel’, which was the antithesis of everything Bali stands for, was definitely the worst place I’ve ever stayed at. And I’ve stayed at my fair share of weird places! The town was so small that we could walk it end to end in about 10 minutes. The farmers, of course, lived in even smaller villages around the town. And these were the farmers who grew some of the best coffee in the world. You and I pay anywhere upwards from 12-15 dollars for a pound of this coffee when it’s roasted, which means that it takes more than a pound of coffee to produce that roasted coffee. Even if you look at a pound of green coffee, the farmers were for years getting maybe a couple of bucks a pound for their coffee, maybe less. Right now coffee prices are soaring (at around two and a half bucks a pound on average for green arabica beans) and Sumatra coffees generally command a premium of some tens of cents above the average. But still, look at the degrees of difference between what the farmer gets and what you pay. Of course, there are many steps between the farmer’s green coffee production and your roasted coffee purchase, and each of those value adding steps costs money. But still, think about whether you would even have your delicious coffee if it weren’t for that farmer and if he deserves such a small part of its value, so that he always worries about food on the table, costs of schooling and other basic necessities.

So it was in this context-small town, basic living conditions, that I first encountered the wonderful farmers of APKLO. They were already Fairtrade certified, had sold a bit of coffee under Fairtrade terms and were using their first Fairtrade premiums to establish a revolving fund (so that they could take turns taking and repaying loans to fund their personal projects). As a cooperative, they were still nascent, learning how to function together, struggling to find enough Fairtrade buyers for the coffee from their cooperative (if they sold through their cooperative under Fairtrade conditions, they would get far better prices than if they sold to middlemen one by one). What they needed was for someone to support them with training for their cooperative, and help with market linkages. My colleague X and I gave them some training on cooperative management and also carried back some green coffee samples. We returned home more determined than ever to help APKLO and all other Fairtrade producer organizations (and the organizations who hoped to join Fairtrade) strengthen their ability to do business by improving their organizational functioning and their reach to Fairtrade markets. When we got back to office I asked X to send the coffee samples to our colleagues on the marketing side of Fairtrade, and I stepped up my efforts to look for funding to place a field officer in Indonesia (something I had not been able to do because funding was not available). It took me a year and a half to find funding, and in the meantime X kept going back and helping the groups in Sumatra himself (and we managed to help APKLO sell a container load of coffee just from that simple act of carrying back samples of their coffee to send on to our marketing colleagues, who then sent them on to buyers). When I raised enough funds we hired first one, and then another field officer to help APKLO and other producer organizations in Indonesia (the key difference being we could afford to have local people going to work with producers several times a year rather than having X go once or twice in that time span).

Over the years we saw APKLO gaining strength, selling more, and then getting weaker again. Training and market linkages could only take them so far. There were a number of reasons behind this, which I’m happy to elaborate on should anyone wish, but the fact is that there is no guarantee that any organization, no matter how good the intention of its members, or how deep the efforts to support it, will make it. In the end, a cooperative is a business, and one where there are hundreds, if not thousands of partners, who all have to work in concert. Tough in the best of circumstances, and we’re talking circumstances where people constantly face difficulties with resources.

What I can say is that APKLO gave it their all. In one of their crisis situations I still remember going down to visit them again with X and the field officer, and having intense facilitation sessions with them where they could clarify their situation and their choices for the way ahead. They reflected well, they chose the path that they saw fit, and they kept fighting for the survival of their cooperative. They kept going a couple of more years until they couldn’t go anymore. And then they fell apart. This doesn’t happen to every group-many of the groups we supported got stronger and stronger, while some had these challenges, as would any business start-up.

The farmers who made up APKLO are wonderful people, and what I hope more than ever is that they were able to join some of the other cooperatives that came up nearby, or are able to form a new group again. They are indeed far stronger working together than they ever will be as lone farmers working with middlemen. As cooperatives have developed, I have seen them able to increase their bargaining power, work together to improve the quality of their product, take on more roles in the value chain (sorting for quality, exporting their product themselves) and thus also able to earn more money as a result, progressing on the journey towards greater prosperity.

APKLO didn’t make it, but my friend Gani and other friends in APKLO sure did keep fighting for it. And when that didn’t work, Gani kept trying to find ways to improve his income and strengthen his capacity until he can rebuild his cooperative. In the past couple of years Gani has started a civet cat coffee production (look it up-it’s amazing), and now he has taken his first baby steps into an eco-tourism venture. Gani is facebook friends with me (yes, there have been many changes in infrastructure over the years and facebook is now reaching coffee farmers in Northern Sumatra) and he recently posted pictures from his first homestay visitors. Homestay means that tourists actually came and stayed with him in his home and lived as he lives (for a small fee). No extra hotel rooms, no spa, no room service. Just simple, farm living. Wonderful. I’ve asked Gani to send me more information so that I can post it for all of you who want to go stay with him sometime.

So there’s Gani, coffee farmer, coffee entrepreneur, and now, tourism eco-preneur. Inspiring.

Sanctioned adult spitting and other lessons in coffee lands

Kudos to those of you who guessed correctly that the picture on my most recent blog post was…coffee! Ripe, luscious, high grown Sumatra Mandheling arabica coffee.

For this luscious red fruit to turn into your daily latte, my friend Gani has to

pick the ripest, reddest coffee cherries. This means that he has to pick each of his coffee bushes at least 3-4 times per harvest because mother nature doesn’t operate like a factory. Each bean takes its own sweet time to ripen!

Gani inherited the farm from his parents and some of his coffee bushes are 100 years old! He farms his piece of land with minimal mechanization, using organic practices (no artificial fertilizer, no pesticides), meaning that he has to take care of weeds and pests with a combination of his own physical work and the use of natural fertilizer and pesticides. It’s honest to goodness back breaking hard work that Gani does all around the year before he can get those beautiful little red orbs to harvest.

And after much picking, he gets a nice batch of yummy looking coffee cherries (they really are yummy-I’ve tried some!).

then he uses a hand-kranked huller to separate the coffee bean from the cherry. Yes, that’s right, the coffee bean is the seed of the coffee cherry. Actually, it’s two seeds-each cherry contains 2 beans. At this stage the beans are covered in a papery film, so the coffee is called ‘parchment coffee’. After a day or so the beans will be washed and the parchment taken off. Next beans (now called green beans) will be dried by Gani until they lose some of their moisture content, and then further by the exporter who buys the coffee from Gani.

Next, Gani will (depending on the situation) either sell the beans to a middleman who will then sell to an exporter, or he will sell the beans directly to an exporter. He may decide to sell the beans collectively with other coffee farmers so they can get a better price for more volume, and because they are all bargaining together. The exporter will dry the beans even more (but not too much or you won’t like the result).

At this point a bunch of typical green coffee beans looks pretty much like this. See the brown/black ones? And the one on the lower left that looks like it’s a bit broken? Since the coffee hasn’t been roasted yet, you can safely assume that the brown bits aren’t roasted coffee-it’s green coffee beans that are a bit or a lot rotten (sigh-mother nature isn’t perfect) and they need to go or your coffee will taste, well, not a lovely as it should.

So, the exporter takes a batch and does triage.

That’s me on the left learning how to do triage. Sounds like the ER, right? Well, triage in an ER means sorting out the worst cases to determine priority for treatment. So, triage in coffee means, sorting out the worst beans. The exporter showed me a list of descriptions of defective coffee beans that he used as a reference to sort out the good beans from the bad. He samples a batch of coffee he has bought and does a triage to see how many bad coffee beans there are, so he can figure out how long it’s going to take a person sorting the bad beans out to work on that particular batch. He may also give a particularly challenging batch to a more experienced sorter.

and then the sorters sort the coffee. Depending on how particular the importer is the coffee may be sorted another couple of times, or this may be it.

The exporter may then roast a small batch of the sorted coffee and do a tasting to make sure it’s good stuff. (That’s not the exporter in the picture-it’s me and my friend Xavier who were visiting the exporter. Hey, it was our job). The little saucers on the blue paper contain the roasted coffee, which you have to look at and smell to make sure it’s good. Each saucer has a different batch of coffee. Each batch of beans is brewed and the brew poured into cups. Here you see that each brewed batch has been poured into 6 cups. Every coffee tasting I’ve ever had has included at least 3 cups of each coffee. To taste the coffee, you dip your spoon into cup #1, slurp as rudely as you can, keep slurping while the coffee is in your mouth, and then spit! Then you quickly repeat with #2 and 3 (or in this case also #4, 5 and 6). Pay attention to the flavors and senses the coffee has in your mouth and your nose. It’s amazing how different each small batch of coffee tastes. I’ve tasted notes of cocoa, spices, berries, you name it. Well, and in particularly nasty batches I’ve also tasted/smelled mold, dirt, and stale tobacco. Blech! Aren’t you glad that someone checks and sorts out the yucky stuff for you?

So, after the exporters know they’ve got the good stuff they package the coffee, make a deal for it with the importer, and ship it out.

Yes, most of the coffee that is exported in this world is still green beans. The roasting I mentioned before was only for testing, remember?

After the importer buys the coffee, they may roast it and sell it themselves, or they may wholesale the beans to coffee businesses that roast them.

Phew, I’m exhausted just writing this post.

So, tell me now. When you buy your daily latte, how much of that 3-4 bucks goes to my friend Gani?

No prizes for guessing what this is

To all my latte addicts

In 1990 my family moved to Seattle, which to my great surprise, had a bustling specialty coffee scene. You could get a latte from a cart at just about any street corner or in any mall, and Seattlites debated endlessly about whether Starbucks, Seattle’s Best Coffee, Torrefazione, Dilletante or a host of other brands really had the best coffee. Even New York (or at least its upper class suburbs in Long Island) weren’t that sophisticated yet, as I discovered during a trip back in 1994 when I saw a fabulous copper ‘Grand Gaggia’ espresso machine in the basement of the Roosevelt Field Macy’s (there was no espresso machine to be found in that mall back in 1990). I excitedly ordered a latte, had a sip, and then proceeded to discard the swill they had extracted from the Gaggia in place of the extraordinary espresso the machine was designed to produce.
At that moment I knew: I was an official Seattlite-a coffee snob who would settle for nothing less than that amazing coffee I’d grown used to.

It was unavoidable-good coffee permeated Seattle. I could get it at the student-run cafe in my high school cafeteria, or on the way home through downtown Bellevue. I don’t think I ever had to walk more than a couple of hundred yards to get my next latte fix while at the University of Washington, and even there we used to pick and choose our daily fix based on who was serving what kind of bean (sadly, in recent times the single-brand fixation has gripped the campus). Off campus, we picked cafes to study in based on the quality of their coffee as much as the hours they kept.

In 1999 I went away to grad school at Oxford, where I was relieved to find somewhat half-decent espresso drinks. And I was at wit’s end when, after moving to Germany a couple of years later, I discovered the swill the Germans still drank (cheap discount store filter coffee) in the name of ‘kaffe’. All the more shameful as they served their most delectable cakes with the most godawful tarry oily sat-too-long-on-the-burner junk. And I travelled 40 minutes each way every weekend to visit the first Starbucks that opened near the town where I was then living, out of sheer relief to get my fix. Crazy what you miss-I don’t think I went to Starbucks half as many times during the entire decade I lived in Seattle as I did in my first couple of years in Germany!

So, needless to say, the quality of the coffee I drink is…important to me.

But I didn’t know how important, or how personal coffee would become to me until I started working in Fairtrade. During that time, I got to know the wonderful, hard working, talented, and sometimes crazy people who deal with this amazing bean.

I’ll share stories about these folks in due course, but in the meantime, have a think about this:

-Did you know that coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world? Oil is the most traded. Why on earth is coffee so high up?

-How important is coffee to you? What would you do if there was no more coffee to be had (the good stuff or the swill)?

-Who in the coffee supply chain got what part of the 3-4 bucks you just plonked down for your morning coffee fix today?

What are you putting in your mouth?

I lived in Germany for 9 years while working for Fairtrade. What never ceased to amaze me was how cheap the food was there. Now, everyone likes a good bargain and there are cost conscious people all over the world. But Germans, true to their nature, are particularly efficient at developing and consuming cheap food (500 grams of spaghetti for 39 cents!).

Ironically it was while living in this cheap food loving nation that I actually learned the true value of food, from the people who grow it. While working for Fairtrade I met scores of people working all along the food value chain and the cotton textile value chain. The amount of work that goes into the coffee in your latte, or the t-shirt on your back, I can honestly say, is astounding. And yet, very little of what you paid for that latte or t-shirt ever goes to those at the bottom of the value chain: the farmers. I’m amazed that our food doesn’t cost 10 times what it even does when I look at the amount of work that goes into producing it.

And yet, we generally want to pay as little as possible for the food that we eat and the clothes that we wear. Have you ever considered what you’re really putting in your mouth or on your back when you get that bargain basement grocery item, or that super cheap t-shirt? What corners were cut? Who lost out? Depending on the corners that were cut-maybe the loser is even you.

When I first started this blog I wanted to focus solely on alternative travel ideas. But as I search the depths of my memories for stories about interesting journeys, as I close my eyes, I see not only the places I visited but also the people I encountered, the lush fields of rice, the cows grazing in someone’s courtyard, the colors, the food, I recall the smells, the tastes, the jokes. So, as I solidify these memories into words I shall try to share some more of my other recollections and thoughts around the journeys I have undertaken.

Until the next rambling, aufwiedersehen.

Desh

Have you ever landed in a place for the very first time, for some random reason, not having moved there or anything, and thought ‘this is home’?

Kutch was certainly one of those places for me. The language, the food, the way of the people, so much like home. My ancestors come from Kathiawad, in the same state as Kutch, slightly south of it.My mother’s family still refers to Kathiawad as desh, or country-their old country. But for me this manifestation of desh was limited to banter at family gatherings, food and stories told to us children by old aunts. We we never spoken to in Gujarati-so imagine my mom’s surprise when I answered a visiting aunt in the mother tongue. Years of passive absorption had paid off and I’d even end up playing translator to a Danish colleague during the Kutch trip as proof.

My first stop in Kutch was Bhuj. It was my first time in Gujarat since my parents took me as a 3 year old, which I don’t really count. So it was my first conscious living breathing time in my ancestors’ beloved desh.

Bhuj fit like an old sweatshirt. After settling in the hotel we went for a meal at the headquarters of Shurjan, a beautiful NGO that has helped women build livelihoods through handicraft since the severe drought in Kutch in 1969. The Shroff family, who started Shrujan also started the first Fairtrade cotton farmer organization in India, which we were visiting in Kutch.

Kaka and Kaki Shroff (uncle and aunt Shroff) hosted us all for dinner that night, which was simply an extension of the meal they had every night with their entire staff. It was simple-chapatis, rice, dal, vegetables-eaten in the courtyard of the complex where Shrujan is headquartered, and where Kaka and Kaki also live. The buildings around the courtyard were traditional Kutch style ‘bhungas,’ small round walled structures stuccoed white with pieces of glass embedded in lovely patterns in the stucco. They shone like diamonds.

Kaka and Kaki Shroff, through their dedication and perseverance, have managed to bring out the true beauty of Kutch and its people in the midst of such a harsh clime (the region is periodically battered by earthquakes, and battles ever increasing desertification).

After the meal we took our leave of Kaka and Kaki and walked through the sleepy town, taking in the sights of people meeting in local restaurants, singing bhajans at the temple, strolling along the lake. Most of India feels so frenetic that Bhuj was just a welcome change of pace. A place to just be. A lovely start to the rest of my journey-to Rapar and Mandvi.

I never managed to go back to Gujarat after that trip to Kutch, but I will return someday. It is, after all, home.

If you go to Bhuj (accessible by air from major Indian cities) do stop by Shrujan. The handicraft work is top notch, and the work they’ve done on preserving local art in a sort of museum is very interesting. Here’s their website: http://shrujan.org/contact.html

If for some reason you don’t make it to Bhuj you can check out their wares at their shops in other parts of India. Oh and if you’re adventurous about trying new foods try this sweets and snacks shop-I thought it was YUM: www.khavda.com
Ask anyone in Bhuj-they’ll direct you to an outlet.

If you do make it to Bhuj, there are some options for accommodation and food (Shrujan doesn’t have a restaurant-the meal I described was a personal experience). When I went a few years ago new hotels were being built. Check out the travel advisory websites for most current options.

Princely welcome

It was like something out of a movie. On most work journeys we felt super lucky when our accommodation had hot water, clean sheets and somewhat decent toilets. So imagine my delight when after a day in the hot sun visiting this amazing cotton farmer organization and driving back to Mandvi for hours, we arrived at THE BEACH! And not just any beach, but our very own private beach with luxury tents. Wait, NGO? What? It was off-season and this amazing luxury beach tent camp was a fantastic deal. We all ran into our own maharaja-esque abode and emerged shortly afterward to wolf down an amazing barbecue made just for us. The service was impeccable. The next morning we woke up to brilliant sunshine and the calm Arabian sea. Each of us (there were about 8 of us) went about the beautiful beach in our own rhythm, just taking in the pleasure of a beach so empty, so clean (and a bit cold in October-swimming wasn’t quite an option). After breakfast we had an hour or so before our first work meeting so we decided we absolutely had to take a gander at the gorgeous Vijay Vilas palace (the beach camp is actually on the palace grounds). Vijay Vilas is a superbly maintained smallish palace (largish mansion) owned by the Maharo (Prince) of Kutch. Many Indians recognize Vijay Vilas instantly because it’s been featured in some Bollywood movies. My colleague Anup told me exactly which movies and which scenes in those movies were filmed there but I forget. Anyway, we went around this wonderful place and on our way out we casually asked whether we could meet the Maharao. Wouldn’t you believe it the man met us! (I supposed it didn’t hurt I that I had two very blonde Norwegian colleagues with me). He’s a lovely man, made lots of nice small talk, and after some chit chat with him it was time to leave and go back to our work.

Mandvi Palace Beach is definitely a place I want to return to with my other half. And if the price to pay for going off-season and having the beach all to myself is water too cool to swim in, so be it. I’ve got the warmth of my friends in Bhuj, Rapar and Mandvi, whom I will write about soon…

Here’s a link to Mandvi Palace Beach:
http://www.mandvibeach.com/

I told a friend from Kutch I was about to write this blog and he also said that the international kite festival in Mandvi is definitely worth visiting, so if the timing works out go for it: http://www.gujarattourism.com/showpage.aspx?contentid=483

Other things to do: eat a Kutchi dabeli (a sort of veggie burger that’s a local specialty) and buy some bandhani cloth-it’s the most amazingly tiny tie-dye work you’ll ever see.

To get there you fly to Bhuj (from any major Indian city). From Bhuj it’s a couple of hours in a taxi. Pretty darned easy…