Life After Shelter At Home: So Many Questions

Art for my heart

Return to normal is starting, and I am fascinated. Fascinated being the word of choice but I really can't think of another, better one. How we will all navigate this: including those who believe we will return to our old normal, and those who believe we will never return to our old normal. Chicago is starting to open up, as is the entire state. I am grateful for state and local leaders who act like leaders, and who believe in science. Healthcare experts inform the decisions, and that matters tremendously. I am not downplaying the economic impact, and there are recovery models out there that posit that some people will choose to take health risks because of the economic implications of not doing so. It is not something to be scoffed at, the recession that is coming could be catastrophic. Since I can sit and do my work at home, I don't think I have too much of a right to judge folks who may not have options. I won't lie, I am frustrated by people who have options but still choose to risk the lives of others.


What do you do when someone in close contact with you won't wear a mask? When it's a family member or a loved one? When it's someone you encounter during the course of your daily work? It's hard to have that conversation. It's harder to have that conversation when wearing a mask is seen as an infringement of personal liberties. That is not a discussion happening in countries in Asia or other parts of the world, where individual liberties are not valued in the same way (not that that is without it's problems). I don't particularly enjoy wearing a mask, and nor do the people I know. But it's really not about that.

My newsfeed yesterday led me to an article about people who are part of m i l i t i a, preparing, nay looking forward to armed confrontation. If you are interested look up Hawaiian shirts and other keywords. I can't bring myself to link to any of it, it can't lead to anything good. On one hand, knowing feels like being prepared for...something. But knowledge of this kind is also paralyzing. Take a look at this article, which lays out in detail how the current administration is looking to stop and decimate visa and immigration pathways. After I read this, I felt like I couldn't breathe for a while, despite being aware of this risk for years at this point. I try and make peace with the uncertainty, nay the specific targeting of the programs regularly. There is not much I can do as individual, and to be anxious about something so beyond my control robs me of precious days and happiness. I can't decide whether knowing helps me in this case or not. Let's look at the worst case scenario: I (we) have to pack up and start all over again somewhere. Is there really a way to prepare for that stress and worry? In my mid-thirties I feel the loss of today to worry about tomorrow a lot more keenly. A sense of mortality, completely contrary to the sense of invincibility in twenties, has started to grip me more and more. Things end, people die, and somehow life keeps moving even as people's worlds collapse. I'm a beacon of cheerfulness, I know.

There is also the (inevitable?) feeling of confronting not only one's mortality, but also one's mediocrity. Is this it? Have I peaked? Is my future path predetermined at this point, and all the choices I make, while feeling freewill, are actually from a narrowed set of options. I value productivity and constantly challenging myself, and slowing down and acceptance of what is. They feel contradictory but I am not sure that they are, or rather that they have to be. I am also aware of not being as hungry and driven as I used to be in my twenties. Of course, a lot of that was driven by pure insecurity and anxiety, and hardly healthy. But I still want to regain some of that motivation, and to be fair to myself, I have been able to in the last two months. The time I have saved on commuting, I have been able to put towards exercising (the sole aim right now is consistency, the rest can come later); cooking for myself (I believe that pretty much anything I make at home is healthier than takeout or delivery options available to me); and finally learning/studying. I wanted to take the project management exam, which is an extraordinarily tedious process: both the preparation, and the actual exam -- think four hours, one ten minute break, no water in the exam space etc. It's a test of mental and physical endurance, and I am not sure who the physical endurance piece serves.

Stacey Abrams: Leading from the Outside

On Saturday, I attended a talk organized as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. The talk was with Stacey Abrams, whose nomination and work for the post of governor in Georgia, as she rightly said, was stolen from her through gerrymandering, voter suppression and suchlike. I found about the event through a whimsical google search for things to do in Chicago and I am so glad I did. It was a mess of a day, with a freak winterstorm breaking the streak of good weather we had. That is not surprising to be honest; it's one of those things I have to come to expect from the midwest, don't pack away your snow gear until it's June.  The auditorium filled up and the demographic was largely older. What was unexpected was that Stacey's introduction would be done by Lori Lightfoot, mayor-elect. 

Rainy days, summer days

Via Edwardmonkton.com

I've moved into YET another space. It is actually rather nice, has a window in the room with great natural light. The house has a back porch and more importantly a functional washer-dryer. Laundry is important for the soul. It is furnished and I have only had to buy minimal stuff such as linen and an incense-holder and lots and lots of chocolate-flavored cereal. The rain has been almost constant these last few days. The more I move, the faster I have learned to feel settled in. The frills fall away and I am slowly stripping to the bare essentials of what I need although there is a still long way to go in that process.

Notes on a conference

 I've been at a conference in DC this week (an entire week, I myself am not quite sure why). This is a trip that I had to cut short and I return home day after tomorrow and I am looking forward to that. It has been nice to get a change of scenery, parts of this semester have been the equivalent of walking through water and quicksand all together. It was also the first conference where I presented (alone) from some research (really basic) I am doing on understanding expectations of organizations that host students for fieldwork. I think the presenting bit is supposed to be a milestone of sorts (but am also aware that a lot of people present at this conference, it seems to be more inclusive than exclusive, which is nice for newbies like me). I was really nervous but different folks pointed out that depending on who is presenting sessions are sparsely attended (true for the one I was in) and people present preliminary results of their work (I did).

Weekend things or the one with lots of elevator spiels

This was an interesting weekend. I am taking a class on Gender and Public Policy, and it is one of the most interesting classes I have taken in grad school. On Saturday, I had the chance to attend the Elect Her training, organized by the UMN Women's Center in collaboration with American Association for University Women. It seems to be primarily targeted at undergraduates, to encourage women-identified people to run for student government and hopefully in the long run for political office. There were icebreakers, student panels, quick elevator pitches and issue based discussions. They had a quite a lot of resources spread across tables.

Finding Balance

This is definitely the semester where I am trying to find balance. I try and remember that it is the experience, and not only the end. Also, what good would a grad school degree be if I couldn't enjoy at least parts of it. I'm trying a combination of factors, tweaking and adjusting. The first week is never very indicative of what the rest of the semester will be like. Assignments aren't due yet nor have group projects started. This week (and weekend) have gotten away from me as there are two student-group related tasks on a Friday night and Sunday afternoon. But both are things I am involved with out of will and I am glad to do them (they help provide services for the graduate student body). I do still want to find balance (or equilibrium as the economists would say :)). 

International Collaborative Research Forum

On Friday, I was able to attend a conference on campus and I am very glad I did! It isn't very often that I walk out of a conference thinking that all of it was useful for me but I definitely had that feeling after this one. It was called International Collaborative Research Forum and was held the renovated and fabulous and majestic looking Northrop Auditorium. After the opening session, there were parallel sessions for everything and I attended the ones on grant writing, ethics in international collaboration and internationalization in graduate education. I enjoyed all of these, especially the last one, where in addition to the Dean of Graduate Education at U of M, there were people from Council of Graduate Schools and the National Science Foundation.

Being yourself

I have been thinking about what does it mean to be authentic (and reading as well). Not original, not unique, just authentic. I like the word authentic, it conveys weight and meaning to me. But honestly. I have stopped asking myself if I am authentic. At some level, I think many of us are plagued by the impostor syndrome. Especially as women. Some of the best people I know, I doubt they take themselves too seriously. They are very aware of how much they have left to learn, to do and this is despite being accomplished in so many ways (and good human beings as well).  I doubt if I remind myself to 'be more authentic', I'd achieve it.

Avatar ahoy!

Meet S. My grad school avatar. I have always had an interest in (not necessarily skills in) cartooning and I think this is a good and more productive way to deal with some of the realities of being in grad school. I am looking for help in learning how to sketch better, ideas for an occasional comic strip and suchlike. If you have suggestions or ideas, let me know. Have a great weekend! (You need to click on read more)

Survival tips 101 (from a second year perspective)

This really is Dear Young Me sort of note to myself when I started grad school. But perhaps others can benefit from it as well!

• Learn to say no. There is always an organization, an activity, a party, an event that you want to get involved with or go to. But there is only so much time and so much sanity. Learn to say no (here's an interesting perspective on why saying no is important)

• If you are the kind of person who schedules things in (I often tend to plan for every hour, if not minute, of the day), pencil/type/whatever you prefer time in for yourself. It is a good reminder that you need to pause and pay attention to yourself.

Why talk about gender?

One of the aspects I felt was most neglected in terms of preparing teams for fieldwork was addressing issues of gender, race and more. These are topics that make the best of us uncomfortable and I think it often seems that a classroom setting isn't the best to have an honest conversation. My definition of what an honest conversation is a moving, evolving one but in recent times I think of it as one where we are okay speaking about the 'bad thoughts' that we have. The idea should be to generate constructive counterpoints and of course, there needs to be a base in a desire to change. I guess I see little point in saying "I dislike so and so because they are such and such and I will believe this till I die."

Suggestions welcome

I am working on a piece to understand what motivates women to seek an international graduate education. I'd like to speak to both current and past students (who are studying/have studied outside their home country) and have a chat to learn more about why they made the choices they did. I'm starting to ask around and if you'd be interested in speaking with me or guiding me to someone, I'd greatly appreciate it! I'll be happy to give more details if required. Thanks.

Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach

Without Reservations is one of my favorite books. It blends language, cities, travel and reflection in a way that I tremendously enjoy. I don't remember how I came across the title, only that I was very grateful for having found it. During my stint in Vietnam, I found myself missing the book. It was an unusual feeling. I started re-reading it when I returned home and for the first time in my life made notes on a book, underlined text and committed the worst of all book-related sins, dogeared pages. I don't feel guilty though. This is one of the few books that I intend to take with me and there is so much in the book that I rather vainly believe reflects my life, that I am going to hang on to this copy for life. It also reminds me of my intent to search for (or start?) a book club that enjoys fiction. In brief it is the story of Alice Steinbach, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, who decides to take a year off from work and travel. She goes to Paris, London, Oxford and Italy and spends time there. She reminds me that to get second chances, one must first make mistakes. I can't offer much of a review, I am clearly biased. What I will leave you with are my favorite bits from the book. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did and they offer hope and comfort to you in the way they have to me:

Field visit in pictures

We took a lot of pictures in Nam Giang. Our most fun and entertaining memories though aren't captured in any of these. Like the mini-hike through the forest. The joy (and relief) at finding a place to eat that we all liked. Our awe and shock at the baby whose only joy was in beating us all up. The rains, the mist, the mountains. But these should give you an idea.

We look at a rattan seedling
at a now defunct nursery

Mr. Ruoc, third from left, who was a
gracious host. Later we were told
 how he enjoyed the visit and sometimes
gets lonely and that made
me inexplicably sad.

Here and there from Nam Giang

Yesterday and today have been days of meeting harvesters and middlemen of rattan, among other things. We met with three sets of people yesterday and two today, had long conversations about the products they harvest, their relationship with the forest, the support they need to be successful. Each one of them was very kind to us. They offered us water, green tea, fruits and most importantly time and knowledge. Some of our meetings were at home, one at a coffee shop, and we visited one of the forest areas today. It is evident that people are poor - in one of the meetings we asked why some households do not harvest rattan. The village headman wryly replied it is because only the poor do it. In the forest today we saw young and older rattan trees, oui trees (the tallest in the forest), lon bon trees and some coffee trees. We also saw many, many ants, several of which feasted on us. We went to one village and one plantation first. We then started walking to another site which in the past was a rattan nursery but now has no support. Our walk attracted quite a bit of attention - children and adults looked and smiled at us, a pack of mangy and scrawny dogs that barked continuously at us and followed us a little. This was definitely a lot of forest and foliage. It started to rain a little but stopped soon which was good because being drenched in a downpour in the forest would have been quite the adventure but not as much fun.

Exploring in Nam Giang

'Uoi' drying outside

Today was a really good day in the field. It was full of meeting people, learning more about rattan harvesting and copious amounts of note-taking. We met the heads of a few villages, learned about how they harvest rattan, what is and is not working, what they need. We also learned a lot about another nut 'uoi'. It is available only once every 3-4 years and is worth a lot more money than things like rattan or crops like maize and rice. It makes sense now because at our last field visit one of the groups was busy collecting this and did not make it to our meeting. It seems like it does not react well to water (from a sales perspective), the collection period is short (June-July), while shaking the tree for is a good way to get it, a lot of time the tree is rather tall and cut down to get larger quantities. It seems to need shade in its younger days and then provides canopy cover. I know a lot about it, I saw it, I believe it helps with back pain, but I don't know how to spell it correctly. It is interesting because we went out to find more about rattan and instead we are back with a lot of information about 'uoi'. It seems like no training sessions, health camps etc are well-attended in this season because everyone is out to gather as much of it as they can. It makes complete sense. As one of the groups told us, rattan gatherers are among the poorest in their communities. Selling 'uoi' helps make a large amount of money but it is only once every few years. The day ended with a downpour that made the weather lovely. We then found a new local restaurant that was really nice. It had a picture of Che Guevera and I have to say this was one of the dinners I enjoyed the most, because we nerded out on discussions centering around race, discrimination, policies and more. I recognize that this is all talk and we don't necessarily achieve anything by only talking but I think it is a good platform to form my own ideas as I go along.

Coke in a bowl. First time for everything.

Say hullo to this super nice place in
Nam Giang

Look at the fancy lady and
the not so fancy man.

Figuring out rattan

A month ago I had never heard the word rattan. Now I am spending my days figuring out how rattan grows, how its value chain operates, how can it be harvested sustainably and provide a source of livelihood to communities for our second project (in addition to the project about identifying community readiness for Payments for Ecosystem Services).

Rattan products at a shop

Rattan is one of the most commercially valuable Non Timber Forest Products. It is a "climbing spiny plant belonging to the palm family". It grows in tropical parts of Asia, Africa and Australia and while efforts have been made to classify and list different species, it doesn't seem like the work is quite complete yet. There are over 600 species of rattan that have been currently identified. Some of these are edible as well. While we saw acacia and rubber trees during our visit to Nam Dong, we didn't manage to see places where rattan is cultivated.

Rattan has several uses including for making furniture, baskets and decorative items. The rattan industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years and this has been accompanied by over-harvesting, exploitation and subsequent yield decline. Many of the countries where rattan grows have tried to set harvesting quotas on rattan. But since information on growth and yield is limited, these quotas are often ineffective.

Sustainable harvesting of rattan would involve identifying annual growth patterns, determining how much can be harvested annually without over-exploiting rattan, having a supportive legislative and policy framework, and having buy-in from the communities, the intermediaries, the non-profit organizations, and buyers.

Rattan falls within the larger category of Non Timber Forest Products and of course the larger problem of sustainably harvesting these. But unlike other products such as bamboo, less information is available about rattan.

If you'd like read more and learn about this spiny plant, check out the WWF page. I will keep posting more as I learn more!

The one where I ask a lot of questions!

This is a post full of questions. Serious questions. So everybody who is reading and has something to share, please do answer (here, email, social media, whatever is your preferred mode of communication :))

1. I am looking for resources about Community Forestry Enterprises, Non Timber Forest Products, sustainable harvesting and livelihoods and to talk to folks. If you know people who have worked in this area, especially South East Asia, and can help me connect, that would be great!
2. I am looking for Indo-German collaborations (organizations/initiatives/non-profit/private/government) that work in the area of education (higher education, internationalization of education), community and youth development, gender focused work. Any names spring to mind?
3. Ideas and suggestions on how a one month period in the winter (mid December to January) can be used best - I mean ideas on volunteer work, one-month internships etc. I don't want to be in Minnesota during winter break this year and am not sure I can do a month-long vacation. So it would be nice to be working or being useful in some way. Any ideas?
4. Project ideas: The Humphrey School has sent out a Request for Proposal for capstone projects for Spring 2015: essentially they are seeking proposals from organizations that want students to work on a sort of consulting project for a specific area around development, social or policy areas. Essentially this is a free project for the organization and a chance for students to gain some experience. More details of the project and timelines are at the following link: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/gpa/globalnotes/2014/04/humphrey-school-global-policy.php. Any ideas on interesting organizations and projects I could connect with?

Putting the field back in the field experience

We started with our field work in Nam Dong, about two hours from Hue city. Needless to say, it has been an exciting and adventurous few days. We left on Monday early in the morning - it takes anywhere between 1 - 2 hours to get there. Some highlights from our trip included: 

1. The motorbike rides to reach different communities - the landscape was mountainous, green and lovely.

2. By standing at the local post office and looking mournful and not understanding the language and pretending to not understand that they did not give prints to people, Megan and I managed to get prints of our updated surveys. The staff person then showed us out and shut the door. Politely but firmly. But it worked!

3. A LOT was lost in translation and a lot of our information is still in Vietnamese. Our poor translators, they were so helpful and their work is still not done.

4. Meagan from the bathroom: "There is a feather here" (in addition to lizard poop and other live and dead creatures). Me: "Be glad it is not attached to something." (okay so this may not be a highlight but it makes me laugh)

5. Our activity charts fell a lot (we need better quality tape next time and a better plan!)

6. Nam Dong seems to get a lot of sudden and intense downpours. Also lightning. It was really cool in the evenings and really nice!

7. Everybody knows I am Indian (by my eyes apparently :)) and at one community there was definitely some good-natured teasing and flirting.

If you have the patience and inclination for more (and pictures!), here's a quick summary of each of our days.

Preparing for our field work next week

Working breakfast during our meeting 
to finalize the survey

Most of this week and today has been spent preparing for our field visits next week. As of now the idea is to meet with officials from three departments that work in the area of forestry and meet with 12 groups in different villages. How much of this will convert into reality will only be known next week. The planning for this trip has been fairly fluid, in terms of dates, people going with us, the groups we are meeting etc etc. We have prepared our questionnaires and surveys and have gone through three rounds of reviews.