what next?

Hey Everybody!
I am home now, by about 18 hours and am already missing India and Sri Lanka in ways I am only beginning to understand. It is with many levels of impact cruising my brain that I will try to start conveying the experience of my journey and working towards being a part of solutions for the countries I have come to love. This includes writing the book about what I learned while there, as well as setting up a non-profit organization to promote graduate research and hope in a country with only a little of the first and an abundant amount of the second.
The fallacy is that we here in America are removed from the struggle, that we have no impact, that there isn't any reason to help but I believe that what can affect one, has an effect on all.
I'd love to hear your suggestions about directions the non-profit should take, and I'd love for any of you who feel inclined to be a part of the planning to come aboard. You can email me at wise.ang@gmail.com to discuss this.
Thank-you, bo ho ma s tu ti yi (singhalese), Shukriyah or dhanyavad (Hindi), for being a part of this experience. I will post parts of chapters as I get them written!

India is in my heart.

I want to let you know that I am NOT on my way home. I’m writing from the balcony of my $16/night room in Negombo, Sri Lanka. The waves are crashing into the devoted shore that is always there for them as the breeze combs my hair here in paradise but I am still excited to be returning to India tomorrow! A country where even in the poorest places you can smell hope in the air and I love India for that.

India is sometimes difficult to navigate by train and bus and the constant waitlists for tickets, expensive plane fares, and a strange bus system that I do not understand have slowed me down and kept me from places I need to go while here. It occurred to me that I should stay and finish what I came to do. It just didn’t make sense to fly all the way home and hope I get to come back to see Tiruppur where the textile industries have polluted the waterways and Indians are farming water, or the slums in Mumbai where people wake up and walk to the lake to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to talk with more people from NGO’s here about what kind of organization I can start to best work with other NGO’s to help secure freshwater for more families here. I didn’t want to leave here without a clear understanding about what my role is in this country and how I can most completely contribute.

I love India and the many dualisms in her personality that have at times made me think of my own spirit and how aligned these moments have been with my heart- including the crushing sadness I experienced when first seeing the poverty. I’m being led by my heart the same way children here have led me by holding my hand.

It cost me $770 US to change my airline ticket. (Dad don’t freak out, please) My trip budget is stretched. My clothes have only been washed once this month. I have at least 40 mosquito bites healing on my body and I get new ones every night. I miss Kelsey and Tyler so much that my eyes are watering just writing it. I miss my dogs. And I miss hearing your voices. But for another few weeks, I am here because I think it is important for you know what is going on 8,000 miles from home and I hope that what I am telling you spreads to your friends during your conversations and their friends because that is how things change.

I am trying to figure out how to get to Tiruppur (because trains don’t go there) to spend time with an American graduate student I met in Bangalore who is doing her field work there studying gender equality and it’s connections to the water crisis. And then I will travel across most of the length of India (that is about 1800 miles!) to get back to the top of this country.

I really appreciate the donations you guys have made. There have been times when I signed on my email to see notifications about donations and said Wow out loud in disbelief at some totally unexpected donation from someone that really shocked me. Thank-you guys that have done that soooooo much. You have made so many more things on this trip possible already. I am hoping those of you that haven’t will do so now.

Thank-you for reading my blog, and I hope you stay tuned.
Kels and Ty I love you so much man. You guys are my heart. See you in a few weeks.

Wow, what a ride!!

I’m in Sri Lanka now, where I have been for the past 6 nights, and man talk about paradise. While here I have visited the higher elevations where there are more tea estates than one can count, the extremely dry and hot areas where the remains of the ancient cities still exist, Buddhist temples hidden from the world on winding roads in the middle of the jungle, a traditional drama (which was very colorful), and Kandy town where the Buddha’s tooth is kept in the most gorgeous temple I have ever seen. I have enjoyed sharing the lives of Piyumika’s family, whom I stayed with this past week, and learning about spices and cooking from her Mother, someone I will refer to as Mother for the rest of my life. Talk about being blessed by someone’s presence, whew!

Our lives sometimes become intertwined with others like the vines I saw growing through the jungle landscape. When removed, you can always find evidence of them having been there. This will be Mother’s imprint on me. Buddhism with it’s gently leading ways and profoundly inspiring notions of interdependence and separation seems especially strong in the pulse of my time here with this family. Estuti.

I am on a train watching the hills flatten out in the Sri Lankan countryside as I head to the coast. THE coast, where thousands of people died a few short years ago in the tsunami. Palm trees, banana trees, tropical plants and beautiful equatorial flowers are the scenery sliding by the window as I remember Rajika telling me yesterday how much she dislikes the ocean because of what IT did to her country. She told me the giant waves that flatten towns and kill people by the thousands had only existed in their historical consciousness but is now a painful memory in their collective souls. Her facial expressions and the heightened sense of unusual urgency in her words spoke of her fear and made me wonder whether nature had enough stress in her great tectonic plates to slip and build another monster wave to come ashore while I am there tonight. The beauty of life is that one never knows but I am at least safe in my thinking- my date with destiny doesn’t include a rogue wave, but a new friend I am meeting in Colombo. Yohan Ferdinando (I know, like from a novel right?) was born in the paradise of this country but has lived in Washington DC since he was a toddler. He has the unique ability to straddle both countries with language, thought, and looks, but holds a passport from ours. I was surprised when he approached me looking very much like a native but spoke the sweet sounds of my native tongue. I know my face must have moved quickly into that expression I am so frequently accused of, but I promise, it was surprise and happiness. I can’t begin to explain to those of you who haven’t yet had the opportunity or desire to spend an extended amount of time outside of America, how deliciously sweet the sounds of our language can be when you haven’t heard it in a long time. The universe has interceded twice now to place directly in my path 2 people from home at the best possible moments of this trip. I say thank-you at least 50 times a day. Thank-you for orchestrating the circumstances that have made this trip possible, and I'm always on the look-out for lessons in every moment. Thank-you to those of you that have donated money to this experience and your time reading what I have written.

Now I need you to do India a serious favor if you will. Imagine for a moment that fresh, clean drinking water isn’t something you are able to take for granted, or even expect. Imagine handing your child a cup of water containing arsenic or fluoride at such great levels that it can be considered poisonous. Over time, each of these naturally occurring elements found in groundwater contribute to serious and fatal degenerative processes in the human body. In the north, on the eastern side of India, Arsenic poisoning has been called by the World Health Organization the great mass poisoning of our time, in the south around Bangalore, it is fluoride.

Let me explain the evolution of how this came to be.
Until the 70’s, surface water was the primary source of drinking water in India. As in the USA, there were/are multiple pressures on the rivers and lakes affecting both quantity and quality of drinking water. Quantity issues (How much water is available?) such as water withdrawal for agriculture and people, dams upstream decreasing downstream flow, and extreme drought decreasing flow everywhere led to decreasing availability of freshwater, or freshwater present but in places where it was inaccessible and therefore unusable. Quality issues (How clean is the water you have available?) compounded by decreased quantity (which decreases the dilatory effects, among other things) made many systems unusable. Pollution from point-sources such as unregulated industry and non-point source pollution from open defecation and garbage dumping further contributed to surface water degradation. Think tragedy of the commons, tipping point….Then came the World Bank.

Complexity in nature allows this planet to survive, but it also means that a change in one part of the system can have cascading effects in another. It emerges from a small set of controlling circumstances and these circumstances are often very easy to mess with. This immutable component of nature mirrors human decision-making in that choices have consequences, whether intended or not, that can become real components of a new system. And like a tapestry unraveling, sometimes it is hard to find a place to tie a knot.
In India, surface water in many places became unusable as a result of decision-making, often times born out of necessity, but decisions that disregarded the clean-up capacity of this system nonetheless, so with World Bank funding and technology (hmmm….) the decision to switch to groundwater was easy for India. Electricity, like water, is not a foregone conclusion in India so, like water, it became the great Ace in a winning hand, the power in politics, and was often promised by politicians during their campaigns. Forget about finance reform and promises to do away with lobbying. I’m going to give you lights! Imagine electricity as a campaign promise.

With heavily subsidized electricity to power the drills to dig bore-wells and technology bought with money from the World Bank, India has become an unregulated, bore-well kingdom of water thieves. And what else would one do when so desperate for life-giving water? (This is a discussion for the book as there are many contributors, i.e, population growth, poverty, inequity in gender roles, the Green Revolution that protected India from famine….etc…) That was in the 1970’s and India is running low on groundwater now. Groundwater is fossil water, created over millennia, much like fossil fuels, and stored by nature in great underground caves called aquifers. We have them in the USA, and have also used them heavily. Point is, with all our other decisions compounding the process, (think impervious surface cover?) it isn’t easy to replenish it. And when stored for millennia against bedrock, groundwater can become laced with elements like arsenic and fluoride. See the complexity in decision-making and unintended consequences? This isn’t so bad when you are using water harvested from wells dug to depths where there is water setting on water, but in less than 50 years, with heavy, unregulated use, the wells are having to go deeper and deeper to reach water, and this water is poisonous.

You might be shaking your heads and wondering why people are drinking from these wells. I’m going to list the reasons I have been told about and read about:
1- POVERTY is the root of all evil. It contributes directly and indirectly to all the other reasons and marginalizes those living in it.
2- Lack of education. I was told that people with crippling skeletal deformities from fluoride and those dying from arsenic poisoning in many cases aren’t aware that it is coming from their water.
3- The tragedy of the commons in that people have actually said, everyone is using it and if we don’t, we won’t get our share!
4- There is no disincentive from the government not to use it.

The most frustrating part of the whole situation is that in Tamil Nadu, a state in the southern part of India there are towns where industries, including American industries like Wal-Mart (and for those of you that have heard how environmentally friendly they say they are this is going to make you really mad…), Tommy Hilfiger, H & M, and Reebok that are dumping effluent everyday into the surface water- I read up to 21 million gallons a day has been recorded….As a result, the surface water is completely unusable, unless you are poor and have to use it, forcing local people who should have rights to this water to use the groundwater. The really tough part though, is that farming groundwater has become more prevalent here than farming agriculture because 2/3 of their wells have dried up. Trucks come to people’s homes with wells, buy naturally produced groundwater from the farmers, take it into the towns setting over the aquifer, and SELL it to people who live there! So lets look at that again: American industries pollute surface water making it unusable for local people, Indian water farmers sale groundwater to the people exploiting their obvious need for freshwater, government does nothing.

How would you adapt to these circumstances? Should water be a right as a necessity because one cannot live without it? What potential for change is there within this system set against the backdrop of poverty and runaway population growth?

Sorry it has taken so long to write again. My last several stops in India had no Internet access and in Sri Lanka my family had me up at dawn and home after dark! Hopefully, I will have Internet access pretty steadily for the rest of my trip.

FYI

Since leaving Bangalore I have had extremely inconsistent internet access. The person I had hoped to meet in Chennai did not write me back so I am working on the post from my perspective. I am now in Sri Lanka with Piyumika's family. Her brother has internet in his room so I will get some work done and posted soon.

Check out the list below though!

Things LonelyPlanet.com doesn't say about India:

A list of things I’ve learned, experienced, and/or thought while here:

1. India is incredibly diverse- Traveling from the north (Delhi, Agra, Varanasi) to the south (Bangalore, Mysore) the food has changed, the climate has changed (north = very hot, humid, rainy; south = hot, cool at night, not as much rain), and the way people respond to me has changed (or maybe I’ve fallen into being here better?). Correction, Chennai, where I am now, is the hottest place I have ever been in my life.
2. I’ve been anxious a few times, but never scared- unless I was discovering a new mosquito bite. Only in the most expensive place I’ve stayed so far did I have mosquitoes in my room at night. In Varansai, we lavished ourselves in 35% DEET whenever we ventured from our rooms.
3. Every time someone has talked to me about our country, they have also mentioned how happy they are about Obama- without me bringing him up.
4. They drive on the opposite side of the road and of the car.
5. There are many, many Hindu gods. (I was told there were 1000’s today) and people often worship different ones more or less during different times of their lives.
6. In Varanasi, I was told that at cremations, the lead family member walks around the body 5 times symbolizing the 5 elements, and at the end of the ceremony, they are to walk away from the body without looking back. This lets the loved one know that the connection is broken and not to follow you as a ghost.
7. Soda here is sweeter, even diet, because many people here like sweets, A LOT.
8. I’ve ran into a lot of squat toilets here- fortunately, I’ve always had western toilets in my rooms.
9. Internet service is random in most places I have been, but cell phone coverage is amazing.
10. There are cows, goats, and dogs everywhere. There are chickens, and sometimes pigs too. They roam the streets- and in many places they are released from their owners in the morning, and they return home at night by themselves. Not the dogs- if you come to India be prepared to have your heart broken every day by the masses of starving, and in many cases wounded dogs.
11. Indian kids are among some of the friendliest, most curious kids I have ever met. They always smile at me, and they make me smile every single day.
12. I haven’t washed my clothes since I left America.
13. This seems to be a touchy, feely culture. Men hold hands, women hold hands, kids and young people even get really close to me in the streets when talking to me. When young one’s want chocolate, they have gotten into my pockets and have grabbed my hand trying to get me to go to the store.
14. Indian women have beautiful hair and it’s unusual to see an older female without long hair.
15. It’s always unbelievable to the people that have asked me that I’m not married. It seems to be really important for women in this culture to be married.
16. I rarely see women working in shops. Today was the first time I was helped by a woman in a store, and only men work tables in restaurants (so far).
17. Shante shante means relax. We would spell it shanty, but I was told by my friend Sameer that it is spelled with an e?
18. The lanes on the roads here aren’t marked, except only briefly and inconsistently in Bangalore, so far. This means that there are at times 3,4, and sometimes 5 rows across of cars, rickshaws and trucks. Honking is the way you let others know you are beside them. I swear I have hearing damage from the incessant honking horns.
19. It is always rush hour in India.
20. Women ride on the back of motorcycles like they are riding side-saddle on a horse. I think the obvious reason is that they are wearing sari’s, but I bet it’s also because it’s more modest.
21. There are often entire families on one motorcycle plus groceries! I’m not making that up.
22. India has more color and beauty in their everyday clothes than any place I have ever been. The vivid, colorful landscape of saris on the street is like a feast for your eyes.
23. The hotels, auto-rickshaw drivers, taxi-drivers, and business owners are all working together to help travelers spend money.
24. Chances are, when bargaining you will end up with the price you want. Chances are also that in doing so, you will miss the opportunity to learn about where you are and maybe even miss out on a new friendship.
25. Many Hindu’s do not let their lips touch the bottle, glass, or cup they are drinking from.
26. In south India many people eat with their hands. Even when eating rice and gravy.
27. A group of young men approached me yesterday and asked where I was from. After I told them America they bashfully asked me if they could each stand next to me for a picture. Of course I obliged.
28. The only bathrooms I have used that supplied toilet paper have been in the airport, except for Varanasi where they had squat toilets and no paper.
29. I have only met one other American since I’ve been here and rarely see others that could be.
30. People from different areas of India don’t necessarily speak the same language. Today I helped one woman with a question because the other women couldn’t understand what she was saying, but they could both understand English. Both women were Indian.
31. I’ve talked to people here that separate themselves (their class) based on whether or not they have clean water in their homes. What you drive isn’t important.
32. I think there is great national pride here.
33. Even with all the circumstances I have seen in India, the pervading sense of hope and optimism is palpable.
34. I will come back to India again.

Rain, Rain don't go away. Fall in big buckets outside my house I pray. Tomorrow I must cook, clean, and drink, all without a kitchen sink. I'm sorry for polluting the lake next door. It is only because my caste made me poor.

I wrote that last night while it was raining......I'm leaving Bangalore today and traveling to Mysore. I don't know yet what kind of internet access I will have but I'm sure it won't be as fancy as it has been here. If you don't hear from me for a few days, that's why.
Namaste-

Ecological sanitation...and sanity

Nature is amazingly perfect. Even with run-away population growth, it struggles to maintain itself and us in the process- but here in India, I feel like I'm standing on the low side of the scale struggling for balance, grasping for the tipping point that is sliding by, out of my reach......

It has been raining all day here in Bangalore and I couldn't help but hope there were giant rain-catching containers somewhere catching all this water that is so precious to many parts of India. I watched the water rise in the streets and the stream next to my hostel flow faster and higher, carrying garbage and precious water away.

As it turns out, there is a movement towards rain-water harvesting here. It is hoped that rain-water harvesting can be part of the solution in India. Nature gives the water for free (remember that, we will come back to it), especially during the monsoon that comes on in different months from the north to the south. The problem is that many of the natural reservoirs for storing the water have been damaged here, just like in the states. (but then, without infrastructure you can't get the water to where you actually need it...another problem)... Many of the lakes are extremely polluted because of open defecation, garbage, and agriculture, so rain only works to dilute them. And, urbanization in India has also led to an increase in impervious surface cover, i.e. roads, parking lots, and buildings, that increases run-off to the polluted lakes, streams, and rivers, and decreases groundwater recharge. (I just pictured Mother Nature (as if) shaking her head and pointing her finger at us humans!)

So the problem becomes catching it, and storing it. In a country as water-stressed as India, this is a problem that needs a solution. Deepak told me yesterday that many families without infrastructure are using their roofs to catch the water, but without adequate storage, it seems to be a solution only on short time-scales. Imagine what size container you would need EVERYDAY to supply the water needs in your home. Now subtract all the water you waste. How big of a container would you need? I hope, beyond hope, that if you can imagine this, you can change this. Practically speaking, do you need to flush the toilet every time you pee? Conventional toilets use 5-7 gallons of water every time you flush them. I guarantee that is more water than the ladies I've seen out at 5 in the morning here are collecting from the pumps for their entire day! And a bath takes on average 50 gallons of water!! I have had a bucket and a small plastic pitcher in every bathroom of every single room I have stayed in since I came to India. I think they are meant to dissuade tourists from the gluttonously long showers that we have come to think of as our time to relax.


How many times have you ran the washer for a pair of jeans you wanted to wear? How often do you leave the kitchen sink running while you do something else? The water running down your drain may not directly help or hurt someone here in India, but nothing bad can ever come from conserving our resources. And in a way, the decision to be more frugal with our water, acknowledges the struggles others are having.

In the previous post I asked how to get sanitation infrastructure to people that you can't even get freshwater to. I was told yesterday about ecological sanitation. On average, people use about 4,000 gallons of water a year flushing away their wastes (www.africanwater.org). We were just talking about not having enough water right? Ecosan, like nature, reuses nutrients, bypasses the whole squat in the lake thing, and uses minimal water! Hmm...I don't understand it completely but feces and urine go into separate dry latrines, they are composted, urine is diluted with one part water, and all this can be used as fertilizer! There is even research under way here in India to determine what strengths of wastes are best for use on different crops! Ecosan, when used in place of open defecation, prevents freshwater pollution, but can add to groundwater pollution when not constructed properly. (that just sounded like an infomercial.) I have also heard that in some places, dalits, or untouchables in the Hindi caste system, are often required to remove wastes from these, which is another complex problem here in India.

The real tragedy of the commons is that it's real. When there are many people using one resource, it will be exploited until it's depleted or ruined to the extent that it's no longer usable, even to the detriment of the people using it. We do it in America with fossil fuels, land, and yes, water, among other things. Nature, in her exquisite perfection, provides this resource for free. Human population growth has required (or so we think?) that we dam our rivers, drill for all the fossil fuels we can find, clear forests for crops and agriculture and the hell of it, pollute our water, and now SELL our water?

Water for sale? Privatize another resource? Is it ok to do this with something that NO HUMAN BEING CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT? This is an emerging problem in India that I will write about next time. In the meantime, I hope you think about what that means for the people who can't buy it.

You can't pollute the spiritual part

I've been struggling with my western mind for the last few days, trying to connect the way I think with the myriad differences in perception (both large and subtle) that exist between my inherently americanized view and the ideas I have learned from people in India. (Learning about other cultures always forces a renegotiation of what you think you know.) In my last blog I asked how something as beloved as the Ganga can be in such bad shape. I was thinking about our national parks campaign that urges us to keep our heritage clean, and the "clean the beaches" days we set aside....So we do these things because many of us have real attachment to these places, or more simply perhaps, pride. I asked Deepak Menon, from Arghyam, associated with the India Water Portal, how such an important component of Hindu life can be so miserably polluted. He told me the water is only the medium, or instrument, that connects one to their religion. The water itself isn't their religion. Makes sense right? Here's an easier way to consider it, depending on how you look at it: My friend Allison and I were talking about this last night on skype when she said "you can't pollute the spiritual part." My rock-star ecologist friend always gives me something else to think about.......
So I guess the conundrum for me was to separate the spirituality of the river from the physicality of the river itself. This is another form of attachment that is so dominant in western thought but lets stay on this road...

Other things to think about from my meeting with Deepak:
1- Civic responsibility is not a priority for people here.
2- People that are using bore wells for drinking water in the south are being poisoned by fluoride that occurs naturally in ground water. Over time it causes a disease called fluorosis that is crippling. (It tears your bones apart.) PEOPLE DO NOT CONNECT THE DISEASE WITH THE WATER. By people I mean the poor, those without access to education and infrastructure.
3- 47% of the Indian RURAL population practice open defecation, i.e. pooping in lakes, along roads, in fields, etc. I mostly see people using lakes and the roadside for this.
4- Question posed by Deepak: How do you get infrastructure to people when water to run it is in short supply?

Just a few things to think about.

Pure

Sorry for the delay in writing. I have been in Varanasi, a very holy place, the city of Lord Shiva, but a crappy place for electricity and internet! The city has rolling blackouts every day but you never know when or how long they will last. Even though my hostel had generators, they only power a few things with them. As you can imagine, routers and modems aren't on that list.

So this post may be long, but I want to catch you up since leaving Agra last Saturday evening, September 12th. I had passage on a night train reserved (remember the ridiculously expensive ticket??) which meant I was to sit on the platform in the dark at the Tundla Junction Station waiting for the train that was surely to be late. I sat reading The Poisonwood Bible, trying to seem sublimely unaware of the people staring at me, the only non-Indian on the platform, in a town the size of a peanut compared to Delhi, when a man walked up and leaned right over my book to see the script on my page. Oh shit, my paranoid-female alone-traveling mind shouted...he wants to make sure I'm an English reading American before he throws me in front of the next train....I smiled and asked him if he'd like to have my book. (Sorry Aimee, I know it is yours) He smiled a big, huge smile with his eyes and mouth, and said no thanks.

I reflected on my intention not to always be on guard while here. It is tiresome, and most importantly, it creates missed opportunities for interaction. People are curious about me, just as much as I am about them, and besides, the constant stares and pointing fingers in these smaller towns makes me feel like a movie-star, even though I look more like the paparazzi!
So anyway, I was shocked when a man walked up and said Hello. In a blink I saw the light skin, light eyes, backpack, and the same caution that I see in other non-Indian eyes here. I felt like standing up and hugging him, an American, at the train station in the dark, in tiny Tundla India! Colin had been in Japan for 3 years teaching English and had decided to stop for a bit in India before returning to the states. He & I crossed paths at the perfect time: after I learned what I CAN do on my own. We became traveling companions as we ventured onward to fascinating Varanasi.

Varanasi is an incredibly travelled to place by Indians. It is here, on the riverbank ghats (steps) of Mother Ganga (pronounced more like Gaun-ga, no hard G's), that Hindu's come to be purified by the water, pay respect to their ancestors, place the ashes of their loved ones, and obtain moksha, release from the cycle of rebirth. The main road stops well above the water, and an entire city is there, accessible only by foot, sometimes bike, within the weaving corridors called galis. We arrived early, when the sky was still holding onto its last moments of night. Weaving through the maze of galis was peaceful and quiet. There were no cars and very few people. When let into the courtyard of our hostel I went immediately to the balcony to catch site of her, the crossroads of the physical and spiritual worlds, the tears of Shiva, the Ganga:

We secured a boat to get closer to her. It took only a few moments of watching the people around me to understand the passion with which Hindu's revere this Goddess River. I had never seen water so visibly degraded and full of discarded items, including a huge decomposing cow within 30 feet of bathers. I had also never seen dedication to, attachment to, and belief in, as well as love for, a river, like people feel for this river. Legend says Ganga was ordered to earth by Brahma to cleanse the souls of the son's of a King who needed to go to heaven. Ganga didn't want to and decided to fall heavily on the earth, i.e flood it, but Shiva slowed her down causing the water to fall as streams. When she returned to the nether-world she left behind the river to purify the souls of the unclean. Ironically, Shiva is the destroyer, Brahma is the creator.
Remember that Hindu's feel about their Gods, mainly Shiva and Vishnu are worshipped, exactly the same way you feel about yours and great faith is put into the purifying powers of the Ganga.

Now here is what I want you to think about: (I write the following with great respect and only to help you understand what I saw and read)-
The water is brown, in many places with the bubbly-film build-up you see when E. coli is present. I read there are 30 large sewers discharging into the water right here, and the water is septic. There is no dissolved oxygen, and samples show the water to contain 1.5 million fecal coliform bacteria (from poop) per 100ml of water. In the US, our standard for considering water to be polluted is 1000 coliform bacteria per 100ml of water. Ok.
Everyone I asked in Varanasi about the Ganga told me how pure the water is. They told me they bathe every single day in the river, brush their teeth, wash their clothes, collect cooking water, and swim (which is the least of their worries considering...) No one I asked said they had EVER been sick from the water. Your body has natural flora and billions of bacteria running around in your guts. Their flora is adapted to this, but I wonder how many people make the connection between fatigue, malnourishment, and other indirect effects of one's body constantly battling critters that bombard it every day from the water?
Or could it be that the water is spiritually pure?

The collective prayer of thousands permeates the ghats with peace that you can feel and touch with your mind. I strongly respect and honor the moments I witnessed as I photographed them for you. I watched a family burn their deceased loved one on the banks of the Mother Ganga. I witnessed the intimacy of families bathing and praying. I made an offering in tribute to my ancestors and felt them all around me. I do not doubt the spiritual power of this river.


I have considered the dichotomy between the physical mess of the river and the spiritual love and connection people feel for it. If it is so loved and so revered, why isn't the connection made between keeping it clean and the health of the river? And why in Delhi & Agra do people say the Yamuna is so dirty but in Varanasi say the Ganga is so clean, when they are both so polluted? Religion and necessity must play large roles in India, same as in the US. Their religion doesn't allow them to make the leap- sound familiar?

Anyway, I love India and I'm having an amazing time. Thanks for reading.
Namaste

uh-oh, I ran out of toilet paper-

I’m going to tell you the whole story, and it includes more than water, but I think you will see how it’s all connected:

Delhi tried to chew me up and spit me out in little pieces. Having a vague notion of who you are and what you stand for won’t cut it there because you will be tested, and when you leave you will be different from when you got there.

The heat and humidity are like magnets that pull all your energy away. People are everywhere. Garbage is everywhere. Honking horns take the place of traffic lights on the roads where there are cars, cows, motorized rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, dogs, people, men pulling huge carts, and motorcycles.

The poverty is crushing. I know there is also wealth in Delhi, but I’m willing to bet the poor outnumber the rich, and not in a United States sort of way either. Poor here means actually, literally, without basic human necessities, poor. If I ever hear another poor person in the U.S complain from their home with 4 walls, a roof, running water, a stove, and food from the government to cook on it, I’m going to tell them what I saw here. Those that are poor here work. They are out hustling in the streets and laboring on community farms for food. I don’t know if they are happy, or if they are complaining, but the people I saw aren’t sitting at home waiting for their checks.




During my ride across town to the Center for Science & Environment (CSE) I fought tears, my throat hurting from the lump you get when you don’t want to cry. Wherever empty space was once found, it had been filled in by people living with giant pieces of plastic for roofs, or no roof at all. (There are estimated to be 10,000 people per square kilometer) Outside of gated high rises there were entire villages of people living on the fringe, even though they were in the middle of town. I couldn’t take a picture. I rode quietly through the city of over 15 million, my head filling with thoughts of problems that have no solutions.

I met with a man named Bharat Lal Seth at CSE. He co-wrote a 175-page report about the sewage problem in the Yamuna River, on the banks of which sets Delhi, eventually emptying into the Ganges. On the Delhi stretch, they have sewage treatment plants that are able to treat 2,330 million liters/day but they are only being utilized for about 60% of that. However, the sewage generated per day is about 4000 million liters! That’s just for those with plumbing though. Tent cities have no plumbing. Nor do they always have fresh water. Often, their sewage enters the river directly. Access disparities and sewage treatment are, in Bharat’s opinion, the primary problems concerning water in Delhi. Forget waterfront property on River Road. This river is so polluted that there is no waterfront market, and those that live nearby keep their river facing windows covered. In a recent one-year period, the faecal coliform (poop) exceeded bathing water standards 459,264 times (of course I bought the report: Babu & Seth, Sewage Canal: How to Clean the Yamuna, 2007).


It is the poor that are most affected because they often have to use this water for everything, but middle class people in Agra (where I am writing this) don’t drink the tap water because they can afford to buy clean water. The Taj Mahal is in Agra, right on the Yamuna, downstream from Delhi. Today I talked to a young man, and new friend, Nitesh, who studied chemistry in school. He told me the only thing they do with tap water is cook and bathe. His family’s drinking water is purchased from the government in those big containers we have at home on the water coolers for 20 rupees (about 40 cents). I had been down at the river all day taking pictures so I asked him about a few things. It turns out the people who live in the tent cities don’t always have a choice about the water they drink because they don’t always have 20 rupees. I watched people bathing in the river, next to cows wading, next to people doing laundry, next to the crematorium, next to people going to the bathroom on the banks. I thinks it’s safe to consider it a multi-use river!
Nitesh told me they are taught in school not to pollute the river but that it didn't matter because people still do it anyway. Everyone I have talked to here about the river has said right away how dirty the water is. Yet, people are still forced to use it. Think about that.


A series of events happened to me in Delhi that led to me being duped into spending 1450 rupees for a bus ticket that should have been 200 rupees, and 1600 rupees for a train ticket that should have been, at most 800 rupees. I was frustrated, mad, hot, tearful…wondering if I should just come home…..It seemed the same universe that led me here was laughing. I was on that bus thursday, with no air-conditioner, all the windows down, in the pouring rain. There were literally buckets set up to collect water that was coming in through the roof. My clothes were wet and I was told to set in the front compartment with the driver and his helper (the driver, a giant, turban covered man was absolutely father-like) where the engine also was. It was hot and reeked of gasoline. I exchanged emails on my phone with a new friend named Tom whom I met through a friend as a result of his previous travels to India. He had written me that I would come home a different person. When I told him I was having a hard time staying positive he told me to get quiet and to spend time with kids, among other things. I did get quiet. And not in a stop talking sort of way. How I thought and what I thought was being challenged. I turned on my Ipod to have an American reprieve from the sounds of India- and what song was playing? I fell into a burning ring of fire, by Johnny Cash. I had to laugh, and then I remembered why I’m here. And perspective matters. You don’t see who you are in the great times, you learn who you are when challenged. If the people in tent city are smiling, so shouldn’t I be? I am smiling now thinking of those hours on the bus. I am happy to be here, and completely grateful. And yesterday, I spent time with kids on the Yamuna River while their parents were doing laundry. They were laughing.


**I'm finding it difficult to upload pictures in any real quantity here. I have over 100 on my facebook page, which I have made public if you want to see them. Go to facebook.com and put in Angie Wise. It should pull me up.

new kid in town....

So my first full day in Delhi is ending and I have to admit I slept most of it. I love it here but I also have to admit that I cried last night before going to sleep. I think it was probably the fatigue-strange-place-far-from-home syndrome but whatever, it's gone.
I love this place.
A few events from my day:
"Where are you from, England or USA?" I'm asked in the bazaar. "USA" I reply. "Oh, I VERY MUCH LOVE OBAMA and I loved Clinton too" was the reply of the young Indian in the street.
I'm half way around the world and our President is known and beloved. I won't write what he said about Bush.

In the PSP game Crash Bandicoot there are these little characters with large shields that they use to hit against Crash and push him down. That is what the heat feels like here when I walk out of the hostel into the street, like a shield with a laughing character behind it trying to push me down (does that sound paranoid?)
Another comment from a young man in the street "you are dressed wrong for here, too hot." As it turns out, he is what's referred to here as a tout- someone who is sent out to pull customers back to a shop or business (or service). It so happens that his friend owns a clothing shop but he did help me arrange for a driver for the day tomorrow. 8 hours, auto with A/C, anywhere I want to go = 500 rupees, or about $10!

Water- tomorrow I am going to an NGO headquartered here in Delhi. Today I noticed that at many intersections, (I'd say n=10 out of 20) the lines carrying sewage were all leaking to the surface instead of percolating vertically below the line- as evidenced by the smell, and the scene. Perhaps the area around it is saturated and there was no place else to go...Anyway, the men in the neighborhood were digging with shovels and banging on the pipes. Not sure what that would do, but it made me wonder about their infrastructure and the government's responsibility- I know about taxes and the differences in our countries, but I also saw kids walking barefoot through the sludge. Now, you might be wondering about basic sanitary knowledge and whether it is considered by people, like do Mother's tell their kids to stay away from the poop in the street? But I'm wondering how it can be like this in the first place?

Today's the day-

I just woke up with my dogs for the last time this month and noticed immediately that every cell in my body is buzzing with anticipation (ok, well that sounds like the beginning of a love scene). This doesn't feel like the other trips I've been on. In fact, it has felt from the beginning that the universe is arranging and ordering possibilities in so many ways that I have felt her hand on my back pushing me in this direction....heard her whisper in my ear that this is intended. So many signs, people, and circumstances have been placed in my life that I finally embraced the idea and said ok, ok, ok.

Two or three weeks ago I got a call from my new friend Aimee at USGS asking if I could come in for an interview. I thought to myself that if offered a job at USGS I would have to take it, no matter my trip to India & Sri Lanka and the universe would have to wait to send me on this trip. Aimee explained the position to me and then she said, "WE CAN ONLY GIVE YOU ONE WEEK OF WORK IN SEPTEMBER AND THEN YOU WILL BE OFF UNTIL OCTOBER". It was like the universe was smugly smiling as she whispered "take that and don't ever doubt me again!"

A friend was browsing my bookshelves a few days ago and happened to pick up a book about quantum leap thinking I had read several years ago. We had been playing around with my new camera and talking about me making this trip alone when he found a passage I had written in the front of the book (as I often use the cover pages for notes while reading): Like petroleum on a camera lens, fear distorts. hmmm....

So I have a plane to catch in a few hours, and a country to meet tomorrow. In a few days I will meet my new friend Ganga (i know what you are thinking, but no), a river that is worshipped as a goddess. Maybe she can give me some pointers!

My friend Piyumika from Sri Lanka sent me an email yesterday that she signed "May God's blessings be with you"- so I say this to each of you.
Namaste-

Getting Ready!

I used to be afraid of this trip. The airplane ride taking me almost 8000 miles from home is a sedative-requiring-I-have-to-sleep-through-it beginning- right before I arrive in the hottest, most crowded, most extravagant and at the same time most normal place I have ever been. I've been told that getting off the plane in Delhi puts one on sensory overload, AND I CAN'T WAIT!

I traveled to Martha's Vineyard once with my cat Beckett. As we drove off the ferry I remember thinking, "Now what?" I had no place to sleep, no friends or family there to go to for comfort, and was surrounded by 100's of people in large groups hugging and laughing. Beckett jumped onto my shoulder to get a better view and I swear I heard him say "Don't be afraid". This trip is that magnified by infinity, and my cat won't be with me, at least not physically. (I'm hoping you guys will be with me in spirit, through this blog)

I want to help our world be a better place. I want us to all think beyond our borders- the environment and the economy are global, and so it should also be with our minds. We can't remain isolated, neutral, and indifferent and expect changes to occur. (...what affects one, has an effect on us all...)

India, with the world's 2nd largest population (behind China) is struggling with multiple water issues including scarcity, pollution, privatization by companies (both Indian & international), and lack of sanitation infrastructure. As I travel, I will explain the effects of each of these, and how we contribute. Almost 40 million Indians are affected by waterbourne illnesses annually, but an even bigger issue for families is that 1.5 million children die in India every year due to diarrhea caused by contaminated water. Don't just read this. Think about it.

I am going to India & Sri Lanka to understand from their perspective what the issues are and how we might be contributing to them. I'm glad you will be with me through this blog (I won't feel completely alone as I wander the streets with my blond hair & blue eyes, sticking out like an American female all alone) and look forward to sharing my experiences with you. I leave on September 6th. Yay!!

Photo credit for main photo: http://www.reasonforliberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/water-crisis-india.jpg