Sukhamano, state-siders (Issue 7) - Rob in India

And we're back. The "Kerala Exchange" has now become the
"Kerala Quarterly" and, man, have I got an issue for you.
Since I left you last time (in February, yikes) classes were just letting out and the students left for summer break. Life as I'd known it for the past half of a year changed dramatically, but this break from the usual duties also gave me a chance to pursue some big adventures. My March adventures don't fit into this newsletter, so to get that story you're going to have to visit the blog at malayalamartin.blogspot.com. April was spent mostly on the All India Tour; a 28 day rough and tumble romp through the northern regions of India. Those of you paying close attention to the web album have probably already been staring at the photo evidence of that excursion for weeks. From the very day we arrived back in Kerala, until near the end of May I was engaged in camps of various sorts. This extended edition of the "Kerala Quarterly" will take you on a virtual tour of these past two months.
The All India Tour has long been a part of this volunteer program. After seeing one tiny corner of the country for most of the year, it gives us a chance to catch a glimpse of what else is going on in this vastly diverse country and put some perspective on our Kerala home. I'd say that goal was met, and then some. In four weeks we travelled from the southern tip of the continent to the Himalayas. We saw deserts, rice paddies, golden fields of grain and villages cut terraced into the heighest mountain range in the world. Every place we visited was home to one or several languages we didn't even know existed. Yes, there is a difference between South-Central L.A. and Fargo, ND, but the diversity we encountered in our travels made the American melting pot look like an Easy Bake Oven.
The Jodhpur fort was home to many a Mughal monarch, it's the gateway to the Thar Desert and beyond them thar dunes lies Pakistan. This fort may also be home to the one truly satisfying audio tour in existence. If you ever make it out here it's really worth the Rs. 400. The fact that the entire fortress was hewn from solid rock into beautifully intricate designs is nothing short of miraculous. There is just something deeply satisfying about the geometric intricacy of Muslim art. Check out the level of detail around this window…
We spent one day in Jodhpur and then took a night train to Jaisalmer, home of another big ol' fort. The train arrived at 5:30 a.m. and left us unsure about "what next." What happened was this: We were completely overwhelmed by people offering us rooms, travel packages, auto rickshaw rides, and camel excursions. We put on our best, "Get outta my face" faces, but our assaulters had developed some kind of immunity to this, the deadliest weapon in our body language arsenal. Somehow me managed to escape the railway station, but not before one man pulled me down by my backpack to show me his brochure. It looks like we've entered Tourist Hell...
The fort was only a couple of kilometers from the
station, and once the sun came out most of the wild-
eyed salesmen disappeared. The fort by day was actually a very pleasant place- a veritable castle of sand. I probably could have done without this audio tour, but we did meet a lot of interesting people along the way. One lady who owned a handycrafts store, (actually, she was the only female shop owner we met all day), told us this story about the "sustainable" community from which her goods came and to which her proceeds went. The word "sustainable" evokes oohs and ahhs from environmentally concious people the world over, and it was the perfect sales pitch for us. Just before we left she gave us a CD and said, "Take this and you can see what I'm talking about." Later in Delhi we popped the CD into a computer and, what do you know, it appears she was telling us the truth about everything. I think we were all a bit surprised that we found a devoted and honest souvenir seller in Tourist Hell.
Stepping out of our home communities in Kerala into the tourist world of Rajasthan was a bit of a surreal experience. We were used to living in a place where people knew us and shared their lives with us. Suddenly, we jumped into this world where everyone saw us as tourists. That is, of course, logical for them to assume, but we didn't really feel like tourists. We felt like displaced Keralites. Yes, the forts were amazing, but as a group we decided early on that forts weren't our forte. We wanted the rest of our journey to involve less sightseeing and more people seeing.
As we took another night train to Delhi we were excited to see some familiar faces again. Our stay was arranged with a family of Presbyterian missionaries posted in Delhi. We also anticipated meeting with our friend Binu who is studying in Delhi, and is the son of our program coordinator, Thomas John Achen.
When we arrived in Delhi we took a taxi armed only with directions and an address scrawled on a piece of paper. While we've managed to conquer the various transportation systems in Kerala, in this town we were back to squarea one - we didn't even have one word of Hindi between the four of us. We did manage to arrive safely at the Hudson residence, and were warmly greeted by the good Reverend Hudson himself. Without missing a beat he began cooking up some hot noodles for us, mixing some icy drinks and sending us out in shifts for a hot shower. We've haven't had pasta, ice cubes, or hot showers since August 2007! This is something really amazing to us. And that first experience pretty much summed up the level of hospitality that the whole Hudson clan extended to us during our stay.
From the Hudson's house we traveled to the Taj Mahal, of course. We also made several excursions out into the city with the Hudsons as our guides. Along the way we had some incredible meals including, much to my surprise, the absolute best South Korean food I've ever set my teeth into. Though the Hudsons were invaluable in helping us around the city, they also gave us a really unique perspective on our own time in Kerala. Though we've offered one year of our lives in this country, the Hudsons will be here for at least three, and they've already completed stints in Pakistan and South Korea. Suddenly, a year in India as a recent college grads doesn't seem like such a big deal.
From the Smith residence we trekked deeper into the Himalayas
in search of adventure, full body fatigue and snow. We found
all of these things. On our first hike we trekked up a beautiful stone path through green fields and budding rhododendrons. Despite this lush first leg, the snow capped peaks surrounding us stood as a reminder of what lay at the end of our climb.
After a couple of hours of hiking, some mountain-sized clouds began to roll towards us, thundering all the way. The girls figured that getting caught on top of a mountain in a storm is a bad thing, but I reasoned that if we're going to die on a mountain we might as well die at the top. So the girls found shelter and I ran on ahead. At the top there stood an old, stone temple to Shiva, a lot of snow, and dozens of dreadlocked, face-pierced hippies. I took a couple of snaps (of the buildings, not the hippies) and quickly headed back down to join the girls. Scarcely did we begin our decent before the heavens unleashed a torrent of heavy hale balls. Turns out the girls were right afterall. So we found some shelter and waited out the storm, no worse for the wear, but now we can tell our grandchildren that we were trapped on a Himalayan mountaintop in an ice storm.
Our next stop, Daramshala, was selected so we could get a taste of Tibetan culture, and of course, food. We got much more than we planned for. Well, initially we got exactly what we had hoped for – cooking lessons. We traveled through a long corridor of back streets to arrive at Sanje's kitchen. As we prepared our Mo-Mo Soup we asked some questions about Sanje's journey from Tibet to India. It turns out he had quite an incredible journey, and for travelers willing to listen, you get a lot more than some cooking tips out of Sanje. He told us about his midnight escape from his village, he didn't tell anyone or leave a note for fear of endangering his loved ones. He made the four week journey into Nepal on foot and then eventually moved to Daramshala to work as a cook. It was eight years before he made his first phone call back home. We've been hearing about Chinese atrocities in Tibet for years, but this first hand account gave us a face to match with the issue.
As we exited the maze of buildings back onto the main street we were surprised to see a flood of monks carrying banners denouncing Chinese occupation of Tibet. The procession went on and on. After the monks came the city people, then the school kids, and then a smattering of travelers from all around the world also joined in the march.
We just happened to be at the seat of Tibetan government as the Olympic torch passed through Delhi, and this protest was staged to coincide with the relay. This display of raw emotion made quite an impression on all of us, especially after our eye-opening conversation with Sanje. We felt humbled to be at the epicenter of this Olympic-sized issue.

Summer Camp - Kerala Style
T he very day after returning to Kerala I was invited to help
lead a three week summer camp for kids aged 6-16. Actually,
I was introduced to the camp as the "dance teacher." I tried to explain that the only dance experience I had was with tap dance, and I didn't think attempting tap with over a hundred kids simultaneously was a good idea, but the organizer reassured me, "It's ok, we're sure you'll come up with something good."

Even now I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I managed to put together some steps for a punk rock version of "I Fought the Law." The kids young and old seemed to really like it. I guess, since the typical Malayalam film does depict random dancing as a fact of life, they were an accepting audience. One of the young girls came up to me after I taught them the dance, gave me a big smile and said, "Great moves!" Hey, if she's happy then I can be satisifed with my utter dance awkwardness.

During these three weeks I also served as song leader, magician, jungle gym and resident expert in paper airplane folding. I worked at a summer camp for three summers in America, but I'd completely forgotten what an incredible joy it is to get to know these small people. Though the differences between this culture and American culture are innumerable, these Keralite kids had just as much energy, mischief, and as many questions as the American variety.

The day after that camp ended, I awoke with a feeling of disappointment - there would be no more camp today. Luckily for me, a new camp began the very next day. This camp was for older students – college kids. The program was organized by the Student Christian Movement, though students from any religion were encouraged to attend. Entitled, "Student Empowerment and Communicative English" the camp sought students who came from the poorest sections of society namely Dalits. Though education is freely available in Kerala, all things aren't exactly equal. As it has become necessary to have some skill in the English language to succeed in most desirable occupations, primary educations that focus on English training have also come into vogue. The families with lots of money can send their kids to schools that offer special language training, or even an international school. The students from the poorest section of society, however, cannot afford these special services.

Over the next two weeks we met and bonded with the students at this program. We were asked to lead the grammar portions of the program, and we did do that, but we also focused a lot of our energies on building up the confidence of these students to engage their language skills, no matter what their proficiency.

The program turned out to be very rewarding, not only because we got to meet so many amazing students, but also because of the change we saw in them in just two weeks' time. Monday through Wednesday was like pulling teeth, especially during the group participation portions of our lessons, but by the following Monday these students felt comfortable communicating with us no matter how proficient or limited their vocabularies. We eased some of the tension by speaking in a form of hybridized "Manglish" when necessary.

On the final day we broke the students into four groups and gave them a scavenger hunt to complete. Once they had collected the items we instructed them to make a skit incorporating all of the things they found. The results were absolutely astounding. One group presented a play detailing the struggle of the tribal populations of Kerala to cope with the pressures of modernization. Another group gave us an incredibly nuanced portrayal of some of the negative effects of globalization. I was utterly blown away; these were the same students who refused to speak at all only two weeks before.

That's it for now, congratulations on making it through, and thank you for coming with me on my journey thus far. I think my next newsletter will be my last from India, though I'll give you one follow up issue after my return. Now that students have returned I'm busy again with classes, visits to Kanam and a couple of side music projects as well. For those of you familiar with the Holden Evening Prayer, it's coming to Kerala with a bluegrass twist. Get ready.