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! 

When To Let Go

So sorry for the delay in posting, but if it makes you feel any better, this post is twice as long! A major change happened in my life here, in the my roommate, Patricia, was forced to resign her grant and leave the country. Incidentally, this news came to me during my trip to Ladakh, a place in North India on the border with Tibet. Because these events happened at the same time, I couldn't separate them in my mind, and it made the most sense for me to write about it as one long post instead of two separate ones. To see the rest of my photos, click the link here or at the bottom of the post.

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Two weeks of vacation! For those of you that might not be aware, I finished working as an assistant teacher at Clear View on a Friday and flew to India for the Fulbright the following Sunday. While we'd had a few long weekends since we arrived at the end of june, the last time I had more than three or four days off work was my spring break in April. After much deliberation over where to go with the two weeks I had been gifted thanks to exams the kids had to take, I decided to go north. I booked a flight to Leh, the largest city in Ladakh,  region in the northeast corner of India, right on the border with Tibet in the Himalayas. I thought I might want to see Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, and the flight back to Delhi was so much cheaper from there that I booked it and figured I would spend a few days there before heading back. Hannah and Tangi wanted to stay in Delhi to save money and work on their applications, and Patricia's break started the week before mine, since her school runs on a different schedule. Patricia is super outdoorsy, and really wanted to go on a trek in Kashmir, a troubled region of the country that many argue is the most beautiful place in India. Kashmir is on the border with Pakistan and has a serious political history, but Indian people have profusely encouraged me to go there, shrugging off warnings. Srinagar is one of the few places my students have visited outside of Delhi, and my friend Sári, whom I lived and volunteered with in Northern Ireland, had an incredible experience there. During our orientation, Vinita, one of the program administrators, had told us not to go to Kashmir, in the context of many things we were and were not supposed to do in India. We were not to go to Kashmir. We were not to go to Palika Bazaar. We had to wear salwar kameez to school. It was unsafe to eat fruit and vegetables on the street without washing and peeling it. They were warnings we took seriously, but also with the understanding that they are going to give us lots of extra precautions, if only to protect their own reputations lest something should God forbid happen to us. And so we took some of these warnings with a grain of salt, and when Patricia and I  thought about going to Kashmir, we considered that we had been told not to go, and decided that what USIEF didn't know wouldn't kill them.

Patricia is a tough cookie, having traveled in India by herself several times. When Hannah and I went to Shimla, Patricia had gone to Ladakh by herself and had an incredible experience.  And so Patricia hopped on a plane to Srinagar at 5AM on a Friday morning and we wished her well and were not particularly concerned about her. What we didn't expect was to receive a travel advisory that afternoon from the American Embassy in Delhi, warning US citizens that people in Srinagar had begun protesting the Innocence of Muslims video, that Americans posted in Kashmir were being evacuated, and that it would be risky for Americans to travel there at this time. Hannah and I were headed that afternoon for Jaipur, so I didn't get the email until later, but Hannah and Tangi called me from home to let me know and to ask if I thought we should contact USIEF to let them know that Patricia was in Kashmir. My opinion at the time was that it Patricia is smart and savvy and was anyway headed on a trek and would unlikely still be in Srinagar anyway. We had no way of reaching her, though we tried emailing her on the off-chance that she would check it. My thought was that USIEF would make a big deal out of her going, that there was nothing they could do and would therefore panic upon not being able to reach Patricia, and that if the situation was bad, Patricia would see it and come home. I was not in favor of telling USIEF but I of course understood why the other girls wanted to and was not going to tell them not to. For what it's worth, I also thought about the travel advisory having lived in Israel and Northern Ireland two places that outsiders would consider "high risk" and "dangerous" because of political conflict, but that really are safe places on an everyday basis. Of course if anything happens in Kashmir, the US is going to take every precaution ever, but that doesn't mean the sky is falling and it doesn't necessarily reflect what is actually happening on the ground.

By Saturday, the protests had continued and I read an article online reporting that tear gas had been fired.  At this point I got nervous and really wanted to hear from Patricia, but, again, I knew she was probably camping and out in nature somewhere. Meanwhile, after Tangi contacted USIEF  on Friday to notify them of Patricia's whereabouts, the staff were completely panicked, and called some of us several times over the weekend to see if we had heard from her. Finally, on Monday night as we walked from the metro to the groom's house in our Indian finery, my phone rang and Patricia was on the other end of the line. I was so relieved to hear her voice I could have cried. I yelled to the others that it was Patricia and immediately asked if she was alright and told her how worried we'd been.  I found out later that she had indeed been in the mountains, had returned and decided Kashmir was not where she wanted to be, and had decided to go to Ladakh early the next morning, where she would meet me. She'd had no idea that the unrest in Srinagar was considered so serious until she heard how relieved I was on the phone that night. Patricia gave me the phone numbers of the guy who was driving her to Leh and her friend in Leh whom she'd met there on her previous trip. I asked if I could forward the numbers to USIEF and then promptly called them to report that she was fine and give them her contact information.

The next day I flew to Ladakh, arriving at the airport early to get a window seat, passing out on the flight and opening my eyes to a spectacular view of the Himalayas sprawled out before me. Emerging from the tiny airport into the crisp, dry air of the mountains, I shared a cab with two Hungarians and two Israelis that I saw were waiting for cabs and headed into Leh. Patricia had told me on the phone to stay in the guest house she had recommended to me and that she would find me there or at the office of her tour guide friend whose number she had given me. I trudged, exhausted having not slept the night before between the wedding and my early flight, into the guest house, and promptly fell asleep.

Six hours later I emerged from my happy cocooon, got dressed and walked into the town center to meet Stanzin, Patricia's friend.  Stanzin runs a tour and travel agency called Ecological Footprint. I easily found his office and he greeted me warmly before telling me that Patricia had called to say she would not be coming, that she had decided to return to Delhi from Srinagar. Disappointed but not crushed, Stanzin took me to dinner at a pizza place down  the street, where a lot of the tour guides, young guys mostly from all over northern India, hang out at the end of the day.  We sat outside in the chilly air, shivering a little but enjoying the warmth from the bonfire the guys sat around nearby. You could see so many stars, and when I walked back to the guest house after dinner the sky was a beautiful navy blue, the mountains lit up by the moon. Ladakh has an unusual climate, semi-desert at a very high altitude so it gets very cold and snowy in the winter. Water is scarce and precious and the city of Leh is very conscious of its lean ecological resources. There is a very clean and effective system of irrigation in which water is carefully guided from mountain streams through canals that run alongside the streets throughout the towns.  People respect that this water is intended for use, and in general the baby canals that course downhill are pristine. Drinking water is bought or filtered, but residents can frequently be seen kneeling by the water outside their homes, doing laundry, washing dishes or filling jugs to water their gardens and vegetable patches. When you walk there at night, you can hear the water quietly running beside you, like a guide to accompany you along the way.

I awoke the next morning, having decided to leave the guest house in search of somewhere more central, packed my stuff and headed out. I walked through the town center, crowded with shops filled with cheesy embroidered shirts, Pashmina shawls, Tibetan silver, trekking gear and prayer flags galore. Walking down Changspa road, a touristy area with lots of lodging, I found one that had been recommended by my guide book but didn't get a good feeling about it. I kept walking, following signs to a row of guest houses that looked fine, and lingered for a minute, not knowing which to approach. Looking up, I saw a man filling several gallons of water from the concrete stream beside the house, wearing a straw hat and big green rubber rain boots. When he saw me standing there, he asked if I needed a place to stay and ushered me through the wooden gate leading to the guest house he runs with his wife. I watched him water the plants in the garden as I went inside. Standing in front of me was a gorgeous, hugely pregnant Ladakhi woman wearing a long grey sweater, round face glowing with her smile and her black hair tied back. She showed me the room I could stay in, consented when I asked for a lower price than she offered, and went to tend to her mother-in-law. This second woman had maybe the most wrinkled face I've ever seen, with about three teeth in her mouth, hanging for dear life and two long, black braids down her back, tied together at the bottom to form a v. She smiled at me, her hands full of flowers she had just cut from the garden out back, full of marigolds, daisies and dahlias.

The ascent...

Feeling settled, I headed out and walked down the road towards Shanti Stupa, a Zen Buddhist shrine built on the mountain by some Japanese monk(ey)s. Following Changspa road down as far as it would go, I came upon the stairs leading upward and braced myself before beginning the journey towards the white dome above. The climb took me a while, as I ascended slowly and frequently lost my breath. The sky was so brilliantly blue and cloudless that it almost hurt to look at it. On the way up I met two middle-aged dentists from Colorado who had come to Ladakh on a "dental mission" (their words, not mine), offering free dental services to children.  They said that there is one dentist for every 20,000 people or so in this part of the country, which made sense to me as I recalled the dreadful state of some of the teeth I'd seen in the past 24 hours. After that I started noticing peoples' teeth more, thinking about how painful and difficult would be to have a dental emergency anywhere near here.

Shanti Stupa

In any case, I reached the top and just stood in awe of the view for a while before walking clockwise around the stupa a few times. I soaked in the sun and the incredible vista, drinking my water and taking photos, conversing with a Canadian guy on vacation and removing my shoes before climbing the stairs. I watched visitors below me hike the stairs I had just finished climbing, felt the wind on my face, and turned around to head down.  Descending took me no time at all, and I walked to a restaurant I had seen on the way up. Starving by this point, I ordered the first thing I saw on the menu--eggs--and sat enjoying the ability to breathe again. Seated at the table next to me were two students from England, and we soon were chatting about our experiences in India and plans for Ladakh.

Where the Zanskar merges with the Indus

On the way back into town from lunch, I bumped into the Hungarian guys I had met the day before, who told me they had been very ill since arriving. We set a time and place to have dinner together and then I continued on my way to meet up with Stanzin. We set up a trip for the next day to drive in a jeep to Khardung La, the highest motorable pass in the world, and mountain bike down back to Leh. By pure coincidence, on my way to use the bathroom at a restaurant I bumped into both the Hungarians and the British guys and told them there was space available in the jeep, and that they should join. I returned to Ecological Footprint and Stanzin took me for a drive, winding between the mountains, to the place where the Zanskar River merges with the Indus. It was cool to see the Indus River, something I remembered from learning about the river valley civilizations in school.  The light in Ladakh is amazing--the sky is so unbelievably blue and the sun so bright that it makes colors stand out and shadows define the rocky curves in a beautiful way. You can see an actual line where the rivers merge--there is a line where the currents run into each other, and when I saw the same spot later on, I realized that the rivers were also two different colors. The Indus headwaters are in Tibet, so the river is still pristine in Ladakh. We sat at a cafe overlooking the scene and had chai, Stanzin chugging his and moving on to black tea before I had finished half of mine. We turned around and drove back, listening to John Mayer and watching the colors fade in the dusk around us.

Back in town, I decided to check my email, not only to make sure Patricia had made it safely to Delhi but also because I had so wished Patricia had checked her email before she went trekking. This was the email waiting in my inbox from Hannah:

Hey girl. If you get this message, please please call one of us or message us back. They are revoking Tricia's grant and she has to leave by this weekend. We are in shock and just got the news. I hope this message reaches you.

Love,
Hannah

My first thought was that it must be a mistake. How could they revoke her grant when she was violating a rule that was mentioned in passing? It honestly did not occur to me at that time that this would actually happen. It seemed so absurd that I really did not take it seriously deep down. I left the internet cafe and met up with the Hungarians, feeling completely shocked and taken aback but really not as concerned as I might have been had I really understood the situation. I had a nice time at dinner, the Hungarian guys, Tamas and Balasz were good company and I chose not even to bring up the issue that I was completely preoccupied with. I tried to call the girls on Skype for more information but couldn't get through. That night I slept very poorly, waking up several times and worrying about Patricia, wondering what had happened, what she would do, what our room would look like without her. In the morning I went straight to Stanzin's office, told him what I had found out and borrowed his phone to call Patricia. Fortunately, she answered, on the metro on the way to another meeting at USIEF. She explained everything that had happened--Vinita had called her the night she got in touch with me, told her to take the next plane back to Delhi, and had her come to USIEF for a meeting first thing the next morning. Patricia went in for the meeting with Vinita and Maansi, the program administrators and Adam Grotsky, the executive director of USIEF. Adam asked whether she knew she wasn't supposed to go to Kashmir, to which she replied honestly that she remembered Vinita mentioning it but had understood it as a warning and not as a rule set in stone. In so many words, he proceeded to tell her that the ambassador was moving to revoke her grant and that she could either resign her Fulbright and retain alumna status or wait and challenge the decision, which he described as "postponing the inevitable." Patricia asked for some time to think about it and consult with people outside of USIEF before making a decision and they told her she had until the morning. An hour later, Maansi called Patricia to tell her she had to return to USIEF to resign immediately or she would definitely have her grant revoked. Feeling completely backed into a corner, Patricia sent in her resignation. Nowhere in the Fulbright ETA handbook does it mention travel to Kashmir being prohibited, nor is it written in our contract that we signed. In fact, this "rule" was not found written anywhere that we could find--not on the website or any USIEF materials we have seen. Of course Patricia could have waited and challenged the decision. But all of a sudden she was in a position in which the people whose job had been presented to us as being for support were kicking her out, and I can't say I would have done anything differently if I had been in her place (which I very well could have been). And the truth is that if the Ambassador of the United States to India wants to take away your Fulbright, I think there is very little that you can do to stop it. Patricia was made an example of, punished for the terrible timing of her trip and for the failure of USIEF to make their rules and grant conditions clear. On the phone with her in Leh, I became so angry and upset, and yet still did not understand how final this decision was. Patricia told me that I didn't have to come home, that she wanted me to enjoy my stay in Ladakh, that we would speak again before she left. I took her words at face value, went inside, wrote a clearly articulated email to Adam practically begging him to let her keep her Fulbright, and rode up the mountain with two Hungarians and a Brit.

We drove up, up and upwards, the bikes in the bed of the truck, taking pictures around every curve of the vast and beautiful expanse below us, marvelling at the snow becoming more abundant as we climbed, bracing ourselves when the paved road ended and we jerked and bounced up along the gravelly last stretch, pocked with potholes and unfinished repairs. We emerged from the jeep at the top and I really felt the effects of ascending 1,835 meters (6,020 feet) in an hour.

View from the top of Khardung La

I want to be friends with whoever decided to put up this sign.

I felt very dizzy and light-headed and my felt a sharp pain in my head. The Hungarian guys were worried about me and were very sweet, offering to accompany me in the jeep to start at a lower altitude. We went into the little cafe there, had some chai and schmoozed for a bit, and I felt completely better within a few minutes.   It was freezing at the top; there was snow and ice everywhere and I was so glad I had layered well when I got dressed. I took out the gloves and hat that I had brought (a godsend!) and, of course, took 263487467 pictures before we headed on our way.

Fellow adventurers! From left, Robin, Tamas and Balasz

We all started slowly, taking turns being in front, turning carefully around curves and stopping every 100 feet to take pictures of the incredible landscape. But it soon became clear that I was the not going to speed up from my grandmotherly pace, and the boys went ahead, stopping to wait for me every kilometer or so.  The jeep driver stayed with us the whole time, following us slowly in the car and helping us (read: me) when our gears shifted randomly on their own and we had to pull over to let truckers pass. The road was extremely uneven, very rough and completely  covered with what looked like they would be great moguls for skiing but were less than ideal for a Jew with a penchant for sloth. I went ridiculously slowly (seriously, it might have been faster to walk), and focused all my energy on keeping the bike upright.  I braked more than I didn't brake and was very careful to stay as far on the inside as possible while keeping on the left side of the road (India, remember?). I concentrated so hard on going downhill without falling that any muscles not already tense from being on a mountain bike were tighter than ever. My hands hurt from gripping the handlebars over the rocky terrain and my knees were sore from being bent for so long. The unpaved part composed about the first third of the journey in distance but took over two hours to complete. I counted the kilometers on the signs to the small army rest stop where the paved road began again, and was able to open my eyes enough when I stopped for photos to take in the astounding view around me. The boys continued to wait patiently for me every so often, giving me a bench mark of my progress, and when we got the the rest area, Robin decided to go on ahead back to Leh. At this point it was between four and five o'clock and we had less than two hours before dark. We carried on, knowing we could jump in the jeep if it got too dark. But suddenly, the road was smooth and paved, and there were very few cars around us. Riding the bike became like flying, the crisp, sweet mountain air rushing in my face, rounding the mountain and circling down, enjoying a completely different view at every turn and altitude. It was so beautiful it almost hurt my eyes and brain to look at it, the late afternoon light outlining the textures of the mountains, highlighting the colors and drawing long shadows across the earth. Sometimes the few clouds in the sky would move and cast different dark shapes on the ground, sometimes we would round a bend and see the whole side of the mountain covered in green grass and trees, sometimes the other side revealed arid hills in ochres and umbers without a spot of green. My whole body ached like one giant bruise, but I didn't want the ride to end.  Tamas and Balasz kept waiting for me, even after they had said they would go ahead. No longer as consumed by the fear of falling, I coasted downhill, letting myself go faster and lifting my head to look at the scenery instead of the road beneath me. I took off my sunglasses, squinting but happy to see the full colors of the countryside. I let go of the fear once the bigger risk was gone, and felt so present in that moment, in joy from my surroundings, in companionship from new friends, in soreness throughout my limbs, in gratitude for the experience. We got back to Leh before dark, following behind the jeep to get to return our bicycles at the office and relishing our last moments on these grounded wings. We agreed to meet for dinner, and I went back to my room to rest a bit. I lay on the bed for twenty minutes, not moving or sleeping but just enjoying being still and allowing my muscles to relax for the first time in hours. (Can you tell how bad I am at physical anything?) I wanted to check my email before dinner to see if I got a response from Adam. Deep down, I was sure--sure--that Adam would read my email, see how ludicrous it was to make Patricia leave and revoke the revocation. The circumstances were so illogical, I couldn't believe how any educated, smart person could read my email and not agree with me or at least doubt the decision enough to reverse it. But the message in my inbox was terse. He acknowledged my "emotional reaction" and defended his actions by saying that Patricia's safety and welfare was always the "first priority." I got a second email from Hannah, to whom I had sent the email as well, who really laid it out for me. "I don't know if there's anything we can say or do to affect Adam in the slightest," she said. "Based on everything that has happened, everything Tricia has been going through, there's nothing we can do but comfort her and show our support for her to USIEF." At that point I realized that there was no reversing this decision, that it was set in stone, that she would be leaving the country by Monday and our room would be half empty for the rest of the year. I started crying then, and my immediate thought was that I had to ignore what Patricia had said and just come back to Delhi. I knew Hannah and Tangi would really be having a hard time too, and I just wanted to be together so we could have time with each other before Patricia had to go. I showed up in tears at Stanzin's office and he patted my back and said "don't cry" in the most genuine, least comforting manner in the history of consolation.

The next day there was a strike throughout India in protest of a big hike in gas and diesel prices.  Every store and restaurant was closed, making it impossible to get Patricia a gift or get a breakfast more hearty than the granola bars I had brought from Delhi. The other issue was that I couldn't use the internet to get a ticket home because all the internet cafes were closed! I met up with Stanzin, who drove me to the airport where he "knows a guy" and though his friend wasn't there, the woman at the ticket office was a schoolmate of his from way back. She booked me a ticket for the following morning, for a price lower than any I had seen on the internet, and I felt an immediate sense of relief, knowing when I would be seeing my roommates again. Stanzin took me to his house, where I sat on the porch with his 97-year-old grandfather, a wizened man with beautiful, weathered hands and eyes that shone with life. He wore a long, heavy, brown, woolen tunic and sat in an easy chair next to an untouched glass of yak butter tea. The well-tended garden had the biggest marigolds I've ever seen, and  view of the mountains. A photo of the Dalai Lama hung from pole holding up the roof in the center of the porch. Stanzin brought me some (delicious Indian) food, for which my starving stomach was so grateful! We relaxed for a bit and then he dropped me in town while he had stuff to do. 

On the set...

I walked past the town's main mosque and climbed up the stairs to Leh Palace, where Ladakhi kings were based for hundreds of years. In the courtyard of the adjacent Buddhist temple, a film was being shot, requiring twenty or so people to stand around dressed in full, traditional Ladakhi/Tibetan attire (fur hats included) in the midday sun. Walking quietly past the security guard to avoid the lame entry fee (teehee), I headed into the palace. You can tell it was once a hopping place, with beautiful windows and doorways and room after room.  But the lack of maintenance shows in the building--most of the rooms are empty, dank and dark, and even the small prayer room which was the only room that seemed to have any upkeep was dusty and a little creepy. But the views were lovely and when I left I began climbing stairs to get to Tsemo Fort, another landmark from which you can see for miles around. The sun was hot and the path was dusty and I had not eaten a lot or had much to drink, because everything had been closed all day. I got about two-thirds up the mountain and went to a rocky ledge to see the other side of the mountain. It was still quite a climb to the fort and I was tired, but I didn't want to give up on going. I didn't want to have the feeling of coming so close and not reaching my destination, my goal. I sat for a while and rested, taking in the blue of the sky and the dry breeze and the sun's gentle heat. I was tired, emotionally and physically. Why did I feel obligated to finish doing something I was not compelled to do? And then I let go. I let go of wanting to finish the hike just for the sake of finishing it, I let go of needing to prove to myself that I can do it on my own, and I let go, for that moment, of needing to control my experience. I thought about Patricia, how soon she would be out of the country, away from our community, leaving behind what she had built here over the past few months--relationships with her kids, plans to see new places. I had already let go of the idea that there was anything I could do to keep her here, and now I was letting go of the old truth that I was still hanging on to, that she would be in India for the rest of the grant. It sounds melodramatic, like she was dying or something (which thank God she wasn't!), but it really felt and continues to feel like such a huge loss. When you've become part of a family that supports each other and spends time together the way we have, it really feels like you're losing them when they are removed from that situation.

Feeling more relaxed and affirmed, I headed back down the mountain. At the bottom of the trail a couple from Canada and Australia asked me for directions.  We began chatting and ended up conversing for more than half an hour, asking each other about travels in India and the rest of the world, listening to each others' stories. It occurred to me that I would not have met them had I finished my intended route to the top. I'm sure had I finished the walk I would have met some other really cool couple, seen some other great views. I'm not trying to say "things happen for a reason," a cliche that I really hate and don't agree with. But I do think that decisions we make, however arbitrary, and coincidences that happen often have meaningful unintended consequences. I didn't turn around for the purpose of meeting those nice people, but it was a lovely result that I was glad to have happen.

I made my way through the winding streets of Leh back to Ecological Footprint to meet Stanzin and his friend, Pina. They came out and as they were about to move a giant boulder out of the way of the car, which had been blocked in. We heard some yelling and chanting and two minutes later, hundreds of Muslim schoolchildren were passing with signs saying things like "Down with Israel," "Boycott the US,"and "My Prophet, My Honor." It was bizarre to see so many children shouting such political slogans, nothing violent or threatening, but I was glad I was not on my own then. After the groups of kids, still in their green and white school uniforms, marched past, there was a group of adult men taking part in the protest as well.  I wondered how Israel got dragged into this video catastrophe, and what these children understand about the Middle East.

Monastery with a view

Stanzin, Pina and I got in the car and headed outside the city. We passed the meeting place of the Indus and the Zanskar, sailing by mountains, desert, and not a small number of goats and cows. After our obligatory chai stop (Stanzin is a chai-drinking machine!), we drove to a small village with a monastery. The sun was low in the sky, making the shadows long and the air hazy. We were the only people there, taking in the scenery, climbing on the roof to admire the view, removing our shoes to enter the prayer room painted with murals depicting reincarnation and lotus flowers, stacked floor to ceiling with cabinets containing written scrolls of mantras. The colors everywhere were the colors of Tibetan Buddhism--yellow, blue, green, red and white, symbolizing different buddhas or states of mind. We walked around to the side and saw the giant blue seated Buddha, adorned with lotus roots and gold symbols I didn't recognize.  We crossed the street and entered the courtyard of the monastery's small school for boys, with kids that looked about eight to eleven years old, running around and playing in their monk-like vermilion robes. Stanzin played with them and I shook their hands and admired their smiles. On the way out, Stanzin ran into a monk he knew through his uncle, also a monk. He invited us into his room, a small space with a packed dirt floor outside and a concrete floor in the small area where his bed and stove were. 

In the monk's house

He made us chai on the stove, pouring condensed milk from the can into the pot, stirring while Stanzin looked at the photos on his computer of his recent trip to Chile to meet with Buddhists there and create a sand mandala for a charity auction. The shelves around his bed were piled with books and manuscripts, scrolls written in Tibetan, and the view through the tiny window showed the mountains, half in afternoon shadow, contrasted against the brilliant sky. What an experience--to sit in the hut of a Buddhist monk in Ladakh, drinking chai and looking at photographs on a laptop of his journey halfway around the world.

We headed back towards Leh, watching the sun set over the desert and listening to Coldplay and Tom Petty. We headed towards dinner, bumping into Robin and Rory on the way and asking them along. I was STARVING, having eaten only a granola bar and the small meal at Stanzin's in the morning, and ate my noodles with delight. The power was out so we ate by candlelight in the full restaurant. After dinner, I said goodbye to Stanzin and thanked him profusely for his kind hospitality and help during my stay. Back at the guest house, I approached the family to settle my bill, as I would be leaving early the next morning and didn't want to wake them. They sat around eating their dinner, asking me about my stay in Leh. Suddenly, the grandmother got up and went outside, coming back a minute later bearing apples from the tree outside, and putting them in my hands to take.

I slept well but briefly, and watched the sun rise over the mountains in the small airport. The security was insane there! I had to pass through three metal detectors at three separate stages before getting on the plane! I was so relieved to be returning to Delhi, so excited to see my roommates and have time together before Patricia left. I watched the landscape shrink beneath me as we ascended, falling asleep and waking up upon landing. 

I had called Hannah to tell her I was returning, but had told her to keep it a secret from Patricia, so when I walked in, Patricia's face lit up and she jumped up to give me a hug. Hannah was relieved to see me too--the past few days had clearly taken a toll on her and Tangi, and they looked exhausted. I put my stuff down, showered, and cleaned the kitchen, wanting to be useful and do something nice for the girls, all of whom had been through so much during the week. Patricia spent some time organizing and packing, and, after a failed attempt at mailing two boxes back to Seattle, Patricia, Hannah and I went to a cafe in the market. We spent two hours there, just hanging out and chatting, taking photos and enjoying each other's company. In the evening, the four of us and Sean  went to a delicious South Indian restaurant in Hauz Khas, near our house, and feasted on vegetable korma, chicken curry and spicy lamb. We went to two different cafes afterwards looking for cheesecake, settling on one but ending up disappointed by the product. The five of us crammed in an auto on the way home, squeezing and sitting on laps to make it work. Patricia finished making cards for every class she taught, Sean worked on his card for Patricia and Hannah and I hid notes in her luggage for her to find later. We just sat together, Hannah eventually falling asleep and Sean leaving around 1AM. Patricia and I watched some Friday Night Lights together, and then it was 2:00 and her taxi was waiting outside the gate. She hugged Tangi and Hannah and they walked her out the door while I helped take her luggage to the end of the street where the taxi waited. We loaded her bags and hugged for a while and then she got in the taxi and was gone. 

I was tearful for much of the next day, spending my time rearranging the furniture in my now single occupancy room, as the empty bed was too depressing, and cleaning the living room floor. Cleaning makes me feel useful and took my mind off of what I couldn't stop thinking about. I moped pretty much all day, and then woke up Monday morning with a determination to do something. 

Not having Patricia here really sucks. We miss her a lot, and I know it's painful for her to not be here. She's spending a month in Tanzania, visiting her boyfriend from college, relaxing and presumably processing the crazy whirlwind that culminated in her leaving the country. It's funny to think about how this event meshed with my trip to Ladakh, my thoughts about letting go that arose both from saying goodbye to Patricia and from going somewhere by myself, having adventures that I shared with people I may never see again and yielding my need to have things under control. This chapter of my time here was unexpected and painful, and I am still waiting for some joyful unintended consequences. But I was so lucky to have had Patricia as my roommate these past few months, and I treasure the friendship that remains.

To view the rest of my photos of Ladakh, click here and enjoy!

Sending much love from Mother India,

xox

Storm Before the Calm

Well, faithful readers, start planning your activities for the five extra minutes of free time you'll have this week, as I am leaving Delhi for six days and will probably be off the grid for all or most of that time, and will therefore not be posting.  Hannah and I leave tomorrow for Chandigarh, a city a few hours north of here, which happens to be the capital of two states--Haryana and Punjab.  From there we will head to the hill station of Shimla, where the British Raj used to move their capital to in the summer when Calcutta and then Delhi was too hot.  After a few days there we will go to another hill station called Mussoorie, (not Missouri, though that was confusing to me at first), and depart back to Delhi from Dehra Dun. We have Wednesday off for Indian Independence Day (wahoo!) and Friday and Monday off for Eid al Fitr.  Man, do Indians love celebrating.  The traditional Independence Day activity is flying kites, and random stores all over the cities have been selling simple kites and string for the past few weeks. It's pretty wonderful to see children playing with actual objects like kites and tops and homemade paper boats, rather than the standard recreational diet of video games and virtual reality in the US.  There are video games here too, but kids of all ages and backgrounds seem to love just being outside, playing cricket and flying kites.  The Independence Day tradition, so I'm told, is to try to cut down other people's kites with your own, which seems to me like the easiest, fastest way to make a kid cry.  Hopefully I will be able to see some kite flying in Chandigarh!

School continues to chug along and is starting to go by more and more quickly. Last week I was pretty shaken up when some of the boys in my class were misbehaving and the gym teacher, also in charge of "discipline" entered the room after either hearing the commotion or seeing that I had sent kids outside.  The boys had been fooling around, throwing water on each other and not paying attention, as 13 year old boys are apt to do, but the gym teacher came in, asked the student monitor what happened, and proceeded to slap the shit out of five or six boys.  He pulled each one up by the ear to face him, slapped their faces two or three times and then hit them on the back.  At one point he was about to hit a student who hadn't been involved and the rest of the class cried out "No! Not him!" and so he was spared.  Then the gym teacher (whose name I don't know, can you tell?) smiled at me as he walked out of the room, as if to say "you're welcome." I felt so uncomfortable and shocked, even though I had been warned this would likely happen.  Being made aware of it ahead of time doesn't prepare you to witness a grown man physically assaulting children in front of their peers.  That day in our English Language Teaching seminar with the other Fulbrighters, I totally broke down and cried.  Today I was doing an activity with the kids, having them act out verbs like eating, sitting, standing, running, jumping.  When they got a little loud, a senior teacher who seems to function like a vice principal came into the class and screamed at them, made them move their desks around causing the most earsplitting screeching as the table legs scraped across the hard linoleum.  He slapped a kid across the face who had been helpful to me earlier in translating for kids who didn't understand what I'd said and quieting students.  After the teacher left I apologized to the students for letting them get so loud...I know they are used to being treated like this by adults, but I don't want any part of it, and I am struggling to distance myself from that behavior and institution while maintaining the respect of both the kids and the staff.

I'm definitely getting better at controlling the class, little by little, despite the massive language barrier. It's super hard, though, like when a child misbehaves and I want them to know that I would like them to stay in my class, that I don't want to send them out, that I value their contributions.  Getting used the the CONSTANT ma'am-ing is tough, too.  Even when they raise their hands, they do so while standing up and yelling--yelling--Ma'am!Ma'am!Ma'am! They also get so out of control so quickly; not even Clear View could have prepared me for it.  I tried teaching the Hokey Pokey the other day and the "turn yourself about" part cause such an inordinate amount of chaos, I had to stop the activity. In general, working at Clear View has been super helpful in preparing me for the roller coaster of feeling deeply satisfied with my work and the next moment deeply inadequate.  I miss the support of working with a team and having the time and space to build relationships with students and help them achieve their potential.  It's funny because my experience at Clear View has affected my perspective such that most of my favorite students here are the naughty ones, the boys who I constantly see sent out of other teachers' classes, whose lack of effort in class and humor and bravado mask all the insecurities of adolescent boyhood.  My favorite kid might be Rishabh, an 8th grader who looks about 9, with ears that stick straight out of his head an impish grin, and (I swear!) a twinkle in his eye.  I always see him standing outside his classroom when I walk around the school, having been kicked out for talking or being idle or fighting.  He knows I think he's awesome because I am always so happy to see him, and I know he likes me because he gives me that loopy grin and really tries to speak English to me, despite his very limited level of comprehension and speaking ability.  Today in class he moved on his own to sit towards the front of the class (next to a girl! ew!) because his neighbors at his seat were talking and he couldn't hear me and wanted to participate.  He wrote a paragraph about cricket in the most poorly constructed grammar I may ever see, but I was so proud of him I just kept telling him how great it was, and he even volunteered to read it to the class!  I know I need to correct their work and tell them what they're doing wrong, but it feels like such a privilege to me to be able to have these kids without any strings attached in terms of having to grade or examine them, that I really want to focus on just building up their confidence and making them feel OK about whatever level they're at.  There is so much emphasis here on quantitive success and there are so many children in each class and so few teachers that it seems like the kids that struggle or lack internal motivation are given up on pretty easily, as there are so many who are motivated and perform better that it seems logical to direct the precious resources towards them.  At the end of the day, I would rather them feel comfortable speaking English poorly than say only perfect sentences, but so rarely that they cannot carry even a simple conversation.  As it is, I think it's hard for teachers also to get out of the mind frame of rewarding those who can achieve at the expense of those who can't.  There's less of the sense we have in the US that a kid can Do Anything! Follow Their Dreams! Choose Their Destiny!  Roles are ridiculously specific and well-defined, and I think it's pretty hard for people--kids and adults alike--to think or dream on the periphery of these set options.  Please do not mistake this observation for a judgement but rather as a commentary on why it's difficult to get kids to have confidence in themselves when it comes to doing or trying something not evaluated numerically.

Every day at school brings new adventures, sometimes good and sometimes terrifying and sometimes so unpleasant or sweet or confusing.  I get laughed at a lot, my Hindi is brutally mocked by the kids, and I scared the bejesus out of an 8th grade class today when I recounted the biblical story of my name, tent spike hammered into head and all. If any of you were worried about me getting a big ego over here, just picture me sweating my patooties off, with pit stains the size of dinner plates and chalk all over my salwar kameez (read: genie pants with long tunic shirt), standing in front of a class of 35 14-year-olds, doing the hokey pokey and getting laughed at and aped when I try in vain to say "please be quiet Anubhav/Taranjeet/Nikhil/Gaurav/Abhishek/Rithik/Geetanjali/whatever other name I can't pronounce. Show some respect to me and your classmates."

Wish me luck on my next adventure...and my upcoming trip!:)
Sending much love from Mother India....
xoxox

New Site, New Sights

Namaste! Welcome to this blog, an exploration of my adventures as I explore this crazy world and experience for myself just how big or small it really is.  To those of you who have followed this blog in the past, welcome back, and I will sincerely try not to drop off the face of the internet after the first three months, as I clearly did in Northern Ireland.  For those of you slightly out of the loop (or senile?), I have been fortunate to receive a Fulbright to spend the next nine months teaching English in a public school in New Delhi, India to children in grades 6-8.  The Fulbright is a government grant, founded by Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright in 1948, with the aim of sending US citizens abroad and bringing foreign nationals to the US, to teach or conduct research, in order to foster mutual understanding between Americans and their fellow Earth dwellers.  What this means for me is that the government gives me a round trip flight to India and a monthly stipend in exchange for teaching the kiddies some English.  Not a bad deal!  Thanks, taxpayers!

Last week was a total whirlwind, in which I flew to Austin, Texas for the pre-departure orientation, left early to attend my student's graduation and finish out the school year at Clear View, and then slept nearly 17 hours on Saturday.  The rest of my weekend was spent saying goodbye to those I could, running around purchasing last minute supplies, and frantically packing everything that could POSSIBLY fit into my suitcase and 65 liter backpack.  Packing to live for a year in Delhi was a much more complicated process than I had anticipated.  Not only did I have to include plenty of winter clothing (a fleece, down coat, wool sweaters, thermals, hats and gloves), as the temperature can drop to the 40s (Fahrenheit) and buildings are poorly heated and insulated, but my inner worrywart (and outer worrywart in the form of my mother) insisted that I arrive prepared for any biological or natural disaster within any range of probability.  Not to mention the 150 tampons I felt compelled to include, after every suggested packing list I read said to include them. (For reals.  Sanitary products here better be bad enough to have made the schlepping worth it.  But I digress).  After stocking up on Tylenol, Advil, DayQuil, NyQuil, hand sanitizer, sunscreen, bug spray, Immodium, Cipro, anti-itch cream, Bacitracin, Sensodyne toothpaste (my teeth are sensitive!), flossers, index cards, post its, funky pencils to give to students, the five books given to us by the State Department as teaching aids, two journals (thanks, Aileen and Clear View!), six pairs of shoes, one LED mini flashlight, two cameras and zero extra muscles for the haul, I was prepared for an apocalypse in which I would have to teach the survivors to speak English.  India would be a breeze by comparison, no?

When I arrived at the gate in JFK, i was greeted by four fellow English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) on the same Air India flight via Paris.  The 15+ hour flight was uneventful; I watched five movies and slept no more than an hour, sat next to a lovely older couple who had to get up about 10 times for me in my effort to stay hydrated.  Arriving at the newly renovated Indira Gandhi Airport, I was surprised by how clean and well-organized it was in contrast to what everyone had told me to expect (pre-renovation).  One thing i will say is that the man who checked my passport at passport control acted as if he had never seen a passport before.  He picked it up awkwardly by the corner, confused when he found my expired UK visa and flashing his eyes between my face and the appropriate visa for about five long minutes. I was the first one of the ETAs to approach the agent and the last to leave!  Weird.  In any case, as the five of us emerged into the crushing Delhi heat (despite the fact that it was 7PM), I felt an inner warmth as my long-awaited hope to see this country was fulfilled.  Despite my obvious fatigue and stiff neck, the heat reminded me of how far back my interest in India goes and how satisfying it was to see this place I had heard and read so much about.

Those of you who knew me as a child will remember that I sought out and wore bindis on my forehead starting around age eight or nine, I think.  From the international themed birthday party my mom threw for my sixth(?) birthday to witnessing the constant flow of my Israeli relatives and friends to and from India, this country has been in my consciousness far longer than most.  Though Indian food is not my favorite, it is the senses of sight, smell and sound that I seek to overwhelm with input, from the vibrant colors of clothing to the constant sound of car horns wherever you go.  No matter what, I am in for an adventure.