Fred the Ant

So yeah, I failed on the whole “update on Monday” deadline. Surprised? Probably not. This week we made a couple of presentations to schools in the area. The first school was pretty small and we kind of used it as a demo, the next day (yesterday) was better. Yesterday we changed the presentation around a little to get the kids more involved and the school was also much larger. We went from presenting to a group of 30 kids to at least 100. This second school was also much more excited about our coming. They had a few kids prepare speeches in English about the environment in our honor and they also prepared a Sikh religious song. Their excitement and preparation was very touching and they all seemed interested in what we had to say. It felt good to really reach people. We’re hoping to work with the school to put recycling bins in their yard as a drop off point for the community in their part of the village- they’re in a more central location than our center. They say they’ll have the bins by the beginning of next month. And the bins for the front of our center should be arriving any day now.

However, I’m leaving in a week. I wondered if staying longer would make much of a difference but I came to the conclusion that in order to see the recycling project really take hold I’d have to be here at least 6 months, which isn’t really an option for me. I’m glad I at least got see the ball start rolling on my project and got to talk to about 200 people total in the area about the issues. I feel that I’ve inspired some people enough so that after I leave, what we’ve done won’t be wasted. Besides, more interns will be coming to continue the project and Olivia will be here for another month. I’ve also learned a lot about aid work since I’ve been here and if I decide to do it again, I’ll be much more prepared. Though I definitely have some disappointments about how little we were able to accomplish, I don’t feel like it was all in vain, which is a big relief.

Today after our English class we’re heading to Dharamsala- home to the exiled Tibetan government. I’ve been waiting for 2 months to go here so I’m pretty excited. We’ve given ourselves 3 full days there since there’s a lot to see. It’s also going to be cooollldddd (the low is in the 40s)- which right now I think I want since it still gets up to 100 here in the village but I’ll probably regret it when I’m shivering in bed due to no heat. But this place is a must see in India and there’s no way I’m gonna miss it! After that I’m back for a week to say goodbye and write up a report for the next interns and then it’s back to delhi next Friday for two weeks of traveling. Though many of my days here inched by, I’m amazed that my trip is almost over. 3 more weeks! I’m going to try and eat up every little bit of it- living in the present here has been a struggle for me and I’m afraid I may have wasted some precious moments because of it. No more of that I hope.

You may be wondering what Fred the Ant has to do with all of this. Well, one thing I’ve embraced are the formerly less appealing aspects of nature- particularly insects. Ants run rampant here, along with cockroaches, lizards, spiders, and slugs. While taking a shower it’s not uncommon for a small beetle to land on me or have a spider fall from the ceiling on to my unsuspecting head. It took me a while to get used to these things. But a few of weeks ago I went to the kitchen sink (which is outside) to find that our sponges were incredibly clean. I figured that Olivia must have cleaned them. Then a couple of weeks ago I discovered the real culprits- ants. I remembered from our 3rd grade ant farm study, that ants are incredibly clean bugs, and I’ve gained a huge amount of respect for these tiny creatures since I’ve been here. Not only do they keep our sponges clean, but they are seriously the hardest working living beings I’ve ever seen. I’m even a little inspired sometimes when I see one struggling with carrying a piece of food way to big for it. I’ve also heard that they have burial grounds in their ant hills- it’s amazing how their tiny brains can create such an efficient organized world while our larger, much more advanced minds can’t find a way to live in harmony with ours. After the sponge incident, I developed much more of a fondness for ants and thereby named them all Fred in an effort to apologize for my former hatred. Now in the morning I see Fred (or Freds) on the sink and thank them for their excellent cleaning job before flicking them off the sink so I can make breakfast (I don’t feel bad about the flicking though, these ants are like ninjas). In addition to the ants, I’ve begun to accept the purpose of the lizards and spiders, though I haven’t named the spiders yet… I’m working on getting that comfortable with their presence. I've really been able to observe their contributions to the balance of the environment- we're taught these things but seeing them in action over the past few months has been good for me. Cockroaches and slugs… eh, not so friendly with them. Especially since that night when stumbling half asleep to the bathroom I stepped on a slug and it exploded on me. Prettttyyyy gross.

Anyway, that’s all for now!

Dodging Fireworks

Sorry again this is so late. I promise to give another update by Monday. :)

Last weekend Olivia and I went to Amritsar- some of you may have seen the pictures on facebook. It’s a pretty cool place. It’s the holy city for the Sikh religion, kind of like Mecca for Muslims. The day we got there we saw the Pakistan/India border closing ceremony. I won’t go into detail but here’s a link to a video of it- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ0ue-XGl9c . It was definitely a fun experience.

The state I’m interning in (Punjab) is famous for its food and for the large population of Sikhs. The man who started the religion, Ram Das, was born a Hindu. He resented the inequality of the caste system and started Sikhism, which is based on the idea of equality and service. I’ve gotten to know many Sikhs while I’ve been here and have found them to be fun loving (if a little crazy) and kind people. Though one criticism of Sikhs that some tend to be pretty exclusive even though the teachings of the religion preach openness (By the way, many of the things I’m stating are based on conversations I’ve had with people here and some Wikipedia research during my free time… so not super reliable). I’ve seen some hints of exclusiveness that I’ll reference later on but in general they seem to be welcoming people. There are some controversial events in Sikh history, but I figure there’s really no religion without some controversial stories and/or beliefs. One thing I really like is that they (mostly men but I’ve also seen some women) often carry around small, beautifully engraved knives that they sling across their fronts. We saw it more in Amritsar because it was a more formal place for them so they all dressed up. I found out that the purpose of these knives is to defend the helpless. The religion is offended referred to as a warrior religion and now I understand that it’s a defensive warrior stance. Actually, their values really remind me of medieval knights- honor, service, defense of the helpless, and equality. I’m diggin it.

The physical epicenter of their spiritual world is the Golden Temple. It’s a magnificent place enclosed by a marble palace of sorts and the temple itself is surrounded by water that the pilgrims bath in. When visiting the temple we were asked not to touch the holy water. We arrived at the Golden Temple to find out that it was a big day- Ram Das’s (remember the man who started the religion- it’s first guru) birthday. We were told by some locals to go back at night for the birthday ceremony. So we returned just before dark to a scene of about 15000 Sikhs jostling for a spot to sit in the massive enclosure. We sat down and were stared at for the next two hours. Recently what I’ve tried to do is give people bright smiles whenever I’m severely stared at. The result is usually pretty fun as most of them give me shining grins back but the two women in front of us were not amused- especially when my phone rang during the chanting. I felt a little guilty about that. I’ve heard religious chanting many times since I’ve been here but this was the first time I’ve been truly moved by it. I could probably even describe its effect as meditative. That also explains why I jumped out of my skin when fireworks suddenly went off right behind us… and I literally mean right behind us. One second I was sitting peacefully thinking I could really get into this and then there was an earth shattering boom followed by heat and ashes falling from the sky. In fact the skeleton of a firework promptly fell right into my lap. Olivia and I looked at each other, both silently deciding if it was time to leave. Around us the others were apparently loving the showers of hot ash and clapping excitedly as enormous fireworks exploded over our heads. Then something happened that made up our minds. One firework, instead of going up, came down to land 2 meters away from us and exploded. A crowd of men then ran up to the flaming mass to beat it with cloth until the fire went out, while others pulled the people away who were sitting in that spot- I couldn’t see if any one was hurt or not. Olivia and I looked at each other again. Time to go! We got up as quickly as we could without panicking and began to push our way to the exit. Unfortunately for us it looked like thousands of other Sikhs had also decided it was time to leave so we got swept up in a suffocating pushing battle. I got pushed up against a banister and no one would let me move to go around it and were instead pressing me up against it, making it hard for me to breath. That’s when I’d really had enough. I started screaming many inappropriate words and that was enough to shock enough people so that I could scoot around the banister and up the stairs to the door. My work was done and my reputation as a vulgar American confirmed. A shaken Olivia and I then made our way to the twilight zone- A real coffee shop which played country music and served us delicious chocolate cake with ice cream. This shop couldn’t have been more out of place but at that moment it was my refuge. We stayed there until the crowds died down a bit and until we quit shaking and then made our way back to our hotel. Just another adventure in India I suppose!

The inch worm known as EduCARE

So here’s a wee update about my working situation. Things are beginning to crawl along. We’ve visited schools to arrange dates to make presentations about global warming in general and also more specifically about plastic waste. The way plastic is handled here is really bad. If I’ve written about all of this already please excuse me (I feel like I may have just because I talk about it so much here). People toss the toxic plastic bags and bottles on the ground, into streams and rivers, or they burn it which releases harmful fumes into the air. Not only are the fumes bad for the atmosphere, they’re also terrible for the human body and have been proven to cause cancer. So, we’re trying to educate the kids about the various problems associated with waste (we’re going to briefly mention other types) and what they can do. We’re also talking with the schools to see if they can get trash bins by the day of the presentation that we can take the kids too after the presentation and have a little “pick up the trash” activity. It’s pretty exciting. The principals and teachers at the schools are so excited to have us making these presentations and are eager to do whatever they can to help. It’s really shown me how arrogant many people are in the U.S. I mean I always knew that people were, but it’s thrown in to sharp relief now that I’m here with these amazingly humble people. And it’s not even that these teachers are uneducated- they knew about many of the issues we were discussing and taught us about some other issues in India, but even at the age of 50 or 60, they were eager to hear about the information we had to offer.

We’re also dealing with the local politics here. I hate that I can’t be more involved because of the language barrier but it’s still interesting to hear about. In order to establish any kind of waste collection system a resolution must be passed by the local council and the politics here are pretty intense so this is quite a process. Our boss claims that he’s writing the resolution but he frequently gets annoyed when we follow up on something he’s said he’d do and tells us we need to rely on ourselves… sigh. If nothing else we’re hoping to do some kind of announcement at the temple when they bring in the beginning of the Indian month (around the 14th of October I believe) so I’m currently working on organizing that.

Next Tuesday is our first presentation to an elementary school. The various presentations are going to be pretty spread out- the last one for me will be at the end of October. Then I’ll travel for a couple of weeks and come home. In those two weeks I plan on going to GOA- the Florida of India, Jaipur- a desert city with a floating palace, the Taj Mahal, and my home base will be Delhi, where I’ll be celebrating Diwali (the festival of lights) with my wonderful hosts there. Sometimes my five weeks left in India feels like an eternity and then other times it feels like a millisecond. I’m trying to make the most of my last weeks in the village and the fact that I’m running out of time is helping me be more motivated. The idleness we experience here sometimes is just downright depressing. There are good days and bad days no matter where you are I suppose. I actually shortened my trip. I was originally supposed to stay until December. But after seeing the situation with EduCARE and how little I’d be able to accomplish, I decided I couldn’t just sit around for 4 months- it would’ve driven me insane. So I shortened my trip to 3 months and plan on writing a paper about aid work in developing countries to make up for the lost time if needed (in order to get academic credit for the internship). We’ll see later if I made the right decision or not- it’ll be interesting to see if I regret it later on. But I’m trying to live day by day and so far today is a much better, more productive day. ☺ Gotta hang on to the little things.

The Mystery of the Broom

This a tale that can’t be swept under the rug, so to speak... cough. Recently there have been 2 encounters involving various brooms that I’m determined to get to the bottom of. A couple of nights ago a group of women came to the house to ask for some pictures I took while at a temple celebration. While we spent 10 minutes actually getting to the point where I understood what they were asking for, one woman peeked inside my bedroom and pointed at my broom, which was propped against the wall. She got my attention and while still pointing at the broom, began jabbering in Punjabi. I gave her my usual response when people speak to me in either Hindi or Punjabi- “Uhhhhhh.” She shrugged and then walked over grabbed the broom, laid it on the floor, and then pushed it under the bed. I was confused. But I’m confused a lot here so I just let it go. I figured it was just another random misunderstanding with a local. But random it was not. This morning while I was teaching my advanced English student, Aj, there was an old man who walked by the center on his way to do probably nothing. Then he stopped suddenly, staring at our two brooms propped up against the wall in the center. He started yelling at AJ and eventually AJ sighed, got up, and went to lay the brooms flat on the floor. I now knew this was no coincidence. The old man, placated, then shuffled of smiling serenely to sit with the group of men who hang around at the shop next door to us all day, drinking chai, gossiping, and spitting. I haven’t mentioned Indian spitting yet- spitting is a very common occurrence here. But I don’t mean just a little saliva, I mean the spitting that Leonardo Dicaprio taught Kate Winslet to do in Titanic. They hock a big one up, then let it loose wherever they feel like. The other day on the bus, a man leaned over Olivia to spit out the window- she was mortified. If you come to india, look out for flying lugis. From what I’ve heard and read, it seems like they see it as a healthy thing to do, which I guess makes sense- better out than in I suppose! Only the men do it in public but don’t think for a second the women don’t behind closed doors- our landlady has let loose some impressive ones. Anyway, after the offending brooms were laid on their sides, I was able to ask AJ what in the world was going on. He shrugged and said, “Old people like to have brooms laying down.” After seeing how completely non-plussed I was by this explanation, he promised to ask his parents. I wonder how many idiosyncracies there are in our culture that we never think to ask about... hm. He’s invited Olivia and I over to his house on Sunday for some good home cooking so I have resolved to get to the bottom of this mystery then.

Side note: Our land lady told us to call her Maharani, which we of course have been doing. But after wondering why people start giggling every time we call her that we discovered that Maharani means “Great Queen.” I think we’ve been duped here…