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boarding a train tonight heading to goa. from goa to mumbai, from mumbai to amsterdam. from amsterdam to paris, from paris to munich, from munich to prague. and many places in between. should be an incredible couple of weeks.
How to sum up the 10 days I spent at rural camp… I once asked Struthi from my group if she was enjoying her time at camp, her honest response came after a long pause. “Well, about 50/50.” 50/50 seems about right. In some ways, rather generous. However, regardless of my personal ‘enjoying camp’ percentage, it cannot be denied that I learned an extraordinary amount in 10 days. Valuable knowledge regarding myself, my group, and mostly the Indian culture as a whole. By far, the most valuable experience of the entire camp was the blaring spotlight shed on the stark cultural difference between American and India. I would not have learned this lessons regardless of how long I stayed in India, unless I lived with these students in such a close and intense manner. I wanted to document these epiphanies before the experience overshadows the education gained, so here is my list of lessons learned.
I learned:
- That I can survive an embarrassing long time sans a shower (3+days) and with only 3 shirts and 2 pants for 10 days, and despite sweaty/muddy/rainy/long days of work- somehow be alright with myself and my (highly offensive) order, knowing that at least it represented hard work. In addition, I also learned that the term ‘shower’ can simply entail a bucket of water over a squatty potty, and yet that somehow this primitive version of a shower has the ability to possess the exact blissful feeling as a luxurious 5 star hotel.
- That if I ever had to resort to living on the street, that a newspaper spread across a hard floor helps to (slightly) soften the joint pain and uncomfortableness of sleeping on a very hard floor. I also learned how to fight for and somehow manage to claim a couple of hours of sleep using a backpack as a pillow and a sheet as a mattress on an unsanitary hospital floor, amongst about 70-80 other women, so tightly packed into one room that if one girl on the far end were to shift her position throughout the night, the domino effect of shifting would be felt on the extreme other end.
- That I hate whistles of all kind. That if I never heard another whistle again (especially not at 5am) the quality of my life would immediately improve 100 fold.
- That it is rather difficult to go from the experience of running camps and being in leadership positions, to a mere ‘camper’. Especially when your age trumps the average other campers by about 8-9 years, and your age is the same or older than the majority of the leaders.
- That openness to new experiences and new people is something that I consistently need to strive for. I realized how easy it can be to stick back and take the easy out for not engaging with others, for whatever reasons, including language barriers, but that pushing yourself out of your comfort zone in relationships always has a positive effect. Removing personal barriers and walls and becoming open and vulnerable in relationships is always the right choice.
- That sitting through on average 3-4 hours of programmes completely in Malayalam with little to no sleep, no translations, and 4-5 hours of hard tiring work can be incredibly boring and painful, but yet can vastly increase your knowledge of the language without realizing it. In addition, being surrounded by Malayalam conversations all day can also have the same effect.
- That I can reach my breaking point (intensely needing to use the toilet in the middle of the night, tiptoeing over sleeping bodies to the lone door on the far end of the room, only to find the gate locked to prevent students from 'sneaking out' and no one willing to wake up and assist my urgent bladder condition), and somehow still manage to survive with the help of some wonderful friends…and many many long, deep breaths and deeper long laughter. And that preserving and succeeding after hitting the breaking point is a immeasurably satisfying personal victory.
- That I can uninhibitedly dance to techno and trance music in a room full of frantic sweaty teenagers and have quite simple, a blast.
- That I can interact with two snakes, countless spiders, (rumored) leeches, and other critters and continue to work. After watching one snake wrap around my leg and feeling another squirm between my toes after stepping on it, I can say that I officially redeemed myself after that embarrassing ‘spider’ incident that I previously spoke about.
- That standing in a knee-deep mud in a canal wildly swinging a spade (Indian version of a shovel) at a steep incredibly overgrown bank is one of the most therapeutic stress relieving exercises ever, especially when extremely frustrated with the Rural Camp experience and overwhelmed by cultural differences. Emerging from the canal 2 hours later, covered head to toes in mud and animals- I was a whole new person.
- That nuns are some of the hardest workers I have ever seen. And some of the funnest people I've ever interacted with.
- That I can hit delirium and laugh for hours with my group in the middle of the night about situations that would normally push someone to tears or violence. That within our group, we have seen each other at the extreme highs and extreme lows, and yet still love and support each other. At this point we seem to have undergone a vast transformation during camp and now understand what our members are feeling and needing at certain moments, including when to walk away, when to give a hug, and when to make a sarcastic joke. I can honestly say that rural camp without them would have been completely impossible. I am truly blessed by this little family, and I’m constantly being challenged to grow and improve myself by the interactions I have with them, and the great integrity and character they all possess.
- That inefficiency is quite possible my new biggest pet peeve, and quite possible what the camp should have been named instead of Karma 2008. This represents a huge cultural difference, the American culture is geared towards doing a job in the most efficient and time conscious manner possible. The Indian culture does not share this view. We often spent countless hours a day waiting around for direction, decisions, or even worse, would spend hours slaving over 'busy' work, finding temporary fixes to problems instead of long term solutions. At the end of the day, we learned how to shrug, be proud of the effort we put forth, and accept it as the culture.
- That I am more of a feminist than I realized, especially in this culture. It is often difficult, and even more so at camp, to live in this culture where such strong patriarchal beliefs exist and consistently affect daily life. To rebel against the male/female work stereotype, I dove headfirst into the most physically challenging and draining tasks reserved 'only for the boys' and refused to yield my shovel despite the constant questioning if I was tired and suggestions that I take a break. I made myself to learn how to bite my tongue when daily I was told by men that the manner in which I was working was "wrong" and forced a rigid smile when they took the tool away from me and demonstrated the "correct" way (which was surprisingly similar to the original manner in which I was working). Therefore I spent a lot of time encouraging my female counterparts to do the same, regardless of getting a little bit of mud on their salwars. It didn't really work, but hey, every bit of empowerment helps.
- That Indian culture and American culture are completely different when it comes to physical touch between same sex friends, and as a result I've learned to hold hands with my young friends and tolerate constant face and hair touches. My personal space is basically nonexistent at this point thanks to camp.
- That Indian women are brutal about cutting line. This is an especially big deal when there are 2 toilets for 80 women. As a result, we quickly learned to be equally cutthroat about fighting for our 'reserved' spots in line.
- That the American culture is very focused on the individual and not the group and the Indian culture is opposite in that it is entirely focused on the group as a whole. For example, the most common theory for American practice is Psychosocial theory (self issues, self ego...) while India is all about Anthropology/Sociology theories (group function, group roles...). Getting used to this opposite view of thinking and viewing individual people verses collective society has been perhaps one of the most difficult adjustments, and it was never more clear to me than spending 10 days fully emerged in the culture. However, this has been a positive education and adjustment. I think at the end of this experience, I will return stronger in my practice because of this, as each view possess strengths (and weaknesses) for viewing people, clients, communities and the issues that encompass all of these.
- That at the end of 10 very long days, nothing is better than my own personal bed, my own personal time schedule, my own personal bathroom, and my own personal home family- all just waiting to pamper and restore our bodies and minds to sanity and restoration.
We have completed our first round of Onam celebrations here in Kerala. Quite a holiday. I managed to take some pictures and post them on Flickr. Basically, we had two days of celebrations, one with our Field Placements/Live Labs and the second with the students of Rajagiri. The student’s celebration was a bit more…eventful, and by eventful I mean bordering on mayhem. But only a good way.
Basically Onam is bigger than Christmas here. It’s 10 full day festival that turns out, is extremely exciting and enjoyable. Good old wikipedia can give you more information. Easy to see why it’s such a big deal here. I gave you a brief (albeit confusing) overview of the holiday in my previous post, so I won’t bore you with the extensive details. Moral of the story- Onam is a big deal, a holiday full of traditions that affect every aspect of life. Including how you dress, what you eat, and what you do.
We donned sarees for the first time and managed to muddle our way through two days with the most grace and dignity we could manage. (Not that much, but no public disagrees either, so I consider it to be a success). We wore traditional Kerala sarees- cream sarees (not a good color choice in a climate where the remains of monsoon season often leave our walk to school rather muddy) with a gold border along side of another color. We also covered our arms in bangles, pinned jasmine flowers in our hair, and weighed our ears down with traditional Onam earrings. My highlight of the Onam dress is that I managed to buy the entire get up for less than 10 USD. I was rather proud of that.
Apart from the outfits, we enjoyed two days of Sayda lunches (traditional meal on the banana leaf), we watched the traditional Onam dance performed by the women (the same dance that we started to learn…and only know about 12 moves), heard numerous Onam songs, and got to try our hand at Onapookkalam- a color flower petal decoration arranged on the ground in elaborate ways. Both the Onam songs and Onapookkalam creating were turned into a contest between the different live labs, and the different student classes (ie- 2nd year MSW vrs 2nd year MCA). The first day I am proud to say that my field, CASP, managed to win first in all the contests. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we are the largest live lab on campus, but I’m still proud. Our MSW Onapookkalam design didn’t fare so well, but still looked rather nice. The student celebration was a bit more rambunctious and class pride was running high. It was eerily similar to being in a high school pep rally. The students celebration added on a couple of events that were not included in the live lab celebration. Mainly a massive tug-of-war game and the most dangerous version of piñata imaginable. The pictures do a great job at capturing these moments, but basically a group of students are blindfolded, spun around and walked to different parts of the courtyard, given giant sticks and turned lose. The goal is to break a small clay pot swinging from a rope in the middle of the courtyard, the one to break it wins, and its showered not with candy, but with water contained in the pot. Basically it just ended up being students stumbling around blind hitting themselves and bystanders in the head. Be sure to look for the pictures with the girl and green and read my description about her. Easily the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time, highest of comedy. That girl was out for blood. Well, actually she was out for the pot, but probably ended up drawing blood from someone.
By the end of both days we were exhausted and uncomfortable (sarees can have that affect) but rather happy. Everyone is in high spirits and it’s hard not to get into the spirit of the “season.” Everyone loved the effort that we made to fit in with the traditional clothes and we fielded many complements and fuss over us, and were repeatedly told that we were "very nice Kerala girls".
As you know, the next couple of weeks are a little busy, so I’ve made an attempt to catch you up with all of our recent ongoings. Tomorrow officially starts the month of non-stop chaos, as I quickly move from one location to another, and even move around 6 or 7 separate countries. Understandably, I will be MIA for a little bit, as we are off to the wedding and Rural Camp tomorrow.
We went to a meeting the other day about rural camp and it's pretty exciting. We are apparently cleaning out a canal so that two villages downstream can have water, and also draining and irrigating patty fields and planting (sowing?) rice! It should be fun and probably incredibly disgusting. Apparently I'll be trumping around in knee-thigh high water ( and dirt, sewage, diseases...) the entire time. And sleeping directly on the floor in a small room with all of the other students, waking up at 5. A little bit of roughing it never hurt anyone before. I am mostly excited to experience a bit of ethnography, in fully immersing myself and working alongside with the villagers in this rural area. The main day of Onam is the 12th so we are doing cultural programmes all day with the villagers. Should be a pretty great and challenging experience. However, no cameras allowed so I’ll have to rely on my expert story telling to fill you in about it. Tata till then my loves!
So. The ashram. Quite an experience. It may sound incredibly cliché, but I think I just may have found a new career path. Okay, not path so much as a separate path arriving at the same destination. Confused? Let me explain. No, it’s too much. Let me sum up. Actually let me start by telling you about the Ashram itself. (Bear with me today, apparently I’m all over the place).
The ashram is one of those things you read about in any ‘Adventure’ magazine or watch on the Travel Channel. One of those stories where you get caught up in the excitement of the words and the luring promises of the pictures. That story where you catch yourself staring off into space, daydreaming, imaging yourself at that specific destination. You might even talk about it with certain friends or significant other and make a statement about planning a trip there. Then, you put the article down or change the channel and continue on with your daily life. And sooner or later, completely forget about it. And yet, that is exactly where I found myself at the Ashram. Actually there.
The ashram was beautiful, the setting- picturesque. The schedule was full, the wake up bell early (5:20am), lights out late. Mountains and lakes surrounded the ashram, including lions across the lake- their grunts and roars audible during the quiet mornings and evenings. Food came only twice a day, large delicious vegetarian feasts, consisting of typical Kerala food- minus all the spices (apparently onions and garlic are not zen and therefore banned). The early morning and late evening 2 hour long satsung (meditation) sessions were challenging as I attempted to keep my fickle mind from the extremes of racing with thoughts or drifting off sleep, and attempting to coax it into a state of relaxation and awareness and connection with the present.
The people were fantastic. Granted there were a few ‘ashram’ types, those that stereotypically you think of when you think of an ashram (some might use the words dirty hippy here), but most of the people were fantastically interesting. The type of people that you merely see and yet immediately desire to sit down with with over a drink and wait with baited breath while they convey their life story to you. That’s such a rare phenomenal, incredibly intoxicating, and I feed off those interactions. Our small group was the sole American representative, and the rest of population hailed from a long list of countries that stretched throughout the entire globe. The common thread was English (albeit sometimes broken) and yoga.
Oh, the yoga. Four hours daily of classes. The most intense yoga sessions imaginable. The teachers were encouraging and grueling in the same breath, constantly assisting and correcting, and challenging. Always challenging. We could always go “more up” or “stretch further” or “hold longer”. We spend the hours twisting our bodies and stretching ourselves in ways that seems inconceivable. Despite the obvious physical pain, I loved every second of it. My headstand became consistently steadier and longer, I conquered the crow without breaking my nose, and I trembled my way through the 11 other poses, grinning like an idiot with every small victory, every pose successfully held. I once even had the pleasure, courtesy of the lotus pose, of viewing my own feet over my head while my chin, chest and arms remained on the floor. The style of yoga (hatha) was different from our daily classes (astanga) which translated into a slower style of yoga and holding all the poses for longer. Much longer. We held all the poses for so long in fact that stopped hurting and we were able to be comfortable in whatever pose we were in. And than we held the poses for longer. Until the comfortable feeling left and was replaced with the feeling of fire being poured directly into my muscles. And only then did we release. And that we experienced twice a day. Needless to say that ibuprofen became like candy to us, but despite our minor medical dependence, we never quit or gave up and endured all the sessions. So good.
Anyway, my time at the Ashram got me thinking. Two things that I love, two things I’m getting a degree in. One- social work, social change, social justice, social action. Two- public health, community well being, infectious disease, health disparities. The main ties that bonds these both: global work/international work. One other thing that I greatly enjoy- Yoga. Since being in India and working with Women's Empowerment, I've run into a lot of road blocks because India (and many other developing countries) are strongly influenced by a patriarchal theory. Therefore, empowering women can often be met with resistance and even violence, as this excellent article points out.
During the first day of the trip, I was struck with the revolutionary idea of combining all of the things I'm passionate about, all the goals I want to accomplish in my professional life, and using Yoga as the spearhead. Therefore, I could use Yoga as a tool for Empowerment of Women and girls, which is much less threatening to cultural traditions resistant to liberal empowerment programmes, and also as a tool for improving individual health (as Yoga has the ability to do this) and the public health of the community (through various educational sessions on health and disease). I cannot quite put into the words the excitement that this possibility brought, and it seemed to make perfect sense. It just clicked. I spent a couple of days asking some of my new friends and teachers if they were aware of any programmes or organizations devoted to this. Through a Canadian girl, who would have probably been a great friend of mine had we ever lived in the same area at the same time, told me about a NGO in Sri Lanka devoted to using Yoga to create social change. So it did exist. People actually could do this as their job. And hopefully I could too. My mind started to race ahead and mentally complete grants for pilot studies and study funding.
Of course there was one thing missing. At this point, I am just a girl that likes Yoga, not a Yoga teacher. Since starting Yoga I've always figured that I'd get certified to teach at some point, just for a enjoyable side job/extra income. However, the Ashram offers Teacher Training. Top of the line teacher training. In India. For one month. The month before Christmas visits, the month that was already open in my calender. Seems kind of perfect. Meaning that I could become certified to teach before I return home. For (albeit slightly) cheaper than rates in the US. And again, in India, the birthplace of India. At the same time when I'm finishing up my degrees. Giving me all the tools I would need to make this dream a reality. So needless to say, I have a decision to make in the new few days, but there is a very large part of me that is leaning towards living in an Ashram for a month and becoming internationally certified to teach yoga. And all of this because of a simple spur of the moment decision to take a trip to a Yoga ashram.
i’m not an anti bug girl. not a girly-girl. not that girl that freaks out when a fly lands on her. in fact, i’m quite the opposite. i greatly welcome the majority of insects and small creatures in kerala. for example, i love all of the lizards and openly invite them into my home as long as they feed off of mosquitoes. but these stories crossed the line a bit. and by crossed i mean went so far over the line that the line was a just a dot.
small detail i left out of my Kovalam holiday recap. jessica and i stayed in a room together. we originally just got 2 rooms and were going to pile 3 people in a bed (don't judge, we are broke) but the hotel manager turned out to be really nice and gave us an extra room free of cost. now clearly we are staying at a hostel. not the nicest, but not terrible either. the rooms were small but nice. mosquito netting over the bed, clean cold shower. we spent the first day mostly out and about and when we came back we were beat. and and had a couple of kf's at dinner. so we showered and lounged around a bit before bed. jessica walks around to the other side of the bed and the next thing i hear is a gasp and multiple multiple swear words. her first comprehensible words were "there is a spider so big there that i question if i can even kill it." i peered around the bed and sure enough, there it was. i kid you not, the size of its body was the size of my fist. and it's legs doubled the size. that's a big freaking spider. now don't judge me, i'm normally the girl that handles all types of bugs and creatures (i was the go-to bug killer of 1371) but this was a little out of my league. i mean, i was thinking about hearing bones crush and getting sprayed with brain splatter...maybe even hear a spider scream escape from it on its way out. (or worse attempting to kill it, failing, pissing it off, and having it call off of its giant spider friends and attack me, wrap me up in a web and suck out all my insides). but again, there was no way we were just going to let this thing hang out in our room- inches away from our heads. where we were planning on sleeping. merely picking it up and moving it outside was out or the question, for the simple fact that we all secretly wondered if it was poisonous, because a bite from a spider that big would surely mean instant death. so- don't judge- we went and got the boy of the group. actually what i did was open his door, make a pitiful face, crawled into his bed and whimpered that there was a big spider and we needed help. embarrassing i know, but no one else wanted to kill it. not my finest moment. anyway, jeremy killed it and we often speak about the experience of the spider big enough to carry us away in our sleep. surely another spider that big did not exist in all of India, it had to be physically impossible.
wrong again turner. the other day after catching up on emails, i get up and take a trip to the squatty. a little more information than you might be interested in, but all part of the story, trust me. i lock myself into the tiny little stall (about 4ft by 4ft), get ready and squat down to do my business. and then i make eye contact. with at least 8 pairs of eyes. there is another one of those giant spiders directly in front of me, about a foot away from my face...and other special parts of my body. just hanging out, watching me. this spider seems even bigger than the other one in kovalam, but maybe this is just because it's so very very close to me. and there is the minor fact that i am completely ‘exposed’ if you will. not a place you ever, ever want to be in while interacting with a spider the size of a small cat. for a second i debated not moving and continuing with my original plan of using that stall. i halfway talked myself into it (i really had to pee) but than i had the image of the spider waiting to 'make his move' whilst i was unable to protect myself lest i soak myself. and of course, again, the parts of my body were exposed that i would want to protect the most. so i very slowly stood up, never taking my eyes off the spider and slowly opened the door and once safely out, made another embarrassing girlish scream and shutter. then, i picked another stall, better believe that i searched that stall quite well before exposing myself again.
ugh. welcome to india. never a dull moment...never a small spider.
boarding a train tonight heading to goa. from goa to mumbai, from mumbai to amsterdam. from amsterdam to paris, from paris to munich, from munich to prague. and many places in between. should be an incredible couple of weeks. 
