My Spectacular Trip to India Part VII

Thursday and Friday had more great construction and interaction with the kids. I just love goats! Here`s one nursing:



Here`s Nikki being led across the “bridge” in Chuvuru village to get to the “colony” of new houses:



Thursday evening I went for a motorcycle ride on the Pastor`s bike with Vishal. My first time! It was so awesome feeling the wind in my hair and seeing the beautiful Indian countryside all around the village. Here`s a picture:



On the way back to our guest house our driver Krishna put on some music. I love Indian songs! They`re so catchy. Bollywood, folk, everything! I found myself chair dancing without even meaning to. I really loved sitting in back of the car near the trunk, looking out the rear window, swaying to the music as a whole beautiful world flew past. That`s probably my fondest memory of India.

Friday night they fed us very special coconut rice (made with coconut water) and chicken curry. What`s the difference between coconut water and coconut milk? Coconut water comes from the unripe coconut, coconut milk from the mature coconut. What`s my favorite kind of curry? I really loved the fish curry. It`s kind of rare since most of India doesn’t have access to fresh fish. The fish fry was really good too. Job kept instructing us how to eat it “little bits, little bits” so the bones don`t splinter off in our mouths.

Every evening during dinner, we could hear the chanting of the village Mosque, usually said first by the Iman, or leader, and repeated by a child. Sometimes it was loud and distracting, but mostly it was interesting to listen to. I wouldn`t call village singing particularly beautiful. It`s very nasal sounding, piercing, and not at all melodic. I don`t think any of them have a concept of how to make their voices match pitch, but that`s OK, because they don`t know the difference, and they sing from their heart. The music they listen to on the radio is very beautiful and melodic and the singers have excellent voices, but when they try to imitate it, it`s kind of funny. Here`s an example, actually one of their traditional Christian hymns (yes, I actually did find one that fit on blogger!):



Cute, but no Grammies there. Again, their talent lies in dancing.

For the closing ceremony of the work camp the church was decorated beautifully on the inside. Here`s some traditional Indian decorations:



Before it started, two of the village women braided my hair and drew henna on my hand. Here`s what that looked like:

Henna is made from plant paste, so it`s completely natural. If you let it dry and sit on your hand/arm overnight, it can last for up to a month! I left mine on for about an hour, and three weeks later you can still see the faint outline of it!

The village women also made each of the girls in the group, Nikki, Annie, and me traditional saris. Our volunteer fee paid for it, but they made them by hand, so I`m sure it must have taken them a lot of time. How kind! It took about thirty minutes to get into to one, half an hour of pulling, stretching, and tugging my body in ways I didn`t know it moved. A safety pins, lots of safety pins. Here`s the finished result:



Ug, I look hideous, but the sari is beautiful…

During the ceremony, they drapped our necks with beaded garlands and after Ravi and the other village leaders thanked us, each of our six team members gave a speech about our experiences. There were more than a few wet eyes. I don`t remember what I said exactly, except that I spoke mostly to the children, telling them they were the future of India, that it was up to them to help their country prosper and claim its place among the great nations of the world, but never to lose their laughter, their simple joy and kind heart that made them India.

So it was with tears and hugs that we left Chuvuru village. Here is the final picture our group took together, and the Eluru train station on our way back to Hyderabad. You can see the men wearing the traditional clothes the village women made them too:



From viewers` left: Vishal (team leader), Wei Yuet, Laura (me), Ravi (ARV chairman), Nikki, Toki, Annie. (Thanks for the picture, Toki!)

But this is only the beginning of their brighter future. Hopefully many more teams will come to help build and teach the children, continuing the cause of awareness, human rights, and global friendship. Who knows, perhaps you are being called to help in some way? If you`re interested in finding out more about longitude or ARV and their work, you can visit their website at http://www.golongitude.org/.

My Spectacular Trip to India Part VI

Since we were the first volunteer group to go to Chuvuru village, Ravi, the head of Association of Relief Volunteers (ARV), decided it would be good for us to see another village where ARV has been working for a year and a half. So Wednesday we went to Gummallapadu (nicknamed GP) village. It was a long drive, and then we crossed a new bridge above a stream of beautiful purple flowers and all piled into a rickshaw that took us to the entrance of the village. That was quite an experience! Here`s a picture of us crossing the bridge:



Wow, from the moment I saw it I could tell there had been a lot of progress! Here, you can see for yourself the amount of construction and development:



I`m standing on top of the four-story community center which also serves as a medical clinic and temporary shelter for homeless and migrant workers. In front of me is the church. To the right is the school, and to the left are some houses. Nearly everyone had a house! You can`t really see much, though. Here`s perhaps a better picture of other houses. Notice that many have straw huts beside them. During the dry season, they still use the huts for storage or extra rooms.



Annie and Vishal were the most enthralled. They had worked in this village last year and were so excited to see the progress. But a lot of the old problems were still present. About thirty years ago there was a massive cyclone, so to help with relief efforts the Indian government allotted unused land for Dalits (untouchables) to farm and do aquaculture. But the people had no money to invest in land development, fertilizer, seed, anything, so they ended up leasing the land to rich landlords, who made them sign contracts the people couldn`t read. The people ended up giving up all their land to these wealthy landlords and were forced to work it, giving the landlords nearly all their profits. Basically it was a reinstatement of the feudal system. Then these wealthy landlords decided to farm the most profitable kind of fish, which happened to be salt water. So they built earthen walls within the lake, the largest freshwater lake in Asia, and filled the lake with salt and pesticides. Here`s a picture of what that looks like:



The water became contaminated and undrinkable and many of the native species of fish and bird became endangered. So instead of insisting the land lords use better techniques and give the villagers fair wages, the government simply took the land back and designated it as a bird sanctuary. So what can the people do? Now they have to migrate for work, sometimes hundreds of miles. Sometimes more than two dozen people are stuffed into the back of a truck, and they often fall out and die, so there is a surprising amount of widows. Many of these women have left to become domestic servants in Kuwait, and often complain about mistreatment, enslavement, and sexual abuse. Children who`s parents have died or left to find work are unattended and unschooled.

So along came ARV. They are trying to negotiate with the government to allow the people to practice traditional farming and agriculture within the bird sanctuary. Then everyone will be happy, except the wealthy land lords, maybe. Traditional farming and agriculture has never hurt the native fish and birds; it went on for thousands of years without disturbing anything. The bird sanctuary might also provide the added industry of tourism for the locals. So far ARV has made a little progress, but the government hasn`t fully agreed yet. Things take time in India, just like they do in any beurocratic system. Unfortunately, many people have to suffer and even die during that time. Annie and Vishal noted that many of the families they knew before had migrated or were gone for days at a time, leaving their children behind. There were a LOT more kids than adults in that village, and a few with shaved heads. It was scary and sad to see.

But, having said that, yes, there`s been a lot of progress. Here`s one story that really touched me. A fifty-five-year-old widow was hit by a truck was dying. She didn`t have a house, so she slept in the middle of the village on a bed. When it rained and stormed, she got sick. The villagers said she didn`t deserve a house. So ARV stepped in, provided her with medical care, and built her a house. Here`s me sitting beside her:



See how healthy and happy she looks? And the children all love her. They often come over to her house and she tells them stories. She taught me the word Wandanamuru. Thank you.

We spent most of the day being led around the village by the kids. We showed them pictures of our families and homes and they showed us theirs. In one house, a gecko fell from the ceiling and almost landed on my head! That was pretty funny. There were geckos everywhere; we even caught one by the tail to see if it would come off and sure enough! Didn`t pinch it or anything, just came right off and kept wiggling!

These kids too loved songs, dancing, and photos. Here`s them posing with a whole family. Notice it`s only children and old women. I think in total I only saw two young men in the entire village:



Here`s one guy feeding the chickens, wearing the traditional men`s work-skirt thing:



In this village, everyone was Christian. A lot of Dalits convert because they are attracted to the message of love and equality denied to them in Hinduism and Islam. Many of the villagers had Christian names like Maria and Job. I asked the kids if they knew any “Jesus songs” and they burst into several. Interestingly enough, no one knew Amazing Grace, but they knew a few modern praise songs and had their own traditional folk songs and hymns. I really wanted to post a video, but I`ve been trying for the last three hours and they all seem to be too long for blogger. It
won`t take anything over one minute. Oh, well. They were singing "Jesus I love you" and were so cute!

I also had a lot of fun playing “let`s travel” with the kids. They all piled into the rickshaw and we pretended to go to different cities. First we started in country; Madras, Hyderabad, Deli, Calcutta. Then we went to New York and Singapore and London and Paris. Anytime we stopped somewhere I would point out the sites, “Look, there`s the Statue of Liberty, look, there`s Big Ben clock!”

Then the kids asked me, “Your village?” My village. I told them Tulsa, the city where I went to church all my life and attended university, but later on it really made me think. Where is my village? Is it Temple, Texas where I was born? Owasso, Oklahoma where I was raised? Tulsa? Nabari, Japan where I live now? Lilongwe in Malawi, Africa where I spent a summer and left a huge part of my heart with the AIDS orphans there? Or Chuvuru where I spent most of my time in India building houses and teaching the kids?

The world is my village. Perhaps that sounds cheesy, but I really think so. Wherever there are welcoming hearts and warm smiles, that place will be my home, my village for as long as I am there. And the villagers of India really are so welcoming, so loving that you feel like one of them from the very beginning. There is no insider/outsider. Only friend and family.

My Spectacular Trip to India V

Tuesday was just as wonderful as Monday, working on the houses in the morning and playing with the kids in the evening. I think that was the day I carried the heavy cement bricks from an old work site to the new and also went back and forth fetching the cement to fill in the gaps. From now on when I see a construction crew along the side of the road just sitting there, I`ll never fault them again! In heat like that, you have to rest often and drink lots of water or you pass out. I got stung by fire ants that day and had a bit of heat stoke, so I had to lay down inside the pastor`s house for about an hour.(By the way, coconut oil does wonders for bites and stings!)

It`s really wonderful to see how efficiently the whole village works together; everyone has a task, even the children when they aren`t in school. The women mostly carry water and supplies, the young, skilled men lay the bricks and make constant measurements to be sure everything`s straight and up to specifications, and the older men pass bricks and cement. Everyone working together could build a house from foundation to ceiling in about a week!

They`re pretty small; maybe big enough for four twin-sized beds, but that`s enough, since the villagers prefer to spend most of their time outside. They even cook outside using rice straw or coconut tree brush and small, open fires. The main purpose of the houses is to keep the wind and rain of the mighty monsoons out during the night. (So the houses mostly serve as a safe place to sleep.

Here`s some before and after pictures.

A grass hut:



Us working on a house together (actually from Thursday):



A new cement house! Notice the stairs going up so they can utilize roof space too.



Most people don`t have running water or gas, in fact I don`t think anyone does, but many have electricity. They have a small light, a fan, and a TV. Why no running water? Because even if they got it piped, it wouldn`t be safe, so what`s the point? Those who can afford it drink bottled water, and wash in the water from the rice fields and nearby water holes. You want to know what cooking looks like? Here`s a video of a woman grinding rice grain:



It`s long-grain rice, different from Japan (of course, Japan gets most of its rice from South Carolina in America, so what is “Japanese rice” anyway? The kanji or characters for America is actually “rice country,” believe it or not). Long-grain requires a lot more water, so the rice field is on a lower plain than the village, and rain water runs off into it. (Whenever I talk about my first volunteer trip abroad in Mexico and mention all the rice, my father always asks me how they can possibly grow rice there. Some people forget there are many different varieties and each requires a different amount of water depending on the length of the grain. Besides, not all of Mexico is a desert. Seriously, Dad, tease, tease.) Anyway, if you were to step down into an Indian rice field, the water would come up to your calves. Lately they`ve been having a drought, so they need a lot more. Here`s a picture of the rice field about mid-way through season. Those are coconut palms in the distance. Many men make their living by climbing up the branchless trees like monkeys and cutting down the coconuts to sell on the street:



After work around 5:00, the kids took us down to the water hole. The little boys up to about ten-years-old swim naked, but the girls don`t swim at all. The water was very brown and dirty, but some of them have to drink that stuff! ARV is working on improving the water supply, but it`s a very long and difficult process.

We also learned some other sad facts that day. Because the houses must be built in stages partly with government funding and approval, some houses receive money before others. One man has everything but the roof on his house, but for reasons I don`t understand, the government refuses to allow the continued construction. “The money is pending.” That man has been waiting for the funds and approval for a year and a half, just to finish his roof. I asked if there was anything we volunteers or ARV could do and Ravi said no; they`d already tried everything.

That evening I bought some Punjabis, or pant-suits worn by women when working. I can`t really explain what they look like; I`ll just have to show you a picture:



The little girl on the right is wearing a Punjabi almost identical to one I bought. The mother is wearing a traditional sari worn when there is no heavy labor/play that day. The little boy is wearing western clothes. Most girls wear Punjabis or saris and most boys/men wear Western clothes. A few older men wear the traditional turbans, shirts, and skirt-like bottoms. For formal occasions men wear suits similar to Punjabi, but you`ll get to see that later. ^_^

It`s my habit whenever I go on a volunteer trip to buy the local clothes. This has, hopefully, several good effects:

1.) I`m ensured of being culturally appropriate; I won`t make anyone uncomfortable.
2.) Local clothes are more comfortable and easy to work in for that particular climate.
3.) Purchasing from a family-owned clothes shop helps the local economy.
4.) I can donate the clothes at the end of the trip knowing they will actually be appropriate for the receiver to wear.
5.) It`s fun “going native!” Dressing like the locals is part of the cultural experience.

Next time, I`ll talk about our visit to Gummallapadu village, where ARV has been working for a year and a half. Such progress!

My Spectacular Trip to India Part IV

As our group entered Chuvuru village, we were greeted with the most enthusiastic procession! We were draped in flower garlands and marched down the main road to the music of drummers, the people dancing and laughing. Children grabbed our hands and led us to the work site, where speeches of welcome were offered by the villagers, introductions made by each team member, and a prayer invoked by the village pastor. Tomorrow I should have a video link!

Then came breakfast in Ravi`s sister`s house. She`s married to the pastor, and every day we ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner there, and used it as a place to rest. Breakfast usually consisted of Western bread or a light, pancake-like, Indian flat bread (not nan), with butter, jam, honey, vegetarian curry, rice cakes (not sweet; just tightly packed rice), and bananas or oranges. Most people went Indian and ate with their fingers, but I preferred to put my food inside the pancake and eat it like a tortilla, just because I`d been having a little stomach trouble. Every meal was a delicious feast!

Then work began. The first day we finished the roof on a house. We had a cement mixer luckily, but the rest of our equipment was limited. We had to pass bowls of cement up to the roof. My job was to take the empty cement bowls they dropped from the roof onto the haystack and carry them back to the cement mixer so they could be filled and passed up again. It was hard work in the hot sun, but it felt extremely rewarding to see the progress at the end of the day! Wei Yuet cut his leg a little, but he was soon good as new and there were no other injuries.

Lunch always consisted of rice, a vegetarian curry, a meat curry, yogurt, fresh vegetables, nan (Indian flat bread), and crispy tostada-like things. I liked to mix my curry, rice, and yogurt and eat it on the crispy thing. (Note: yogurt helps off-set the spice.) What makes curry “curry” exactly? A mixture of spices including gram marsala, turmerie, cayenne or paprika, coriander, cumin, fennel seed, and mustard seed. So you see, most Japanese and American curry isn`t really curry at all. It`s just sauce over rice. Indian curry is extremely spicy. The Northern curries are creamier, made with milk or even coconut milk, but the southern is water-based, chunkier, and even spicier. Which do I prefer? I don`t know; they`re both really good. But I will tell you, if you`re not used to spicy food, it`s probably not good to eat Indian curry for every meal for eleven days. I`m still feeling the ill effects of the onslaught of spice, even though at the time I felt fine! It would have been smarter of me to just cut out the curry and go with simple fruit, rice cakes, and yogurt for one meal a day.

In the evening we taught and played with the children. In the beginning they were shy, calling me “madam” but after a few laughs and games, they called me “sister!” They were so excited to show us their finished or partially finished houses. Here is Molica, a very energetic, sassy (in a good way) ten-year-old standing beside her nearly-finished house:



They only spoke a few sentences of English, but language can be over-rated. (Don`t tell my Japanese students that!) If people really want to communicate, there are other, just as effective ways. The kids loved my recorder and fife:



The girl in front attempting to play my fife is eleven-year-old Durga. You might be wondering why the little girl smiling at her has a shaved head. Like in Africa, when a Christian child loses a family member, the child shaves their head in mourning. I`m not sure who she lost or how recently, but seeing that there were several little girls with shaved heads, I realized death has a more lurking presence among them than for children in America. Not as strong as in Malawi, where the average life expectancy in thirty-seven and one-third of the children are orphans, but death is still far closer than it should be.

But you`d never be able to tell this harsh reality from their faces. They were always smiling, always laughing. Even the adults; many of us joked that Indian adults wear a “don`t mess with me” look most of the time, but when you smile at them, their faces light up like sunshine. It`s really neat to see.

Besides music, they really REALLY loved dancing. The Africans love singing and the Indians love dancing. Several people had TVs, and the villagers often beckoned us into their houses during the heat of the day to watch Bolliwood films, which of course always include singing and dancing. There was one little boy who knew all the dances. We called him the “dancing king.” In the evening he and some of the other kids entertained us. I lost my video of him, but here`s some other little boys all dancing together. It`s kind of short, but the kids kept snatching my camera, so this was the best I got:



Yeah, speaking of snatching cameras, they loved grabbing it right out of my hand and snapped as many as they could. Here`s a few of those:

I love the goat:



Here`s one of the villagers going about their day:



Here`s me and more kids:



They`d grab the camera back and forth for awhile, Molica usually dominating, but fortunately, they were always good about giving the camera back when I insisted. The kids were always asking, “Sister, one more photo!” “One more song!” “One more dance!” We taught them the chicken dance, the mockerena, the hocki-pokey, head-shoulders-knees-toes, various clap games, and they taught us their “secret handshake.”

So it was that at the end of Monday we arrived back late at the hotel in Eluru about twenty miles away very tired but also very, very happy and satisfied. And that was only the beginning of the trip!

My Spectacular Trip to India Part III

Sunday was a much better day. I was scheduled to meet the rest of my group around noon, so I had the morning to see Birla Mandir Hindu Temple. This time one of the hotel staff took me. It was great! You couldn`t take any pictures inside (they took your camera at the front) but here`s the outside:



At the entrance you take off your shoes and climb the steps to see the spectacular marble reliefs and statues at the top. So beautiful! There is a lot of inlaid black marble with the white and the bass reliefs are so detailed, like white and black paintings raised from the surface. There were many little shrines to minor gods and reincarnations situated throughout the temple, with the major sanctuary and statue dedicated to Venkateswara, “the supreme Lord who destroys sins.” Kind of sounds like Jesus…huh, that would be a really interesting bridge when discussing Christianity with Hindus.

Anyway, there was a huge line in front of the major statue where people paused a moment to pray and perhaps toss in gifts. There was another line to place the red paste on the forehead, called tilaka I noticed that different temples had different colored tilaka. Some people had orange, red, yellow, and white, all in the same dot, but distinctly separate. I guess that means they`re extra devote. Both men and women wear tilaka. That`s different from bindi. Bindi can be any shape, color, or size and are worn only by women for decoration. Different kinds of bindi used to denote different marital and social status, religion, and other things, but nowadays they don`t mean anything. Later in the village I met many Muslim and Christian women wearing bindi, usually in the form of fake jewels in the middle of their foreheads. Usually they`re stick on, not piercings.

Then I went to the airport and met up with the group. We didn`t actually take this picture until Monday or Tuesday, but here`s everyone, enjoying a break of coconut water in the middle of a long car ride:



From your right we have Vishal, the group leader. He was raised in U.S. but his parents are Indian and he`s worked with longitude in one of the villages before. Then comes Wei Yuet from Singapore, Annie from Wisconsin who has worked with longitude twice before, Toki who`s half Japanese/half American but you can`t tell (he was raised in California anyway and is about a “American” as they come, but in a good way), Nikki from Chicago, me, and our driver Krishna. I wish Ravi, the head of the organization we worked with, was in the picture, but I`ll have to show a separate picture of him.

After everyone was introduced, we had a four hour car ride to the Association of Relief Volunteers office, where we had dinner and a short orientation. Basically Longitude is the U.S. based NGO that helps provide resources and volunteers for various grassroots organizations in underdeveloped countries. Association of Relief Volunteers was the specific organization we were working with in India. Their mission is to empower India`s lowest caste to lobby the government for their rights and provide whatever basic needs the government can`t or refuses to give. These include basic medical needs, education programs, emergency food for children, and safe, permanent housing to replace the traditional mud and grass huts that are constantly prone to destruction during monsoon season. The government only provides about $500 per house, expecting the families to come up with the remaining $1,000. But how can they? They have barely enough to feed their families, and there`s been a drought recently, with poor harvests. The job of our group was to raise money for the houses before the trip and then help with the construction. Our goal was $15,000, but we only got around $2,000. That turned out to be OK; it was enough to build a house and finish the roof of another. But it`s never too late to donate!

So a lot of people asked me, why did you bother to go to India? Why not just send money? Other people in the group probably have different answers just as good and better expressed than mine, but personally, the only way I know how to answer this is as a Christian. Sending money is great, but it isn`t the fullest kind of love. If someone sent you a birthday card full of money every year, you would appreciate that person, but you couldn`t really love them. As a Christian, I believe God didn`t just sit up in heaven, sending us blessings when He felt like it. No, He left a perfect heaven of pure joy to come down to Earth in the dirtiest, most dangerous, most awful place in the whole world. He was born in a smelly barn and from His very birth He was hunted by kings. People were constantly trying to kill him and He never once shirked away from pain and suffering to help others. He chose the life of a servant, and in the end died the most horrible, gruesome death for those who hated and rejected Him. I figure if God can do that, I can endure just a tiny, itsy bitsy bit of inconvenience and discomfort. And honestly it was an amazing experience; whatever minor discomforts existed were made up for in the smiles of the children and the joy of the villagers, so that`s really not the point. The point is that to truly love someone, you need to work beside them, to physically reach out to them. That is the purest, most holy form of love.

Now that said, I must repeat, I am not in any way discouraging or degrading people who “just give money.” Everyone has their own talents and their own purpose, and their own gifts to share. For me, I love working with my hands and teaching kids. I feel it`s a skill and something that makes me feel fulfilled. For other people, going to rural India to do any sort of heavy labor might not be for them. Other people are much better utilized in their companies, making money to help others, being a blessing to those around them. Maybe you`re really good at listening to others and giving good advice, maybe you`re really good at making investments, maybe you have a passion for the elderly or for people who are mentally handicapped or for animals or for those who are hurting and broken or any number of things. But whoever you are, whatever you do, no matter what your passion is, you can use it to help others. That`s all I`m saying. I believe passionately that for those who have been given much, much is expected. And that`s not just from a religious point of view. Think about how much developed countries suck from the world in terms of resources, how much we pollute, how much we exploit other countries, etc. You can try as hard as you can to have the least negative impact as possible, but unless you actually turn that around and try to do good, you will always be having a negative impact. You can`t be sure that all the products you buy were produced without slave labor, let alone by workers on fair wages, you can`t be sure that the waste and garbage you produce won`t have any bad effect on the environment, you can`t be sure of anything. And likewise, you can`t be sure that the good you do will have any lasting effect. But you can try. You can do the best you can to have the most positive effect on the world around you. And that is enough.

Forgive me for the rant. There is just only one more short note I would like to add to clarify something above. If you think slave labor is a thing of the past, think again. To this date governments and NGOs all over the world are finding people who were unlawfully and unwillingly held for forced labor. Most commonly this is done to foreigners and comes in the form of prostitution, but it can happen to anyone and can be in any number of industries. In my very home town, a welding company recruited fifty-three Indian workers, promising to train and pay them fair wages, but instead confiscated their documents, confined them to the factory building, and paid them only three dollars an hour. There was another incident in Tulsa a few years ago, though I can`t remember the exact details, where a group of Mexicans was confined either in a plant or farm and forced to work for no money and could not contact anyone on the outside. Fortunately, the church across the street noticed something strange going on and called the police, then provided services to get the victims back to their families. I could tell you a scary story about someone in my own family, but it`s not my story to tell. In Japan, Pilipino and Thai girls are promised respectable jobs by seemingly reputable organizations, then sold to brothels. If you want more information about modern slavery, you can go to http://www.iabolish.org/slavery_today/primer/map.html.

OK, end of rant. I just think it`s important for people to know what`s going on in the world and not be naïve about these things.

After orientation and dinner, we went to our guest house in Eluru, a medium city about the size of Tulsa. The first night I shared a room with Nikki and Annie, and it was very comfortable. I`m waiting for some videos from Annie, so next time I`ll write about our first day in the village, and how the villagers welcomed us!

My Spectacular Trip to India Part II

“Excuse me, Madam?”

I turned and smiled at the Indian man behind me, a little flattered or perhaps impressed by this direct form of address, since I`m used to the “uh, uh, sumimasen” (bow a few times and repeat) when people want my attention.

“Yes?” I asked.

“You can not go out by yourself, madam! Too dangerous. Come, come, I will take you where you want to go, low price! Come, come!”

I glanced at the door to the office where he gestured. It read, “Hyderabad Tour Company, English Speaking Driver.” His offer seemed tempting, as I suddenly realized that traveling alone as a single American female in a politically agitated city where I didn`t speak the local language, was not such a wise or appealing idea. So I followed him into the office and listened to his offer. The price was about $25 for driving me the whole day, anywhere I wanted, which was much cheaper than a taxi, so I decided to go with it.

Only when I got into the car did I realize I made a mistake. The driver said something. I couldn`t understand him. He repeated himself. Still no understanding, not a word.

“I`m sorry,” I finally asked. “Are you speaking English?”

He said something else in a slightly agitated voice.

“OK,” I sighed. “Just take me to the zoo.”

He seemed puzzled, but drove all the same. We ended up at the pearl market.

“Er…no, the zoo.”

“Very nice, very nice pearls here,” he said.

“That`s OK. No shopping. Just zoo.”

“Zoo, Madame?” he gibbered something else I couldn`t understand. He sighed and drove me some place else.

In his defense, he probably was speaking English, and I just couldn`t understand his accent. It took me about three days to adjust to the Southern Indian accent, which is much, much thicker than the Northern. This was more than a little embarrassing to me, since I`m an English teacher and pride myself on being able to understand any accent. I often translate accented English to standard for my friends and family whenever they meet foreigners or watch foreign films.

But of all the accents I have encountered, Southern Indian in Andra Pradesh is the most incomprehensible. Add to that the fact that they often alternate between English, Urdu, Telegu, and perhaps even Hindi without warning when they`re on their cell phones or talking with a friend, and they switch between the conversations without warning or even looking at you. (Eye contact is kind of taboo.) So you can never tell whether they`re trying to talk to you in English or not. And of course, there`s the little bobble head thing they do whenever you ask them a yes or no question, which looks like neither answer. It took me a few days to figure out what that means. It can mean “I`m listening,” “I don`t know,” “why are you asking me this question?” “I`m irritated with you” or “please don`t be irritated with me.” It`s kind of like the all purpose Japanese “mmm.” --Insert meaning here.--

But of course, he couldn`t understand me any better than I could understand him. I tried speaking slowly, even with a British accent since I figured that`s who they learned it from, but no luck. Perhaps when they say they speak English, they mean they can understand very basic directions that are written out beforehand. Apparently the man who approached me at first had drawn out a detailed plan of where the driver should take me, either that or the driver got some kind of commission for taking tourists to expensive shops. That`s really annoying.

The next place he took me was the museum. “The zoo,” I repeated. “You know, the world-famous place where there`s a tiger safari and elephant rides.”

“Tiger? No tigers here madam. This museum. Very famous.”

Might as well humor him. But as I got out of the car, he kept repeating something, and finally I figured out he wanted my cell phone number so he could call me, or I could call him when I finished.

“No cell phone,” I tried to explain for the tenth time.

He seemed very upset, pointed to a platform, and drove off. So I stood on the platform, feeling more than a little out of place. I knew I should dress conservative in India, but I thought that meant a skirt that came below the knees and a T-shirt that covered my shoulders like in Africa. I wasn`t expecting women dressed in black burka`s covering every inch of them save their eyes or gun-toting Islamic guards gawking at my immodest ankles and arms. That was a bit of a culture shock for both parties.

I was just beginning to worry that my driver had left me there when he finally came back. After straining to understand him for some minutes, I finally got that he was insisting on coming into the museum with me. “Why can`t you just wait in the air-conditioned car and I`ll come back when I`m done?” I asked.

“No, madam, that won`t do, won`t do at all.”

So everywhere I went, I had to pay for him too. It wasn`t so bad; most places had a discount for Indian citizens since they pay taxes, but a word to the wise: when you exchange money in India, be sure to get small bills and coins, because no one has change. Or maybe they just pretend not to have change, I don`t know. So for most places I ended up having to pay double the normal cost for foreign guest.

I hoped in return the driver would explain a bit of what we were seeing. No such luck. For me, museums are the most boring places in the world when you`re just looking at random images without meaning. Most were of Hindu gods or depicting aspects of Hindu or Muslim culture/history with very few English plaques. I probably should have studied up a little before I came. I`m just annoyed the driver insisted on going there when I was paying him to take me somewhere else. And no photos, sorry. Nearly everywhere we went there was a security check at the beginning with full pat down, and they always took my camera. They gave it back at the end, but I wish they could have just trusted me not to use it. About the only thing interesting in the museum was a famous statue called the “Veiled Rebecca” but there were so many people crowded around it I couldn`t see.

Next, the driver took me again to the pearl market. “No pearls, just the zoo.” He took me to the Charminar. Here`s a picture of the outside:



This was one of the sites I wanted to see if I had time, but I was purposefully saving it for the evening when it would be lit up and you can see the lit city from the top. Plus, I wanted to see the zoo in the morning when it would be cool. No luck trying to explain this to the driver. But this time I got a guide, despite all my driver`s protests, because I wanted to actually know what was going on. “Charminar” means “mosque of four towers.” There are several stories as to why it was built. There was a great plague in the land, and some say the Muslim prince prayed to God that if He stopped it, the prince would build a mosque on the very site he was praying. Others say he built it in commemoration of marrying a beautiful Hindu girl, incorporating Hindu architecture into the structure, very unusual for a mosque. I don`t see why both stories can`t be true.

Here`s me in front of the first story fountain:



Legend has it there was an underground tunnel connecting the Charminar to Golkonda Ft, but if there was, it`s collapsed now. There are four floors. The first three were like schools, each housing a different branch of Muslim learning, and the fourth was the actual mosque. But there was an attack on the worshipers a few years ago, so it`s been closed down.

Here`s the main gate.



Notice the green flags on it and the smaller ones lining the streets? These represent the Muslim areas. Last week there was a big procession celebrating the birth of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. The Hindu flags are orange and center around the temples and small surrounding areas. The guide claimed everyone gets along great, but then why is the city sectioned off? Why was there an attack on the mosque a few years ago? I wouldn`t exactly call that “getting along.”

Here`s a picture overlooking the street:



And here`s me in front of the Muslim and Hindu architecture. The guide took all these pictures:



The dome and arch are definitely Muslim, but there`s some debate about the flowers. Another guide at a later monument told me such patterns are common in Muslim art since they`re not allowed to create animals or people. Who invented what, who influenced who? It`s impossible to tell. It`s like how the Indians claim they invented chess. The Chinese say they invented it. Or baklava among the Jews and Greeks and Arabs. Does it really matter? I suppose it`s fun to listen to the debates, though.

As we were coming out of the Charminar, I was beset by several ragged children and mothers holding sick-looking babies. I handed one of the ladies some money, and was immediately surrounded. A word to the wise, when in any third-world or developing country, don`t hand out money to random strangers. Give it to an NGO or village leader you trust. They can disperse it to those who need it most. Otherwise you might be inundated by pulling, pushing pleading people. I had a similar situation in Africa when I was nearly trampled by a mob after giving a young man my extra pair of shoes. I am not exaggerating. The bus driver literally had to pull me up out of the throng into the bus. This time, fortunately, all I had to do was get in the car and drive off. It always leaves me feeling so sick and guilty inside, seeing their desperate faces disappear in the ocean of lean bodies, but what can you do? In a few days I would be in Chuvuru village helping the people with my labor and resources.

Again, the driver took me to the pearl market. “No, the zoooo!” I practically shouted. So finally, around 12:30 in the heat of the day, we ended up at the zoo. Here`s some really pretty vines at the entrance:



Sadly, they had closed the elephant rides, but we took the train around, which was nice, and then had lunch. My driver tried to get me to pay for his lunch too, but that would have required I pay ten times the price, since all I had was a 50 and 500 (of course, the teller had no change), and I was so fed up with him I just ignored him. He`d been following me around the whole day, telling me to hurry up, hurry up, and pushing me to buy this or that trinket and violently shoeing away the cute little uniformed school children who just wanted to practice their English, so finally I just told him to stay at the entrance of the zoo, I was so mad. Then I had a little peace and quite to enjoy the flowers and animals unique to India and some of my classic favorites:

Here`s a giant squirrel:



This is a cheetah, ready to pounce:



And here`s a video of the“dinosaur park.” The eerie music in the background is Muslim afternoon prayer. They have prayer six times a day, dawn, sunrise, noon, afternoon, sunset, and evening and each service is at least fifteen minutes, usually thirty, sort of like the old Catholic cycle of services still used in some monasteries and nuneries around the world. I thought it added a lot of authentic ambiance to this video. If you can`t view the video, I also included a picture:






When it got really hot I paused for some ice cream at a place that actually had change. Why don`t we have chocolate and butterscotch ice cream cones in America? They`re crazy good.

The butterfly park was probably my favorite part. Contrary to popular opinion, I don`t think that burkas automatically dehumanize women. I saw quite a few couples lying in the grass, the man gazing lovingly into the woman`s eyes as she chattered away in Telegu. It sure beats the scantily clad Western stereotype or the porn magazines lining every drug store shelf in Japan, right next to the children`s comics. And 90% of it animated porn. You can`t even argue that the women are choosing to degrade themselves; it`s just an arbitrary male artist`s degradation. And I`d like to add that in India, women by law can choose what they wear, so they`re not forced to wear all-concealing clothes like many people think, only if they want to.

I wanted to stay longer to see the nocturnal animals exhibit and go on the safari, but when I rendezvoused with my driver he insisted we leave because there wouldn`t be time. That`s so dumb. We ended up waiting at Golkonda Ft. for two hours after the tour.

So about that tour. I hired another guide when I got there, and I`m really glad, because there were a lot of great stories and little hidden structures. At the beginning there was an echo chamber where you could clap and hear the echo in certain places, but not others. Positioned throughout the fort were similar areas where you could clap and if you stood far away in a certain place, you could hear it. It served as a security system. At that point I ran out of batteries, and to his credit, my driver ran and got me more, but he way overcharged me. Another note: cameras with non-rechargeable batteries, though cheaper, end up costing you more in the long run because they tend to eat up regular AA batteries like crazy. Li fixed the problem for me when I got home, but during the trip I had to keep replacing them and buying more.

Within the fort, the only two mostly intact structures were the Hindu temple and a mosque. India used to be made of many smaller kingdoms. One was Qutb Shahi near Hyderabad of which Golkonda was the capital. The kings who began the construction were Hindu, but later kings were Muslim. In general, though, it was a golden age of relative religious tolerance. The granite fort was built in the late 1500s and remained an important center of art and culture until it was conquered by the Mughal invaders in 1687. It held out nine months due to internal food gardens and ingenious water collection and transport system, and probably would have never been defeated if not for a traitor opening the gates.

Here`s a picture of the fort and surrounding city from the top:

Here`s a Western dare-devil couple playing the “trust game” from the highest point. If one lets go or slips, they both fall. Not smart:




After the tour we had two hours to wait for the light and sound show. My driver tried to get me to leave, but the whole reason I had come to Golkonda was to see the show, and he`d been pushing me around and going against my wishes all day, so I wasn`t about to let him do it again. Of course, he made me pay for his show ticket. What a jerk. But the show was good and I got to learn more history. Here`s the first part before they made me turn off my camera:



Afterwards my driver was supposed to take me to a restaurant so I could have dinner, but he just dropped me back at the hotel, two hours before the promised duration of his services. And then he had the audacity to ask for a tip. Well I gave him one, but now you know, if you plan on traveling in India, book your tour or driver beforehand from a reliable company with a good reputation, not the random hole-in the wall office across from your budget hotel. (I should have gone with Holiday Montra, the company I booked to travel with after the work camp. They were really cheap but totally amazing.) And if you hear a voice you don`t recognize or expect say, “Excuse me, Madam,” just ignore them and keep walking.

All in all though, it was a descent day and I was only out a total of maybe $50. And the rest of the week, the actual work camp, was totally amazing. Stay tuned for next time when you get to meet the group members!　

My Spectacular Trip to India Part I

Sorry this is so long in coming! I actually wrote a much longer version including the whole first portion of the trip last Wednesday and Thursday but somehow the multiple copies I made got deleted! So let me start over.

Before I get into India, I want to mention a few events leading up to it. As I`ve mentioned before, even during breaks, students often come to school anyway. Between every trimester we have a sports tournament with badminton, volleyball, basketball, dodge ball, and a few other random sports not typically part of the standard Japanese repertoire. So around Monday the 15th…I can`t remember the exact date, we had the tournament and award ceremony. Afterwards, one of the band girls performed a marimba piece she`s taking to prefectural contest, sort of like band state contest in America. She was really good, and the pianist was great too. Here`s a video:



Wednesday I taught my adult class. The lesson was over St. Patrick`s Day and asking for directions. I always try to include a section in the beginning on culture, and assign homework the previous week for the students to give 30 second-however long they want presentations. I thought they enjoyed it, but they got really mad at me for assigning religious and “obscure” topics. I always look up what I assign before I assign it to make sure there are plenty of simple-English articles about the subject on the web. For “fighting Irish,” Notre Dame`s website was the first to show up on any search engine, but that student was still really mad at me for being so vague. Another one got really mad at me for assigning her St. Patrick and demanded that I only teach language, nothing ever to do with religion or culture. Oops. I guess I just assumed people like to study the same way I do. Frankly, I find language by itself incredibly boring, but I enjoy the application. I`m studying Chinese now, which is a bear to learn with its four, some say five tones and awkward pronunciation. What makes it interesting are the little poems and cultural facts and notes in the text. I guess one of my greatest flaws is that I assume other people are like me, especially when it comes to interests and such.

Oh, by the way, the problem I was having with one of my friends that I wrote about two posts ago worked itself out, better than I could have hoped for. These things usually do. God is good!

So, on to India! 5:15am Friday March 19th Li called to wake me, but fortunately I was already up and eating breakfast. He came over quite unexpectedly about 5:30 and went over the check list with me: passport, (wouldn`t want to forget that again!) wallet, contact information, copies of passport and credit card, etc. Good thing, too, or I would have forgotten half that stuff! Sometimes I think he keeps my head from falling off my shoulders. Then he carried my suitcase to the train station and saw me off at 5:45 for my 6:09 train.

I arrived at Oehomachi station at 7:15 for the 7:25 hour-long bus ride to the airport. At 10:00am I flew Tai airways. Wow, talk about service! They`re the best airline I`ve ever flown. They`re celebrating their 50th anniversary, so I guess everything`s been revamped. Normally I hate flying but it was so comfortable. They spoke English without an accent, they fed us three really good meals, the seats leaned back pretty far, and we had our own personal screens with a selection of over 1,000 movies, songs, and games to choose from. I watched the Last Samauri and it was so good I actually cried near the end. And believe it or not, they were the cheapest airline available.

We stopped over in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, for just half an hour to refuel. I was happy they let us off the plane, though, because I got to buy some world-famous Pilipino dried mango. That stuff is so good!

Next stop was the Bangkok airport for a four hour layover. I went through the customs line to get into the country, got all the way to the end, but the staff said I didn`t have time. So I`ve never stepped onto Tai soil, but I have the stamp! And the Bangkok airport is absolutely gorgeous. Everywhere I looked lush orchid displays lined the walls and huge sculpted vases, and miniature ones I`d never seen before lay encased in crystal, awaiting purchase in the many shops. Here`s my favorite display:



And here`s a really cool statue. It depicts the creation story from Tai mythology, the gods and demons churning the sea with a huge snake, making the dry land appear on the back of a turtle. The Japanese have a similar story, and some Native Americans. I`d bet anything the story is very, very ancient, and when several Asian groups crossed over the Bering Straight during the last ice age, they took the tale with them:



So I really enjoyed walking around the airport looking at all the beautiful art (AKA the gold, jewel, local textile, and handicraft shopping on the 4th floor) and flower displays and tasting the delectable free samples of Tai chips and cookies. Not a bad way to spend three hours.



Finally, I landed in Hyderabad, India at 10:50pm. I had booked my hotel online in advance and requested a pick up, but I was a little worried no one would come, since they hadn`t confirmed the request. But I had no need to fear! As soon as I stepped out of customs, there was a young man with a sign that read, “Welcome to India, Miss Laura Popp.” He led me outside to a beautiful scene of pink flowers, palm trees, and sari-clad women. The whole trip felt like stepping through three seasons: from Japan`s winter, to Tailand airport`s spring, to India`s summer. Though, admittedly, it`s still early spring for them; I can`t imagine how bad it must be in July! The car drove me to my hotel, Parklane, and I arrived around midnight and my room was ready in another half hour. It was pretty decent. All I need is a bed, shower, and air conditioner. The latter was broken, but there was a working fan. Here`s what an Indian (nice) bathroom looks like.



In the morning I woke up around 8:00am, had a good complimentary breakfast of traditional rice paddies and vegetarian curry, then headed out at 8:45am. I was planning on just getting a taxi to take me to the zoo in the morning and Golconda Ft. in the afternoon. But as soon as I stepped out of the hotel, I heard a voice calling me,

“Excuse me, Madam?”

If ever you hear these words in India from someone you don`t know or aren`t expecting, just ignore them and keep walking. Why? You`ll find out in my next post.