America, this week has been so action packed (my life can be described in the same words as the summary on the back of a B rated DVD) that I'm going to have to resort to list form again. I am currently staying up way past my Indian grandmother bed time (10 or 11pm... I've been calling myself Gladys this semester) because tomorrow my classes are cancelled yet again, except this time for a good reason. My Human Rights class was cancelled yesterday because my professor is mediating negotiations with the Orissa government about a kidnapping (I am now slightly more sympathetic that class gets cancelled so much and he still hasn't given us access to any of the reading material for the course). Also, the Telengana Action Committee has called another bandh on the city, which means that for the next 24 hours the city is on lock down because of the Telengana separatist movement. Serious stuff (I am safe). Actually, this post, the first half at least, is going to be less silly than usual, but hopefully still interesting. Otherwise skip down to Friday, my trip to Hampi, Land of SIlly Hippy Nonsense and Delightful Pants.
Monday: Immediately after class I caught a shared autorickshaw to the Safrani school. It's this really cool weaving school that employs widowed women and it's partnered with and funds an elementary school. I had talked to the woman in charge a week before (I can never figure out her name because its an unfamiliar Indian name that everyone says really fast, so I've just been calling her Nana in my head because she is a super sweet little old lady that constantly seems like she's about to offer you freshly baked cookies) and she had said they needed of tutors. Anyway, I show up ready to tutor, they plop me into a second grade class with a lesson plan and say, "Okay, teach now." ...Suprise! So for the next hour I taught capacity to a class of 25-30 Indian second graders. I think under normal circumstances, I would say that this was a pretty surreal experience, but I am literally phased by almost nothing after being in India for two months. I went back again yesterday and taught an English class, and it was delightful because the curriculum had a story about Kuchipudi dance and the glory of Andhra Pradesh, so I couldn't pronounce any of the long Indian names and the kids couldn't pronounce any of the English words.
Tuesday: There was this big women and rape culture discussion outside the library, so it was pretty exciting to finally get involved with some campus activity.
Wednesday: One of my stranger days in Hyderabad. I was supposed to visit an NGO (non profit organization) and basically just ask them what they do as the "big project" for one of my classes, but I've turned it into a field work assignment (because I am not a second grader, and I would actually like to get college credit for this course). So I went to this faith based HIV/AIDS clinic, and it was basically the coolest place ever. They provide counselling, and medical services, and HIV testing, and religious services for further emotional support, and they meet with pastors and community leaders to spread awareness and reduce stigma, and they visit schools and slum areas, and they provide child care, know all of their patients personally, send people visit patients regularly, deal with several other diseases and I think they also slay dragons and bandage wounded unicorns on the weekend. I stayed for like 6 hours and got to talk to a ton of people. I'm a huge fan of this organization. They use religion as a base for a support group, so they can provide confidential medical and emotional support.
Weird thing about privacy though. All the councilling and medical examinations happened in one giant room and all the walls were glass. I asked about it, and the doctor I talked to said that its a strategy to help reduce stigma and create a greater sense of community. He had me sit there through a bunch of check ups as people detailed all their extremely personal medical information (he even had me copy down a prescription) and no one seemed the least bit bothered that I was there. I'm not really sure if this is just the paradigm NGOs in India use or its a class thing, or an India thing, or something else entirely. American Privacy Jesse was super freaked out, but it seemed to work really well, and it really did seem like a tight knit community.
But now on to the sillier portion of our story: Hampi. The only way I can describe Hampi is if Disneyland tried to make an India wonderland theme park geared toward hippies and dinosaur lovers. It was, like, ... too super pretty and lush to be real. I am actually convinced that everything was made of plastic and all of the people were hired actors. I am also convinced that a pterodactyl was going to swoop down and pluck me out of the banana field we got lost in, but the director of this grand charade cut it out at the last second because he knew we were suspicious. I refuse to believe that Hampi is a real place.
Friday: We arrived to "Hampi" (the elaborate movie set) on Friday morning after taking the overnight bus and then a local bus from Hospet. The bus ride was our first cue that something was amiss. Too many glorious super old, super beautiful temples combined with far too much picturesque scenery. But we decided to give the place the benefit of the doubt. Our hostel, a delightful place called Vicky's painted in the neon hues of Barney the big purple dinosaur, warmly greeted us with a polite warning about pickpocketers and the dangers of narcotic drugs hidden in foods from friendly strangers.
Monday: Immediately after class I caught a shared autorickshaw to the Safrani school. It's this really cool weaving school that employs widowed women and it's partnered with and funds an elementary school. I had talked to the woman in charge a week before (I can never figure out her name because its an unfamiliar Indian name that everyone says really fast, so I've just been calling her Nana in my head because she is a super sweet little old lady that constantly seems like she's about to offer you freshly baked cookies) and she had said they needed of tutors. Anyway, I show up ready to tutor, they plop me into a second grade class with a lesson plan and say, "Okay, teach now." ...Suprise! So for the next hour I taught capacity to a class of 25-30 Indian second graders. I think under normal circumstances, I would say that this was a pretty surreal experience, but I am literally phased by almost nothing after being in India for two months. I went back again yesterday and taught an English class, and it was delightful because the curriculum had a story about Kuchipudi dance and the glory of Andhra Pradesh, so I couldn't pronounce any of the long Indian names and the kids couldn't pronounce any of the English words.
Tuesday: There was this big women and rape culture discussion outside the library, so it was pretty exciting to finally get involved with some campus activity.
Wednesday: One of my stranger days in Hyderabad. I was supposed to visit an NGO (non profit organization) and basically just ask them what they do as the "big project" for one of my classes, but I've turned it into a field work assignment (because I am not a second grader, and I would actually like to get college credit for this course). So I went to this faith based HIV/AIDS clinic, and it was basically the coolest place ever. They provide counselling, and medical services, and HIV testing, and religious services for further emotional support, and they meet with pastors and community leaders to spread awareness and reduce stigma, and they visit schools and slum areas, and they provide child care, know all of their patients personally, send people visit patients regularly, deal with several other diseases and I think they also slay dragons and bandage wounded unicorns on the weekend. I stayed for like 6 hours and got to talk to a ton of people. I'm a huge fan of this organization. They use religion as a base for a support group, so they can provide confidential medical and emotional support.
Weird thing about privacy though. All the councilling and medical examinations happened in one giant room and all the walls were glass. I asked about it, and the doctor I talked to said that its a strategy to help reduce stigma and create a greater sense of community. He had me sit there through a bunch of check ups as people detailed all their extremely personal medical information (he even had me copy down a prescription) and no one seemed the least bit bothered that I was there. I'm not really sure if this is just the paradigm NGOs in India use or its a class thing, or an India thing, or something else entirely. American Privacy Jesse was super freaked out, but it seemed to work really well, and it really did seem like a tight knit community.
But now on to the sillier portion of our story: Hampi. The only way I can describe Hampi is if Disneyland tried to make an India wonderland theme park geared toward hippies and dinosaur lovers. It was, like, ... too super pretty and lush to be real. I am actually convinced that everything was made of plastic and all of the people were hired actors. I am also convinced that a pterodactyl was going to swoop down and pluck me out of the banana field we got lost in, but the director of this grand charade cut it out at the last second because he knew we were suspicious. I refuse to believe that Hampi is a real place.
 |
| Obviously not real. |
 |
| Two of my travel buddies, Denise and Amanda, posing in front of what is obviously just a green screen of what is supposed to be the beautiful view from atop the mountain where Hanuman the monkey god and hero of the Ramayana was born... Sure it is. |
 |
| That's right, Hampi. I'm wise to your tomfoolery. I know this is a Jurassic Park version of the Truman Show. Who looks stupid now?! |
We spent most of the day contently exploring the town and enjoying the natural habitat of Barney's dinosaurs friends, who were hiding from view for most of the visit. We got there early enough to see Laksmi, the village elephant, at the Vipalksa temple. Laksmi will bless anyone who gives her two rupees by bopping them in the head with her trunk... unless you are white because her owners have trained her to be racist. (I'm actually not kidding. The elephant knew not to bop any white person in the head unless they handed her ten rupees. Impressive but disturbing talent.) We were overjoyed to discover that our hostel had the luxury of western toilets rather than the squat potties which I recently conquered but still don't really like. Fun fact though, many toilets in India sit on a raised pedestal. This is fine for squat toilets. It's sort of like going to the bathroom on an empty stage (I like to make fake applause noises when I'm finished to make the peeing process more exciting). However, when you place a western toilet on a pedestal you get what I like to call the Awkward High Chair Toilet Effect, in which your legs dangle off the side of the toilet like you are a one year old dining at IHOP.
Saturday: An extremely exciting day, we decided to start our morning early to avoid the unbearable midday heat with a hike to the mountain top Hanuman Temple on the other side of the river. We rose with the sun and got a nice breakfast to fuel our travels, papaya and banana pancakes. Then, I immediately threw up. Realizing the inevitable, I responsibly made my way to our bathroom sink and emptied the contents of my sad western stomach into its dirty porcelain depths, with great pride for my nation that I had made it to the proper puking receptacle, all the while ignoring the faint dripping noise that I assumed was a toilet leak. Then I looked down and discovered that the sink had a pipe that just emptied onto the floor, and I watched my beautifully aimed, sink bound, rainbow of breakfast sludge trickle onto my sneakers. (But if I could just brag for a second, my papaya and banana throw up was the color of a beautiful sunset, so haHA, India. America makes vomitting into art.)
Still early yet, we headed to the river (yet another beautiful place that was obviously part of a fake India set for the weird reality series that Hampi was secretly shooting) to catch the one boat to the other side, about 20 meters away, before the hot part of the day. So that only took about five minutes India time (an hour and a half). Reaching the other side, because we are working on assimilating, we immediately decided to waste a bunch of time enjoying the scenery in the shady parts of town as the giant fiery ball in the sky continued to rise. Beautiful (but definitely not real) rice fields, mountains (probably painted onto the back wall of the biodome in which the Hampi film was taking place), etc. Then we started the 5 km walk to the base of the Hanuman mountain, during the hottest part of the day. Many a rickshaw driver informed us that we would never make it alive unless we took his rickshaw. In India, as you get closer to your destination you also get farther away as we learned from each subsequent rickshaw driver that we passed, who told us that the mountain was further and further (according to my calculations we covered negative 3 km in just under 45 seconds). After walking for a while we decided to take a short cut which proved to be an excellent decision as it led to an excellent adventure of us fording a thorny creek filled with sludge (for all intents and purposed a rapid filled river with quick sand on both sides), battling a spider that was guarding the river (think Shelob from Lord of the Rings), wandering through a banana field labrinth (no sphinx in the middle though), and triumphantly reaching the shade on the other side in the name of glorious America (because I lied before. Now was actually the hottest point in the day) and destroying the Ring of Doom at Mordor. But the ascent to the top of the mountain was yet to come. After our grand adventure, we reached the monkey infested base and prepared for the climb, about 500 India steps (so a million bajillion frillion vermillion steps. Seriously, I do not know what people were thinking when they made steps in this country. At a whooping 5'0" I am of average height here, and the stairs are so steep that I have to do a Super Mario coin jump to move forward. I got tired of shouting "WOOHOO! ITSA ME!" after a while although it seemed to placate the monkeys). Meanwhile, as we puffed up the mountain, Indian construction workers stolled past us toward the top balancing huge bags of cement mix on their heads during the hottest part of the day (because this was actually the hottest part of the day). We made it to the top and the view was, to use the word literally, breathtaking because it actually elicited gasps (even though I know it was just a constructed movie set). The temple was pretty awesome, too. It's supposed to be the birthplace of Hanuman the monkey god from the Ramayana, a major tale/religious epic in Hindu tradition, which coresponds with actual places in India. (Hanuman is awesome. He had to get a magic herb from a mountain to rescue Ramaand he couldn't figure out which one it was, sort of like Donkey in Shrek, so he just picked up the whole mountain. Also, he can fly. And grow and shrink at will.) Anyway, we spent a while up there and then head back down and walked back to town during the hottest part of the day (India is really freaking hot).
Exhausted we stopped for lunch/dinner at the most ridiculous hippy eating establishment I have ever seen. But, America, its getting late so I'm going to leave you with a cliffhanger. Be sure to tune in next time though. There will be tales involving creepy mermaid babies and extremely silly pants.
No comments:
Post a Comment