Wayanad, The Closest Thing to Iowa

Some people come to India and stay in resorts, and some people take open air jeeps up into the mountains to interview Adivasis and farmers. Luckily I’m part of the latter group. I had absolutely no idea what our visit to Wayanad would entail but it was much different from what I expected. The place we stayed at, RASTA, interested me from the very beginning because of all the sustainable work they do with local farmers. Wayanad is a primarily agricultural and rural area. Even though it was so different from home (no palm trees in Iowa) I felt extremely comfortable there and it was the closest to Iowa you would ever find in India.

Even though I felt comfortable I was still very nervous about going to our interviews with the Adivasis. I was afraid I’d ask something offensive or inappropriate, or the topic I was asking questions about wouldn’t matter to them at all. Bryan, my partner, and I were making a documentary about food insecurity in the Adivasi community. This was something neither of us knew much about or cared about at the beginning. That all changed when we met with the first Adivasi community. When I spoke with a group of men from this community I realized how passionate these people were about their culture and the problems they faced.

The Adivasis in Wayanad primarily lived in the forest, but when the government tore down the natural trees and replaced them with trees that produced more pulp the Adivasis lost their food source and natural habitat. They didn’t live like the rest of us, they didn’t own land, they didn’t have jobs. Everything they needed was in the forest. Now they eat rice once or twice a day and the increasing exposure to chemicals and pesticides is difficult for them to adapt to. There are several new diseases showing up in the Adivasi community, including cancer and sickle cell anemia. One boy we met was eight years old but he looked like he was four.

We took this jeeps part of the way into the forest, but after a while they could go no further and we had to walk for ten to twenty minutes on rocky, hilly terrain. It was fun for us, but I can’t imagine having to walk through those forests when I was sick to get to the hospital. The people in the forest would need to walk three times as far as we did just to get to town, then continue walking to get to a hospital.

I loved speaking with these people because it was less like an interview than a conversation. They were all very open and honest about their struggles and had several questions about what home was like for us in Iowa. The strangest thing for me is that communities like these exist. There are people living in huts in the forest. It’s easy to ignore when you’re living in the United States and everyone has already been integrated into the mainstream, but these people are just now being integrated into the mainstream.

The saddest thing for me is that this culture is slowly going away. The last parts of the world that have been “untouched” by modernity are now being pushed into the mainstream. All of this knowledge about how to live healthfully and naturally is disappearing as we continue to consume our processed food and gasoline.

Going to Wayanad has forever changed me. I might not have seen very many tourist destinations during my time in India, but the experience I had is worth so much more. I can’t wait to see how everything I learned will change my lifestyle when I get back to Iowa.