April 11, Frankfurt Airport
I’m sitting here alone in the Frankfurt airport waiting for my flight to Chicago and it’s finally occuring to me that this is over. When I decided to take this trip, two months seemed like such a long time, but it has passed in the blink of an eye. When I boarded the plane in Bangalore this morning it was as if I had just arrived. I’m feeling a lot of different emotions; sadness that my time in India is gone, gratitude for all I’ve experienced and learned, longing for the places and people I so desperately miss – on both sides of the ocean, anticipation of the great unknown that lies at the end of this journey, excitement at the thought of seeing all of my family, friends and collegues; but mostly a nagging worry that they way I feel right now is fleeting. I’ve gained so much through this adventure and come to a lot of profound and not-so-profound realizations and I don’t want them to be erased by the mundane, day-to-day things that make up my normal life. I hope I can hold onto the sense of wonder I feel; to the openess and fullness of my heart; to the deep appreciation I’ve come to have for this earth. I know that these experiences are mine always and no one can take them away from me, but it is natural for life to slowly slough away the newness and tangibility of what right now seems to be my whole world.
I pray that I remember. I want to remember the feeling of Yesashwini taking my hand and telling me how much she will miss me. I want to remember the wind rushing through my hair as I gaze out onto the Indian countryside whooshing by out the window of an early morning train. I want to remember how exhilarating it is to have a monkey take a banana out of my hand and to watch him eat it. I want to remember how proud I felt, watching my students brilliantly perform something we created together. I want to remember the feel of the Indian Ocean washing over me as I lay in the sand, looking up at the clear blue sky. I want to remember the feeling of peace and anticipation I had every day when I started up the path to begin my day at Shanti Bhavan. I want to remember the joy it brought me to sing with and for the students. I want to remember how much we laughed, trying to fit eight people – new friends – into a tiny rickshaw for a ride through the crazy, death-defying streets. I want to remember the feeling of being crushed uder the weight of twenty-five children, all trying their hardest to hug and kiss me and give me their love. I want to remember how amazing it was to find something as simple as a hot shower or a comfortable mattress. I want to remember how little we actually need in this life to be perfectly, blissfully happy; a bit of food, a safe place to sleep, a companion to share a laugh with…
I hope I remember.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Row, row, row your boat...
April 8, Chennamkary
I have two new friends and roommates! Let’s rewind a bit. As soon as I saw the porch, I threw my bags to the ground and plunked my sweaty, barely breathing butt down on a chair to catch my breath. The two girls sitting there laughed at my total state of disarray and gave me a couple of minutes to rest before introducing themselves. They are both named Julia and they were both wearing the same shirt. They are also both German medical students (what is with all the Germans?) who just completed a month long internship in Vellore and had bookended their stay there with travel. They helped me bring my bags into the house where I met Lolly, the wife of the owner of the homestay. She was very pretty, about my age, and dressed in a red muumuu. She told me her husband was asleep, but assured me there were rooms available. I didn’t want to disturb Thomas, so the Julias let me put my stuff in their room and we went out for a little walk before tea. The backwater region of Kerala is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, but I guess you can sort of equate it to Venice or the bayou in Louisiana. People live and work and farm on small, mostly man-made islands (of course they were man-made a few centuries ago, so they seem pretty natural now) that sit in the middle of winding canals and open stretches of river that lie below the level of the Arabian Sea. Inland of many of the islands are rice paddies that provide the major source or employment and revenue for the people living there. It’s a fascinating way of life and I got a small taste of it as we walked along the tiny dirt path between the houses and the water. It was late afternoon, so lots of people were out, having their afternoon bath in the river, washing clothes, and just playing. All of the children in the village came out and demanded photos of themselves and we had fun talking to them and their mothers. We had to turn around pretty soon, as teatime was approaching and I was starving. Lolly makes her chai with lots of cardamom and ginger and it is absolutely delicious. We had a few cups and some cookies and Thomas came out from his nap and introduced himself. The Lonely Planet book described him as being “erudite and helpful” and I can’t think of a better description for him. He is small and attractive with glasses and a beard. He speaks perfect English, although he seemed to have a bit of trouble understanding me sometimes – maybe I talk too fast. Side note – Kerala has a 97% literacy rate throughout the state… thank you Christian missionaries. Thomas told us later though that the increasing amount of extremely educated people is leading to a decrease in the numbers of people who want to do the essential jobs of farming, mud-digging, and other manual labor that keep the way of life in the backwaters intact. It’s an interesting social problem to have. But I digress…
While we all had tea, Thomas asked us about our plans and suggested a few activities for the evening and tomorrow. He arranged a sunset canoe trip through the canals for us and a guided walk around the island for the early morning. After we finished our chai, he gave me the key to my room and we went out to the canoe that was conveniently parked right in front of the house. The three of us were seated, rather luxuriously, I thought, in our own little wooden chairs in the canoe. We had two local men as rowers (we weren’t to pay them directly , Thomas instructed, because one of them had a drinking problem, so the money was to be given to his wife). The trip was so peaceful and beautiful. All of the huge commercial houseboats that usually fill the waterways were docked for the evening, so we had an open canal to drift around on and enjoy. The Julias and I talked and got to know each other and I knew right away that I really liked them. I have been running a little low on rupees, and this homestay is the most expensive place I will have stayed in India, and I noticed earlier that they had three beds in their room. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose, so I half-jokingly suggested that the three of us share their room and cut the price way down for all of us. They discussed in German for a few minutes and said yes! I was so relieved and I also think it will be nice to have some company at night.
After a couple of hours, we returned home for dinner. What delicious food we ate! Thomas’s mother cooks and she is really good. We had – brace yourselves – vegetable curry, but this one was rich with all kinds of veggies and not too spicy, a cucumber and tomato salad with cilantro and herbs (yummy!), and poori, which is a fried poufy bread that is indescribable. After stuffing ourselves, we took turns in the shower. While I waited for my turn, I played with Anne and Anina, the two scrumptious daughters of Thomas and Lolly. We did a little dancing, a little singing, and some hand-clap games. We had so much fun! They are just the cutest little girls, Anne is six and Anina is four. You can tell that they are used to new people because they warm up to you right away. I think we are going to be good friends… they remind me of the first graders at Shanti Bhavan. After about a half hour, Anne climbed up onto my lap and whispered “I like you.” What a darling! After that, I got into the warm shower to clean off my disgustingness and now I’m sitting here practically falling asleep. I can’t wait to see more of this captivating place tomorrow.
April 9, Chennamkary
I woke up this morning in a panic. Where is my cell phone? I remembered putting into my pocket during my trudge up to the house, but I didn’t remember seeing it after that. It was about 6:30 and we were supposed to leave on our morning walk at 7:15, so I jumped out of bed and went out to retrace my steps back to the ferry dock to see if my phone was still there. My phone is pink, with a pink and white striped case, so I knew that it would be pretty easy to find if it was lying on the path. I didn’t see it, but I did come across bunches of neighbors out at the water’s edge doing their morning bathing and washing. I guess a white girl walking around staring at the ground is a fairly conspicuous sight in such a tiny village, so, of course, they all got involved in the search. I did my best to convey that I had lost a pink mobile and they did their best to assure me that if it was located, they would bring it to Thomas’ house. I guess because of the steady stream of mostly Western guests, Thomas is something of a local celebrity and everyone knows who he is and where he lives. I gave up after a few more minutes and went back to the homestay to have my morning tea. At tea, I told Thomas of my loss and he agreed to spread the word to the rest of the village and try to start a little grassroots effort to find my phone, but he suggested that I check my bags again to make sure it wasn’t there… it was. I don’t know how I missed it, but there it was, pink and reassuring in the small pocket of my backpack. I must have put it there on my walk and forgotten about it in my exhaustion. Yay!
We began our walk around the little island and Thomas told us all about the fascinating history of the backwaters, showed us local plants, took us to the rice paddy that his family owns and farms, and basically introduced us to all a typical backwaters village has to offer. Instead of eating breakfast at his family’s home, we stopped about three-quarters of the way through our tour to eat at the home of a local family that also lets out rooms for visitors. Thomas had arranged a very nice breakfast for us – duck eggs, curry, rice pancakes, tea, and cardamom cake. It was way more than we could eat, but the food was good and the husband and wife who owned the house were very gracious. On the way back, we met one of Thomas’ friends who is a toddy tapper. I think I may have talked about toddy in my entry from Munnar, but if I didn’t, toddy is a locally made spirit that comes from palm trees. Men climb up the tree and tap one of the flower shoots (this is a very loose description of this – I’m still not totally clear on how it happens). I think this involves beating the shoot of an immature flower with some sort of bone and then somehow the sap begins to flow out of the tree through the shoot and into a jug that the toddy tapper places underneath it… The morning toddy is supposed to be the sweetest and best and then it continues to ferment throughout the day. In the morning it has about the same alcohol content as beer, and by evening it has as much as wine. I tried some of the evening toddy in Munnar and I can say with complete confidence that you have to be desperate to drink that stuff. It’s thick and has a really weird, musty smell and the taste is not much better. I thought maybe the morning toddy would be better, but I tried a little that had just been taken down from the tree and it was still barely tolerable. I guess it’s an acquired taste.
The day had gotten extremely hot and humid by the end of our walk and so we were grateful to have the chance to go home, shower, and lay down for a bit. While we were lounging, people kept coming by the house to ask Thomas if I had found my phone. He hadn’t even put the word out, but those few people I met in the morning had, and the news spread like wildfire around the small town. It was really cute and endearing, knowing that I was in a place where one person’s lost property was local news. The Julias and I had intended on watching Thomas’ mother prepare lunch, but by the time we were out of the shower, she had finished. We sat down to a feast and got to know Nikki and Lottie, two British girls who had shown up while we were gone. They weren’t traveling together – Nikki was alone and Lottie was with her sister Lucy, who was taking a nap. After lunch, I had to go in search of an ATM, as I had forgotten to do so when I was in Alleppey yesterday and had no money to pay for the hotel. Thomas arranged for a rickshaw to meet me on the other side of the river and take me to the ATM that was nearby… but this is India, so of course that’s not what actually happened. I “woo-hoo”-ed for the little commuter canoe that goes back and forth between the two riverbanks and waited for it to come. Then the operator tried to shake me down for five rupees instead of the two I knew I should be paying. I met my rickshaw driver and we set out for the ATM. The one we went to was a bank that only accepted Visa debit cards, and mine is MasterCard (I had run into this problem before). There was a State Bank a few km away, but we were informed by the security guard that it was broken… I still don’t know if this was true or if he was trying to help my auto driver earn more money, but I don’t really care. We had to go to Alleppey. The first bank we saw didn’t take MC either. Then the State Bank there was out of order. The next one worked though, thank God! I had originally planned on using the internet for a bit after my bank trip, but it had gotten so late that I told him to forget it and just take me home. It was nearing tea-time when I got back to Greempalm and I sat down for a much needed refreshment. The Julias, Nikki, Lottie and I had all arranged to go on an evening canoe trip with Michael, Thomas’ younger brother and some of his friends. It was Holy Thursday, so Thomas and his family were going to be at church for the evening. We started out with a short walk around the island (Michael wanted to avoid the church because technically he was supposed to be there attending a service). He gave us some more history of the backwaters and took us along sort of the same route we had gone with Thomas that morning. It was beautiful at sunset and as the night began to descend, we made our way to a small canal where two of Michael’s friends were waiting with the canoe. We all piled in and set off along the canals. One of the main reasons we decided to go on this canoe trip was that we had been promised that Michael and his friends would sing some traditional music for us. He told us that before everyone in the region became educated and stopped wanting to do basic, traditional jobs like mud-digging and working in the rice paddies, the women who worked in the rice fields used to sing beautiful call-and-response songs similar to the slave songs that were sung in the American South. Now that things are becoming more mechanized and less dependent on people, the songs and traditions are quickly disappearing. While it is a good thing that people are educated and more able to pursue careers in more white-collar professions, it is of particular concern to Thomas and Michael that they preserve their way of life so that it is not lost. They have asked some of the older women in the village to teach them the songs they used to sing in the fields so they can pass them down to younger generations. As we drifted along the canals, taking in the beauty of the evening light and watching the local people going about their evening activities, Michael and his two friends, who were also rowing the boat, sang the songs for us. It was incredible how completely I felt transported to another place in time. It was so peaceful. After they sang a few songs, he asked if any of us had songs to share, so Lottie and I sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and the Julias sang a German song. It was fun to feel so free and to be all singing and enjoying music together. All too soon we were back at the homestay and back to the present day. I had seen an Ayurvedic massage place down the road a bit from the house, and I decided to see if it would be possible to get a massage before dinner. I figured it was my last night in India (try not to panic) and I should take advantage of every opportunity I could. Of course, they were willing to stay open late for me, so I hurried down to their small shop and enjoyed a very oily massage from the warm, motherly wife of the Ayurvedic doctor. She was so gentle, and I was taken back to being a little kid, having my mom wash my hair and scrub me down after a bath. It was a nice sensation. After the massage, I was instructed to go to the bathroom and take a bath with the bucket of hot water they had prepared for me. I washed my hair and soaped up my body and marveled at how quickly all of these completely foreign things had become normal. I started feeling sad, knowing that tomorrow I would be getting on a plane, going back to the world of sanitized, hot showers and four dollar cups of coffee. After I finished my bath, I dressed and headed to the front of the shop to pay. The doctor told me that Thomas had called him and asked him to walk me back to the homestay. It warmed my heart to know that I had someone looking out for my safety and making sure I was taken care of. It wasn’t necessary, of course, but I accepted the walk home and had a nice conversation with both the doctor and his wife as raindrops started to fall on the path. By the time I got home and sat down at the table to eat the dinner that had been saved for me, the rain was coming down in sheets. I hadn’t seen a storm like this the whole time I was in India. I ate with Lolly and Anne sitting with me and watching. They are so sweet and funny. I really feel like they are family now. I sat up and watched the rain for a while and then reluctantly started repacking my stuff for the impending trip tomorrow. I can’t believe I have to leave.
I have two new friends and roommates! Let’s rewind a bit. As soon as I saw the porch, I threw my bags to the ground and plunked my sweaty, barely breathing butt down on a chair to catch my breath. The two girls sitting there laughed at my total state of disarray and gave me a couple of minutes to rest before introducing themselves. They are both named Julia and they were both wearing the same shirt. They are also both German medical students (what is with all the Germans?) who just completed a month long internship in Vellore and had bookended their stay there with travel. They helped me bring my bags into the house where I met Lolly, the wife of the owner of the homestay. She was very pretty, about my age, and dressed in a red muumuu. She told me her husband was asleep, but assured me there were rooms available. I didn’t want to disturb Thomas, so the Julias let me put my stuff in their room and we went out for a little walk before tea. The backwater region of Kerala is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, but I guess you can sort of equate it to Venice or the bayou in Louisiana. People live and work and farm on small, mostly man-made islands (of course they were man-made a few centuries ago, so they seem pretty natural now) that sit in the middle of winding canals and open stretches of river that lie below the level of the Arabian Sea. Inland of many of the islands are rice paddies that provide the major source or employment and revenue for the people living there. It’s a fascinating way of life and I got a small taste of it as we walked along the tiny dirt path between the houses and the water. It was late afternoon, so lots of people were out, having their afternoon bath in the river, washing clothes, and just playing. All of the children in the village came out and demanded photos of themselves and we had fun talking to them and their mothers. We had to turn around pretty soon, as teatime was approaching and I was starving. Lolly makes her chai with lots of cardamom and ginger and it is absolutely delicious. We had a few cups and some cookies and Thomas came out from his nap and introduced himself. The Lonely Planet book described him as being “erudite and helpful” and I can’t think of a better description for him. He is small and attractive with glasses and a beard. He speaks perfect English, although he seemed to have a bit of trouble understanding me sometimes – maybe I talk too fast. Side note – Kerala has a 97% literacy rate throughout the state… thank you Christian missionaries. Thomas told us later though that the increasing amount of extremely educated people is leading to a decrease in the numbers of people who want to do the essential jobs of farming, mud-digging, and other manual labor that keep the way of life in the backwaters intact. It’s an interesting social problem to have. But I digress…
While we all had tea, Thomas asked us about our plans and suggested a few activities for the evening and tomorrow. He arranged a sunset canoe trip through the canals for us and a guided walk around the island for the early morning. After we finished our chai, he gave me the key to my room and we went out to the canoe that was conveniently parked right in front of the house. The three of us were seated, rather luxuriously, I thought, in our own little wooden chairs in the canoe. We had two local men as rowers (we weren’t to pay them directly , Thomas instructed, because one of them had a drinking problem, so the money was to be given to his wife). The trip was so peaceful and beautiful. All of the huge commercial houseboats that usually fill the waterways were docked for the evening, so we had an open canal to drift around on and enjoy. The Julias and I talked and got to know each other and I knew right away that I really liked them. I have been running a little low on rupees, and this homestay is the most expensive place I will have stayed in India, and I noticed earlier that they had three beds in their room. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose, so I half-jokingly suggested that the three of us share their room and cut the price way down for all of us. They discussed in German for a few minutes and said yes! I was so relieved and I also think it will be nice to have some company at night.
After a couple of hours, we returned home for dinner. What delicious food we ate! Thomas’s mother cooks and she is really good. We had – brace yourselves – vegetable curry, but this one was rich with all kinds of veggies and not too spicy, a cucumber and tomato salad with cilantro and herbs (yummy!), and poori, which is a fried poufy bread that is indescribable. After stuffing ourselves, we took turns in the shower. While I waited for my turn, I played with Anne and Anina, the two scrumptious daughters of Thomas and Lolly. We did a little dancing, a little singing, and some hand-clap games. We had so much fun! They are just the cutest little girls, Anne is six and Anina is four. You can tell that they are used to new people because they warm up to you right away. I think we are going to be good friends… they remind me of the first graders at Shanti Bhavan. After about a half hour, Anne climbed up onto my lap and whispered “I like you.” What a darling! After that, I got into the warm shower to clean off my disgustingness and now I’m sitting here practically falling asleep. I can’t wait to see more of this captivating place tomorrow.
April 9, Chennamkary
I woke up this morning in a panic. Where is my cell phone? I remembered putting into my pocket during my trudge up to the house, but I didn’t remember seeing it after that. It was about 6:30 and we were supposed to leave on our morning walk at 7:15, so I jumped out of bed and went out to retrace my steps back to the ferry dock to see if my phone was still there. My phone is pink, with a pink and white striped case, so I knew that it would be pretty easy to find if it was lying on the path. I didn’t see it, but I did come across bunches of neighbors out at the water’s edge doing their morning bathing and washing. I guess a white girl walking around staring at the ground is a fairly conspicuous sight in such a tiny village, so, of course, they all got involved in the search. I did my best to convey that I had lost a pink mobile and they did their best to assure me that if it was located, they would bring it to Thomas’ house. I guess because of the steady stream of mostly Western guests, Thomas is something of a local celebrity and everyone knows who he is and where he lives. I gave up after a few more minutes and went back to the homestay to have my morning tea. At tea, I told Thomas of my loss and he agreed to spread the word to the rest of the village and try to start a little grassroots effort to find my phone, but he suggested that I check my bags again to make sure it wasn’t there… it was. I don’t know how I missed it, but there it was, pink and reassuring in the small pocket of my backpack. I must have put it there on my walk and forgotten about it in my exhaustion. Yay!
We began our walk around the little island and Thomas told us all about the fascinating history of the backwaters, showed us local plants, took us to the rice paddy that his family owns and farms, and basically introduced us to all a typical backwaters village has to offer. Instead of eating breakfast at his family’s home, we stopped about three-quarters of the way through our tour to eat at the home of a local family that also lets out rooms for visitors. Thomas had arranged a very nice breakfast for us – duck eggs, curry, rice pancakes, tea, and cardamom cake. It was way more than we could eat, but the food was good and the husband and wife who owned the house were very gracious. On the way back, we met one of Thomas’ friends who is a toddy tapper. I think I may have talked about toddy in my entry from Munnar, but if I didn’t, toddy is a locally made spirit that comes from palm trees. Men climb up the tree and tap one of the flower shoots (this is a very loose description of this – I’m still not totally clear on how it happens). I think this involves beating the shoot of an immature flower with some sort of bone and then somehow the sap begins to flow out of the tree through the shoot and into a jug that the toddy tapper places underneath it… The morning toddy is supposed to be the sweetest and best and then it continues to ferment throughout the day. In the morning it has about the same alcohol content as beer, and by evening it has as much as wine. I tried some of the evening toddy in Munnar and I can say with complete confidence that you have to be desperate to drink that stuff. It’s thick and has a really weird, musty smell and the taste is not much better. I thought maybe the morning toddy would be better, but I tried a little that had just been taken down from the tree and it was still barely tolerable. I guess it’s an acquired taste.
The day had gotten extremely hot and humid by the end of our walk and so we were grateful to have the chance to go home, shower, and lay down for a bit. While we were lounging, people kept coming by the house to ask Thomas if I had found my phone. He hadn’t even put the word out, but those few people I met in the morning had, and the news spread like wildfire around the small town. It was really cute and endearing, knowing that I was in a place where one person’s lost property was local news. The Julias and I had intended on watching Thomas’ mother prepare lunch, but by the time we were out of the shower, she had finished. We sat down to a feast and got to know Nikki and Lottie, two British girls who had shown up while we were gone. They weren’t traveling together – Nikki was alone and Lottie was with her sister Lucy, who was taking a nap. After lunch, I had to go in search of an ATM, as I had forgotten to do so when I was in Alleppey yesterday and had no money to pay for the hotel. Thomas arranged for a rickshaw to meet me on the other side of the river and take me to the ATM that was nearby… but this is India, so of course that’s not what actually happened. I “woo-hoo”-ed for the little commuter canoe that goes back and forth between the two riverbanks and waited for it to come. Then the operator tried to shake me down for five rupees instead of the two I knew I should be paying. I met my rickshaw driver and we set out for the ATM. The one we went to was a bank that only accepted Visa debit cards, and mine is MasterCard (I had run into this problem before). There was a State Bank a few km away, but we were informed by the security guard that it was broken… I still don’t know if this was true or if he was trying to help my auto driver earn more money, but I don’t really care. We had to go to Alleppey. The first bank we saw didn’t take MC either. Then the State Bank there was out of order. The next one worked though, thank God! I had originally planned on using the internet for a bit after my bank trip, but it had gotten so late that I told him to forget it and just take me home. It was nearing tea-time when I got back to Greempalm and I sat down for a much needed refreshment. The Julias, Nikki, Lottie and I had all arranged to go on an evening canoe trip with Michael, Thomas’ younger brother and some of his friends. It was Holy Thursday, so Thomas and his family were going to be at church for the evening. We started out with a short walk around the island (Michael wanted to avoid the church because technically he was supposed to be there attending a service). He gave us some more history of the backwaters and took us along sort of the same route we had gone with Thomas that morning. It was beautiful at sunset and as the night began to descend, we made our way to a small canal where two of Michael’s friends were waiting with the canoe. We all piled in and set off along the canals. One of the main reasons we decided to go on this canoe trip was that we had been promised that Michael and his friends would sing some traditional music for us. He told us that before everyone in the region became educated and stopped wanting to do basic, traditional jobs like mud-digging and working in the rice paddies, the women who worked in the rice fields used to sing beautiful call-and-response songs similar to the slave songs that were sung in the American South. Now that things are becoming more mechanized and less dependent on people, the songs and traditions are quickly disappearing. While it is a good thing that people are educated and more able to pursue careers in more white-collar professions, it is of particular concern to Thomas and Michael that they preserve their way of life so that it is not lost. They have asked some of the older women in the village to teach them the songs they used to sing in the fields so they can pass them down to younger generations. As we drifted along the canals, taking in the beauty of the evening light and watching the local people going about their evening activities, Michael and his two friends, who were also rowing the boat, sang the songs for us. It was incredible how completely I felt transported to another place in time. It was so peaceful. After they sang a few songs, he asked if any of us had songs to share, so Lottie and I sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and the Julias sang a German song. It was fun to feel so free and to be all singing and enjoying music together. All too soon we were back at the homestay and back to the present day. I had seen an Ayurvedic massage place down the road a bit from the house, and I decided to see if it would be possible to get a massage before dinner. I figured it was my last night in India (try not to panic) and I should take advantage of every opportunity I could. Of course, they were willing to stay open late for me, so I hurried down to their small shop and enjoyed a very oily massage from the warm, motherly wife of the Ayurvedic doctor. She was so gentle, and I was taken back to being a little kid, having my mom wash my hair and scrub me down after a bath. It was a nice sensation. After the massage, I was instructed to go to the bathroom and take a bath with the bucket of hot water they had prepared for me. I washed my hair and soaped up my body and marveled at how quickly all of these completely foreign things had become normal. I started feeling sad, knowing that tomorrow I would be getting on a plane, going back to the world of sanitized, hot showers and four dollar cups of coffee. After I finished my bath, I dressed and headed to the front of the shop to pay. The doctor told me that Thomas had called him and asked him to walk me back to the homestay. It warmed my heart to know that I had someone looking out for my safety and making sure I was taken care of. It wasn’t necessary, of course, but I accepted the walk home and had a nice conversation with both the doctor and his wife as raindrops started to fall on the path. By the time I got home and sat down at the table to eat the dinner that had been saved for me, the rain was coming down in sheets. I hadn’t seen a storm like this the whole time I was in India. I ate with Lolly and Anne sitting with me and watching. They are so sweet and funny. I really feel like they are family now. I sat up and watched the rain for a while and then reluctantly started repacking my stuff for the impending trip tomorrow. I can’t believe I have to leave.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Home is where the heart is.
April 8, Chennamkary
I have two new friends and roommates! Let’s rewind a bit. As soon as I saw the porch, I threw my bags to the ground and plunked my sweaty, barely breathing butt down on a chair to catch my breath. The two girls sitting there laughed at my total state of disarray and gave me a couple of minutes to rest before introducing themselves. They are both named Julia and they were both wearing the same shirt. They are also both German medical students (what is with all the Germans?) who just completed a month long internship in Vellore and had bookended their stay there with travel. They helped me bring my bags into the house where I met Lolly, the wife of the owner of the homestay. She was very pretty, about my age, and dressed in a red muumuu. She told me her husband was asleep, but assured me there were rooms available. I didn’t want to disturb Thomas, so the Julias let me put my stuff in their room and we went out for a little walk before tea. The backwater region of Kerala is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, but I guess you can sort of equate it to Venice or the bayou in Louisiana. People live and work and farm on small, mostly man-made islands (of course they were man-made a few centuries ago, so they seem pretty natural now) that sit in the middle of winding canals and open stretches of river that lie below the level of the Arabian Sea. Inland of many of the islands are rice paddies that provide the major source or employment and revenue for the people living there. It’s a fascinating way of life and I got a small taste of it as we walked along the tiny dirt path between the houses and the water. It was late afternoon, so lots of people were out, having their afternoon bath in the river, washing clothes, and just playing. All of the children in the village came out and demanded photos of themselves and we had fun talking to them and their mothers. We had to turn around pretty soon, as teatime was approaching and I was starving. Lolly makes her chai with lots of cardamom and ginger and it is absolutely delicious. We had a few cups and some cookies and Thomas came out from his nap and introduced himself. The Lonely Planet book described him as being “erudite and helpful” and I can’t think of a better description for him. He is small and attractive with glasses and a beard. He speaks perfect English, although he seemed to have a bit of trouble understanding me sometimes – maybe I talk too fast. Side note – Kerala has a 97% literacy rate throughout the state… thank you Christian missionaries. Thomas told us later though that the increasing amount of extremely educated people is leading to a decrease in the numbers of people who want to do the essential jobs of farming, mud-digging, and other manual labor that keep the way of life in the backwaters intact. It’s an interesting social problem to have. But I digress…
While we all had tea, Thomas asked us about our plans and suggested a few activities for the evening and tomorrow. He arranged a sunset canoe trip through the canals for us and a guided walk around the island for the early morning. After we finished our chai, he gave me the key to my room and we went out to the canoe that was conveniently parked right in front of the house. The three of us were seated, rather luxuriously, I thought, in our own little wooden chairs in the canoe. We had two local men as rowers (we weren’t to pay them directly , Thomas instructed, because one of them had a drinking problem, so the money was to be given to his wife). The trip was so peaceful and beautiful. All of the huge commercial houseboats that usually fill the waterways were docked for the evening, so we had an open canal to drift around on and enjoy. The Julias and I talked and got to know each other and I knew right away that I really liked them. I have been running a little low on rupees, and this homestay is the most expensive place I will have stayed in India, and I noticed earlier that they had three beds in their room. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose, so I half-jokingly suggested that the three of us share their room and cut the price way down for all of us. They discussed in German for a few minutes and said yes! I was so relieved and I also think it will be nice to have some company at night.
After a couple of hours, we returned home for dinner. What delicious food we ate! Thomas’s mother cooks and she is really good. We had – brace yourselves – vegetable curry, but this one was rich with all kinds of veggies and not too spicy, a cucumber and tomato salad with cilantro and herbs (yummy!), and poori, which is a fried poufy bread that is indescribable. It was so nice to feel like I was in a real home after so long of being in hotels and dorms. It was comforting to have a family around and to be really taken care of. After stuffing ourselves, we took turns in the shower. While I waited for my turn, I played with Anne and Anina, the two scrumptious daughters of Thomas and Lolly. We did a little dancing, a little singing, and some hand-clap games. We had so much fun! They are just the cutest little girls, Anne is six and Anina is four. You can tell that they are used to new people because they warm up to you right away. I think we are going to be good friends… they remind me of the first graders at Shanti Bhavan. After about a half hour, Anne climbed up onto my lap and whispered “I like you.” What a darling! After that, I got into the warm shower to clean off my disgustingness and now I’m sitting here practically falling asleep. I can’t wait to see more of this captivating place tomorrow.
I have two new friends and roommates! Let’s rewind a bit. As soon as I saw the porch, I threw my bags to the ground and plunked my sweaty, barely breathing butt down on a chair to catch my breath. The two girls sitting there laughed at my total state of disarray and gave me a couple of minutes to rest before introducing themselves. They are both named Julia and they were both wearing the same shirt. They are also both German medical students (what is with all the Germans?) who just completed a month long internship in Vellore and had bookended their stay there with travel. They helped me bring my bags into the house where I met Lolly, the wife of the owner of the homestay. She was very pretty, about my age, and dressed in a red muumuu. She told me her husband was asleep, but assured me there were rooms available. I didn’t want to disturb Thomas, so the Julias let me put my stuff in their room and we went out for a little walk before tea. The backwater region of Kerala is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, but I guess you can sort of equate it to Venice or the bayou in Louisiana. People live and work and farm on small, mostly man-made islands (of course they were man-made a few centuries ago, so they seem pretty natural now) that sit in the middle of winding canals and open stretches of river that lie below the level of the Arabian Sea. Inland of many of the islands are rice paddies that provide the major source or employment and revenue for the people living there. It’s a fascinating way of life and I got a small taste of it as we walked along the tiny dirt path between the houses and the water. It was late afternoon, so lots of people were out, having their afternoon bath in the river, washing clothes, and just playing. All of the children in the village came out and demanded photos of themselves and we had fun talking to them and their mothers. We had to turn around pretty soon, as teatime was approaching and I was starving. Lolly makes her chai with lots of cardamom and ginger and it is absolutely delicious. We had a few cups and some cookies and Thomas came out from his nap and introduced himself. The Lonely Planet book described him as being “erudite and helpful” and I can’t think of a better description for him. He is small and attractive with glasses and a beard. He speaks perfect English, although he seemed to have a bit of trouble understanding me sometimes – maybe I talk too fast. Side note – Kerala has a 97% literacy rate throughout the state… thank you Christian missionaries. Thomas told us later though that the increasing amount of extremely educated people is leading to a decrease in the numbers of people who want to do the essential jobs of farming, mud-digging, and other manual labor that keep the way of life in the backwaters intact. It’s an interesting social problem to have. But I digress…
While we all had tea, Thomas asked us about our plans and suggested a few activities for the evening and tomorrow. He arranged a sunset canoe trip through the canals for us and a guided walk around the island for the early morning. After we finished our chai, he gave me the key to my room and we went out to the canoe that was conveniently parked right in front of the house. The three of us were seated, rather luxuriously, I thought, in our own little wooden chairs in the canoe. We had two local men as rowers (we weren’t to pay them directly , Thomas instructed, because one of them had a drinking problem, so the money was to be given to his wife). The trip was so peaceful and beautiful. All of the huge commercial houseboats that usually fill the waterways were docked for the evening, so we had an open canal to drift around on and enjoy. The Julias and I talked and got to know each other and I knew right away that I really liked them. I have been running a little low on rupees, and this homestay is the most expensive place I will have stayed in India, and I noticed earlier that they had three beds in their room. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose, so I half-jokingly suggested that the three of us share their room and cut the price way down for all of us. They discussed in German for a few minutes and said yes! I was so relieved and I also think it will be nice to have some company at night.
After a couple of hours, we returned home for dinner. What delicious food we ate! Thomas’s mother cooks and she is really good. We had – brace yourselves – vegetable curry, but this one was rich with all kinds of veggies and not too spicy, a cucumber and tomato salad with cilantro and herbs (yummy!), and poori, which is a fried poufy bread that is indescribable. It was so nice to feel like I was in a real home after so long of being in hotels and dorms. It was comforting to have a family around and to be really taken care of. After stuffing ourselves, we took turns in the shower. While I waited for my turn, I played with Anne and Anina, the two scrumptious daughters of Thomas and Lolly. We did a little dancing, a little singing, and some hand-clap games. We had so much fun! They are just the cutest little girls, Anne is six and Anina is four. You can tell that they are used to new people because they warm up to you right away. I think we are going to be good friends… they remind me of the first graders at Shanti Bhavan. After about a half hour, Anne climbed up onto my lap and whispered “I like you.” What a darling! After that, I got into the warm shower to clean off my disgustingness and now I’m sitting here practically falling asleep. I can’t wait to see more of this captivating place tomorrow.
Monday, April 13, 2009
"If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."
April 8, Chennamkary
I’m exhausted. Today my day began with the realization that my cell phone, which I had used to set my alarm on, had died in the night and I had slept way longer than I was supposed to. I jumped up, with five minutes to go before Nithin was scheduled to come and help me take my bags down to wait for the bus. I had a freezing cold shower, threw my clothes on, and somehow made it with enough time. Thank God for my morning aerobics classes at Shanti Bhavan – my body’s clock was set for 6:25 a.m. In a rare moment of something happening conveniently in India, the bus I was catching back to Cochin (to catch the bus to Alleppey to catch the ferry to Chennamkary), stopped at the bottom of the Dew Drops driveway. We flagged it down and Nithin jumped on with me in order to help me get a seat, settle my bags, and to tell the conductor where I was getting off. Don’t worry, I gave him a large tip and a grateful good-bye. I had a primo seat right behind the driver and my bags had been placed where they didn’t take up seats, but where I could keep my eye on them. I was extremely happy with the arrangement, until I noticed my seatmate, Hacking-Coughing Woman. HCW was a wrinkled brown raisin of a person, with a green saree and bare feet. She seemed to be asleep, and she was clutching a dirty white plastic box. I wondered what the box was for, and moments later my questions were answered when she opened her eyes, coughed directly in my face (no covering of the mouth, of course), and then opened her box to spit a large glop of yellow mucus into it. Perfect.
There was nowhere else to sit, and I was not about to stand for five hours, so I turned my head away and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. HCW, however, was determined to remain a part of my bus experience. She had now fallen back asleep, but instead of leaning against the side of the bus, or putting her head on the bag she had on the seat next to her, she leaned on me. The bus was swerving from side to side on some particularly curvy mountain roads and so I had some opportunities to slyly push her off of me when the bus went to the right, but as soon as it veered back, she was on me like curry on rice. I don’t think it was accidental, she was trying to lay her head on my shoulder. I’m sure I have now contracted a vast number of communicable diseases. This power struggle lasted for about a half hour, and by the grace of Krishna, she got off the bus and I miraculously had the seat to myself for a few hours. I did, however, smear hand sanitizer all over my arm, the seat, and the side of my head. Irrational, I know, but it made me feel a little better.
The rest of the ride was pretty unremarkable, with the exception of about an hour when I had a Muslim woman’s butt in my face. I was let off at the bus station in Cochin and somehow immediately found the right bus that would take me to Alleppey. I got a seat there too and the ride was blissfully short – only about two hours. Phase Three of the journey involved the public ferry to the tiny village where I would be spending the final days of my trip (oh God, try not to freak out…pretend you’re not going home soon). After being stopped about forty times by men trying to get me to take their houseboats or stay at the hotels that would give them commission, I got to the ferry station, where no one knew what I was talking about. I kept asking which ferry went to Chennamkary, and they all tried to tell me where the boat to Kumarakom, a popular tourist destination, was. I finally found the one man in India who could understand me and he pointed to the boat directly in front of me and said it was leaving. Now.
In a panic, I threw my bags onto it and jumped on just as it was about to pull away. Now, by this point, I was in a really rotten mood. I had been on buses and rickshaws and lugging my now extremely heavy and unwieldy bags around for the last seven hours and I was sweaty and hungry and hating travel. I was in no state to be nice to anyone, but I had to smile at the ferry conductor when I handed him my 5 rupees (ten cents) for the hour and fifteen minute ride and ask him to pretty please tell me when Chennamkary came up because there was no signage of any kind on any of the tiny docks we approached.
During this time, I was trying to call my homestay to find out where I went when I was dumped off the boat in the middle of nowhere, but I discovered that I was unable to dial an Indian number on my cell phone. I stuck it in my pocket and figured I would keep trying when I got there. The conductor gave me the signal and I moved up to the front of the boat to get off at what I thought would look like a small village. All I saw when I stepped off the dock was a dirt path along the water and a ramshackle little house covered with trees. I started to panic. I sat down for a few minutes to re-group and try to call Thomas (the owner of the Homestay) again. When it became clear that my cell phone plan hadn’t changed in the last ten minutes, I stuck the phone back in my pocket and saddled up my bags, and headed down the path. Another guy who got off the ferry with me had gone that way, so figured there must be something there. I dragged myself for about a hundred feet and nothing was appearing. I began to contemplate walking into someone’s house and asking them, when a tiny old woman came out of her front door and stared at me. I must have looked ridiculous, sweaty, covered with luggage (next time I’m getting one of those giant backpacks), and breathing like a fat man after a flight of stairs. I mustered up all my verbal skills and asked, “English?” She shook her head, but I didn’t want to give up on the one human contact I had, so I persevered. “Greenpalm Homestay? Thomas?” She smiled and pointed up the path. “Fie minute.” Hooray! It existed and I was close. A few minutes later I saw the sign and turned into a lovely little complex where I saw two white girls sitting on a front porch. I was home!
I’m exhausted. Today my day began with the realization that my cell phone, which I had used to set my alarm on, had died in the night and I had slept way longer than I was supposed to. I jumped up, with five minutes to go before Nithin was scheduled to come and help me take my bags down to wait for the bus. I had a freezing cold shower, threw my clothes on, and somehow made it with enough time. Thank God for my morning aerobics classes at Shanti Bhavan – my body’s clock was set for 6:25 a.m. In a rare moment of something happening conveniently in India, the bus I was catching back to Cochin (to catch the bus to Alleppey to catch the ferry to Chennamkary), stopped at the bottom of the Dew Drops driveway. We flagged it down and Nithin jumped on with me in order to help me get a seat, settle my bags, and to tell the conductor where I was getting off. Don’t worry, I gave him a large tip and a grateful good-bye. I had a primo seat right behind the driver and my bags had been placed where they didn’t take up seats, but where I could keep my eye on them. I was extremely happy with the arrangement, until I noticed my seatmate, Hacking-Coughing Woman. HCW was a wrinkled brown raisin of a person, with a green saree and bare feet. She seemed to be asleep, and she was clutching a dirty white plastic box. I wondered what the box was for, and moments later my questions were answered when she opened her eyes, coughed directly in my face (no covering of the mouth, of course), and then opened her box to spit a large glop of yellow mucus into it. Perfect.
There was nowhere else to sit, and I was not about to stand for five hours, so I turned my head away and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. HCW, however, was determined to remain a part of my bus experience. She had now fallen back asleep, but instead of leaning against the side of the bus, or putting her head on the bag she had on the seat next to her, she leaned on me. The bus was swerving from side to side on some particularly curvy mountain roads and so I had some opportunities to slyly push her off of me when the bus went to the right, but as soon as it veered back, she was on me like curry on rice. I don’t think it was accidental, she was trying to lay her head on my shoulder. I’m sure I have now contracted a vast number of communicable diseases. This power struggle lasted for about a half hour, and by the grace of Krishna, she got off the bus and I miraculously had the seat to myself for a few hours. I did, however, smear hand sanitizer all over my arm, the seat, and the side of my head. Irrational, I know, but it made me feel a little better.
The rest of the ride was pretty unremarkable, with the exception of about an hour when I had a Muslim woman’s butt in my face. I was let off at the bus station in Cochin and somehow immediately found the right bus that would take me to Alleppey. I got a seat there too and the ride was blissfully short – only about two hours. Phase Three of the journey involved the public ferry to the tiny village where I would be spending the final days of my trip (oh God, try not to freak out…pretend you’re not going home soon). After being stopped about forty times by men trying to get me to take their houseboats or stay at the hotels that would give them commission, I got to the ferry station, where no one knew what I was talking about. I kept asking which ferry went to Chennamkary, and they all tried to tell me where the boat to Kumarakom, a popular tourist destination, was. I finally found the one man in India who could understand me and he pointed to the boat directly in front of me and said it was leaving. Now.
In a panic, I threw my bags onto it and jumped on just as it was about to pull away. Now, by this point, I was in a really rotten mood. I had been on buses and rickshaws and lugging my now extremely heavy and unwieldy bags around for the last seven hours and I was sweaty and hungry and hating travel. I was in no state to be nice to anyone, but I had to smile at the ferry conductor when I handed him my 5 rupees (ten cents) for the hour and fifteen minute ride and ask him to pretty please tell me when Chennamkary came up because there was no signage of any kind on any of the tiny docks we approached.
During this time, I was trying to call my homestay to find out where I went when I was dumped off the boat in the middle of nowhere, but I discovered that I was unable to dial an Indian number on my cell phone. I stuck it in my pocket and figured I would keep trying when I got there. The conductor gave me the signal and I moved up to the front of the boat to get off at what I thought would look like a small village. All I saw when I stepped off the dock was a dirt path along the water and a ramshackle little house covered with trees. I started to panic. I sat down for a few minutes to re-group and try to call Thomas (the owner of the Homestay) again. When it became clear that my cell phone plan hadn’t changed in the last ten minutes, I stuck the phone back in my pocket and saddled up my bags, and headed down the path. Another guy who got off the ferry with me had gone that way, so figured there must be something there. I dragged myself for about a hundred feet and nothing was appearing. I began to contemplate walking into someone’s house and asking them, when a tiny old woman came out of her front door and stared at me. I must have looked ridiculous, sweaty, covered with luggage (next time I’m getting one of those giant backpacks), and breathing like a fat man after a flight of stairs. I mustered up all my verbal skills and asked, “English?” She shook her head, but I didn’t want to give up on the one human contact I had, so I persevered. “Greenpalm Homestay? Thomas?” She smiled and pointed up the path. “Fie minute.” Hooray! It existed and I was close. A few minutes later I saw the sign and turned into a lovely little complex where I saw two white girls sitting on a front porch. I was home!
"Do drop in at the Dew Drop Inn..."
April 6, Kallar
Well, some big changes in plans over the last couple of days, but everything seems to be turning out quite well. I’ll start from where I left off the other night. I got up early to do a bit of sightseeing before I went to my dance lesson. One of the most emblematic sights in Kerala are the Chinese fishing nets that line the waterways of Kochi and the backwater regions. I needed to see these for myself, so I walked down to the water for some photo ops. I got sort of lucky, because as I was setting up a good shot, I noticed the men operating the net beckoning to me. They invited me up onto their contraption and one of them took my camera and started directing me around the thing, snapping pictures all the while. I got to help pull the net out of the water, I held a fish, and I sat and looked out onto the water. I think some of the shots came out pretty nice. Anyway, after this, of course, they hit me up for some money – their way of fishing is dying due to a combination of the effects of the Tsunami and mechanized fishing methods. I gave them a few rupees and escaped before they could get any more off me. I popped into an internet café while I was waiting for the breakfast place I wanted to go to to open and tried unsuccessfully to upload my blog. It’s so frustrating to depend on technology that consistently fails you. I’d rather not deal with it at all.
After I got over that irritation, I sat down and had some fresh squeezed pineapple juice and a lovely veggie omelet. The Swedish couple at the table next to me started laughing at my attempts to eat while at the same time waving away and killing the tons of mosquitoes that were trying to eat me. We had a brief chat and then I headed off to my lesson. There was another girl taking the class with me who had been coming for a few days in a row, but she was not a dancer, so the class actually moved at a good pace for me. The style we learned was called Mohiniattam and it was hard! For most of the hour and a half long lesson, I was in a full squat position. My legs were burning by the end – especially since I haven’t been doing too much rigorous physical activity since I’ve been here – and I was soaked through with sweat. The movements are so precise and require you to not only use your hands independently of each other, doing different hand positions with each one, but each movement has eye choreography as well. I could blame my lack of ability in that department of my contact lenses, but I have to admit that I’m just not that good at it! One thing I really noticed while doing this new style of dance was how much influence choreographers like Jack Cole and Bob Fosse drew from Indian dance. I swear, some of the movements felt exactly like things I had learned in college or in classes I’ve taken in the style of those choreographers. It was really interesting.
After class, I did a bit more sightseeing, but the day had gotten so hot that I had to go back to my hotel room and lay down for a while. It’s one thing to stay out during the middle of the day in a beach area, but in a city there’s just no relief from the sweltering humidity and sun. I woke up in time to go to the 5 o’clock cooking class I had signed up for earlier. A plump, jolly lady named Leelu Roy does two hour long classes out of her house and she tells you the recipes while she demonstrates five dishes and then you eat! She was great and I learned how to make chapatti, fish curry, lentil curry, and a couple of others. (Dad, we’re cooking when I get home.) It was great to be in someone’s home, making food and learning about what really goes into the food I’ve been eating for the last two months. I also had the great fortune of meeting some really wonderful people in the class. Matt, Sally, and Lucy were all taking the class with me and they seemed very nice, so I invited them out for a drink after the class was over. We headed to a little bar that was filled with Westerners and I got to know more about them. Lucy was from the Czech Republic and she had been traveling alone for about two months (she was supposed to have come here with a friend who then bailed on her and she came anyway) until she met up with Matt and Sally about a week ago. Matt and Sally were a couple from the UK who were on the last month of their pre-wedding eight month world tour. They had been all over Canada, South and Central America, Asia and were finishing their trip in India. It was incredible to hear their stories and see their pictures. What an amazing luxury to have that time together and to make all of those memories before embarking on married life… Sally invited me to a yoga class she had been taking for the last few days in the morning and we parted ways, agreeing to meet at 7:30 the next morning.
I met Lucy and Sally at the Ayurvedic center the next morning and we walked with the yoga teacher to a house where he had been given an open rooftop to teach his classes. There were two other women in the class and it was fantastic to have such a small number of people – usually yoga classes in New York can have up to thirty people in one studio! It felt so good to move and really exercise my body after a fairly long time of not doing a whole lot of physical activity. The class was intense and included chanting and meditation as well as some very strenuous poses. I happen to still be very flexible, so the teacher was impressed with me and really pushed me. I did some poses I had never even attempted before – including the Scorpion, which is a very difficult position that involves standing on your head while bending your body backwards into a C shape. Needless to say, I am very sore. After that two and a half hour class, we went to our respective hotels for a shower and met up again at this little restaurant called the Teapot for a nice breakfast. They had seen a sign the day before inviting visitors to an orphanage nearby, and we had decided to make a visit to the children and also to donate some clothes and supplies. I brought a bag of clothes that I hadn’t left at Shanti Bhavan, but wanted to get rid of, and after we ate, we jumped in a rickshaw and went. Unfortunately, we weren’t aware that there were designated visiting hours and we arrived during lunchtime, but they let us in anyway and we had a look around. The orphanage was an off-shoot of Mother Theresa’s homes in Calcutta and it was a place for mentally and physically disabled children. It was rough. The kids all seemed to have very severe Cerebral Palsy and they were not very aware or able to do anything at all. The patience and dedication of the smiling, friendly women who were their caretakers is something that I don’t think I will ever be able to attain. It seemed like such thankless work, and so difficult. I had an easy time at Shanti Bhavan – the children gave me back tenfold what I offered them – but to work with kids that can’t even speak or play… that is an entirely different story. We didn’t want to interrupt lunch, so we stayed for a short time, gave our donations, and went back to Fort Cochin.
By this point in the day, it had reached hell temperature, so we sought out the one air-conditioned coffee shop in the area and parked ourselves there for a while. We were able to use the internet and chat and that was very nice. The three of them were such nice people and had a lot of interesting experiences and thoughts to share. Now, I had originally planned to leave for Alleppey and the backwaters that afternoon, but after speaking to the owner of my hotel, I had been convinced to stay one more night and leave instead for Munnar the next morning. This seemed like a much better plan, and also gave me the chance to see a performance of Kathakali dance in the evening. Matt and Sally had already seen a performance somewhere else, but Lucy said she would like to come with me, so we set a time to meet for dinner, and Lucy and I went to the Kathakali Center to watch the performers apply their make-up before the show. As I said before, the make-up is a lot like Chinese opera; each stock character has its own base color and all of the facial features are extremely exaggerated with black contouring. The make-up took about an hour and then there was an explanation of the art form and a demonstration of the various aspects of the performance before the actual play took place. Each dancer, musician, and singer in Kathakali trains for a minimum of six years in order to become a professional. The dancer don’t sing or speak, but their faces and hands are trained to do things that I have never seen before. As in the other forms of Indian dance, eye movements are one of the most important things. I don’t know if I can even describe how fast and intricately they move their eyes. It looks like something out of The Exorcist! Their facial movements are also crazy – they twitch their cheek muscles and furrow their eyebrows and quiver their lips and all of the various “looks” and moves convey different emotions and states of being. They also do a series of 26 hand positions called Mudras that mean different things, although I’m not really sure what. The performance was strange, but so interesting. I’m really glad I didn’t miss it.
After the show, I had a lovely dinner with my three new friends and then went back to my hotel to pack and get to sleep so I could be up at 6:30 to catch the ferry to the bus to Munnar. Unfortunately, I didn’t do much sleeping since it had reached around 90 degrees in my room (I know this because my alarm clock has a thermometer on it). I woke up in a pool of my own sweat at around 2 a.m. and went into the main area of the house where I proceeded to try everything to cool myself down a bit – including sticking my head in the freezer. The staff member on duty came out and saw me sitting at the table with my head down, trying to sleep in the slightly cooler spot. He took pity on me and turned on the A.C. in my room for a few hours free of charge. I was finally able to sleep. The rickshaw driver picked me up in front of my hotel and took me to the bus station, where I found out that I had gotten wrong information about my bus time. I had to wait for about an hour and a half, but hey – this is India. I was sad to leave Cochin. I had many wonderful experiences there and learned a lot. I really felt that I got to be a part of some very exciting Indian culture and that brought me even closer to understanding this country.
So, Wilson, the owner of the Spencer Tourist Home where I stayed in Cochin, had arranged a stay for me at his other property in Kallar, a small village about 15 km from Munnar (he gave me “the good price”). Munnar is known for its huge tea plantations, mountainous terrain, and cool climate. The city itself is not so great, so I didn’t feel bad about not staying there. After a hot, sweaty, aggravating, four and a half hour bus ride (which cost about $2.00, so I can’t really complain), I arrived at the Dew Drops Homestay. Once I saw the gorgeous place and met the happy, attentive staff of three, I certainly didn’t feel bad about not staying in Munnar. The thing about traveling by bus in India is that, unless you are getting off at the last stop, you really have no way of knowing where you are supposed to disembark. There aren’t any announcements, and there aren’t any signs, and when you ask people to help you, they have no idea what you are saying. I knew I had to get off at Kallar, and I knew it would be before Munnar, but I didn’t know anything else. So, when the bus sped through a tiny string of shops and I saw the word “Kallar,” I screamed at the bus driver to stop, pushed over a bunch of people to get my bags off the bus, and fell out onto the side of the road. I then dragged my stuff over to a group of rickshaw drivers and hoped one of them would know the Dew Drops. One did, and I threw my bags in and we started up a long, winding road that lead about 7 km into a forest.
I was met at the driveway by Nithin – the head staff member – and two other young men. They put my things in a beautiful, clean, modern, red-tiled room and assured me that Wilson and told them I was coming and I was to get “the good price.” Nithin, it turned out, was a 23 year old guy studying to be an airline worker. He told me that for the last month he had be the only person at the hotel and that the other guys had just arrived yesterday. He said there hadn’t been any guests for a week, but that when there were people there, he cleaned, cooked, and guided them around. A lot of responsibility for one kid. I settled my stuff in the room took a short nap while Nithin prepared my lunch. It was heaven, laying on the clean, sheet-covered bed and feeling the blissfully cool breeze blowing through my open window. A welcome change from the stifling heat of Cochin. I got up an hour later and ate my vegetable curry (how unexpected!) and then Nithin suggested we set out on a little walk to the estate’s dairy farm. Let me just try to describe to you how beautiful it was there. The hills were filled with embarrassingly green trees, coffee, cardamom and pepper plants, flowers, birds, ducks, cows, goats, bugs, you name it. It was lush and wild and absolutely breathtaking. We followed a small path to a tiny little farm on the crest of a hill. There were rabbits and goats in little pens on the way up, and then we came to a small open barn with about twenty cows lined up, all munching on fresh grasses. No corn, no hormones, no meat – just grass, the way cows are supposed to eat! There was one huge bull and a few little calves running around. One man owns and runs the farm and he tends the animals, milks the cows, and creates bio-gas fuel from the manure. Pretty cool. After the farm tour, we were going back to the hotel when Nithin said that he had to go to the nearby village to get a chicken and some veggies for dinner. He asked if I wanted to join him and of course I agreed. The village consisted of about ten shops lining both sides of a dirt road and a little church. Now, I didn’t really think that “getting a chicken” would mean going to the Stop’n’Shop and picking one out of the refrigerated section, but I also didn’t consider that we would be going to pick out a live one, either. We did. We went to the shop, Nithin asked for a chicken, and the shop owner took a squawking, screeching bird out of a small pen and slapped it onto a scale. We then went next door for tea and fried banana while the poor little clucker was dispatched, plucked and cleaned. I felt a bit guilty, but I guess it’s important to think about where your food comes from.
When we got back to the hotel, we found that two more guests had shown up. Barbara and Pavlos were a middle-aged Greek couple who were on a two-week vacation through Southern India. They were very nice and Barbara was quite a talker. We had dinner together and shared a beer, and then I crashed in my room and fell into a lovely sleep.
Then next morning I woke up early and sat on my little front porch to write a bit and enjoy the view. I had a small breakfast and then Nithin took me on a walk to a small waterfall about 2 km away from the hotel. It wasn’t a particularly spectacular specimen, but the walk was gorgeous and it was nice to hear the rushing water and get my feet a bit wet. When we got back, Barbara and Pavlos were up and wanting to go to the waterfall, so I took an afternoon rest and waited for them to come back, since we had arranged to take a trip into Munnar and see the tea museum and tea plantations later that day. At around 3 o’clock, the rickshaw came to pick us up and we left on one of the coolest rides I’d seen so far. The tea plantations are enormous, set on the sides of steep mountains, and the most brilliant shades of green. The bushes are low and flat on the top and they look a little bit fake – like something you’d see in a video game or cartoon. It’s amazing to think that one of India’s largest crops – and one if its most emblematic products, tea, was something that is left over from British occupation. Some Brits needed their tea, and they brought some plants with them, made the Indian workers cultivate it, and left them with a lifelong habit and a major export. I guess not all results of colonization are bad. Anyway, we drove through Munnar (a real dump, thank God I didn’t stay there!) and came to the Tata Tea Museum, the only place around that you can still see how tea is processed. It was pretty interesting, despite the fact that the guy giving the description of the process was speaking barely decipherable English. I was able to glean that all types of leaf tea (herbal is different) - white, green, black, and tea that goes into tea bags – are made from the same plant, but processed differently. I didn’t know that before. We got to see some of the machinery, which looked like it was a relic from days gone by, and watch how tea gets dried, smooshed, oxidized, dried, and sorted. We also got a nice little sample of some chai at the end. Then it was time for a little internet (in the tiniest internet café in India) and then back on the rickshaw and home to lovely, clean, peaceful Dew Drops Homestay.
Barbara and I had agreed that last night’s dinner was a little on the bland side, and we were also facing an evening free of any possibility for activity, so we asked Nithin if he would let us help with dinner. He enthusiastically agreed and told us to give him twenty minutes to cut veggies before we came down to help. We made our way down to the kitchen – a very big, clean, nicely outfitted one – and rolled up our sleeves. We helped make vegetable curry (shocking, I know), lentil curry, chapatti, and rice. It was fun to be cooking and I really impressed everyone with my Food- Network-stolen technique of smashing the garlic with the back of my knife to get the skin off. It’s the simple things.
Oh! I forgot to mention that Rinjo, the smiley driver who picked me up from the airport in Cochin, was the guy who drove the Greek couple from Cochin to Munnar. We had a very happy reunion when he came with them, and then he showed up again with another couple as we were cooking. It was sort of nice to feel like I had a little friend in India. He greeted me as if we were long lost siblings and every time we parted, it was with hugs and promises that he would be contacting me on my e-mail. We had a very nice dinner with such a strange combination of people. Me, Barbara, Pavlos, and Rinjo… Very cute.
By the time we finished eating, it was time for me to tuck myself in, since I was catching the 7 a.m. bus the next day for my journey to Alleppey.
Well, some big changes in plans over the last couple of days, but everything seems to be turning out quite well. I’ll start from where I left off the other night. I got up early to do a bit of sightseeing before I went to my dance lesson. One of the most emblematic sights in Kerala are the Chinese fishing nets that line the waterways of Kochi and the backwater regions. I needed to see these for myself, so I walked down to the water for some photo ops. I got sort of lucky, because as I was setting up a good shot, I noticed the men operating the net beckoning to me. They invited me up onto their contraption and one of them took my camera and started directing me around the thing, snapping pictures all the while. I got to help pull the net out of the water, I held a fish, and I sat and looked out onto the water. I think some of the shots came out pretty nice. Anyway, after this, of course, they hit me up for some money – their way of fishing is dying due to a combination of the effects of the Tsunami and mechanized fishing methods. I gave them a few rupees and escaped before they could get any more off me. I popped into an internet café while I was waiting for the breakfast place I wanted to go to to open and tried unsuccessfully to upload my blog. It’s so frustrating to depend on technology that consistently fails you. I’d rather not deal with it at all.
After I got over that irritation, I sat down and had some fresh squeezed pineapple juice and a lovely veggie omelet. The Swedish couple at the table next to me started laughing at my attempts to eat while at the same time waving away and killing the tons of mosquitoes that were trying to eat me. We had a brief chat and then I headed off to my lesson. There was another girl taking the class with me who had been coming for a few days in a row, but she was not a dancer, so the class actually moved at a good pace for me. The style we learned was called Mohiniattam and it was hard! For most of the hour and a half long lesson, I was in a full squat position. My legs were burning by the end – especially since I haven’t been doing too much rigorous physical activity since I’ve been here – and I was soaked through with sweat. The movements are so precise and require you to not only use your hands independently of each other, doing different hand positions with each one, but each movement has eye choreography as well. I could blame my lack of ability in that department of my contact lenses, but I have to admit that I’m just not that good at it! One thing I really noticed while doing this new style of dance was how much influence choreographers like Jack Cole and Bob Fosse drew from Indian dance. I swear, some of the movements felt exactly like things I had learned in college or in classes I’ve taken in the style of those choreographers. It was really interesting.
After class, I did a bit more sightseeing, but the day had gotten so hot that I had to go back to my hotel room and lay down for a while. It’s one thing to stay out during the middle of the day in a beach area, but in a city there’s just no relief from the sweltering humidity and sun. I woke up in time to go to the 5 o’clock cooking class I had signed up for earlier. A plump, jolly lady named Leelu Roy does two hour long classes out of her house and she tells you the recipes while she demonstrates five dishes and then you eat! She was great and I learned how to make chapatti, fish curry, lentil curry, and a couple of others. (Dad, we’re cooking when I get home.) It was great to be in someone’s home, making food and learning about what really goes into the food I’ve been eating for the last two months. I also had the great fortune of meeting some really wonderful people in the class. Matt, Sally, and Lucy were all taking the class with me and they seemed very nice, so I invited them out for a drink after the class was over. We headed to a little bar that was filled with Westerners and I got to know more about them. Lucy was from the Czech Republic and she had been traveling alone for about two months (she was supposed to have come here with a friend who then bailed on her and she came anyway) until she met up with Matt and Sally about a week ago. Matt and Sally were a couple from the UK who were on the last month of their pre-wedding eight month world tour. They had been all over Canada, South and Central America, Asia and were finishing their trip in India. It was incredible to hear their stories and see their pictures. What an amazing luxury to have that time together and to make all of those memories before embarking on married life… Sally invited me to a yoga class she had been taking for the last few days in the morning and we parted ways, agreeing to meet at 7:30 the next morning.
I met Lucy and Sally at the Ayurvedic center the next morning and we walked with the yoga teacher to a house where he had been given an open rooftop to teach his classes. There were two other women in the class and it was fantastic to have such a small number of people – usually yoga classes in New York can have up to thirty people in one studio! It felt so good to move and really exercise my body after a fairly long time of not doing a whole lot of physical activity. The class was intense and included chanting and meditation as well as some very strenuous poses. I happen to still be very flexible, so the teacher was impressed with me and really pushed me. I did some poses I had never even attempted before – including the Scorpion, which is a very difficult position that involves standing on your head while bending your body backwards into a C shape. Needless to say, I am very sore. After that two and a half hour class, we went to our respective hotels for a shower and met up again at this little restaurant called the Teapot for a nice breakfast. They had seen a sign the day before inviting visitors to an orphanage nearby, and we had decided to make a visit to the children and also to donate some clothes and supplies. I brought a bag of clothes that I hadn’t left at Shanti Bhavan, but wanted to get rid of, and after we ate, we jumped in a rickshaw and went. Unfortunately, we weren’t aware that there were designated visiting hours and we arrived during lunchtime, but they let us in anyway and we had a look around. The orphanage was an off-shoot of Mother Theresa’s homes in Calcutta and it was a place for mentally and physically disabled children. It was rough. The kids all seemed to have very severe Cerebral Palsy and they were not very aware or able to do anything at all. The patience and dedication of the smiling, friendly women who were their caretakers is something that I don’t think I will ever be able to attain. It seemed like such thankless work, and so difficult. I had an easy time at Shanti Bhavan – the children gave me back tenfold what I offered them – but to work with kids that can’t even speak or play… that is an entirely different story. We didn’t want to interrupt lunch, so we stayed for a short time, gave our donations, and went back to Fort Cochin.
By this point in the day, it had reached hell temperature, so we sought out the one air-conditioned coffee shop in the area and parked ourselves there for a while. We were able to use the internet and chat and that was very nice. The three of them were such nice people and had a lot of interesting experiences and thoughts to share. Now, I had originally planned to leave for Alleppey and the backwaters that afternoon, but after speaking to the owner of my hotel, I had been convinced to stay one more night and leave instead for Munnar the next morning. This seemed like a much better plan, and also gave me the chance to see a performance of Kathakali dance in the evening. Matt and Sally had already seen a performance somewhere else, but Lucy said she would like to come with me, so we set a time to meet for dinner, and Lucy and I went to the Kathakali Center to watch the performers apply their make-up before the show. As I said before, the make-up is a lot like Chinese opera; each stock character has its own base color and all of the facial features are extremely exaggerated with black contouring. The make-up took about an hour and then there was an explanation of the art form and a demonstration of the various aspects of the performance before the actual play took place. Each dancer, musician, and singer in Kathakali trains for a minimum of six years in order to become a professional. The dancer don’t sing or speak, but their faces and hands are trained to do things that I have never seen before. As in the other forms of Indian dance, eye movements are one of the most important things. I don’t know if I can even describe how fast and intricately they move their eyes. It looks like something out of The Exorcist! Their facial movements are also crazy – they twitch their cheek muscles and furrow their eyebrows and quiver their lips and all of the various “looks” and moves convey different emotions and states of being. They also do a series of 26 hand positions called Mudras that mean different things, although I’m not really sure what. The performance was strange, but so interesting. I’m really glad I didn’t miss it.
After the show, I had a lovely dinner with my three new friends and then went back to my hotel to pack and get to sleep so I could be up at 6:30 to catch the ferry to the bus to Munnar. Unfortunately, I didn’t do much sleeping since it had reached around 90 degrees in my room (I know this because my alarm clock has a thermometer on it). I woke up in a pool of my own sweat at around 2 a.m. and went into the main area of the house where I proceeded to try everything to cool myself down a bit – including sticking my head in the freezer. The staff member on duty came out and saw me sitting at the table with my head down, trying to sleep in the slightly cooler spot. He took pity on me and turned on the A.C. in my room for a few hours free of charge. I was finally able to sleep. The rickshaw driver picked me up in front of my hotel and took me to the bus station, where I found out that I had gotten wrong information about my bus time. I had to wait for about an hour and a half, but hey – this is India. I was sad to leave Cochin. I had many wonderful experiences there and learned a lot. I really felt that I got to be a part of some very exciting Indian culture and that brought me even closer to understanding this country.
So, Wilson, the owner of the Spencer Tourist Home where I stayed in Cochin, had arranged a stay for me at his other property in Kallar, a small village about 15 km from Munnar (he gave me “the good price”). Munnar is known for its huge tea plantations, mountainous terrain, and cool climate. The city itself is not so great, so I didn’t feel bad about not staying there. After a hot, sweaty, aggravating, four and a half hour bus ride (which cost about $2.00, so I can’t really complain), I arrived at the Dew Drops Homestay. Once I saw the gorgeous place and met the happy, attentive staff of three, I certainly didn’t feel bad about not staying in Munnar. The thing about traveling by bus in India is that, unless you are getting off at the last stop, you really have no way of knowing where you are supposed to disembark. There aren’t any announcements, and there aren’t any signs, and when you ask people to help you, they have no idea what you are saying. I knew I had to get off at Kallar, and I knew it would be before Munnar, but I didn’t know anything else. So, when the bus sped through a tiny string of shops and I saw the word “Kallar,” I screamed at the bus driver to stop, pushed over a bunch of people to get my bags off the bus, and fell out onto the side of the road. I then dragged my stuff over to a group of rickshaw drivers and hoped one of them would know the Dew Drops. One did, and I threw my bags in and we started up a long, winding road that lead about 7 km into a forest.
I was met at the driveway by Nithin – the head staff member – and two other young men. They put my things in a beautiful, clean, modern, red-tiled room and assured me that Wilson and told them I was coming and I was to get “the good price.” Nithin, it turned out, was a 23 year old guy studying to be an airline worker. He told me that for the last month he had be the only person at the hotel and that the other guys had just arrived yesterday. He said there hadn’t been any guests for a week, but that when there were people there, he cleaned, cooked, and guided them around. A lot of responsibility for one kid. I settled my stuff in the room took a short nap while Nithin prepared my lunch. It was heaven, laying on the clean, sheet-covered bed and feeling the blissfully cool breeze blowing through my open window. A welcome change from the stifling heat of Cochin. I got up an hour later and ate my vegetable curry (how unexpected!) and then Nithin suggested we set out on a little walk to the estate’s dairy farm. Let me just try to describe to you how beautiful it was there. The hills were filled with embarrassingly green trees, coffee, cardamom and pepper plants, flowers, birds, ducks, cows, goats, bugs, you name it. It was lush and wild and absolutely breathtaking. We followed a small path to a tiny little farm on the crest of a hill. There were rabbits and goats in little pens on the way up, and then we came to a small open barn with about twenty cows lined up, all munching on fresh grasses. No corn, no hormones, no meat – just grass, the way cows are supposed to eat! There was one huge bull and a few little calves running around. One man owns and runs the farm and he tends the animals, milks the cows, and creates bio-gas fuel from the manure. Pretty cool. After the farm tour, we were going back to the hotel when Nithin said that he had to go to the nearby village to get a chicken and some veggies for dinner. He asked if I wanted to join him and of course I agreed. The village consisted of about ten shops lining both sides of a dirt road and a little church. Now, I didn’t really think that “getting a chicken” would mean going to the Stop’n’Shop and picking one out of the refrigerated section, but I also didn’t consider that we would be going to pick out a live one, either. We did. We went to the shop, Nithin asked for a chicken, and the shop owner took a squawking, screeching bird out of a small pen and slapped it onto a scale. We then went next door for tea and fried banana while the poor little clucker was dispatched, plucked and cleaned. I felt a bit guilty, but I guess it’s important to think about where your food comes from.
When we got back to the hotel, we found that two more guests had shown up. Barbara and Pavlos were a middle-aged Greek couple who were on a two-week vacation through Southern India. They were very nice and Barbara was quite a talker. We had dinner together and shared a beer, and then I crashed in my room and fell into a lovely sleep.
Then next morning I woke up early and sat on my little front porch to write a bit and enjoy the view. I had a small breakfast and then Nithin took me on a walk to a small waterfall about 2 km away from the hotel. It wasn’t a particularly spectacular specimen, but the walk was gorgeous and it was nice to hear the rushing water and get my feet a bit wet. When we got back, Barbara and Pavlos were up and wanting to go to the waterfall, so I took an afternoon rest and waited for them to come back, since we had arranged to take a trip into Munnar and see the tea museum and tea plantations later that day. At around 3 o’clock, the rickshaw came to pick us up and we left on one of the coolest rides I’d seen so far. The tea plantations are enormous, set on the sides of steep mountains, and the most brilliant shades of green. The bushes are low and flat on the top and they look a little bit fake – like something you’d see in a video game or cartoon. It’s amazing to think that one of India’s largest crops – and one if its most emblematic products, tea, was something that is left over from British occupation. Some Brits needed their tea, and they brought some plants with them, made the Indian workers cultivate it, and left them with a lifelong habit and a major export. I guess not all results of colonization are bad. Anyway, we drove through Munnar (a real dump, thank God I didn’t stay there!) and came to the Tata Tea Museum, the only place around that you can still see how tea is processed. It was pretty interesting, despite the fact that the guy giving the description of the process was speaking barely decipherable English. I was able to glean that all types of leaf tea (herbal is different) - white, green, black, and tea that goes into tea bags – are made from the same plant, but processed differently. I didn’t know that before. We got to see some of the machinery, which looked like it was a relic from days gone by, and watch how tea gets dried, smooshed, oxidized, dried, and sorted. We also got a nice little sample of some chai at the end. Then it was time for a little internet (in the tiniest internet café in India) and then back on the rickshaw and home to lovely, clean, peaceful Dew Drops Homestay.
Barbara and I had agreed that last night’s dinner was a little on the bland side, and we were also facing an evening free of any possibility for activity, so we asked Nithin if he would let us help with dinner. He enthusiastically agreed and told us to give him twenty minutes to cut veggies before we came down to help. We made our way down to the kitchen – a very big, clean, nicely outfitted one – and rolled up our sleeves. We helped make vegetable curry (shocking, I know), lentil curry, chapatti, and rice. It was fun to be cooking and I really impressed everyone with my Food- Network-stolen technique of smashing the garlic with the back of my knife to get the skin off. It’s the simple things.
Oh! I forgot to mention that Rinjo, the smiley driver who picked me up from the airport in Cochin, was the guy who drove the Greek couple from Cochin to Munnar. We had a very happy reunion when he came with them, and then he showed up again with another couple as we were cooking. It was sort of nice to feel like I had a little friend in India. He greeted me as if we were long lost siblings and every time we parted, it was with hugs and promises that he would be contacting me on my e-mail. We had a very nice dinner with such a strange combination of people. Me, Barbara, Pavlos, and Rinjo… Very cute.
By the time we finished eating, it was time for me to tuck myself in, since I was catching the 7 a.m. bus the next day for my journey to Alleppey.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Cochi Cochi Coo
April 3, Cochin/Kochi
I woke up this morning in Goa and went down to the beach. I had a great swim and headed back to the hotel to pack up and say auf wiedersein to my new German friends. I was planning to take a taxi alone to the airport, but it turned out that Juan Carlos, a fifty year old Argentinean living in Italy and another guest at Couthino’s Nest, was going at around the same time. If I keep getting lucky like that, I won’t have to pay full price for anything.
It turns out that Paramount, the airline I was flying from Goa to Cochi, is an all business class airline. I got the royal treatment; fresh lime juice and a cool wet towel before takeoff, a full lunch with the works, and cloth covered pillows. I don’t usually get into that sort of thing, but it was pretty nice.
A very smiley driver met me at the airport. He had been sent from Spencer Home, my hotel here, and he was very confused when Elizabeth and Daniel didn’t show up together. He kept asking me “Only you?” and I had to explain about my last name. He was very cute and played all kinds of his favorite Bollywood songs for me on the way to the hotel. My room is really nice here, with an attached bathroom and a big bed. I was supposed to have a smaller, cheaper room, but I think they gave it away or something because I’m getting this room at the cheaper price, which is 1/3 what it should cost. I’m not complaining.
Once I settled my stuff in, I set out to get a feel for the town. Cochi is actually made up of several parts; Fort Cochi, where I’m staying, the adjacent Mattancherry, and Eurukalam. The two former areas are the historic parts – quiet, atmospheric, and filled with remnants from prior Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonization. The other part is your typical loud, dirty, crowded Indian city. Anyway, it was dark, but from what I could see, this is a charming and very intriguing place. I was just wandering when I spotted a sign for a tabla and sitar concert going on immediately at the Kerala Kathakali Center. I quickly hurried over and got a ticket. It was very different than other music I’ve heard here, but it was cool to see a truly classical art form being maintained. The tabla (drums that not only act as percussion, but have melody too) are such a cool instrument. I’ve heard they are very hard to play skillfully and the musician who was playing them was incredible. The Kathakali Center is where they perform and teach Kathakali - an ancient form of ritual dance that is, from what I can tell, sort of like the Chinese opera with heavy make-up and men playing all of the parts. I’m going to attend a performance tomorrow night, but what I was most interested in is that they also offer classes there. I arranged to have a classical Indian dance lesson tomorrow morning and I’m really excited.
I miss Shanti Bhavan so much. I’ve been thinking about the kids all day. I don’t think I’ve really been able to talk about how special that place is – and I don’t know if I can convey it now- but every moment I spent there was such a gift. I called Amanda tonight to see how the fourth graders are doing and she said they were asking about me, so I feel good that they haven’t forgotten our time together. It’s great to be out traveling and seeing more of this country that I’ve come to love, but part of me wishes I was back there right now, getting to bed so I could get up at 6 to teach aerobics. I know I’ll be back there someday, but right now someday doesn’t seem soon enough.
I woke up this morning in Goa and went down to the beach. I had a great swim and headed back to the hotel to pack up and say auf wiedersein to my new German friends. I was planning to take a taxi alone to the airport, but it turned out that Juan Carlos, a fifty year old Argentinean living in Italy and another guest at Couthino’s Nest, was going at around the same time. If I keep getting lucky like that, I won’t have to pay full price for anything.
It turns out that Paramount, the airline I was flying from Goa to Cochi, is an all business class airline. I got the royal treatment; fresh lime juice and a cool wet towel before takeoff, a full lunch with the works, and cloth covered pillows. I don’t usually get into that sort of thing, but it was pretty nice.
A very smiley driver met me at the airport. He had been sent from Spencer Home, my hotel here, and he was very confused when Elizabeth and Daniel didn’t show up together. He kept asking me “Only you?” and I had to explain about my last name. He was very cute and played all kinds of his favorite Bollywood songs for me on the way to the hotel. My room is really nice here, with an attached bathroom and a big bed. I was supposed to have a smaller, cheaper room, but I think they gave it away or something because I’m getting this room at the cheaper price, which is 1/3 what it should cost. I’m not complaining.
Once I settled my stuff in, I set out to get a feel for the town. Cochi is actually made up of several parts; Fort Cochi, where I’m staying, the adjacent Mattancherry, and Eurukalam. The two former areas are the historic parts – quiet, atmospheric, and filled with remnants from prior Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonization. The other part is your typical loud, dirty, crowded Indian city. Anyway, it was dark, but from what I could see, this is a charming and very intriguing place. I was just wandering when I spotted a sign for a tabla and sitar concert going on immediately at the Kerala Kathakali Center. I quickly hurried over and got a ticket. It was very different than other music I’ve heard here, but it was cool to see a truly classical art form being maintained. The tabla (drums that not only act as percussion, but have melody too) are such a cool instrument. I’ve heard they are very hard to play skillfully and the musician who was playing them was incredible. The Kathakali Center is where they perform and teach Kathakali - an ancient form of ritual dance that is, from what I can tell, sort of like the Chinese opera with heavy make-up and men playing all of the parts. I’m going to attend a performance tomorrow night, but what I was most interested in is that they also offer classes there. I arranged to have a classical Indian dance lesson tomorrow morning and I’m really excited.
I miss Shanti Bhavan so much. I’ve been thinking about the kids all day. I don’t think I’ve really been able to talk about how special that place is – and I don’t know if I can convey it now- but every moment I spent there was such a gift. I called Amanda tonight to see how the fourth graders are doing and she said they were asking about me, so I feel good that they haven’t forgotten our time together. It’s great to be out traveling and seeing more of this country that I’ve come to love, but part of me wishes I was back there right now, getting to bed so I could get up at 6 to teach aerobics. I know I’ll be back there someday, but right now someday doesn’t seem soon enough.
Jesus is the Bom
April 2, Goa
Today has been a great day so far. I got up this morning to some nice phone calls from home and then sat outside in the little courtyard of my hotel and had a coffee and wrote in my journal. I was going to leave earlier, but I wanted to make sure I had something to post, because people have been asking me what happened to my blog. I’m glad I stuck around because my two German friends came out of their rooms to have breakfast and we were soon joined by two more Germans, Wolf and Rene - brothers here on vacation. They were very nice and it turned out that they were also planning to go to explore Panaji and old Goa today, so we decided to team up and go together. We were waiting for the first of three buses we were going to have to take to get there when Agatha came out of our hotel and told us her friend was going that direction and would drive us in his jeep if we just bought him a few beers later. Sounded like a good plan, so we jumped in and headed off. Both places were very nice – sort of like Pondicherry, European settlements in the middle of India. We saw a bunch of churches including the Basilica of Bom Jesus (I just love that name) where the body of St. Francis Xavier is kept. There was a mass going on there and it was so interesting to hear all of the familiar responses in English at a church in India. “Lift up you hearts.” “We lift them up to the Lord…” Anyway, the day was getting hotter and hotter and it was almost unbearable, so we decided to get in a taxi and go to the beach. On the way, I asked the driver to stop so I could buy some feni, which is a spirit that they make only in Goa. There are two varieties, cashew and coconut, and I bought one bottle of each… someone is getting a good present when I get home…
We changed at the hotel and the guys had rented scooters, so we scooted down to the beach and found Lena and Johanna in the same spot I had been with them yesterday. We all hung out, swimming and sunbathing and eating at one of the little shacks on the beach. It was fantastic! When we all felt sufficiently sunburned, we headed back to the hotel room to shower and change because we were supposed to be attending that festival at the local temple. We met in the courtyard and started out. It occurred to me as we were walking along that I was the only American with four Germans in a Portuguese colony going to a Hindi festival in India… very international. Anyway, it turned out to be a bust because when we got there they were still setting up – apparently it wasn’t starting until 10:30 and it was 7:30 at the moment. We went to dinner – I had fish cooked in parchment with herbs and mashed potatoes! And by the end of the meal I was so tired that I went back to the hotel to go to sleep. I think the two girls and Rene went back, so I’ll have to ask them tomorrow how it was. I was a little disappointed in myself that I couldn’t stay up for the dancing, but hey – this is my vacation and I can do whatever I want! Tomorrow I fly to Kochin. I’m really looking forward to it, but I will miss Goa, my little beach paradise.
Today has been a great day so far. I got up this morning to some nice phone calls from home and then sat outside in the little courtyard of my hotel and had a coffee and wrote in my journal. I was going to leave earlier, but I wanted to make sure I had something to post, because people have been asking me what happened to my blog. I’m glad I stuck around because my two German friends came out of their rooms to have breakfast and we were soon joined by two more Germans, Wolf and Rene - brothers here on vacation. They were very nice and it turned out that they were also planning to go to explore Panaji and old Goa today, so we decided to team up and go together. We were waiting for the first of three buses we were going to have to take to get there when Agatha came out of our hotel and told us her friend was going that direction and would drive us in his jeep if we just bought him a few beers later. Sounded like a good plan, so we jumped in and headed off. Both places were very nice – sort of like Pondicherry, European settlements in the middle of India. We saw a bunch of churches including the Basilica of Bom Jesus (I just love that name) where the body of St. Francis Xavier is kept. There was a mass going on there and it was so interesting to hear all of the familiar responses in English at a church in India. “Lift up you hearts.” “We lift them up to the Lord…” Anyway, the day was getting hotter and hotter and it was almost unbearable, so we decided to get in a taxi and go to the beach. On the way, I asked the driver to stop so I could buy some feni, which is a spirit that they make only in Goa. There are two varieties, cashew and coconut, and I bought one bottle of each… someone is getting a good present when I get home…
We changed at the hotel and the guys had rented scooters, so we scooted down to the beach and found Lena and Johanna in the same spot I had been with them yesterday. We all hung out, swimming and sunbathing and eating at one of the little shacks on the beach. It was fantastic! When we all felt sufficiently sunburned, we headed back to the hotel room to shower and change because we were supposed to be attending that festival at the local temple. We met in the courtyard and started out. It occurred to me as we were walking along that I was the only American with four Germans in a Portuguese colony going to a Hindi festival in India… very international. Anyway, it turned out to be a bust because when we got there they were still setting up – apparently it wasn’t starting until 10:30 and it was 7:30 at the moment. We went to dinner – I had fish cooked in parchment with herbs and mashed potatoes! And by the end of the meal I was so tired that I went back to the hotel to go to sleep. I think the two girls and Rene went back, so I’ll have to ask them tomorrow how it was. I was a little disappointed in myself that I couldn’t stay up for the dancing, but hey – this is my vacation and I can do whatever I want! Tomorrow I fly to Kochin. I’m really looking forward to it, but I will miss Goa, my little beach paradise.
Woman on the Goa
April 1, Goa
After falling asleep at my gate in the airport ( I hadn’t really slept for two days) and nearly missing my flight, I arrived in Goa this morning at around 8 a.m. I could immediately tell that I was in a place different from any I had been so far. The air was thick with humidity and there were brightly colored statues of mermaids, men cutting coconuts open, and gods lining the way from the tarmac to the baggage claim… sort of like a weird, out-of-date Disney resort. While I was waiting for my luggage, I spotted two white girls about my age standing near me. I had seen them on the plane and they seemed pretty normal, so I decided to approach them to see if they were going anywhere near where I was going since I didn’t want to pay for a taxi to the beach by myself. It turned out that they were going to the same beach (Goa has about 15 beaches) I was and we shared our ride. Their names are Lena and Johanna and they are German medical students who just finished a month-long internship at a hospital in Bangalore. They told me they were staying at a cheap hotel – much cheaper than the one I had reserved, so when we got to their place, I got a room there as well. We ended up spending the day together and having a really nice time. Our hotel is called Couthino’s Nest and it’s a homestay (meaning that it’s someone’s house that has rooms to let out) owned by a woman named Agatha and her daughter, Fulla. It’s really cute and quiet and the living room is filled with hilarious chotchkes and stuffed animals and pictures of Jesus. Goa was a Portuguese settlement, so a lot of the people here are Christian. I have a single room with a shared bathroom and it’s costing me about $4 a night… pretty good!
The girls and I had some coffee at the hotel and then we headed down to the beach. We’re staying at Anjuna, which has had a long tradition of being a partier’s paradise – first the hippies came in the late sixties, and then the ravers came in the nineties, but now it has toned down almost completely (don’t worry, Mom) and it’s very laid-back and non-touristy. Luckily, Wednesday is the day that Anjuna has a huge flea market that all of the guide books say is a must-see in Southern India, and that’s when I happened to be here! After some much-needed relaxation time in the sun and bathtub -warm water, we walked over to the market and proceeded to spend way too much money! It was incredible to see all of the wares people were selling; bedspreads, jewelry, hammocks, clothes, knives, spices, trance music CDs, food, woodcarvings, doorknobs… you name it and it was there. Souvenir heaven. We got hot and tired and went to sit at one of the many beach-side cafes for a drink and some people-watching. The girls decided to go back to the market and shop some more and I took my towel down to the water and promptly fell asleep in the sun. I woke up to four young men kneeling around me, trying to sell me necklaces and asking for some of the water from my bottle. I shooed them away (you have to be really harsh with them or else they’ll bother you all day) and sat up to watch the beautiful sunset. While I was sitting there, a little girl came over to me and offered to do black henna for me. It’s a different type of henna that stains black instead of red and supposedly stays on for much longer. I negotiated a price with her and she brought me to her mother’s shop where she applied a beautiful design on both of my hands and forearms. Her name is Shilpa and she is twelve years old. As she was finishing the first design, The German girls came and told me they were hungry for dinner and by this point, so was I, so I arranged for Shilpa to wait for me until I finished eating and then come to the hotel to do the other hand… she suggested the plan, so I took her up on it. We ate at Shore Bar, which in the heyday of Anjuna was the place to go after the Wednesday market. Now it’s not as popular, but the food was good and the atmosphere was fun. I had a grilled baguette with tomato, avocado and cheese. It was divine …and a welcome break from vegetable curry and rice. We gathered Shilpa, and her brother as well, and walked back to our hotel. She finished the design and chatted happily to me the whole time. She is adorable, so smart even though she’s never been to school (her brother gets to go, of course, but it’s too expensive to send a girl to school). Being with her really made me miss my students at Shanti Bhavan and made me so happy that my kids there are being given the amazing opportunity to have the education they’re getting. Anyway, by the time she finished I was falling asleep in my chair, but I managed to hear from her that there is a festival going on tomorrow and there is going to be dancing at the local temple at 7 o’clock. I’m going to Panjim and Old Goa – the historical Portuguese settlements – tomorrow, but before I headed to my room, I arranged with my new German friends and Shilpa to meet at the temple at 6 tomorrow to see the celebration. It should be pretty cool. If I don’t sleep now, I’m going to die, so I will write more tomorrow!
After falling asleep at my gate in the airport ( I hadn’t really slept for two days) and nearly missing my flight, I arrived in Goa this morning at around 8 a.m. I could immediately tell that I was in a place different from any I had been so far. The air was thick with humidity and there were brightly colored statues of mermaids, men cutting coconuts open, and gods lining the way from the tarmac to the baggage claim… sort of like a weird, out-of-date Disney resort. While I was waiting for my luggage, I spotted two white girls about my age standing near me. I had seen them on the plane and they seemed pretty normal, so I decided to approach them to see if they were going anywhere near where I was going since I didn’t want to pay for a taxi to the beach by myself. It turned out that they were going to the same beach (Goa has about 15 beaches) I was and we shared our ride. Their names are Lena and Johanna and they are German medical students who just finished a month-long internship at a hospital in Bangalore. They told me they were staying at a cheap hotel – much cheaper than the one I had reserved, so when we got to their place, I got a room there as well. We ended up spending the day together and having a really nice time. Our hotel is called Couthino’s Nest and it’s a homestay (meaning that it’s someone’s house that has rooms to let out) owned by a woman named Agatha and her daughter, Fulla. It’s really cute and quiet and the living room is filled with hilarious chotchkes and stuffed animals and pictures of Jesus. Goa was a Portuguese settlement, so a lot of the people here are Christian. I have a single room with a shared bathroom and it’s costing me about $4 a night… pretty good!
The girls and I had some coffee at the hotel and then we headed down to the beach. We’re staying at Anjuna, which has had a long tradition of being a partier’s paradise – first the hippies came in the late sixties, and then the ravers came in the nineties, but now it has toned down almost completely (don’t worry, Mom) and it’s very laid-back and non-touristy. Luckily, Wednesday is the day that Anjuna has a huge flea market that all of the guide books say is a must-see in Southern India, and that’s when I happened to be here! After some much-needed relaxation time in the sun and bathtub -warm water, we walked over to the market and proceeded to spend way too much money! It was incredible to see all of the wares people were selling; bedspreads, jewelry, hammocks, clothes, knives, spices, trance music CDs, food, woodcarvings, doorknobs… you name it and it was there. Souvenir heaven. We got hot and tired and went to sit at one of the many beach-side cafes for a drink and some people-watching. The girls decided to go back to the market and shop some more and I took my towel down to the water and promptly fell asleep in the sun. I woke up to four young men kneeling around me, trying to sell me necklaces and asking for some of the water from my bottle. I shooed them away (you have to be really harsh with them or else they’ll bother you all day) and sat up to watch the beautiful sunset. While I was sitting there, a little girl came over to me and offered to do black henna for me. It’s a different type of henna that stains black instead of red and supposedly stays on for much longer. I negotiated a price with her and she brought me to her mother’s shop where she applied a beautiful design on both of my hands and forearms. Her name is Shilpa and she is twelve years old. As she was finishing the first design, The German girls came and told me they were hungry for dinner and by this point, so was I, so I arranged for Shilpa to wait for me until I finished eating and then come to the hotel to do the other hand… she suggested the plan, so I took her up on it. We ate at Shore Bar, which in the heyday of Anjuna was the place to go after the Wednesday market. Now it’s not as popular, but the food was good and the atmosphere was fun. I had a grilled baguette with tomato, avocado and cheese. It was divine …and a welcome break from vegetable curry and rice. We gathered Shilpa, and her brother as well, and walked back to our hotel. She finished the design and chatted happily to me the whole time. She is adorable, so smart even though she’s never been to school (her brother gets to go, of course, but it’s too expensive to send a girl to school). Being with her really made me miss my students at Shanti Bhavan and made me so happy that my kids there are being given the amazing opportunity to have the education they’re getting. Anyway, by the time she finished I was falling asleep in my chair, but I managed to hear from her that there is a festival going on tomorrow and there is going to be dancing at the local temple at 7 o’clock. I’m going to Panjim and Old Goa – the historical Portuguese settlements – tomorrow, but before I headed to my room, I arranged with my new German friends and Shilpa to meet at the temple at 6 tomorrow to see the celebration. It should be pretty cool. If I don’t sleep now, I’m going to die, so I will write more tomorrow!
"If I leave you, it doesn't mean I love you any less.."
.April 1, Bangalore International Airport
I left Shanti Bhavan at two a.m. – in the middle of the night, just the way I arrived. It was strange to leave when no one was awake, like I was sneaking off or something, but I suppose it’s a good bookmark to the experience to come and go at the same time. As I made the drive away from the school, where everything looked so familiar, I remembered back to the night I came, when I was confused and tired and had no idea where I was. How quickly this place became home…
Yesterday was an incredible day. I got up, taught my classes, and at the end of each class, I was tackled by all of the kids who were all trying to hug and kiss me at the same time. I received tons of letters, some for me, some for my family, and some for new American pen-pals. I started packing a bit in the afternoon, but I put it off as long as I could because I was in denial about leaving. At the end of the school day, we had a normal assembly, but – as with all of the volunteers when they leave – at the end, I was given my send-off. Four children from my fourth and fifth grade classes gave short speeches about me, and I was given a beautiful card made by Bina, my eleventh grade student who is the dancer. I got up and thanked everyone and cried, of course, and then the volunteers gave a small performance. I sang a few songs, some of the others performed a Shanti Bhavan rap, and then we all sang a song together. I can’t describe what a rush it is to perform for the school. The kids are such an appreciative audience and they love everything we do. Every time I get up on stage for them I feel like a star. They all loved the show and afterwards, the volunteers had a “meeting” with Dr. George and Mrs. Law in the volunteer house. The meeting turned out to be a gathering with some special snacks that had been arranged in honor of my departure and the departure of one of the teachers who is leaving at the end of the term. I was so touched that I was included in the reason for the celebration and I felt really honored.
I went to my last choir rehearsal and the kids were so dear. They said they had a surprise for me and they sang “For Good” from Wicked to me. I cried again, of course, and when they were finished, I was planning to thank them and give a little inspirational speech, but instead I was tackled, hugged and kissed until I felt like I was going to fall over. It was awesome!
Then I took a walk around the grounds and just sort of said good-bye to the school. It was an incredible night – clear sky so there were millions of stars, and a crescent moon like I have never seen before. The air was cool and breezy and I just felt so grateful for every moment I spent in that wonderful place. I think that’s one of the things I will take away from my time in India. I’ve never been very good at having religion, but I believe in God and I believe in gratitude. It may sound a little cheesy, but you can really feel God in a place like this… and I’ve been working on letting Him/Her/It whatever God is, know that I am thankful for all I’ve been given. It’s made me feel a lot better. I came to India hoping for a change, hoping to have my heart opened again and hoping to come away with a renewed sense of my artistic purpose. I got what I came for. I left Shanti Bhavan with a heart bursting to the brim with love and faith in the future. I thank everyone who helped me get here and everyone I met since I’ve been here for giving me that priceless gift.
I left Shanti Bhavan at two a.m. – in the middle of the night, just the way I arrived. It was strange to leave when no one was awake, like I was sneaking off or something, but I suppose it’s a good bookmark to the experience to come and go at the same time. As I made the drive away from the school, where everything looked so familiar, I remembered back to the night I came, when I was confused and tired and had no idea where I was. How quickly this place became home…
Yesterday was an incredible day. I got up, taught my classes, and at the end of each class, I was tackled by all of the kids who were all trying to hug and kiss me at the same time. I received tons of letters, some for me, some for my family, and some for new American pen-pals. I started packing a bit in the afternoon, but I put it off as long as I could because I was in denial about leaving. At the end of the school day, we had a normal assembly, but – as with all of the volunteers when they leave – at the end, I was given my send-off. Four children from my fourth and fifth grade classes gave short speeches about me, and I was given a beautiful card made by Bina, my eleventh grade student who is the dancer. I got up and thanked everyone and cried, of course, and then the volunteers gave a small performance. I sang a few songs, some of the others performed a Shanti Bhavan rap, and then we all sang a song together. I can’t describe what a rush it is to perform for the school. The kids are such an appreciative audience and they love everything we do. Every time I get up on stage for them I feel like a star. They all loved the show and afterwards, the volunteers had a “meeting” with Dr. George and Mrs. Law in the volunteer house. The meeting turned out to be a gathering with some special snacks that had been arranged in honor of my departure and the departure of one of the teachers who is leaving at the end of the term. I was so touched that I was included in the reason for the celebration and I felt really honored.
I went to my last choir rehearsal and the kids were so dear. They said they had a surprise for me and they sang “For Good” from Wicked to me. I cried again, of course, and when they were finished, I was planning to thank them and give a little inspirational speech, but instead I was tackled, hugged and kissed until I felt like I was going to fall over. It was awesome!
Then I took a walk around the grounds and just sort of said good-bye to the school. It was an incredible night – clear sky so there were millions of stars, and a crescent moon like I have never seen before. The air was cool and breezy and I just felt so grateful for every moment I spent in that wonderful place. I think that’s one of the things I will take away from my time in India. I’ve never been very good at having religion, but I believe in God and I believe in gratitude. It may sound a little cheesy, but you can really feel God in a place like this… and I’ve been working on letting Him/Her/It whatever God is, know that I am thankful for all I’ve been given. It’s made me feel a lot better. I came to India hoping for a change, hoping to have my heart opened again and hoping to come away with a renewed sense of my artistic purpose. I got what I came for. I left Shanti Bhavan with a heart bursting to the brim with love and faith in the future. I thank everyone who helped me get here and everyone I met since I’ve been here for giving me that priceless gift.
I have been changed... for good.
March 30, Shanti Bhavan
It’s my second to last morning here at Shanti Bhavan and I’m starting to feel really sad. I don’t want to leave this place. It is so peaceful and beautiful and has begun to feel like home, not just somewhere that I work. Of course I’ll miss the kids most of all. A few nights ago I had my show, when the kids performed everything that we’ve been working on the whole time I’ve been here. It was a beautiful night. We had the show after dinner, and it was so cute, seeing the kids all dressed up and nervous. I had all of the girls doing ballet numbers wear pink, and they surprised me by showing up in identical pink swing dresses that were so cute I couldn’t stand it! The boys were all wearing matching outfits too – little shorts and striped shirts. They kept coming up to me during dinner to ask me questions and beg for a little more rehearsal time. I was impressed that they were so invested in doing well and making it the best it could be, and it went perfectly. Everyone did better than they had ever done in class and the response from the staff and other students was overwhelming. I didn’t know it could be so satisfying to see something that I had worked on and created be put on stage and performed by other people. It was the first time I really felt like the kids were mine. I will be so sad to leave these beautiful, interesting, complex little personalities… but I really want to come back. On Saturday morning, I joined my fourth grade class for their nature walk in the morning. They basically go out and walk around the grounds of the school, looking for certain nature characteristics – birds or soil or lizards. They were so adorable. All the girls were fighting over who got to hold my hand and talking all about the show and telling me stories. A few of them were expressing real sadness over my leaving and it struck me how hard it must be for them to constantly be getting attached to the volunteers who come and then leave so soon. Next time I come, I want to be here for a whole semester if I can. One of the girls, Yeshwini, kept saying “Miss, I can’t even tell how much I love you, I can’t even tell how much I will miss you.” And then she said “The song, For Good (from Wicked), Miss, that is how I feel about you.” Then she started singing the song and all of the other kids joined in and I had my own little private performance. It was so beautiful. The fourth graders are special. They can be rambunctious, but they had such good hearts and they have been my favorite class to teach. I will miss them terribly.
It’s my second to last morning here at Shanti Bhavan and I’m starting to feel really sad. I don’t want to leave this place. It is so peaceful and beautiful and has begun to feel like home, not just somewhere that I work. Of course I’ll miss the kids most of all. A few nights ago I had my show, when the kids performed everything that we’ve been working on the whole time I’ve been here. It was a beautiful night. We had the show after dinner, and it was so cute, seeing the kids all dressed up and nervous. I had all of the girls doing ballet numbers wear pink, and they surprised me by showing up in identical pink swing dresses that were so cute I couldn’t stand it! The boys were all wearing matching outfits too – little shorts and striped shirts. They kept coming up to me during dinner to ask me questions and beg for a little more rehearsal time. I was impressed that they were so invested in doing well and making it the best it could be, and it went perfectly. Everyone did better than they had ever done in class and the response from the staff and other students was overwhelming. I didn’t know it could be so satisfying to see something that I had worked on and created be put on stage and performed by other people. It was the first time I really felt like the kids were mine. I will be so sad to leave these beautiful, interesting, complex little personalities… but I really want to come back. On Saturday morning, I joined my fourth grade class for their nature walk in the morning. They basically go out and walk around the grounds of the school, looking for certain nature characteristics – birds or soil or lizards. They were so adorable. All the girls were fighting over who got to hold my hand and talking all about the show and telling me stories. A few of them were expressing real sadness over my leaving and it struck me how hard it must be for them to constantly be getting attached to the volunteers who come and then leave so soon. Next time I come, I want to be here for a whole semester if I can. One of the girls, Yeshwini, kept saying “Miss, I can’t even tell how much I love you, I can’t even tell how much I will miss you.” And then she said “The song, For Good (from Wicked), Miss, that is how I feel about you.” Then she started singing the song and all of the other kids joined in and I had my own little private performance. It was so beautiful. The fourth graders are special. They can be rambunctious, but they had such good hearts and they have been my favorite class to teach. I will miss them terribly.
Train Ride to Hell!
March 23, Shanti Bhavan
Well, last night was certainly something to remember… as soon as we found out we couldn’t ride on the sleeper car, we made a mad dash to get our money refunded and purchase tickets on the 3rd class car. Then we hurried to the platform to try to get the best spots for getting on the train first. All of the other people on the platform looked at us in disbelief and asked us why we were riding in the 3rd class compartment. We just laughed and said we had no other option. When the train pulled into the station, we were lined up and waiting. I had all this adrenaline pumping, like I was getting ready for a fight – and a fight it was. By this time there were a few dozen other people waiting behind us and we were shoved and pulled and generally jostled every which way in the feverish rush to get on the train and get seats (seats – ha!). The train was already packed with people and there were eight of us, with our bags and backpacks, trying to stay together and find somewhere to put our bodies. It was mayhem. All of the other passengers were yelling at us, telling us what to do, and of course, we couldn’t understand anyone. There were four and five people squashed together on the bench seats, people lying on the luggage rails lining the sides of the car, and people sitting on the luggage racks above the benches. Someone grabbed my bag and put it under their seat and told me to get up on one of the luggage racks. In my first true act of being an Indian, I shook the guy stretched out on my apparent seat and yelled “Wake up! Move!” He finally obliged and I began to put all of my gymnastics skills to use to climb up onto this metal rack. As I was attempting this feat, all of the people below me started yelling at me to take off my shoes. I did, and someone grabbed them and threw them up onto the cage of the little ceiling fan in the middle of the seats. I helped Molly up beside me and checked around to see how everyone else was doing. They were all performing their own individual circus acts and lodging themselves in places where no person is supposed to go. We were all laughing hysterically at this, the most quintessential of Indian experiences. The rest of the ten hour journey was pretty mind-numbing. We tried our best to get comfortable, not yet possessing the native quality of just being ok with lying on and smooshing into any stranger that happens to be near. I swear, these people have no issues with personal space. Steve was sitting up on a luggage rack next to a guy who had a sleeping stranger’s face shoved into his butt and he didn’t even seem to notice… neither did the sleeping guy. People were stretched out on newspapers on the floor and other passengers getting on and off just stepped over them – or on them – without a second glance. We saw one man sitting on a seat and he had spread some newspaper down on the floor for his wife – how chivalrous. Later on in the trip, he was trying to open the window and couldn’t, and so he woke up his wife to yell at her about it. She opened it right away, of course. By hour six or seven, we had reached the point of delirium. Every time the train stopped, there was a host of vendors walking next to and through the train and their loud droning “Chai, chai, chai,” or “Coff-ay, coffay, coff-ay,” made it impossible to sleep – as if I would have been able to anyway. When I was about to really lose it, I made my way to one of the open doors at the end of the car and someone moved so I could sit on the stairs and get some air. It felt nice to have some non-B.O. infused air blowing on me and the countryside looked very nice in the moonlight. I basically stayed there until we got into Hosur at around 5 a.m. We all tumbled gratefully off of the train and into the car that was waiting at the station to take us back to Shanti Bhavan. We arrived just in time to go teach our morning aerobics class… which we skipped in favor of an hour or two of blissful sleep. It was an experience I hope to never repeat, but looking back on it, I wouldn’t have traded that night for anything. It was pretty fun, and I definitely feel closer to the Indian people now – but not close enough to stick my face in their butts. I have my limits.
Well, last night was certainly something to remember… as soon as we found out we couldn’t ride on the sleeper car, we made a mad dash to get our money refunded and purchase tickets on the 3rd class car. Then we hurried to the platform to try to get the best spots for getting on the train first. All of the other people on the platform looked at us in disbelief and asked us why we were riding in the 3rd class compartment. We just laughed and said we had no other option. When the train pulled into the station, we were lined up and waiting. I had all this adrenaline pumping, like I was getting ready for a fight – and a fight it was. By this time there were a few dozen other people waiting behind us and we were shoved and pulled and generally jostled every which way in the feverish rush to get on the train and get seats (seats – ha!). The train was already packed with people and there were eight of us, with our bags and backpacks, trying to stay together and find somewhere to put our bodies. It was mayhem. All of the other passengers were yelling at us, telling us what to do, and of course, we couldn’t understand anyone. There were four and five people squashed together on the bench seats, people lying on the luggage rails lining the sides of the car, and people sitting on the luggage racks above the benches. Someone grabbed my bag and put it under their seat and told me to get up on one of the luggage racks. In my first true act of being an Indian, I shook the guy stretched out on my apparent seat and yelled “Wake up! Move!” He finally obliged and I began to put all of my gymnastics skills to use to climb up onto this metal rack. As I was attempting this feat, all of the people below me started yelling at me to take off my shoes. I did, and someone grabbed them and threw them up onto the cage of the little ceiling fan in the middle of the seats. I helped Molly up beside me and checked around to see how everyone else was doing. They were all performing their own individual circus acts and lodging themselves in places where no person is supposed to go. We were all laughing hysterically at this, the most quintessential of Indian experiences. The rest of the ten hour journey was pretty mind-numbing. We tried our best to get comfortable, not yet possessing the native quality of just being ok with lying on and smooshing into any stranger that happens to be near. I swear, these people have no issues with personal space. Steve was sitting up on a luggage rack next to a guy who had a sleeping stranger’s face shoved into his butt and he didn’t even seem to notice… neither did the sleeping guy. People were stretched out on newspapers on the floor and other passengers getting on and off just stepped over them – or on them – without a second glance. We saw one man sitting on a seat and he had spread some newspaper down on the floor for his wife – how chivalrous. Later on in the trip, he was trying to open the window and couldn’t, and so he woke up his wife to yell at her about it. She opened it right away, of course. By hour six or seven, we had reached the point of delirium. Every time the train stopped, there was a host of vendors walking next to and through the train and their loud droning “Chai, chai, chai,” or “Coff-ay, coffay, coff-ay,” made it impossible to sleep – as if I would have been able to anyway. When I was about to really lose it, I made my way to one of the open doors at the end of the car and someone moved so I could sit on the stairs and get some air. It felt nice to have some non-B.O. infused air blowing on me and the countryside looked very nice in the moonlight. I basically stayed there until we got into Hosur at around 5 a.m. We all tumbled gratefully off of the train and into the car that was waiting at the station to take us back to Shanti Bhavan. We arrived just in time to go teach our morning aerobics class… which we skipped in favor of an hour or two of blissful sleep. It was an experience I hope to never repeat, but looking back on it, I wouldn’t have traded that night for anything. It was pretty fun, and I definitely feel closer to the Indian people now – but not close enough to stick my face in their butts. I have my limits.
The Wild Life
March 22nd, Thekaddy
This weekend all of the volunteers went to Madurai – a city in Southern Tamil Nadu – to see the Meenakshi temple. It is one of the largest temple complexes in India and has four huge towers with thousands of brightly colored statures covering them. It was pretty incredible, but we happened to be there during a time when they were restoring and repainting the whole thing. Every twelve years they repaint the temple and there is a festival during the first week of April to celebrate the unveiling. It’s a huge deal and thousands of pilgrims make the journey to be there to watch them shower the newly renovated towers with milk water and sandalwood water… I don’t really know why they do that, but it must be some kind of blessing. I wish we would have seen that, but it was still pretty awe-inspiring, even with most of the towers obstructed by scaffolding. When we arrived in Madurai after taking the overnight train, we got into rickshaws and went right to the temple. As soon as we disembarked, we were “picked up” by a little man saying, “You come now, almost nine o’clock, you come see the light on the Golden Tower, very nice view, no money, promise promise.” We figured we might as well follow him, so we all went with him to the shop he worked at – a very nice government gift shop – and he lead us up three flights of stairs through floors full of figures, carpets, wall-hangings and jewelry to the roof of his building where we had a very nice view of the temple from above. We stayed there for a bit and then went down through the shop where we were invited – not pushed – to look at the handicrafts and maybe buy. A few people bought things, and in the process we got ourselves a guide for our temple visit in the form of one of the guys who worked in the shop. A few of the boys were wearing shorts, which aren’t allowed in the temple, so the store loaned them lungis (a garment that Indian men wear which is basically a long piece of fabric worm wrapped around the waist like a sarong… or a towel after a shower). We took off our shoes and left them in the store (no shoes allowed either) and we headed across the street to the temple. We got blessed by the temple elephant, which I always enjoy, and saw lots of worshippers doing their poojas, or prayers. We were also taken to see the temple camels and the temple bull. It was sort of a cross between a religious site and a zoo. It was really cool. After that, we got lunch and went to the Gandhi museum. Gandhi spent a good amount of time in Madurai and it was actually there where he stopped dressing in Western clothes and adopted the dhoti (a white lungi), the dress of the poor peasants. The museum was interesting, but it was so hot that I felt like I was going to faint for most of it. After the museum, we went to the bus station and got on the government bus to Thekaddy, to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. The bus was crowded and hot and the ride was four hours long, but it only cost forty rupees – less than a dollar. I was lucky enough to score a window seat, so I had great views and a nice breeze. To get to Periyar, we had to cross the border of Tamil Nadu and enter Kerala, the state I will be traveling in when I leave Shanti Bhavan. It is a supremely beautiful state, full of greenery and lush landscapes, and it made me so excited to go back. We arrived in Kumily, the little town inside the sanctuary where we were staying, at about eight and checked into our hotel, the Meadow View Inn. It was a beautiful place with clean, Western bathrooms and MEMORY FOAM MATRESSES! Every mattress in India is equivalent to sleeping on a metal luggage rack (more on that later), and so when I sat down on that soft, lovely bed, I almost cried. Everyone went to dinner, but Molly and I went off in search of an Ayurvedic massage. We were walking down the road when we were stopped by a couple of guys sitting outside their shops. They were so nice and asked us all about ourselves and one of them, who owned a spice shop, told us about a great massage place a few doors down. The other one, a cute little man from Kashmir, told us he was getting married next week and invited us to his shop the next day for some Kashmiri tea. We promised we’d come and set off for our massage. At first we were devastated because the place was closed, but we stood outside for a few minutes and someone came out, asking us what we wanted. They agreed to re-open for us and I felt a little bad, because it was late and they had probably worked all day, but I really wanted a massage! That’s the thing about India though, you can pretty much get anyone to do anything you want if you ask them nicely and pay enough… they just need the business.
The massage was amazing. I went into the room and the girl told me to undress…all the way. I figured “when in Rome…”, so I got down to my birthday suit and she tied a little paper loin cloth around me and told me to lie down on the table. Then I forgot about everything. She was so good, gentle, but effective and the oils she used smelled like the rainforest or something. She massaged my whole body, then gave me a mini-facial with a scrub and mask, then she put coconut oil in my hair and instructed me to go sit in this old-fashioned steamer – you know the kind where you sit on a stool inside a big compartment with your head sticking out? It was wild, but felt really nice too. Then after about 15 minutes, she pulled me out, toweled me off like I was a baby getting out of a bath, and put a lump of something fragrant on the top of my head (I have no idea what it was or what it was for). I slept like a baby that night.
The next morning we got up early and went on a morning walk through the wildlife sanctuary. It was beautiful, even though we didn’t see any of the 300 elephants or 36 tigers that are supposedly living there. We did see a deer though, and some birds. After the walk, we were all pretty hungry, so we ate some breakfast (eggs and toast!) and decided to go take an elephant ride. This was so exciting for me because I am now officially in love with elephants. The three girls got on one elephant together and we set off on a little trail on our big lady, Shanta Kumari, which we figured out probably means “Princess of Peace” or something close to that. She was so beautiful and walked so smoothly it was hard to believe that we were on a three-ton animal. After the walk, we got to take pictures and pet and hug her. It was so fun. When the after-glow of elephant riding wore off, we went to do a tour of one of the local spice “plantations.” They grow all sorts of things like cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon, coffee, vanilla, pineapples, and on and on. It was interesting to see the plants in their raw state and then to hear how they are processed. It was a beautiful place too, colorful and tranquil. It was also fun because our guide had a really cute accent that for some reason caused her to say her “t’s” as “ch’s” so “plant” became “planch.” She said “tomato” perfectly though…go figure.
Next we were all ready for a little nap, so instead we went on a boat ride through the sanctuary. We piled onto a barge with about a million other tourists and set off down the lake. Again we didn’t see much wildlife, but the scenery and views were spectacular. The best part was when it started to rain. Hard. It was one of those crazy storms where the rain is pounding down, but somehow the sun is still out and everything was doubled because we were on the water. It was pretty incredible. After the rain stopped, the sun shone through the clouds, and I swear it was like God had showed up to say hi. We were about to the end of the ride when that happened and when we disembarked, the ground was covered with thousands of tiny black frogs hopping everywhere. Man they were cute, but I had to be really careful where I was walking so I didn’t step on them.
As if we hadn’t packed enough into one day, some of us decided to go to a Kerali presentation next. Kerali is a form of martial arts native to Kerala and it incorporates spirituality, strength, flexibility, and weapons! The show was unbelievable. There were six guys doing some of the most difficult and death-defying things I’ve ever seen in real life. They fought man to man, then sword to sword, then sword to bare hands, then spear to piece of fabric, then they swung flaming sticks around, then they jumped through rings of fire – and all of this on a cement floor with a little dirt on top. I’m not doing it justice, but it can’t really be described. The best part was that at the end they invited the audience – which consisted of us and about four other people – to come and take pictures. No one else went, but we did and they posed us in various fight stances with the weapons of our choice. They must have picked up on the fact that I’m good with my body, because pretty soon they were all around me trying to get me to do various impossible things, like leaning all the way back so my head touched the ground without using my hands. It was sort of fun being the only girl and getting all the attention ;). I got some great pictures and I was on an adrenaline high for a while after that… I like fighting. We all went to dinner next and then we went back to the hotel where there was no current, so we all sat around in the dark for a while playing 20 Questions and the movie game. Finally the day came to an end and we went to sleep.
Today, we decided to take it easy. The girls got up at around eight o’clock and since we couldn’t find the boys, we went and had a lovely breakfast. Then it was off for some shopping. We had promised our two friends we’d come back to their shops, so I first went and bought some spices for my dad and then we stopped into the Kashmiri guy’s shop. Sure enough, as soon as he saw us, he gave us big hugs and sent someone out for the Kashmiri tea. He told us he had been gone the previous day because he had gone to pick up his bride from Kochin for the wedding the next week. He was one big smile and in honor of his wedding, he gave us great prices on some beautiful things. He invited us to the wedding – we would have been three out of 3,000 guests- but unfortunately we can’t go. It is one of my hopes that I will be invited to and able to attend a wedding in India. I’ve heard they’re really something to see.
We just bummed around for the rest of the day until we had to get on the bus back to Madurai, where we have just discovered that our second-class A/C sleeper tickets on the train are not available anymore and that the only way to get home is to ride in the third-class unreserved compartment… this should be good.
This weekend all of the volunteers went to Madurai – a city in Southern Tamil Nadu – to see the Meenakshi temple. It is one of the largest temple complexes in India and has four huge towers with thousands of brightly colored statures covering them. It was pretty incredible, but we happened to be there during a time when they were restoring and repainting the whole thing. Every twelve years they repaint the temple and there is a festival during the first week of April to celebrate the unveiling. It’s a huge deal and thousands of pilgrims make the journey to be there to watch them shower the newly renovated towers with milk water and sandalwood water… I don’t really know why they do that, but it must be some kind of blessing. I wish we would have seen that, but it was still pretty awe-inspiring, even with most of the towers obstructed by scaffolding. When we arrived in Madurai after taking the overnight train, we got into rickshaws and went right to the temple. As soon as we disembarked, we were “picked up” by a little man saying, “You come now, almost nine o’clock, you come see the light on the Golden Tower, very nice view, no money, promise promise.” We figured we might as well follow him, so we all went with him to the shop he worked at – a very nice government gift shop – and he lead us up three flights of stairs through floors full of figures, carpets, wall-hangings and jewelry to the roof of his building where we had a very nice view of the temple from above. We stayed there for a bit and then went down through the shop where we were invited – not pushed – to look at the handicrafts and maybe buy. A few people bought things, and in the process we got ourselves a guide for our temple visit in the form of one of the guys who worked in the shop. A few of the boys were wearing shorts, which aren’t allowed in the temple, so the store loaned them lungis (a garment that Indian men wear which is basically a long piece of fabric worm wrapped around the waist like a sarong… or a towel after a shower). We took off our shoes and left them in the store (no shoes allowed either) and we headed across the street to the temple. We got blessed by the temple elephant, which I always enjoy, and saw lots of worshippers doing their poojas, or prayers. We were also taken to see the temple camels and the temple bull. It was sort of a cross between a religious site and a zoo. It was really cool. After that, we got lunch and went to the Gandhi museum. Gandhi spent a good amount of time in Madurai and it was actually there where he stopped dressing in Western clothes and adopted the dhoti (a white lungi), the dress of the poor peasants. The museum was interesting, but it was so hot that I felt like I was going to faint for most of it. After the museum, we went to the bus station and got on the government bus to Thekaddy, to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. The bus was crowded and hot and the ride was four hours long, but it only cost forty rupees – less than a dollar. I was lucky enough to score a window seat, so I had great views and a nice breeze. To get to Periyar, we had to cross the border of Tamil Nadu and enter Kerala, the state I will be traveling in when I leave Shanti Bhavan. It is a supremely beautiful state, full of greenery and lush landscapes, and it made me so excited to go back. We arrived in Kumily, the little town inside the sanctuary where we were staying, at about eight and checked into our hotel, the Meadow View Inn. It was a beautiful place with clean, Western bathrooms and MEMORY FOAM MATRESSES! Every mattress in India is equivalent to sleeping on a metal luggage rack (more on that later), and so when I sat down on that soft, lovely bed, I almost cried. Everyone went to dinner, but Molly and I went off in search of an Ayurvedic massage. We were walking down the road when we were stopped by a couple of guys sitting outside their shops. They were so nice and asked us all about ourselves and one of them, who owned a spice shop, told us about a great massage place a few doors down. The other one, a cute little man from Kashmir, told us he was getting married next week and invited us to his shop the next day for some Kashmiri tea. We promised we’d come and set off for our massage. At first we were devastated because the place was closed, but we stood outside for a few minutes and someone came out, asking us what we wanted. They agreed to re-open for us and I felt a little bad, because it was late and they had probably worked all day, but I really wanted a massage! That’s the thing about India though, you can pretty much get anyone to do anything you want if you ask them nicely and pay enough… they just need the business.
The massage was amazing. I went into the room and the girl told me to undress…all the way. I figured “when in Rome…”, so I got down to my birthday suit and she tied a little paper loin cloth around me and told me to lie down on the table. Then I forgot about everything. She was so good, gentle, but effective and the oils she used smelled like the rainforest or something. She massaged my whole body, then gave me a mini-facial with a scrub and mask, then she put coconut oil in my hair and instructed me to go sit in this old-fashioned steamer – you know the kind where you sit on a stool inside a big compartment with your head sticking out? It was wild, but felt really nice too. Then after about 15 minutes, she pulled me out, toweled me off like I was a baby getting out of a bath, and put a lump of something fragrant on the top of my head (I have no idea what it was or what it was for). I slept like a baby that night.
The next morning we got up early and went on a morning walk through the wildlife sanctuary. It was beautiful, even though we didn’t see any of the 300 elephants or 36 tigers that are supposedly living there. We did see a deer though, and some birds. After the walk, we were all pretty hungry, so we ate some breakfast (eggs and toast!) and decided to go take an elephant ride. This was so exciting for me because I am now officially in love with elephants. The three girls got on one elephant together and we set off on a little trail on our big lady, Shanta Kumari, which we figured out probably means “Princess of Peace” or something close to that. She was so beautiful and walked so smoothly it was hard to believe that we were on a three-ton animal. After the walk, we got to take pictures and pet and hug her. It was so fun. When the after-glow of elephant riding wore off, we went to do a tour of one of the local spice “plantations.” They grow all sorts of things like cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon, coffee, vanilla, pineapples, and on and on. It was interesting to see the plants in their raw state and then to hear how they are processed. It was a beautiful place too, colorful and tranquil. It was also fun because our guide had a really cute accent that for some reason caused her to say her “t’s” as “ch’s” so “plant” became “planch.” She said “tomato” perfectly though…go figure.
Next we were all ready for a little nap, so instead we went on a boat ride through the sanctuary. We piled onto a barge with about a million other tourists and set off down the lake. Again we didn’t see much wildlife, but the scenery and views were spectacular. The best part was when it started to rain. Hard. It was one of those crazy storms where the rain is pounding down, but somehow the sun is still out and everything was doubled because we were on the water. It was pretty incredible. After the rain stopped, the sun shone through the clouds, and I swear it was like God had showed up to say hi. We were about to the end of the ride when that happened and when we disembarked, the ground was covered with thousands of tiny black frogs hopping everywhere. Man they were cute, but I had to be really careful where I was walking so I didn’t step on them.
As if we hadn’t packed enough into one day, some of us decided to go to a Kerali presentation next. Kerali is a form of martial arts native to Kerala and it incorporates spirituality, strength, flexibility, and weapons! The show was unbelievable. There were six guys doing some of the most difficult and death-defying things I’ve ever seen in real life. They fought man to man, then sword to sword, then sword to bare hands, then spear to piece of fabric, then they swung flaming sticks around, then they jumped through rings of fire – and all of this on a cement floor with a little dirt on top. I’m not doing it justice, but it can’t really be described. The best part was that at the end they invited the audience – which consisted of us and about four other people – to come and take pictures. No one else went, but we did and they posed us in various fight stances with the weapons of our choice. They must have picked up on the fact that I’m good with my body, because pretty soon they were all around me trying to get me to do various impossible things, like leaning all the way back so my head touched the ground without using my hands. It was sort of fun being the only girl and getting all the attention ;). I got some great pictures and I was on an adrenaline high for a while after that… I like fighting. We all went to dinner next and then we went back to the hotel where there was no current, so we all sat around in the dark for a while playing 20 Questions and the movie game. Finally the day came to an end and we went to sleep.
Today, we decided to take it easy. The girls got up at around eight o’clock and since we couldn’t find the boys, we went and had a lovely breakfast. Then it was off for some shopping. We had promised our two friends we’d come back to their shops, so I first went and bought some spices for my dad and then we stopped into the Kashmiri guy’s shop. Sure enough, as soon as he saw us, he gave us big hugs and sent someone out for the Kashmiri tea. He told us he had been gone the previous day because he had gone to pick up his bride from Kochin for the wedding the next week. He was one big smile and in honor of his wedding, he gave us great prices on some beautiful things. He invited us to the wedding – we would have been three out of 3,000 guests- but unfortunately we can’t go. It is one of my hopes that I will be invited to and able to attend a wedding in India. I’ve heard they’re really something to see.
We just bummed around for the rest of the day until we had to get on the bus back to Madurai, where we have just discovered that our second-class A/C sleeper tickets on the train are not available anymore and that the only way to get home is to ride in the third-class unreserved compartment… this should be good.
I'm back!
No, not in the states... I'm back to the blog. I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted - I've just been really busy and then having a really hard time with internet. Hope you enjoy all that is to come...
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Bonjour from India!
March 14th, Pondicherry (Puducherry)
I'm writing quickly from the former French colony of Pondicherry - they just call it "Pondy" - where I've just narrowly escaped death by motorcycle. It's lovely here, like a little piece of France on the East coast of India. Yesterday we woke for the sunrise over the beach, swam in the Bay of Bengal, saw Auroville - the largest neo-hippie commune in the world - ate steak (!!), listened to some great local music, met a gorgeous German journalist, shopped for salwar kamizes, drank some beer, and slept in a guest house run by the local ashram. What a diverse city this is! Heading back to Shanti Bhavan tonight. I'll write more later. A bientot!
I'm writing quickly from the former French colony of Pondicherry - they just call it "Pondy" - where I've just narrowly escaped death by motorcycle. It's lovely here, like a little piece of France on the East coast of India. Yesterday we woke for the sunrise over the beach, swam in the Bay of Bengal, saw Auroville - the largest neo-hippie commune in the world - ate steak (!!), listened to some great local music, met a gorgeous German journalist, shopped for salwar kamizes, drank some beer, and slept in a guest house run by the local ashram. What a diverse city this is! Heading back to Shanti Bhavan tonight. I'll write more later. A bientot!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Superstar!
March 6th, Shanti Bhavan
Tonight was incredible! We gave the show for the students and it went over like gangbusters. During our afternoon break, we had rehearsal and then the preparations began for the show. Beena and Mala, two of the 11th grade girls, came and put mehndi (henna designs) on our hands, and they did an amazing job – way better than the woman Amanda and I paid to do it in Hampi. We had the mehndi put on because in our dance number, I played a bride and the other girls were my bridesmaids, and in Indian weddings, the bridal party always has tons of mehndi. Anyway, after that, we were pretty much incapacitated because you have to let the henna dry on your hands and sit for an hour or two. While we were unable to use our hands, Miss Nirmala and Miss Debbie – one of the other teachers – basically dressed us. They helped us out of our clothes and into our sarees. My outfit for the show was a half-saree that belongs to one of the ninth grade students. A half-saree is a long skirt worn with a saree blouse and a dupatta (long shawl) wrapped around the waist and over the shoulder like a saree. It was teeny tiny because the women here are incredibly small. It had to be pinned a bit, but darn it, I got myself into the thing! They are all very upset that I have short hair, but they pinned it back and attached a long, black, synthetic braid to the tiny ponytail they managed to create. They pinned long garlands of jasmine flowers to the front and then put a rope of fake flowers along the braid in the back. These women get decorated to within an inch of their lives for special occasions. In addition to the hair, I had a jeweled thing that went down the middle of my forehead, earrings, a choker, a long gold necklace, tons of bangles, mehndi, a bindi, pearl strands that connected my earrings to my hair (all of this is fake, of course), and god knows what else. I weighed ten pounds more than I naturally do… and I had to dance! It was really fun getting all decked out in the traditional gear. The program started with a dance number between two of the volunteers, then another one did a martial arts demonstration, then I sang “No One is Alone,” a capella, then Amanda sang, then Michelle sang, then some of the guys played guitar and sang “Hey, Jude,” which was awesome because we all joined in on the “na na na na’s” and so did the whole school…clapping out of rhythm, of course, and finally came our dance. The music came on and the kids were going nuts! We felt like rockstars! It was so fun, having everyone cheering and singing along. We’re already planning another program for before I leave. After the show was over, everyone was in a party mood. All of the kids were running up to us, hugging us and shaking our hands and congratulating us. It was a blast.
Tonight was incredible! We gave the show for the students and it went over like gangbusters. During our afternoon break, we had rehearsal and then the preparations began for the show. Beena and Mala, two of the 11th grade girls, came and put mehndi (henna designs) on our hands, and they did an amazing job – way better than the woman Amanda and I paid to do it in Hampi. We had the mehndi put on because in our dance number, I played a bride and the other girls were my bridesmaids, and in Indian weddings, the bridal party always has tons of mehndi. Anyway, after that, we were pretty much incapacitated because you have to let the henna dry on your hands and sit for an hour or two. While we were unable to use our hands, Miss Nirmala and Miss Debbie – one of the other teachers – basically dressed us. They helped us out of our clothes and into our sarees. My outfit for the show was a half-saree that belongs to one of the ninth grade students. A half-saree is a long skirt worn with a saree blouse and a dupatta (long shawl) wrapped around the waist and over the shoulder like a saree. It was teeny tiny because the women here are incredibly small. It had to be pinned a bit, but darn it, I got myself into the thing! They are all very upset that I have short hair, but they pinned it back and attached a long, black, synthetic braid to the tiny ponytail they managed to create. They pinned long garlands of jasmine flowers to the front and then put a rope of fake flowers along the braid in the back. These women get decorated to within an inch of their lives for special occasions. In addition to the hair, I had a jeweled thing that went down the middle of my forehead, earrings, a choker, a long gold necklace, tons of bangles, mehndi, a bindi, pearl strands that connected my earrings to my hair (all of this is fake, of course), and god knows what else. I weighed ten pounds more than I naturally do… and I had to dance! It was really fun getting all decked out in the traditional gear. The program started with a dance number between two of the volunteers, then another one did a martial arts demonstration, then I sang “No One is Alone,” a capella, then Amanda sang, then Michelle sang, then some of the guys played guitar and sang “Hey, Jude,” which was awesome because we all joined in on the “na na na na’s” and so did the whole school…clapping out of rhythm, of course, and finally came our dance. The music came on and the kids were going nuts! We felt like rockstars! It was so fun, having everyone cheering and singing along. We’re already planning another program for before I leave. After the show was over, everyone was in a party mood. All of the kids were running up to us, hugging us and shaking our hands and congratulating us. It was a blast.
OK, a few more pictures from paradise
Harish, our local guide.
This elephant just blessed me!
Swimming in the lake...felt like heaven.
Elephant bathtime.
This cobra was not poisonous... or so we were told!More Hampi Pictures
This monkey loved my sunglasses!
Our Bollywood movie star looking hotel manager at the Garden Paradise.
Love this monkey! He looks like a little old man monk.
Snake charmer...for real!
Some Yoga at the temples.There's no business like weird show business
March 5th, Shanti Bhavan
Tomorrow night the volunteers are giving a surprise “program” for the students. Some of us are singing, some of us are playing instruments, and all of us are dancing. Miss Nirmala, who is becoming one of the defining characters in my stay here at Shanti Bhavan, is teaching us dances from a Tamil movie. (Tamil Nadu is the name of the state where the school is located, and it has a language, cinema, style of dance, style of music, etc. all its own.) I am in a group dance where I have been cast as the young bride (which is funny because I’m at least four years older than almost every other girl here). Our rehearsals are hilarious because not only is the dancing unusual to say the least, but Nirmala is not the most organized dance teacher.
I don’t know if I’ve described her before, but she is a plump, intense woman with long, frizzy black hair, a big smile, and a round belly. She can be a lot of fun, but she is very hard on the students and disciplines them harshly. Her husband and teenaged son live far away in Chennai and she only gets to see them on weekends. She loves to dance and is very good, but she isn’t as good at conveying her ideas to other people. Anyway, we are learning the number, which I will have to videotape, because I don’t think there’s any other way to describe it. It’s sort of frustrating if we take it too seriously because Nirms (as we call her) constantly changes the movements and doesn’t do anything consistently, but no matter what we do, the students will think we are stars.
We switched our schedule to the summer class schedule this week, which means that we have six periods in the morning, lunch, a two-hour siesta in the afternoon, two classes after nap, and assembly at 5:30. It’s nice to have the break when it’s the hottest part of the day. Today during the break, I’m going with a couple of the other girls to Hosur to buy accoutrements for the show. It should be a trip. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
Tomorrow night the volunteers are giving a surprise “program” for the students. Some of us are singing, some of us are playing instruments, and all of us are dancing. Miss Nirmala, who is becoming one of the defining characters in my stay here at Shanti Bhavan, is teaching us dances from a Tamil movie. (Tamil Nadu is the name of the state where the school is located, and it has a language, cinema, style of dance, style of music, etc. all its own.) I am in a group dance where I have been cast as the young bride (which is funny because I’m at least four years older than almost every other girl here). Our rehearsals are hilarious because not only is the dancing unusual to say the least, but Nirmala is not the most organized dance teacher.
I don’t know if I’ve described her before, but she is a plump, intense woman with long, frizzy black hair, a big smile, and a round belly. She can be a lot of fun, but she is very hard on the students and disciplines them harshly. Her husband and teenaged son live far away in Chennai and she only gets to see them on weekends. She loves to dance and is very good, but she isn’t as good at conveying her ideas to other people. Anyway, we are learning the number, which I will have to videotape, because I don’t think there’s any other way to describe it. It’s sort of frustrating if we take it too seriously because Nirms (as we call her) constantly changes the movements and doesn’t do anything consistently, but no matter what we do, the students will think we are stars.
We switched our schedule to the summer class schedule this week, which means that we have six periods in the morning, lunch, a two-hour siesta in the afternoon, two classes after nap, and assembly at 5:30. It’s nice to have the break when it’s the hottest part of the day. Today during the break, I’m going with a couple of the other girls to Hosur to buy accoutrements for the show. It should be a trip. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
Saree, Charlie!
March 2nd, Shanti Bhavan
I’m wearing my saree today – I tied it on my own, fairly respectably if I do say so myself. I feel beautiful and I think that I look pretty beautiful too. As I wrote before, the saree is such a flattering and elegant garment. It’s tied according to your body, so it fits perfectly and is made to your measurements. I feel like a goddess, floating across the ground, with my pallu (the part of the fabric that hangs over your shoulder and down your back) streaming behind me.
I’m wearing my saree today – I tied it on my own, fairly respectably if I do say so myself. I feel beautiful and I think that I look pretty beautiful too. As I wrote before, the saree is such a flattering and elegant garment. It’s tied according to your body, so it fits perfectly and is made to your measurements. I feel like a goddess, floating across the ground, with my pallu (the part of the fabric that hangs over your shoulder and down your back) streaming behind me.
It’s been really fun to see everyone’s reactions. All of the students are smiling and giggling and the teachers are so complimentary. I walked into my first class and all of the fifth graders said, “Wow, Miss, you are looking so beautiful today in your saree.” I said thank you, and then gave them a lesson on “you are looking” versus “you look.” Always have to be on the lookout for things to teach. One of the teachers, Daniel, said “When I saw you and Amanda in your sarees this morning my heart sank because there is a general feeling here that when volunteers wear sarees, they are leaving the next day. But then I asked Miss Beena and she said you are staying.” I laughed at that and was happy to know that my presence here would be noticed and missed. Even Dr. George, who is a wonderful man, but can be a bit detached to the volunteers sometimes, told me I looked pretty and complimented me on my ability to walk well in the saree. He asked Amanda and me to be out and about today during our break because there are going to be some special guests visiting the school and he wants them to see us wearing our sarees. I guess I underestimated the impact the garment would have on the way I’m seen here. It’s a huge sign of respect to wear the local clothes and I feel like I’ve officially been initiated into the club. I’m definitely going to get another one soon.
Musings...if you will
Some observations…
All Indian men have mustaches. All of them. It’s like there’s some sort of unwritten rule about it or something. Also, there are all of these signs – some of them as big as billboards – all over the place that have portraits of various mustachioed men on them. Some of these signs have one large picture and maybe five of six smaller ones, and some have many many small pictures dotting them like checker boards. We have no idea what they’re for and no one seems to be able to give us a straight answer about their significance. Are they advertisements for speaking engagements? Are they artists’ renderings of wanted criminals? Are they depictions of local gurus or the richest men in town? Are they platforms for these men to brag about their paramount abilities to grow facial hair? It remains one of India’s most elusive puzzles…
Indian people have an amazing ability to cram more people than anyone would think possible onto every vehicle available. Buses drive by with bodies smashed against windows and hanging out of doors. Auto-rickshaws speed along filled with ten small schoolgirls. (An aunto-rickshaw is basically a three wheeled electric scooter with one short bench seat behind the driver and a covered top… they’re not big). Families of five cling to each other for dear life, piled onto tiny motorcycles, weaving treacherously through oncoming traffic. Even little kids riding bicycles smush three or four deep behind rickety handle bars. No helmets, no saftey regulations, no fear.
Indian people – taxi drivers in particular – will tell you they know where something is, even if they have no idea. They will then proceed to stop every five minutes to ask someone else where it is. None of the people they ask will know either. It’s very efficient.
The stray dogs here (and there are thousands of them) are the saddest, cutest, most heartbreaking things for me to see. They have such woeful eyes and they don’t even beg, they just stand, looking hungry and alone, and it kills me. I know, there are millions of poor people and starving children, and of course those people affect me too, but this weekend I was especially touched by the dogs. There were these two beautiful little puppies in one of the temples we visitied and I couldn’t touch them in case they were sick or had bugs, but it was all I could do to not scoop them up and hug them. I got yelled at by my traveling companions for emptying most of one of our water bottles out to give the puppies drinks. You should have seen them though, it was so hot and they lapped up the water like they hadn’t had a drink for days. I'm a sap, I know...
All Indian men have mustaches. All of them. It’s like there’s some sort of unwritten rule about it or something. Also, there are all of these signs – some of them as big as billboards – all over the place that have portraits of various mustachioed men on them. Some of these signs have one large picture and maybe five of six smaller ones, and some have many many small pictures dotting them like checker boards. We have no idea what they’re for and no one seems to be able to give us a straight answer about their significance. Are they advertisements for speaking engagements? Are they artists’ renderings of wanted criminals? Are they depictions of local gurus or the richest men in town? Are they platforms for these men to brag about their paramount abilities to grow facial hair? It remains one of India’s most elusive puzzles…
Indian people have an amazing ability to cram more people than anyone would think possible onto every vehicle available. Buses drive by with bodies smashed against windows and hanging out of doors. Auto-rickshaws speed along filled with ten small schoolgirls. (An aunto-rickshaw is basically a three wheeled electric scooter with one short bench seat behind the driver and a covered top… they’re not big). Families of five cling to each other for dear life, piled onto tiny motorcycles, weaving treacherously through oncoming traffic. Even little kids riding bicycles smush three or four deep behind rickety handle bars. No helmets, no saftey regulations, no fear.
Indian people – taxi drivers in particular – will tell you they know where something is, even if they have no idea. They will then proceed to stop every five minutes to ask someone else where it is. None of the people they ask will know either. It’s very efficient.
The stray dogs here (and there are thousands of them) are the saddest, cutest, most heartbreaking things for me to see. They have such woeful eyes and they don’t even beg, they just stand, looking hungry and alone, and it kills me. I know, there are millions of poor people and starving children, and of course those people affect me too, but this weekend I was especially touched by the dogs. There were these two beautiful little puppies in one of the temples we visitied and I couldn’t touch them in case they were sick or had bugs, but it was all I could do to not scoop them up and hug them. I got yelled at by my traveling companions for emptying most of one of our water bottles out to give the puppies drinks. You should have seen them though, it was so hot and they lapped up the water like they hadn’t had a drink for days. I'm a sap, I know...
Hooray for Hampi!
I loved the way this guy looked.
Me at sunrise in Hampi - I'm sitting on the roof of a ruined temple on the top of a huge hill.
The Temple elephant getting her morning bath. Isn't she cute? Her name is Lakshmi.
Cobras!
Our new Indian friends and swimming buddies.February 28th, Hampi
This was one of the most incredible days of my life! I woke up at 5:15 and climbed a mountain to watch the sun rise, I watched the temple elephant get a bath in the river, I ate breakfast outside while looking out at a beautiful riverside view, I lay in a hammock and cuddled a cute dog, I was blessed by the temple elephant and even got to touch her trunk, I came across a snake charmer and held a cobra in my hands (ok, its venom had been taken out), I held a little monkey and fed him bananas, I rode on the back of a scooter to temples and a crystal clear lake surrounded by boulders and swam in my clothes, I got an Ayurvedic massage and had henna applied to my hands, and then I slept all night on the upper berth of an Indian train. I don’t think I can even write any more than that. It was just unbelievable. I think I might love India. Yeah… I love it.
This was one of the most incredible days of my life! I woke up at 5:15 and climbed a mountain to watch the sun rise, I watched the temple elephant get a bath in the river, I ate breakfast outside while looking out at a beautiful riverside view, I lay in a hammock and cuddled a cute dog, I was blessed by the temple elephant and even got to touch her trunk, I came across a snake charmer and held a cobra in my hands (ok, its venom had been taken out), I held a little monkey and fed him bananas, I rode on the back of a scooter to temples and a crystal clear lake surrounded by boulders and swam in my clothes, I got an Ayurvedic massage and had henna applied to my hands, and then I slept all night on the upper berth of an Indian train. I don’t think I can even write any more than that. It was just unbelievable. I think I might love India. Yeah… I love it.
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