The Next Part

A year ago I started planning for this adventure, and since then I´ve been telling people that I´m going to go to India and then I´m going to go to Spain. Welp, the India part is completed and now I find myself sitting in a locutería (that´s an internet cafe if you ever are in Spain) down the street from my teeny tiny apartment. How bizarre that this is actually working, and going well on top of that. It´s surreal, really.

I left India on Friday morning, flew 10 hours to London then another 2 to Madrid, arriving around 12:00 am. I navigated the metro all by myself (I´m so grown-up!), and found my CouchSurfer´s apartment. If ya´ll haven´t heard of CouchSurfing, check it out! It´s a super awesome organization of people that provides you with an instant network of friends wherever you go. Seriously, in the past three days they have given me a roof over my head, food to eat, beer to drink, jokes to laugh at, taken me to the flea market, and tonight we´re going on a picnic. The ones that I have been hanging out with all live in an apartment together and met over Couchsurfing, so it´s a very international household. German, English, Spanish and Portuguese have abounded in our conversations, and I am so, so thankful to Trini, Ben, Leo and Pablo for making me feel at home in this big, strange city.

However, I have also learned a few things in the past three days that encourages me to tell all of you to take the plundge and put yourself, by yourself, in a totally foreign situation. It´s not at hard as you think!! Granted, I do speak the language here, and it would be much harder to be here if I couldn´t communicate with the locals, but whatever. Go to England, or Australia, or New Zealand! What the hell, go to India! They speak English (kind of). Just go somewhere new, put yourself in awkward, foreign situations. Get lost. Curse the world when you can´t figure out how your apartment keys work. Love the old man sitting next to you in the restaurant who is feeding pastries to his tiny dog under the table. Grip your purse like a paranoid maniac because everyone keeps telling you that you'll get pick-pocketed. Laugh at the awkward moments between teenage boys and girls on the metro. Wander the streets until you get to know your neighborhood. And talk to everyone. I mean everyone. That includes the grumpy lady sitting next to you in the post office, the Cuban waitress who makes your cafe con leche, the drag queen walking down the street on her way home when you emerge from your building in the morning (have I mentioned I live in the gay neighborhood?), the overly polite and formal store clerk who is helping you buy sheets in sizes you don´t understand. You´ll be amazed at the stories people will share with you, the warmth they will exude, the insight they will give you into the culture.

Now, I´m not saying this is all fun and exciting. I´ve cried more over the past few days than I have in a while, because right now I am totally and completely alone, and it´s often frustrating. True, I have met some incredibly helpful and kind people through CouchSurfing, but they have their own lives and can´t hold my hand everyday. And while Spain is a cakewalk compared to India, it is still a foreign country and things don´t make sense (what do you mean everything closes for four hours in the afternoon so everyone can have a siesta!?), but through all of this, I will become a stronger and more well-rounded person. I´m proving to myself that I´m capable of things that at other points in my life would have seemed impossible. And outside of that, my study abroad program starts on Wednesday, so I´ll meet other people who are going through the same wild adjustment as me, and we will all come to realize together our boundless capabilities.

Wish me luck, my loved ones. It´s only day 3 and I´ve got many more ahead, but I feel that this next part is going to be an amazing and life-changing adventure.

The Part where the Tibetans Forever Steal a Piece of my Heart.

We've been in India for two weeks now. We've spent the last week in McLeod Ganj volunteering, making all sorts of interesting, international friends and eating a whole lot of food. We keep joking that we're actually in Tibindia (that's a Tibet-India combination) since the Tibetan culture is so prevalent here. I love them! I absolutely love the Tibetans and everything to do with them (especially their food, happy tummy at last)! The organization that we've been volunteering through is called Tibet Hope Center, and we've met so many wonderful, profound people there. We've been spending a couple of hours volunteering each day and helping Tibetan refugees learn English, either in the conversation class or in the entry level class after their lecture time with the teacher, Kusang. Kusang is also the founder of the Center and is a really cool guy. He came to India from Tibet when he was pretty young and really benefited from all of the services the government-in-exile has set up here. As a young Tibetan refugee, if you maintain good grades, the government will pay for everything - your education, accommodations, even clothing, but while they are doing this they remind you of the importance of giving back to your community. What can you do once you graduate to better the Tibetan people? This mantra was in Kusang's thoughts when he graduated from college with a degree in Mass Media. At the time he was tutoring a monk friend in English (he speaks English, Hindi, Korean and Tibetan) who started bringing more friends to him who wanted to learn English. He realized this could be a real opportunity to contribute to his culture and starting looking into how to start an NGO. Kusang really had no idea what to expect in 2007 when he started the Center in one room with only a chair and a table, but after four years, the Center has grown tremendously and currently has over 80 refugee students enrolled in classes.

Today we volunteered in the conversation class where we talked to the more advanced students about how to give directions and how to go to the doctor. We made up all kinds of silly scenarios, which they laughed at (Tibetans have the greatest sense of humor ever), but I think it was actually very useful to them. In the entry level class we talked about asking the time, how to read a clock, and telling how long you've been/lived/studied/worked somewhere. We drew big clocks on the whiteboards and changed the time on it a bunch for them to practice. I also would write a time and ask them what they do during that time of day. It was a great way for them to get a little creative with the material we were learning, and I've had so much fun helping them learn that it's really reinforced my thoughts about working with English language learners in the future.

The students are so sweet. The majority of the class is made up of monks, with a few other adults thrown in. They are also mostly male, but I think the females in the class really love having Emily and me around. The one girl, Dolma, calls me "teacher, teacher" and insists that I sit next to her every time. The other girl in the class, Tenzi, is a Buddhist nun and the teeniest tiniest person you've ever met. I've taken lots of pictures of the class, which I'll have to add to here later.

All of the Tibetans are so positive, happy, and hilarious that I tend to forget the hardships they've experienced. Then I have encounters like I did today, and it's all put back into perspective for me. After the entry level class we were walking up the hill with one of the monks, Choeney. We were telling him that we were very hungry because we hadn't eaten lunch yet. We said we were going to get some thukpa, which is a spicy Tibetan soup with long spaghetti-like noodles in it. He said he wanted to cook food for us, which we thought might mean tomorrow or the next day. Turns out he wanted to cook us thukpa today instead of having us go eat in a restaurant. There was no way we could turn down this gracious invitation, so we followed him back up a rocky side street to his apartment building. We wandered down a series of dark hallways until we came to his apartment: one room that he shares with two other monks. Inside three mattresses rested on the floor against headboards made of cardboard boxes, and a two burner cook-top stood in the corner with a small table next to it. This comprised the kitchen. In the apartment there was also a shelf containing utensils, toiletries, and miscellaneous bottles, a very small end table, and a clothes line strung from one side of the room to the other where their extra robes were hung drying. The one window looked out onto the building next door. And that was it. A shared bathroom was located down the hallway as well as a faucet for running water.

Choeney left us in the room while he ran to the closest vegetable vendor to pick up an eggplant, green beans, and tomatoes. He doesn't have a refrigerator, so I would imagine that he has to buy only as much as he needs if he's going to cook at home. When he came back he pulled out a small cutting board, a knife and two pots and began to cook us some delicious, fresh thukpa. While he cooked each of his roommates came home. They both hung out for a little while and spoke a little bit of English, so we chatted about life in India. The one roommate was telling us that he and Choeney came here together from a monastery in South India about three months ago when they both got very sick. He also told us of how he had crossed the Himalayas on foot when he fled into exile. It took him 35 days and he got frostbite on his one foot during the crossing. He poured us tea out of a thermos that rested on the floor while he told us this, smiling in his maroon robes. Then Choeney poured the thukpa into the only two bowls they have, handed us some chopsticks and sat down to watch us eat. We were confused and asked him if he was going to eat with us, but he said he had eaten earlier. At that moment I had feelings of guilt and extreme gratitude all rolled up in one. I kept thinking that I should be making him lunch, or I should pay for the vegetables or something. I should do something, but I also realized that my presence at the Hope Center was giving the students like Choeney an invaluable gift. This was his way of repaying us for the time we spent with them laughing, hearing their stories, and practicing English. My heart broke a little bit as I sat perched on the mattress in the tiny apartment with the three monks smiling at me. How do they maintain such high spirits when life is clearly not easy?

Emily and I left the apartment a little over an hour ago. We ate all of the thukpa, drank multiple cups of tea, took a ton of pictures with them, and shared stories in broken English about life in our home countries. We are all visitors to India, some of us more permanent than others, and while we've found things we love about this place (freedom to be a monk without being thrown in prison, for example) we all miss our homes. Almost none of the refugees I've met here have any family in India, but they create new ties among the other refugees, knowing that they may not see their families again for a very long time, if ever.

This is not the first impoverished country I've visited. This is not the first time that people who have nothing have wanted to give me something which I've felt guilty about. I know that if I entered the majority of homes here, I would find a similar situation with multiple people living in one room. Yet somehow I have a hard time finding the logic when I encounter these situations. Here I am, sitting in this tiny room, telling refugees how I get to go to college and come visit India simply because I wanted to. At home I complain about how small my kitchen is even though I actually have a kitchen. I whine about doing my homework and going to my jobs when I earn more money in one day than many people do here in a week. I get angry when I'm stuck in traffic, while people on the other side of the world are trekking over mountains on foot, all the time worrying about being thrown in prison and brutally tortured if they are caught escaping. I have a fridge full of food, a closet full of clothes and shoes, my own car, my own bedroom, hot water all the time, and most importantly, my family close by. How fortunate I am to end up in this situation, and all of these different experiences act as constant reminders to be grateful for the life I lead.

The Tibetans are the most amazing, resilient people I have ever met. Coming to India just to volunteer at the Tibet Hope Center would have been worth all of the planning and money it took to get here. Their unwavering Buddhist faith gives them capacities for happiness and forgiveness that I don't think many people in the Western world understand. Everyone I've talked to here feels lucky and so fortunate to be where they are. They don't hate the Chinese government for what it's done to them. They openly forgive them and happily live their simple lives. They're constantly cracking jokes and sharing what little they have without a second thought. Even in class, we often don't have enough photocopies of the material for everyone. They all pass around the worksheets without ever thinking "that's mine."

Lunch at Choeney's might be my favorite part of the trip so far. It was the best meal I've had in India and I'll forever be grateful to the kindness and compassion he showed to almost complete strangers.

As you read this I hope you keep in mind how fortunate you are to lead the life you do, and always remember that happiness is a state of mind. You could have the most expensive flat screen TV, the newest iPhone, the fastest car, designer clothes, and eat off of dishes made of diamonds, but unless you show love and compassion towards others, what is all of that stuff worth? As cheesy as it sounds folks, it's love that makes the world go round. I love you all and miss you too.

The Part where I get become a Celebrity, view a real live Silly Walk, and Get all Shanti Shanti.

On Wednesday we arrived in Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj, home of the exiled Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama. Prior to this I was having a really hard time understanding how people could come to India and have these overwhelming spiritual experiences, what with the poverty and dirt and constant heckling that goes on, but now I'm beginning to understand. This peaceful town is snuggled into misty mountains tops of the Himalayas where Buddhist monks wander the streets and prayer flags fly from every roof. It is also quiet here, like actually quiet, minus the constant pitter patter of rain. The most you will be harassed is by the copious amount of monkeys trying to steal your stuff, but as long as you make sure to protect your valuables (they have an uncanny knack for taking the one thing you really don't want them to take) and eat your food quickly, these fluffy little rabies machines will leave you alone.

Yesterday we visited the Dalai Lama's temple and a museum about the Tibetan struggle and their exile to India. There are so many Tibetans here, each with a unique but similar story, and it's amazing to think that they've all had to experience this horrible, tragic history. China has essentially decided to wipe out the Tibetan culture and religion. They arrest and torture protesters and monks who resist the "cultural revolution". Most people who have gone into exile have done so by foot, crossing the Himalayas with little more than a blanket to protect them. There are many people here missing fingers and toes from frostbite acquired on the journey, yet the Tibetans always maintain their peaceful, happy demeanor that is so ingrained in their Buddhist culture. What a change it is from the Indians who, while also kind and helpful, are pushy, loud, and totally in your face.

There are abundant resources here for the refugees and ways to get involved. Yesterday we took a yoga class from a very silly, yet incredibly flexible refugee and today we're going to be conversation partners with some recently arrived Tibetans who are trying to learn English.

But before I float off into the fog and find my inner Buddha, I have to explain the other part of this title: my being a celebrity and discovering the source of all of Monty Python's wisdom, no?

Tuesday we had another day in Amritsar. We were exhausted after wading through the cholera water all day the day before, so we attempted to take it easy. We thought a walk in Jallianwala Bagh, a local park would be, well, a walk in the park, but as India has continually proved to me, even the most simple seeming things can become complicated. Jallianwala Bagh was the site of a horrible massacre during the early 1900s. The British had arrested some important Indian leaders for unwarranted reasons, and the Indians were holding a peaceful protest against their arrest. To break up the protest, the British opened fire on the unarmed Indians, firing over 1,000 rounds into the crowd in less than 10 minutes, killing over 300 people and injuring 1,000 more. Today the park acts as a memorial to the people who were injured and killed, but we couldn't appreciate this because every single person in the park wanted to take a picture with us. "One snap, one snap" rang out from every corner as people rushed towards us with their camera phones.The little kids were cute, just wanting to see what they look like on the cameras screen. One man thrust his baby at me, who was not so stoked that some super sweaty stranger was holding her, but mostly it was young men who wanted to take their picture with us, one at a time. We later found out that they like to do this so that they can show people pictures of their "western girlfriends," which I find totally insane because Indian women are so beautiful I am so sweaty here all the time.

Later that day we took a cab ride (by that I mean 12 people stuffed in a jeep that barely ran) to the Indian/Pakistani border to watch the border closing ceremony. They do it every day, and it is a highly formalized, official, and completely ridiculous looking affair. The soldiers who perform the ceremony wear helmets with a huge fan on top and try to out intimidate the other side with their super masculine high kicks. Seriously, I didn't know 1) that Indians over five feet tall existed anywhere and 2) that any man in the world could get his leg to kick so high as to touch his silly headdress. I think Monty Python must have shown up to the border ceremony, witnessed this bizarre tradition, and wrote their silly walk skit off of it. Huge crowds of Indians and puny, all-male crowds of Pakistanis show up to support their country in this highly patriotic affair with cheers and chants and dancing and music. Just in case you've never seen the silly walk, I've provided a comparison of the two for you below. In fact, I'm not the first one to find this striking similarity. You're welcome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ0ue-XGl9c

The Part where I find myself Knee-Deep in Monsoon Flood Water

Hello friends and family!

I arrived in India 5 days ago, and what an adventure it's already been! If I wasn't sitting at a roadside computer in a scary internet cafe, I would try to upload some pictures to show you, but I'm afraid those might have to wait until I get to Spain and have my laptop again.

We spent our first two days in Delhi, navigating the metro system, wading through swarms of people, avoiding hagglers, and riding on crazy death bike and auto rickshaws. The most amazing part of Delhi we visited was Old Delhi, which is where I think the city probably gets it's bad reputation from. It is a hot, stinky, rundown part of town. People are everywhere - gambling on the sidewalk, sleeping in the trash, selling and eating food on the side of the road, and yelling "hallo, hallo" at the two weird white girls walking past. The traffic is also insane, although I've decided since I could successfully cross the street in Old Delhi, I can do anything!! There is constantly bumper to bumper traffic and honking horns, made up of cars, taxis, cows, and the occasional dumbfounded looking goat, but mostly rickshaws. They are everywhere! One of the best parts was the end of the day when school got out and we saw a million small children  in school uniforms stuffed like sardines into the bike rickshaws, waving at us with bemused excitement as we passed.

Two days in Delhi was a great experience, we saw many a dilapidated monument (to quote Emily, "Everything in India is falling apart, even their museums"), bought some kurtis to wear so we aren't so obviously foreign (didn't really help), and met some very interesting people. I was happy to get out of there at the end of it, though.

On Sunday we took what was supposed to be a 10 hour train ride to Amristar, which turned into more of a 13 hour train ride. At first we went to the wrong train station, thinking our train left from New Delhi, when it really left from Old Delhi (yes, we had to go back there... duh duh duh), so we ran back to the metro, ran through the metro, and ran through the other train station. We made it in time, but were quite possibly the sweatiest, stinkiest people on the entire planet by that point. For the next ten hours I listened to the man in the berth below me play Shakira over and over on his cell phone.

Once we found out that our train was going to be late, we became a little worried about showing up to a strange city at one o'clock in the morning, so the only English speaking train worker set off to save the day for us (people here are very concerned about two females traveling by themselves) and made the bedding collector, who was also going all the way to Amritsar, act as our guard dog. He wouldn't let anyone into our car after that (although the police still managed to come in and steal our dinner. I didn't know how to say no! Apparently that's not an uncommon thing.), and found us a safe taxi when we finally arrived at the train station a billion years later.

Yesterday it rained ALL DAY LONG!!! Helloooo, monsoon!!! At first we didn't think much of it, busting out our uber-nerdy yet incredibly practical matching  yellow rain jackets to explore the city, but as the day when on and the rain never slowed down, we came to understand the meaning of "monsoon". Friends, this is not a little rain. This is a torrential downpour that floods the entire city. Yet even the great Biblical flood cannot slow things down in India. Life still goes on even though you're sitting in an inch of water inside your auto rickshaw.

We went to the Golden Temple in the morning, an amazing Sikh holy place, and the only place we've been to that isn't falling apart. A huge marble complex surrounds the solid golden temple that sits in the middle of a pool where a ceremony is always taking place. All are welcome at the Golden Temple, with free meals being prepared and served by people of all ranks and classes throughout the day. At this point, it wasn't raining too badly, we we're only standing in about two inches of water, so it was very enjoyable. When we left Emily said that she felt as if she had "just seen the Pope." Awesome.

From there we took an auto to the bus station to check out times for the Pakistani/Indian border ceremony and buses to Dharamsala. This is where the real rain began. At one point our rickshaw (and every other car/bike/shoe-less Indian walking in the road) was in about a foot of water. We got stuck in such a bad traffic jam that the rickshaw driver told us to get out and walk the rest of the way to the bus station. This meant getting in the brown muck with everyone else. I may come home from India with diseases. But as with every daily unexpected twist and turn here, you just do things because you have to, so we plopped out into the flood water alongside women in drenched saris and men covering up their turbans with shower caps. We weaved through the traffic, trying not to think about what was in the water with us to find out the times, and then waded across the street to the cinema, figuring a four hour Bollywood movie would be a good way to pass some rainy, rainy, rainy, muddy, hours. Mind you, every Indian we passed along the way was laughing at our matching Morton Salt Girl rain jackets. I think they were really just jealous.

The Bollywood movie was hilarious!!!! I can't remember what it was called because the name was very long and in Punjabi, but it cracked me up. Women don't really go to the movies by themselves in India, so the workers escorted us into the theater, found us seats, and then escorted us out. The best part of the movie, besides the copious amounts of cheesy fight scenes and random song and dance (which I think I'm slightly addicted to), was the cheering crowd. The whole theater would erupt with cheers at certain points in the movie. Sometimes someone would yell something out about what was happening and the crowd would burst into laughter. When a bad guy would get punched with over-the-top sound effects and end up with an instant black eye, everyone would holler and applaud. The movie was also so long that there was an intermission. I have a feeling life in the US may seem very dull and square after all of this...

We have one more day in Amristar and then we're off to seek Tibetan enlightenment in Dharamsala/McLeod Gang. We'll see what other adventures come our way today in this pulsing, chaotic, poverty-stricken place. There is never a dull moment in India.