Homeward Bound

18 08 2011

Home, sweet home! Last Friday I had one last day in Madurai, then a long, sleepless trip home and I’ve needed a few days to recover before sharing.

Friday morning I was in a flurry of packing when the phone in my room rang, scaring the beejezus out of me. I answered and the man at the reception desk asked if I had called for a rickshaw. I hadn’t. It was very confusing. And then he said “Pondy is here for you?” and suddenly I knew that Amma had sent him to get me. I threw some things in a bag, abandoned my packing and rushed downstairs to Pondy, who grinned ear to ear when he saw me. He drove me home to Amma and Achie who both gave me huge hugs and were so excited to see me. After catching up a little bit and promising to spend the afternoon at the house, I left with Pondy to go to a tea shop he knows of in downtown Madurai. On the way back to the hotel, he pulled over to buy me another coffee. What a sweetie.

With only half an hour until check-out left, my leftover packing was disastrous. I tend to be a very meticulous packer, and with the amount of stuff that I had, the nature of my backpack and the fragility of some of what I owned, it was a complicated job that would probably have taken me two hours under ordinary circumstances. Instead, I had to go with the “jam it all into the bag as fast as you can” method of packing, which caused anxiety throughout the day as I failed to remember where little things I needed had gone.

Back at Amma’s house, I re-settled in and met all of the new volunteers, who are great. They are all relatively new (since they’d all arrived after I’d left two weeks before) and had lots of questions about living in Madurai and my travel experiences. The new volunteers had yet to visit the local ice cream shop, and asked if I knew where it was, so we all went out for ice cream. It was a nice afternoon. While the others took naps (still a big jetlagged) I finished my book so I wouldn’t have to carry it all the way home and spent some time with Gifty. At six o’clock, Pondy showed up to take me to the airport. It suddenly started to sink in that I was leaving. A big lump developed in my throat.

Amma has hosted over two hundred volunteers over the last several years. She’s had over two hundred goodbyes. The first time she cried saying goodbye to a volunteer was when Fahad left at the end of June. And then she cried when I left. Knowing that I was a high score made it incredibly difficult to say goodbye, though I was still fighting my reflexive “I’ll be back” feelings, since I’d already had one set of goodbyes. Pondy piled all of my things in the back of his rickshaw, and I climbed in. We waved goodbye until we turned the corner at the end of the street. It was a long, sad ride to the airport. It’s amazing how well you can get to know roads in just a matter of months, and I swallowed back tears as I thought about how I would probably never be on those streets I knew so well again. Just before we turned onto the airport access road, Pondy pulled over to buy me one last coffee.

We pulled into the airport at sunset. Pondy refused to let me carry my own backpack, and went on an excursion to find me a luggage cart. He loaded my things up for me, and wheeled the cart all the way up to the main door, where only ticketed passengers can continue. He pulled out a notebook and asked me to write my name in it. And then I went through the doors, taking one last breath of Madurai air (which is really not good air, but felt it at the time). I turned to look back out the doors one last time before I turned a corner and saw Pondy still waiting. We waved goodbye one last time.

The flights home were pretty uneventful. Madurai to Chennai, Chennai to Brussels, Brussels to New York, New York to Boston. I tried to sleep, but managed to only get about two cumulative hours. On the flight from Chennai to Brussels, I had a mission to check under seat 36E to see if there was a note for me. Siri and I had the same flight from Chennai to Brussels, and as an experiment, she tucked away a note in a place where we thought it might be safe. What she hadn’t anticipated though, would be how difficult it was to get back there! Row 36 is almost at the back of the plane, and about twenty rows behind my assigned seat. Swimming upstream in a plane is difficult, though I did finally manage to get there. No note. Oh well. In Brussels, I had to change my rupees back to dollars. Ideally, I would have done this in Madurai, but I got my deposit from my SIM card back too late in the day, and there were no currency exchange places open in either of the Indian airports. But because I was in the European Union, in order to make the exchange I first had to change my rupees to euros, and then the euros to dollars, paying commission on both exchanges and losing a lot of money in the exchange from euros to dollars. But I suppose that’s better than having a few thousand rupees in the US.

In New York, I learned that there were weight restrictions on my flight to Boston, and they were offering a travel voucher to anyone who could take a later flight. I figured that after thirty hours of traveling, another two hours of sitting in the airport couldn’t hurt, so after counseling with my dad/chauffeur I went up to volunteer to take the next flight, two hours later. The voucher increased from $300 to $500 while they looked for more volunteers. It was thrilling. I had already mentally spent my voucher. And then a big party of five never showed up, and they ended up putting me on my original flight, no voucher in hand. I should have been happy about it, but instead it left me grumpy. I wanted my free trip!

In Boston, I found my dad, and he drove me back to Brattleboro. It’s nice to be home. I actually haven’t been jet lagged at all, so I’ve settled well. I weighed myself the morning after I got home. I felt like I had maybe lost three pounds, but it appears I lost more than that, at about eight pounds. I think re-assimilation to my Western diet will fix it. It’s been really nice to things like vegetables and cheese that I missed in India.

Now I’m settling back into life in Vermont. It’s been good to reconnect with my friends, and coming home has made me feel hugely popular. My pictures are up on Facebook, my laundry is done, my bags are unpacked. Now all there is to do is plan for my next adventure!


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Into the… Monsoon?

4 08 2011

Ah, Goa! India’s smallest state, Goa is well-known for its beaches and laid back vibe, and known for being one of the few places in India where it’s appropriate to wear things like bikinis, shorts and tank tops. During the high season, it is packed with European tourist. During the off season it’s a quiet place, hammered with rain and reportedly swarming with mosquitoes. Undeterred by the threat of monsoon, I decided easily and early that I’d still like to visit Goa. I selected two towns that I thought I’d like, one in the north and one in the south, and decided to split my time between them. Luckily Hans was more than happy to go along with my plan, and because he was only going to be in Goa with me for half of my week here, I let him pick which of my two towns he’d rather see. He chose Palolem, the southern town.

Generally, the beaches in the south are more sleepy but also more picturesque, while the beaches in the north are more crowded, wider and come with amenities like nightlife. Palolem is a quiet little village, tucked between a wet jungle and the Indian Ocean. The beach is stunning: crescent-shaped and lined with swaying palms, brightly painted fishing boats at one end, and a stream flowing past mossy boulders at the other. Hans and I arrived by taxi early in the morning, and checked into our room at the Palolem Beach Resort, which was right on the water. So much for the monsoon: the sun was shining bright and strong, and realizing our luck, we headed straight to the beach after breakfast. The sun was so bright, in fact, that Hans, wearing sunscreen and sitting in the shade was burnt to a crisp. Somehow I, laying in the sun and not wearing sunscreen for the first hour (I know, I know! But I’ve only had one peeling sunburn ever, in Puerto Rico in 1995, and my dermatologist says I have far less sun damage than everyone else my age, and I wear a moisturizer with SPF on my face every day no matter what) managed to escape any burn at all. It was an excellent day at the beach. Palolem Beach is tucked in a bit of a cove, so it gets nice gentle waves that are easy to swim in. The water was warm, but definitely still refreshing.

After the tide went out and the clouds rolled in:

There were dogs everywhere, terrifying Hans, who doesn’t like animals except for baby animals, hedgehogs and donkeys, but charming me. While I’m sure some were strays, many of them wore collars, pets on the loose. They were all well fed, healthy and friendly, far different than most of the dogs I’ve seen in India. True to the Goan flavor, they politely wagged up to us before running off to play. At one point, I saw six of them standing in a circle, looking at each other and taking turns barking. It was strange, but enchanting. I’m sure they were playing a game. Another dog-related Palolem highlight involved the corpse of a pig. I walked down the beach and saw this massive body laying in the sand, with a dog poking at it. I couldn’t tell from the distance what it was… a seal maybe? Upon getting closer, I saw that it was a dead pig, probably weighing 600 pounds and bloated from the sun. The dog was pulling the flesh off one of the pig’s legs and eating it. It was really gross, but soooo awesome too. It probably shows that I belong in the medical profession when my first thought (after “poor pig” of course) was about finding a knife and dissecting it. I didn’t have my camera with me, and when I walked back later to photograph it, the pig was gone, and no trace of it remained. I’m terribly sorry I can’t share photos of a half-eaten, bloated dead pig on a beautiful beach with you. I’m sure you’re sorry as well.

This one dog is my nap hero:

That evening, true to my no-sleep-on-the-train form, I had a meltdown again. This time, I just felt lonely. Even though I was traveling with Hans, I didn’t feel like traveling with a German guy who I had met in India was really traveling with someone. We’d only known each other since late June. Even in Madurai, surrounded by others who I regarded as friends, I felt like I was traveling alone. It was wearing on me. Though Bangalore and Palolem were more Western, I was still tired of being in India and having conversations only with people who didn’t really know me. I wanted my family. I wanted my friends. I was experiencing a kind of loneliness in which I’d begun to find companionship and solace in inanimate things like plastic bags. No really– I’ve developed a strange emotional attachment to a plastic bag from Inman Oasis, the hot tub place in Cambridge. Though I had no use for it, I couldn’t throw it away– it’s the physical manifestation of friendships with those I’ve been there with, and a token of my former stomping grounds: home. (The plastic sack now doubles as friend and laundry bag.) And so I cried, and when Hans wasn’t feeling well and decided to skip dinner, I walked around town feeling really alone, and then returned to the hotel without eating and went to sleep.

The next day, it rained. It was to be expected, and actually, after the consistently very hot sun of Madurai, a cool rainy day was pretty damn pleasant. Hans and I spent much of it partaking in Palolem’s excellent food scene. During our two and a half days there, we became regulars at my new favorite restaurant, Cheeky Chappati, owned by a couple of British expats. I had fried eggs and baked beans and grilled tomatoes and pesto pasta with olives and feta and French pressed coffee with no sugar and gin-based cocktails instead of Kingfisher and was simply in heaven. It was exactly what I, and my digestive system, needed. Cheeky Chappati was excellent in decor, music and entertainment as well. A huge pile of magazines and games sat in the middle of the place, and Hans and I spent hours playing some epic games of Uno. We then ran through the pouring rain to the bookstore down the street where we both picked up a few to read before heading back to our hotel, where some more dogs sat waiting on the porch, one even sitting in the Adirondack-style chair. Rain be damned, it was really an excellent day.

On Wednesday, it continued to rain. While we had changed our plan to save money by taking the bus, the rain discouraged us and we ended up booking a taxi. After breakfast we climbed in to the car, driving first to Vasco de Gama to drop off Hans, and then taking me on to Candolim, my chosen town of Northern Goa. I said auf wiedersehen to Hans on the street in Vasco, and headed off, completely on my own. I’ll miss having someone to travel with, and miss Hans, and how German he is. I once woke up to find all of my jewelry neatly laid out on a shelf, my FN Love earrings (thanks Angie!) even clipped together. I had gone to bed with all of my jewelry in a messy pile, sitting on my guidebook, on the floor. Hans had wanted to look at the book, and instead of dumping my jewelry on the floor, like I would have done, he carefully laid everything out. Because he’s German. And apparently that’s what they do. I’ll miss how much he sucks at thumb wrestling, which I taught him in Bangalore. I believe he’s the only person I’ve ever beaten, and six times in a row at that! While I dislike his dislike of animals, I will miss how terrified he is of dogs. And I’ll miss teaching English as a Second Language. While Hans’s English is very good– he conjugates fluently and understand everything I say unless I talk really fast with some slang to another American– he’s still learning more obscure vocabulary that isn’t taught in school. Among others, I taught: firefly, yawn, brick, draft (as in writing), cozy, palate, sassy, belly button, faint, amber, lobster and scar. And he can now list all fifty United States.

So now here I am, in Candolim, with no one to teach, or even to talk to. My solo adventure really begins.


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The Other Beantown

2 08 2011

Bangalore, my first stop after leaving Madurai! According to my Lonely Planet, Bangalore means “town of boiled beans.” I can now add “enjoys traveling to cities with names that reference beans” to my résumé. But I won’t, unless I’m applying for a job at a humor travel magazine or something.

Taking the train was such an experience in itself (as was the train to Goa) that it deserves a post of its own, which will have to come at a later date.

For the first five days of my two weeks of travel, I have a travel companion in Hans. It’s largely coincidental. A few weeks ago we discovered that we were ticketed on the same train from Madurai to Bangalore, and then again on the same train from Bangalore to Goa. I resisted asking him if he wanted to travel together, as he’s definitely the type to want his alone time, but from weekend trips together it’s clear we’re travel compatible and in Rameswaram he asked if I’d like to make our journeys a joint one, at least until tomorrow (August 3rd) when I’ll move on to another beach in Goa, and he goes to Vasco de Gama in Goa before flying to Chennai and then back to Germany. Because we booked our train tickets independently and through different mediums (me: directly through the rail company; Hans: through an agent) we weren’t in the same cars on train. Hans and I found each other on the very crowded platform, and emerged into world very unlike Madurai. Bangalore is just about as Western as an Indian city can be. Between my serious lack of sleep and culture shock, it felt pretty weird and overwhelming.

Saturday morning we checked into our hotel, one of the only decent budget places in increasingly expensive Bangalore, and recommended by Melinda and Myrtille. The room numbers down the hall read 17, 16, 15, 14 and then our room, 18. Highly confusing, non-numerical order. The best part of the very simple hotel was the hot water. My first shower there was probably the best of my life. I was happy as a clam, though probably one in cold, not hot, water. I danced throughout my second shower. I was so intent on celebrating the hot water, that the hot water actually ran out before I had a chance to use soap. This is only slightly embarrassing to admit.

Once the filth from the train had been washed off (the first shower did involve soap, after all) we headed out into the city. For my the first time in India, no one even looked my direction. It was extremely rare to see a woman in a sari, or a man in a dhoti, with most people in Western clothes. Thanks to a more Western (i.e. varied) diet, the people were taller and thinner. While white people were still by far a minority, Western visitors are much more typical. At times, I actually felt not Western enough, wearing my crappy travel/purchased in India clothes and sporting overgrown hair, surrounded by women in cute clothes and with nice haircuts. Other things are obviously Western-influenced too. Signs are for things like Calvin Klein and mutual funds, and stores are more likely to sell Levis and lattes instead of cheap sarees and milky, sugary coffee. The Indian version of Starbucks, Cafe Coffee Day, was absolutely everywhere. There were five within a five-minute walk of the hotel. I realized how conditioned I am to Madurai when I saw a woman give a polite kiss to her boyfriend/husband my first response was to think “Oh my god, what a hussy!” There is absolutely no physical interaction between men and women in public in Madurai, and hardly any other kind of interaction either. I dared to show my shoulders in Bangalore (normal there, very uncouth in Madurai) and felt a little whore-ish.

You would not see this in Madurai:

One of the biggest differences was the traffic. The roads were nicely paved, and had lines painted on them! There were sidewalks, and often the roads were tree-lined! There were more cars and fewer motorcycles than in Madurai, and everyone– everyone!– driving a motorcycle wore a helmet. In Madurai, where it’s mostly motorcycle traffic, I’d estimate the helmet rate to be approximately 3%, and that might even be too generous. There were traffic lights and walk signals and traffic jams. It could have been the US, only with rickshaws.

Hans and I were both in no mood for real sightseeing, so we stayed close to the hotel and enjoyed the Western cosmopolitan lifestyle, eating Western food and having espresso drinks. Incidentally, we spotted some Projects Abroaders at the McDonalds across the street at one point. Hans ran into them again later. We browsed bookstores for so long that my neck remained cramped for a good hour afterward. In one, Hans read the Brattleboro section of the New England Lonely Planet, while I read the Lubeck section of the Central Europe book. Hans became pretty enamored with the description of the Brattleboro Farmers Market. I pointed to my Farmers Market t-shirt. Although he probably wouldn’t have been reading about it without my being there, it was pretty cool for a German guy to read the description of a place in the rural US while in India, and have the girl standing next to him be wearing a shirt from the same place. (He later had a similar reaction when I was wearing my Ben & Jerry’s shirt and he asked if it was an American company, and I said yes, and that it was in fact a Vermont company and that my shirt had come from the actual factory.)

In the afternoon, I had a complete meltdown. I was completely exhausted from getting only a few hours of sleep the night before. I tried to remedy this by drinking a lot of coffee, but unused to the caffeine (coffee in India is more a milky homage to coffee) it just left me exhausted and feeling jittery and nauseous. I headed back to the hotel for R&R while Hans explored. Hans arrived back an hour later, on the verge of his own meltdown. He took his turn napping while I went to the Levi’s store to buy jeans, desperate for clothing other than what I’d been wearing, and water and beer and chocolate. I know what I need.

For dinner, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, drawn in by the promise of solid Western food and alcohol. We had a wait at the bar, but entertained ourselves by drinking and guessing the nationalities of the other white people. I also learned that I am blatantly an American because my teeth are straight and white. And German people are more likely to wear closed-toe shoes in India than another other kind of European. Ahh, stereotypes! There was one man sitting with a bunch of Indians, wearing a hat with the Boston Celtics logo. Hans mentioned that a few football clubs in the UK use the same clover, but because of his weight, I was sure he was American and went up to ask him if he was from Boston. It turns out he was indeed an American, but from Atlanta, not Boston, but a Celtics fan regardless. He works for a software company and had been at their Bangalore location since January. (Bangalore is home to the Indian headquarters of many tech companies– it’s referred to as India’s Silicon Valley.)

We were finally seated after a long wait: they had been calling my cell phone, but I didn’t have service in the restaurant– annoying. We were seated right next to… another group from Projects Abroad. Apparently you can’t go anywhere without running into someone you know. With menu in hand, I did something I haven’t done in sixteen years: I ordered beef. In India, of all places, where they don’t usually eat beef. After eight weeks of very little protein and no iron, my body was desperate for some cow flesh. I’ve definitely been anemic. As soon as I saw this particular burger on the menu, biology kicked in and I had to have it! I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the rest of the menu. It was satisfying, though not incredibly so, and I’ll probably go back to my no red meat ways when I get home. (I’ve also eaten goat twice, but it was served by Achie and the first time I didn’t even know what it was.)

Sunday I woke up fully rested and ready to move on. Bangalore was a nice break from Madurai, but it was also overwhelming to be in a more Western-style big city after assimilating to Eastern life, pricing included. Hans and I drank some more espresso drinks and picked up food supplies from this great little grocery store that carried specialty products from all over the world, albeit at imported prices. Hans looked happier than I’ve ever seen him when he reached the cheese section, though with Germany only a few days away for him, he was able to resist. Bags full of goodies, we headed back to the train, ready for the first leg of Goan adventure!


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Thayagam Trust

28 07 2011

Last night my host mom took me to visit Thayagam Trust, the orphanage I decided to support. Amma and I drove (with Pondy) to the outskirts of Madurai, and pulled up to the orphanage just as the sun was setting (we were asked to come in the evening, otherwise the children would be too excited by the visit and would refuse to study during the day). I received such an amazing welcome from everyone. Neela, the woman who runs the orphanage, is incredibly sweet and kind, and the kids all seem to take after her. They politely greeted me with “good evenings” but I could tell that underneath their docile facades they were oozing with excitement. Amma, Pondy and I were seated in chair to speak with Neela while the kids sat on the floor to “study.” Things got increasingly wiggly really fast so after five or ten minutes, Neela asked them to come up in small groups and perform for me.

Thayagam Trust:

They put on the most adorable performances I have ever seen. I videoed most of it but due to restrictions at the internet cafe, I’m unable to share such large files. In a couple of weeks I will though! After songs and dances, they asked me to play a game with them. A previous volunteer had taught them how to play Duck, Duck, Goose, so we played. It’s really an interesting game to play with a mixed age group. The littlest ones (four years old) who would be the right age for it ordinarily, were completely overwhelmed by the older kids who took it very seriously and kept wiping out on the very slippery floor. And, of course, as the guest of honor, I was selected as goose far more than any one person should. Here’s me knowing I’m about to be called goose:

After Duck, Duck, Goose, Amma insisted that I teach them a new game. As a substitute elementary school teacher, I have an enormous arsenal of games, but with so much pressure to come up with one RIGHT NOW and kids swarming at me and pulling on all of my limbs, I completely blanked on a good game to teach a multi-age group of non-English speakers. After a moment of panic, I settled on Coseeki. Using Amma for a lot of translation, I taught it to the kids. It took some work, but they eventually got the hang of it. If you’re not familiar, one kid leaves the room, and the rest select a “secret leader.” The secret leader starts a pattern like clapping or patting themselves on the head, and everyone else copies them. The outside kid comes into the middle of the circle and has to guess who the leader is. The leader keeps changing the pattern, so the guesser has to keep an eye for who starts the new pattern first and where everyone is looking.

After games, the kids lined up with their notebooks so I could write their names for them. They write their names in Tamil characters, so getting them written in English letters is a huge treat. For me though, it was kind of a pain in the ass. Most of them had really difficult names to spell!

Eventually, Neela kicked them all outside so Amma, Pondy and I could eat dinner, which she insisted we stay for. She served up some excellent food: channa masala, chappitis and aloo paratha. After dinner, she enlisted two of the girls to take me on a tour. The tour had basically already been taken. The room that we played the games in is currently the only room, where the children play, study, eat and sleep. At one end is the kitchen, where all of the cooking is done. There is one toilet for everyone (there are currently about 30 kids). In the morning, they all stand in line. Just outside of the main room are the buckets where they bathe and do their own laundry. There is hope for expansion though: there is an unfinished second floor with three bedrooms and another bathroom. It is currently entirely concrete and bricks and lacks a ceiling:

My tour guides:

Back downstairs in the main room, the sleepiness among the little ones became evident, and Amma and I decided we should head out before they fell asleep.

Here’s the littlest boy and girl, with their enormous backpacks:

I handed Neela the donation that I and some of my readers made– well over 10,000 rupees– which Neela said was the largest donation she’s ever received from a girl. The orphanage receives no government funding, and relies entirely on private donation. They receive enough to make sure each child gets plenty of food, but they lack the essentials we have like spare clothing and beds (they have mats and pillows on the floor). It was only recently that someone donated a door for the orphanage. Neela designated the money I gave to go towards uniforms for the children so they can be like every other Indian student. The children are all so incredible: sweet as pie, smart, polite, healthy and happy. I’m sure they are only this way due to the incredible care that Neela provides for them, and I’m so proud to be able to have helped the Thayagam Trust.

 

 


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Pondicherry

4 07 2011

Another weekend, another trip around Southern India. This weekend’s destination was Pondicherry, and it was delightful! Hordes of people from Projects Abroad went this weekend, but I organized my own little group to go with. Friday at 10pm we boarded an overnight bus, which seems really comfortable when one is awake, but quickly proves otherwise. We arrived, exhausted, in Pondy between 6 and 7am and took a pair of rickshaws to our hotel, which thankfully had 24-hour check in.

Nadia in our sleeper:

Our first stop in Pondicherry was Kasha Ki Aasha, which my Lonely Planet guide had recommended for an excellent breakfast. Perhaps I have just been starved for fresh, non spicy food, but it was phenomenal! The café was on a rooftop, covered with its own thatched roof, and filled with lush green plants. It had paper lanterns hanging, and strong fans, and English magazines around. I ordered what turned out to be essentially a crêpe, filled with amazingly ripe pineapple, mango and papaya, and covered with pureed mango. It was probably the best meal I’ve had in India. Also, coffee, not overloaded with milk and sugar! After breakfast, we took to the streets, wandering along the sea and through the French quarters.

Pondicherry is a really interesting place. It’s clearly still an Indian city, with the requisite honking and occasional terrible sewage smells, but Pondy feels like a little piece of Europe plopped down on the Indian coast (which I guess it essentially is). The streets are wider and often cobbled, and bougainvillea grows over well-kept white walls. And while there is Indian food to be had, there are also countless options for European, non-spicy, treats.

After a morning of walking around in the hot sun with a group of girls, and being the only one with a guidebook, I was feeling kind of frustrated and needed some space. So we all parted ways, and I ended up spending my afternoon with Hans, a fellow 26-year-old in this sea of 20-year-old volunteers. We walked along the sea and then sat and had Kingfishers and talked about our adult lives and other such things that most of the other volunteers can’t do (yet). After rehydrating with beer, we walked down to the tiny stretch of swimmable beach, where Hans, like the Indian men, swam in his underwear while I, like the Indian women, had to stand in the water up to my ankles and be jealous.

That evening we met back up with the rest of the crowd, first at a wine bar, which would probably be more accurately called a booze-hole, and then to a guest house on the other side of Pondicherry where yet another volunteer was having a party. Still tired from the trip early that morning, I didn’t stay long and walked back to our own hotel to sleep in a comfy bed with air-conditioning that proved far too cold.

Sunday, other people went to the beaches outside Pondicherry, and to Auroville, a “hippie community” just north of town, but I decided to have a quiet day. Nadia and I did some shopping (I’m now up to four pairs of the worlds most comfortable pants) and visited the temple elephant. It has been a month since my last blessing, so I figured I was due for another. We then sat in a fancy hotel’s air-conditioned lobby for a few hours, listening to their live music (mediocre) gossiping, and playing the states game, in which you have to list all 50 of the states as fast as you can. Seeing as Nadia is from the UK, I had a real advantage, but she pulled out an impressive 46! Good work, Nadia! We then had lunch, and continued our wander around town.

We were strolling up this quiet, cobbled street when a boy of about 13 appeared from around the corner, and started riding right towards us. I thought he was coming to grab my bag or something, so I moved it to the other side of my body. Turns out, he wanted a different type of bag. He grabbed my breast really hard, and kept going. I whipped around and as loudly as I could, screamed at him how inappropriate that was (and was pretty pleased with myself for it… usually I’m queen of having the perfect comeback five minutes too late). In retrospect, I should have also run after him, just to get him to shake in his boots a bit more. Nadia and I turned around to watch him head down the street, and he kept turning back to gauge our reactions. At the end of the block, he looked back one more time. Bad choice. He couldn’t see where he was going and was hit by an auto rickshaw. The timing was perfectly comedic, and we both began laughing even before we saw that the boy appeared to be okay. The universe usually settles scores, but it’s so rare to see them settled right before your eyes so quickly! Karma at work. It helped to make the situation a bit better, though I continued to feel some breast pain for another hour or so. That little shit.

After a pretty non-eventful afternoon, we met up with the rest of the group at our hotel, and took another pair of rickshaws back to the bus station. Our rickshaw driver was hilarious, and asked for our names. He managed Rosie and Nadia, but when he got to Ellen, he could only say “Hello.” And then instead of Emily, he said “Harmony” and kept turning around and saying “Harmony, how are you?” Good for a chuckle.

The bus ride back started with some serious discomfort. The bus operators had neglected to shut the bus’ windows during heavy rains, and many of the seats/beds were completely soaked. All of the seats weren’t taken, so we attempted to see if those with wet seats could move to open dry seats. The operators were incredibly rude and frustrating. They also waited an hour for stragglers to show up, frustrating everyone. Once we were on the road though, I slept better than the trip up, and we arrived in Madurai at a dark and slightly scary 5am, just in time to go home and have a few more hours of real sleep before we all headed off to work for the day.

 

 


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Ayurveda and Celebrity

16 06 2011

Another delightful outing from Madurai! On Tuesday my outreach group and I drove the 70 kilometers to Dingigul, a town nestled in the foothills of the Western Ghats, for our two days of “outreach” in ayurveda. Our accommodation was in the ayurvedic doctor’s home, and yet again we really lucked out in terms of hospitality and food! Every meal included fruits and vegetables, which is a rare treat in India. I guess it just takes living with someone who understands treating ones body holistically!

After our first breakfast, the doctor’s husband took us to see Dindigul’s medicinal gardens. Tamil Nadu, the state that I’m in, reserves public land solely for the growth and collection of medicinal plants. The hot and dry summer is not the best time for collecting herbs, but it was amazing how many plants we did find– including many that I’ve been seeing along the side of the road here. I really blew with socks off our host when he showed us something he referred to as “basil.” I asked him if it was the same as tulsi, and he was surprised and pleased. Apparently tulsi is the Tamil name for the herb. Anyone in Tamil Nadu seems pleased if you know any Tamil words, but I imagine a wild ayurvedic plant is not one of the words they’d expect a girl from the US to know. Of course, I’ve never known it as anything but tulsi… We saw many other things as well, including this one vine that grew funny little watermelon looking things, somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a baseball. Our host cracked one open, and they smelled incredible! A mix between watermelon and cucumber, clean and refreshing. But alas, they are incredibly poisonous, and used to induce vomiting. What a tease. As a future midwife I was excited to see a particular cactus that is used to treat many uterine issues, including placentas that refuse to unattach from the uterine wall. Another cactus to note (non-ayurvedic) was milked, and fed to baby girls. Not a caring thing: it is an extremely toxic liquid, and was used in the infanticide of unwanted girls. Most shockingly, this practice was only outlawed 15 years ago!

Adjacent to the medicinal garden was the family farm of the family we were hosted by. We saw their crops (primarily corn, coconuts, rice and cotton), played with their farm dog (Tiger!) and were treated to coconut water, straight out of the fruit, freshly pulled from the tree.

After lunch, our host drove us to a little village not far from Dindigul. We stopped at his friend’s house, toured the friends vineyard, and were each forced to put roses in our hair. We then walked further into the village, where they were having a festival (the purpose of which none of us managed to figure out). It was one of the craziest experiences of my life, and so I can’t really describe it adequately. This village clearly doesn’t receive many visitors, especially from the West, and we were given the royal treatment. The whole town reverberated with music, both pumped over speakers, and played by live drummers. We were ushered into their little temple and each of us was blessed, receiving a smudge of herbal ash between our eyes. As we left, all of the women in the village, sporting their most vibrant saris, lined up on either side to create a path, which we all had to walk down. Each woman had brought a basket with coconuts and bananas. (Apparently each temple in the Hindu tradition has some signature food item… a fruit, or honey or jam, etc.) Women pulled us into line, prayers were said, and incense burned. AFter a couple of minutes, holy water was splashed over the crowd and everyone laughed and celebrated. Women began pressing bananas into our hands, and pinning flowers in our hair. It was completely overwhelming. Unable to hold anymore bananas, I began pawning them off to children. The crowd loomed, and our host led us away, to sit on someone’s porch.

The crowd followed. It was probably 6 or so deep, all there simply to ogle the white girls. I now understand what it must be like for a celebrity on a red carpet. There was a wall of cameras, and I had no idea where to look. Drinks for us materialized out of nowhere. I was literally handed someone’s baby. It was insane! After a bit we were marched further down the road, following a little boy and a man who set off fireworks, leading the village in a grand parade. We stopped on the side to watch it pass. LOUD LIVE MUSIC, dancing dancing dancing, a few men dressed in drag, and an endless stream of people and colorful clothing. Just incredible.

Our next stop was home, a far more serene environment. We met on the roof for an evening yoga session. I had been looking forward to it, but it was not good. The teacher was not at all friendly, and I think my yoga knowledge was more extensive than hers. At one point she pushed me down during a pose in a completely unsafe way, and now I have a bruised spine. Oh well. It was nice to get some exercise and good stretch, though I can’t say I enjoyed the jumping jacks she made us do.

After yoga, we ate dinner and went to bed, only to wake up bright and early for more yoga, which I tried to enjoy but still didn’t. Oh well.

Our host noticed that as a group we consumed a lot of mango. The mangoes here are beyond description. They literally (literally, literally) melt in your mouth. And so, he arranged for us to visit a friend’s mango farm. We toured the orchards, where they grow 18 varieties of mango, and sampled a few. In addition to the juicy sweet mangoes most of us are accustomed to, there are also crunchier, less sweet mangoes. One of the ones I sampled had a crunch almost like an apple, and a sweet and sour taste. Really excellent.

On the drive home we stopped at a mango juice factory and were given special permission to tour the facilities. I LOVE a good factory tour! On the tour (which was more of a guided wander) we saw an enormous warehouse full of mangoes. I have never seen so much fruit in one place! The mangoes come to the factory before they are ripe, and are left to ripen for several days before the juice process begins. From the fermented smell of the warehouse though, one can tell they sometimes miss their ripening target. The next building smells like the elixir of the gods though! In the next building, they toss out the damaged mangoes, and wash the remaining. The mangoes are peeled and cored, and the pulp is extracted. It is heated to near boiling, pasteurizing it. If only I could bathe in mango steam every day… It is then canned, and the cans are pulled through boiling water, killing off any remaining microbes. The can warehouse is just as epic as the fruit warehouse. The cans have a gold hue, and are stacked probably 20-something feet into the air. That is there last stop at the factory– the cans are just the raw product, distributed in India and exported to Europe where water will be added and it will be bottled for consumption.

After lunch we finally got around to the ayurveda stuff, and had a session at the doctor’s clinic. I’ve heard much of it before, but it was really interesting to hear her perspective on Western medicine, and to see the room full of ayurvedic medicines. At one point I was basically forced to drink some tulsi cough syrup… good by cough syrup standards, though I still wouldn’t have chosen it as a beverage.


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St. Luke’s Leprosarium

12 06 2011

Last Wednesday (June 8th) I was picked up at a bright and early 6am by Project Abroad’s fabulous Austin, for a two-day trip to Peikulam (not on Google maps) to visit St. Luke’s Leprosarium. We collected three other girls from Madurai, all of whom I’d met before: Siri (Norway), Katie (Oregon), and Patricia (Germany). We drove about an hour from Madurai before picking up two more from a little village, Noemie and Jessica (both Montreal). Three hours more on the road, and we reached the tiny little village in the middle of nowhere, home of this amazing leprosy hospital. It was amazing to see how much my perception of India changed so quickly upon leaving Madurai. The scenery quickly became dry, sparse and scrubby. Cacti grows on the side of the road. It’s a whole different world from the loud, dirty city. I even spotted four or five wild peacocks from the car! (Who remembers they can actually be wild?!)

We were greeted at the hospital, shown our guest house, and treated to a really excellent breakfast. All of our meals there were fantastic, and I was definitely able to squelch my weight loss for a couple of days! After breakfast we were introduced to leprosy via PowerPoint, something I had not expected to see on my trip to India. I’ve become really, really into leprosy. The WHO claims it to be eradicated, but in India, it is still very, very real, and the disease itself is completely different from what I had imagined. Leprosy is a bacterium that is spread through respiratory droplets. Most people (95-98%) are immune to it, but a small percentage are not. It has a very long incubation period of at least five years, so people are unlikely to know they’ve been infected for a very long time. Leprosy is not an infection of the flesh, like I had imagined, but of the nervous system. Many of the deformities seen in leprosy patients are not primary symptoms, but results of injuries caused because the patient has lost sensation in their peripheral nerves, and unable to protect themselves, or feel that they may have a secondary infection. I could go on an on, but it is probably easiest to just say I find it fascinating, and suggest that you do your own research if interested!

After our introductory lesson and lunch, four of us took a walk into the village. This little place clearly sees less white people than Madurai, and we were treated like celebrities, with people calling to us and following us around and asking to take pictures. India has made me feel pretty popular. One Indian man compared his skin color to mine and laughed at me, but it was all in good fun and nice to connect with the people.

We then were given a tour of the hospital, and it was then that I realized just how amazing a place St. Luke’s is. They have three wards, two for men and one for women (following the 2:1 sex ratio of leprosy). Most of the patients have already received treatment for leprosy, and are staying as mercy patients. Because there is so much social stigma from the disease, these men and women have chosen a life in the hospital, rather than return to their home villages and families who will likely shun them due to their disabilities. St. Luke’s lets them stay for life, free of charge, and provides them with something to do: either working a job for the hospital, caring for their animals, or creating a craft they sell to visitors, like candles, palm baskets or woven bags. (I’m now the proud owner of five neon candles, handcrafted by one of the mercy patients.) St. Luke’s keeps both goats and pigs (yay!) and when a patient goes home, they are sometimes given a goat to take with them, in order to get their life and finances up and running. In addition to everything they do for the leprosy patients themselves, St. Luke’s also has homes for boys and girls, either children who have parents with leprosy and are in treatment, or orphans (primarily through HIV/AIDS). The people at St. Luke’s are so generous, and so kind. It really blew me away.

Once we finished for the day, we relaxed at our guest house. The children from the homes were on holiday (Indian school vacation right now) but the children of the staff were out and eager to play with us. I had so much fun with these kids. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time! There was one 12 year old girl, Mercy, who spoke some English, but the rest of the kids didn’t know much. Kids are kids though, and Siri and I especially hit it off with them. I don’t, however, recommended jump roping in the Indian sun, and in bare feet at that. Really taxing. I asked to take a picture of them, and opened up a huge can of worms. One of them then asked to take a picture of me and some of the other kids with my camera, and it was probably an hour before I got it back. It was, however, amazing to see the progression of their photography skills! At first, they couldn’t aim, but eventually they got quite good! They were hooked enough that for two days we all had to hide our cameras in our bags, otherwise they’d inevitably disappear and resurface later with nearly dead batteries.

Siri and I went for a sunset walk. We walked over to the piggery, and I scratched one of the pigs for a while. Next door to the pigs is a big rice paddy and we watched the sun go down over it. Gorgeous!

We then hopped a wall to continue our walk; pretty adventurous of us, though that was only the beginning of Siri and Emily fun (more to come on this weekend’s trip to Kanyakumari!). We explored the rice paddy and discovered an old well. The moon came out, and lit everything. The moon in India is so much more intense than the moon in Vermont. It seems much more bright and big, and I’m able to see the whole moon most of the time, regardless of how much is lit by the sun. Bats fluttered overhead, and for once it became a cool and tolerable temperature. It was such a beautiful walk, and the happiest I’d been in India, though I think now it’s already been unseated. When we got back to our guesthouse, some of the children had brought over raw peanuts. They kept shelling them and pressing them into our hands. I was stuffed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen unroasted peanuts in the US, but they are excellent, like a cross between peas and nuts (now I get the name) and I definitely prefer them to the roasted variety! Highly recommended. The kids got very attached, and followed us inside when we went in for bed. I spent my Wednesday evening laying in bed, with a 12 year old girl in bed beside me, writing out the lyrics to Christian songs in my notebook. What a different life from the one I was living just a few weeks ago!

On Thursday, we were given the chance to work in pairs to assess the condition and symptoms of leprosy patients. Siri and I sat with this incredibly sweet, ancient man and examined him. It was really fun and interesting to be able to work hands on with a leprosy patient! He was missing basically all of his toes and many of his fingers, but it seemed like his soul was in excellent shape, and he’ll always be in my memory.

After one final meal and sad hugs from children, we headed back to Madurai. I realized during this first venture from the city that I’m definitely not suited for Indian cities. I can tolerate Western cities, but this just feels too loud, too smelly, too dirty. And Madurai is supposed to be one of the better ones! It was fabulous to get away, and even more fabulous to leave town again for the weekend… more to come on my trip to Kanyakumari!


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…Closer

31 05 2011

The good thing about leaving for India two days in a row is that I was already in travel mode, and also able to avoid any airport goodbyes: the worst variety. Instead of a tearful goodbye with my parents at security, I hopped a cab this morning and breezed through the process on my own. The Airport Insecurity Line feels a lot less insecure when it’s just me doing my thing. There was no line at the American counter so I was checked right in, and the woman was able to get my aisle seats back on my big Jet Airways New York-Chennai flight. Success!

I did my good deed for the day in the security line, letting a woman who was about to miss her flight go in front of me. She looked eternally grateful. It was a good reminder to build up my travel karma; you never know when you’ll be relying on the kindness of strangers! Sow goodness, reap goodness. And as the home of karma, perhaps the effect in India will be even greater.

My flight from Boston to New York was smooth and quick as can be. Upon exiting the plane in New York, I was slammed by an overwhelming craving for an Auntie Anne’s soft pretzel. My flight to Chennai leaves from the same terminal, so I took off on a pretzel hunt. Half an hour later, I reached the other side. No pretzels! I couldn’t believe it. I sent my mom a desperate, all-caps email about it, and as I hit send I looked up, only to see Auntie Anne’s tucked in a stealthy little corner. Success! One pretzel and an another half and hour walk back, I’m now tucked in my own corner a few gates away from where I’ll depart, Boingo Hotspot connected.

Projects Abroad sent me an email with the name of someone else who will be on my new Chennai-Madurai flight, since I’m missing the scheduled one. Social networking is amazing! Patricia is from Germany, and we were able to chat on facebook for a while to make a plan for meeting in India! Based on the friendliness and enthusiasm of everyone I’ve talked to so far, I’m feeling pretty comfortable that I won’t be too lonely during this adventure! It’s good to feel confident getting on my plane to India!

Only 2 hours more until I board!


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