25 questions

 This coming May my husband and I are planning on going to Bylakuppe, a little town in southern India for a field study. Although his plans are pretty set in stone, I have yet to confirm my exact plans. Thusfar, I have become interested in agriculture and farming in India. The town that we are going to is a Tibetan Refugee settlement so I would like to base my study on how they learned to farm on India's soil, what kind of problems they have confronted as far as pesticides, and how they have learned to manage the summer monsoon rains. To further extend my study I will look at natural medicine in the home. These are a few questions that I have about India, Tibet, and the people there:


1. What grows in India during the summer months?
2. How does irrigation work?
3. What fungus and bugs are a problem?
4. What pesticides are used?
5. Do most Tibetans do their own farming?
6. How common is organic farming?
7. Is farming ran by Tibetan families or their "Help"?
8. Where does Bylakuppe's water source come from?
9. Who do their crops go to?
10. Where did the Tibetans learn how to work on India's soil?
11. Does the future generation show interest in continuing to farm?
12. How do the Tibetans feel about working somebody else's soil?
13. What kinds of medicines do the refugees tend to use in their home? Natural vs. allopathic?
14. What are some remedies for common ailments (headaches, upset stomach, etc.)?
15. What is the Tibetan conception of death like?
16. How are major ailments dealt with, generally? Acceptation, leaving the camp for a major hospital, etc.?
17. Do people often grow their own medicines?
18. Is it common to go and see doctors?
19. What does the typical Tibetan refugee diet consist of?
20. Do the refugees import things from Tibet for a "taste of home?"
21. I read a paper about substances in the soil producing various skin ailments in northern India. Is this type of thing common in Bylakuppe?
22. What is the quality of the soil in Bylakuppe?
23. How do farmers maintain nutrition in the soil?
24. Is farming mostly done by men, or do women and children also farm?
25. What is the quality of the available water sources?
26. How open are family members about their illnesses? Is it a source of shame, or a fact of life?
27. Are health issues common topics of conversation ("how have your bowel movements been lately" is not an uncommon question in some places!)