It’s no wonder that we have putting off the trip to the city nick-named “Very-nasty” for as long as we could get away with. Varanasi is a holy city located on the Ganges and is the site where many Indian families cremate their dead to sprinkle in the holy river. From what we had gathered, it’s a crazy city full of people, beggars, dead bodies, and cow shit. Not exactly a relaxing getaway but a place you have to see before leaving India.
Having already checked the Taj Mahal (overrated) off our list, Gene and I figured it was time to suck it up and check out the Nasty. I woke up the morning of departure with a sinking feeling in my stomach and braced myself as we boarded the plane with our protective footwear (flip-flops not advised).
Our first stroll down the ghats to the Ganges, couldn’t have surprised me more; the walk was mellow as could be. People smiled and waved, holy men did their holy business, and even the vendors laughed good-naturedly at our refusals. Sure, the boardwalk was covered top to bottom with cow-shit and whole buildings reeked of pee, but it’s amazing what can be tolerated when people are friendly. The tough-as-nails Delhi-ites have me on my defensive, but in my Varanasi, I couldn’t help but smile and wave to all who crossed my path (even those crazy white hippies who decide to find themselves by starting up drum circles on the Ganges).
The burning ghats, where bodies are cremated by family members, particularly intrigued me and I approached it with a nervous curiosity. Ever since watching a Frontline episode about a funeral director, I’ve been interested in discussing the topic of death with whoever will listen (Gene had his share of death talk after about two days). It seems that we come from a culture that deals with death/mourning very privately and it was hard for me to comprehend a public cremation.
Standing from a respectful distance, we watched men carry bodies down to the Ganges to bathe in holy water and then place on large fires, which they tended for the next three hours. Initially I was concerned that our presence was morbid and voyeuristic but once there, it never felt that way to me. Along with us, the American tourists in washable shoes, there were dogs, goats, boats, people from the city sitting around, and children playing in the ashes. Life and death were intermixed and all who were present were involved.
The cremation ceremony, we were told, was a joyous event, where the soul left its body to be reborn in another. While I can’t say it exactly felt like a happy place, it certainly felt peaceful and I felt honored that I was able to be present for one family’s goodbye.
My own grandfather passed away this week and I have struggled to be so far away from home in my grief. He was a remarkable man, loud, gregarious, and unlike anyone I have ever met. I adored him and I think of him constantly these past few days. It is difficult to be in India now because I want to share my sadness and my stories with people who loved him too. That said, I have been overwhelmed by the love and compassion that my community here in Delhi has shown me. From Gene, who has allowed me to talk on and on about him to the warm-wishes and hugs I have received in the last few days, I feel lucky to part of such a network. I am reminded that we can find community very far away from home.
I fell in love with Varanasi because I felt connection to its people. It is truly a crowded, filthy, loud city. These facts are easy to ignore, however, when the people invite you into their lives with their warmth and their smiles.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Varanasi
From Lonely Planet--Few places in India are as colourful, charismatic or spiritual as the bathing ghats lining the Ganges in Varanasi. The city of Shiva is one of the holiest places in India, where Hindu pilgrims come to wash away a lifetime of sins in the Ganges or to cremate their loved ones. Varanasi, previously named Benares and Kashi (City of Life) – it was renamed after the Varuna and Asi Rivers, which meet here – has always been an auspicious place to die, since expiring here offers moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death). The city is the beating heart of the Hindu universe, a crossing place between the physical and spiritual worlds, and the Ganges is viewed as a river of salvation, an everlasting symbol of hope to past, present and future generations. The magical but sometimes overwhelming city is where the most intimate rituals of life and death take place in public on the city’s ghats. The accessibility to the practices of an ancient but still living religious tradition is what captivates many visitors, and a walk along the ghats or a boat ride on the river is one of India’s most absorbing experiences.
Personally, I thought there were more smells and cow pies in Varanasi than anywhere I've ever been and I believe that's saying a lot, cause I've been to some dirty places. But I got some decent pics!
Link to the SlideShow:
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Summer Time
I am totally obsessed with summer. I mean forget about the next THREE months and lets jump straight ahead until summer. . .because mentally I am there. Since we booked our flights to the states and we settled on some basic plans, I wanted to let y'all know when we are there or here so we can hopefully meet up! The last day of school is May 27, and that night we are flying out to Amsterdam. Instead of having a four hour layover, we are extending it to 4 days (four seems to be today's magic number) in Amsterdam and it will be our first time in Europe.
We leave Amsterdam June 1st and head to Detroit. We will hang in Michigan til June 12 or 13. Hopefully, the snow will have melted and Kendra's dad will be over the Lions not winning a single game all of last year.
So, we'll be kicking it at Kendra's parent's home in beautiful, and sleepy Midland, MI. It should be quite a change from the chaos of Delhi. .. I think. I just hope the snow has melted by then.
After Michigan, we'll fly to Southern Cali, and we'll be there from June 12ish to June 20. We're doing a road trip up to Northern Cali, we might stop in San Francisco or Napa, but eventually we'll end up in Tahoe. Our friends from here (Delhi), the Kempers, live up there, and he recommended a photography workshop I want to take from June 22-26. Kendra will leave for Tucson, and afterward, I'll drive down to Tucson to pick up Kendra. Eventually, we'll be in back in Ventura County by July 1st-22nd. By the 22nd we'll be heading back to Michigan for a few days, and then to Delhi.
We are looking for a place to rent/sublet/house-sit in the Moorpark/Thousand Oaks/Ventura area during the month of July, so if you hear of anything, please let us know.
Hopefully our crazy schedule will overlap with your crazy schedule so we can meet up this summer!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Thailand!
Sawadee-Krup! These words greeted us throughout Thailand. Surprisingly, I picked up more Thai in two weeks of traveling, than Hindi after living in Delhi for a year and a half.Our trip to Thailand started in Chiang Mai with a four-hour layover in Bangkok. We've heard many wonderful things about this city, and it's ALL true. . . we fell in love.
We stayed at the 3 Sis Guest House, which was across the street from the Chedi Luang--really cool temple. For $30 we got a sweet little room, free breakfast--with unlimited coffee, and a wonderful staff. How rad is that?
The first night we met up with our friends Becky and Eamon and had our first adventure in a series that involved food and drinking lots of Singha. We had just finished eating the most delicious noodles at The Lemongrass Cafe, and headed out to watch some Muay Thai Kickboxing slide show
The next day we climbed up to Doi Sutep, and spent the day amongst Thais paying their respects to the Buddha at one of the countries holiest temples. It was peaceful, colorful, and just good for our souls to be up on a mountain listening to the ringing of bells.
Doi Sutep SlideShow
We signed up for a cooking class, out on an organic Thai farm. The teacher
intermix Buddhist teachings, life lessons, and a wickedly evil laugh with his cooking lessons. Kendra takes direction well and flourished, I was the student who keeps experimenting and doing his own thing. Therefore, I got lots of one on one with the teacher. I don't know if he developed a individualized learning plan for my one day of lessons, but I got a lot of out of it. I think my favorite part was going to the market to pick our vegetables and meat.
One of the things I quickly learned about myself and Thailand is that I love walking streets. It's like the coolest swap meet ever, but it's on the streets with stands selling delicious street food and some not so delicious. We were curious, we drank a few too many Singhas, and then we drank a bit too much Thai Whiskey and next thing you know I am chewing and chewing for 20 minutes straight. Bug Nite Slideshow
Yeah, we didn't feel so good the next day. So we spent a few hours at a Starbucks drinking espresso and reading. I used to think that people that went to McDonald's or Starbucks, while on vacation were losers, but now that I live in India. . . .I look forward to these slices of Americana. We even went to the Hard Rock Cafe the night before we left Bangkok! Who am I?
However, the next day we met Jonathan and Julie and headed up to the Elephant Nature Park. The park is set up to provide a refuge for disabled and abused elephants. . . it's amazing! I imagine Kendra will have an entire series of blogs devoted to his, so I will just add photos. ElePhunk Slideshow I will say that besides the Muay Thai Pics these are probably my favorite series of photos I took.
After playing games at the park, eating tons of yummy food, going for a hike and eating out of bamboo, we finally heading back to Bangkok, switch planes and headed to one of, if not the, most beautiful beaches in the world. Railay Slideshow
Thursday, December 4, 2008
My spiritual twin, the 14th Dalai Lama, and a Saguaro Cactus
As many of you know, Gene and I have been debating about what to do with ourselves next year. We keep bouncing between moving or staying a third year in India. With pros and cons for both choices, we feel conflicted about where to go and we’ve discovered that making decisions for two people can be a lot more complicated than making decisions for one. I have been convinced that if I just stop thinking about it, an answer will come to me and so, instead of making a choice based on reason, I have been combing my life for omens.
On our recent trip to Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama, I kept my eyes peeled for some kind of sign. Right away I picked up on a fluffy yellow dog who looked at us with knowing eyes and began to follow us up a mountain on our walk to the high perches of the Tibetan Children’s Village. Who could ignore the fact that this stray dog stopped and sat patiently for Gene as he took pictures? Or how the pup ran ahead, only to be found later snoozing at the doorway of the Tibetan Children’s home? No one could tell me that this yellow fuzz-ball wasn’t trying to give me some sort of urgent message.
No easier could I ignore my doggy friend (or animal soul-twin, as I came to think of him), than could I discount my discovery of the perfect image of the 14th Dalai Lama. All weekend I was on a search for a picture of His Holiness. Visiting stand after stand, I dismissed everything I came across. Nothing seemed quite right, cheap postcards and shiny posters seemed distasteful. Finally, however, I stumbled upon an outdoor cart full of junk, and I saw it. On the very top was a real photograph of a smiling Dalai Lama standing in front of a giant saguaro cactus. I was convinced he was standing in my favorite Tucson desert and I couldn’t believe that the photo was sitting right on top of a mound of clutter, just waiting for me to discover it. Like my soul-twin, however, this sign was impossible to decipher. Should I go to Tucson? Tibet? These were not even considerable options.
Unsure as to what to do with my omens, Gene and I settled down into a serious conversation about next year. When my spiritual quest muddled me, I fell back on good old logic. We came to the mutual agreement that India is probably the better choice for us and drew up a not so serious contract regarding the upcoming year which contained such clauses as the agreement to start making babies at the year’s end or the promise of a street cruiser bicycle with my name on it.
Not 12 hours after making this decision, we were snarfing down momos in a tiny café when we heard on the television that a terrorist attack had taken place in Mumbai. With saddened hearts we tried to piece the news together as well as we could. I felt sick to hear about so many lives lost for no reason at all. Now I was presented with a sign with no ambiguity as to its meaning: get out of India. Somehow, that message didn’t sit well with me.
Instead, my thoughts kept bringing me back to the Tibetan children’s village. The village consists of a home and school for children who have escaped Tibet without their parents. Some of the children were sent away so that they might have hopes of a better life, others were orphaned, one little baby was found in a dumpster. The kids live in modest conditions, sharing small living spaces and classrooms with scores of other children. The adults who care for them are loving, but spread thin. One house “mother” cares for forty children, boys and girls, ranging in ages. The school runs entirely on donations, and at the risk of sounding like Sally Struthers, you can sponsor a child for forty dollars a month, which pays for his/her schooling, clothes, and food.
Despite the limited resources, the hardships that the children have gone through, and the challenge of living in a foreign land, the school was a happy place. Walking through the campus, one felt a warm current that ran through the students and staff. I don’t wish to romanticize the village or look at through rose colored glasses, but all around there were images of smiling children.
I can’t help but consider that if these kids have overcome so much and can still find reasons to smile, Gene and I will be just fine next year. Maybe we will stay in India, maybe we won’t; it doesn’t really matter. No matter where we end up, we’ll figure out how to enjoy our lives and appreciate what we have…ESPECIALLY if I get my street cruiser bicycle.
On our recent trip to Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama, I kept my eyes peeled for some kind of sign. Right away I picked up on a fluffy yellow dog who looked at us with knowing eyes and began to follow us up a mountain on our walk to the high perches of the Tibetan Children’s Village. Who could ignore the fact that this stray dog stopped and sat patiently for Gene as he took pictures? Or how the pup ran ahead, only to be found later snoozing at the doorway of the Tibetan Children’s home? No one could tell me that this yellow fuzz-ball wasn’t trying to give me some sort of urgent message.
No easier could I ignore my doggy friend (or animal soul-twin, as I came to think of him), than could I discount my discovery of the perfect image of the 14th Dalai Lama. All weekend I was on a search for a picture of His Holiness. Visiting stand after stand, I dismissed everything I came across. Nothing seemed quite right, cheap postcards and shiny posters seemed distasteful. Finally, however, I stumbled upon an outdoor cart full of junk, and I saw it. On the very top was a real photograph of a smiling Dalai Lama standing in front of a giant saguaro cactus. I was convinced he was standing in my favorite Tucson desert and I couldn’t believe that the photo was sitting right on top of a mound of clutter, just waiting for me to discover it. Like my soul-twin, however, this sign was impossible to decipher. Should I go to Tucson? Tibet? These were not even considerable options.
Unsure as to what to do with my omens, Gene and I settled down into a serious conversation about next year. When my spiritual quest muddled me, I fell back on good old logic. We came to the mutual agreement that India is probably the better choice for us and drew up a not so serious contract regarding the upcoming year which contained such clauses as the agreement to start making babies at the year’s end or the promise of a street cruiser bicycle with my name on it.
Not 12 hours after making this decision, we were snarfing down momos in a tiny café when we heard on the television that a terrorist attack had taken place in Mumbai. With saddened hearts we tried to piece the news together as well as we could. I felt sick to hear about so many lives lost for no reason at all. Now I was presented with a sign with no ambiguity as to its meaning: get out of India. Somehow, that message didn’t sit well with me.
Instead, my thoughts kept bringing me back to the Tibetan children’s village. The village consists of a home and school for children who have escaped Tibet without their parents. Some of the children were sent away so that they might have hopes of a better life, others were orphaned, one little baby was found in a dumpster. The kids live in modest conditions, sharing small living spaces and classrooms with scores of other children. The adults who care for them are loving, but spread thin. One house “mother” cares for forty children, boys and girls, ranging in ages. The school runs entirely on donations, and at the risk of sounding like Sally Struthers, you can sponsor a child for forty dollars a month, which pays for his/her schooling, clothes, and food.
Despite the limited resources, the hardships that the children have gone through, and the challenge of living in a foreign land, the school was a happy place. Walking through the campus, one felt a warm current that ran through the students and staff. I don’t wish to romanticize the village or look at through rose colored glasses, but all around there were images of smiling children.
I can’t help but consider that if these kids have overcome so much and can still find reasons to smile, Gene and I will be just fine next year. Maybe we will stay in India, maybe we won’t; it doesn’t really matter. No matter where we end up, we’ll figure out how to enjoy our lives and appreciate what we have…ESPECIALLY if I get my street cruiser bicycle.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
What?
I was try to keep an open mind, and lean towards cultural relativism . . but some things are just wrong. WTF?
From Reuters, via NYTimes:
A teenage boy who wrote a love letter to a girl from a different caste was thrashed, paraded through the streets with his head shaved, then thrown under a train, the police in the eastern state of Bihar said Thursday. Manish Kumar, 15, was kidnapped by members of the rival caste on his way to school, the police said. One man has been arrested and a policeman suspended.
From Reuters, via NYTimes:
India: Teenager Is Killed Over Love Letter
A teenage boy who wrote a love letter to a girl from a different caste was thrashed, paraded through the streets with his head shaved, then thrown under a train, the police in the eastern state of Bihar said Thursday. Manish Kumar, 15, was kidnapped by members of the rival caste on his way to school, the police said. One man has been arrested and a policeman suspended.
Almost Halfway
Yikes! I think my New Year's Resolution is to update the blog more. . . or to actually update it! I blame part of this to my increasing Facebook presence. Okay, maybe my presense on Facebook isn't great, or big, but it's changing the way I communicate with people back home. Unfortunately (or fortunately) not everyone is on it. . . so . . . blog is good.
Delhi is fine, besides that we're coughing up black gunk from the Delhi Lung Disease. This weekend, the wind picked up and it's the first blue skies we've seen in over a month! The pollution and lack of things to do outdoors--playing real-life Frogger as you cross traffic starts to lose it's charm after awhile--really has us comtemplating stay next year.
Our contract ends in July, and we can:
In other news, two weeks ago, I returned to the Pushkar Camel Fair to take some more pics. . . It was wild, colorful, and as always, interesting.
While I ate my breakfast, monkeys in the tree above were chewing leaves. I guess they ate too much, because next thing you know, green balls of solid (thank god!) poop are bouncing off the table. Most of my friends move away from under the tree, I was hungry so continued to eat and text Kendra, while a poop was directly in front of me, and more was bounching:
If you look closely, its in front of the cheerio snack mix . . .
Here's the link to the slideshow:
Pushkar 08 Pics
Delhi is fine, besides that we're coughing up black gunk from the Delhi Lung Disease. This weekend, the wind picked up and it's the first blue skies we've seen in over a month! The pollution and lack of things to do outdoors--playing real-life Frogger as you cross traffic starts to lose it's charm after awhile--really has us comtemplating stay next year.
Our contract ends in July, and we can:
- Staying in Delhi for Year 3 (The most logical but less appealing choice)
- Going back to Cali (Our ideal situation, but the job prospects look dim)
- Going to a different international school (We're thinking Oman-a good in between both worlds)
In other news, two weeks ago, I returned to the Pushkar Camel Fair to take some more pics. . . It was wild, colorful, and as always, interesting.
While I ate my breakfast, monkeys in the tree above were chewing leaves. I guess they ate too much, because next thing you know, green balls of solid (thank god!) poop are bouncing off the table. Most of my friends move away from under the tree, I was hungry so continued to eat and text Kendra, while a poop was directly in front of me, and more was bounching:
If you look closely, its in front of the cheerio snack mix . . .Here's the link to the slideshow:
Pushkar 08 Pics
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