From Factory Slave to Free!

As I stood hour after hour on the left of a graffiti-covered conveyor belt, I drafted many versions of this post trying to work out how to convey to a reader the feeling of total boredom and overwhelming mental fatigue that consumes a factory slave. If you’ve never done a factory job, you just don’t understand.

There is nothing to do except come up with strategies to make time pass. I worked my way through a couple methods. First you must have an ipod. Without an ipod you might as well just drown yourself in the apple cleaning pool. Then you must turn the music up very very loud. Usually I highly disapprove of listening to music above a necessary volume and am always telling Sophia and Joe to turn their ipods down. However, when music is your only escape time passes a lot more pleasantly if it is all you can concentrate on. You forget that you have been placing apples into box after box and just starting hoping that no one guesses that the smile on your face is being maintained by songs from a certain German Eurotrance band.

Boxes of Apples

I came up with various countdowns to help me through the hours. My favorite was to work out my packing average of whatever fruit we were currently on, work out how much time we had left and then calculate approximately how many boxes I had left to pack. To give you an idea of how many apples you might get through in a day, I’ll provide an example.

When packing green apples, you put them in pairs, stems facing each other, three pairs on the bottom and three pairs on the top in plastic containers. There were four of these plastic containers in each cardboard box and when you finished all four you moved the box down to a lower conveyor belt that took the box away to be checked over, stacked on wooden pallets by other workers and then driven away by forklift to the gigantic cold storage rooms. On average, I packed three of these boxes every five minutes. Working for 81/2 hours a day from 6:30am to 4pm, this meant packing approximately 14,688 apples. ..I didn’t try counting down individual apples.

Bad Apples

Anyway, I could complain on and on about how boring it was,  but that would be a little unfair as some of my fellow workers have been working in the factory for almost three months straight and I only faced 2 weeks. And to be completely honest, after one day I had already begun to plan my escape. It happened that a volunteer from New Zealand came back from traveling my first day in the factory and moved back into his room, across the hall from ours. We made friends and he mentioned that he worked in Apple Packing, but his job was to help fix the big wooden containers that the apple pickers put the apples into in the orchards. By divine intervention (or luck) his boss was going to be out the next day and he offered to ask our boss if I could help him. The next day was so much fun.

In the morning, a forklift driver brings six or seven big wooden containers and puts them in the workshop. We have to diagnose their problems, such as broken panels, missing rivets, unstable feet and then fix them. I got to use drills, rivet guns, electric hammers, sledge hammers and even learned to weld!! My enthusiasm for this job was so extreme it actually caused a debate among the factory staff over whether I was a lesbian or not. But sexual orientation had nothing to do with it. After trying apple packing, anything remotely challenging to my mind was greatly appreciated.

I didn’t work with containers all the time. Sometimes they would need workers back at the conveyor belts and sometimes they would need me back in the plastics factory, Elcam, to clean. Elcam was largely enjoyable. After working with blood, guts and animal feces in Ecuador, it wasn’t such a leap to deal with human mess and waste, especially in gloves. The most trying thing about the job was how much you sweat when you really sweep or mop a floor and just putting up with the demeaning looks certain girls at the factory loved to give me as I held a bathroom door open for them (without thanks) or mopped up their spilt coffee.

Elcam Cleaning Girls

All in all, the last weeks at the Kibbutz were very enjoyable. Ariana and I had established a routine of walking/jogging around the perimeter of the Kibbutz (2.8km) twice almost every day before dinner and the good food and friends kept us in high spirits, no matter how hard or boring the work was.

Walking around the Kibbutz

Ariana and I left the Kibbutz on Friday morning and made our first sightseeing tour yesterday. We spent a couple hours on Masada, exploring the amazing ruins and contemplating the story of suicidal resistance before heading to a Bedouin tent overlooking the Israeli-Jordan border (the Dead Sea) for pita, hummus and labane. Our last stop was a float in the water at the Kalia beaches on the northern corner of the dead sea (technically in the West Bank) and to cover ourselves from head to toe in the mineral-rich mud from the sea bed.

Masada

The most ridiculous event of the day happened as we were making our way to the showers. A group of elderly American tourists stopped us as we skipped up the steps like swamp monsters and asked, if you can believe it, where we had got the mud from. Ariana and I looked at each other in shock and then, realizing that they were actually not joking, replied that we just got it in the sea! Afterwards we realized had probably missed a good money making opportunity and should have offered to sell it to them for 50NIS per pound.

Mud Monsters

Today is our last day enjoying the unbelievable hospitality of my grandparents and when I finish this post, Ariana and I will make our way to a hostel in the Old City of Jerusalem. We will be spending the beginning of the week in Jerusalem before exploring Tel Aviv, meeting up with Sophia and few other friends from the Kibbutz and heading down to Egypt. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel.

Herzliya Flowers

Communal Living

The three of us have temporarily adopted a socialist lifestyle. 

Kibbutz Bar’am, our current location, is about three hours north of Tel Aviv and minutes from Lebanon.  When we drove up here about two weeks ago we had no idea what to expect; all we knew was that we would probably be working with fruit, and that we would be staying about 300 meters from the Lebanese border.  For those who don’t know what a kibbutz is, Wikipedia can clarify:  ”A kibbutz (Hebrew: קיבוץ, קִבּוּץ, lit. “gathering, clustering”; plural kibbutzim) is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture…a form of communal living…Kibbutzim began as utopian communities and have gradually embraced a more ’scientific’ socialist approach.”  What this means in real-life terms is that Liz, Sophia and I can live and eat at Bar’am in return for our own contribution to the community: work.

What kind of work are we doing? 

Sophia works in the dining hall.  She makes sure everything is out, clean and ready for each meal.  Liz spent the first two weeks cleaning bathrooms in the plastic factory we have here.  She has moved to the fruit packing factory this week, where I started out working.  This is not the most exciting of jobs.  It involves d 8 1/2 hours every day, from 6:30 am to 4 pm, standing next to a conveyor belt and packing apples (although she says she’s currently working with nectarines) into boxes.  You have a lot of time to think while doing this, and you’re in trouble when your iPod runs out of battery.  I’ve been working in the kitchen for a week now, preparing vegetables, salads and doing whatever odd jobs Judah or Hannah, the two chefs, throws at me over the course of the day.  This can be anything from slicing a box of dried apricots (what for?  I still have no idea) to peeling the skin off cow tongues (eeek). 

We don’t walk around calling our fellow volunteers “comrade”–with the exception of one enthusiastic Swede–but we do appreciate that we can eat, drink, live and be taken care of in this place for an unlimited amount of time, without touching a shekel.  Liz and I plan on staying for two more weeks, then leaving to travel around the country for our remaining time (which is running out!).  Sophia, evidently a communist at heart, will stay a couple of weeks later, possibly to reunite with us at the end of the month in Egypt.  Nothing is certain yet.  We only bought the “Lonley Planet Israel” guide yesterday.

That’s all for now.  Liz has just returned from her first day fruit packing and wants to recount her experience as a factory slave.

“It’s a Tough Life”

Our Trip So Far

Our Israel adventure really started in New Delhi at 2 a.m. on Wednesday when the three of us stumbled out of Heba’s house, each with an extra bag full of our Indian purchases, to get into a (very late!) taxi that was to take us to Indira Ghandi International airport.  Our last drive through the streets of Delhi was pretty somber but typically chaotic as even at the quietest hours of the night we still had to swerve out of the way of trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles driving on the wrong side of the road!

After finally getting to the airport and simply walking away/laughing off our last fight over money with our taxi driver, who wanted us to pay an additional Rs. 200 for “AC” charges, we proceeded to check out.

To make an annoyingly long story short, the three of us collectively had 50 kgs of excess baggage weight costing over Rs. 700 (about USD 12) per kilo.  For some arbitrarily ridiculous reason, the supervisor of the incredibly frustrating woman who was checking us in only made us pay for 20 kg, which still came to about USD 100 each.  As this was equivalent to our budget for an entire week for the past 3 months, we weren’t so thrilled about paying the fine, but there was nothing we could do.

Anyway, the following two hours were spent tending to Ariana who had a fever and chills (we figured either from Lyme disease, Malaria, or general sadness) while we waited for our flight to Tel Aviv via Jordan.  Now after traveling the Indian subcontinent for weeks and weeks and weeks, our sense of distance and time adjusted significantly, so when we arrived in Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv maybe 6 hours later, we were a little surprised.

Our surprise immediately turned into delight when we saw the foxes waiting for us with Yossi, at the arrivals gate.  We were so warmly greeted and even though Israel is not at all unfamiliar to Liz, the three of us immediatley felt safely and happily at home.

Our first couple of days were spent moslty exploring our surroundings; walking along the beach, browsing through the town nearby, visiting the surf shop, spending time and dining at the Foxes apartment and we even participated in a very basic yet informative Hebrew lesson. We also paid a very much needed visit to the doctor for a general check up and to see what kind of damage we did to our bodies from eating street food and drinking unfilitered water in India–and you’ll all be absolutely amazed to know that not one of us contracted a single illness nor did we bring back any parasites.

After this time of settling in and appreciating hot, high-pressure showers, drinkable tap water and clean air, the three of us were taken to the ancient city of Jaffa which is beautiful, sandy and authentic.  We ate at a local restaurant with Yossi–our tourguide for the day, where we ate endless plates of typical Israeli/Middle Eastern food and listened to Greek music.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Before I go on, I should probably mention that when we arrived to Israel (not unlike when we arrived in Australia and India), we didn’t really have a plan of what we were going to do, just a general idea of what we wanted to do.  We knew we wanted to volunteer and do some work here and upon arriving we had a few options: we could work at a kindergarten nearby assisting teachers and supervising children, volunteer at a training centre for seeing-eye dogs, or we could join a kibbutz.  Joining a kibbutz was probably always the most exciting option, but it was also the biggest commitment and for some reason seemed to be dropped after we hadn’t really heard of any exciting prospects when we arrived.

With that said, the day we visited Jaffa with Yossi, maybe our third day in Israel, we found ourselves at the Kibbutz Volunteer Centre, signing up for two months at Kibbutz Baram.  The three of us, perhaps feeling a little senstive after a particularly emotional night–we found ourselves suddenly shaken by the transition from India to Israel and the imminent end of our gap year–we felt a little rushed into the kibbutz and all jumped in our seats when the (unfriendly) woman at the centre told us we would be going to the kibbutz that day!  We explained that that wouldn’t be possible and told her that we’d like to start volunteering the following Sunday.  She agreed, and that bought us some more time to explore Israel.

The following day Yossi took us to Jerusalem.  This city, to say the least, is Biblical.  But in an extraordinary way; we were taken to the church of the holy sepulchre (where Jesus’ tomb is!), the seven stations of the cross, the West (or Wailing) Wall, the Jaffa gate, ruins of a wall that used to surround the city and is mentioned in the Old Testament, as well as other underground markets and old roads.  Each of one of these sites is not just remarkable becuase of its appearance (and they are outstandingly beautiful and well maintained), but becuase of their setting, history and significance.  Just walking through the streets of Old Jerusalem-which are cobble-stoned and lined with Jewish and Arab shops- and seeing the  roman numerals on the stone walls, casually marking where Jesus was stopped on the cross was inexplicably amazing! It may sound silly, or really maybe I just can’t express it, but it gave the Bible-Christianity and Judaism an entire new meaning for me.  I don’t mean to say that I became spotaneously religious, but I was certainly impressed and shocked to see these images in real life.  I guess it’s kind of like reading about ancient Greece your whole life without ever having seen a photo Athens and then visiting the Parthenon.  It just amazed me how real everything is.

Tel Aviv is a different story.  It is equally beautiful and lively and I love it just the same, but for it’s nice cafes, attractive shops, amazing restaurants and (of course!!) people.  The city could pass for European, it is clean, quiet and full of successful businesses and people.  However, we never forget for a moment that we are now in a country that is constantly on high security alert–there are soldiers from the army walking down every other street corner, heavily armed officers in certain areas and even a couple of (I assume) soldiers carrying machine guns while strolling on the beach.

Getting ready to go out in Tel Aviv

As I mentioned before, we are going to Kibbutz Baram tomorrow and it is located practically on the border of Lebanon.  There, we don’t really know what we will be doing–though we have been told a lot of the work is apple picking–we will be placed according to wherever our help is needed.  This is a particularly big kibbutz with about 50 volunteers, so I’m sure we won’t find any reason to dislike it–though we do joke with Mr and Mrs Fox that we might run away and that they’ll get a call from the Lebanese Border Control…

Mother's Day Dinner

Anyway, to say the least, we are happy.  We are enjoying every minute of being in this beautiful country, we are inspired and interested by the people that we meet and the opinions that they share on various topics.  We do miss the noise, chaos, pollution and general uniqueness of India, but we are more than excited to be here and to embark on an entirely new adventure tomorrow.

Final Night before the Kibbutz

Left with all of India (Thanks guys)

I’ve been trying to avoid writing this for at least a week now and for a variety of reasons.  To begin with, as can be inferred from this post’s title, I resent being left with the task of describing our trip along the entire length of the subcontinent.  This burden is as daunting as it is unfair.  Still, I made my first attempt to write about India back when I was in Delhi but I got very frustrated with the overwhelming material I’m supposed to cover.  In my mind, each day–and if I really start to get carried away each hour–is worthy of mention for its novelty and excitement.  And then when I was in the middle of typing up attempt #1 the power cut out for a couple of hours.  Then I came down with chills and a high fever (which was possibly induced by the stress of writing all this!) and then I had to get on a plane to fly to Jordan, then catch the connecting flight to Israel.  And of course the past few days I’ve been discovering Israel, too distracted to sit down and face India again.  But enough.   Maybe I should quit complaining and actually talk about what I’m talking about.

Exactly one month ago today we arrived in Jodhpur, Rajasthan’s second largest city, on camels.  This is as ridiculous as it sounds.  Actually, it was  worse.  We were 4 foreigners, 3 Rajasthani men and 2 camels who had just spent 1 week crossing the desert, and it showed.   Westerners normally attract stares in India just for being foreign; imagine the looks I got while navigating my camel through the mess of cabs, autos, rickshaws, and people that comes standard in every Indian city.   In fact, it all looked something like this:

 

Sakti and I braving the steets of Jodhpur

Anyway, we got to our guest house in the end and, as Liz said, settled our dues with the camel men.  We spent the next few days doing what there is to do in Rajasthan’s “Blue City”: we took an Indian cooking class (ask us for a really good curry recipe, or how to make pakoras), chatted with the local spice dealers, wandered around blue streets and visited the magnificent Rajput fort which towers over the city. 

After three days we were done with Jodhpur and hopped on a train to Chandigarh.  Nehru described Chandigarh as “an expression of the nation’s faith in the future”; Swiss architect Le Corbusier designed it after Partition, organizing a grid system that is divided into numbered “sectors”; it’s the greenest and cleanest city in India, but also the weirdest place I’ve ever been.  The city is unnervingly quiet, sort of like a Connecticut suburb that somehow landed in the Indian state of Punjab.  The place lacks everything that makes India what it is: there’s no chaos, no color, no life–and everyone follows the traffic rules.  (Before I paint a completely biased picture of Chandigarh let me add there is one sight that makes a visit here worthwhile: http://www.nekchand.com/)  We spent one unpleasant night in the “Transit Lodge”, appropriately named, as it is indeed a hotel located in the bus station.  The next morning we were on a bus heading north to Amritsar.

Amritsar was infinitely more appealing.  Although the only attraction this city has to offer is the Golden Temple, visiting this temple (the spiritual and cultural center of Sikhism) is by no means a one day affair.  The temple really is golden, or at least plated in gold, and stunning at all hours; thousands of Sikhs visit each day and go to the temple at any time of day.  In accordance with Sikh principles of equality there is a dining hall on the temple complex open 24 hours with a sign outside welcoming people from all classes to eat at no cost.  Free accommodation is also offered at the temple, and we slept in a dorm with about twenty other foreigners for two nights.  The entire system runs on donations, and the temple’s budget is supposedly larger than Punjab’s.

From Amritsar we took a cab one afternoon to the Pakistani border.  Every day there is a ceremony in which Indian and Pakistani guards, in addition to closing the border gates, provide a highly entertaining (or maybe what I mean is shameless) show of pomp and nationalism.  Soldiers on both sides hold a shouting contest, march around, blast music (each side playing their own patriotic tune at the highest volume), try to get the audience to cheer the loudest, charge towards each other, shake hands and finally close the gates.  This all sounds utterly bizarre but I promise it is exactly what happens.  On a more serious note, we all came away from the border with a very strong image of the separation between Pakistan and India.  The audience behind the gate was small, significantly quieter, and segregated between men on one side of the arena and women wearing burkas on the other.  The audience we were sitting with could hardly fit in the arena; it was loud, colorful and at one point the women rushed to the middle of the stadium to dance to some upbeat Bollywood song.

Our next stop was Dharamsala.  We spent 24 hours there, which was a short stay for the tiresome, long bus ride north into Uttar Pradesh, but certainly worth the trip.  I’d hoped to catch the Dalai Lama giving a talk or soemthing, but apparently he spoke the day before we arrived.  Nevermind.  We learned a lot from the center of the Tibetan Government in exile, even without the Dalai Lama’s presence.  We spent the day in Mcleodganj, where the Tibetan community is based, and took a hike that led to unreal views of the Himalayas.  The next day we left at 3 am in a cab back to Chandigarh.

Yes, we were all very tired by this point.  Enthusiasm was still high, but it had to be: there was a long journey ahead of us.  We left Dharamsala early to catch our 11am train out of Chandigarh; this train, we were told, could take anywhere from 28 to 40 hours to get us to our next destination: Mumbai.  That time range alone, the uncertainty of 12 hours, not to mention the uncertainty of what to expect upon arriving–a combination of factors made the trip both daunting and mysterious.

Sophia and Joe were highly optimistic.  They expected to be in Mumbai exactly on time, 28 hours later, 3 pm the next day.  Liz and I thought we were being more realistic, and grimly prepared ourselves to pull into the station around 3 am after two days in a moving cell.  

I didn’t just brace myself for the journey to Mumbai.  Part of me was dreading what was waiting for us once we got off the train: the city itself.  I read on the way there a famous description of Mumbai as “the most appalling city of either hemisphere”.  You can imagine what this did for my mood.  The four of us knew we weren’t in for a good time.  From what I’d heard, Mumbai is the culmination of what I don’t like about Indian cities: unparalleled crowds, pollution, and poverty.  We didn’t decide to go to Mumbai because we thought we’d enjoy it; we were going to see for ourselves the most populous city in the world.

From the start I was surprised.  Sophia and Joe (the optimisists!) were right about the train–we pulled in exactly on time, after 28 hours on the train.  This phenomenon alone raised my hopes, and things only got better.  I had expected to find an urban mess, something like what we saw in Delhi: cars honking, garbage everywhere and overwhelming pollution.  What I actually found was a cosmopolitan city, with maintained colonial buildings, large trees lining the streets and well dressed business people running all over the place.  This was my first impression of the city.  I was relieved to find myself in a pleasant urban setting and not in the middle of the hellish urban chaos I’d prepared for. 

There are many sides to Mumbai.  We walked by India’s most luxurious hotels and restaurants and also went on a tour of Asia’s second largest slum.  About the latter: I was unsure about going on a “slum tour” at first, and sort of began to dread it as the tour drew nearer.  I imagined feeling excruciatingly out of place while passing by scene after scene of despair in a garbage-filled wasteland.  But my unease vanished after one minute in the Dharavi slum, located in central Mumbai between two major train lines.  We entered Dharavi from the highway, walked down a street lined with small buildings, and were led by our guide into a small block-print factory.  We were welcomed there just like everywhere else in India, we were offered chai, and went on our way.  I couldn’t believe it.

Our departure from Mumbai was madness, an experience than can be expected from a fast-paced metropolis.  The only reason why we all ended up on the train to Kerala (our next and final destination, the southernmost state in India) was because we flew along the highway on a frantic high speed train chase, just like in the movies.  To explain: we left our hotel late.  Liz had slept in by accident, had to pack up all her things that morning, so we all got in the taxi at least 20 minutes later than we should have.  10 minutes into the cab journey Liz, rummaging through her bag, realized she left her necklace back in the hotel room.  While on the phone with the reception trying to coordinate them sending it back to Delhi she discovered that there was an iPod left in her room.  I was too distracted with thoughts of killing Liz to appreciate the irony at the time.  We ended up wasting a valuable 10 minutes on the side of the road for a messenger to meet up with us and drop off the iPod (he didn’t even bring the necklace).  We got moving again, but things were looking very grim.  The driver said we’d be at the station in “40 minutes no traffic, no problem; traffic, problem.”  But how could there be no traffic?  To skip through what seemed like an eternity sitting in the car biting my nails, thinking about how angry I was at Liz for making us miss the train and how I had no idea how we were going to get to Kerala, we eventually arrived at the station.  I didn’t have time to freak out when we got out of the taxi and a man told us that the train was gone.  We were swarmed, yelled at, and whisked away into a second cab–this finally brings me to the high-speed train race.  I had no idea where the next train station was, how far away it was, when the train would get there, but it was clear that our new cab driver was going to put everything he had into getting us there: if we didn’t catch up to our train, he wasn’t getting paid.  I could tell right away he knew what he was doing.  He swerved from one lane to the next and honked at any truck that got in our way, which I usually can’t stand but would have happily encouraged if he’d needed any encouragement at that point.  He lit a cigarette thirty seconds into the whole ordeal and offered his pack around as if we were all in for something exciting.  I could tell he was a professional.

We made it to the station.  We even had about 15 minutes to spare on the platform before our train pulled up. 

We spent our remaining 12 days in India in beautiful Kerala, called “God’s own country” for a reason.  We saw incredible tea plantations, went to a Kathakali performance, got ayurvedic treatments, visited a wildlife sanctuary, and spent our last days relaxing in the Arabian Sea.  At the end of the month the four of us flew out of the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram.  Joe went on to Calcutta to fly back to England, and we went back to Delhi to fly to Israel.

I got an email today from the “yoga master” we took a class with just one time in Varanasi.  Rajnish just sent a few lines to ask how I am and to know if I’m doing my yoga every morning.  I’ll have to respond with the truth: I haven’t done any yoga since that morning with him 6 weeks ago, but I don’t even mind.  Even though I’m far away and in a totally different world again, India can still get to me, surprise me and make me smile.

Camels. Part 2.

I’m sorry (as always) that it has taken me a long time to write part 2, but thank you all for your generous patience.

Days 2 through 7 of the safari passed slowly but pleasantly. We would wake up pretty soon after sunrise to a cup of tea, eat porrige or toast for breakfast and be in the saddle by 8am. Riding until lunch, Joe and I would discuss politics, our childhoods, play 20 questions and eye spy. Sophia and Ariana would share an ipod and we all plodded along.

As it came towards lunch time and the temperature steadily increased, the saddle became less and less comfortable and I began to think about food. Looking back on it, I don’t think the guides were actually very good cooks, but when you’ve spent hours in the sun and all you want is lunch and shade, the simplest curry tastes wonderful.

After lunch we would ride until sunset and then settle down, spread out our mats and blankets and help prepare dinner, which normally meant peeling garlic by mobile (cell phone) torch. The days were largely uneventful. Champa seemed to know people all over the coutryside and we were always welcomed with chai and curious stares. Sometimes we sat on our mats, like children too young to understand a family gathering, as Champa talked to the owners of the various fields and gardens where we would be spending the night. Some times we were ignored, sometimes our most mundane actions were observed by a fascinated crowd and sometimes when the crowd realised we had cameras, the field became the set of an impromptu photoshoot.

One lunch time as I was decorating my foot with henna, about 50 local women and girls turned up. They all gathered around to watch my very amateur work and to my surprise Champa told me that one woman had said, “I had no school. I can only do simple mehendi. You do very pretty henna. You must have had a lot of school.” The woman’s daughter then stretched out her hand and asked me to do a design for her. I did her palm and another girl’s too. As I drew, I wondered if many other Ragastani village girls had ever had their mehendi done by a foreigner. It seems unlikely.

In the beginning, we were very conscientious about drinking bottled water only. But as the safari progressed, the water supply dwindled and our dehydration increased we became more confident about our youthful invincibility and sampled water from various wells, pots and troughs across the countryside.  Although some would say that in the middle of nowhere, with a camel as the only form of transportation, testing rural water supplies was risky and possibly very stupid, somehow we survived and suffered no obvious ill-effects. As for dormant parasites.. well, no one’s perfect.

A definite highlight of the safari was our rest day. On our second last day, we rode only a few hours in the morning and then stopped at a temple to relax and have the day off. To our absolute delight, the temple had a shower! Or, at least had a hose, a large clay pot and a secluded area and so we took it in turns to undergo a radical transformation from dusty, sweaty and definitely smelly to clean, fresh and golden brown. It was a magical experience, even with the giant spiders and dangling hornets that crowded the tiny shower space.

After a very enjoyable week we found ourselves a mere 13km from Jodhpur and with only one night left under the stars. Unfortunately, Champa, who had technically been drunk from about 10am every day, decided to get absolutely wasted that night. Even more unfortunately, Govind decided to drink some whisky as well and we ended up basically baby-sitting our guides. Govind got very upset, began crying and insisted that in one hour he was going to take the camel cart, which contained all our bags, and drive it back to Pushkar. Champa tried to cook us rice-pudding, which was disgusting and none of us ate, and then started trying to provoke Govind. Although they seemed pretty harmless, for safety’s sake, we kept them occupied and apart. Our third guide, Dharmu just laughed the whole time.

The next morning annoyed me. Trotting on our camel was very painful, especially in my seat and despite our proximity to Jodhpur, Champa kept us riding at a fast pace. His only incentive was to reach the next town and his next drink. But we made it into the city safely and after a brief pay negotiation due to the unfortunate events of the night before, we parted ways with our guides and began our assimilation back into the real world of beds, hostels and superfast (60km/hour max) auto rikshaws.

It was an interesting and educational experience for many reasons. Although it first appeared very touristy and possibly tedious, there really are not many other ways to travel through the countryside like that, stopping in homes for chai, sleeping in fields under the stars and really seeing first-hand how rural Rajastanis live.

Camels. Part 1.

Unlike Sophia, Joe and Ariana, I was decidedly pessimistic about the ‘Camel Safari’ from Pushkar to Jodhpur idea. Paying for 7 days on the bony back of a possibly maltreated animal, trudging through the Thar desert under the blistering Indian summer sun, accompanied by conceivably lecherous camel drivers sounded to me like a completely unnecessary exercise in pain tolerance and a really un-fun way to spend one of our precious weeks in India. As the others expressed boundless enthusiasm about the nights under the stars, the philosophical revelations they would undoubtably experience and the stories they would have to tell, I grumbled under my breath, shook my head and repeated over and over again that they didn’t understand, that riding anything for a week-straight is not fun and that Lonely Planet romanticises everything. When their excitement failed to inspire me, they dismissed me as simply being difficult and grumpy and to a certain extent, they were right. I was really just trying to be realistic but if I’m honest,  my  unwillingness to become overly excited due to an awareness of the practical difficulties we would most-likely face scared me – I realized then that I was becoming my mother.

(Not that that’s a bad thing)

Arriving in Pushkar, we found ourselves in the most tourist-run town in India. All the signs are in English, Israeli, Japanese and Korean and the main street is a market-strip selling all the most popular tourist items at tourist prices: ‘gringo’ pants, cheap jewelry, leather-bound journals, massages and camel safari deals! If I was dubious before, seeing Pushkar only made it worse. In my nightmares I saw the four of us, lost among a group of 30 middle-aged tourists being led, fed and put to bed like a group of school children. No one else seemed put off though, especially not Joe who headed out to the outskirts of the town to search for camels and their drivers.

While Joe looked around, the twins and I went to a the beauty ’saloon’ next to our guest house and ended up having a long chat and a couple chais with the sweet girl, Chandra, who worked there. She told us about herself, her day job at the salon, her night work training to be a midwife and nursing at a local hospital and her singing in a choir. She told us of her two engangements that had fallen through and how much she prayed for the luck to be arranged with the right man the third time. She also mentioned that her uncle ran a camel safari business and that it would be worth meeting him if we were interested.

Shortly after, Chandra introduced us to a little white-haired man with few teeth. His name was Champa. He showed us his comment book, filled with satisfied tourists’ multi-lingual recommendations, told us about his 26 year experience and named his price. After a discussion with Joe, who had met 5 other men with similar books, stories and cheaper prices, we agreed to meet Joe’s favorite, despite having already fallen for Champa’s quiet demeanor, calm eyes and soft assurances of unrivalled expertise. One thing that Chandra had stressed when recommending Champa was that he only used “aged men” as guides and a chat-up free week would be a welcome break at least for the twins, especially Ariana. (Ask about Raj.)

Unfortunately for Joe’s favorite driver, our first experience with him was to see him riding up on a motorcycle, grinning from ear to ear and then announcing with a creepy laugh, “One man, three girls! Hahaha!” We three girls instinctively turned to eachother and muttered in virtual unison, “Right. No way.”

Champa is in the middle.

Two days later at 10am we met as a company: Joe, Sophia, Ariana and I with Champa, Govinda and Dharmu and set out into the desert. Our camels were decked out with ankle bells, designs shaved onto their flanks and mirrored shawl like coverings on their necks. Joe and I rode a 9 year old camel called Ragu, Sophia and Ariana shared 5 year old Shakti and the guides rode in front on the camel cart, pulled by the charistmatic Krishna.

Given my level of pessimism, the first day was inevitably better than my expectations. (Perhaps that was what I had wanted all along.) We rode the short distance to Champa’s house, met his wife, saw a picture from their wedding day, drank chai, picked up the necessary cooking and eating utensils and then half an hour later, stopped for lunch under a big tree. We were surrounded by a few herds of sheep, we napped on comfortable mats and blankets and the food was delicious. As we rode on in the afternoon, I kept wanting to turn around to Sophia and Ariana and ask with the smug tone of a person who has been right all along, “See how awful this is??” but I never had the opportunity. Camel saddles are a lot more comfortable thant those of horses, being made mainly of blankets and our gentle pace caused a level of discomfort, but not one worth complaining about.

Liz and Champa

Mid-afternoon we stopped in a town for chai, as we were leaving a group of excited children ran out after us. Unfortunately, one tiny boy ran into the path of the camel cart and I saw him go under it’s wheels. Thankfully, one tense instant later he scrambled up, shaken and wailing but able to run to the side of the road. The following hours of discussion and negotiations between Champa, the boy’s father and what seemed like the entire angry village populaion were a little tense. As we waited for everything to be worked out, a crowd gathered around us, just watching. It grew closer to sunset and then started raining. Damp, cold and nervous about our safety, I felt my small store of hope that this was actually going to be a memorable experience for all the right reasons slipping away. Everytime we thought things were resloved and began to move on, another man on a motor bike would stop us after 10 minutes demanding more money.

Having shaken off the last angry villager, who chased us through fields on a tractor, we continued, now in pich-black darkness to an empty concrete shelter where Champa said we would be spending the night. As the men set up the mats and retrieved our bags from the cart, I withdrew into grumpiness and paranoia. It dawned on me that I wasn’t nearly as conscious of possible practical difficulties as my mother and I felt foolish for thinking I had come close to reaching her level of awareness. In the darkness, I wondered where on earth we were and who exactly knew we were here. What would happen if we disappeared? What did we really know about our guides? What did we know about the Rajastani countryside? Had we thought about this at all??

As we helped prepare dinner by the light of cell-phone flashlights and a couple candles, Champa told us that the village we were in was celebrating the upcoming wedding of one of it’s boys and that we were invited to the party. He seemed  very happy about this and very excited to dance. It was like he was a different person. We would soon realize that he was very drunk.

It was a bizarre scene at the village. In a tiny area infront of a house, the men and women had gathered and a sound system blared as loud as any club I have visited. Most of the women had their faces completly veiled by their saris and would take it turns to get up and dance, their movements graceful but strangely impersonal. Champa was very enthousiastic, gyrating left, right, up, down and all around. There was a ancient and extremely skinny man, dressed traditionally except for his navy blue suit blazer who joined Champa and they took it in turns to show off their moves. It became clear that we would not be allowed back to our camp if we did not dance. Joe was the first to be dragged to the ‘floor’ by Champa and he made a valient attempt to copy the spritely man’s actions. Soon Ariana and I did our best to simulatiously avoid embarassing ourselves and entertain the faceless crowd. Their brief round of applause suggested that we had at least amused them and as we made our way back to the shelter I said to Sophia, “I think, if we get out of this alive, we are going to have quite a few stories to tell”.

Joe's turban

Shishu Bhavan, Darjeeling, Varanasi

It has almost been two weeks since we left Kolkata and although Joe’s previous post really captured all of our impressions of India, I would really just like to add a bit more and share with all of you our experience volunteering with Mother Theresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

For three weeks I worked at Shishu Bhavan–home for mentally and physically handicapped orphans ages 0-9.  Ariana and Liz volunteered at another house outside of the city called Shanti Dan, where they taught children ages 3-12.  I was fortunate enough to spend one day assisting Ariana (playing substitute teacher while Liz wasn’t feeling well) and experience what it was like to teach and supervise children of such a large age group.  It was much harder to teach them than I had expected, but I was still impressed by their intelligence and capabilities.  Most of the children were able to sing the songs that Liz and Ariana had taught them in just a few days, they participated in games and activities, and even a few spoke English! This loud, active classroom was quite a contrast to the setting I was used to.

Every day of three weeks began either at 7 a.m. with Ariana’s alarm, or at 5 a.m. if I was woken by the call to prayer from the mosque right behind our guest house.  At about 7.30 I began my half-hour trek to Shishu Bhavan (only 5 minutes from Mother House), down Sudder Street and then all along a quite narrow and busy street lined with butchers, bakeries, pharmacies, cellphone and jewelery stores, tiny homes, countless stray dogs and the occasional farm animal.  Oh and of course the old and young men washing themselves in the street, the swerving motorcycles, screaming rickshaw drivers and honking taxis.  So my walk to work was quite stressful, but nonetheless interesting.

Once I arrived to work, I would go straight to the top floor, grab an apron and quickly begin changing sheets and mattress covers, laying out pillows and stuffed animals.  After this, each volunteer was supposed to feed a child their breakfast–for most this meant warm powdered milk, for the more active this meant a biscuit (or sometimes potato chips!) mixed with warm powdered milk.  This was never, ever, an easy task.  Most of the children at this hour were still asleep or groggy from their medication, so they were grumpy on top of being completely unmanageable.  Once breakfast was finished–and this was usually accomplished with the help of a “Masi” (an Indian women employed by Mother Teresa’s charity)–we rolled out the exercise mats.  Each volunteer was given a profile of the child they were working with.  It included name, age, illness, goals and exercises.  We were supposed to first rub oil on the children s limbs (to keep them soft and healthy) and then proceed with the exercises for over an hour.  Essentially none of the children could walk, so most of the work we did with the children was passive; a lot of stretching and moving of the joints.

Because I worked mostly with a five year old blind girl, Deepa, I spent this time walking around with her; allowing her to feel her way around the room, snapping my fingers and moving my bracelets to make her turn in different directions by following sounds.  I spent many afternoons clapping with her, singing songs, bouncing her on a yoga ball and even running around the orphanage while she held tightly onto the back of my shirt, laughing and making funny noises.

After the exercise portion of the day, the volunteers were given Chai and biscuits on the roof for a 20 minute break.  After only 2 hours with the children we were all exhausted, yet we were nonetheless eager to go back downstairs and feed them their lunch (an affair that actually took one whole hour).

Saying goodbye was not easy. I had really fallen into a routine living in Kolkata, on Sudder Street surrounded by other volunteers, friendly familiar faces and lots of chai. Though I can’t say that I did, or will ever, miss that walk to Shishu Bhavan, my last was a bit sober. Saying goodbye to Deepa and the other children was hard for me as well–even though none of them have the ability to understand or have relationships–I loved them all and had gotten to know each one quite well. I promised myself that on my last day at Shishu Bhavan that I wouldn’t cry (and I didn’t!), but I came very very close when a Masi, who knew it was my last day, pulled up a chair for me next to Deepa’s bed so I could play with her one last time.

There are so many volunteers that work at Mother Theresa’s charity in Kolkata and I know that these children are never without love, care and attention, but I still feel that my time at Shishu Bhavan was helpful and appreciated–weather it was from Deepa, the Masi’s, or any volunteer who I helped with the changing or feeding of a child.

Because I have to leave my hotel in about 20 min to catch a train to Jaipur, I will be brief and concise about what happens next. Darjeeling.

One of the first places I wanted to visit in India was Darjeeling because of its beautiful houses, Tibetan influence, Tea! and mostly because of its location in the foothills of the Himalayas.  However, after a successful 10 hour train , 3 hour jeep ride and a brief taxi stop to our hotel, we had arrived in what appeared to be a cloud forest.

Although we were unable to see the incredible range of mountains and snow tipped Everest, the four of us really enjoyed the few days that we spent in this hill station.  After a week in Delhi followed by four in Kolkata, we appreciated the cleaner air, quite roads, picturesque hills and cute, painted houses.  We drank lots and lots of tea, a bit too much Tibetan food, we visited a nice zoo (where we saw tigers and red pandas), Ariana and I did get up at 3.30 a.m. to see the sunrise over the 250 km stretch of Himalayas that Lonely Planet suggested, followed by an 8km walk back into Darjeeling and finally visited a Tibetan Refugee Centre.

After nearly four full days of cold weather, high altitude and moutain-station life, we got on a train headed for the religious capital of India-Varanasi.

Varanasi is where I am writing from right now.  We have been here for four days, mostly walking along the ghats (our hotel is directly behind the very famous burning ghat), and getting lost through the tiny streets of the old city.  The city is really beautiful, vibrant and spiritual. This morning Ariana and I took a Yoga lesson with our friend Charlie (who we met in Kolkata) with a very, very patient Yoga “master”, the other day we all got up at about 5.30 to take a boat trip down the Ganga River where we watched hundreds and hundreds of colorful Indians wading into the water-washing, praying, swimming and doing yoga.  I can’t say that I was tempted to take a dip myself, but I did light a candle decorated with flowers and even submerged my feet in the river–so now I have good karma.  Like Darjeeling, Varanasi has been very calm and peaceful.  I will always remember the rooftops of this ancient city, the playful monkeys and even children running  through the stone Hindu temples that line the streets, and the wide, magnificent ghats that lead straight into the Mother Ganga.

Again, we have to say goodbye and move on to yet another beautiful place.  Our next stop is Jaipur-a huge city and capital of the state Rajastan, where we plan to be for the next two weeks.

Kolkata. Better Late Than Never.

Firstly as a pre emptive to the inevitable comments regarding grammar, please forward all complaints to the UK Ministry of Education.

I came to Kolkata on the 17th February, arriving a day after the owners of this blog flew in, following a week in Delhi. I think that it is already a little cheeky that I am being made to feel that it is my responsibility to write an entry on a blog my surname does not appear in the title of and therefore will not be attempting to write about things that I was not actually there for. This entry will concern solely Kolkata; you will have to speak to collasfoxcollas for any information on occurrences in Delhi.

First impressions would definitely include heat. Coming from the depths of a sub zero Devonian winter, feeling anything above 30 degrees is certainly a shock, albeit a welcome one. The temperature is currently hovering around a bearable 35 degrees, but we have been told it will reach 50 around late April as we face a record breaking summer. Another shock would be the sheer number of humans. From the moment you step out of the airport, you are confronted with a tide of people. I have never, before now, been to a city where you are constantly reminded of just how many people exist in that place. There are no empty alleys, no deserted streets at 3 am. Everywhere there is someone. This city feels like it is overflowing, with people spilling out into the streets from every building as if, and also because, there just isn’t enough space to contain this number of lives. Coupled with this, is the seemingly honest desire by most Indians to talk to you.

Both Liz and I have encountered problems with using the phone outside, finding holding relatively serious conversations becomes almost impossible as you are bombarded with greetings such as ‘Helllooo friend’ or ‘Which country?’. In every place there is someone who wants to talk to you, many admittedly to sell you something, but an equal number seemingly out of innocent curiosity. You are struck by ancient Muslim gentlemen catching a glance of you from across the street and making a direct line to come and sit with you and explore your views and feelings on Islam, terrorism and Obama. You can become trapped, as soon as you give the impression that you have anything like a passing interest in cricket, in hour long discussions about the upcoming Indian Premier League.

Happiness seems to be a rule here. An emaciated rickshaw-wallah, bent double from the strain of pulling a family of Indians will turn and smile or crack a joke at you. Affecting an expression even slightly approaching thoughtful will result in someone screaming at you ‘Smile, be happy’. It can become grating, apparently Westerners very much value our moments of irritation and it just doesn’t seem to be understood here. Occasionally you are just not in the mood for a local chai selling boy to drag you to a seat and to talk to you in the few words of English that he knows. Feeling guilty for being anything other than bubbling with joy is an entirely new experience for me.

In a way the presence of crazy people feels like an extension of the happiness. It is almost as if these people have overdosed on happiness and, as a result, completely lost reasonable control of their senses. One particular gentleman greeted me with, “Hello friend! I am from Australia! No wait, I forgot. I am from Goa!” and then proceeded to try and break my arm. …Happily, of course.

The craziness does not end when people get behind the wheel. The traffic is absurdly hectic. Rules of the road seem solely based on courage and who has the bigger vehicle. Roundabouts are adrenaline rushes, lane markings non-existent, yet it seems to work. Through necessity, an army of over skilled drivers has been born, with inch perfect width perception constantly in evidence. Chaos would be the word here, not just in terms of the density of the traffic but also in its nature. A barely running auto rickshaw will weave in and out of antiquated British-built cars, pulling along side diesel fume spewing buses and the most ridiculous modern sports car.

This duality is mirrored everywhere you look. As I sat in a taxi coming from the airport I saw grand old colonial buildings with riverside slums across the street. Well-dressed business men carefully step over piles of rubbish and god knows what else. The contrast between rich and poor is impossible to ignore when it is so clearly shown in the same situation.

The slums themselves are another world full of people simply making the best they can with what they have. There is an estimated multi-billion dollar economy that exists entirely within these slums. Hundreds of thousands are employed simply recycling the waste produced by the inhabitants of these settlements. Within them there is an incredibly complex system of lanes and alleys, drainage channels and tiny shops. I encountered, while sitting near a small slum just outside the centre of Kolkata, a tiny Hindu woman, who, after examining the colour of my arms for around 10 minutes, repeated the words ‘house house’ to me. After realizing this was an invitation to visit her home. Smiling with incomprehension and recognizing only the word ‘Gora’ (white man), I was led past laughing and wide-eyed children and adults, who called out to me in Bengali. Her house was smaller and lower ceiled than most sheds I have seen and certainly more precariously built. She showed me every one of her possessions, her medicine, her blanket and her water bottles, all the time looking to me for approval. After a conversation that mainly consisted of me complimenting her various household items and then being introduced to her four children, I was only allowed to leave after promising to come back the next day. The only impression I was able to take from this visit was that her hut never felt like anything other than a home.

I think what Kolkata has taught me is that no matter how dirty, polluted, over-crowded and overwhelming a place may be, it is still very possible to experience and observe a happiness unfelt in more conventionally comfortable surroundings. There is a lot that can depress you there and, standing as an outsider it can be difficult to understand how many of the people feel content in their struggle to survive but I only see resolve and raw passion for existence that is so rare in many other places.

A Brief Update Before My Fingers Freeze!

It is so cold here in Darjeeling I can barely use this keyboard!  We left Calcutta Friday night, after staying there for one month, and rode ten hours in non-AC sleeper class overnight to arrive the next morning in “NJP.”  The train was actually quite nice, which was a relief to discover since we’ll be taking a lot of them over the next six weeks.  Our train, called “Darjeeling Mail,” must have been one hundred cars long, with at least ten compartments in each car, and nine “beds” (really cushioned benches that fold out of the wall) in each compartment.  And finally (my favorite part of the trip, during which I was basically seated in the trunk) we from took a jeep for about three hours climbing rocky, winding terrain to reach our final destination (for the next couple of days anyway): Darjeeling, small Indian town perched in the lower range of the Himalayas.  So now, outside of Calcutta and at an elevation of over 2,00o meters, we find ourselves trying to adjust to clean air, silence, and the cold mountain weather.

I realize a huge chunk of our India story is missing right now–we flew into Delhi and we just spent four weeks working in Calcutta–and there’s a lot to say about all that.  But Joe really will post something very soon (I’ve been told it’s almost finished), and Liz has an entry ready to put up, I have photos of the class Liz and I have been teaching in Calcutta, Sophia has photos of the handicapped children she was working with and not to mention lots of photos of our crazy, painted faces from Holi, the Hindu festival we found ourselves in the middle of last week, to show all of you.

So we have big plans for the blog!  I just need to warm up with a nice cup of Darjeeling tea and regain feeling in my fingertips before I can even fathom doing any of this.

Indian Impressions

So. We are 23 days into our 3 month stay in India and .. still haven’t written on the blog. But not to worry, loyal readers, Joe is about to save the day.

In case you don’t know who Joe is. He is the Joe mentioned in ‘Day One’ (the entry about butchering my first day in Ecuador) and my boyfriend, who has traveled from Devon, England to meet us in India. Despite the fact that in our first email contact (before I met him) I thought, based on his grammar, he was probably from Eastern Europe, I trust he will rise to the occasion and come up with something spectacular… by tomorrow.

We do feel a little guilty because we have been very caught up in the rush of India and haven’t found a chance to post, but hope that Joe’s entry will make up for the delay. I can’t say Joe is entirely enthusiastic about this idea, but.. well.. he’s whipped.