some pictures

these are pictures of opium, in a bishnoi opium ceremony. also are pictures of wedding clothes that are bishnoi, camel man and a camel, and a typical doorknob.

some pictures

these are pictures of opium, in a bishnoi opium ceremony. also are pictures of wedding clothes that are bishnoi, camel man and a camel, and a typical doorknob.

When You Got to Go

When you have 1 + billion people, you generate a lot of human waste. One way to help concentrate the problem is public urinals. All over the streets of major cities are public urinals, which drain to the gutter and are not much more than a couple of stone partitions to give a modicum of privacy.

Before we realized this, Yona and I were walking on the sidewalk and there was a, well a stone partition parallel with the street, and I went to the left of it and Yona went to the right of it. And next thing she knew, Yona was hanging out with the guys in the urinal.

Also, Yona had another run in with a bathroom. We were in a pretty nice guest house and our room had a private bath as well as the normal assortment of furniture, an armoir, etc. It was dark and the middle of the night and Yona had to pee. She got out of bed and felt for the door to the bathroom and was reaching around on the wall, trying to turn on the light. I woke up because I heard this rubbing and scratching. Confused and not sure if there was an intruder I turned on the light by the bed. There was Yona one hand on the wall and one hand on the door to the armoir. Evidently in her sleepy state she confused one for the other. The good news is that we laughed so hard that the armoir was no longer in danger.

back from the desert

this will be somewhat quick. we went to osiya the other day and came back today. later today, or tonight i guess, we'll take the night train to delhi and meet my former student saachi and her family. then we'll go to agra together! we took a bus to osiya and stayed at a jain guesthouse and learned a lot about jain people. and saw a major jain temple and another hindu temple but the jain temple was really really beautiful and interesting. i'll attach pictures later.

so we stayed a night at the jain guesthouse and then with a guide walked into the desert and stayed overnight in the desert. we stayed at the home (or on the roof) of the camel man. everyone just called him the camel man. saw lots of stars and he told us that the milky way is also called "the track" and every night at 4 am, god travels the track. i meant to but didn't ask: which god? there's 300 million of them, right? so i wonder which god travels the track. i'm now somewhat familiar with shiva, ganesh, durgha (or something like that), lakshmi, vishnu.

i also learned that what i've been saying to people for "thank you" in hindi is not the word for "thank you" at all. i've been saying chokriya, which means "boy". i should have been saying "sokriya." oh well. no wonder i got weird looks when i said this to people.

we're trying to learn the difference between cow and buffalo. we're starting to get it, i think. here's what we're seeing a lot of: babies wearing eye makeup, people wearing flip flops with socks, kids wearing shirts or sweaters but nothing else (no pants, shoes, underwear). here's what we have not seen in a long long time: doorknobs. i'll attach a picture soon of what we see instead of doorknobs.

health is good, mom and dad. i got a blister on my toe. that's the worst i can say. it was nice to sleep on the roof so we could see so many stars. zillions of stars. we didn't ride a camel but got to hang out with one. camels have very long eyelashes. and thick callouses on their knees and elbows and even bellies where they lay down.

had a really yummy drink called kesar doot. warm milk with safron and almonds and cardamom i think.

Drinking Water

There is an India way of drinking water from a shared vessel. You lean your head way back and pour the water into your mouth, making sure your lips never touch the pitcher. This is hard for americans and we often end up with water all over ourselves (when we try to do it for fun from our bottled water). It would be unsanitary, gross and rude to touch the pitched to your lips. What is funny from an American poit of view is this. On rural walk, our guide stopped at a farm house and asked for water. The woman who he asked got a silver cup, shooed the goats (they had been drinking) away and dunked it into a trough. She rubbed the cup with her hands to kind of clean it. Still dripping wet, she took the cup and dipped it into another equally sketchy water source and gave it to our guide who happily drank it the indian way. I wanted to point out that the goats had just been drinking from the trough and she had not dried it or anything and the other water source was probably equally contaminated, so not touching it to his lips was the least of his problems, but when in India...

Public Sleeping

In America, we are kind of shy about sleeping. In India, it is not so. Take the 15 year old who was showing us around in the little village where we stayed a few nights ago. He was introducing us around and he took us to meet his grandmother, who was sleeping on a cot in a side room. He kind of woke her up and she said hi and we left. There is no sense of excuse me, oops sorry to wake you, etc, just, wake up, say hello, go back to sleep.

Similarly, we went on a hike with a few days ago with guide to some caves temples in a rural area about 20 minutes outside of Udaipor. Along the way, about 10 am, a group of college students saw us and insisted we come in. First they gave us parkora and then they invited us to have a spontaneous dance party. As Yona wrote about, we went into a room and they cranked the music and everyone danced for 5 or 10 minutes. The funniest part was that there was this middle aged guy sleeping in the corner. When we all went in his room, he kind of raised his head in confusion, and then calmly watched as we danced. I assume he went back to sleep when we left.

village stay and marwars and bishnois

it's still the same day and i'm writing more from jodhpur. so we stayed at the hut area and before that we spent a couple days at this place called mountain ridge. piers, a brit, has a nice guest house there that is so nice and kind of the opposite of a hut. lots of tourists from all over go there and we met a lot of nice people. people from canada and scotland and bhutan and india. it was very very nice and comfortable. on one day we did a trek kind of walk, with a guide. he took us walking through wheat fields and to a cave temple for shiva and to his aunt's hut for chai and all over. it was really nice and really interesting. lots of people we saw, especially chidlren, would wave at us and approach us and greet us. they way they greeted us, almost all of them, was "bye bye! bye bye!" and i don't think they were saying"buy" but really "bye bye" because they weren't selling anytning. they were just very friendly and our white skin and backpack made us something to stare at and wonder about. there were some people who greeted us, with english, and invited us into their home to feed us pakora. they wanted us to take a picture, and then go into a little room and dance with them. so we did. i'm incluing pictures. it was probably 11 am. good time for a dance party. it was funny!

still to write about: opium, dance performance, goat kid

i totally want a goat, but a little one. i got to hold one and it was so furry and cuter than a dog and just good all around.

we went to a dance performance in udaipur and that was really cool. i'll put up a picture of that also.

swasticas

today is christmas. we're in jodhpur. a lot to write about. i'll put up some pictures too. this might have to be a few posts. and also i have major preg-nesia and i'm forgetting so much stuff so i might repeat myself. it's been bad since yesterday - poor josh has to tell me things again and again. we're taking a train soon, or is it a bus? josh says it's a train. wait, did josh say it's a bus or a train we're taking soon? oh, a train. wait. a train or a bus? it's ridiculous.

before i forget (ha ha) there are swasticas everywhere. they mean "good luck". they are everywhere, as decorations. i'm including some pictures.

so we're in jodhpur. we came from a village stay near udaipur, where we stayed in a hut thing. it was cool and totally different from what we're used to. i'll include some pictures of that also. it's a family that lives there and they have 5 little huts and we ate with them and a 15 year old boy there took us on a couple walks and he practiced his english. they sort of showed me in the kitchen hut how to make chapati. we tried on wedding clothes. josh helped fix a roof of a hut with straw stuff, and tied on ropes. there was a 3 year old or something who was eating peanuts. here is how to eat peanuts (in a shell):

so you stand on the cow dung/clay floor, wearing only your shirt. you hold some peanuts. you drop them, try to smash them with your (bare) feet, and also with your fist. you roll the shells around until they crumble and the peanuts inside are visible, in pieces. you pick up the pieces and eat them, and sometimes offer the pieces to the american tourist who's watching. she takes one, smiles, doesn't want to eat it so she drops it and says "oops!" he picks up the piece from the ground and gives it to her again. she smiles and pretends to eat it and says "yum!"

next post (no title right now)

see i'm writing in all caps for you, well the title, anyway. this isn't actually a real post. i'm just putting up some pictures and i'll write more later. this is the table of contents: jalabi, wedding we went to part of, with pictures, swasticas

Beggery

Based on our stereotypes, it is hard to believe it, but there is a huge middle class. Somewhere between 150 and 300 million people! (And although it is hard to compare the developing world with the developed world), India has less Income inequality than the US.

Still, it hard to see child and disabled people begging. It is hard to know if it helps to give money or not.

Also, some of the people beg but really are not that poor. For instance, we were going to a place called Amber Fort and there was a lady begging, dressed in rags, sprawled out on the ground. As we approached she beseeched us in Hindi for food. Saying bread (chapatti) and pointing to her mouth. And then her cell phone went off. And she was momentarily silent. And it was a very awkward moment. Awkward for both of us. It has happened to everyone, an important conversation interrupted by the ring.

And so I said, “Do you need to get that?” But she did not understand and perhaps a little like in the theater when someone’s phone goes off but they don’t want to admit it’s theirs, so they just let it ring, she went back to begging.

Holy Cow

Note: If Bessie the Cow is reading this, please stop. The last thing we need is for you to learn that your Indian brethren are holier than thou.

Two things India has a lot of is hungry people and cows. It did not take long before I started to put the pieces together. Hungry people. Cows. Hungry. Cows. Wait wait, I think I have an idea.

It is a little hard for a westerner to understand the India relationship with cows. Do people really worship them? Are there actually government run shelters for homeless or unloved cows? Don’t cows belong on farms and not in bus terminals? And don’t they want to eat grass instead of garbage?

The best lens I can thing of is man's best friend. Some people dress them up in silly clothes and enter them in silly contests and spend lots and lots of money to get a certain breed or so they can be healthy.

And if someone offered you a genuine dog-skin leather jacket, well that would be creepy. Even if you are a cat lover, still, eeewww.

And if you saw a dog in the city, well, that would be normal. If someone pointed that dogs are a lot like wolves and wolves live in the forest, well, that does not matter. Some canines live in the forest and some live in the woods.

And what they should eat? Clearly dogs in nature do not thrive on cat poo, but again, city dogs are different, and clearly what they love, for reasons that make no sense to us, is cat poo. And the government cow homes are no different than the SPCA.

Finally, the reincarnation thing with cows. I think my brother made the best analogy with comparing it to having a wafer and wine turn into the body and blood of Jesus Christ .

welcome to india, namaste

we're in pushkar now. it's kind of hippyish and very backpackerish. lots and lots of foreigners. it's very small and it feels nice. there's no autorickshaws here. there are lots of cows wandering the streets. as we passed someone in the street just now, they said, "welcome to india." and another woman put her hands together and said "namaste" as she passed us. on our bus here (just 20 minutes long) we were talking to someone about india and the caste system and when he told us his name, he included "raj singh" at the end, which makes it clear he's a high caste. and he invited us to his friend's wedding tonight and tomorrow, and we're gonna go hopefully and that should be really fun and interesting!

yesterday we went to a little part of jaipur that is known as the textile area and we took a 5 hour long block printing class that was very cool. the teacher called himself Guru, Master, and even Champion at one point. he didn't speak english except to say "i am the guru! i give you knowledge!" and he could count. so he showed us what to do and would say "one two! one two!" to mean that we would do the first step and then the second step... he could also say "next project!" we made some cool stuff! that was really good.

my belly is growing in spurts sort of. right now, i'm definitely showing and it's getting big. i'm 18 weeks old. it feels like a presence. like i'm full. also my feet and ankles are fat. i think that's a pregnancy thing. if we have a girl, maybe i'll do what i see all over here - put bindis and eye makeup on the baby. nah i won't. it's just funny to see.

we've taken metros and trains and busses and autorickshaws and sometime soon we'll take a bicycle rickshaw. the train we took the other day had a padded bench bed thing, and blankets and pillows. we got on and it was maybe 6 pm, and by 7 pm everyone's lights were out and everyone (including us) were sleeping. it was really nice. we arrived around 10:30 or 11.

pushkar is different, but elsewhere until now, we mostly see men. it seems like 80% of the population we see is male. maybe less, but it is mostly men. there are men peeing on the sides of the road, but there are also urinals right ON the side of the road. there was one in delhi that had a sort of partition thing, and i almost walked into the urinal. for some of the museums and for the metro there is a security line/metal detector thing you have to walk through, and there's a separate one for women. it's labeled "ladies line" and "men's line" and us ladies just walk through, because there are hardly any of us. i leave josh behind while he waits behind 100 men to go through the security thing. the women are always ALWAYS so colorful and beautiful. no matter how much money they have/don't have, or what's their caste, they are wearing such bright colorful clothes. saris and salwar cameezes and sometimes even burkas but always so colorful.

something else interesting is that people burp loudly and proudly and other people seem to appreciate it. it's like they say "oh good." or "good job" or maybe just "i'm glad." kind of funny.

we met sadiq the other day, from england, and went with him to amber fort and a couple other places and that was cool. hopefully we'll meet up with him again soon, because he's planning on going to a lot of the places we are, before he goes to nepal and climbs to base camp.

so eliza lent me white tiger, which i just read on the way to india. it mentioned a lot of little things that i've seen and it's been interesting. one thing in the book is the author talks about two kinds of people in india; the big bellies and the no bellies. rich and poor. that has been interesting to see but there's also zillions of middle bellies. the haves, the have-nots, and the have-somes. so that's been interesting. it is also interesting, like i said before, that even the no bellies, the have-nots, are dressed in bright beautiful colors.

about to-lets - we see signs all over, like billboards, that say "to-let" with a number. i thought they meant "toilet" but it's actually saying it's for rent. the sign is for rent.

the last thing i wanna write about now is about money. autorickshaws might say that it costs 60 rupees to get to a place we ask about, and we argue (or josh does) and say we'll pay 40, and then they insist on 60 and we start to walk away, and then they say the'll use the meter or maybe 55 rupees is fair. we are arguing about20 or 30 cents. so i feel like it doesn't matter and it's fine and i can afford 30 extra cents so let's go. but josh really bargains and insists and doesn't want to be taken advantage of or cheated. and he wants honesty and fairness from the rickshaw driver. and i feel like we'll hurt the feelings of the rickshaw driver, and i don't want to upset him. and josh thinks we're giving tourists a bad name, or telling them it's okay to cheat tourists if we agree to pay too much. it's been an interesting thing to see this difference with josh and i.

no one more last thing. we've seen a lot of people flying kites, especially from rooftops around 5 or 6 in the late afternoon. the sky is totally full of them. it's so cool. that's kite time.

i'm gonna figure out how to post pictures now.

The Attic

One of my favorite things that we did in Delhi was go to two English-language cultural events at a place called the Attic. It is a little performance/more space attached to a charity/trust.

The first event was a play A Brown Monkey Goes to McDonalds. It was about an India who moved to America and his experience between two cultures. Ironically, he was in Ithaca, New York for high school the same time I was there for grad school. I almost gave a shout out "yeah, Ithaca!" when he mentioned swimming in waterfalls and not being able to get fresh hummus. But then I realized you can get fresh hummus in Ithaca. Then I realized that hummus is not even Indian so I was confused. But still it was good.

Then the next day we went to a food meditation. There was a short talk by a biodynamic, organic farmer followed by a meal of food from his farm, which we ate in silence. Eating in silence is really interesting and worth trying. It forced me to think about every bite, the textures, flavors and history of the food. Perhaps otherwise I would think about the food briefly, but here every bite got its own attention. Half of me thought that I should do food mediation regularly, but half of me does not like the idea at all, and I am not exactly sure why. Maybe it is good for me but feels weird or maybe I think food is best enjoyed as a social gathering.

The question and answer session was interesting. The questions were split between the science and technical details of organics, and the ritual side. There was considerable discussion about the inverted pyramid containers that are filled with dried dung and burned every night while a mantra is recited. The debate seemed to be if it is specified that they should be copper or if the exact metal is less important than the depth/angles of the inverted pyramid walls. In any case, the food was full of flavor and the discussion interesting.

Josh

Arrival

Yona is probably posting the same thing as well, but she is on another computer, so we will have to wait and see.

We arrived safely after some 30 hours of flying. Thanks to Patty and Wayne's wedding present, we traveled with the big bellies in the front of the plane. It was a nonstop symphony of food and drinks. Yona was so happy to partake of the food that although she did not start the trip looking pregnant, she seemed to grow bigger on each leg. And I was very happy to take Yona's share of the alcohol that she could not drink.

We spent a short night in Mumbai/Bombay and flew to Delhi in the morning. It is a problem that the airports are in big cities because there is no less graceful way to start a trip to India. All the noise, smells, crowds are overwhelming.

We are glad to be in Jaipur now, a village of 3.2 million.

india part 1

we're in india! (this is yona writing). we've been here a few days. table of contents for this post: flight, delhi, india in general, jaipur. so today is sunday. we left the u.s. on tuesday and got to mumbai on wednesday night.

a very generous and kind wedding gift to us, from patti and wayne thank you so much, was our plane ticket to india. and if that wasn't nice enough, it was first class! it is SO la di da. (in this case, la di da is an adjective). the seats massaged and could be adjusted in a zillion ways. the airline attendants kept saying "thank you" to US, we were offered so much food and snacks and drinks, tons of legroom, a nice pillow, a nice blanket, nice headphones... for meals they set out a cloth table cloth and gave us cloth napkins. there were little salt and pepper shakers. they asked if we'd like to be woken up for breakfast. THAT is the way to travel. oh and then in atlanta and amsterdam, where we stopped briefly, we could go to the lounges which are so nice.

well. so mumbai is a crazy big city that has crazy chaotic driving and it's like an extreme sport to just sit in the back of the car. not exactly lanes, and i only saw a few traffic lights. tons of swerving and honking constantly and people on motorcycles and bicycles mixed up with the crazy chaos. we stayed the night and then went to delhi which also has crazy driving... it's totally overwhelming. we went to namhita and vishal's house, who live there and generously welcomed us. they are the aunt and uncle of one of my former students, saachi. we stayed there a few nights and saw some good stuff in delhi. they were very helpful and kind, and it was really nice to spend time with them. in delhi we saw qutub minar and the red fort, which i liked a lot. we also saw a play and did a food meditation. we did/saw other stuff too, but that was the best and i just felt so overwhelmed and exhausted by being surrounded by so many people and so much noise and traffic. i am NOT a city person.

next we went to jaipur. we arrived last night. we're staying in a really nice haveli, which is like an old mansion with a courtyard. the woman who owns/runs it was talking to us this morning about how the house has been in her family for 5 generations. jaipur is so much nicer size-wise and just feels so much more comfortable to me. there's still a ton to look at all around us, constantly, and it still feels like a city, but it's not chaotic-feeling.

this morning we walked from the haveli to the old jaipur area and went to jantar mantar, an astrological observatory. that place was really interesting and we'll post pictures next time we blog. it was interesting how astronomy and astrology are so tied together, and there are these amazing 300+ year old stone instruments that calculate the exact time, the exactly angle of the sun at different times of each day, around the calendar, and all this stuff, that had the end-goal of being able to predict people's signs, horoscopes, and futures in general. we also walked past and then got invited into a temple. it was a hare krishna temple, and we were asked to wash our hands and take off our shoes before going in. lots and lots of singing was happening, and the men and women were separated. there were huge burlap bags in the entrance filled with corn. we don't know for sure, but there were a few places today where there were a bunch of pigeons and people feeding them corn. we thought maybe there's a devotional/respectful/hindu thing where you feed pigeons. there were swarms of pigeons. we've also seen cows in the streets, and at one point there were some very large, probably wild, pigs on the side of the road.

next time i'll write about to-let, middle bellies, and we'll put up some pictures. generally speaking, mom and dad, we're feeling healthy and eating well and only drinking bottled water and wearing seatbelts when they exist. i mean, er, drinking lots of bottled water.