Second Life

Hey Y'all-
I know its been a while since I posted, and that I never really concluded the last adventure in blogging, but I figured that I should shift focus of the blog in order to keep it alive.
SO. This is going to turn into a map blog, with occasional entries about chickens, State College, and wherever else my whims might carry us. I'm currently TAing an intro to human geography class and am trying to find maps that help demonstrate some of the important lessons in class, so I'm going to post the good ones here as well.




You might have to click on the map to read it, but I think its pretty illustrative. I can recall growing up outside of Wisconsin and calling soft drinks soda and going to visit cousins in the south-central part of the state and them calling it pop or soda-pop and thinking they were weird. One thing that I noted about the map was the Lake of the Woods county (the northernmost county in the contiguous 48 states) is listed as "other." Now I've spent a significant amount of time up there, and didn't recall anything particular about soft-drink names, so I checked up on the county data, and they had like 4 people who answered their survey in that county! So I guess its important to always check the data behind the maps.

Top Ten Things I'm excited to return to in the US

Well, I'm in the Hyderabad airport on the 40+ hour journey home. While saying goodbye was really hard this morning, but I have to admit I'm pretty excited to head home.

Here's a short list of things I'm excited about coming back to:

1)Ice
2)Hamburger and fries with a shake
3)Anonymity
4)Air conditioning (I know, I know, I normally hate AC, but maybe for just one hour it would have been nice...)
5)Movie theaters
6)My bicycle
7)Microbrews
8)Private space
9)Hanuzer
10)Rachel (this one most of all)

HOINA part II

I've been struggling a bit to think about a good story to tell about this place. Its difficult to know what I can say about my time here that is meaningful and entertaining. But tonight provided a pretty good opportunity to capture some things, although its one thing to read about extreme poverty, and another entirely to see it firsthand. I imagine its another entirely to live the experience.

Tonight the boys home held a small talent show (there is a main talent show on August 15^th which is India's independence day and the second to last day we're here). The students had a couple of competitions. The first was a couple of dance groups that were admittedly impressive, there were two boys in particular that were quite good. Then a young boy who was maybe in 5^th grade got up and sang a solo song without any music, his vocal control was particularly impressive. Following were a couple of speeches that the boys gave in English, these largely centered around school and the hostel (which is what they call orphan/student housing here), but one was particularly poignant, partly because the speaker, Teja, has become one of my closer friends here. He spoke of how the hostel was not just a hostel but a home to him. He spoke of how when he was with his family he didn't eat everyday and how grateful he is for three meals a day. He spoke of how at his house when he goes back to visit he sleeps on the dirt floor with a couple of old blankets. He spoke of how at HOINA he has friends who watch out for him and take care of him, and how grateful he is.

It was pretty poignant for me.

I've gotten to read some of the case files of the students here. Teja's situation is anything but unique, especially now that AIDS has become so widespread in this country. I also found out that it only costs HOINA $60 a month to fully support a student, so if you're interested let me know and I'm sure we can connect you to a child.

My students are all doing surprisingly well, and have kept up positive attitudes and good working ethic throughout the trip thus far. Its been great getting to hear them experience the culture shock of really engaging in a foreign country, especially one so very different from the US. Two of the students are Indian Americans, which also helps, although neither of them speaks Telugu, the state language. The heat has been oppressive, but not overwhelming (usually in the mid 90s everyday, but its much worse than in the US, as there is no respite except ceiling fans. The monsoon is still terrible, and much of India is experiencing drought, I've had several people here who know no more than 50 words of english tell me the “climate is changing.” The students have also mostly taken the bugs in stride (to be honest, they are worse here than I've seen anywhere else, except mosquitoes which are nearly absent) although when Tony, one of my students picked up a rock that had a scorpion clinging to the underside, he was understandably a bit more cautious about where he put his hands.

We've been playing cricket and soccer mostly, which has been a lot of sweaty fun, but tomorrow I plan on teaching the students “capture the flag.” I'm also hoping we finish the library organization tomorrow, although I have my doubts about how long that room will stay organized. In all, its been a very rewarding experience here thus far.

HOINA: Homes of the Indian Nation

Precursor: I spent about 24 hours in transit from Kathmandu to Vishakhapatnam, which is fairly ridiculous considering the fact they are only about 500 miles apart and I flew. But (largely thanks to my own poor planning) I travelled from Kathmandu to New Delhi, then Mumbai, then Hyderabad (where I met my students) and then Vizag (the short form for Vishakhapatnam). My students had just flown over from the US, so they were actually more exhausted at the end of our travels than I was!

The trip out here has gone surprisingly smoothly thus far. I'm really happy about my students, who have proven to be flexible, easygoing, and willing to do whatever is needed. The kids here are really a lot of fun, and happy despite the incredible tragedies that they have already seen in their lives. In fact, this whole orphanage is full of surprising stories, like Darlene Large (known universally here as “Mom,” who is in her mid-seventies and yet works tirelessly and appears to be only in her early fifties. She has been running this place for a very long time, and has truly done a wonderful job with it.

The orphanage is much better run than others I've seen/heard about in this part of the world. For example, the kids each get their own bed (oftentimes at orphanages they have some kids sleep on floors, and its not because they are cheap, its because there is a much higher need than the supply), and the kids are sent to an English medium school. Its so nice that some people even try to make up stories about kids to get them in, and now HOINA has to do investigations on new applicants. Also the kids get meat once a week (which is pretty often out here) and there are few fights/disagreements that Ive seen thus far. All this and their operating costs run about $2 per kid per day (so if you're looking for a good cause to donate to, let me know, they have several kids that they are searching for donors for).

Thus far I've been mostly working with my two male students (there is a boys home and a girls home here, but they are in separate compounds and don't interact very much. They just brought the girls in from Chennai, a city in the south as a way to cut down on operating costs, and the new building only partly finished, so we have split up our time helping to construct a tiki hut that overlooks the field and organizing the library. Its pretty ridiculously hot out here, so we've been grateful for the library time where there are fans. In the afternoon the students run English language classes for the staff and in the evening we help with homework. And of course we have a healthy dose of playing games like cricket, soccer, throwing a frisbee, or indoor games like caromboard, chess, thumbwars, etc.

All in all, I'm super stoked that I'm here. Its a really nice cap to my summer trip. However, there is not much access to the outside world, so it might be a while before I am able to post again. But I will do my best! Hope all is well!

Up on the roof

For my return to Kathmandu I opted to rent a room with my friend Chris, who was on my original trip to Nepal ten years ago. He has been back numerous times since then, and is now a fulbright scholar here for the next year. We're staying in Bouddha, a largely Tibetan refugee settlement on the outskirts of Kathmandu and we have the top floor, half of which is rooftop, which makes for a really relaxing space. You can also see this stupa (Bouddhanath) from our rooftop:


My first full day back from Bhutan I started getting stomach troubles. My stomach ached really badly, and I don't even know how many times I had to run to the bathroom. It wasn't as bad as I've had it, but worse than I'm willing to tolerate. So in the afternoon I went to find a medicine store. I eventually found one, (they are fairly common and you don't need prescriptions like in the us) but what I didn't notice was that this one was an Ayurveda medicine shop. The woman felt various parts of my palms, had me press them together as in prayer and held them for a while, and then promptly put some white cream on my fingers and told me to quickly rub it into my belly, 30 times. Following this, she gave me two mystery liquids and when I asked what they were, she would only said, "Ayurveda." For all I know it was Imodium AD in liquid form. She told me to come back to check in later that evening and for 100 rupees (about $1.33, which I felt like she was overcharging me) I was off. I resolved to give it a couple of hours and then find some real medicine, but sure enough, it totally cured my stomach problems! I was pleasantly impressed.

The big bummer was that before my stomach got better a snake charmer was doing his thing on the street below. I kid you not, it was straight out of Indiana Jones (the old ones, not that new crap). He had two king cobras and had them both dancing for him. The funny thing was how many people just walked by him like it was nothing special. I didn't have the energy to go up and down the stairs, so I just watched below.

Yesterday was a holy-day called Nag Pachami. My friend Chris is studying Nags, which are serpentine creatures that protect water and land. They also control the rain, and this festival is timed to be partway into the monsoon. This year the monsoon has been really crappy, so the Nag Pachami festival was especially important. We traveled to the south side of town, where one of the two lakes in the valley exists (the whole valley used to be a huge lake), and is the home of some Nagas. We got to participate in the celebrations and had a great day watching kids swim in the lake and people perform religious dances and ceremonies. And sure enough, this morning, the rains came out in full force! A couple more photos:



That second photo is of a singing duel between two men and two women. They are fairly common out here, and are a blast to watch, very similar to dance-offs in the US.

The day after tomorrow I head to India (Which I'm having a hard time believing, it certainly won't be ten years before I return again). I've heard that there isn't much of an internet connection there, so my posts might get sparse, but I will do my best to keep you all informed. Till next time!

Bhutan part II

What a week! It seems like there is too much to write about regarding Bhutan, I don't quite know where to begin. Perhaps I will give just a couple of quick glimpses into my time there.

My guide, Goenpo, and I got along quite well. He was a monk for seven years before having to leave the monastery to support his mother, and because of this he knew quite a bit about Bhutan and Buddhism. I was quite lucky to have him, as I saw several other guides learning from him during the trip. If anyone is thinking about going, I highly recommend traveling with him and Bhutan Heritage Tours. One of the reasons why we had such a good time was because he loved to tell jokes, so we spent hours each day going back and forth. Lots of laughs.

I went on four hikes while we were there. Bhutan has lots of beautiful forest, and hiking is really great because most hikes consist of going up to a monastery and then coming back down. The last one was to the famous Taktshang Goemba which translates to Tiger's Nest. It is perhaps the best known monastery in Bhutan, as Guru Rimpoche, who brought Buddhism to Bhutan spent three months there in a cave meditating. His consort transformed herself into a tiger to protect him during this period, which is how the place got its name. The monastery was built in the 17^th century and has experienced several fires, the most recent was in 1998. But it has since been rebuilt and has some fantastic alters to both Buddha and Guru Rimpoche. While there Goenpo and I were invited for tea with the head monk's brother, a rare honor. Also on our way back down a troop of Gray Languor monkeys passed directly overhead in the trees and I got to catch a glimpse of some Dholes, a species of wild dogs. Here are a couple of photos from the hike:

Also while in Bhutan I actually got to meet with the Prime Minister! I'm not entirely sure why he deigned to meet with me (I think it might have something to do with the fact that he is a PSU alumna), but it was definitely a life long memory. His office is, naturally, HUGE, and there were was one guy who wrote notes furiously while he and I chatted. Two or three others hung by the door to run for stuff like tea. We mostly chatted about Penn State, which he has fond memories of. I also told him about the purpose of my trip and what I was hoping to do, and he offered to write a letter of support for me, which I think will help greatly in my efforts to obtain an invitation to study there next year.

Speaking of which, it is looking like I will be able to live in Bhutan for a while to conduct research. Nothing is definite, of course, but I will (hopefully) be collaborating with the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature, a conservation-oriented NGO. It is the ideal group for the type of research that I'm hoping to do. Oh, at the end of the meeting with the Prime Minister, he gave me a couple of gifts, including a book, a baseball cap, and a coin commemorating the coronation of the fifth king which happened last fall. It will definitely become a family heirloom.

The last thing to note was the solar eclipse (of my heart). I think some of you heard about it in the US, it was the longest solar eclipse for the next 100+ years. Before I came out I actually shifted around my travel dates so that I would be in Bhutan for it. The eclipse started at 6:58am, so Goenpo and I drove up to Chelela pass where about 20 other folks (half tourists, half Bhutanese people) had also gathered to watch. Unfortunately it's the monsoon season and while we were above one layer of clouds, another was still higher up. It seemed like we wouldn't see anything. The eclipse reached its peak at 7:58, and quite suddenly everything got really dark, not completely, but moreso than I would have thought. Some of the local folks shouted at the Sun to come back, and luckily, the clouds started to break up, so we could see the eclipse! After about 2 minutes, the light came back again quite quickly and for the next hour we were able to watch the sun creep out from behind the moon's shadow with these special glasses that some guy from NASA brought. Yet another life-long memory.

There are numerous other small stories to tell, but they're best told over a cold beer or hot tea.

Another one for the nature lovers

So this one is actually from Pune, but I think its pretty cool. Sorry for the shaky camera-work, I had to zoom in quite a bit.



Yeah, those are giant bats. It was really hot that day, and they had to flap their wings to stay cool. I imagine they were quite tired.

More on Bhutan soon!

Bhutan trip

I don't think I mentioned in my last post, but I'm now in Bhutan, which should partially explain the delay in posting. Bhutan is the keystone of my trip, as it marks both the halfway point and has the highest significance on my future. I'm hoping to conduct research here as part of my PhD studies, and Bhutan is well-known in academia for being difficult to obtain permission to conduct research.

So I have spent much of my time in meetings and trying to contact people in the government, NGOs and the university system to try to figure out a way to collaborate on a project. Things are generally look pretty positive, although nothing is certain, even after I leave I think nothing will be certain, so please don't forget to cross your fingers for me when you go to sleep at night.

But my time here has been really great. Bhutan is a world apart from India and Nepal. I feel odd saying that, but in the past 50 years, Bhutan has developed by leaps and bounds, somehow preserving their natural environment in the process. This is what I'm hoping to study, the reasons why Bhutan has faired so well, and hopefully will continue to do so.

As some of you know, Tantric Buddhism is the dominant religion here, and the division between the sexes is far lower than nearby areas. In fact, I was taught the first day I got here about the “kurta namaste.” Some of you know what Namaste is, it is a greeting made by pressing the hands together in front of your face like you're praying. Kurta means feet or legs, so you can imagine what a kurta namaste is (and if you can't, drop me an e-mail. I'd be happy to go into further detail.

Bhutan has a fascinating approach to tourism, which they term “low quantity, high quality” it means that I have to pay wicked high prices and in exchange my meals and lodging are taken care of, as well as transportation and a guide. Since I'm traveling alone that means that I not only have my own driver, but my own guide as well. My driver doesn't speak English, so our interactions are limited to Nepali. The guide speaks English quite well and is really knowledgeable about his country (or he is a great bullshitter). He loves jokes, so he and I have been trading them in between our other tasks. The driver also likes to share jokes, and they are all quite lewd.

But this has really been a work trip, so no really good stories yet. Sunday we're going on a hike, which I'm really excited about. And on Wednesday morning there is supposed to be a total solar eclipse, the longest one for the next 150 years. Cross the rest of your fingers that it won't be cloudy that morning!

Motorcycle Journey (with apologies to my Mother)

The last thing that my Mom said to me before I left was “Promise me that you won't go riding any motorcycles.” And I did. At the time, I wasn't really expecting to be riding motorcycles so my intentions were pure (mostly).

Upon arrival to India however my class assistant, Rasika, drove a mo-ped around town, which actually is a great way to get around, cheaper than rickshaw's and taxis and more mobile in heavy traffic which is the norm in urban India.

Now that I had broken my promise to my mom, I decided that I might as well get the most of it. After several days of nagging, Rasika finally allowed me to drive the mo-ped on a quiet street at night. It was really easy actually, since the gears were automatic all you had to do was accelerate and brake. I then made up my mind to rent a motorcycle in Kathmandu for a short trip.

After an internet search and a little asking around, I located a store that rents motorcycles to tourists. My security deposit was my passport, and the cost was about $7 a day (petrol not included). The guy showed me the basics of the bike (I should note that I hadn't driven a geared bike since high school, so maybe 14 years...). It became evident to the renter that I didn't really know how to ride a bike, and I could see his nervousness as I wobbly drove around the intersection. But their policy is that I have to pay for any damages, so after reminding me to shift out of first gear as I picked up speed, he let me be on my way.

Now, his shop was located in old Kathmandu. Which means the streets are barely wide enough for one car and are mostly filled with pedestrians. This was probably a good way to start as my first hour of driving never got above 10 kilometers per hour. Finally I made my way out of that area to a main street, however here there was a traffic jam. The custom for motorcyclists out here in traffic jams is they weave their way through the cars until they mass together near the front like a biker gang. After another hour or so, I cleared that hurdle and was finally on my way.

I had decided to travel to Bhaktapur a beautiful city still within the valley that has done an excellent job balancing tourism and tradition. After my initial obstacles, I got there rather quickly (albeit with a layer of dust caked on my face). And found a hotel room next to this temple:



So I dropped off my overnight bag and headed to Nagakot, which is a traditional weekend retreat on the rim of the valley. It was stunning, a quiet single lane road marked with the occasional passerby that made its way through rice paddies and forests. The air up there was strikingly clean compared to the valley, and had it not been the monsoon, I could have seen Mt. Everest.

The next day I was going to head back to Kathmandu when I heard rumors that the road had been closed down. Nepal is full of rumors, but this one turned out to be true. Apparently the night before two groups of students (one of which was on motorcycles) got into a fight on the road. The local people thought that they were kidnappers and lynched them, killing two. So the next day they closed the road down. I went to investigate and was stopped by a police barricade. I tried to argue that I was a tourist, which sometimes works, but not this time. He did point me in the direction of a backroad that I could take.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who heard about this backroad, and I happened upon another traffic jam, this time on a rural road. To make my way through it, I had to do some off-roading on my motorcycle, which was more fun than I ought to admit. Even on this road, there was signs of protests of traffic, lines of burnt ash across the street that must have served as a road block. A number of people were still quite upset about it, but I kept my bike moving and made my way back to the city.

I got back without a scratch. The only problem was a pretty good sunburn on the top of my hands and wrists, but that is already fading. In all it was a lifelong memory, and I might just have to do it again once I get back from Bhutan (that is, if my mom doesn't yell at me too much...).

Here are a couple of photos from the trip:

Buying Dinner

You'll have to indulge me again with a preface, as I need to explain a bit about food here. My family (similar to many Nepalis) eat two main meals a day. One in the morning anywhere from 9 to eleven and then again in the evening, usually pretty late. The standard meal is rice (Bhat) or flat bread (Roti), lentil soup (Dal), curry (Tarkari), and some sort of pickled vegetable for spice (Achar). Since I'm guest and male, I get to eat first, and my servings are always far more than I would normally eat in the U.S. This is especially troublesome in the morning as I normally don't like to eat much until noonish. The standard conversation goes something like this:

Mom: Here you go. Eat slowly. It doesn't taste good, does it? I didn't taste it, I'm fasting today (I kid you not, she "fasts" about three days in a week, which doesn't mean she can't eat, she just can't eat certain foods, like salt or sugar or garlic or rice. It changes.)

Me: Oh ho! This is a lot of food! It's delicious. You have given me so much. In the morning my stomach is small and I cannot eat much.

Mom: (noticing that I'm maybe halfway done with the Dal, places another spoonful on my plate) Here, you have to eat more. (And then, after I allow only one more spoonful:) The food tastes bad.

Me: No. No. The food is delicious (and it almost always is). I just can't eat that much in the morning.

Mom: Fine. Fine. Eat Slowly. Its not very good though. Here, let me give you more Dal.

And so on.

So last night I got home around seven and discovered that the kitchen and another room in the house had just gotten painted (they are in the process of building their house). Mom explains that they (she and the servant girl) have been moving stuff all day and their really tired. A rare moment of thoughtfulness comes to me, and I offer that we could all go to a restaurant for dinner. Mom smiles warmly at the idea. "Everyone?" she asks (this should have made me pause). "Sure." I reply.

We wait for a half hour for my brother to get back from a friend's house, as he is the eldest son and these sort of decisions are increasingly put on him. Meanwhile, my host sister, who is married and lives in a different home, shows up with her child. Moments later her husband arrives. Word must have gotten out that I was buying. Then the three guys who painted the house earlier in the day showed up again out of nowhere. I was just about to say something about definitions of everyone, but thankfully they had come for some other reason.

When Sanjay arrived, it was decided that instead of us all going to a restaurant, Sanjay and I would walk to one and bring the food back. So we headed out to a restaurant where a friend of his works, and promptly ordered about seven main courses. It took the kitchen about an hour to get this all done (and was likely half of their business that night). On the way back we stopped and bought a liter of pepsi to cap things off.

The meal was like thanksgiving dinner, all sorts of different dishes spread out. There were a couple of moments where they wanted me to eat first, but I think the temptation matched with my insistence that tonight was "western night" melted the traditional order of things and after five minutes of hurried food collection the room was silent. I have to admit that I really wanted to start forcing seconds onto people's plates and deriding the food, but I didn't think the joke would go over well.

At the end though, everyone did say thank-you several times, which was nice. We drank the Pepsi for desert, and I was surprised to see that all the food had been eaten. I realized later that evening that my family had quite possibly never gone to a restaurant as a group before, or potentially had done anything like it. At least when I lived there, that wasn't even a thought. Its that type of privilege that we sometimes forget about in the U.S.

Oh, and the total bill to feed eight people: less than $9.

10 legs in the shower

This morning I shared a shower with this guy:


It was about 3 inches across and bore a strong resemblance to those spiders in Arachnophobia that used to premeditatedly wait in the showers and jump on beautiful women as they shampooed their hair. The water splash was from when he started walking towards where I was hanging my clothes and I had to scare him back to the corner. Later when I showed my brother he scolded me that that one wasn't even that big...

Return to Kathmandu

I should mention as a precursor the this blog entry that in 1999-2000 I participated in a year-long study abroad program in Nepal. It was decidedly one of the most formative years of my life, and yet it has taken me almost ten years to return. During that time, I mostly stayed with a Nepali family. When I made plans to return to Kathmandu this summer, I contacted them and they insisted that I stay at their house, which I was quite happy to do.

Coming back wasn't exactly what I had expect. It'd sort of be like moving back in with your parents after being gone for ten years, except that they speak a language that you barely remember (but thankfully has come back fairly quickly). And they have money issues that they tell you about daily. And they don't knock on the doors before coming in, and if you lock the door, they might have the servant girl climb out on the window ledge to tell you something. And any time you're at the house they want to feed you (which is a sort of a plus). And when you leave the house, then random people want to talk to you. My American need for anonymity and personal space is being smothered by cultural curiosity.

These are all things that the years had softened in my memories of this place. But I have also forgotten so many small aspects of daily life that I love out here. The sense of hospitality, the slow evenings, the pleasure hosts have in making sure their guest is over-full with food, the openness to strangers. In a lot of ways I'm going through the same culture shock I went through 10 years ago. Only now I'm 30. (!)

But Kathmandu has also changed quite a bit in the last ten years. My old house, which used to be on the outskirts of town and in the middle of rice paddies, is now surrounded by houses, and a huge condominium development is being started down the street. Apparently a lot of people from the villages fled to the capital during the Maoist insurrection. I wouldn't be surprised if the population grew by 75% over the past ten years.

A couple days back I went to Thamel, which is the tourist center of Kathmandu. It has also expanded quite a bit, but the characters and shops were mostly the same. There were still guys who whisper “smoke” or “hash” as you pass them and still merchants beckoning you to come inside their small stores. My one creature comfort that I recall fondly of Thamel were the movie restaurants where you could watch a pirated movie for free as long as you had something to eat, but I couldn't find a single one.

My host family hasn't changed much, everyone is a little older and a little fatter (myself included). My sister Karuna is married and has a cute young child of 4 who refuses to respond to any of her commands, despite the fact that his disobedience is always met with physical violence. There is a new servant girl, who is supposedly someone's relative and here to go to school, but I haven't seen her leave the house except on errands. I think I was just told this as American's often have a hard time with that sort of arrangement. My host brother is just finishing up school, and while he was an awkward youth of 12 when I was here last, he has grown up to become a shy young man. His parents' welfare will be his responsibility in a few short years.

So its been an interesting return. I really hope it doesn't take me this long to come back again.

Blood Donation

This morning I woke up to this:

I counted over 100 bites on my left foot alone! I think it must have slipped out of the mosquito net at sometime during the night. Luckily the bites don't itch (yet...). There is a prize for best connect the dot scheme.

The Pune Class

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my main purpose for coming to Pune was to teach a week-long course about making documentary videos on cultural perceptions of climate change. The course was taught in conjunction with a group at Penn State, and both groups had twelve girls in the twelfth grade. Over the course of the week we attempted to create a dialog about climate change between the girls through blog entries and then they also broke into groups to create short documentary videos about local conceptions of climate change.

Before I discuss the class, I want to reiterate that my experiences are not representative of anything more than my experience and I'm not trying to draw broad generalizations about education in India. Ok, now that I've given my disclaimer.

The week started pretty awkwardly to be honest. Even walking into school, a lot of the students stared when they thought I wasn't looking, some even would say something quietly to their friends and laugh. I had returned to high school, but this time I was an outsider not just personality-wise but also because of the color of my skin. The girls in the class were quite shy at first. Our first exercise was called the “name game” in which they each interview each other on camera. Their answers in to the questions seemed a bit scripted and I suspected that I was getting more recitation of their coursework than their actual opinions about climate change. After we had a “discussion” that featured me talking until Rasika (my previously mentioned assistant) thankfully stepped in and acted as intermediary between me and the students.

Over the course of the week, we began to understand each other better, and we were able to even crack some jokes with each other. One student even gave me a diet pepsi during break one day! All in all, I was really impressed with how quickly they learned how to do everything from conduct interviews to edit the footage.

On Friday we had our screening. Maybe 100 people showed up, mostly other students, but also parents, the principal and board of trustees, and reporters from three newspapers (sidenote: I didn't arrange this, my liaison, who shall heretofore be known as “Mr. P.” arranged all of it. More on him in a moment). I even got a bouquet of flowers! About 10 people gave speeches about how great this project was.

So Mr. P is a bit difficult to explain without really going into character depth, but let's just say he is a bit of an eager beaver but isn't really aware of that fact. He was extremely helpful and the project wouldn't have happened without him, but by the end of the week he was promising to learn “cultural geography methodologies” so that he could travel to Bhutan with me next year. Also he had excessive ear hair that needed trimming and I couldn't help but stare at it when he talked to me. I felt horrible about it but it was really fascinating.

At any rate. I arrived in Kathmandu today, and I'll write about it soon. I have one more entry on Pune I'd like to write, and hopefully I should have more time here in the valley since I'm not technically working.

Here is a link to one of the newspaper reports on the class (its on page 3 if it doesn’t take you there directly) and apparently another newspaper in Marathi reported my name as Matthew Brank.
http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?queryed=42&username=&useremailid=&parenteditioncode=40&eddate=6%2f28%2f2009

Here's one of the group's videos. the other three can be found on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U69b9-gK_gk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-gWq0mhAVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGC_7ZNQjN4

Five Women and the Gora Sahib

My trip thus far has, on average, been great. It began a bit inauspiciously as I got scammed coming out of the airport. I didn’t see the driver for the hotel that I was going to stay at, and suddenly at my side an “airport employee” came to help. He took me to a phone booth where we called the hotel (but I think it was actually another number) and they claimed that my reservation was for the next day. So the kindly man helped me arrange a trip to a different hotel which charged me about 4x the going rate. I knew it was happening but wasn’t about to wander Mumbai with about 100 lbs of luggage at midnight. As a compromise, he included a beer and breakfast to assuage my anger.

For the trip, my friend Sameer arranged for me to have an assistant to help teach the class named Rasika. She was nice enough to come down to Mumbai to save me from the hotel people and serve as my guide for my time here. She’s proved invaluable for helping me get around and at the same time has cheerfully put up with my endless questions and shoddy attempts at Marathi (the regional language).

I’ve been staying with Sameer’s family out here and it makes all the difference. Not only am I not getting ripped off, but I feel like I’ve met half of Pune (the city I’m in) and its been a really cool way of getting to know this place. Actually for me its been a fantastic reminder of why I love and value ethnography as a method of learning and researching, as my experience here would be entirely different if I had been less flexible about our daily schedule.

On Sunday I went on a short trip with my friend’s mom (Hema), Rasika, three of their friends, and one of their grandchildren who was about 3 and was really cute but would speak to me in Marathi and didn’t understand my English replies. I don’t really know what he thought of me actually. We traveled to a nearby dam and spent the day walking around. It wasn’t long before Hema started using the term Gora Sahib for me, which means something like “white boss.” I’m hopeful that this means she is fond of me.

The trip was really great, we found some wild berries that were delicious but the insides were like glue if they touched anything but the insides of your mouth. I also got to experience my first sacred grove. Everyone was really nice, but they would often speak in Marathi, and while I sometimes got a translation later, I spent a lot of times making up conversations for them. They had a debate over whether a unicorn or a pegasus would win in battle (with one of them reminding them that they never would fight in real life). And one time we stopped for directions on where to find a snickers bar but then we forgot to stop and get one. They also told a lot of jokes, but timing the punchline was really difficult, apparently they aren’t very funny in Marathi.

All in all, Pune has been great thus far. I’m eating absolutely delicious food, my stomach is holding up, and the class is going swimmingly.

Stay tuned for the next episode of “The Gora Sahib.”

Itinerary

(Pre-script: Due to being in India, the posting of this blog was delayed. I apologize for breaking my initial teaser, and will explain the reasons in the next posting)

Yesterday morning (I think it was still technically yesterday) I got up at the first hints of dawn (although in reality I think I had gotten up about every half hour since going to bed) and caught a plane to New York City. I had a 1.5 day layover there, which saved me about $100 in arifare for some reason and gave me the chance to visit my dear old friends Eric and Katie.

Last night, I caught a direct flight from NYC to Mumbai, and tomorrow I'll be in Pune, India for a week. Pune is the first substantive leg of my trip, and my reason for being there is that I am teaching a short course on cultural perceptions of climate change to some grade 12 students. Its run in conjunction with a camp in State College, and the students will be blogging (yes, more blogs!) about their views of climate change and then going out and interviewing people in the community about their perceptions as well. Should be really fascinating. I'm also fortunate that my good friend Sameer's parents will be hosting me during this portion of the trip, and his friend Rasika will co-teach the class with me.

Following Pune, I'll be heading up to Nepal for a couple weeks. As many of you know, returning to Nepal is a bit of a homecoming for me, as I studied abroad there. I'm looking forward to visiting my old host family and some other friends there. My activities in Nepal are somewhat open still, I'm hoping to regain quite a bit of my Nepali language skills, perhaps go on a short trek, and work on the next stage of my trip, Bhutan.

Bhutan is the reason that I'm on this side of the world (and indeed, I'm now on that side, or rather, 10,000 meters above it, as this post got delayed by trip preparations). I'm hoping to conduct my PhD dissertation work there, you may have heard of Gross National Happiness, an alternative quality of life metric developed by the old king of Bhutan. Bhutan has also adopted a sustainable development paradigm that they have labeled “The Middle Path.” Tentatively, I'm hoping to gain a better understanding of the people who interact with these concepts on a regular basis (government officials as well as local NGO activists) to better understand how the concepts evolved and impact environmental interactions.

But to do this, I need to figure out a way to get invited into the country for an extended period of time (hopefully an academic year to start), and so while I'm in Bhutan I'm hoping to meet with as many government and NGO staff as possible to make that happen (wish me luck). I have ten days in Bhutan to achieve this goal.

Following Bhutan, I return to Nepal briefly before heading back to India. This time I'll be on the east coast, just outside Vishakhapatnam. I'm co-leading a group of 6 undergraduate honors students and we will be volunteering at an orphanage there for three weeks. I'll fill you in on more details on that later.

And then I'll be returning. Two months, just like that. Each day filled with new sights, sounds, lessons, joys and miseries, and all of it will pass in memories before I can say "kuzu zhangpo la."

That's right, I've figured out a way to make this blog multimedia! Here are some good times from a going away party that we had last night.

Also, I should note that these past entries have been a sort of prelude/running experiment for me to get a feel for what "blogging" is all about. Tomorrow morning I begin my journey to India, Nepal and Bhutan, and its this trip that is serving as the inspiration for the blog. Some of you have read trip notes of mine from previous trips, this time since the trip is lengthy and I don't know how often I'll be able to be in contact, I figured that this might be a good way to stay in touch. So please do feel free to comment, it'd be great to hear from ya.

Reunions

I’ve come to the realization that there is absolutely no way that I could be in grad school and in Portland at the same time. And I mean this not only physically (I attend the real PSU, not Portland State) but also that I am blessed with a wealth of incredible friends who all do really fun things. There has been at least one fun event to attend each night that I’m here. It’s been silly fun, and I couldn’t think of a better Summer vacation.

Seeing people who I know but haven’t talked to in about a year has been an interesting experience. On some levels it seems like nothing has changed, catching up with folks after a year’s separation leads to not much news but the big stuff. But at other times when I listen to them talk there are all these new people and events that I realize I’ve missed out on. It made me a bit sad at first, but I realized that I’ve also met a bunch of great people in the past year and now I just talk about them in a louder voice than anyone else around me.

There also seems to be a broad consensus that my dog, Hanu looks older and fatter than he used to. This also made me sad, until I decided to say he is skinny in a much louder voice. I’ve found that this new method of constructing reality is really effective for me.

At any rate. I leave Portland in like 4 days and I’m ridiculously unprepared for my trip. The best part is that I’m typing this on my way out to the coast for an overnight trip, and I’m definitely not going to make any progress on trip preparation while there. Such a rough life.

The road west

Hello friend!

This is my virginal blog-post, so stick with me, and excuse me if I repeatedly try to fit the square blog (err block) in the triangle-shaped hole.

Yesterday I drove back into Portland. On the way I saw a bumper sticker that said "I'm so f***ing happy I could sh*t rainbows." But it didn't have stars. I knew I was back in a good place when I saw this sticker. Any town that allows that kind of statement to remain in public purview is alright in my book, despite my own reservations about pooping rainbows (and as many of you know, I love poopin).

But I digress. As many of you know, I drove cross country yet again this summer. Departing State College, PA with Hanu crammed in the back amongst two months of possessions for two people in a dog, which doesn't sound like much but it is in an Acura Integra. We left May 10th. The first pitstop was in Wisconsin, where I got to visit my parents, sister and a bunch of organic dairy farmers. It was great to visit with all of them, and far too short. Then it was up to Minneapolis for a couple days to pick up Rachel and visit with her family. Then down to Denver to visit Stacey, Jeff and Kate (my sister's family) which was nothing but giggles (apparently now my niece repeatedly asks for group hugs) until she gave each of us a stomach virus that seemed to have a specialization on moustachioed men. It was reminiscent of the last time I was in S. Asia, and was probably good prep for my trip (this blog has SIGNIFICANT potential to discuss bowel movements pretty often: you are now forewarned). But the GI issues did not prevent a night of camping and a brief visit with my relatives Penny & Joel outside Redmond, which was, as always beautiful and joyful.

And now I'm in Portland. I'll hopefully drop a few blogs about PDX and the haps here before I head to S. Asia, but as you might have guessed the big reason for the blog is to maintain lines of communication with the folks back home. I hope that you are one of them, and I hope that we both are able to stick with this.

So that's it, this is my first blog post. I hope it went over alright.

Also, there is a special prize to the person who guesses the inspiration for the blog title. The hint: Its from a musician who my brother Greg introduced to me as a kid.