Birthday Cake

Tibet Charity was closed today because the local Tibetan Children's Village school was having a celebration. This being an important day for the Tibetan community in general, a bunch of stores around town were closed, too. Gill, Gusti, and the two Danish doctors who recently arrived to volunteer at TC went; I had planned on going but wound up packing instead.

Because, you see, this morning Brij managed to get us train tickets to Rajasthan. I had begun to wonder if it was ever actually going to happen. It's official though – tomorrow evening we've got tickets for a train from Pathankot (we'll get a bus there from McLeod Ganj) to Jaipur, and from Jaipur we'll travel around Rajasthan for a couple of weeks before I come back to Dharamsala, Brij goes to Gujrat and then back west, and Marie, who is supposed to be meeting us in Jaipur, continues her journey around India.

I'm only taking one backpack with me, I think. This is great, except for the fact that it means I have to store everything else I've got in my possession here. It's not an ideal situation, but it could certainly be worse. I'm moving out of my room at Pause Dwelling because, frankly, I don't want to pay 2-3 weeks worth of rent if I'm not even going to be in the same state.

Speaking of not being in the same state, Gill headed back to New Zealand today; it'll be a little weird around here without her. She was the one who first showed me around McLeod, and we've grown to be friends over the last few months. Safe travels, Gill! Maybe I'll come visit you in NZ sometime!

Today was also Brij's last full day in town. The original plan was to return to the disco, but those plans fell through as we realized that Brij, Kalden, and I seemed to be the only ones who were actually planning to go. Truth be told, I wasn't entirely feeling it myself; I kind of wanted to just chill for what was going to be my last night in town for a while, as well.

Everybody's leaving, all at once... Verity, Gill, Brij... I'm leaving too, I guess, but I'm coming back. My students made me promise I'd be back before the end of the semester. :)

Anyway, Brij decided we should have pizza for his last dinner in McLeod. Om Cafe makes a damned good Roquefort/walnut/”chilly” pizza, so that's exactly what we had (along with an eggplant/herb/tomato pizza). Delicious, and for less than 200 rupees.

During his stay in India, Brij has become close friends with one of the local families who happens to own a cafe down the road. One of the sons was having a birthday party today, and they said that he had to go. In fact, they were waiting until he arrived to cut the cake. No pressure or anything.

He invited Kalden and me to come with him, making the argument that it was a party and likely to have dancing like the disco would, and since we had scrapped that idea, we may as well still get some dancing in and cake while we were at it. I decided to take him up on the offer, mainly since I plan on leaving some clothing here when I leave India and there's a good chance I'll leave it with them since they're friends of his. I thought I may as well meet the girls so I'd know who to talk to later on when the time came to make the drop off.

We arrived and they ushered us in, asking Brij why he was late. It's like he was a minor celebrity there, or perhaps more appropriately, a part of the family. They welcomed me just as warmly.

The birthday boy turned 12 today. I told Brij I had no idea how to sing “Happy Birthday” in Hindi, half jokingly, but he promptly started teaching me. As it turned out, we sang it in English anyway. I don't know if it's some kind of Indian tradition or just one in that family, but after the candles had been blown out, the birthday boy grabbed a handful of cake and offered it to each of us in the room while a woman, perhaps Mom, cut the rest of it into actual pieces. He got to me, held out his hand, and said “Auntie?” – I was touched. It's something I'm still getting used to here: “Auntie” and “Uncle” are what Indians call people older than themselves as a term of respect. It's kind of like “Sir” or “Ma'am” but it also conveys this sense of warmth, unlike in English. How could I say no to such a sweetie? Truth be told, the cake itself wasn't anything special... but the presentation more than made up for it.

Brij (|with frosting) and some of the girls.

After everyone finished eating, the music got turned up and the sisters started dancing. I got pulled up to join – which of course I didn't mind – and as the evening wore on I found myself giving an impromptu bellydance lesson. One of the girls in particular stuck by my side the whole night, mirroring every move I made. She's a pretty darn good dancer, actually, and I got her to show me a few Bollywood moves. They were all very, very sweet; I told them I'd be back from my trip in a couple of weeks and that I'd teach them bellydance if they taught me Hindi. Their eyes lit up – easy! What a great deal, right? They told me I was doing pretty well already, even though my vocabulary is pretty limited; apparently my pronunciation is good, at least. They all seemed thrilled to have made a new friend. I was even requested to make sure I was back in town by November 7^th so I could attend a birthday party for one of them... we'll see how Rajasthan goes, but I think I might try to get back for that. I may learn some Hindi and Bollywood moves yet!

Brij and I were the last guests to leave. It took us a while to actually get out of there; he's been around here for the last 8 months and everyone was sad to see him finally go. All the girls as well as the birthday boy gave us hugs goodbye, and he called me Auntie again; Brij even seemed impressed with how quickly I'd reached “Auntie” status. A couple of the younger girls insisted he come back next year, then that both of us come back next year, and by the time we left they'd gotten me to promise I'd come visit when I got back in town. I wish I'd gotten to know them sooner. I'll just have to make the most of my last few weeks when I get back to McLeod Ganj...

Interval Hovel

After seeing my nasty skin situation, the guys at Pause Dwelling offered to wash my sheets and blankets for me. I took everything down the other morning and it was only much later in the evening that I realized I couldn't find my one jump drive -- the awesome 32GB one that has all my movies on it. I went downstairs to ask if they'd washed the bedding yet and if they'd found anything wrapped up in them. They said they hadn't, and then they invited me to come back down for dinner. Free homemade dinner not being something I tend to turn down, I hung out in my room for a bit and then wandered back downstairs.

The guys had the TV on; they flipped the channels between the news (something about a guy called Narayan) and the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Kaun Banega Crorepati). I still find it amusing how Indian TV combines Hindi and English almost constantly. I was able to read the text on the news (somewhat laboriously) and I caught a few words here and there. For some reason I hadn't even thought to turn on my own TV to listen to Hindi; I guess I'm just so used to not watching TV in general that I don't even consider it an option.

Dinner consisted of handmade chapatti and some kind of soya bean masala -- it was delicious and not too spicy. I'm not exactly sure what "soya" beans are and how they differ from the Illinois soy beans I'm so used to, but when they're cooked up they resemble TVP. I like 'em.

Yesterday in class at Tibet Charity, I was joined by not only Gusti but Neil as well. He was so kind as to shoot some film for a project I'm involved in -- the students were very well-behaved and went about class as usual, not paying any particular attention to him. We spent most of the class time reviewing for the test we were to have today, which I just finished grading... in general they're alright. Most of my students are sitting around an 80% for their overall class grade, which I suppose isn't bad.

Neil offered to pass the video along to me if I swung by his room (downstairs from mine) later on that evening, so that's what I did. A few minutes later Brij joined us, and what I expected to be a five-minute visit turned into three hours. We played "guess where this song is from" -- according to Brij, most music originates in Mali -- ate ramen, and exchanged a whole bunch of music and movies. Neil offered some insight as to why Pause Dwelling has such a funny name -- it involves a thesaurus mishap (think "rest house") and he says it could have just as easily wound up being called "Interval Hovel." Ah, it's fun making new friends.

Oh, and I found my jump drive. Yay!

Just because I feel like this post needs something visual, here's a sketch that Gill did of me at one of HH's teachings.

Can you tell it's me? I think it's pretty darn good!

The way I tend to be

Last night as I made my way up the steps of Pause Dwelling, I heard a familiar "namaste, ma'am" from just above and to my left. It was promptly followed by a short string of Hindi, of which I was able to make out just enough to stumble through a response of "I'm going to my room" (मै मेरा कमरा जा रहीं हूँ ). ... Or at least that's what I said, it might not quite be right.

He said something else so I hopped up the last couple of steps and around onto the balcony where he was sitting, and I took the empty seat next to him. Long story short, by the time I actually made it to my room I had a basic understanding of how to write Hindi -- not just try to mimic the typewritten text in books -- and I had also been assigned homework:

Who gives "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today" as a first translation assignment??

I also installed a Hindi keyboard and a flashcard app on my phone so I can study when I don't have internet. Brij gave me a couple of movies in Hindi to watch, as well as some music. The language itself really is, I think, relatively easy... it's just the fact that I'm learning a new language at all that's tricky. The grammar seems to be pretty consistent and now that I can read the script, I'm finding that most words are phonetic.

As far as English class at Tibet Charity, today we were studying possessive pronouns and rhyming words. Naturally, the book suggested I give them songs as examples. The ones it provided were Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman and Every Breath You Take by The Police (Every breath you take/Every move you make... boom, rhyming words). I took the liberty of adding my own personal touch and gave them "I was her love, she was my queen/And now a thousand years between" and "Then I remember you/And the way you shine like truth in all you do"... I couldn't help myself. Hearing them read the lyrics off the board was a trip, too.

At the break, Gusti suggested I give them some nursery rhymes to further illustrate the point. Neither of us could recall much, but I did give them "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star." They really seemed to enjoy it, and they understood rhyming well enough by the end of it that I was able to leave "sky" blank and they figured it out (rhymes with high, judging from the meaning, etc).

Then the book had an activity for us that involved filling in missing words from song lyrics. The song it chose, due to its high content of possessive pronouns, was this. I felt like I was either at a wedding reception or a high school dance. Imagine me teaching this to a bunch of monks and nuns. Pretty hilarious, right? Now I've got it stuck in my head.

So it goes. There are worse things in the world.

A weekend in Amritsar

The guys at Pause Dwelling are on to me – they have all been speaking to me in Hindi the last few days. This would be great, except I still know so little that I am lucky if I understand even two or three words in each sentence. It's only making me more determined, though, and I'm planning to scour the local bookstores for a good English-Hindi dictionary and a phrasebook as well. If this guy can become fluent in a foreign language in just 3 months, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to hold at least a basic conversation by the end of two.

I didn't get a whole lot of time to practice my Hindi skillz this weekend, however, because Charlene, Verity, and I took a trip to Amritsar.

Look! There's snow on the mountain!

I practiced my reading along the way, but after we entered the state of Punjab, all the signs switched from Devanagari to Punjabi; at first I thought it was just a new font, but then I noticed a sign with both on it and realized that it was in fact a completely new script – and, I think, a new language as well.

The roads were much nicer in Punjab, and the weather got immediately warmer. We had come down off the mountain and onto the plains, and traveled a bit south besides.

Punjab looks more or less like Illinois.

I didn't see as many cows on the roads, but they were replaced by herds of water buffalo. Horses began to show up, both pulling carts and just hanging out. More and more men wore turbans – we had entered the land of the Sikhs; more of the drivers of motorbikes were women (there are very few female drivers in India from what I can tell, at least in Himachal). We passed a sign that said “Chicken Shop” and had a picture of a goat on it... I'm still not quite sure what to think of that one.

We drove for seven hours, during which time I tried to engage our driver, Suhil, in Hindi conversation. It never lasted long, though; I think he was more interested in practicing his English. He recommended we go straight to the border because they had moved the closing ceremony up an hour due to the sun going down sooner in the day.

The two big attractions in Amritsar are the closing of the border between India and Pakistan, and the Golden Temple inside the city. If we missed the border closing we'd have to stick around another day, which we didn't want to do. We got there just in time.

Luckily, none of the three of us looked Indian enough to require a passport check; we were able to go right through. Foreigners were ushered to one side while Indian citizens crowded the other side of the road. When the gate was opened, they ran – I mean they sprinted – to the next gate, everyone eager to get the best seats.

We got our seats in the relatively tiny “Foreigners Gallery” and watched the place fill up. I felt like I was at Medieval Times. There was much introduction with running of flags and dancing.

You see those bleachers behind me? That's Pakistan.

I totally photobombed this old guy. I don't think he noticed (yet).

The whole production, once it started, lasted a little over an hour. It involved campy displays of military might on both sides, literal flexing of muscles by the ornately-clad border guards, high kicks a la John Cleese, stomping, shouting, etc. It was fun but they could have cut the whole thing in half and I think it would have been even more effective. Longer is not always better.

In the end, they lowered the Indian and Pakistani flags simultaneously, and then the guards slammed their respective gates shut. The border patrol held the throng of Indians back to allow us foreigners and VIPs a chance to get out without being trampled, and we made our way back to Suhil and the taxi.

A Tibetan guy asked me along the way if I came from Dharamsala; cautiously I said yes and he told me he's seen me buying veggies at one of the produce stands. I guess it shouldn't have been too surprising; Amritsar is one of the local attractions. We eventually made it back to the taxi, but since it was Saturday evening, it was basically like we left a concert in the heart of Chicago, waiting until the last song has been sung and having to wait your turn to get out.

Event parking: you're doing it wrong.

We eventually got back onto what passes for a highway in India and into Amritsar.

I couldn't get many photos because it was late at night and we were tired, hungry, and determined to reach the temple so we could rest, but it reminded me a lot of Delhi: dirty, loud, and overcrowded.

Not remembering that a lot of the religious places around here require women to cover their hair, I left my scarf in the car and had to buy a cheap bandanna outside the temple. Apparently at Sikh temples, everyone has to cover their hair. Being a secularist, I find it a little silly, but at least it isn't sexist.

We also had to leave our shoes at a place outside the temple, kind of like when you rent skates at an ice or roller rink. Everybody plodded, barefoot, up the path to the temple where we had to walk through a shallow pool of water before entering the main area. “It's not so impressive,” my overtired self thought. Then we got inside and saw the actual golden temple. 

It was pretty cool.

From what I can gather, making a pilgrimage to the Golden Temple is for Sikhs more or less what making a pilgrimage to the Kaaba in Mecca is for Muslims. They queued up to go inside the temple itself where, I'm told, a very holy book is kept.

Music and chanting played the whole time we were there. There is also a free kitchen where anyone can go to eat anytime, day or night. First, though, we wanted to find the sleeping quarters so we could put our stuff down. After a few attempts at getting the guards to tell us where to go (and getting only vague answers), we finally found someone to take us to the special room reserved just for foreigners.

Everyone is welcome to spend the night at the temple, anytime they want... as long as they're willing to sleep on the ground outside. There is a residence hall but I'm not sure what you have to do to get one of the rooms outside the giant main room (it filled with people by the end of the night). Foreigners, however, get a special room off to the side with cots, lockers, and their own bathroom. There were a couple dozen beds altogether, but we had no trouble finding free ones.

The "inn" at the temple seemed to me how I imagine hostels. Verity said it was more like a prison.

There had to have been ten thousand people in the temple altogether. As Marie said when she got back earlier in the week, “This (Dharamsala) isn't India. That (Amritsar) is India.” It wasn't until we'd dropped off our things, washed our faces, and gone to get some free dal and chapatti that I pondered just how many people were there. It was pretty incredible.

The next morning we got up before dawn – not on purpose, it just kind of happened – which was just as well because I'd heard that the best time to view the temple was at dawn and at dusk. We went and found a spot to sit and waited for the sun to rise.

Aside from the couple of other westerners we saw in the sleeping quarters, I didn't see any other obvious foreigners there; this could explain why people looked at us with such interest. Three white women in the heart of Punjab – quite an oddity!

The longer we stayed on the temple grounds, the more I enjoyed it. I marveled at how clean the place was, and how relaxed everyone seemed to be. There were no fussy children, no raised voices... it was super chill. Everyone was nice. We had a few people come up and shake our hands, and this guy struck up a conversation in which he informed us that he's been married twice and has seventeen children, and that he's “strong like tiger!” 

 

I'm not sure if he's well known in those parts or it was just a good excuse for the rest of them to come up, but once he started talking to us a crowd formed around us three. Verity had a kid come up and say “Nice to meet you” as though he'd been practicing his English. It was cute.

We wandered around the temple for a bit and then out one of the gates where they were having what appeared to be the Sikh equivalent of a religious service. The mood here was very relaxed as well, with people spread out all over the room. One little guy ran up to us after we'd been there a few minutes and held out a pack of cookies. When we each took one he grinned and ran back to his family. He came back periodically, offering us various foodstuffs; we took some photos and he was thrilled to see himself on the little screen.

At 9 we packed up our things and headed back to collect our shoes and meet Suhil, and began the trek back home. I probably could have stayed one more day (in the temple, not in the city of Amritsar), but we've got Tibetans relying on us for English lessons, so here I am, back in McLeod Ganj. If you're ever near Punjab, I recommend checking out the Golden Temple and what the hell, go see the border thing too if you're in the mood for a show. 

A jujube tree!

I expected a priestess to come out and ask me to go retrieve Nettlebane....

Rooftop Yoga

Sometimes when I wake in the middle of the night it takes me a minute to remember where I am. A faint illumination filters in through the window above the balcony door and reflects gently off some of the more prominent features in the room. This morning I woke to just such a scene. I lay there contemplating, trying to mentally crawl out of whatever dream land I'd just been in, for a minute before I remembered: oh yeah, India.

My own place... in India.

I decided that I really do like my room. It lacks some of the comforts of home, but for now, at least, it's ideal. (Close to ideal... I wouldn't mind if it got a little more sunlight.)

This made me happy. I checked my phone and, after finding that it wasn't even 5am yet, rolled back over and promptly passed back out. A few hours later I woke to a considerably brighter room and decided it looked like a good day for yoga.

I threw on some clothes, grabbed my mat and my keys, and scampered up to the roof. I'd been wanting to do yoga on the roof here since I first looked at the place.

And so today I did yoga, on the roof, in the Indian morning sunlight. It was every bit as glorious as it sounds.

Despite the fact that exercise invigorates you for the rest of the day, I've always had a tough time getting up early enough to work out before work or school. The fact that I don't have to teach until 11 is working wonders for my ability to finally make this happen. Add to that the fact that the weather was absolutely perfect – low 70s, just a bit breezy, and without a cloud in the sky – and I felt on top of the world.

The fact that I am literally on a mountain probably didn't hurt, either. You can see so far away from up here. It's amazing.

When I returned to my room I flipped on the water heater so I could get a decent shower and did some push ups; my legs get a constant workout whether I like it or not living here, so I figure it'd be in my interest to make sure my upper body gets some attention, too. Speaking of my upper body getting some attention, I had a couple of people ask me about my tattoo today. It was strange, because I often wear short sleeves and I know they've seen it before. Regardless, it led to some new conversation with my students who are always looking to learn about new topics. Yay body art!

I think I am going to acquire a nice set of maps so we can have visual aids for when we discuss the places of the world. They want to see photos from my home. I don't think most of them can comprehend the phrase “my home in the United States is very flat.” The mountains of Himachal are a far cry from the fields of Illinois, that's for sure. They also asked about deserts today, and which country is the biggest in the world, and what's the difference between Austria and Australia? See, I need some maps. The acquisition of such things is the homework I assigned myself for the evening.

Recently I find myself considering the differences between life in the suburban Midwest and life in northern India. I've begun to realize how little you really need in order to have a pretty decent life. In the US we are always so concerned about appearances and having everything be fresh and shiny and new; here, all but the most upscale of establishments have wiggly faucets, most people seem to wear the same four or so outfits again and again, and if something breaks you just patch it up the best you can and hope it lasts a while longer. The size of your personal bubble is much smaller here. You have to develop a tolerance for – or at least the ability to tune out – all the various sounds the human body is inclined to make, especially on a diet of rice and dal in a very dirty environment. (That godawful haucking noise, though... that is one thing I will not miss when I leave India. Ugh. Have a little tact, people.) There's no deodorant anywhere either, but I have a much easier time dealing with that; it's not that hot, so it's not a big deal. Constantly listening to every other person near you hack and cough and spit, on the other hand, gets really old, really fast.

You have to learn to tolerate being very close to all kinds of people. You learn to understand that you will be touched, you will be bumped into, you will probably be splashed by cars on the road because there are no sidewalks to speak of, and you will have to get used to the incessant honking of horns, and taxis, motorbikes, and autorickshaws passing within fractions of an inch of your person. That's just how it goes here. If you let it get to you, you are going to have a very unhappy stay.

I've decided to just roll with it as much as possible. I came in treating this whole experience as an adventure, and let me tell you, I think that has saved my sanity more than a few times. “It's India,” I remind myself. Whatever that means. It works, though. I remind myself that there are however many millions – over a billion, maybe? – people living here that do this every day, and it doesn't seem to faze most of them. It's just life. It's raw, dirty, un-sugar-coated, honest-to-goodness life, and as much as a pain in the ass it may be from time to time, as uncomfortable it can be, and as much as some days I really, really just want a hot tub or dry sheets or for god's sake a decent salad, I am thrilled to be a part of it.

You learn to delight in the small things, like this deliciously juicy kiwi.

It continues to interest and inspire me also that so many of these people seem happy. The Tibetans especially: despite decades of oppression and exile, through innumerable, ongoing human rights violations in their homeland, they are a surprisingly good-natured people. Many of them seem to be pacifists – all they want is peace so they can return to their homes. Many of my students in particular are very eager to learn as much as they can and to improve their English as much as possible. They recognize that English is the international language and that if they acquire a decent level of proficiency in it they will exponentially increase their options as far as career, education, and travel. Perhaps it's because they don't have much to begin with, and perhaps it's because many of them are monks and nuns, but they seem largely uninterested in material gain; they just want a decent education. It's so different from the mentality in the west, where we want an education, sure, but it's only so we can make a bunch of money and buy a big house and pay off all the loans we've no doubt taken out to acquire said education.

When I first graduated high school I felt I was pushed into going off to college. I was smart, went the reasoning, so naturally “real college” was my next step. I wasn't ready for it. I was miserable, and I moved home after one semester. I just needed time. Look at me now: my first time outside my home country and I picked India of all places! That's how I seem to do things, though – think about a situation until I can't take it any more and then do something drastic. I'm not sure that's a good trait, but there you have it. In this case, I think it's all working out just fine. There is so much more to the world than a cubicle and a mortgage, and I've only just started to explore it.

If you are into the cubicle-and-mortgage thing that's cool, it's just not for me. I much prefer the unconventional, even if it's not as cushy and comfortable all the time. What's that saying? Oh yeah: pain lets you know you're alive. I'm not saying I want "pain," per se, but experiencing a bit of hardship now and then helps keep the balance. We all love to be pampered, but without a little difficulty from time to time we get soft and depressed, and that's no fun for anyone. I've had almost 30 years of relative comfort; it's funny how too much of a good thing can be just as detrimental as not enough, isn't it? I knew I needed some perspective, so I got my proverbial ducks in a row and made it happen. Was I scared? Of course I was. But I wanted to be scared. I wanted that rush. I wanted to feel like anything could happen, good or bad. I knew that if I just stayed home and hung out in Chicagoland I'd always wish I'd taken a chance and gone somewhere new. 

I'll admit I'm just a little bit proud of myself for finally being decisive about something big.

Adventure, ho! (The dogs seem unimpressed.)

New bukkits: living the high life in India

The other day my students took their Unit 2 test. It's always interesting to see how people score on exams; some of my best communicators in class don't do as well as I expect them to, and a few of the quietest, blend-in-to-the-crowd students do surprisingly well indeed. One thing I noticed was that even my strongest students had some trouble with the writing portion, in which they were asked to "write a short email to a new friend" and answer six simple questions, such as what is your name, how many siblings do you have, that sort of thing.

So I did what any concerned teacher would do and I devised an activity for them to practice their email-writing skills. I typed up an email from one fictitious person to another and filled it with punctuation and grammar errors. I tried to base it largely on the ones they've seen in class so as not to throw too much at them at once.

I have since been informed that I may have gone a little overboard. It's a tricky situation: they need to know how to do things like write emails (and sound intelligent), but their grasp of the English language is somewhat slippery, so I have to be careful not to do things like say "my town is called Springfield" and then tell them the whole thing should be in present simple tense, because a whole bunch of them got confused with "called" being a past tense form of a verb. Being a native speaker, I didn't even think of it at the time.

Oh, the surprises one gets when teaching!

It's not so bad, though. Today I had them compare notes, during which time I wrote the entire first paragraph on the board. Then I had them come up and one person correct each sentence, after which I asked the class if the corrections were, well, correct.

The best part, I think, was when a couple of them went back and forth reversing each other's corrections because there was some dispute over whether an apostrophe belonged in a particular word. One student went up and inserted the little flying comma, and another got right up and erased it, the entire class had a nice little giggle, and it was the perfect setup to discuss when we need to put apostrophes by the letter S.

I think I'm going to start doing something like that each class, and hopefully it'll get them used to sentence structure and everything. Does anyone from R-C remember "Daily Oral Language" from Mrs. McGann's class? Isn't that what it was called? I'm thinking I'll do that sort of thing and see how it goes. They seem to do well when they can check each other's work, but when it's up to each one of them individually they have some trouble. I really want to try to get them over that. The culture here is very community-oriented, and it comes out in the classroom. I dig that. It's a little tricky to get them not to help each other on tests, though.

In other news, I have a new trash can at my place!

A shiny new bukkit: I haz one!

I'll have to see if I can get them to do something about my electrics next...

Brij and I were a little excited about the new additions in our hallway this morning. We think it may have had something to do with our telling the guys who run the place that if they want westerners to stay there, as they claim they do, then they should make a little more effort to get the place up to something resembling a western standard of living. Seriously, guys. You could at least replace the shower head that's missing in the one room, and scrub the walls for god's sake. I had to do the walls thing on my own, and if you recall, I also went through a couple hours and half a (rather large) package of butt wipes to scrub down all the trim and the headboard. I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but about a week before I moved in I asked them to make sure the room was cleaned before I got there. To be fair, the floor was all sparkly and still even a little wet. Really, though. You could make some effort to make the other surfaces presentable.

That said, I really do like my room. It's small but not too cramped; it's sufficiently "Indian" without being so ghetto I count the days until my flight home. In the immortal words of Goldilocks, it's juuuust right.

I am, however, a little concerned about the temperature situation. My room most definitely does not have heat, and the nights have been getting chilly already. I'm thinking I may have to stock up on blankets in the coming months.

-- For those of you who are curious, my typical morning goes something like this:
Awake to music from Suikoden for my alarm, around 7:30. Congratulate myself on having the foresight to download this ringtone before I left home.
Get up, put on flip flops. The floor is made of tile and is always, always cold. Go into the bathroom and turn on the water heater.
Fill up kettle, turn on. Make sure everything else in the room is switched off because otherwise the breaker trips.
If/when the breaker trips anyway, muscle open the door to the hallway (it sticks) and flip the switch. Repeat until it stays.
Once water in kettle is boiling, make oatmeal and stir in homemade peanut butter I bought from some Tibetans at the temple a few weeks ago. Add dried fruit and nuts or fresh bananas as available.
Eat breakfast, drink some boiled (clean) water, wash dishes in the bathroom sink.
Take a shower. Turn the water off often so as to conserve the precious hot variety; the tank is pretty small.
Flip off the water heater.
Get dressed, turn on wall outlet to charge my phone/laptop/Nook/whatever. Prioritize wisely, because there is only one outlet in the room.
Fill up large bucket in bathroom with water and some powdered laundry detergent. Put dirty clothes in to soak.
Lesson plan or read one of the handful of books I have going at any given time. (Currently working on: God Against the Gods, Koran Curious: A Guide for Infidels and Believers, and They Do It With Mirrors. I recently finished The Seven Daughters of Eve and one night I knocked out Metamorphosis. I recommend all of 'em. Lon, I think The Night Circus is going to be next on the list.)
Brush my teeth with purified water, then scrub the laundry that's been soaking. Dump the soapy water in the sink, refill the bucket with clear water, and rinse. Repeat as necessary. Wring everything out as much as possible and then hang it out on one of the clotheslines on the balcony or drape it over the side in the sun. Hope all my laundry doesn't fall on the filthy ground while I'm not looking.
Collect my stuff, triple check to make sure I have my keys, and head to class sometime between 10 and 10:30 if it's a weekday. Otherwise I keep my balcony door open so I can holler down to Marie and Gill to see if they want to go do anything in town together.

Today the after-school excitement was a street market down past the main square.

Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of food.

They even had carnival rides. They were old, dirty, creepy carnival rides, but carnival rides all the same. I did not ride them.

On my way there I ran into a few of my students, all of whom cheerfully engaged me in conversation. I also stopped in to the post office to send off a small birthday package; thankfully the experience went much more smoothly than last time. I had to lick oldschool stamps. I can't remember the last time I even saw stamps that required licking.

For now, I'm going to go study my Hindi, so to quote the picture Casey so thoughtfully left on my FB page earlier today......

Namaste, bitches. ;)

In which I pretend to be an electrician

I apologize for my rushed account of the TIPA show last night, but I was out having coffee with some friends afterward and didn't want to be on my computer and antisocial for too long, but I knew once we left I wouldn't be able to upload my post. The show was fun, even if there were moments that reminded me of one of those bizarre “hip” Christian church services with the full band and the personality cult. During one musical number, on the curtain behind the musicians there was a big picture of HH the Dalai Lama superimposed over a space scene with stars and galaxies, and stuffed doves on wires bobbed with the motion of a multicolored wheel off to the side. Kinda weird. Generally speaking, though, it was a good time and I had fun.

After some surprisingly decent cheesecake and a bit of dancing at the coffee shop, Alex and Rico walked me back to my place – a thoughtful offer, since it is a bit of a trip and I don't like doing it alone in the dark if I don't have to. It's just as well, too, because we also encountered a barking dog lurking down an alleyway, a first since I've been here. You'll be happy to know we made it back to Pause Dwelling without further incident.

I had only been in my room for about 5 minutes when the power went out. I waited a bit to see what would happen, because sometimes it's only a few minutes before everything starts up again. It didn't, so I went to sleep. Alex wanted to meet before HH's teachings began this morning anyway, so I needed some rest. To my surprise and annoyance, my lights still wouldn't turn on and the fan wouldn't spin when I got up this morning. I washed my hair in the sink because I'd really been hoping for a shower, but you do what you can with what you have. It's India.

At HH's teachings I basically tuned in and out the entire 4 hours we were there. He spoke more of compassion and secular morality, but this teaching had more religiosity in it than the one last week. He said things that seemed mildly condescending to non-believers, but I reminded myself that he is, after all, the leader of a major world religion, and so I can't really fault him too much for it. At least he said we all have the same goal in mind with regard to the avoidance of suffering and attainment of happiness, and that we all deserve respect regardless of our beliefs (or lack thereof).

I spent much of the time mulling over ideas for a sewing business I could start when I get back home. I really love my job at Duke's Catering (hi Mo! I miss you!), but unfortunately I've got bills to pay and part time work doesn't always cut it. I want to maintain a flexible schedule, and I do alright with a sewing machine, so I thought maybe I could make something work there with an online or perhaps consignment sort of thing. Regardless of whether it works out in the end, I had a good morning being creative and scribbling down notes and ideas.

On a related note, Dad, I want to go to DragonCon with you next year. DragonCon or whatever other Cons you may be planning to attend.... I've got some pretty kickass cosplay ideas.

The rest of you: go ahead and make fun of my geekery. We all know you're just jealous. ;)

Anyway, upon returning home from the temple, I found that my power still wasn't on. Wtf, right? As I headed downstairs to get someone to fix it, I flipped some switches in the other rooms (they keep the doors open if no one is renting them. I'm doing the same with mine right now in hopes that it'll air out and the sheets will dry... monsoon season is almost over but we aren't quite there yet. Damp sheets kinda suck). Sure enough, the lights worked in the other rooms. I went back and checked mine again. Still nothing.

The guys came up and after a minute of fiddling with the breaker they got it to work. I had to turn everything off, then we had to flip a tired little switch outside, and then I could go about getting that shower I wanted so badly. I plugged in my phone, set some water to boil in the kettle, turned on the water heater in the bathroom, and put the fan on to try to dry the few articles of laundry I'd hung in my room.

Everything turned off.

Well shit, I thought. I tried flipping the switch myself and couldn't get it to stick, so I had to go bother the guys again. I decided I'd have to do a little experimentation to see how many things I could have running at one time without tripping the breaker; I got it up to a light in the main room, the light in the bathroom, the kettle, the water heater, and I think I also had my phone plugged in, and it was no problem. I think that might be the limit, though.

Yup, India. It's not so bad, but I have started to get a few pangs of homesickness. I'm sure in the end I'll be glad I decided to stay until December, but if I had an open ended ticket home, I'd be tempted to use it in another month or so. I think when I get back I'll try to save some money and plan to check out Europe, or maybe Canada. Anybody want to be a travel buddy?

New Friends All Around

This morning I woke up in my new room and decided it was cozy. I did some laundry because it was gloriously sunny outside; I think the monsoon season is in fact on its way out. This is exciting news indeed -- the promise of dry clothing and bedding is near!



My new residence, Pause Dwelling, has these great big communal balconies on each floor that also have clotheslines that we can use. Since Brij and I are currently the only occupants on the 3rd floor, we get to spread out basically as much as we'll allow each other. This is especially fantastic because I am still trying to get out of the mindset of not doing laundry until I have a full load -- a great idea back home so I save water, but completely irrelevant here since washing machines exist only at the fanciest of laundry service places, and it's much cheaper to buy some powdered detergent and use the bucket that's provided with the room -- and so at any given time I've got a fair amount of clothing that needs to be cleaned. I managed to wash a few of my favorite items and find spots for them in the sun. As I was doing this Ricky, one of the guys who seems to be in charge around here, told me that we still needed to do my check-in paperwork and could I bring a copy of my passport sometime soon, please?



I told him I'd see if I had one in my room, as I had made a few copies earlier in the trip because I was informed by others who had traveled abroad that this would be a good idea (thanks, Jillian and Cory). Sure enough I had one and so I followed Ricky downstairs to the office where he took out a huge ledger and invited me to have a seat at the nearby padded bench. I had forgotten that everything in India takes a while; it's not just a matter of "let me look at your license, how will you be paying for that? *click click click* Here's your room key" like it is in the US. In India things are done by hand. Here it isn't uncommon for shop proprietors and the like to invite their customers to have a seat, and I've found that it's usually a good idea to take them up on the offer because it's their way of telling you you'll be there a while.



Ricky, an Indian guy who looks to be more or less my age, set to writing my information in the book. After a while one of the older men who works here came out and offered me some tea -- it's all called "chai" here, and none of it tastes like the chai we have in the States; I'm pretty sure it's black tea with milk and sugar in it -- which I accepted since by this point I'd been hanging around for a good fifteen minutes longer than I'd anticipated and I figured why not? Ricky finished getting me in the system, as it were, and asked me about home. Do I have family in the United States? Yes, my parents and one sister. Do I live with them? I live with my dad. Is my sister older or younger? She's a few years younger. She lives with her boyfriend... actually, her fiance, they're getting married.



This led to a discussion about weddings in which we found that people tend to spend an awful lot of money on them both in the US and in India, but in India everything is of course cheaper by default. He suggested with a wry smile that maybe they should have their wedding in India to save some money -- nevermind the fact that plane tickets are not cheap by any means. (But hey Lon and Dan, maybe it's worth looking into...?) ;)



He asked me if Obama was popular in the United States and I told him what I have objectively noticed, that his popularity has been falling the last few years. We talked about how politics in general doesn't benefit the average person and how we'd just as soon have nothing to do with it. I told him how life is not easy in the US even though the standard of living is very high. He told me that in India there are many people who don't have much, but they also don't owe much. It's not like in the west where there is always someone -- a bank, the government -- coming after you for money. He told me that people who live in villages don't have as much access to education, for example, but they also are largely farmers and craftsmen who support themselves and each other, and they don't need to rely on the government for as much. This in and of itself appeals to me. Obviously there are drawbacks to this lifestyle, such as the relinquishment of certain comforts and luxuries (like education, unless you find a way to tackle that point), but it's certainly something that might be worth considering.



An hour and a cup of chai later, and after a cheerful promise to trade English practice for Hindi lessons, I told Ricky I was going to let him get to his work and I'd hit up the ATM so I could pay him for the room. "It's no problem," he said in the easy way that most Indians tend to. No one ever seems to be in a rush here. He had asked if I'd been to Dharamkot for pizza yet; I have not, but everyone keeps telling me I have to go because it's amazing. When I suggested that we go sometime he asked my schedule; when I asked for his to see what times might coincide he smiled and said that he could go pretty much whenever. Around here if you want to leave for a while you leave for a while, as long as there is someone to cover for you. It's not like other places where you must stay at your post until your shift is over, there is no one micromanaging, and as long as everything gets done, everyone is happy. It's much more laid back, according to him, and I must say that my observations support this.



Thankfully, Brij was home when it started to rain early this afternoon, and he moved my laundry to a dry area since I wasn't back yet. Later, as I sat here on the balcony enjoying the rain, typing up this post, Ricky happened by and struck up a conversation, and then offered me tea. I already feel like I'm becoming part of a small community in my new Dwelling. I think I'm going to enjoy living here.

I went out for lunch today and ran into a few friends: Tashi, Tashi, Alexandra from London, Rico from Colorado, Sonam, and Sertso; you might remember them from sushi a few posts back. Tashi the monk mentioned that there was going to be a show of traditional Tibetan song, dance, and drama at TIPA tonight, the Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts. The Tashis, Alex, and I were the only ones who wound up going.



It was pretty awesome.



The dances involved a lot of stomping, brightly colored costumes, and cool hats, and the content revolved largely around the everyday lives of the average Tibetan: farming. One dance even had people dressed up in yak costumes. The guy sitting next to me asked if I could understand the Tibetan. Of course I said no, but I was enjoying it anyway. He proceeded to translate much of the rest of the show for me, which was a big help during the two acting pieces at the end. They both revolved around the prompt “the importance of preserving the Tibetan language.”



The first was a drama that included a surprisingly convincing depiction of both a fight between Chinese police and students, and later a self-immolation.



The second was a comedy that opened with a great scene of modern McLeod Ganj. I felt like an insider since I actually recognized what was going on even if I couldn't understand the language.



Now we're sitting back at the Clay Oven where Alex couldn't believe they were actually playing Blink-182. I informed her of the amazing music selection this place has, and now we are having some cheesecake, and Diamonds by Rihanna is on the radio and I really, really wish I had a hula hoop.