The Carolines and Carly do Kerala (and Tamil Nadu)

So wow, I'm lovin South India. I couldn't be happier that I came to come south to where I feel without seeing, I would have had a somewhat warped few of India. I think that it's like only seeing Nebraska or the heartland of America without seeing the east coasts history or the west coasts cosmopolitanism and thinking that's all India is. Women are out on the streets in Kerala and Tamil Nadu like I haven't seen in Rajasthan. Hair out, (with jasmine white flowers strung in their braids), walking around at night, behind shops, it's really incredible. And the food is unbelievable. So far I'd say 70% of our meals have been served on banana leaves and its all you can eat!! You get a heaping pile of rice accompanied with a crunchy pappad and the dallops of vegetables, sambars and lemon/lime/mango pickle. We've been having delicious sweet fried things for breakfast, a huge banana leaf lunch and then a masala (potato filling with onion and spices) dosa around 9 for dinner with coconut chutney. I thought I was really excited to come home to food I know but now i'm rethinking it a bit. I also think my spice tolerance has skyrocketed. I've also seen more of the religious diversity that I had heard of before but never really seen on the streets. Hindu temples next to churches and mosques near another Jain temple. Rosaries on the rearview mirror and ganeshji mini statues on the dashboard are found in jeeps together. People are speaking Tamil, Malayalam, English and limited Hindi (so our 6 weeks of that really haven't gotten us too far but our English has).

These are some pictures from the past week or so of our travels in Kochi (backwater tours and churches), Munnar (British imposed tea plantations) and our current city Madurai (home of the Meenakshi temple). Kochi was amazingly quiet, frindly and tasty. We made friends with a food stall frier Abdul and even bought fish from a stall and had it curried for less than $10. !! The churches and synagogue were gorgeous and we even got the chance to feed pigeons at a Jain temple where the birds flew around the complex three times before they were took food.

Munnar was stunning and we loved smelling tea and climbing around green trees in cool tmperatures (Kochi was swealtering). We also had a wonderful time being surrounded by Indian tourists and not foreigners. Familes from mostly Bangalore and Tamil Nadu come there to escape the heat but we found that all the did was stop at sides and take pictures. None of them trekked according to our guide. That said we went shopping where they did and even bought some South Indian style sarees and tea and other spices.

Then we took off to Tamil Nadu- home of Raja Raja and the Cholans and beautiful temples. The scenery change was stunning on both bus rides through the Wester Ghats. It's basically a pretty hefty size mountain range that just drops off into fields of palm trees, grains and bananas. This morning we went to a once a year ceremony of the "celestial wedding of sri meenakshi sundareshwarar." It is a major annual festival celebrated in Madurai where its queen was said to have married Shiva- now designed to bring about harmony among the three major cults of shiva. It was watching a wedding of two idols with over 10,000 Indians- I would say a mjor highlight of my trip!! Next we are going to Tanjore, capital of the Cholan empire, back to Madurai to catch an overnight train to Varkala-a cliffy beach place to relax, back in Kerala and then to get our flight back to Delhi on Saturday.

Last day in Jaipur

Obviously you probably wanted weekly updates, which would have been oh so efficient of me, but the way I look at it, maybe it was a good thing that all of my down time was spent wandering the streets (safely of course), hanging out with family or sleeping because it was SO hot or bedtime. I have been filling most of my days for the past month, not with earth shattering activities, but here is an account of my most memorable experiences.

I last wrote a few days before I was to leave for Shahbad. After a 6 hour journey on a private AC sleeper bus and then 5 hour trip on a government creeker, Mukteshwar (a fellow CECOEDECON employee who was doing some work there on a new watershed structure) and I took the trip together which was perfect because I don’t think I could have done it on my own -between the 4am transfer and the stares. We took an overnight journey to make the trip more efficient yet, hahahaha on actually sleeping…

We got to the CECODECON campus, which was a lot bigger than I was expecting. Dreary and excited, I was taken to my room and really impressed with the accommodations. The office post at Shahbad had about 10 employees (CECO has 270 in total) working on joint projects with UNDP, UNICEF and TATA (a company that owns half of India) on issues from organic farming to child and health development projects. I was introduced to my translator, Dr. Gog Raj- an agrochemistry expert- who would be accompanying me on my daily trips out to the villages. I was so pumped on the fact that we would be using a motorbike for transport- easier and faster since roads connecting villages aren’t meant for jeeps.

We started our work on Tuesday since Monday I took a real long nap and no one ever came to wake me up, even though I thought that was going to happen. Oh well, that’s only one minor occurrence of things lost in translation. That night after most of the staff had gone home or to rented housing (2 of them rented rooms for the length of their posting), Mukteshwar, another engineer visiting for the watershed project and I took a walk around the town. Since I had only been on campus, I was ready to wander around. We walked up around the main road, and honestly, didn’t see anything. Shahbad is considered forest land yet most of the trees were about 10 feet tall, kind of shrubbish and not dense at all. I could say one thing, I enjoyed the quiet, absence of urine smell and the brilliance of all the stares. I hadn’t heard such quiet, I almost forgot what it was like.

I spent my nights there talking with Jabar (the on call driver), his wife, their 5 year daughter Mehvish, Mukteshwar and the incredibly talented 21 year old cook Anand. I told him one night that he would make it big in the states when he asked what he should do in the next few years. I really liked my conversations with him (through Mukteshwar) about anything, music, marriage, what I call laundry detergent, etc. I also spent a lot of time with Mehvish attached to my back- no seriously she really liked being piggy backed- spelling out the English alphabet and giving her a pen to give me henna on my hands and feet. It was fun to interact with her and she and Anand were the hardest people to say goodbye to after my 7 days stay there.

Now noting that I have completely run out of time, we are leaving for Delhi to start my “travel” phase, I am going to attach pictures with really brief descriptions and will hope to fill in the blanks sometime. Or when you ask me. I can’t believe it’s over but I am also getting really excited on seeing new parts of India. Caroline, C

aroline (difference of “carolyn” and “caroliine”) and I are heading to Kerala and Tamil Nadu (southern most states of the country). How cute is it that all the K names are going to Kerala???!! Anyways, we will be traveling from April 29-May 9 and then Caroliine and I will be heading up north after we get back to wander around Dehra Dun and stay at Vandana Shiva’s farm for about a week or so and probably head to Dharmsala or other Himalaya mountainous places.

After my return from Shahbad, everyone actually came back from their sites for our mid-internship get together in Jaipur. We got the chance to see some touristy stuff that we hadn’t done yet in the city like Jantar Mantar-

an Alice in Wonderland type museum/functioning astronomical “park” where you can get up close and personal with giant shapes that explain to you rotations of the earth, position of celestial bodies. We had a lot of fun just meandering, sitting on grass and wishing we could climb these suckers. For the next few days I hung o

ut with the kiddies again, as our first three weeks of the internship were spent isolated at our internship sites. My first two weeks were research intensive and then the week in Shahbad were pretty tiring.

I also arranged to go see Caitlin’s site.

Rima, our director at the mid-internship seminar said that she would be visiting Caitlin’s site –TBS working on building rain harvesting structures- in rural Bhikampura (could give a free ride) and with my report and project ove

r and a 2 day staff meeting that would make the staff busy at my site, I thought it would be perfect to take a little vacation. Here are some of the things we saw and how I spent my Easter. I fit in real well at her site and loved much of the staff. Kailash and Salim, the drivers, Vinod, a 19 or 22 year old writer (he’s not really sure of his age but his English is really good) and Tejpal, the 12 year old son of the organization’s secretary, were my favorites and we spent a lot of time hanging out with them, going on hikes and visiting temples.

After my return, a big batch of us decided to head to Udaipur the upcoming weekend to see Amber and Shiveta who were interning out there. It was a 10 hour overnight train- favorite way to travel. Udaipur was made famous for the film Octopussy which was filmed there. Every hotel shows it in the evening and any momento left from the movie is highly publicized. It’s really cute actually. Here are some visits to the City Palce, a view of the Lake Palace hotel, usually surrounded by a lake but the lake hasn’t been full for years due to lack of rainfall, and Monsoon Palace and a super gorgeous sunset.

I got back on a Tuesday morning and by this time, before I left for Udaipur, I had completed my seed bank report and since there wasn’t really a project for me to take up, I went back to Caitlin’s site for the next three days to complete the internship phase. It was a good decision for me because the Friday before we left for Udaipur we had nothing to do- I mean we watched a Mystery Science Theater episode at work. Since I didn’t want to sit around, I had a lot of fun and saw more villages and water structures at TBS, I headed back with Caitlin to her site. This time we headed to Alwar and saw massive government and Rajput built dams, hung out with Kailash’s sassy wife Chanda (moonlight oooo pretty). Oh we were also renamed at her site. Salim straight out told me that my name was no good and called me Sunita. Still curious as to what that means since the verb sunna could mean sleep or listen (kind of funny in and of itself).

Then we were picked up and broughtback to MSID for our final seminar. A Hindi exam and one 15 page paper, I am free from academia!!! It’s such a bizarre feeling to be leaving and to know that when people ask- oh so how was India- I can honestly say I haven’t worked that out myself. There were low points, there were incredibly awkward points, there have been some instances where I’m not too sure what I want to do with my life in terms of a career because I’m not sure if I could live in another country for long lengths of time which I thought I could do previously. I know I got a glimpse of a life here that I would not have had otherwise had I just done an exchange program and I am grateful for that. I went to pujas and temples with friends and family, I learned how to drink water from wells with two hands of from the communal glass where you don’t touch your lips. I’ve mastered bargaining and used my pretty good level of Hindi to my advantage in getting what I want. After sun in Goa and afternoons on a motorbike I’ve got the “you’re looking very Indian” more times than I can count and on top of that countless marriage proposals or promises to help find me someone. I’ve gotten the hang out Indian sweets which take a bit to get used to- cardamom and the use of milk really stretch your palate. I given up on utensils and find it incredibly awkward to shove metals prongs in my mouth- yet they are very found of spoons, mmm. I can make Indian chai and sip it at scalding hot temperatures in glass cups. I have gone out with my host sisters at my “Imli phatak” house during the internship phase to see what life and dating is like for 20 somethings in modern India. I’ve gotten my fair share of Hindi soaps and the musings of baby Krishna on Jai Shri Krishna which we watched every night at dinner with Bhuaji, my dad’s sister. I got used to people burping all the time and chewing with their mouth open and getting made fun of for saying please and thank you to much- here it’s their duty to take care of us.

I still don’t know the names of any Indian food dishes I’ve had here except samosas and poha, so I hope not to be a disappointment when I come back and am asked if I’m an expert now. Our meals always consisted of dhal (a soupy lentil), subzi (any vegetable, mashed, fried, boiled, food processed with any mix of spices) and chapati. Never really asked what we were eating because it was usually a vegetable with fancy stuff done to it. I also don’t feel I have a real enlighted look on Hinduism. I feel as though when I told people I was going to India, they get that oooo look on their face like, oh wow mystical and spiritual. I don’t know the names of half of the Gods, I visited so many temples of which I don’t really remember their names. I’ve bought prasad (offerings of ladoos or sugary crunchy white balls) and gotten an orange marking on my forhead but always just gone through the motions never really questioning anything. We visited Ganeshji tmple right by our house two nights ago to ask for safe travels (he is known minimally as the remover of obstacles). We have passed that temple hundreds of times and made our way through the maze of new cars that are brought there to be blessed (Ganesh’s statue is also found on most dashboards for safe keeping on the road) and to have a swastik drawn on the hood. I’ve heard Muslim calls to prayer just outside my house and can now understand the difference between Jainism and Sikhusm but found India to be a truly inclusively secular country and not separtistly secular as I feel ours is.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something is Happening)

So it’s been almost a month since I’ve last written, as you know, and boy a lot has been going on. I will try and recap to the best of my abilities including what I think are notable highlights. It has been really hard accessing internet lately and figuring out how to update the blog. Since last time I wrote, I went on vacation, moved houses and started my internship/research phase. !!

First off, I will talk about the few days preceding Goa- our five day spring break to celebrate the festival of Holi. As I mentioned earlier, we had the salon lady over to our house making us girls all pretty again before heading out to spend days in bathing suits. She threaded our eyebrows for Rs 10 (about 20 cents) and did it so quick I was amazed. I was really timid of it at first, and of course went last, but think that is the best way to go about shaping eyebrows. OK I will remember there are men reading this too but, important women in my life- I do think threading is the way to go.

The few days we had before Goa were our OH MY GOSH AFTER WE COME BACK FROM GOA WE ARE MOVING days. I’m not sure how better to express it but, I was actually getting nostalgic about India and not really wanting my time here to end. I began to feel it was going too fast and maybe that was my time when “everything clicked” and I was starting to understand the groove of this place and how to fit in…but then I realized, calm down you have two more months and a vacation to go!!

In those days I collected some pictures of Raja Park, our afternoon hangout neighborhood. Here’s my favorite Rs 6 (12 cents) samosa shop (um can you imagine if this giant vat of oil spilled?), a paneer kulcha (the best sandwich of all time, think of a panini with spicy crumbled cheese) and a camel outside my favorite music/movie store. Can you believe how much of my life here revolves around food and pop culture? I decided to stock up on movies since I honestly had no idea what my internship would be like and they have helped pass the time. I bought Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (my two favorites), and old school movies Pakeezah, Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai (which we learned a song from in Hindi class so I can sing a part to you) and Parasmani. I can’t get over how much I love these movies. You have to have a ton of patience though, the average movie is 3.5 hours long, but the dance sequences and the language/poetry is just amazing. I think it’s a good way to hear Hindi too and get the gist of the pronounciation. Ironic I can’t spell that.

So then GOA. Oh wow. It was amazing. We decided to fly there since we had limited time and honestly, wanted to see what traveling on a plane was like. Well let me say that SpiceJet is my new favorite domestic carrier. First off, once we got through check-in us ladies were greeted with roses and a “Happy International Woman’s Day” from the female staff. I had heard about this holiday- March 8, without much thought- but then after reading a paper, women in India took a lot of pride with it. There were also some sorry statistics released like, 45% of women in India are married before the age of 18. It will be really easy when this is all over to leave and be what I would call “a normal woman” again, but I can’t really begin to forget what little say women get in households. Our last night together with Niveta- my host mom- really hit the subject home when she complained about how Pankej would always go out to parties and families were never invited. She was always at home teaching and playing with the kids when she never really left the house- only to go shopping for things someone needed. Another time I realized how different it is for women here was when we watched a video from a wedding and one of the last scenes was when the bride was filmed sitting and crying since the wedding was official, and she was now to live in her husbands house. I’ve never seen tears like that and to know how normal it was - was really hard to swallow. When I think of marriages and crying it’s because we’re happy but sad to know that they’re moving on and out. Yet, in this case, it’s really unlikely to see your side (if you’re the wife) for years after marriage. Niveta has not been back to see her family for 13 years who live in Udaipur. As much song and dance that Indian weddings are, there is much grief for the bride’s side. So as much as I would like an Indian wedding, I can’t tell you how pleased I am that my parents aren’t picking out my husband and that I expect to have a lot of say in my marriage. This all has made me think a lot about marriage and had a really profound affect on me.

Onto lighter things, like flying, our flight was pretty short and we stopped in Gujarat- so I can say I went there. It was fascinating to us how attractive the flight attendants were as well. Now, you could think that I was bias but even when we got a new crew in Ahmdebad, they were sharp looking too. Apparently flight attendant jobs are highly sought after and looks are a huge factor in getting the job or not- according to someone’s host dad. I really can’t imagine a pseudo public sector job where that is legally a criteria back home.

Once in Goa and on the airport tarmac (they don’t bring you to a gate, you just walk off the plane), the humidity hit us like a ton of bricks. You could also smell ocean air which was just amazing. After reaching our adorable hotel called the Jolly Jolly Lester (???) we headed to get some food and were amazed to find something called beans on toast- essentially baked beans on toast- which are added to the list of my new favorite foods. They also had baskin robbins black currant ice cream (mom is was really good!) and another friend ordered shark curry. Afterwards we headed down to Vagator Beach (5 min from our hotel) to see the sunset and swim!

The next few days went a lot like that. So much eating (rediscovering my love for Indian chow mein) getting my long lost fix of vitamin k and playing in waves. We visited Anjuna, Mandrem, Arambol, Calangute and Spaghetti Beach (made famous for its sheer amount of Italian visitors). I’m going to say the trip to Goa was a much loved “beach holiday” and not a lot else. We were there for Holi, which honestly consisted of people smearing you with different colored powders. It was nice to be on the beach for it since you could then wash it off but my suit got “Holied” and won’t be with me any more.

We befriended a taxi driver, someone from Jaipur who lived near our bookstore, a Brit originally from Delhi and the best Italian chef who’s restaurant we went to and who sat with us through our dinner telling us of how he’s been in India for 30 years after following his Master Osho (who’s really famous?) and not wanting to go back to Italy. He was some leader of a socialist movement back in the 60s and came here to find that “you can’t change society, you have to let society change you.” I’m still trying to digest that quote but his food was incredible and the gnocchi and chocolate gelato were well worth the $7 we paid each. Mmmm!

Another thing about Goa, like Pushkar and Rishkesh, was the amount of things “handicrafts” that are sold by poor Indians in TONS to foreign tourists. Things with weed references, marble pieces for smoking, tee shirts with what I would consider inappropriate or tasteless slang on them, and then the “Indian things” like beachy clothes that are all flowy, bags with patchwork and silver jewelry (which you know is catered to tourists since Indians love and are the best craftsmen with gold). It seems so ridiculous to me and can get so exhausting. To all the hippies out there that are creating this meaningless demand for things that are “trippy” and all about “love,” it looks really stupid. I don’t know why it bothered me so much, but it just has really gotten to me. If you want to save the world, buy things from thrift stores and share old clothes. It seems crazy to me that this really crappy quality stuff has somehow meant “hippy” or “Indian” back home. Also, there are so many poor Indians who want to make a living by selling you really crappy stuff that has nothing to do with India. Awufhgkrtg. And now I know that I’ve bought those bags and headbands before but maybe I’ll be a more knowledgeable consumer when I get back home…

Some day in there I was attacked by the sun-me just being careless about not wearing enough sunscreen and playing in the water too much that I got sun poisoning. It wasn’t very fun and knocked the living daylights out of me. I’ve never felt that weak in my life and might teach me a think or two about reapplying sunscreen and staying in shade. Lesson learned. With that and an overwhelming distaste for getting that sick at my internship site, I decided to change organizations that I would spend the second half with. I have been in general having my share of upset stomachs and had little interest in being dropped off in three days in rural India feeling weak and with only one other English speaking person. So I switched my site from the one in Laporia to the Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society (CECOEDECON), which is just a few km out from Jaipur and nearer to people and things I know. At that point I kept worrying if I was chickening out from an amazing rural experience, but now I know I made the right choice.

After returning from Goa on Thursday, I was set out to start my internship that Saturday. Alex and I then headed out (missing Brandt who was stomach sick- an ever so familiar occurrence) to our site to meet our supervisors and hear more about our projects. But, you know India works on it’s own time and I’m getting used to it. Basically for our first day, I was to unpack my things because I was to live on site and read the annual report (which took about 20 minutes). So for our first day, I napped and ate lunch. At the end of the day I was then told that I would be living at the directors house starting Monday, which had much better accommodations if I was interested. UM YES and I made a proxy decision for Brandt as well since our rooms were nice but the campus had nothing and there were no markets nearby- the office is in the Industrial Area off a highway. I couldn’t be happier.

Monday we moved in after another rather slow day of reading more about what CECOEDECON was working on. Here is where I highlight my newfound sense of “going with the flow” and higher standards for constituting something as awkward. We were told to bring all of our things to reception where we would be meeting a car that would take us to our new house. In our tiny little taxi, we were dropped off in front of a gorgeous three story house about 10 minutes away from where we used to live, and literally just dropped off. Not having a clue what to do, we rang the doorbell to a smiley 60ish year old man who brought up us this side staircase of marble to our “apartment.” Where he then left us and scurried back downstairs. So standing in a huge living room with a TV, an exercise bike, which led to two rooms with their own bathrooms and a kitchen, we were left dumbfounded. Brandt and I would be living there until the end of April (Alex wanted to stay with her old family) and were rather unsure what to do next. So we headed out the side staircase again to at least find someone who could lay some ground rules, and we met our new host mother who was like, where are you going, are you going out?? “Um no we were trying to find you!!”

Over some chai, we found out that we were living in the CEO of the organization’s house and his wife was the director of the field offices. !!!!!! The wife is very nice, her name is Manjubala (Manju) and our host dad is Joshiji. They have two daughters who are in England studying somewhere important (I completely forgot) but they all were meeting up in Delhi yesterday where they were off to a week family vacation in Bangkok. So currently, Brandt and I are practicing our Hindi A LOT with our driver, cheery servant Kailash, Joshiji’s sister and mother. The food is incredible and they actually really want me to cook with them. My dreams realized!!

The internship finally picked up and I have a really incredible assignment after about a week of working out the details. I am placed under the Natural Resource Management Unit, which focuses on rural development and sustainable land use projects throughout the state of drought-prone Rajasthan. I had voiced some interest in their 2005 Food Assurance Project, which evaluate food security and implemented certain initiatives in a very poor district (Baran) in the southeast portion of the state bordering Madhya Pradesh. This project involved establishing “vigilante” groups to monitor the corrupt Public Distribution System (government food assistance program), train “Social Activists” who would share with others the right to food and organic farming techniques and establish seed banks in 50 villages. For my project, they decided it would be a good idea to do a formal follow up on how successful the seed banks are specifically. Here are my outlined objectives:

1) To study indigenous techniques of seed selection, processing and storage methods; 2) to assess the impact on institution building, socioeconomic status and environmental changes; 3) to study record keeping, recovery of seeds and other norms for the management of seed bank and 4) to study perception of farmers on sustainability of seed banks.

For this, they have arranged me to visit the Shabad region of the Baran district for 5 days – March 30 to April 4- to interview people from 10 villages relating to these objectives. They’re hoping to get an assessment of 10 seed banks, 6 which are going really strong and 4 which aren’t. I am going to be provided with a translator and will be able to stay at CECODECON’s office that they have out there and apparently they’re excited to have me. I can’t believe how this all worked out and that I will get to see rural India in a really amazing way!

Everyone at the office is great and I’ve done some pretty random things in my first week. First, we had a day off because the goddess of small pox was being honored, and it just so happened that one of CECOEDECON’s office’s was right next to the temple where her shrine was. We were invited by staff to go and check out the festival and walk up to the temple if interested and like anything else here, we said yes not knowing quite what to expect. Here are some pictures. To make our way up to the temple, we had to shove through some crowds, and of course me being the only girl, Brandt and the two amazing staff had to be my bodyguards so I wasn’t touched- which happened anyways but they were a great help. Basically it was a giant festival with magicians, people selling things from machetes to giving real tattoos and food. Past that, we made our way to the stairs where at the top was this tiny little shrine you were supposed to walk around and throw in prasad (offering). The biggest moment of fear cam when, since you are separated by gender when entering the temple area, when they wanted to separate me and Brandt from our staff. They obviously must not have cared if Brandt was a boy but since he was a foreigner it didn’t matter, but yelling at Indian police telling them our staff was with us was quite an experience. Govind could come but we had to leave Vikas. It was rather epic really, all for the goddess of smallpox, but at least I will be protected for a year.

The next day we were invited to the Annual General Meeting of a Self Help Group Federation located in the Jaipur district. A SHG is the tool used in microfinance that generate income through the distribution of small loans for small businesses or even seed banks. There we listened to the presentation of the Annual Report, watched the women elect new officers and handed out awards to women who either started new SHGs or deserved some kind of recognition. We were honored as guests to light the welcoming lamp and even handed out the awards- casserole dishes. It was an amazing experience to meet some of these women, and the president, here, even was brought to Washington DC to meet president Clinton!

Another great happening is a family that Brandt and I met who own the building with the cyber café we use now. Our new neighborhood is really friendly with fewer cars, more scooters and smaller/crooked streets. They invited Brandt to sit with them since he finished before I did one afternoon and now we’re all buddies. His name is VS Rathore and his two sons and their wives and four grandchildren live about a block away from the shop. They are incredibly nice and showed us old family pictures and had us over for drinks and snacks. The grandkids, our age, our really into practicing Hindi with us and love talking about movies and music. I think I actually like this living arrangement and neighborhood more than my last one! It’s been amazing so far and Mr. Rathore even said he would introduce me to his neighbor and friend who works in the Ministry of Agriculture. WOAH!

Other fun things:
I got an internship for the summer with Growing Power as their marketing intern in Chicago. I’m really excited to come back from all my studies on food security in India to work on it back closer to where I grew up! It is unpaid but I worked with my favorite faculty member Dr. Ransom to apply for a fellowship which adds academic work to the internship itself in order to get a salary. I turned that in on the 17th so I hope to hear back soon. In other school related news, I also was awarded a Weinstein Summer Grant to study some organic farming methods and biopiracy awareness building at an organization in Dehra Dun called Navdanya. I still plan to come home though on May 25th after some travel to my guess, Bombay and the Ellora and Ajanta caves.

St. Patty’s Day: Try explaining why to wear green for no real reason and partying. Voted impossible and Brandt, Anna, Magy, Caroline and I went to dinner.

My first heafty dose of homesicknesses: Pizza Hut. It was such an upscale place- quite bizarre it made me think of home actually- and I don’t even really like pizza too much but there were brownies and top 40 US hits playing including Coldplay!! The pizza I got was called the Country Special with paneer, corn, green pepper, tomato and onion…so delicious you have to try it! We were waited on by a super attentive server and we got our food in less than 10 minutes waiting- I think a first the entire time I’ve been here. It was also in a really up and coming mall which reminded of my middle school days hanging out in Stratford. People in jeans, a coffee stand and an adidas store, it was too much for me for a little bit but talking to Grandma, Aunt Mar and my mom made me realize the whole thing was quite funny and that I need to keep having an incredible time.

Anna driving a rickshaw with her rickshaw-wallah (she uses him to get to and from work everyday and has now become our trusted driver) and Brandt with a parade of socks on our roof.

Lots of pictures at your request Mom...

Namaste everyone! Here's a rather lengthy update from the past week or so!

Last Friday we went to an artist colony and got some private lessons on dancing, puppeteering, sewing and horse riding haha. We were divided into groups of four or so and thankfully I was in Ajay’s group and got to see him strut his stuff and do some girly moves. I absolutely love the dance moves here and vow that I will learn as many as I can before coming home. We went to see Billu Barber- the big film here now about Sha Ru Khan’s (biggest movie star in India) childhood friend who now works as a barber. Shara Khan (sp?) plays himself and the dance sequences that he is in don’t really relate to the movie itself, I feel they just needed an excuse to insert some crazy scenes, here’s one. Seeing a movie was so fun and just like watching a club and you want to dance in your seat-and we did. Thankfully, later that night we stumbled upon one of Jaipur’s discotheque and saw the “underground” alcohol scene. It looked just like a normal club back at home but the music was epic. They even had remixes from Billu Barber so our dreams were realized. ANYWAYS, here I am strutting my stuff on a horse and looking ridiculously thin, I swear I’m eating.

Last weekend we headed to Rishikesh, yoga capital of the world and where the Beatles were believed to have written some of the White Album.

We got there via an overnight bus to Hardiwar about 10 hours away (5 northeast of Delhi) where we were supposed to catch an easy bus to Rishkesh. Of course things don’t work out like you think they will when you travel so…we ended up waking up to our bus crawling through the tiny streets, seemingly lost, in Hardiwar. Then we just came to a stop and people were getting off but no one speaking English made it a bit more confusing. Apparently in broken English and Hindi we put together that there were road blocks preventing us from getting to the town’s bus station and we were four km away. After ten hours in a kind of smelly bus, 7 of us and our luggage crammed into the smallest rickshaw ever and got to the bus station then to find that the bus drivers were on strike and we would have to take a taxi to Rishikesh. Enter Fatima. A middle aged Brazilian traveling on her own and desperate to get to Rishikesh no matter if it killed her. By this time, this is exactly how we felt. So two Ambassador taxi (adorable white 1950’s style cars with shag carpeted benches in the back) rides later, we were brought Laxshman Jula, literally a pedestrian bridge (yet includes scooters, cows and ice cream stealing monkeys, you know, typical). The town itself stretches between two bridges Ram and Laxshman and roads run up the side but you pretty much walk everywhere once there. After settling into our Ashram with Fatima who we invited to stay with us, we had a rather lengthy lunch and headed down to a riverside path with the goal of making it too a sunset ceremony on the water at Partham Niketan (also prolly spelled incorrectly). The scenery was absolutely stunning. I have not seen green or really clean water my whole time here, which was more wearing on my psyche than I thought. Breathing clean air for the first time in awhile felt incredible not just for my lungs but my mood just seem so lifted. Ahhhh. Here are some pictures that might describe it better. They include a hike we did to a waterfall (read the sign), rafting with the best river guide ever and our favorite restaurant in the town where we ate every meal, Ganga Beach. The rafting was incredible, nothing too crazy, we didn’t flip and I got to jump off a 30 foot rock. So actually maybe a bit crazy. And we looked like American gladiators, which always means a good time.
We also had the most delicious two days of breakfasts!! There was a German bakery which had apple strudels, cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants and this thing called a choko brocket (pastry infused with coconut and chocolate)….not sure any of those were German. They did have really good honey porridge though. I don’t think I’ve ever ordered porridge at a restaurant before or heard of it outside the story time world. I really miss baked goods. Not that I have a problem with everything being fried- and I will never choose baked Lays over regular- but deserts, like anytime I’ve travel, I tend to miss. We had an amazing ice cream dish at the Ganga Beach called the Hail to the Queen, which was vanilla ice cream, warm bananas, chocolate sauce with crushed Parle-G cookies on top (sweet biscuits usually served with tea). Amber and I are on a hunt now for chocolate sauce. Also maple syrup. We are making a grand breakfast of French toast this upcoming weekend for our host family. Very curious to see what they think. We want to do hash browns and fruit salad but we’re wondering how much they will actually eat, seeing that the standard bfast is a mound of toast. I’ll let you know how it goes. Why do my blog entries give to much attention to food, MY GOSH! Oh well, tell grandpa I’m eating.

This past week nothing too exciting happened. I must confess to a new clothing addiction though which consumes many-a-afternoons. We basically go fabric shopping for about 60 Rs a meter and then make then into shirts, skirts or sketch “challenge dresses” for another 80 Rs. We’ve done really well for ourselves and Anna even pulled off a halter dress with elastic. We go to our favorite shop which is owned by a husband-wife duo that has tons of fabric and then they talk us through what we want made. It’s a really fun way to practice Hindi and help with English. The family is so nice to us too and even invited us over before we leave for tea. It’s so old school and artsy all at the same time that I’m really going to miss it when I get home. We were thinking that once we get home we’re going to want to hit up Joann Fabrics and a good tailor when we want to go clothes shopping. I have a feeling Chicago Bears prints and neon kid’s patterns won’t do the trick. Sad.

This past weekend we stayed in Jaipur as it was really our last weekend to do so and I actually began to feel a bit sad and that time was going really quickly. Friday we spent a ton of time in Raja Park- tailoring, eating samosas and these things called Paneer kulchas (paneer paninis with special snack sauce…ohhh Indian snack sauce how I love you) and playing cricket in the afternoon with the kids, Anna and Gamlesh. SO FUN. I love this game. So I thought it was that you were supposed to hit it hard and high but that is definetly not the point, you’re supposed to get it kind of on the ground and when playing with 20 year olds without 5 year olds in the way, it actually can get pretty intense and sweaty. Later that night we had EGGS for dinner. WOAH. I had nonchalantly asked about eggs earlier in the week, whether they ate them or not and if there were any places that served omletts or scrambled eggs, to which our dad responded there is an egg restaurant that serves only eggs. Excitement. We shall be checking that out this week. Anyways, we had eggs and it was really funny how when we told people the next day, they were happy for us too. It’s all about the little things.

Saturday we had class in order to take one more day off next week. It was a pretty wise decision since class consisted of watching a movie about a dyslexic boy who goes undiagnosed for far too long and then meets an art teacher that changes his life. Tar Zameen Par. After class and a zulu bar run, I was off in a rickshaw to an astrologer with Carolyn and Magy. To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with my reading but I think it was good fun. My auspicious years for marriage are 26, 29 and 32. Indians really like to talk about marriage and auspicious things. I’m also supposedly having 2 girls and one boy or one of each. January 2010 is when something of mine enters something else and will bring me great joy for a long time because now things aren’t coming together as easily as they could be since I’m in an unfavorable house or something along those lines. He also nailed what studies I was in, literally geography/environmental studies and economics and said that I would have a knack for marketing. He said that travel keeps me fresh and to have it be part of my life and keep having it playing a large role so that I stay on my toes. He sees a very social and dynamic life for me and that I’ll live past 89!! So take it for what it’s worth, it was fun and us girls had fun. That night was Billu Barber and the Fireball (discotheque).

The next day we went to the Hanuman temple with our family and had a lunch with some family friends. After returning, I got a phone call from Katrina saying the piercing-wallah (add to anything to mean one who sells or does) was at her house and a piercing party was about to commence. Here’s Carolyn up at bat. I was last and got my third holes done and my ears don’t really hurt that badly. I think the old fashioned way of just pushing it through may be the best way to do it! I also like the story behind it of getting my ear pierced on a door step.

This coming Sunday we are heading south to Goa for a 5 day weekend!! It’s known for its beaches and parties, but it also used to be a major Portuguese trading area and you can still see relics and Christian churches. I also want to head inland to see Hampi, the site of an ancient Hindu empire capital. For now we are gearing up for our oh so fun Hindi exam, yikes, and hosting a salon lady in our section of the house tomorrow. Some of the girls wanted to try threading and get pedicures since our feet are GROSS. I think it’s neat that she just comes over. I think my next entry will come sometime during the week and I’m going to include pictures of my school, Raja Park and the house.

I also found out where I will be doing my internship phase starting on March 14th for about a month and a half, once we get back from Goa: Gram Vikas Navyuvak Lapoira outside of Jaipur. Check out the drop down list on the left "NRM" for natural resource management, these are the programs I will be helping with!!Happy March! I can’t believe the time is going so fast!

The MOST auspicious day

So today was the day to get married in India. There were 1,000 weddings in Jaipur today and driving through the town at night, there was this really beautiful humming and lighting that made the city feel really exciting and alive. On our drive there and back we saw soooo many fully decked white horses and elephants not to mention the parades with brass bands and people dancing en route to the wedding location.

Our evening starting with us getting dressed in our sarees. They consist of three pieces: the top that really only covers your chest, the bottom skirt and then the fabric that really makes or breaks the outfit. We put the first two on without a problem and then our servant Shorbala helped us with the rest.

We were then en route with the whole crew by about 8, a little sad to find out that we were too late and going to miss the groom’s entrance on the white horse. Oh well, we saw enough on the way and one close up in Pushkar. The whole crew consisted of host mom and dad, the two kids, papaji (grandpa) and our driver and male servant/babysitter Gamlesh.

Like I said the drive there was so colorful. So many women in saris walking around and even on scooters and people all dressed up since EVERYONE was going to a wedding somewhere in town. When we got to ours I couldn’t really tell where to look. It was outside behind a hotel as if it was a courtyard that had two levels. You went down and there was food on the outside boundaries with little tables with umbrellas and then a really epic center piece holding plates and napkins. There were people milling everywhere and there were so many snacks!!! On the left side was dinner food then on the right they were grilling up dosas and even had chow mein- with Indian ketchup it was delish! Walking past that square then you went up some stairs to the tiny dance floor and then the stage where the groom was sitting awaiting the bride. For tonight’s ceremony, the actually wedding, they were to put garlands on each other, take pictures and sit together for the first time as a couple. Later in the evening probably around midnight, they were going to do the religious ceremony where they walk around a fire (I think) seven times and several prayers are read. The whole garland placing part seemed really informal and not even everyone was watching it. The bride looked gorgeous and her makeup and jewelry was so beautiful. The groom looked really awesome too with cream colored suit with sparkles and a really awesome hat with a feather. It was pretty interesting to see how he didn’t pay any attention when the bride walked up the stage and didn’t really seem to smile all too much. She also kept her eyes on the ground almost the entire time. This was an arranged marriage where they had met before these ceremonies had started (yesterday) but had not had much interaction, like one meeting Binu said.

After the garland ceremony we got some food as then they sat on stage greeting people. We hit up some really excellent paneer, chick peas, kofta and fresh naan (first piece of the trip). There was also hot halwal and ice cream. Not really I should have had any of it with my recovering digestive system but it was soooo good.

After scarfing down all of that and another plate of chow mein in a sari, I heard Mundian Bach Te and knew it was time to dance. On our way to the miniscule “dance floor” with the kids and Gamlesh we heard Marjaani- a really popular song from a Bollywood movie here that plays all the time that I hunted down the soundtrack for- I knew we had to get more than just the four 7 year olds on the dance floor to dance. So I got up there with the kids and kind of made a fool of myself. And it was amazing. I MUST LEARN HOW TO PROPERLY DO SHOULDER MOVES. There were some guys that came up and were so into it. It’s got something to do with your hips, keeping your arms kind of straight and then somehow dislodging your shoulders from their sockets. Anyways, some Carly shimmies later, I thought to myself, I wonder what’s appropriate? Then thankfully some woman joined us, our host mom and Binu (host mom’s sister in law) joined us and it was a blast. Niveta called it quits after a song or two and once off the stage she told me my sari top was backwards. Um oops.

After that prolly uber Indian fashion faux pa, she wrapped me up good, hence my bizarre look for the rest of the night. Then we just took a bunch of pictures and a good time was had by all. Here's me with the most important men in my life in India. Note the distance. Haha. I was actually kind of surprised how much of a spectacle it was and that we didn’t actually see much of the bride and groom, like that it didn’t seem they were the center of attention. There was so much shiny-ness, lights and fireworks I was on external stimuli overload and didn’t really want it to end. I don’t think we stopped smiling or saying how much fun we had the whole ride home. Niveta said if we wanted an Indian wedding we could come back to India and she would help us arrange it. I’m not sure if I need to go to that extreme-um maybe who knows- BUT I do need to find a way to get to another Indian wedding. And where my top correctly.

Puskar

Part two of Puskar, read previous entry first.
So after settling in all we could do was gawk in the best sunset I’ve seen here. Our hotel had a roof top-with the most adorable patch of grass on it- and comfy chairs and lots of pink floyd so we grabbed a menu and decided to chill there for the night. With ten of us ordering, dinner took about 2 _ hours to complete but it was incredible. With all of us a harboring a bit of homesickness of maybe just a break from Indian everything, we got awesome stuff like lasagna, cheese sandwiches, baked potatoes, elbow macaroni with mushroom vegetable sauce, pizza and burgers. It was kind of fun that our food was slow to come up because we all ate everything that was ordered and I was reminded of the fact that -I MISS CHEESE! As amazing as paneer is, it really isn’t a fair substitute. Carolyn brought velveeta from home to share with her host family and we hunted down a shop that actually sells shell pasta. I didn’t think I really liked macaroni and cheese- granted velveeta- that much but my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Pathetic.
The next morning we headed down to Puskar’s small but mighty lake. There are different ghats for pilgrims to bathe in while some carry specific importance: Varah Ghat were Vishnu appeared to Brahma, Brahma Ghat were he actually bathed and Ghadi Ghat where Ghandi’s ashes were thrown. The lake actually holds 52 of these kinds of ghats and I actually did a ritual with a priest for my mom, dad and I at one of them. All of it was in Hindi, but it involved flowers, a coconut, colored powder, rice and my forehead was smudged and I got a red and yellow cord on my right wrist. It was done for general happiness and well being and I thought the puja was really cool.
We spent the rest of the day less spiritually- shopping!! Pushkar has attracted an insane amount of foreign hippies and you will find tons of internet cafes, foreign exchanges, Western or Israeli (those out of the army come here to spend their pensions) food- I had a falafel for lunch!! It was almost kind of silly walking around and seeing so many hippies. I felt like I was at another environmental fair, fair trade or social justice convention. There were mostly backpackers in dreads with the most insane amount of pseudo Indian clothing. Flowy skirts, scarves, anklets…kind of like walking versions of ten thousand villages. There were also these kind of MC Hammer balloon pants-which I got a pair of because they were quite comfy- that everywhere was wearing. They’re really puffy and then at the same time look like a giant diaper. So, I don’t know, Pushkar kinda weirded me out. It was my first time that I was like, this doesn’t seem like real India but so many backpackers chose to come here first that we met and stayed longer than they planned. We also saw tons of white people on motor bikes and kids around, meaning they set up shop and never left. Pushkar was a nice break but I couldn’t imagine living there and thinking that was real India. But who am I to say that I know real India I guess. There are a TON of drugs available here too, that are even put in lassis and chai. That is surely not found in all of India and may Indians are kind of embarrassed of Pushkar and don’t see its draw anymore aside from the religious reasons. Anyways, so I’m glad we went and had fun meeting other travelers but I was excited to come back "home" and wear jeans and not feel so clean cut…
Later that evening, Valentine’s Day, Carolyn, Magy and I split off and went to someone’s guest house who was hosting a gypsy dance concert. I think it was actually some white people which was pretty sweet and they had a buffet for dinner of- rice that looked Mexican, potatoes, vegetable casserole and French fries. Again, my maybe hoity toighty view of Pushkar laughed at the buffet they were offering. I just couldn’t get over non-Indian everything was yet wondered if this is what they thought India was. ANYWAYS after getting our plates of food we headed into this gorgeous courtyard and watched some really cool dance performances.
And thus the story ends. We met a really cool backpacker from England names Tim back at the hotel who might be joining some of the group that is heading out to Jaisalmer this upcoming weekend. He was the editor of some Jet Ski magazine in English which I thought was pretty random. Then I got sick and have been riding that wave until now. The bus ride wasn’t too fun back to Jaipur but after crawling into bed, seeing a doctor and getting antibiotics I’m feeling a lot better than I did on Sunday. I just have to be ready for our wedding TOMORROW!!!! For which I will be because that would be stupid to not feel well for an Indian wedding. There are so many weddings going on since these are the auspicious weeks for getting married as some god who sleeps for the rest of the year is awake for this time in February. Stay posted for pictures and a speedy report! I swear.