May 29th 2013

Namaste, Julleh, and namaste

This morning we left Leh city in Ladakh and arrived in Delhi after about five and a half weeks, completing the last part of our program. Laddakh is a pretty big tourist destination and attracts people from all over the country and all over the world. And it makes sense, because the minute I stepped off the plane five weeks ago, I was shocked. The scenic beauty was nearly overwhelming. Mountains on every side, some snow capped, others completely barren, reaching up to the sky, their tips shrouded by low-floating clouds.

So what did we do for five and a half weeks? The first week was spent acclimating. Leh is at an altitude of around 12,000 feet-- a big change compared to Delhi which is almost at sea level. I filled my time with day hikes and reading; beautiful views were no further than a five minute walk in any direction. We visited amazing monasteries all over the city, some more difficult to reach than others. We spent a week at Pangong Lake, the second highest lake in the world (featured in the hit Bollywood film "Jab Tak Hai Jaan"), taking in the beauty and doing service work at the local village school. We
visited Alchi, and made a quick trip down to the Indus River. We had a week long meditation retreat at Khaspang monastery. We went on a 6 day, 5 night trek, THE trek, that I had been looking forward to all year, through the High Himalayas. We spent about a week in the beautiful Nubra Valley doing transference activities. And we spent our days in between trips in the city of Leh.

Ladakh was absolutely amazing. The temperatures were often below freezing in Ladakh, and there was no central heating system in the guest houses we stayed in, or inside the tents during the trek. But I experienced my first snow fall, so I guess it was worth it in the end. We hiked up to about 17,000 feet on the trek, an extreme challenge, but a pretty big accomplishment. On the way to Nubra Valley, we went over the world's highest pass. There were too many amazing views to count. Ladakhi people are adorable, and I learned a new word, "Julleh," which means "hello," "goodbye," "thank you," and "you're welcome."

I'm happy to be back in Delhi, saying "namaste" instead of "julleh." Delhi is much more of an India that I'm used to, though the heat is a bit overwhelming.

On Friday, I get on a plane and come back to America after nine months. It's hard to believe that I'm on my last few days in India-- I'm still having trouble making sense of it. I'm so excited, nervous, and sad to be leaving India. It's been nine whole months, a period of time that didn't seem real at the beginning of the trip.

I'm planning to take in as much of India as I can before I leave. I'll write again when I'm in the United States.

Lots of love and see you all soon,
Ada

April 15th 2013

Bye Bye Benares


I'm leaving Varanasi in less than 2 days. This last week I have been circling the city running last minute errands, saying goodbyes, and doing my favorite things and seeing my favorite places one more time. This afternoon I will say goodbye to my kids at the Guria Non-Formal Education center after performing a dance (yay Bollywood). Tomorrow I will say goodbye to my host family and the friends in my house, and then get on a train headed for Delhi.

How do I feel now that I'm about to leave? The short answer is weird. It's surreal. I've been here since September, so now it's hard to picture a day where I don't get up, head to Sanskrit class, painting class, and then get on my bike to go to Guria. I'm comfortable here now. I was shocked and overwhelmed when I first arrived. I didn’t speak much Hindi besides “yah kya hai?” What is this? and “yah kursi hai” This is a chair. I was quiet and not so comfortable around my host family and at my work site. I didn’t see myself ever building up enough immunity to try the fruit juice sold on the side of the road. And April 17th, my date of departure, seemed very far away.

Fast forward to the present, seven months later, I can argue with rickshaw drivers pretty effectively, in fact a few of them know who I am and avoid me. I speak to my friends that only speak Hindi about more than just the weather. I feel comfortable at my home stay. I love listening to my host dad tell jokes, watching serials with my host grandma and host sister, and attempting to learn how to make chipati and palak paneer among other Indian dishes from my host mom. I have found my best friends in Benares to be the Benares Hindu University girls that also live in my house, and now I can’t
imagine my experience here without them. Every day I look forward to seeing and talking to Ajeet Ji and Manju Ji at the Guria office and hanging out with the kids at the Non-Formal Education Center. Over these seven months a lot has changed. The weather, the seasonal fruits, the number of Indian pilgrims, and somewhere along the way, my level of comfort.

I'm busier than ever during these last 48 hours. I still have to finish some English posters, perfect a Bollywood routine, spend time with my family, and....pack (which is pretty necessary). I have a lot of stuff to do in the home stretch of time remaining, but I feel ready to go.

I feel ready because I think that, now, in a sense, I’ve accomplished what I wanted to accomplish here. I never approached my Bridge Year experience prior to my arrival in India with a set idea of goals or an even somewhat concrete idea of how these nine months would play out. I know that when I leave Benares in a week from now, it’ll be like leaving home. I have a family, friends, favorite things, and a life here. I’m going to miss every little piece of Benares from the herds of water buffalo that halt traffic to the children at the center that inspire me on a daily basis. The point is, leaving is going to be really hard. But when I think about that, I know that I’ve come here and accomplished what I really wanted to accomplish. My Hindi is not flawless, I have not changed the world of human trafficking, and I still don’t understand a lot about Hindu culture. But I am leaving a life behind here, and I can’t wait to come back.

Lots of love,
Ada
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P.S. I apologize if this post is a little hard to understand or anything, I wrote it in a rush.

March 28th 2013

Calcutta Modernity


Since I last wrote, a few weeks have past, we've visited Calcutta, I've started a new ISP, and we've celebrated a major Hindu festival among other things.

Calcutta was a point in our trip that I was looking forward to, but couldn't actually picture reaching. Our Calcutta excursion was in the middle of March and our last trip outside of Benares before leaving for good. We've been in Benares for so long now, I was having a hard time picturing being post-Calcutta, with the departure date just on the horizon. But that's the reality that we have to face everyday now: we are leaving Benares, and we are leaving soon.

Calcutta was surprisingly modern. Shopping malls, McDonalds, taxis, and cleanliness. But the most surprising thing about Calcutta for me was how I felt I fit in. Hannah, Mackenzie, and I ended up purchasing and wearing Western clothing (jeans and shirts). When we were walking around the city in our Western clothing, I felt surprisingly comfortable and not so out of place, something I'm not used to after living in Benares. We went to a planetarium showing, saw the Victorian memorial, danced at a "disco," ate some mangoes, and walked around the lobby of the nicest hotel, and place in general, I've seen since I left America. It was refreshing, once again, to take a break from Benares and come back with more energy to make the most of the rest of our time here.

I started learning Sanskrit about a week ago. I figured why not, as I've been interested in it since we started learning Hindi, and I had a little extra time. Sanskrit is deceivingly difficult, as the script is nearly the same as the Devanagari script but the grammar and vocabulary is different and more complicated. I love the way the language flows and sounds, and I especially love that it's such an old language and that I can connect Sanskrit words to Hindi words that I know and even a few English words.

HOLI MUBAARAK HO!! Or in other words, Happy Holi!! A day late. The festival of colors, or the festival of chaos. We all convened at Dolly Ji's house, early in the morning to avoid the potential danger on the streets that starts around 7 AM. Around 9 AM the celebration, or attack, began. Wet colors, water guns, metallic gulal (color powder). I was attacked multiple times, just when I thought it was over I had a bucket of concentrated pink color water dumped directly over my head. I've bathed thoroughly since, but my hair and skin has not gone back to it's original color. My feet are purple and
pink, and my back is almost completely purple. I celebrated with my host family when I went home as well, with TONS of sweets and lots of meeting people. I went with my family to family friends' homes, as is the custom on Holi, and received dozens of dry color tikkas from people of all ages. One of the coolest things about Holi, is that after about 1 PM, the city died. The celebration ended. The metallic-faced kids that were roaming the streets in gangs awaiting victims to shoot down with wet color went inside. And standing on my balcony I could appreciate a peaceful Varanasi, a kind of Varanasi that I've never seen before.

I will post photos soon. I'm excited to see my mom on April 1st who is coming to visit me. I'd love to hear from anyone still reading in a comment or e-mail, I miss you all.

Lots of love from Varanasi,
Ada

February 28th 2013

Happy March 1st!


Time is elusive, especially here. First, in the sense that we have a lot of time left in Benares but not enough. Second, in the sense that it seems like it takes much longer to get anything done than it should. Simple tasks turn into projects because of power outages, miscommunications, etc.
Upon returning from Delhi and Agra, time seemed to come to a halt, and going home seemed a lot further away. Luckily my temporary homesickness has turned into an urgency to fit in as much as I can into my remaining time in Benares (at least for now). This blog post will sort of be a compilation of random photos taken during February to make up for my overall lack of photos.

STARBUCKS COMES TO DELHI

More Taj

Saris drying on the ghats

Saddhu season

Saddhu camps on the ghats

more Saddhus

Golgapa everywhere

Roof top view of Benares

Roof top view of the Benares flower market

That's February in a few pictures. Hope that makes up for the little writing I have, I will post soon! 

Until next time! 

Ada

February 10th 2013

"Painting"


I have neglected thus far to say much about my Independent Study Project (ISP). I'm doing painting. Until recently, my ISP was all drawing and no painting, as my artistic skills were not at paint brush level yet. But after drawing a saddhu, Ganesh, and a few pictures of people (that may or may not have looked too great), I was promoted to canvas paper and a paint brush. That was one of my prouder moments.

I've finished my first water color, which depicts a stretch of the ghats, and have moved on to my second, which is of the Hindu goddess of knowledge, Sariswati, just in time for the Sariswati puja coming up on February 14th. I'd say I'm relatively happy with my progress in painting. I have no real experience with drawing or painting besides an art class I took in high school and the fact that I enjoy drawing pictures in my notebook during Hindi class. It's proved to be challenging, but I like it so far. My guru ji (mentor) is an amazing artist with a lot of energy. He holds the world record for painting the Hindu god Ganesh for 58 hours non-stop. It's not a world record you'd think of, but it's pretty
impressive. Whenever I come to class he says "Ada look at my new CREATION" and pulls out some piece of art work from behind some other pieces of art work that he recently created. He repeats his "art is the freedom" motto at least four time during one class. He's also taken to drawing a version of whatever I'm drawing in much better quality and in a minuscule amount of time. But he's a great teacher--he gives advice that seems confusing at first and makes sense in the end--and a great artist.

My schedule now usually consists of painting from 8:00 to around 9:15, work at the office from 10:00 to 1:30, and work at the center from 2:00 to 4:00. What I do after 4:00 changes daily, but I've been spending more time at home with my host family and the friends I've made that go to BHU and live on my floor. The friends that I've made in my house have really made my experience even better. They've introduced me to places I didn't know about in the city, they've taken me to get things I've needed, they've taken care of me while I've been sick, and they always share their food with me. But more
importantly they've just hung out with me and talked to me, and I'm so happy I've gotten to know them.

I've been trying to spend more of my free time exploring Benares and all that it has to offer. I've realized that there's a whole lot about Benares I don't know and a whole lot in Benares that I haven't seen. I really like wandering through random alley ways, getting lost, and getting un-lost because it usually entails learning/seeing something new.

On Thursday we are getting on a train to head to Dehli for a party thrown by the Princeton alumni group based in India, and on the way back we are stopping in Agra to see the Taj Mahal. On the 24th (our trip was approved!!) we are going to the Kumbha Mela. For those of you that don't know, the Kumbha Mela is the world's largest religious festival, and the world's largest gathering of people. Just yesterday, 30 million people gathered in Allahabad to be a part of this festival. It happens once every 12 years, and this one is particularly auspicious and won't be this auspicious again for another 150
years. That's the best description I can give it, but if you haven't heard about it I highly recommend googling it.

That's about all for now, I will try to get pictures soon. I've been especially lazy with putting new batteries in my camera, and I am still debating whether I want to post pictures of my paintings...we'll see.

Until next time!
Ada

January 22nd 2013

Halfway Home


We're 50%, half-way, through our Bridge Year. Actually a little more than 50%. And a lot more if you don't count May when we will be in Laddakh. But half-way is a strange idea. It feels like a lot of time and too little time. If I look at it through a "relive everyday, every meal, every bike ride you've already had in India" kind of perspective, then it seems like there's SO much time left. But if I look at it through a "I only have 4 months left to make an impact at my work site, establish meaningful relationships, and "learn" Hindi" perspective, then it seems like I need a lot more than 4 more months.

We've recently visited Bodhgaya (where the Buddha was enlightened), attended our second wedding as a group, and celebrated Makar Sankrati (a festival dedicated to bathing in the Ganga Ji and flying kites). In Bodghaya we got the chance to see the tree under which (supposedly) the Buddha gained enlightenment, Buddhist temples and monasteries established by countries with a significant Buddhist presence, and an 80 foot tall statue of Buddha--in addition to tons of adorable Tibetan Buddhist monks under 12 years old. Bodhgaya was interesting, and clearly very important to the visiting Buddhists who
surrounded the main stuppa spinning prayer wheels, meditating, and doing rituals. I'd have to say that I much prefer Varanasi to Bodhgaya, which wasn't particularly pleasant outside of the temples. I saw several beggars in Bodhgaya with deformities, missing limbs, and other inflicted injuries that were most likely trafficked to the religious tourists's hotspot, and that was really sad to see.

Makar Sankrati took place on January 14th. And what is Makar Sankrati? It is the kite flying festival! That's right, India has a kite flying festival. It also has religious purposes for Hindus, and so the ghats were packed with kite flyers and people bathing in the Ganga Ji. I might have flown a kite twice in my life. Kite flying here is a serious deal. The kites themselves are made of flimsy paper and can be purchased at many stores for less than $0.50. The kite string is basically a weapon as it is coated in a thin layer of glass, all the better to cut the kite strings of neighboring kites while in flight. It's like a sport. When you succeed in cutting the string of another kite, everyone yells, in exuberation, "BAAL KUTA!" On Makar Sankrati there were more kites than usual in the sky, more kite string than usual on the ground, and more people than usual on the ghats. In honor of the holiday, I flew a kite, before it was taken away from me after a few seconds because my string was about to be cut, and ate the traditional dish of Kichari. Also in honor of the holiday, two days later, I had to get my bike repaired due to an excess of kite string stuck in my back wheel.

The wedding we attended was fun, I especially enjoyed watching the groom enter the reception on horseback after riding through the streets of Varanasi accompanied by a marching band. Work has continued as usual, and I have started my ISP (Independent Study Project) for which I am doing painting. It was a pretty impulsive decision to do painting, but I've always liked drawing despite any real talent for it, and I wanted to do an ISP that might help me capture my experiences so that I could bring them back home with me. I've drawn a saddhu and the ghats among other things so far, and I'm enjoying it.

We are visiting a village this weekend, and mid-February we are returning to Dehli and then going to Agra to see the TAJ MAHAL which I am very excited for.

Until next time!

Ada