Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

Fifty yards in, and you've lost the sense of where the forest edge lies - unless you've thought to station a companion!

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The jungle is absolutely still.

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The silence eventually becomes unnerving.

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You realize that anything could be watching, and even the largest of animals would be hard to spot if still.

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[Flex Mentallo]

The vines are everywhere, in some places weighing down the very tops of tall trees.

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And yet there are villages in the heart of the forest and along its edges.

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Here the tea pickers live in the most primitive conditions, and Sonali and her team work to support them as best they can.

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Even a basic understanding of sanitation needs to be taught.

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While Purnabha did his best to guide the NGO worker living with the villagers, I did my best to document living conditions.

[Flex Mentallo]

These are among the poorest people I've encountered in forty years of travels in India, with the exception of homeless people, who themselves are often villagers driven from the land by hunger in search of better opportunities in the cities which, sadly, all too often they come to realize, are non-existent.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Flex Mentallo

[Flex Mentallo]

Their diet consists mainly of leafy vegetables, and very little protein. The children show clear signs of malnutrition, as do many of the adults.

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The villagers were mostly wary of outsiders. I didnt think to ask, but it is a reasonable surmise that I am the first foreigner to visit there.

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[Flex Mentallo]

Emotive pictures of village children are all very well.

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Bu the awful fact is that girls and boys are regularly abducted and sold to brothels as far away as New Delhi.

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[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

Even for them, the heat and humidity of the season are hard to endure. These girls are heading out to a bridge over a broad river bed where cooling breezes offer some relief, and they can chat amongst themselves. But outside the village is precisely where they are most at risk of abduction from traffickers who pull them into cars and are typically outside the district before any response can be mounted.

[Flex Mentallo]

It alters your perspective, doesn't it, such knowledge? There is a recent case of two innocent tourists who got lost in the cloud forests of Assam and were mistaken for traffickers known to be operating there. The hapless tourists were set upon by angry villagers and killed.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Flex Mentallo