August 2005

India: The Journey
Part II

It’s mid-November (and now mid-December, and now mid-January), and I’m finally sitting down to write about my trip to India in August. I’m not surprised it’s taken me this long, but I’m a little frustrated that I haven’t done it sooner. India is one of those places that can be hard to describe and put into words. And when I look back on the trip, as great as it was, it was exhausting! The last thing I wanted to do when I got back was relive it right away. But even though it was exhausting, it was very successful and went smoothly. At least from my perspective it did. Ask the others that went with me, maybe they have a different story!

So back to the story! I think we had just arrived in Madurai at 6am via overnight train from Chennai……..

We were greeted with jasmine flower garlands. Jasmine is the scent I associate with South India. Jasmine garlands dangle from women’s braids. Many women buy fresh jasmine every morning and wear it on a daily basis as a natural perfume. Through the heat, dust, and bus exhaust, the scent of jasmine cuts through it all and is welcome relief. We were also greeted with several welcome speeches and handmade cards for every teacher. We all stood there in a daze, smelling jasmine and listening to welcome speeches after getting off the overnight train and entering an India we only still had expectations for.

I can’t imagine what the others were thinking at this point. But I knew we had an extremely long, exhausting and overwhelming day ahead of us. But I was so happy to be home, to be with the people I love so much, that I didn’t care what was happening next. That first day I was reunited with all my friends from the SEED Center, my good friend Prof. Premila Paul and my wonderful host family. After showers at the hotel, my host mom served us ALL a wonderful breakfast of my favorite foods: tapioca/lentils with sugar, iddiyapum with coconut milk, and idlis with sambar. I swear she is the best cook in India!!

After eating our first home-cooked meal we were escorted to the American College campus where we had been invited to be the inaugural speakers for an event being sponsored by the English Department. So before we knew it, we had stepped off the train, been greeted by 20 kids from a slum, eaten breakfast at the home of a middle-class family and were seated in front of several hundred English Department B.A./ M.A. students at an elite college. In less than 6 hours we had encountered a wide spectrum of India’s diversity.

We managed to pull off the inauguration talk and even included a game of janken (rock, paper, scissors)! After the talk we were feed a meal of mutton biriyani on a banana leaf and headed back to the hotel for some r & r before our appointment at the slum school later that evening! Later that night, at the SEED Center, we were again given royal treatment. As soon as we stepped out of the rickshaw students were waiting to remove the evil eye with a special ceremony and chili water. Then they gave us a tour of the center explaining all their club groups and each room’s function. Later they performed songs and dances for us and gave us delicious South Indian tea. It’s hard to compete with a room of Indian children. They can always out perform! But we gave an introduction that involved a beach ball, facemasks, and some singing! And at the end of the night we were all adorned with a new type of garland….nametags!

That night we left exhausted but I left smiling. I left ecstatic that I had managed to get back to India and bring 3 rickshaws full of teachers to meet the SEED students. It was a great day!

The next two weeks were similar to the first day. We visited an engineering college and each gave 4 lectures on a variety of topics including: interview skills, disaster preparation, working and living abroad, and Japanese culture. We visited an elementary school and played games, sang songs and introduced the students to Japanese culture. We visited the local temple, markets and restaurants. And every night we visited the SEED center.

The SEED center is located in a slum of Madurai called Karambali. It borders a wealthy neighborhood of huge houses and sits behind the Gandhi museum and next to the law college. But the SEED students live in 1-2 room concrete block like houses with corrugated metal roofs, one right next to the other. They don’t have indoor plumbing. They have to go and collect water from a central pump. During droughts, the water may only come for a few hours every few days. There are showers constructed over the sewers on the streets. And every morning and evening everyone in the slum walks to a nearby field to use the public outdoor toilet. They live on government land. Nobody owns land or their own house. The government could decide to reclaim it at any time. Most houses have a TV and some electricity, but not all. And most people don’t have a telephone. Many children in this neighborhood have to leave school at a young age and start working to support their families. Girls, especially, are made to leave school at a young age and get married. But with the help of programs like SEED, they can continue their education and stay in school a few more years!

The SEED students have endless reserves of energy! Every night we were there we lasted about 2 –3 hours, but they could have gone all night! But in 2-3 hours we managed to do a lot with the students. We sang lots of songs, danced, played games and made lots of noise. We did other more learning focused activities like country lessons, a sushi making night, a camera workshop for the older kids, and we wrote letters to Japanese students.

But probably the best thing we did with the students was spend a day in the mountain town of Kodaikanal with them! Over the course of the year leading up to our trip, we tried to raise a little money to bring with us. We wanted to do something with the kids they don’t normally have access to. So, we hired 9 vans and piled 150+ kids, volunteers, and teachers in the vans and headed up to the mountains. The van ride itself was an experience. We sang songs, played games and even danced in the vans. But as soon as the mountain roads started it got quieter…the kids starting feeling the effects of motion sickness. And we had just stopped for lunch. It was a bad combo, and I think almost every kid stuck his or her head out the van at one point or another. But it didn’t dampen their spirits or their appetites. When we stopped for lunch, several kids got out of the van, puked on the side of the road, and then sat down with their lunch and started eating rice with spicy sambar! Crazy!!

We visited all the famous sites in Kodai: the waterfalls, pillar rock, coaker’s walk, and even took boat rides on the lake. For many kids it was their first time in a van, first time to the mountains and first time in a boat or on a lake. It was fun to see their wide eyes, their smiles and to be able to share in the experience of someplace new with them! It was also fun to get out of the SEED center and be able to interact with them in a very informal, relaxed setting! The college girls have gotten so much better at English and have also gotten much braver! We had a great time talking about all sorts of things, but mostly about John and their huge crush on him!

At the end of the day, we waved good-bye to all the vans, and wished them a safe trip back down the mountain! At this point, we had been in India about a week, and had been going, going, going, going for 5 days! That may not sound that exhausting, but add international travel, new food, extreme heat, hundreds of energetic kids and a new culture in a 3rd world and we were on the verge of burn out already!!! Originally, we had planned to visit a school in Kodai for two days and do English activities with them. But it was obvious we just couldn’t do anymore! So we cancelled that school visit and instead we just enjoyed the free time, cool air, good food and time to reflect!

We ate Tibetan food, Italian food, chocolate, fresh fruit, had a few beers, went shopping, and slept! The school we were supposed to visit had booked our hotel. We kept the reservation the first night….but after sleeping in dirty rooms, listening the wind blow through the hallway all night, and experiencing multiple power cuts, and being cold on top of that, we left as soon as we could in the morning and moved to a clean, bright, resort hotel. Each room had a garden terrace and there was grassy lawn where we laid out a blanket and enjoyed an afternoon nap in the mountain sun! It was a NEEDED change. When I was traveling in India before, I stayed at plenty of guesthouses with little to no amenities except the bed and a faucet. And if I was backpacking again, I might do the same…but not on my vacation! There was NOTHING relaxing about the first hotel!

In Kodai we said good-bye to Angela & Patty. They were headed to Pune, near Bombay, where Angela studied abroad in college. The rest of us returned back down the mountain for another 4 days in Madurai with the SEED kids. We continued our evening activities with them and on Saturday we had a farewell DAY! It wasn’t just a quick little farewell because that’s not the Indian way. It was a full day affair. We got there at 8:30am to get dressed! The female teachers were given and dressed in saris, costume jewelry and got our nails painted. The male teachers were given and dressed in dhotis and new shirts. And after the finishing touches had been applied…we were shipped to the local government slum school, via our rickshaw driver, Ganesh, for a morning of dancing, singing, speeches, and presentations!

We were all seated in a line in the front with the best view, like we were royalty. It was all a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but it’s also the Indian way. We were told we should prepare something for the morning, but in true Indian fashion, we also weren’t sure if we should plan a 10-minute activity, or three hours! Luckily, we were only given about 30 minutes to play a few games. With hundreds of kids sitting on a dirt field, huddled in the shade of one tree at 11am under the hot sun, we decided to pull out the beach ball self-introduction game and play a few rounds of janken again. Most of the SEED kids go to this slum school, so they were able to help all the other students catch on quickly. Leaving the school was absolute CHAOS!!! Kids were everywhere, trying to talk to us, touch us, get our signature, take pictures with us, etc. It was absolutely overwhelming. I don’t envy superstars that have to put with those kinds of crowds on a regular basis.

Back at the SEED Center we were adorned with henna before we were served lunch that had been made by all the kids and their families. I’m not exactly sure how they coordinated it, but they had asked us what our favorite foods were the day before and low and behold, all that food was at the good-bye party! All the kids had brought their lunch with them, but we were each assigned a student who served us our food, returned with more of anything we requested, and sometimes even feed us with their own hands! After lunch was finished and cleaned up, the real good-bye ceremony started. Each grade (or standard as they say) presented us with a dance or song and tied friendship bracelets on each one of us. Our wrists were covered by the end of the ceremony and our cheeks hurt from smiling endlessly for hours! The ceremony continued with more singing and dancing interspersed with a thank you speech written for each one of us! At the end we were asked to sing and dance, which we did without hesitation! Finally, we sang a song that I introduced (but did not write) to them several years ago. It’s called “Say When.” It was a song I used to sing at camp and sang to them as a good-bye before. They made me sing it again! It was painful and I was sobbing through most of it! Saying good-bye to people who are always excited and happy to see you when you walk in the door and who give endlessly, is not easy, emotionally and physically! It’s impossible to conceive of never seeing these kids again, especially for me! Every time I leave the SEED Center I know I have to come back. But just getting out the door with all the handshakes, high fives, hugs, last minute games of janken or thumb war and promises to come back, is a never-ending process!

Luckily, the good-byes were extended over the next day. Some of the teachers left that night, so after saying good-bye at the SEED Center we packed up and shipped everyone to a fancy hotel across from the train station. We invited all the college students and volunteers from SEED to join us for a buffet dinner. We were each assigned to several students. For almost all the students and volunteers it was their first time at a restaurant that set forks, knives and spoons on the table. It was their first time using a cloth napkin. It was their first time at a buffet. And it was their first time eating North Indian or Continental food. Before letting them loose we gave them a lesson at the table about utensils, real glass glasses, napkin placement, and how to eat the food they would serve themselves. We encouraged them to try using a fork and knife, but I never use a fork and knife to eat Indian food, so why should they? After awhile they reverted to their hands again, but they all gave it a valiant effort! The dessert table was their favorite! And it wasn’t long before the waiters were running to the kitchen to restock it with more sweets and a lot more ice cream!

When we were first presented with this idea of taking students out to a fancy hotel and teaching them how to eat at a nice hotel, it sounded very colonial to me—“teach the savage how to eat like the white man.” But the Director gave a valid point, it’s part of their education to know about other cultural practices. The meal would have been a small fortune for these kids (we paid of course), about $5 each. But in the US we spend more on that if we go to McDonald’s. So, we also gave a lesson about the differences in cost of living! But we still didn’t tell them how much it was. It would have seemed wasteful to spend so much money on a meal, very extravagant indeed! But in our Japan/US/Canada world, we spend the same amount if we go out with friends on the weekend! Regardless of the financial morality of taking them out to a fancy meal, it was a lot of fun and a festive ending to our trip. They all came to the train station with us and we saw most of the teachers off to Kerala on an overnight train! It was another sad good-bye, tears, hugs, handholding and last minute cards and gifts!

The next day I spent with my host family eating, talking, napping under the fan, and more eating (of course)! They took Owen & I took the train station, bought us parcels of food for our two day journey to Pune and we said our last good-byes. But the SEED kids and volunteers also came. My family has never understood my relationship with SEED. They are middle-upper in the caste system. They didn’t like it when I was a student studying about the untouchables and they have never been supportive of it. It was a little awkward having the two extremes of the caste system standing around me, not interacting AT ALL, but trying to say good-bye! I was still standing on the platform as the train started pulling away. It was like a scene out of a movie. I jumped on the train, stood in the open door and hung out the train as I waved good-bye to 20+ kids, volunteers and my family! Matt was standing at the back of the crowd, his blonde head sticking out amongst the sea of black. I saw him smirk. It was a bit dramatic, I must admit!

Owen and I settled into our overnight 12 hour train to Bangalore. We arrived at 5am, it was cool and the station was pretty quiet! And that’s where Part 2 of our summer journey to India concludes! More of the journey later!!

And with any luck, I"ll republish Part I in the near future as well!