Perspective

Last week I had the good fortune to attend a conference for all the Fulbright English Teaching Assistants in South and Central Asia. The conference was held in Kathmandu, Nepal, which would have been enough to make the week fantastic, but the incredible location turned out to be just a part of why the week was such a memorable experience. The ETAs present are teaching in amazing places-- Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. I think there were about sixty of us total, (including the 15 from India). I arrived early, on Saturday afternoon, with Porter, as Sean forgot his passport and missed the flight and Hannah and Tangi were flying in the next day. We were told in no uncertain terms that if we were getting there early we would have to pay our own way that first night, including transportation from the airport. Naturally, when I met up with the other ETAs who were there early from Kolkata and Madurai, they informed me that the hotel would be free that first night. Thanks, South Asian bureaucracy! After getting lost for a while trying to find my friends, we went to a Mexican restaurant my friend Ernie from Corrymeela had recommended, and it was DELICIOUS! So exciting to just eat tortillas and salsa again! I ended up staying in the hotel that night, even though I had already paid at a roach motel in Thamel, the touristy area. The next day we went walking around Kathmandu, a city reminiscent of India, but with a very different feel. People were much more laid back and less aggressive. Crossing busy streets didn't make me feel like I was imminently going to die and the pushing came from the shoulders, rather than the elbows. We wandered around Thamel, admiring the abundant pashminas, camping gear and silver jewelry that adorned the windows along the street. We dined on momos, Tibetan dumplings that constitute much of my diet in Delhi, bargained a bit, and enjoyed the mountain air and blue sky. Eventually we reached a square with a stupa, or Buddhist shrine. We rang the bells and spun the mandalas, taking pictures and passing our fingers along the sanskrit engravings.

In the evening we returned to the hotel for dinner, meeting up with the other ETAs, many of whom I was meeting for the first time, as I'd had to leave early from the orientation in Austin in June. It was exciting to see all these people who I knew were having experiences equally significant as my own but in completely different places and contexts. Those of us in India have also been lucky enough to have had several opportunities to spend time as a large group with everyone from the three cities, both at the orientation in Delhi upon our arrival and in Kolkata during Durga Puja.

Nepal ETAs go traditional

The next day began with presentations. Each country gave a half hour presentation about their placements, students, and experiences. The Nepal kids went first, describing their life in rural villages, living in homestays and working in a wide variety of school. One girl works in a very large school, with class sizes ranging from thirty to eighty students, as the major teacher shortages require classes to be combined. Another ETA, teaching in the Gorkha district of Nepal, showed a picture of her staff room, a small, square area with a dirt floor and a bald lightbulb. She pointed to the lightbulb and explained that it was the only one in the school. “Sometimes it has power,” she said, “and sometimes it doesn’t.” There was a violent civil war between the government and Maoists that began in 1996 and ended only in 2006. Over 15,000 people were killed and 100,000-150,000 internally displaced. The upheaval and human rights violations committed by both sides forced many people to seek work abroad, ending up mostly in the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia, and the economy there is extremely dependent on the income sent back to relatives that remain in the country. The ETAs there live in the Kathmandu Valley and in a district called Gorkha, about five or six hours from the capital. They all wake up around 5AM, help their family with chores and cooking and go to school only around ten. Many of their students work five or six hours in the fields before school, arriving already exhausted at 10AM from their day’s work. Their Nepali was way better than our language skills, certainly no coincidence considering their living situations. Two big differences from our placements are the fact that they all co-teach with Nepali teachers and are rarely alone in a class, and that they work in ACCESS programs, English classes for underprivileged, highly motivated advanced English students. It was fascinating to hear about their experiences, but also hard to listen to all of the great things they get to do with their students—the election speeches they prepared with their kids, the lyric writing competitions they held—when we are just struggling to get our students to sit in their seats for more than five minutes at a time without attacking each other.

Because there are so many India ETAs and we are in such different places in the country, our presentations were split into the three cities—Delhi, Kolkata and Madurai. Hannah, Tangi, Sean and I had decided to make our presentation about well-being: what gets in the way of it in India and how we try to achieve it. Tangi made a decision to talk openly about her difficulties in India as a Black woman—the crisis of identity she’s experienced when people here insist she is from Africa, the ignorant, hurtful comments made about her hair and skin, even the time she was refused entry to a club because the bouncer said they don’t allow Black people because they cause fights (true story). She started crying and the presentation became very emotional, causing half the people in the room to cry with her. I spoke about accepting and working with the fact that I am so outside of traditional norms of being a teacher in my cultural differences and classroom manner, and about learning to see and appreciate children beyond their disruptive behavior (thanks, Clear View!).

After our presentations came those of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The Bangladesh group only arrived six weeks ago and are still in language training, so they made an awesome video in which they interviewed people on the street about their perceptions of the US. The Sri Lanka kids gushed about how they live on the beach, teach motivated students in university settings, in which they can create their own curriculum based on literature they choose, and one guy at an NGO for children affected by violent conflict. Yet the presentations I found most captivating were those of the ETAs in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. I have never learned about Central Asia at all before, and it was so interesting to hear about something so unknown to me. Tajikistan is a developing country, the only former Soviet Socialist Republic that does not speak a Slavic language. Tajik is actually a dialect of Farsi, and the region is an unusual intersection of Near Eastern culture with heavy Soviet influence. The Kazakhstan ETAs told us about the history of that country, the dictator they’ve had since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the emphasis by the government on learning English, the horrible pollution caused by the Soviets that has left the water heavy with lead and the air full of carcinogenic toxins. Both countries expressed an unrivaled eagerness among the people they interact with to learn English. Several of them said they are stopped on the street to ask for English lessons. Both countries have such a dearth of native speakers that having one in the community is extremely exciting and motivating for the local English teachers as well. They discussed the difficulty of creating sustainable English learning programs that can function after the departure of the ETAs, rather than having people sit around and hope for another native speaker to come along. All the ETAs in Central Asia work in centers called American Corners, programs set up by the US government after the fall of the Soviet Union to encourage people to learn about the US in a positive way, and about what it has to offer in order to counteract the negative image propagated by the USSR.

The rest of the conference was mostly seminars on English teaching, in which I learned some great activities to use, but found largely boring and unhelpful. Those of us in India were also so depressed by the contrast in support and experience teaching between our own placements and those of everyone else; it was hard to focus on being a better teacher when we realized we were the only ones just struggling to keep a class from the brink of total anarchy. But hanging out with the other ETAs was awesome. The group was full of so many smart, motivated, adventurous people and I felt so inspired and honored to be a part of it.  

Patan Durbar Square  

Because our time was consumed mostly by the conference, a few of us got up very early several mornings to explore the Kathmandu Valley before the first session. The first of these mornings consisted of a trip to Patan Durbar Square, about twenty minutes from where we were staying. There are three Durbar Squares, the generic name for the area where the palaces of the three kingdoms were. We got out of the squished shared van and wound our way through the quiet streets in the hazy sunlight of dawn. People were performing pujas (ritual prayers) at shrines along the way, smearing the red tika on the foreheads of the idols. After the Nepal ETAs tried unsuccessfully to convince the lady at the ticket booth to let us in for free, we walked around the corner and waltzed right into the square. It was peaceful and lovely, and we stopped for some chai before heading back out.

View on the hike...

After the morning’s session that day, we went on a hike as a big group in the mountains, climbing to the top and descending through a stunning, picturesque village. Low houses peeked over mustard fields, women passed us carrying bundles of firewood as big as their bodies, I held a wandering baby goat and watched some chicks follow their mama hen. There was a lovely temple at the end of the trail, in which we played with the stray puppies when we weren’t watching a local toddler hit them with a stick (seriously).

Foggy Morning at Swayambunath

The next morning we went to a Buddhist temple called Swayambhunath, seated atop a hill overlooking the whole valley. We climbed the steep stone steps, passed along the way by uniformed soldiers exercising by running up the stairs, and I snuck in for free (again) while the others unsuccessfully argued about getting in for free with the ticket man. It was a foggy morning so we couldn’t see very far, but we walked clockwise around the stupa, ringing the bells and avoiding the swarms of monkeys and pigeons. We sat for some chai before heading back. 

Cremation and Almost-Dead Foot Washing

That afternoon we went to Pashupatinath Temple, one of the holiest and most famous Hindu temples in the world. It is also a burning ghat, or place along the river where cremation takes place (like in Varanasi). This temple is where members of the Nepali royal family were traditionally cremated, and it’s the only place people asked me if I’d been to when I came back to Delhi. Pashupatinath sits on the Bagmati River, which is believed to be holy but looks like one giant sewage site, and we could see workers combing the shallow water for usable wood that hadn’t completely burned. We watched someone being cremated, covered in marigolds, with their relatives all around. The guide explained that there is a hospice right next to the ghat. Doctors monitor the patients very closely to try and figure out exactly when they are going to die, so they can be taken beside the river and have their feet washed in its holy water to be purified before their soul leaves this world. After Pashupatinath we went Boudhanath Temple, the second largest stupa in the world after one in Myanmar. The thing is enormous, and the plaza surrounding it is accordingly round. 

Boudhanath

We walked around the stupa clockwise, buying tchotchkes and entering a school for thanka painting, the traditional art form used by Tibetan Buddhist monks to create mandalas and other religious art. We climbed on the stupa itself to take pictures among the prayer flags and soak in the last rays of the sun before it sank. That evening was the last of the conference, and the open bar ensured a long night of dancing and merriment that took place outside on the patio of the hotel and then in a bar down the street, where we were pretty much the only people there. It was a great night with (shockingly) no debauchery, just fun people enjoying each other’s company.

Clockwise we go...

Thanka Painting

Most people departed for their respective countries the next day, including Hannah and Tangi, but Sean and I and everyone from Madurai and Kolkata had a few more days. That day was spent mostly wandering around Thamel again, saying goodbye to the lovely people I had met and unwinding after the overload of information the week had provided. On the last day, we went to an awesome brunch and sat outside in the clear air and sunshine, and then I was determined to see Bhaktapur, the most extensive and beautiful of the three Durbar Squares that had been recommended to me by everyone who had seen it. Sean insisted on taking a cab rather than a bus, so five of us piled in, with Sarah stretched across our laps and a breeze coming in the window. Despite its 1,100 rupee price tag (about $15 but that’s a LOT of rupees), Bhaktapur was totally worth it. As with the other architecture we had seen, the buildings resembled pagodas somewhat, but with decorative motifs highly reminiscent of both Indian and Chinese designs, but somehow different altogether. 

Bhaktapur Durbar Square

When one spoon just isn't enough...

We met a group of adorable street boys playing on the stone temple guardians—lions and dragons and elephants. We saw them pass again as we sat to eat momos, and bought them some along with samosas, watching them delight in the food and chuckling at the boy that needed two spoons at a time to eat all the chutney and then straight up ketchup. Sean and Nicole went back around four, but Kelly and Sarah and I walked aimlessly for a few more hours, watching women string beads and children play jacks with pebbles. The ornately carved windows formed a stunning backdrop against the blue sky…it made me realize how much I miss blue sky when I’m in Delhi.

The three of us found our way to the bus station and got seats on a minibus that would soon be jammed with passengers. We watched the dusk turn to night through the windows, and I was so grateful for the extra time to have seen Bhaktapur. We left the hotel early the next morning, still full of the sights and sounds and smells of the week, the pine in the altar flame, the bells beside the deities, the puppies nuzzled at the feet of the statues at the entrance to the temple. Nepal is a beautiful place that I hope to see more of soon, and I really treasured the opportunity to meet all those great people doing fascinating things in all corners of the world. To view the rest of my photos, click here and enjoy! 

Photos from Nepal

On Sunday, I returned from an incredible eight days in Kathmandu, Nepal, where I attended a conference for all the Fulbright English Teaching Assistants in South and Central Asia. Kathmandu is a magical place and the conference was fascinating as well as fun. The blog is still in progress but in the meantime, enjoy my photos by clicking on this link.

Love from Mother India, xox

Priorities

I've had a frustrating past few weeks at school. There are several reasons for this, the most significant being that there is an inspection of the school happening this Friday, the 30th. It's not clear to me exactly who is doing the inspection--I think it's some people from the New Delhi Municipal Council, maybe some Navyug people or other Board of Ed bigwigs--but I know that it's a really big deal. The administrators at school are freaking out, having all kinds of meetings and trying to make sure the school is in tip top shape. Unfortunately, their idea of tip top shape is not exactly the same as mine. Before I knew about the inspection at our school, I had heard about the one at Tangi's school because the vice-principal had her bring in her laptop so she could do mad amounts of paperwork for them. She said the day of the inspection was awesome because the kids had been so scared into behaving well that she had very productive lessons.

I knew something was up at my school when all the bulletin boards started changing. The school consists of two square blocks with courtyards in the middle. On each side of each of the three floors of the blocks is a bulletin board, minus the floor with the primary school, making a total of twenty boards, plus a few extras here and there. After having the same displays up since I visited the school in August before I started, that looked like they were already well past their prime, the boards were suddenly cleared. Kids showed up outside to hang new drawings with themes and many a spelling mistake, on topics like global warming, corruption, and love for your parents. Pre-made borders for bulletin boards don't exist here, so the kids make do by cutting very large sheets of colored paper into long strips, accordion folding and cutting it to make one long snowflake that they place around the edges. In addition to the boards in the halls, each classroom contained two small and one large bulletin board which also had to be decorated. When I say the past week and a half has been dedicated to decorating bulletin boards, I mean that every single day since I came back from Mumbai I've had students borrowing my scissors, cutting paper during class and going back and forth between class and the supply room to get paper like ants scurrying to a picnic. For the past three days, the art teacher has been directing the decoration, with three tenth grade boys in tow. To be clear: these three boys spent three whole days out of their class and decorating bulletin boards. Because of the inspection.  The icing on the cake came yesterday when I was teaching a class of seventh graders. When I walked in, the class teacher was there, and the kids were in full decorating mode, drawing and snipping and gluing away. I told them they could keep working on their stuff as long as they were sitting in their seats and not talking (as much as they can reasonably not talk). I had planned a whole lesson about Hanukkah, and was excited to be able to share such a fun and important part of who I am to kids who have never even heard about Judaism at all. The kids were surprisingly interested once I started talking about it; I drew a timeline of BC and AD, illustrating how Jesus was born in the year zero and Judaism began almost 2,000 years before that, which is why I don't celebrate Christmas (the main point of confusion, as "all Americans celebrate Christmas"). I had busted out my menorah, passing it around and showing the kids, when the class teacher entered the room, with two girls who had asked to go see her. "Please let them do their decorating," she said, and left. As soon as she said that, the kids jumped out of their seats, took out either their crafting materials or their homework, and set about doing whatever they wanted. I was so frustrated--there was no way I would regain control of the class in time to finish the lesson, and the teacher had just made it clear to the students that my class was of no importance compared to the crucial task of decorating the bulletin board. I just sat down and stopped talking. After about five minutes, one girl, Anju, came up to me. "Ma'am," she said, "you're not going to teach us?" I gestured to the chaos around the classroom and told her there was no way. "But those girls aren't decorating," she said, pointing to three girls in the back who were unoccupied. I told her that if she wanted, they could pull chairs up to the teacher's desk and I would tell them the rest of the Hanukkah story. Sure enough, five or six girls came up and squeezed into a few chairs to hear me speak. It was so sweet and validating, which made the teacher's interruption that much more irritating. How can it be that in a school, making the board nice is more important than education?

Then on the metro on the way home, a lady wanted to give me her seat during rush hour, when people will elbow you in the face if it means they will get a precious place to sit down. I was confused until she said, loudly, in the packed train car, "But you're pregnant, aren't you?" Nuff said. Though what I should have done was taken her seat and then told her I wasn't.

Straight lines, class monitors in front

Anyway, another way of preparing for the inspection is making sure the assembly is totally up to the highest military standards. On Friday, the morning assembly, which rarely lasts more than 15 minutes and has never gone over 25 minutes since I've been there, went on for two hours, skipping the first two periods. Why, you might ask? First, every kid "not wearing proper uniform" was made to stand on the other end of the field. You might think this would be embarrassing, except that literally half the school had to move. Girls whose hair was in any style other than two braids were considered in improper uniform. While the rebel one-braiders and colored sneaker-wearers stood in separate lines, the remaining students responded to the art teacher's barked commands of "Attention! Stand at ease!" by shuffling their feet together and apart. Then, as they do every morning, they sang the national anthem. Only I guess they didn't do it with enough spirit because they were made to sing it again, louder this time. And then again. Apparently the third try was acceptable because it was the last of the day, and I hoped this signaled, as it usually did, the end of the assembly. Not so! The entire school was told to shift and stand in lines parallel to, rather than perpendicular to, the concrete. When this was still too squished, the students were moved again to stand perpendicular, only this time on the other end of the field where they could spread out. Each time they moved, fifteen minutes were spent getting the lines perfectly straight and in order from shortest to tallest students within the class. Eventually, the uniform rebels joined the others, leading to more line rearranging and standing. After an hour and a half, one of the teachers told me to just go inside and have tea, which I happily obliged. The war that had been waged on one braid had succeeded--every single girl came in on Monday with their hair in two braids, even the sixteen year olds who looked like they had forgotten how old they were when they did their hair that morning. This video shows the insane "exercises" the kids do as part of their We Are The Perfect School routine:

The emphasis on what I feel are superficial attributes of the school really drives me crazy. There are so many kids who are struggling, who want to learn or maybe don't want to because there is no effort to reach them. Kids who are deemed less smart or good or capable or willing, for whatever reason, are given up on without a second thought and taken out of class for three days to decorate boards instead of preparing for their (life determining) exams. There was a staff meeting Friday afternoon during eighth period in which every teacher was present. To be clear: every teacher in the school, on a normally scheduled day, left their classes to sit at this meeting. The first item on the agenda, I kid you not, was the principal going around to every class teacher with his observations about the boards in their classroom. "8th B, border incomplete. 9th A very nice job. 7th A incomplete. 6th C needs plastic covers," etc... I wanted to scream! Is it really possible that the inspectors will come and say, "Well the school is alright but the border on the bulletin board in 8th A wasn't quite finished," or, "Gee, we'd love to pass you but so many girls had their hair in only one braid!"It's so frustrating to feel like I have so much that I can and want to give and just can't because teachers are coming in to tell me to stop the lesson to let the kids decorate the board, or what happened in my class later in the day when the class teacher came in the middle to escort all the students to get inoculations (another weird cultural difference--kids get immunizations and check ups at school). There is such a different conception of teacher vs. student responsibilities. During the lunch period, 10th and 11th graders are made to patrol the halls, making sure kids stay outside. And don't get me wrong--anyone I worked with at Clear View can tell you that I love me a good bulletin board and will spend lots of time creating them. But to prioritize the things that are marginally related to the overall objective of the school, which I'm pretty sure is always education, is to do a disservice to the children, and it's hard for me to stomach.

Today during my free period, I walked by an empty room off the foyer and saw through the large window the majority of my 8th A class (which I LOVE). They motioned for me to come inside, where they were sitting with their books around them doing "copying" work, which consists of them writing down verbatim the answers given to them by teachers to the questions in the book. I sat cross-legged on the floor with them and chatted, especially with a few boys that are smart and sweet and goofy. I suddenly felt a wave of sadness when I thought of having to say goodbye to them in a few months, with little hope of seeing or hearing about them again. At one point, the principal walked by, and all the kids quickly hushed up, until they saw him smile at the scene of me on the floor schmoozing with them.  Later, when I was signing out for the day, he told me how nice it was to see me spending time with them like that, how good it was that they were getting to know me better. It was the first genuine piece of positive feedback I've ever received from him. In India, you win some, you lose some, and you do your best to keep your priorities straight in the meantime.

Diwali at School

I've been doing so much traveling that I haven't had a chance to update you on what's going on in my Delhi life! Last Monday, before we left for Mumbai and the day before Diwali, we celebrated the holiday at school. Of course, half the students and teachers didn't show up that Monday because they were preparing for the holiday, but that's neither here nor there. Diwali is a festival of lights--the Hindi word for it is Deepavali, deep meaning light and avali meaning a row. The holiday is a big deal, especially in Delhi, where people light so many firecrackers in the weeks leading up to the holiday that if you closed your eyes, you'd swear you were in a war zone. It was more than a little terrifying....but so is India, I guess. There are several stories about why the festival is celebrated, most having to do with various gods slaying various demons. If it weren't for all the terrifying firecrackers wielded by children ages 0-30, it would be a really lovely holiday. 

Jyoti prepares the Diwali altar for the stage

Diwali altar

The kids were all abuzz with excitement, those in the chorus wearing white with red scarves.

Some of my girls were wearing fancy, sparkly saris in bright colors, while an eighth grade boy was walking around shirtless, dressed as Hanuman, the monkey god.

The assembly consisted of songs and dances, and was, from start to almost finish, adorable.

Sakshi and Prachi twirl it

The tinies did a dance too!

A group of my students from eight, ninth and tenth grades did an AMAZING dance that they choreographed themselves, portraying many major gods and representing their stories. Jasmeet, in the yellow pants was Ganesha, the shirtless Jaswinder is Hanuman, and others include Kali, Ram and Sita.

Final pose, displaying all the gods.
From left, Kali, Durga, Sita, Ram, Hanuman

The last 30 minutes of the assembly was a steady procession of teachers going to the podium to call other teachers on stage to thank them. The self-congratulatory display seemed like it would never end. 

Who doesn't love patting themselves on the back?

 In the few periods left after the assembly, my students busied themselves painting the plain clay diyas, oil lamps used to celebrate Diwali. Sometimes those kids just rock my world.

Love these littles.

These cuties made a Diwali display and then brought in teachers one by one
to surprise them by shouting "Happy Diwali!" when they entered. 

Mansi appreciates Madpreet's artistry

Finished diyas

In all, it was one of the best days at school I've had so far, and made me appreciate those kids all over again. To see the rest of my photos from Diwali at school, click here.

Marvelous Mumbai

Our week in Mumbai was wonderful. Though Kolkata was the capitol of the British Raj for most of its history, Mumbai has the nicest European architecture I've seen so far in India. Though many of the buildings were rundown, the city has wide, tree-lined avenues and a very cosmopolitan feel. 

Our trip began on the train--Hannah and I took an overnight train, while Tangi flew in the morning and met us. Our first stop after settling into the hostel was....Starbucks! 

Starbucks, our home away from home...

They've just opened two in Mumbai, and one was around the corner from where we stayed. We had some awesome sandwiches (so cheap, too! who knew?!) and the first iced coffee I've had in India that didn't taste like liquid sugar. We spent the day walking around the city, enjoying the architecture and each other's company. 

Gateway to India

Prince of Wales Museum

In the evening we met up with the three girls living in Kolkata, who were also in Mumbai for Diwali, and had DELICIOUS seafood at a restaurant recommended to me by my friend Sim. Then we went and sat on Chowpatty Beach, watching the fireworks for the festival explode all along the shore. When we first got there, we saw that many families were sitting on straw mats on the sand and were covetous.  No sooner did we wish for a mat of our own, two guys came running up to us, offering to rent us mats for 10 rupees. Sometimes the abundance of labor here is a blessing. The girls got tired, but Hannah and I wanted to stay out, so we had some more food and sat on the beach and just enjoyed the lovely night.

Incredible seafood at Trishna

Diwali festivities on Chowpatty Beach

The next day we took a cab to Mani Bhavan, the house where Gandhi lived and set up headquarters in Mumbai at the height of his activism, and where the authorities came to arrest him. The museum was small but very heartfelt, with his quotes and writings everywhere you looked. Talk about a life well-spent...

Gandhi's room

We then hopped in a cab to see the Dhobi Ghat, where hundreds of pounds of clothing are washed every day. In fact, the vast majority of Mumbai's clothes are washed here. It's quite a sight, men beating the dirt out of clothes by hand, giant wringers and stands full of laundry detergent.

Dhobi Ghat

 The next stop was Victoria Terminus, site of the dance scene at the end of Slumdog Millionaire, and an incredible colonial structure. We met up with the Kolkata girls and walked from there to Crawford Market, an indoor bazaar over 100 years old.

Victoria Terminus

Crawford Market

The next day we hopped on a ferry to Elephanta Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site for its ancient temple carvings in the rock of the island's natural caves. It was fairly crowded, but the weather was beautiful and the carving was amazing.

Shiva Trimurti: His three faces as Creator, Preserver and Destroyer

 For some reason, so many people on Elephanta, Indian tourists, mostly, asked to take our picture. It got very irritating, especially when we sat on the boat back to Mumbai, stuffing our faces with the sandwiches we'd brought and a group of women with kids started photographing us. But I digress. The sun set as we pulled into the harbor after our long day of walking. 

Taj Palace Hotel framed by Gateway to India 

The Ladies

That night we were supposed to take a bus to Aurangabad, from which we would depart for caves at Ajanta and Ellora. But India, humbling as ever, had other plans. When we got on the overnight bus, we realized it was non-AC. Poor Hannah, who gets very claustrophobic, nauseous and panicky on buses at the best of times, could not fathom being on that bus for ten hours, and back to the city center we went. We spent our last two days wandering the streets, shopping in the "suburbs" and eating more delicious food than we could have hoped for. But the story isn't over.

On Saturday at around 4PM, as we were resting in our hotel, Kara, one of the girls from Kolkata, gave me a call and said that a major politician had just died, and all the stores and restaurants were closing. If we wanted food or anything, she said, we would have to get it now. Having just eaten, we lay down to take naps and went to meet Tangi at her hotel when we woke up. We watched the news first, though, and saw that the deceased politician was Bal Thackeray, a far right leader who founded a party called Shiv Sena, to the right of the opposition party, the BJP. Not only was he a Hindu fundamentalist, he was a Marathi chauvinist, committed to the belief that the people of Maharashtra are superior (especially to neighboring Gujaratis). He was one of the key players in the renaming of Bombay to Mumbai and was held responsible for not a small number of violent attacks against Muslims. He encourages his followers to take action on issues by any means necessary and reportedly had huge power in the Mumbai underworld. Emerging back onto the street in the evening was like walking out the day after a zombie apocalypse. Shiv Sena supporters had called for a bundh, closing, of every business in Maharashtra to mourn the loss of their leader. No buses or taxis were running. Every restaurant was closed, even though we were in the most touristy night-life-y neighborhood in the city and it was 8PM on a Saturday night. The cinema was closed. The convenience stores and paan stands were bolted shut. A few families had congregated to sleep in the park, presumably because it was so quiet for once. We found out the next day that the few places that had tried to stay open were vandalized, their front windows broken and inventory destroyed. The three of us hung out in the hotel, as all the clubs and bars were closed (there goes the famous Bombay nightlife). 

The next morning we packed our stuff and headed to Tangi's, where we ordered room service--the only place we could find food! Our flight wasn't until 4PM but we left around noon, worried about the traffic caused by the all-day viewing of Thackeray's body and his cremation in the evening. There were still no cabs on the road and buses weren't running so we thought we might have to walk a mile to the train station. We found a cab driver who drove a plain car, who offered to take us for 2,500 rupees, when it had cost Tangi less than 400 on the way from the airport by meter. By a miraculous stroke of luck, the one black taxi in the city drove by and agreed to take us for 1,000. As we were on the highway, a motorcycle carrying three guys on it drove right up next to the cab and told the driver threateningly to get off the road before driving away. We made it to the airport in peace and plenty of time, but I certainly said a prayer for the kind cabbie who took a risk to take us. It's very scary that a relatively small group of people can cause through violence so much fear as to shut down an entire city, and one of the biggest in the world at that. I'm sure part of it was that police would also be too afraid of the supporters to take any action against them, not that Indian police are known for their selfless sense of duty in the first place. In any case, we were glad to leave when we did, but I'd go back to Mumbai in a heartbeat.

To see the rest of my photos, click here.
All best from Mother India,
xoxox

Tide Country

After the madness of Durga Puja, we couldn't wait to get out of the city. At the early stages of planning the trip, Patricia found an organized trip to the Sundarbans, so the plan had always been to spend the last two days enjoying some nature. The Sundarbans is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. It composes the largest river delta in the world, where the Ganges empties into the Indian Ocean, and straddles the border of India and Bangladesh. The forest is spread over hundreds of small islands throughout the delta, and the unique ecosystem has led to a wide variety of plant and animal life, including 26 types of mangrove trees, 260 types of birds, Bengal tigers, pythons, crocodiles, water monitors, dolphins and many more.

Mangroves at low tide.

Mangroves during mid-ebb.

Rising tide.
The line of color change indicates where the high tide reaches.

The water is mostly salty but not as saline as seawater, which makes many of the species endemic to that area. The mangroves are unusual in their ability to withstand saline water. There are several villages, mostly in the northern part of the Sundarbans, and the way of life there is very difficult. Many people still make their living through traditional fishing methods, and the isolated nature of the area makes these communities fairly traditional in general, with many people who have never left their villages. The Sundarbans are colloquially referred to as Tide Country, as the delta experiences not two but four tides per day. I'm not sure why this is the case, but every six hours, the tide is either at peak ebb or flow. When the tide is changing, the water level rises or falls six inches every hour, causing the landscape to change dramatically several times over the course of the day.

Scene from the drive to Gosaba from Kolkata

Lunch!

Sunset longboat ride

Our journey began in the morning, when we met up with the group and drove several hours to Gosaba, a village on the edge of the park. There were other people on the tour--several Indians, two Germans and three Belgians--who were very friendly and nice to talk to. The drive was beautiful, overlooking lush, green rice paddies, palm trees and thatched huts. In Gosaba we boarded a ferry, and enjoyed the two hour ride to the eco-village where we stayed. Consisting of a cluster of long, rectangular buildings, the village had been recently constructed by the guys who run the tour company, very sweet, fun, adventurous guys who are all related in some way (uncles, cousins, brothers), and just love that jungle so much that they wanted to find a way to be there every day. We put down our stuff and sat down to an incredible lunch of fish curry, vegetables and rice. Delish! By the time lunch was over and cleaned up, the sun was beginning to set, and we boarded these long canoes, rowed by one oarsman in the back of the boat with one long oar that propelled us through the quiet stillness of the water. We watched the sun set over the mangroves, and enjoyed the light dancing across the river's surface. When we returned to the village, we sat and listened to live traditional music, lounging on cushions and floor mats, watching one of the cooks do jaw-dropping yoga poses to the rhythm of the drum. We had some beers and listened to the night, enjoying the stars and sounds of the natural world. 

Sunset in the eco-village

High tide. The poles sticking out of the water have nets with bait strung between them.
Fish and crabs bite the bait and are stuck there for women to collect when the tide recedes. Brilliant!

We got started around six the next day, heading first to the park's information center to get permits and see the exhibit on the park ecology. The rest of the day was spent mostly on the boat, enjoying the sun and wind and views of the shore, glimpsing stunning birds, crocodiles and a water monitor. We didn't see a tiger, but our guide, who is there every day, said he has only seen five in his life. It was a beautiful, relaxing day, after the craziness of travel, Varanasi and Durga Puja. As the sun started to sink over the horizon, we headed to the village, where we took the most breathtaking rickshaw ride through a village, passing the most idyllic of landscapes, women in saris, children playing and innumerable goats and chickens. A ferry ride and a car ride with more than a few mishaps later, we were back in Kolkata, sleeping soundly and dreaming of mangroves and starry nights.
To see the rest of my photos, click this link and enjoy!

Goodbye, beautiful place