Last week a raucous mob of monkeys pulled the phone line down in front of the program house, so we haven't had internet access for awhile. I can't think of any better reason for not reading my e-mail.
Here are my journal entries for the duration of the monkey fiasco:
August 31st
Varanasi, India
Here we are in Varanasi, a city so holy people come here from hundreds and thousands of miles away for worship, pilgrimages, and also just to die. My first glances of the city were enrapturing- beautiful bustling streets colorful with saris and vegetable stands, pottery, flower sellers outside temples decorated to the hilt, along with garbage heaps on the streetside where old vegetables and any other refuse is thrown. I saw a man just lifting his kurta to pee on the heap, and cows eating plastic bags with food scraps in them, just like they reported on NPR. I really enjoy the cows on the street. The difference between street cows here and all cows in the US is that here, the cows are so used to being constantly surrounded by people, rickshaws, motorcycles, and cars all honking and dinging and yelling that nothing at all phases them. I could accidentally trip over one, and it probably wouldn't even bother to get up and move. It would just question me with those beautiful deep eyes, then go back to sleep. Our first day here we got our cell phones (my number from the US would be 011-91-9369022973 and I would suggest using a phone card for Indian Cell phones) and exchanged money. I spent some time talking with Panditji, our extremely entertaining and endearing everything man. His job description in the program handbook just said "Panditji is an extremely important part of the program." It's true. He is probably 70, with a little wrinkled head and small dark bright eyes. I was drinking chai and chatting with him as people decided to change money, and when I got up to go with them, he said in Hindi, " No, no, no,finish your chai! Relax! They can wait!" And so, 8 people sat down to wait patiently for us to finish our conversation. This is how things are done in India, and that is why nothing is ever on time...and I think it is great.
Yesterday I went for a little walk by myself to start orienting myself. The program house is closest to a big red temple called Durgakund temple, but everyone just refers to it as Durgaji. After lunch and a lecture, I went to go see Assi Ghat with the boys, and we ran into Mangla-a kid
who has known other program members for years. (He is like the lord of the flies, leader of the ghat kids, and since that day we have come to know that he will protect us from scams and dangerous situations, show us anything, teach us anything, and also call us about every twenty minutes if he has our phone numbers. He is certainly an interesting fellow...) Mangla gave us a tour of the ghat area, a bunch of temples, and took us to the place where Donovan, a guy from last years program who we've met a few times, used to go to do kusti, wrestling, every morning. A bunch of guys were just lounging around in the shade there, and Mangla asked us if we wanted to try doing some of the exercises, like climbing 25 feet up a rope with only our hands, which Chris and Sam tried and failed, and lifting a huge round weight over our heads. It was surreal and beautiful. The whole time two little boys were following us, and
Chris was joking around with them, the loud, crazy American clown that he is. We also taught some kids on the side of the alleyway to pound. They were very confused, and Chris and I just kept doing it for them, saying "Bahut Accha!" (Very good!) and then trying to get them to do it. They figured it out after a while.
I slept on the roof last night slathered in deet, and had the best sleep I've had for awhile. It is so much cooler up there, and still pretty quiet, too. I just hope I don't get malaria. I am not taking malaria prophylaxis, since I only came with two weeks worth of it, and it doesn't seem that there are that many mosquitos right now. I'll take them during the rainy season, I think.
September 5th
Varanasi, India
It seems that the rainy season has in fact started. Very early this morning the wind picked up, and I kept thinking someone was trying to get in my window (turns out many other students woke up thinking the same). At first the rain was like pebbles being thrown at my sheet metal roof, then buckets of water poured down, some working their way through the seams in the metal above my bed, and dripping in a line across my floor. I sat by my window with the curtain wrapped around my face to keep the bed from getting soaked. Lightning flashed and filled the red sky with glowing raindrops. I felt the air change temperature by at least ten degrees in minutes. The heat finally broke, if only for a little while. Rain has never felt so sacred to me.
The sound of rain falling encouraged me to visit the bathroom, where I found that a drain pipe from the roof empties into the floor by my toilet. Ingenious. The water poured in at steady pace, and despite the sand collecting on the floor, I feel like the forceful stream of water is probably the best cleaning that a toilet can have. I also feel like, if people could or would collect rainwater here, they could probably provide themselves with most to all of their water needs during the rainy season (and prevent quite a bit of flooding!)
The other day, Ed asked Panditji if it would rain soon, to which Panditji replied with a chuckle, saying "Uparwalla jante he," The guy up there knows, gesturing to the roof of the car we were in. I've come to see weather forcasts as a silly western invention, man trying to take control of what he can't possibly control. Sure, sometimes forecasts are great, but just about s often they're not. I'm beginning to like this laid-back attitude that used to bother me so much in Ecuador. Only God knows what will happen, and the most we can do is work well with the results.
Later...
I am sitting in the shade near Salim Sahab's house waiting until 3:00 for my first weaving lesson to begin. I bought him some sweets from the local famous sweet shop, Ksheer Saagar, which is very close to his place, for teachers day. It is very rare to see someone sitting in the middle of a gully (as they call the little road things here) writing in a journal, so people are giving me very strange looks as they pass. A little girl named Nafeesa is standing in front of me waiting for me to give her some of the sweets I got for Salim Sahab, though I tried to explain to her were for my teacher. I shouldn't have left them visible. She just keeps standing here anyway. How ridiculously adorable.
...My first class was a wonderful success. I sat at Salim Sahab's loom for an hour and a half, completing maybe 5 inches worth of work. I struggled with getting the shuttle to either go all the way from one side to the other, or otherwise I shot it too forcefully and it flew out the other end onto the floor. The loom takes up the entire room, which opens to the gully with two folding
wooden doors. The weaver sits in a hole in the floor, pushing the bamboo/rope pedals, right, left, and machine for the pattern work. There are rolls of punch cards which are used for patterns, each time having gone through one part of the punch card/pattern, it changes to continue with the pattern. I still don't quite understand how that works, but I've got plenty of time ahead of me to learn. As I worked, between tidbits of weaving information, I chatted with Salim about his family and mine. He is a bachelor, and lives in a shared house (I think) with his brother and his brother's family. A bamboo ladder goes upstairs from his weaving room. At one point, Salim Sahab's neices Ruby and Baby came down the ladder, and he shared the sweets I gave to him with them. He then proceded to share more with Babu, a kid who lives across the street, and maybe Babu's sister. I'm not sure Salim Sahab even ate any, but he obviously enjoyed sharing them, and thus I enjoyed watching him share. I told him about Orian and Karen's Wedding, and he asked if it was a love marriage. I said yes, in the US you barely find arranged marriages. He though for awhile and said that here, love marriages are not very well understood, though they are happening more and more. I asked him what weddings are like here, and he said, " You'll see." I asked what he meant, and he said that his niece would be getting married soon, and I could go to the wedding. AWESOME! I asked him more about it as we drank chai after class, and he explained that they were currently in the process of looking for a husband for her, using a paid mediator/matchmaker. She doesn't yet have a fiancee, so I'm not sure when the wedding will be, but if I am still around I will be so very excited to go to that wedding!
I realized the other day that since Salim Sahab has only one loom, and it takes him 15 days 8 hours a day to weave 6 meter sari, and I'll be coming for a lesson 3-5 hours a week, and you can't take things off the loom and put them back on to keep working, Salim is getting paid basically only to teach me to weave for the next 8 months. The salary paid by my program has to be as much as he makes working 50+ hours a week in order to teach me for 5 hours a week. Good deal? I think so, for all parties involved. I hope so, at least...
September 6th
Varanasi, India
Yesterday, Saturday morning, I woke up a litte sick, but determined to to go to meet Salimji for cutting the scarves off the loom, just like he said we would do at 9:00. I rode my bike there for the first time, in the rain, which was great because the roads were practically empty. I found my way there, to Sonarpura and Ksheer Saagar with no problems, except that Salim Sahab wasn't there. Babu was, though, and he invited me to sit in his storefront out of the rain while I waited. I met his sister Priyanka, and his mother, and ate some cookies, and half an hour later Salim showed up. I thought it was no big dea, as I have been warned time and time again that I might wait for an hour before someone shows up for a meeting, but Salim said he thought I wasn't coming because of the rain, and I should call him next time he's not there when I arrive. I ended up staying for 1/2 an hour in the morning, and coming back at 3:00 to weave for 3 hours. In the evening afyter weaving, Salim and I had some tea, then Allison and I went to Godaulia to pick up our Salwar Kamiz suits from the tailor. We ran into Saroj and Deepika there, and all went to the Japanese resaurant together, doing some harsh rickshaw bargaining on the way. We actually sat in, then got out of one, since he was price waffling. I unfotrunately have to go back to Godaulia since the tailors gave me one too few drawstrings, and one purple one that doesn't match any of my pants. Alas, I'm in India. I hear that's just how it goes.
One of my proudest moments yesterday was when a Rickshawvalla asked us for 20 rupees for a 10 rupee ride, and I said 15, and he said "20 rupees indian price" and I said in Hindi, "No, I live here, I know the price is 15" and he shrugged and said okay. It feels silly arguing over ten cents, especially getting out of a rickshaw to find a new one over 10 cents, but it is the principle of the thing- just as it was in Ecuador over the extra 50 cents the taxistas always tried to charge me. Here that is 20 rupees. More than I pay for the entire ride.
It is uncomfortable being so rich. If I was poor, no one would try to use me, like it seems many people do here. It is hard to find people to really trust. I have been so protected by being associated with the program that I don't think I really understand the divide that my social status really makes. The maddening thing is, I understand why people would be this way. I asked my host dad how much money a weaver makes in a day. He said probably about 80-90 rupees. Two dollars. Just the fact that I am here means I have more money than Salim Sahab probably makes in two years to spend on a plane ticket, just because I want to. I'm going to buy a camera soon, because mine broke. The sweets I gave Salim Sahab the other day cost about as much as he makes in 8 hours of work. He asked me if I had any rechargable batteries, and I said I didn't, but maybe I could have my mom send some. He seemed pleased. Later, today, I went on a walk with a friend and he talked about being ripped off by his landlord, and I got started thinking about how, if I wasn't here with this amazing program, I would certainly feel like everyone was ripping me off, too. In the last few days, everyone and everything has become much more real to me. Up to now, though, the program house and my home still seem like safe havens of non-rip-off and full of people who I can trust, and honestly want to help me.
I think the first little bit of homesickness is setting in, but I'm impressed by how tolerable it is. I just need to keep reminding myself to stay lighthearted and understanding (most of the time). I can't really help but live in a world apart from most of the people I meet day to day, but I try to live as much in this world as possible.
My grandma is great by the way.
There are so many dragonflies in India.
watched us study our Hindi. Once we got through all the flashcards, Shashankji got up and told everyone to disperse, the show was over, and we would have another in half an hour.
s this morning, and was on top of the world (more than I already am here in the Himalayas) in that kitchen. It was the first time I've been able to cook since arriving in India, and it was exactly what I needed. We topped the pancakes with American pancake syrup which Shashank and I bought at Prakash Brothers store. We have been hearing about it all week. They make cheese there. So, we went on a cheese and syrup pilgrimage, hiking up the breathtakingly beautiful mountain for 2 hours all the way to the very top, where we found all sorts of western amenities. I also bought balsamic vinegar, which I can't wait to use. I think I'll make french toast tomorrow so we can use the rest of the syrup.
much if not more work to do outside of class every day. It has been wonderful, if a little bit overwhelming. I can feel my Hindi improving every day, so the inspiration trumps my tired mind and I keeps studying. We'll be here for one more week now, enjoying the cool temperature and amazing scenery, then it is back to Benaras where we will all dive into our research projects and tutorials once more.
