Here is catch up of what the last couple weeks in the ashram has been like. I am adopting a form of writing from friend Benjamin (or Friendjamin), calls memory logging, which is bulleting points that you want to remember without excessive ellaboration. Here it goes:
0. Came home to bitter cold, much more bitter than before we left. The other day it was -6 degrees. It actually snowed a little bit the other day and I joined the kids in catching snowflakes on my tongue.
0. My friends Rose and Ben, have really taken to the Ashram. I had rarely seen Rose who spent most of her time with the teachers and children. When she left she that she really wanted to come back and enjoyed her experience.
0. Two of the teachers left! Without even a goodbye. Minnie went back to Kerala, which is a shame. Also, Sanjay left for good, I think he was getting some pressure from his friends and family to leave. In an extremely patriarchal area like the Indian countryside, men are only men if they have good jobs and a family, which isn't the life one leads while teaching in an ashram school and meditating most of the day. We all loved the guy, but it was apparent that his heart wasn't completely into it.
0. But Sanjay sister, Sangeeta, who is teacher and probably the cutest thing on earth, has stayed, thank god. We taught her a call and response line from a rap song from Plastic Little: B and C: "yo sangeeta, what time you think it is.' S: 'I think it is rap o'clock.' B and C: 'rap o'clock on the dot.' Oh, the precious moments that we cherish.
0. Sanya, on of our beautiful dogs got eaten by a leopard! Actually the day I left, there was a lot of blood on the playground, but we usually lock up our dogs at night, so I thought she might of been spared. I really loved that dog and almost cried when I heard the children devoid of any emotion, say, 'oh yeah, sanya got eaten.' This is especially sad, because undoubtedly she was pregnant having gone through her first season in heat. I think we all earned playing with those puppies from having to endure all of the gross feral dogs milling around moaning hysterically for that terrible terrible month. But we miss you Sanya, rest in peace. (note: we still have her hyper happy brother Lara to keep us company)
0. To add to the danger, Shanti didi told me that five goats in the village directly under the ashram were eaten by tigers! I am pretty sure that there are no tigers in the mountains, but the is an ongoing debate in the ashram about the differences between the leopard that ate sanya and the tiger that ate the goats. In all honesty, I think tiger means bigger leopard. But lots of things are getting eaten these days, I am trying my best not to be one of them.
0. Oh and another indicator of the daily danger that I live in: I got hit by lightening the other day...I think. There was this beautiful thunder/lightening storm where these clouds descended over the mountains covering us and turning the sky this bright yellow. Then the clouds started to sour, bringing forth some of the most brilliant lightening and most powerful thunder that I have ever experienced. Ben and I were sitting in my room chatting and listening to the thunder when we saw a flash of light with a crackle of thunder simultaneously. My body seized up, leaving a nasty headache and we lost power. We immediately and inexplicably burst into hysterics, then went to the roof to watch the carnage. It was pretty neat.
0. All of the girls in the ashram are making hats, meaning ben and I will be the recipients of at least 6 hats each. There have been weird politics around the hats and who makes it. I wish I could get inside the gaggle of giggling girls heads, but it appears that if a girl has a crush on the boy than they will make them a hat. This terrifies ben and I, so we have devised a schedule where we will wear each of the hats only once a week as to not lead anybody on.
0. Ben and I have introduced basketball to the kids, there had been a hoop in the back of school that no one used, but we urged them to move it onto the concrete patch in the front of the school. There had been a basketball explosion it is all that the kids wanted to do. They played so much that within the week, the basketball hoop had fallen off the backboard. And some of these kids have such amazing textbook shooting form without any instruction it is quite amazing. As an added benefit, the basketball court provides a forum for our extreme packing of kids shots and basketball domination, which in turn makes us feel more like men.
0. One goal of mine has been that by the time I leave, I better be able to make chapatis (north indian flat bread, essentially their fork) like a 75 year old grandma. I am well on my way, I can now roll the perfect chapati. The problem now is making the chapatis puff in our wood stove, my mostly burn instead of puff, but I got five more months to hone my craft. Ben has become chapati ball rolling king.
0. I discovered that there is a baker in town! He is a really kind man and his biscuits are amazing. I wish that I couldn't say that I have eaten a whole bag of those delicious morsels in one sitting, but if I did it would be a filthy lie. We also asked him to make a chocolate cake for the other fellow megan's birthday, and the results were much more than we expected. The cake was actually much better than most of the cakes that I have had in the US. The bakery has become a necessary stop whenever I go back to town.
The mentioning of Ben transcends bulleting lists. Ben is in the middle of his month stay and it has been great. At the request of my mentor, he has brought some great recording equipment which we will be using to recording the children's songs for a cd project that we are working on. He has been at working on trying to familiarize the teachers with the equipment recently. Ben has also brought his creativity, song writing abilities, and positive attitude which has been greatly appreciated. Ben has been writing songs for the kids that are mindwarpingly catchy, and immediately are adored by the children. For a recent program that we put on for the children's parents, the kids sang his song and created a dance for it. Equally adored is ben, the man, by the children, they affectionately call him Edge ji after their favorite WWE wrestler. Also Tall boy + blonde hair+ sense of humor +musician = heart throb for Indian women. I think the girls in the ashram have internalized this formula, elevating ben to dreamboat status.
Having a good friend like ben around has been really great for me personally. His creativity is contagious and he definitely brings out a good side of me and the comfort of having a good friend around reflects on my other relationships in the ashram. Although this is not to say that there was a distance between me and the others in the ashram and the children previously, To a certain extent, I feel like I develop friendships dependent of the person I am interacting with, and from the lens of these various friendships I might appear slightly different. Obviously, in developing relationships with the Indians I have encountered a few boundaries due to language and differences of cultural experience, but nevertheless, I feel very close to them. But having Ben around, I feel like I have been able to act a bit more like good old friends know me as, more of what I perceived myself as, more relaxed and a bit more humorous, which I feel that I haven't been able to adequately convey. I feel that having ben around has definitely help to deepen my relationships with those in the ashram as well with the children.
Anyways its good to be back.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu:
Here I am, back in the ashram. Once again getting used to the brainsmashingly slow dial up after a month of broadband bliss while traveling (it will probably take at least an hour to post this blog, this shows not only the reason why I haven't been in contact lately and also my dedication against all adversity to blog).
So recap of remainder of my brush with the south. After Kerala, Rose, Christoph, and I headed for Pondicherry, a charming colonial town that was occupied by the French until the 1950's I believe. It was a strange place. The beachfront part of town was on a grid system, there was no traffic, the streets were clean, virtually no poverty, all of the signs were in French. The town was a tempting stop for a young man who has been living a semi ascetic life for the last five months: the french residue made for fairly cheap wine, good baguettes, espresso and cigarettes, all too widely available. We rented a beautiful room with a balcony looking over the Bay of Bengal and lived like we thought a French would (with very limited knowledge of French culture albeit), by indulging in the above four vices while listening to Serge Gainsbourg on my Ipod speakers and reading Michel Foucalt. It was splendid.
We rented some scooters to cruise around the mild streets, see some beaches, and maybe to go check out Auroville, the local wierd French/Indian Hippie fusion Ashram hotspot. We soon found out that the streets weren't so mild when you got out of the grid: we were battling huge cargo trucks, aggressive motorers, dodged cows and water buffalo, the standard Indian road fare. But we did manage to find the Auroville beach which was kind of a trip. First of all the beach was by invite only, which was kind of suspicious seeing that the white foreigners including ourselves could just simply scoot on in, while the upper middle class Indian family in a jeep behind us were shooed away. The beach also seemed to be a small cluster of homes for the aurovillians and a cafe, which was amazing. I picked up a delicious humus sandwich on organic wheat bread and drank drip o-sweet-mother-of-god coffee and watched the too cool for school Indian/French Aurovillians milling about. And what is a hippie ashram without your standard naked children running around causing trouble, products of a hands off parenting style? No ashram in my book. That is why is was validating seeing these two naked, golden locked children running around the cafe knocking down sandcastles, splashing water on everyone, and causing general mayhem. With bellies filled with good food and coffee, we strolled to the beach which was quite fantastic. I decided roast my skin a bit, seeing that basically no part of my body has seen the light of day since the cold hit the mountains three months ago. I don't think the south korean tourist to the left off us could handle the paleish glow emanating from my exposed chest, and moved onwards. This may surprise you, but I am usually not the bod flashing beachbro, but a mixture of seeing exposed skin in the form of board shot bros and girls in bikinis (which I had totally forgotten that women wear anything but salwaar kaameez and saris while living in the mountains) and that before I left, every morning I woke up with headaches from the cold and that it had only gotten colder since I left, I decided to go for it.
After a mild freakout of not hearing from friend Ben Sellon, who was suppose to be in mid flight to India after spending an unintended and presumably desparately lonely christmas and New Years by himself in Turkey, He had forgotten to get a tourist visa for India while traveling, and they Turkish authorities definitely reminded him, while punishing him pretty severely. The next two weeks were spent badgering officials, pleading, etc. until he finally got his visa after the holidays had passed as well as the fun had in Bombay and Kerala. Poor chap. But he met up with us in Pondy, which excited me greatly, although celebrations were short lived. Rose and I soonafter, probably in a matter of hours actuallyafter Ben arrived, fell ill with a bubonic respiratory infections, slapping a heavy 103 ish tempature on our poor systems for a couple of days. Soon Ben was fetching our meds and banana porridge and joining us in our day long National Geography dubbed in Hindi sick binges. It was great though, Christoph had left us to resume his Hindi program in Jaipur, and seeing that it felt like scaling a mountain to get up to go to the bathroom, Ben's help was greatly appreciated.
While still sick, I had to make a break for Chennai to see a friend from my Hindi program at UW, Rowan and some of the AIF fellows placed there for an exposure visit. The first night I was feeling a little better (my hypothesis is that after we experienced some rain in Pondy our room was converted into a cesspool of mold, reinforced by the neon space mold that we found in our bathroom, which filled our lungs accordingly) and stayed with Rowan who is doing her dissertation research currently and living in a pretty posh area of southern Chennai, right on the beach. It was very interesting catching up with Rowan hearing about her research (although my semi delirious state prevented me from comprehending anything too complex). I also got to play with her daughter, Avery, who she brought along for the year. This kid is amazing, she has fully embraced living in India and is enrolled in a English medium school where she is the only foreigner and is learning Hindi. Aahh, now that is a childhood to be jealous of! It was pretty apparent to me that Rowan is a terrific mother and that Avery is going to grow up to be an amazing person.
After my too brief of stay with Rowan I made my way in town a little further to stay with Krishna, Ja, and Gia, three AIF fellows. I came to do an exposure visit with Krishna who is also working with education. Although still feeling like a dumpster, I enjoyed talking about his curriculum projects and listening to him play music. He is a terrific Carnatic violinist and vocalist. Their neighborhood was great too. They lived in a Muslim gali, where most people speak Urdu, which is almost identical to Hindi, with persian script and a more Persian/Arabic influence on vocabulary. I was able to brush off my Hindi and chat with Krishna's shopkeeper and chai wala. After a couple days, Ben and Rose met us in Chennai and we made the couple day voyage back up to my Himalayan abode. Even at the onset of my trip and although I enjoyed traveling in the south immensely, the whole time my heart was left in the ashram, and I was ready to get back to the community and children.
Here I am, back in the ashram. Once again getting used to the brainsmashingly slow dial up after a month of broadband bliss while traveling (it will probably take at least an hour to post this blog, this shows not only the reason why I haven't been in contact lately and also my dedication against all adversity to blog).
So recap of remainder of my brush with the south. After Kerala, Rose, Christoph, and I headed for Pondicherry, a charming colonial town that was occupied by the French until the 1950's I believe. It was a strange place. The beachfront part of town was on a grid system, there was no traffic, the streets were clean, virtually no poverty, all of the signs were in French. The town was a tempting stop for a young man who has been living a semi ascetic life for the last five months: the french residue made for fairly cheap wine, good baguettes, espresso and cigarettes, all too widely available. We rented a beautiful room with a balcony looking over the Bay of Bengal and lived like we thought a French would (with very limited knowledge of French culture albeit), by indulging in the above four vices while listening to Serge Gainsbourg on my Ipod speakers and reading Michel Foucalt. It was splendid.
We rented some scooters to cruise around the mild streets, see some beaches, and maybe to go check out Auroville, the local wierd French/Indian Hippie fusion Ashram hotspot. We soon found out that the streets weren't so mild when you got out of the grid: we were battling huge cargo trucks, aggressive motorers, dodged cows and water buffalo, the standard Indian road fare. But we did manage to find the Auroville beach which was kind of a trip. First of all the beach was by invite only, which was kind of suspicious seeing that the white foreigners including ourselves could just simply scoot on in, while the upper middle class Indian family in a jeep behind us were shooed away. The beach also seemed to be a small cluster of homes for the aurovillians and a cafe, which was amazing. I picked up a delicious humus sandwich on organic wheat bread and drank drip o-sweet-mother-of-god coffee and watched the too cool for school Indian/French Aurovillians milling about. And what is a hippie ashram without your standard naked children running around causing trouble, products of a hands off parenting style? No ashram in my book. That is why is was validating seeing these two naked, golden locked children running around the cafe knocking down sandcastles, splashing water on everyone, and causing general mayhem. With bellies filled with good food and coffee, we strolled to the beach which was quite fantastic. I decided roast my skin a bit, seeing that basically no part of my body has seen the light of day since the cold hit the mountains three months ago. I don't think the south korean tourist to the left off us could handle the paleish glow emanating from my exposed chest, and moved onwards. This may surprise you, but I am usually not the bod flashing beachbro, but a mixture of seeing exposed skin in the form of board shot bros and girls in bikinis (which I had totally forgotten that women wear anything but salwaar kaameez and saris while living in the mountains) and that before I left, every morning I woke up with headaches from the cold and that it had only gotten colder since I left, I decided to go for it.
After a mild freakout of not hearing from friend Ben Sellon, who was suppose to be in mid flight to India after spending an unintended and presumably desparately lonely christmas and New Years by himself in Turkey, He had forgotten to get a tourist visa for India while traveling, and they Turkish authorities definitely reminded him, while punishing him pretty severely. The next two weeks were spent badgering officials, pleading, etc. until he finally got his visa after the holidays had passed as well as the fun had in Bombay and Kerala. Poor chap. But he met up with us in Pondy, which excited me greatly, although celebrations were short lived. Rose and I soonafter, probably in a matter of hours actuallyafter Ben arrived, fell ill with a bubonic respiratory infections, slapping a heavy 103 ish tempature on our poor systems for a couple of days. Soon Ben was fetching our meds and banana porridge and joining us in our day long National Geography dubbed in Hindi sick binges. It was great though, Christoph had left us to resume his Hindi program in Jaipur, and seeing that it felt like scaling a mountain to get up to go to the bathroom, Ben's help was greatly appreciated.
While still sick, I had to make a break for Chennai to see a friend from my Hindi program at UW, Rowan and some of the AIF fellows placed there for an exposure visit. The first night I was feeling a little better (my hypothesis is that after we experienced some rain in Pondy our room was converted into a cesspool of mold, reinforced by the neon space mold that we found in our bathroom, which filled our lungs accordingly) and stayed with Rowan who is doing her dissertation research currently and living in a pretty posh area of southern Chennai, right on the beach. It was very interesting catching up with Rowan hearing about her research (although my semi delirious state prevented me from comprehending anything too complex). I also got to play with her daughter, Avery, who she brought along for the year. This kid is amazing, she has fully embraced living in India and is enrolled in a English medium school where she is the only foreigner and is learning Hindi. Aahh, now that is a childhood to be jealous of! It was pretty apparent to me that Rowan is a terrific mother and that Avery is going to grow up to be an amazing person.
After my too brief of stay with Rowan I made my way in town a little further to stay with Krishna, Ja, and Gia, three AIF fellows. I came to do an exposure visit with Krishna who is also working with education. Although still feeling like a dumpster, I enjoyed talking about his curriculum projects and listening to him play music. He is a terrific Carnatic violinist and vocalist. Their neighborhood was great too. They lived in a Muslim gali, where most people speak Urdu, which is almost identical to Hindi, with persian script and a more Persian/Arabic influence on vocabulary. I was able to brush off my Hindi and chat with Krishna's shopkeeper and chai wala. After a couple days, Ben and Rose met us in Chennai and we made the couple day voyage back up to my Himalayan abode. Even at the onset of my trip and although I enjoyed traveling in the south immensely, the whole time my heart was left in the ashram, and I was ready to get back to the community and children.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
APV Website
I have forgotten to put up a link to a website that I made for the school, with the help of my visiting friend, Nick. On the site you should be able to get a good idea of what we are trying to do with plenty of pictures. I also included a music section where you can listen to a couple of our songs performed by our children. It turned into a hellish project requiring me to spend my evenings and mornings in front of a computer in a giant room with near freezing temperatures, but its done and you should check it out.
http://www.sbmahimalaya.org/APV/home.html
http://www.sbmahimalaya.org/APV/home.html
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