Lost in Bangalore - Home from Hosur

Okay I am combining two blog posts, but I will try to keep it short. I am back at Niketana now, so my blog schedule and picture uploading should get up to date. Yesterday was our touristy shopping day. We love visiting schools, but its nice to have a day that doesn't have a time schedule. We ended up driving into Bangalore to visit with Vidya's cousins family in their condo, and then we went into the city. First we wandered down a busy road to take pictures of a legislative building - it was huge and beautiful, but we couldn't get too close. We stopped and got some fresh guava from a street vendor for lunch, and took a few pics with some curious strangers. Thus begins the lost portion of our journey.

We walked through a few beautiful parks, got sugar cane juice from another vendor (delicious!), and tried not to get hit by cars. We ended up getting some rickshaws to take us to the commercial district of Bangalore. Our rickshaws were so close that Sara and I held hands from separate rickshaws. It's a real open air experience - we were at a stop light and a beggar came up on crutches and stood next to our vehicle for a few minutes staring at us. That's something that's hard to get used to for me, blatantly ignoring beggars. These are not like the homeless people that you are used to, and with our rickshaw being so open, we did not feel very comfortable. Our drivers ended up being affiliated with several clothing stores, and would not take us to the right location (its something you have to watch out for here in India), and we finally gave up. The whole trip ended up costing about a dollar. We walked into commercial street from our drop off point, and its completely hard to describe. I have no idea how to convey the complete chaos and volume of people that were crammed into one street. You have to keep your bags close and watch out for cars and bikes that are driving around you. I'll give you a pic to look at, but none of my pictures capture the magnitude of the street. It was a true Indian experience. And nothing helps clear your clogged sinuses than the suffocating smell of gasoline! We loved getting able to walk around on such a culturally different street- but were very happy to see our driver. We ended up just going back to our rooms and wrote in our journals and got room service.

Today we visited the TVS Academy again and were just as impressed as before. We got to sit in on more classrooms and spend more time talking to students. These children are such sweethearts. Everywhere we walk they invite us into their classrooms and wave. I visited a first year class who was learning to identify spices by using their senses, I talked with lots of students about their pictures they were drawing, we learned how to create 'kolum' with chalk, and we got to watch their Pongol festival celebration which starts this week. -- More on that later! When we left everyone asked if we were coming back tomorrow :( Then we made our trek back to Chennai! Which is where I am now. And very sick. We are just in love with all of our pictures, which I will be posting more of soon! Nighty night. (for me).

I'm Sick!

Blahhh I have a full blown cold. It has spread around our group because we keep trying each others food. And I left my Sudafed in Chennai, but Sara just gave me some. We woke up this morning around our typical 5AM, and the smog was just rising over Hosur. It is really pretty here though. Today we visited the TVS Academy, which is a private funded school and it was awesome. It has really pretty grounds, a large garden where they grow saplings, vegetables, and fruit (starfruit and pomegranate! -- we actually each got a starfruit, it was really sour), and property I can only describe as a wildlife preserve. I got sunburned and eaten alive walking through it, but it was pretty. The children are in school on saturday (older children), each doing a workshop in a different 'extra-curricular' area like art, music, or theatre. Their art studio was awesome, and the music was amazing too. Its a feat in itself that students are able to sit on mats for roughly four hours singing. This school really takes pride in raising well rounded students and it was a really awesome school. Indian school children are really smart and put alot of American students to shame. This school also had a library, which is rare in Indian schools. This school also places a significance on career aptitude, and they try and get kids to realize that they can achieve their goals without being doctors or engineers (which is what 98% of kids want to do).

After this visit, we rested, and then went up the hill to a 1000 year old temple to Shiva the destroyer. I am a little fuzzy on the details, because I am not well versed in Hindu, but I would really like to learn more. It was dusk-ish, so i took a few pics, but no pics in the temple. (not allowed). We went in and at each altar we were blessed by the temple priest, and given ash and red powder to put on our foreheads, and touched the offering flame.  Often we were given part of the offering like bay leaves or raisins. Towards the end of the temple, we were luck enough to witness a rare ceremony that includes transporting the idol (of Shiva or his wife?) through a golden chariot that we followed around the temple. We were also each given flower garlands to wear that had been offerings, which is a great blessing. Afterward we went to another temple to Vishnu, the protector. Haha we have many funny stories to share with that temple. Many mishaps due to us not knowing what we are doing throughout prayer. More on that later-- I'm too stuffy, and it will be boring without pictures.

We have all been talking a lot about how hard it will be to come back to the US, because no one knows what we have experienced except for us, and it will be hard to relate to a lot of things. Some things are even hard to tell, because you would really have to experience it to know what I am talking about. I'm not sure if that made sense.On a lighter note, the vanilla milkshakes we ordered are still sitting on their tray because we decided not to drink. It took forever to explain that we wanted them with no tap water, and I definitely found an ice cube in mine. Grr! It was yummy too. Guess I'll chew a pepto and call it a night!  I'm too tired I think. I will post some more pics tomorrow, we have a full day of shopping and sightseeing in Bangalore!

Indian Road Trip

Ahh what a long and exhausting day! Today was the day the US Consulate came to visit the Muslim school we were at yesterday. They had prepared cultural events to impress him because they were very honored he was coming. Overall, we were pretty angry with how the day turned out. We arrived at school and the wonderful teachers who have been hosting us brought out flowers for our hair and helped us pin them in (see below). Then we went into the courtyard and greeted some of the children who were taking pictures. The school had different children dress up in the traditional wear for different aspects of Muslim and Hindu religion. You will understand when you see the pictures, I'll post some tomorrow. But anyways, these children were standing greeting everyone, and then we went into the chemistry lab and a high school girl performed a traditional dance for us. (The teachers had to make sure the door stayed locked because boys are not allowed to see the girls dance past a certain age). When we went back upstairs, things started going downhill.

                                                             (like my pants?? :) I love them)
The school hired a professional photographer to shoot pictures while we were there. Immediately, he started butting his way in and "setting up shots". When the consulate came, we met him in a room and were served coffee, cake and cookies. We had just began eating however, when were ushered out to go view children's science projects. Hardly anyone had touched their cake, and food must have been thrown away. We looked out the window and discovered that in using this classroom as a meeting place, the principal had displaced the classroom of boys outside to have class. Whether they enjoyed it or not, these little things that are done for us end up feeling like guilt. It's hard to take when someone is making many adjustments for you, when you are agreeable to live like they do. We are fine sitting with the students, but they always fetch other chairs for us and we feel like we are on throwns. Vidya says that we must remember that it makes them happy to do these things for us, because we are guests and they are excited about our visit. If they were coming to America, we should greet them with the same hospitality and enthusiasm. But as everyone knows, this is often lost in the US. Anyways, so we were paraded with the photographer from one room to the next so he could snap 'candid' shots of us interacting with the children. We were led into the toddler's class (sooo cute), and just as we began talking to them he snatched us out. I ended up judging the student art show with Sara, we had to pick the first, second, and third place prizes amongst the four houses of the school. Their object was to create something using recycled materials. It was really interesting seeing what they came up with. Lots of Styrofoam, sewn objects, painted vases, there was a tree 'painting' made out of matches, with little red birdies that were bindi's, etc. Our winner was the house with the bindi birds and a Styrofoam sculpture illustrating an Islamic religious space, our second place was the house that had created a little bird out of eggshell, a guitar out of cardboard, and a bouquet of flowers out of old x-rays and paper, and third place went to a table with sewn and screen printed handkerchiefs and paper mache necklaces. The girls were so eager to tell us about their art! It was alot of fun.

   After that, the show started. The children performed dances in honor of the consulate, and we sang our national anthem after they sang theirs. The consulate gave a talk about their school and called us 'angels from America', and all sorts of other things that didn't make us feel good. But the school was very sweet and called us up one by one to give us wooden carved elephants. It took us awhile to leave afterward because so many girls stopped us to talk to them in the entryway before we left. They are all so sweet! I am going to miss that school a lot, and it really opened up my eyes to the Muslim religion. Right after we left the school, we began our trek to Hosur which is where I am now. It took us about six hours to drive 180 miles. People do not drive fast here, because they drive so squished together. And our tour bus is not a racecar. We drove through beautiful scenery and jungle- and it KILLS me we couldn't stop to take pics! Our heads were out the window the entire time taking pictures, most of mine suck, but I think Sara and Megan got some. We stopped at a bathroom along the way and just as Sara went into a stall, I saw a cockroach scurry under her door. Kelsey was standing with me outside, and I pointed to it and mouthed, 'Should we say anything?' She immediately shook her head and we couldn't stop laughing. We told Sara not to look down when she came out, and apparently the stall was dark so we really freaked her out! I guess the bathroom that was inside (this was the outdoor stall) had little cockroaches too. It is what it is, you kind of just have to laugh things like that off! It makes good stories. So I'm now in bed, we watched a little Bollywood and ate tomato basil soup (I actually ate it! and liked it!) with some hot naan. Mmmm! Now I can be lulled to sleep by the never ending horn-honking.

Jana Gana Mana

Another night of waking up at two preceded a light breakfast of toast, plain dosa's, and papaya, then we hopped on our bus and headed to Razena Matriculation Islamic School, a coed private institution with a large number of Muslim Students, and many Hindu students as well. When we entered the school there was a big fish tank on the right, and 'Welcome' had been planted with grasses in a built in planter. This was another school that was primarily formed around a sandy courtyard, and the principal led us there for the girls morning prayer. The praying was really beautiful, and they were led in chants and the Indian anthem which is beautiful. After morning prayer, (and keep in mind there were around 550 girls, all lined up in perfect rows...it was really moving), we observed an English class of 49 perfectly disciplined 6th grade girls. Classes were very fast paced and there was no wasted down time. The teachers are also very humble, most of them do not have desks of their own, and use a child's desk or a small table to sit on. Unlike the Us where a teacher is spread out across the entire classroom. The principal says that attendance and discipline are not much of an issue. After about half an hour in the girls classroom, we went back to the courtyard for the boys prayer that made me cry. The boys were called outside with a steady, powerful drum beat, and they fell into their perfectly straight lines and began their chants. A group of middle school boys came up to perform the national anthem (Jana, Gana, Mana) again, and it was literally so beautiful I couldn't handle it. These Muslim prayers are so visually powerful its hard to understand until you witness the synchronization and discipline. After boys prayer we participated in a short basketball game (I just took pictures), and then we watched the boys play a traditional Indian game which none of us can remember the name of right now. I'll figure it out soon. After observation we joined the principal for questions and a lentil pastry snack. Then some of the middle school-aged Muslim girls came in and gave us a little henna on our arms. We were able to have really good conversations with these girls about what they liked and what they wanted to do when they grew up. The girl that gave me my henna told me she hoped to go to University in the United States, but knew her parents would never allow it. She ended up giving me a henna drawing when she was done which I love! The school prepared us lunch - rice, curried lentils, a spicy-sauce colored hard boiled egg (ew - but i ate it anyways) and some fry bread, and then we went to learn some dances from a group of older and younger students. I started feeling sick around then and had to sit out for most of the time, but it was really fun to watch these Muslim students perform modern dances, and they were really into it. We left the school after the afternoon prayer, also beautiful, and headed back to Niketana. You really end up focusing on the beauty of people's faces when their hair is covered, and you end up seeing how gorgeous they are when you are just focusing on their eyes. Then we paid two rupees (roughly five cents) to go into a pretty park with a large temple - good for taking pictures. There were alot of curious people staring at us, but what else is knew. A family in the park wanted to take a picture with us white girls, and a boy at school asked for my autograph today. It may seem funny, but its not something that is good to be encouraged because we are no different than they are. When we got back I rested a couple of hours (uploaded pictures), and then we went to the dance festival to watch a dance that was a story relating to the Hindu religion. It was really interesting. The hand gestures and facial expressions were a very important part of the story, and the dancer could make her body look like flowers, musical instruments, and two characters at once. We topped our night off by FINALLY trudging through traffic to a vegetarian restaurant where we ate Paneer Tikka Masala, naan, coconut cashew curry, and some other sauces and fresh squeezed pomegranate juice. I am not looking forward to eating processed food in the US again. I'm about to call it a night tonight and get a little sleep before tomorrow!

Siragu Montessori School

Today we woke up bright and early so we could get on the road to Siragu Montessori School, a school made up of children who used to be street beggars. We ate a light breakfast - some smushy seasoned rice, sweet lime juice, and a fried lentil cake- then we got in our bumpy bus. It was a good thing we left early because traffic was a nightmare, and a lot of people started feeling sick. Luckily I didn't -- so far my body is staying strong! (Knock on wood...) Siragu was very far out of the city, so once we got off the main roads, we were on dirt roads; as if our bus wasn't rocky enough as it is. We got to see all the morning sights though - the street sweepers, the uniformed school children waiting at the bus stop - and plenty of cows and calves. When we got to the school all the children who live at Siragu (a large majority don't have homes) ran over to greet us. They brought us chairs and sat them around in a circle. There were so many children and the three of us with DSLR's started taking tons of pictures, which they absolutely love. A lot of them run over and say,"Photo, photo" and pose. One girl liked doing a thumbs up RIGHT in front of the lens, and the ended up crowding so much most of them were pressed up against the lens anyways. They liked asking our names, but I think I speak for all us when I say that we couldn't understand the large majority of their names. We watched them eat breakfast; a small portion of rice, which was sad because most of the children were so tiny and small. The buses of day-scholars came late, and then the children finally were arranged in lines in the sand to perform their morning chants. The school was totally silent except for the few children who were leading the chants, and then the loud repeat from the rest of the students. It was so powerful sounding that it almost made me want to cry. Then they welcomed us into their school by calling out our names and handing us each a drawing with a short message on it. After that, we presented them with a 1700 dollar scholarship, which is worth a lot more in rupees! The school day was pretty disorganized while we were there - and we were a gigantic distraction. Everyone kept smiling and waving to us whenever we made eye contact. We started our classroom observation, and I was in a first standard class (first grade), which is a class of five year olds, and they were newly added to the school, so they had less knowledge than everyone else. The students were able to commute math problems that are above the typical five year old in the US though. They were really excited to show us their workbooks which was mostly drawings and hindi lines to practice handwriting. We had to sit on lawn chairs in the classroom so we were towering over the kids, and it would have been more comfortable on the floor. The teacher wanted the kids to recite english poems to us, and one boy came up and told us a very detailed story, while snot was dripping out of his nose, but it was in tamarind so I have no idea what he said, but I'm sure it was good. Its hard to explain what we experienced - you really would have to be there seeing these kids who are at a poverty level we don't even see in the US. Most of the children did not have shoes, and one little girl was not wearing underwear - which Sara found out by picking her up! I didn't really get to experience their class day because they were too busy looking at us to concentrate. Towards the end of our visit we sat around with a group of older children and talked about questions they had regarding our education in the United States because some of these children who came from no where are hoping to go to college. Its sad to talk about, because most of them are confused about the entire process, and lack sufficient resources to get what they need to go to a University. While we talked the director passed out bananas for us, and pieces of white bread for the children, which I also felt guilty about. Here is a picture of us with the group we talked with:

 
This picture was right after a girl pointed out to us, "You're....white." As if we hadn't realized that yet. Me and Sara kind of stand out in pretty much every picture we take. After our visit we went to a mall to exchange our money in a sketchy currency place. The mall was pretty big, but much dirtier than a typical mall in the US. Each shop had an Indian man outside the door saying things to lure you inside. They obviously go for the westerners, and set very high prices for us. This mall is a bartering mall, so if we saw something we liked our professor bartered to get us a good deal. It was very stressful, but I made my first purchase! A giant vegetable dyed tapestry. I like it...its like five feet by three feet and cost me 1400 rupies. Everytime I pay with rupees i feel like I am bartering with jewels. Rupies...rubies...you know. Then we finallllllly got back to Niketana and ate an okra curry, lentils and rice with fry bread, and more papaya. Then I just spend forever editing some pics because we decided to post some tonight while all you people back home are still interested in our trip! :) The originals look better. And this is not all of them. Alot of street scenes were taken from the bus. Goodnight! (For me).

Shopping and Staring in Downtown Chennai

1/04: Right now I am laying on my bed smelling the sweet aroma of the jasmine flowers above my head, and listening to the tropical birds outside my window. Haha just kidding-- but seriously I am :) Today was our first day exploring the city of Chennai, it was mainly our day to buy our authentic Indian clothing that we will be wearing for the majority of the next three weeks. Me and Sara started out by waking up around six India time, so we had tons of time to get ready this morning, after a restful three hours of sleep! We were prepared a traditional Indian breakfast of dosa's with a potato-onion curry mixture and three types of sauces to dip it into. There was a coconut chutney, a lentil chutney, and something else which i cant remember now. A dosa is like a fried crepe and the filling was inside. It was delicious! I could eat that filling in a bowl it was so good. And we washed it down with fresh squeezed Sweet Lime Juice which I love. Then we got in our van and drove to meet Vidya's mom, and then we went to our first clothing store to buy our traditional outfits. For some reason I thought this would be easy, but there were too many choices! The store was packed with kurta's; all different sizes, all different sleeve lengths, and they were all folded up so you couldn't really tell what they looked like. I'll put a pic down below. So you had to dig through the perfectly stacked kurta's and I'm sure we messed up their whole store. The store attendants in India are very attentive to customers, partly because they have to and partly because we are westerners and like to spend money, and they will silently stand next to you and help you with anything they can. At that store I ended up getting a bright turquoise kurta with navy pants, and a purple kurta with olive green pants. Too bad you people in the states don't get to dress this colorful and comfortably! Then the shop owner named Geneche? took us downstairs and showed us a handcrafted items shop and the sari shop.
After we got done shopping we went out to lunch. We ended up going to a hotel restaurant that was at the top of a bakery/ice cream shop, and a little boy was our elevator hop. When we got to the top we all walked into the restaurant all eyes were on us again. We ate a vegetable curry with rice and some fry bread with another curry. Good thing I love curry! Then we chewed some fennel to freshen our breath! We hit a couple more shops afterwards, an expensive mall shop, and another shop. To get to the last shop we stopped at, we had to climb up stairs through a parking garage, but it was a pretty nice store. I got a reddish orange kurta with black and white patterned pants, and a fuchsia kurta. Have you looked up what a kurta was yet? You should! On our way back to Niketana, we drove past the beach and the Bay of Bengal and "The Slums of India", which really put into perspective what poverty is. When I first got here I passed by apartments that I figured were the slums but I had no idea. No matter how these people live though, they try their best to maintain their clothing and appearances, and I saw lots of happy children and tons and tons of baby goats. Among other things, today I watched a man pee on the sidewalk, and lady wash her clothes on the sidewalk, and another guy knead bread on the sidewalk. Its really amazing how so many different things can be happening at once, and everyone can live with one another so easily. I know there are a lot of conflicts, but in the US poverty and wealth don't intermingle like this. I also saw my first cows in the street today! I also crossed through crazy India traffic on foot. Oh and our group was stranded for a few minutes on the sidewalk without our professor, and you won't believe how many people can stare and you at once in such a short amount of time. And Indians are not shy to hold their gazes, you just have to look away. We also encountered our first street beggar today, two actually, and that's hard to deal with too because you have to force yourself to ignore them. For dinner we had homemade fried tortillas with rice, a yellow curry, coconut vegetables and a spicy tamarind soup, with papaya for dessert. This fresh food is delicious, but I'm sure I am going to have to start breaking into my stomach medicine soon! :( Sorry I started rambling, but I keep forgetting things that happened today! And since this is like my personal travel journal I need to get it all down! That's all for tonight!

Willkommen!

The first part of this blog entry was written on the plane: Well I am going on my eleventh hour of flying I think, but all these time zones are driving me crazy! I think it is early morning US time…and I really haven’t slept yet, so I am feeling kind of sick. [Dad- I was going to post this from the plane with their free wifi, but it is a peer-to-peer network and wont work. Why won’t it work? It’s working on everyone else’s laptops!] Germany is snowy and beautiful, and it makes me sad that I am here in Europe and I can’t explore it. Actually it was a little too snowy and cold, because they had to clean off our wings before take-off with this mechanical robot head, but we are at cruising altitude now and . I love Lufthansa though! The planes are nice and I have enjoyed their movie selection. On the way to Frankfurt I watched ‘Easy A’, ‘Life as We Know It’, and ‘Eat Pray Love’, not to mention an episode of Glee, Modern Family, and Desperate Housewives. And we got several rounds of drinks, there was free wine, and two meals. One was a gluey cheesy pasta dinner with a rice-salad and a brownie, and the breakfast was an omelet with these really disgusting potato patties. And we get two more meals this flight, but I’m not sure how much more of this food I can take – oh look we just got some salted almonds! I am already understanding the frustrations of a language barrier because all the PA announcements are in German first, and then English and it just takes forever and you never know what is going on. I wish I could speak some more German. I feel my native roots calling me back! Okay I’ll try and post again when I get to India. I hope I get wifi! 

Okaaay I'm here now! And I get a good wifi signal! So we got off the plane and stepped into humidity. It's pretty surreal being here, its kind of hard to describe. Everything about it seems different, and then there's that India smell! When we left the airport there is a huge gated lane you walk out of, and the rails of the lane were completely crowded with Indian people waiting for their families. It was like a mob scene...I kind of knew what to expect, but I didn't know that we would be hit with it so soon. On the way to our hotel, traffic was "good" because it was 2AMis; so swerving around buses and weaving in and out of lanes at 90 km was smooth sailing! We drove through absolute slums, it was kind of hard to see because its dark, but its even worse than I imagined. I am anxious to see it in the daylight. There is a lot of skinny dogs walking around and cats digging out of garbage cans too :( I haven't been able to take my camera out much because of airport security (its a hassle) [oh- and i got randomly selected to go to an additional security check in Germany for my laptop! I was scared they would toss it out]and the fact that its night. But I snapped a few pics. Tomorrow we are taking it easy and going shopping for our Indian clothes! So hopefully I will get some more internet time and relaxing time tomorrow to talk with some of you! There's a thirteen and a half hour time difference here, and it looks like nighttime will be the best time to talk. So you do the math because I'm too sleepy! 

(The lady in ^ that picture is Vidya - our professor guide)