Bodh Gaya

I've been in Bodh Gaya for the past few days. Sanjay and I are bringing our favourite Biharis home with us to Sarnath (Akash and Bikash.)

Bodh Gaya or "BuddhaGaya" is beautiful...today I stood under the tree where Buddha attained enlightenment.

I am ready to see my little brothersagain though,and Sunday I start my trip to Darjeeling! I bought a warm sweater today for our trek int he Himalayas! Everest here I come...as long as my abnormally small lungs adjust well to the change of altitude! I pray that Nepal redeams itself.

Change

I was drinking some aurevedic chia and thinking about home and also thinking that I havn't really changed much since coming to India. Then I realize I'm drinkng chia with several dead ants floating around and not thinking twice about not drinking it.

Alice

The Alice Project in a nutshell...
It has taken 20 years of research to create a school beyond the mechanistic paradigm.

PROJECT ALICE brings about perceptual revolution in the mind of the child though simple, scientific explanation. Recognizing Unity and withdrawing our projections, we try to develop Universal Responsibility and create a new world our of love and wisdom.

Using meditation, philosophical teaching, yoga, mantras, dance & art programs as well as Japanese, Italian and the historical dead language Sanskrit we nourish every part of the growing child, not only in the classroom where the teachers incorporate religion and the Alice Philosophy acting as mini-gurus to their students, but we also initiate sewing projects, dance parties, special pujas, cricket matches, orphan outreach and the one of the most advanced English programs in the nation which I'm proud to be a part of. The children actually call my classroom "magic English classroom" haha. We also teach non discrimination and religious tolerance by focusing on the universal connections that can be found in all the world major religions. "Love you neighbor as yourself" can be found posted on the walls of most classrooms.
Showing me how to write my name in Japanese.

The students are taught that this world is only a projection of your mind, therefore we can control our thoughts and project positive loving energies like loving our neighbors and bodily discipline. Only when your mind is clear and at a peaceful equilibrium can we enter into bliss where afterward all our actions will be positive. A 15 year old named Vikas explained to me,

"I am not this body, I am not this restless mind."

I bought some Uno card in Kolkata...and instant hit! Everytime someone throws down a draw four or reverse card we yell "Sawdee Sawdee sawdee sawdee..." really fast. It's funny because we exaggerate the hindi accent that says sorry like "sawdee." Oh yea and uno is "oh, no!" HAHAHHA!!!!!!!!

(below: Akash Wins!)

No electricity doesn't stop OhNo parties.

Not exactly sure why he wrote my name on the bottom...

A program with Don Bosco street children for Gandhiji's Birthday, the whole thing was hilarious they didn't care so much about Gandhi but wanted to paint dragons and my name.

They're beautiful.

SUNIL! Class 9, he's in my English class and is hilarious. I'm not sure why he is posing so awkwardly.

The woman on the right is Asha, she is getting married November 26th and I am invited! It's a huge honor and I'm looking for the perfect wedding gift. (This is ironic that I will be at a wedding in India very close to the same day as my good friends Steve and Dana from home.)

The dissonance between creed and deed is the root of innumerable wrongs in our civilization; it is the weakness of all churches, states parties, and persons. It gives institution and men split personalities.

Girl's painting class gallery showing in the Alice in Wonderland garden at our school.

4 days, 3 dirty hostels, and 55 hours on a bus later equals Nepal Fail.

Long story short...what was supposed to be a 8 then 6 hour bus ride to Kathmandu ended up being a 2 day 22 hour journey. Then when we got to Kathmandu No'rbu realized "Oh yea, my family doesn't live by here anymore" OOPS! Basically he never goes home because it's too expensive for his family and he was so excited to see his family he forgot to remember exactly where in Nepal they were.
Soo...then we took an expensive, short 14 hour bud ride to Nepal Gunj a city where we were supposed to be in from the beginning because it supposedly has flights to Humla, No'rbu's village. This train was maybe the most prolonged uncomfort my back has ever experienced. My lower back and knees literally have bruises from the all the bumps and potholes. It was like riding the Timber Wolf for 14 hours straight without eating or bathroom. (Because we didn't want to leave our luggage in case it got stolen so we couldn't leave the bus, and we didn't want to take it with us because then we would lose our seats and have to sit on the floor with people farting on us and throwing there slobbery peanut shells on the floor next to us... like the day before.)

Also can I please mention the fact that this bus had a TV where they insisted on playing these terribly cliche-ridiculous Nepali music videos of women in clinging wet sarees dancing in waterfalls crying. Then with using the 'dissolve effect' on PowerPoint it would cut to dancing around a fire while a guy wearing a sideways baseball cap sings to her. One of the videos the girl who was like 16 was in love with a 40+ year old man and they had some fun times running the the beach and dancing on a boat. But then the plot thickened when she dramatically runs to a Christian cross and started praying symbolizing that she was Christian and couldn't be with him because he was a Hindu. Then the old man started drinking in a cave burning photographs of her while crying and singing. Then they were on a beach again singing to each other through a silky sheet. BTW can I mention that I should win a prize for holding back my laughter because there were several people singing along next to me...I felt like I was in a mixture between a SNL Digital short and a Baked Alaska music video.

Because the flight to Humla was canceled and no scheduled flights for the next 2 weeks we decided to take the 15 hour bus ride back home so we could at least be home at Alice for the Diwali (festival of lights.) We arrive in Varanasi at 3:30 am and after 3 cups of chai and potato curry I feel healthy and ready for the all night dancing, fireworks, and candle lighting.

The entire trip was equal to driving to Aspen 5 times in 3 1/2 days on the Timber Wolf. I'm going to Nepal again in a couple weeks during our 5 day trek through the Himalayas with Tobi. This time it will be near Darjeeling and I'm praying Nepal can redeem itself.
Little brother on the bus floor going to Kathmandu.

The best part of the trip was when we had the idea to take our luggage on top the bus and ride up there. The view on the lower rolling jungle version on the Himalayas was stunning from up there.

No'rbu holding up a 22, symbolizing how long we had been on the bus so far...little did we know 22 down 33 to go.

The leader of the bus rode on the top with us a part of the way, he offered us some "Indian cigarettes" which means marijuana, but was totally understanding when we declined.

To pass the time during a traffic jam I taught him about photography. Aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. He took most of these pictures without me knowing. He is so smart and soaks up anything you teach him. At one time in a taxi his was on the phone with Sanjay from our school, and on another phone his parents from home and subsequently has to go back and forth from Nepali, Tomili, Hindi, and English. Too bad he couldn't have thrown in some Italian, Japanese or Tibetan because that might have been a world record.

Kathmandu near sunset on top of the bus.

Huge Buddha...bad picture.

Wearing with woolen socks because we thought we would be in freezing cold Humla later that day and he was been wearing the same clothes and socks for 3 days.

Typical and delicious

Lunchtime day 2

A pretty river flowing through the mountains. Photography was limited because safety and holding on the the bus came first.

too many Nepali 5 rupee notes

Really blurry picture of a horse drawn carriage, the Nepali version of an auto rickshaw.

the end

Kolkata at a glace...

These elaborate wooden shrines are built in a day in the middle of the street and torn down immediately after the festival.

For 50,000 rupeeees... it's Jamal Malik the chaiwalla from Mumbai!

Preshies. One the right is my favorite.

Off to the river folks...

DURGA DURGA DURGA! JAI HO!

Tens of thousands of Durga (the ten armed Goddess) were thrown in the Holy Hoogly (ganga) river after 5 days of veneration.

autorickshaw

The only place left in India that allows hand pulled rickshawallas.

Three of the most awesome women in the world!

One of the 120 minutes a day we spent washing washing washing...

At Prem Dan which means "God's Gift"

At the famous Kolkata Flower Market under the Howrath bridge. This place was teaming with life, and smells (mostly the smell of rotten flowers decomposing on the road, not the smell I was quite expecting but it's India.)

We were given so many free flowers we couldn't carry them all so we gave them to this cute bunch of children on the way out.

Small children who live in modest huts near the river, we gave them out flowers. Here they kept running up to me an touching my hair and laughing and running away. I guess they have never touched blonde hair before because then they started trying to pull it out and examine it. OUCH!

Hannah, Anna and I bought 25 mango ice creams for 5 rupees each, maybe my best purchase yet in India.

Soda with extract of rose. yummmm

Victoria Memorial. Hail to the empress of India who never set foot here. It was very beautiful and calm for Kolkata I will give it that. It also seemed to be the place for middle class young India couples to find a tree and hanky panky.

This is an expensive picture. We wanted to see the sunset be didn't have time to go to the river so we ran to a rooftop restaurant then we felt obligated to buy something. I said "I will have a milkshake" before I could say chocolate the waiter informed me that they do not have milkshakes only chocolate milkshakes and strawberry milkshakes. Very confusing, but worth it for the picture.

OKAY: So today I found out that I'm going to Nepal tomorrow. I think there is a very rare chance I will be able to blog at all in these next couple weeks. I'm really excited! Everyone is going home for the Diwali Festival of Lights this week except poor No'rbu (see old blog post for photos) because he lives in a really remote village in Nepal and cannot afford for go home except one every 2 years or so. So I talked to Valentino to see if it was okay if I took him. We are going to go to his village and surprise his family for the big festival. It's going be amazing with my 12 year old Nepali tour guide and the view of Mt. Everest from his front yard. Life is good. We leave tomorrow morning and the enormous smile on his face this morning when I told him is already worth the amount it will cost me to take him home. I've been very worried about money in the past and everything has turned out fine, stressing doesn't help. I don't think passing up this once in a lifetime opportunity outweighs the cost of the trip.

I'll bring Sigur Ros, some charcoal pencils, and the biography of Ghandi and I think with the untouched landscape of the Himilayan mountians in winter this will be a 'fall break' to remember,