After breakfast the next morning, we loaded back into the jeeps to visit some small sacred shrines (a total of 480 in BRT) at a few trees and lakes, and an interesting megalithic burial site, dating from around 800 A.D. Then off to the school. The school was the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra school adjacent to our (boys) guest houses. After a strange interaction with some American college students from Pennsylvania working here (everybody seemed uneasy and on-edge and lost their smiles, I'm not sure why), we spoke with some school administrators who took us to a grand hall showing off the many awards the school had won as a top of the line tribal school.

We then moved to a classroom where we stood in front of 35 or so 16 year olds, all in what they call 10th Standard, and had a very nice Q&A dialog with the students, exchanging comments on food, sports, occupations, school systems, impressions, etc. We managed to get out of there without singing anything, probably for the benefit of everyone. Before we left the area, we stopped in a small manufacturing center next to the school. Siddapa has started a honey extracting initiative with the Soliga people as a sustainable NTFP. Here we saw a bit of the machinery used to process the honey (which we'd been devouring with every meal). We took a shortcut through the community and walked back to the field site.

After lunch we got a quick ride back to our dorms to change as needed for a more casual, cultural evening, including a visit to an important temple. When we returned the girls came out dressed in beautiful Indian attire. We felt significantly under-dressed as we paled in comparison. Before the temple, we took a quick trip to a second honey production site, this time run by a group of about ten self-help women. Then to a beautiful sacred temple high on a hill where Siddapa made us feel like VIPs, getting us into some sacred sections. Truly a moving experience. We stopped on our way back at another shop surrounded by coffee plants and had some local coffee. There were also tall, thin black pepper plants around the building. It was this that Colombus had been seeking when he left Spain, only to be disappointed by its absence in America. We took a lengthy ride in the van for wildlife and saw quite a few chital, sambar, and gaur.

Upon our return to the field site, we had a delicious dinner that included some chicken! We piled into the office to listen to a PhD student, Samira give a talk on her research with racket-tailed drongos in the area and their elaborate mimicking abilities. Next Siddapa gave a few brief presentations on BRT and his work there with ATREE. Another long day as we draw nearer to the halfway point of this program. I'm liking BRT...

~Living like a tribal...,

- David