Chad's Hillstation/Ashram/Village/Vipassana Birthday Bonanza.

School's closed. Teachers are leaving. It is very sad looking at the empty playground and listening to the silent sounds of the ashram. The early monsoon is bringing back dreary memories of Washington winter depression. So, now the Chad that wanted no more than to stay in the ashram forever is gone for the moment: I am pretty content with my travel plans for the next month.

So I set out to Kausani with one of the ashramites, Ruchi. I tried to keep count of the times that Ruchi vommited on our winding, excessively long (16 hours via 3 different shared taxis and two buses) trip through the Himalayas; I lost count at twenty, the poor thing.

But we made it to Laksmi ashram an all girl boarding school founded by a British disciple of Gandhi. The school is essential a British hill station bungalow set on an expansive plot of vegetable fields, flower gardens, cow sheds and the like, completely surrounded by untouched pine forests. The school is basically a child's haven for about 60 girls ranging from 1stgrade to 12th. They are taught in the school and also responsible for rearing the cows, farming collecting wood, etc for the ashram. Ruchi parted after the first night, but I stayed for a couple more days which actually coincided with my birthday. The beautiful ashram povided me definitely with one of the most memorable and special birthdays to date.

So basically I found out that it is not just the children in our ashram that like me, apparently my likeability with children is pan-Uttarakhand. Within probably a half hour they were at complete ease around me as I was with them. The first morning, I joined about 20 girls to gather firewood in the forest, well I didn't really have a choice, some cuties, Pooja and Diksha grabbed my hands and led me to the forest, giving me a rope to tie the wood that I would collect. Diksha was adorable, she could not pronounce my name correctly, it came out 'child' so she was leading me through the forest saying, 'come Child, come Child.' The forest was covered with fallen pine needles, so it was pretty treacherous, but the paths that Diksha chose were ones where she slid down on her side, a big load of sticks on her shoulder. I basically just fell down these paths sending sticks everywhere, bloodying my hands and delighting of all of the girls watching me from down below. We then tied our stash into about twenty pound stacks which we then carried back to the ashram. The girls were also delighted to see the awkward whitey carrying the heavy load on his head. After we got back, it was wool spinning time, an artifact of the Gandhi influence on the ashram. It was really difficult for me and one of the girls basically spun most of my wool stack, but gave me encouragement whenever I got it a strand right. During this time, they found out that I knew how to sing some of the songs of our school. My mentor, Anand ji, has written over 40 songs that the children sing daily in the assembly, and he had actually come to Laksmi Ashram and taught them a few songs. He had also given them a song book of his songs which they shoved in front of me telling me to sing them. So basically I had to sing two or three songs, completely in Hindi for about 80 people. Pretty embarrassing but they seemed to enjoy it.

After that I took a break from the ashram and kiddies to check out Anasakti ashram, where Gandhi has stayed and written the book where the ashram got its name. The ashram is at one of the highest points of Kausani where I saw the most spectacular view of Himalayas that I have ever seen.

Then it was back to the ashram where I spent the afternoon climbing trees in the cool forest, picking kaphal, this moutain fruit that is like a raspberry cherry with the girls. In all honestly I must have eaten about 400 of these damn delicious berries; the girls folded their salwaars making little pockets in the front and were constantly forcing berries from their stash down my throaght.

As the sun went down, we went back to the ashram for evening prayer. When prayer concluded, one of the teachers asked me to give a presentation in front of all of the girls about my life and 'aims.' I said in my best Hindi, which is still pretty bad, that Lakshmi ashram was a very special place and that I had an amazing time working and playing with the children. I said that in the whole world, Lakshmi Ashram was my second favorite place only after my ashram and that the experience would stay in my heart forever. Then a couple girls stood up and gave speeches filled with hyperboles about how great I was. After all of the nice words, about 15 of the younger girls surrounded me and gave me hugs. They said not to forgot them and their berries when I left and to come back as soon as possible. Break my heart. Best B-Day Ever!!

But I am coming back sooner than they expected. I was invited to a village wedding in Kausani so I will be going back in a couple days. I plan to spend the whole day playing with the kids then go to wedding at night. I can't wait.

I realized just after leaving the ashram that I hadn't spoken a word of English the whole time I was there and could fully communicate with the girls, there was very little lapse in understanding. Quite honestly, the last year of rigorous Hindi studies paid of fully for the experience I had in being able to talk with the girls teachers in the ashram.

And more days of only Hindi speaking in sight. I will be staying with two friends that know almost no English in their village with their parents who I assume are in the same position. Here is a schedule of the rest of my time here.

Friend's village visits:
Ashramites Ruchi and Vimla are from villages in Kumoan. Uttarakhand is roughly split into two regions based on language and ethnicity: Garhwal and Kumaon. While I have lived and travelled in Garhwal extensively, I know nothing of Kumaon and am looking forward to the ridiculously hospitality I am about to receive.
Almora/Nainital:
These are two famous hillstations of the British Raj. Admittedly, I have a space in my heart of these vestiges of British Colonial rule. I love living in the village, but the American in me also like to kick back with a beer in an old British clubhouse watching socialites and white collar tourists playing golf or yachting on the lake.

Ashram:
A million miles away, after I am through with my indulgence, it is off to Rishikesh for a retreat with a Swami that I met a couple months back. He is actually Belgium, who has spent considerable time in a Christian monastery, became disillusioned to a certain extent, embraced Hinduism, became a Swami, and now runs an ashram. Although he is Hindu, he holds very inclusive religious views; at the inauguration of the ashram, monks of several faiths were invited to celebrate and chant together, the alter in the meditation room displays statues of the Buddha, Jesus, and Shiva. I draw my religious views from multiple traditions and I am excited to sit down with him a while and live in their community.

Vipassana:
Vipassana is a form of Buddhist meditation, typically associated with Hiyana buddhism practices in SE asia, although it is practiced by many regardless of faith. I am going to participate in a ten day silent meditation retreat in Dehradun. Ten days in complete silents, no outside stimulus in the forms of books, pencils, television, etc. and 12+ hours of meditation might sound a little intimidating, but I feel prepared enough for it. My meditation has been stagnating as of late and hopefully this will give me a boost; when I meditate in my ashram, I always have something to look forward, my bed, the day's work, the children, a book, but there it will just be me and my thoughts. I also have a lot to figure out about what I am going to do when I get back, so the reflection I believe will be helpful.
Then back to the empty ashram.

Then off to Corbett National Park, a famous tiger reserve to meet up with the rest of the fellows. Luckily it is located in Uttarakhand, so I can swoop back up to the ashram for another couple of weeks with the kiddies and friends, then it is back to states. My plane ticket is for the 23rd of July. Gawd, this year has flown by.

The New Recruits

Today, some of the teachers and I set out on a PR and recruiting mission to find some more students for next year's enrollment. We set our sites on Ghoghas, a village of about forty Muslim families very near to the school. We only have one student from the village which is a terribly low number for the village's close proximity.

The village was really strange. As in most areas in the mountains, there is a strong current of out migration by the male members of the village. No different in Goghas, but the interesting part about this town is that the Muslim status of the men give them a easy pass into jobs in the Near East (mostly Dubai, Iraq, Iran). The international stamp on this village is seen through have every man that you encounter (rare except if back on vacation) speaks impeccable English. This differs considerably from the Hindu villages that I have been to where it is just Garhwali and Hindi. In any case, these jobs are very lucrative which can be seen in the constructions of their homes. The composition of most of the Hindu villages around here are of the traditional (beautiful) stone homes with slate roofs. A sign of affluence in the village is the standard brick/cement monstrosities that predominate popular Indian architecture. With remittances flowing in, almost all of the homes were exactly of this boring ebb. There were maybe two traditional houses that I saw.

To exemplify this strangeness, take the case of Khadir. We meet Khadir actually in a traditional mountain house on the porch with his father, an elderly man completely in Muslim garb, kurta pajama, white cap, long beard, red checkered scarf. His father was smoking a probably fifty year old hookah, heated with wood coals, sitting on a haystack right next to his water buffalo in his courtyard. Pretty traditional, right? Khadir on the other hand, was was wearing Levis, a tight army shirt, gelled hair, and cologne so strong that we could smell him two houses away. The moment that the first word left his mouth ('man'), I knew that he had a lot of American friends. Every other word was 'man' or 'dude,' flavored with a 'know what I mean?' here and there. Khadir actually is a baker working for a Near East company, providing services to American troops in Iraq. Since he can't leave the army compound for the sake of not getting killed, he is dependent on the troops for friendship and has befriend many Americans, who gave him the new vocabulary, the new shirt, and presumably awkward, unbefitting strut that he tried to pull of. Khadir was great though, very kind and gentle. He was really impressed by the school and took us to many of the homes. By the last home that we visited, Khadir was actually doing all of the convincing to the families.

But we were able to recruit six students from this village. We picked up another two beautiful children from a family living slightly above Ghoghas. The exciting part of this recruitment is that us teachers had barely any part in it. One critique of the school has been that we do not have enough contact with the families of our students, which we couldn't deny a year ago. During the early years of our school, the parents really couldn't understand what we were trying to do and because of this, made them fearful. Many parents took out their children out of the school (enrollment was about 250 about four years ago, it is about 80 now). But since my arrival, we have been trying to make a concerted effort to bring in the parents to their child's education. We weren't sure how our parents have been perceiving our unique pedagogy, but through village visits recently, we have found that many families are quite pleased with our teaching methods and strong allies. Therefore, the have included the parents of our children into the recruitment process. We took four parents along with us to Ghoghas and they were amazing. They described the school, defended critiques, and ultimately persuaded parents to send the children. It was beautiful to see the turn around. It was also beautiful seeing these parents, all women, eloquently navigate the treacherous paths to the remote homes of perspective students. I have noticed that typically when an Indian woman leaves the house, even to do mundane things like shopping or traveling, she will look her best. These women were dressed in beautiful new saris and their finest jewelry, traversing rocky, steep, dense paths; paths that even my outdoorsy friends would wear hiking boots are at least shoes to travel on, these women were wearing flipflops. Amazing.

The content of the new students really pleases me as well. Right now we only have two or three Muslims in the school. Six of the new students are Muslim. Also the two Hindu children come from Harijan or untouchable background. Don't be fooled by the imposed name; all of the untouchables in our school are the cutest children and thus the most touchable. It was strange interaction, coming to that house. All of the people we were with were from higher castes than the father, so he would not offer of us chai, as for it would pollute the higher castes to receive chai from a Harijan. I was longing for a chai after the long hike; he could have at least offer the other Harijan, myself (those outside of the Hindu faith and do not have a caste are also untouchables) some chai. Actually, that is another terrible thing about India is that foreigners technically are untouchables, yet it has been my experience that I get unnecessarily exulted almost everywhere I go; people offer me chai, sweets, friendship, all sorts of things. But for many they will treat the untouchable down the street as if they were a feral dog.

This caste discrimination used to be apparent in our school, some of the students taken out of the school in the beginning because we allowed untouchables into our classrooms. But after four years of the intervention, caste has melted away. One day, I asked a friend about the caste of some children during recess. As he rattled them off I was surprised to see that almost for every Harijan that he pointed to was playing with a Brahmin, the highest caste. In terms of religion, the Hindu/Muslim divide isn't very big in our village. It is a problem in the cities where Muslims are treated like second class citizens and outwardly and inwardly discriminated against daily. But in the village it is a bit more relaxed, and it is so small that everyone kind of needs to get along to make it all work. Plus, in terms of economic status, the Muslims are on a higher rung than most Hindus with their foreign money. You couldn't even point out who is Muslim in our classrooms, they are fully integrated in our school.

Unfortunately, there is a group of students that haven't integrated as well. APV has received a growing number of Nepali children. Because of an open border with India, many Nepalis have settled in Tehri Garhwal, predominately picking up manual labor jobs. Many Aryan Indians in the mountains have met their growing presence with discrimination and xenophobia. For example, schoolteachers are notorious for beating the Nepali far more than other children. Our reputation for equality and non-violent classrooms has been a pull factor behind the influx of new Nepali students. Also, one of the APV teachers is Nepali herself, which is a large source of pride for the local Nepali community. But recently, two parents pulled their children from Kindergarten and third grade citing that the ‘Nepali students were corrupting their children.’ This is obviously an unfounded discriminatory rant. Their is one Nepali girl in the third grade, Sunita, who is probably the best mannered child in the school. If she were to say anything corrupting I would be shocked. As for KG, that is just absolutely preposterous; the children Pintu and Aju are so innocent and sweet. Furthermore, our teachers are responsible, if there was any 'corrupting' behavior, they would not let it continue. But even in the school, children tend to group along ethnic lines, there hasn't been the same integration between the children of different castes and religions. But the younger children seem to mingle a bit more freely, if we can set a precedence at younger ages of tolerance, hopefully it will build on itself. It takes time.

In any case, I am really grateful for our new recruits, I believe that they will be a great addition to our loving community.