Good News from Jaipur: You Can't Get Pancreatitis from Riding in a Rickshaw

This is the hottest I have been in my entire week in India. Even though the sun has gone down and I have two fans blowing on me, heat is emanating from everything--the floor, my clothes, the walls, my bottle of water, the water from the faucet. Everyone who heard I was going to be in Jaipur during June and July immediately warned me about the heat, but I was not as mentally prepared as I should have been. Even my eyeballs are overheated. It's fine.

Last summer I worked at a summer camp and experienced more intense forms of hunger, heat, exhaustion, and Chaco tanlines than I thought I would ever feel again. I was wrong. It's all coming back to me now...

I have been overwhelmed by exhaustion, exploration, traveling, emotions, linguistic breakdown, silly delirium, trying new foods followed by trips to the bathroom--everything I begged of India until I was here living it. Don't get me wrong...I am loving it here! The first few days were disorienting and I spent most of them in a variety of hotels, airplanes, and buses, participating in what the CLS program called "pre-departure and in-country orientation." It provided me with valuable information and a chance to overcome jetlag, but it was mostly an exercise in waiting around. By the time Tuesday rolled around (almost a week after I departed for this intensive language program), I finally went to AIIS for the first time to take my language placement test. I didn't feel like I'd experienced India at all, but people kept asking me (in Hindi, no less) how I was liking India and where in Jaipur I had gone so far. The test we took was so difficult and wiped me completely out. Yet, I was so relieved to finally get out in the city that afternoon! We (some of the other students and I) trekked around Jaipur in the monsoon rain. We found Hindi-English dictionaries at a bookstore and successfully crossed Jaipur streets and roundabouts (not advisable), which was an adrenaline rush to say the least. We also wandered through Raja Park and bought a few kurtas so that we could suffer the heat in brightly printed cotton blends that make us look the tiniest bit more like we belong here. 

It has been a hard week marked by feelings of loneliness at times, happiness at times, and exhaustion always. Learning Hindi at AIIS is indeed intense, but it has been so much fun so far, thanks to my teachers who have us reading dialogues like melodramatic Bollywood actors and a flock of fellow students who are an assortment of characters. People in my class are so much better at speaking Hindi that I am, so it has been humbling. I am here to learn the language, yes, but I also long to talk with the people, learn more about the culture, write fantastic poetry/stories, contemplate deep and meaningful things. I don't ask much of this country or myself...haha. Also, in my time in the classroom so far, I've learned more about the art of embodying language learning than about how to properly use obliques Hindi or the sanskritized word for "excellent." Improving in a language necessitates laughter and courage. The moments when I have no Hindi in my head but attempt to speak anyway without hesitation have been the best. People laugh at me, but it's okay. I just laugh too and accept the fact that I can successfully communicate without being completely correct. The grammar nazi in me is not ready to accept this fact ("NO HINDI FOR YOU!"). 

My favorite moments from this past week haven't taken place in the classroom. One was sitting and talking with my host sisters who are 21 and 23 and were wonderful in openly sharing about their lives. I can't imagine being a 21 year old woman in Jaipur, but I appreciate the complexity and honesty of their stories. I look forward to more! I also loved venturing out to a nearby temple with some of the other students after class on Thursday. The Birla Mundir is an intricate white building surrounded by gardens and overlooking several streets nears my neighborhood. We walked barefoot around the mundir clockwise and took in the carved images and names of various Hindu gods and goddesses. I laughed when we encountered a number of surprising faces engraved alongside the Hindu deities': Socrates, Moses, St. Paul, the Madonna, and Jesus. I never know what to expect, never see it coming when my host mother starts quoting the Lord's Prayer that she learned going to a missionary school growing up. This is why I love this place--it always catches me by surprise. At the temple, I was also scolded by a woman who clapped loudly at me and gestured for me to cover my head. Strangely, I was the only one in my group of friends who were all sporting uncovered heads to get scolded by her. I did the only thing you can do in that moment: bow my head, respectfully say "ji," and cover my head while maintaining a sense of humor. Because nothing is more meaningful than a photo to cherish the sweat stains and squinted smiles, we had a random man take a picture of all of our group in front of the mundir. Good times.

I am hopeful for what next week holds (mostly hoping that it holds either monsoon rains or functioning AC to cool me off). I also have audacious goals of running at a nearby park in a salwar camiz suit and tennis shoes, picking up AbRipperX again, learning to make chapatti, speaking to lots of people in Hindi, seeing Man of Steel dubbed in Hindi, and finding a place to volunteer. You can probably figure out which of these will actually happen. Smiles come from small successes, cups of black coffee (I've only had one in the past week!), and long naps. The next seven weeks are going to be full. But that's why I came to India. 

One last thing, please enjoy the following Punjabi music video I experienced yesterday: http://youtu.be/CI8QZMU6aTM

Until next time, namaste y'all! (What? It's kitschy and ironic. And I like both of those things.)

Things to Do Before Leaving the Country for 8 Weeks

One last day in America...

So naturally, I act like a complete health nut and go for a 4 mile run to the Lincoln Memorial and then eat a pint of blueberries. But I'm realizing these are two things I will not be able to do in the next two months while I'm in Jaipur.  I spent my entire run giving the runners' nod to everyone I passed. Apparently people around here haven't heard of that little courtesy before, so when I at last got one person to not only nod back but also move to the side of the sidewalk so I had room, I practically cheered out loud. Thanks, random guy in a suit, for the reminder that this country is still my home. 

I am about to head to a diner a few blocks away from my hotel for a brunch that will include bacon because it's unlikely I'll get any of that in the next months either. 

It's also unlikely that I'll blog this frequently in the next eight weeks, but hey, I figured everyone would want to know my recommendations for one last day in the States: go for a run to some great American monument, eat excessive amounts of blueberries, and find some good old fashioned bacon in a city where people eat breakfast at cafes with fancy coffees.

See you on the flip side, USA. 

I'm going to India!

I am going to India! Most everyone who knows me is thinking Well, duh right about now... Yes, this post is long overdue. I've known since mid-February that I was a finalist for the Department of State's Critical Language Program to study Hindi in Jaipur, India for the summer. But the process has been so full of false starts and daunting deadlines that, until yesterday when I arrived at the Dulles airport in DC for orientation, it hasn't felt real. 

My transcript was delayed, my visa application was bafflingly intense, a stipend check never arrived, I wandered all over the US's noble capital city in search of my hotel wanting so desperately to give up and go home...but as I sat in a room tonight with the 30ish other people selected to study Hindi at the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS, as I have learned to call it) and listened to Assistant Secretary of State Ann Stock talk about challenges, getting out of your comfort zone, and not going to Starbucks, I found myself snuggling into the reality of my summer. 

On Friday, June 14th, I will fly from Dulles to Delhi (via a quick stop in Frankfort, Germany). The travel will take hours upon hours and it will technically be the 16th by the time I am actually on the ground in India. There, I will meet my teachers, take a language placement exam, and continue preparing to embrace both the language and culture of a land I have loved at a distance for two years now. After another orientation in Delhi, we will take a bus to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, where I will primarily be for the rest of the summer. I'll meet my host family and begin life in India. The program lasts 8 weeks and will involve intense Hindi language classes every morning and various other activities (tutoring with a local language partner, cultural excursions, the possible Bollywood dance class) in the afternoons and on weekends. 

Why am I doing this? The real question is how can anyone pass up a free trip to India??? Well, it's been a long journey...I started learning Hindi and about the culture/religions of India two years ago when my mind started to crave a new language. I fell in love with the diversity, the paradoxes, the colors, the smells, the way I felt both surprised and at ease in all that I was learning. I applied for this same scholarship program a year ago and made it to the second round only to be turned down. I wasn't ready. I thought I was, which may be exactly the reason I wasn't. Now, I feel ridiculously unprepared. In the future, I think know I could live in India for awhile or at the very least work with Indian nationals in a different setting. And with the way that my views on service have been changing (shifting away from a "helping" mindset that puts one person at an advantage over another), really learning the language instead of expecting people to meet me where I am...the obnoxious American monoglot. I'm especially interested in working with people who have been marginalized by society, such as women in the sex trade, and I know that to be able to relate to people who have been it in that situation, it is important to know the language. So I'm setting off on a whirlwind adventure of learning and trying new things.

A lot of factors have complicated this summer for me, and it's been more difficult than I could have ever imagined to convince myself that this is what I'm supposed to do this summer. In fact, just a few hours after arriving in DC, I found myself in the bathroom of my hotel room giving myself yet another teary-eyed pep talk. But now that I have met some of my fellow travelers/students/housemates/future friends and the trip to India is starting to solidify in my mind, I feel good. This trip feels good. And in the words of former president George W. Bush, "if it feels good, do it; if it's wrong, blame somebody else."

So I will attempt to keep updating my blog...I make no promises, though. 

India, here I come.

Oceans Always Feel

Rivers never fill the oceans, but oceans always feel the waters reaching deep inside them. I guess they always will. --Jars of Clay and Leigh Nash, "Mirrors & Smoke"

I think too much these days, but probably not about things I should think about (i.e. classes, homework, what in the world I'm going to write my Bachelor's Essay about, whether or not I'll apply to grad school). I made msemen (Moroccan pancakes) for breakfast this morning, which was incredibly time intensive, and as I kneaded and kneaded (the thing about msemen is that they need lots of kneading), I thought and thought. And most of my thoughts returned me to Morocco...naturally...

Msemen with homemade pear apple jam

Last Monday, I was sitting under my favorite tree on the College of Charleston campus for the first time in months, and my lovely friend Rebecca (who is affectionately known as Lil Becca around these parts) happened to walk by. She also happened to stop and call me out of my deep thoughts about why some trees grow up to be so twisted. She had just returned from a mission trip to Haiti over Spring Break, and I was eager to pick her brain. I think a lot about missions because my service with Bonner and the Alternative Break program have really redefined what "mission" looks like for me. Becca has had a similar transformation but for different reasons. And sitting under that tree, we talked for almost half an hour. She was still processing everything at that point, and I had chills because of how much I saw myself in her. I had such similar thoughts when I came back from Morocco. The sudden, unexpected reminder of Morocco actually made me tear up a little (gosh, that's embarrassing), and I looked up at the clouded sky in an attempt to keep the tears from spilling out.

Becca talked about going back to Haiti in the future. She mentioned how she doesn't know if she will ever change the infrastructure of an entire country or if she will make a widespread difference wherever she is. Instead, she said it's enough if she can just change one person's life. It's the same realization I had in Morocco. When I was singing Brett Dennen to Kamal, the most neglected person in the orphanage, I was filled with a knowledge that it was enough for me if I could just bring him joy for a few moments. In fact, I realized by the last day that it was enough for me if I could allow him (and the time with him) to bring me joy or to change me in some way. Good grief! It changed me so much. I recognized thought patterns I had about people with special needs that I detested. There is nothing joyful about hating the way your own brain forms thoughts. There is nothing joyful (or easy) about changing those patterns either. But I've been working on it. I do think differently now about people with special needs. I don't see myself as "normal" anymore and people whose bodies and minds don't work the same way mine does as abnormal/different/"special." I think too about the statistics for child sexual abuse and depression/anxiety: reportedly, 1 in 4 women are sexually abused before they reach 18 and 1 in 4 people live with depression/anxiety. 25% doesn't seem so abnormal to me anymore... What actually feels abnormal is that talking about topics like mental/physical disabilities, sexual abuse, and depression/anxiety is so taboo in our society. Why don't we talk about these things? Why don't we know how to act around people who have experienced/are experiencing them?

I have other thought patterns that I notice now--about race, gender, ethnicity, social class--that I don't like. I know they are products of my culture and my experiences, but I still hope I will be able to change them. It feels like I'm trying to change the tides of an ocean--an impossibility--but why not try?  It was so encouraging to hear Becca voicing some of the same thoughts I've been having about just changing one person's life or just letting herself be changed.

I could end with that overused quote from Mother Teresa about how if you can't feed a hundred people that you should just feed one...but I want to end with oceans. They're all around me here in Charleston and they were just out of each when I was in Rabat and Chefchaouen. People exhort the power of oceans, their stability and consistency. We find solace in their constant motion and the calculability of the tides. We don't like when oceans are unpredictable and produce typhoons, hurricanes. But so often we fail to realize how transient oceans are. You probably never set foot in the same water twice, as rivers are always pumping more water in and stealing water away. Oceans are always changing, and I think they know it even though we fail to realize it.

To Change and Be Changed

I am trying to put words to my experience serving people with special needs in Morocco...it might be the hardest thing I've done in awhile, so be gracious and patient...
A couple Saturdays ago, the other Bonners and I volunteered with Charleston Parks Conservancy at Cannon Park to prune lots of plants for winter and to plant 2,000 daffodil bulbs. I grew up barefoot in my backyard during Southern summers, and I have beautiful memories of digging around in the soft black dirt with a white plastic spoon underneath my grandparents’ oak tree. When one of the Parks Conservancy guys handed me a trowel and a pair of gloves, I shoved the gloves in my back pocket and relished the feel of dirt on my bare skin as we dug deep to give each bulb a home. Later, the most painful and massive blister I’ve ever had formed on the stem on my thumb.

The process of healing feels very much the same for physical and emotional/mental/psychological wounds. The first day I had a blister, it hurt a lot. It was messy and I kept it covered with a Muppets bandage. The second day, a scab had formed over it, but every time I moved my thumb (A LOT), the scab cracked, and it was more painful than the first day. By the third day, things were looking up, and it felt like the healing process had really begun.

I had a similar experience in Morocco at my service site there. I volunteered in the special needs ward of an orphanage in the old, walled city of Rabat, helping the nurses there bathe, feed, and connect with the 27 people who live there. The first day was an utter assault on my sense: the hot, steamy bathroom smelled like human waste and was filled with people who were varying degrees of nude, most of their bodies twisted by physical deformities. I dove right in, and yes, it was unspeakably challenging. Feeding was a whole different round of difficulties, and I realized there is a learning curve that accompanies working with people with special needs because, just like any other human being, each person is unique with their own abilities and skills. When the bus came to pick us up after our first day, I felt frustrated, defeated, and downright disgusted with the way my brain was labeling the people I worked with all morning. I also felt like I needed a shower. My mind shifted back and forth between wanting to be callous, to do the service without letting it change me, and wanting to let the work change me even if it was going to be painful.

I had the next day off in celebration of the New Year, and as the group learned about the basics of Islam and toured Chellah, the Roman ruins in Rabat, I wandered along the line of change. After witnessing the tears and extreme frustration of one of the other women serving with me at the orphanage, I made my slow decision to let the experience change me. And I prepared my heart for a second day there.

The assault on my senses hadn't lessened at all. It was actually a lot more challenging (this word falls so short...) to look people--with whom I'd attempted to make connections two days prior and whose stories had begun to unfold (most of them had been abandoned, left for wild animals to finish off)--in the eye while bathing them, feeding them, seeing how the nurses treated them. I was physically queasy for the entire morning. My mind didn't know how to put language to what I was doing, what I was feeling, or even who these people were. I spent a long time singing to Kamal, one of the boys (he looked 8, but I think he was actually my age) who was completely bed-ridden, and I just didn't know what in the world I was doing there at his bedside. What would change in his life because of my actions? What would change at the orphanage because I was there? Would the nurses remember me? Was I helping at all or creating more work for them? I was full of questions without answers. (Story of my life, it seems.)
Later that day, I visited a traditional Moroccan bathhouse, or hammam, and had a really incredible experience that turned my day into a beautiful circle: I began by bathing someone else and I ended by having someone else bathe me. This launched me into the healing process. I realized it didn't have to be about a long-term change or about having people remember me/my service. I was there to create moments of joy for the people at the orphanage, to lighten the loads on the nurses' shoulders if only for a few days, to experience and let what I experienced rip me apart so I can be a different person. And the ripping began. I have struggled to put into words the pain, the grace, the peace, the frustration at myself in conversation and now here. I don't know that anyone other than the three Bonners serving at the special needs ward will truly understand the ripping and healing process I am still going through...

Now that I have been back for several weeks, I think I have finally been sewn back together. There's scarring, though, and who knows how long that will be present. I have been changed, so maybe forever. The blister just below my thumb is beginning to scar, as well. I stopped by Cannon Park on a run yesterday and saw that the daffodils are popping up from the dirt. Maybe flowers will be blooming by the time the scar fades away.

I think to bring about change, you must first allow yourself to be changed.
Blisters must form for the soil to welcome daffodil bulbs.

Sunday in Morocco: Everything I Needed

Morocco...where do I begin? I've been back in the country for a week and a half, and I am still processing EVERYTHING. So I won't begin with completion, but feel free to read my incomplete thoughts and questions about the most difficult trip I've ever been on.

My grandma said she saw it in my eyes: the anxiety, the knowledge that this trip would be different. She is much wiser than I am. I wasn't conscious of that knowledge I carried as I was scrambling around on the morning of Friday, December 28th--departure day. I should have known all along. The planning process was hectic...even more so than normal. I remember one Thursday when I’d spent over four hours in the Center for Civic Engagement watching my plans and my confidence as an Alternative Break trip leader (and leader in general) spiral downward. I got back to my room that night around 10:30 and melted against the closed door. When departure day arrived, I had given up all hope of the trip going “according to plan.” I didn’t even want that anymore. I hoped instead for the flexibility to respond to the chaos I was sure would happen.

And chaos happened.

The travel days were a nightmare I am not ready to relive, nor can I see the good in the experiences yet. Our first full day at the homebase (Sunday), my group of junior and senior Bonners had our orientation with Cross Cultural Solutions (CCS), a truly incredible organization that facilitates sustainable international service and productive cultural exchange. Mohammed, the country director in Morocco, is absolutely fantastic, and as he introduced us to the basics we needed to know about Morocco and about our three service sites, I felt relief sink in, all the way down to my socks (which, in an effort to make a good first impression on the CCS staff, actually matched that day). As a trip leader, I was hyper-aware of the impressions my entire group was making on the Moroccan staff and of the reactions of my group to what Mohammed was saying. There was nervousness when he talked about women in Morocco (Morocco is an Islamic country and most women wear head coverings. We were also unsure at that point how society treated them.) but a definite sense of excitement when we heard exactly what we would be doing at our service sites. I’ll talk more about that in a later post...still processing a lot...

We learned some Arabic after our orientation, and even though I consider myself blessed with the gift of quickly picking up languages, I still only know a few phrases: la, shokran, kidayr, smiti Elizabeth, snu smitek, bslama. Oops. It was fun to try, though.

The afternoon was completely free for us to explore and adventure, and in a moment of swift decision-making, Eliza (my fearless co-leader who also might be the single most amazing person in the world) and I decided our group was going to take a walk to a nearby park.I had low expectations...a park in Morocco? But as we wandered through beautiful, luxurious streets where the homebase was located, I spotted a vibrant green polo field, houses of ambassadors to Morocco mushroomed with satellite dishes, and flowering plants dripping over tall walls. I let my guard down a bit. I was in desperate need of some beauty after a day of international airports, lost luggage (just mine), a seven hour flight next to one of my trip participants who vomited the entire time, and a general lack of sleep.

The park, le forêt urbaine, was breathtaking. It was an expanse of land filled with trees straight out of Middle Earth and sudden soccer fields and playgrounds. There were trails that people were walking and running. It shocked me because I have, up until that point, made generalizations that exercise is a luxury to which only Americans are privileged. I assumed people in other countries do not have the "luxury" (really, it's an issue of enough capital, I think) of eating so much they need to exercise or the luxury of time and space to do so. I was wrong. Green space in a big city also used to feel like a luxury only in the States. Again, I was wrong. People in Morocco have those luxuries, too; at least the people in that particular wealthy neighborhood in Rabat do. What other places in the world defy my assumptions? Do Moroccans see spaces like this park and moments of exercise as luxury? This was the beginning of Morocco shocking me, making me think twice about everything...

We spent a while in le forêt urbaine, soaking up the sun (Morocco is a cold country in the winter with a very hot sun), meandering along paths, attracting all sorts of attention as Americans have the tendency of doing in other countries. We took pictures of the sunlight mystically filtering through tall white trees and scoped out the people of Morocco. It was restful and thought-provoking and everything I needed for the day.

Hope. Hope fell over me on Sunday. After great chaos, Sunday was a day of reclaiming: reclaiming why I was there, why I love travel, why I love languages, why I love service. Strangely, though, it wasn't me who got to do the reclaiming; Sunday reclaimed me. I needed that. Why? You'll see...oh, you'll see.

Morocco Bound

After months of planning and emails and phone calls and meetings, I am finally headed to Morocco! I am co-leading a group of junior and senior Bonners from the College of Charleston to work with Cross Cultural Solutions in the capital city, Rabat (yep, like "robot" but with a's). We've had lots of bumps along the way, and at this point, I don't know that anything has truly gone according to plan. Just to mention a couple bumps....One of my participants, sadly, was unable to go, and the student who was going to fill her spot came down with the flu and won't be able to go now. We also thought we would be working with certain issues only to find out, after lots of education around those issues, that we are working with very different issues: special needs and hospitalized children.

Now, as I am looking at my watch, I realize I leave in only a few hours. How did the countdown go from months to a matter of hours?!? I no longer hope for a smooth trip that goes according to plan. I want unexpected surprises, which might be redundant, and I pray for the ability and flexibility to take advantage of opportunities for adventure. Often the best moments in life come from the chaos of disrupted plans.

Hopefully I will be able to blog some while I'm there...we'll see.

Ten days of Moroccan adventures, here I come!