Assam with a flood of information

Exploring Northeast India - Looking for Floods

The first stop is Lilabari, via an aging Air India plane into the heat and humidity of Assam.

Hotel Maple Leaf in Lakhimpur had an eccentric collection of British memorabilia such as royal photo plates mounted on the wall.

On the way to our first village, we stopped at a local bazaar - an interesting insight into what things people buy in the countryside - chicken in a basket.....
Slimy eels from an old aluminum pot, plus fresh palm jaggery in large blocks, sweet jellabi, chilies...


Selling spices and fried sweets

Women carried non-stop loads of firewood for cooking. Hard to say where it came from since there were very few trees nearby.

Everyone was fishing in the flooded areas next to paddy fields and streams. One man posed for a photo as we crossed a small flooded area to reach the village. He carried a net and a small basket to put the fish into.
The Mishing community greeted us warmly. Our purpose was to see how well their flood early warning system had worked for them.
Inside one of their elevated bamboo homes, it was surprising how sparse their belongings were. The possibility of escaping from floods makes it impossible to keep material things.


The weaving done by village women is intricate with bold colors embroidered into the fabric. This loom is safe because it was at the house where the early warning system is located. They will know first that a flood is coming.
An interesting explanation of how the system works was given in the water at the flood device and where the alarm is located. A young village woman keeps the system in her home. With a few phone calls she has the decisive power to contact everyone in her village, all the villages downstream and army rescue operations.

We left after a good lunch and wonderful hospitality, crossing the same flood area where women were still bringing in firewood.



Day 2
On to Migration issues and how village women manage their finances.
In a Muslim village, the women were making a living with fish farms and poultry. Many had husbands working in south India near Kerala or even the middle east.
Some had lost paddy land to floods and had to depend on fish farms. They had the same flood issues as the tribal Mishing community. However, their houses were not on stilts because the Tribals use that type of construction.
Their main rice variety was more tolerant of floods. Still they loose land with every flood.

One enterprising woman turned to chicken farming - putting the chicken unit over the fish farm so that the droppings went into the water.
Women came to the finance meeting from all the communities. All had spouses working away from home. They were interested in banking their savings and starting businesses. Most were successful at saving money and liked to visit the bank to deposit the rupees they saved.
The team of women that help the community were important as financial counselors and helped the women make "go bags" that they can grab during a flood. It contained food, water purifying tablets, spare clothes, and important documents.

A meal or a feast was prepared for us with 21 different types of Assamese dishes - it was delicious. Sharing a meal with all the people was a nice ending to our visit.