At this point I’ve spent more time in Cambodia than Thailand, but Thailand is about to make a comeback!
Thailand 101:
There are two things I was told to avoid during my first day in Thailand; insulting the King, and doing offensive things with my feet. After two days in Chiang Mai, I was able to join the whole Weeks family in Bangkok for an afternoon and evening. They had been doing a tour of Thailand with Flora during Mitch’s February break. They saw many, many of the big Bangkok sites during the day and took me on a night boat-ride to see some of the famous temples and the Royal Palace lit up at night – Wat Arun (a large temple) was particularly splendid at night!
The King is revered in Thailand and everyone loves him, so it’s not hard to avoid insulting him, but one also must not insult his family…..if you are foolish enough to insult the royal family and get caught you can be thrown out of the country! (this is so very different from India, but falls in with what I’ve heard about other Asian countries like China, Cambodia, and Vietnam…..though Thailand seems to be the most touchy.) Unless I am real stupid I shouldn’t have trouble refraining from insulting a family that has done nothing wrong to me.
FEET. Feet are the lowest part of the body in Thai/Buddhist culture, and so shouldn’t be pointed at the Buddha, at any person, or waved around in the air. I don’t often wave my feet in the air. But, naturally, I waved them around a bit the first time Liz took me out in public. I was trying to help out with her English class (vocab word: sandals). Instead I offended her students to the core. Thumbs down! Mitchell Weeks apparently had his own brush with bi-ped-debauchery….he really felt like stretching while in a giant and culturally significant Temple in Bangkok. Flora tried to convince him to keep his feet under him, but he insisted that Thais like yoga, so it’s okay! He was wrong. But that’s okay, Mitch is wonderful and you’ve got to love him.
The complexity of the Thai language is depressing….especially after attempting Tamil for a few months. I’ll obviously try to learn some Thai, but first I’ll have to get past the fact that “caw” is a polite affirmation whereas in Tamil it’s a playful “up-yours!” Oh No! Last night, the four of us (Me, Tom, Flora, and Liz) played 9 holes of night-golf (a cultural experience I probably would have never experienced but for the Weeks influence). In Thailand, you are required to hire a caddy from the club when you play. (We kept our on the move by playing a rotating-two-person-scramble…) My first two big Thai language accomplishments were Hello (sao dee caw) and Thank You (cup coon caw). I thanked my caddy when she handed me clubs and cheerfully screamed hello when she replaced my divot…..whoops. But it worked out….at the end of the round she told me I was “gang mak!” or “very proficient!” She’s mistaken; I am not very proficient at either golf or Thai, but I appreciated the vote of confidence.
Cambodian Sojourn
I’m jumping ahead…..before I experience Asian golf, I experienced Cambodia. The morning after I met the Weeks family in Bangkok, Tom, Flora, and I flew off to Cambodia while Mitch and Deb had to fly home…..Mitch still has school, imagine that! The obvious attraction in Siem Reap, Cambodia is Angkor Wat – the largest temple complex in the world and one of the Ancient Wonders……we, however, took our own sweet time before we actually saw Angkor. Sure, there’s plenty else to do in the area….but I imagine few other tour groups go three days without actually going inside the Wat.
On our first day we took a boat ride to the mouth of Cambodia’s largest lake – and the center of its fishing economy. There are 160 floating villages on this vast lake, and we toured one of them. It was like Lake Union except the water’s incredibly dirty, the houses are falling apart, children jumped onto our boat every once in a while to sell bananas, the village is segregated between the poor Vietnamese immigrants and the slightly less poor local Cambodians, the houses are anchored by reeds and rope, there is a two-tiered elementary school/gymnasium, and lots of tourists have a look around every day. I’ve never seen a thing like it – pretty incredible!
In the next couple of days we saw a bunch of ancient temples in the greater Siem Reap area, went to a Kymer Rouge war museum, took a balloon ride to view Angkor from on high, got a Cambodian massage, and ate a lot. Highlights: (Mae Rice, this first one is for you!) Angelina Jolie not only adopted a child from Cambodia, but she also made a movie in one of the temples that we visited! We looked for her, and Tom tried to get our guide to arrange a date with Angie-babe, as we called her, but it fell threw. Giant trees were growing out of the walls make the Angie-Temple look pretty exotic and wild. The complex includes one temple that washes away your bad luck if you create a sonorous echo by pounding your chest. Tom caught me washing away my bad luck on film….he caught a lot of things on film including about 35 photos of the balloon we rode from various artistic positions. I’m really not exaggerating, ask Flora! We had to sit him down on several occasions to delete 25 or so blatant repeats. The Great Mystery of the whole experience was that of the identity of the fearless Cambodian guide, Janny. For the first few days we joked around, heard all about Cambodian culture and history, and got to be friends of sorts. You should know: Janny spoke with a clear but Australian accent (?!?), exclaimed, “Oh, Tom!” every third sentence, partied every night, had moments of raunchy humor, said things like, “Let’s Rock and Roll!”, never got lost or missed a beat on what we wanted to do, complained of illness on our second to last day, and has an identical twin. None of this was true on our last day, except, presumable, that our guide was Janny’s identical twin! I ran a casual exit poll as our plain left Cambodia. Three out of four respondents were convinced that we had met Janny’s “double trouble” (as Janny referred to him).
Flora and I have a lot to think about in these next few days. She spent five weeks in Chiang Mai living with Liz and trying to get some traction in the city….it was a trying five weeks. She was looking for jobs and volunteer work while getting to know the city and getting used to a new culture, and the work was extremely difficult to come by. Several weeks ago, she visited Mae Hong Son, a gorgeous 8,000 person town north of Chiang Mai that houses many NGOs. She was with the head of one NGO which works against domestic abuse in tribal communities, and fell in love with the area and the work being done there. We both feel that living in a smaller community would give us the chance to feel more connected and involved after just a few months, so if we can find meaningful work in the area, we’re thinking of renting an apartment there instead of in Chiang Mai. We’ll be working on that in the next couple of days!
I’m very, very happy to be here; I love traveling and I missed Flora this fall, so it’s been marvelous to spend time with her. I do miss India rather a lot……and go through the pictures of the kids, Deepa, and Kate that I brought whenever I have downtime. Thailand reminds me of India in some ways but is so completely different in most ways that it makes me miss all the things that make India intoxicatingly distinct. Right now I’m reading In Spite of the Gods: the Strange Rise of Modern India and loving it. I tried to read it before my trip to India and it made no sense, but now it’s relevant, and I’m rapt. Being in Thailand has made me realize how bizarre India really is. It’s so loud, contradictory, and chaotic (the obvious example being traffic, the less obvious being things like the bureaucracy). I took it for granted that I would always be stared at, and that anyone selling me something would be incredibly aggressive. I even began to take the poverty for granted – meaning – I didn’t realize that it really is more extreme than most places in the world. I also loved seeing the many faces of Hinduism wherever I turned. I am more and more certain that I will have to return to India soon; India has me in her grip and I’m glad of it. Of course I’ve also thought about Kate and Deepa quite a lot – they were a family to me this fall and it’s strange to be traveling without them. (Don’t worry mom, I love my home, too.)
Keep your emails headed my way – I love getting random little notes or big notes about whatever it is that’s going on in your lives.
Love,
~Alice
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
I'm back in Asia!
I was home for three weeks but never really had it in my to "summarize my experience" so it's only now, once I've just flown into Chiang Mai, that I'm going to blog again. I want to talk about my last week or so in India, and ruminate a bit on the trip as a whole before I move on.
We spent our last week of travel in Sikkim; a tiny state sandwiched between Nepal, China, and Bhutan in Northeast India. (We flew from Chennai to Kolkata - formerly known as Calcutta - and then took a train and a bus to Gangtok, the capitol of Sikkim.) It's a predominantly Nepalese Buddhist state - essentially it was a whole other India to see just before we left. I was particularly excited to have the chance to see Buddhism in India because Thailand is a Buddhist nation and it will be neat to compare the two. Sikkim is also chalk full of jaw-dropping views; both of vibrant Gompas (Buddhist monasteries) and natural grandeur. After spending time in Gangtok's largest Gompa, several tea shops, side-streets, and a handicrafts bizarre, we took a Jeep ride through slightly mountainous terrain to a tiny Village called Tashiding. The next day we took an hour-long trek to a nearby peak where the Tashiding Monastery is situated. The views......can't be described - 360 degree hilly/mountainous beauty from the vantage point of a peaceful, prayer-flag full Monastery. We stayed for several hours to journal, draw in my case, and take in the Monastery. The next day we trekked about 20 kilometers to Yuksom.....of course it was beautiful and the trekking company couldn't be beat - especially since two friendly dogs followed us all 20 kilometers without so much as a bread-crumb of encouragement (for the first 12 km....until we knew they were really loyal.) We christened them Ravi and Puri (the name of an Indian bread). Other Sikkim highlights include; a grueling trek to Kechapuri Lake - a Holy lake surrounded in prayer flags and silence, listening to monks chant and play music (horns, gongs, percussion) in a Gompa in Pelling, and seeing Kanchenjunga - the third highest peak in the world. Sikkim was a travel highlight for all three of us - we recommend it!
After a few (not so short) flights.....we were home. It was, indeed disorienting to be in a place that was once so ordinary and have it seem extreme in many some ways; extremely uncrowded/unchaotic/uncolorful...and extremely orderly. I'm glad I got to see my family and I know my mother couldn't have stomached another three and half months of me traveling without some maternal respite. Of course I was asked a slew of questions about my time in India when I was home....and I probably didn't answer any of them properly. I love talking about India though I'm always wary of getting caught up in my own recollections about the kids and becoming unintelligible. Actual concrete examples of "how I changed" or "how this affected what I'll do with my life" are fairly difficult to produce. (The more concrete change in myself I can offer up is a 2 milimeter thick callous on the inner joint of my right middle finger that is a byproduct of giving the children a whole lot of mehendi cone (henna).)
Still, I'm continuing to notice little changes in myself and my tastes that are pointing me along towards conclusions. It is clear to me that my time at the Children's Home was by far the most impacting experience I had. I could have predicted that before ever leaving Everett, but it has manifested itself differently than I would have expected. Because we traveled for the month after leaving the Children's Home, I forced myself to move on and live in the moment, not wanting to miss out on our travel experiences. Once I was home and beginning to share stories and photos with family and friends I found myself thinking and wanting to talk about the children more and more every day. My thoughts aren't necessarily that complicated; I'm usually thinking something along the lines of, "Pavithra is mischievous and wonderful - I love her!". I've always loved listening to people and learning how they see the world. That held true with the children; I was fascinated by how they related to each other, wanted to know who felt left out and who was a leader, tried to look out for the kids who seemed lonely - I was essentially obsessed with what Kate termed "Kid politics". I'm fascinated by essentially the same general trends in adults as well. The difference with kids is their freshness; they aren't yet complete slaves to their own habits which makes them both mystifying and rewarding to work with. Mystifying because they're always surprising you with a ridiculous and hilarious comment or erratic behavior problem. Rewarding because they are impressionable; that gives me the privilege and responsibility of actually affecting them; both emotionally and academically. All this leads me to believe that I should spend my life around children in some capacity; I love being around kids and they seemed to benefit from me as well.
On a completely separate note, I have the travel bug! By the end of our travels in India I was loving the daily barrage of colors, smells, and tastes so much that I couldn't wait to go back. When I do return to India, I will doubtless spend time at the Children's Home, but I also hope to travel more in Northern India and see Varanasi, Amritsar, Dharamsala, and Ladakh. I adore Kate and Deepa and will miss them dearly; they made my time in India exactly what it was. They are such strong personalities, and I learned about myself by defining the boundaries of my friendships with two such unique, intelligent, and strong-willed people. Thank you Deepa and Kate- I love you both very much.
So now it's on to Thailand! I've been here only an afternoon and already I can't stop thinking about the differences between India and Thailand...I'm sure that will continue for a while while I try to get my footing. I haven't actually seen Flora yet! I will be meeting her and her visiting family in Bangkok in just two days. From there, she, her dad, and Liz (a friend of the Weeks family who I am living with right now) are going to Angkkor Wat in Cambodia! That's a lot of action for a first week living in Thailand, but I'm excited!
Thanks for reading!
~Alice
We spent our last week of travel in Sikkim; a tiny state sandwiched between Nepal, China, and Bhutan in Northeast India. (We flew from Chennai to Kolkata - formerly known as Calcutta - and then took a train and a bus to Gangtok, the capitol of Sikkim.) It's a predominantly Nepalese Buddhist state - essentially it was a whole other India to see just before we left. I was particularly excited to have the chance to see Buddhism in India because Thailand is a Buddhist nation and it will be neat to compare the two. Sikkim is also chalk full of jaw-dropping views; both of vibrant Gompas (Buddhist monasteries) and natural grandeur. After spending time in Gangtok's largest Gompa, several tea shops, side-streets, and a handicrafts bizarre, we took a Jeep ride through slightly mountainous terrain to a tiny Village called Tashiding. The next day we took an hour-long trek to a nearby peak where the Tashiding Monastery is situated. The views......can't be described - 360 degree hilly/mountainous beauty from the vantage point of a peaceful, prayer-flag full Monastery. We stayed for several hours to journal, draw in my case, and take in the Monastery. The next day we trekked about 20 kilometers to Yuksom.....of course it was beautiful and the trekking company couldn't be beat - especially since two friendly dogs followed us all 20 kilometers without so much as a bread-crumb of encouragement (for the first 12 km....until we knew they were really loyal.) We christened them Ravi and Puri (the name of an Indian bread). Other Sikkim highlights include; a grueling trek to Kechapuri Lake - a Holy lake surrounded in prayer flags and silence, listening to monks chant and play music (horns, gongs, percussion) in a Gompa in Pelling, and seeing Kanchenjunga - the third highest peak in the world. Sikkim was a travel highlight for all three of us - we recommend it!
After a few (not so short) flights.....we were home. It was, indeed disorienting to be in a place that was once so ordinary and have it seem extreme in many some ways; extremely uncrowded/unchaotic/uncolorful...and extremely orderly. I'm glad I got to see my family and I know my mother couldn't have stomached another three and half months of me traveling without some maternal respite. Of course I was asked a slew of questions about my time in India when I was home....and I probably didn't answer any of them properly. I love talking about India though I'm always wary of getting caught up in my own recollections about the kids and becoming unintelligible. Actual concrete examples of "how I changed" or "how this affected what I'll do with my life" are fairly difficult to produce. (The more concrete change in myself I can offer up is a 2 milimeter thick callous on the inner joint of my right middle finger that is a byproduct of giving the children a whole lot of mehendi cone (henna).)
Still, I'm continuing to notice little changes in myself and my tastes that are pointing me along towards conclusions. It is clear to me that my time at the Children's Home was by far the most impacting experience I had. I could have predicted that before ever leaving Everett, but it has manifested itself differently than I would have expected. Because we traveled for the month after leaving the Children's Home, I forced myself to move on and live in the moment, not wanting to miss out on our travel experiences. Once I was home and beginning to share stories and photos with family and friends I found myself thinking and wanting to talk about the children more and more every day. My thoughts aren't necessarily that complicated; I'm usually thinking something along the lines of, "Pavithra is mischievous and wonderful - I love her!". I've always loved listening to people and learning how they see the world. That held true with the children; I was fascinated by how they related to each other, wanted to know who felt left out and who was a leader, tried to look out for the kids who seemed lonely - I was essentially obsessed with what Kate termed "Kid politics". I'm fascinated by essentially the same general trends in adults as well. The difference with kids is their freshness; they aren't yet complete slaves to their own habits which makes them both mystifying and rewarding to work with. Mystifying because they're always surprising you with a ridiculous and hilarious comment or erratic behavior problem. Rewarding because they are impressionable; that gives me the privilege and responsibility of actually affecting them; both emotionally and academically. All this leads me to believe that I should spend my life around children in some capacity; I love being around kids and they seemed to benefit from me as well.
On a completely separate note, I have the travel bug! By the end of our travels in India I was loving the daily barrage of colors, smells, and tastes so much that I couldn't wait to go back. When I do return to India, I will doubtless spend time at the Children's Home, but I also hope to travel more in Northern India and see Varanasi, Amritsar, Dharamsala, and Ladakh. I adore Kate and Deepa and will miss them dearly; they made my time in India exactly what it was. They are such strong personalities, and I learned about myself by defining the boundaries of my friendships with two such unique, intelligent, and strong-willed people. Thank you Deepa and Kate- I love you both very much.
So now it's on to Thailand! I've been here only an afternoon and already I can't stop thinking about the differences between India and Thailand...I'm sure that will continue for a while while I try to get my footing. I haven't actually seen Flora yet! I will be meeting her and her visiting family in Bangkok in just two days. From there, she, her dad, and Liz (a friend of the Weeks family who I am living with right now) are going to Angkkor Wat in Cambodia! That's a lot of action for a first week living in Thailand, but I'm excited!
Thanks for reading!
~Alice
Monday, February 18, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Short entry, so don't get your hopes up!
Kate, Phil, and I are in Ooty, Tamil Nadu right now! It's the former main hill station for the British in this area. It's gorgeous!! Our hotel has a communal fire place area where I have sat around late at night (we don't act like teenagers anymore so "late at night" is 8:30......yep) and everyone has an interesting story! People are really open because we all have at least something in common - we came to India for some reason, and everyone wants to know why everyone else is there. Most people are at some sort of cross-roads in their lives - usually late 20s, early 30s......quit a job because they were unsatisfied is a normal story - and now they're here to figure things out or see some of the world like they've always wanted before they launch into the next chapter of their lives. During the day we've been exploring the beautiful and hilly surrounding area....yesterday we hiked to the tallest point in South India - where the Eastern and Western Ghats meet! Look us up on the map....it was quite an adventure. Good to have some fresh air after Mumbai, too.....though we could see the horizon and the "pollution horizon" quite clearly in the distance.
Well, we're headed to Kerala soon....to Palakkad to meet up with Deepa and her family, and then it's Sikkim. I'm wishing we had more time to travel now! So I will just have to return.
Love,
~Alice
Well, we're headed to Kerala soon....to Palakkad to meet up with Deepa and her family, and then it's Sikkim. I'm wishing we had more time to travel now! So I will just have to return.
Love,
~Alice
Saturday, January 5, 2008
HELLO!
I haven't written in a while because UCH became increasingly difficult to explain the longer I lived there, the more I loved it......but I've got to get back in the saddle again! So I'll tell a little story about what I did yesterday. I should be able to handle that.
We're in Mumbai right now......first thing I noticed here was that there are no rick shaws!!! As faithful blog readers know, I was just privy to the musical stylings of a certain Mr. Rick Shaw.....so to have his namesake(s) so abruptly pulled from my life was a bit shocking. I think I'm sounding like Kate these days......oh dear. Instead of the rick shaws there are very small (by US standards) black cars with yellow roofs.....fancy! Deepa is styaing with the mother of a friend just outside of Mumbai while us four are in a hotel in the city, so I haven't seen here in two days!!!! That's the longest separation we've had in four months.......but we're meeting her for lunch in an hour, so I should be fine.
Kate and I chose to rise and shine at 6:30 yesterday morning though there were no singing children or cups of Chai awaiting us.......what inspired us to stir at this ungodly hour you might ask? Laughter. No, no....I'm serious - an elusive passage in Lonely Planet mentioned that there are many "Laughing Clubs" throughout Mumbai and you know Kate and I - we simply HAD to get to the bottom of it. We strolled around India Gate and thought we'd been had by the people who write Lonely Planet sidebars, but no! Off in the distance, a small crowd of enthusiastic aged people were clapping in a circle. They happily welcomed us into the fold and we joined in for half an hour of guided laugh exercises including "cell-phone laugh!", "computer laugh!", "Bow and arrow laugh!", and then a whole slew of racist laughs which included everybody from the Chinese to the Danes, to the Americans (we slap our knees and say 'Yay!', in case you were uncertain). It was specitacular. Afterwards, a group of us went across the way for toast and tea in the lobby of a hotel that the son of one of laughin club' regulars owns. He was a kind and toothless gentleman and spoke at length about something - either Sudan or Sweden, I wasn't certain. We'll be back at the club tomorrow morning, and we're bringing Zach and Phil......apparently there are fifty of these clubs around the city - some of these people have been laughing together for 12 years!!!
Mumbai is incredibly cosmopolitan (and unique if number of institutions centered on laughter is how you judge uniqueness) Of course the byways and side streets here are as crowded as ever - we took in our fair share of that yesterday while looking for souvenirs and just strolling around. (I'm terrible at bargaining.....) Phil went to his first temple and I bought some Mahandhi Cone (Henna)!!! We ended up walking a very, very long way - the day before when we were scoping out Lonely Planet, we read about a cool area of town but decided it would be too expensive to get a rick shaw there, but then we sort of just ended up there - Chowpatty beach! A sidenote - Zach has a freakishly good sense of cities.....he's from New York so it's not shocking that he's better at getting around than me, but after three months at UCH, Kate and I reeeeeally aren't exhibiting "urban cool" so his skills are especially obvious. He wanted to find Fabindia (a store) and just sort of....FOUND it and then decided we were going to The Bombay Store.....and we did! That sort of thing is nothing short of miraculous to me. ANYWAY - At Chowpatty Beach, we made a bold attempted ar meaningful repartee but many, many vendors had another thing in mind. They wanted us all to buy peanuts, cotton candy, chai, twirly-thingies, massages, etc....they were particularly assertive with Phil - maybe they sensed that he hadn't been here as long but several men tried to handfeed him peanuts, and another began to massage Phil's head whilst Phil batted at him and stared stoicly in the opposit direction.
Well, it's almost time to meet Deepa so I've got to wrap it up......have a lovely day! Sometime soon I'll sit down and try to gathre my thoughts on UCH, but it's too early just yet. Have a lovely day! Email me or Kate or Deepa - we want to hear abotu your lives and we love you all.
Love,
~Alice
I haven't written in a while because UCH became increasingly difficult to explain the longer I lived there, the more I loved it......but I've got to get back in the saddle again! So I'll tell a little story about what I did yesterday. I should be able to handle that.
We're in Mumbai right now......first thing I noticed here was that there are no rick shaws!!! As faithful blog readers know, I was just privy to the musical stylings of a certain Mr. Rick Shaw.....so to have his namesake(s) so abruptly pulled from my life was a bit shocking. I think I'm sounding like Kate these days......oh dear. Instead of the rick shaws there are very small (by US standards) black cars with yellow roofs.....fancy! Deepa is styaing with the mother of a friend just outside of Mumbai while us four are in a hotel in the city, so I haven't seen here in two days!!!! That's the longest separation we've had in four months.......but we're meeting her for lunch in an hour, so I should be fine.
Kate and I chose to rise and shine at 6:30 yesterday morning though there were no singing children or cups of Chai awaiting us.......what inspired us to stir at this ungodly hour you might ask? Laughter. No, no....I'm serious - an elusive passage in Lonely Planet mentioned that there are many "Laughing Clubs" throughout Mumbai and you know Kate and I - we simply HAD to get to the bottom of it. We strolled around India Gate and thought we'd been had by the people who write Lonely Planet sidebars, but no! Off in the distance, a small crowd of enthusiastic aged people were clapping in a circle. They happily welcomed us into the fold and we joined in for half an hour of guided laugh exercises including "cell-phone laugh!", "computer laugh!", "Bow and arrow laugh!", and then a whole slew of racist laughs which included everybody from the Chinese to the Danes, to the Americans (we slap our knees and say 'Yay!', in case you were uncertain). It was specitacular. Afterwards, a group of us went across the way for toast and tea in the lobby of a hotel that the son of one of laughin club' regulars owns. He was a kind and toothless gentleman and spoke at length about something - either Sudan or Sweden, I wasn't certain. We'll be back at the club tomorrow morning, and we're bringing Zach and Phil......apparently there are fifty of these clubs around the city - some of these people have been laughing together for 12 years!!!
Mumbai is incredibly cosmopolitan (and unique if number of institutions centered on laughter is how you judge uniqueness) Of course the byways and side streets here are as crowded as ever - we took in our fair share of that yesterday while looking for souvenirs and just strolling around. (I'm terrible at bargaining.....) Phil went to his first temple and I bought some Mahandhi Cone (Henna)!!! We ended up walking a very, very long way - the day before when we were scoping out Lonely Planet, we read about a cool area of town but decided it would be too expensive to get a rick shaw there, but then we sort of just ended up there - Chowpatty beach! A sidenote - Zach has a freakishly good sense of cities.....he's from New York so it's not shocking that he's better at getting around than me, but after three months at UCH, Kate and I reeeeeally aren't exhibiting "urban cool" so his skills are especially obvious. He wanted to find Fabindia (a store) and just sort of....FOUND it and then decided we were going to The Bombay Store.....and we did! That sort of thing is nothing short of miraculous to me. ANYWAY - At Chowpatty Beach, we made a bold attempted ar meaningful repartee but many, many vendors had another thing in mind. They wanted us all to buy peanuts, cotton candy, chai, twirly-thingies, massages, etc....they were particularly assertive with Phil - maybe they sensed that he hadn't been here as long but several men tried to handfeed him peanuts, and another began to massage Phil's head whilst Phil batted at him and stared stoicly in the opposit direction.
Well, it's almost time to meet Deepa so I've got to wrap it up......have a lovely day! Sometime soon I'll sit down and try to gathre my thoughts on UCH, but it's too early just yet. Have a lovely day! Email me or Kate or Deepa - we want to hear abotu your lives and we love you all.
Love,
~Alice
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Kate's Corner: The Moment You Have All Been Waiting For
Kate’s Corner
Hey all (ie friends, family, man in the Chinese restaurant, approximately 90000 relatives of Ms. Deepa Sivarajan, and of course, My Favorite Young Alaskan):
It’s been a good long while since I’ve made an appearance on Alice’s blog, but the much anticipated moment has (finally) arrived. We have now moved on from UCH, and are out in the greater world, so this edition of Kate’s Corner has been conveniently divided into two aptly named subcategories: “At UCH” and “Not at UCH”.
What a thrill.
I: At UCH
Things tend to be fairly low key at the children’s home/less anecdotal, but every once and a while, things take a turn towards the (aforementioned) wild side. Mostly when we attempt to organize activities with a bit of structure. Read on.
Moisture
An early and thrilling activity we attempt with the children involves salt, flour, and a dramatic downturn in our slowly built-up credibility. We make up a clay-like mixture, bring it over to an empty room in a bucket, and have the kids make small and lovely sculptures out of it. Only about 50% of the sculptures survive, Vishali eats another child’s masterpiece, and the activity does not appear to reinforce the trailing masculinity of the three boys at UCH (they all choose to sculpt purses!), but overall, the project appears successful. We bring the sculptures to our room on a large sheet of paper, and promise the kids they can paint them next week after they dry in the sun. Then the rains come. And with them, humidity. Day by day, the sculptures become more swelled and bloated, until they are floating in large pools of their own liquid. Alice gets a new roommate and must struggle to explain the importance of filling half the floorspace with 37 foul and formless salty things. After several weeks, we realize they are more liquid than solid, and utterly terrifying. We bring them to the dustbin, and with a touch of sorrow, let them go.
SLAAAAATS
Several weeks back, we set about creating photo albums with some of the kids. In a more beautiful world, small groups of children would enter a room, spend about twelve seconds placing their six photos (already chosen by us!) into a book, and exit feeling calm, content, and in possession of all of their original body parts. But, as things go, the Photo Room becomes a zone of war. After accomplishing a mass and violent exodus, Alice and I lock the door, find a heavy chair to use as a barricade, and try to hold back the tide of small people flinging themselves against the entrance. All is well, until Alice, seated in the chair, begins to find herself a victim of inappropriate touch. The children have opened the slats in the door, and are vigorously poking Alice’s butt with both their own bodies (fingers! hands!) and tools (badminton rackets, pointy-beaked stuffed animals, wands). While we are distracted by Ms. Minor’s violation, the children discover small windows and conduct a thriving blackmarket trade of our carefully organized photos through these openings. Defeated, and highly concerned with the state of Alice’s buttocks, we open the door, and in they came…
(Sidenote: Inspired by these slats, we had a party the following evening with Megan in entitled Slatfest 07: The Party in Which People Outside of the Room Drop Things Into the Room Through Slats. It was a blast. This probably beats the party when we celebrated the half way point in our travels (in which broke cookies in half!) or maybe even Halloween (in which, lacking a costume, I dressed up by removing my pants).
Rejection
Towards the end of our stay at Uluru, my friend Zach Duffy from The Mountain School, who just finished a program in North India, joined us at The Children’s Home. On Christmas Eve, we go with Zach to Pondicherry, with the intention of him staying a few days while we wrap up business at UCH. We get into the holiday spirit early in the day when Zach is hit by a motorcycle. The Christmas cheer continues as we call about 30 hotels and guesthouses, none of which have a room for Zach. Even the freaky ones with names like “The House of Fun” are entirely full. The clincher comes when we go to our eagerly anticipated dinner spot, convince them we have a reservation (we don’t), sit down, and then learn that the special holiday meal will not be served for another three hours. It is not until we are back on the bus to Uluru (bursting with holiday spirit!) that we realize Zach, a (Jewish) wanderer rejected from every inn, is reenacting the story of Christmas Eve. Is Zach Jesus? We scan the highway for barns/troughs of hay/maybe a manger, but even those do not present themselves. The next morning, more desperate, we bust out our Lonely Planet and try hotels in Jew Town (no Christmas rush there!) and distant Nagaland. But nothing, nothing, nothing.
A Very Beautiful Man
In our final days of UCH, a newcomer arrives. In order to preserve his privacy on this blog, we will call him by another name of a similarly Hispanic nature: Juan Rodrigo de la Noche (English translation: John Roderick of the Night).
Here are some pertinent facts about Rodrigo (who was rooming with Zach):
1. He is six foot six (at least) and has hair like Jesus.
2. Rodrigo is a wearer of alarmingly short shorts. Some of them, alarmingly short pink (neon!) shorts.
3. During dinner one evening, he discovers “ants in his pants”, and proceeds to stand up in the direct center of the dining area, and fish these ants out of his pants (in reality, alarmingly short shorts) with his hands.
4. When not wearing these shorts, Rodrigo travels in style with very very skinny jeans and a fedora (how perfect for the heat!).
5. His “Where’s Waldo?” style stripy underwear becomes a permanent hanging fixture in the volunteer area. When Alice is sent by the kitchen staff to look for a red and white dishcloth, she comes shockingly close to bringing these beauties.
6. As he is an engineer, we assume he has come to UCH to install new computers in the computer center. Instead, he has come to organize an intercommunity cricket match.
7. Never one to support corporations, Rodrigo spends a day fashioning a homemade cricket trophy out of a slab of rock and a smart looking red ribbon. After painstaking hours, he proceeds to drop the trophy and render it unusable.
8. He finds the act of riding a motorcycle very, very sensual.
II: Not at UCH
On the 27th of December, we left UCH for Goa, a beachy area with quite the good reputation for New Year’s where we planned to meet up with Phil (another Mountain School friend of mine). Goa (we’re here now) has been wonderfully relaxing—we have found time to buff up the muscles in our pinky toes (go zach!), perfect the art of leckfast (breakfast that stretches long enough to order lunch as well), and in the case of Alice and Deepa, name every member of the Fall 05 TMS semester.
As things often go with us, the fun gets started on the train:
Fiesta Time
The Vasco Express, running straight from Chennai to Goa, turned out to be quite the party car. We had our suspicions early on, when we noticed our Indian neighbors were presiding over a large stash of bongo drums, but didn’t think much of it until we reached the hills near Goa—ie: The Land of Tunnels. The instant our train entered a tunnel, everyone in our car immediately switched off the lights, started beating their bongos, screaming, and in the case of many, participating in a frisky dance party. Then, the second the train emerged from the tunnel, the noise died instantly, the lights came on, and everyone sat around looking normal, pretending nothing had happened. This went down not once, but at least fifteen times, no matter how long or short (8 second fiesta!) the tunnels were. During one tunnel where we failed to make enough noise, we heard cheering coming from an adjacent car, and realized our wild tradition had spread. Let me also note that most everyone in our car was over the age of 30.
Also interesting in our train experience were a number of (what appeared to be) planned stops. They were:
1) Scenic View Stop. Pretty self-explanatory. Everyone gets out of the train, takes some pictures of mountains, we move on.
2) Monkey Feeding Stop. Shortly after the SVS, our train came to a halt (in the middle of nowhere) next to a large group of monkeys. Immediately, every Indian tourist on the train rushed to the windows and began throwing food out to the primates. While some of it was train food, much of it was taken from little prepacked ziplocked bags, as if the passengers had anticipated this feeding session, and boarded the train prepared!
3) Let the Men Throw Rocks Stop. In LMTRS, the train halted for about 35 minutes in the middle of nowhere, so every man on the train could exit and throw a large number of stones off the side of the mountain. It began as quickly as it ended, and we all moved on.
Despite at least an hour and a half of halt time, our train arrived punctually in Goa, implying these stops were all planned into the timetable as part of a grander scheme.
From Hilton to Homeless
Enter Phil. Unlike Zach, Alice, Deepa, and I, Phil has no really clear reason to be in India. He just came. This is what you should know about Phil:
Phil spent his first night in India in the Mumbai Hilton (swanky!!).
Phil spent his second night in India on a beach chair (homeless!!)
Phil managed to procure the absolutely last ticket to Goa from Mumbai. It was a small miracle.
Hooray.
New Years
We had ourselves a lovely little New Years on the beach, featuring a very elongated dinner and the musical stylings of a certain Rick Shaw (note the name, my friends). We hoped it might be some sort of singing motorcar, but no, Rick is in fact, a man, albeit a musically incompetent and rather bitter one. As he got up to play his tunes (ie play his backing tape), the five of us decided to break out our crazy teenage moves on the dance floor. We suspect Rick Shaw has been trying to reach out to the youth for quite some time now (coarsening up his image, perhaps?), and this was—most likely—the greatest moment of his life. He later stormed off the stage in a huff, vitriolically cursing the inferior sound system. Beside us on the dance floor, was the breathtakingly sensual and very middle-aged Scarf Lady. At first we thought she was twisting her hips and shaking her scarf in a special monogamous treat only for the eyes of Rick Shaw, but we soon discovered that she was, in fact, non-discriminatory. What a scandal! Another key player in the dancing was Old White Man, who gradually (under the wing of some young friends) transformed his classic old man swivel step to crazed Indian-male style flinging of the hands.
The New Year was ushered in with a rather spectacular display of fireworks (I think they are just tighter if they are coming out of a box approximately eight feet away from you), a swim in the ocean, and a very nice group hug. As we finally drifted off to bed, a sleeping Deepa was heard to make some deeply earnest comment about “science of the butt” (a future major, perhaps?). We are still puzzling over this.
Xavier’s
Kate’s Corner has now moved up to pretty much the present, with this event occurring last evening. We’ve had some issues with speed of dining service (thus the leckfasts), but Xavier’s took it to a stunningly new height. We have our own special waiter who doesn’t appear to a) be serving anyone else or b) exist. After much speculation on his whereabouts (is he sleeping? injured? organizing a riot?), he finally comes to take our orders. A short decade passes before we see him once more, at last with Zach’s soup and rice in hand. But then he vanishes. When he appears again (without food) after a huge hiatus, we ask him to bring the rest of our meals. He responds by bringing us an extra table (almost what we wanted!), and by sweeping in to take away Zach’s rice and run away with it before we can protest. In all my dining experience, this rice removal was unprecedented. Eventually things shook themselves out, and actually came, but only the drinks he thought Zach ordered (he seemed to be only willing to serve Mr. Duffy). What a struggle it was.
Well, that is that.
We’re off to Mumbai tomorrow, then Ooty area (for Alice/Kate/Phil) or Bangalore (for Deepa), then Kerala, then Sikkim, then the loveliest of them all, Seattle, Washington, USA (on the 26th, I think).
Happy New Year!
Comment on the blog; don’t be a closeted reader! We want to know who you are.
Love,
Kate
Hey all (ie friends, family, man in the Chinese restaurant, approximately 90000 relatives of Ms. Deepa Sivarajan, and of course, My Favorite Young Alaskan):
It’s been a good long while since I’ve made an appearance on Alice’s blog, but the much anticipated moment has (finally) arrived. We have now moved on from UCH, and are out in the greater world, so this edition of Kate’s Corner has been conveniently divided into two aptly named subcategories: “At UCH” and “Not at UCH”.
What a thrill.
I: At UCH
Things tend to be fairly low key at the children’s home/less anecdotal, but every once and a while, things take a turn towards the (aforementioned) wild side. Mostly when we attempt to organize activities with a bit of structure. Read on.
Moisture
An early and thrilling activity we attempt with the children involves salt, flour, and a dramatic downturn in our slowly built-up credibility. We make up a clay-like mixture, bring it over to an empty room in a bucket, and have the kids make small and lovely sculptures out of it. Only about 50% of the sculptures survive, Vishali eats another child’s masterpiece, and the activity does not appear to reinforce the trailing masculinity of the three boys at UCH (they all choose to sculpt purses!), but overall, the project appears successful. We bring the sculptures to our room on a large sheet of paper, and promise the kids they can paint them next week after they dry in the sun. Then the rains come. And with them, humidity. Day by day, the sculptures become more swelled and bloated, until they are floating in large pools of their own liquid. Alice gets a new roommate and must struggle to explain the importance of filling half the floorspace with 37 foul and formless salty things. After several weeks, we realize they are more liquid than solid, and utterly terrifying. We bring them to the dustbin, and with a touch of sorrow, let them go.
SLAAAAATS
Several weeks back, we set about creating photo albums with some of the kids. In a more beautiful world, small groups of children would enter a room, spend about twelve seconds placing their six photos (already chosen by us!) into a book, and exit feeling calm, content, and in possession of all of their original body parts. But, as things go, the Photo Room becomes a zone of war. After accomplishing a mass and violent exodus, Alice and I lock the door, find a heavy chair to use as a barricade, and try to hold back the tide of small people flinging themselves against the entrance. All is well, until Alice, seated in the chair, begins to find herself a victim of inappropriate touch. The children have opened the slats in the door, and are vigorously poking Alice’s butt with both their own bodies (fingers! hands!) and tools (badminton rackets, pointy-beaked stuffed animals, wands). While we are distracted by Ms. Minor’s violation, the children discover small windows and conduct a thriving blackmarket trade of our carefully organized photos through these openings. Defeated, and highly concerned with the state of Alice’s buttocks, we open the door, and in they came…
(Sidenote: Inspired by these slats, we had a party the following evening with Megan in entitled Slatfest 07: The Party in Which People Outside of the Room Drop Things Into the Room Through Slats. It was a blast. This probably beats the party when we celebrated the half way point in our travels (in which broke cookies in half!) or maybe even Halloween (in which, lacking a costume, I dressed up by removing my pants).
Rejection
Towards the end of our stay at Uluru, my friend Zach Duffy from The Mountain School, who just finished a program in North India, joined us at The Children’s Home. On Christmas Eve, we go with Zach to Pondicherry, with the intention of him staying a few days while we wrap up business at UCH. We get into the holiday spirit early in the day when Zach is hit by a motorcycle. The Christmas cheer continues as we call about 30 hotels and guesthouses, none of which have a room for Zach. Even the freaky ones with names like “The House of Fun” are entirely full. The clincher comes when we go to our eagerly anticipated dinner spot, convince them we have a reservation (we don’t), sit down, and then learn that the special holiday meal will not be served for another three hours. It is not until we are back on the bus to Uluru (bursting with holiday spirit!) that we realize Zach, a (Jewish) wanderer rejected from every inn, is reenacting the story of Christmas Eve. Is Zach Jesus? We scan the highway for barns/troughs of hay/maybe a manger, but even those do not present themselves. The next morning, more desperate, we bust out our Lonely Planet and try hotels in Jew Town (no Christmas rush there!) and distant Nagaland. But nothing, nothing, nothing.
A Very Beautiful Man
In our final days of UCH, a newcomer arrives. In order to preserve his privacy on this blog, we will call him by another name of a similarly Hispanic nature: Juan Rodrigo de la Noche (English translation: John Roderick of the Night).
Here are some pertinent facts about Rodrigo (who was rooming with Zach):
1. He is six foot six (at least) and has hair like Jesus.
2. Rodrigo is a wearer of alarmingly short shorts. Some of them, alarmingly short pink (neon!) shorts.
3. During dinner one evening, he discovers “ants in his pants”, and proceeds to stand up in the direct center of the dining area, and fish these ants out of his pants (in reality, alarmingly short shorts) with his hands.
4. When not wearing these shorts, Rodrigo travels in style with very very skinny jeans and a fedora (how perfect for the heat!).
5. His “Where’s Waldo?” style stripy underwear becomes a permanent hanging fixture in the volunteer area. When Alice is sent by the kitchen staff to look for a red and white dishcloth, she comes shockingly close to bringing these beauties.
6. As he is an engineer, we assume he has come to UCH to install new computers in the computer center. Instead, he has come to organize an intercommunity cricket match.
7. Never one to support corporations, Rodrigo spends a day fashioning a homemade cricket trophy out of a slab of rock and a smart looking red ribbon. After painstaking hours, he proceeds to drop the trophy and render it unusable.
8. He finds the act of riding a motorcycle very, very sensual.
II: Not at UCH
On the 27th of December, we left UCH for Goa, a beachy area with quite the good reputation for New Year’s where we planned to meet up with Phil (another Mountain School friend of mine). Goa (we’re here now) has been wonderfully relaxing—we have found time to buff up the muscles in our pinky toes (go zach!), perfect the art of leckfast (breakfast that stretches long enough to order lunch as well), and in the case of Alice and Deepa, name every member of the Fall 05 TMS semester.
As things often go with us, the fun gets started on the train:
Fiesta Time
The Vasco Express, running straight from Chennai to Goa, turned out to be quite the party car. We had our suspicions early on, when we noticed our Indian neighbors were presiding over a large stash of bongo drums, but didn’t think much of it until we reached the hills near Goa—ie: The Land of Tunnels. The instant our train entered a tunnel, everyone in our car immediately switched off the lights, started beating their bongos, screaming, and in the case of many, participating in a frisky dance party. Then, the second the train emerged from the tunnel, the noise died instantly, the lights came on, and everyone sat around looking normal, pretending nothing had happened. This went down not once, but at least fifteen times, no matter how long or short (8 second fiesta!) the tunnels were. During one tunnel where we failed to make enough noise, we heard cheering coming from an adjacent car, and realized our wild tradition had spread. Let me also note that most everyone in our car was over the age of 30.
Also interesting in our train experience were a number of (what appeared to be) planned stops. They were:
1) Scenic View Stop. Pretty self-explanatory. Everyone gets out of the train, takes some pictures of mountains, we move on.
2) Monkey Feeding Stop. Shortly after the SVS, our train came to a halt (in the middle of nowhere) next to a large group of monkeys. Immediately, every Indian tourist on the train rushed to the windows and began throwing food out to the primates. While some of it was train food, much of it was taken from little prepacked ziplocked bags, as if the passengers had anticipated this feeding session, and boarded the train prepared!
3) Let the Men Throw Rocks Stop. In LMTRS, the train halted for about 35 minutes in the middle of nowhere, so every man on the train could exit and throw a large number of stones off the side of the mountain. It began as quickly as it ended, and we all moved on.
Despite at least an hour and a half of halt time, our train arrived punctually in Goa, implying these stops were all planned into the timetable as part of a grander scheme.
From Hilton to Homeless
Enter Phil. Unlike Zach, Alice, Deepa, and I, Phil has no really clear reason to be in India. He just came. This is what you should know about Phil:
Phil spent his first night in India in the Mumbai Hilton (swanky!!).
Phil spent his second night in India on a beach chair (homeless!!)
Phil managed to procure the absolutely last ticket to Goa from Mumbai. It was a small miracle.
Hooray.
New Years
We had ourselves a lovely little New Years on the beach, featuring a very elongated dinner and the musical stylings of a certain Rick Shaw (note the name, my friends). We hoped it might be some sort of singing motorcar, but no, Rick is in fact, a man, albeit a musically incompetent and rather bitter one. As he got up to play his tunes (ie play his backing tape), the five of us decided to break out our crazy teenage moves on the dance floor. We suspect Rick Shaw has been trying to reach out to the youth for quite some time now (coarsening up his image, perhaps?), and this was—most likely—the greatest moment of his life. He later stormed off the stage in a huff, vitriolically cursing the inferior sound system. Beside us on the dance floor, was the breathtakingly sensual and very middle-aged Scarf Lady. At first we thought she was twisting her hips and shaking her scarf in a special monogamous treat only for the eyes of Rick Shaw, but we soon discovered that she was, in fact, non-discriminatory. What a scandal! Another key player in the dancing was Old White Man, who gradually (under the wing of some young friends) transformed his classic old man swivel step to crazed Indian-male style flinging of the hands.
The New Year was ushered in with a rather spectacular display of fireworks (I think they are just tighter if they are coming out of a box approximately eight feet away from you), a swim in the ocean, and a very nice group hug. As we finally drifted off to bed, a sleeping Deepa was heard to make some deeply earnest comment about “science of the butt” (a future major, perhaps?). We are still puzzling over this.
Xavier’s
Kate’s Corner has now moved up to pretty much the present, with this event occurring last evening. We’ve had some issues with speed of dining service (thus the leckfasts), but Xavier’s took it to a stunningly new height. We have our own special waiter who doesn’t appear to a) be serving anyone else or b) exist. After much speculation on his whereabouts (is he sleeping? injured? organizing a riot?), he finally comes to take our orders. A short decade passes before we see him once more, at last with Zach’s soup and rice in hand. But then he vanishes. When he appears again (without food) after a huge hiatus, we ask him to bring the rest of our meals. He responds by bringing us an extra table (almost what we wanted!), and by sweeping in to take away Zach’s rice and run away with it before we can protest. In all my dining experience, this rice removal was unprecedented. Eventually things shook themselves out, and actually came, but only the drinks he thought Zach ordered (he seemed to be only willing to serve Mr. Duffy). What a struggle it was.
Well, that is that.
We’re off to Mumbai tomorrow, then Ooty area (for Alice/Kate/Phil) or Bangalore (for Deepa), then Kerala, then Sikkim, then the loveliest of them all, Seattle, Washington, USA (on the 26th, I think).
Happy New Year!
Comment on the blog; don’t be a closeted reader! We want to know who you are.
Love,
Kate
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Auroville etc...
We went to Auroville yesterday!!! I heard so much about it before we came to India, and have talked to many people here in India about the unique vision of this little city, so it was exciting to finally make it there.....it's only 45 minutes away from us here in Kadapakkam, so it's kind of funny that we hadn't been there yet! For those not familiar with Auroville - it is a city outside of Pondicherry founded about 40 years ago by people aiming to create a completley clobal community....a place that nobody owned and therefore belonged to everyone in the world. Yes, many of these people were hippies. The Uluru Children's Home has a partnership with a group from Auroville that is devoted to reforestation and environmental education. Hopefully construction will begin soon in the UCH compound on an environmental eduction center that will be open to the general community. (There will be a fence deviding it and the main UCH area). The long-term aim is to also return the area adjacent to UCH to how it was years ago before human development and then se that area for nature walks/eduction open to UCH children and the whole community. There are so many exciting things happening at UCH! We also visited a school in between Auroville and Kadapakkam that used to be one of the very worst in Tamil Nadu before this organization became involved about ten years ago. It is now an incredible place for school children, high schools, and locals looking for vocational training. We were treated to a tour of the facilities including the art classroom (!!!), the environmentally friendly water-recycling program, the science classroom, and the general grounds. More ideas for UCH.....
Well, the children are watching "Narnia" - in Tamil...we just spent the day on an epic quest to help them update their photo-albums. It was TRULY epic in scope and execution but I will allow Kate to explain it because she's funny and another Kate's Korner is sorely overdue.
Love to you all!
~Alice
Well, the children are watching "Narnia" - in Tamil...we just spent the day on an epic quest to help them update their photo-albums. It was TRULY epic in scope and execution but I will allow Kate to explain it because she's funny and another Kate's Korner is sorely overdue.
Love to you all!
~Alice
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