Well, believe it or not there is just not anything exciting going on in this part of the world. That is actually a blatant lie, there is tons of exciting stuff going on in this part of the world, just not my particular sub-section of it. Last week was good, extremely average. Ate some good meals up in McLeod, finished a full room at the Special School (that was actually really exciting), and said goodbye to the first group of three-week volunteers which was very, very sad. Thursday night after everyone left the remaining four of us went to dinner in McLeod at a restaurant that's basically the epicenter of western travelers in the area and it was really fun. Nothing exciting, just a bunch of hippie-type folks sitting around on cushions drinking beer (tea if you're broke), playing scrabble, and talking about everyone's various travels. At one point someone even busted out an acoustic guitar. I talked to one woman who left home when she was 19 and traveled the world for 9 years and is now back at it with her husband. They've been in India for five months and soon they're going on the ultimate journey: Cairo to Cape Town. If I'd been bit by the travel bug before, it has officially taken up full time residence in my body.
Along with some other type of bug, apparently. Back to the hospital I went over the weekend, which is never fun but not earth shatteringly awful anymore either. Again, lots of fluids, antibiotics, and TV before I was discharged. Already feel tons better, just have to be tons more cautious about what I'm eating and how I'm treating my body.
The new group of volunteers came in Monday afternoon and its nice to have a house full of people again. No big plans yet for this weekend, but its only Tuesday. Shabash (that actually means "very good" in Hindi, and probably should not be used as my sign-off, but I like the way it sounds anyway)!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Amritsar
A truly stellar weekend. It started early on Friday when we got up to see if we could catch up with the Dalai Lama one more time, and we were finally successful. He was speaking at the Tibetan Children's Village, a school that offers free education and I think housing to Tibetan refugee children. It's a really beautiful place right on the side of a mountain and covered with pine trees. It's a little above McLeod, which is a little above Dharamsala, and a lot more remote. We were able to see him drive in and could listen to the English translation of his speech on a radio outside, but only Tibetan children were allowed an actual audience. It was very cool to see how eager all of the Tibetans were to see him, the second he drove in everyone was on their feet.
After work on Friday four of us piled in a car with our trusty driver Rinku and headed for Amritsar. On Saturday we got up a 3:00 to head to the Golden Temple. The temple itself opens at 4:00 and there is a ceremony at 4:30 to "wake up" the Guru Granth Sahib, the original copy of the Sikh holy book. It is then "put to sleep" at 10:30 every night. We caught the tail end of the ceremony and then got in line to go into the temple. The temple itself sits in the middle of a rectangular pool of holy water, which is in the middle of a rectangular compund of buildings (museum, living quarters, kitchen, etc.). There is a bridge leading to the temple about 30 feet wide and a little less than a football field long and the line to get inside literally fills up the whole bridge. Shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other people, at 4:45 in the morning, we waited an hour to get in the temple and got there five feet at a time. The whole time I was just so struck by the devotion of all of these hundreds, probably thousands in the whole compuond, of people, who were up well before dawn on an ordinary day. What extraordinary faith the Sikhs have. They're beautiful people too. They don't cut their hair, so all of the men have these great turbans and long beards and look exceptionally cool. The little boys don't wear turbans yet, so instead they wear their hair in a bun right on top of their forehead and put what looks like a tiny shower cap over it. The temple guards all wear royal blue turbans, orange salwars (long shirts), white pants, and carry legitimate spears. And the women, just like all Indian women, are just beautiful.
Once we got inside the temple, which is pretty small all things considered, we were ushered out within two minutes so that all of the hundreds behind us could have their turn. The floor was all of marble but literally the rest of the temple is made of pure gold. There were men inside chanting from Guru Granth Sahib and others were playing music. Either all of the men were wearing royal blue or there were royal blue tapestries hanging from the walls, but either way, it was truly stunning. After you exit the temple (to the left) you wind back around clockwise to receive holy water and get off the island. Afterwards we wandered around the compound until about 7:00 and decided to call it a morning and go back to sleep.
Around 4:00 that afternoon we headed out to Attari, a little town about 30 minutes away from Amritsar, right on the Pakistan border. Every single day there is a ceremony, celebration, block party, pep rally, riot, whatever you want to call it, celebrating the symbollic closing of the India-Pakistan border. We got there at 4:30 and realized that the ceremony doesn't start until 6:30 but that was ok, because the party starts early. There was grand stand seating leading up to the gate the separates India and Pakistan and it was PACKED. Fortunately, and oddly enough, there is VIP seating for westerners and we were able to sit right in the front. For the next two hours there was music, dancing in the street, cheering, and sweating. Lots and lots and lots of sweating. Sweatiest I've ever been. That's alright though, because it was exceptionally fun. The ceremony itself is basically just a bunch of pomp and circumstance, namely funny hats, loud yelling, stern looking men and high kicks. Both sides take their sweet time prancing around high kicking and lowering their respective flags and then close the gate for the night. As soon as they close the gate its a mad scene. People rush the gate for whatever reason and just carry on yelling for a really long time. What's wild about the whole things is that the Pakistan side is basically empty and extremely quiet. The men and women sat on opposite sides and the women's side had tops 10 people on it, all wearing burkhas.
That's it as far as weekend excitement goes. It was really great and a true blast but it's nice to be back where the air is cool and the sleeping hours normal.
After work on Friday four of us piled in a car with our trusty driver Rinku and headed for Amritsar. On Saturday we got up a 3:00 to head to the Golden Temple. The temple itself opens at 4:00 and there is a ceremony at 4:30 to "wake up" the Guru Granth Sahib, the original copy of the Sikh holy book. It is then "put to sleep" at 10:30 every night. We caught the tail end of the ceremony and then got in line to go into the temple. The temple itself sits in the middle of a rectangular pool of holy water, which is in the middle of a rectangular compund of buildings (museum, living quarters, kitchen, etc.). There is a bridge leading to the temple about 30 feet wide and a little less than a football field long and the line to get inside literally fills up the whole bridge. Shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other people, at 4:45 in the morning, we waited an hour to get in the temple and got there five feet at a time. The whole time I was just so struck by the devotion of all of these hundreds, probably thousands in the whole compuond, of people, who were up well before dawn on an ordinary day. What extraordinary faith the Sikhs have. They're beautiful people too. They don't cut their hair, so all of the men have these great turbans and long beards and look exceptionally cool. The little boys don't wear turbans yet, so instead they wear their hair in a bun right on top of their forehead and put what looks like a tiny shower cap over it. The temple guards all wear royal blue turbans, orange salwars (long shirts), white pants, and carry legitimate spears. And the women, just like all Indian women, are just beautiful.
Once we got inside the temple, which is pretty small all things considered, we were ushered out within two minutes so that all of the hundreds behind us could have their turn. The floor was all of marble but literally the rest of the temple is made of pure gold. There were men inside chanting from Guru Granth Sahib and others were playing music. Either all of the men were wearing royal blue or there were royal blue tapestries hanging from the walls, but either way, it was truly stunning. After you exit the temple (to the left) you wind back around clockwise to receive holy water and get off the island. Afterwards we wandered around the compound until about 7:00 and decided to call it a morning and go back to sleep.
Around 4:00 that afternoon we headed out to Attari, a little town about 30 minutes away from Amritsar, right on the Pakistan border. Every single day there is a ceremony, celebration, block party, pep rally, riot, whatever you want to call it, celebrating the symbollic closing of the India-Pakistan border. We got there at 4:30 and realized that the ceremony doesn't start until 6:30 but that was ok, because the party starts early. There was grand stand seating leading up to the gate the separates India and Pakistan and it was PACKED. Fortunately, and oddly enough, there is VIP seating for westerners and we were able to sit right in the front. For the next two hours there was music, dancing in the street, cheering, and sweating. Lots and lots and lots of sweating. Sweatiest I've ever been. That's alright though, because it was exceptionally fun. The ceremony itself is basically just a bunch of pomp and circumstance, namely funny hats, loud yelling, stern looking men and high kicks. Both sides take their sweet time prancing around high kicking and lowering their respective flags and then close the gate for the night. As soon as they close the gate its a mad scene. People rush the gate for whatever reason and just carry on yelling for a really long time. What's wild about the whole things is that the Pakistan side is basically empty and extremely quiet. The men and women sat on opposite sides and the women's side had tops 10 people on it, all wearing burkhas.
That's it as far as weekend excitement goes. It was really great and a true blast but it's nice to be back where the air is cool and the sleeping hours normal.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
That'll Happen
Hello all! It's been a bit of a crazy week around here. Monday was stellar, had a good morning with the kids and then a few of us went over to the new school to do all of the preliminary planning for the various murals we're going to paint on the walls. Numbers, letters, fruits, vegetables, etc. Right before the school opens we're going to take the kids over and decorate the entrance with their hand prints. I think it's going to look really cool once we're done and I'm excited to get started on Monday!
Tuesday was slightly less stellar seeing as I spent all day and night in the hospital. I wish I could say it was for something legitimate like falling off a mountain. Alas, it was nothing nearly as cool. Monday night I was all sorts of violently ill so Tuesday morning I went to the doctor. Apparently my blood pressure was really low because I was so dehydrated. So, the doctor figured it was in my best interest to be admitted to the hospital so they could hook me up to an IV and pump me full of antibiotics and liquids. Therefore, Tuesday was spent watching cheesy Hindi music videos and even cheesier American movies and basically being pissed about being stuck in the hospital. As far as hospital visits go it was fine. All the nurses were really nice and kept telling me to stop weeping (for the record, I was not weeping. there may have been, however, a tear or two), I had my own room, and everything was clean, so I really couldn't have asked for more. At the time it was just really stressful not totally understanding everything that was going on around me, and to me, and feeling like shit on top of that. No worries though! I'm back in action and feeling tons better. One thing's for sure, it takes being really sick really far away to truly appreciate how nice and easy it is to be sick at home.
Today we were supposed to see the Dalai Lama give teachings but apparently that was not meant to be. Due to some sort of huge miscommunication and a general lack of knowledge of Hindi or Tibetan amongst our group we were under the impression he was speaking today, at 1:00, at his temple. Turns out he is speaking tomorrow, at 8:30, at the Tibetan Children's Village. Oh well! Guess we'll shoot to make that in the morning.
This weekend a group of us is going to Amritsar, the holy city of Sikhism and home to the Golden Temple, which is apparently supposed to rival the Taj Mahal in terms of beauty. I guess I'll find out. More about that next week!
Tuesday was slightly less stellar seeing as I spent all day and night in the hospital. I wish I could say it was for something legitimate like falling off a mountain. Alas, it was nothing nearly as cool. Monday night I was all sorts of violently ill so Tuesday morning I went to the doctor. Apparently my blood pressure was really low because I was so dehydrated. So, the doctor figured it was in my best interest to be admitted to the hospital so they could hook me up to an IV and pump me full of antibiotics and liquids. Therefore, Tuesday was spent watching cheesy Hindi music videos and even cheesier American movies and basically being pissed about being stuck in the hospital. As far as hospital visits go it was fine. All the nurses were really nice and kept telling me to stop weeping (for the record, I was not weeping. there may have been, however, a tear or two), I had my own room, and everything was clean, so I really couldn't have asked for more. At the time it was just really stressful not totally understanding everything that was going on around me, and to me, and feeling like shit on top of that. No worries though! I'm back in action and feeling tons better. One thing's for sure, it takes being really sick really far away to truly appreciate how nice and easy it is to be sick at home.
Today we were supposed to see the Dalai Lama give teachings but apparently that was not meant to be. Due to some sort of huge miscommunication and a general lack of knowledge of Hindi or Tibetan amongst our group we were under the impression he was speaking today, at 1:00, at his temple. Turns out he is speaking tomorrow, at 8:30, at the Tibetan Children's Village. Oh well! Guess we'll shoot to make that in the morning.
This weekend a group of us is going to Amritsar, the holy city of Sikhism and home to the Golden Temple, which is apparently supposed to rival the Taj Mahal in terms of beauty. I guess I'll find out. More about that next week!
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