Kesav and No'rbu being a little shy and giving you a small tour. They are normally a lot crazier but were trying to act proper for the camera. Notice No'rbu's awesome football uniform; all the boys got these from Valentino for their morning work out sessions because before they were exercising in their pants.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
H1N1
FYI everything here is less than reliable, electricity, movies, Internet, phone service, worm free eggplants, etc. Last night we were sitting in the younger boys room and the light kept flicking and being annoying and Kesav told me "It has the Swine" HAHA! So the new joke is everything that breaks or that is being shady and annoying has swine flu.
Every once in awhile No'rbu, Bikash, & Kesav will meet in the kitchen at night to play checkers and the new favorite I taught them, Go Fish. Which they call "gold fish" which is confusing when they are asking "Do you have a Gold Fish?", then to say no they say "Gold Fish!" Which sounds like they didn't hear the fish name so they person asking say "G! Gold Fish" "Yea I know...GOLD FISH!!!" I'm sorry if you didn't follow that because it's funny.
While playing I figured out that I can play an entire game of checkers and "Gold Fish" without using English. In fact most of my Hindi phrases are useless in the real world. When am I ever going to need to say "King Me!" or "Do you have a hammer head shark?" in a real life situation. Oh well. I'm also learning the script they use, which is really beautiful and totally complicated but it feels more like art and less like studying so I don't mind. ओके सो इ'म नोट थिस गुड अत हिन्दी बुत थे त्रंलाटर थिंग मेक्स आईटी लुक लिखे इ'म फ्लुएंत।
I did some math the other day and I have 87 more days in India...I really don't want to waste them! I'm trying to get everything out of this that I can but also trying to stay unstressed because 1. I want to get away from the stressful way I lived during school, working all the time, and worrying too much. and 2. Being stressed here is really looked down upon, reading a book or scripture, meditation, having tea, and 'freeing your mind' are virtues here, where at home too much of this and you are considered lazy. Here you are considered centered. I want to keep living like this back at home, but I'm not sure that's even possible, bringing this philosophy and lifestyle home and trying to make ends meet will be like fitting a square peg in a round hole, for a lack of a more creative analogy. I get homesick from time to time especially in the evenings or when someone cannot understand my English so there ends up being a big misunderstanding.
I did some more math and by the time I get home Cameron and I will have lived in the same city for 116 days of our relationship, and the other 242 were spent away, either I was in Portland, he was in Nashville or at camp or I was in Ecuador or India. 116-242! One week after getting home we will have been together a year, some might think it should not count as a year seeing as we never saw eachother or even communicated during more than half of the year. I think it should count as two years; anyone who has been in that situation knows what I mean. Although I was told two days ago that
"Cameron is making new girlfriend, because you are too long away."
When the boys and I watched Prince Caspian in Hindi tonight, the mouse with Eddie Izzards voice "Jai Ho, Jai Ho! Aslan!" I smiled. I've asked several people and still can't pin point the meaning of Jai Ho, it's similar to the English hail, or long live.
I'm enjoying the time to read so far I've read Matthew and am working my way through John, Walden, The Jungle Book, The Deathly Hallows, The Hobbit, Man's Search for Meaning, The Great Divorce, The Four Loves & The Time Machine, supplemented by several Alice philosophy books, that, trust me, are difficult even though they are 1/2 illustrations. These children learn English based on these books, that's why they are all so smart. I recently found Boom speak 5 languages, and No'rbu 7! Nepali, Hindi, Bihari, Tibetan, English, Italian, and his "mother tongue" (tribal language.) AND he know some German too! (By the way he is 12 years old and I never see him study, he's always playing football or cricket.) Do you feel dumb? I do.
Okay...the internet is starting to have swine symptoms so I better post this before I lose the connection. Namaste! बाय फ्रिएंड्स इ लव एंड मिस यू अल!!!!
Every once in awhile No'rbu, Bikash, & Kesav will meet in the kitchen at night to play checkers and the new favorite I taught them, Go Fish. Which they call "gold fish" which is confusing when they are asking "Do you have a Gold Fish?", then to say no they say "Gold Fish!" Which sounds like they didn't hear the fish name so they person asking say "G! Gold Fish" "Yea I know...GOLD FISH!!!" I'm sorry if you didn't follow that because it's funny.
While playing I figured out that I can play an entire game of checkers and "Gold Fish" without using English. In fact most of my Hindi phrases are useless in the real world. When am I ever going to need to say "King Me!" or "Do you have a hammer head shark?" in a real life situation. Oh well. I'm also learning the script they use, which is really beautiful and totally complicated but it feels more like art and less like studying so I don't mind. ओके सो इ'म नोट थिस गुड अत हिन्दी बुत थे त्रंलाटर थिंग मेक्स आईटी लुक लिखे इ'म फ्लुएंत।
I did some math the other day and I have 87 more days in India...I really don't want to waste them! I'm trying to get everything out of this that I can but also trying to stay unstressed because 1. I want to get away from the stressful way I lived during school, working all the time, and worrying too much. and 2. Being stressed here is really looked down upon, reading a book or scripture, meditation, having tea, and 'freeing your mind' are virtues here, where at home too much of this and you are considered lazy. Here you are considered centered. I want to keep living like this back at home, but I'm not sure that's even possible, bringing this philosophy and lifestyle home and trying to make ends meet will be like fitting a square peg in a round hole, for a lack of a more creative analogy. I get homesick from time to time especially in the evenings or when someone cannot understand my English so there ends up being a big misunderstanding.
I did some more math and by the time I get home Cameron and I will have lived in the same city for 116 days of our relationship, and the other 242 were spent away, either I was in Portland, he was in Nashville or at camp or I was in Ecuador or India. 116-242! One week after getting home we will have been together a year, some might think it should not count as a year seeing as we never saw eachother or even communicated during more than half of the year. I think it should count as two years; anyone who has been in that situation knows what I mean. Although I was told two days ago that
"Cameron is making new girlfriend, because you are too long away."
When the boys and I watched Prince Caspian in Hindi tonight, the mouse with Eddie Izzards voice "Jai Ho, Jai Ho! Aslan!" I smiled. I've asked several people and still can't pin point the meaning of Jai Ho, it's similar to the English hail, or long live. I'm enjoying the time to read so far I've read Matthew and am working my way through John, Walden, The Jungle Book, The Deathly Hallows, The Hobbit, Man's Search for Meaning, The Great Divorce, The Four Loves & The Time Machine, supplemented by several Alice philosophy books, that, trust me, are difficult even though they are 1/2 illustrations. These children learn English based on these books, that's why they are all so smart. I recently found Boom speak 5 languages, and No'rbu 7! Nepali, Hindi, Bihari, Tibetan, English, Italian, and his "mother tongue" (tribal language.) AND he know some German too! (By the way he is 12 years old and I never see him study, he's always playing football or cricket.) Do you feel dumb? I do.
Okay...the internet is starting to have swine symptoms so I better post this before I lose the connection. Namaste! बाय फ्रिएंड्स इ लव एंड मिस यू अल!!!!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Janpaur Photos
This is the lady who will be running the sewing project.
Some of the kids at the Hostel saw a picture of Cameron that I got in the mail and started speaking in Hindi and cracking up. I grabbed the picture and inquired about what was so funny and they couldn't describe it so Kesav tried to write it out on paper what was so funny and this is what he wrote "He is looks liek ROCKY" Haha they think he looks like a boxer-moviestar.
go to sleep
The schoolroom.
Two little girlies.
Stretch!!!!!!!!! A part of their mediation they pretend to sleep then wake up ready and refreshed for the next lesson.
Also yesterday I was at the Tara Temple praying and having some mini-fnp time with my Ipod when this Tibetan Nun approached me and handed me a card from Cameron's parents and Katie Wieberg. (Thanks to both of you!) It was really weird, who knows how they got it, the Wiley's letter was open and there were photo's inside I think they recongnized me from the school and got scared because they opened the card and it was mine. So that was awesome but a bit distracting so I resituated myself on the other side laying on my back on a step. I wasn't there for 5 minutes when a large Indian man standing over me told me I should move because the snakes and scorpians. Haha, this was the least productive prayer/meditation time ever. I gave up and watched the boys play cricket instead.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Harry P'capote and Janpur
I felt like I was in a movie as I listened to Sufjan's Seven Swans, A Fine Frenzy, Bon Iver and Nickel Creek while whipping past large groves of mango trees or tunneling under even larger groves on Banyan trees. One second I would be making eye contact with a small shepard boy hurding the goats in from the fields then looking at vast expanses of numerous crops. Everything was pretty shades of green because it has rained a lot since the puja. I honestly felt like I was in a Wes Anderson film, maybe like a cross between The Darjeeling Limited and The Motorcycle Diaries. I can't explain or even remember all the beautiful things I saw, wait okay I just remembered something hilarious! There were, of course, lots of Hindu and Jain temples dotted across the landscape. This one in particular was amazing! It had a giant statue of a big FAT man he looked like an exact cross between Harry Potter and Capote! What the?! Was that all about...It was amazing. Of course, only I, think that stuff is funny, so I just smiled to myself and turned up Whisper by A Fine Frenzy (which always makes me think of Liz Noser.-not the song the band-)
Another funny thing was that these people have honestly and quite obviously never seen a white person. Everyone: small school children, old men on bikes, ladies selling pomegranates, girls buying bangles, women in the field...whoever, they all looked like they had seen a ghost when they saw me. There mouths would drop and they looked amazed/astonished/confused all in one. It was fun for me to guess who would wave back when I waved. Most people especially young children would wave back and get excited some kids went crazy and started chasing the motorcycle! HAHAHA so funny.
So when I got there I put my backpack in my room (the only room in the hut) and sat kind of awkwardly and stared at Vipins wife because she didn't really speak English. She is really nice though from what I can tell and I know she will do great with the sewing project. He has a 7 month year old baby too so I had fun with her. The next day was a rainy day and since all the children have to walk a long way to get to the school only 6 out of 15 arrived. They were all 5 years old but looked 3 or 4 because of malnutrition and genetics Indian children always look younger than they are. They practiced english which was adorable and we played games for hours, like duck duck goose (which only 2 of them understood.) And we did the hokey pokey, which was a real crowd pleaser. I'll put up pictures later of the little preshes.
Remember how I mentioned how it was a little awkward with his family, they are so nice but it's a lot of silence and me trying to find new things to look at so I don't have to stare at them staring at me. At night I had to go to the bathroom, which means getting a "torch" and finding a nice spot in a field. SO, I've been camping before several times so I'm pretty well versed in going outdoors. That wasn't the problem, it was that the grandma kept freaking following me! What the heck! I couldn't get her to leave me alone...was she going to try and "help" me or something? I don't know but she was freaking me out. So after THAT sufficiently awkward encounter with his grandma I went inside and Vipin insisted on asking me "Did you make a pee pee?"OH. MY. GOSH. Seriously?
At night to try and forget the awkward and the rats I listened to some FNP songs and watched two lighting bugs danced on the ceiling. It was quite wonderful, their small green lights flicked really fast created a small strobe light effect in the darkness. Mmm it was good. The next days trip "home" to Sarnath was ahhhhhhhhmazing because it was pouring down monsoon all over us. I was soaked head to toe but it was a warm rain and everything was perfect.
I moved my trip to Calcutta to the 23rd of September and I will be there until the 30th. I'm planning on working at Mother Teresa's dying rooms and orphanage. I'm also going to be spending a day looking for a harmonium to buy because I have recently been loving learning harmonium. Okay...I'm going to go drink some Chia and read the Jungle Book NAMASTE!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Puja
Puja is worship in Hindi.
One of the teachers at the school has a skin disease that western medicine has been unable to treat. Therefore, here they believe it's an evil spirit and the only way to healing is through puja. Also as I have mentioned the monsoon isn't strong and there are a lot of wells drying up. So 2 days ago, because of these two reasons there was a 28 hour long puja at the Hindu temple at our school. There are no sound laws in India so they set up enormous speakers that blasted the sound of the puja out, you could hear it far away.
It started at 11:00 am Thursday and about 30 people gathered in the temple as sang mantras, and read scripture and played music in the temple while screaming into the microphones. Other people stayed outside waiting their turn or joining in. Since it went all night we prepared dinner for maybe 70 people (that's a lot of chapati and churry!) it took hours to prepare and serve. the hostel boys did most of the work and never complained. they also served themselves last and ate at 11:45 p.m. Most of the people, including many students stayed up all night praying and singing. They prayed all through school on Friday then in the afternoon around 2 pm a Brahmin priest came and performed a ceremony for Negendra with fire and chanting. It hadn't rained in a week and right as the 27 puja ended it not only rained for almost all day and night but the temperature dropped 10-15 degrees for a couple days. It's something I can type up simply but never fully describe the sounds and smells and feeling of the school during the puja. They said they have never performed puja and it not rain. Kind of crazy. I think a lot of people think hinduism is a lot of superstions but i'm starting to see that these people have MORE faith that God can provide than most Christians I know. All in all it was an very interesting experience to say the very least.
Tonight I am going to visit a school about 5 hours away. It's supposed to be really beautiful with a lot of mountains so I'm excited I will stay their one and a half days. I will be playing games with the villiage children and planning a mural to paint at the school. It's also the same school Vipin and myself at starting the sewing project at so I am excited to meet his wife, who will head up the project.
In other news Cole (the cat) got himself in big trouble because he spilled all the dood (milk) that Kesav and Vivek bought with their own money. They have been cursing Cole all day and night for knocking over their milk. It took them weeks to save the money so they cried when it was dripping from the bed on the dirty floor.
One of the teachers at the school has a skin disease that western medicine has been unable to treat. Therefore, here they believe it's an evil spirit and the only way to healing is through puja. Also as I have mentioned the monsoon isn't strong and there are a lot of wells drying up. So 2 days ago, because of these two reasons there was a 28 hour long puja at the Hindu temple at our school. There are no sound laws in India so they set up enormous speakers that blasted the sound of the puja out, you could hear it far away.
It started at 11:00 am Thursday and about 30 people gathered in the temple as sang mantras, and read scripture and played music in the temple while screaming into the microphones. Other people stayed outside waiting their turn or joining in. Since it went all night we prepared dinner for maybe 70 people (that's a lot of chapati and churry!) it took hours to prepare and serve. the hostel boys did most of the work and never complained. they also served themselves last and ate at 11:45 p.m. Most of the people, including many students stayed up all night praying and singing. They prayed all through school on Friday then in the afternoon around 2 pm a Brahmin priest came and performed a ceremony for Negendra with fire and chanting. It hadn't rained in a week and right as the 27 puja ended it not only rained for almost all day and night but the temperature dropped 10-15 degrees for a couple days. It's something I can type up simply but never fully describe the sounds and smells and feeling of the school during the puja. They said they have never performed puja and it not rain. Kind of crazy. I think a lot of people think hinduism is a lot of superstions but i'm starting to see that these people have MORE faith that God can provide than most Christians I know. All in all it was an very interesting experience to say the very least.
Tonight I am going to visit a school about 5 hours away. It's supposed to be really beautiful with a lot of mountains so I'm excited I will stay their one and a half days. I will be playing games with the villiage children and planning a mural to paint at the school. It's also the same school Vipin and myself at starting the sewing project at so I am excited to meet his wife, who will head up the project.
In other news Cole (the cat) got himself in big trouble because he spilled all the dood (milk) that Kesav and Vivek bought with their own money. They have been cursing Cole all day and night for knocking over their milk. It took them weeks to save the money so they cried when it was dripping from the bed on the dirty floor.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
A Bump In The Night
On that note: every single kid here is ripped! There are so muscular like mini-Hercules. There was one kid who Valentino thought was "overweight" (he was average, if anything for America he was thin) so now he has to excerize every morning before school and no more milk before bed! At first I thought it was wrong but just think if our gym classes and parents took that initiative how much childhood obesity could be prevented.
Splash!
A few nights ago I was innocently drifting off the sleep when all hell broke loose. It was probably midnight or later, I'm not sure but I was hit over the head with something very heavy! I knew it wasn't a dream because my mosquito net was laying all over me. It was pitch dark and I so I couldn't see what it was that attacked me. I laid there for several minutes and realized something was on top of me! I thought it was maybe a monkey, I know that sounds stupid but it's possible and what else could it be!? Then I tasted blood and realized I was bleeding pretty badly. So in the darkness I attempted to find my way out of my mosquito net that was now in the confusion acting as a cage, all the while I'm wondering what is sitting on my head. I heard really loud crashing noises as I sat up and realized then that the huge picture of some Hindu god hanging above my bed had fallen on me and the glass has broken all over me. So my hand is really bloody as well as my face but after washing I realized this is only because of the fact that my hand was laying on my face and it was only my hand that was cut. While I was washing and cleaning my hand trying to figure out if it was actually a deep cut I looked down and I swear what Shelob and Argog are to spiders this cockroach was to the cockroach kingdom. It wasn't scared of me but was darting across the room and ended up resting in a pile of my clean clothes. Now I know I'm not going to sleep. I spent a lot of time cleaning up all the shattered glass on my bed, in my net, and on the floor, then I had to repair my net and find the demon cockroach if I had any chance of sleeping. Anyways, it was a bit crazy but all I have to show for it is a minuscule wimpy cut on the back of my hand. I'm pretty lucky my face and neck were protected by my hand, the glass could have done a lot more damage. I remove the picture and all is well (for now.)
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