Varanasi

January 1, 2017 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted May 14th, 2014

A city of contrasts, controversy and confusion.

I can’t say I was sad to leave Varanasi on Easter Sunday when we set off for the tiny domestic airport just outside of the city 5 hours early. Nor did I regret our decision when we ended up unable to check in for 3 hours and sitting in a small waiting area with exactly one bookshop, one Himalayan Herbal Healthcare, and one small food stand. Varanasi was hot and complicated, with an overwhelming main street and an abundance of what our Rishikesh taxi driver would have called “cheater cheater men”, which he’d warned us there were many of in Delhi. After two nights and three days, I still hadn’t quite been able to figure out how I felt about Varanasi or whether any of what I had seen went deeper than surface level. It’s a place I’ve thought about often since I left, so I suppose one thing is clear: it made an impact.

Located between the Varuna and Asi rivers, the origin of the name “Varanasi” may appear quite logical, but this is a city of many names. Also called Benares or Kashi and referred to by turns as “the city of learning”, “the city of light”, and “the city of temples”, Varanasi seems to have as confused an identity as this multiplicity of names suggests. Varanasi is a city of both water and fire; it’s a city where Hindus come to die but it’s also a city overwhelmingly filled with life. Whatever you want to call it, this place is a perfect representation of what I found apparent in so many Indian cities as it showcases the confusion between the holy and the all-too worldly; between the beautiful and the repulsive.

Varanasi saw the foundation of Buddhism in the 500s BCE, and has long been held sacred by Hindus as one of the seven holy cities which allows those who die there to enter moksha – release from the cycle of rebirth. However, at times the intense showmanship when it comes to religion makes the sacred seem to be little more than a display of devotion meant to inspire tourists to spend money; every man is out for himself and in direct competition with all those around him. And the caste system which is still all too obvious within India is certainly a powerful force in this city. Only the lowest “untouchable” castes can burn the bodies as it’s an ‘unclean’ or impure job, but we were told they themselves are not allowed the honour of being burned on the main ghats. There’s a separate place for the poor. As it is, a burning ceremony is expensive for the average Indian family with the cost of transportation, wood, materials to prepare the body, and taxes. When they can’t afford to buy enough wood, bodies are at times either placed in the Ganges unburned, or partially burned. Which is pretty disconcerting considering the number of people who bathe, brush their teeth and do their laundry just a few ghats down from the designated cremation area.

(Here’s an article about a woman from the Dom caste who has this prestigious yet undesirable job)

We arrived in Varanasi by plane early in the morning, walking out of the airport and into the dust and heat which was quite oppressive even at that hour. Taking a taxi into the area of the city by the main ghats (the stairways leading to the Ganges) we quickly realised that finding your way around Varanasi takes practice. We would soon learn that wandering through the small alleyways it becomes easy to lose your bearing, squeezing past water buffalo and weaving through street vendors. The ghats which were perhaps just a few minutes ago hot and busy suddenly make for a reassuring and refreshing relief from this claustrophobic atmosphere.

After being dropped off, our obvious confusion was noticed by the owner of a small internet café who attempted to give us instructions to our guesthouse. Just then, one of his friends came up and said that he knew the place we were looking for and that the owner was a buddy of his. This seemed pretty unlikely as our destination was an obscure guesthouse which has no website and no advertising; you really only go there if you know the guy, and I had booked it on recommendation from some friends who had just stayed there. But we waited around a minute and it paid off! An awkward man showed up on a motorcycle and, with a weak handshake, introduced himself as our landlord. I hadn’t been convinced that he’d understood me on the phone the week before, so I was relieved that he knew my name and appeared to have been expecting us. So are we walking there? Nope. He pointed to the motorcycle. Well, I guess if you’re okay with it, we are too. So he got on, followed by my mom and our duffel bag (luckily the big bags were safely stored away in Delhi at this point) and then by me. It was quite the thrilling ride, winding around tight corners, but luckily not a long one as we were very close by.

This place was the definition of simple. We walked through rough wooden doors, down a little corridor where this man’s wife was taking care of their baby parrots, and into our room where his two little daughters were sleeping. He pulled them off of the bed and they helped put on pillow cases and a sheet and our room was ready. Just a bed, a simple bathroom and, very importantly, a fan, but this place became home quickly and really was all we needed.

As our guesthouse was located at the top of one of the ghats, we spent most of our first day in Varanasi wandering along the Ganges beginning to familiarize ourselves with the area.

There is much historic splendour along the Ganges in the form of ancient buildings constructed by the rich maharaja from the past, although most are irreparably unmaintained at this point. Of the 84 ghats in the city, the two most famous are the Dashashwamedh, the main ghat which Lord Brahma was supposed to have created to welcome Shiva (at the very least all concede that he sacrificed some horses here), and the Mahasmasana – the ‘great cremation ghat’. While the former is a place of celebration in the form of Agni Pooja, the worship to fire, the latter is, as the name suggests, where bodies are burned around the clock.

For part of our walk we were accompanied by an Indian Dr. Seuss who seemed to think that the best way to communicate any information is through rhymes. I think he was wrong.

Once again, as the sun set, we saw several aartis beginning along the Ganges with the huge crowds and bright lights making them an unavoidable spectacle.

Our second day in Varanasi we began by touring a selection of the numerous temples the city has to offer. Mr. Landlord had organised a rickshaw driver to take us from place to place and then to drop us off in the Mughal district to tour a silk factory since this is one of the most prominent industries in the city. At each temple our rickshaw would pull over somewhere on the street leading to it and we would disembark, leaving our shoes in the vehicle and walking barefoot into the temple. Of the places we visited one of the most distinctive was the Durga Temple, also known as the Monkey Temple because an absurd number of monkeys live there, impressing and intimidating you as enter this place of worship.

As we were zigzagging around the city we rode through the Banares Hindu University. Considered the best university in India, it is also one of the largest in Asia. The campus was very impressive and as we entered suddenly everything became quiet and green; it was a peaceful haven from the rest of the city.

Our last stop on the tour was the Mughal, or Muslim, section of Varanasi, where the famous Banarasi silk sarees are made. These are traditional wedding sarees made popular throughout India for the quality of the fabric and the opulent gold and silver used in their elaborate patterns. We watched as two men worked at massive looms in a small, dark room, weaving together rich pinks and purples with gold and silver to form floral-patterned fabric. Then we walked down the small winding streets and got to peak into a room where men were sitting embroidering details on the finished fabric. Finally, we were taken to the store where finished products were sold to simply view the fabrics – “no pressure to buy mamma!” our guide stated over and over again, smiling a largely toothless smile and reassuring us time and again that as my mom was his American mamma and he is my Indian brother, he would never cheat us. Then, to no one’s surprise, we bought some goods and he ripped us off. I think there was probably an unspoken agreement that this was always going to happen – we were the wealthy American tourists and he was the Indian salesman and that story just had to play itself out. We had an entertaining time, though, and watching the weaving was beautiful, as were the pieces we ended up buying.

Another hour or so of wandering around the city – which included a break at a well-known tea shop run by a teenage boy who spoke fluent French – and it was evening: time for a boat ride. You can’t go to Varanasi as a tourist and not view it from the water at least once. Our boatman rowed us past all the centre ghats, pausing at the cremation ghat where dusk made the fires even more prominent than usual, burning in front of the dark city. He told us about the different maharaja who had built the crumbling buildings that we passed, and explained that his family had always been boatmen, although they did not have enough savings to buy their own boats but instead worked for others. We circled back to the ghat where the main aarti takes place and viewed it from our boat which was sandwiched in among dozens more. While it was lovely to watch, and beautiful to see candles floating down the Ganges (we also bought a couple and set them afloat) the fact that it seemed like a show might be because it is: according to some, this practice is far from traditional, but recently created to attract tourists to the city. (BBC article)

We were brought back to our hotel and made an appointment to meet the same man at 5:30am the next morning for a sunrise ride. Varanasi does look it’s best early in the morning, although I wouldn’t say it’s calm even at that hour. Many people were out, starting their days with meditation or doing laundry, and, of course, there were the fishermen. Yes, this river which body remains wash into, where people brush their teeth and do their laundry, this river is also home to delicious fish which one can purchase at the market!

Varanasi is a place with two very opposing images. The way it’s publically portrayed, as holy and timeless, and the way people describe it as dirty, touristy and uncomfortable. There’s the way you feel when you are sitting in a boat looking at the calm waters and the clear sky, and there there’s the memory of being in a crowd when it’s hot and dusty and the smell of cremated bodies lingers in the air.

These two very different quotes about the Ganges seem to sum it up:

“Ganga is not only a river. She is truly a Divine Mother. She rushes forth from the Himalayas as the giver of life, carrying purity, bliss and liberation in Her waters. Ganga is not only water. She is nectar – the nectar of life the nectar of liberation. She is a source of inspiration to all who lay eyes on her ceaseless, boundless, rushing current. She irrigates not only our farms, but also our hearts, minds, and souls. She is the Mother Goddess – giving freely to all with no discrimination, hesitation or expectations. Her waters purify all who bathe in them, all who drink from them. In fact, She is the remover of contamination.”

-paramath.com

“Which black river am I talking of – which river of Death, whose banks are full of rich, dark, sticky mud whose grip traps everything that is planted in it, suffocating and chocking and stunting it?

Why, I am talking of Mother Ganga, daughter of the Vedas, river of illumination, protector of us all, breaker of the chain of birth and rebirth. Everywhere this river flows, that area is the Darkness.”

– Aravind Adiga “The White Tiger”

Both of these impressions are ones that you feel fairly immediately in Varanasi and I suppose they can overlap and intertwine to make this city, while confusing, an interesting and layered one.

Leaving Naddi and becoming a Tourist

January 1, 2017 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted April 28th, 2014

Two weeks ago, my wonderful mother showed up in Dharamsala.

She’d gotten on a plane in Newark, got off in London; got on another plane in London, got off in Delhi; spent a few hours sleeping in Delhi and boarded a final flight the next morning which took her up to Kangra, just an hour or so from me. We had a quick wander through Dharamsala which was entirely deserted compared to normal standards since the city is closed on Mondays. Back in Naddi, she pet a lamb, helped me teach some kids and then it was time to pack up and go.

Ok, there was a bit more to it, but that was how it felt: quite the whirlwind last moments. On my final day in the area I introduced my mother to McLeod Ganj where we had the best coffee I’ve ever had in India (discovered only a few days before). Back in Naddi she came with me to my final fun club, where I was thrilled to see that for the first time in weeks all of my regular students had shown up. School holidays must finally be at an end. I had decided to spend this final Tuesday afternoon decorating the classroom which has remained entirely bare since we began renting it – just lots of empty space in between four brightly coloured walls.

After I distributed art supplies so the children could draw pictures for the walls, I began putting up accumulated material from the past three months. The large map of the world I’d used to teach geography was put in the centre of one wall. The handmade paper from our attempts to teach about recycling was displayed near the shelves on a second wall. Representations of the water cycle which two particularly eager children had brought coloured in from the week before were added to the wall by the windows, with a sheet describing the process in Hindi to accompany them. The finger-painted peacock which Emma had made as an example for the children during her art class was added to the collection. And then on the final wall I had each children sign their drawing as they handed them in and we put them all up next to each other as a colourful representative of the “fun” side of the after-school programme. Everything was placed in laminated sheets to protect from the damp of monsoon season.

The rest of the class we spent playing with foam stickers my mum had brought from the US. There were lots of little pieces which you could stick together to make elaborate flowers and the kids split into groups to work on them. Two of the girls latched onto the concept immediately and made some beautiful flowers which they stuck up onto the wall with great pride. Two of the other girls working together seemed to combine various pieces together at random, unsure of the end goal, while all of the boys and very young children enthusiastically starting sticking the finished flowers (made with much help from my mum) onto their shirts and showing off their new outfits.

It made for a rowdy class with all the art supplies and the excitement of a new face, but they really had fun and I was so happy to look around the room at the end and have it finally look like a classroom, and a lively and interactive one at that. I’m not sure if the children understood what I was saying when I told them that this was my last day, but I’m glad I got to tell them regardless and hug goodbye some of the girls I was closest to. Fulfilling this role because it was really needed may not have been something I expected to do during my time in Naddi, but it was an amazing learning experience and I have so many wonderful and amusing memories from my times with these kids. I will miss them.

Walking away from fun club I finally grasped that I was leaving for good. In the weeks leading up to this moment, I’d been increasingly eager to leave Naddi and the organisation I had been working for. I was starting to feel like I had contributed as much as I really could to my projects with my limited experience and their restricted resources, and at the same time, I was beginning to realise that I had learned just about all I was going to from this experience. It was the right time to move on and try something new. There were certain frustrations and unrelenting obstacles to progress working for an organisation like this and while much of it was equally rewarding, the difficulties were beginning to become overwhelming and I was ready for some easy living. Hot showers, nice beds, privacy and easy access to variety when it comes to food. Living in a room where things don’t stay damp all the time (going back to Scotland doesn’t necessary solve this particular problem…), being able to actually unpack my belongings for the first time in months. And what probably made me ready to move on more than anything was the fact that I’d been quite sick for the past week and was just exhausted by the fairly constant health problems that come with living in rural India.

But of course all of the factors that had made me so very ready to move on the week before suddenly seemed incredibly manageable and even possessed a nostalgic charm as I reached the day of my departure. Preparing to go back home was exciting, but also a scary prospect: worries about reverse culture shock and knowing I was coming back to more of the uncertainty and confusion that I’d left behind three months earlier. And going back to a place where I don’t have a group of friends like those I found in Naddi.

The people I met during this internship were the most interesting and inspirational team to work with, and overcoming new challenges with peers who support each other is a very special experience. Being in difficult and confusing circumstances while living in close quarters with a group of strangers makes for close friendships very quickly. Even the people you are less compatible with you end up with a deep understanding of and a respect for. I really did learn a lot from the people I lived with in Naddi. There are people who have sacrificed a lot to work with an organisation like EduCARE which leads to a very passionate, thoughtful and creative approach to work. Everyone who was there had one simple thing in common: the desire for meaning in their daily life. Whether this was through the adventure of travelling outside of a comfort zone or the desire to work in a field which is trying to make the world’s future a little more hopeful, this shared desire makes for a group with interesting past experiences and exciting future ambitions. The one thing I’ve learned above all during my time in India is that meeting likeminded people who will push you and appreciate you, people you can connect with, doesn’t happen by coincidence – you put yourself in the right environments for it to happen. This is something I will carry that with me now that I’ve left, making sure not to settle for less in the future.

After three months spent in India, I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface. Granted, for most of my time I was contained to one small area which was far from representative of the country as a whole, but it allowed me to live in a world very different from any I’d experienced up to now and I’m very grateful to have had that opportunity.

So while leaving friends, both from the community and fellow interns, was difficult and surprisingly emotional, it was also very much time for me to transform into a proper tourist and go see some sights before heading home!

Amritsar

January 1, 2017January 1, 2017 / roseberryrambles / 1 Comment

Originally posted April 6th, 2014

A glimpse of Pakistan

I’ve been eager to visit Amritsar ever since I started reading about Punjab in preparation for my time here.

There’s a magnificent golden temple and the city offers the unique opportunity to walk right up to the dividing line between India and Pakistan.

With only two weekends left here, the trip could be put off no longer and, with a very last-minute visit to a travel agency, we figured out the bus schedule, and I somehow found 5 other people willing to commit to a 4am taxi ride to Dharmasala with no real notice.

An hour or two of sleep and then our 3:30am alarm went off and we made our way to the main road in Naddi hoping that the taxis will actually show – I was far from convinced that the driver I talked to on the phone knew what it was he was agreeing to. They arrived, after giving us a bit of a scare by showing up 10 minutes late, and off we went to the bus station. The daily 5am bus is the only one going to Amritsar, and it’s an ordinary bus, so we were happy to be there early and all chose window seats to avoid constantly being walked into and having to brace yourself around every turn. I didn’t manage to sleep at all for the 6 hour ride but had an amazing time watching the scenery change as we descended from the mountains.

First thing was first when we arrived in Amritsar – breakfast. It was hot and it was sunny and we took a large rickshaw to the area around the Golden Temple, stopping at the first place we saw that served food. There were fans going from every corner of the restaurant and we quickly got through some cold coffees and ordered local specialties. I got Amritsari Kulcha, a stuffed bread with channa and vegetables on the side. Others got Dosa, a type of crepe found throughout India.

Then a beggar threw a banana at me. This woman came up to us saying how hungry her baby was and asking for money for food, and as I happened to be putting bananas in my bag at the time, I gave her one. As soon as I started walking away she threw it at me and came back to ask for money again! Not overly surprising that she didn’t actually want food, but disheartening nonetheless. Still, it’s amazing how easy it is to say no now compared to the guilt I felt when I first arrived and these kinds of experiences just harden you even more.

After that little welcome to the city, we found our way to the temple dorms to store our bags and we were led to the foreigners’ room. Many people visiting the temple stay there for the night, but while Indian tourists can sleep outside in the courtyard and around the temple itself, we as foreigners have to be segregated indoors in our own area. While I do understand why this is done, and our area was lovely and simple with cots and fans and cabinets for storing our possessions, looking at everyone prepare for bed in the evening, mattresses filling every inch of spare floor space in the courtyard, I couldn’t help but be the tiniest bit jealous.

Amritsar itself was quite a bustling and not overly attractive city, but somehow to me it didn’t feel as gritty or aggressive as Delhi. The colours were amazing and being in the sun was refreshing. Most people in Amritsar are Sikhs and our group definitely got a lot of curious stares. But to be fair, I was staring a bit myself. Everything was very different from Himachal Pradesh; most men wore turbans and had impressive beards and women were in headscarves – this added to how beautifully colourful the city was, and all these colours stood out wonderfully against the white marble which was common near the temple.

At 2:30 we got ready to go to the Wagah border ceremony. This occurs every evening around sunset between Indian and Pakistan as they put on a nationalistic ceremony before the lowering of the flags. The cars stop a kilometre from the border and you have to walk the rest of the way, bringing nothing with you but passports and cameras – no bags allowed. Being foreigners we were instant VIPs for the ceremony and got to stand in our own line and had our own designated section in the stands. They don’t even check passports, just let you through after a thorough look at your face to make sure your features betray your status.Which was slightly uncomfortable, especially at the end when we were allowed to leave first and they wouldn’t let the Indian visitors go take pictures by the border until after we were finished.

After passing through several security points we were ushered into our section by guards in elaborate uniforms, including dramatically plumed hats. The stands were eventually packed with Indian tourists and then this strange ceremony began. It was not even remotely what I expected. I thought I was about to witness some kind of somber military event, like the changing of the guards – impressive but very structured and formal. Instead what followed was more reminiscent of a sports arena with incredibly intense – almost comical – gestures of aggression towards Pakistan.

While Pakistani guests were still filing in, the Indian side started. Women and children came out from the crowd to line up for the chance to run down to the gates separating the border with the Indian flag. It was quite touching actually, seeing how excited they were to show their patriotism. I was surprised to see that this was an interactive ceremony and found the informality at the start quite beautiful. Then music was blasted into the stadium and women came out to dance. That was unbelievable to watch; it felt like being on the set of a Bollywood movie and the colours were surreal. Still, while I loved watching this, it was clear that the guards there were very much in control and this “spontaneous” joy seemed to me to be a calculated attempt to show that women in India are freer than those in Pakistan. It felt like this was done purely for the purpose of setting themselves above Pakistan – “look, our women are less repressed than yours – we let them participate in public events”.

Then the real military part of the show started. There was a kind of shouting match between both sides and Indians in the stands were screaming and waving flags. It was quite intense and I felt weird not knowing what was being chanted. And then guards began to do these crazy high kicks, stomp and march up to the gate and then theatrically kick at it. It looked really aggressive, but it was so coordinated and over the top that I couldn’t quite take it seriously either and I wasn’t sure if I was meant to. I’ve also read that the ceremony is less aggressive now than is used to be. They then opened the gates and there was nothing separating the two countries anymore. The two top military commanders (I believe) stood there and had a stare off. Other guards kept coming up and kicking and eventually the flags were lowered simultaneously and then the gates were slammed in an amusingly childish manner.

I couldn’t help but think that this immense amount of coordination, which clearly requires much practice, and the fact that they do it every single day must mean that the soldiers on both sides probably know each other really well and that this unfriendly attitude is at least partially just for show. Whatever the real relationships, however, the ceremony kept the crowd wildly and passionately involved every step of the way.

This is an interesting article on how the ceremony reflects the actual relationship between the two countries.

After an hours ride back, we went to see the Golden Temple at night. We stored our shoes, walked through a pool of water to clean our feet and put on our head scarves. The temple was glowing and reflecting on the water surrounding it while everywhere else you looked was white marble. People were sitting and praying or quietly reflecting, some preparing to settle down for the night. It was all stunning and so shockingly peaceful for a place with so many people. It was an unbelievable experience and a great way to use up our last remaining bits of energy from the day.

A quick and silent dinner followed and then, delirious from sleep deprivation, we went back to our rooms and the four of us girls sharing a room rolled around giggling in bed like 12 year olds at a slumber party until the fan lulled us to sleep. After missing an entire night’s sleep for travel, it felt spectacular.

The next morning we returned to the temple in the daylight and found it much less impressive. Suddenly everyone looked more like tourists on a mission to see the place rather than spiritual experience-seekers. Still, it was quite amazing even in the light of day and it was a shame that we didn’t have time to actually enter the temple itself, but we had a bus to catch.

7 hours later we were back in Dharamsala; it was a short visit and exhausting travelling, but well worth it and I’m so glad I didn’t leave this area before I got a chance to see Amritsar.

Tibet here in Dharamsala

January 1, 2017January 1, 2017 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted April 6th, 2014

Learning about Tibetans in India

A couple of weeks ago I woke up in one of those moods – discontent, not well rested but too on-edge to relax; bored and lazy but wanting to do something nonetheless.

The weather was un-inspirational, everyone around was slightly ill or exhausted and there was just no energy anywhere. Work was in an ebb of the frequent ebbs and flows they have here, and with no real drive or direction but still wanting to be productive, everything was just frustrating. Besides it was back to plaid shirts and two pairs of socks after a few days of spring had given us hope that the change in weather was permanent this time.

So then I decided to leave the house. The walk to McLeod usually re-energizes me and after months of frustrating iTunes problems (there’s a programme seriously incompatible with international living) I had finally found a way to access most of my music on my iPhone and could once again listen to some old favourites while taking a peaceful walk in the woods.

But then this plan got slightly sidetracked when I ended up going on a search for a leopard-mauled cow corpse and getting a head-massage from a Tibetan man. Sometimes the world likes to remind you that you have to do is leave your house when you’re feeling stagnant and uninspired and novelty will eventually find you.

Let’s explain – I left the house and as I was making the turn next to the Brigitte Bardot Animal Shelter I heard a guy shout down from his porch above “be careful!”. There was a massive cow eating out of the dumpster next to me so I assumed that’s what he was referring to, and gestured to it. “You saw the dead cow down the road?,” he asked me. I hadn’t but now I was curious. He went on to tell me that he’d seen a leopard in the woods just the day before – a young one, but still strong enough to take down a young cow apparently since he’d seen the dead body in the field nearby. I asked if it was normal to have leopards in these woods and he said that they don’t normally appear in the winter but now that it’s spring it’s possible to stumble across one. Then he asked if I wanted him to show me the body. Obviously I said yes. (In case anyone reading this finds this decision odd, I promise it was out of curiosity, not serial-killer tendencies). So I followed this Tibetan guy down the road the way I’d come, while he stopped several times to inform groups of Indian men about what he’d seen. They all seemed quite in awe, so I can’t imagine this is a regular occurrence. When we got to the field it turned out the cow’s body had already been removed, so that was slightly disappointing. But I’m sure a huge relief to anyone reading this because it means there are no disturbing pictures included in this post.

By this point, however, the Tibetan guy I were kind of buddies and he was quite interesting to talk to and seemed eager to discuss his culture, so when he offered to show me around some of the TCV (Tibetan Children’s Village) complex I agreed. I’d been to the school which is right up from Dal Lake and the largest (and first) Tibetan children’s school in India with just over 1700 students. And I knew that there was a handicraft centre there too, but what I didn’t realise is that they also have a hospital and a retirement home for teachers who had worked for the school for at least 30 years. It’s quite the organised community.

He showed me the call centres, the lecture halls and we chatted about the TCV as we went. He told me was born here, had gone to school at the TCV and then worked there ever since. We sat down for tea and shared khapse, a Tibetan bread they eat during Tibetan New Year’s (Losar) celebrations. I saw pictures of his wife and son and I asked questions about the school and about how difficult it is to go back to Tibet. I learned that in the TCV there’s a room for all the babies who came as refugees from Tibet; that many of them are orphans or have only one parent. That many of the children arrive with frostbite from crossing the border on foot. Many parents in Tibet send their children to India for school because back home all the good schools are solely populated by Chinese students, and that children in the TCV are discouraged from taking pictures because when Chinese government officials find out that Tibetan families have sent children to India for school they are punished. He said that it was incredibly difficult to go back and visit, and quite impossible to if you went to this TCV in particular because it’s the most well-known. It was started in the 1960s when Tibetans began to cross into India as refugees and the Dalai Lama realised the importance of establishing a place for them to educate themselves while maintain their culture. His younger sister was told to come oversee these schools and has been a huge advocate for Tibetan refugee children since.

I asked if the children learn Hindi at school as well, curious about their integration into Indian society, and he said absolutely, and that they also have classes in Chinese. His explanation for this was really surprising – that if Tibetans could speak to the Chinese people in their own language they might be able to have discussions on a personal level about Tibet and to explain that they weren’t a threat and why their culture is important. He said that the government had spread much misinformation about Tibet among the average Chinese populace, and that they believed that the way forward was to enable dialogue, to push through the propaganda. Obviously I wasn’t talking to an unbiased observer here, but this seemed to be a really enlightened and pleasantly simple approach to such a divisive issue.

I still got the impression that Tibetans and Indians around here really don’t mix much. I asked about how he felt the Indian government had been to Tibetans – if establishing all this incredibly organised infrastructure had been a challenge or supported – and he said that while the government had been incredibly supportive, the local Indian people in the area were not necessarily very open to Tibetans. He explained that when Tibetans have some money they tend to be a bit flashier with it than Indians and this can lead to resentment. When he was talking about the hostels they have for Tibetans in Bangalore and Delhi I noticed that while he was mostly talking about how they were there to provide cheaper alternatives for graduates from TCV looking to go to university in one of these cities, one off-hand comment he made definitely made me realise that part of the intention here was to keep their cultures separate and making sure the identity of these Tibetans is not diluted, so to speak, by too much time spent living or interacting with Indians. I realise the importance of maintaining a sense of group identity, but that still made me a bit uncomfortable.

And then he was talking about how the school also taught massage for health purposes and he gave me a really intense head massage and told me I need to wear warmer clothes and rest more. So that was weird. And on that note I said my goodbyes, asked what to do if I saw a leopard (he said throw it into the dumpster – but I’m pretty sure he meant throw something at it), and continued my walk to McLeod.

I’m in no position to comment on the politics of Tibet and China and certainly don’t intend on making any of this one person’s comments seem like absolute truths, but it was really interesting to sit down and hear a bit about the experiences one person has gone through and how he sees the situation of Tibetans here in India. I’ve talked to a few other Tibetan men very briefly here and when asked how long they’ve been in McLeod or how they like it, always get the same answer. It’s very nice, they like it very much, but it’s not home and they wish they could go back or at least visit more easily. I tend to forget that people here are refugees just because they dress well and go out and have communities, but when you actually ask where they are from, no matter how many years they’ve lived here in Himachal Pradesh, they always make the point of saying that they live here, but that Tibet is their home.

Delhi, Take 2

January 1, 2017 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted April 6th, 2014

The Transportation Adventures Continue…

One of the nice things about celebrating Holi was that it gave me an excuse to go back to Delhi and see the city through less jet-lagged eyes.
Getting to Delhi involved typical India-travel struggles. As it was both the day before Holi and the Dalai Lama was in McLeod Ganj, the town was of course bursting with tourists and we had to speed walk part of the way to the bus station since the streets were too crowded for taxis. We were told that our bus was actually half an hour later than what we’d previously been told and a certain bus behind was repeatedly pointed out as being the one going to Delhi. And then 40 minutes later we were informed that, no, our bus was at the original time and had left ages ago. We had to catch it in Dharamsala. Of course by the time we made it we had missed the bus but eventually got onto another after many debates with the man working there about whether there were seats and whether we’d have to pay again – so we set of several hours late and mentally exhausted, but the important thing was that we wouldn’t miss Holi.

After a crazy day in Pahar Ganj ‘playing’ Holi, we got to unwind on rooftop cafes drinking coffee. The crowded streets of this neighbourhood were instantly more charming when observed from this safe distance, with the abrasive sounds of traffic and vendors pleasantly muted.

It was an early night for all of us in Delhi as many people were feeling ill – unsurprising given how much coloured powder we probably all swallowed during the course of the day, on top of the general pollution, heat stress and overwhelming crowds that come with walking around Delhi. We’re used to clean mountain air and quiet country roads up here in Naddi so just about every time anyone goes to Delhi they come ill.

But luckily I was feeling okay and the next morning, those of us still up and running (3 of us in total!) walked down the main road in Pahar Ganj which leads straight to the metro. This was my first metro experience in Delhi. After walking through security to get into the building we wait in a long line to purchase our travel tokens – little plastic coins you use to get through the gates. Then the lines separate by gender and you go through security once again – this time more thoroughly as the first one felt incredibly ineffective. Waiting for the metro itself, as girls we walked all the way down to where the first carriage would be to stand under the “women only” sign, pleasantly decorated with flowers to emphasise that this area was for females. While getting into the station was hectic and crowded, the car itself was really pleasant and it seems like a thoroughly efficient system.

We got out in Old Delhi and took our first of many rickshaws that day to the largest mosque not just in the city, but in India – Jama Masjid. It was built in the 1600s by the same emperor who oversaw the construction of the Taj Mahal and of the Red Fort. Any camera or camera phone brought into the mosque has to be paid for, so no pictures of the interior this time around I’m afraid. It was a very spacious courtyard with impressive, tall towers and domes making up the main part of the building. It felt peaceful walking around barefoot and in the robes provided at the gates, surrounded by beautiful Mughal-era Islamic architecture. This made it all the more shocking when people took time from admiring this structure to turn around and take pictures of me – the Western tourist.

From there we went searching for the spice market of Old Delhi. Which took slightly longer than expected because whenever we asked anyone for help they just pointed in what turned out to be entirely arbitrary directions. We finally gave up and took a rickshaw. Since there were three of us and these were technically 2-person vehicles we had to take turns sitting in the little luggage rack at the back, which was quite the bumpy, uncomfortable ride, but made for a cool view of the streets we were riding through. In Old Delhi streets are separated based on what they’re selling, so we passed a road exclusively for stationary – mainly wedding cards – and a street full of shops selling wedding outfits. We even walked through one area where all you could see was store after store filled with car parts. The spice market was once again filled with vendors all selling exactly the same thing and, as we weren’t actually buying on this trip, after the first few it became quite redundant. And then we were stuck in Old Delhi and it was hectic and parts quite unpleasant and there didn’t seem to be anywhere to eat besides street stalls so we went back to the, at this point, comforting familiarity of Pahar Ganj.

I had a bus back that evening which I had booked the day before in one of the many travel centres in the area. I was supposed to show up at this small road-side office a few minutes before my bus was scheduled to depart and they would tell me what to do from there… I showed up a bit early and spent the entire time trying desperately to read, acting oblivious to the sketchy Indian-Sopranos style transactions taking place around me.

When I first sat down there was this guy from Afghanistan there trying to exchange his currency. The man behind the desk had a friend hanging out with him who suddenly brought up how there had been this other guy from Afghanistan who had recently been arrested for trying to cross the border with a huge amount of gold. They moved onto other topics and then this guy brought up the gold again… And then said, “You know, it’s a bad idea to bring in that kind of gold”. Silence again and then “But you know, if you had any gold… We would give you good price. We could help you out”. The first man protested that he didn’t have any and he’d really like to just get some rupees and they all nod and start counting out bills and then: “It doesn’t need to be a lot of gold, not an illegal amount. Just if you had a bit…” Clearly this didn’t go anywhere but then they started arguing over exchange rates and when the man finally gave in and took what they were offering, he got up and left and the two guys in the ‘office’ starting laughing like they’d just totally ripped this stupid tourist off.

And then for 20 minutes various, massive piles of different currencies were counted out and handed over to or exchanged with various colleagues who stopped in for a few minutes at a time. There was some guy outside too who would come running whenever he was called, and the whole time I’m there observing this bewildering behavior getting more and more anxious that there is no bus and that I’ve just paid this guy a lot of rupees which are going straight into his pocket. But half an hour late some man showed up asking for anyone going to Dharamsala and I ended up following him around the city picking up others along the way and finally getting to what I assumed was the bus stop. But of course it wasn’t. We were an hour later than I had planned on leaving at this point and he piles us all into rickshaws and we set off across Delhi to god knows where. For a while I thought maybe this was how we were getting back to Dharamsala. The rickshaw driver certainly didn’t know where we were going either because all of the sudden our rickshaw is separated from the others and he’s wandering around a heavily guarded area asking men with guns where the place is he’s supposed to be taking us. We turn onto a busy highway when we spot our group across the two heavy lines of traffic. We inform our driver and he just swerves right into traffic, cutting horizontally across all of it to get us to the other side of the road. Not that he needed to rush because now we wait for 2 hours for the bus to show. At least I had a good book and it was a pleasant evening, and when the bus did show it was quite luxurious – large, comfortable seats with blankets and water provided and I had a whole row to myself. The Bollywood film even had English subtitles!

It was a rushed trip. Most of the time I took off for Holi I spent on buses, but that’s the sacrifice you have to make to see things here in India. Transportation will take up time, it will probably not go smoothly, and it will be an adventure. But why go so far away from home to have everything be the same!

Playing Holi in Delhi

December 29, 2016December 29, 2016 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted March 22nd, 2014

Celebrated in the north of India to show joy about the coming spring, Holi is one of the oldest Hindu festivals and an incredibly distinctive one. More about fun than religion, Holi starts the evening before with bonfires and on the day is celebrated by raucous and playful behaviour; pulling pranks and, of course, the iconic throwing of coloured powder and paints – then hugs all around and wishing everyone a “Happy HOLI!”. Still, this holiday does of course have its roots in Hindu mythology. I couldn’t actually get anyone to describe what these roots were, so I looked it up.

Apparently the term Holi comes from the name Holika – the legendary sister of a power-hunger king with a very long name I can’t even begin to pronounce who wanted to be worshiped by all of his people. When his son Prahlad worshiped Vishnu instead, this king told his sister to kill the boy. She had the power to walk through fire without being burned (I can’t say I would find this a very useful power day-to-day, but I guess it’s cool) and so walked into a fire with her nephew in the hopes that he would perish. But of course he was saved by the Gods and she died instead. This is where the bonfire tradition comes from. Then when it comes to the paint-throwing, apparently this is attributed to Krishna who, as a child, threw coloured water over milkmaids as a prank. Fairly loosely related as far as I can tell, but there you go!

I’ve read that Holi is a time where anything goes; where rules and conventions are put on hold and everyone can participate in the fun equally, regardless of age or gender. This is what some sites wrote about Holi:

“Everyone gets involved – with no distinctions between caste, class, age or gender.” BBC

“Women, especially, enjoy the freedom of relaxed rules and sometimes join in the merriment rather aggressively.” About.com

I’d say this is a pretty misleading and simplistic description when compared to how Holi actually plays out in most places around India. Based on my own experience and what I’ve heard from others, the very fact that rules are relaxed and chaos encouraged leads to incredibly apparent challenges for women. Maybe this is a holiday where men and women are allowed to leave social conventions behind and play by the same rules – or rather, lack of rules in this case – but this is India and in much of the country men and women simply aren’t equal here for 364 days of the year and this mindset doesn’t suddenly vanish on Holi. So on that one day where anything goes, obviously the effect isn’t equal for both genders.

Maybe in places like Naddi Holi is equally participated in and enjoyed by all involved, and maybe that’s what Holi is supposed to be, but what I experienced was very far from the descriptions I included above. There wasn’t one single Indian woman in sight in Delhi. And for good reason – most young Indian men used this festival as an excuse to touch women, some more innocently with lingering hugs and others more overtly. It can also just be very aggressive – water balloons are thrown from rooftops, coloured foam is sprayed in your face and powder forcefully rubbed into your hair. Often all of this is happening simultaneously and with all the anonymous hands grabbing at you at once it’s incredibly disconcerting and overwhelming. Most of the people I talked to who had been in India for Holi before stayed locked in their hotel rooms all day this time around. It’s the kind of thing that most people tend to do once to experience and then spend every other year avoiding.

In fact, I even read that in 2012 in Delhi, International Women’s Day fell on the same day as Holi and any activities planned had to be held days earlier because women were too reluctant to leave their homes.We also talked to a shop keeper the day after Holi who, when we asked him if he’d enjoyed the celebration, replied that he’d stayed inside all day. He said that young people these days use Holi as an excuse to get immensely drunk, harass people in the street and pick-pocket. He claimed that this is quite a recent change, and I’m sure that it’s far more common to manifest itself like this when celebrated in city streets among strangers than in small communities of relatives and friends – how it was traditionally celebrated.

Still, I had a pretty great time all things considered and I feel very lucky to have had the chance to participate in such a unique holiday during my time here in India. I took an overnight bus to Delhi with some friends the night before, arriving in the city early in the morning on the day itself. We checked into a hotel, had breakfast, and as soon as I stepped outside to make a phone-call, it began. There were quite a few of us interns from Naddi, Rajol and Punjab and it was fun walking around as a big group and seeing everyone transform throughout the day.

Fun Club

December 29, 2016December 29, 2016 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted March 22nd, 2014

Learning To Teach

One of the most educational and valuable parts of being here in Naddi for the past two months has actually come in an unexpected form: fun club.
While I came to EduCARE to work in microfinance I was asked if I could also help out with the after-school programme once a week in the community we call JDM. I’ve always enjoyed working with kids and it’s nice to have a varied schedule, so I agreed.
The first few classes were challenging. My first week I went to the ASP with another intern who had been running the programme before I got here. He was playing games mainly aimed at improving English skills – things like a counting game, Simon Says using body parts, having one child imitate an animal and the others guess what it is etc.

The next week I took over teaching fun club alone…and dragged a friend along to help. It was pretty unsuccessful. Mostly because – I believe partially due to bad weather – only 5 or 6 children showed up and of these, 2 or 3 of the boys spent most of the time playing outside. The fact that some weeks there are 15 children and some weeks there are 4 makes it difficult to plan activities. After half an hour or so the kids who did show up lost interest and decided it would be more fun to braid hair for the remainder of our time.

My second solo week there were a lot of kids with a lot of energy. I tried to introduce a few new games using “props” (for example, I drew some simple images on cut-up paper to make cards for a memory game) in the hopes that this would be more attention-grabbing. A few of the kids refused to play the games they knew well already, though, and were incredibly disruptive to everyone else. They were running in and out of class, climbing out the window, locking us in the room and chasing each other around. The class was at least partially salvaged when, towards the end, one of the older girls started writing in my notebook and the ones who were calm and attentive all took turns writing their names and ages, which they seemed to really enjoy.

So it became clear that something had to be done differently. The kids learn English at school and while the older ones get bored by many of the games, the youngest ones aren’t really given a chance to partake. After a few discussions about what this after-school programme was meant to accomplish I came to realise that it’s aimed at offering alternative education from school, so introducing the children to wider issues and concepts such as environmental awareness and gender equality. While these can be difficult subjects to broach with children, it’s also incredibly important that they are given this forum. Taking more of a creative and varied approach would also hold everyone’s attention better, and so while dealing with serious issues some weeks, others would be devoted to crafts or sports – the “fun” side.

First I planned an afternoon where we drew family trees. The kids spent most of the hour working on theirs and then had to present to me who each family member was and their names. It was the first time that we had done something creative since I’d been there and they all seemed to enjoy having time to work individually and got very excited when they saw the paper and markers.

The following week was by far the most interesting one I’ve taught so far. I decided to focus on geography. I bought a map in Dharamsala and then put together a powerpoint of iconic images from around the world. My plan was to have the kids look at the images – things like the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty – and guess where they were in the world. The next activity I planned was to have the kids name a country starting with every letter of the alphabet. Finally, we would end on a creative note by designing our own flags.

When we started it quickly became clear that they had no conception of any countries outside of India.

For every single image everyone would instantly yell “Delhi!”. “No, not in India”, I would say. Thoughtful frowns all around and then one of them has it – “Rajastan!”.

Then the image of Machu Picchu came up. “Naddi!!” yells one kid.

At last they seem to get the idea that none of these places are in India. Ironically they finally understand this as I get to the slide with the image of the Taj Mahal. They all look at each other, shrug, and one girl says, “well, I don’t know, but I know it isn’t in India”. Oh dear.

However, since after every slide I had the names of the monuments and the countries they were in, the kids could read the names and then try to find them on the map. They seemed to really enjoy this, actually, as they got quite competitive about finding the words.

With the second activity they didn’t know any country names from memory but could once again search the map to find words starting with each letter. By the end of this activity they seemed to be getting bored of finding things on the map and were very ready to move onto something more fun and creative.

I handed out different coloured construction paper I had cut up for all of the kids and told them to design their own flags. I showed some pictures of flags to give them examples and said they could draw whatever they wanted – if they had a country, what would the flag look like?

They all drew the Indian flag. I said that was great, but if they wanted they could turn the page over and draw whatever they wanted – as an example I drew a flag with a tree and some hearts and wrote “Lucy’s flag” underneath. They all turned their papers over and after a few minutes I realised that they were all peaking over at my paper. When I looked at their pictures they had all drawn “Lucy’s flag”… These kids are definitely not familiar with using their imagination to express themselves.

So there have been a lot of ups and downs in fun club thus far, but it gets better every week and it’s really rewarding watching the kids engage more and more every class. It’s a great feeling to be able to give them a space to be creative and I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for us interns from a variety of interest areas to interact with the next generation in this community.

Feel free to comment with any suggestions for future classes!

A Step Forward in the Chicken Coop Project

December 29, 2016December 29, 2016 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted March 16th, 2014

While the weather may not always feel like it, spring has arrived and so have the baby goats.
Six or seven came running up to us last week when I went to meet Lila, the woman who wants to start up a chicken coop here in Naddi. They spent the entire interview jumping up on my legs and chewing on my shoelaces and it was perfect.

This chicken coop is my primary focus during my time at EduCARE. It’s been two years since the first chicken coop was started as a microfinance opportunity for one of the families here, and its success has inspired its repetition. Lila has been raising goats with her husband for years and reached out to EduCARE recently looking for the chance to create an additional source of income. She saw how much we have been doing for younger women in the community and questioned why we couldn’t expand to help the older generation as well. She and her husband have had to sell many of their goats and quite a bit of land over the years to provide for their 5 children, including several dowries for their daughters, and Lila explained that she is in need of less energy-intensive work for the future.

While she speaks no English and therefore communication is extremely limited, her proactivity in seeking out this project matched the energetic and determined spirit I saw in her when we met. It was an exciting step forward in this project. Until now, my efforts have been focused on laying ground work for the long term, but now that the weather is finally improving and construction can take place soon, hopefully it won’t be long until we get to see the coop physically standing and the chickens purchased.

Travel to Dharamsala; An Introduction to Indian Transportation

December 29, 2016 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted February 23rd, 2014

A week into our life here in Naddi, it was time for all the new interns to travel to Dharamsala in order to register with the police.

Apparently the rules regarding who needs to register and who doesn’t changes depending on which employee is working that day, so to play it safe we all made the trip to Dharamsala. Regardless, this was the nearest real Indian city and a place we’d doubtless find ourselves needing to be in in the upcoming months, so it wasn’t a bad idea to get a group tour of the place and figure out the route from Naddi.

Which started with a walk to the nearby Cantt. Usually buses run from Naddi to Dharamsala several times a day, but this particular week they hadn’t been showing up; no discernible reason, they just weren’t there. So it was either taxi down, walk to Dal Lake and tuk-tuk (the auto-rickshaws which are a common mode of transportation around here) down to Cantt, or walk. It was quite a nice day and the walk to Cantt is all downhill, so walk it was.

Down the long stretch of stairs to Dal Lake, then along the main road until you pass the Brigitte Bardot animal shelter (did she start it or is it merely named after her? I don’t know what this is doing in the middle-of-nowhere India, but she is a well-known animal activist, so I guess it’s nice) and down some more stairs to Cantt. As far as I have seen, Cantt is just one street of shops, but it’s convenient location means that shared jeeps and buses stop on the way to Dharamsala or McLeod and as it’s very near Naddi, this makes it a useful place to know about.

As we arrived in the “square” a jeep was already waiting with a few passengers in it. We asked if it was going to Dharamsala and when he nodded and yelled out, “fast!,” I couldn’t tell if it was a promise or a command. Turned out it was both. There were around three of us (we were 9 or 10 total) who hadn’t yet gotten into the jeep when he apparently got tired of waiting and started to slowly pull away. So naturally we jumped into the moving vehicle and launched ourselves into seats as quickly as possible. And then this guy was off. He went speeding around every corner and paused only to pull over and pick more passengers up.
Just when you think that 12 people in a 9 person jeep is pretty crammed, try adding some more! Why not have a stranger sit on you in India? At least it meant that you couldn’t fly across the seats when the jeep went hurtling towards massive potholes in the road. In this part of India, avoiding potholes in fairly useless – our tuk-tuk tried to the other day and he almost crashed into a wall on one side of the road. It’s more a game of choose the pothole when you’re on a stretch with more hole than road.

We made it to Dharamsala in record time according to the one experienced intern who was with us. She’s been here for 8 months and never made it there so quickly.

And to be fair to those other drivers, I wouldn’t be in a rush to get to Dharamsala either. It kind of sucks. Even though I traveled with my nice camera that day, I don’t actually have that many pictures of the city because it’s grimy and unattractive on the whole. There’s a lot of traffic on the main street and then the city itself is just an area for people to go shopping. Which it is good for – there are places to buy kitchen supplies, groceries, fabric and craft supplies… It’s definitely come in handy since we’ve moved into our own place and needed certain household items.

It’s also a pretty good place to go for certain types of Indian food because McLeod is so Tibetan that regional specialties can be difficult to find. In Dharamsala, for example, you can get Chana Puri, a delicious dish of chickpeas, puffed and fried bread, and raw onions. There are also quite a few bakeries where you can get things like jalebi or gulab jamun, or simply a nice selection of biscuits.

The other day we actually discovered a new dish while in Dharamsala! To clarify, I mean one none of the other interns here had heard of – I’d assume the dish existed in India before our arrival… Just off the bus we decided to stop in a tiny Dhaba (a roadside restaurant with local fare) for lunch. We sat at one of three tables and waited for our chai and Chana Puri while everyone else twisted around in their seats to stare at us. And after eating our first course, we decided that we were still hungry enough to split a plate of pakora. A very popular dish in this region, pakora are fried vegetable snacks, although they can also been done with paneer. We’d seen the table in front of us order some and they’d looked quite tasty; plus we were in no rush to leave. So we asked the owner of the Dhaba for pakora, and he repeated to us “bla-bla pakora?” which we confirmed with nods. And then it got weird. He sent out the other man who worked there for something and started mushing together peas and potatoes. Then the second man returned with a loaf of bread… Is this how they bread the pakora at this place? Is this an unrelated dish or the owner’s lunch break? Then he started spreading the potato mixture between the bread until he had two sandwiches which he then fried, put on plates and cut in half. This is bread pakora – the dish we had accidentally ordered when we’d said yes without bothering to figure out that “bla-bla” was “bread”. Oh well, it was more food than we’d bargained for, but basically it’s samosa filling inside a deep-fried sandwich, so I’m not going to complain.

Travelling back from Dharamsala was quite the experience as well. This time three of us caught a bus going to McLeod. It was standing room only by the time we got on which really involves some concentration on these roads if you want to stay upright. I had to wait until a relatively smooth stretch and then quickly shift my backpack to the front to open it and get money out for the collector. While I fished out my wallet, my friend had to actually open it and get the money out because I physically could not let go of the rail in order to participate in any two-handed activities. It was quite a team task. I was also stuck clutching this little newspaper bag filled with sheets of plain white paper which I’d bought for the kids after-school programme and when things got really desperate I ended up holding this bag in my mouth while using both hands to steady myself around tight curves. All while having a laughing fit with the other two girls I was with due to the absurdity of the situation. We got some weird looks. And like the jeep, a full bus doesn’t exist in India – if people are waiting to get on, they will find room.

After a brief stop in McLeod we opted to walk home rather than seek more transportation and it was a welcome change of pace.

First Week of Work in Naddi

December 29, 2016 / roseberryrambles / Leave a comment

Originally posted February 21st, 2014

Meetings, Bucket Showers, and Avoiding Eye-Contact with Monkeys

My shampoo bottle told me to “Lather, Rinse, Repeat.” I told it “shut up; you’re lucky I’m using you at all”.

This was my first bucket shower in India. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t actually waste my time talking to my shampoo, but the sentiment was there. Taking a shower in Naddi had been an intimidating prospect since our arrival. The outhouse was in two parts; a room with an Indian-style toilet and no light, and then next to it, the shower room. Which is a concrete box with a small, grated window placed high on one wall, a rusty door, a shelf, and a cold-water tap. There’s no escaping the cold here when the weather is bad (which it often is in January and February) as none of the buildings are insulated and nowhere has heating. So while the fact that you can’t have a proper warm shower isn’t the biggest deal in the world, not being able to dry off in a temperate room is pretty upsetting. But finally we had a sunny day and I decided I had to take advantage of it.

I asked Reena to heat up some water for me. This is done by dropping an electric water heater with wires sticking out of it into a bucket of cold water and plugging it into the wall– she may not speak much English but she certainly made sure to get across that we were not to go near this. “Dangerous! You, no touch. NO TOUCH!” When it had boiled I let Reena take the heater out (I really didn’t want to get electrocuted my first week here) and carried my bucket to the shower room where they also provided me with a small pitcher. The following process involved filling this pitcher up half with hot water, then adding some cold and repeatedly pouring it over myself while trying to leave as little time between pours as possible. It was actually quite an enjoyable experience and better than many of the hurried showers I’ve had here since, trying to guess how much time I have until hot water vanishes. And for the past week we’ve been without running water at our intern house, so it’s been back to the bucket shower!

Other things I remember from my first week here… Lots of beautiful mountain views; something slightly different every day:

Cows casually roaming the streets, proving time and again that nothing fazes them and that they will not be rushed.

A thrilling number of adorable puppies running through town – they may be street dogs, but they’re energetic and friendly. The street dogs around here tend to look surprisingly healthy because the multitude of trash everywhere means they don’t go hungry. Often disturbing when you see animals trying to eat plastic or a horse eating out of a dumpster like it’s a trough, but I suppose there are some upsides to littering…?

And the most interesting of animals sightings: monkeys. There aren’t that many in Naddi itself, but even just a few minutes down the road in Dal Lake they start appearing (I think this is because it isn’t really a wooded area in Naddi) and I’ve seen them everywhere else in the region.

They’re fascinating to watch because their mannerisms are so unlike any other animal, and at the same time, they’re eerily aware of your presence. Which is not something they enjoy – monkeys get really mad when you stop to admire them. Apparently with the really large grey monkeys (there are also smaller ones like the ones pictured below) they throw fits if you try to take a picture and if you make eye contact for too long you run the risk of being attacked. I always feel just a little on edge when I’m near a group of monkeys here, but clearly it doesn’t stop me from taking pictures when I can. I just wait until they start fidgeting and making angry noises and then I hurry on my way.

And of course, I am here to work, so naturally some of my first week was dedicated to getting settled not only in India, but within EduCARE. There were meetings to discuss the philosophy of the organisation as a whole as well as its history. (For anyone who’s curious, it was started in 1994 as more of a charity-based group in Punjab by Mr B. – an Indian ex-fighter pilot – and then evolved into a social enterprise here in Naddi. As the homebase of Mr B., Naddi is the headquarters of EduCARE, but then there are also interns based in various other places throughout the region. There are a few just down the hill in Dal Lake, then 2 hours down into the valley in Rajol there’s a group which works with migrant camps and a group all the way in Punjab (a 6 hour trip from here and the only house I haven’t been to yet) which also work with migrant camps.)

We had meetings about our expectations and to discuss our interests; meetings defining what we would each be doing here; a meeting regarding gender sensitivity and a couple of weeks later one on cultural sensitivity.

I learned that my main project while I’m here is to start up a chicken coop in the community we call JDM (right next to Chenni). I’m the shortest-term intern here at the moment and the scale of this project is the most manageable. I’m also assisting one of the older interns on a few microfinance projects throughout JDM, including starting up homestays there.

We learned how to access old documents which would help us get started by researching what’s already been done, but of course this involved internet, something we had no access to in our homestays. So this meant we had to spend most days in a place called Bobs n’ Barley down the road – the hotel with the best wifi in Naddi (which is really not saying much). It’s quite expensive, often colder inside than out, and fairly bereft of atmosphere, but the food is good, as is the coffee, the people are lovely, and we didn’t have many alternatives.

It was overwhelming and confusing and exciting and, most importantly, we all helped each other to get through it.

Roseberry Rambles

Travel + Stories

India

Varanasi

Leaving Naddi and becoming a Tourist

Amritsar

Tibet here in Dharamsala

Delhi, Take 2

Playing Holi in Delhi

Fun Club

A Step Forward in the Chicken Coop Project

Travel to Dharamsala; An Introduction to Indian Transportation

First Week of Work in Naddi