I live here.

I started off this year writing about my lack of routine in Benares, but if there was ever a time to say that I really truly have fallen in to a good routine, it would be now. Even though I felt comfortable and settled in Benares very soon after arriving here, looking back, I'm quite sure that all the time between my arrival in the end of September and our departure for Rajasthan in December was just a very long, very subtle period of acclimatization. It was only after arriving back from Rajasthan at the end of December and finding my way back in to a routine after two weeks away that I could really say, I live here. I live in Benares. This is my life. That, not simple repetition of a series of acts, is what I mean by a routine. Benares, at the moment, and for the past month and a half, hasn't been "the place where I am living for seven months", it is, quite simply, the place I live. There are no qualifiers.

Of course, soon, there will be. The end of my time in Benares doesn't feel too far off and when it's nearly here, qualifiers will start mounting. My Benares will metamorphose into "the place I lived for seven months." It will be the place I spent my gap year. The place I miss. The place I have endless potent memories from. But I won't be able to call it the place I live.

But, I haven't gotten there yet. I won't get ahead of myself. Right now, my life is saturated by this city. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. We went to Delhi last weekend and even Delhi felt like a strange, distant land. It was enough unlike Benares that we had flashes of being back in America, a sense that we were about to get on an airplane and go back home. And for anyone who hasn't been to Delhi, it may, in some places, bear resemblences to the United States, but it is definitely India. And yet, for us, imagining a life anywhere other than Benares was shocking.

Life in Benares has taken on a quality of "obvious-ness". Let me explain. All throughout elementary school and high school - and this will be true in the future as well - it was obvious that my life was made up of five day school weeks and then a weekend and then another five day school week and so on and so forth. In the same way that I described something in a previous blog post, this too is something so obvious that it is even beyond being a fact to be known or unknown. It's just the way things are.

Ever since I got here, there was never any question that my routine would involve five day work weeks at Guria rotated around weekends, but now that routine is as obvious as a twelve year-old kid in America expecting to go to school. What else would I be doing? Working at Guria to is so obvious to me that's it's beyond being a factual reality. There just is no other reality. And that's when I realized I have a routine. I live here.

Ironically, in the process of cementing a routine, I've spent more time exploring and expanding what I do here. Last month, I started taking Urdu classes with the wonderfully friendly, intelligent, patient Salmanji (for anyone who read my Bakri Eid blog post, it was his home in which we saw the goat slaughter). Urdu is the official language of Pakistan and is spoken by most-all of the Muslim community in India. Grammatically and structurally, Urdu is the same as Hindi. Verbs, pronouns, and prepositions and other very technical parts of speech are all the same as Hindi. It's in nouns, adjectives, and adverbs - mostly - where the languages differ. Even that is a bit contentious because "modern" Hindi is really a mix of pure Hindi and a great deal of Urdu loan words (and then words that are in both languages and I couldn't tell you which they came from)...

That being said, I started off in Urdu by learning to read and write the script. The script is almost the same as Arabic, but not quite. As you can see, Urdu is an eclectic mix of influences ranging from India to the Near East: quasi-Arabic script, Arabic and Farsi loan words, and a Hindi base, all mixed in with a smattering of its own vocabulary. But it's a bit like learning a million different things in one, which I love. The script is beautiful - and difficult - and I love writing it and the feeling of deciphering a page full of dots, loops and squiggles. I've also been able to jump straight into reading short stories in Urdu because of my knowledge of Hindi, which has been a lot of fun; it's hard to tell if I'm learning more Urdu or Hindi, but I guess the truth is that I'm learning both at the same time, and from a really wonderful teacher, so what more could I ask for?

In fact, just yesterday, we went on a tour of several mosques and Sufi shrines around Beneres with Salmanji. He showed us the oldest mosque in Benares, apparently 1000 years old, but only unearthed again 100 years ago. We also saw two Sufi shrines, the burial places of famous Muslim saints from Benares. Sufism is a rather contested sect of Islam because many people don't agree that you can or should pray to a dead saint to pray to God on your behalf. But it is certainly an active sect. The Sufi shrines here in Benares attract crowds of supplicants, Muslim and Hindu alike. People who are believed to be possesed by the devil are often brought to Sufi shrines for healing. The shrines we went to were insence-laden and crowded with people bringing gifts to show their respect to the deseaced saint. Outside the shrines were groups of men playing instruments and singing traditional poetic Sufi music.

Although Benares is certainly an overwhelmingly Hindu city, between the calls to prayer that sometimes wake me up early in the morning, the minarets of mosques that inconspicuously dot the city, the popular Sufi shrines, and the very obvious presence of Muslim festivals Islam is certainly an important part of the thick religious fabric of the city. Last month, the Muslim festival Mawlid al-Nabi - the Prophet Mohammed's birthday - took place. All around the Muslim quarter and the surrounding areas, the streets buzzed with a celebratory air. Groups of men were out on the streets in their best white kurtas, drinking chai and eating sweets from stands that had popped up just for the occasion. Kids ran around with crescent moon flags and buildings were decorated with lights and strands of green confetti. Huge masses of men surrounded trucks playing traditional Muslim music. That night, in search of an "Urdu poetry festival" that was supposedly happening, we wandered over to the Muslim section of town, to find crowded, glowing alleyways full of food stands and people in their best dress, standing in groups and singing Urdu poetry. There were endless twinkle-lights and a massive, glittery, colorful image of a mosque. Beautiful, yearning melodies meandered down the alleyways from groups of poetry-reciting men.

Never going too long without one of its own festivals, right around Mawlid al-Nabi, Hindus celebrated Makar Sankrati, also known as Kitcheri, or, to us foreigners, "the kite festival." How a harvest festival with astrological significance became about flying kites, I'm not quite sure, but it's quite true that nearly every single person in Benares flies a kite on Makar Sankrati. To say the sun is blotted out by a skyful of kites would, I admit, be an exaggeration, but there's hardly a better way to put it. Look up at the sky on Makar Sankrati and kites are everywhere, coming from every rooftop in Benares and from all along the banks of the Ganga. People fly kite after kite, quickly casting out a new one after the previous kite is inevitably cut down by another kite's ubiquitous glass kite string. While most Hindu festivals seem to be focused on the night-time, Makar Sankrati is a day full of fun and celebration, rooftops and wind and kites and sun. What's not to love?

Bring on festivals, day trips, schedules changes, whatever may come, but at the moment, nothing can shake my routine here. Those are all part of it. New exploration, new sights, new languages - it's all part of Benares, all part of my life.

[Photos to come]

What Do Teachers Teach? What Do We Learn?

Before I came to India, before I started working at Guria, poverty seemed to me like a pretty cut and dry concept. Obviously, dealing with poverty is far from simple. But poverty itself is something that we, in the 21st century, with our news stories, expose movies and books, causes, organizations and statistics, is something that we've come to believe we all intellectually understand. It means lack of money, lack of opportunities. It means old clothing and poor living conditions. It means a dearth of food and a constant struggle to make ends meet. But since arriving at Guria, I've realized that, although we all know a lot of handy key phrases to describe poverty, these phrases stunt our understanding, making it bland and shallow.

At Guria's Non-Formal Education center, I teach computer and English class to the older girls. Computer class, to most, brings up memories of fooling around on Mavis Beacon, or maybe to some, learning more advanced computer functions. But at Guria, computer class means learning how to turn on and off a computer, to double-click with the mouse, to open a new folder and to type, at this stage, less than ten words per minute. From the beginning, I was struck by the fact that, before Guria got computers, these kids had never seen a computer in their life. Things that are obvious to us, so obvious that we don't even realize they are pieces of knowledge to be known or not known - things like knowing when the computer is on or off, understanding that the mouse controls the cursor on the screen, grasping the concept of files and folders and two files not being able to have the same name - are completely foreign to them. Suddenly I began to see the depth behind the hackneyed soundbyte that poverty is lack of opportunity. For these kids, it means never being able to work a job that requires you to go anywhere near a computer. It means never being able to use a computer in any of the many ways we use them every day. Imagine never using a computer again, imagine a job for which you'd never need to touch a computer-like device. For us, in America, imagining that goes beyond even the power of our well-trained imaginations. It was only last week, as we were reviewing how to turn on and off the computers, that I thought to ask how many of the kids have electricity in their homes. The answer? About half the kids who we are teaching how to use computers aren't even used to using electricity.

In English class, I go around the room, asking questions like, "what's your name?", "where are you from?", and "how old are you?". The other day was the first time I'd ever seen anyone stumble in response to the question "how old are you?". It was the first time I'd ever seen someone consult their friends about their age and come up with an answer only after a bit of disagreement. Although the questions and answers are supposed to be in English, the discussion about the girl's age was not an error in translation, it was all in Hindi. That is not nearly as common a phenomenon as not having any idea how to use a computer - the former I've witnessed only once, while the latter applies to all the kids at Guria - but it taught me just as much about poverty, and exponentially more than statistics or theses ever could.

One of the other volunteers at Guria once told me that perhaps the biggest impediment to the childrens' education is their lack of encouragement at home. It has been jarring for me to hear how many times the girls have told me that they aren't smart enough or can't do something - and to see how quick they are to give up when faced with a difficult classroom assignment. It's weird to see them rebuff compliments with responses of "no, I'm not smart," or "no, that wasn't good." But the flipside to that are some of my happiest moments at work. When we started English classes, some of the girls weren't interested, some didn't think it was worth the effort, and most had no faith in the English that they had learned thus far. Now, they all jump for the chance to be the one answering questions in class and clap joyfully when they get things right. Sometimes I'll be teaching computer class and suddenly hear, floating over from the other side of the room, "where are you from?", "I'm from India, where are you from?", and listen joyfully while they go through their entire repetoire of questions and answers. There are girls that insist they don't know enough English to answer my questions, but I insist that I'll help them through the answer, and somewhere in the process, they realize they can do it and suddenly, they're hungry to learn more.

They may know more English than they knew - or thought they knew - four months ago, but it's not the English phrases they can now say that make me happy. It's their excitement, their enthusiasm, their desire to learn, and, most importantly, their pride in what they have learned, that make up my happiest moments. I couldn't possibly teach them enough English to make a difference in their futures, but I couldn't ask for anything better than the ability to inspire them to want to learn and to challenge themselves, and most of all, to believe in themselves that they can face the challenges.

Colorful, Sparkly, Explosive India

After a long hiatus from blogging, my computer is now back in action, and I am back to blogging. Although I can hardly do the past two months - two months! - justice, I will try my best to describe accurately what I've been up to. I left off with the Muslim festival of Bakri Eid, which was shortly followed by the Hindu festival Diwali.

Diwali, popularly called the "festival of lights," commemorates another big event in the Ramayana (see my last blog post's discussion of Dashera): Ram and Sita's return home from Lanka after Ram rescues Sita and kills Raven. In a more general sense, the holiday is Hinduism's celebration of the triumph of good over evil. The festival is observed through the lighting of oil lamps all throughout ones home, as well as in surrounding temples. These lights signify the lights that were lit to guide Ram and Sita home, in addition to being a way of welcoming the goddess Lakshmi - goddess of wealth - in to one's home. Diwali is treated as the Hindu new year - particularly the start of the new fiscal year - and it is traditional to wear new clothing and give gifts and sweets to your family and friends. The festival is actually five days long, and on its biggest night, families celebrate by lighting diyas (oil lamps), eating festive meals, and setting off sparklers and fireworks to drive off evil spirits.

I celebrated Diwali with my family, helping them clean the home and mark each doorway with a rangoli - a beautifully colored, circular design that we stuck on the floor - to invite in Lakshmi, and later, when night descended, we left home with a tray of unlit diyas and walked all around the neighborhood, from temple to temple, as my family lit diyas and said their prayers at the temples' shrines. Nights in Benares are usually eerily quiet and the streets have an almost ghostly quality to them, but on Diwali night, the streets, and particularly the alleyways surrounding my home leading to the Ganga, were bustling with groups of women heading to temple in their best saris and children screeching with delight as they haphazardly lit firecrackers and tiny explosives. Chiming bells from every temple and shrine clamored in the air along with the endless explosion of fireworks that could have you thinking you were in a war zone. Burts of color were around every corner, as well as splattered against the sky.

After returning home from our temple walk - which had been a women's-only event - my family gathered together to do their pooja, treating me like their third child and setting out a cushion in front of the family shrine for me to sit on. Interestingly to me, my mom led the pooja, while the rest of the family followed her lead. It wasn't a long ceremony - I know that other host families had poojas that lasted for hours, whereas mine was no more than fifteen minutes - and ended with a short song, the combination of candle-lighting and singing reminding me a bit of lighting Hannukah candles back at home.

Following pooja was the night's true main attraction. We all went up to the rooftop of my building, a rooftop that dwarfes the surrounding ones, and began to open up the arsenal of fireworks my family had bought. Plunging in to the depths of the box, we went through firework after firework, huge explosives that lit up the sky in cascades of colorful sparks, rivalling even the Boston New Years' fireworks display. There were fireworks that showered sparks like a volcano shooting up lava. There were fireworks shaped like rockets that sometimes made it up in to the sky, but with equal frequency plunged down into the depths of a neighboring street or building. There were whole boxes of fireworks that were lit up at once. There were hundreds of sparklers and tiny noise-making explosives. There were spinning tops that spiraled all accross the floor, shooting out endless streams of sparks that we danced through - and were occasionally burned by. But what seemed to be the biggest, craziest - and, in my opinion, scariest - attraction of the night was the "1,000 explosives" firework: a several foot long strand of exactly 1,000 explosives with an uncanny resemblance to an overgrown ammunition belt. Once it was lit, the air was rocked by minutes of explosions, leaving no doubt that you were right in the middle of a war zone - but then what evil spirits would want to visit a war zone?

After Diwali, the celebrations continued with Thanksgiving and Dev Diwali, a holiday particular to Varanasi in which all the stairs of the ghats for the entire length of the city are covered in lit diyas. Hundreds of thousands of flames burn and the riverbank of the city glows. Where Dev Diwali brings life to the ghats long after it normally ends, Chatta Pooja, another November festival, has the riverbank alive with activity far before it normally begins. On Chatta Pooja, hundreds of thousands of women from Varanasi and from outside the city and neighboring states gather along the Ganga in their best dress, spend the night there, and are up and about when it's still the middle of the night, ready to do pooja to the rising sun. The women - and now, men as well - are packed in on the ghats like sardines, jostling each other and buzzing with anticipation of sunrise. When the first bit of the sun's glowing orb peeks over the horizon, the ghats are an explosion of activity, a blur of color and a blending of sound. 

Chatta Pooja

Dev Diwali

The end of November brought our first excursion out of Varanasi since our arrival two months before. We spent the weekend in Khajuraho, a small town that surrounds an anicent temple complex known for the stunning condition of its buildings and, in part, for its erotic carvings. The carvings on the temples, both their detail and their scale, were awe-inspiring and I could have spent days staring at the millions of different statues and the ever-changing golden-pink hues of the temple's stones glowing beneath the sun. 

After several more weeks of work and watching as Varanasi got colder and colder, we left again, this time for our biggest trip of the year, a two week romp through Rajastahan. Rajasthan is the desert state of India and is known for its romantic past full of warring dynasties, maharajas and golden hill-top forts. Our first stop, 27 hours on a train away from Varanasi, was Jodhpur. Jodhpur, also known as the "blue city" because of its many blue-painted homes, is towered over by Mehrangarh Fort, the ancient home of the ruling Rathore dynasty. Sitting atop a craggy hill, the fort is apparently a favorite filming location, having most recently hosted the cast of The Dark Knight Rises. After wandering through the fort, Ada, Mackenzie and I split off from the group and spent the afternoon exploring the narrow alleyways of the Jodhpur market district. We lingered over bangles, drooled over an anomalous mango, chatted with shopkeepers, bargained our way in to scarves and shoes, got a little lost, and found our way again. The colors and characters were captivating and the intimacy and freedom of wandering through unknown streets and alleys made our curiosity feel like an adventure and Jodhpur feel a bit like home. 

Jodhpur, The Blue City

Mehrangarh Fort

Our next stop was Jaisalmer, "the golden city." Partially located within the towering walls of an ancient fort, all of Jaisalmer, inside the fort and out, is made of golden sandstone. The city looks like an exotic Disneyland of the Far East, full of intricately carved, adorned buildings, tiny little palaces built just for you and me. The whole thing, fort and all, could have been built just last year as some sort of surreal fantasy-world vacation spot, and yet, it's hundreds and hundreds of years old - the ancient ruling capital of the Rajput clan. We left from Jaisalmer for a camel safari out in the surrounding desert. More than two days of sauntering over sand dunes on our camels' backs left me with no particular love of camels, but with an infatuation for the sun-baked sand dunes and the desert's sparkly night sky. I unfortunately don't have the words to do the dunes, the sunset, or the night sky justice, but try, at least, to picture this: You are sitting on top of a sand dune and can see the entire sky, starting from right above your head and descending down in infinite longitudes, hitting the horizon at every single point on the circle of earth surrounding you. I realized at that moment that I don't think I've ever been able to see 360 degrees of horizon before in my life. It feels, in a way, like being inside a snowglobe. You can see more sky and earth than you knew existed, and you're right in the thick of it, being pushed by the sand dune up to the heavens, as the heavens themselves are dropping down alongside you like a cocoon. And when the sun finally sets and the last traces of sunlight disappear sometime far in the middle of the night, the sky is diamond-studded with stars, so bright that it's practically blinding to look up, and so distracting that, if you do, you'll never get back to sleep. 

After Jaisalmer was Jaipur. A huge city much like Delhi, it appeared in stark contrast to the small desert oasis of Jaisalmer. Jaipur was a bit crazy and hectic, its old city stuffed to the brim with people, goods and cars. But just a bit out of the city, Jaipur had its own little oasis, Amer Fort, the largest, most complex fort we saw during the trip. It was full of endless passageways and rooms, carvings and paintings, but its most striking part was the hall of mirrors, a room to rival Versailles' own Hall of Mirrors unquestionably. The ceiling and walls were decorated with millions of tiny mirrors arranged into intricate patterns, and just like the desert's night sky, it was nearly impossible to tear myself away.

Amer Fort

Traveling in style up to the palace!

Hall of Mirrors

Now, though, after two weeks of whirlwind traveling, I'm happy to be back in Benares. Back home. 

Indian Routines, or Lack Thereof

Is it ever possible to be truly settled here? I keep telling people that I'm still settling-in, that my routine isn't cemented yet, that I'm waiting for my initial busy-ness to calm down.... It seems like a never-ending refrain, and given the metamorphosing quality of my schedule here, I can't imagine a week where I'm not rolling with some unexpected punches. Everyone said India was unpredicatable, but no one ever told me my routine would be as well.

There hasn't been a single day since I posted last with a fully repeating schedule. I started off taking shared auto-rickshaws to work. Then, with my new purchase of a bike, that changed. I biked one route. I biked a different route. I biked to the office and the center in the same day. I went only to the office. I went only to the center. I left work early. I came to work late. I didn't go to work at all. I got sick. I got better. I thought by now I'd be "settled." But, clearly, I was mistaken.

I've now been to Guria's non-formal education center a handful of times. Much fewer than I would have liked, but, as I said, it's clear that India controls these things, not I. Nevertheless, I appreciate each and every time that I have gone and am always looking forward to next time. I arrive at the center and am immediately greeted by a room full of excited, often screaming, children. The room clamors with their calls of namaste ma'am! and they all beckon for me to sit next to them, calling out ma'am, ma'm, here! From there, things can go a million different ways (although I'm sure a concrete number of ways will become apparent once I've spent more time there). Sometimes it is time for art, sometimes games, other times sports, and, at times, a free-for-all that translates in to a small mass of kids clambering for my attention.

Communication can be comical, but I understand just enough that, for now, the energy, excitement and enthusiasm of the kids can fill in the blanks. Some things, however, get stuck on one side of the Line of Communication, weighed down by too many unknown words and no amount of men nehin samajti hoon ("I don't understand") can unstick them. That, mostly, is when things get frustrating, and as patience is not a virtue of mine, I have to constantly remind myself to be satisfied with incremental improvement in my Hindi - and my relationships with the kids. There are so many of them - ranging from toddlers to about my age - all with names I've never heard before, which has made learning them quite difficult, but the kids seem to intuit this problem and continuously remind me their names. Besides playing kabaddi with them, drawing elephants, camels and sadhus on command, and embarrassing myself trying to replicate their Bollywood dance moves, I will hopefully start taking over some of the typing classes, a smaller setting in which I hope to get to know the older kids better.

My goal is to go to the office and the center every day, but even with my newly found affinity for biking, that is still a 24 kilometer circuit, so it's something I'm working my way up to. I always hated biking in traffic at home, so with the jigsaw puzzle traffic, ubiquitous collisions, short stops, stubborn cows, herds of water buffalo, and general unpredictability here in Benares, I was quite nervous before my first eight kilometer stretch from the program house to the office. What I discovered, however, is that that best way to deal with the traffic is to join it. There is so much more freedom in biking here than in walking - and I would say much more freedom in biking here than in biking in the states. You are simply another part of the many-faceted traffic, and with an eye over your shoulder and an eye up ahead, you can slide in and out of traffic, past the incredibly annoying cycle rickshaws and onward through crazy intersections, just another bike among thousands. That's not to say that I've never hit impassable intersections, been unceremoniously cut off by motorcyclists (always), stopped short by a cow, or had near-collisions (the bruise on my arm may beg to differ with the "near") with crazy rickshaw drivers, but it's all just part of the experience - and, even more importantly, it means that I have the ability to go wherever I want in Benares whenever I want, delving deeper and deeper in to life here.

Although the majority of my time is spent on a bike, at work, in Hindi class or asleep, we have had the opportunity to involve ourselves in other parts of Indian culture. Last weekend, we went to a dandia, which is traditionally an Indian dance done with sticks, but the event that we found ourselves in attendance of was clearly dandia for the year 2012. We arrived in a rather non-descript part of town, with a beacon of light coming from a set of bouncer-guarded doors that opened on to an long walkway, draped in richly colored cloth and twinkling lights. At the end of the walkway, feeling as though we had just walked down the red carpet to the Oscars, we found ourselves in a huge, enclosed outdoors space, surrounded by endless tables of food, flashing lights, vibrating music, and crowds of people dressed in their finest, draped in rich silks and sparkling embellishments and laden down with armfuls of bangles and elaborate ornamental jewelry. It was difficult to do anything but stand there, dumdfounded, thinking what is this place? After making our way through all the food stations (twelve meal-sized appetizers and deserts, as well as one many-tabled "main meal" station), we found our way to the dance floor. Armed with two sticks per person and no knowledge of the traditional dandia dance nor any current dance moves, we danced the night away, drawing a lot of attention to ourselves, as well as more accomplished dancers who tried to, rather unsuccessfully, teach us by example. Eventually abandoning our sticks and fully embracing the current Bollywood hits blasting from the speakers, we all discovered our newfound love for this incomprehensible phenomenon - dandia.

In a week of festivities kicked off by dandia, Navratri, Dashera and Bakri Eid followed. Navratri is actually a nine night festival which had started the previous week, but it was only after dandia that we took part in the festivities praising Durga, the supreme goddess to which the holiday is dedicated. On Monday night, we went on a "Durga pooja" walk, driving all across Benares and stopping at the best and biggest Durga shrines. At nine o'clock at night, when the city is us ually going to sleep, the Durga-dedicated enclaves were loud and bustling. Massive temples made from metal frames and wrapped in cloth, erected just for the nine days of Navratri, gave the impression that they were ancient, intricately carved buildings. Inside these optical illusions, tightly packed masses of people crowded in to see the towering, larger than life statues of Durga. The air clamored with the sounds of prayers, of music blasting from invisible loudspeakers, and of the rustling of hundreds of shuffling bodies. Insence-laden smoke swirled out in tendrils from golden lamps. Outside the temples, it looked like a fair-ground, with strands of holiday lights draped across buildings and strung out overhead, flashing, twinkling, and making the normally drab night-time streets of Benares glow with color. All around the temples, and spread out among the crowds of people, were stands of food vendors selling fare ranging from chaat and golgappa to popcorn, peanuts, momos and ice cream. The Indian festival season was in full swing.

After two consectutive nights of celebration, we had one night off, and then on Wednesday, it was back to festivities with the arrival of Dashera. The source for Dashera is in the Ramayana, an ancient Indian epic important to Hindus (although whether it has actual religious significance is up for debate). The Ramayana tells the story of Ram, the paradigmatic Indian hero, and the kidnapping of his wife, Sita, by Raven, the evil devil-king of Sri Lanka. In short (because the Ramayana is still on my to-read list), Dashera celebrates the day on which Ram killed Raven, ending his life with a fiery arrow blessed by god. In rememberence of this, on Dashera, all across India, effigies of Raven are lit on fire, exploded, and shot with arrows. Thus, on Wednesday night, we made our way to Lanka where a 50 foot tall statue of Raven towered over the packed streets, and hawkers laden with pinwheels, bows and arrows, and toy swords pushed their way through the crowds. We waited in anticipation of the main event as fireworks exploded across the sky. Suddenly, struck by a fiery arrow, Raven's head went up in flames. Spurred on by the small explosives stuffed inside, Raven's effigy was soon fully ablaze. Moments later, a pile of smoldering ashes lay where the 50 foot devil-king had once stood.

Then, this past Saturday marked the start of Bakri Eid, a Muslim holiday that commemorates what in Judaism is called akeidat yitzchak, also known as the "binding of Isaac" - or when Abraham was told by god to sacrifice his son, Isaac, but at the last minute was told to sacrifice a ram instead. The difference between the Jewish and Muslim tradition, however, is that in Islam, it is Ishmael, Abraham's other son (who is generally considered to be the forefather of Islam), who Abraham almost sacrificed. Thus, on Bakri Eid, Muslim families slaughter rams (or animals similar to rams) in commemoration of Abraham's sacrifice. In India, Pakistan and Bagladesh, goats are typically the animal of choice, and thus the name used for the holiday in those countries - Bakri Eid - comes from the Urdu word for goat. Wealthy families, apparently, will slaughter camels or water buffalo instead (quite a feat if you've ever seen a water buffalo or the size of the camels that have been wandering the streets around here).

Braced for the slaughter, we headed over to the home of Bridge Year's Urdu teacher (for those people who decide to learn Urdu as the year progresses) to witness his family's observance of Bakri Eid. As we walked in the door and he welcomed us, we were all prepared to be sat down, prepped for the slaughter, given time to gather ourselves and then, with emotions in check, lead to watch the slaughter of the first goat. But as soon as Salman welcomed us and started to lead us in to the house, we were informed that "the slaughter is already in progress." To me this meant that perhaps the first goat was already out there with a knife at its neck, but as soon as I got a glance into the house's small courtyard, I realized this was not the case.

If you're squeamish, I suggest that you skip the next paragraph.

Covering the stone floor of the courtyard was the carnage of dead goats. Glazed eyes, heads unnaturally bent back, and pools of red, red blood flowing slowly in to the drain. At first, the image was quite jarring, like the scene of a massacre flashed across news headlines. But the goats were dead - there was nothing to be done for them - and there had been nothing sadistic about their killings. It was only our minds, racing, looking for associations, trying to label and categorize what it was seeing, that gave the scene an eerie feel. But as we stood there, watching, acclimating, fascinated, and the men began to transform the carnage in to food, cutting, skinning, disemboweling, and cleaning, what had appeared to be a bloody mess became and organized, logical process for obtaining food. The most interesting part of the process was when the internal organs came out; it was almost unfathomable to me that the non-descript, mushy mess in front of my eyes had been able, moments before, to sustain a living being, and that I, too, sitting there, breathing, talking, thinking, watching, was alive and running due to the very same internal mush. If there was anything religious about the experience, it was that realization.

It was only after witnessing this process repeated for several goats that we saw the actual goat slaughter. Salman's family was slaughtering thirteen goats overall - the ideal is one for every person in the household, but between the several families participating in this joint venture, even with thirteen goats, they had not quite reached that goal. Having already seen what "after the slaughter" looks like, we were much more prepared to watch what was coming. We watched as three more goats were slaughtered. Again, you had to dissociate what was happening in front of you from the normal associations the brain makes with death and killing. The eerieness of slaughter comes from associating it with people, rather than thinking of it as a method of acquiring food. Obviously, some vegetarians may disagree, but people who eat meat have to admit that slaughter is an integral part of the process of obtaining food, a procedure that is quite different from the non-technical meaning of the word "slaughter," the one with which our brain most commonly associates. This is not at all to say that I enjoy watching animals be slaughtered, but I thought it was an important, interesting and edifying experience to have, not to mention that being part of a Bakri Eid celebration was an intersting experience in and of itself.

Now, with a short break from the festivities, I'm catching my breath before the biggest celebration of all - Diwali.

Happy festival season, all!

Benares

Benares! What do I say? We arrived here just about two weeks ago (!!) after a very long, very Indian, overnight train ride. We chained down our bags and were stuffed a bit like sardines in to little berths piled one atop another. We were woken up by the violent shaking of the train, arguments in the hallway, and one of a million different hawkers yelling their product's name. We drank chai from little disposable clay vessels and tossed the cups out the door. We had an Om Shanti Om dance party - much to the amusement of our Indian compartment-mate. And then, many, many, hours later, we arrived in Benares. Back to the heat. Back to the crowds. Back to the dust. Back to sensory overload.

Thankfully, it took hardly any time at all to realize that Benares is not Delhi, as we had feared. Benares has the same traffic, the same dust, the same smells and the same pollution, and yet it is different. Delhi was a bit like living in the presence of a monster - unpredictable, unfathomably large, and too intimidating to be lovable. Benares - while there are certainly places I far prefer over others - is more like a person - with its own heartbeat, personality and flair. It can be finnicky, but there are always beautiful places to be found, friendly people to talk to, and adventures to be had.

We spent our first two nights at our program house, which is directly on one of the ghats (more on ghats in a bit), and is beautiful. We have two floors, a garden, and a balcony that overlooks Ganga-Ji (the Ganges River). Over the next seven months, the program house will be the place where we eat breakfast, listen to speakers, have sleepovers and do any other group activities. Our nights at the program house, despite its beauty, were a pretty brutal reminder that we are in India - where resources can be scarce and infrastructure poor and, as far as Benares goes, that means there isn't power for much of the day and frequent power outages the rest of the time. Our power went out in the middle of the night both nights, signalled to us by the horrible sound of whirring fan blades winding to a stop. It took mere seconds for our room to turn in to an oven, precluding all chances of us having a good night's sleep. Instead, tossing and turning. And sweating. And tossing. And turning. And very little sleeping.

Since then, however, I have very few complaints (other than the frequency with which I get dehydrated - it's so hot here!). We spent our first week visiting all the available service sites, wandering through the roads and alleyways of Benares, sitting on Assi Ghat, watching a fire pooja from a boat on Ganga-Ji, avoiding collisions with cows and herds of water buffalo (difficult), frequenting a cafe called Open Hand, making Samosas, watching Bollywood movies, and attending Hindi class with the venerable Virendra-Ji.

Here's a run-down of what our Benares looks like. Bordering one side of the city is the Ganges River, along which, running from north to south, are the 88 original ghats. Ghat, in Hindi, means stairs, which is exactly what they are. Each ghat is a very wide set of stairs which descends down in to the river. When the river is high, during and after monsoon season, many of the stairs, and even what appear to be small building-like structures, are under water. (That is the case right now, although the water level is receding quickly, which means that soon we'll be able to walk the length of Benares along the river - Yay!) The ghats are primarily where people go to bathe in Ganga-Ji (which, by the way, is an inviting milky brown color, full of pollution, parasites and the ashes of cremated bodies - and the odd corpse as well), but many of them are also gathering spots - to eat, to shop, to watch pooja (a Hindu prayer ceremony) - but, for the most part, to simply sit, talk, watch the river, and be with other people - or just yourself. Despite my rather graphic description of Ganga-Ji, it is a beautiful river - to sit by or to take a boat out on. It's wonderful to see the river act as a communal meeting place, a public space that brings people from all over a huge bustling city together. And the fact that the common draw is nothing but the river definitely imbues Ganga-Ji with a certain magic.

Now for important locations: The ghat that our program house is on, Bedhaini Ghat, is a small ghat in a residential area that is reached by a series of alleyways leading from the main street. My home (more about my host family in a bit!) is in the same neighborhood, just a little bit further down the alleys. Alleys that, unfortunately, are commonly blocked by cows which, like all cows in Benares, are completely oblivious to other traffic, whether pedestrian or motorized. Other than my house and the program house, also in my neighborhood is Tyler's homestay. Just a five minute walk away, near Tulsi Ghat, is Mackenzie's homestay. Further down the road, no more than ten minutes from my house is Assi Ghat. Assi is our main hang out area, where there are bookstores and cafes, as well as Nick and Ada's homestays. Assi Ghat is a larger, more lively ghat, with restaurants, vendors and poojas, and is always full of people and various goings-on - definitely a great place to hang out (if you can ward off the little kids trying to sell you things and ignore the locals' stares). South of Assi Ghat are several important things: Virendra-Ji's house, where we have Hindi class, Lanka, an unbelievably busy shopping street, where you can go to buy anything from bikes to clothing, Allen's homestay, and beyond that, Will's homestay.

My homestay is with a wonderful family, the Agarwals, who live in a huge blue house deep in the alleyways near Bedhaini Ghat. My host mom is a teacher at a local school and my host dad is a stock broker by night and saree shop owner by day (Literally. He works really crazy hours because he needs to be in his office when the New York Stock Exchange is open). I have a host brother, Shobit, who is away at college in Lucknow, as well as a host sister, Shubhi, who is in tenth grade and is super nice and helpful, speaks amazing English, and always checks my Hindi homework for me. My parents, on the other hand, hardly speak any English, so luckily I get to practice my Hindi with them. My Hindi is still more practical than conversational so getting to know my parents has been difficult (and I'm also hardly ever at home because of my insane schedule), but I come home every day able to say exponentially more, so I have faith that I'll be chatting away with them soon. Even with the language barrier, my family has been so sweet to me and constantly reminds me that their home is my home and their family is my family.

This past weekend, we all got placed in our service sites, and started work officially on Wednesday. Ada and I are working at Guria, an organization that combats sex trafficking, particularly child sex trafficking, as well as second-generation prostitution. They also work to reduce the social stigma against sex workers and their families. Guria consists of the office and the Non-Formal Education Center, both of which we'll be working at. The Guria Center is located within the red light district of Varanasi (the first child-prostitute free red light district in India, thanks to Guria's actions) and acts as an after-school center for the children of sex workers in the area. The center uses art, medidation, games, and other methods to provide the kids with a safe, happy place to spend time in. They also hope to indirectly influence girls to not resort to prostitution as they get older. (Disclaimer: Because it takes four rickshaws and over an hour to get from the office to the center, and Ada and I don't have bikes yet, we've only been to the center once, but we'll be there more soon!) The office obviously has to do a lot of fundraising and grant writing, but their main project is the rescue of trafficked girls and the prosecution of the traffickers and pimps. Although India has many laws against trafficking, the enforcement is abysmal, and the police are often being paid off by the traffickers. Guria certainly has its work cut out for them. To give you an idea of how severe the problem is: (Ada and I were reading statistics) in 2006 in India, only 5 people were convicted for buying girls for prostitution, 19 for selling girls for prostitution, and 14 for the importation of minor girls, despite the fact that reasonable estimates put the number of child prositutes in South Asia (and India is certainly a hub) at a million. So you can understand why Ada and I are really excited to get involved!

As for my schedule, we have breakfast every day at the program house, after which we all head to our respective service sites. After a full day of service work, we have Hindi for two hours, and then it's home for dinner, and up early again the next morning. In terms of getting to work, Ada and I have an insane commute that consists of shared auto-rickshaw from Lanka to Cantt Train Station, another shared auto-rickshaw from Cantt to Kachari, and then a bicycle rickshaw to Guria. Getting a shared auto-rickshaw at any of the above locations can be a nightmare. Ada and I are typically swarmed by a crowd of rickshaw drivers, all insisting that we have to take a private auto as opposed to a reserved one, all trying to rip us off (some guy yesterday tried to charge us 225 rupees for a route that usually costs 50...we've also had drivers blatantly ask for less money from their Indian passengers and then tell them not to pay until after we've left so that we won't see how little they're paying), and all taking forever to understand where we want to go (half the time, speaking in Hindi seems to actually complicate the situation). Despite that complaint, Ada and I luckily know what typical prices are and how to stand up to the rickshaw drivers that insist on more (I've gotten really good at saying "I pay x amount every day!" in Hindi), so it's not that we've been getting ripped off, but the whole process can seriously take a toll on your mental state. Sometimes, though, you get nice rickshaw drivers who soften up once you start talking in Hindi (two days ago, an auto-rickshaw tried to charge us 50 rupees for a route that normally costs 10, so we went with a bicycle rickshaw, and when I paid him 10, he insisted, "no, 20, the other guy wanted to charge you 50," but when I kept insisting on ten and said, in Hindi, "the other guy was crazy!" he found that really funny and laughed and agreed to 10), or, rarely, ones that will charge you the actual going rate, no questions asked (and give you back change when you expected to pay more).

The worst parts of our mode off transportation? Being squished in the back of a rickshaw with creepy men, inhaling horrible fumes, being deafened by blaring horns, near collisions (for example) between your feet and menacing, sharp metal poles, and, a total travel time one way of an hour plus. (A lot of these problems, thank goodness, will be alleviated when we get bikes.) Even worse, on a bad day, when there are monsoon rains, commute time: two hours. Ada and I were unfortunate enough to have this experience on Wednesday, when, after a terrifying experience with a rickshaw driver who drove like a maniac in an off-roads vehicle, we ran in to a massive traffic jam and were told by our driver to get out of the rickshaw and find our own way because there was no point in sitting in unmoving traffic. Ada and I were several miles from our destination and didn't really have a plan, but it was obvious that our only choice was to walk onward through the traffic. Let me clarify the meaning of "traffic" in this instance. There is always traffic in India and I described it in detail earlier in my blog. At the moment, however, "traffic" means a storefront-to-opposite-storefront traffic jam, with the space in between filled by a tightly interlocking jigsaw puzzle of auto-rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, bikes, motorcycles and cars. And nothing is moving. The reason for the traffic jam? The lakes covering the road. So off Ada and I went, zig-zagging back and forth between all manners of vehicle, squeezing through impossibly tight spaces, and trudging through mid-calf deep, dark brown water, colored by dirt, poop, urine and a lot of trash. The weaving and squeezing and trudging went on for at least a mile and half, after which my pants were soaked and covered in filth and my white dupatta splattered with bacteria-infested mud. If that doesn't sound that bad to you, at one point there was a dead dog in a bag sitting next to us in the water as we trekked though it.

I'm glad to say that we made it through, and I've discovered that I love Benares enough that all the terrible things I've mentioned in this blog post have no impact on how I feel about this city and about being here. It's always interesting, always fun, and always an adventure. The challenges add spice to my experience - as well as a lot of fuel for laughing at the craziness of it all.

Celebration

Written on Sept 21, 2012

These past few days have been a series of celebrations for me, spread widely across cultural and religious spectrums. I partook in festivites marking the 50th anniversary of Happy Valley, the first Tibetan settlement in India and the first place the Dalai Lama came to after he escaped Tibet - festivities that included seeing the Dalai Lama himself. I observed Rosh Hashana with my Bridge Year group, I celebrated my 18th Birthday, and we marked the end of our time in Mussoorie with a deliciously home-cooked meal at my Hindi tutor's home.

Before I was told that we would be seeing the Dalai Lama, I knew what most people know about him - that he's an important religious figure and that he lives in exile from his native Tibet. In preparation for meeting him, we watched a movie about his life, called Kunmun, and between the movie and peppering my program director with questions, my knowledge suddenly grew exponentially in the span of two hours. The Dalai Lama is, traditionally, both the religious leader of the dominant sect of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the political leader of Tibet, itself. (The current Dalai Lama, despite having taken on serious political responsiblity as a teenager, officially stepped down from his political position a few years ago.) Buddhists believe that the Dalai Lama reincarnates, and thus, the one that is alive now, the one that we saw, is the 14th Dalai Lama. He was only around thirteen when China invaded Tibet, at which time he was called on to negotiate with the powerful, worldly Mao Zedong, the Communist leader of China at the time. I won't recap the entire movie or everything that I learned, but the basic point is that China was a lot more powerful than the army-less, pacifist nation of Tibet and, for his own safety, the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet in 1959, and hasn't been back since. Likewise, not very much progress has been made in terms of solving the Tibet-China problem, and Tibet continues to be a non-autonomous, Chinese-controlled region.

The most interesting thing that struck me while watching the movie was the issue of maintainting a theocracy - which Tibet was at the time of the Chinese invasion - in the modern world. For centuries, the people of Tibet had been entirely isolated from the rest of the world, and were completely satisfied with their system of governence, as well as lovingly devoted to the Dalai Lama. There is no reason why they shouldn't be able to maintain that tradition in the modern world, no reason why their cultural heritage and traditions should be taken from them; but, at the same time, once outside influence seeps in to Tibet and cultural exchange begins, beliefs and values will begin to shift, and there is no guarantee that a theocracy could continue to be representative of the entire population. And if it isn't, then what? How do those who don't identify unwaveringly with Buddhism or with the Dalai Lama come to terms with living in a country that has both those things at its very core?

After watching Kunmun and learning all these things about the Dalai Lama, it was a surreal experience to see him the very next day, listen to him speak, hear him laugh, and have him walk right beside me. It's difficult to comprehend how compassionate and postive he is without hearing him speak. As far as political and religious leaders go (of which he is/has been both), there is certainly no one in this world with such a pure sense of positivity as he. He spoke to us on the topic of compassion, emphasizing that one does not need to follow a religious code or identify with a certain religion in order to be an ethical human being, and that, furthermore, just because someone follows the rules of a religion, they are not a good person, nor are they a good Buddhist/Christian/Muslim/Jew etc unless they are compassionate, ethical people as well. The most endearing part of his presence was the way his demeanor gave the talk a relaxed, intimate atmosphere, as though he were a kind, loveable grandfather, sitting with his beloved grandchildren, telling them stories of the world. He certainly also made a lot of jokes, about himself and about others, heartily laughing all the time his distinct grandfather-ly laugh.

We were also celebrating the 50th anniversary of Happy Valley, a celebration that included a colorful, elaborate, costumed performance of Tibetan "opera." Wearing traditional Tibetan dress, ominous masks and rainbow headresses, the men and women on the stage marched, motioned, stomped and spun to foreboding, drum-laden music. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before, and even more special because of its true authenticity - we were the only foreigners in a massive tent packed with Tibetans of all ages, Tibetans who ran and jumped, bowed and crowded, asked for blessings and gave gifts as the Dalai Lama walked by - and we were lucky enough to be privy to a performance put on by and for these very people in celebration of their heritage and their most prominent member.

On Sunday night, I had the opportunity to celebrate Rosh Hashana in India. Since we were up the mountains, there wasn't another Jew for miles (other than my program director), and so Debi - my program director - and I celebrated together, and decided to share the celebration with the other members of my Bridge Year group as well. Debi put together an explanation of Rosh Hashana, which she read to everyone, after which we lit candles and all partook in Rosh Hashana customs together, eating apples and honey while Debi and I spoke about what Rosh Hashana means to us. It was really nice to share the holiday with the rest of the group, and being put in a situation where I had to explain Rosh Hashana to others actually made it a more reflective and meaningful Rosh Hashana for me, as I found myself expressing why it was important to me and how I am effected by its observence.

Immediately after Rosh Hashana ended, we launched into yet another celebration - my 18th birthday! It was strange to celebrate it away from home, my family and my friends, but my awesome new Bridge Year friends made it a wonderful celebration, full of delicious food, cake, surprises, gifts, cards and music. In addition to many other wonderful things, I am now the proud owner of beautiful, sparkly (glass) bangles (although less than were originally given to me, as it didn't take long before I broke a few, injuring myself in the process), the remaining of which are all currently adorning my arm. Mostly however, it was really nice to have people I've known for only a month - and some for less time than that - come together to celebrate with me, and to create such a wonderful celebration on my behalf.

The last celebration of the week took place at our Hindi tutor's house: At our last class, Yousef invited us to dinner at his home, an invitation that we took advantage of last night. It was a really special invitation to recieve because this obviously is not something he does for his other students, and also, considering the size of our group relative to the size of his home, it was quite an offer. I can say without a doubt that my entire Bridge Year group would agree that Yousef is the most interesting, thoughtful, endearing person we have met so far on this trip. He speaks with such candor and open-mindedness, but also with such conviction in his beliefs. We all sat together cross-legged on the rug-adorned floor of his bed-living-dining room and ate the most delicious meal we have had so far on this trip. I am proud to say that I ate for the first time with no silverware at all, even when we briefly ran out of chapatti (a flat, pita-like bread that is torn and used to scoop up the other food), at which point I followed his lead and simply pinched up my paneer with my fingers, plopping the delicious pieces in to my mouth. Although I can't say that I've mastered the hands-only technique when it comes to a soupier substance such as rice and dal, I'm well on my way! As always, it was really interesting to listen to Yousef speak, particularly about taking on responsibilities as head of the household after his father passed away, finding husbands for his sisters, and about his own arranged marriage, as well. It turns out that Yousef may be able to visit us in Banares later in the year, so we're all really looking forward to that!

And now, post celebration-mania, we're off to Benares, about to delve back in to real India and begin our gap year for real.

(pictures to come once I find a better internet connection)

Religion, Roaming and Rain

The week before last, our Hindi tutor, Mohammed Yousef Ansari, a lifetime Mussoorie resident and a professor at the Woodstock School, offered to take us to his mosque, show us around, and talk to us a little about Islam, as well as specifically about Islam in India. This past Sunday morning, we took him up on that offer and met him in town, in front of our group's favorite chai and sweet shop. From there, he walked with us to his mosque, pointing out his house along the way. A couple days later, at our tutoring session with him, we got to talking about house prices in Mussoorie, and Yousef told us that his home, which from his description seemed to be in total about the size of one of my high school classrooms, would sell for two million rupees, about $40,000. That may not seem like a lot when you compare it to house prices back home, but when you think about the size, the relatively poor upkeep of the surrouding area, and the fact that the average meal price for most Indians is somewhere around a dollar, two million rupees becomes an unbelievably steep price. Yousef told us that even he, on his middle-class salary of around 40,000 rupees a month, or a bit less than $9,000 a year, would never have been able to afford his house if it hadn't become his by inheritence. In a city like Mumbai, he told us, some one living on his salary would probably still be living in a slum. It is unbelievable to me that India, a country with a relatively weak currency, filled with millions of unimaginably poor people, and even more importantly, a middle-class that earns an average amount far below the poverty line in America, would have such an explosively expensive real estate market.

Yousef also explained to us that soon after India gained independence, a law was passed that made it almost impossible to remove a tenent once they have lived in a certain property for more than three years. This law was inacted to protect the almost 99 percent of Indians who didn't own property from the few very wealthy people who did. The law also dictated that rent could only be raised at a rate of 5 percent every so many years. Nowadays, this law means that people often become unable to utilize their own property and, as a result, it is very difficult for Indians to find homeowners willing to rent to them, as they much prefer renting to foreigners who they know will move out in a number of years and won't hold their property hostage for generations. Additionally, since the permitted rent increase doesn't even come close to matching the inflation rate in India, the law also means that in a case like Yousef's, where part of his family home was originally rented out by his grandfather 50 years ago, he now pays many times more in property tax than he recieves in rent. Yousef and his brothers, after marrying and starting families of their own, came to need the entire house, and in order to make use of the property they own, they ended up having to pay bribes to their tenants' lawyers, pay their own lawyers, and finance 80 percent of the purchace price of a new house for their tenants. The total amount of money they spent could have purchased an entire new house for themselves, but without being able to increase their tenants' rent in the old house, they were losing too much money, and thus found themselves stuck in a catch-22.

At the mosque, Yousef sat down with us on the criss-cross of woven mats covering the floor, and began to talk to us about the five pillars of Islam, its different rituals, its holidays and its prayer schedule. Afterwards, he demonstrated for us one set of the traditional prayer positions, beginning standing, going through all the different bowing motions, and ending up on his knees. Even though I had heard many times about the similarities between Islam and Judaism, I found it really interesting to hear about these similarities from Yousef as he told us about what he felt were the basics of Islam: Yousef spoke about how prayer is a time-regulated, more than once a day activity, and about how the daily prayer times change as sunrise and sunset changes. He also spoke about beginning to fast during Ramadan at the age of 13, and about how women, unlike men, are not required to pray at a mosque.

Yousef told us that Islam in India is the world's largest minority, but that it is also India's poorest minority. The majority of the Indian Muslim community works low-paying labor-intensive jobs. He said that he worries about sending his children to Muslim "sunday schools" because it is environments such as those, full of the destitute and the hopeless, that breed extremist thought.

For a brief interlude, before I talk about the Jain temple that Yousef took us to next, here are pictures of the adorable and fascinatingly human-like monkeys that were practically swarming the area outside of the mosque (and that, in general, are constantly roaming the streets of Mussoorie):

The Jain temple, just down the road from Yousef's mosque, with its intricate carvings, clean white exterior, marble floors and gold decoration, clearly serves a much wealthier (and, in fact, much smaller) population than its neighboring mosque. Yousef knew the Jain "priest" well and translated for us as he spoke a little about Jainism. Jainism originated in India and has many similarities to Hinduism, although it has its own gods and holy book. One of Jainism's most significant tenets is non-violence, including against animals, and even insects. While we were at the temple, we witnessed a family come in and complete a Jain prayer ritual, which included offering rice, saffron rice, cardamom, cloves and almonds to the god, an intricate, fully gold buddha-like figure, sitting impressively in an alcove in the wall.

The beautiful domed ceiling of the Jain temple

This past week, unfortunately, did not include any such explorations, but we did fall in to a good routine, a busy, walking-intensive, elevation fluctuating one. I'm sure that I've never walked so much in my life, and certainly not if you factor in the significant portion of our daily trekking that involves near-vertical inclines. At first, having to do these walks at an elevation of more than 7,000 feet was taking its toll on my lungs, and now, well, it still is, but I've come to appreciate how active we are, and how self-sufficient winding up and down mountainsides makes me feel. It's true, I still hate the inclines, but the 2.5 mile walk in to town now feels like a standard stroll, and in fact, is one of my favorite things about about being here - mostly because every single time I walk in to town, despite the fact that it is the same single road-route every time, I can't leave without my camera; there is always something new and interesting to see, always something I missed on a previous walk, always something I'm seeing in a new light, literally and figuratively.

It's been really amazing to have a growing sense of independence here, whether in terms of my language, navigation, or other skills. In terms of language, I'm finding my limited vocabulary and grammar skills slowly combining and allowing me to, if only briefly, express myself in Hindi, rather than English. Just yesterday, I found myself asking the Woodstock School chef, "kya yeh veg hai?", "is this veg (the bizzarely cute word used ubiquitously instead of vegetarian)?" Earlier this week, when I was at the tailor's being measured for my first-ever custom-made kurta (an experience similar to being a little child in a candy shop, in which I got to pick out material from stacks upon stacks of options, sift through millions of types of trim, and dictate how I wanted it all put together), he had me write my name down on his list of measurements and asked me if I could do it in Hindi script. I did, successfully, and he looked down at the paper and asked, "Hannah?"

Another big portion of our stay in Mussoorie is the work we've been doing at the Turner Organic Garden. The walk down to it every afternoon is daunting and I can't say that the time we spend there is among my finest moments, but it is really nice to contribute and be active. Our group tends to split up in to the weed-ers and the machete-ers. I started off weeding, but found that I have a lot more fun hacking down all the overgrowth encroaching on viable, plantable land. On Thursdays, we spend some of the time harvesting, which this past week included uprooting, cutting and cleaning lettuce and bok choy. The biggest accomplishment our group has achieved so far (which I have to give most of the credit for to Danesh and Urmila, our overseers at the garden) was building a mini-greenhouse. It was a pretty basic project, consisting mostly of bamboo, string and special plastic tarp, but it was really nice to be able to see the concrete fruits of our labors, as opposed to the more abstract sense of accomplishment that comes with weeding and hacking.

Ada
Photo cred to Tyler Fair 

Nick
Photo cred to Tyler Fair

Photo cred to Tyler Fair

Walk up from the Turner Garden

Walk down to the Turner Garden

I mentioned earlier this post that my favorite thing about being in Mussoorie is the walk in to town, but I have to qualify that statement and say that it's my favorite thing to do here in Mussoorie. What really touches me as the most magical part of Mussoorie (tied perhaps with the clouds) is the monsoons we've been experiencing recently. When we came, we were told that monsoon season seemed to be coming to a close, and the thunderously loud, ground-shaking thunder we experienced several times was limited to the middle of the night. I kept hoping that I would be able to experience one of Mussoorie's notably intense storms during the day, instead of when I was trying to sleep, and yesterday, struck by our first-ever daytime monsoon, I got my wish. It was right after lunch, and suddenly, Woodstock School became one massive shower, every staircase, ramp and wall turning into raging waterfalls, and the ground metamorphosing into an assembly of overflowing lakes, rivers, and tributaries. Standing in the middle of it all was, by far, one of my favorite moments in Mussoorie so far.

Photo cred to Tyler Fair

Photo cred to Tyler Fair

But for the most important information in my entire post: I'm meeting the Dalai Lama tomorrow! Stay tuned:)