Quick Update

Since I did not do such a great job of publicizing my blog before leaving San Francisco last October, lets review: Last fall I visited the north coast of the Dominican Republic for 10 days before heading to India for an unspecified period of time. I traveled, made friends, took an internship with an awesome organization in Mumbai, began to understand things a little, then, after 3 months, made the difficult decision to leave. I took a job with COPA, an organization that runs a school and clinic in each of two villages near a Dominican town called Barahona. I will be living in Bombita, a batey (historically a settlement of plantation workers) where the organization also has a trade room. I’ll be in charge of the trade room programs, as well as the sponsorship program and overseeing the maintenance for both schools.

Back in Transition

The excitement of Uttarayan makes the following days seem lazy and uneventful. Tulsi has to work at her internship so I bop around on my own in Ahmadabad using my awkward Hindi/Gujarati to do errands and return time and time again to the Singapore Air office. In the evenings we zoom around with Tulsi's cousins on the back of their bikes. We eat a secession of snacks on the street, go for dinner, then ice cream, then paan, repeat.

My last day in Ahmadabad we visit the village of a friend of the family's who makes us amazing food and walks us through his fields. I annoy Tulsi by constantly asking agriculture related questions to be translated and thoroughly enjoy the outing. We return to the city to make a food-filled round with the cousins and meet the few other friends I have to say goodbye. We top the night off with a in-house dance party, blaring Hindi music in the sitting room before catching a few hours of sleep.

My flight to Mumbai, where I have been rerouted to fly home, is early in the morning, affording me a full day there before my midnight flight to Singapore. I stuff my luggage and myself into a rickshaw and head to Naina's place to relax with her before meeting up with Shivang. I convince them to accompany me in the search for a few elusive gift items. Chitra meets up with us, then waits with me until it is time to board the plane.

Once in Singapore I venture out from the cushy airport on the free bus that takes me to a shopping center complex. I try to walk from there to see more of the city but the freeway seems to be blocking me so I settle for some delicious noodles in the food court before returning to check in for my flight. We have a short layover in Hong Kong where I groggily peruse locally made artsy do-dads in a shop between dutyfrees. More sleep and airplane food until we land at SFO. I'll miss India but it is nice to be home.

I stay with Whitney and my sister, working few shifts at my sisters restaurant and trying to see friends as much as possible. My bags are split between temporary homes, my clothes are not yet all clean, and I'm still waiting for the visa to go through, but I'm starting to get excited about my next step into the unknown.

Uttarayan

Before leaving India for my job in the Dominican, I return to Gujarat for Uttarayan, the kite festival. The air is crisp and moving on a stiff breeze in Ahmedabad where people are flying kites from roofs, balconies, bridges, and the side of the road. Except for this, the streets Tulsi and I pass on the bus ride from Ahmadabad to Baroda are unusually quiet. The contrast is sharp with the holiday mood we enter at Tulsi’s oldest cousin’s house. The family and friends are gathered on the roof, taking turns launching kites in to the air and holding the attached reels of string. Shivang and his older brother have come up for the festival as well as cousins from Seattle. Bhavi, whose 13 birthday party I attended the first week I was in India, holds the reel as Tulsi dangles a kite into the breeze. Kids blow on paper horns and lean on mothers sitting on mats in the shade as they tie leads on stacks of paper kites.


We are finally cajoled down for lunch before heading into the old downtown area. It’s narrow lanes are nearly deserted. We climb to the terrace and see that the city has shifted to its roofs. The sky is filed with colorful, fluttering kites. Birds wheel away, displaced from their many customary ledges. Music is blasting from every fourth house and competitive shouts ring out as kites are cut. Fireworks and hot air balloons punctuate the scene. I join in, clumsily jerking kites into the air or taking over a high flying one when someone looses interest.


Everyone is involved in the festival: an elderly man sits with a grandchild patching kites, kids are pulling in the strings of downed kites, aunties emerge from the house bearing fried snacks. As the sun goes down the focus shifts away from kites (though there are still plenty in the air) and toward the dance parties and fireworks. We climb over a few neighboring terraces to join the roof with enormous speakers then head back down to eat the traditional meal. We sit around to listen to songs in Gujarati sung by a portly, joking uncle.


The next morning we eat breakfast and fly a few kites before catching the bus back to Ahmadabad with the Mumbai cousins. Here too the streets are relatively empty but the house is full of Tulsi’s grandpa’s siblings since he’s just come back from the US. They gather in the sitting room while Ankit (the cousin we’ve signed up at the marriage bureau) meets with a perspective bride and her mother in another room. Other cousins from Tulsi’s moms side come over as well and we head up to fly a kite with the rest of the neighborhood covering their roofs before dinner. The trees are blooming with multi-colored crepe paper and the streets are strewn with fuchsia and yellow strings. People compare the cuts inflicted on their hands as proud battle wounds.


The chaos subsides only slightly before it is midnight and I’m cutting my birthday cake, having frosting smeared on my face, and feeding a bite to each person. Then we head to cousins of Shivang’s place (to the roof of course) where a large, stable kite is launched. Once securely in the air, paper lanterns with flashing plastic lights are tied to the string and spun out into the night sky. It’s much later then most are flying lighted kites but we see one more with the traditional yellow light of a candle bobbing across the city. Once the cousins have turned to their paan masala flavored hookah, I hold the kite’s string and watch it turn and dip between me and the stars. I’ve had a beautiful birthday and am so lucky to lead the life I do. India has certainly been good to me and I will be sad to leave.

Hello 2010, Goodbye Bombay

Before I know it the 31st has hit us and I’m dipping out of the office to be packed 5 to the car with Shivang and his friends on what is supposed to be a 2.5 hour road trip to Daman, a town on the ocean, where we will meet others for a party. After we break free of the sluggish Bombay traffic and it begins to get dark we hit a stand still. The guys jump out and walk forward to discover the reason returning to report 20 km of backed up traffic. We join a dozen or so vehicles in bumping over the median to continue going the wrong direction in the opposite lane. When this too becomes jammed we have to pile out and fill a trench with stones in order to return to the proper side where traffic is moving again. We dodge chicken trucks and flatbeds, trundle along the shoulder of the road at high speeds, and zoom between cargo trucks until we are stopped again. The opposite lane is again clear so we test our luck and join other vehicles jumping the median for a quick shot ahead. When traffic slows here also we are hemmed in for frustrating 15 minutes before we can return to the proper side to again weave through heavy vehicles painted colorfully, a pickup with steel milk canisters stacked in the back, and cars stuffed full of passengers. After hours of sitting in traffic things finally start moving and we speed through the clear miles to arrive at the party just as fireworks signal midnight. We celebrate and dance to Hindi and English hits until 4am snacking on veg. appetizers and drinking a few mysteriously pink shots. A full meal is served before we crash out in hotel rooms. In the morning we eat a lazy breakfast by the beach before braving the traffic back to Mumbai.


I’m back to work with the goofy YV team getting revved up for the upcoming venture cycle. We take a two day retreat to a donor’s farm house where we revise curriculum and activities, do planning and have serious strategy discussions. We are fueled constantly by chai breaking only to walk to a nearby river where we wade and splash each other. My colleagues each have amazing stories and I’m lucky enough to hear some of them in the down time between meetings.


Back in Mumbai I sit in on a joint Seeds of Peace and YV event. Pakistani and Indian high school aged kids who have attended summer camp in Maine meet again in Mumbai and visit some of our Venturers. I join them to play with a soccer club for kids from Cuff Parade then struggle to follow the flow of conversation in Hindi where the Seeds answered kid’s questions about Pakistan and spoke about the importance of distinguishing between governments and people.

While I’ve been having all these amazing experiences I’ve also been trying to make a difficult decision as I’ve been offered a job with a small organization in the Dominican Republic called COPA. The run schools and clinics in villages on the south coast near Barahona and the offer of a management position doing direct field work is hard to pass up. Once the official offer is in I make the tough decision to leave India. I’ll go to Ahmadabad for the kite festival on January 13th as planned then fly back to San Francisco to get my visa for the DR.


My last week or so in Mumbai is a blur of export surplus shopping, dinner with friends at good Indian and horrible to middling continental restaurants, snacks on the street and evenings chatting with my roommates, little victories of train rides by myself and exchanges in Hindi with rickshaw drivers. These are the things that make it hardest to leave and make me sure I’ll want to return to India as soon as the opportunity presents itself.


I pack up at the PG and meet friends for a goodbye dinner. I catch a day train with Chitra’s mom who was visiting and now will return to Ahmadabad. My big suitcase and I are back in transition.

Christmas

My neighborhood is historically Christian so it has been lit up and decorated for the last week or so. For the rest of the city Christmas involves a party on the 24th and a long weekend but many hindus treat Jesus or Mother Mary as another god they can entreat to protect them. They believe in the power of a certain church and visit there as well as a temple. On Christmas Eve I go with Shivang and Naina to light a candle before we meet others for a party. Friday and Saturday are lazy days, I meet with friends for a meal here and there, go to see Three Idiots - snacking on samosas and sipping mango juice at intermission - and sleep a lot. Sunday I take the train to Thane where we have a Youth Venture outreach. At the end of the weekend I feel rested but have accomplished very little.

Mumbai!

My last week in Ahmadabad is a blur of activity as I begin to make firm plans to live in Mumbai. Tulsi has begun an internship with Times of India so will be staying in Ahmadabad at least until mid January. I’ll be on my own which is both exciting and frightening at once. I don’t have too much time to worry because there are preparations to make and still more weddings to attend. Friday night Tulsi and I board a bus for Mumbai.

Before I know it we are whirling around the city looking for a place to stay. Since I’m not sure if Tulsi will join me in a month or so, I want something I can get out of mid-jan and doesn’t require me outfitting a full apartment. Paying guest (PG) arrangements are common here and the way to find them is through a broker. So we meet 3 different guys of varying levels of sketchiness, taking dizzying rickshaw rides around Bandra, the area near my office, to visit elderly aunties with rooms to let. On Sunday, I decide on a place walking distance from the office where I will work. My new home is a room shared with 2 other girls in the (fairly luxurious by Indian standards) flat of a woman, her son and her niece. By that night I am all moved in to my new home and saying goodbye to Tulsi before she takes the train back to Ahmadabad.

I go into the office on Monday unsure of what to expect. I find a casual atmosphere and friendly, goofy team of 3 Americans and 2 Indians working on an exciting approach to changing the world: shape young people who care about their communities and are willing to take action to make change. It took me about a week to be assigned any real work but it feels good to be busy again and its nice to have a routine. I get to the office around 9:30am walking 15 minutes past tall apartment buildings, a hospital, catholic schools, and shops stuffed with food and cigarettes, bags of snacks and Rs20 sachets of anti-hairfall shampoo and neem facewash hanging under red Vodafone signs.

The Youth Venture team, of which I am now a part, shares the office with Ashoka’s regional staff of 3 cheery Indian ladies. Upstairs is “the hub” an office space run by Unltd, another social entrepreneurship organization. Its always full of interesting national and international personalities and holds learning lunches and screenings of TED talks. The YV teams hangs out with hub regulars, going to dinner almost every night. I join them a few times but also meet with Tulsi’s cousin Shivang and Naina, a friend of his I met when we were first in Mumbai. Some days I just go home after leaving the office around 7 or 8pm and make some Maggie (ramen noodles) and chat with my roomies before sleeping.

On Saturday Chitra, a school friend of Tulsi’s who I met at a wedding and who lives in Mumbai, takes me with her to visit her auntie in Churchgate. I am submerged back into Guajarati as we snack and chat. Later we go to Colaba where there are street stalls to browse full of sandals, bags, western clothes, kurtis, scarves, and colorful jewelry. On the train home and sitting in a rickshaw in traffic, I am impatient to arrive at the party for YV Venturers (the youth we help to run projects in their communities). When I finally arrive I join them for games and several speeches about how amazing their accomplishments are. They are pretty inspiring: a 16 year old putting 80 slum dwelers back in school, a 20 year old who teaches life skills to girls living in institutions.

Sunday I meet up with Shivang and a big group on his friends who are lively and super inclusive. We eat at a nice little restaurant in Bandra where the Italian food that tastes surprisingly un-indian. After 3 hours of animated conversation they drop me home where I finish out a lazy evening by going for south Indian food with my roommate and walking home. There are a few details left to iron out here in Mumbai but I am well on my way to striking in roots.

Silk burn and bangle bruises

There are red marks above my hips and my right hand is a bit tender from being squeezed into borrowed bangles that are too small but I am proud of these signs I have worn my first saree last night for Shruti's wedding. Shruti, who has been a friend of Tulsi's since they were in primary school, has involved us in nearly all of her marriage ceremonies. Hers is an arranged marriage with a guy from Ahmadabad who lives and works in London. They spend hours on end talking over the internet or phone until he arrives a few days before the wedding ceremonies start.


We go to Shruti's house where she shows us the piles of new clothes she has bought which will be displayed at one ceremony showing how her family has equipped her before giving her away to the grooms family. We accompany her to the salon and to the ceremonies at her in-laws. We return to her house for mandy where henna is painted on our hands so we must eat gingerly help each other answer phones to avoid smearing the flowers and curly-cues. In the morning on the day of the wedding, we have missed a ceremony where a yellow paste of turmeric is smeared with blessings on Shruti's face. Mid-morning we go to the party plot where the wedding itself will be held to join cousins, aunties and uncles who look on while the pundit guides her parents through blessings for the gods represented by coconuts. Afterward Shruti is sent off to the salon while we return home to rest and change. Tulsi is excited to wear a brocade blouse she has had made to match several of her mom's sarees and while her auntie makes accordion folds to be tucked and pinned in the borrowed saree I will wear, Tulsi drapes two or three before deciding.


When we arrive back at the party plot the grooms family is dancing outside accompanied by a band. Shruti's mom and sister stand at the entrance ready to receive them, backed by aunties and uncles. The groom is blessed before entering, a friend guarding his face with a handkerchief against the playful tradition of Shruti's mother grabbing his nose. The bride and groom sit on fancy chairs on a covered stage to perform the marriage ceremonies. Shruti's parents sit on the floor with the pundit while her siblings and Tulsi are on hand to adjust her heavy veil or pass her a handkerchief. Photographers and videographers from each side shine bright lights on the entire proceeding. The bride and groom put garlands of flowers around each other's necks, are tied together with a cloth, walk in 4 circles around the ceremonial fire. More mischievous traditions involve the bride's side hiding the groom's shoes and selling them back, on the last circle the bride's brother holds the groom's toe until he is payed off. The many guests go to fill heaping plates before the married couple and their families sit to eat. Afterward they return to the bride's house to do one last pooja before returning to give gifts to each individual in the groom's family. At the end the bride says goodbye to her family, crying as she leaves them to join her in-laws and husband.


We are slightly less involved but equally dressed up for the festivities for a few other weddings before heading to Mumbai. The city is a striking combination of concrete high rises and slums. It is humid and warm with a yellow light and busy energy that feels familiar. We stay with Tulsi's family, first in an older neighborhood of narrow streets in south Mumbai. We walk to the beach crowded with families and couples and see the harbor ringed by streetlights. Later we are in newer areas, shopping on linking road, meeting with friends of Tulsi's in Bandra, sampling the posh restaurants on Carter road and walking along the seafront. We take the local train to Andheri, squished together in the ladies' car, to meet the owner of a production house that might have work for Tulsi. The bus we take back is mired in the constant traffic which reminds us of LA. I meet with the woman I have been in contact with about an internship with Ashoka's Youth Venture. (Check out their work here: http://www.youthventureindia.net) I have been up in the air about whether to stay or not but they have a lot of interesting work to be done and will allow me to ease into using Hindi. I think I've just decided to be here at least 6 months. Its scary but also exhilarating. There are a lot of details to arrange but first we return to Ahmadabad.