Ch-ch-ch-changes

I spent my last day in Varanasi doing multiple errands all around town, and spent my last night in Varanasi with my friends. We sat around, reminisced, laughed and, eventually, cried. We said all the things everyone else has said before, and we meant them. They, nor I, could have gotten through this year without each other. I have said many times that I always knew I could survive India, but without the few people I had in that city, that survival would have not been worth it. In other words, I spent my last day in Varanasi doing multiple errands all around town, and spent my last night in Varanasi being a Sapasaurus.

As predicted, the rickshaw ride to the train station was epic. I was crying for most of it, until faced with the unfortunate minute realities of men calling at me and having to signal for the rickshawalla when he turns. They really killed my buzz. So I get to the train at 7:50 PM, when it leaves at 8 PM, thinking everything would be fine. My train was there (it had arrived on time...?); a friend of my bother's, Moosa, was there to see me off. I get on the train, Moosa helps me with my bags and clandestinely gives me two gifts, and then says goodbye. Then the train leaves at 7:58 PM. Two minutes early. TWO. MINUTES. EARLY. I don't know if people who haven't been to India will understand how crazy this is, but it left EARLY. WHAT? That's the equivalent of an American Airlines flight leaving 5 hours early and turning into a giant pumpkin or something. That shit never happens! India: what? It was insanity. Anyway. Moving on.

So this train ride turns out to be one of the more fun things I have ever done. First of all, I love trains. Thus, good train ride. Second of all, I was worried that I should have just gotten the more expensive flight until I figured this out. I pretty much rented out a shared, air conditioned hotel room that came with a bed and sheets and a blanket that took me to Delhi in 12 hours for 15 bucks. It was way, way better than staying in my apartment in Varanasi. It was kind of like taking a vacation on the way to a vacation. 

When I got to Delhi I got in a rousing argument with a rickshawalla, whom I agreed to pay 100 rupees to take me 15 km away (which was a pretty good price- for him. I sort of got hosed.) but then he took too long and I went to the pre-paid rickshaw place and paid 80 rupees on the advice of a rogue rickshawalla with a towel on his head. I'm not being racist; he really had a small, pink hand towel on his head. Anyway, I took a rickshaw to my brother's friend's apartment. Oh! His name is Simon and he's a photographer who takes some pretty awesome photographs. There are even some photos of my very own Varanasi on his website. So after tooling around on the internet in his swanky apartment for too long, I do my laundry and then go out. This is about the time I decided to try a Mexican restaurant in India. 

Now I will start off by saying things could have been much, much worse for me and this restaurant. I ended up ordering a quesadilla which was good...sort of. Actually, no it wasn't good. But it was much better than I anticipated. But I talked to my waiter for a long time about the cricket leagues in India. Oh man, do these guys love their cricket. The Chennai Super Kings were playing a team from Rajasthan in the Championship. That's all I retained from the conversation. Oh, except the Chennai Super Kings have three cheerleaders. One is White with blond hair, the next is also white, but with brown hair, and the last one is Black. Do you know how many Black people are in India? Including that cheerleader on TV, three. Weird. Anyway, so dinner was niiiicce.....

And then I came back and watched one more episode of Gossip Girl, which rounded out my episode count to 5, I think. Yes, I watched 5 episodes of Gossip Girl in one day. Don't judge me. After that I went to sleep in the ever-lovely air conditioning, and woke up this morning super happy to be alive. I've had two bowls of Chocos today, and am getting ready to go out and buy a new pair of shoes. My birkenstocks have survived the past 6 years, but I fear their time may be running out. 

So my life is pretty great right now. I've been mooching off of my brother's connections pretty much all year, and it's served me quite well. Maybe when I'm a big bad journalist like him I'll be able to pawn off my siblings onto my big bag journalist friends. No promises though, big bro.

 

Well everyone. I leave India tonight at 10 PM with my friend Sara to head off to East Asia. We'll first fly to Mumbai and from there get a direct flight to Seoul, South Korea. We'll be in South Korea for a week or so, and then go to Japan for a little over a week. Within Japan we are planning to see Tokyo, Mt. Fuji and Kyoto. 

Perhaps I will update in from East Asia. Again, no promises.

Thanks for reading about my time in India, everyone. I hope you enjoyed it. If you're heartbroken over the final India post, look at this; it will for sure cheer even you up.

-allison

Accident Report GH-727

Okay I can't go on without writing this: My stomach is about to explode. To set the scene, picture nine students taking a Hindi final. We are scattered throughout the program house, taking our exam and eating snacks.

First of all, before the exam, the didis (the two women who cook for our program who are absolutely-tootly wonderful) showed me how to make imli chutney. So I was standing in the kitchen furiously writing down names of foods and vague measurements sweating my proverbial balls off when suddenly Sharda-didi actually shoves a jawbreaker-sized chunk of brown sugar in my mouth. It was delicious...in that way raw sugar is. Mostly it was just absurdly sweet and uncomfortable and did nothing to alleviate my already-persistent nausea.

After that, we started our exam and the didis proceeded to make tasty snacks for us, non-stop, for 2 hours. The snacks were given, in order, as follows:

Bowl of Muesli (oh how foolish the young are when they are hungry)

Chai

Chick Peas in sauce (I gave all mine to Ed)

Potato Samosas (x4 servings for myself)

Imli Chutney

Cilantro and Mint Chutney

Fried Pieces of Deliciousness (AGH I just ate another one because they are so good)

Mango Shakes with Ice-Cream (x one more half-glass)

And then Sanghamitra-Ji asked if we wanted to eat lunch. ARE YOU KIDDING. I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN TURN MY BODY ANYMORE. I MUST LIE DOWN IMMEDIATELY.

Gasp. Okay. I think I can write about other things now. Maybe. Gurgle.

So a week ago I was on my bike going to Madanpura, just going along, doing my thing, when I decided, perhaps also foolishly, to pass a slow-moving cart being pulled by a guy on a bicycle. I hear honking behind me, but I'm always hearing honking behind me, so I remain unworried. I sidle up next to him and give him a nice cordial nod. A mid-sized van then pushes my bike into the cart, pinning my hand between the handlebar and the side panelling, while my left foot gets stuck in the cart while getting pummeled by the spokes of my bike. All three of us go on like that for about 30 really painful seconds, when finally the van disengages, and drives off through the intersection. The cart and I are both going the same speed. We look at each other briefly, he shrugs, and we turn in our respective directions. Ain't no thang. Right.

My hand still hurts, so I glance down at it; other than a strange white spot in the middle, nothing seems to be wrong. Meaning, I am not bleeding, I still have a hand etc. I say to myself, "Whew, dodged that bullet," and keep going. But then my hand really, really goddamn hurts and I look down again. The previously white spot is now dark red and swelling about a quarter of an inch off of my hand. It looks as if I inserted a bullet-sized something into the top of my hand. Things have, obviously, taken a turn for the worse.

I get to my Urdu ustaad's house to teach his kids, but ask for ice and a cloth instead. I ice it, the swelling doesn't decrease at all. Eventually Salman Sahab tells me I need to take the ice off (which is dripping all over his floor since ice melts in one millisecond here) and we both look at it. It seems as if the van stole about 10 percent of the surface area skin on the back of my hand in addition to making the weird red spot. Salman Sahab puts anti-biotic powder on it and wraps it up with gauze. (A note to anyone in the medical profession reading this. Anti-biotic powder: Legitimate or not?) So now I wear my hand wrapped up every day to try to minimalize whatever India could put in my body via an open sore. Here are photos of the wound about two days after it happened. The ones I took the day of are way less impressive, so I'm posting these ones instead.

And this is what my hand looks like on a daily basis now. Hopefully bandages are big in Japan?

Let's see. Other than that, I finally turned in my paper. It ended up being 104 pages and I titled it "Are Ram and Ali Friends?: Hindu-Muslim Friendships in English-Medium Primary Schools in Banaras." And yes, that is the real name. It will be forever known to the University of Wisconsin University system as "Are Ram and Ali Friends?" And no, I'm not ashamed.

The weather has been predictably terrible recently, with absurdly high temperatures like 105 or 111 degrees. At night I lie awake thinking about all the times I joked about the high temperatures here. And then I curse whatever evil fairy planted Junior Year Abroad in my head. Hear that, Scott? I blame you.

In other news, Katie and Michael visited me! Katie is a friend of mine from school whose blog you can find here. From Cairo, she mostly writes about the Muslim Brotherhood (when Egypt doesn't block her IP address). And Michael is her husband on Facebook.

Anyway, it was very fun and we did the ultra-touristy and ultra-beautiful activity of taking a boat ride. I realize I haven't posted photos in a while, and I don't think I have ever posted photos of Banaras. So, here are a few.

The girl is Katie, and the boy is Michael. Which of these photos looks like I photoshop-ed my friends into a stock image of Banaras?

If you picked the last one, you would be correct.

So, I leave Banaras in six days, after which I will spend two days in Delhi and then head off for South Korea and Japan. I keep having these moments of terror/elation when I realize I'm leaving India. Usually I get them once a day and the two feelings always come together. I think about burritos and sidewalks, and then I realize I'll have those things because I decidedly won't be here. Processing things is going very slowly right now, so I probably just won't think about it until the day I leave. I anticipate the rickshaw ride to the train station will be epic. After spending so much of my time hating India, it's bizarre to be given the chance to be somewhere else. Despite my better judgement, I think I might actually miss India.

I hope you all are having a lovely end of April. I will hopefully be able to update as Sara and I travel through Seoul and Japan, and perhaps I will update one final time from India while I'm in Delhi.

-allison

Promise

I swear I will post in the next few days.

I turned in my Fieldwork Project.

I took my language finals.

I was hit by a car.

I have pictures.

-allison

My Internet-Continental Journey

So I've completely ignored my fieldwork project for the last two weeks. The mission was a complete success, and I am pleased to announce that I have made absolutely no headway in the tome of a paper due in two weeks. I don't expect a medal, but I don't think a pat on the back would be inappropriate.

Instead of working on my project, I have been pitter pattering around the internet. The following is a list of things I have wikipedia-ed in the last week.

Dr. Kevorkian
The Kennedy Curse
Rose Kennedy
Lindsay Lohan
Samantha Ronson
Charlotte Ronson
Rohan (Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson)
Weather Underground
Bill Ayera
Akon
LeT
Yamam
Canada
Monaco
Varanasi
Jim Krasinski
Pam Beesley

Which brings me to my next point: I have spent way, WAY too much time youtube-ing "The Office" clips.

I told my sister that I was going to spend my 6 days in San Diego eating, sleeping, and watching TV. I will occaisonally breathe and visit the bathroom, but I am not kidding when I say I want her to Tivo 4 entire series of shows. I am not kidding. I will gladly sit for 6 days, and as my friend Clare would say, forcefully make my ass to graft to her couch. And I will not- I repeat- will not regret a single moment of my wasted existence. I might take a break from those 5 activities to play with my sisters adorable puppy, but those times will be few, short, and far between if I have anything to say about it.

In other news, I am in Varanasi for 4 more weeks as of today. Though, I might go on a little jaunt sometime near April 24th for a week or so, but who knows. I will, for sure, let you all know once that happens.

Okay. I'm going to go now. There's a "Jim and Pam's Best Moments: 3" that I've just been dying to watch.

-allison

Here Are 10 Things, Because I Have Hindi Class in T-13 Minutes

Thus, this will be a quick entry. I know I haven't update in a while, but my rough draft was due and one thing led to another...You get it. So, here's a list of things that happened.

1) Holi happened. It was crazy and my eyebrows were dyed pink for, well, eternity. I will, someday, put pictures op on flickr. I will subsequently tell all of you.

2) My bike got stolen on Holi. Nice.

3) I turned in my rough draft: 89 pages of the worst thing I or anyone else literate in the English language has ever written.

4) I went to Kolkata.

T-minus 8 minutes.

5) I saw the Victoria Memorial, St. Paul's Catherdral, Flury's, and a mall.

6) Sara, Mary Beth, and I went to a mall in the suburbs of Kolkata. We saw the movie, "He's Just Not That Into You," and then went to a department store. I then had a major ferak out about going back to America and almost vomited. I'm fine now, but I'm terrified to go back home. I'm sure it will be fine, but no one warned me that reverse culture shock would remove from me my ability to stand up without vomiting. Who knew.

7) Now I'm back in Varanasi and I didn't do my Hindi homework. Don't tell Virendra-Ji.

8) I scrubbed my bathroom for approximately 2 hours and now it glitters like gold.

9) I backed up all my photos and music onto an external hard drive!

10) I leave Varanasi in 5 and a half weeks.

I apologize for my absence on here recently. My life has been one crazy episode after another and I'm trying to survive long enough to start my senior year in college.

-allison

Objects in the Mirror Are Closser Then They Appear

Disclaimer: I'm sorry, but this post will inevitably be sort of lame. Except the monkey part, which will be awesome. Aren't you already sort of excited to read about it?

Saturday started out with me "waking up" (I say this mostly in jest, because I was awake the whole night PSYCHE!) at seven o'clock, putting on a kameez with a dupatta and jeans, getting on my bike, and going to the S.S.V. School for a field trip. The field trip was sold to me as a day-long (7:30 am departure with a projected return time at 8pm) trip with classes 3-8 to the "nearby" waterfalls.

I arrive there at 7:25, and weirdly enough, everyone actually ends up arriving before me. Everyone, that is, except the bus driver. Psyche.

So I spend an hour standing in the school which is swarming with children with nothing better to do than hit each other and run. I awkwardly stand next to the other teachers, who have obviously formed lifelong friendships with each other and have no interest in talking to me, and watch the children. Me and two students (out of 90) are the only ones in salwar suits, and I feel sort of dorky. Everyone else has ultra trendy (read: sequined) western clothes. Eventually the bus arrives, and boys go in one while girls pile into another. Now, the seats in the bus are not the standard benches, but individual seats. And someone told the principal there were 45 seats on one bus, when in actuality there were only 30. Thus, there is a serious seat crunch. I, again awkwardly, stand otuside the bus for about 20 minutes with people scurrying around me until I am beckoned into the girl's bus. I am seated in the seat right behind the bus driver, aloong with the huge vats of food. Apparently I will always be a dweeb, no matter how many years or miles I get away from 5th grade.

I sit on the bus for an hour or so, sharing my headphones with a disgruntled 12 year-old who would only smile at me when I played Hindi songs on my iPod. Then we reach a river. A big, wide river, with a bridge that looks like it's floating on huge iron pills. It looks stable in that third-world kind of way. Despite this, we all have to get out of the bus and walk across this bridge. While me and 90 children are on this bridge, we hear the bus behind us, and turn around. We all see the bus barreling towards us, honking the whole way. The children start screaming and run to the edge of this one-lane and now bouncing bridge. Now, maybe I'm overreacting, but WHY THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN? If it was due to a weight issue, wait for the children to get off the stupid bridge, and in any case, 90 godamn children are on this one-lane small floating bridge. You can wait for 5 stupid minutes to ensure you don't kill an 8 year-old.

So after the bridge part we drive another hour and a half and arrive at the waterfalls at about 12:15. We have to park a little bit away because there was some walking to do, and every single student asks me at least once, "Is this water? Is there water? Where are the waterfalls? Are there no water in it?"

....

So, anyway, once we walk the 200 feet to the waterfall, the children are appeased and we descend the many steps to get to the water. And, I admit, there isn't a whole lot of water. There is some, thankfully, but not much. (I'm sorry I don't have any photos, but bringing my digital SLR camera to a waterfall with two busfulls of middle schoolers didn't seem like a great idea at the time. I hold the same opinion now.) So, I walk around, or am dragged around, by a bunch of girls. They all want me to swim, and I keep saying that I won't because I don't have a change of clothes. But after an hour of heckling, I am persuaded into swimming. About half a second after getting in waist deep I regret my decision, and continued to regret it until- no, I still regret it. (Jeans + water + 6 hours of bus rides = one of my least favorite activities.)

A student named Shelja comes over to me and swims with me. Swimming, of course, really means sitting on the slime covered rocks at the bottom of a pool of waist-deep murky water and sometimes splashing each other to inject some extra-fun mischief into the experience. It was just really great. After everyone had enough of swimming, we eat lunch and go back in the bus. Some of us are uncomfortably damp and itchy.

On the way I realize that I should to go to the bathroom before we are sequestered on a bus for another several hours. So, I ask a teacher if there is a bathroom in the vicinity, which obviously there isn't. So she says, "Can I stand here as you go behind that building?" I do a double take and figure there is some sort of translation issue. I awkwardly tell her that she doesn't have to if she doesn't want to, which she doesn't understand. I finally tell her she can and go behind the building. I jump a small fence and immediately find that I am in the center of a thorn bush. My dupatta is caught in it, as well as a significant portion of my kurta. I concentrate on freeing them from their pointy attackers, and without looking up I move a few steps away. As soon as I undo my belt, I look up. A man is standing about 100 meters away and when I see him, he yells, "WOOOO!!" I loudly swear at India, and quickly walk back towards the fence. However, the briar bush is in between me and said fence, and it grabs my dupatta and my kurta for the second time. I swear again, seeing the man waving a stick and still screaming. After a few seconds I tear my clothes away from the malicious plant and go back to the front of the building. All of the teachers had decided it was important to wait for me, so 8 Indian professors see me rebuckling my belt, which I think was just really classy.

There is one more stop before we return (Remember: there are 6 hours of unadulterated bus riding involved in this day trip), and it is a natural dam. At least, it was introduced to me as a dam. I don't know how to describe it, but it's not really a dam. It's kind of like a rocky basin. Yeah. Anyway, so we all go there, with most of the teachers and classes 3-5 staying at the top, while the upper classes and some other teachers descend into the basin. I see this as a prime moment to finally use the bathroom (or...the outdoors), seeing as it was almost completely deserted. Almost immediately I realize that though it is deserted of humans, the same is not true of monkeys (This is the beginning of the part I was telling you about).

I climb up a small rock, and cross paths with a completely disinterested monkey. She, it definitely seemed like a she, sees me, but walks right past me. I mean like...right past me. She doesn't pause or even really look at me. I feel sort of like the monkey whisperer. So, I find a quiet secluded corner, use the outdoors, and then decide to walk around for a bit. I walk down this weirdly unfinished pathway, and decide to sit on a big rock overlooking the basin, where everyone can see me, and where I am about 100 yards away from the lower classes.

I see the principal far below me talking to chaiwalla (a man selling tea) and the man climbs up the entire basin, doling out chai as he goes. He finally gets to me last, hands me chai, and then gives me a small bag of snacks that the principal had paid for and had told the man to give to me. I take both, and watch the man walk away. About a minute later, I see a monkey steadily approaching me out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't scared right away, but as he gets closer, I realize that he's headed straight for me. He eventually makes it all the way to me, and sits at my 7 o'clock, about 5 feet away. I sip my chai, and glance warily back at him. He looks completely benign. Trying to recall any wilderness information I have ever heard, I face him, put my arms above my head, and yell "Hut!" (which is what Indians say to animals to make them move). The monkey jumps back, barks, and bares his teeth at me. I declare it a tie and face forward. The monkey then moves to sit right next to me (about 2 feet). Right about now is when I started totally freaking out. I start, in my head, planning where the nearest hospital is, and which one I would trust most to not give me AIDS. I drink the last of my chai, and throw my cup, hoping he will run after it. Instead of running after it, he takes it as a battle cry and jumps up on his hind legs with his teeth once again bared. I stand up, with the snacks hidden in my hand, and he goes into a pounce position. Uh oh. He jumps directly at me, looking right in my eyes. Not at the food, but at me. We hold eye contact during the first leg of his jump, and then I, ninja-like, crinkle the bag of snacks, and as he is coming towards me, step back and deftly throw them to my right. He turns his attention to the snacks, passing the space I was previously occupying, and runs off. I turn towards the group and walk towards them, laughing hysterically (like...crazy-hysterically, not funny-hysterically). I stumble over some boulders and when I reach the group, tons of children come up to me asking, "Where are you from? Monkey!" which I still don't really understand, but I take it to mean as, "Holy shit you took that monkey to SCHOOL!" We spend a few more minutes at the basin, and then we pile back in the bus to go home. I, again, sit behind the bus driver.

One thing I've noticed is that something inside me broke during my second 36-hour train ride. I can gladly spend up to 4 hours with nothing entertaining me besides a window. Seriously. It's ridiculous. So, after doing that for a long time, the principal's brother walks up to my seat and asks the little girl sitting next to me to switch seats with him. She leaves, and he sits down. The following conversation ensues:

Him: Sing me a song.
Me: No.
Him: Oh please? Sing me a song.
Me: Hah. No.
Him: Please? Sing.
Me: No.....No.
Him: Sing just one song.
Me: Fine. (I sing one line from a Bollywood film)
Him: Sing another song.
Me: No.
Him: Sing another song.
Me: No.

That goes on for a bit...And then we start talking about exercise, which spurrs the "Riddles" conversation.

Him: Do you do yoga?
Me: No, but I run in the mornings, usually.
Him: Oh. I have a joke for you, but you will not like it. You'll think me mean. But, I'm not, I just am liking jokes. You'll think it mean. Don't you think?
Me: Well, I don't know the joke yet...So I don't know. But I like jokes.
Him: You like jokes? Tell me an American joke.
Me: Well umm, I know a riddle.
Him: Okay!
Me: Okay, what gets bigger as you take more out of it? (Insert 5 minutes of Hindi and English decription here)
Him: I don't know. I don't....know. Tell me.
Me: A hole!
Him: (slapping knee) Oh! Tell another!
Me: Okay...What gets wetter as it dries?
Him: Hm. Colors?
Me: ...what? No...a towel.
Him: That is what I said! I am right! Colors!
Me: What? But...it's a towel.
Him: Right. Colors.
Me: Right. Nice.
Him: So can I tell you a joke?
Me: Sure.
Him: So there are many ants eating from a sugar pile. They walk up, one by one, and each eat one piece sugar. But one doesn't take. Why?
Me: Because he's diabetic?
Him: Yes! You are smart!
Me: Really? That's the answer?
Him: Yes! Okay next one. Many ants walking in a row, but there is hole. They walk, and each one walk around hole. But one, he doesn't. Why?
Me: Because he's blind.
Him: HOW DID YOU KNOW?
Me: Hah. I told you I was smart!
Him: NO, TELL ME WHO TOLD YOU. TELL ME.
Me: No...I swear. I just guessed.
Him: I DON'T BELIEVE YOU.

Then he starts a conversation about spiritual people in Banaras.

Him: Do you want to be a spiritual leader?
Me: Oh yeah, I was thinking about dabbling a little in that. It sounds fun.

He then goes into a detailed description about what I would be like if I were a spiritual leader. He tells me that all my actions would be responsible for the community and society would think I was perfect, but my life would not be mine. He goes on to offer to be my first disciple, shave his head, and tattoo my name on his hand. He goes into great detail as to how our lives would be.

Him: Do you you want to be a spiritual leader?
Me: No.
Him: Good.

The conversation sort of fizzles and he eventually leaves. I still don't know how I feel about it. I think I feel totally creeped out, but I'm not sure.

About an hour after this, we arrive back at the school. I speed home, still damp, on my bike, anxious to take a shower.

-allison

Note Strikes Back

Dear people who are having a wedding across the street,

I give up; you have won this uneven and unjust war.

I bought ear plugs.

Love,
Allison


Dear everyone else,

I've decided to take this as a gift. I will be happy about the really great amount of loud music that plays until 3 AM in my room. In fact, wedding season ends in a mere 3 weeks. 3 weeks! That means I only have 3 weeks left of 24-hour, conscious time! My friend, think of all the things I can do when I'm not sleeping. I can read, I can paint, I can wash things, I can listen to music! These 3 weeks are going to go by awful fast! Oh, how I wish these people would wed forever just across the street! How much fun I do have, slapping my knee in joy sitting in my bed! I hear the cheers of the crowd and revel in the delight of so many true night owls. It is a pleasure only given by God to live within 100 yards of a large temple and a wedding courtyard.

I welcome death.

Love,
Allison

Note Returns

Dear people who are having a wedding across the street,

No, but seriously.

Love,
Allison

Note

Dear people who are having a wedding across the street,

If you continue to insist on setting off fireworks/blowing up mosques until 3 AM, I will have no choice but to set you and everyone you know on fire.

Love,
Allison

Excuses, excuses...

Dear Readers,

Chapter One of my fieldwork project is due on Sunday.

Sadly, due to this, I will forgo a blog post in order to pursue graduating from college.

Love,
Allison

Questions Lost in Translation

Last Friday I spent the whole day at South Point School's village campus. After a morning of rather confusing logistics, I eventually got on the bus and was surrounded by children. After getting to the school I proved to be an immense distraction to every student there and instantly became the bane of every teacher's existence. I had no idea how to control it, and everything I did was interesting to the students.

There were a few highlites, not the least of which was being flat out laughed at when I pronounced the word "jagged" like "jagg-ed" and not the ever-popular "jaggd". I swore to them that that was how it was pronounced in America and NO ONE believed me. They also asked me for help in their homework and when I corrected it, they would tell me I was wrong. And I'm not saying these kids don't know English. These kids have been taking all their classes in English for, at minimum, three years, which is no small feat. When I was their age, the idea of bilinguality wasn't even within the limits of my 9 year-old and subsequently tiny brain. That being said, I know that the sentence, "We went to the bazaar in market time for buying carpet," doesn't make sense in my native language. I would tell them, "No, but seriously guys. I'm from there. I remember America," and in response I just had a group of four girls cover their mouths due to their erupting laughter. In any case, I was right and they were wrong. Hah.

After that lovely experience, I ate lunch by myself. I watched dozens of children running around the sizeable courtyard, and watched a few groups of boys watching me. Spilling some rice on my dupatta, I then watched myself being laughed at. It was a touchingly reminiscent of my life in 5th grade, and I really appreciated the opportunity to go back.

Then, a few boys came up to me.
Him: You have hair like a boy cut.
Me: Yeah. It's even shorter than yours! (Silly me, trying to make light of the grave situation of gender play)
Him: Why. (This wasn't a question, even though it was masked as one.)
Me: I just wanted to cut it.
He walked away.

After that I was asked several variations of the question, "Allison ma'am, are you girl or boy?"

My first response: I'm a girl.
My second response: (sigh) Yeah, I'm a girl.
My third response: I'm still a girl. (This one was met with a lot of confusion, but then complacency)
My fourth response: You said "ma'am", didn't you? You did.

School finally got out at around 3 PM, and we all went home. The bus ride back was great.

In other news, I've been teaching English to Salman Raghib Sahab's kids and it's been SO GOOD. His three older children are incredible (he has another who is about 9 months old and doesn't have too much of a personality outside of a strong and palpable hatred for me). His oldest son is named Shahnivaz, whom I have previously mentioned. He is 17 and he can speak pretty quickly, but he makes a lot of silly grammer mistakes. The next is named Shaheriyar, and he is 12. His English is fairly good, but getting him to talk is probably as hard as getting him to put his face in a garbage disposal. His daughter, Zoya, is the youngest of the group that I'm teaching; she's eight. She's also one of the smartest people I have ever met. She learns faster than her two brothers and is SO EFFING CUTE. OH MY GOD. I think Salman Sahab is a little weirded out by how much I talk about his daughter's intelligence. I'm almost weirded out by how much I talk about it.

The best moment of English class 'chez Raghib' is when Shahnivaz said, in the middle of a question I was asking to Zoya, "Did you know I ride bike way fast?"

Let's analyze this question. Firstly, did I know? How could I know? Does everyone know? What are the chances that someone on the street would stop me and say, "Hey! Now look, foreigner here to exploit my country's fractured economy under the auspices of studies, a boy who lives here, he rides bike way fast."

Secondly, let's consider the sentence structure. I ride bike. We can all agree that what this sentence needs is a nice article. Something to ground it a little. Hindi doesn't have articles, so I understand that it's hard for Hindi speakers, and trust me, I empathize. Subjunctive? "It's sort of a tense, but more of a feeling," is literally what I was told in 7th grade French. I thought it was a joke when I heard it. It, as is probably obvious, was definitely not a joke and it probably successfully shaved ten years off of my lifespan. Subjunctive still remains to be the single most confusing part of language for me, despite the ten years of French, and now nine months of intensive Hindi. Subjunctive is just as messed up to me as articles seem to Indians, I'm sure. But, you still need to use them. The last part being perhaps the strangest part of the question, "way fast" is weirdly colloquial to be put in a grammatically ravaged sentence. It makes him sound as if his English is fine, but he was just so excited to say it that he couldn't be bothered to use the extra syllable an article would have caused. Actually, the second part was probably true.

Luckily, afterwards he told me all about it, and I thankfully now know he rides bike way fast.

Outside of teaching and other children-related things, Sara and I have started running the mornings together. I'm going to take a moment to let that sink in. I, I'm Allison Carney I think some of you have met me, am running for exercise. There is nothing chasing me, I am just running. I won't say for fun. But, suffocating in India has turned out to a not entirely unagreeable experience.

It's been kind of fun and nice to see my improvement and feel the difference in my body. But, hands down, the funnest part is the men who decide that talking to me is an okay thing to do. And by talk I really mean incessantly ask me if I need help or want to ride their bicycles. The second question is interesting because I am, at that point, already running in circles on a track. I am obviously not late for any appointment, and am simply not getting there fast enough. That and I had ridden my bike there.

Now the best moment was when, after several men asking me various questions, a man of about 20 came up to me. I immediately put on my don't-talk-to-me-I'm-a-huge-bitch face and kept walking. He asked me, in perfect English, if I was a physical fitness teacher. I did a double take, looked forward, looked down at myself, and looked back at him. I don't think I even said anything. He repeated his question a little slower, as if he were checking for grammar mistakes. I eventually worded a response something like, "Are you kidding?" After which I discovered he was very much not kidding and wanted to be able to run a farther distance. I softly told him that I was a beginner (which I thought was clear after the 10 minutes of running that nearly killed me), and that I couldn't help him. He thanked me and jogged off.

The moral of this story is that questions about me being a regular exercizer will throw me off more than questions about my gender. Dually noted, India.

-allison

Remember how I ended the last post? Yeah. About that...

When I returned to Varanasi I hadn't realized that I would be returning to a frigid Minnisotan winter. In reality, it was probably only about 50 degrees during the day, but we were all monumentally unprepared for it. For four days, I swear to god, I had to sleep in wool socks, a wool sweater, a wool hat, and two wool blankets. In that state, I could almost put myself in a place where I began to remember what warmth felt like. I was also really itchy.

Anyway, after those few days of intense arctic weather, it warmed up a little and not the weather is roundabout perfect. At night it's cold enough to use a blanket, but warm enough to not need a wool hat, and during the day it's cold enough for a light jacket or a scarf. It's absolutely perfect, and I want it to last forever. I would maybe liken it to early October in New England minus the trees, brick, and reliable electricity. Speaking of reliable electricity, and using this as a way to get off the topic of the weather, did you know that only 5% of the government primary schools in the Varanasi district have electricity? That's insane! There are a lot of non-government primary schools though (especially within the city), and many have very low school fees due to government subsidies. But still.

Do you know why I know that? Because, if you remember, I have an 80-100 page research paper due on April 15. My Saturday routine included a morning run with Sara, followed by a shower and then a breakfast of flapjacks (there are two places in this city to get good pancakes. I found and subsequently annexed both of them). For the rest of the day, Sara and I sat in my room not talking and writing our papers. I would say we were in my room for a total of 7 hours and I wrote 3 single spaced pages of the most pretentious writing I think I have ever penned. Perhaps that was ever penned. I actually wrote the sentence, "Now based upon clause (1) of Article 29, we can assume that the institutions alluded to in Article 30’s clause (1) are institutions specializing in a certain minority’s language, script, or culture."

Yeah, I wrote that.

But, let is go back to before the running, fun-loving time of this weekend. Last Sunday I woke up and spent the day tooling around my neighborhood, jumping from one cafe to the only other cafe in town, and then at night went to a concert. Just to paint that picture for you, a concert here means sitting on mats on the floor and listening to sitarist or whatever other Indian classical instrument for at minimum one hour. So, during the concert I started to feel a little nauseous, but that happens all the time. An hour later it had progressed to something I don't often feel in India, and I decided to go home.

Over the next few days I partook in some recreational vomiting and spent all my time in bed pondering what death really was, and whether or not your heart had to completely stop beating to mean your life was over. The past week, as you may have gathered, was a bad week for me. I didn't do any work besides some extremely poorly written Hindi assignments that now have more red ink on them than black, and I spent approximately all my time thinking, 'This doesn't happen in America.' I would then move on to what ice cream flavors are available in America, and then would think about what my first mexican food would be. (I eventually came to the conclusion that it would be two chicken tacos with a side of rice and pinto beans with extra sour cream. But this is all very premature; I still have a few months to fine tune it. Perhaps a pupusa is in order, but who can say?)

In addition to a bad case of Delhi Belly (or the India Heebie Jeebies as my brother calls it) I got a cold the day after I arrived in Varanasi. After a short five days I was over the cold, but the cough has since decided to take up shop. I wake up in the morning with a swamp in my lungs. I'm going to repeat that because it's not a joke. There is a swamp inside my lungs. I cough and think, "Hey, I remember that time I went to Florida," or, "What's the difference between crocodiles and alligators again?" I think my lungs are slowly liquefying and I am powerless to stop it. This is all a long way of saying that my health has seen better days. That includes, for your information, any day in the last 20 and a half years.

Well, I am going to take a nap and then talk to a doctor. There are rumors of viral meningitis going around, and luckily two people on this program (Mary Beth and I) have been flirting with the idea of being bedridden for the last week. Wish me luck!

-allison

The Winter Land Odyssey around India: Text

I had a lot of ground to cover in this post, so this is Part I. This is just the text about the trip and you can look below for the corresponding photos. I did this because because I will kill myself if I have to spend another two hours of my life formatting photos and text together on my wonderful blog host, Blogger.com.

After Hyderabad I went to Chennai for a few days to kick it with Padma and Scott in their apartment before we drove over to Goa, which was fairly uneventful. Except for the time when Scott asked me to run over to the Chennai High Court to coax a lawyer into getting him some documents. Yeah, except for that. I spent two hours with this lawyer; he took me into every single courtroom and explained, I think, everything he learned in law school. He turned out to be a really nice guy, and even bought me a cup of chai.

The car trip to Goa was pretty easy. We almost only listened to "This American Life" and songs from the Civil War the entire time. I think there may have been some Elvis Costello. Anyway, it was fine and the cockroach count for our one night stopover hotel was only four.

Goa...Oh my god Goa. I don't think I really have a lot to say about Goa. My daily routine was something like this:

10am-12am: Breakfast with Scott and Padma
12am-4pm: Lie on the beach
4pm-5pm: Eat sandwiches
5pm-8pm: Shower, nap or read
8pm-10pm: Dinner
10pm: Sleep

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

It was amazing. I- I really can't talk about it or do it justice. Christmas in Goa was brilliant- though I did find myself missing the standard snowy New England Christmas. But I got over that real fast.

After a week of amazingly delicious food and sun and ocean, I had to say goodbye to Goa and move on to Bombay. I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to try taking a bus to Bombay instead of sticking to train travel. My brother drove me to the bus station, I said goodbye to him and Padma, and they drove away. The following is the story of what happened afterwards.

After wandering around the "bus station" which is really just a mish-mash parking lot of bicycles, motorcycles, and bags of grain, for an hour or so, my bus finally arrived. By this point I had met a Finnish couple (what is it with me and finding couples from small European countries?) who were also going to Mumbai on my bus, and we set off together. The Finnish woman got on the bus, while her boyfriend and I went to the back to drop off our bags. As we were putting our bags in the the bus, it starts moving. At first it was slow, and we though it was just reparking. That, not surprisingly, was wrong. The bus sped up, and Sven (That was probably his name, right?) and I just stood in silence watching the bus drive away. After it turned the corner, we realized that it was not reparking, and we somewhat half heartedly ran after it. Finally we found it behind the bus station, which should have been obivous I guess, and got on.

I then found my bunk, which was the bottom bunk in the third row. I got in and was immediately ecstatic. The berths in buses are at minimum 1 and a half times as big as the ones in trains and cushier. There's a built-in pillow on the bed and the bed and there's a window that spans the entire berth that you can open. Finally, there's a curtain in between you and the aisle that you can close at your leisure. I was in the process of writing that description in my journal when an Indian woman sat down next to me.

"So, could I have the inside?"

Snap.

So I move over a little to allow room for person number two in my berth and she is immediately incredibly friendly and I notice that her English is impeccable. Throughout our entire time together I never heard her speak Hindi once. She spoke English to everyone on the phone and to the driver. Well, sort of. Instead of writing out our conversation I'll do one of those dialogues I'm oh-so fond of.

Her: So where are you from?
Me: I'm from America.
Her: (Smiles and slowly nods) You are a committed Christian.
Me: (bewildered) umm not- not really...
Her: (Smiles and nods) I see.
(Insert more chit chat)
Her: So you are learning Hindi?
Me: Yeah.
Her: Make sure the Hindu religion doesn't suck you in.
Me: (At this point realizing that the friendship may be strained from here on in) Uh huh. Don't think that will happen.
Her: (She says this in a completely soft voice as if it was all something I had heard before) It's just...you know, it is a very silly religion. There was no religion before Christianity and all religions are based on of it. Even Hinduism, whith its many Gods says that truly there is only one God. Islam says the same thing. All of the world religions are based off of Christianity, you know. They have just all deviated from The Path. Even Catholicism has. I used to be Catholic, but I have accepted Jesus as my Personal Savior and have been born again.
Me: Uh huh. Kay.
Her: (After a moment) What do you think about the world situation?
Me: The world? Like...the whole world?
Her: (Knowlingly knods)
Me: Umm...well uhh I'm happy Barack Obama was elected. I think Israel's being overly violent. The economic crisis is pretty serious. Is there something specific you wanted me to respond to?
Her: Do you think there's a hidden agenda?
Me: ....By whom?
Her: There's a hidden agenda to rip the morals from today's youth, from people like you. By the media.
Me: Mmm...

Let's just say it continued like that for a while...Until she made the decision to tell me about how it is the Endtimes.

Her: The Bible proves to me that this is the Endtimes because of everything that is happening. In the next few years, this is what will happen. The world will get worse and worse for 3 years. There will be almost complete chaos, and no one will be able to stop it. Then, all of a sudden, the world will become peaceful for no apparent reason. A calm will come over the world, but it will only last for 2 years. And then it will be Armageddon.
Me:

Apparently the people who accepted Jesus as their personal savior will get into Heaven. But, the people who haven't will go to Hell. Also, the people who have accepted Jesus as their personal savior in the final 5 years (so pretty much anyone who isn't Born Again already) STILL might not get in because there is "limited space". Heaven is like an 21+ concert and I'M AUTOMATICALLY GOING TO BE LAST IN LINE.

I really don't have a joke to say about her. She turned out to be really nice woman and helped me get into Bombay safe and sound. She was a very good woman, and an even better Christian.

So after that conversation in the middle of the night, I went to the bathroom. This meant that when the bus stopped so all these men jumped off to pee (no women) I was followed suit and became that crazy Westerner. I scurried passed all the men and scrambled over a stone wall to shelter myself from the bus's headlights. As I was sitting there, I looked at the sky and saw the most stars I think I have ever seen. Due to the lack of pollution and dust, I could see about ten times as many stars as I can normally see. It completely blew my mind. After I got back in the bus and laid down, I looked passed the back of Yvette's (that was her name) head and watched the stars for hours. It was exceedingly beautiful.

After arriving in Mumbai I walked around my first day. I think in total I covered about 5 miles of Bombay's Bandra neighborhood. The second day Sara came with her two friends, Lisa and Jocelyne, and we went out with a few Indian friends for New Year's Eve, which was awesome. We went to a club and danced for a few hours. The men were CRAZY. We all went to the bathroom in a group, and someone grabbed Sara. I proceeded to berate the guy, yelling at him in a really thick Hindi accept IN ENGLISH (It's a weird thing that starts when you've been here for a while- when you can't speak Hindi to them, you start talking to Indians in their accent). I was yelling, "Sir, you grabbed my friend. You grabbed her! You can say you didn't, but sir, why would she lie? You can't do that. That's not okay." My hands were waving in his face and I had pretty much taken on the attitude of a stereotype of a really pissed of Indian woman. Who spoke in English. Happy New Year.

The next day we walked around South Bombay, which is more or less exactly like Manhattan. It was a pretty fun day and we ate lunch at the place that the Bombay attacks started, a restaurant called Leopolds. The bullet holes were still in the walls. The next day we went to Elephanta Islan which has all sorts of relgious importance that I would describe to you, but I wasn't really listening to the guide so I can't tell you anything correct about it. There will be pictures in the next post.

I left that night to come back to Varanasi and take the second 36-hour train ride of my winter vacation. I slept the first night without much problems and spent the entire next day sitting and staring at people. I just napped and stared. Most Indians on the trains just sit and nap, so I decided to try it out (well, I was also avoiding copious amounts of homework I had and still have). It was surprisingly easy. The time still went about as fast as it would if I have music and books.

The next morning I woke up at 3 AM to the coldest temperature I think I have EVER experienced. Ever. At least, the coldest temperature that I was in NO WAY prepared for. I had two sweaters and a blanket on and I would have let someone chop off my feet if it meant an end to the pain. Later on in the morning, I woke up, and sat with a huge family. They were amazed that I was learning Hindi and surrounded me. The family had one grandmother, 8 aunts and uncles, and each of those people had at least thirty children of their own that I met. And every child that met me was forced to shake my hand and say good morning before they would be allowed to eat breakfast. It was great and didn't make me feel awkward at all.

Upon finally getting in the vicinity of Varanasi, I asked how much longer. Everyone said twenty minutes. Our train was doing the seemingly impossible- it was going to arrive on time. But, as that is impossible for India for do, the train stopped. It came to a full stop and didn't move for another five excruciating hours. Five hours of sitting in the middle of this family and talking to all of them, being asked to sing American songs as well as well known Bollywood songs, and being flat out laughed at. Roundabout hour three, one of the many girls asked me for a gift from America. At first I said I didn't have anything American (most of my stuff at this point is Indian). but finally I dug up a three-year-old mini perfume bottle that I had never used and gave it to her. In return I got an elastic bracelet with mini roses on it meant for a six-year-old. What a sucker, right?

So after I sat in that train for a total of 34 hours, and when I arrived I found out that a) my wallet was stolen and b) Varanasi is 57 degrees but feels like the blueish center of a snow bank. My wallet only have about 600 rupees in it (about 12 dollars) and I still have my passport so that wasn't hugely bothersome, but still was pretty annoying.

My first day of class back we had a really painful two-hour long meeting about logistics. I don't want to talk about. What I DO want to talk about is the fact that my program coordinator, Shashank, was late to work. When he got here I asked him why he was late. He said that he couldn't leave his house because someone had performed black magic in front of his doorway, so he couldn't leave. Someone is trying to kill him or hurt him, so he had to get someone to sweep it away form his front door before he left the house...obviously.

Yeah. So...yeah.

I'm overall very happy to be back. I worried lot about my time in India for the last four months. I was just always worried that I wouldn't like it here or I would miss being at school too much. I guess I was just worried that I wouldn't adjust well. But I think my time in these past few weeks (i.e. lying on the beach, traveling alone so much, figuring out everything myself, seeing so many new cities, standing up for my friend, getting my wallet stolen) has somewhat tied me close to India. Also, Varanasi feels a lot different than it felt last year (It's 2009, guys). Maybe it's the cold, or maybe it's the fact that I've been here for four and a half months, but I really feel at home here. Well, at home and really really cold. I need at least one pair of socks if I plan on surviving, and, taking my previous week into account, it seems as if I'm going to do that.

-allison

The Winter Land Odyssey around India: Pictures

Here is Part II! You can read the text post and then refer back to these photos with their neat little captions!

This is a map of India with all of my travel methods detailed out.

This is Goa. Merry Christmas to me.


Scott, Padma and I buried each other in the sand. It was awesome.








We all went a little crazy after being freed from our sandy graves.

The Taj was being worked on while we were in Mumbai. There was some debris on the backside of the hotel, but it still looked as grand as all the pictures make it seem.








This is Elephanta Island. There were lots of really old statues, and some really nice offering flowers.