And now for something completely different...

The Carolines and Carly do Kerala (and Tamil Nadu)

2009-05-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Greetings from New Delhi

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)

2009-03-25T03:45:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-03-01T08:32:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-19T20:00:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-18T23:02:00.001-08:00

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.

Shekhawati among other things

2009-02-17T22:05:00.000-08:00

So yep, here goes another blog after a seemingly long time of writing. Oh well-another entry after two book reports (how fourth grade but they took forever), two trips and and the long awaited but not so exceptional bout of stomach troubles…ANYWAYS, this past week has been fun though.

I left you somewhere on a Monday or so before we left on our 3 day venture out to Shekhawati. It was formerly a wealthy but lawless land on the trade route between the Arabian sea and the Ganges valley. The noblemen of the area- thakurs apparently fought with each other a lot and really began to flourish when the East India company came in and imposed some semblance of merchant order in the 1750s. A century later, the British used skills of the local merchants in the coastal regions who moved away from the area but they built havelis (beautifully colored and ornate mansions) for love ones back at home. Kinda nuts and I’m sure there were history facts that I didn’t pick up on, but that was the gist.

Our trip out was ridiculous. It’s only a three hour trip out and we huddled our selves into 3 taxis, each with a teacher. Cruising at about 80, “we encountered a pot hole that just kept going.”Looking out the window from our beloved red ford, we saw our front left tire fly out and the driver did a delightful job of getting us to the side of the road with no concern or hesitance. While I myself was hesitant whether or not to but it in the blog because I wondered if this would somehow give the sense that India is a place of negligence or not safe, I add it to say that with a few girls and a hoard of men who came to help right away, we were back on the road in 15 minutes.

Once settled at the hotel we were on our way after lunch. I have come to the realization that I will not be able to identify anything on an Indian menu and the only way to really eat Indian is through a buffet. I may know the legit ways to eat Indian now- like putting dals in the little metal cups- and I might even ask for chipatis or puris instead of naan GASP. I actually haven’t had naan the whole time we’ve been here. Puris are the superior bread of choice when it comes to Indian, it’s a deep fried or steamed, I have no idea but slightly crispy and airy balloon that comes puffed and piping but then turns into hot bread. Oh my gosh I’m terrible at explaining said food but trust me it’s delicious with eggs.

So after lunch we headed to an organic farm teaching facility called Muharka. We visited their research site where they harvest mini crops, have vermicomposting visible, create vats for fertilizers and pesticides and generally act as a place where farmers can come learn some once traditional now organic techniques specific to the desert region. For example, in a small hut in the center of the grounds they burn cow dung and some herbs in copper pots whose ashes are then spread onto the tops of tiny pillars surrounding the area, which act as a pesticide. They also use cow urine and some poisonous nicotine hallucinogen as another pesticide. They also showcased a solar drying machine that extracted water from vegetables and we were able to taste the dried garlic, carrots and sundried tomatoes. So it sounds terrible that what I say next is what I remember most vividly about Muharka, the raitha. After our really nice visit (and most places you go) you’ll get a cup of chai and maybe some kind of snack. Here it started with a laddu (my favorite sweet I think here, basically a ball of brown sugar but not as sweet but still like brown sugar), bhuja (which I’m kind of also obsessed with, basically chow mein but made from lentils and on toast with ketchup= fantastic, it jazzes up our pile of 8 pieces of toast in the morning) and horseradish. Then came the raitha or something or other which was the most horrific thing I was supposed to eat thus far. I don’t think it would have been too bad with a meal, served like we have our plain yogurt, but it was like warm buttermilk with seeds of somekind swimming around and red oily droplets floating on top. So that might have put me over the edge on drinking warm milk alone…ever (which Indians love to have- we have it with our cornflakes for breakfast). Only the boys finished them and all the girls passed them on to them. Anyways, long story short, it was a traumatic milky experience that I don’t wish on anyone not up to stomach it.

Afterwards we left to see one of the best kept haveli museums in the area and spent time doing what we do best, playing around, taking pictures, discovering nooks and crannies and reconvening for a lecture. After that we caught a sunset on a small family farm that grew mustard and had several goats and cattle.

The next morning we headed toward a village school that drew in students from up to 80km away (not sure of the conversion but a mile is about .6 km). It houses students from primary ages to probably about 11 and man do these kids know their stuff. We got to chat with the principle about the education system in India, how it important exams were and what the students in the school were learning. We visited some science labs- including chemistry, biology and physics and I was shocked how the displays I saw and experiments they were doing were ones I remembered from high school. It is obvious that most parts of rural India are very well educated- it is a struggle for villages to offer opportunities that its children have earned once trained at schools and universities. This brain drain has left rural India with little other than textiles and agriculture as main its main sources of income. This is true though of those who can afford to send their children on to better and better schools…And what are these kids going to school for? I do not what to stereotypify India, but so many people in the middle class seem to be doctors or have some kind of government job. When our host dad asked Amber what she was doing with her life of what she hoped to do, she responded that she hoped to work for an NGO and did not plan to make a lot of money. Chuckling he said, why do all you people want to devote your lives to not making money. I don’t know why but from him, it’s really hard to hear to that. Is it because I feel we want to make a difference in international justice work and we don’t get his blessings? But should I be expecting to get that- maybe not and maybe he doesn’t seem himself in part of a developing country, or most conservative state of Rajasthan struggles still with child marriage and rape. It’s as if we came here to learn how to fit into international development work while those living comfortably in the middle class here don’t want anything to do with us. We shall see how this pans out.

Later we visited a fort and another larger farm where I saw the largest buffalo of my life. Granted, I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen a water buffalo, the farmer also swung a bat at a tree and we ate these berries called “per” that taste like a cross between pear and an apple. FUN! After hitting up Muharka’s Tourism Festival somewhere else in town, which involved us buying treats and having our picture taken with staff as “international guests” for their newsletter, we went to the hotel and headed back to Jaipur the next day. In the car trip back we actually planned out via cell phones, a Lonely Planet and our trusted teacher a trip to Pushkar for the weekend. After booking three rooms at the Pink Floyd Hotel and getting a free drop off at the bus station we were en route to Pushkar with barely being back in Jaipur for 20 minutes. It was incredible.

We basically showed up at the bus station minutes before the bus we need to take was leaving and jumped on and bought our tickets on board. I think you could easily survive in India as long as you know you know where you have to go and just use correct inflection. Anyways, on a comfortable air conditioned bus, we were headed to Pushkar.

“Brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth- so say the epics- and Pushkar floated to the surface. This pond-sized Hindu pilgrimage town is a magical desert-edged place with one of the world’s few Brahma temples. Rows of sacred ghats front a majestically magnetic lake, where hundreds of milk-colored temples and weather touched domes sit beneath a shifting, pale sky.” I thought that was a pretty good description.

We landed in one piece to the most amazing hotel of all time and for some reason the feeling that we had come to the right place to get a break from the India we knew and eat some food that we had been missing. First things first, our hotel was awesome. Run by a hard-core Pink Floyd fan, its rooms were all named after albums and the place was decorated with skylines- even Chicago!, famous movie posters- Blues Brothers, and their menu had peanut butter on it. (!!!!!!!). Part Two will come soon. This is good for one sitting I think.

You know, your average weekend...

2009-02-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I have written. It may be unfair to you dear reader, but I think it means on this end, I’ve been finding more to do outside of the house in the evenings and during down time. I think leaving this much time in between entries is a bit absurd and now I’ve forgotten those little things I actually want to remember. But here goes a recap of just the weekend and a promise to myself and you to not give up on writing!

This past weekend a group of nine of us traveled to Fatehpur Sikri, Agra and the bird sanctuary. I’d say that we had a blast but were really glad to get “home” to relax. We left at 6am Saturday morning and got to see the desert waking up and shaking off its purple haze. It was really beautiful and the sun glowed like I’d never seen before. Part dust and part pollution I’m guessing made everything a bit murky but it was so nice to get out of the city. Most of the countryside was filled with a sandy brush and occasional fields of mustard seeds or green crops. We had paid our taxi for two days and had the luxury of stopping when we wanted, listening to music and spreading out as the van seated about 15. This is what I would like to call a “soft landing” into travel in India because that was all well and good and then when we got to the fort all hell broke loose. Since our driver didn’t English and we were thinking it would be easy to get from the parking lot to the fort, we weren’t expecting sheer confusion. Swarms of unofficial tour guides and merchants selling postcards, necklaces and key chains just kept getting in our way, sometimes to the point we couldn’t walk. I hate for any of this to sound like complaining, because I still think wow how cool is it that I am in India and out of anything I’ve ever known, but this was a moment I just wanted to scream. I guess travel in Europe, in the states and where I know Spanish seems so much easier and that I could trust someone to ask a question and not be taken advantage of. At this moment near the most visited site in India (I don’t want to stereotype for the rest of the country) I hit my I hate this moment. No didn’t mean anything, we couldn’t get our bearings, and all we wanted were for some signs to point us to something official. After refusing guides and just getting information to catch the bus to the fort, paying for an entrance fee (another fun fact, the HUGE price difference for Indians 20 Rs and Foreign Tourists 260 Rs), we found some peace and quiet in the fort itself. Caroline and I had brought our guide books to get us through it, which said “the purpose of many buildings is uncertain and much of what the guides say is pure fiction.” We skipped around in giant courtyards, climbed towers, posed Bollywood style near columns. Pure silliness but absolutely necessary after all of us just wanted to die feeling so stupid, confused and called out so blatantly as tourists. After that, there was a free mosque we could visit which we did which turned out to be another disaster that I don’t remember half of what we saw because no one would leave us alone. We just wanted to look around and understanding that it was a holy place, we were pretty surprised how many people were out to make a buck. When I was even taking a picture inside, one of them moved my camera so I could get a better angle in his opinion. We left that area pretty quickly too. I just feel annoyed for that to have been my experience while at the same time who am I to criticize how these people make a living. Either way I really just missed paying entrance fees and asking questions with truthful answers and not someone trying to scam you constantly. I just hope to shake it off and not let it taint my opinion of the rest of the country.

We were so happy to back to the “safety” of our van. A part of that also made me so depressed. I hate that it was the only way that I liked traveling, isolated in a privileged luxury taxi, but it was the truth. I read apart in the book: “Nothing can fully prepare you for India, but perhaps the one thing that best encapsulates this extraordinary country is its ability to inspire, frustrate, thrill and confound all at once. Poverty is confronting, Indian bureaucracy can be exasperating and the crush of humanity sometimes turns the simplest task into an energy-zapping battle. Even the most experienced travelers find their sanity frayed at some point.” I felt this really spoke to the weekend.

Anyways, the drive to the Taj was about an hour or so and after our driver got lost we finally made it to the “ sprawling, bloated and polluted” city of Agra. Once again, we got off the van to another swarm of guides and pushed our way through to the nearest eating establishment, a government owned restaurant located outside of the West Gate. I’ve never had a better meal (since we didn’t eaten breakfast and felt like we had gotten the crap beat out of us). I had a thali- which is basically a huge metal tin filled with little cups of glorious Indian things. Usually= dal (soupy lentil), 2 vegetables (like potatoes with spices and cauliflower and carrots-WHICH are red here and sweet and so good), 2 roti (naan but browner and made of a different flower), I think roti actually means bread and naan or chapatti is a type), cup of rice, yogurt sauce, salad and then a crunchy bread piece. I haven’t actually eaten meat the entire time I’ve been here. Our family will not serve meat at home but apparently our father does outside of the house. He’s really into pork, and I find it amusing he makes pork runs. Anyways, it’s not that I won’t eat meat here or don’t trust it, it just tends to be more expensive and I like the vegetable dishes more anyways!

And now onto the ticket counter where again, Indians 20 Rs and Foreigners 750 Rs, we got into a line for women and left Ben to the men’s queue- which had three lanes while the woman’s had only one. 25 minutes later, we met up with him and carried on into the complex. My history/museum nerd really hated the fact that I didn’t know too much of what we were looking at aside from ginormous buildings of red with Koranic inscriptions etched into the walls but then they gave way to the Taj. The path we followed into it was so gorgeous and can really only be explained with pictures.

We played for the rest of the day taking pictures, doing cartwheels, enjoying our own company and the fact that this was no ordinary occurrence. Every angle was amazing and watching the sunset approach even changed the color of the building itself. The taj was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial for his wife Mumytaz- who he obviously loved a lot- who died in child birth giving their 14th child in 1631. He was so heartbroken his hair apparently turned gray overnight. He began construction immediately- employing some 20,000 people from Central Asia, India and even Europe to work on the marble screens and marble inlay work made with thousands of semi-precious stones- and it was completed around 1653. Not too long after it was finished, he was overthrown by his son and imprisoned in the Agra Fort where he apparently could see his creation from a window. He died there and was buried alongside his lover in 1666. Tragic.

It was worth the hassling and constant picture taking. We were asked to be in several family photos, approached by several men wanting to be in pictures with us. Magy even tried to turn it into an entrepreneurial scheme by charging…she may be onto something. When we asked them for money they laughed and walked away. I think dealing with their fascination of us with a sense of humor makes the whole thing seem less annoying.

After our walk back through a crowd of camels- which I found I’m allergic too as well as horses, ugh I’m so lame- we made it to the van and to our hotel in Bharatpur, where we stayed nice and snug in three rooms of three made for 2. For dinner I had another thali and afterwards we hung out in our room watching mtv India (one morning last week I woke up to our dad singing along with “Video Killed the Radio Star.” The “oooh ooh” was incredible) and then Jumanji in Hindi. We woke up and Caroline and I ordered food for everyone: French toast, scrambled eggs on toast with ketchup and masala omletts. I’m curious what masala really means to Indians because masala omletts and masala chips just means flavored, but not really the same way. ANYWAYS. The French toast was really tasty and served with electric red jam. It seems that “red” is another Indian fruit flavor, possibly strawberry. Sometimes you’ll find really red ice cream too that tastes insanely artificial but I’m not sure like what.

The bird sanctuary was really peaceful as well and we paid for a guide to take us around. We saw kingfishers, which may now be my favorite bird- an item I never thought I would have, owls, egrets, crazy Indian duck, antelope and wild cows. We all passed out in the van on the way back to Jaipur and were so excited to shower. After a weekend of no homework, in class today we discovered none of us even tried to do it last night. Oh, well, I think we got enough of a cultural lesson.

Last week was pretty tame. Some highlights: discovering potato smiles (a fried potato with batter in the shape of a smiley face), eating a paneer salsa wrap at McDonald’s, finding a music store with “sizzling bollywood hits” of which we as a group decided to buy lots of cds and then share it with one another and visited Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti, the World’s Largest Limb Fitting Society. It is an organization, which has established branches all over India and holds a large amount of mobile camps in Asia, Africa and Latin America (the director had just come back from a trip to Colombia) to fit anyone who comes on site with a limb. I didn’t really understand the exact logistics of what materials were used but we saw the production of them and plaster and rubber and joints developed with the help of MIT and Standford are used. The average limb costs the society $35 to make when some in the US can cost upwards of $8,000. It was a really incredible organization that only uses 4% of its funding to do this. I didn’t really know that the loss of limbs was such an enormous factor affecting the poor in this country, or for that matter all over the world, but by helping a person regain his ability to provide for his of their family and general livelihood means a world of difference.

So that’s been life here. I’m getting a bit tired now and have to start getting down to the nitty gritty of actually doing my Hindi. I have almost mastered the alphabet and script, basic sentence construction and the oblique tense, which I think it pretty impressive for about two weeks of class. Class tends to be pretty overwhelming since we started with written Hindi “Mera nam kya hai” and had it written in script, and had it written in English. Today apparently she felt we were done being babied and went straight to Nagari script. So yeah, I’ve gots some studying.

Tidbits:
Our new favorite hangout at night: The Rock, where there is hookah, food and servers who wear Western fringed vests and cowboy hats.

Tasty treat: Zulu bars. A hunk of chocolate on a stick, surrounded by chocolate ice cream dipped in chocolate with nuts. Sooooo good.

Two Days ago

2009-01-31T22:34:00.002-08:00

Today is Shaheed Diwas also known as Matyr’s Day when Indians pay tribute to those who lost their lies in the struggle for India’s independence and is also the day when Ghandi was assassinated. There was a silence at noon commemorating his life and a gathering at his statue memorial/traffic circle in the morning. Yesterday, I bought his autobiography: “An Autobiography or the story of my experiments with truth” and started it. I would not say it is a light read content wise, but something easy to jump into. I highly recommend it!

Today we headed to Sanganer, a 500 year old village that once was outside of Jaipur but now is within the municipality. It is known for its paper, block print and blue pottery textiles and we visited the major facilities that specialized in each. The paper is made from a cotton pulp, dyed with natural colors, then muslin screens are used to catch the pulp to create the paper, they are squeezed and packed in giant stacks then pressed flat with metal sheets in small sets. That prolly made no sense-the paper makers of the world will know how to describe it better. I think Karen would have loved it. And one who makes paper is called a kagazi. Karen Kagazi. They then use the paper to create all kinds of notebooks, boxes, coasters (not sure if that’s a good idea?), frames and even pop up garbage cans (of which I bought two cuz they are AWESOME). Next, we headed to see a block print/pottery family owned business. Saganeri print basically consists of wooden stamps with natural coloured inks that are placed on top of each other. The skill with block printing is placement we are told and got to have a go on a bed sheet. If one man were working on the sheet, it would take about 9 hours to complete. Screen printing= less than 2 minutes. Then we were taken to the pottery section where we learned that the blue pottery gets its hue from a type of quartz found nearby and obsidian that is found in Rajasthan, our state. It was really awesome to see how similar the pottery looked to the Spanish tiles that I was used to in Sevilla. Those sneaky Persians…

This afternoon was my first night of yoga. Shiveta and Krista’s host mom does it everyday and brought some of the girls along a few days back (I missed the first because I was tired yet showed the kids PhotoBooth on my mac so that was awesome too…). I joined them today with a one month membership for Rs 200 (about $4). There’s about seven of us that go then about 6 Indian women who totally showed us what Indian yoga was about. All of the instruction is in Hindi and I think we’re going to get good at counting up to 20 very soon. Our instructor kept telling us to close our eyes yet it was kind of impossible not too. I’m sure we will catch on soon. Doing the corpse pose is amazing because he just talks to us and it sounds like India. Later we end with a “namaste” pose (not sure what it’s called) but you put hands together like a prayer, and we sing. The complex is incredible and the group spotted a peacock last time. Fingers crossed for next time.

Yesterday was our first super ripped off by a rickshaw day, but we took a video beforehand!! And in Hindi class we learned helpful numbers: 15, 20, 25, 35 and 50, “are!” which apparently is the sound you make to mean are-you-kidding-me and “mai dusre riksha se jauga” (I will take another one). We will win at rickshaw schemes! Haha. I think this is good for me. I’m way too used to taking what people say and not standing up for myself or not questioning things people do or say that offend me out loud. I think India is changing a thing or too about my self-confidence. Oh boy, I did it- the obvious “what I learned when I studied abroad” moment…

Anyways, we found a really great bookstore/café/boutique set up that gave us a jolt of good old American-ness. Books are pretty cheap (my Ghandi book was 60 cents) and the store sold bollywood movies for about $1.50. The café had the most wonderful chocolate/peanut butter/corn flake bar I’ve ever eaten, and reminded me so much of the contents of a Caribou Coffee glass pastry counter. Indians sure hate their chocolate, don’t do peanut butter and but sure do love corn flakes. I don’t know if that thought process made sense but that bar was delicious for whatever reason it was made.

We’ve come to realize we will really enjoy our daytime adventures, time at home and weekend travel here. For example, we just spent our Friday night growing farm animals with those magic growing capsules with the kids. It was kinda awesome though since I hadn’t done that since I was about 5. We don’t really feel comfortable being out past dark and our host mom is always making comments that it’s not safe for us to be out around “those Indian boys.” It’s kind of a hard realization for so many reasons--what’s fair, cultural, gendered etc. There’s also a crazy story that’s in the news about some women in Bangalore who were assaulted while at a bar drinking with male counterparts. There are members of congress defending the men who beat the girls saying the men acted in moral code- these behaviors are intolerable and alcohol should be condemned. Rajasthani politicos are leaning this way as well since the state is culturally more conservative than others in India. They have begun what some have called a moral policing in the state, which started a few months back when they shorten liquor selling hours and closed I think about 900 alcohol selling shops. That’s where we are. Can I be angry? How? Can you fight for these women but then again who would even care? What does my opinion count for?

Aside from these tales, I spend a lot of my time in class, practicing Hindi (spelling out peoples names to teach myself the letters and making flashcards), planning trips/summer and reading. Next weekend is a Desert Festival in Jaisalmer- “a chance for mustache-twirlers to compete in the Mr. Desert concert.” Um, yes please. This is about a 12 hour train ride west into the desert (=camels!! Yet we’ve seen tons of urban ones) but more importantly 12th century fort on the camel route from India to central Asia that is sadly on the World Heritage Sites most endangered list. Anyways, I found out about some cool sleeping spot on a roof, so I’m excited. We’re also plotting out a trip to Agra the next weekend I think. Ooooo and on February 19th there’s a wedding for our host dad’s sister’s grandson…I think. Anyways, we’re invited and I think get to miss school since it’s something cultural. But more importantly I’M GOING TO AN INDIAN WEDDING!!! Tomorrow we’re going wedding shopping with Niveta for clothes and other cotton-y things. It’s not too hot yet but all cotton outfits are going to feel so delicious!

Closing remarks:
There is a sticker that reads “I ‘heart’ F.U.’s” on my cabinet. I’m curious.There are so many pierced noses which I’m told is to prevent pain during childbirth if done on the left nostril. But I’m sure there’s gizilions of reasons.

Shopping Day

2009-01-31T22:34:00.001-08:00

So all we did today was shop. And wows. It was awesome.

Early in the day Amber and I started to plan out the upcoming weekend and decided upon Agra. Since it’s really only a day trip, we are spending Friday night just outside of Keoladeo Ghana National Park to visit the bird sanctuary there on Saturday, then heading to one of Akbar’f forts on the way to Agra where we will spend Saturday night. SUNDAY= TAJ MAHAL!!!!.....!! We chose this weekend so a) we could do it soon and b) so we wouldn’t be there for Valentine’s Day, even though being there with a bunch of other girls could be awfully romantic, haha.

We ventured out to the best bookstore where we got some sweet reads and are now friends with someone- the bookkeeper- who will give us more info about really anything. After another go at the mall finding yoga clothes we headed back for lunch to prepare for our shopping trip. Niveta arranged for a driver (we are with a really well off family I’m realizing more and more) so we could stop in shops then move on to the next. I ended up purchasing a few tunics and short sleeve shirts, scarves, 2 tailor fitted “suits” which have long tops that go about to the knees with matching churidar style pants (a sort of hipster skinny leg style), some really shiny jewelry to match my big splurge…a bright pink and blue saree for the wedding. It is probably the brightest think I have ever bought/worn but its absolutely awesome and I’m very much in love with it. There are some sequins and the border has a special tie and dye pattern that is unique to the area. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to wear it at home, but I will somehow find a reason.

Once we were back, Anna, Rachel and Shiveta stopped by and we went to Mr. Beans, Jaipur’s premier coffee shop, and it was kind of incredible. It looked like a nightclub from outside (apparently turns into one at around 9- clubs close here at 11:30pm) and when we opened the door “womanizer” by Britany Spears was on and later we head 50 cent. The baristas were all wearing these militant berets, rather Che Guevara-esque. The menu was pretty good, but seeing that I usually get chai when I go out to coffee- and we have chai here like 5 times a day- I was in a bit of a bind. Meh. They also have hookah and “American style French fries”- a pretty interesting place really. At first thought, I was like this is so American, but it really wasn’t. It’s fascinating to see what western ideas we export and then what interpretations of it exist elsewhere.

Back at home we had the tastiest “raspberries” I’ve ever had in my life. They were like orange grapes that came in a bunch attached to leaves. It tasted like strawberries, watermelon and oranges all at once. Must find more.

I’m really beginning to “get” it here. I’m so much more comfortable walking around, not being as timid of venturing out of the house and asking more questions. I am so excited for our upcoming travel plans, as Jaipur is a good base and I love our family, but seeing more of India is just going to be so amazing!!

मेरा नेम कार्ली है

2009-01-30T02:10:00.000-08:00

I think this is my name in Hindi.
कार्ली वेंदेगना
Will write more soon but I wanted to see if I can upload videos. Here is a ridiculously touristy moment in a rickshaw...

Republic Day

2009-01-26T19:50:00.000-08:00

Happy Republic Day! India has been a democracy for 60 years, and while that’s debatable, the whole country does celebrate!

We watched some of the big show in Delhi on TV, and that was enough for us. There is a huge parade to show off the army’s strength and then the President hands out awards to noble citizens and the wives of fallen military heroes. Each city has its own celebration, but as all Republic Day festivities were under high security alerts, it was better that we did our own thing today.

We headed to the Lakshmi temple, goddess of wealth and prosperity in the morning before lunch, as it’s about a 5 minute walk. It was a huge marble temple and we were lucky enough to see the unveiling of the deity and singing. She was fully dressed in gold and rich deep red clothes. I also discovered I really enjoy not wearing shoes in public places. Later on after lunch, we headed with some friends to the “Old City” which was constructed by Jai Singh II in the 1730s when he decided to move from Amber, a nearby fortress. He laid out the city according to principles set by an ancient Hindu treatise, Shilpa-Shastra. It is in the north part of Jaipur and enclosed by giant pink walls and gates- which were painted by the Maharaja Ram Singh to welcome the Prince of Wales in 1876 (funny enough the current maharaja is a polo friend of Prince Charles). Anyways, the inside was pure chaos, row after row of shops on roads with hard-to-find-when-written-in-Hindi names like “Khajane Walon ka Rasta” and “Baba Harish Chandra Marg.” Once we got back we talked to Niveta about taking us shopping for some tunics and sarees on Saturday so we can begin to fit in a bit more. Shopping on our own seems impossible when we know that would be getting taken advantage of as tourists and she seems pretty excited to take us! After the usual evening chai and biscuits, we took a family trip with the kids, us, host mom and dad and his sister to see the government buildings- which are lit up on special holidays and during festivals. It reminded me of getting in the car to head to Candy Cane Lane, but to see the Indian version of the IRS...

I think the most exciting news of the past two days is that we have taken auto and cycle rickshaws and bargained for fair rates according to our dad. We’ve mastered “kitna” for how much and “mehenga” for that’s too much. You keep walking a bit and then you eventually get what you want. Small steps but I have to give us some credit; I think we’re the most adventurous pair of roommates out of our small group when it comes to getting out the house. Yesterday we made to a grocery store for snacks and some toiletries and I had the most delicious fanta of my entire life, even though I’ve prolly only had about two…ever. I think it’s the lack of high fructose corn syrup. After lunch we made it down to the Central Museum which was set up by some Brit, and had all kinds of weaponry, pottery and even a mummy. You really get slapped in the face when it comes to your foreign identity here, for example it cost us 100 Rs to enter when Indians pay 5Rs, we were also shooed out to the exit while we were trying to take pictures where other Indians were. The blatant picture taking and staring won’t go away but I think getting out a lot our first few days might make it easier to adjust to than waiting for later. It’s funny how silly excited we get when we see tourists. A part of me wants to hug them. I don’t know when I’ll be able to explain why but I hope to before I leave India.
Amber and I kind of talked through some possibilities for travel. My thoughts are to head and stay north after our classes are over. Monsoon and the heat will hit in Rajasthan in May and from what Niveta tells us, we won’t want to be here. I know that people in the group want to hit Udaipur, Agra (Taj Mahal) and Varanasi before the program ends, which are all within about a day radius of Jaipur. For afterwards, there is a girl who may be doing some volunteer work in Ladakh who would be up for some company, Darjeeling and Dharamsala are possibilities for travel and Nepal is also close and you van get visas at the border crossings. If there is a slight possibility those sound interesting to you…come to India!!

Tomorrow we start class and I am so excited. We’re catching on to important words like roko- “stop” very important for rickshaw-ing and tikay and achaa for ok but I think we have quite a bit to go. Afterwards is yoga!!

Fun things:
We have found the one discotheque in Jaipur.

And the number for an elephant taxi…

So we are now in Jaipur!!

2009-01-24T06:29:00.000-08:00

Finally unpacked and settled with our host family, I am excited to begin to get our bearings. Amber and I have the most incredible set up: our own “wing” of the house, each with our own room and bathroom. The whole bucket bath thing isn’t nearly as daunting as I thought it would be and we have a water heater which doesn’t make the whole thing that bad. Apparently there are gizillions of ways to shower, but as long as we get clean, I don’t think it matters. Our coordinator told us that daily showers were very important to Indians, so I’m sure over time I’ll figure it out so it doesn’t take 15 minutes. Haha. The beds are humongous and hard but good for the back. I sleep like a baby either way.
Speaking of babies…there are two children in the house: Anoosha, 5 ½ and Ahman, 4. The puzzle of the US I brought seemed to be a big hit until Ahman got tired then put all the pieces in his pocket and ran off. So, we shall see when we see that again. There is also a grandfather in the house, who we call papaji. I am kind of obsessed with the ji concept. Before coming, I thought ji was only given to saintly types as a term of love and respect like Mahatma Ghandiji, but here I am finding it for lots of people. All of our teachers have that as an ending…Rimaji, Rekahji when others introduced them. This morning Ahman came in and said to us “Good morning didi!!” as adding didi to the end of a name means older sister. Our dad explained that there is a great respect to those who are older than you. (Maybe possible addendum ideas for what Lucas can call me? I should look for the “cousin” version…) Then there is Niveeta and her husband Palkadesh. They both speak very good English and Niveeta really looks forward to helping us with our Hindi. So far we’ve got down water (pani) and thank you (shukriya). I think having young children in the house will be a great advantage. We also have a maid, Shoorbala and younger servant Galmesh, who watch after the children, cook and clean the house. This is a concept that we touched on a bit in class which I think has helped me think through the idea. Most middle class families have servants as a general means to give fewer chores to the woman of the household. As one of our teachers told us today, “there are no rights for woman in India, just duties.” Women when they are born are expected to do certain things throughout their lives without question. Rekahji had made a good point that while we may come with strong feminist leanings and look at the way women are treated with concern, we must understand that women have come a long way from independence. She sees this time as a transitional period, where women are finding new ways of dress, reinventing marriage symbols (the bindi or dying their hair part), time spent doing household chores or making more money than their husbands. While men do little, as we have seen with our “dad” and papji, just take meals and watch tv, “they have not grown” as she said. Women are taking quiet but marked strides in what their duties are for their lifetimes. I think watching how Niveeta interacts with other women, her husband and children will have a huge impact on how I understand this country’s attitudes and expectations of women. Then again, servant relationships are something I have great interest in understanding more. We have yet to delve too deep into castes (and skin tones) but these seem to be greatly at play in this household and on the street. Asking our host mom straight up, how old were you when married, was it arranged, what caste are you from, how did you feel about it, etc. may take some time (if ever) but she spends the most time with us and we learn more about her everyday. Today, we thought she said she had a driver but when we clarified, she was quick to correct us that she drives herself. Our dad isn’t outwardly anti-feminist but he does tend to have a lead in conversations and asked Amber what her father did and not her mother when we were talking about her growing up on a Minnesota farm- which was really strange as her father raises Angus cows. This family is strictly vegetarian!!
Today we ventured out to find some clothes and oh boy do we have some stuff to get used to. It sounds kind of crazy to keep bringing up traffic, but I feel that is one of the most stressful parts of trying to get acclimated here. Its so loud, fast and there are always autorickshaw drivers that are trying to give us rides that we have to shoo off. Looking confident while ignoring “eve teasing” (cat calls) is really taxing. We stay covered but the stares, shouts and sheer AMOUNT of men on streets is really exhausting and just getting to the mall and back seemed a small victory. Rekahji said that eve teasing doesn’t even exist in Gujarat- a neighboring state- as the children receive co-ed schooling which offered an insightful perspective. It is still a lot harder than I could have imagined even though I was warned. I don’t feel unsafe, just bothered and at one point when we were getting our pictures taken, I just felt silly. I’ve never been so aware of being female. I got pretty worked up but I think I realized today that even though we aren’t tourists, we are Americans, and we are American women, which will greatly affect our time here. I just want to promise myself that I won’t think of this as a burden because I have great pride in our country and what being a woman means. Amber added that it is a fine line of how much to respect another culture and how much to respect yourself. Deciding how much to give and take here I guess will be something to learn over time.

Tonight we will take it easy, reading and writing. I’m really looking forward to Gobi Aloo- my favorite Indian food at home and can’t wait to have the Indian version. Gosh, I really hope to learn to cook here. Tomorrow some of us will head over to the literature festival, which is apparently quite famous in Rajasthan and attracted Ian McClellan a few years back. We also want to find the Hindu Ganesh Temple that is pretty close to our house. Also, two of the girls in the program have a host mother who teaches yoga once a week from 5-6 am. I’m hoping to find some routine and calm in those.

Final thoughts:
Slumdog Millionaire just came out here on the 23rd and our host family is going to see it tomorrow. We may join them if it isn’t dubbed in Hindi, but I’m more interested to hear their reaction. They seemed very surprised that it was popular in the US. Our dad sounded very proud to announce that it had 10 oscar nominations. The soundtrack is huge here and its video for “Jai Ho” plays all the time…it’s kinda funny to have just gotten the soundtrack from Amber and to see it on TV.

By law foods must be labeled red if non-veg and green if veg in restaurants.

Exciting book I’m about to read: Hinduism and Ecology

Thing I have found I cannot live without: Dr. Bronner’s Soap, of which I have used for just about everything. A miracle really.

First Days in India...

2009-01-22T07:54:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of our first few days here, and my favorite thing we’ve done so far- our self-organized outing to the Sikh temple (Gurdwara) in Delhi. The other is of our inauguration viewing party we watched at 11:30 at night! I’m beginning to appreciate the taste of a plain yogurt/cilantro hybrid. It’s really the only cold and non-spicy food we are given that cleanses the palate. The bottled water as someone pointed out tastes like someone’s Grandma’s house smells of which we equated to moth balls- so a bit chemical-ly but filtered none the less!
I guess I didn’t touch too much on the people in my program, but they are all so awesome and I just LOVE everyone. There’s a horticulture major Ben, Caitlin- runs her college’s radio station, Ajay and Shiveta- two American raised Indians who are on this trip to see what living in India is like as South Asian Americans, there’s a dancer who likes to knit Caroline, Katrina from Canada studying International Development, Religion and Women’s Studies who has very similar music tastes, Alex who is studying Disaster Mitigation, there’s Krista who studies Hindi, South Asian Religion and the Environment of Asia, a neuroscience major who Caroline who loves taking pictures and we’re going to start a collection of logos that we’re looking at like a semester long art project, Maggie a Brazilian who was born in Finland and goes to Penn State, my homestay roommate Amber who is a grad student and works as a counselor at U of Minnesota and Rachel who’s done orphanage work in Nepal devoted to stopping human trafficking and is actually from Buffalo Grove and was on the speech team in high school. After introductions, we were like, WOW everyone sounds so cool and has done some amazing stuff. I’m glad we have about 5 months to get to know everyone! We have had so much fun getting to know one another through vicious matches of ping pong, countless tea times and with our roommates in our various hotel rooms. We are all from pretty diverse backgrounds but come together really well.

Right now, we are about 20km from Jaipur in a really nice hotel for more orientation sessions where we went over everything from what to do in a variety of emergency scenarios to phone. We also met our homestay coordinator (who will put me in touch with a three time grammy winner who teaches dance and music!!) and found out a little about our homestays. Apparently our house is on the basement level of where our school is (woo!!) and there is a grandfather, his sister, his son and daughter-in-law and their two children. Amber and I will have separate rooms and there is a maid. Our host mom is also a good cook and will teach us if we are interested. (YES!!!). Tomorrow around noon we will leave to meet them and I’m so excited to get our feet on the ground there. It’s hard to get orientation to a place we aren’t quite in yet, but I think this time together in isolated places makes it easier for us to get to know each other and keep us focused on knowing the ins and outs of medical information, social nuisances and the like...

Delhi was nice, we didn’t see too much as we were a bit timid, couldn’t really get our bearings and maybe on sensory overload. A bunch of us are really looking forward to coming back though maybe on a weekend trip or something. A lot of the streets have been blocked off too due to preparations for India’s Republic Day on the 26th. Military tanks, road blocks and officers with rifles are stationed all over the city, making things a bit confusing too. I kind of wish we saw the parade but I guess we will be celebrating in Jaipur somehow as we have the day off from school. I really can’t believe the amount of security in India though for everything. Gates surround every building, each having a guard to monitor who and which cars come in and out. Our homestays will also have gates as well.

Favorite quotes:
“My dad would beat up your dad, but he’s a Jain.”

The one who is the biggest has the right of way.
The second rule is that the one who has least to lose has the right of way.
The cow always has the right of way.
-Rules on Traffic

“We’re a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus- and non-believers…President Obama Promises A More Responsible America.”
-The Times of India

I'm leaving tomorrow!

2009-01-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

This is a test. Woo! It's 2am and I should prolly go to sleep but this is fun too...