Photos from the End of India

I have some more photos on my camera still, but these are pretty great. They are from Dehradun and some great trekking that I did around Joshimath. Enjoy!


https://picasaweb.google.com/101737615291512796999/FromDehradunToTheMountains?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Thinking in Amsterdam

I am currently in Amsterdam, and just thinking over the past sixteen hours. I realized another reason why I was so distressed in the Dehradun airport. I was going through culture shock just leaving the village. In the village, being a young, alone woman means that people try to take care of you. I was completely shocked when the costumer service people were completely uninterested in how upset I was. I was also surprised that when I was crying on a plane, none of the fellow passengers said anything. If I had been in the villages and cried, about 1,000 crone-like women would have descended upon me with chai. I guess it is a very good thing that I'll first be in Michigan and then Jersey City when I get back. I don't know if I could handle Jersey City right away.

I'll be back in the USA in about nine hours more-or-less. I'm excited to put this traveling behind me and just get readjusted as soon as possible!

Thanks for reading!

Erica

There's No Easy Way Out

I am currently in the Delhi airport. I start off this way, because I wasn't sure if I was going to end up in Delhi earlier this evening. I knew that I was leaving from Dehradun today and originally, my flight was scheduled for 5:00 PM. But my flight was preponed, which really is difficult for an American to understand. I completely forget/didn't register that my flight was scheduled for two hours before the original time. I showed up to the airport as my flight was taking off.

I literally began crying when I realized this. The Jet Airways rep who I was speaking with can only be described as a quintessential dickhead. I hate to use this language on this blog, but I really don't think there's any other way that I could describe the lack of compassion and useless information with which he soaked the Dehradun airport. I won't give you a play-by-play, but finally during us yelling at each other (me demanding that he provide me information so that I could know whether to take a cab to Delhi or stay in the airport and he saying that it wasn't his problem) he mentioned that there was another flight that still had seats. Unfortunately, this was with an airline that has reputation for cancelling flights or at least delaying them a lot. I did buy a ticket for this flight, but soon afterwards I was told that a seat was available on a better airline that was definitely departing. So, I bought a second ticket. I really did not want to miss my international flight. I really, really did not want to spend a night in Delhi and put Peter through an extra day of waiting for me.

I bought the ticket, we took off, and I began to sob immediately. Usually, I'm pretty good at dealing with my feelings. Most of the time, I can be self-realized enough to go through stressful situations with a relatively clear head. I might freak out in the privacy of my own home, but I don't miss flights and I don't cry on planes. The reason for my uncharacteristic behavior is that I'm very conflicted about leaving India. I love Uttarakhand. I had one of the best experiences of my life during these nine months. I have friends here to whom I feel very deeply connected, even though some of them don't even speak English. I've been so lucky to build so many cross-cultural and cross-language relationships this year. I also just love the culture and the geography of Uttarakhand. On the other hand, I'm completely exhausted. I miss my family, my boyfriend, my friends, my dogs, and my culture. As much as I tried to identify with living in India this year, I am not Indian. I feel as if I am leaving home in order to go home. I know that the United States is my homeland. I will always be American. The people who mean the most to me in the entire world are Americans. I behave like an American woman and not an Indian woman. Regardless, I felt like a part of me was being torn out as we took off from Dehradun. I had not addressed this conflict prior to today.

Denying my ambivalence led me to not actually focus on leaving. I packed and I said goodbye to people, but I didn't actually give my ticket a good look. That's never happened to me before in my entire life. I feel very foolish and wasteful. But it's also shown me just how much of my mind was engaged without me even realizing it. I should have given myself more time to process what it meant to me to leave India.I hope that the next time that I go through a transition such as this one, I am able to better take care of myself.

India is both very aggressive and very conservative. My legs are paler than they've ever been in my life, because I can't show them in public. But then as you walk down the street, you're assaulted with sounds, smells, and sights. There's feces, food cooking and burning garbage. There's a million scooters that seem to always be about to collide. There's large groups of people everywhere. Even in the village, people group together. There's no privacy here. I needed to request that Jannat and Didi leave my room when I was trying to tweeze my eyebrows before leaving for the airport. Although there are no boundaries here, I spent a lot of time alone. I spent a lot of time unable to communicate in my native tongue. It's no surprise that all of these contradictions have led me to feel very confused with regards to India. I am both relieved to leave and extremely sad. But I felt very guilty about being upset about my departure. My parents, boyfriend and friends miss me. I felt like shit for being sad when they were so happy that I'm coming home soon. So, I denied that I was even leaving. I put off packing and I didn't pay attention to my flight information.

I'm embarrassed, but I'm also relieved. I'm glad that my emotions about India are not as simple as I told myself that they were. I'm happy these months meant enough to me that I cried as we left Dehradun. Of course, I'm also very, very excited that I am in Delhi and that I will not miss my international flight. And really, the cost of those two tickets is equivalent to shopping for a few hours or a weekend trip in the United States. I'll just be missing out on one of those things, which I don't really care about too much anyways. The important thing to remember is that I'm fragile now, because I was strong when it counted. I fought for a lot during these nine months and I didn't give up even when I was faced with circumstances that I could have never imagined. Even so, I'm happy that I had those obstacles. The future doesn't seem so scary now that I've made a great experience out if a potentially negative one. I hope that I can maintain this attitude in the United States.

Goodbye, India.

Dharma in Dharamsala

           I know that it has taken me awhile to write about Dharamsala. It’s not that I’m completely exhausted from the trip, but I am feeling very strange about coming home soon. I am both excited and anxious. I do also feel a little sad, but I do believe that nine months is maybe as much as I can handle of my life being in flux. It has been very hard to ever feel settled in India. My work is especially unsustainable, because it requires me to push myself hard physically and spend a lot of time alone--not really a great combination. Also, I’ve been in Joshimath and the internet has been extremely crappy here.

            Dharamsala was a welcomed relief from the tedium of doing data entry in Dehradun. I love my fieldwork, but the Wildlife Institute is a pretty bad place to have to do data entry and analysis. There aren’t a lot of comfortable places to sit and the lighting is not great. Even more difficult is the recent heat, which makes it challenging to concentrate. Therefore, we were feeling pretty excited when Alison and I set off on a 12-hour bus journey that took us from 5:00 PM in Dehradun to 5:00 AM in Dharamsala.

            We got into Dharamsala and had to get into a taxicab to take us to where our friend and fellow Fulbrighter, Sara, lives. Alison speaks Tibetan and Chinese but not Hindi. I had to handle the interactions with the taxi driver, which were largely negative. I hate coming to a very touristy place. It’s very difficult to get a good price for anything and most people in the tourist industry are pretty unwilling to please you. This driver went up the hill to MacLeod Ganj—where the Tibetan community lives—so fast that we passed Sara’s house. We told him to go back and he told us to walk! I explained that it was far and he said that it was a one-way street. There are no one way streets in the whole of India! Sure, a sign might be there, but no one listens. I’m speaking in Hindi to you, buddy! Don’t try using rules of the road as an excuse! Also, this was 5:30 AM and I have yet to see a police officer in India do anything before 11:00 AM.

            So we got to Sara’s and then passed out. Around 7:30 AM we went to a lovely coffee shop that makes real espresso, very good omelets, and granola with yogurt. Dharamsala has very good food, both in quality and variety. I’m told that the Tibetans don’t like most of the exotic foods, but tourists do. This is one good part of going to a place that has a large expat community. The rest of that day we pushed ourselves through “bus lag,” which is the fatigue from spending your night on a bus. We ate some more amazing food. Lunch was at a Japanese restaurant and dinner was at a Korean restaurant.

            That same day we also wandered around MacLeod Ganj. The town completely changes between 7:30 AM and 11:00 AM. In the late morning, all the hippie tourists come out. It’s not very appealing. Sara told me that she sees people walking around barefoot. Let me again remind you that we are still in India. I believe that is a great way to get lockjaw. But MacLeod Ganj is also interesting, because it has the largest Tibetan community in India and is where the Dalai Lama lives. It has a very different feel from the rest of India as a result. For example, Sara took us to the Dalai Lama’s residence. During the day, many Tibetans walk around his residence to gain merit. Alison explained that in Tibet, people also take animals on this walk so that they animals can gain merit as well. About five minutes after she said that, a man walked by with his dog. But the dog was a disabled dog. It had casts on both its back legs, which were held up by a small cart. The dog was walking along using its front legs and looking very happy. I have never seen such compassion for a dog elsewhere in India. I’m sure some Indians would do that for their dog, but it’s not really part of the way that people interact with animals here. Walking around the Dalai Lama’s residence, there are great views of the Himalayas. The mountains around Dharamsala are not as large as the one’s in Joshimath, but they are very green. Also, you can see the trans-Himalayas behind them. It is a very different view from what I usually see during my fieldwork. I can understand why the Dalai Lama moved to Dharamsala rather than staying in Mussoorie/Dehradun, where he originally lived in India.

            Sara strongly encouraged Ali and I to contact some teachers while in Dharamsala. She said that the Karmapa was especially easy to meet, which is surprising given that he is the leader of the Kagyu branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is also a leader of a branch, which gives you and idea of how important the Karmapa is. Ali called his secretary and we were told to show up at 9:30 AM the next day. His residence is at the bottom of the hill and we took a taxi early in the morning and got there early. After walking around the grounds, we waiting in the reception room along with several Tibetans, some East Asian tourists, and two Indian government officials. The Indians were the only people who were late.

            After waiting for a while, we were taken through security and waited in line for our private audiences. The Karmapa is not big into ceremony and walked past us all without any warning, which seemed to alarm the Tibetans. There was one especially eager looking mother, who had her very small baby with her. Alison and I were the last people to meet him, which made us feel comfortable asking him questions. The whole event was very laid back. We were told not to prostrate in front of him and he seemed very relaxed just talking. His presence is difficult to describe. I can only say that is it obvious that he has spent a lot of his life meditating and thinking about the spiritual world. He is my age. Meeting him was one of the main highlights of my trip.

            Ali and I then had to prepare to leave for Bir, which is were our Buddhist teachings were to be held. Bir is about two hours from Dharamsala, and we shared the car with Sara and some of her friends from Dharamsala. Bir is also very beautiful. It is much more peaceful than Dharamsala and the Deer Park Institute, where the teachings were, is a beautiful facility. The landscape reminds be of Mandal, because they are both large, flat valleys in the Himalayas. Many foreigners also pass through Bir and it also has good food as a result.

            I really enjoyed the first day of the teachings that we had. It was a great treat to just take a break from research and thing about spiritual concepts rather than data. The second day, Ali, Sara and I started to experience “burn out.” Although the teachings were a great experience for Ali and I, we had been pushing ourselves a lot during our research and we were struggling to concentrate. Sara felt tired because she has been going to a lot of teachings recently. We skipped the last teaching and went back to Dharamsala early.

That evening, we went thangka shopping. Thangkas are paintings of Buddhas, which are used during meditation. Sara’s friend owns a wonderful Thangka shop, which supports artists who are traditionally trained. Ali got several Green Taras. Green Tara is a female goddess of compassion. I got a medicine Buddha for myself, and a Guru Rinpoche for my mother. Medicine Buddha’s purpose is fairly easy to understand. Guru Rinpoche is the person who brought Buddhism to Tibet. After thangkas, we had amazing Chinese food in a restaurant with a great view of the mountains. Then we went to a Tibetan-run bar. Ali explained that the bar looked very similar to those in Tibet. It had lots of lights and disco balls hanging front the ceiling and it was playing a lot of Tibetan and American pop music.

The next day was our last day in Dharamsala. Although, Ali and I loved our break from Dehradun and its heat, we were ready to go back. I was especially ready, because I knew that I would be going back to Joshimath soon. Ali wanted to go to the Tibetan Library to check and see if they had any texts that she could use. They had one that she did not have for her research yet. While we were in the library, a group of American students came into the main reception area. They were so noisy and didn’t listen to the librarians telling them to be quiet. Most of the girls were dressed inappropriately and one was even wearing shorts. I was listening to them talking and I was relieved to find out that they were High School students. I feel that at age eighteen you can be pretty dumb without it being that big of a deal; but if you’re twenty-one and still too self-absorbed to notice culture, then you need a wake-up call.

Ali and I took a bus from MacLeod Ganj to Dehradun. The first one that we took was from Dehradun to Dharamsala. It was a government bus and filled with Tibetans and Indians. The bus from MacLeod Ganj to Dehradun was almost entirely tourists and some Tibetans. That made me feel safe, but it also made me feel uncomfortable. Some of the women on the bus were dressed as if they were still in Europe or America. One Isreali tourist was smoking cigarettes in the street. I get very embarrassed and also angry when I see tourists behaving this way. I feel embarrassed as a foreigner and angry as a researcher. I have to overcome a lot of the stereotypes about Caucasians when I’m doing my research. I get extremely frustrated when I see the cause of my difficulties. Also, I hate the way that tourists treat India as their playground. I feel that if you’re in someone else’s country, you need to try to follow their cultural rules.

We got back to Dehradun and parted ways. Most of the tourists went onto Rishikesh, which is filled with ashrams. I was very glad to get back home, as I had not slept very much on the bus. I had been thinking about everything that had happened over the past several days. Being tired and hot in Dehradun also made me feel extremely grumpy. I tried to nap, but when the electricity went out in my house, I had to go to the Wildlife Institute to sit near a working fan. I wish that I felt more of a connection with Dehradun, but I almost always feel sad when I come back there after being in the mountains.

New photos from my trip to Dharamsala! I have been bad about posting about this. But once I got back from Dharamsala, the heat in Dehradun knocked me on my ass. I'm feeling a bit better now and should feel ready to start writing this evening. 

https://picasaweb.google.com/101737615291512796999/Dharamsala?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Things Are Different in India

            This may seem like an obvious statement, and it is; but things are different in India in ways that you might never expect. After living in India during college and returning, I have forgotten how shocking some differences initially were. Now that I am leaving, it’s easy to remember as I think about what I will miss and not miss when I am in the United States. The following list is a random collection of differences. They are in no particular order. I think it will be fairly easy to guess my feelings about the following topics:

1. Getting your phone service. You can’t just buy a cell phone in India. You need to submit a photocopy of your visa, passport, foreigner registration paperwork, and two passport photos. If you’re Indian then it’s the passport photos and your national ID. Everyone also needs to give your address and your father’s name (of course!) You then pay for the SIM card before you get cleared for owning it. About a quarter to a half of the time, the paperwork never gets sent into the main phone carrier headquarters and your service gets cut off. You can’t get a refund after this happens. If you want more minutes on your phone, you have to go to a random little shop and see if they recharge minutes for your carrier. If they do, then you tell them how many rupees you want to spend and they usually oblige. Sometimes they don’t feel like doing it.

2. Truck artwork. Concepts of feminine and masculine are radically different here. Therefore, there is no shame in truckers painting their trucks with images of birds, flowers, mermaids, trees, mountains, gods and goddesses. Often there will also be English or Hindi words pertaining to the driver’s religion. A popular one in Uttarakhand in Jai Mata Di, which is a way of saying Victory to the Mother Goddess. Muslim-owned trucks are generally a bit less colorful than Hindu, Sikh or Christian ones.

3.  Sending mail. If you want to send a package, god help you if you try to box it like a sane person who doesn’t want their shit to get broken or stolen. India has it all figured out. For optimal shipping you need a random assortment of boxes that may or may not fit the item that you want to ship. If it doesn’t fit, no worries! You can just try to tape boxes together around it. These aren’t normal boxes. They’re the boxes that your pressure cooker or TV came in. Then you have to take this package to the tailor. A tailor will stitch fabric around the box. Finally, you need to go to the hardware store and get lac. Seal the box with lac and you’re done! I think this is a procedure to discourage postal workers from breaking into boxes and stealing things. But don’t worry about the postal workers going without, often the whole thing is stolen! I try to avoid sending anything through the Indian postal system. But paying for FedEx doesn’t necessarily get your far. Two people on the Fulbright have had things stolen outright from their FedEx packages.

4. Strangers with candy. This is not in reference to the TV show. You can actually just take candy from strangers here.  The old, creaky man with toffees in his pocket is not yet associated with pedophiles or murderers. Also, candy is an acceptable alternative for small change if a shopkeeper is out of coins.

5.  Gift giving. Giving small presents to friends is much more common here than it is in the United States. If you receive a small gift, you shouldn’t say thank you. Saying thank you too much is regarded as a bad habit. My friends actually get frustrated with me for saying thank you so often.

6.  Fitness. I’m basically Jillian Michaels here. It has given me a very inflated perception of my physical fitness. Of course, middle-aged people in Dehradun see me that way. The old ladies in the mountains can still kick my ass.

7.  Sugar is a food group. Americans have issues with sugar, and I’m not arguing that. But sugar is built up to be an important food group here. I have made chai (with a ton of sugar) and my Indian friends still are shocked when they drink it. There is usually a sip, a disgusted face, and a panicked expression. I always wonder if they have a moment when they wonder if their taste buds have lost the ability to detect sweet. Also, I was being fed on gulab jamun (dough ball soaked in honey) before I left Joshimath. Now all future attempts to show me love through food have been ruined. Fresh gulab jamun tastes like a more decadent donut that as been warmed up and is saturated in honey.

8.  Crossing the road. It is always dangerous. The cows have it figured out, though.

9. Animals everywhere. On the way from my house to the office in Dehradun I see: cows, goats, chickens, dogs, cats, monkeys, crows, and the occasional pig. This is a city of 1 million people.

10. Pan mouths. Pan is a chewing tobacco-like substance from the betel leaf. It is mixed with something red; therefore when men pack a lip of it, they also drip and spit red drool. PS It smells like roses mixed with brimstone.  

11. If it sparkles, you should wear it and buy 50 more of it. You can dress like a five-year-old girl playing dress up and that’s high fashion. This is also true for men.

Reflections from the Field

This post is a bit stream-of-thought, but it just some ideas from my last experience in the field:

I am now in Dehradun and the heat is sweltering in comparison to the mountains. The high in the field would sometimes be 65 degrees, now I’m living in 90 degrees heat throughout the day. My friends in the Gangetic plains have it worse. It is around 103 degrees in Varanasi and Calcutta. But I don’t care, I lived through the -14 degree weather of the mountains and I feel like I deserve tolerable weather when I’m doing data entry.

My fieldwork ended much faster than I thought it would. I performed 50 surveys in Mandal Valley and then I needed about 60 in the high altitudes areas above Joshimath to make it to my goal. I went to some amazing villages with my new interpreter, Anju. Anju is Sarita’s cousin and she is a bit younger than Sarita, although not by much. Sarita was unable to work with me, because she is recovering from surgery. Anju was very excited to work with me, but she lacked the emotional maturity that Sarita and Vandana had. They were very good at asking women more information about their health history. Anju preferred to just be polite and ignore it. But Anju is much more of a natural athlete than my other interpreters, so we trekked to some great villages above the main road. They were usually 2-3 kilometers up hill. That might not sound like much, but the paths are just rocks and dirt, and it makes life very difficult for the people living there.

Villages above the road are completely different than the villages at the roadside. They have much less access to stores and sources of income. Probably my favorite village that I visited is called Ringi. Ringi is partly my favorite because it is not on the tourist trail. Some remote villages are either close to treks or have village home stays for tourists interested in their culture. Ringi is not anywhere particularly special, except that from it you can see amazing views of Nanda Devi. It is a poor village, and most of the houses are the old Garhwali style. These houses are made from clay bricks and timber. They are usually two levels with elaborate woodwork on the outside. I have pictures of these houses in my Picasa album. The interesting thing is that the patterns in these carvings look very Tibetan, similar to Bhotia weaving. This is just another example of how proximity to Tibet has influenced both groups. When Anju and I reach Ringi, we met two primary school teachers and the young students who were going to school. In the mountains, small villages just have a 1-5 class schools. The teachers spoke to me in Hindi and thanked me for coming to their village. I really felt like I was the first white person who had come to this village since 1962, when a Swiss guy did a survey of the area. Maybe people have been in and out since then, but I didn’t feel like that was the case. It was assuring to see how well I am treated even in villages that aren’t used to outsiders. A lot of women sat around and talked with us. They were very helpful and their husbands were very respectful and helpful as well.

            The sad thing about my fieldwork is that there are few women who I can really remember. Doing 200 surveys makes it impossible to remember everyone. I do remember certain women who were especially interesting. There was one woman in Ringi with broken shoes that kept interrupting everyone’s surveys with her own information. During her survey, she lifted her shirt to show me her scars from a recent gallbladder surgery. Gallstones are very common in this area, and many women have had them. It must be a genetic problem, because people here definitely do not eat a high-cholesterol, low-fiber diet. Other than this woman, I can’t really remember many of the faces or personalities from Ringi. I just remember that people were very kind.

            Ringi is 2,139 meters about sea level. (Thank you, Swiss guy for making so many topographic maps!) That’s about 7,000 feet. The other villages that we visited were up to 2,600 meters above sea level, which is about 8,500 feet. The higher elevation villages differ considerably from villages that are around 1,500-1,800 meters above sea level. Mandal Valley and Joshimath are in the “lower-altitude” range. The higher the elevation, the worse the facilities and the harder it is to make a living.

            During my recent field visits, I visited many villages that had no decent road near to them. Even the government roads are very bad, and transport is not made available. These villages do not have stores near them that sell basic necessities such as fresh vegetables and fruits. There are the occasional small stores that sell cigarettes, soap, and potato chips. It’s not that people wouldn’t buy fresh vegetables, it’s that most food will spoil by the time that it reaches these stores. One can buy produce in the larger towns of Joshimath and Tapovan, but it is much more expensive than it is in the plains. There is also a gas crisis in most of the hills. People cannot rely on timber for fuel, because they live in a national park. Therefore, they use gas; but gas is very difficult to get in many rural parts of India. On the days that gas is available, everyone from the village lines up on the road closest to them with their gas cylinders. I saw 60+ year-old-women with huge gas cylinders strapped to their backs.

            There is no doubt that living here has gotten easier in the past several generations. My interviews with women across age groups have demonstrated that there used to be many more health problems than there are today. The government is trying to bring schools and medicine to these areas. But I often wonder if the government is doing enough. Many of these people are limited because they live in a national park. Many are expected to make their living off of government jobs or tourism. These options have led to an increase in income. Nevertheless, the government controls how people interact with the forests around them, and prevents them from accessing materials and sources of food that they have traditionally used. Just as significantly, the national park system determines where roads can and cannot be created.

            Arguing with the government over natural resources is part of life here. One of my field sites is home to the world famous Chipko movement. The Chipko movement began when a local woman in the village of Rini ran out to the forests and began hugging trees to prevent trees from being felled. This movement has been romanticized over the years. It did not begin out of a modern sense of environmentalism, but as a way for a local community to stake a claim to their natural resources. As a result of the Chipko movement, the Nanda Devi area has gained international attention and it is now a UNESCO world heritage site. So now, the descendents of the Chipko movement still can’t use their own forests. Regardless of the current difficulties with the forest department, Rini’s inhabitants are very proud of the Chipko movement, but I was surprised at how little most young people can tell me about it.

            Despite the economic and social difficulties here, people seem much happier and healthier than the communities that I interacted with in Rajasthan four years ago. Women and children are generally treated very well, and it is very unusual for a child to not to be sent to school. Even though people live in a national park, they can still collect some natural resources; and the area is incredibly natural resource rich. Many men work as guides and drivers for tourists, which brings in money to the entire community. Therefore, the standard of living is slowly improving over time.

            Uttarakhand is a poor state, but it lacks many of the social ills that plague other poor states. Female infanticide is not generally tolerated in the mountains. Child marriage is taboo. Alcoholism exists, but the government heavily taxes alcohol. These are huge departures from Rajasthan, where the government overlooks child marriage and female infanticide, and it promotes government wine shops. I am about 100 times happier living in Uttarakhand than I ever was in Rajasthan. The environment is beautiful, the people are generally open and caring, and the culture is fascinating. The history here hasn’t been drenched in war and fighting over land, so the entire attitude towards life is so much more peaceful than in the plains states. Ending my fieldwork was extremely difficult. I wished that I could have worked for longer, but at a point my data just kept on repeating itself and I needed to stop. I hope that I’ll be able to go back to Joshimath with a group of students later this month. I will definitely go back before I leave India.

            Now I am in Dehradun and I’m working hard to get through some basic data analysis and writing. After my Fulbright is over, I will probably go to the trans-Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh. This area is a cold desert, entirely different from life in Garhwal. I’m excited to see a new place, but I don’t think that it will come nearly as close to affecting me as Uttarakhand has.