This is the first time we have really been out of an urban area. With the exception of fields and trees and open skies seen through the window of a bus, our lodging has been in town, our destinations in towns or cities… all human, all urbane, and polished to the degree which things in India (or in tropical climates, I should say) are polished. So the falling water and the green of trees and movement of animals (!) has come as a pleasant and restorative change to our trajectory.
That not to say that nature is particularly peaceful. We have lowland and water outside of our room, apparently the breeding ground of the native Bleater Frog. This is not akin to the peepers we have in New England, or the peepers I recall from Indonesia, or the peepers of Brazil. No, the voice is somewhat rougher, more like an open-mouthed AH! AH! AH! An incessant AH! and no, there was not just one Shouter singing — if it can be called singing — last night, there were one-point-two million, all joining their delighted voices in a cacophonic AH chorus, calling to prospective mates. Manny and I literally could not hear ourselves in conversation, finally giving up and putting ourselves to bed.
Not to say that we slept. AH! AH! AH!!!
Another favorite is the Insistent Bird. Nice tone to the call, it begins with a suggestion that it would like your attention – hoo-wit! ho-wit! with the pitch rising on the second syllable. But it doesn't appear content with your lack of reply, so it picks up the volume on the next call, and louder and louder until it is nearly shrieking at you. I can well imagine its eyes bugging out and little cheeks getting red and it leeeaning out on its perch shaking a furious foot at me.
Or not. Then there are the Castlemites. The termites don't build castles directly, but concerned that they will attract too much attention with a monumental termite tower, they start out by building ruins. Yes, a ragged ring of fallen-down walls and construction-site holes. I imagine that they are trying to throw off would-be anteaters, giving the impression that the place is abandoned, while on they work, night after night, the ruins rising up and up until in one last push they cap the tower. Voilá!
Hm. There was a delightfully poisonous water snake in the moat this morning. A 6" trench runs around most of the houses, and prevents the entry of insects — spiders and ants and scorpions and the like, which would greatly appreciate a visit to the larder, are thus politely — and elegantly, I might add — requested to stay outside.
Well. A water snake has taken up residence in the lily pond — right under the blossoming water lily in fact — and finds easy access to the moat through what appears to be a snaky garage door, a small opening which lets water flow freely between moat and pond. So… its three-foot body went wriggling round and round the house, just underfoot, at times poking its head up to see what we were about and, perhaps, to ponder how tasty we were and would we fit in its mouth?
Large crows. Supersized ladybugs with black dress and yellow spots. Red ants creating airborne nests in the trees, weaving together leaves for protection. More birds than you can imagine. Butterflies of several shapes and decorations. Slight damselflies, as yellow as ripe lemons and thin as needles, seem to hover without support on near-invisible wings. Mosquitos and flies, of course. Cattle roaming freely without herders, grazing on open fields of grass. Chipmunks chip chip chip from the trees, alarmed at our passage. Crows — just like our crows — stop by to say hello with New England dialect. Trees far as the eye can see. Fragrant grasses underfoot and flowers at knee-height.
Thirty-eight years ago this entire plain — maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand square kilometers, all the way to the sea — was baked clay.
That is the power of vision.
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In person works better. But in brief: they came and lived in the place they were going to transform — it wasn't some lovely 3rd World assistance project, but their own lives they were affecting. First they created a system of water catchment, because every rain was simply stripping what little topsoil existed in this tropical climate (there usually isn't much, nor much required) and pouring it into the ocean.
Once the water channels were stabilized, the water table began to rise, and they were able to control irrigation enough to plant trees. And did they ever plant! A hundred, two hundred square miles of trees? More? They created nurseries to give special care to seedlings, cultivated saplings, which were then hardy enough to transplant. To have an understory, where bushes and grasses and insects survive, you need cover. They planted drought-resistant species. Once a modest break was created, and enough organic matter was at hand, they tilled small areas and planted grass, which cows now graze untended.
Permaculture practice states that, for coastal areas, the planting of trees serves several purposes: first and foremost, it creates the protection I just described. As important, however, its leaves and body capture moisture from the humid sea breezes, which runs down the trunk and falls everywhere within the tree's dripline — the reach of its branches. Literally, a tree is the mother to all things which lie beneath its outstretched arms.
Finally, that captured moisture doesn't simply dissipate into the air, as would happen with surface moisture in a barren land. Instead, rains and mists are held in this micro ecology, to later transpire into the sky to assist in the formation of cloud mass… which then moves inland to create MORE rain. The opposite is the process of desertification, which is helped by global changes in temperature, but triggered by an ax in the hand of humans.
Replanting has made this place what it is today.