Three Videshis Walk Into a Mosque...

Sunday has become my day of independence. In this world I have entered, everything is planned for me. I'm told when and what to eat, how to study Hindi best, how many hours a day I should spend on the Internet, what clothes I should wear, not to take autorickshaws (that's a joke)...I crave independence.

This past Sunday, I ventured into the old city with a few friends (Coco, Luke, Katie, and Kate...although Katie and Kate didn't stick around for the full adventure) with the goal of finding a mosque, a mundir, and an authentic restaurant (perhaps even one with meat...scandalous, right?). We wandered into the chaos and found a shopkeeper who could direct us to the Jama Masjid. He quickly pointed out the white towers straight ahead of us that we should walk toward and then tried to get us to come into his jewelry store. Traveler's advice: gem scams are common in Jaipur..just say no. 

When we got to the mosque, it was fairly deserted and under renovations, but almost immediately, an English speaking shopkeeper appeared to show us around, make sure the fans and lights were on for us, and even have the caretaker take us up to the locked up roof so we could have a view of the city. It was a moment of undeniable white privilege, but I was glad for the cultural exchange and to finally see the inside of a mosque after two weeks of looking at closed doors in Morocco. I hope our interest came across as genuine and that we were able to break away from the stereotype of loud, ignorant Americans. It was beautiful and I was grateful for their hospitality. I hope to return on a Friday or during an adhan (call to prayer). 

Afterwards we wandered for awhile looking for a particular mundir only to discover it closed at noon. I am not sure why but we moved on and discovered an empty mundir for Kalki (another name for Krishna) that was 350 years old. Another random shopkeeper gave us a tour and then took us to his shop where he tried to convince us to buy kurtas, naturally. This is how it goes in India. You just say you'll tell your friends about his store and then quickly leave. Anyway, back at the mundir....the only other people there were the family that lives there. We met a woman and her two sons who were, curiously to me, just living out their lives in the shadow of this beautiful stone mundir. At the mundir they often have yoga and free classes for people in the community. It was a great find, tucked away off the street and wonderfully desolate. 

Hunger struck and we made our way to the Ganesh Restaurant, which Coco had read about online. Our directions were vague and promising: it was located between two tailor shops on the city wall near the New Gate and up a hidden staircase. Miraculously, we actually found it. And it was amazing! We ate such authentic food and it was so refreshing to not be around other videshis. After we ate, we sat on the roof of the city wall and watched the pigeons across the street, enjoying the quiet. It seems so improbable to find a haven of peace in the bustling city where every shopkeeper calls out to me, "Come inside, madam. Come looking. Beautiful kurtas. Best prices. Madam, excuse me!" The sun wasn't unbearably hot and it was a moment of pure relief. Essentially, my favorite moments here are when I find quiet peace. I was sad to dive back into the chaos and attempt to find a rickshawala who wouldn't try to rip us off, but we did anyway. And we were pretty successful, which always feels so good. Just ask for the Indian price in Hindi...that helps a bit. 

Exhaustion struck like the dust storms that precede rain here--unexpected and overwhelming, leaving your eyelids heavy and burning. And I got the best nap ever. 

Happy Sunday to me. 

Week Two: Volunteering (Finding My Niche in Jaipur)

Unlike the first week, this past week flew by! I can't believe it's already Somwaar (that's “Monday" for you non-Hindi speakers). My transition to India has been a strange one, an unexpected one. I spent the first week feeling displaced and uncomfortable and the second week, like clockwork, began with me falling into routine. I woke up Monday morning for class and just accepted that this is my life for the next two months. I think I expected a slightly delusional, lovesick phase where I adored all things Indian and pranced around the surging streets wearing a bindi and brightly colored sarees singing Bollywood songs in a trilling voice. Maybe it's for the best that I avoided that phase...it feels somewhat "othering" as I watch other students in my program exoticize Jaipur.

So just like I would in Charleston, I went to class, did some homework, took some naps, explored, volunteered, looked at cat pictures, ran in a park, and ate bananas with peanut butter (God bless Jiff Extra Crunchy). I felt very directionless upon starting this past week, but I am now feeling a bit more like I belong here. Even if my lactose intolerance is making eating very, very tricky...

Volunteering was the highlight of my week. I went with three other students to a women's center to teach English to the women there for an hour and a half. It was so refreshing! The women there have been in abusive situations and are at this short stay home until a new situation can be worked out. I met about ten women and two children in my first day there, and I got to work really closely with three of them who are about the same age as me. My inner English teacher kicked in right away and it felt so natural to sit there talking with them, letting them teach me just as much as I was teaching them. I used more Hindi trying to explain the seasons, days of the week, and family terms to them than I have in any other situation I've found myself in while here so far. Their faces were so open and ready to smile. They wanted to know all about me and when I first introduced myself, one of the women thought I said my name was "All is well," which stuck for the rest of our time together. It made me smile. 

Language exchange can be a beautiful thing. I only knew a little Hindi and they only knew a little English, but we were learning quickly from one another because we wanted to be able to communicate and get to know one another. It wa a little chaotic because there were four of us Americans sitting at one table all working independently with different women. About halfway through our time there, one of the women was summoned to leave for Pushkar where she was going to a "new situation." She told us in Hindi that she wouldn't be coming back and a couple of the women teared up, sad to see her go. For all the harassment women here face (it's different for videshi and Indian women...अलग-अलग), there seems to be a beautiful community of women, a sisterhood similar to the one I experienced in Morocco. I hope that her new situation is better. The most unsettling part of my time there was when one of the women I was talking with grabbed the Hindi-English dictionary from the table to look up "गाली" which means "abuse." I hope that learning English will be encouraging for them and possibly even a skill they will be able to use in their lives. Mostly I just hope that our friendship is meaningful for them as well as me. 

I am off to go be studious now and learn me some Hindi. More about my adventures will come sooner rather than later, I promise.

All is well out.

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.