February 25

The past week has been a complete blur. We are busy from morning to night with the kids in two separate schools. They keep me on my toes! I’ll try to give a small summary of how the days go:

In the morning I go to St. Mary’s, a school that is right down the road from the place I’m living. James and I teach English to kids who are in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Each day we have two classes. At first we were going to teach separate classes, but when we realized that the classes are huge (7th standard has 56 kids in one class!) we thought it would be better to teach two to a class and be able to split them up frequently. Language learning is basically impossible in such a big group. No wonder they still don’t have a great grasp on English. The biggest problem with English in India is their pronunciation. They will know the material and which words to use but what comes out of their mouths is unrecognizable. I really wonder if there is a “Indian English” dialect almost, which only other Indians can understand. Either way, the kids want to learn American English so that some day they can get what is considered a “good job” with the government or in a city working at a call center. So we’re working on pronunciation a lot, and conversation and speaking exercises. Today we brought music and the lyrics to the song into class and the kids really enjoyed that. Their enthusiasm for being around us and learning from us is unbelievable. After class they come up to us saying, “Great class!” “We really enjoyed that” “Thank you for teaching us” and “When will you be back? Please don’t forget us”. With kids acting like this, how could teaching not be rewarding?! I don’t think I’ve ever felt so appreciated in my life. You can tell it means so much to them to have people from "the outside world" care about them.

After lunch the three of us interns here head over by motorcycle and motor-scooter to Periacachoor, the school for dalits (untouchables) in a small village about half an hour away. The school has cows grazing in front of it and miles of rice fields behind it. It is very basic, without even a restroom facility for the kids to use. Nuns and a few teachers hired by the program work there, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen teachers more dedicated to their students, they are just terrific. At Periacachoor our tasks are a little bit more unstructured—Mondays and Thursdays I help with the “library” (really a few shelves of books in a classroom) and letting the kids take out one book each time. I’m also working on finding good computer software for them to use on the 8 computers that Communities Rising donated to the school. It’s a problem because they don’t speak English well enough to really use American software. And then of course I spend time playing with the kids and reading to them and helping them practice their English. It is extremely fun but those hours out in the 90 + degree Indian heat are just exhausting. By the time we get back around 7 pm I am completely wiped out.



I’m not a person who particularly likes children really, but some of the kids I’ve met here have just completely stolen my heart and won me over. Their lives are so difficult compared to what I’m used to. They walk miles to school, go barefoot most of the day, and as I’ve seen personally, their education is much less than ideal. Most of them probably also help their parents in the field or have many household chores after school. The girls will marry at a young age and always be subservient to their husbands. Their prospects for a brighter future are dim, to say the least. Yet the joy and love the kids have and are willing to share with us is truly special.

I’m learning so much from them and at the end of the day, despite the exhaustion, I fall asleep feeling really fulfilled.

February 22

Saturday Sarah, Fr. Felix, James, and I traveled to Pondicherry to meet with Matt, the in-country director of Communities Rising. He is a few years older than us, and he has been involved in India for a while. Right now he is teaching English at a school in Pondi and his younger brother Danny is going to school for the semester at the high school. They showed us around the town, and took us to get some supplies we needed (like toilet paper—they don’t have any toilet paper within half an hour of where we’re living because the people here don’t use it).

Pondi lies along the Bay of Bengal on the east coast of India. We walked to the shoreline and saw a famous Gandhi statue, did a little shopping, and visited two Hindu temples. At one temple dedicated to the god Ganesh, depicted as an elephant, they had an elephant standing outside the temple who would put her trunk on your head to bless you if you gave her a coin or a banana to eat. The temples were ornate and decorated with all of the gods on the outside and had many real gold and silver statues and chariots inside.



After our adventuring through the town we went to see Danny’s “School Day” celebration where the kids perform different acts and talents for the parents. Many kids did dances to songs, there was some asian fusion dance, yoga performance, and a play in Tamil (the local language). Danny played the drums with two other kids, it was really impressive. We ended up having dinner with some of Father Felix’s priest friends and then drove back to Vickrivandy after midnight. It was quite a day!

Sunday there is an out-of-school program for the kids at the small school so we went and played with them, watched Sarah give her art class, and figured out some projects that need to be worked on. I brought out my camera for the first time and the pictures that follow are the result—the kids love the camera!

February 19

The first morning in India I woke up around 8 when Mary, the cook, came into the room looking for my roommate, Sarah. She had left early this morning along with Father Felix and the boys who live here for a wedding in a nearby town, so James and I were the only ones at breakfast. Mary made us what appear to be rice cakes, and an orange spicey sauce along with a chutney sauce. It was delicious, but I think will take some getting used to for breakfast. I couldn’t help missing my morning Kashi just a little bit. The spices here are going to be killer until I get more used to them.

After breakfast James and I decided to go out back to visit the cows and then we walked toward the little town nearby named Vikravandy. It was a small dusty street crowded with motorcycles, bikes, and big buses coming through, all blaring their horns at the people trying to walk down the street as well as the occasional goat, cow, or dog who ran across the road. Chaos would be too mild a word. We don’t have any Rupees yet, and there was no ATM or bank in town, so we just browsed the market stalls and open-air pharmacies set up alongside the road.

The local people wear a colorful dress, the women in saris that have beautiful colors and patterns integrated into the fabric, and many complete the ensemble with flowers in the hair and long braids. The men wear long pants and a button down shirt or a type of wrap-around skirt that I haven’t learned the name for yet. The clothes serve them well in the near 90 degree heat (and this is the mild, winter season!) It’s not appropriate for women to wear shorts here, so I plan on getting a few saris or long skirts as soon as possible! For the most part we garnered curious stares from the locals, occasionally an enthusiastic “hi!” from a group of young boys, or an “I’m hungry” gesture in hopes of a handout. Eventually the chaos and novelty of everything was combining with the jet-lag to make our heads spin, so we returned to the compound.

When the others returned from the wedding I was introduced to little Sinou (pronounced “sinew”) a 9 year-old orphan who lives here at the compound with Father Felix. This little boy is absolutely adorable. He is full of energy and life, but has also been taught really good manners and is the sweetest little kid. We spent a lot of time this afternoon playing with the paint program on my laptop, and the play-doh that I brought has given him hours and hours of entertainment. The stuff he comes up with to do with the play-doh is incredibly inventive and creative. The thing that is most amazing to me about a lot of the kids I’ve met in third world countries is how they can take the simplest thing, maybe something we wouldn’t even think of as a toy, and enjoy it so thoroughly and completely.

We had a big lunch of sambar, tortillas, rice, vegetables, and various sauces. I had a crash course in how to eat with my fingers like Indians do. It actually requires a lot of technique and skill to be able to put the rice into a ball-like shape and then scoop it into your mouth with the back of the thumb. And it is counter-intuitive because my whole life I’ve been taught NOT to play with food and not to use my fingers. But I think once I get the technique down it will be fun, and the food is really good, if a bit spicy.

After a long afternoon nap we went into the town of Villapurum for phones and local SIM cards. Father Felix has been great helping us to get adjusted and making sure we have everything we need. Everyone we’ve met has been so friendly—this afternoon we met Nelson. He is a 17 year old boy orphan who also lives with Father Felix. We played a few rounds of Slaps (Egyptian Rat Tail) and Rummy. After our trip to town we met Agne, a local boy who goes to school with Nelson and came all the way over here to meet us. He wanted to chat and learn about us, even though their English isn’t the best.

So far being in India is completely different than anything I’ve done in my life, and although its overwhelming and there are plenty of minor inconveniences along the way, I’m really looking forward to spending two more months here.

Pictures will come soon!

India!

February 16 came really quickly—I am recovered from all South American illnesses, rested, and eager to head to the next and possibly most interesting part of my journey, to India. I’ve never been to Asia before, and so I didn’t really know what to expect. It was a 23 hour flight (well, 14 hours to Dubai, 5 hour layover, then about 4 hours to Chennai) and India is 10 ½ hours ahead of Eastern Time. We were flying out of JFK so James and I decided to get a hotel room in the city the night before and try to stay up as long as possible, making it easier to sleep during the first 14 hour segment of the trip. So we watched Villanova lose to UConn at a bar in NYC, went to a hookah place (we figured drinking the night before a long flight was probably not a good idea), and then went to the gym of the hotel at about 2 AM for a pre-flight workout. It was a bizarre but very cool interesting, especially after it started lightly snowing outside, reminding us of the 80 + degree weather we were about to enter into.

I took a cat-nap around 3 am and by 6 we were completely packed and ready to head to the airport. Everything went smoothly, even with carrying the 3 huge computer boxes we were bringing for the school here in India. We flew Emirates Airline, which was terrific and very luxurious compared to American airlines (and cheaper!) They served us food off of an in-flight menu, all the free wine we could ever hope for, and had tons of on-demand movies and even episodes of Friends to choose from on your own personal screen. We flew over the oil fields of Iraq on our way into Dubai, and when flying into the city we could see the new “world’s tallest tower” that was just recently completed in the modern and wealthy city of Dubai. Flying in was a breathtaking sight.



A five-hour layover and 4-hour flight later, we were de-boarding in Chennai India, which is a fairly large city along the south-east part of India. Our final destination of Vikravandy lay about 2 ½ hours to the south. Father Felix, the priest who we are staying with for these 2 months, and Sarah, another intern at the project, came to meet us, along with the driver named Bangladesh. Two women from the village who just wanted to see an airport for the first time also were there to greet us. Everyone seems very friendly and welcoming so far, and I’m curious to learn more about Father Felix and the work that he does here with his organization called SAMMMS.

The compound where we are staying lies right off the highway, in a fairly poor area of India. I’m sharing a room with Sarah and we also have a bathroom with a western-style toilet (no hole in the ground, yay!) and hot water (sometimes, when the heater decides to work). It is very simple accommodations, but I think it will be an authentic experience. A woman who works for Father Felix cooks three meals a day for everyone who lives here, all in southern-India style over an open fire behind the kitchen. For some reason I haven’t quite figured out she also sleeps in the kitchen on a blanket at night. The program has a few cows and a baby calf who live in the garden area behind the house.

So far, being jet-lagged and tired I am completely overwhelmed by everything, but I hope in the next few days to settle in to this way of life, and I’ll be updating soon!

Ecuador 2

After the lovely and somewhat chilly stay in Banos, it was time to head a little bit further into the Amazon, to a small town on the outskirts of the rainforest called Puyo.

The hotel was a charming lodge-type place with a big swimming pool (very rare for Ecuador) and a volleyball net. We had a little wooden room with a small deck where a hammock hung in the corner. Exotic birds make weird noises from the trees and the fauna was distinctly jungle-esque. It was very ideal for a jungle get-away. Unfortunately, not a few hours into our stay James got a phone call from his mother mentioning the Haitian earthquake (this was January 12th). Suddenly our lives were turned upside-down. We had limited internet access and a TV which played CNN en Espanol. Unfortunately, Ecuador suffers from power outages because they lack sufficient plants to channel the power sources. This meant that once a day at least the power systematically was turned off in every section of town. Wherever the TV was broadcasting from was turned off, so we could turn the TV on but not get any signal.

We frantically scoured the internet for news about the earthquake, trying to determine how bad it was (James works in Haiti, and I am involved with an orphanage outside Port-au-Prince). We canceled our plans for a jungle –tour the next day, knowing that James would have to be around to help out as soon as he could get in contact with his boss and co-workers in Haiti.

Suddenly our power went off as well, along with the rest of the section of Puyo. Now we were in the complete pitch black (it was around 8 pm by this point) with nothing but cell phone light to see by. Fortunately I had packed a head-light (think the groundhog from Winnie the Pooh) because we’re used to being stranded in the dark at random times. With us still frantically trying to get news of Haiti, this was very bad timing. With this small head light we managed to get out onto the main roads and hail a cab. We thought maybe the lights would be on in another part of town or at least a restaurant with candlelight so we could eat some dinner, seeing as how it was almost 9 pm. No such luck, everything was basically closed and the lights were out everywhere. The town looked very creepy and surreal in the dark. A small town store which had a generator for the refrigerated foods was the only place open. We took a small dinner of Pringles, Gatorade, and apples back to our little hammock deck area at the lodge and ate by candelight, listening to the dark sounds of the jungle around us. We had no idea when the power was going to come back on, so we just hoped for the best.




The next morning we decided since we weren’t going to do the jungle tour we would at least do a short hike at a place called the “Monkey Trail” close to the lodge. We were hoping to maybe see some monkeys hanging from trees or hear the howlers as we walked. When we arrived, however, we saw a house and a few monkeys scattered around outside. A man wished us a hearty welcome and asked if we were going to be afraid of the monkeys, to which I stammered, “Uh, I guess not…” unsure of what he really meant. As soon as we walked in the gate, these monkeys came over to us and started crawling up our legs, pulling my hair and grabbing at my sunglasses. I felt like I was a mother coming home to my little toddlers after being away for a while, the way they tugged at your clothes for attention and wanted to climb all over you! They were so human-like it was amazing. My sunglasses, I guess being shiny, warranted significant attention and had to be yanked away more than once.



We realized that we had ended up at a non-profit sanctuary for animals who had been kept as pets. All of the monkeys and other animals had been rescued from homes in the city where they were illegally kept, in the hopes of teaching them to live on their own and eventually re-releasing them into the Amazon. They had over 50 monkeys, some weird kind of armadillo-esque creatures, boa constrictors, turtles, and birds. And among all of these animals a few dogs hung out as well, seemingly unphased by the mixing of creatures. We talked with the animal-keepers a while and then one of them took us on a little walk through the jungle (I had a monkey who had “adopted” me as her mother on my shoulders the whole time). Our guide pointed out plants that could be used as food, sources of water from roots in the jungle, and plants used for different medicinal and cultural ceremonies by the Amazonian tribes. It was a fascinating tour, made complete by the clamor of monkeys who had followed us on our walk and now jumped from limb to limb above our heads, occasionally crashing along the underbrush as well. It was definitely an experience.



Finally, smelling like monkeys and all, we said goodbye to Puyo so we could return to Quito, ready to be in communication with the outside world again and specifically hoping to contact our friends in Haiti to make sure they were allright.
Note: As it turned out, the children at the orphanage are all OK, they lost the two-room shack they shared but are all alive. Soon we are hoping to have a conduit to send them the money raised from selling the Christmas cards they made. Our friends Yves and Godson are alive, although homeless and scared. 5 people from James’ work were killed, and countless other family members of staff. The other Americans he befriended while in Haiti were evacuated and are now home.