We rented a house in San Marcos…..for the last few days Tyler and I have been in the same situation, (but with options), as a billion other people in the world- the billion who do not have access to clean water and sanitation. Let me say though we did buy a big bottle of water- the kind you take the seal off of and turn them upside down on a dispenser of some sort. At work we have the fancy one that cools the water as it comes out. Here in Guatemala we have the kind that you push the little lever and water comes out of the bottom. Anyway, we rented a really cool house in San Marcos la Laguna. It’s perched on the side of a cliff overlooking Lake Atitlan with a slope of deciduous trees, tropical plants and flowers below it. Bird’s fly outside our floor to ceiling windows (that double as doors to open), and small mammals visit us at night. The giant valley facing wall of windows is curved so we are rather like fishes in a bowl, but if a fish had this view, he’d be feeling rather zen- until he remembered he doesn’t have any water.
Isn’t that just perfect for me? The writer and contemplator of the water crisis finally knows, in a very small way, what it’s like to have to live without it. For two days very nice people have been telling us things like “the water will come, we don’t understand, let me try one more thing”….And Fredericka and Stuart really are very nice people. The reality is that I think it is fitting I should get an understanding of what this is like- but I need to wash my hair. And to really understand I would need to not have the 2000Q in my pocket, an ATM card with access to American dollars that can be converted to Q, and a Nikon D90 sitting next to me that I keep picking up to photograph birds as I write this.
We bought the big jug of water and then hired a tuk-tuk to drive us up the hill to our house with it. A woman here, or in India, or Africa, would have had to carry it on her back. We actually get to use a toilet, but we have to fill the tank with beautiful filtered water to flush it. In India, many people go the lake, or field, or side of the road (I have actually seen this).
This morning I’ve had to take stock of how much clean water we have, and what we need to use it for- and even make trade-offs. I filled our water bottles to drink, and two glasses of water to brush our teeth with, a small bowl in the sink to wash dishes, and then the tank on the toilet. The trade-offs are that Tyler won’t get a cup of coffee when he wakes up, we can only flush the toilet once, and we can’t wash our hands. I’ve seen big signs in India, Mexico, and Guatemala that have pictures of a person washing their hands and script that I assume explains about germs and how washing your hands helps stop the spread of germs- and in some countries, actually KEEPS CHILDREN FROM DYING. I’ve often thought when seeing them that it should be so easy and simple, but when you have to make choices about how to use the labor intensive and finite supply you have, washing your hands isn’t a priority. Making sure you have clean water to drink, and perhaps cook with will be higher on the list. I have a bottle of hand-sanitizer in my purse because I can afford to spend a dollar on it, but many people can’t.
So we are leaving our fish tank overlooking the lake today. I’m sitting here in the breeze from the open doors trying to soak up every ounce of peace and beauty I can. I want to remember what it feels like to be here at night listening to the jungle become quiet, with lighted candles, and a beer. But we have a choice, and fortunately, we can leave, get our money back, and find a place with water. As I pack up my stuff, I am thinking about the families that can’t.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The following have been written over the past several days, but they are in order.
Dwelling and dwelling……
I’m enjoying my chai this morning (as usual) while sitting in the open window of my room watching people start their days- men brushing their teeth, women sweeping their rooftops, and the same boy I watch every morning at the water pump. It is also the time of the day that I think most about my flight home in a few weeks, although I try not to dwell on those thoughts. My best option is to stay in the moments I have now and enjoy them graciously, but it is difficult to know I have to leave in only 19 short days. The idea of living on two continents is trying to work itself into a plan in my head. Even as the mosquitoes are buzzing around my ears and I am thinking about having to fill up the bucket in my bathroom to wash my feet, I know the inconveniences would be trivial compared to the experience of dwelling here.
Yesterday my friend Naresh took me on his motorcycle out of the city and into a few of the villages surrounding Udaipur. We rode for 25 kilometers uphill, past cinder-block homes with thatched roofs, past concrete walls the villagers topped with broken glass to keep the panthers out, to villages where I couldn’t even buy bottled water. The familiar sounds of Hindi were even replaced by a new language I had never heard. We hiked up a steep and winding path to the top where a temple has been carved into the earth and used our cell phones for light as we crouched down to find our way to the alter where Naresh offered incense and prayer, and I felt Shiva smiling.
The night before, my friends Robert and Alina and I joined Naresh and Asha with her family for the Shiva festival. We walked through town, visiting three Shiva temples and eating handfuls of sweets given to us by people as we left the temples. I find it fascinating to watch my Hindu friends worship. When entering a temple, each person rings the bell hanging over the doorway before praying with bowed heads and clasped hands in front of statues depicting Ganesh, Shiva, Krishna or others. I feel happy to be witness to yet more private moments- although when I asked Naresh what he says when he prays, he told me it’s private…. ☺)
Tonight I had dinner at Asha’s house again. Afterwards we walked to her parents home where I met several other family members. (Asha’s name means Hope in English by the way). When I mentioned around 11pm that I needed to get back to my guesthouse, her brother asked me why I was going to a hotel when my family is there in that house (their house), and told me I didn’t need to pay to stay in my home.
Yesterday a man I know named Raju stopped me on the street and asked to see my hands. He pressed on a few places and then told me I have a family history of lung problems and that my lungs are sick, that I am happy when in India but not the same in America, and that I have back problems (sadly, and frustratingly, yes) among other things. Everything he said was true.
I’ve watched the level of water in the lake go down every day since I arrived in Udaipur on the 4th of February. Naresh told me it drops by a foot each day.
Notes from India-
1- Never go shopping for fabric, or anything else, unless you go to the local market. This is where Indians shop for everything, and tourists don’t often venture. The prices are at least 70% less.
2- When you go to the local market, always go with an Indian. It’s more fun, and they will take 10% off the local price, which is already pretty cheap.
3- It’s easy to get caught up in looking around at the hustle in the streets, and even easier to step in cow poop when you’re looking around at everything in the streets. But don’t worry if you do, it is good luck.
4- The huge growths that look like bowling ball size tumors protruding from the sides and belly’s of cows aren’t tumors, or babies, but plastic. They forage in the trash for food and consume massive amounts of it (plastic), which they aren’t able to digest. Over time it slowly blocks their intestines, causing them to die slowly, and one would think painfully as well. But don’t worry, they aren’t getting fed massive amounts of antibiotics on factory farms and crowded onto trucks that drive down the freeway no matter the weather to drop them at a slaughter house where they are often still alive when their hide is being ripped off for you to eat a hamburger. Hamburger is not on the menu here unless you are in a 5-star hotel in a big city. Krishna loves cows. Shiva loves ox. They don’t eat them because the Gods have them as friends and you can’t eat a God’s friend. But you can eat a goat.
5- The bags that are often attached to and hanging under goats are not to catch milk as my friend Isabella and I thought, but to catch a baby when the goat is pregnant. They roam the streets by day to eat, so chances are, it will be born away from home. They are too valuable to the family that buys them to miss out on adding another to the herd. Eventually they might be eaten, but they have built their muscle by eating trash, so I wonder how that tastes…..perhaps like trash?
6- I have tried and liked everything I have been offered to eat or drink with two exceptions: lassi’s and fresh cow milk. Lassi’s are made with yogurt and fruit, unless you have a “special” lassi which promptly puts one to sleep. Fresh cow milk is boiled, allowed to cool, and served with “black” salt added. I’m not a fan of milk at home, let alone sour semi-warm milk with pepper added to it.
7- The best way to see the towns of India is from a motorcycle. Sitting sideways on the back with both your feet on the built in ledge is pretty easy too. I used to look at Indian women sitting like that in amazement. Now I find it practical and easy, especially when carrying bags home from the market.
8- Poverty here, though at times shocking and painful to see, is often handled with so much grace and dignity that it doesn’t always look like poverty. While I have seen children with matted hair and no shoes running from rickshaw to car to rickshaw at busy intersections begging for money, I have also seen power and beauty in groups of women sitting together on the sidewalk.
9- When an Indian says 1 pm, it means 2 pm, which means 3pm and so on, except for buses. If you are due to arrive at 6 am, you will arrive at 4 am.
10- If a rickshaw driver takes you to a guesthouse, don’t let him go in with you. You will pay an inflated price for your room to cover his commission for bringing you there.
11- For those that love it, India is like Hotel California, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.
Warning: The following could be (will be) a bit negative, but it is a part of my experience, and my journey. I think it is also a way for the universe to guide me in understanding who I am, and to understand the things I want to change.
Today, 2/18/10
I am such a bloody American. Many of us think we are this way or that way, but this country will challenge what you think you know about yourself. As much as I consider myself to be open, friendly, and grateful, the part of me that expects certain things (by virtue of what I am used to) sometimes rears its head. For instance, my traveling companion is from a village. By village I mean a small community where houses are made of mud and have thatched roofs made from grasses. I mean a place where every drop of water during the rainy season is precious so people can grow food and eat. By village I mean a place where all the water for cooking, drinking, bathing, and washing clothes comes from the same green, putrefied lake. By village I mean a place where if there was/were no God(s), it would be necessary to invent them, him or her so that one can develop all the ideology and hope that comes from having a belief in something outside oneself.
By village I also mean that people don’t brush their teeth, bathe often, wash their clothes often, or have any idea about raising a toilet seat to pee. If I wipe pee off the toilet seat one more time I am going to scream.
This morning we walked to the local market to find bangles that match the salwar kameez I had made yesterday. Entering a shop, or stand, or piece of cardboard that delineates the space of ones shop requires that you remove your shoes. I am wearing my precious Rainbow flip-flops and trying to keep my feet clean as I walk through the water being used to rinse the cow poop from the streets. You remove your shoes here so that all the filth you have been walking through in the streets isn’t carried into the shop where people sit on the floor to conduct business. I find a place for my shoes that is reasonably free from shit-water, and step up into the shop. Naresh stands outside, on my flip-flops, transferring all the parasite larvae and who-knows what else onto my shoes where my barefeet will soon be again. The combination of all the gawking at the blond in Indian dress, sitting in fresh pee on the toilet seat, and countless bangles being thrust into my face along with the chorus of “Sister, please, Hello” and Naresh ignoring most of what I say finally got to me. I asked for the key to the room that was in his pocket and stormed off in a hurry to get back to my room. Now I am sitting in on the gorgeous marble patio of my guesthouse deciding whether I want to break another social norm here and order a beer while I write. (The first being that I was obviously mad in the street when I walked off.)
During the long walk home I asked for intervention, a sign, to help me get to the bottom of why I am finding the most normal parts of life in India to be so damn frustrating to me today and was suddenly embarrassed that I felt so upset by it all. I’m frustrated because I am an American who expects things to be a certain way because they are the way I expect at home.
(I just ordered a beer)
They actually close the curtains across the door here if you are sitting in view of it and have a beer on your table-
I miss Asha and Udaipur. I miss the safety and love so freely provided me when in the embrace of her entire family. I miss walking through the streets of Udaipur and hearing my name, pronounced more like N-G here than Angie. As I have written this I have thought about the people I have loved that died from emphysema and cancer. I have thought about people here that cook with dirty water from the lake. I have thought about the dogs in the street that I bought biscuits for last night, and the one that promptly lifted his leg and peed on my back after I fed him, as if to warn all the other starving-for-food-and-love dogs in the street that I was his human. Do I really care if I have to wipe pee off the toilet seat or if I get a little cow poop on my feet? Do I even need to answer that question?
Something else that taught me a lesson yesterday: we stayed our first night in Bundi at a guesthouse that is someone’s actual home. The owner is a completely kind Grandmother and all who work there are family members. The house was small and full of people. The bathroom reeked of urine and all the family members and the guests shared the shower. When flushing the toilet, it emptied into the street where one could watch all ones business move slowly downhill towards the lake. There was no privacy at all there, but it was only 150 rupees a night- about $3. I wanted a hot shower in the privacy of my own room (foreigner alert) so we moved to the guesthouse where I am writing this from after the first night. For about $27 I have a huge room, private bathroom, marble everywhere, and a green courtyard. I took off my dirty clothes, excited to finally have a shower and wash my hair, but there was no water! I sat in the bathroom thinking you’ve got to be kidding me and had to laugh. The monkeys had played on the water tank and messed up the lines that supplied it so I had to wait until they could fix it and refill the water tank.
So here’s to life in India and opportunities for growth that await my every turn. The lesson isn’t to expect more from people and situations here, but to expect more from myself. I don’t want to behave like an entitled American and you won’t learn that you do it unless you put yourself into a situation that changes the resolution of your own mind.
Naresh is truly a good guy. I care for him and brought him with me because after living in India for 22 years he had never been to Bundi- a town only 6 hours by bus from Udaipur. He’s never seen the Taj Mahal, a landmark in his own country, nor has he ever been inside a building like the one where we sleep. He is friendly and good, despite the fact that he pees on the toilet seat and doesn’t answer me half the time when I speak. I know it is because half the time, he doesn’t understand what I am saying. He has a strong faith in his God’s, Shiva in particular, and writes notes to them during the day. I asked him once about why he isn’t married when the children from his village are committed to their life partner by their parents by the time they are 9 or 10. He told me it is because he has to finish his studies and ‘make’ a job first. Besides he says, “God is making me a good person to marry and she will be perfect for me when I meet her.” When he says this, I wonder if I too have that kind of faith. Maybe it is my next lesson.
Namaste-
Dwelling and dwelling……
I’m enjoying my chai this morning (as usual) while sitting in the open window of my room watching people start their days- men brushing their teeth, women sweeping their rooftops, and the same boy I watch every morning at the water pump. It is also the time of the day that I think most about my flight home in a few weeks, although I try not to dwell on those thoughts. My best option is to stay in the moments I have now and enjoy them graciously, but it is difficult to know I have to leave in only 19 short days. The idea of living on two continents is trying to work itself into a plan in my head. Even as the mosquitoes are buzzing around my ears and I am thinking about having to fill up the bucket in my bathroom to wash my feet, I know the inconveniences would be trivial compared to the experience of dwelling here.
Yesterday my friend Naresh took me on his motorcycle out of the city and into a few of the villages surrounding Udaipur. We rode for 25 kilometers uphill, past cinder-block homes with thatched roofs, past concrete walls the villagers topped with broken glass to keep the panthers out, to villages where I couldn’t even buy bottled water. The familiar sounds of Hindi were even replaced by a new language I had never heard. We hiked up a steep and winding path to the top where a temple has been carved into the earth and used our cell phones for light as we crouched down to find our way to the alter where Naresh offered incense and prayer, and I felt Shiva smiling.
The night before, my friends Robert and Alina and I joined Naresh and Asha with her family for the Shiva festival. We walked through town, visiting three Shiva temples and eating handfuls of sweets given to us by people as we left the temples. I find it fascinating to watch my Hindu friends worship. When entering a temple, each person rings the bell hanging over the doorway before praying with bowed heads and clasped hands in front of statues depicting Ganesh, Shiva, Krishna or others. I feel happy to be witness to yet more private moments- although when I asked Naresh what he says when he prays, he told me it’s private…. ☺)
Tonight I had dinner at Asha’s house again. Afterwards we walked to her parents home where I met several other family members. (Asha’s name means Hope in English by the way). When I mentioned around 11pm that I needed to get back to my guesthouse, her brother asked me why I was going to a hotel when my family is there in that house (their house), and told me I didn’t need to pay to stay in my home.
Yesterday a man I know named Raju stopped me on the street and asked to see my hands. He pressed on a few places and then told me I have a family history of lung problems and that my lungs are sick, that I am happy when in India but not the same in America, and that I have back problems (sadly, and frustratingly, yes) among other things. Everything he said was true.
I’ve watched the level of water in the lake go down every day since I arrived in Udaipur on the 4th of February. Naresh told me it drops by a foot each day.
Notes from India-
1- Never go shopping for fabric, or anything else, unless you go to the local market. This is where Indians shop for everything, and tourists don’t often venture. The prices are at least 70% less.
2- When you go to the local market, always go with an Indian. It’s more fun, and they will take 10% off the local price, which is already pretty cheap.
3- It’s easy to get caught up in looking around at the hustle in the streets, and even easier to step in cow poop when you’re looking around at everything in the streets. But don’t worry if you do, it is good luck.
4- The huge growths that look like bowling ball size tumors protruding from the sides and belly’s of cows aren’t tumors, or babies, but plastic. They forage in the trash for food and consume massive amounts of it (plastic), which they aren’t able to digest. Over time it slowly blocks their intestines, causing them to die slowly, and one would think painfully as well. But don’t worry, they aren’t getting fed massive amounts of antibiotics on factory farms and crowded onto trucks that drive down the freeway no matter the weather to drop them at a slaughter house where they are often still alive when their hide is being ripped off for you to eat a hamburger. Hamburger is not on the menu here unless you are in a 5-star hotel in a big city. Krishna loves cows. Shiva loves ox. They don’t eat them because the Gods have them as friends and you can’t eat a God’s friend. But you can eat a goat.
5- The bags that are often attached to and hanging under goats are not to catch milk as my friend Isabella and I thought, but to catch a baby when the goat is pregnant. They roam the streets by day to eat, so chances are, it will be born away from home. They are too valuable to the family that buys them to miss out on adding another to the herd. Eventually they might be eaten, but they have built their muscle by eating trash, so I wonder how that tastes…..perhaps like trash?
6- I have tried and liked everything I have been offered to eat or drink with two exceptions: lassi’s and fresh cow milk. Lassi’s are made with yogurt and fruit, unless you have a “special” lassi which promptly puts one to sleep. Fresh cow milk is boiled, allowed to cool, and served with “black” salt added. I’m not a fan of milk at home, let alone sour semi-warm milk with pepper added to it.
7- The best way to see the towns of India is from a motorcycle. Sitting sideways on the back with both your feet on the built in ledge is pretty easy too. I used to look at Indian women sitting like that in amazement. Now I find it practical and easy, especially when carrying bags home from the market.
8- Poverty here, though at times shocking and painful to see, is often handled with so much grace and dignity that it doesn’t always look like poverty. While I have seen children with matted hair and no shoes running from rickshaw to car to rickshaw at busy intersections begging for money, I have also seen power and beauty in groups of women sitting together on the sidewalk.
9- When an Indian says 1 pm, it means 2 pm, which means 3pm and so on, except for buses. If you are due to arrive at 6 am, you will arrive at 4 am.
10- If a rickshaw driver takes you to a guesthouse, don’t let him go in with you. You will pay an inflated price for your room to cover his commission for bringing you there.
11- For those that love it, India is like Hotel California, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.
Warning: The following could be (will be) a bit negative, but it is a part of my experience, and my journey. I think it is also a way for the universe to guide me in understanding who I am, and to understand the things I want to change.
Today, 2/18/10
I am such a bloody American. Many of us think we are this way or that way, but this country will challenge what you think you know about yourself. As much as I consider myself to be open, friendly, and grateful, the part of me that expects certain things (by virtue of what I am used to) sometimes rears its head. For instance, my traveling companion is from a village. By village I mean a small community where houses are made of mud and have thatched roofs made from grasses. I mean a place where every drop of water during the rainy season is precious so people can grow food and eat. By village I mean a place where all the water for cooking, drinking, bathing, and washing clothes comes from the same green, putrefied lake. By village I mean a place where if there was/were no God(s), it would be necessary to invent them, him or her so that one can develop all the ideology and hope that comes from having a belief in something outside oneself.
By village I also mean that people don’t brush their teeth, bathe often, wash their clothes often, or have any idea about raising a toilet seat to pee. If I wipe pee off the toilet seat one more time I am going to scream.
This morning we walked to the local market to find bangles that match the salwar kameez I had made yesterday. Entering a shop, or stand, or piece of cardboard that delineates the space of ones shop requires that you remove your shoes. I am wearing my precious Rainbow flip-flops and trying to keep my feet clean as I walk through the water being used to rinse the cow poop from the streets. You remove your shoes here so that all the filth you have been walking through in the streets isn’t carried into the shop where people sit on the floor to conduct business. I find a place for my shoes that is reasonably free from shit-water, and step up into the shop. Naresh stands outside, on my flip-flops, transferring all the parasite larvae and who-knows what else onto my shoes where my barefeet will soon be again. The combination of all the gawking at the blond in Indian dress, sitting in fresh pee on the toilet seat, and countless bangles being thrust into my face along with the chorus of “Sister, please, Hello” and Naresh ignoring most of what I say finally got to me. I asked for the key to the room that was in his pocket and stormed off in a hurry to get back to my room. Now I am sitting in on the gorgeous marble patio of my guesthouse deciding whether I want to break another social norm here and order a beer while I write. (The first being that I was obviously mad in the street when I walked off.)
During the long walk home I asked for intervention, a sign, to help me get to the bottom of why I am finding the most normal parts of life in India to be so damn frustrating to me today and was suddenly embarrassed that I felt so upset by it all. I’m frustrated because I am an American who expects things to be a certain way because they are the way I expect at home.
(I just ordered a beer)
They actually close the curtains across the door here if you are sitting in view of it and have a beer on your table-
I miss Asha and Udaipur. I miss the safety and love so freely provided me when in the embrace of her entire family. I miss walking through the streets of Udaipur and hearing my name, pronounced more like N-G here than Angie. As I have written this I have thought about the people I have loved that died from emphysema and cancer. I have thought about people here that cook with dirty water from the lake. I have thought about the dogs in the street that I bought biscuits for last night, and the one that promptly lifted his leg and peed on my back after I fed him, as if to warn all the other starving-for-food-and-love dogs in the street that I was his human. Do I really care if I have to wipe pee off the toilet seat or if I get a little cow poop on my feet? Do I even need to answer that question?
Something else that taught me a lesson yesterday: we stayed our first night in Bundi at a guesthouse that is someone’s actual home. The owner is a completely kind Grandmother and all who work there are family members. The house was small and full of people. The bathroom reeked of urine and all the family members and the guests shared the shower. When flushing the toilet, it emptied into the street where one could watch all ones business move slowly downhill towards the lake. There was no privacy at all there, but it was only 150 rupees a night- about $3. I wanted a hot shower in the privacy of my own room (foreigner alert) so we moved to the guesthouse where I am writing this from after the first night. For about $27 I have a huge room, private bathroom, marble everywhere, and a green courtyard. I took off my dirty clothes, excited to finally have a shower and wash my hair, but there was no water! I sat in the bathroom thinking you’ve got to be kidding me and had to laugh. The monkeys had played on the water tank and messed up the lines that supplied it so I had to wait until they could fix it and refill the water tank.
So here’s to life in India and opportunities for growth that await my every turn. The lesson isn’t to expect more from people and situations here, but to expect more from myself. I don’t want to behave like an entitled American and you won’t learn that you do it unless you put yourself into a situation that changes the resolution of your own mind.
Naresh is truly a good guy. I care for him and brought him with me because after living in India for 22 years he had never been to Bundi- a town only 6 hours by bus from Udaipur. He’s never seen the Taj Mahal, a landmark in his own country, nor has he ever been inside a building like the one where we sleep. He is friendly and good, despite the fact that he pees on the toilet seat and doesn’t answer me half the time when I speak. I know it is because half the time, he doesn’t understand what I am saying. He has a strong faith in his God’s, Shiva in particular, and writes notes to them during the day. I asked him once about why he isn’t married when the children from his village are committed to their life partner by their parents by the time they are 9 or 10. He told me it is because he has to finish his studies and ‘make’ a job first. Besides he says, “God is making me a good person to marry and she will be perfect for me when I meet her.” When he says this, I wonder if I too have that kind of faith. Maybe it is my next lesson.
Namaste-
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Chai, Coincidence, and Gratitude
I started my day on the rooftop, as many people here do, having chai and reading about how friendliness is only possible when labels & identities aren’t attached to a person. Without labels & identities we can relate to a person without looking through our own idea of who they are. Truth isn’t information. It is an experience. My experiences here in India continuously teach me that the information we think is true about the people in this country, in many ways, isn’t.
Yes, I am obviously labeled a foreigner, and that implies many different things to Indians about me, but I am experiencing many Indians that have a greater capacity than I do to relate to me as a person, not as an idea. I’m beginning to see that there are more givers here than takers, more opportunities than challenges, and more friends than foes. The idea of cheerful, compassionate, friendliness isn’t just a notion here. It’s a way of life.
I told my Dad a few weeks ago that I didn’t want to be so guarded that I missed opportunities for genuine interaction and friendship as I traveled. What I have found is that the more I welcome moments with a relaxed heart and feeling of gratitude, the more my life is filling up with amazing people and exactly the moments that were always meant to be.
I decided to get a pedicure this afternoon before the wedding. India is hard on one’s feet and a pedicure here is only about $1.00. My friend Robert told me about a salon his friend went to so I decided to go there. On my way I stopped to talk to a friend in the street and he told me his sister’s friend owned a shop even closer than the one I was walking to, and that he would walk me there. (By salon I mean a small room with a sign on the door that says “Women Only”) After a few minutes inside a beautiful Indian woman walks in and I notice the henna tattoos on her hands and feet that signify that she is getting married, so I ask her if she will have a wedding soon. She tells me that she is actually there to have her make-up done for her reception that is a few hours away. (In India they have a huge reception 3 days before the wedding). We talk about the groom and how she thinks he is good now but wonders what he will be like in a few years, as she changes into the most bejeweled and exquisite party dress I have ever seen. She gets out a big box from the jeweler and shows me all the different parts of the jewelry (fit for I princess) she will wear to the party. This leads me to ask her what color of bangles would be appropriate with the outfit I had made to wear to the wedding party I would be attending the same night. She is happy that I get to go to a wedding and asks me where it is. I told her that I have no idea as I was invited by a friend who was invited by another friend. During our conversation about my bangles one of her friends came in to check on her progress. They have a conversation in Hindi and then she tells me to go with her friend Asha who will take me to the bangle shops to help me pick out bangles like Indian women would wear. Asha took me to 3 different shops….I have bigger hands than most Indian women and every time we find the right colors they are too small. I think Asha feels bad that I am going to such a fancy event without bangles and offers to give me a henna tattoo for some decoration on my hands. Asha took me home with her, introduced me to her family and then set me down in a chair in her living room. Without sketching, or planning it out, she gives me a lovely, intricate, bad-ass henna tattoo that completely covers my hand and all five fingers.
When she is finished she tells me to sit for a minute and let it start to dry as she retrieves a bag from her closet. In the bag are her bangles. She selects 4 and takes my left hand and begins putting them on my wrist as she is telling me that they are a gift to me from her. I sit there in awe once again at the generosity and friendliness of yet another complete stranger-come-friend-quickly. I’m quickly learning that this isn’t an exception, but a rule. I smiled when she tells me they are gift, knowing that I will always treasure them and think of these moments with gratitude. As I leave to get changed for the wedding we make plans to visit tomorrow and I say good-bye.
Then I ride on the back of a motorcycle in my fancy clothes with a complete stranger (but a friend of Roberts) through the narrow streets of Udaipur, weaving around pedestrians, cows, and rickshaws. I think of the girls I met in Jaipur and smile. Yesterday I thought about how much fun they must have had riding a motorcycle like that. Today I got to experience it.
The wedding turns out to be a reception with at least 300 Indians and two foreigners- Robert and I. People smile and welcome us with friendly greetings and a quick glance at my very Indian attire as we make our way through the crowd to see the bride and groom. I’m sure you have already guessed that it is the women from the salon! As I am standing with Robert marveling at the complete and total beauty of the women and their clothes I feel a hand on my arm and turn to be greeted by the big smile of the salon owner who had done my pedicure. We talk for a moment and then head over to the buffet tables to have another delicious Indian meal. The only thing I ask the buffet attendants is whether it is all vegetarian before I fill my plate with chickpea curry and several other things that I still have no clue as to what it was- besides fantastic food! It reminded me of a time in Sri Lanka when I realized I had no idea what I was eating but decided I didn’t care because it was just too damn good. We walk around talking to people, remarking how startled very small children seem to be when they look at us, when Asha walks up with a huge smile on her face. She checks on my henna tattoo, reminds me not to wash my hand until tomorrow, and then makes sure we have had plenty to eat. We had no idea we were going to the same wedding party when we met earlier!
Between this moment and leaving with Asha and her family and friends I also have a very long conversation with a group of young people (ages 8-19) and eventually a few of their parents. One family invited me to come to their town 165km from Udaipur to stay with them for awhile- and I think I will.
I tell Robert on the way home how grateful I feel. If I had been operating in fear and with judgment in the salon I would have missed out on these wonderful people that came into my life today. The friendliness and ability of people here to simply accept me, and invite me into their lives and homes amazes me. In America we have so many ways of excluding people and separating ourselves from them. I didn’t know until I arrived at the wedding they were all Brahmin caste (the highest you can be) but Asha knew I am 40 and unmarried- virtually unheard of here- The point is that the only thing I considered was how friendly these people were to me, and the only thing they think about is being friendly. It’s strange that I came here to save them, because they are the ones that are saving me.
Sammasati. Remember that you are a Buddha.
Yes, I am obviously labeled a foreigner, and that implies many different things to Indians about me, but I am experiencing many Indians that have a greater capacity than I do to relate to me as a person, not as an idea. I’m beginning to see that there are more givers here than takers, more opportunities than challenges, and more friends than foes. The idea of cheerful, compassionate, friendliness isn’t just a notion here. It’s a way of life.
I told my Dad a few weeks ago that I didn’t want to be so guarded that I missed opportunities for genuine interaction and friendship as I traveled. What I have found is that the more I welcome moments with a relaxed heart and feeling of gratitude, the more my life is filling up with amazing people and exactly the moments that were always meant to be.
I decided to get a pedicure this afternoon before the wedding. India is hard on one’s feet and a pedicure here is only about $1.00. My friend Robert told me about a salon his friend went to so I decided to go there. On my way I stopped to talk to a friend in the street and he told me his sister’s friend owned a shop even closer than the one I was walking to, and that he would walk me there. (By salon I mean a small room with a sign on the door that says “Women Only”) After a few minutes inside a beautiful Indian woman walks in and I notice the henna tattoos on her hands and feet that signify that she is getting married, so I ask her if she will have a wedding soon. She tells me that she is actually there to have her make-up done for her reception that is a few hours away. (In India they have a huge reception 3 days before the wedding). We talk about the groom and how she thinks he is good now but wonders what he will be like in a few years, as she changes into the most bejeweled and exquisite party dress I have ever seen. She gets out a big box from the jeweler and shows me all the different parts of the jewelry (fit for I princess) she will wear to the party. This leads me to ask her what color of bangles would be appropriate with the outfit I had made to wear to the wedding party I would be attending the same night. She is happy that I get to go to a wedding and asks me where it is. I told her that I have no idea as I was invited by a friend who was invited by another friend. During our conversation about my bangles one of her friends came in to check on her progress. They have a conversation in Hindi and then she tells me to go with her friend Asha who will take me to the bangle shops to help me pick out bangles like Indian women would wear. Asha took me to 3 different shops….I have bigger hands than most Indian women and every time we find the right colors they are too small. I think Asha feels bad that I am going to such a fancy event without bangles and offers to give me a henna tattoo for some decoration on my hands. Asha took me home with her, introduced me to her family and then set me down in a chair in her living room. Without sketching, or planning it out, she gives me a lovely, intricate, bad-ass henna tattoo that completely covers my hand and all five fingers.
When she is finished she tells me to sit for a minute and let it start to dry as she retrieves a bag from her closet. In the bag are her bangles. She selects 4 and takes my left hand and begins putting them on my wrist as she is telling me that they are a gift to me from her. I sit there in awe once again at the generosity and friendliness of yet another complete stranger-come-friend-quickly. I’m quickly learning that this isn’t an exception, but a rule. I smiled when she tells me they are gift, knowing that I will always treasure them and think of these moments with gratitude. As I leave to get changed for the wedding we make plans to visit tomorrow and I say good-bye.
Then I ride on the back of a motorcycle in my fancy clothes with a complete stranger (but a friend of Roberts) through the narrow streets of Udaipur, weaving around pedestrians, cows, and rickshaws. I think of the girls I met in Jaipur and smile. Yesterday I thought about how much fun they must have had riding a motorcycle like that. Today I got to experience it.
The wedding turns out to be a reception with at least 300 Indians and two foreigners- Robert and I. People smile and welcome us with friendly greetings and a quick glance at my very Indian attire as we make our way through the crowd to see the bride and groom. I’m sure you have already guessed that it is the women from the salon! As I am standing with Robert marveling at the complete and total beauty of the women and their clothes I feel a hand on my arm and turn to be greeted by the big smile of the salon owner who had done my pedicure. We talk for a moment and then head over to the buffet tables to have another delicious Indian meal. The only thing I ask the buffet attendants is whether it is all vegetarian before I fill my plate with chickpea curry and several other things that I still have no clue as to what it was- besides fantastic food! It reminded me of a time in Sri Lanka when I realized I had no idea what I was eating but decided I didn’t care because it was just too damn good. We walk around talking to people, remarking how startled very small children seem to be when they look at us, when Asha walks up with a huge smile on her face. She checks on my henna tattoo, reminds me not to wash my hand until tomorrow, and then makes sure we have had plenty to eat. We had no idea we were going to the same wedding party when we met earlier!
Between this moment and leaving with Asha and her family and friends I also have a very long conversation with a group of young people (ages 8-19) and eventually a few of their parents. One family invited me to come to their town 165km from Udaipur to stay with them for awhile- and I think I will.
I tell Robert on the way home how grateful I feel. If I had been operating in fear and with judgment in the salon I would have missed out on these wonderful people that came into my life today. The friendliness and ability of people here to simply accept me, and invite me into their lives and homes amazes me. In America we have so many ways of excluding people and separating ourselves from them. I didn’t know until I arrived at the wedding they were all Brahmin caste (the highest you can be) but Asha knew I am 40 and unmarried- virtually unheard of here- The point is that the only thing I considered was how friendly these people were to me, and the only thing they think about is being friendly. It’s strange that I came here to save them, because they are the ones that are saving me.
Sammasati. Remember that you are a Buddha.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Hills, inclined planes, and intuition
That monkey needs some sunglasses, I thought to myself as I watched a rather handsome gentleman squinting in the morning sunlight from the window of my room. He was only maybe 6 feet away from me, looking up into the sun to watch me the same way I was watching him. I asked him if he wanted to be my new boyfriend but apparently he hasn’t been to school yet to learn English, because he only stared, not even a Hello.
I got out of bed this morning at 6:45, partly because they needed the room I was in (I was supposed to move into another room, long story, but I was told after a few hours that I could again have the same room) and partly because I wanted to watch the city I felt an immediate affinity for wake up. I fall in love with India again every day, (nevermind Delhi), especially here in Udaipur. I think it’s fair to say it is a city of rooftops and hills. I sat this morning on the rooftop having tea, watching people come out onto their rooftops after their own trips to dreamland. In America our morning activities are mostly personnel, hidden from view. I don’t usually see my friends in the bathroom (well, that’s not entirely true (MICHELLE)) but here it’s normal to see the most private moments in one’s daily routine. This morning I watched a man shaving with a strap on his rooftop. He was bending down to use a small mirror he had balanced against a glass on the ledge of his patio. I watched women wearing vibrantly colored sari’s bring their sleeping blankets out to hang over the edges of their rooftops. I have to add for the sake of visualizing that the wind was blowing their sari’s, causing them to look like beautiful flags rippling in the wind. From across the lake the thumping sounds of women washing their clothes by hitting them against rocks at the lakes edge were carried to me. I turned to watch and noticed there were also women bathing, nude of course.
The sounds announcing another wedding has taken place just started….it is wedding season so I hear this several times a day. I still smile and take a moment to wonder about the bride and groom. Was their union a result of astrology, matchmakers and parental approval, or an attraction that started in secret and a choice they made independently of the stars and their families? Several people have told me that their marriages were arranged but they also had a choice. My friend Anu told her father if he didn't agree to let her marry Sanjay, she would never marry anyone. No one has told me they were forced into a marriage, although I know this happens here in India. All the women have in common that they “felt” intuitively they could eventually love the man seeking their parents consent. Intuition is a real force here. I think in America we consider “real” information, often to our detriment, when making a decision and rely too little on the wonderful capacity of the universe to lead us on our journeys. We second-guess ourselves because we have been taught, albeit perhaps subtly, that instinct isn’t fact. Many times we what-if ourselves out of possibilities, even though magic happens when we what-if ourselves into them. (“Balance” is coming to my mind but I tend to operate best in extremes.)
Anyway, tomorrow night I am going to a wedding. I don’t know the bride, or the groom, but I’m supposed to be there none-the-less. On saturday I decided I wanted to go to a wedding, I made it my intention. I went to the tailor, picked out a beautiful piece of fabric and got measured for a salwar kameez. A salwar kameez is the outfit that has pants, a long shirt, and an even longer scarf that hangs backwards around your neck. On monday morning my friend Robert mentioned that he was asked to go a wedding and said that I might be able to join him. This morning it was made official. I’m smiling as I write this. The power of intention never ceases to amaze me.
I realize this is reading more like a journal entry. I’m not sorry and I hope you like it. Udaipur has narrow, winding streets that barely have room for two autorickshaws to pass each other side-by-side. It is quaint in an Indian kind of way and centered around a lake. People are more friendly here than many of the towns I have been to in India. Walking through the streets I hear a constant chorus of Hello, Namaste, How are you?, and Have a nice day. I meant to stay for 2 nights, but I “felt” like I should stay for more. Yesterday I had a bus ticket to leave, knowing intuitively I should stay, but the universe wasn’t having it. In the hours before my departure several things came up, slowing my progress. Each time it occurred to me that I was supposed to stay, until finally there was no way for me to get to the bus station in time. I’m smiling again. Admittedly, I have only spent a small amount of time here searching out water resources so far- I spoke to Rajendra’s planner yesterday who told me he is in Delhi until tomorrow. I’m staying in this area waiting for him to be in Jaipur where I will get to meet with him and his field-site manager in a few days. My friend Raj here in Udaipur is part of an NGO that has done some water work in a village about 25 km’s from town where several people have flourosis from their well water. One of the moments that added to the proof I needed to stay here yesterday was when he told me he was trying to find someone to take care of his juice stand today so he could travel there, and invited me along. I gave him my Indian phone number but I still haven’t heard from him. I have become a bit desensitized to seeing people use the bathroom on the side of the road, wash their clothes and their bodies in the river, and carry water down the street in buckets. Part of the problem is that we let ourselves come to think of these things as being more normal than a problem after a while. I still don’t know what the women who live these realities think.
Other happenings since my arrival in India:
1- Delhi sucked, again. The cultural sexual repression seems to be taken out on foreign women. One night I was followed home and grabbed multiple times before I finally hit the guy. That little man was either incredibly bold or deaf. The first few times he grabbed my boob I was firmly intolerant but the last time I was getting scared. My rickshaw driver, being from a lower caste, was unable, more correctly, unwilling to intercede so I was happy to see the guard at Barbara’s house standing at the gate when we pulled up. He stood outside the gate yelling “just one kiss”. Thinking about it now makes me want to go back to Delhi and hit him again but what would Buddha do?
I went to the river where 50% of Delhi’s sewage enters the water after being carried through the city. You’d think they would have at least dumped it privately- the giant black pipes were above ground, dumping partially treated sewage into the river next to a small community as if daring people to rise up and do something about it. Of course the smell was awful, but the really awful part was that people were also bathing there. I think about the reality of a life forced into that, but I also wonder whether or not that reality is too normal to those in the situation to see it as something bad. I don’t know how to ask the people I see there without perhaps seeming judgmental, but I need to figure out a way.
2- Jaipur was fun, except for when I was sick. I spent almost 2 full days in the house in Jaipur! Fortunately I was staying with an incredible family (Sanjay & Anu Ochani) and had the wonderful Anu mothering me through it. From telling me I wasn’t allowed to leave until I was better, to running to the store to get me a few bottles of Nimbooz, Anu made it less uncomfortable to be sick so far from home and my own bed. (Nimbooz has the juice of lemons and limes but not in a 7UP sort of way.) Sanjay & Anu live in the state of Rajasthan, in the northwest area of India. Jaipur is the gateway to the great Thar Desert. It's the second largest state in India (twice the size of the England), the 9th most populated, and has the least amount of rainfall, averaging 60cm annually. At the Ochani’s there were 10 or 12 other couchsurfers from Canada, Germany, the US, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, and the UK. Everyone wants to stay with this family, for good reason. They are a perfectly matched Indian couple that both equally make people feel like they just arrived home- no matter how many miles away home really is. They live in what I think is a great rooftop home above Sanjay's father, with as much open patio area as enclosed space. Around the patio are separate doors leading into a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, and a sleeping room with a double bed for couch-surfers. Outside of the kitchen there is a small sink on the wall for hand washing and teeth brushing. My bed was in the living room where we all hung out, next to Sanjay & Anu's bedroom. We had water every night, except for one, the night I was sick. My guts were killing me and there was no water to flush the toilet. I learned to really appreciate Immodium, and Isabella from Italy who gave it to me. Never again will I think I’m immune to getting sick just because I’ve been here before.
2 Biker Chicks and a Dude: I was sitting on the patio at Sanjay & Anu’s when a group of travelers got there (returned there) after traveling around Rajasthan on motorcycles. There are people that vacation, and people that travel. I travel. Hayley, Megan, and Tevon travel times ten. The energy in the room changed when they arrived. I’m smiling again. Hayley & Megan learned how to drive the motorcycle in the streets around the house and then they set off. Some nights they slept under the stars at chai stands and others they spent with families….I couldn’t help but think as I listened to their stories that I hope my kids get to have the same kinds of adventures, have the same kinds of stories to tell, and have the same effect on people that this group had on me. Hell, I hope I get to do it too. And when I say kids, I don’t mean they were kids. They were 20 somethings, except for Tevon. I was completely impressed when I found out how old he is….the point is, I always feel so blessed. Like-minded, inspiring, good people keep crossing my path. I’m hanging out in Udaipur with another one of those types right now.
A few things I’ve learned:
When you feel grateful, don’t let it be in comparison to something or someone else. Feel grateful just because.
Listen to the cues you are given. Don’t confuse them and mess them up with thoughts that aren't feelings.
Trust, trust, trust.
I got out of bed this morning at 6:45, partly because they needed the room I was in (I was supposed to move into another room, long story, but I was told after a few hours that I could again have the same room) and partly because I wanted to watch the city I felt an immediate affinity for wake up. I fall in love with India again every day, (nevermind Delhi), especially here in Udaipur. I think it’s fair to say it is a city of rooftops and hills. I sat this morning on the rooftop having tea, watching people come out onto their rooftops after their own trips to dreamland. In America our morning activities are mostly personnel, hidden from view. I don’t usually see my friends in the bathroom (well, that’s not entirely true (MICHELLE)) but here it’s normal to see the most private moments in one’s daily routine. This morning I watched a man shaving with a strap on his rooftop. He was bending down to use a small mirror he had balanced against a glass on the ledge of his patio. I watched women wearing vibrantly colored sari’s bring their sleeping blankets out to hang over the edges of their rooftops. I have to add for the sake of visualizing that the wind was blowing their sari’s, causing them to look like beautiful flags rippling in the wind. From across the lake the thumping sounds of women washing their clothes by hitting them against rocks at the lakes edge were carried to me. I turned to watch and noticed there were also women bathing, nude of course.
The sounds announcing another wedding has taken place just started….it is wedding season so I hear this several times a day. I still smile and take a moment to wonder about the bride and groom. Was their union a result of astrology, matchmakers and parental approval, or an attraction that started in secret and a choice they made independently of the stars and their families? Several people have told me that their marriages were arranged but they also had a choice. My friend Anu told her father if he didn't agree to let her marry Sanjay, she would never marry anyone. No one has told me they were forced into a marriage, although I know this happens here in India. All the women have in common that they “felt” intuitively they could eventually love the man seeking their parents consent. Intuition is a real force here. I think in America we consider “real” information, often to our detriment, when making a decision and rely too little on the wonderful capacity of the universe to lead us on our journeys. We second-guess ourselves because we have been taught, albeit perhaps subtly, that instinct isn’t fact. Many times we what-if ourselves out of possibilities, even though magic happens when we what-if ourselves into them. (“Balance” is coming to my mind but I tend to operate best in extremes.)
Anyway, tomorrow night I am going to a wedding. I don’t know the bride, or the groom, but I’m supposed to be there none-the-less. On saturday I decided I wanted to go to a wedding, I made it my intention. I went to the tailor, picked out a beautiful piece of fabric and got measured for a salwar kameez. A salwar kameez is the outfit that has pants, a long shirt, and an even longer scarf that hangs backwards around your neck. On monday morning my friend Robert mentioned that he was asked to go a wedding and said that I might be able to join him. This morning it was made official. I’m smiling as I write this. The power of intention never ceases to amaze me.
I realize this is reading more like a journal entry. I’m not sorry and I hope you like it. Udaipur has narrow, winding streets that barely have room for two autorickshaws to pass each other side-by-side. It is quaint in an Indian kind of way and centered around a lake. People are more friendly here than many of the towns I have been to in India. Walking through the streets I hear a constant chorus of Hello, Namaste, How are you?, and Have a nice day. I meant to stay for 2 nights, but I “felt” like I should stay for more. Yesterday I had a bus ticket to leave, knowing intuitively I should stay, but the universe wasn’t having it. In the hours before my departure several things came up, slowing my progress. Each time it occurred to me that I was supposed to stay, until finally there was no way for me to get to the bus station in time. I’m smiling again. Admittedly, I have only spent a small amount of time here searching out water resources so far- I spoke to Rajendra’s planner yesterday who told me he is in Delhi until tomorrow. I’m staying in this area waiting for him to be in Jaipur where I will get to meet with him and his field-site manager in a few days. My friend Raj here in Udaipur is part of an NGO that has done some water work in a village about 25 km’s from town where several people have flourosis from their well water. One of the moments that added to the proof I needed to stay here yesterday was when he told me he was trying to find someone to take care of his juice stand today so he could travel there, and invited me along. I gave him my Indian phone number but I still haven’t heard from him. I have become a bit desensitized to seeing people use the bathroom on the side of the road, wash their clothes and their bodies in the river, and carry water down the street in buckets. Part of the problem is that we let ourselves come to think of these things as being more normal than a problem after a while. I still don’t know what the women who live these realities think.
Other happenings since my arrival in India:
1- Delhi sucked, again. The cultural sexual repression seems to be taken out on foreign women. One night I was followed home and grabbed multiple times before I finally hit the guy. That little man was either incredibly bold or deaf. The first few times he grabbed my boob I was firmly intolerant but the last time I was getting scared. My rickshaw driver, being from a lower caste, was unable, more correctly, unwilling to intercede so I was happy to see the guard at Barbara’s house standing at the gate when we pulled up. He stood outside the gate yelling “just one kiss”. Thinking about it now makes me want to go back to Delhi and hit him again but what would Buddha do?
I went to the river where 50% of Delhi’s sewage enters the water after being carried through the city. You’d think they would have at least dumped it privately- the giant black pipes were above ground, dumping partially treated sewage into the river next to a small community as if daring people to rise up and do something about it. Of course the smell was awful, but the really awful part was that people were also bathing there. I think about the reality of a life forced into that, but I also wonder whether or not that reality is too normal to those in the situation to see it as something bad. I don’t know how to ask the people I see there without perhaps seeming judgmental, but I need to figure out a way.
2- Jaipur was fun, except for when I was sick. I spent almost 2 full days in the house in Jaipur! Fortunately I was staying with an incredible family (Sanjay & Anu Ochani) and had the wonderful Anu mothering me through it. From telling me I wasn’t allowed to leave until I was better, to running to the store to get me a few bottles of Nimbooz, Anu made it less uncomfortable to be sick so far from home and my own bed. (Nimbooz has the juice of lemons and limes but not in a 7UP sort of way.) Sanjay & Anu live in the state of Rajasthan, in the northwest area of India. Jaipur is the gateway to the great Thar Desert. It's the second largest state in India (twice the size of the England), the 9th most populated, and has the least amount of rainfall, averaging 60cm annually. At the Ochani’s there were 10 or 12 other couchsurfers from Canada, Germany, the US, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, and the UK. Everyone wants to stay with this family, for good reason. They are a perfectly matched Indian couple that both equally make people feel like they just arrived home- no matter how many miles away home really is. They live in what I think is a great rooftop home above Sanjay's father, with as much open patio area as enclosed space. Around the patio are separate doors leading into a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, and a sleeping room with a double bed for couch-surfers. Outside of the kitchen there is a small sink on the wall for hand washing and teeth brushing. My bed was in the living room where we all hung out, next to Sanjay & Anu's bedroom. We had water every night, except for one, the night I was sick. My guts were killing me and there was no water to flush the toilet. I learned to really appreciate Immodium, and Isabella from Italy who gave it to me. Never again will I think I’m immune to getting sick just because I’ve been here before.
2 Biker Chicks and a Dude: I was sitting on the patio at Sanjay & Anu’s when a group of travelers got there (returned there) after traveling around Rajasthan on motorcycles. There are people that vacation, and people that travel. I travel. Hayley, Megan, and Tevon travel times ten. The energy in the room changed when they arrived. I’m smiling again. Hayley & Megan learned how to drive the motorcycle in the streets around the house and then they set off. Some nights they slept under the stars at chai stands and others they spent with families….I couldn’t help but think as I listened to their stories that I hope my kids get to have the same kinds of adventures, have the same kinds of stories to tell, and have the same effect on people that this group had on me. Hell, I hope I get to do it too. And when I say kids, I don’t mean they were kids. They were 20 somethings, except for Tevon. I was completely impressed when I found out how old he is….the point is, I always feel so blessed. Like-minded, inspiring, good people keep crossing my path. I’m hanging out in Udaipur with another one of those types right now.
A few things I’ve learned:
When you feel grateful, don’t let it be in comparison to something or someone else. Feel grateful just because.
Listen to the cues you are given. Don’t confuse them and mess them up with thoughts that aren't feelings.
Trust, trust, trust.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
back to india!
I’m excited to get back to India, especially as I sit in Germany (which I love), with every part of myself frozen completely. It has been worse than cold every day since I arrived. My feet are numb from the walk to the pub where I am writing this while drinking an even colder weiss bier. Why not coffee I ask myself…well, in Germany one does as the Germans do. Besides that, I don’t really need a reason to drink beer in the middle of the day- I think I must have some German in me.
I have decided for this trip to India, my question will be, what potential for change is there in this system? It’s a lofty question, as I still do not know all the problems. What I do know is that the second most populated country in the world has a mixture of every single water problem known, in varying degrees, in some areas one problem but not others, in some places all the problems, and the poor are ALWAYS disproportionately affected. To be really honest, I have asked myself why I care. Do the problems of India have any effect on us in America? Do the children who die everyday without any of us ever knowing them matter? Do we spend even a moment of weariness when millions of women are walking for miles every morning to secure the water for the day in buckets on her back? Do we have thirst on the days many people in India aren’t able to have any water? Do we get sick when people are forced to retrieve drinking water from the Ganges- one of the most polluted rivers on earth? Physically, no, none of this matters to us. But perhaps emotionally, we have the latent capacity to bring about change. This matters to me because the suffering of others is not unimportant to me, and I don’t think it’s unimportant to you. You have only to look at the response of the people around the world to the earthquake in Haiti to see that the problems of others do matter. The water problems in India are a disaster, not entirely natural, but a disaster none-the-less. Thousands of people die around the world everyday, not from buildings falling on them when the earth moves, but from water, a resource that we totally and completely take for-granted.
It isn’t a foregone conclusion that there is no hope. There is a man named Rajendra Singh, formally a biologist, in Rajasthan (the desert region in western India near Pakistan) that taught himself traditional water-harvesting techniques, once a dying wisdom in India, (thanks to the so-called advanced western cultures that formally looked to colonize it), that knows there is hope. With the help of local communities, he has installed what are called check dams and taken communities from being in a water deficit to having a positive water supply. He recognized that the western notion of supplying water wasn’t a viable option for the communities in which he worked. When your entire water supply comes from the twice-yearly monsoons, perhaps you should work with nature instead of against it (purely a western idea). They built reservoirs in the path of the monsoon water flow and worked with nature to slow the path of the water, allowing more to seep into the ground, thereby raising the water table, and stored the surface water behind check dams to use later. His work in India had changed communities from being those that are forced to send families away to work to those that grow their own food, sale extra at the markets, and use only a minimal amount of groundwater. For his work he has won the Magsaysay Award in 2001 (Asian equivalent of the Nobel prize) and more importantly, given people hope. I hope to get some time with him when I get to India.
So there is potential for change in this system, when Indians ignore our western idea of man’s dominance over nature. Maybe that is why it matters. We have spread our ideas all over the world, thinking our ways are better. But when cultures rely on traditional wisdom that allowed them to thrive for thousands of years before our interference, they are once again able to thrive. Maybe that is the connection; maybe that is why it matters. We can’t keep thinking of places like India as places that lack because they aren’t like us. Maybe being like us isn’t what India should be striving for. Maybe they should seek to be like India, and we should stop putting our beliefs all over every place else.
I have decided for this trip to India, my question will be, what potential for change is there in this system? It’s a lofty question, as I still do not know all the problems. What I do know is that the second most populated country in the world has a mixture of every single water problem known, in varying degrees, in some areas one problem but not others, in some places all the problems, and the poor are ALWAYS disproportionately affected. To be really honest, I have asked myself why I care. Do the problems of India have any effect on us in America? Do the children who die everyday without any of us ever knowing them matter? Do we spend even a moment of weariness when millions of women are walking for miles every morning to secure the water for the day in buckets on her back? Do we have thirst on the days many people in India aren’t able to have any water? Do we get sick when people are forced to retrieve drinking water from the Ganges- one of the most polluted rivers on earth? Physically, no, none of this matters to us. But perhaps emotionally, we have the latent capacity to bring about change. This matters to me because the suffering of others is not unimportant to me, and I don’t think it’s unimportant to you. You have only to look at the response of the people around the world to the earthquake in Haiti to see that the problems of others do matter. The water problems in India are a disaster, not entirely natural, but a disaster none-the-less. Thousands of people die around the world everyday, not from buildings falling on them when the earth moves, but from water, a resource that we totally and completely take for-granted.
It isn’t a foregone conclusion that there is no hope. There is a man named Rajendra Singh, formally a biologist, in Rajasthan (the desert region in western India near Pakistan) that taught himself traditional water-harvesting techniques, once a dying wisdom in India, (thanks to the so-called advanced western cultures that formally looked to colonize it), that knows there is hope. With the help of local communities, he has installed what are called check dams and taken communities from being in a water deficit to having a positive water supply. He recognized that the western notion of supplying water wasn’t a viable option for the communities in which he worked. When your entire water supply comes from the twice-yearly monsoons, perhaps you should work with nature instead of against it (purely a western idea). They built reservoirs in the path of the monsoon water flow and worked with nature to slow the path of the water, allowing more to seep into the ground, thereby raising the water table, and stored the surface water behind check dams to use later. His work in India had changed communities from being those that are forced to send families away to work to those that grow their own food, sale extra at the markets, and use only a minimal amount of groundwater. For his work he has won the Magsaysay Award in 2001 (Asian equivalent of the Nobel prize) and more importantly, given people hope. I hope to get some time with him when I get to India.
So there is potential for change in this system, when Indians ignore our western idea of man’s dominance over nature. Maybe that is why it matters. We have spread our ideas all over the world, thinking our ways are better. But when cultures rely on traditional wisdom that allowed them to thrive for thousands of years before our interference, they are once again able to thrive. Maybe that is the connection; maybe that is why it matters. We can’t keep thinking of places like India as places that lack because they aren’t like us. Maybe being like us isn’t what India should be striving for. Maybe they should seek to be like India, and we should stop putting our beliefs all over every place else.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
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!
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!
Monday, October 5, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
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!
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.
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.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
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-
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-
Friday, September 18, 2009
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.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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.
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
Saturday, September 12, 2009
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.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
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?
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?
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