Feast your eyes

Here are more pictures of my explorations in one of Varanasi and our winter vacation in Rajasthan, including Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, a camel safari in the Thar Desert, and Jaipur.


http://picasaweb.google.com/j.w.barrett9/Joe#


http://picasaweb.google.com/j.w.barrett9/India2#

The Third Month

For those of you who have already read this on the Princeton website I apologize for not yet having something new to post, for those of you who haven't, here is a summary of our third month in India.

As we entered the second month in our new hometown, we began to perfect the ability to absorb and adapt to the constantly hectic pace of life in Varanasi, just as our mouths have perfected the ability to recover from chai burns. While at first one premature sip of hot chai would rob our mouths of the capacity to taste for days, our tongues now heal quickly or do not even register the initial burn at all. The same goes for our adjustments to the realities of our new everyday life. Now, activities, such as navigating the maze-like alleyways, buying the foods for breakfast (each from a different street vendor), arguing with rickshaw wallas, or biking on the massively congested streets, that at first seemed daunting and impossible, are completed without thought or hesitation.
As we have grown accustomed to our new town, our new town has slowly begun to recognize us in return and each of us has become friends with a variety of people in our Assi Ghat community. On any given day, you could find Andrew conversing with his wrestler friends at the Akhara, Shaina or Chhaya hanging out with one of the dhobi (clothes washer) families, Lizzie talking to her friends from work or the fruit seller, who gives her and only her good prices, and me talking to my students and their friends on the ghats. At night, when we reconvene after our days of work, we visit the many different friends of the Dragons program in our area. Andrew and I often visit our anday (egg) walla, who cooks us heaping, spicy plates of egg chow mein, while his other regular customers overwhelm us with endless questions in Hindi, which we mostly understand, and Bhojpuri, which we definitely do not.
Our new friendships, however, have not been limited to the human members of our community. During our time in Varanasi we have begun to recognize and name many of the variety of wild animals who roam around our alleys. Multiple times every day we will encounter one of our new animal friends, whether it be one of the stray dogs that Andrew has befriended, the cow who visits our Hindi teacher’s house for snacks, or a young goat we named Tolstoy, who is suffering from some unknown disease resulting in tremendous hair loss.
Though our time spent with new friends, both human and non-human, has been fun, it has not been nearly as rewarding as our time spent at work. Following the completion of our intensive Hindi course, and our switch to a reduced level of classes, all of us have begun to work full time at our service sites. Shaina has spent the month writing up a proposal for Guria, an organization working in the red light district to combat sex trafficking. Guria, aside from prosecuting sex traffickers, empowers women to live and work in exploitation-free environments, and provides a safe space for the women’s children in a non-formal education center. The proposal outlines a year-long project combating human slavery and trafficking in India, specifically focusing on Eastern Uttar Pradesh. She is submitting a statement of interest to the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, in order to get a grant to fund the project.

Chhaya’s students are working on plays (Danny and the Dinosaur and Alice in Wonderland). In addition to her teaching work, Chhaya has started work as an advisor to one of the four houses for boarding students at Nirman, an innovative school with a holistic approach to education, and is helping all the houses come up with ideas for environmental projects. She looks forward to organizing and creating activities and experiments for the school’s science lab and resource center.
Lizzie has continued to find her work at the Kiran Center, an organization in a village about an hour from Varanasi that works for the education, rehabilitation, and empowerment of differently-abled children and young adults through schools, physiotherapy, and vocational training, incredibly rewarding. She is still working on the new crochet unit with a group of Art and Design trainees who never fail to make her laugh, but she has traded her work with food preservation for teaching English. Her classes are composed of teachers, faculty, and vocational trainees, and she is perpetually inspired by the enthusiasm and dedication of her students.
Andrew is still getting dirty at Bal Ashram, both a site of spiritual worship and an orphanage for small children. He has been working on the Ashram’s new Eco-Project, a sustainable, organic farm, using primitive tools that he has never seen before, even in Hollywood. Additionally, after finishing an assignment to edit a series of stories that had previously been translated into English from Italian, he is now taking a highly valued teacher’s reference book and inputting its information to their computer system. This is necessary due to the fact that this book is the only one of its kind and the single copy available at the ashram was produced using a typewriter.
I have continued my normal schedule of office work, including writing sections of World Literacy’s (WLC) yearly report to the Canadian government and business planning in the morning and teaching at one of WLC’s local schools in the afternoon. WLC is an NGO dedicated to providing literacy classes to illiterate adults and children who are unable to afford school, and empowering the women in villages both in the Varanasi District and in other impoverished areas of the state of Uttar Pradesh. The most fun and rewarding aspect of my work has been the time spent with my students, arguing about which of the 4 Hindi “t’s” is equivalent to the English “t,” talking about their exploits selling candles to gullible tourists on the ghats, and playing games of Carom (a game like pool, but with checkers pieces) during our breaks from homework.

Soon after we began our new work schedule, however, we promptly departed Varanasi and set out on a brief trip to an ashram in the important religious center of Ujjain. While the trip itself was relatively short, the distance traveled and time spent traveling, a 19 hour train ride both ways still seemed very long. Luckily for us, the train rides were anything but boring, as they provided us with excellent opportunities to read, catch up on sleep, and observe the villages and countryside (through both the windows and the open door of the train).
At the ashram we were graciously and lovingly welcomed by the swamis and their families who soon befriended us over meals and through ridiculous yoga positions, arm wrestling, and time spent listening to Michael Jackson. Our days in the ashram were filled with yoga, attempts at meditation, informative lectures with Swami-ji, delicious meals, and some well-earned relaxation. When we were tired of the peace and quiet of the ashram we explored the equally peaceful and beautiful town of Ujjain, ate delicious pistachio ice cream in the main square, explored the countryside in a horse-drawn cart and visited an ancient Indian observatory located precisely on the Tropic of Cancer. On our last day in Ujjain we woke up at three in the morning and walked into town to attend the morning aarti (prayers) at the city’s main temple. Witnessing the intricate procedures of the aarti, during which the priests bathe a linga, an object used to worship Shiva, in water, milk, ghee and ashes, was a dramatic and somewhat unusual experience that left us bewildered and with many questions for the Swami.
When we returned to Varanasi we quickly resumed our normal routine of service, dodging cows in tight gulleys, and Hindi class during the week and relaxing and exploring on the weekend. This routine, like all routines in India, however, was interrupted by the arrival of wedding season. Though we had been warned of its arrival, wedding season actually snuck up on us; when I came home from work one day, I was brought to a pre-wedding party upstairs in my building and was coerced into dancing by a group of 30 women holding the pre-wedding party. Forced dancing aside, all of us have greatly enjoyed the variety of weddings we have attended so far, due to the fact that food is always delicious (and sometimes non-veg), the music is great, and there is always a large number of guests eager to talk to us and show us around. We are enthusiastically looking forward to the big weddings (in Shaina and Andrew’s respective families) coming up during the next few weeks.
Aside from weddings, November, like October, has been a month full of festivals both new and old. The month began with the Hindu holiday of Dev Deepavali, a celebration unique to the city of Banaras, during which all of the city’s ghats are illuminated by both candles and dramatic Christmas-like lights. To enjoy the full splendor of the night, we spent two hours on a boat, gliding past the fiery ghats, while enjoying the fireworks above and sampling paan (a mixture of tobacco, Betel nuts, sugar, coconut, and gooey stuff) the quintessential Banaras indulgence. We also enjoyed a relatively simple celebration of Thanksgiving, consisting of tandoori chicken for the mansahaaris (meat eaters) among us, ravioli for the shakahaaris (vegetarians), and apple pie with ice cream for everybody. Finally, just as the month was ending, we were shocked by the end products of Bakrid, a Muslim holiday, which revolves mostly around the slaughter of goats.

As the month of December begins, our group is confident that we will continue to fare better than the unfortunate Tolstoy and are looking forward to new challenges at work and more time to explore the mysteries of our new town. We are especially looking forward to a week-long trip to the state of Rajasthan in mid-December and to celebrating the upcoming holidays with our host families.“Agle Baar Tak!”Until next time!

If you are interested this link (http://www.princeton.edu/bridgeyear/updates/) will take to the Princeton Bridge Year Website where you can find info on the other Bridge Year locations.

The Sun Temple

On a horse-drawn carriage tour of the countryside surrounding Ujjain, we happened upon a temple complex that at first glance could only be described as paradise. The temple itself, brightly illuminated by the late-afternoon sun, rose up upon a hill on the center of an island. Beneath the temple situated in the river itself was the second and more beautiful half of the complex: a series of 52 interconnected pools with small temples scattered on islands among them.
Eager to explore this beautiful site, we climbed out of the horse carts and mounted the steps to the temple. We circled the building, admiring the arches and pillars and searching for the entrance. Eventually we found it, ducked inside, and explored the abandoned stone building, which was lit only by sunlight slanting through the boarded-up windows. We then left the building and descended onto the walkways among the pools and began to explore, enjoying the beauty of the temples reflected in the water.
Unfortunately, the more we walked among the pools, the more it became evident that the site was not as pure and beautiful as it had appeared to be from above. The water in most of the pools was stagnant and filled with garbage. The slots between the pools, in which water should have been coursing in intricate patterns designed to aid in meditation, were dry, turned defective by the mud, plastic, and abandoned clothes that littered the site. The grotto-like pools underneath the arcades were worst of all, as they had become so choked with refuse that in some places there was no water at all.
My immediate reaction at the state of the pools was anger. “How could such an important historical site have been allowed to fall into such a state? Why didn’t someone do something about it?” The more I thought about these things the more furious at the negligence of the Indian government I become and the more I began to hope that someone would rehabilitate the site and return it to its former glory.
Later that day, I was struck by a new and different emotion. I had to admit that despite the disgusting amounts of trash, there was an undeniable beauty in the decrepitude of the temple complex. Additionally, the abandonment of the sun temple complex had bestowed upon it a sense of calm – it was free of all beggars, touts, and annoying tourists – that is rarely found in India.
The truth is, however, that this second emotion is incorrect and selfish. It is selfish because though the temple may still be beautiful now, the state in which is in ensures that it will not be beautiful for future generations. The fact that a place is beautiful while it is slowly decaying does not change the fact that is decaying. Thus, to let the status quo continue is to doom the temple to destruction and historical obscurity. At the same time, the burst of reckless anger that I felt towards the Indian government is not productive either, simply because the government has a plethora of much more pressing issues to deal with. Still, it is important to note that all over India important historical locations are disappearing (hint: there may be another yak on this topic) and that sooner or later, someone is going to have to do something about it.

More photos

The link in the previous post will now also take you to more pictures of Varanasi, as well as pictures of Ujjain and the countryside of Madhya Pradesh. Enjoy!

Photos

The following link should connect you with roughly the first half (the internet stopped working halfway through the upload) of my pictures from the trip. The pictures do not yet have captions, hopefully I will have time to label them soon, but just so you know what you are looking at the places pictured, in order, are:
Kausani and Kanda (in the northern province of Uttaranchal)
Delhi
Varanasi and the surrounding area (including a nearby village and Sarnath)
http://picasaweb.google.com/j.w.barrett9/Joe#

more pictures of Varanasi and our recent trip to Ujjain will be coming soon

Open Door Policy

During the two and half months we have spent in India so far, we have had the pleasure of traveling across large sections of the northern part of the country by what is probably the best and most convenient form of long distance transportation in India, the train. The train lines are very much the strength of modern Indian, as the extensive networks of tracks carry natural resources and people to every corner of the vast and rapidly developing country. Our recent journey across the states of Uttar and Madhya Pradesh, however, allowed me to see sections of India that, while close to the train, are well outside the developing world.
The journey began when we arrived at the station south of Varanasi a little before 4 am on Friday morning. Our arrival, however, turned out to be a tad premature as our train, as usual in India, was over an hour late. While waiting for the train we wrapped ourselves in our shawls or coats and tried to ignore the constant stares of our fellow travelers, a hallmark of the trip, and quietly fall back asleep on the dark platform. Eventually the train arrived and we quickly lifted our luggage aboard and crawled into our narrow berths eager to sleep for a few extra hours.
Upon waking, I slithered out of my bunk and tried to climb down to the floor without waking the people below me or smashing my head into the low ceiling (I failed at one of these and thus had a dull headache for part of the morning). Once I was safely on the floor and in my sandals I walked down the corridor and pushed my way past the men brushing their teeth with neem sticks to get in line for the bathroom. After using the bathroom (always an adventure on the violently rocking trains) I, copying the other early risers on the train, walked over to the open compartment door, and after firmly grabbing onto the railing, leaned out* into the wind whistling past the train.
Though it is impossible to recount everything I saw, simply because I saw way too much, I can sum up most of my observations by saying that from the speeding vehicle I was able to see the village lifestyles – how the vast majority of the Indian population still lives. From the train I watched old men and boys herding buffaloes, cows, and goats across landscapes barren except for low lying shrubs. I watched women hard at work with sickles harvesting crops in small, lush, green patches and then carrying on their heads the massive bundles of stalks back to their mud houses. But more importantly I saw where the modernization of India has failed: in piles of rusted metal, large abandoned concrete structures, and dry and broken irrigation ditches, while the villagers continue to live in a distant era connected to the modern world only by the occasional train.
While, I don’t know nearly enough to determine whether these villages are flourishing green utopias or struggling communities badly in need of government assistance (I would guess that it is a fine balance with many villages falling into both categories) the door of the train has exposed India to me in ways that living in a city could not. At the same time, however, numerous fleeting glances from a moving train are nothing more than an introduction. They are nothing to base theories or ideas upon and they don’t provide nearly enough information. In other words, while the view from the door was spectacular and eye-opening, next time I think that I will have to climb out of the door (when the train is safely stopped) instead of just standing in it.

* I would like to assure all parents reading this piece that when I say “leaning out of the train” I don’t mean that anything other than my head was outside of the train and that the rest of my body was firmly and safely planted inside the train at all times.

Dancing

The man nodded at me from across the roof and began to walk towards me. Figuring he was one of Shaina’s relatives, I nodded back, then said hello and asked him some questions in broken Hindi. He responded in a language that was unintelligible and after trying to make out his words for several minutes I realized that his lips were full of paan and that my attempts at conversation were pointless. Silence ensued, one of those bizarre Indian awkward silences, and we stood there listening to the music and staring at the view. Eventually he broke the silence with a garbled question, in which I could only make out one word “dancing.” I figured he wanted to teach me to dance, and since Indians are generally good dancers, I said “yes.” It was a terrible mistake. Before my eyes, the man who had been Shaina’s forty year old pot-bellied uncle with a mouthful of paan morphed into Michael Jackson and began to gyrate and thrust his way all over the roof. I was shocked, but not as shocked as I became when I realized that he didn’t want to teach me to dance; he wanted me, Shaina’s eighteen year old brother and all of his friends to dance with him.

One might wonder how I ended up in this ridiculous situation. Well, the main reason behind my predicament was the fact that it was Diwali. It’s very hard to describe what celebrating Diwali in India is like, but I think Shaina put it best when she said “Diwali is like if the 4th of July and Christmas were being celebrated on the same day in a city that just won the Super Bowl.” Yet even this description understates the dramatic nature of the celebrations and it might be even more accurate to add that the city, in which these celebrations are taking place, is also under siege.

Our group Diwali celebrations began very simply. We celebrated, compared to the rest of the city, in a refined and dignified manner, by lighting numerous small diyas (oil candles), eating sweets and setting off a couple of relatively basic fireworks on our roof. After our brief party was over, I began to head home for a totally dance-free evening, until Shaina called to inform me that her family was having a party on their roof and had purchased an obscene amount of fireworks. This Diwali, the city of Varanasi spent around 2 million rupees on fireworks, and Shaina’s family must have accounted for at least a quarter of that amount. Needless to say, I immediately turned my bike around and headed back across town, unaware of the fate that awaited me.

I was already enjoying many aspects of the party on the roof before I was confronted by the dancing men. For a while, I simply got to relax, observe the view of the unregulated and unplanned fireworks show going on all over the city, and even make my contribution to the show by launching some fireworks of my own. Yet, as you already know, this relative calm couldn’t last forever and eventually my evening was interrupted by Shaina’s whirling dervish of an uncle.

Though I tried to hold out for a while, I eventually I gave in and joined in the dancing circle of men. How long I was trapped I the frenzied circle of flailing limbs I can’t remember, but after what seemed like a very long time, the music stopped and Shaina’s brother and uncle began to argue about what song to play next (an old Bollywood classic or the newest hit) and I quietly made my escape.

Looking back on the event, I still feel slightly dazed. In the end, I’m happy that I danced. After all, I embraced Indian culture, gave Shaina and her home stay sister endless material to laugh about, and ended up having a lot of fun.

Chicken Dinner

Over the past two weeks, the five of us have all begun to slowly grow accustomed to the lifestyles and habits of the families whom with we are now living. While this transition has caused us all to make numerous small changes to our daily routines, one of the biggest challenges for me has been adjusting to my new diet. Though the food at my house is delicious, it is quite different from what I am used to at home as it lacks the variety and meat (Yes this is going to be another Yak about meat, but I can’t help it, it seems that every time people eat meat in India there is a good story behind it) to which I have become accustomed. Thus, when my home-stay brother, and fellow omnivore, Saurabh asked me if I was interested in making chicken one night, I readily agreed.
A few days later, on the day that had been deemed “Chicken Day,” Andrew, who was also craving the addition of meat to his diet, and I quickly biked home from Hindi eager to devour the meal. We entered my house and after introductions and chai, hurried to the kitchen expecting to see Saurabh cooking the chicken. Instead, we found a deserted kitchen completely devoid of chicken, or any other food for that matter. Surprised and worried, we asked Saurabh where the food was. In answer to our question he gestured upstairs and told us to put on our sandals.
After putting on our shoes, we followed him outside, around my building, and into an apartment in the back. Once inside we removed our shoes, said a quick “Namaste” to the man sitting on the bed inside the apartment and then followed Saurabh upstairs. Climbing the stairs we entered a small hallway, which contained, five of Saurabh’s friends, a propane tank, on which sat a makeshift stove, a pot filled with water and spices and a plate covered with raw chicken.
Andrew and I sat on a yoga mat on the floor and began to converse with the men around us, quickly learning that we were cooking and eating in such a bizarre location because no one in the building would allow meat to be cooked in their kitchen. As we waited for the food to cook, we enjoyed a snack of soda and Kurkure (Indian style Cheetos), continued the conversation learning, to our great excitement, that what we had joined in on was actually a regular event, and slowly observed how one makes a chicken curry without a kitchen. For a while, aside from the fact that everyone was speaking Hindi, it almost began to seem like we were back in America tailgating before some unknown sports event. Then the power went out and the fans and lights went off, quickly bringing me back to our Indian reality. The lack of electricity, however, was no big deal because it didn’t affect how we were cooking, so for a while we sat in the dark room talking and snacking by the flickering blue light of the gas fire.
Eventually, we left the dark hallway and moved out onto the roof, which was semi-illuminated by a combination of the moon and the light from the street below. When the food was finally done, we moved all of our supplies out onto the roof and began to distribute the food. Each person received a large helping of rice, a couple chapatis, a couple pieces of chicken and a hard-boiled egg, which had been tossed into the curry along with the meat. We then began to devour the meal, which was incredibly rich and delicious and left me feeling fuller than I had in weeks.
After the meal we thanked Saurabh profusely and offered our help in organizing next week’s meal. We then went downstairs and I headed off to my room, exhausted from the day, but quite happy with the new tradition that we had established.

The Ram Lila

During our stay in India we have visited many amazing places, however, we have almost always avoided the normal tourist plan, choosing instead to pursue more unusual activities and to visit less frequented sites. Yet on the morning of our third day in Varanasi, we did what every foreign visitor to the city does; woke before dawn, made our way down to the Ganga and boarded a small wooden rowboat.

After we were all in and seated, one of our boatmen slowly pushed us out of the mud and muck near the shore and out into the river, while the other began to slowly row downstream. As the boat gathered speed and we moved further and further from the shore we were presented with an absolutely stunning view. On one side of the boat we observed the sun, a deep orange ball, rising slowly above the trees and reflecting, in a blinding fashion, off the surface of the water. On the other side of the boat, however, we observed something even more beautiful in the hectic jumble of the ghats, or stairs down to the water, the beautiful palaces and temples along the river, and the colorful throngs of bathers performing puja or simply just swimming in the early morning light.
For a while I didn’t mind being a tourist, the view of the ghats in the morning really is too good to miss, but after to boat turned around and we began to make our way back the magic began to wear off. Peddlers paddled over to our boat and tried to sell us their wares, the sun got higher in the sky and it started to get hot, and I noticed the tens of other small boats around us all filled with tourists like us, pointing and taking pictures of the bathers. I began to feel Western and disappointed and I wished for a more personal way to connect with the Ganga, the mother of our new home.

Luckily, that very night we had our chance to escape from the tourist routine and do something entirely different. That night we decided to go to the Ram Lila, the annual thousand year old play that tells the story of the Hindu text The Ramayana. As it was getting dark, we returned to the Ganga and for the second time boarded a boat. This time, however, we were not going to be voyaging along the river for the view, instead we were simply going straight across the river to Ram Nagar, the old fort of the Kings of Banaras, from where we would head inland to the site of the festival. As we traveled, we listened to Krishna, one of our guest lecturers and the man who suggested the trip, as he told us the history of the festival and the story of The Ramayana. Eventually, we reached massive and ancient fort and disembarked, leaving behind the serenity of the river for the chaos of an autorickshaw ride.

After weaving our way through the massive crowds on the streets, we reached our destination, a small series of temples and a massive open field. We made our way across the field to the lanterns and wooden poles of the stage, laid out or newspaper on the dirt beneath us, bought peanuts and fans, it was incredibly hot, from vendors behind us and settled down in our spots. As we sat we learned that the show had not yet started because the King of Banaras (who retains the title, but no real power, except to organize this very festival, which he watched from afar on his elephant) had been doing puja and had only just arrived.

When the play began, we all quickly realized that it was quite unlike anything we had seen before. First, we learned that all of the roles are played by children, selected by a complicated and mysterious process, and that to be chosen as an actor is incredibly prestigious because the devout believe that during the show the gods actually enter the bodies of the children who are portraying them. Next, we learned that the children are not trained in acting, they are read the lines by other people on stage and then repeat them, and that audience participation, such as yelling cheers, correcting the actors (many people bring their own copies of The Ramayana with them), and running on stage to help the actors during important scenes, is an essential component of the festival. Eventually we simply accepted the crazy style of the play, relaxed and began to watch the actors performing the dramatic swordfights, as if they were training to be stuntman in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and fire blowing that were all part of that nights section of the play, the fight between Lord Ram, the hero, and the demon Ravanna.

Though the play was quite fascinating, the part of the evening that I enjoyed the most was the fact that out of the thousands of people sitting in the field, we were the only foreigners. We were observing a thousand year old tradition that almost no other traveler in India ever sees and as if this wasn’t good enough, we were warmly greeted by the people around us, some of whom went out of their way to make friends. The man sitting behind me was particularly friendly and insisted on fanning me, thus saving me from sweating to death, throughout the whole performance. Though this made me feel awkward at first, eventually I turned around and we began to converse as he spoke broken English to me and I spoke broken Hindi back to him until we were both smiling and sharing my bag of peanuts.

When the performance finished, we slowly made our way back through the crowd to the chaotic streets and from there back to the banks of the Ganga. We boarded our boat and sailed out across the cool water into the warm, dark night, discussing what we had seen and simply enjoying the silence and calm that had been missing during our morning trip. It had been nice to be a tourist for a while, but it was now much better to be something else.

Goats

Today was a big day. For the first time since arriving in India I broke my streak of vegetarianism and ate some goat, but more importantly, for the first time in my life I purchased an animal that I was intending to eat while it was still alive and watched be killed, skinned and cooked right before my eyes.

To understand why exactly I was eating goat, one would need to go back in time one week to a day of rainy construction. On that day, last Friday I think, we woke to discover that for one day we were halting work on our normal project and joining forces with all the foreign volunteers and day laborers in the Kanda Valley to build the cement roof of what is going to become the new community center. When we arrived at the site, Andrew and I quickly realized that today was going to be a little bit different from our previous days of work. First, we noticed that after laying the first bits of cement, the workers stopped to perform a brief puja, or prayer, that involved lighting incense and applying tikkas of paint and rice to everyone foreheads. Next, we watched as they took a break to enjoy a special breakfast of spiced potatoes and chai. Finally, we looked at each other slightly confused as all the workers stared silently at a man who had just arrived with a goat.

Needless to say, what happened next was quite shocking and somewhat disgusting to our American eyes, but we quickly recovered from the shock as we learned that the slaughter of a goat is a pretty common ceremony when construction is being completed and that the goat is then always served to the workers. We then went back to work, eagerly awaiting the special lunch ahead.
When we gathered for lunch, however, we soon abandoned our plan to eat the delicious meat after we learned from our host that goat is very expensive and that most of the workers could only afford to eat meat on a few occasions every year. Feeling slightly guilty, we abstained from the meat and ate our normal meal of dal and rice.
One week later, as we were faced with the impending completion of another roof, we asked whether Sadhu, the man we had been working for, had made arrangements for the meat for the final pre-building ceremony. Through our Hindi teacher and sometime translator, Binit, we learned from our host family that while Sadhu was planning to get meat for the ceremony, he could not afford to buy a whole goat. Upon learning that a goat would cost around only 2,000 rupees, or $40, Andrew and I decided to take matters into our own hands and provide the goat.

Thus, today we woke up gave the money, which turned out to only be 1700 rupees, and half an hour later met what would briefly be our new property. We then walked to Sadhu’s house to observe the pre-construction puja and sacrifice. I can’t lie, watching the sacrifice was even more disgusting the second time, mostly because we were only 10 feet away, but it seemed to please everyone else greatly, so we smiled and then joined in the massive “Machine” of people and construction.
Three hours later, when the work and the cooking had finished, the goat had been systematically cut up and cooked while we worked, Andrew and I, along with two of our other foreign volunteers were escorted into Sadhu’s mother’s house to eat the first pieces of meat. After finishing the delicious meal, we stepped outside and were quite surprised to find not only the workers, but also a large number of the neighborhood women and children, nearly thirty people in all, enjoying our gift. Standing off on the side smiling was Sadhu, clearly overjoyed, not by the fact that he had meat to eat, but by the fact that he had meat to serve to all his relatives and neighbors.

The First Month

The following is an attempt to recap my first month in India, thus it may be short on specific details.

After arriving in Delhi on August 31st, we quickly left the heat and chaos of the city taking an overnight train to the city in Kathgodam, which is located in the northern province of Uttaranchal. After leaving the train we drove, on the most narrow and twisty roads I have ever seen from Kathgodam to Kausani, a small beautiful town high in the Himalayan foothills. We spent five days in Kausani at an incredibly beautiful hotel, where we had a short orientation, got to know our two instructors, Christina and Genevieve, and began Hindi lessons with our first teacher Binit. We spent most of our time, however, reading, relaxing, practicing yoga and , in my case, recovering from illness, on the deck of the hotel, which looked out on the real, snow capped Himalayas many miles away,
After Kausani we moved deeper into the foothills to the small, isolated, and very rural Kanda Valley. We stayed in Kanda for a little over weeks at an "NGO" (it was essentially a family who rented out rooms in their house to foreigners who want to come volunteer in India) called ROSE or Rural Organization for Social Enhancement. Most days in Kanda consisted of waking up early for a breakfast of chapati (basically tortillas) and sabji (cooked vegetables) , doing manual labor all morning at one of the work sites, lunch ( a mix of daal (lentils) and rice), reading on the porch or roof, Hindi lessons, dinner (the same as breakfast and dinner) and then sleep. While the work sometimes changed from day to day, our main project was to demolish the broken roof and wall of a house and then to rebuild the walls and roof of the house making it slightly bigger in the process. The days of work were quite difficult, but I learned a ton including how to build a wall with mud and stones and how to design a cement roof, got to use lots of awesome tools, and had fun playing with the children who lived in the house and surrounding area.
On our time off from work we would either relax on the roof, which had a incredible view of the surrounding valley, do our laundry on the floor of the outdoor shower, and do the mile long hike up the valley and into town to buy snacks and supplies and to call home from one of the stores in the town.
After about two weeks we finished work on the house and then a few days later made the long drive from Kanda back to Kathgodam, where we caught the overnight train back to Delhi. This time we stopped in Delhi for a few days and explored a little bit of the city. During these two days we went shopping for new Indian clothes in the Karol Bagh market and in the fancy stores of Connaught Place, went for a walking through the slums near the new railway station and learned about the life of street children, visited the India Gate ( a huge British War Memorial) and the Birla House (where Gandhi spent his final days and was assassinated) and ate huge meals savoring the vast variety of flavors that we had missed while we were in the mountains. After two days, we left Delhi and took another train, the longest one yet, to Varanasi, my new home and the city I will begin writing about soon.

Mantras

Sorry for those of you who read this already, but for those who didn't this was written for Dragons during our stay in the mountain:

Mantras
Since our arrival at Princeton, and continuing throughout our early days in India, we have listened to many discussions about mission statements and messages to adhere to during our year abroad. Lizzie, however, has already eloquently and skillfully told you about our group mission statement, so I am going to move away from the many broad and dramatic statements that we have written down and instead focus on a smaller and more personal statement that I have taken to heart.
When I first saw these words, which I have now adopted as my mantra, I definitely did not immediately recognize the wisdom hidden within them; in fact, I had quite the opposite reaction. I laughed at what I regarded as an Indian government official’s poor attempt at writing in English and then realizing that the sign was supposed to serve as a speed limit tightened my grip on the seat in front of me and looked worriedly at the road ahead. It was only later, in a conversation with Genevieve about yogis and the mantras that they can bestow on their followers that I realized that in the form of a road sign India had bestowed a mantra upon me.
So, I can’t go on discussing it any longer without actually writing it, I adopted the words “No Race No Rally, Enjoy the Valley,” to be my personal spiritual mantra to guide me in both my attempts to meditate and absorb Indian life over the next nine months. As a mantra this saying will function for me as a device to protect my mind and through repetition to cleanse it of unnecessary and distracting thought, thus allowing me to focus on solely on my inner goals.
It may appear that, by choosing the first road sign I see to become something as important as my mantra, I am being a bit hasty, however, there is no need to worry. Over our multiple drives through the mountains India has presented me with many options from which to choose my mantra, however, neither “We like you, but not your speed,” nor “Divorce your speed not your Wife” seemed to apply quite as well to the year ahead.
At the risk of being cliché, I have settled upon my chosen mantra for the reason that it contains within it a simple truth, which embodies much of my reasoning in my decision to take a year off from school. Throughout high school it often felt as if I was constantly rushing forward for no reason other than to get to what came next. Needless to say this type of life left me exhausted and looking for a break and a different perspective. Thus, I am hoping that now, with the help of a road sign, I can begin to put my mission on the right path.

The Beginning

Well, for about a month this has been one of the least interesting blogs in the world, but now that I am in Varanasi, my home for the next 7 months and a city with decent internet access, it should begin to be come slightly more interesting. When I get some time during the next week I will slowly begin to recount what I have been doing for the past month and re-post some of the things that I have already written for the Dragons homepage (www.wheretherebedragons.com) here.
Just to give you a taste of what news is coming soon, here is a quick list of all the things that have happened to me over the past month that I will elaborate on in future posts. Since arriving in India I have: traveled by rickshaw, auto rickshaw, overnight train, and jeep, visited three separate provinces, destroyed and rebuilt a house, seen the Himalayas, watched two goats (one of which I owned) be sacrificed, become almost entirely vegetarian, learned a significant amount of Hindi, started using only squat toilets and bucket showers, seen a king on an elephant, watched a traditional Indian play, visited numerous temples, started doing yoga, watched the sun rise over the Ganges, met my new Indian family, drank more chai then I though was possible and numerous other things that I don't have time to list now.