Buongiorno!
I know that this greeting is hardly related to my current location, but I suppose I'm just stickin it to Colby's Italian Department for denying me access to Italian II my freshman spring year.
Eat that Italians (yep, that's a war declaration Sarah).
Wow, that could be easily misconstrued if you put emphasis on "eat" instead of "that"...
Moving on...
So I decided to change my internet scenery: here I am sitting in the upstairs of my host family's house using their internet (I tried to say no, but because the internet cafes are so far away and I don't have to be near the SITA center until 6:45 when I leave for our first "educational tour", I consented...). In about 5 hours (when most of you will wake up and realize that holy shit, it's saturday, and god damn it what the fuck is that white stuff still doing out there... except my family in NC... *wanh wanh*), I'm going to be leaving with the group for our first educational tour. We're going to Mysore, Bangalore, and Hampi, the first two of which are huge huge cities, and the third of which is a very beautiful landscape filled with religious ruins/sacred groves. I'm so excited to not be working (see way below for ongoing rant) for a week, and this trip is gonna be baller-- stay tuned for picturess! (yes, I did just say baller. SHoot me). As such, I'm gonna take this time to be off facebook and other internet activities until I come back-- I'm sure I'll have a lot to tell/post about!
I realized a little late that I left out some details from my first two posts, namely women and restrictions, the ups and downs of Indian eating, and the environment. If you're tired of details and want me to stop being an anthropologist, please skip the first four paragraphs. It's just so hard to ignore these aspects of the society around me, because Indian culture literally hits you in the face every time you walk around (perhaps because of cultural difference), and so a good deal of my experience deals with the onslaught of Indian culture that I face on a day to day basis...
To be a girl here is a struggle. I know that during my first few posts I was all about how the clothes on girls looked so pretty (and that I secretly wanted to wear one...) and how women's roles here were quite different, but recently I've been struck by how mysoginistic (to our standards anyway) and restrictive the Tamil culture is toward girls in general. I could make the tentative argument (hopefully this next sentence will not start an everlong digest argument that ultimately ends up going nowhere with most people involved frustrated that they even got involved, because I mean no harm by implying "some people are more privilaged than others", it's just TRUE... if anyone does that, I will personally shoot you with a nerf gun... twice) that a guy here is much more visibly privilaged than girls. I can pretty do whatever I want (save wear a sari, despite my inner lusts): I can cycle home without fear of harassment, say hi to anyone on the road who desperately wants to hear me speak english coherently (which, for those who know me, is a personal struggle of mine...), or talk to anyone (wearing a salwar kamiz would be a funny occurence, and many people, if they don't have reason enough with my red sox "ramirez" jersey, will stare uncontrollably and then strike up a conversation with a nearby Indian saying "look at that idiot"... except in tamil). While talking to the girls onthe program and overhearing many conversations, I've begun to realize how engendered this place truly is. Girls here face an inordinate amount of harassment, marginalization, and restrictions that makes them uncomfortable. The initial euphoria of wearing a beautiful cotton salwar kemiz with a duputa (a scarf-like thing) has long past, and many of the girls on my program are starting to get irritated at the amount of issues they have to deal with being a girl on a day to day basis put on them. Let me list just a few of them: 1. when an indian guy who is older than 20 approaches an Indian girl in Tamil culture, it is very very weird. However, I hear stories on a day to day basis of older guys asking penetratingly personal questions that makes them uncomfortable or staring at them. Staring here is common, but for most of the girls on our program, if they are not in a group, they are at loss for what to do when this occurs: is he actually interested in me as a foreigner or does he want to get into my salwar? 2. the expectations for girls here are equally as ridiculous. I hear stories of how host families have continually berated girls on our program about being too "manly", both in clothing or in activity. Clothingwise, the Tamil culture views clothing as "restraining a woman from her inherent uncontrollable lusts"; thus, women must always wear their hair up, cover their ankles, and wear a top with sleeves. Anything worn other than this is considered whorish... and are a lot more likely to be harrassed or groped (one girl on our program was publically harassed just beacuse she was wearing capris and a t-shirt... yeah, it's serious). It is equally weird for Tamilians to understand that girls actually like to do more "manly" things like sports. Last weekend when we played cricket, one of the girls that was playing with us told me of the scene that occurred before she left the house: essentially her host mom was under the impression that she wasn't going to go play cricket, but sit and watch and take pictures... when the girl said that she was going to play cricket, the whole family looked at her wide eyed and asked her 2-3 times if she was actually going to play cricket. When the girl eventually got to the cricket pitch, the Indian guys we were playing with asked her if she needed someone to run for her. The list goes on, and on, but I feel like you get the point. every day it is rare to never hear one of the girls on my program frustrated at their more restricted place... and they often make comments at the four guys on the program about how we are so lucky. And to be honest, we are. This may seem to be just another male realizing his higher place in the patriarchal world we live in (I can't seem to word it right, and they way I have it down right now just sounds weird... by I hope you know what I mean)-- the girl as the victim and the male as less than affected... yet the intense visibility of these gender specific restrictions generally has made me think about how privilaged I am as a male on this program...
As I walk down the Madurai streets (and I remember this to be true of Benaras as well), it is weird if I do not see a single piece of trash. If any of you have looked at the pictures I posted on Picasa, there are a couple of pictures of just trash. They aren't of garbage in near or around garbage cans. They're of garbage in river basins, beside houses, lining the roads during cycle rides, and more. And when I say trash, I mean trash- like piles and piles and bags and loads of tiny specks as I ride past on my cycle. I also took one picture of a fire by the side of the road. This wasn't a random fire that college students would jump over after UNC beat Duke in an epic game going into four overtimes for the NCAA championship- it was a fire that was burning excess trash by the side of the road. Trash is omnipresent here, and it is not strange to see a person break open a banana, toss it, and watch as a cow slurps it up and calls it a meal. This doesn't work too well with plastic or material trash in general, which is the majority of the trash that I see. As such, most of the Indian ground is infused with plastics or someone's lunch container from a nearby restaurant. It's weird to see trash so close to you at all times of the day. (I know that around COlby campus I pick up trash whenever I see some and place it in a trash bin... although how elitist is it to do such a thing, when the trash will only end up in someone else's backyard while I enjoy the bermuda grass and greenery (or whitery, depending on the season) of Colby campus. So it goes.) While the Indian government has a trash collecting system, it is much like the jaywalking law: it will probably not be enforced or followed... On top of this, the trash on the side of the road often provides jobs for poorer people (people of the lowest caste), so is it really that bad? THere are a lot of aspects to this "public trash" of public property, and so many questions attached to it as well... What is interesting about this is that you rarely find trash in private places or places covered by a roof... whereas most of the trash from the inside gets deposited right outside the house. I'm actually starting to get used to it. I threw my first piece of trash onto the ground the otherday: a small plastic bag filled with excess banana leafs and newspaper that used to be my lunch. It was hard to do the throwing motion with a plastic bag in hand, knowing I would just be submitting to the Indian man. I admit-- I almost kept it in my pocket and waited till I got back to the SITA center, but then I realized that it would end up somewhere anyhow, so why would such a small piece of trash make a load of difference if it were in front of my house or in some poor person's backyard? (Cue Emma and every other environmental friendly person at Colby's gaping mouth... oh and Dan Band and Eric Maltbie's)
I don't believe I elaborated enough on eating. For one, you eat with your hands (your right hand actually, because your left hand is your ass wiping hand. in general, the right hand is more "auspicious", and if you offer a left hand to greet someone, they might spit in your face... if you're really feeling dirty, you can step on their feet with your left foot and then greet them with your left hand... I haven't tried it out yet, but I'm thinking that you might end up with cow dung as a moustache), except for soup and things like this. Indians actually say that it is MORE sanitary to eat with your hands (after washing them of course), and that it feels much more natural to eat from the hand than from a pronged metal device, and they have a point. Who knows what really is on a spoon before you pick it up in Foss dining hall... and feeling the food before shoving it in your mouth really makes you appreciate it a whole lot more in general.
I think I'm done with the details. NOw on to what I've been up to lately:
Despite the fact that I've only been in Madurai for 19 days, I have become really close with my host family, so close that the other day I said "parawa-yilla" (aka: enh, it's ok) to my amma asking me whether the food was good or not (in Tamil society, if you say that, you generally get a backhand to the face because it is equal to saying "your cooking isn't actually all that great"- and I did, in fact, receive a firm backhand to the back when I said this-- although she knew I was joking; oddly related, my ammaa can throw a frisbee backhand very very far). Me and my ammaa are quite a sarcastic pair, and we definitely have a playful sort of mother-son thing going on (cue maternal mother jealousy). I'm getting on really great with my host siblings. My sister and brother are both warming up to me, and we regularly play small games such as hopscotch or scrabble. I've also taught both of them how to throw a frisbee, and we regularly play in the lot in front of my house after I get home from SITA each day (I have not, however, taught them the denial defence fucking in tents cheer yet, so I can't say that they are real frisbee players yet... that is next on my agenda). Me and my appaa are continuing our more "intellectual" conversations, and I ask him a lot about the current state of politics in Tamil Nadu (the state of India we are in) or what he thinks about a news instance. We both watched the Obama inauguration together, and smiled throughout (we were both quite irritated about the announcers saying this was a huge inauguration just cause it was the FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN president... and what about him changing politics? I dunno, it was a very racist moment). I love my situation at home right now, and I always am very willing for my privacy to be disturbed by any of them :-).
The other day we went to a religious cave on the outskirts of Madurai. It had been constructed in the 8th century AD by South Indian Hindus in the area (Jain Hill was a very holy place for Jainists). When we originally arrived to the space, I almost thought we were visiting a petting zoo. Surrounding the cave were hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of free-range monkeys. I've never seen something so incredible in my life. For the first 30 minutes of our visit, we were playing with monkeys (in a very distant manner) and watching monkeys play and make use of the human trash in the surrounding area. I have a picture of one of the girls giving a monkey water from her water bottle. Another girl took a video of a monkey chewing gum, and in the middle of him chewing, he grasped the gum and stretched it outside of our mouth, like a 8 year old kid who had just realized that gum was flexible. I had never been so close to a wild animal in my life (well, besides the cows that accompany me to lunch occasionally), and seeing how human these monkeys were was simply amazing. I felt like a chief photographer for National Geographic studying the humanization of animals. It is indescribable in words-- Hopefully I'll get these pictures up soon.
Some other things I have done:
I went downtown to get a USB cord alone and got HOPELESSLY lost. No, I didn't lose my ability to read maps, no I didn't lose my ability to follow directions, Madurai's just freaking confusing (picture downtown boston on steroids. Fucking scary) and the traffic pattern on top of trying to find your way is always really scary. I'm definitely making a facebook album of this experience, so stay tuned-- the pictures will tell what I won't right now!
Last night my ammaa taught me how to drive a motorbike (no mother, I didn't go into the road-- SITA prohibits me from doing so anyway), and I spent close to 30 minutes transporting my thampi (little brother) around the compound. It was really fun, but I can totally understand why I'm being barred from getting a bike: I would get hurt. It's bad enough that I played chicken with an autorickshaw the other day (actually it was more like: I was driving on the LEFT side of the road like any other driver, and this auto rickshaw was coming directly at me from the opposite direction. We then charged at each other until the auto rikshaw got scared and swerved out of the way. I'm thinking about trying it with a bus...), and when you're on a motorbike, you can just lose control in all the divets and swerves you have to do as a small vehicle in a transportation hierarchy based on LARGENESS.
If some of you saw my facebook status the other day, you'll know that i can now officially make dosai- a delicious South Indian pancake. Next to come is sambar, chippati, and hopefully vadai. Yes, I am planning on cooking for you (and yes I will be cooking NON SPICY things as well, despite the fact that everything here can burn your mouth of in t-minus .01 seconds). Yay for cooking!
I suppose that is all, I'm a little perturbed at the amount of work that my classes are giving me-- I mean, I understand I'm in college right now technically, but why give me 80 pages a night to read? Really SITA? Really? Anyway, I"m past it and ready to hit the trains (we're taking an overnight train to Mysore-- so exciting! yes mom, I will wear my money belt and lock all my belongings...) for our tour. I'm also going to be able to buy a beer for the first time (save Canada) as a minor-- it is ok to drink in Bangalore/Mysore-- actually people do it quite regularly. So much for being dry while I'm here.
If you haven't already, check out my photos! I'm not done with them by any means (I have a whole other memory card to add onto it), but hopefully they wil be up after tour!
Love and miss you all, and keep being beautiful.
Poo yete Vaaren.
Hasan
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Oops!
I didn't mean to actually post this (I have an update coming-- I'm gonna do it before I leave for the "educational travel I" that will be 7 days next week). Sorry for the let down :-(
Oh wait, JUST KIDDING!: I have a reason to distract you from your lives. My picasa page is http://picasaweb.google.com/thewilderfire/India1?feat=directlink so if you get tired of waiting for the slideshow on the right of the screen, you can just go straight to that and look at visual representations of my emails (I'm going to post a few albums on facebook of select photos in categories... but that is a long way away...)
Anyways, I'm doing well-- update to come
Love and miss you allllllll :-)
Hasan
Oh wait, JUST KIDDING!: I have a reason to distract you from your lives. My picasa page is http://picasaweb.google.com/thewilderfire/India1?feat=directlink so if you get tired of waiting for the slideshow on the right of the screen, you can just go straight to that and look at visual representations of my emails (I'm going to post a few albums on facebook of select photos in categories... but that is a long way away...)
Anyways, I'm doing well-- update to come
Love and miss you allllllll :-)
Hasan
Sunday, January 25, 2009
India Update #2 (w/o pics)
Nalla Tung (good evening).
Here's a continuation of my last email: sorry it's overkill. Maybe I should follow people's complaints and just make a blog. For now, I've set my firewall on anti-peer-pressure.
Anyway, a lot has happened to me since I've gotten here. On top of the cultural adjustment charted out in my last email (which surprisingly has gone a lot smoother than planned), a combination of SITA events and my own cultural exploration have kept me busy since I landed two Wednesdays ago. Upon arriving in Chennai (that city I told you about that was north of here), we checked into a hotel for the night to regain our bearings (which we lost due to heavy turbulence and sitting in between huge muscular men on the flight... economy class for 16 hours is severely underrated... for its fucking discomfort). We took a train to Madurai the next day, which brought me back to my train rides across the north in '96. One thing that isn't underrated is the Indian countryside. The South is relatively flat, so when I looked out the window just to space out, I found myself staring at around a hundred miles (and more) of lush green fields and tropical plants that would make cole and firmage cry with joy. That was a little hyperbolic of me. Suffice it to say that it was a very beautiful ride, and despite the fact that I had completed only 5 hours of sleep during my 48 hour travel period to India, I managed to stay awake, making small talk with the crew and watching the wild Indian countryside fly by me. The Indian train, for those who have experienced it, is an... experience. When you think you're sitting in an A/C car to yourself, train attendants invade your personal space yelling "CHAI CHAI CHAIIIIIII" or "Coffee walla, coffee walla" or "vadai, vadai, vadai (fried donut)" and banging loudly as they pass. So on top of the fact that I was constantly preoccupied, the expectation to sleep at all was close to nil anyhow. The bathrooms are equally as experiential. (For those who don't know, an Indian toilet is essentially a hole in the floor that is only flushed by a bucket of ameoba/giardia filled water (slight exaggeration). On top of that, the Indian plumbing system (well not on trains, your business actually goes str8 on the tracks) cannot tolerate toilet paper or any paper product. That's right, number two included. I'll spare you the details, but it involves a cup of water and your left hand... and some rigorous soap and water soaking shortly afterwards). In the words of Blake Kast from Grinnell College in Iowa: "It was a nice little introduction to South India" (yes si, we have some discussing to do :-P).
We arrived in Tanjavore, a major center for Hinduism in the south, the same day as the ride, and spent the night shopping in the center of town. I got a greyish/black shirt for about 400 rupees and a veshti for 200 in preparation for Pongal (a new year for Tamil people celebrating the harvest). A veshti is much like a man-skirt that you tie. Actually, bad analogy. It's like a very thin cotton towel that is completely white save a lining colored in some fashion or another (yes, you tie it the same way as well). For those of you up in Maine right now, this may not be a good option for the negative temparatures that plague the hill. For us in Madurai, the veshti allows a very nice breeze in 80 degree weather, if you get my meaning.
The next day, we went to the "Big Temple" in Tanjavore devoted to the Hindu god Shiva. We went at around 5 at night, and the sun was setting as we arrived. It was probably one of the most breathtaking sights I've seen (no, I haven't been to the grand canyon yet) since being introduced to the Old City of Jerusalem just under 4 years ago (I miss it too Annie). I have some pictures attached to give you a sense of the lighting while I was there. I also have a pic of me being blessed by an elephant. Hindu mythology says its good luck to be blessed by a Yaanai (elephant in the picture). The way it works: you give the elephant a sacrifice offering (some form of fruit, usually a banana cause they love them, and bananas here are excellent), which of course he eats. Afterwards, you give him a one rupee piece, that goes into the bucket of the "yaanai master" who trains the elephant. Right after you place the rupee in his trunk, the elephant touches your head and wallah, you're blessed. After the elephant episode, we went inside and "prayed"... which is hardly a good word for it, because well, we aren't very Hindu. Hopefully I'll be able to put up a facebook album of that night, the shots I got were incredible.
K I'm gonna try and hurry to today (I'll probably fail, but stick with me... p(l)eas(e)?
After Tanjavore, we took a van ride down to Madurai through the chaos of oncoming traffic (and buses... I'm still scared of them). When we reached Madurai, me and a couple of kids on the program took a walk around. The first few minutes were intense (see email #1), but we eventually found ourselves next to the river that splits Madurai into two halves (the SITA center is on the half that isn't in the downtown area). Again, incredibly beautiful (attached picture). While walking around, kids and Indian adults came up to us to get our picture taken. The interactions I had on that first walk were like none I've ever had in my life (or I think I've ever had in my life... subject to debate...). Every person I talked to was so compelled to understand who I was. I frequently had to answer questions with "Chapel Hill, North Carolina" or "yes, I was in Benaras 10 years agoish" (the ish threw them off a lot-- I only did that number once). It was so unlike the states... and I really am trying to not make a blanket statement here. I've had a lot more penetrating first discussions with people here than I've ever had with anyone I've met in the US. It's very strange-- it's probably cause I'm a westerner, but I can't help being reminded of how the concepts of people and time could not be more different here. To a Tamil person's mind, I am a subject of study, wonder, curiosity, and information, someone to be recognized and questioned (and practiced English on in very fast and odd Tamil accents). People take the time from where they are going or what they are doing to reach out to me. I also notice that, as I said in the last email, people talk A LOT here to strangers. Despite all the banter about "protect your belongings," I almost feel like if I were to leave a piece of information on the street with my name and phone number on the street (given that it had no economic value of course), it would be returned to me... I can't really describe it well, and it also may be the thrill of seeing an obvious Westerner donning a t-shirt with the words "Rikshaw sir?" imprinted next to a space-man on the moon.
Anyways, you're probably wondering what I've been up to in Madurai. Well, we've gone to the following places as a group: Meenakshi Temple (a huge huge temple with like 8 huge towers around it... unfortunately they're thatched up because they are "undergoing a paint job"... which happens once every 12 years... what's awesome, is that the "unveiling" of the repainted pires occur the day after we leave Madurai. Brilliant), Jain Hill (essentially a large 1000 foot hill made of rocks-- don't think this is small you white mountain/rocky mountain snobs-- because the world is essentially flat down here, you can see quite a bit from just 1000 feet), and celebrated Pongal (which was a great experience-- can only be described in pics... facebook will help me on this one... or perhaps my future blog?). All of these places were incredible, and I fully enjoyed the experiences I had there... Although Meenakshi is quite big, I much preferred Tanjavore's.
Today me and two other people from my group took a trip to a surrounding village around Madurai as part of my socio-political issues class. I think this might have been the first time that I've felt uncomfortable as a foreigner here (elaboration below). Madurai is increasing its size rapidly, and within 20 years, these more traditionally run village will be associated into the city. When we arrived, I encountered a very homely and cohesive town. It reminded me of a sort of African township that I had seen in movies during my Ethnographies of Africa class my sophomore fall year. We saw a temple in the open air, and I took a lot of pictures. While we were in the village, however, the air metaphorically started to take on a subtly darker color. We learned from our teacher that the political system in the town had completely been decimated by government reforms in an effort to globalize India. The town before the invasion of Multi-national Corporations was a self-sufficient town that traded with Madurai for goods (often farmers would go in and sell their goods for a profit as well). The political system in place: a headman would settle village disputes. The headman was chosen on a hereditary basis, and served as the political head of the village. Contrary to US politics, this did not mean that this headman was wealthy in any respect. The caste system is very much a reality for these villages, with the village we visited being made up of 4 castes. That being said, the people there get along well despite the oppressive tenets set by the caste system. After some government changes, however, things have begun to change. WIth a law that empowers an economic hierarchy over a caste system, the headman position has completely disappeared. While the hereditary headman was habitually poor each year, figures in the villages who had accumulated wealth began to speak out against the headmen economically, displacing a once solid and rooted power. As a result, people have started to fight for power in the area, and because the headman himself is supposed to settle disputes between the village people, this dispute is yet to be resolved. During the headman dispute, all disputes are thus put on the backburner (the dispute has been ongoing for the last 30 years... which means all village disputes have not been mediated). On top of this, government allowances to MNC's have forced many village owners to sell their land to these MNC's and lose their once self-subsistent living pattern. Because the village people are for the most part illiterate and uneducated and the MNC primarily operates through machinery and employs highly specialized workers, this results in a job vacuum in the area, leaving the villagers to find other methods of income.
As I sat there absorbing the above information with my camera and waterbottle in hand (there's a lot more to tell, but I think you guys don't really enjoy anthropological essays... I can tell you that I can become quite bored by some of them as well), I suddenly felt out of place ethically. All we were doing in that space was learning about their suffering, extracting this information in order to understand larger issues at stake... when all three of us knew that we probably wouldn't even help this community regain their traditional bearings in the slightest. Every picture I took felt like piracy-- Who was I to extract this information and leave this community high and dry, while I come away with an extra experience to add to my ever-growing Study Abroad resume. It just seemed so unfair to extract and not give back. We met so many people today, but I don't know any of their names (I feel really guilty about this), only their faces through those lovely pictures I took that will make other people on this program want to visit as well... On top of that, how could a local and national government only supplement this economic and political reform as the only solution? A lot more must be done, and yet there's no one arising to the task. My host dad says that politics here are corrupt, and my experience today was proof in a sense (indirectly). I dunno, I acknowledge that we must experience to learn about our lives and eventually fix them, but I was particularly bothered by that today, because I just couldn't help them out. Perhaps I'll do my Independent Study on that village... or some like it to give back for what they provided me (which was a "good time" and a "new way of looking at things", two things that a study abroad student often strives for in their experience).
I don't mean to be over-critical or satirical... I guess I just never really fully faced the North-South divide occuring in front of my face before. I read all these articles about the anthropological debate surrounding anthropological extraction just for the anthropologist's research grant (aka, just to the betterment of the anthropologist, leaving the community to be helped by someone who ends up reading the report, which often ends up being not too many people) and other ones about North-South production/consumption things... but god it felt so shitty to sit there with my camera and take mental notes of my experience when these people were struggling to survive.
Anyway, I've pretty much taken you through the highlights so far. Of course I've been taking classes (enrolled in Environmental Issues, Socio-political Issues, Tamil language, and Ethnographic methods) and mulling around on my own just to get more and more familiar with the area (and I relearned how to play cricket last weekend with a bunch of guys my age and from my program-- Abajan's lessons earlier in my life served me well, because I ended up being one of the best players out there :-)). I'm also continuing to satisfy myself with daily bucket showers (shower heads waste too much water in the Indian mind). The first one is always painful because it is so cold, but after the first few waterfalls, you begin to gain back sensitivity again. Other than that, I've been writing and reading a lot in my spare time, on top of bonding with my host family. They really are great. I could probably write a whole email about how appreciative I am of them (especially cause I hear horror stories about other host families from other people on my program... force-feeding, force-dressing and force-hairdos have come through the grape-vine quite often...).
That's all for now. Shit, it's 7:30 pm (after dark). I need to get back to my host family. Enjoy the pics, and I'll be sure to write during the following weeks (maybe about a blog?)
Love and miss you all so much, and keep updating me with how you're doing-- the emails I've received so far have been really rewarding to read and I thank those of you who have sent them :-)
Pooh yete vaaren
Love,
Hasan
Here's a continuation of my last email: sorry it's overkill. Maybe I should follow people's complaints and just make a blog. For now, I've set my firewall on anti-peer-pressure.
Anyway, a lot has happened to me since I've gotten here. On top of the cultural adjustment charted out in my last email (which surprisingly has gone a lot smoother than planned), a combination of SITA events and my own cultural exploration have kept me busy since I landed two Wednesdays ago. Upon arriving in Chennai (that city I told you about that was north of here), we checked into a hotel for the night to regain our bearings (which we lost due to heavy turbulence and sitting in between huge muscular men on the flight... economy class for 16 hours is severely underrated... for its fucking discomfort). We took a train to Madurai the next day, which brought me back to my train rides across the north in '96. One thing that isn't underrated is the Indian countryside. The South is relatively flat, so when I looked out the window just to space out, I found myself staring at around a hundred miles (and more) of lush green fields and tropical plants that would make cole and firmage cry with joy. That was a little hyperbolic of me. Suffice it to say that it was a very beautiful ride, and despite the fact that I had completed only 5 hours of sleep during my 48 hour travel period to India, I managed to stay awake, making small talk with the crew and watching the wild Indian countryside fly by me. The Indian train, for those who have experienced it, is an... experience. When you think you're sitting in an A/C car to yourself, train attendants invade your personal space yelling "CHAI CHAI CHAIIIIIII" or "Coffee walla, coffee walla" or "vadai, vadai, vadai (fried donut)" and banging loudly as they pass. So on top of the fact that I was constantly preoccupied, the expectation to sleep at all was close to nil anyhow. The bathrooms are equally as experiential. (For those who don't know, an Indian toilet is essentially a hole in the floor that is only flushed by a bucket of ameoba/giardia filled water (slight exaggeration). On top of that, the Indian plumbing system (well not on trains, your business actually goes str8 on the tracks) cannot tolerate toilet paper or any paper product. That's right, number two included. I'll spare you the details, but it involves a cup of water and your left hand... and some rigorous soap and water soaking shortly afterwards). In the words of Blake Kast from Grinnell College in Iowa: "It was a nice little introduction to South India" (yes si, we have some discussing to do :-P).
We arrived in Tanjavore, a major center for Hinduism in the south, the same day as the ride, and spent the night shopping in the center of town. I got a greyish/black shirt for about 400 rupees and a veshti for 200 in preparation for Pongal (a new year for Tamil people celebrating the harvest). A veshti is much like a man-skirt that you tie. Actually, bad analogy. It's like a very thin cotton towel that is completely white save a lining colored in some fashion or another (yes, you tie it the same way as well). For those of you up in Maine right now, this may not be a good option for the negative temparatures that plague the hill. For us in Madurai, the veshti allows a very nice breeze in 80 degree weather, if you get my meaning.
The next day, we went to the "Big Temple" in Tanjavore devoted to the Hindu god Shiva. We went at around 5 at night, and the sun was setting as we arrived. It was probably one of the most breathtaking sights I've seen (no, I haven't been to the grand canyon yet) since being introduced to the Old City of Jerusalem just under 4 years ago (I miss it too Annie). I have some pictures attached to give you a sense of the lighting while I was there. I also have a pic of me being blessed by an elephant. Hindu mythology says its good luck to be blessed by a Yaanai (elephant in the picture). The way it works: you give the elephant a sacrifice offering (some form of fruit, usually a banana cause they love them, and bananas here are excellent), which of course he eats. Afterwards, you give him a one rupee piece, that goes into the bucket of the "yaanai master" who trains the elephant. Right after you place the rupee in his trunk, the elephant touches your head and wallah, you're blessed. After the elephant episode, we went inside and "prayed"... which is hardly a good word for it, because well, we aren't very Hindu. Hopefully I'll be able to put up a facebook album of that night, the shots I got were incredible.
K I'm gonna try and hurry to today (I'll probably fail, but stick with me... p(l)eas(e)?
After Tanjavore, we took a van ride down to Madurai through the chaos of oncoming traffic (and buses... I'm still scared of them). When we reached Madurai, me and a couple of kids on the program took a walk around. The first few minutes were intense (see email #1), but we eventually found ourselves next to the river that splits Madurai into two halves (the SITA center is on the half that isn't in the downtown area). Again, incredibly beautiful (attached picture). While walking around, kids and Indian adults came up to us to get our picture taken. The interactions I had on that first walk were like none I've ever had in my life (or I think I've ever had in my life... subject to debate...). Every person I talked to was so compelled to understand who I was. I frequently had to answer questions with "Chapel Hill, North Carolina" or "yes, I was in Benaras 10 years agoish" (the ish threw them off a lot-- I only did that number once). It was so unlike the states... and I really am trying to not make a blanket statement here. I've had a lot more penetrating first discussions with people here than I've ever had with anyone I've met in the US. It's very strange-- it's probably cause I'm a westerner, but I can't help being reminded of how the concepts of people and time could not be more different here. To a Tamil person's mind, I am a subject of study, wonder, curiosity, and information, someone to be recognized and questioned (and practiced English on in very fast and odd Tamil accents). People take the time from where they are going or what they are doing to reach out to me. I also notice that, as I said in the last email, people talk A LOT here to strangers. Despite all the banter about "protect your belongings," I almost feel like if I were to leave a piece of information on the street with my name and phone number on the street (given that it had no economic value of course), it would be returned to me... I can't really describe it well, and it also may be the thrill of seeing an obvious Westerner donning a t-shirt with the words "Rikshaw sir?" imprinted next to a space-man on the moon.
Anyways, you're probably wondering what I've been up to in Madurai. Well, we've gone to the following places as a group: Meenakshi Temple (a huge huge temple with like 8 huge towers around it... unfortunately they're thatched up because they are "undergoing a paint job"... which happens once every 12 years... what's awesome, is that the "unveiling" of the repainted pires occur the day after we leave Madurai. Brilliant), Jain Hill (essentially a large 1000 foot hill made of rocks-- don't think this is small you white mountain/rocky mountain snobs-- because the world is essentially flat down here, you can see quite a bit from just 1000 feet), and celebrated Pongal (which was a great experience-- can only be described in pics... facebook will help me on this one... or perhaps my future blog?). All of these places were incredible, and I fully enjoyed the experiences I had there... Although Meenakshi is quite big, I much preferred Tanjavore's.
Today me and two other people from my group took a trip to a surrounding village around Madurai as part of my socio-political issues class. I think this might have been the first time that I've felt uncomfortable as a foreigner here (elaboration below). Madurai is increasing its size rapidly, and within 20 years, these more traditionally run village will be associated into the city. When we arrived, I encountered a very homely and cohesive town. It reminded me of a sort of African township that I had seen in movies during my Ethnographies of Africa class my sophomore fall year. We saw a temple in the open air, and I took a lot of pictures. While we were in the village, however, the air metaphorically started to take on a subtly darker color. We learned from our teacher that the political system in the town had completely been decimated by government reforms in an effort to globalize India. The town before the invasion of Multi-national Corporations was a self-sufficient town that traded with Madurai for goods (often farmers would go in and sell their goods for a profit as well). The political system in place: a headman would settle village disputes. The headman was chosen on a hereditary basis, and served as the political head of the village. Contrary to US politics, this did not mean that this headman was wealthy in any respect. The caste system is very much a reality for these villages, with the village we visited being made up of 4 castes. That being said, the people there get along well despite the oppressive tenets set by the caste system. After some government changes, however, things have begun to change. WIth a law that empowers an economic hierarchy over a caste system, the headman position has completely disappeared. While the hereditary headman was habitually poor each year, figures in the villages who had accumulated wealth began to speak out against the headmen economically, displacing a once solid and rooted power. As a result, people have started to fight for power in the area, and because the headman himself is supposed to settle disputes between the village people, this dispute is yet to be resolved. During the headman dispute, all disputes are thus put on the backburner (the dispute has been ongoing for the last 30 years... which means all village disputes have not been mediated). On top of this, government allowances to MNC's have forced many village owners to sell their land to these MNC's and lose their once self-subsistent living pattern. Because the village people are for the most part illiterate and uneducated and the MNC primarily operates through machinery and employs highly specialized workers, this results in a job vacuum in the area, leaving the villagers to find other methods of income.
As I sat there absorbing the above information with my camera and waterbottle in hand (there's a lot more to tell, but I think you guys don't really enjoy anthropological essays... I can tell you that I can become quite bored by some of them as well), I suddenly felt out of place ethically. All we were doing in that space was learning about their suffering, extracting this information in order to understand larger issues at stake... when all three of us knew that we probably wouldn't even help this community regain their traditional bearings in the slightest. Every picture I took felt like piracy-- Who was I to extract this information and leave this community high and dry, while I come away with an extra experience to add to my ever-growing Study Abroad resume. It just seemed so unfair to extract and not give back. We met so many people today, but I don't know any of their names (I feel really guilty about this), only their faces through those lovely pictures I took that will make other people on this program want to visit as well... On top of that, how could a local and national government only supplement this economic and political reform as the only solution? A lot more must be done, and yet there's no one arising to the task. My host dad says that politics here are corrupt, and my experience today was proof in a sense (indirectly). I dunno, I acknowledge that we must experience to learn about our lives and eventually fix them, but I was particularly bothered by that today, because I just couldn't help them out. Perhaps I'll do my Independent Study on that village... or some like it to give back for what they provided me (which was a "good time" and a "new way of looking at things", two things that a study abroad student often strives for in their experience).
I don't mean to be over-critical or satirical... I guess I just never really fully faced the North-South divide occuring in front of my face before. I read all these articles about the anthropological debate surrounding anthropological extraction just for the anthropologist's research grant (aka, just to the betterment of the anthropologist, leaving the community to be helped by someone who ends up reading the report, which often ends up being not too many people) and other ones about North-South production/consumption things... but god it felt so shitty to sit there with my camera and take mental notes of my experience when these people were struggling to survive.
Anyway, I've pretty much taken you through the highlights so far. Of course I've been taking classes (enrolled in Environmental Issues, Socio-political Issues, Tamil language, and Ethnographic methods) and mulling around on my own just to get more and more familiar with the area (and I relearned how to play cricket last weekend with a bunch of guys my age and from my program-- Abajan's lessons earlier in my life served me well, because I ended up being one of the best players out there :-)). I'm also continuing to satisfy myself with daily bucket showers (shower heads waste too much water in the Indian mind). The first one is always painful because it is so cold, but after the first few waterfalls, you begin to gain back sensitivity again. Other than that, I've been writing and reading a lot in my spare time, on top of bonding with my host family. They really are great. I could probably write a whole email about how appreciative I am of them (especially cause I hear horror stories about other host families from other people on my program... force-feeding, force-dressing and force-hairdos have come through the grape-vine quite often...).
That's all for now. Shit, it's 7:30 pm (after dark). I need to get back to my host family. Enjoy the pics, and I'll be sure to write during the following weeks (maybe about a blog?)
Love and miss you all so much, and keep updating me with how you're doing-- the emails I've received so far have been really rewarding to read and I thank those of you who have sent them :-)
Pooh yete vaaren
Love,
Hasan
Vadakkan! India Update #1
Vadakkan! (aka, greetings)
***Technically you're supposed to say vadakkan when you first meet someone, but I feel it is appropriate for my first email from Tamil Nadu (the state I'm in right now) to use it anyways. For all you Jews: you could say it's the shehechianu of greetings in some sense***
Hello everyone! I'm sorry its taken me so long to write the first one of these (mainly for those of you who have been nudging me to tell what's going on-- I've been straying away from internet as much as possible while I'm here which has been failing for the most part so far-- trying to get it down to like twice a week or so).
THere's just so much I have to tell in such a small space. It's only been two weeks, but I feel like I've experienced experiences that I ordinarily would have had in a time frame closer to 3 months in the US. I hope I don't bore you with the details, because there are a lot of them and some of you (cough, kelsey and mother) know a lot of what I'm about to share.
I'll use this email to introduce you to what I experience on a day to day basis. In a subsequent email, I'll expound on what I've been doing and what I've been experiencing (because half of what I describe will be hard to process if you first do not know what is going on around me at the time).
Right now, I am in an fan-blown internet cafe about thirty feet away from the SITA (South India Term Abroad) center where we attend classes and meet for SITA cultural excursions/traditions. Using the internet in this cafe costs about 15 rupees per hour, (in american dollars, thats about 30 cents an hour) so its relatively inexpensive for the amount of time you get. Surprisingly, the connection is about as fast as Colby Wireless. Right now I am in Madurai, India (hopefully the link works: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl) where the SITA program is based. The Program Assistants on our program joke that while Madurai is a city full of 1.9 million people, you can often hear your name mentioned while you cycle (bike) down the street. A story is often told that if you go downtown to the local jewelry store and buy a couple of bangles, by the time you get back to your host family, the mother will know the color of your bangles, how much you paid for them, and if you got ripped off or not. As you can tell, there is a loose yet somehow cohesive community bubbling around me as I type. Walking the streets of Madurai could not be more different than the frozen roads of Waterville. Dust and sand mar the sides of patched paved roads. It is common to walk alongside a cow while you stroll to eat at a local restaurant (the max I've had to pay for a lunch or dinner meal has been 100 rupees, or about 2 dollars. All you can eat lunch has been around the 35 rupee range, which is around 70 cents just to give you a perspective of costs here), and watch him/her release his/her past lunch on the street surface. Walking the streets of Madurai is such an intense sensory experience. Everywhere you look, you see a mini-scene occurring: people working on an under-road pipe, a woman holding her child close while trying to navigate the indian traffic (it's a lot like double dutch, you have to feel when you can cross the street... despite the fact that a law has been passed against jaywalking, people still do it, and honestly, I'd be surprised if police actually arrested people for it), an auto rikshaw (equivalent of taxis in cities yet a lot smaller and odd shaped) narrowly missing an oncoming bus, signs of the beautiful Tamil script showing the way to the nearest internet cafe, the colorful dress of an Indian sari or salwar kamiz passing all around you. But it doesn't stop there: as you walk the streets, you are instantly hit with the many sounds and smells on top of the intense visual experience: people rabbling in rapid Tamil, the endless onslaught of vehicles beeping (people beep here to tell you when they're coming or passing you, so the frequency of beeping and cycle bells is approximately once every .000001 second), the breeze hitting the trees, Kids screaming "hi, hi, hi" and "how are you how are you" in your face because of your obvious western demeanor (I've actually been mistaken for Indian once or twice... which has been quite funny actually. When they realized I was western, their face lights up and start to ask me questions about my family-- questions we take personally in the US like "what does your mom do" directly after meeting someone is common dialogue here), and the smells of sewers, passing jasmine flowers, or diesel gas from passing vehicles. WHat makes it more complicated is that each street itself has its own culture. This isn't to say this is the case in the US-- but the street's culture hits you straight in the face every time you walk down it.
Now add that to the traffic pattern...
As I said before, I drive my cycle to the SITA center (around a 3 km ride) through half paved and half sandy roads filled with vehicles ranging from cycle rikshaws to bikes to four wheel cars to massive busses (when I say massive, I mean like over 17 feet tall. The busses here are HUGE). On top of the above attack on the senses, I am forced to navigate the chaotic streets. This may be hard to believe for all who have been oppressed by Boston driving, but the traffic here would make every single dick Boston driver you've ever got cut off by scared. I ride my bicycle (called just a cycle here-- bike is the word used for motorcycle here) and literally almost get hit five times a day. There is no such thing as two sides of the road here. Often a two way street can easily turn into a clogged one way road, leaving many vehicles going the opposite direction standing still. In order to pass someone here with a car or a bus, you often drift into the opposite lane, displacing oncoming vehicles. There seems to be a hierarchy of vehicles on the street, where the biggest vehicles are able to displace every single vehicle on the road if they wish to pass someone. You would think that under this seemingly "lawless" driving pattern, there would be countless amounts of horrible accidents. NOthing could be further from the truth. Because Indians are so focused on driving in this lawless traffic atmosphere, everyone is able to avoid accidents. This isn't to say it doesn't happen; the frequency of accidents here far outnumber those in the US, but they aren't as frequent as you might think.
When you combine the sensory onslaught and the traffic pattern, you find yourself becoming so overwhelmed and often cornered into little pockets filled with other cycles. One of the girls on my program and I were once walking in a fairly trafficky area, and then encountered total silence. We both flipped our shit-- silence is one thing that you don't get a lot of in India.
That being said, it is possibly one of the funnest ways to travel that I've ever encountered so far.
Switching gears now:
Adjusting to the climate has been a struggle. As some of you know, I've been to India once before, except around 1000-2000 km north of where I am right now. I am right now combating 80-100 degree weather (excluding humidity) on a day to day basis. What's a little humorous is when I look at my weekly SITA schedule and realize we're in the middle of JANUARY (to emphasize this point: Indians often call a climate "cold" if it drops under 75-- I even saw a woman with WOOL ear muffs during one of my morning rides here-- when I looked at the thermometer in the SITA center, it read 70 degrees). While I don't burn easily, the sunlight here is incredibly bright, and just staying out in the sun for an hour squinting about can result in quite a headache. I also have to drink around 5 liters of water per day just to remain hydrated. And by water, I mean bottled water, because, as my host mother put it, "god knows what's in the tap water." You will get sick if you drink the tap water here (the tanks that water comes from is often creeping with ameoba and protists that will give you excellent sicknesses like giardia and dissentary. Bottled water is the only sure way to drink water safely... even that's risky since most people just refill bottles here with tap water, so you must be careful even while drinking bottled water). That isn't to say you can't shower and wash your hands with it. You just don't want ameobas in your body.
My host family is really really great. This is their second time hosting, but by the way they act, they look like they have been hosting for quite some time now. They totally understand the issue of privacy, (which is something that Indians do not often give you it's natural to be more public and less private here-- private spaces increase speculation unless you are sleeping or doing something that requires the door to be closed) make incredible food (yes mother, I AM eating a lot here-- in fact, until I'm about 80% full which is something I don't do very often-- but I'm still somehow losing weight... I'll expound on my food experience in a later email, I'm quickly running out of time-- must eat lunch soon), and talk English extremely well (and thus teach me tamil on a day to day basis, which is freaking sweet). My host siblings are equally fantastic. The girl, who is 8 years old, is very vibrant, talkative, and really loves to be the center of attention (which often elicits frequent scoldings from my ammaa-- tamil for host mom). Oddly enough, she doesn't really like artistic things such as hair ties and coloring materials... so the gifts I originally got her are a little bit useless. She does love to sing, and often does so while simplifying fractions or writing my name in cursive English. My brother is very soft-spoken. He is 12 years old and is extremely mathematically driven, and enjoys talking with me about random random things from my life. He loves the backstreet boys (ironically, the first CD I ever bought was the backstreet boys first self-named album at the age of 12) and many mainstream rock groups such as linkin park and good charlotte (i haven't commented on these... because these are two of my least favorite bands...). Despite our differences in musical taste, he is extremely curious about life in the US. My appaa (father in Tamil) is the Madurai correspondent for the national newspaper in India (The Hindu), and works very long hours. I only see him before I leave for SITA each morning and on Saturdays (his off day). He is extremely interested in politics, and often discusses world politics and conflicts with me. He is extremely smart and knowledgeable, and really adds a different and often more educated and neutral perspective on many US issues (such as the recent election, which he believes will not be as monumental as everyone sees it as-- To him, it seems a longshot that Obama will be able to change much of the current political system to the way he wants to lead). My ammaa is an extremely vibrant and caring person (her daughter takes after her in these respects). We often talk about the differences between our two cultures which gives way to a discussion about the problems that we have with the two. She is an extremely understanding person, and really takes care of her kids very well. She doesn't have a day job, and stays at home taking care of the house when everyone else is gone (this is the standard woman's role in a Brahman--scholarly/priestly caste of Indian society-- household, and she does not mind the role, though wishes she was able to take classes and get out a bit more). She is equally as educated as my appaa, having graduated from Chennai (city about 4 hour train ride North of Madurai) University with a degree in Economics. As Kelsey knows well, she is an extremely good cook, and I often find myself extremely full by the end of dinner or breakfast.
I have to go grab some lunch right now, but I'll be sure to write again in the next couple of days. I have so much more to tell: what I do on a daily basis, where I've been so far, who I've met, what words I know how to say in Tamil, how I crashed into a rikshaw driver my first time coming to the SITA center on my cycle (no Emma and mom, I'm not hurt) and weird past coincidences (I figured out me and my Resident Director Trudy once met while I was last in India in 1996-- On top of that, she went on the same abroad program that my mom went on in Benaras... full story to come).
I miss you all quite a bit, and wish you were here to experience this with me. I feel strangely connected to India, as if I never truly left here in 1996, and sharing the experience with you guys directly is like sharing a piece of myself. Alas, it cannot be done; maybe next summer? (anyone? anyone? Sorry mom, I know you'd like to come back with me, but you already got me for 6 months). Write me back! I'd really like to know how you guys are doing!
Hopefully I didn't miss anyone on the contact list... if you realize someone should be here and isn't (unless the "group email list" isn't shown for some reason...) and is actually one of my good friends that for some reason I missed along the way-- don't hesitate to forward this to them.
Pooyete vaaren (pronounced pohyaetae vahhren-- literally means I will go and then come again-- otherwise a way to say "I'll see you later")
Love,
Hasan
***Technically you're supposed to say vadakkan when you first meet someone, but I feel it is appropriate for my first email from Tamil Nadu (the state I'm in right now) to use it anyways. For all you Jews: you could say it's the shehechianu of greetings in some sense***
Hello everyone! I'm sorry its taken me so long to write the first one of these (mainly for those of you who have been nudging me to tell what's going on-- I've been straying away from internet as much as possible while I'm here which has been failing for the most part so far-- trying to get it down to like twice a week or so).
THere's just so much I have to tell in such a small space. It's only been two weeks, but I feel like I've experienced experiences that I ordinarily would have had in a time frame closer to 3 months in the US. I hope I don't bore you with the details, because there are a lot of them and some of you (cough, kelsey and mother) know a lot of what I'm about to share.
I'll use this email to introduce you to what I experience on a day to day basis. In a subsequent email, I'll expound on what I've been doing and what I've been experiencing (because half of what I describe will be hard to process if you first do not know what is going on around me at the time).
Right now, I am in an fan-blown internet cafe about thirty feet away from the SITA (South India Term Abroad) center where we attend classes and meet for SITA cultural excursions/traditions. Using the internet in this cafe costs about 15 rupees per hour, (in american dollars, thats about 30 cents an hour) so its relatively inexpensive for the amount of time you get. Surprisingly, the connection is about as fast as Colby Wireless. Right now I am in Madurai, India (hopefully the link works: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl) where the SITA program is based. The Program Assistants on our program joke that while Madurai is a city full of 1.9 million people, you can often hear your name mentioned while you cycle (bike) down the street. A story is often told that if you go downtown to the local jewelry store and buy a couple of bangles, by the time you get back to your host family, the mother will know the color of your bangles, how much you paid for them, and if you got ripped off or not. As you can tell, there is a loose yet somehow cohesive community bubbling around me as I type. Walking the streets of Madurai could not be more different than the frozen roads of Waterville. Dust and sand mar the sides of patched paved roads. It is common to walk alongside a cow while you stroll to eat at a local restaurant (the max I've had to pay for a lunch or dinner meal has been 100 rupees, or about 2 dollars. All you can eat lunch has been around the 35 rupee range, which is around 70 cents just to give you a perspective of costs here), and watch him/her release his/her past lunch on the street surface. Walking the streets of Madurai is such an intense sensory experience. Everywhere you look, you see a mini-scene occurring: people working on an under-road pipe, a woman holding her child close while trying to navigate the indian traffic (it's a lot like double dutch, you have to feel when you can cross the street... despite the fact that a law has been passed against jaywalking, people still do it, and honestly, I'd be surprised if police actually arrested people for it), an auto rikshaw (equivalent of taxis in cities yet a lot smaller and odd shaped) narrowly missing an oncoming bus, signs of the beautiful Tamil script showing the way to the nearest internet cafe, the colorful dress of an Indian sari or salwar kamiz passing all around you. But it doesn't stop there: as you walk the streets, you are instantly hit with the many sounds and smells on top of the intense visual experience: people rabbling in rapid Tamil, the endless onslaught of vehicles beeping (people beep here to tell you when they're coming or passing you, so the frequency of beeping and cycle bells is approximately once every .000001 second), the breeze hitting the trees, Kids screaming "hi, hi, hi" and "how are you how are you" in your face because of your obvious western demeanor (I've actually been mistaken for Indian once or twice... which has been quite funny actually. When they realized I was western, their face lights up and start to ask me questions about my family-- questions we take personally in the US like "what does your mom do" directly after meeting someone is common dialogue here), and the smells of sewers, passing jasmine flowers, or diesel gas from passing vehicles. WHat makes it more complicated is that each street itself has its own culture. This isn't to say this is the case in the US-- but the street's culture hits you straight in the face every time you walk down it.
Now add that to the traffic pattern...
As I said before, I drive my cycle to the SITA center (around a 3 km ride) through half paved and half sandy roads filled with vehicles ranging from cycle rikshaws to bikes to four wheel cars to massive busses (when I say massive, I mean like over 17 feet tall. The busses here are HUGE). On top of the above attack on the senses, I am forced to navigate the chaotic streets. This may be hard to believe for all who have been oppressed by Boston driving, but the traffic here would make every single dick Boston driver you've ever got cut off by scared. I ride my bicycle (called just a cycle here-- bike is the word used for motorcycle here) and literally almost get hit five times a day. There is no such thing as two sides of the road here. Often a two way street can easily turn into a clogged one way road, leaving many vehicles going the opposite direction standing still. In order to pass someone here with a car or a bus, you often drift into the opposite lane, displacing oncoming vehicles. There seems to be a hierarchy of vehicles on the street, where the biggest vehicles are able to displace every single vehicle on the road if they wish to pass someone. You would think that under this seemingly "lawless" driving pattern, there would be countless amounts of horrible accidents. NOthing could be further from the truth. Because Indians are so focused on driving in this lawless traffic atmosphere, everyone is able to avoid accidents. This isn't to say it doesn't happen; the frequency of accidents here far outnumber those in the US, but they aren't as frequent as you might think.
When you combine the sensory onslaught and the traffic pattern, you find yourself becoming so overwhelmed and often cornered into little pockets filled with other cycles. One of the girls on my program and I were once walking in a fairly trafficky area, and then encountered total silence. We both flipped our shit-- silence is one thing that you don't get a lot of in India.
That being said, it is possibly one of the funnest ways to travel that I've ever encountered so far.
Switching gears now:
Adjusting to the climate has been a struggle. As some of you know, I've been to India once before, except around 1000-2000 km north of where I am right now. I am right now combating 80-100 degree weather (excluding humidity) on a day to day basis. What's a little humorous is when I look at my weekly SITA schedule and realize we're in the middle of JANUARY (to emphasize this point: Indians often call a climate "cold" if it drops under 75-- I even saw a woman with WOOL ear muffs during one of my morning rides here-- when I looked at the thermometer in the SITA center, it read 70 degrees). While I don't burn easily, the sunlight here is incredibly bright, and just staying out in the sun for an hour squinting about can result in quite a headache. I also have to drink around 5 liters of water per day just to remain hydrated. And by water, I mean bottled water, because, as my host mother put it, "god knows what's in the tap water." You will get sick if you drink the tap water here (the tanks that water comes from is often creeping with ameoba and protists that will give you excellent sicknesses like giardia and dissentary. Bottled water is the only sure way to drink water safely... even that's risky since most people just refill bottles here with tap water, so you must be careful even while drinking bottled water). That isn't to say you can't shower and wash your hands with it. You just don't want ameobas in your body.
My host family is really really great. This is their second time hosting, but by the way they act, they look like they have been hosting for quite some time now. They totally understand the issue of privacy, (which is something that Indians do not often give you it's natural to be more public and less private here-- private spaces increase speculation unless you are sleeping or doing something that requires the door to be closed) make incredible food (yes mother, I AM eating a lot here-- in fact, until I'm about 80% full which is something I don't do very often-- but I'm still somehow losing weight... I'll expound on my food experience in a later email, I'm quickly running out of time-- must eat lunch soon), and talk English extremely well (and thus teach me tamil on a day to day basis, which is freaking sweet). My host siblings are equally fantastic. The girl, who is 8 years old, is very vibrant, talkative, and really loves to be the center of attention (which often elicits frequent scoldings from my ammaa-- tamil for host mom). Oddly enough, she doesn't really like artistic things such as hair ties and coloring materials... so the gifts I originally got her are a little bit useless. She does love to sing, and often does so while simplifying fractions or writing my name in cursive English. My brother is very soft-spoken. He is 12 years old and is extremely mathematically driven, and enjoys talking with me about random random things from my life. He loves the backstreet boys (ironically, the first CD I ever bought was the backstreet boys first self-named album at the age of 12) and many mainstream rock groups such as linkin park and good charlotte (i haven't commented on these... because these are two of my least favorite bands...). Despite our differences in musical taste, he is extremely curious about life in the US. My appaa (father in Tamil) is the Madurai correspondent for the national newspaper in India (The Hindu), and works very long hours. I only see him before I leave for SITA each morning and on Saturdays (his off day). He is extremely interested in politics, and often discusses world politics and conflicts with me. He is extremely smart and knowledgeable, and really adds a different and often more educated and neutral perspective on many US issues (such as the recent election, which he believes will not be as monumental as everyone sees it as-- To him, it seems a longshot that Obama will be able to change much of the current political system to the way he wants to lead). My ammaa is an extremely vibrant and caring person (her daughter takes after her in these respects). We often talk about the differences between our two cultures which gives way to a discussion about the problems that we have with the two. She is an extremely understanding person, and really takes care of her kids very well. She doesn't have a day job, and stays at home taking care of the house when everyone else is gone (this is the standard woman's role in a Brahman--scholarly/priestly caste of Indian society-- household, and she does not mind the role, though wishes she was able to take classes and get out a bit more). She is equally as educated as my appaa, having graduated from Chennai (city about 4 hour train ride North of Madurai) University with a degree in Economics. As Kelsey knows well, she is an extremely good cook, and I often find myself extremely full by the end of dinner or breakfast.
I have to go grab some lunch right now, but I'll be sure to write again in the next couple of days. I have so much more to tell: what I do on a daily basis, where I've been so far, who I've met, what words I know how to say in Tamil, how I crashed into a rikshaw driver my first time coming to the SITA center on my cycle (no Emma and mom, I'm not hurt) and weird past coincidences (I figured out me and my Resident Director Trudy once met while I was last in India in 1996-- On top of that, she went on the same abroad program that my mom went on in Benaras... full story to come).
I miss you all quite a bit, and wish you were here to experience this with me. I feel strangely connected to India, as if I never truly left here in 1996, and sharing the experience with you guys directly is like sharing a piece of myself. Alas, it cannot be done; maybe next summer? (anyone? anyone? Sorry mom, I know you'd like to come back with me, but you already got me for 6 months). Write me back! I'd really like to know how you guys are doing!
Hopefully I didn't miss anyone on the contact list... if you realize someone should be here and isn't (unless the "group email list" isn't shown for some reason...) and is actually one of my good friends that for some reason I missed along the way-- don't hesitate to forward this to them.
Pooyete vaaren (pronounced pohyaetae vahhren-- literally means I will go and then come again-- otherwise a way to say "I'll see you later")
Love,
Hasan
Post Numba One
I've given into the mother: I'm makin' a blog of my Madurai exp. I'll probably update once every two weeks, or even less, depending on how much I exp... I'm gonna put my first two mass emails on here so that all who didn't receive them can check it out (and be sure to spread it around to others as well-- the more the merrier!)
I'll give you guys another update before our tour next week (we're going to Mysore and staying there for a couple of days-- Pictures to come!)
Love,
Hasan
I'll give you guys another update before our tour next week (we're going to Mysore and staying there for a couple of days-- Pictures to come!)
Love,
Hasan
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