Jaipur Life

I have been much delayed in getting you my newest posts. I have been so busy here that I have not had any time to stop at a cafe' and write everyone! I feel very unattatched from the world as a whole and it is very hard to get U.S. news here. All the English language papers here are not of a very good quality (that is my opinion) and they are all very biased in what they choose to report (what else is new!).

Last Monday everyone was tired at school because they had all gone on a trip to Pushkar. Only 4 of us stayed in Jaipur, myself included, so it was a pretty low key uneventful day, except that with everyone's stories I wish that I had gone to Pushkar! On the walk home, I think I started having a heat attack because I was dehydrated. I was shaking and felt like I was going to faint, but I was only blocks from home and stuck it out. Garland was with me, and as I was dealing with these feelings a boy on a bike started asking us a bunch of questions we didn't want to answer. Garland asked him how old he was, and he said 15. Then she said, "oh, that's so cute! Your just like a little boy. Little boy." When he didn't understand, I said little boy in hindi, chota larka. Then he got the picture, and he let us be.

Tuesday was school like every other day. Afterwards Christine, Krista and I went to Gaurav to get some coffee and chat a bit. I also helped them with their Hindi a little. We spoke alot about International Development. Our teacher for that class here, Kanta Ahuja, is very opposite everything all of us are used to. She is an economist, not a social activist, and her views on development and progress are all very different than ours. Its facisinating to sit in her class and listen to her arguments because no one else I know believes what she does. It also makes good discussion material for us. I told the two of them that I was convinced the best way to make a difference and really improve people's lives was on the grassroots level, that the ultimate reward was a changed life that would never have happened if all of your work and beliefs get caught up in bureaucratic tape. Christine said the more she is here in India she feels the opposite. She argued that the only way to really improve things in other countries would be the bureaucratic/political way because otherwise the system of European/American/Westernization will continue in development. That the best way is to empower them to do it themselves as their cultures see fit. It is an argument that has turned my head a bit as to why I am here and what I want to do. For so long I have felt the best way to make the world a better place is getting your hands dirty to get there. I DESPISE politics in general, but believe in politicians and policies that better people's lives. If only it was a quicker process...

Thursday is fast becoming "Hindi Movie Day". We went across town to see a Indian movie MADHOSHI. It was one of the worst Hindi movies I have seen. First of all, it was an insane plot. A woman who is a schizophrenic falls in love with one of her delusions and thinks he is a real person. On top of that, there is kissing and sex in this movie. Generally the rule in Bollywood is there are not even frontal hugs on the screen, let alone kissing and sex. It is the same way in Indian society, where some women who have arranged marriages never call their husband by his first name, let alone hug him in the presence of family or in public. It was a pretty shocking movie, and made all of us uncomfortable. I don't think we will be going to that theater again (at least I won't). It was Krista's birthday and I felt so bad that we subjected her to the bad movie on her birthday! She turned 20, and we all were teasing her about what a baby she is, since she is the youngest of our group.

Friday at school we had a special dance lecture. We went to a dance school where they taught us some Rajasthani folk dances and then had some of their students dance for us. It was fun to try to learn all of the intricate hand movements and to try to mimic their steps. When the girls danced for us, they were incredible. The oldest one was only 13 but she was so entertaining and her face was so expressive. They also asked a little 6 year old to perform. She had been a student at the school for 4 years already. She danced while balancing a jar with a lit candle on her head, and then ran around and balanced the jar while she stood on objects, 2 glasses and 2 brass jars. Her poise and balance were astonishing, but I couldn't help but wonder what her life will be like. Will she go to school? What kind of marriage will she have? Will she be happy? It was hard to balance these questions while watching this beautiful 6 year old dance. The whole group (minus Tim-Tim) was going to Udaipur that day so we all went out to dinner and then we had to catch an overnight train. I have never been on a train before, only subways, so I thought it would be fun. We had two compartments that each hold 6 people, and then 2 other spots in another section. We nominated the two boys for those positions. I didn't have too much trouble sleeping, except that it was so cold! It had never been as cold in India as it had on that the train, and I was terribly unprepared. Most of us froze all through the night.

We pulled into Udaipur on Saturday morning. All of us wanted food and a shower, and after being met by our guides with marigold garlands we were off to get clean and eat. Our first stop, after those two small goals were accomplished, was City Palace. Udaipur is famous for its Lake Palace, a palace (now a hotel) that sits in the middle of a lake. It has beautiful hills and has more green trees than Jaipur does. Right before we left I also learned that this is the area where my internship will be, so I was excited to see the area for that reason as well. City palace was beautiful. My favorite part was a courtyard with tons of trees and a beautiful fountain. We went to an art school after that, where artists make miniature paintings with the finest brushwork I have ever seen. They sold some of their pieces to us, and I bought a beautiful one of Shah Jahan (the man who built the Taj Mahal) and the Taj itself. I fell in love with it, and it will probably be my one "nice" thing from India. For dinner we went to this special dinner theater with Indian dancing that was disappointing after seeing the incredible girls the day before. There was only a small group there, so after eating dinner we turned to the Hindi speaking staff and said "The food was good!" (bahut aaccha khaanaa tha) and then the lights went out. We used our cell phones as flashlights until they came back on.

Sunday was kind of exhausting, since we spent so much time in the bus. We saw two temples and then drove way far away to see an old battlefield and a museum. By the time we stopped for lunch it was 3:30. After lunch a group of us went shopping in some of the areas we were at on Saturday. Our train left at 8:50 and we needed to be back at the hotel to leave by 7:15. At about 6:30 my group of four started looking for a rickshaw to take us back to the hotel. After being rejected by quite a few we finally got the full story, there was an auto rickshaw strike. Apparently while we were shopping they started on the strike, so we could get there to shop but we couldn't get back to go home. I have never been so thankful for my cell phone in all my life. I called the other half of our group and we met up to figure out what to do. While I was on the phone to some of the others at the hotel Krista saw a woman in a store front and went over to explain our situation. The woman got her son to call us a taxi, and we finally got to the hotel just in time to leave for the station. I was relieved that the stressful situation was over and that we were on our way home.

Our train pulled into Jaipur at 7:30 Monday morning, and Garland, Kevin and I got an auto home. For a while our auto was playing tag with an auto with Krista and Anthony, but then we pulled ahead and cruised along. After we went through a traffic circle our auto driver suddenly pulled over and stopped. He got out, and we all thought he was waiting for the other auto with our friends to show up. The other auto pulled up and that driver got out. I kinda stuck my head out of the side and saw Krista mouth "What is going on?" Turns out our auto had run out of gas and needed a tow. Since their driver couldn't figure out how to tow us, our auto driver jumped into Krista and Anthony's auto and their driver steered our auto. Our auto driver, in the other auto, drove up to us and stuck his foot in a niche in the auto without gas, and away we went. We actually cruised at a pretty decent speed, but traffic circles posed a problem and sometimes we would slow down until he caught up with us again. It turns out that the autos don't have a horn or brakes either when they don't have gas, so we had some close shaves at one point when we tried to stop in traffic. Kevin, Garland and I started yelling "beep!" to try to let people know we were coming. Eventually we got to a petrol station and got home, but the trip was a tad more eventful than we planned on.

I think that is all for now. If you have time check out this link that my former boss sent me. It is an article about Iraq from the Christian Science Monitor. All for now!