Sometimes It's the Huge and Vicious Things That Count

We have worked hard here in Megalopoland to teach Grasshopper how to be a smart, green little baby. She shares, so long as she gets something she wants at the same time somebody else does. Her drinks have never been tained by the taste of old plastic. Her butt has rarely been covered in poo, her hair has never been covered in sodium laurel sulfates. She has eaten cherry tomatoes from our own organic garden, she has learned to love molasses (thanks Amit) and is a pretty good little green baby. We thought we were teaching her to make intelligent, thoughtful choices that would guide her through life. But as we exited the plane in Missoula, and headed towards the stairs we passed this seven or eight foot tall Grizzly:



Grasshopper saw it, ran towards it full tilt, squealing, "Doggy, doggy, doggy!" and then hugged the bear's giant glass cage.



Thus proving that sometimes it isn't the little things that count. Sometimes it's the very, very, big, and vicious things.



Sadly, or perhaps luckily with Grasshopper's track record, we didn't see a live bear or moose, though we saw tracks. We saw Rock Creek freezing over, and deer, and this crazy bird that only comes to Rock Creek in the winter. It dives into the freezing water and digs for crazy, cold-loving insects. In the photo above Grasshopper is proving that so long as you have a daddy's chest nearby, it is possible to take a snooze sub-zero land.

Material Differences

During our trip to India, I tried to pay attention to the material conditions that my family there live in and the way they choose to consume. Last year, the state of Gujarat, where my family is from, grew at a 10 percent rate. That is equivalent to China’s growth rate.

So the material conditions and choices I want to describe are those of middle-class Indians in one of India’s most prosperous states. The very poor in India consume a fraction of the resources used by people in the US, but what about the rising middle-class? Is the Indian middle-class copying American behavior? For example, George W. Bush defended his decision not to sign the Kyoto agreement by saying, "Kyoto would have wrecked our economy. I couldn't in good faith have signed Kyoto," and claimed that the treaty didn't require other "big polluters" such as India and China to cut emissions. Indians were quick to point out that pollution rates per capita for India are extremely low. But even environmentalists in the US shake their heads and lament the thousands of new cars on the roads in Asia canceling out the virtues of those who buy hybrids in America.

What I saw was that the middle-class in India go to great lengths to conserve energy and resources. We ought to consider carefully how middle-class Indians live and actually compare, in a detailed way, their lifestyles with those of people in the US before we come to conclusions about what respective initiatives are needed by each nation. I wrote out a list of sustainable practices and design choices that I noticed in the homes I visited in Gujarat:

Multiple overhead fans strategically placed over seating areas that rotate at extremely fast speeds

Window air-conditioning units in specific rooms that are kept closed when the unit is in use, so that people gather in an air-conditioned part of the house rather than air-condition the entire home

Easy to open shutters that let breezes in

Marble or tile flooring that stays cool in the heat

Reupholstering of old furniture rather than purchasing new

Lines strung in the balcony for drying clothes

Long rows of switches that can turn off each light, appliance, plug, or electrical device so that nothing is left running on standby

Western-style, sit-down toilets with a knob that controls water coming from the pipes so you can flush using just the right amount of water rather than always having to empty the entire tank.

Bidets rather than toilet paper, so less trees cut and less water required to flush

Solar water heaters or small, gas water heaters that make hot bathing water on demand rather than the huge contraptions we have in the US that keep a big tank of water hot all day and night

Buckets in the bathroom for “dhol” baths

Rooftops that collect rainwater and channel it into wells, which prevents flooding, replenishes aquifers, and averts salination in seaside areas

Pressure cookers with stacked containers inside of them, which make the most of the energy used by their gas stoves

Wall-mounted water purifiers rather than bottled water

Numerous stainless steel canisters for efficient storage of dry snacks, lentils, grains, and rice instead of disposable containers

Scooters for small commutes and running errands

My relatives in India live in comfort. They have refrigerators, air-conditioning, washing machines, microwaves, gas stoves, hot water for baths, good drinking water, well-appointed living spaces, and their own transportation. And yet, they use a fraction of the resources that people in the US do. (My cousin said he would share his utility bills with me so I can back up my claim with some numbers in the near future.) When middle-class Indians – the so-called biggest polluters according to Bush – have gone to such efforts, how can we in the US demand “equal” commitments to reductions in emissions. The burden is on those of us in United States and Europe.

Car Seats in Asia?

Before we went to Thailand and India, we made an appointment with a specialist in pediatric travel medicine at the children’s hospital. After a long wait, the doctor told us that BabyG didn’t need any shots or extra vaccinations beyond what she already had, but then the doctor read off a long list of precautions we should take:

*Dress the baby in long sleeves and pants
*Apply insect repellent on all exposed skin daily
*Apply permethrin to the baby’s clothes (another kind of insect repellent)
*Avoid rural areas and contact with animals
*Give the baby mefloquine to prevent malaria (based on BabyG’s weight, she recommended a quarter of the regular tablet)
*Use a car seat.

“The number one cause of child mortality in foreign countries is motor vehicle crashes,” she said.

The bill for talking to this specialist, even though she didn’t give BabyG any medicines, was over one hundred dollars. I remember thinking, we better heed her advice since it cost us so much. MaGreen bought Ultrathon insect repellent, which worked very well. We soaked the clothes in permethrin instead of spraying it on, since it repels insects longer that way. The house started to reek of poison while we did this, so we shifted the operation outside. Apparently, once the permethrin has bonded to the fibers in the clothing, it is not known to be toxic to humans. We even packed a mosquito net.

But a car seat? How could we carry BabyG’s huge Britax car seat around Asia? In my previous trips to India, I had never seen anyone use a car seat. Even my brother and sister-in-law, who are very safety conscious doctors, didn’t use one with their son while in Asia. But the doctor’s words rang in our ears. Number one cause of child mortality. After all of our preparations and expenses, what kind of parents would we be if BabyG got hurt because we didn’t put her in a car seat? People wanted to take Britney Spears’ kid away from her because she got caught by the paparazzi not using one. So we bought a $40 portable car seat off the web. The user reviews were mixed, but the manufacturer said it could fit into backpacks and weighed less than 4 pounds.

In Thailand, none of the taxis we encountered had seat belts in the back seat. They seemed to have been cut out. The tuk-tuks, which are like rikshaws, were built without seat belts. And sometimes tuk-tuks were the only mode of transport available. When we went to Khao Yai National Park, we specially arranged in advance for a taxi that did have seat belts. After a long and difficult instillation, we managed to get BabyG in the car seat on the way there. But on the way back, she absolutely refused to sit in it.

In India, my cousin’s van was also built without seatbelts and by that time we were resigned to holding BabyG in our lap or letting her sit on the floor. According to one of my uncles, fatalities from crashes in India happen for completely different reasons than they do in the US.

Most of the time, in India, motor vehicles are rarely driving over twenty-five miles per hour, so collisions between small vehicles at high speeds, where a seat belt would really help, don’t happen frequently, he said. Sometimes cars get trapped between large trucks on the two-lane roads, he added, and then a seatbelt will help no one.

As you can imagine, I didn’t find this analysis very reassuring! And yet, we all survived – praise the Green Goddesses -- and BabyG enjoyed the break from car seats as you can see in the pictures. (When we passed cows on the road, she mooed with glee.)

Travelling with Cloth Diapers

At eighteen months, BabyG was, for the most part, potty trained. She consistently told us when she needed to go to the bathroom by saying pee pee, making the pssss sound, picking up her little potty, or grunting while squatting. She would try to take her diaper off and sit on the potty without assistance, but we usually needed to help her out. When she was done, she stood up, tried to pick up the potty, and walked it over to the toilet, but I helped out because I didn't want any spillage. We thought that maybe we wouldn't even need to take diapers when travelling to India and Thailand, but BabyG did occasionally wet a diaper (but always did #2 in the potty).

It was, of course, really difficult for BabyG and MaGreen on the fourteen hour plane trip from the US to Asia. During the first half of the flight, BabyG went through all of the diapers in the handbag and MaGreen used the maxipads from the airplane lavatory to line the diaper cover. BabyG seemed to sense the diaper situation at that point and during the second half of the flight she actually used the airplane toilet with her mommy's help.

When MaGreen and BabyG walked out of the airport terminal in Bangkok, both had this look on their faces, like they were trying their hardest not to cry. When BabyG got sight of me, she did start to cry. Not a full throttle, but bewildered and weak. We gave the diapers to the hotel laundry service and they charged $1.50 per diaper! So when BabyG wet a few diapers over the next couple of days while sightseeing in Bangkok, I promptly soaked them in the sink before they started to stink and tried to dry them in the window. They didn't dry well in the window so MaGreen found a spot on the roof near the hotel's solar water heaters.

During the flight to India, BabyG wet a few more diapers and we decided to wash the whole batch in my aunt's washing machine. Until recently, none of my family members in India had washing machines. They don't have dryers. All the lines strung in the balcony and all the bars across the windows were hung with our laundry.



I like the picture above. There are BabyG's diapers, slowly drying despite the monsoon rains. It rained for three straight days when we arrived. It's so cloudy, the energy-sipping, tube light seems brighter than the natural light. My cousin's wife is there quietly arranging things. She has a degree in statistics. She says that it's difficult to find part-time work in India and concentrates on raising two children and running the household, which she does very gracefully. As we toured the state of Gujarat, I noticed the laundry hanging from all the homes, nearly every balcony festooned, some with saris billowing out. BabyG returned to her Elimination Communication ways and it was over a week before we needed the diapers washed again. We were staying at a house where a young maid did the wash by hand and I saw her make a face at the diapers but she washed them.

So we travelled to the other side of the planet using cloth diapers. In case you were wondering, it can be done. It wasn't especially hard. I washed them myself by hand, sometimes we had access to a washing machine, and other times a professional washer woman did the work. And they dried, even during the monsoon. I feel good about not leaving a trail of soiled plastic across Asia.

How the Sun Shines on the Soda Men

Two young male workers unload bottles from a Coca Cola delivery truck in Bangkok. Their shirts are a brighter red than the truck. The taller one is broad-shouldered and the veins of his forearms are thick. The shorter one has a Buddhist amulet around his neck. They are proud. They step out of the shade and pose for me in the full sunlight. They stare at the camera, but just underneath their serious looks are smirks. I want the picture to document how they collect used glass bottles while delivering full ones ready for consumption. In Thailand, as in India, soda bottles almost never go into the garbage. They are not melted down or remade. They go back to the bottling plant and are used again in their original form. You must drink your Cokes where you buy them. No sipping while strolling down the streets. No casual toss and clink of bottle against bottle in the garbage bin. I want the picture to be about recycling in Asia, but the picture is about something else. It is about Thai men who want the world to see how vital they are. I think they want their country to be seen shining, attractive, and modern.

Khao Yai National Park

We are back from our trip to Thailand and India. I had hoped to blog while travelling, but that didn't work out. We didn't have regular internet access. So what we are going to do is publish posts about different different parts of the trip over the next few weeks interspersed with non-trip posts.

Once MaGreen and BabyG joined me in Bangkok, we had time for a daytrip out of the city. We decided to go to the Khao Yai National Park. It is in the mountains about three hours from Bangkok. We hired a taxi with seatbelts to take us there and back. The waterfall we saw was the most amazing part of the trip.



The trail was about one mile long followed by two hundred steep steps to the base of the waterfall.



The park is the home of wild elephants. We saw plenty of elephant excrement but no actual wild elephants. We saw other wild animals including this buck and several monkeys.



BabyG enjoyed herself. We let her stick her head out the window as we drove slowly down the nearly empty park roads.

We are all in Thailand

On Sunday, MaGreen and BabyG made it to Thailand after a harrowing journey. They were not stranded in Atlanta for three days like I was, but BabyG had a very difficult time after the first seven hours of the fourteen hour flight to Seoul. MaGreen said that she cried for the last half briefly stopping to breastfeed. She would swallow the benedryl MaGreen brought and without a dropper, MaGreen could not force it down. Delta, apparently, was not terribly child friendly. The Incheon (Seoul) Airport had a play room which BabyG enjoyed. It even had a little trampoline that she tried out. The last leg of journey, via Korean Airlines from Seoul to Bangkok, went more smoothly. The stewardesses gave BabyG a wonderful book with “magic” reusable stickers of people from all around the world. Nonetheless, when MaGreen and BabyG emerged from immigration and customs at the Bangkok airport, they looked exhausted. I was waiting there for them. BabyG was quiet and had this look on her face that I had never seen before. As soon as she saw me, she started to cry, not loudly, but very plaintively. We took a metered cab to our hotel, the Bhiman Inn, and after an hour more of crying, BabyG, MaGreen, and I finally got some sleep.

Monday, we took the ferry down the Chao Phraya river to the Royal Palace and the temple housing the Emerald Buddha. The lady managing the boat really packed us foreign tourists into that boat. It was hot, but once we made it inside the compound we rehydrated. The temple was extraordinary. We were amazed by the littler details, like the golden bird lamps, the roofing, and the statues of sentries outside the entries of the buildings. In the afternoon, MaGreen and our friend Monica, who is traveling with us, got a traditional Thai massage at the massage school inside a nearby temple. BabyG and I went back to the hotel and reconnected. We read books, tickled each other, and crawled around the bed. MaGreen and BabyG skipped dinner and went straight to bed.



Tuesday, MaGreen was sick. She seems to have had a flu that peaked around noon and by the evening had nearly resolved. Monica, BabyG, and I visited some local markets in Baglamphu and Chinatown. Lots of plastic trinkets and lots of people. In the evening, we ate at the Oriental Hotel along the riverside. Many writers have staid at the hotel including Joseph Conrad, but I would say the rates these days, $300 to $500, are high for most writers.



Today, Wednesday, we started the day with our routine visit to the park down the street. In the early mornings, people do all kinds of exercise which seem to be derived from Thai and Chinese Buddhist traditions. We are going to take it easy and prepare for our planned trip to the Khao Yai National Park tomorrow.

I don’t usually write this kind of diary sort of entry but I just wanted to give everyone a quick update.

Green Parenting Goes to Asia

Pretty soon the whole family will be travelling to India via a brief stay in Bangkok. I left today. MaGreen and BabyG will be leaving next week. I took all the family stuff packed up in my bags so MaGreen won't have to lug around much more than our 18 month year old progeny and her entourage of snacks and toys.

MaGreen thought the trip itself would go pretty well because the preparations have been vein-poppingly stressful. Passports that don't arrive. Supply orders that don't go through. Ungainly sized visa lines. Travel doctors priced for mightier Maharajas than we. Now I'm stuck in Atlanta because my flight got cancelled. Apparently, a volcano erupted in Russia and the plane would not have had enough fuel to fly around it.

If the whole experience is to balance out, Laws of balance ought to come out on our side once we're overseas.