I'll Give Up Anything But the Toilet Paper

So I've been in transit the last few days and haven't had access to internet. Fortunately, I've been writing my blog as I go, so prepare yourself, this one's a doozie:

It’s been quite an action-packed couple of days. In Delhi, we went to see HH the Dalai Lama speak at an Islamic peace conference at a university. Even though everyone speaking, including HHDL, spoke forever and my attention waned more than a little, it was really interesting to hear their perspectives. One of the Islamic professors who spoke was very anti-Israel and spoke against the war in Gaza as a blatant violation of the peace treaty by the Israelis. Most of the audience appeared to be Muslim and stood and cheered at his denunciation of Israel while the five Jews in our group, myself included, found our jaws on the floor, eyebrows raised to the ceiling, and an inconspicuous hand covering our Star of David necklaces…which we all happened to be wearing. HHDL respectfully disagreed with his denunciation by saying that everyone was to blame for the war and it was everyone’s responsibility to share the world peacefully and govern with compassion, that violence breeds more violence and so, the only way to end the suffering in the Middle East is non-violent compromise and respect.

Later, we went to Old Delhi to shop by ourselves, never have to do that one again. It was so crazy it was stressful and not fun at all. Everyone was trying to rip us off and the guys in the group were thrust unwillingly into Big Brother roles to fend off the endless stream of Indian men from us women. We found that in India, gender issues really are gender issues. Also, I think I mentioned how dirty Delhi is in a previous post. The picture to the left is all we ever saw of the sun when we were in Delhi due to the incredibly dense smog. It was always hazy and everything seemed gray. It was disgusting.

Next day we went to Humayun’s Tomb, which was a great break from Delhi. It was peaceful and unbelievably beautiful, great place to take the kids if ever you find yourself in India. Humayun was a Mogul general who did a lot of cool stuff for India. His tomb was also the precursor to the Taj Mahal, but I overheard someone saying it was better than the Taj. We then went to a walking tour of the New Delhi train station to learn about street children. The train station is another place I never need to go to again. We later described it as the great equalizer, where it didn’t matter your status or skin color, you still got grabbed, you still felt unsafe and claustrophobic, and you still wanted to get out of there as fast as you could. The street children tour was incredibly moving. Our tour guide was a 20-year-old former street child who works for the NGO called Salaam Baalak. He ran away from home at the age of 8 because he was abused in his Aunt’s home. He sold tampered water bottles in Delhi for money for five years, got into drugs and gangs, and was finally picked up by Salaam Baalak, educated, and put in a shelter. He is now at University studying to become a tourism manager. He told us that 8 months ago, he knew no English, which was surprising because it was perfect, and now he’s also studying Spanish, because they make up a huge portion of the tourists now coming to India. To end the tour, he brought us to the shelter he used to live at as a kid to meet the boys who live there now. There were about 20-30 kids between the ages of 7 and 14 all spread out on the floor with blankets watching a movie. I think they were used to tour groups coming in and looking at them because they hardly cared that a whole hoard of white people came in and interrupted their movie. It felt very voyeuristic taking pictures of them until they noticed all the cameras out. They pretty much went crazy for the cameras. They all jumped up and wanted to get their pictures taken and take pictures themselves. For the next half an hour we all posed together and made funny faces and took hundreds of pictures. They loved seeing themselves on camera. When it was time to go they begged us to stay and play some more. They wanted to show us cricket and the pictures they drew for the parents they ran away from or were surrendered by. Many of us cried when we had to leave them. If you’d like to know more about the street children of India or the NGO Salaam Baalak you can go to their website http://www.salaambaalaktrust.com/.

Next day was a 14 hr bus ride to Pragpur. It wasn’t such a bad ride. We ended up with a bus-wide Disney sing-a-long to a drum. Pragpur was AMAZING. Best place I’ve ever stayed. It was a colonial British-style resort thing and they treated us like kings. The beds were huge and comfortable, the rooms were richly decorated with couches and mirrors and fireplaces, the showers were HOT, they had western toilets, they did our laundry for us and made us a bonfire and waited on us in the dinning room like every meal was black tie. It was really amazing. And the quaint little village 3 minutes away was clean and untouched by tourism and there were no beggars or smog, which was literally a breath of fresh air. Such an upgrade from Delhi. We decided we’re going to go back there in a few weeks when we’ve had enough of squat toilets and want to feel like westerners again. On the last night in Pragpur, Geshe-la (he is the monk who has been traveling with us and who is pretty much the head of the Emory-Tibet program. He is also pictured above by that pretty little pool area near the quaint little village. WARNING: FUN FACT AHEAD! “Geshe” is what we call anyone who has received their geshe degree, which is what you get after graduating from monk school. “La” is added to the end of any name to denote respect of an elder or teacher. For instance, the professor at Emory who helped start the program we call Tara-la. I will return home and want to call my mom “eema-la”) gave us a rather lengthy introduction to meditation. We meditated for about 5 minutes, but it had been a while for me, so it felt like a good 2 hours. I was also only able to concentrate on not falling asleep. No good, I’ll have to work on that one. Later that night we also waited up together to watch the inauguration. This night was one of the best times I’ve had so far, which is saying a lot because every hour is amazing. At 10:30PM (which is late for us) about 12 of us piled into a bed and turned the tiny TV up to full blast. We were so excited and were giggling uncontrollably. We stood with the rest of DC when Obama took the podium, held hands excitedly as he took the oath, and yelled and jumped around the room clapping when he was declared president. We could hear a similar raucous happening at our Indian next-door neighbor’s house.

This morning we found ourselves in Jeeps traveling the last two hours to Dharamsala. The views on the way were stunning, and I don’t use that word lightly. We saw our first glimpse of the Himalayas and Tawni-la, our program coordinator, squealed and made the driver stop so we could get out and truly appreciate the view (this is actually a view of the Himalayas from the HHDL's personal monestary in Mcleod Ganj, but you get the point). During half of the trip Tawni-la also drilled us on the Sanskrit alphabet, their sounds, and vowels. I rock at it, not gonna lie. By the time the trip was over I could sound out most words. Remembering the words is super hard though b/c there isn’t any sound that is remotely like English, Spanish, or Hebrew. Tibetan is a whole other ball game. For most of the alphabet, there are four letters that have exactly the same sound except with different intonations. You mispronounce one character by even a little bit and you have a completely different word or you make no sense at all. Anyway, the other half of the trip was us ogling at the views, stopping for chi in the middle of the road at a cattle crossing, and me playing the guitar from the floor of the jeep with everyone making up words to songs.

As we neared the Sarah (pronounced Sah-ra) University campus Courtney-la, our program assistant coordinator, started crying because she was so happy. I, personally, felt like I was returning to summer camp, even though I’ve never been anywhere near Sarah. Once we arrived we were greeted by a group of monks who placed blessed white cada, or scarves, around our necks. We were led into our dinning room where the students at Sarah had decorated it with pictures and welcome signs written in broken English expressing their hope for the exchange of knowledge and friendship, Sarah as a second home, and advice to live life fully while here. It was surprisingly moving finally reaching the campus and being welcomed so warmly that many of us, myself included, found ourselves hugging each other in tears.

Went on a tour of the campus, which is unbelievably beautiful, despite the shotty buildings by American-standards. The roofs are used just as often as the ground and we all sat up there for sometimes reflecting while taking in the scenery – which was substantial as the Himalayas can be seen pretty much anywhere you look. We then finally met our new roommates. We could tell they were just as nervous and excited as us. No one wanted to initiate contact and we kind of stood around giggling nervously. After awkward silence passed into awkward charades, as none of them speak great English, I found my perfect roommate. Her name is Choezin, but I call her Ani-la, which means Respected Nun, as a pet name. Ani-la crossed the Himalayas in 1994 to escape Tibet without shoes. Her brother is a monk in Southern India while her parents and her sister stayed in Tibet. She hasn't seen her parents since 2003 when they came to visit, which is a relatively short time since everyone else I've talked to haven't seen their families for upwards of 10 years. She also happens to be the funniest, sweetest person I've ever met. On Saturdays, the entire campus gets together and has a campus clean up. I've never seen anything like it. We were singing and laughing and dancing around (except for the monks and nuns, who aren't allowed to sing our dance). Today it was Choezin's turn to clean the dining hall. I helped her out and I've never had so much fun cleaning anything. She had me rolling on the floor laughing the whole time. She thinks our language barrier is the funniest thing in the world. Last night I offered her tea (we have about 900 cups of tea a day), to which she replied "no, no, I already drunk." I, of course, thought she was referring to alcohol and said "Ani-la! What would the Buddha think?!" She said "...he think I like tea."

Today I woke up to monks debating in the courtyard. When monks debate they get really loud and excitedly clap their hands whenever they make a point. The girls on the trip have come to the conclusion that monks are the most attractive people on the planet... probably because they're so unattainable. Unfortunately, you're not supposed to have unclean thoughts about monks...but I'm allowed to look, right? Probably not. I also decided that today I shall shower. It will be the highlight of my day. It’s been about four days. I'm getting really good at using the squat toilet and the weather here is perfect. I was expecting cold and sub-zero temperatures, but I'm in a t-shirt and flip-flops. It’s wonderful. Oh also, yesterday I beat a rug outside on a balcony overlooking the Himalayas. Its times like that when I feel like I'm still in a movie. It STILL hasn't hit me that I'm here yet. I'm waiting for India to punch me in the face. Anyway, time to get out of this Internet cafe; it’s a good 2 rupees a minute.

Hope all is well in the States and I miss everyone!

I now leave you with this image of a goat on a leash. It is my favorite picture I've taken so far.