Nagapattinam

Halloooo

I have been a busy worker! Oh yes. I am fine and dandy now so have been reccying away! The area is nothing like I thought it would be and so the journey and travails (moving blinkin' rooms every day, struggling with limited tamil but utilising my new fantastic head wobble which solves all ills, and DB having Actual Flu, not just man-flu) are entirely worth it. I have a stack of photos and thoughts to be written and analysed later this evening and so, for the moment, am out of trouble.

Phew!

Nagappatinam is where the tsunami struck hardest and it is eerie being here and seeing the destruction, the new houses, the aid signs... I have read about it and thought about it for two whole years, and now I am here. In a curious way it is like being on some kindof film set - just because you are told so clearly what to expect and then, it is there! just like the pictures! It was horrible having to go round taking photos of everything, I felt like such a disaster tourist. DB followed me around with a notepad though to give us an 'official' air... He was great actually, he was my research assistant. He would get the rickshaw to stop so he could jump out and take photos. At one stage I actually had to ask him to calm down a bit, because he was hanging out of the rickshaw with the camera thrust out at the end of his fully extended arm, pointing toward a group of confused Tamil ladies and children who happened to be washing clothes in the way of his shot of a (their) house. Bless.

Other than that I have not much to report. Or, more likely, too much! I had a crisis of confidence this morning but it has gone now I have seen 'something'. The interesting thing about fieldwork is that you see stuff, but don't really know what it means until that evening when you sit and think about it... The region down this way is beautiful, green, clean and calming. Just lovely. And we are quite the white anomoly which makes me feel very happy indeed. (And usually a bit scared until I have found my bearings! There is nothing I hate more than walking into a new town with my enormous backpack on, I feel like *such* an idiot tourist.) Being a woman down here is very different I am noticing - I have taken to wearing a faux wedding ring because here we are either man and wife, or brother and sister... There is no other option. Here, I also get completely ignored in favour of DB. He is always given the menu in restaurants and is expected to order for both of us (!!), and today a young man came with our bill for our kaapi and when I took out a note to give to him he gave DB a dirty look. DB said he felt very small and unmanly, and was the clear victim of a horrible chauvenism. And no one says goodbye to me, they say goodbye to DB. It is odd, odd, odd. So I am glad I have him around to help me or this work would be *so* much harder - and it is hard as it is. from being here I know that I will need to be introduced to the area, and have some kind of 'cover' - working here independently like I will be in Site One will not work at allllllll. So I shall get on that asap, yarse.

Tomorrow I think we are staying here for another day... or maybe we will go up north to another area. There is not much I need to do here now, I have seen what I need to see, though a more few walks around couldn't do any harm. Problem is that it is republic day on Monday so a BIG national day. I am scared about being out of accomodation and travelling might be a nightmare- Indians love to travel!

We shall see..................................................... Watch this space!

x J