Gandhian Studies Camp - Wardha

Way back yonder in December 2012, I attended a 1-week Gandhian Studies camp in Wardha, Maharashtra.  Wardha neighbors Sevagram, a small village where Gandhi lived from 1936 until 1948 and set up an ashram.  I wasn't sure exactly what to expect at the camp, but the website of the Institute of Gandhian Studies refers to residents and guests of their programs as "inmates" and boasts their commitment to ashram life - waking up at 4am for prayer/meditation, early morning yoga, community work, more prayer, etc.

It was a rough start, before I even got there.  I was a confused foreigner who got on a train and was told that my ticket was not valid (still on waiting list) so just 40 minutes into my journey, I had to de-train and come up with plan B.  I then trusted the wrong person for information and ended up having to stealthily ditch a creepy guy who wanted to party all night and share a hotel room with me, which was rather frightening.  But I ended up in the airport guest house for the night, all by myself, in a giant, air-conditioned room, awaiting my flight ("plan B," devised on my iPhone, which I was so grateful to have) in the morning.  For as much as I like to "rough it" or live like the locals (or so I thought before this trip), I was certainly happy to enjoy some western comforts.  Hot water shower, cool A/C, a full-length mirror to dance in front of, a whole entire hotel room to myself, nearby fast food (Chinese and French fries) and easily navigable air transportation in the morning.  Okay, back up.  Should I explain the dancing-in-front-of-the-mirror thing?  Maybe it's not normal, so okay.  As I analyze it now, I realize that there are probably a couple of reasons for that.  First, after an exhausting day, I really needed to celebrate my comfort, safety and solitude.  And secondly, I think I just needed to move and it's really impossible when there is no A/C.  I've been a complete slug since I got to this country.  You know how Mexicans take siesta?  And we say other cultures embody a slower pace than us Americans?  I really think it's largely due to the climate.  It's really difficult to move and be productive in the sweltering heat.  The most activity you can eek out of me is in the early morning, and just some gentle yoga at that.  I can't imagine doing any cardio work.  Oh god, that sounds like hell.

So I eventually made it to the Institute and a young woman showed me to my room.  I was sharing with three other girls who were out yet at the evening's cultural program.  It was a simple room with four beds draped with mosquito netting.  I settled in and eventually met the young women I would be bunking with.  They were all from Kerala (the state where I stay), so we were collectively "the Kerala girls."  But I was still a goose among ducks.

The rest of the week was filled with lectures and seminars by professors, a doctor (Gandhiji's nephew) and the director of an NGO named Snehalaya (more to come in other posts about Snehalaya).  In addition to daytime lectures, we watched documentary films, had group discussions, enjoyed cultural programs and took a few field trips - one, of course, to Sevagram ashram to experience Gandhi's dwelling.






We didn't quite observe the 4am prayer routine, but the mornings were a bit rough, nonetheless.  Wake-up time was 5:30 with prayer at 6 and tea at 6:20.  Mornings and evenings were freezing cold all week which made it extra difficult to rise.  After tea, we broke into small groups to tackle the community work. I eventually got into the routine of volunteering for the kitchen, chopping onions and choking back tears and sniffles, and avoided having to clean the hostel toilets.





After community work, we headed back to the hostels to prepare for our baths.  The industrious young women I had the pleasure of staying with built up a small fire pit and boiled a large pot of water over it each morning.  We took turns filling it up and taking some for our bucket-baths.  I didn't realize this the first day (the availability of hot water, nor the ability to bathe after community work) so I took a frigid shower at 5am the first day.  I was prepared to not bathe the rest of the week after that, but thankfully the girls came up with an alternative system.  After bathing we had breakfast.  We got into the meal routine of setting up the plates, serving one another, and washing our own dishes each time afterward.  The rest of the day was lectures, cultural programs, field trips, documentary films, meals and tea with a 2-hour rest period in the afternoon (to nap or wash clothes, etc.).

About 60 kids from all over India attended the camp.  I'd say I learned the most through my interactions with the other students.  I had never seen Indians from different states interacting before and it really opened up my eyes to how very different the culture is from state to state here.  So many different languages, different ways of dressing, very different ways of eating and food preferences, etc.  But such a strong, passionate sense of unity.



The Institute runs an 8-month diploma program in Gandhian & Peace Studies, as well.  About 6 students from that program joined us in all activities for the week.  Two of those students were foreigners - Kerry and Modi - from South Sudan.  It was incredible learning from them about their lives back home, the recent history of their country's independence from Sudan, and the conflict that existed and continues to exist.  They both came to the Institute seeking knowledge to implement peacemaking strategies back home.  It was incredibly admirable.

Like any camp experience, we campers made great friendships with one another and many tears were shed on the day of departure.  My next stop was to visit families around the state who I stayed with in 2011, since I was back in Maharashtra again.  More blogs to follow on that.

Oh yeah - It was Christmas!  Students decorating.  Below: The finished product at night.

Meal time

Where we washed our dishes after each meal

Gandhi's residence at the ashram

Where Gandhi slept

Gandhi's, um...

I learned to hand-wash my clothes the proper Indian way.

The peaceful art of spinning (after the frustrating learning process)

New friends saying farewell on the final afternoon

This is What I Do Sometimes - Rotary Presentations

It has been a busy, and non-busy couple of months.  Kind of a bipolar situation.  But when it is busy, it's quite intense, and then when it's not busy, I suppose I'm mostly recovering and resting and haven't been great at updating blogs.  So this is a bit past-due but I gave my first presentation to my host Rotary club in December.  It was nice to meet the members and to feel more connected.  They had great and engaging questions at the end, such as, "Is there poverty in the US?"  I also learned about the club's main project: supporting rag-pickers (people who scour wastelands for useable items to sell) and utilizing them as powerful members of society in the city-wide "Green Kottayam, Clean Kottayam" initiative.  The club also supports cancer patients, individuals with cerebral palsy, and other bed-ridden patients in their homes through pain and palliative care by providing medicines, counseling and rehabilitation services.  Additionally, the club supports a home where about 60 residents receive care related to mental and physical challenges.  

Here are some photos from the evening.  

My host counselor, Anil

 Club president, Bijumon

 Rotary fellowship

Someone else's camera got a better shot, I think.  Haha.. 

Many Rotarians have family members abroad in the US so it's always fun to learn where they are, what they're doing and what they report home about the culture and adjustment.

Another Day, Another Mission

Yesterday I discovered that my laptop wouldn’t power on.  I remained calm, but my stomach sank as I pondered what I would do.  I purchased a MacBook intentionally because I wanted the most glitch-free device while in India, knowing that once I was here it would be difficult to procure service and that I would be more prone to virus threats which Macs stand up to better than PCs.  Good thinking, Jess.  Smart girl.  But I’ve since come to learn that Apple products are not popular here in India, therefore, sales & service centers are few and far between, in the off-chance that I’d need service.  After an Internet search (on my phone) I learned that there was no such place in the entire state.  But there was a business in Kochi (2 hours away by road) which claimed to repair Apple devices.  I called and made plans to come the next day (that’s today).  This post isn’t about technological issues.  It’s about getting things done in India, which is very different from getting things done in the USA.  Add being a foreigner, and it gets a little messier even.  

So I got a text from Maneesh from the IT shop in Kochi with the address.  Some random address in some random place.

I don’t know Kochi at all.  I know it is where the airport is.  An airport I have used three times now.  Each time, I’ve rented a car to or from the airport so I’m not familiar with how to get there by train or bus.  It’s a bit pricey to rent a car and this time I couldn’t justify the expense so I decided to take a bus.  Conveniently, I could catch a bus at my usual bus stop near my house, my roommates said.  Supposedly they come every few minutes.  

So this is what the journey looked like today.  First, I wish I could describe what it feels like to put one foot in front of the other not knowing really how you’re getting to some vague place.  I wasn’t even sure which side of the road to catch the bus on (meaning, which direction Kochi was in).  I can blame that on my poor sense of direction and attention to detail over many months.  So setting out of the house, I felt timid and humbled by the task in front of me.  I walked to my bus stop.  Success thus far.  Actually, by the time I gathered the energy to ask a stranger for help identifying a bus to Kochi (the labels on the buses are in Malayalam which uses an entirely different script I cannot read), I had missed one bus that would’ve gotten me there.  But soon after there was another.  When I asked if it went to Kochi, I got some positive body language (I think) and people said it went to Ernakulam.  To the best of my knowledge, Kochi and Ernakulam are kind of twin cities.  So, I figured, good enough, and hoped for the best.  As I settled into my seat, I felt like I could relax for a good hour before I had to devise a strategy for knowing when to get off the bus.  After that relaxation period, I started looking at google maps on my phone to see my gps location in relation to the google map of the shop.  (Yes, this entire post indeed showcases how much of a spoiled American I am with my tech devices.)  I eventually determined roughly where I would get off.  Not quite yet.  But soon.  But then the bus money-taker guy comes to me and tells me to get off the bus.  I guess I had to?  Was it the last stop before turning back?  Well, close enough.  So I got down.  Dodging oncoming traffic, I made my way to the side of the road.  “Here I am at some random place in India again,” I thought.  I experience this acknowledgement often.  I found a row of auto-rickshaws and showed the drivers my text from Maneesh.  They discussed I-don’t-know-what and then one of them said “come” and we began our journey.  He eventually stopped and said “wait” and left me in the auto-rickshaw.  It seems he was asking others where the building was located.  When he came back, I called Maneesh so the two could speak.  They did.  We had arrived at the correct building, as an open window seemed to indicate according to a gesture by my driver (ah yes, yes of course), so I say farewell to the driver and find my way up to the third floor (which they call “2nd floor”).  Phew.  I made it.  The process of finding a specific location in a random-seeming place with zero sense of direction definitely causes me to respect time and space, as well as to realize just how abstract these concepts are.

It definitely wasn’t an Apple service center but it looked as legit as anything here.  I met Maneesh who was seemingly apologetic from the get go but I was confused for a minute.  Hadn’t we talked and he said he could fix my laptop and I had successfully made it to his shop?  What was I overlooking?  Oh, the power was out.  For the entire day, apparently, he explained.  Maneesh said that this very rarely happens for an entire day.  He spoke with his employees in Malayalam while I conjured ideas of hijacking Maneesh in an auto-rickshaw to a hotel or some place with a generator where he could work on my laptop.  I wasn’t ready to admit defeat quite yet (and I’ve learned here that defeat presents itself quite easily and it’s compulsory to not settle at the first roadblock).  I soon gathered from their discussion, however, that there was some limited power source that he could use to test some basic functions with.  Someone came back with a small black box.  We plugged my laptop into it.  Nothing.  We tried another power cord.  Nothing.  Maneesh said that it was not a cord or battery issue, but a motherboard issue which will take a few days to work on. It wouldn’t be done today.  Whut.  Do I leave my laptop with these people at this random place in India?  Did he really do a thorough diagnostic investigation?  Well, thanks to my friend James who sent me a link to the trouble-shooting page on the Apple website, I noticed that they had not tried a few of the recommended procedures, so I asked them to unscrew and open up the laptop to take a look inside.  <Unscrewing is another story.  I had intended to do this myself at home yesterday but that entailed taking a bus into town to ask around at optical shops for a teeny screwdriver, which I managed to finally purchase, only to realize at home that it still didn’t fit the screws on my laptop. Yesterday’s mission: failed.>  Maneesh and crew obliged.  I had suspected ants in the computer as I’m often flicking them off of my keyboard.  But it appeared nice and clean inside.  I then asked them to unscrew the battery and put it back in.  They did.  These steps seem a little bit like the old bang-the-side-of-the-TV game but who was I to question the official Apple troubleshooting techniques?  Just as the banging tends to have magical efficacy, the battery-in-out trick also worked.  Ha!  Hooray!  Power was restored!  I didn’t have to leave my laptop in a random place in India on planet Earth unsure of how to re-navigate my way back to the place (which I never would have done, actually, as I was prepared to face not using a laptop for the duration of my time here versus leaving it).  I ended up buying a new power adapter and was on my way again.  

When I asked Maneesh how to catch a bus back to my city, he said to ask an auto-rickshaw driver for “hub.”  It was actually “_____-transit-hub,” a title involving some word in Malayalam I was not catching.  So Maneesh assured me that I could just say “hub.”  I found an auto, asked for “hub,” asked a hub station manager for my bus when I got there, and then a nice young woman pointed me directly to my bus which was so kindly waiting for me with plenty of empty seats.  I found my spot and settled in, determined to reward myself for the day’s toils by stopping to purchase a pineapple when I got back to town, which I did.  Seriously, the pineapple here is like nothing your mouth has ever enjoyed before.  I feel sorry for your mouth.  

The end.  

Oh, except to say that I’ve pondered this notion that everyone around the world believes that Americans are so “go-go-go” busy and I believe that, yes, it’s true that we are a bit restless and on the move to accomplish our daily tasks but you know what?  It’s so eeeeeasy!  You would be all “go-go-go,” too, if everything were so straight-forward and precise.  If you could accomplish half the day’s tasks via email or phone rather than random drop-ins at strange offices with non-existent lines (ahem, “queues,” I mean).  And if it weren’t so deathly hot that sweat was dripping from your sternum over your bellybutton while merely standing in place, in the shade, for your bus.  And if you could zip from point A to B in your car through orderly traffic.  And if you had numerical addresses which your GPS could identify exactly.  Just sayin’.  

A Beautiful Day for a Neighbor

Today I did a miraculous thing.  I went for a walk around my neighborhood.  I have been here for almost five months and it is the first time that I went for an aimless walk.  In fact, I had never turned right from my driveway before...only left, toward the main road and bus stop.  It's not that I've not had time to do so.  I can't give a good explanation as to why I haven't explored like this before.  I think it's because most days are exhausting in various ways (confusing, hot/sticky, overwhelming, futile, etc.) so by the time I get home, I just want to be a bit of a shut-in.  I'm not proud of that, but I guess it's how I process or maintain some sort of balance.  Or something.  But I wish I had done this much earlier.  I realized that walking through my residential area is an incredible pick-me-up.  It was like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, or some damn thing.  Women and children saying hello, smiles around every corner, people working, children playing & inquiring about my name and other curiosities, toothless women asking me questions in a language I don't know, then settling for an exchange of smiles.  I feel a bit foolish that this was my debut to the neighborhood, but I'll try not to be too hard on myself.  I get it.  Sometimes I'm tired and inviting further interaction than necessary can be more tiring.  

But let me share with you a really sweet interaction I have experienced numerous times, which occurred yet again today.  It goes like this: 

A group of 3 or more school girls turns a corner, walking toward me, chatting and laughing cutely, until they spot me.  Then, in Malayalam, one informs the others of my presence and all of their spines stiffen and their eyes shift down to the ground, occasionally darting up to meet mine as they attempt to contain tiny smiles until I say hello.  Then they bust out into giant grins and respond with gasping hellos as if they had been holding their breath too long.  It's so damn adorable.  

More Idukki Photos

Just sharing more beauty that is the high ranges of the Western Ghats in Kerala:

PS - If mice are this cute, then I think it was real-life and not a dream the other night (just a photo from the Internet):

Cardamom Plantation

Tiji and I were invited by one of the Zero-Budget Spiritual Farming coordinators, Robin, to visit his cardamom plantation.  He is beginning to implement some Zero-Budget concepts and hopes to continue the conversion.  It was a lovely trek through the plantation on a cool, crisp, mountain morning and I enjoyed meeting the harvest workers and later, Robin's dear family for breakfast in their home.  Robin is a Rotarian, incidentally!  Here are photos: 

Too Cute to Be True?

Two nights ago I awoke around 3am realizing that I had just felt something scamper up my torso and over my face.  I flinched and then heard it hit my headboard.  I assumed it was a tiny salamander that we have all over the house and since it ran off, I fell back asleep.  A few moments later, I felt a nibble on my toe.  I turned on the light and saw a brown mouse jump down to the floor.  I checked my toe - no skin abrasion.  I went to the bathroom and when I came back, I couldn’t find the mouse.  I think it had gone out, probably the way it came in - through the balcony door I had left open all night due to the heat.  I called Jay, who instructed me to wash my toe thoroughly and apply eucalyptus oil, in case of rabies.  I wasn’t sure that the mouse was gone but I couldn’t find it under the beds so I knew I had to try to go back to sleep.  It was very difficult to fall asleep as I wondered if this bold little mouse might try another trick.  But I managed.  I went about my day the next morning, telling my housemates of my funny little tale, but eventually, I decided to do a little online research about rabies.  According to the World Health Organization, if one has been nibbled, without skin actually breaking even, one should seek the rabies vaccine.  Ugh.  Mannnn.  So I hopped an auto-rickshaw to the hospital.  At the ER I was told that because it was Sunday, they could not do anything for me.  Broken English.  No further questions.  Another hospital was a 10-minute walk away so I headed there.  In the ER, I was told to go to the main office to get a file started.  I soon had a hospital ID card and was walking my paper file on over to the ER.  The doctor there wrote a note and slipped it into the file and told me to go to the pharmacy with it.  Down the hall at the pharmacy, they printed me a bill and sent me to the cashier’s office where I paid it.  I returned to the pharmacy with the receipt and they handed me a small brown bag and instructed me to head back to the ER.  I did so and a woman there took me to a back room.  

I noticed on my pharmacy receipt that the vaccine I was given was tetanus so I asked the nurse if this was correct, being that I was there in case of rabies.  She said “Tetanus is enough.  It is enough.”  She then opened the bag, extracted a syringe and prepared it with the tetanus vaccine, and glovelessly injected me.  I was on my way, $2.72 later.  It was all rather speedy, I thought.  I really expected to lose half a day to it all but it was so quick.  On my way down the hill to catch a rickshaw, I began searching the net on my cell phone to figure out why I was given tetanus for rabies.  I found nothing.  I saved the page that asked “Is tetanus effective for rabies? NO” and another page listing the rabies vaccine I indeed needed and headed back to the ER.  I showed the doctor my phone and he said that for mice, one does not need the rabies vaccine.  So I then looked that up and found that indeed, it is extremely rare for mice to transmit rabies to humans.  It’s possible, but hasn’t been heard of yet.  Then the doctor explained that mice could carry tetanus so that’s why I got that.  Ok.  But had I gotten a better explanation I would not have taken the tetanus vaccine since I’ve had it recently.  But ah well.  Please join me in wishing and praying that I don’t have to be treated at an Indian hospital in the coming months.  Not because the quality is poor necessarily, but communication is such a challenge and it’s not fun to wonder and guess and trust gloveless people’s judgment.  But in the end, all is well.  I’ve confirmed with one American doctor and one Indian medical student that the course was the correct one.  As I was explaining the story to the med student today, the thought crossed my mind that I was possibly dreaming the whole thing up.  Gasp!  What if I did?!  The reason I wondered is because I remember the little brown mouse being so darn cute, almost cartoonish, and thought, “Waiiit...is that really what mice look like?”  Ummm.  Hmmm.  We may never know.