The crazy lives we lead.. December 11, 2007

We’re back at Visthar! Can’t believe we were traveling for an entire month, it definitely doesn’t feel like it was that long. What’s even crazier is I only have 8 DAYS left in India!!! Really?! I’m SO excited to come home for Christmas though! I’m getting anxious to see everyone that I’ve been missing for 4 months.

Okay.. soo.. our trek across India. It was awesome! Where do I begin? We’ve done SO much. I’ve already told you a little about Hyderabad, so I’ll start off with Varanasi. Varanasi has the most character and culture out of any city that we’ve been to in India so far, probably since it’s just so spiritual and considered to be the holiest city in the world by Hindus because of its location on the Ganges River. If you had never been to India and tried to picture what you think it would look like, Varanasi would be it. It’s right on the river, and you can tell it’s a very old city because there are tons of old buildings, little streets with too many people and vehicles for them to handle, and lots of little alleyways that wind around little shops that you have to walk through to get down to the Ganges. We got to spend a lot of time down by the Ganges throughout the week because of all the different festivals going on. On Saturday night we took another boat ride which was incredible because there was tons of music and bells and incense and performances and everything was lit up with strings of lights and candles. People are constantly bathing and doing rituals and bodies are being burned 24/7. It’s unreal to see it all happening all at once. I think my favorite part of our trip in Varanasi was the last day when 5 of us girls all piled into a rickshaw (which comfortably seats 2, maybe 3.. Mom, you would not be impressed.. But who wants to spend $3 for two rickshaws when you can spend $1.50 on one? And $1.50 split between 5 people? That’s a deal. ) Anyway, we got dropped off at one of the burning ghats (step landings on the river) and we chatted with a man who was running the ashram right next to one of the burning ghats for the homeless elderly that are near death. The ashram provides them with a place to live until they die, when money that has been donated goes to pay for their cremation at edge of the Ganges. Before we all left, we each got blessings for ourselves and our families from a 92-year-old homeless woman who was staying at the ashram. I mentioned this before, but Hindus believe that you will instantly reach nirvana if you get your body burned at this specific point on the Ganges. At the ghat that we were at, there were about 5 or 6 funeral pyres burning at once, and they are kept burning 24/7, each body taking about 2-3 hours to burn. The process goes something like this.. first they wrap the body up in colorful fabric and put it on a stretcher. Then they walk down and bathe the body in the river, and let it lay out to dry for awhile. Once it’s dry, they place it onto a pile of wood and place more logs on top of it. Then they do all kinds of rituals, like circling it 5 times with the eternal fire (which all funeral pyres begin burning from, the eternal fire has supposedly been kept going for over 1000 years) and then they let it burn. When the body is done burning, the rib cage or whatever big bones that don’t burn are just thrown into the river. We were on the roof of the ashram overlooking all of it. The man running the ashram told us that no one who bathes in the river will get sick because the gods protect them. Hmmm.. Really? So we all walked down to the Ganges and went swimming! .. Kidding. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but the bacteria count in the Ganges is thousands or millions over what is considered to be safe. If I understood the man right, pregnant women, lepers, and other people who are not allowed to be burned can still be put into the river without being burned. You can just imagine all the stuff floating around in that river.. sick.

We also got to celebrate Thanksgiving in Varanasi! I didn’t think it was going to happen, but it did. And it was GREAT. We even got to celebrate with actual Indians 🙂 Definitely one of my favorite Thanksgivings of all time even though we didn’t have any turkey or a stove to cook with. We met a girl from New York, Katie, when we went to the Buddhist monastery to visit the monks there. She’s in a study abroad program, doing an independent project by herself at the time, so we invited her over to have dinner with us. The kitchen crew at the place we were staying at were really nice and cooked us up some chicken, mashed potatoes, boiled carrots, etc.. and we made a make-shift green bean casserole and some apple crumble that actually turned out really good. I was impressed. Kee and Mai N’hia also made some delicious fried rice to add to the mix to celebrate the Hmong New Year. All of us even made newspaper pilgrim hats with little colored turkeys on them, Lydia and Katie made a cornucopia for the table out of coconuts, flowers, and leaves that they found lying around, and Michael J. directed a Thanksgiving-themed play that was absolutely hilarious. This group has become like my extended family, I love them all. It’s gonna be really strange when we’re not spending every waking minute together anymore!

Varanasi was also the beginning of wedding season! Indian weddings are BIG productions. Pretty much everyone in India has an arranged marriage, too. There were lots of processions every single night down the streets with marching bands, people carrying fluorescent lights and chandeliers on the tops of their heads, led by a big generator and followed by a bunch of dancing people.. it’s quite the sight.

On a scarier note, there was a bomb explosion about 10 km from the place we were staying on Friday (Nov. 23^rd?), at a courthouse near a location we were at the previous day. There were 2 other bombs in 2 different cities within the state that went off around the same time, also at courthouses. I think a total of about 13 people were killed in the bombings, you may have heard about it in the news. We didn’t go out anywhere the next morning just to be careful. I’m still not sure who’s responsible, I don’t know if they have figured it out yet.

Then we headed out to Mumbai for just a day to hang out and do some touristy stuff. We pretty much just walked around town for awhile, did a little shopping, and we went out for Angie’s 21^st birthday that night. We went searching for a bar to hang out at for awhile, and ended up finding one that was closed but they decided to open it up just for us. So we flipped on the lights and the 4 or 5 guys that were running the place brought out some beers and some snacks and stood around staring at us while we sat there in the empty restaurant listening to cheesy 80s music. Haha.

Finally, we got to Udaipur, our last stop on our trek across India. I loved this city, it’s in the desert, but it has LAKES! Very polluted ones, but they were still lakes. We were there to study the environment and we split up into small groups for a couple of days to do field visits, and Angie, Pauly, and I studied all the pollution and problems going on with the lakes. Apparently the people of Udaipur thought it was a pretty big deal that we were doing this because we made it into the newspaper a total of 4 times (3 of them with pictures) and we even got on TV! The day that our 2-day field visit began, an article ran in the state newspaper that said something like “the study of the American students begins today.” Considering none of us were environmental science majors, or any kind of science majors for that matter, it was a little ridiculous. The title of the article that ran with our pictures the day after our visit was “Oh my God!” in Hindi, which was supposedly our response to the pollution in the lakes. We never said that. At least it’s raising public awareness about the pollution.

We spent a couple of days with an organization called Shikshantar that focuses on zero-waste and upcycling, and pretty much lives out their lives according to Gandhi’s idea of “be the change you wish to see in the world.” We had a lot of fun with them, I was in the group that made jewelry out of waste products. I made some really sweet earrings out of nutshells and seeds that I made into beads. We also ate a really great organic vegan lunch that was made completely from local food or vegetables they had grown themselves in their garden. Their views on life are pretty extreme though, most of them don’t believe in having formal education systems or in having a formal government system. It made for some pretty interesting conversations.

Udaipur’s gotten pretty touristy over the last few years, so there are lots of cute little shops and hotels, we stayed at a really quaint little place with a courtyard and outdoor pool. And there are lots of really great roof-top restaurants that we definitely took advantage of while we were there. And the king of the state of Rajasthan, the Maharana, lives in an enormous palace on the lake, and we got to meet him and the prince and princess, too!! Doug just called up the palace and we got invited, by hand invitations, to have cocktails. So we got all dressed up in our saris and spent about an hour or so chatting it up with the royal family while constantly being served some of the best white wine I’ve ever had and eating plenty of hors d’oeuvres. Ha. It was straight out of a fairy tale, no joke. The palace is amazing; these people have way too much money on their hands. We had some pretty good conversation though, they seemed a lot less snobby than I thought they would be.

Now we’re back at Visthar for our FINAL WEEK in India!  The day after we got back, Kacy and I locked ourselves in our room for the entire day, blasted Christmas music, made Santa hats, decorated everyone’s doors with stockings, put up a Christmas banner on the porch, and made a hideously tacky Christmas tree out of sticks, leaves, ripped up bags, magazines, and paper snowflakes.  It’s disgusting, but it’s awesome.  Check out the pictures.

This week we have a few lectures here and there, but most of the time is free to finish up our last papers and projects and get some last minute shopping done. I’m sure we’ll also spend some time going out and having fun enjoying our last days together as a group, too. I’m ready to come home, but even though it took me awhile, I’m glad to say that I feel like I’ve finally reached the point where I can say that I really do appreciate India for all of its ridiculousness, the good and the bad. There’s something to be said for a country that does its own thing, all the time, full of people and places and things that are unlike anything else in the world. We’ve been told multiple times that if you can travel India, you can travel anywhere. I think I believe that.

Check out my pictures on my blogroll, there’s lots of ‘em.

If I have something to say by end of the week, I’ll write again. If not, I’ll see all of you very, VERY soon!!! Yes!

Sunrise on the Ganges November 20, 2007

Hey all, this should be pretty short and sweet. Our trip is going really well so far, we’ve been to Hyderabad, Delhi, and we’re now in Varanasi. This morning we got up at 5 and walked down to the Ganges River(!!) and went on a couple hour sunrise boat cruise down the river.. it was unreal. Tons of people were bathing and doing all kinds of rituals, offering water to the sun god(s?), etc. We’ll be going back down to the river at least one more time this week to celebrate Diwali, it should be pretty great!

I’ll try to sum up the trip so far..

In Hyderabad..
The city is 80% Muslim. We dealt with a lot of sexism while we were there and got harassed by a lot of men. A group of us got kicked out of a restaurant because we’re women—it was “gents only.” We learned a lot about Islam, and one of our lecturers made a lot of sexist comments, although I don’t think he realized all that he was saying, since he went on to explain how Islam encourages equality between men and women and how women are actually “much privileged” within their communities. Very frustrating.

Other than that, we did some random site seeing and did a lot of shopping. It’s been really great to hang out with everyone on the road- I feel like our group is getting really close. Since we only have each other and no longer have easy internet access like we did at Visthar, we’re spending even more time with each other and laughing a lot 🙂

In Delhi..
The smog was awful, it just looks like it’s foggy all day, every day. Gross. We stayed at a really nice YWCA, they made a mistake and accidentally didn’t reserve enough rooms for us, but all the confusion and waiting was worth it—4 other girls and I got put in a HUGE room, it was a big step up from the places where we usually stay. There were lots of fun shops in the area and we did a lot of great stuff in the 3 days we spent there. We got to see the Taj Mahal, and it was just as gorgeous as I expected it to be. And it’s absolutely enormous. It looks like a fake backdrop in the background of our pictures, we had like a half hour photo shoot in front of it. All of us girls wore pretty extravagant saris that day, and I think we got more attention from all the Indians while we were at the Taj than we have this entire semester. I can’t even count how many pictures I took with random people who just wanted to have a picture with us. Even other foreigners were taking pictures of us. It was really entertaining! The next day we got to see the exact place where Gandhi was assassinated, they have built an entire memorial there in his hono

We celebrated Kacy’s birthday in Delhi, they had a TGI Friday’s so we spent the evening there and I ordered some delicious Mexican food and had some really great margaritas! Yum. It was a nice break from Hyderabad, where we ate the exact same thing for lunch and dinner almost every single day that consisted mainly of white rice, dahl (a soupy lentil sauce), white bread with jam, and bananas.

I don’t think I’ll be putting up any pictures until I’m back at Visthar, so you’re just going to have to wait!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Eat some extra turkey for me 🙂

I’m converting to Jainism November 9, 2007

.. kidding. A few fun facts about Jainism:

1. Jain monks do not wear any clothes!
2. Non-violence is their greatest value. The monks walk around with a broom made out of peacock feathers to sweep the ground in front of them as they walk to avoid accidentally harming any insects.  During the monsoon season they just don’t go anywhere because there are too many insects around to be able to avoid stepping on them.
3. Jain monks have only 3 material possessions: a broom, water container for drinking, and a container used as a toilet.
4. All jains are vegans and do not eat root vegetables because they believe the heart of a plant is in its roots.
5. They fast without eating or drinking anything for 80 days out of the year (not consecutively). On the days that they eat, they only eat and drink water once a day, both out of the palms of their hands.
6. Jain monks do not use any form of tools or vehicles. If they need to get somewhere, they walk. They can remove the hair on their heads and face once every three months if they choose to do so, but they cannot use scissors- they have to pluck it out!
7.  Jain monks do not talk after sunset.
8. They believe in evolution and they do not believe in a supreme god.

Needless to say, it was an interesting last couple of days! We didn’t even know we were going to be hanging out with a bunch of naked men until we got there, about 5 minutes before meeting some of the monks. Maturity levels were put to the test 🙂 It was a pretty great experience though, we spent a lot of time just talking with the monks, we got to watch their once-a-day eating ritual, stuff like that.  Such a crazy and fascinating religion.  I’ve got lots of pictures if you want to see them sometime once I’m home, most are a little too inappropriate for Facebook!

Vacation with Dad last week was great! We did a lot of relaxing, eating, shopping– I think I’ve mastered the art of haggling with the shopkeepers, Dad gives in wayyyy too easily– and we got to see the backwaters.  The backwaters were gorgeous, we took a 6-hour tour on our own 100 foot houseboat with 2 levels and everything you would ever need.  We had our own chef that made us enough food for probably like 7 or 8 people, it was ridiculous!  Then of course there was fruit, dessert, tea, etc.. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so spoiled.  We stopped by a little shack and bought some huge freshwater prawns from a fisherman.. Yum!  Dad says he kind of understands my love/hate thing with this country having visited here, it was pretty funny to see him get a little annoyed at all the craziness that is India 🙂  It made me homesick to have him leave.. I also heard it’s currently snowing in MN right now which makes my heart hurt a little bit.. but I will be home in only a little over a month which is crazy!  Everything is going by so fast.

Well.. in approximately 4 hours from now we’re leaving!  Exploring India and livin’ out of a suitcase for a month.  Here’s the rundown of what I’ll be doing if you’re curious:

Nov. 10-16:  Hyderabad – studying Islam
Nov. 16-19:  Delhi, Agra – tourism & the Taj Mahal
Nov. 19-28:  Varanasi – studying Buddhism and Hinduism & the Ganges River
Nov. 28-30:  Mumbai – more tourism
Nov. 30-Dec. 8:  Udaipur – studying environment, ecology, and livelihood
Dec. 9:  Head back to Visthar!
Dec. 19:  Head back the U.S.!!

My new pictures are posted on my blogroll.  Better go and finish packing and try to get some sleep before we take off for Hyderabad.  I’ll try to post little blog updates here and there when I have time!

Miss you all, talk to you soon!

Goaaaa October 21, 2007

Well Goa was.. interesting!

First though, I’ve got to tell you about Octoberfest and our little adventures in the week before we left! So Octoberfest wasn’t anything the newspaper had cracked it up to be, there were some hippies selling some of their clothing and jewelry, a really loud heavy metal band on stage (pretty random?), some Indian food, and lots of Kingfisher beer. We were all just sitting around a table when we heard the announcer on stage mention that there was some sort of contest, the winners would receive 2 cases of Kingfisher beer, and that they needed teams to sign up. We had no idea what it was for, but we were pretty bored, so we thought we’d give it a shot. Turns out, we got up there and learned it was a cricket competition. Had any of us ever played cricket before? Nope. Most of us, including me, still haven’t even watched a match. The announcer found it pretty hilarious that we decided to sign up anyways. Thinking we were about to get into a full-fledged match of cricket against a bunch of Indians, we were getting a little worried. We were pretty relieved to find out that it was only a bowl-off, which is just throwing a ball in a certain way with the objective of hitting the wickets, which are pretty much just sticks in the ground. The first 2 teams went against each other, no one could hit the wickets, so they ended it in a coin toss. Same thing with the next 2 teams. Then it was our turn, Joy got up, and as the announcer was laughing and making jokes at the fact that the Americans were attempting to play cricket, she hit the wickets dead on! It was so great. Everyone was shocked. The other team couldn’t hit the wickets, and we advanced to the next round. So the next time around, neither our team nor the other team could hit the wickets. Didn’t matter though, Michael J. called the coin toss and we got to advance to the next round. Somehow we were in the semi-finals?! Only had to make it through one more round and we would walk away with at least one case of beer. Well.. we got out the next round, unfortunately. Still though, 4th out of 16 teams in cricket?! I was pretty impressed. So were the announcer and the rest of the fairly large crowd, we all got applauded even though we lost.. haha 🙂

Then on Wednesday, we went out to a bar/restaurant named Opus. Doug, among other things, is a playwright, and Opus was holding a staged reading of one of his plays. The place had a great atmosphere-candles everywhere, cushions to sit on on top of beds of little stones, a big tree poking out of the middle-it was cool. They only had time to read one of the acts of the play, but it was really good. Doug’s pretty incredible. Then it was karaoke night, so we decided to stick around for awhile. It ended up being ridiculous but hilarious- everyone ended up getting way into it and we pretty much took over the place. I even got up there a couple of times, everyone wanted to do “I Will Survive”.. original, right?.. and then “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. I’d have to say, though, that the highlight was definitely Michael J. singing “Ironic” by Alanis Morisette.. yep.

Getting back to our trip to Goa, we left last Thursday night for a 13 hour overnight bus ride.. what could be more exciting?! Apparently 13 hours really means 20 hours, I’m not sure how it ended up being an extra 7 (!!) hours than expected, but it did. Then again, why am I still surprised when things don’t go as planned? I’m not sure, I should have that figured out by now. Either way, it was pretty rough. We did have a sleeper bus, so we had a little 2-foot-wide “bed” but I’m pretty convinced that the bus had no shocks and no muffler and we were all in the back of the bus, so we didn’t get much sleep. Bathroom breaks occurred about once every 6 hours, sometimes consisting of hilarious little escapades into the ditch at the side of the road in pitch darkness. It’s funny that I used to laugh at people who pee by the side of the road and now I laugh at myself having become one of them. Seriously, everyone just gets off the bus and goes to the bathroom together on the side of road without any shielding to speak of. When in India.. right? Anyway, we ended up making it to the YMCA the following afternoon where we were staying for the night and the plan was to have the rest of the day to rest. Well, we ended up having 2 lectures in a row almost as soon as we got there. Again, why was I surprised? People just need to stop telling me what’s going on entirely, I think. After the lectures, we went to the beach! First time that we have gotten to see the ocean since we’ve been in India, so we were all pretty excited. We ended up going to a beach that you weren’t allowed to swim at because of the undertow resulting from the end of the monsoon season. There were no tourists, it was pretty dirty, a couple of cows were napping in the sand (what else would you expect in India?) We learned it was a beach where mainly just the locals go, so we had lots of creeps following us around, standing around in groups about 15 feet away to stare and take pictures of all us girls in our bathing suits.. It was just one of those days, I guess.

The next morning, we set out to split up into our smaller groups of 6 for our field visits on tourism, mining, and fishing. I went with the tourism group, and we ended up getting dropped off at a gorgeous tiny little touristy beach town–we found out later that night that it’s called Bogmalo–after about 5 hours on the bus. We were supposed to be there for a 2-day home stay with a family, so we were surprised when our guide dropped us off at a little hotel that had beds and even a toilet! We were even more surprised that he left without even telling us what we were supposed to do for the next 2 days. We went down to talk with the owner of the hotel, who apparently was supposed to be in charge of our program but had no idea who we were or what we were doing there. Haha. Basically, he told us we could ask him any questions if we had any, but that he wouldn’t be available until the following night; he was Muslim and it was the end of Ramadan that weekend. “What do you suggest we do until then?” “Just take a sunbath.” I didn’t really care that we weren’t going to learn anything, those were just the words that I wanted to hear at that point!

So we got changed and headed down to a little restaurant right on the beach for lunch. It was ridiculously cheap- cocktails were $2 or less- beers could be found for as cheap as about $.50- and we got food for less than $3, and it was delicious. I got a sandwich with french fries, which is almost unheard of everywhere else we’ve been in India. Yes! After that, we went down to the beach and swam for a couple of hours until the sun went down. White sand, clean water, and the town was almost empty since we are at the edge of the tourist season, so we were the only ones on the beach except for a small group of guys playing cricket. They didn’t even bother us except when we were leaving when they wanted to take a picture of us (and they actually asked!). We went back to shower and headed out for more food and drinks by the ocean. We ended up getting creeped on by a group of 30-some year-old American men, who somehow had the idea that being in the Navy would be enough to make them seem attractive to a bunch of 20-year-old women. Logical? Hmm.

The next day was pretty much the same theme.. swim, eat, drink, relax, and repeat.. it was such an unbelievable weekend. Just what we needed to recharge! Some of the girls felt we should at least attempt to learn something all weekend, feeling guilty that we were enjoying ourselves so much while the other groups were probably sleeping on floor mats and peeing in holes in the ground, so we had a few conversations with the hotel owner, a couple of shopkeepers, and a taxi driver about their thoughts on tourism.

The next day, we were sad to leave our little beach haven, but excited to head back to meet up with the rest of the group. What we found out was that the fishing group had a similar experience to ours, simply because none of the fishermen could speak English and they had no translator. The mining group stayed with a family and actually learned a thing or two, and they also had a good time.

The rest of week, we ended up doing basically the same thing every day- talking about our “field visits” then go to places were we were supposed to be “revisiting and conceptualizing” those concepts. Most of the time we would either go to NGO’s or other organizations that would either tell us all of the unrelated things they were doing to help society (probably because they didn’t know why we were there), tell us things that aren’t true (HIV began in the United States, possibly by NASA), or gave us completely biased information, a life-is-perfect-in-Goa attitude (if that were true, we wouldn’t be in Goa studying social justice in the first place). I think it’s important to hear the biased viewpoints as long as you get to hear viewpoints from the other side as well, which we didn’t get to do. On our last day in Goa, we visited Goa University to visit with students from the political science department, but the professor ended up giving us a 45-minute lecture on the requirements of political science majors, including the specific names of every single class they needed to take in order to graduate and the fact that they have 5 computers with internet and over 6,000 books in their library. Kacy tried to bring the topic back to globalization in a discussion afterward by asking the students if they feel that people are being influenced by all the drugs and new popularity of rave parties that are being brought into Goa by travelers. The professor went on to lecture and turned it into a debate about whether or not people in Goa even actually do drugs. It got pretty frustrating after awhile. I’m fully aware, though, that all these frustrating experiences are inevitable if you are studying abroad in a completely different culture and I’m sure that I’m still learning stuff from them, just not necessarily academically. I just find the whole week kinda funny. We did have a lot of great nights out afterwards at dinner and finding little places to hang out, that was a lot of fun. Last Friday, we got on the train at 3 p.m. and started heading back to Bangalore. We rode down the tracks for about 45 minutes until we reached a station to find out that a goods carrier had tipped over, blocking the railroad ahead. Great. At least it wasn’t a people carrier. We waited around for 4 hours, then decided to cancel our tickets and found a hotel for the night. There were no available train tickets for the next day, so we made a reservation for another overnight sleeper bus, though the beds were all full so we could only get “partial sleepers” which are seats that recline, kind of like an ordinary coach bus.. at least we were getting home. We didn’t have anything to do the next day, so we bingled around town, found an internet cafe, and just relaxed a little bit. Got on the bus at 6 p.m., and to our delight, the 13-hour trip only lasted about 17 hours instead of 20! Definitely an improvement. It was a newer bus that had better shocks and a muffler to boot. See, the glass IS half full after all.

Anyway, I’m just glad to be back home to Visthar! It’s funny how comforting and how much like home this place has become. We’re spending this week on campus, and MY DAD WILL BE HERE ON FRIDAY!! I’m so excited! We got a little cottage on the beach in Kovalam, Kerala, and will spend a week exploring the area, spending time on the beach, and going on a backwaters tour. Can’t wait! A great way to spend my mid-semester break. After break, we will be back at Visthar for another week before we head out for a 3 1/2 week journey across northern India. We’ll be going to Varanasi, Hyderabad, and Delhi among other places. We’ll get to visit the Taj Mahal and the place in Varanasi where Hindus go to burn the bodies of their deceased loved ones at the edge of the holy Ganghes River. Pretty powerful stuff. Other than that, I have no idea what’s going to be in store for us. Should be a crazy, real, and unforgettable adventure, I’m sure!

I didn’t take many pictures in Goa, but I added them to my Part II album.

On a side note, I just got accepted for a month-long J-term internship with the United Way in Mankato!!! I’m really excited about it. I’ll be doing some campaign fund-raising, community impact / program volunteering, and some general office work. They said they have new offices and a great team and it will be a great experience for me. I start on January 7th. Yes!

Sorry this was so long! I got kind of carried away 🙂

I hope all your lives are fabulous-I miss you all very, very much!

Address October 6, 2007

Here’s my address for those of you who asked:

Visthar
c/o Kelly Anderson SJPD 2007
Dodda Gubbi Post
Bangalore, India  562149

Kerala!

Sorry for making you wait for an update-the internet has been really sketchy and we’ve been busy!

Kerala was INCREDIBLY gorgeous! We stayed at WSSS, an NGO smack in the middle of the hills, surrounded by lush, green, misty rainforests! Lots of waterfalls. Incredible views overlooking the mountains were just a 10 minute hike up the road from WSSS, if there wasn’t too much fog. The first morning we were there, a group of us got up just before sunrise to hike up the road that carved around the hills and ended up hiking for about 2 hours- it was unbelievable, the kind of thing that gives you goosebumps in awe of how amazing the world is. Loved it! Nazar told us we were going for a little half-hour hike in the mountains the next day- little did we know that he meant a 2 hour trek, pretty much entirely vertical, risking my life, having to strategically find places to put my hands and feet in order to keep from falling. Jess has done quite a bit of climbing in the past and she said this was the most vertical climb she’s ever done. Seriously the scariest thing of my life- I think it’s the first time that I’ve ever cried from fear.. ha! At least I was laughing at myself at the same time. There were a few times that I was almost ready to quit, but Nazar refused to let me even consider it and started pushing and pulling me up the mountain, he’s great. It was so so much fun though, the views from the top were definitely worth it!!

The rest of the week was spent learning mostly about the large population of farmers and a little about the indigenous people that lived in Wyanad. We met with some of the self-reliance groups that the NGOs help to organize in order for farmers to get together and learn new techniques, share their ideas, and pool their resources. My favorite part was the day we split up into pairs and did a mini home-stay for the afternoon. Nazar, Jess, and I spent the afternoon with the cutest farmer you’d ever meet! We talked a lot with him about his farm. He took us out into his rice paddies, so we ran around bare-foot in the mud, hunted out some crabs, and dug up some tapioca for lunch. We went back to the house and helped peel it and boil it before eating it. Tapioca tastes a lot like potatoes and you usually eat it with some type of curry- it’s delicious 🙂

Later in the week, we visited a school for tribal children called Kanavu, which means “dreams” in English. It’s an alternative education system developed in the early 90s for the tribal children since they usually face a lot of discrimination within the mainstream schooling system and also struggle with language barriers, etc. It’s pretty unique-there’s no grades, exams, or homework. The elders and older students are the teachers. They learn a lot about their tribal culture- lots of songs, dances, and some martial arts-and they also learn a lot of skills like pottery, craft-making, and painting. The night we were there, they sang us some of their traditional songs and then we all got up and danced our little hearts out to some tribal drumming- so much fun! We were drenched with sweat by the end of it, then attempted to walk a half-mile or so back to our car in pitch-darkness, barefoot in the mud again. I sliced my toe on a rock and ripped a fist-sized hole in the crotch of my salwar pants..

After we got back from Kerala, we did a lot of relaxing, had some final lectures, and visited a college in northern Bangalore, just to be able to chat with some kids our age. We talked a lot about the differences in education systems between the U.S. and India and about some other random stuff- we had a good time. We also wrote our papers for the end of our first class this week- it’s pretty nice that the only form of work we have to do is write a 5 page or less paper for each course! We’re now done with the first one, we turned them in yesterday and went downtown last night to celebrate. We hit a couple of classic rock pubs and a hookah bar. Doug, our professor, even came out with us-so great! He’s awesome. Octoberfest is also this weekend, with all kinds of different ethnic food, music, films, art, and a flea market- I think we’re gonna check it out tomorrow afternoon.

We start our second course this week on globalization and leave for our second field visit already on Thursday! We’ll all be gone from the 11th to the 19th in Goa, about a 13-hour train ride from here, which has the longest beach in Asia- yes! It’s pretty westernized there, so I can actually wear a swimsuit- women in other areas of India go to the beach and swim with all of their clothes on. We’re gonna split up into 3 groups again for 2 of the days that we’re there for visits focused on tourism, mining, or fishing. I’m going with the tourism group, my first choice.

I’ll update you all again after Goa, I promise I won’t make you wait so long next time!

Check out my pictures from Kerala! I posted the link on my blogroll.

Things I find interesting about India.. (periodically updated) September 19, 2007

The head bobble is pretty much universal here, used in every conversation

Monkeys are rodents

Pomegranates are delicious!

Eating with your hands is way more fun

People think it’s okay to go to the bathroom on the side of the road, in the middle of the day, on a busy street

Families of 4 and 5, baby and all, are seen everywhere riding around on a single motorcycle through heavy traffic

Toilet paper is a rarity, as well as deodorant

The government thinks it’s okay to take land from whoever they want, for whatever reason they want, and it happens all the time to unfortunate people

People ask to get their picture taken with us, simply because we are white. And I once had someone take a picture of my blonde hair with their cell phone

I have never craved a bowl of macaroni and cheese so bad ever in my life

It’s considered indecent in certain areas for females to expose their ankles

Tea/snack breaks are necessary during every class period

Traditional Indian clothing is gorgeous and super comfortable

Lay’s makes a potato chip flavor called “Mint Mischief”

I’m probably going to get run over by a car (or rickshaw, or bus, or motorcycle) by the time I leave India

I probably won’t drink a single glass of milk this entire semester

Bug spray is my perfume

Guys are extremely affectionate towards each other, they walk down the street holding hands or with their arms around each other

Most cars play a tune when they’re in reverse, which sounds kinda like a cell phone. “My Heart Will Go On” “Silent Night” and “Old McDonald Had a Farm” are a few favorites

Most Indian married couples have had some form of arranged marriage; love marriages are looked down upon

There are multiple power outages every day

Bats are the size of bald eagles

We leave tomorrow for our field visit to Kerala! Still don’t know much more about it. Literally we live minute by minute, everything is disorganized, we never know what we’re doing next. Nothing, not even class, ever starts on time. They always tell us “ISD” is not only Indian standard time but also Indian stretchable time.. it’s hard to get used to, sometimes frustrating, but it’s exciting at the same time! Kerala should be gorgeous, I think the entire state is on National Geographic’s top 50 places to see in the world. The backwaters are supposed to be especially sweet, and my Dad and I are going to take a day-long cruise there during my mid-semester break. I think we’re also going to spend some time on the beach when he comes, which will be nice!

We’ve been doing a lot of hanging out around campus since we got back from Mysore, and we took a couple of classes on Reiki last weekend- it’s like healing yourself and others through the power of our natural energy that we all have.. we’re all pretty skeptical about it, but it’s cool nonetheless. Apparently I’m a level one reiki master now, kind of a big deal, I have a certificate and everything.. If you get sick, let me know 🙂

We went out to a couple of clubs last Friday night! There are lots of cool places to go in Bangalore since it’s such a big city. It was just nice to get out and do something on our own and feel a little more independent. It’s weird seeing all the attention we get for being Americans. So many stares. Kacy, Alye, and I accidentally got separated from the rest of the group and stopped by a random classic rock club which ended up being kind of awkward- the place was filled entirely with Indian guys, I don’t think there were any other women there. The second we walked in the place got quieter and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at us. We left shortly after that. Certain clubs have certain crowds, I guess. We’ll figure it out! We ended up finding the group after that and spent the rest of the night at a dance club- lots of fun! Lots of American music and lots of foreigners again, but there were a lot more Indians there than the club in Mysore which was cool.

This week, we started classes for our first course. It’s a lot of discussion-type real world-oriented stuff which I like- it makes you think a lot deeper about a lot of issues and I feel like I’m learning a lot. We talked about the caste system with some of the Bandhavi girls and how they feel about it, since they all are (or almost all are) untouchables. We also talked with a lot of different women on the Visthar staff about the role of women in Indian society. Very cool.

We also started doing service projects this week, if we wanted to, in the garden, hanging out with the girls, or working in the paper production place. Visthar makes a lot of homemade paper products, calendars, and gifts. They’re great, I think that’s where I’m mainly going to work so I can learn how to make some stuff but I’ll also spend some time with the girls.

I’ll let you know how Kerala goes when I get back on the 28th!

Links to photos September 12, 2007

I moved the links to my photos to the right side of this page, on my blog roll!

India

I feel like I have an extreme love/hate relationship with India right now. Culture shock is a strange thing. My thoughts and feelings change so often about this place, which is probably somewhat due to the fact that I’m still riding the waves of adjusting to a new culture. Lots of ups and downs. There are so many horrible things that I hate about India like the poverty, the noise, the dirt, the garbage, the smells!, the pollution (you can see the haze at night in the city), the holes in the ground for toilets.. etc. Add all these things on to being in a completely different culture than you’re used to and being so far from home and it becomes quite the struggle to keep a positive attitude at times! But there are also so many things that I love about India. I am constantly surprised and humbled by the genuine hospitality and warmth of the people of this country. Two days ago, we split into groups and took a walk through one of the slums, which was a really cool experience. I’m sure some of the attention we were given was partly because these people don’t get to see Americans every day, but still, they were more than welcoming. SO many smiles and waves and lots of people just wanted to come up and talk with us. One woman, who didn’t speak any English, even invited us into her home. It was bigger than I thought it was going to be, but still extremely tiny, especially for a family of 5 or 6. It was 3 tiny square rooms, no beds (or even room for them), and no bathroom. They had a fridge and even a small T.V. which I was surprised about, but the living conditions were anything but adequate. But still, you should have seen how proud she was to be able to show us her home, and this pride and dignity was true of all the people we met in the slums. They have next to nothing in material value, but it doesn’t seem to matter to them because they have so much more of the important things in life that many people don’t. I know we can learn a lot from them! I think the kids gave us the most attention, we had a pack of like 15 of them following us around and hanging on our arms. Some of them wanted money but others just wanted to walk with us. David gave one of the little boys money for food before we left the slum, and he refused and was actually offended, saying “I’m not a beggar!” But who knows when this boy ate last? Their dignity is really important to them. David then just scolded the boy, saying that he better take the money and not disrespect his elder, and he accepted.

Needless to say, I end up feeling like a spoiled American kid pretty much all of the time, and it’s hard to deal with at times. The poverty is everywhere, and we are approached by beggars a lot of the time for money, but it’s impossible to give money to every one of them, so you end up just walking right by them most of the time. It’s a horrible feeling. I just end up feeling helpless a lot of the time, just wishing that there was something I could do to help better the lives of these people. We are also always approached by people and children that are trying to sell us things on the street over and over and over again, and I find myself being annoyed with it a lot of the time. But how can I be annoyed when this is how they earn a living to support their families? And then there’s times like when we went out to a club this past weekend in Mysore. The club was just as nice as any American club, but there were very few Indians in the club and they were playing American music. The money that we spent on drinks was more than millions of people in this country make in a month. And when there are beggars on the street outside, it’s really hard to ignore- and I don’t want to ignore it. I’m not saying that just because we are wealthier than they are that we should give up all of our money and never be able to spend money and indulge ourselves, but I guess it just doesn’t always feel right.

Anyways, it’s been really fun spending time with and getting to know everyone that’s on this trip. It’s a really great group and we all have our own, sometimes very different, opinions about things which keeps things interesting.  We had fun in Mysore last weekend- we got to eat at Pizza Hut which tasted AMAZING. A nice little break from Indian food. We saw some really cool palaces and temples, but the elephant ride didn’t go as planned. It was still fun, but we had to drive 2 1/2 hours to get there to ride on a trail (not through the jungle) for 10 minutes (not a half day). But it was cool to be able to see the elephants. The monkeys at the park were definitely the most entertaining part of the trip though. They are used to seeing people all of the time, so they know how to manipulate you to get food. They will come right up to you and steal whatever you have in your hands, looking for food. They’re like obnoxious little children. They stole some stuff from a few people, but we managed to get it all back. It was pretty funny seeing everyone freak out over it!

We started class this week and it’s going well. This week is just an introduction to India in general, and next week we will have a few lectures for our first course which is Identity, Resistance, and Liberation. We split up into 3 groups and go out on our first field visit on the 20th and we will get back on the 28th. I’m going to be going with 5 other students and Nazar, one of the guys at Visthar who I love!, to the hills in Kerala to study with the tribal people that live there off the land and the marginal farmers. I don’t really know much more about it than that right now. The other 2 groups are either leaving to study untouchables focusing on women or the fishing villages and slums. I wish that all of us would be able to go to each of the places, but it will be fun to split up into smaller groups for awhile.