On the road

My previous plan had been to travel from Agra to Jaipur, then Pushkar, Udaipur, Jodhpur, and Jaisalmer, hitting all the tourist destinations in Rajasthan. But I wasn’t too thrilled about just seeing all this beautiful stuff. I saw Varanasi, I saw forts and monuments in Delhi. I saw the Taj Mahal and the Agra fort, respectively perhaps the most beautiful building in the world and the former capital of the Mughal Empire. This is some of the best that India has to offer but I have no context for it’s significance and most of it doesn’t interest me.

So when I met Viktor from Sweden, about my age, at my guesthouse in Agra, I was very interested to hear what he had to say about the 10 day vipassana meditation course he did. I got a little interested in this type of Buddhist meditation when I was living in Salem, though I never got around to actually sitting down to meditate for more than a few times. Viktor seemed down to earth, I trusted his recommendation I didn’t just want to keep seeing stuff, so I signed up for a course in Jodhpur starting on March 14. He was pleased that he convinced me and he gave me his email address so I could tell him about my experience.

I had two days to get my ass to Jodhpur so I spent a night at a couchsurfer’s bachelor pad with five Polish kids and a German woman outside of Jaipur. The guys who owned the house cooked really good food and arranged a bus ticket to Jodhpur for me. The bus left at 11:30 pm so I met one of the guys from the house, put my stuff on the bus, and gave him 600 rupees to buy me the ticket. I waited and waited and finally the bus engine started but I didn’t have a ticket. I pleaded with the bus driver to wait two minutes and ran around aimlessly looking for this guy. All of my stuff was still on the bus though so I was pretty nervous that the bus would leave with all of my possessions. Two guys were trying to help me and though I trusted this guy not to run off with my money, I had to tell them that I didn’t have his phone number and I didn’t know where he was buying the tickets. FINALLY a different guy showed up with a tiny receipt sized piece of paper that was my ticket. Sleeping on a bus is not much fun but I got to Jodhpur so I was happy.

After seeing the fort in Jodhpur (my favorite so far) I hired an auto rickshaw to take me to this meditation center. The driver looked like he was 16. The place was quite a ways out of town and I think this kid though I was taking him out to the desert to kill him. After asking directions several times we finally found the center but all the signs were in Hindi and no one there spoke English so I had to rely on my driver to translate. I knew he wanted to get rid of me so I just had to pray that it was right place. They did give me a room with a bathroom no questions asked but it wasn’t until I saw white people speaking English that I could breathe a little easier knowing that the course wouldn’t all be in Hindi.

It was a ten day meditation course. There were 11 of us. The rules were no talking for nine days, no killing, no lying, no stealing, no sexual activity and no intoxicants. We meditated from 4:30 am until 6:30, ate breakfast, rested, meditated from 8 until 11, ate, rested, meditated from 1 until 5, ate, rested, meditated from 6 until 7, then attended discourse where we watched recordings of the man who started this organization talk about meditation and the Buddha (this was my favorite part of the day), after which we meditated from 8:30 to 9 and went to bed. It came out to about 10 hours of meditation per day.

This course fulfilled three important purposes for me. First, I got a chance to stop traveling. No one wanted anything from me and the people around me were self-selected so I trusted them. I was doing something that I actually wanted to be doing. Second, I learned how to meditate and I got some outside motivation to do it. It was intense but it was a really interesting experience. Also, when my mind wandered I thought about all sorts of useful and totally irrelevant things. I had nothing but my own mind to entertain myself (no reading or writing materials allowed) and I kind of got to see the inner workings of my brain. Third, I got to learn about the Buddha (not Buddhism), something I’m been interested in for a little while. The man on the discourse recordings was highly intelligent and well-spoken and told stories and gave simple metaphors to help us better understand him , though after 9 days of hearing his voice 99% of the time, he got a little tiring. I could say a lot more, but I’ll keep it to this.

I would recommend anyone who has 10 days free (say, after school or between jobs) consider doing this. It’s donation based so you can give as much or as little as you want. There’s a center in Onalaska halfway between Seattle and Portland. The website is called dhamma.org.

On the last day a Norwegian and an English woman and I got a ride to the city from a nice man who sat next to me during meditation. I got pretty close with these two women (the only other foreigners) for only talking with them about 12 hours and we all gave hugs when we parted ways. I caught a bus to Jaisalmer and am currently staying at a really nice hotel inside the Jaisalmer fort for less than $4 per night. I went on an overnight camel safari and found out that riding camels is a cool thing to do but in practice it’s pretty uncomfortable. I went with four nice Korean people. It was a lazy day.

We rode for about an hour and a half, then hung out for 4 or 5 hours under a tree, eating lunch and relaxing. We got back on the camels and rode a little further to our campsite. We ate dinner and slept under the stars on simple mattresses, but at that point I started getting sick and it continued unrelenting through the night. The one night I didn’t have a toilet I had to get up perhaps 6 times to dig a whole in the sand and squat down. I had a fever, I was dizzy, dehydrated and I ran out of toilet paper, so it was a long night. I spent all yesterday recovering in my room, drinking water and watching Ken Burns’ Baseball. The people at the hotel are really nice to me and keep checking in on me. I feel much better this morning.

Tonight I catch an overnight bus to Japiur, then a flight to Nepal. I stay in Kathmandu for 2 nights, then head to Pokhara. I’ll write more then. 

Tomorrow I leave for Agra to see the Taj Mahal. I will be there two nights, then on to Jaipur. My friend Bhaswati was a great host, making me food, introducing me to her really smart friends (they're all doing their masters of Indian economic development), tour guiding, etc. It's been four great days and I could stay longer. I've only met her now three times but we click very well, like old friends. The worst part of traveling alone is not having anyone to trust but I trust her implicitly so I can relax a little. I'm not so sure I like traveling alone. Maybe I'll like it more next week. 

Jump from the nest

Well, I’m writing from the train heading to Delhi. I spent one Long Day in Varanasi and saw much of what it has to offer. First let me back up though.

The last two days at Parijat were magical. On Saturday, the last day of school, classes 6, 8, 9, and 10 each gave me gamusas and gifts (class 7 gave me theirs a few days earlier). I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. My favorite gift came, as I was hoping, from my favorite class 9. It was a small, simple, solid brass goblet. Each class had collected money amongst themselves to buy these and Aimoni told me it was the first time they had ever done this for a volunteer. I didn’t know what to say. Some of the gifts I wanted to keep but could not take with me, so I shipped a package home. The ones I didn’t want, though given no less sincerely, I took with me and gave to the nice family that ran the guesthouse where I stayed in Varanasi.

When the final afternoon prayers had finished, I gave final hi-fives to all the kids as they left school and distributed the last of the pictures. Hard to believe that even if I come back, I will never see most of those kids again. That evening Sankar organized a ceremony with the hostel students. Sankar said good things about me, Swarnamika and Bijyunti read Assamese poems and several other students sang songs. Rasan spent most of his time disrupting the event. The hostel students presented me with a big beautiful journal, a pen, and a shoulder bag like everyone wears. Aimoni gave me a Parijat-made Karbi gamusa, bright orange with green embroidery. Then we cranked up the stereo and danced to Assamese music and Gangnam Style. I was the chosen partner of Bibha and she wouldn’t let me take her off my shoulders, which was fine with me. When dancing was done Paul and the hostel students served us chicken and I went to be happy though uncomfortably full.

The next day I ate my final breakfast and drank my last cup of coffee at Parijat. I chatted with the new volunteers from Germany – they seem like great people and I would have liked to work with them. They will take over teaching computers. When it was time to go, I gave everybody a hug. Reboti, the weaver who hardly looked at me for the first 6 weeks but with whom I had gotten very close without a common language. Dulumoni and Bibha, mother and daughter, crying together. Despite being two years younger than I, Dulumoni is the older sister I’m always searching for and her daughter is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Sankar, my roommate and best friend at Parijat. Aimoni, the best thing that ever happened to Uttam. And all the wonderful girls and boys in the hostel. I miss you guys. You’re making traveling hard because now I have two families to miss. Uttam and his brother Prasanta put me on the train, said their goodbyes and I pulled away.

The train ride to Varanasi was 28 hours. I spent most of my time watching movies or sleeping. I met some nice people who helped me arrange an affordable taxi, which (unsurprisingly) took me to the wrong end of town where I met a man names Lakshmi who got me an affordable room and showed me where to eat and get good lassi. He offered to show me around the next day and since I didn’t know much about Varanasi and I only had one day to explore, I agreed. I understood it was a business arrangement – he made commission off getting me a room and he expected payment for showing me good stuff. But the room was fine and I wanted to see Varanasi.

Next morning I woke up at 5:30 and he arranged a boat to show us the ghats along the Ganges. It was beautiful to see these giant colorful buildings towering over the stone steps in golden sunlight. It is THE thing to do in Varanasi but of course people do it for a reason. We ate breakfast and agreed to meet back around 10 to see some of the city. At that point he asked for 200 rupees so he could recharge his phone. I balked but didn’t want to argue and I figured it would come out of the tip at the end. I rested. At ten we walked to the University which was clear and cool and not too crowded. We went to the museum and walked around a big temple. We went to a silk shop where he was irritated that I didn’t want to buy anything (thus no commission) although I told him before I went that I already had too much stuff. We agreed to meet back in a few hours so I went and wrote in my journal, read my book and people watched at Assi ghat. In my whole time in Guwahati I only saw one foreigner walking the streets, so the foreigners were fascinating to me. At this point I didn’t want to spend much more time with Lakshmi but he was taking me to see a show on the ghats which I wanted to see, so I met him at 6 and walked through the ghats full of naked babas and smoke of every flavor. The show had lots of fire and Hinduism that I could not relate to but it was a spectacle and I’m glad I went. On the way back we walked through the tiny alleyways of Varanasi that I never would have seen without someone to show me.

When we got back it was time to leave. Lakshmi wanted 500 rupees (in addition to the 200 earlier). I was going to give him 200-300, so 400 seemed like a compromise. This is where being a Westerner in India gets tricky. I fully understand the value of dollar but the rupee I am only just learning. Would I have paid more than $14 (700 rupees) for such a tour at home? Of course. Is $2 (the difference between 600 and 700 rupees) enough to worry about? No. Does it make me a true American if I can afford it but don’t want to pay? I don’t know. But I wouldn’t pay him what I would at home, maybe $50, almost four times more than he asked. That leads to other problems.

I had this conversation with Tets, our Japanese friend that came to visit a few weeks ago. He has traveled the world for several years now and he seemed wise to me. His advice was to just be fair and don’t be arrogant. Of course everything in India is negotiable, we didn’t agree on a price beforehand, 600 seemed fair to me given what I do know about the value of the rupee, and I didn’t want to be the American who pays whatever is asked because I feel guilty and I don’t want an argument. So when we were in the taxi going to the train station I gave him 400.

WOOOF he was pissed. Once he figured that I wouldn’t give him what he wanted, he told me that he would f--- other people because of me, he would f--- somebody’s mother because of me, to f--- off myself. He didn’t have much leverage – how couldn’t refuse me services – so he told the driver in Hindi to charge me double. I paid 150 instead of the 200 he wanted and walked into the train station. It’s tough to know what to do. It’s pretty unlikely that I ripped off someone who does this for a living. I just wonder why he was SO angry…I think either he’s just crazy or he desperately needed the money for ganja. Will I worry about the 100 rupees next time? Maybe not. I dunno. I DID learn that I don’t want to pay another guide in India. Needless to say it was a good day and I’m glad to be out of Varanasi.  

One day later, I’m now relaxing in Bhaswati’s fourth story studio apartment in Delhi having enjoyed morning chai and breakfast. It’s good to see a friendly face. 

Time's Up

I don’t know much what to say.

Yesterday class seven presented me with a beautifully ornate Assamese gamusa and a small brass plate. They raised a little money themselves between students and pitched in to get these things for me, as seventh graders. What were you doing in 7^th grade? It took me completely by surprise and was the best present I’ve received in a long time.

I found everything I was hoping for at Parijat Academy. I tried something new. I was outside of my comfort zone (and will be again shortly) and for a while, every day I saw something new that I had taken for granted my whole life. I lived in an Indian village with a big happy family, a safe environment from which I could learn about India by myself but be surrounded by wonderful people. I now speak enough Assamese to be friendly with every member of the family and to get my point across sometimes in class, but I learned that spoken language is not really how we communicate or make friends. I got to teach regularly, which was of course an interesting experience unto itself, and I felt like what I did made a difference. I learned that I can’t set off on an adventure and cut ties with everyone I know, as much as I might like to. People at home are too important. Not every day was magical – some were great, some were pretty boring, just like at home, but the whole thing was incredible. I don’t know what else to say.

The hardest part of leaving is that my attachment is to the students and if I ever come back they will be gone. There is no possibility of replicating this experience…guess that’s what makes it good.

Pandemonium after handing out prints to the best hotels kids ever!

Some of my favorite pictures from Pamohi:

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I am now slightly more than half done with my trip. On Sunday, God willing, I take the Brahmaputra Mail at 11:45 AM to Varanasi where I will stay for one night and one very long day before taking another train to Delhi to stay for a few days with Bhaswati, a friend I met through Uttam who used to volunteer at Parijat. I think she will show me a good time in Delhi. From there I go to Agra on the 10^th to see the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort, then to Rajastan where I will explore for a little over 2 weeks before catching a plane from Jaipur to Kathmandu on March 29.

I stay in Kathmandu for a day, then take a bus to Pokhara several hours west where I will set up camp for a little while. I’ll look into the treks and go paragliding and see my new friend Alex Clayton. We met (sort of) in Winthrop this summer but have corresponded because she is doing the Peace Corps in outside of Pokhara and I was heading that direction. I will spend some time with her PC friends and hopefully a few days in her village. After that my hope is to take the last 6 weeks to do the Mustang and/or Manaslu and/or Gokyo treks but we’ll see how it all shakes out. I head home June 4. See you guys then!

I have one week left in Pamohi. Forgive me if I haven’t written for a while – its one part not having enough to write about, two parts wanting to spend my last days doing other things. I guess I should talk about what’s happened in the last 10 days and conclude with broader topics of self-reflection and the passage of time.

Well, I said goodbye to Tat, Chantal, and Lilly – they flew back to the East Coast – and Paul is in Thailand visiting his fiancé so I’ve been by myself for ten days for the first time in 2 months. I like it. Power seemed to be out more frequently so teaching is a little sporadic. We spent three days setting up for, celebrating, and cleaning up after Saraswati, the festival celebrating the goddess of learning with a ceremony and lots of food. I visited Dulumoni’s house with Bibha where I ate on a full stomach, took a nap, then ate again two hours later. Her family was good to me and sent me away with a big beautiful gamusa.

I finished up my one-month lease in Bokul’s building and moved back into the guest house – it is nice to have a bathroom, water and electricity. I initially told Uttam I didn’t want to move back but decided I was acting like a stubborn child because I only said no because he told me to. I did a mock-pack and confirmed that I have too much stuff and that next time I shouldn’t bring clothing on a long trip that I’m attached to. Seeing Tets traveling the world with just a day pack and a grocery bag inspired me to cut down. It rained for the first (and only) time last Sunday and it felt like home. The next day the power didn’t go out all day and I taught all five of my classes for the first time. We’ve moved onto Powerpoint and they catch on quick.

I went to the Assamese Youth Festival. I spent my time watching Bibha because neither of her parents came and when the fireworks started she grabbed both my legs and peed her pants. I miss camp, and I needed to shower and do laundry anyway so I just kept carrying her on my shoulders.  

There was a two-day national transportation bandh (general strike) to protest the increasing prices of fuel so no school Wednesday but a bunch of kids hung out in the computer room and I half-assedly of taught class. I spent that night revising my résumé so that just maybe a job will be waiting for me when I get home. About half the usual number of kids showed up Thursday.

Friday was a good day – kids were smart in class and after school I went to the city and bought gifts for as many people as I could. The Hero Rolls Aimoni and I got reminded me of ‘Chas food and good times in Oregon. I bought a train ticket from Varanasi to Delhi. Hopefully Henry is getting me to Varanasi through the back door and might have to pay a bribe on my behalf so I can ride the Brahmaputra Mail train.

Rumor is that Anjumoni, the last of the 4 students with whom Uttam started this school in 2003 eloped and moved in with her new husband. She is smart, pretty, a semi-professional dancer and a leader at school and it’s strange to think about quitting school for good on a Wednesday, and all the reasons for and ramifications of willingly marrying at age 15.

Today I handed out pictures to the students, gave away a big ‘ol jar of candy to kids at the inaugural Young Green Soccer Academy game, and picked up momos for Madan and Nareswar when they joked that I needed to bring them some from Garchuk. Honestly, everything is so inexpensive by our standards that any gift is worth the smile on somebody’s face.

I also shucked 5 kilos of peas.

I’ll self-reflect later.

Elephant Adventures

My new building-mate is an Australian anthropology PhD candidate studying human-elephant relationships in Northeast India. He is Paul and he is immediately easy to like. In order to create trusting relationships with the mahouts that he studies, he brings them pork and chicken and they drink rice beer together. He keeps them fat and happy so he can continue his research and they all drink rice beer and hang out with elephants. The day the elephants visited school he asked if I wanted to go hang out with his mahout buddies. YES! We drove his motorcycle just down the road to their camp – no electricity so by the light of a kerosene lamp we ate chilied potato wedges and smoked beedies and drank rice beer. Rice beer smells like rice (yup!) and it’s stronger than beer – they distill it a little from what I can tell – and it’s like 20 rupees a liter. It’s not great stuff but I didn’t care…I was drinking with mahouts! We watched a video that Paul took of two men, a mahout and a fungee (old-time wild elephant roper) singing songs about elephants, then we watched Justin Bieber and Shakira on Youtube and went home for dinner.

Fast forward to 3 nights ago. Spent all evening with chatty women, came home and unloaded on Paul which was great because he laughed sympathetically and said there were wild elephants in the Deepor Beel wetland that we might see, if I wanted to go with. YES! A guy who might own elephants picked us up – he says they’re his but Paul thinks otherwise. He had just called off his wedding so he brought some whiskey and coke. We met up with the neighborhood elephant watch, a group of men who ensure that wild elephants can cross roads and railway tracks back into the jungle safely. We sat at one of their houses and drank whiskey and rum, listening to what Paul and I found out later was a discussion of local reptile superstitions.

We walked through a backyard and up to the railroad embankment from which we could not see any elephants. At one point the guy told us not to run unless he says so - if an elephant charges you have to stand your ground. Jesus. But I felt safe searching for wild elephants with a bunch of half-drunk men. After minor shenaniganry we spotted about 10 elephants swimming across the beel, dark spots on dark water visible only by looking to the side. They swam slowly and in the meantime the guy’s friends arrived with whiskey and water which we drank sitting on the tracks. When they did make landfall we couldn’t see specific animals but we could hear lots of splashing and funny elephant noises. Soon enough they moved away from the water’s reflection and disappeared. Paul leaves for Thailand tomorrow to see his fiancé but hopefully more adventures to come!

By popular demand, the second half of the our Tiwa dance

Saturday was unexpectedly wonderful. After two weeks of preparing our Tiwa dance, we performance. The older boys helped me dress in traditional Karbi attire with a sarong, a gamusa head wrap, Uttam’s Karbi vest and crossing gamusas across my chest and back. I thought I looked good and everyone else seemed to agree! The stage was a dozen rickety desks lashed together with rope and bamboo, covered in canvas, so we had to step carefully to keep our toes safe. Everybody started hootin’ and hollerin’ when we got up on stage. I didn’t know the moves too well but it didn’t matter. When we finished a fat man with a layered haircut spoke to the audience about discovering the hidden potential in every student by mapping their fingerprints and then Uttam talked and more people talked, awards were given, volunteers thanked, achievements of the last year discussed. Surprisingly I was only asked to speak briefly. We gave an encore Tiwa performance and the dancing was actually better, though the crowd had already seen our moves.

Tiwa dance

My lovely and talented partner, Seoti Teron

Once everyone left, the students had a dance party stage with a combination of traditional Assamese dance music and Hindi pop. Hormones were unleashed and they danced til dark. It reminded me again that Indian kids are 98% the same as American kids. There was one boy with serious moves for a twelve year old who only wanted to dance alone on the front of the stage. Watching his gyrating hips and two-handed, Backstreet-Boys-style heart-pumping, it seemed obvious to me that he was gay…without thinking to hide it, he was flamboyant even by Western standards. Homosexuality is not even close to discussion in Pamohi and it was another case of “Jeez, what would this kid’s life be like in not-Pamohi?”

My Tiwa buddies. 

Dancing with the students gave me a chance to be one of them, to learn with them as a peer without having to teach or discipline. Instead of wearing jeans and watching the event with the crowd of students and parents and fingerprint gurus, I could stand with the students in my bright get-up and make jokes with, pat backs and butts of, give hi-fives to, console, drink tea amongst, take pictures with and be photographed by – the students. It was camaraderie. It’s just what I was looking for when I came to Parijat Academy and this is the day I will remember when I think of this school.

Girls dancing Boro. There were 5 different dances, but this
was the best picture

Epilogue: Yesterday a bunch of engineering students came to chat with the students and I was invited to sit in the middle of class 9 by the students. I made fun of myself by asking them Aapunar nam ki? What is your name? using the formal “aapunar” instead of the informal “tumar” that I did like a noob when I first got here. This is probably less funny out of context. All the students stood up and introduced themselves really fast so when my turn snaked around, I stood up and said Nomoskaar, mor nam – (pause, wild applause) Shaffer Spaeth as fast as I could.

Volunteers thanked

Tets that we met in Cherripunjee came for two nights. We
had a wonderful discussion about religion, politics, travel,
vegetarianism and life.  I learned a lot from this wise man. 

I was scolded today for complaining too much about this school and was asked why I stay if I am so unhappy. I was probably complaining too much - there are frustrating problems with this school that I don’t blog much about for which no one is to blame and there are no good solutions. I shouldn’t do that. I told her that I stay because of the kids. I don’t think she believed me. But I hope I have demonstrated here that it is true.