Thursday, June 28th - Dharamsala

Rumor has it that the monsoon is set to break today.  Not sure exactly what that means.  At the moment it's about 75, sunny with bubbling cumulus clouds to the north over the mountains.  Granted, this is what it was like yesterday.  Then at about 10:30 in the morning, in the middle of my volunteer placement, it began pouring.  The rain poured into the windows and through the open doors.  The assistant teacher attempted to combat the flood flowing across the floor with a grass broom but with little luck.  She gave up, instead deciding to shut the windows and door.

I know I haven't talked about my volunteer placement much - that post is coming up - but the daycare is little more than a concrete cube with metal windows and doors.  I started a list of the things that they don't have, but I am going to change it to a list of what they have.  About eight small tables, a red blanket, and a pair of burners to make lunch on.  That's pretty much it.  No electricity or running water.  No paper, books, coloring supplies, etc.  But more later.  The point here is that with the doors and windows closed, the daycare was pitch black.

So there I sat, in the middle of an Indian daycare, surrounded by twelve preschoolers as the rain fell.  In the dark, over the sound of rain drops falling a child screamed and come strange man entered the daycare and began arguing with an elder demanding his umbrella.  So much for doing the things we had planned.  Little of anything would be accomplished until the rains stopped, which could be a long time if this truly is the monsoon.
   

This is not from the same day, but it's what we got.

Wednesday, July 27th - Kangra Fort

Today we visited an ancient fort - Kangra Fort - with the CCS crew.  Entering, Angie and I rented some awesome little guided headphone sets.  Mine only spoke Hindi.  Bummer.  So I plugged my headphones into the second jack on Angie's set.  We were so cool!

Yep.  That's what I will look like in 20 years.  Angie can't wait!

It's old.

There is no way you could invade this place.

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012 - Dharamsala

Picnic. 

Sunday was dedicated to a picnic put on by the staff at CCS.  We cruised to a park about a forty-five minute drive from Dharamsala.  Down a windy road, next to a river was where we staged our picnic.  The weather was beatiful.  Sun shining down, a single shade tree to keep the sun off the food, and a wide open field for a game of cricket.  My time in New Zealand prepared my little for the game.  I don't seem to be destined to fame on the cricket field, but it was enjoyable to hit and run.  I still feel like I'm playing baseball the whole time, which isn't bad for me, but I think that all the cricket lovers of the world (the Kiwis, the Indians, I'm sure the British) bristle at the thought.  Oh well.

A home run!

Great form!

After the game we sat down to a delightful meal.  I don't think I'll ever get enough Indian food.  It is just too delicious.  Following the meal the CCS team insisted on taking a photograph of our group near the river.  "Pass us your cameras," they insisted.  "We'll take group shots."  Sounded like a good idea.  Little did we all know that an all out attack was coming.  Immediately following the last pictures we were attacked from all sides and tossed into the river.  So much for friendly photo ops.  Refreshing yes.  A little frightening yes.  No matter how open minded I try to be I can't get it out of my head.  The water here is unsafe to drink.  Tap water - the water that comes into your house will make you sick.  How safe can a river possibly be?  Well, days went by and I survived. 

Swimming.

Sunday, June 24th, 2012 - Dharamsala

Last night we traveled to McLeod.  The experience began before the journey.  About half an hour before the cabs were to arrive the storm broke.  For the next thirty minutes raindrops the size of marbles fell from the sky.  Then marbles turned to ice and hail ensued.  Wind swiftly followed sending hail and rain through the open upstairs windows of the volunteer house.  Rain water was pouring down the stairs as the two girls upstairs struggled to close the windows against the pre-monsoon wind.  And then as suddenly as it started the rains and hail and wind stopped, and the taxis arrived.

Just a little pre-monsoon shower.

Worried about the roads we paid the drivers an extra 200 rupees to take the slower, safer way.  Split four ways it worked out to a little less than a dollar to avoid the possibility of testing gravity in the foothills of the Himalayas.  Climbing three thousand feet through the skinny Indian roads with the threat of another drenching we felt the money well spent.

The driving was beginning to shock me less.  I'm not sure if this was a good thing.  The driving itself had become no less chaotic.  But order is beginning to become evident.  Typically the largest vehicle has the right of way.  Honking happens constantly, but not randomly and not as a means of conveying anger.  Rounding blind turns, a honk alerts oncoming traffic.  Passing a car, motorcycle, pedestrian, cow, etc. - a friendly beep.  Just when I thought I'd grown accustomed to the chaos, all hell broke loose nearing McLeod.  A little more than a kilometer away traffic came to a complete standstill.  Ahead on the road, the skinny mountain road - cliff on the left, sheer drop of the right - a bus was a attempting to turn around.  Three point turn yeah right.  The driver was on about point forty and wasn't getting close.  He was, however, effectively blocking both lanes of traffic as he'd gotten himself halfway around.  A foot forward, crank it the other way, a foot in reverse, all the time being pounded on and yelled to by helpful assistants, the bus was going nowhere fast.  And neither were we.  Rather than witness a bus full of people topple over a cliff, and to avoid waiting an hour of more to travel a kilometer we left our taxis making note of the license plate as the same car and driver was responsible for taking us home later that evening.

She looks how we felt.

During our five minute walk to McLeod traffic did not budge.  Approaching the city center we discovered the reason the bus was attempting a life threatening U-turn to begin with.  The city center itself marked the convergence of McLeod's main roads.  Here was also the convergence of everything that was India.  Cars, motorcycles, people, vendors, taxis, cows, goats, monks, tourists, dogs, garbage, and so many more things that my overloaded brain couldn't possibly record.  And then the sounds, and the smells, and everything else.  Movement through the mess of humanity and livestock was inversely related to size with the exception of the cows who moved where and when they wanted.  Needless to say, we were pretty well sized to move through the congestion.

Exploring McLeod tapped skills I'd acquired after years of attending punk rock shows and would prove useful over and over again when navigating Indian crowds.  The basics consist of three things.

Just more of the fun that is India.

(1) Always keep moving forward taking advantage of the little openings that occur between people.
(2) Look backward often to assure that your people are still with you (and to keep an eye out for potential pickpockets).
(3) Move to the side when you hear a horn blast.  Okay - this skill has nothing to do with punk rock shows.  At least that I've been to.

In addition to crowd navigation we also got a chance to work on our haggling skills.  Angie was successful in bringing down the price on two different pairs of earrings after much back and forth.  To this day I have no idea if we received a fair price or not, but it's a start.

The evening ended with dinner at a restaurant near the main city center.  For how insanely busy the streets were, the restaurants were fairly empty.  Cool beer, some random items from the menu - all good things.

The CCS crowd.  Note the bottled waters.  Not an unecessary precaution as that glass of grape juice to my right contained some gut emptying critters that knocked the owner off her feet for a couple of days.

Of course the night can't end on a calm note.  After dinner we decided to grab ice cream at the shop below the restaurant at the street level.  While waiting for our change the power in half of McLeod cut out leaving our shop and our entire side of the street in the dark.  And the rain began to fall again.  The crowd cheered.  We took our change and looked for shelter from the rain.

We regrouped under the overhang of a building.  It was time to find our taxi.  We needed to find the same car that drove us - a seemingly impossible task.  With all the people and taxis and rain and questionable power we doubted ever finding our man.  But we turned the corner and there he was, waiting patiently.  The return journey in the dark seemed like it took half the time.  We arrived back at the volunteer houses safe and sound, racking up a total fare of 700 rupees. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Officially, Thanksgiving ended here in Alaska twenty minutes ago.  I love this holiday for so many reasons.  The food, obviously.  But also I love the concept of celebrating the act of making it through another year.  And taking time to reflect back on the reasons for that success.  Spending part of my year in India and Nepal has made me ever more thankful for what I have in my life.     

I have wanted to get more of those experiences recorded here.  If anything because their current place of residence is scattered on about twenty loose leaf sheets of paper and also in a bright pink/purple mini journal.  So stay tuned for future posts.  And have a Happy Day After Thanksgiving.

 

Thursday, June 21st, 2012 - Dharamsala

Flights on Thursday were cancelled again.  Same line: "Low clouds and poor visibility."  Far more unrest with the passengers this time, however.  Through them I believe an alternate story may be more accurate.

Kingfisher Airlines (who also happens to own one of the major beer companies in India - conveniently sharing a name) is going through bankruptcy at the moment.  When there aren't enough seats sold, the plane is simply allocated somewhere else.  This means that we've spent the previous two days sitting in an airport waiting for a flight that was never going to fly.

Another call to Bela, the CCS administrator, another taxi ride back to CCS home base, and now an overnight taxi has been set up for the two of us.  Vicky, our guy from the first night, will be accompanying us as he'll be helping run the program in Dharamsala provided we ever end up arriving there.

Another cancelled flight.  At least they treat the monks the same way...

In the process of reclaiming our luggage and canceling our tickets (again) we met two young women in the same boat as us.  The first woman, heading to Dharamsala to study Tibetan, is originally from Germany.  The second is from Chennai in India and had plans of visiting a friend.  The two met while waiting, and now have met us, and our seeking our assistance.  We've offered Bela's assistance to them, who kindly booked them a taxi of their own to follow ours through the night.

The taxi was a experience - superior to flying.  Ten and a half hours overnight past trucks, buses, motorcycles, horse drawn carts, cows... I really can't get over the diversity of things on the road.  The actual drive was done primarily in the dark, so we couldn't see much, but based on the frequent brakes slamming and general overall speed, there were a lot of other things in the road in front of us.  And of course there was the road itself.  We'd be cruising along when suddenly I'd be jolted from my light sleep as the driver was slowing down as a section of the pavement would be missing for a couple hundred yards.  We'd clear that and speeds would increase again.

Every hour or two we'd pull over at a roadside tea house called a dhaba.  A set of about five propane burners topped with large steel pots would house hot chai (chai means tea so chai tea is redundant).  The owner of the dhaba would awaken from his sleep in a chair nearby and serve us and anyone else passing by a cup of delicious, spiced chai and we'd be on our way.  This proved to be a wonderful way to keep our driver of the evening awake and alert.

Around five in the morning the sky began to brighten revealing the lowest of the Himalayas.  We stopped next to a Hindu temple for the drivers to take half hour power naps.  As morning prayers began inside we sat overlooking the mountains.  Monkeys leaped from tree to tree as the sun climbed above the mountains.  Our drivers awoke and the journey continued.  Two hours later we were there - Dharamsala at last.

A note

At the moment all posts are being done with an iPad. It's pretty annoying as formatting and auto-correcting can inadvertently change my words without me knowing. If you catch an error or can't understand, send me a message. In addition, all photos will be uploaded after I have a chance to upload pictures to a computer - maybe not until I get back to the US.

An initiation

We were supposed to be in Dharamsala by now. Apparently low clouds and rain can cancel flights in India as well as in Tununak. So now we are a day and a half late to our placement provided the weather has cleared. After reclaiming our luggage and being rebooked, we were responsible for taking a taxi back to the apartment complex we'd been staying in. It sounded like an easy task until the taxi driver brought us to where we told him. We had provided the driver the wrong address, which he dutifully weaved through a packed market to get us there. Luckily our driver had a cell phone and command of Hindi and discovered our address mistake. A few minutes later we were back to our apartment.

The CCS staff fed us (and we kind of crashed a birthday) and told us to go walk down the road a ways to check out the chaos that is New Delhi. After a short walk, and successfully beating Frogger twice to cross the road and back, we returned to our apartment. I woke up in the middle of the night unaware of even going to bed. The heat really sucks the life out of you.

In the morning we went out walking again. This time we turned and found the neighborhood we were supposed to have visited the night before. People were everywhere. Walking, driving, biking. All at the same time. You'd be walking down the road, a horn would beep behind us, and then we'd be zipped by, usually by the typical green and yellow auto-rickshaw, each making eye contact attempting to get the fare. We stopped at a street vendor for a snack. With the language barrier it is hard to tell exactly what we ordered, but I am going to guess a samosa, a deep fried pocket-type snack with a potato filling, and an idli, a fermented rice cake - but this second is only my best guess at the moment. Regardless of what we ate, they were delightful. Delightful and cheap. The pair of items set us back a total of thirteen rupees. In dollars, at about fifty rupees to the dollar, that's about twenty-six cents. Unbelievable. The feast is on.

After our snack, we continued our walk. We passed two really old monument-like things. Domed, made of red brick, one served as a tomb. The dimensions of each monument was written on the plaque nearby, but not the date. Apparently they are from the Lodi period, but my knowledge of Indian history is not that great yet. We then stopped into a Hindu temple. After removing our shoes we went in. It was all white, the floor made of inlaid stones in an intricate pattern. We walked around for about two minutes, then unsure of exactly what to do, we went back to reclaim our shoes. As we continued on we came the the end road. Here another item of historical interest.

We are staying in the area of New Delhi called Hauz Khas which means 'royal tank' after a large reservoir built here in the 13th century. What we had stumbled on was the religious school built overlooking the water around the same time. On the United States this would have been a major attraction. For being nearly one thousand years old, it is in remarkable shape. Made of a similar red stone, the school had a number of buildings including a mosque, a number of tombs, and what are essentially dorms for the students.

The "tank" surrounded by the school

The dorms were what struck me the most. Built into the walls, each room measured about five feet wide by eight feet deep. The door looked out across the water and an arched window was built above each door for additional light to enter. To study at the school must have been quite an honor.

A view from the ground looking into the dorms

After exploring for a bit, the late morning heat was taking its toll. We picked up a bottle of water and a Diet Coke for forty rupees and began the journey home. Just before recrossing the street we bought one last snack. Three rotis and some form of dumpling in a yellow sauce for twenty rupees. Delicious.

For the morning, the total is below. Nice way to spend an extra day in Delhi. Some things are very different from Tununak.

Samosa and idli 13 rupees
Water and Diet Coke 40 rupees
Roti and some dumpling 20 rupees
Mango 21 rupees
Total 94 rupees (less than $2)

It begins...India

It appears that what is said about India is true. Maybe too grand of a statement for only being in the country for twenty-four hours, but I guess time will tell. To begin, Angie and I left from Minneapolis at about three in the afternoon. Eight hours later we were in the Amsterdam airport for five hours. Another eight hour flight brought us to New Delhi. For those adding up the travel time, that is about three hours shorter and two fewer planes than the Minneapolis-Tununak journey. It won't be the only difference between Alaska and India, I'm sure.

We landed in New Delhi around ten thirty at night India time. Waiting for us was our driver from Cross Cultural Solutions, Vicky. Wearing jeans, a polo, tennis shoes, and the a turban, Vicky was our guardian for the first part of the Indian adventure. This trend, the blending of Eastern and Western cultures, is present all over India. One other volunteer was on our plane, a recent high school graduate from Guatemala, Isabella, so the four of us made our way to a taxi.

Walking to the taxi, in the heat, led by Isabella

In the taxi we quickly discovered that what is said about driving in India is true. Road rules are not rules as much as they are "guidelines". Even at midnight, the roads are full of life. The first thing I noticed was that the painted lines mean nothing to the drivers, at least in my opinion. If there is an opening in traffic, one must zip through. A courteous honk of the horn alerts the slower vehicle that you are passing or is heard from others when being passed. I have heard it derided as chaos and anarchy. But it is anything but. The diversity of vehicles, from trucks to taxis to small cars to three-wheeled motor rickshaws to bicycles to pedestrians - everyone moves along at there own pace. I never saw any agitation in the drivers around us or in our driver. It's just the way it goes.

Half an hour later we arrived at CCS's home base. Here we would be spending the next day and a half. A quick teeth brushing and it was off to bed as we began orientation first thing in the morning.

The heat in India is oppressive. The night we arrived, around midnight, registered at 94 degrees. It had to be close to that at eight thirty the following Monday with a promise to increase as the day progressed. I don't like the heat. The Indians appear unfazed. Life continues as it must. Here a connection to Tununak. Where the cold sucked motivation from me, the village went on with it's business. I don't know what it is, but weather is not as big a deal as I view it to be. It shows up every day, regardless of my desires, so why stress about it.

Dreaming of the spring

Alas, it's all in vain, but I want spring.  Most of the time, actually.  It's been a rough week.  Two snow days last week.  A late start.  I got to be acting site administrator for a day - a day that only 40% of the students showed up due to what probably should have been the third snow day.  Oh well.  Here's what I do to keep my mind off the endless winter wonderland.

Plants
My Alaskan answer to gardening.  Hydroponics up and humming.  At the moment lettuce (Romaine and red leaf), basil, green beans, and pumpkins.  Yeah, pumpkins.  They'll never work, but I saved the seeds from Thanksgiving, and what the heck, why not.

So little looking right now...

I also started flowers in the window.  As the days get longer I'm hoping for better results that last semester's attempts.  They blossomed, but half-heartedly, and the poor sunflower it bent and bent until it finally couldn't any longer.

An Alaskan Sunflower.  So nakleng.

Flowers, peas, and spider plants.  Oh and some avocado pits back there.

Food and Bread
Same old, but it's always a delight to have the smell of fresh bread wafting about.  Pretty much perfected a whole wheat sandwich loaf.  Bagels, also pretty legit.  Ciabatta and pizza - close to perfection.  Working on some others.

Muffalettas on ciabatta - a delight

Bread and bagels

Oh, and getting close to working my way through some of my faithful bulk items.  Ben and Sara - in case you were wondering -that 25 lb bag of black beans?  It's gone.  I ate them all.  Well, there was help along the way, but it's quite an accomplishment.  And almost done with the soy beans - both the end of the bag you so kindly donated and my own 25 lb bag.  The dried corn and pinto beans, however - not even close.

The last of the 25lbs of black beans

Dancing
Actually, watching dancing.  Our dance festival was a few weekends ago.  It's always a good time to see people outside the context of school.

A break in between songs

Tununak dancing

Photographing the Increasing Piles of Snow
I keep taking pictures thinking Wow, that's a lot of snow and then it falls again.  So here's a collection of pictures.  I'll try and caption them with dates.  
 

The BIA

What's left of the stairs - Feb 28

 

The snowmobile shed - Feb 28

  Daylight
It's getting to be perfect.  Of course this only lasts a week or two as we gain about forty-five minutes of sunlight a week.  But to wake up to sunlight streaming in through the windows is welcome sight. 
    

Well, what should I expect...I do live in Alaska.

It's cold here.  Really, really cold.  And has been since a week before Christmas.  Currently, twenty-six below zero.  But only a light wind, so that's nice.  The consequences of the weather can be quite frightening.  I'll start at the less so, and see where it takes us.

• Upon returning after Christmas break, we in the BIA discovered that the pipes were quite frozen.  Not all pipes, but the drain pipes.  Interesting side note - when the drains are plugged, but not the supply lines, interesting fundamental lessons are learned.  For example, waste pools at the lowest point.  In this case - two teachers at the other side of the BIA - in their bathroom.  Quite disturbing to see human waste returning through the drain in a bathtub to nearly fill the basin.  No fear, the bucket brigade was put to work and overflow was kept to a minimum.  And after only a week, the plumbing was working again fine. 
• School is difficult to have when the weather/wind/snow is so fierce.  Since returning we have had a handful of late starts (I think last count was four) and one day cancelled completely.  We nearly had school cancelled yesterday as all water lines at the school were frozen.  They did thaw, however, and school went as planned - kind of.
• Why kind of?  Well, the thing is, we are running a high school at the moment with only 2/3 of our class.  The remaining third - they've been stuck out of the village...since Saturday.  They left for basketball tournaments (both the boys team and the girls) last Friday, and here I sit, the following Friday, and they still aren't back.  So it's been a slow, quiet week.
• The BIA suffered its latest injury yesterday.  A pipe burst in the vacant apartment down the hall.  This came immediately following a warning from our maintenance guy about keeping my apartment at a warm enough temperature (so much for saving the world(okay, in his defense, he probably had a point - there was a layer of ice in my shower and the water line was frozen...so...).
• The final point is the most serious.  Living in rural Alaska one becomes familiar with how dangerous life out here really is.  In the past week, two people have died traveling over the tundra.  Both became lost or disoriented and ended up freezing to death before search and rescue could find them.  There are stories in Yup'ik lore that say that when the weather is bad, and refuses to let up, that the weather is hunting.  It only lets up after getting its fill.  I am not a spiritual or superstitious person.  But chills run down my spine as I write this.

And with that I end this post on a brighter note.  The weather is supposed to turn beginning tomorrow.  We are expecting a fifty(!) degree change in temperature over the next thirty-six hours.  Maybe the next post will be of me sledding or climbing the hills.  I am feeling all cooped up and to be able to spend some time outside without worrying about frostbite would be amazing.  Check back soon.