This technically isnt an entry. I am putting this here to save it for myself.
Hello. I hope you are having a beautiful spring where ever you are. The weather in Moka has been getting warmer and warmer day by day. This is a nice change! Last night was the first time I slept without my heater on since November. Seven months of cold temperatures is just too much for me. On Wednesday nights, I teach a private English lesson to a man in his 50’s whose English is at a very high level. He asked me if there was any way I would stay for one more year, my response: “I can’t go through another winter here. I just can’t.” Now that the weather is better and the flowers are all in bloom, I spend most of my weekends and nights outside. It reminds me how much I love being able to have a life outside of a heated room. I’m a true California girl at heart.
On April 8th, the day after I returned home from a month in India (I added my 2 weeks off with the 2 weeks off for Spring break) the new school year started. During the first semester of school in Japan, there is so much to do other than class, that it often feels like I’m on break. Just yesterday, we had our class jump-rope contest where all the students in the class, compete with the other classes in their grade at jumping a huge jump rope for 3 minutes. There’s a lot of time and preparation that go into this, let me tell you. The first couple of times I tried to join in, I almost fell over my own feet. It’s harder than it looks.
Im getting ready for the last 3 months of my time in Japan. Next week, Golden Week, we have a set of 3 holidays in a row, and 3 of my friends from America will be coming out to visit. We are going to travel to Kyoto and Tokyo, and spend a couple of days in Moka. Then, school ends on July 20, and though I haven’t scheduled my return trip home, I know that Ill be home a few days after that. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do after Japan, and through all of the thoughts, have decided to return to SoCal for good. Well, for good, as in, for right now, with no plans for international travel in the near future. I was really considering going to Central or South America until the end of the year for volunteer work, but there is a patriotic part of me that feels my time/energy/thoughts/money should now be spent on people in my home country, so that is where I am headed.
After returning home from India, I was looking through “The Amazing Race” web site, I saw an opportunity to share “been there, done that” tips with people about India. Of all the entries they received, they chose 10 to appear on the site. Mine was chosen! So, if you would like to read the short version about India, please check here:
Pictures from my trip are posted here:
Below is also the LONG version, for those of you who a) love me, b) love India, or c) have way too much time on you hands! Enjoy. But first, thanks to everyone for reading and letting me share! I will be updating my blog every so often with additional stories from my trip that I couldn’t include here.
India
I’ve always been a “check-off the list” kind of person. In management terms, I’m what they call “results oriented.” I suppose I am that way in life too. My life has been driven by goals and lists I have made and the “checking it off” that comes once it has been completed; be it written on paper or on the note pad of my mind. As the list of things I wanted, no….needed, no….HAD TO do, began its mental formation about 15 years ago, trekking the Himalayas in India quickly topped the list. A few years later, it was moved to number two under “see the Egyptian pyramids.” Last year during Spring Break, I had the opportunity to check off number 1. This year during Spring Break, I was able to check off number 2.
I left for India on March 11th, 2005. It was a long awaited trip that I began organizing in October of last year. Those last few weeks before departure seemed like time dripped by as slowly as using the Internet with a bad dial-up connection. I was what I often refer to as “itching” to go. I had my itinerary, my backpack, Indian visa in my passport, my camera and film, my travelers cheques, and my books all ready for departure. Only time stood in the way. Once it stepped aside on March 11th, I got on the bus to the train station thinking “here we go.” Here we go, indeed.
Everything I had read, seen, and heard about India, quickly adjusted my expectations to lower than low. I had heard about the death and the sickness, the filth and the poverty, the pollution and the dishonest people that filled the country. It all sounded horrible. Horrible enough to have to experience it for myself. This expectation served me well: I expected nothing, and got everything. I loaded up my backpack with 15 kilos of things I couldn’t live without for a month. Things like my i-pod and make-up didn’t fit into that category, whereas things like band-aids and nail-clippers did. Since I was set to be traveling so close to the mountains before the official trekking season began, I! was informed to bring “warm clothes.” Thus, making their way to the “what to bring” list were a down jacket, mittens, scarf, thick socks, and long-johns.
I arrived in New Delhi, India, on March 12th at 3:30am. First impression, “This place isn’t so bad.” As I sat and waited for Vikas, the guy who had arranged my trip, to come and claim me, I felt safe. I hadn’t expected that. From there, I spent my first hour in India in a car from the airport to the hotel. Like many other Third-World countries, there is absolutely no logical order to the rules of the road other than the constant use of the horn.
Every situation that included showing up somewhere new during my trip was prefaced with an “arrangement” conversation. I guess I would compare it to the excessive bowing that happens when Japanese first meet. This time of “arrangement” is first met with scolding hot chai (tea), no matter the temperature outside, and most often times ends with lots of “it’s ok” and “no problem” type of reassurances. This is how it was from the time I was first dropped off at a hotel in Delhi, to the time I got on the plane to return to Japan.
Around 5am, I settled into a “royal” hotel in India. Come to find out later, for India, this was “royalty” indeed: running water, flushing toilet, electricity, TV, phone, clean sheets, and a mirror. The initial “I’m in India” realization came when I layed down on the bed and quickly realized there was no mattress. It continued when I was woken up in the morning by the noises of the city; people, phones, honking, and animal noises.
Later in the day, Vikas, told me that while he and I were arranging my trip, the “Danielle” in my name made him think that I was a man and since I wasn’t a man he was going to be changing things a bit so that I wouldn’t be alone while traveling. He said that because I was a woman, he would be accompanying me for the few days I had before I began trekking. In these few days, I had arranged to do an Eco Tour. The Eco tour was held in the village of Syrat, in Unttaranchal (the Northern part of India). The brochure for the “eco trip” informed me: “Th! is unique bio tourism initiative endeavors to leave visitors with a greater understanding of the village life and livelihood, nature, rural realities and need to protect what we have left of our wilderness and to encourage people to support Organic projects. It caters to travelers with special interests who prefer to be part of the real environment of a place and want to learn more about the authentic natural, cultural and historical aspects of the locality they are visiting. High-Lights of the tour include: home stay, exposure to organic farming experience, and home-stay in the village.” This description sounded perfect to me because I didn’t set out to be a “tourist” in India. I only wanted to trek the Himalayas,but the experience of doing something terribly ri! ch with Indian culture in a secluded Indian village sounded too interesting to pass up.
After a few days of traveling we arrived in Syrat where the “Eco Tour” began. A couple of men were there to greet us as we pulled up. We spent the next few hours seeing how the organic-workings of a farm take place. To sum it up: manure and lots of hard work. We then went from house to house in this small, sparsely populated village, and met men, women, and children, all of whom welcomed us with “Namaste” and invited us to sit, have some chai, and talk with them. During these times, I was mostly in staring mode. I found everything to be so intere! sting. It all showed signs of wear; the people, their clothes, and all of their belongings. This didn’t matter much ,at all though as their pride for these things, worn or not, was obvious as they would bring the things to show me or share with me. For example, when we stopped by the water-mill on the way back from a walk to a waterfall, the man who owns the mill showed me how he can manipulate the water coming through the canals to create pressure to turn the mill that grinds up wheat. I stood behind the others who watched the mill, and thought about how valuable it was for them, but what a huge inconvenience it would be in America or Japan. It was in this village where I really started to see how little the people in India live with, and at the same time, realizing all that I could live without.
When we pulled away from the village on the morning we left, it was emotional for me. I knew that all the time I had spent time with this family and their beautiful children would soon be just a memory, and it made me sad. Plus, being in an Indian village, with people who loved what they were doing and were so giving of what little they had, was just really humbling.
A couple of days later, Vikas and I said goodbye as I left with a guide and another trekker for our trek. In the beginning, it was arranged that I would be trekking alone with a guide and a porter with a donkey who would carry the tent, cooking supplies, and my backpack. In the days of travel before embarking upon the trek, things changed dramatically. The original guide who was supposed to go with me, got held back with a sick tourist, so another guide, whose English was understandable became his substitute. At the same time, I also agreed to allow a trekker from Belgium join my trek. Then, I found out that the trek I was supposed to go on, to Pindari! Glacier, would have to be changed a bit because the trail was still covered in snow. The cold weather also meant that we would not be staying in tents along the way, or be cooking our own food, but staying in Government rest houses where someone to cook for us also stayed. Because we didn’t need the tents or the cooking supplies, we didn’t need the porter or the mule, and the bag I had packed thinking that someone else would be carrying it through the Himalayas, suddenly became my responsibility. All of these changes ended up making the trip better than it was originally planned, except for that whole “carrying my own back-pack” thing, and I had no objections to any of it. I had made up my mind before going to India that I would just go along with things as they happened, trek where I was lead, ea! t what I was served, and observe and respects things as I was told. I had faith that things would all work out for the best and that putting the decisions into hands other than my own was the best thing to do, seeing as though, the people making the decisions had a lot more knowledge about and experience than I did.
Before taking the first step of the trek, I unloaded my backpack of some things that, all of a sudden, weren’t necessary since I was being required to carry it. It obviously wasn’t enough, because within the first hour of trekking, I had handed my backpack over to the guide, who already had one of his own, so I could trek “free-handed” for a little bit. To say it was difficult is putting it lightly, but in comparison to so many of the other days we trekked, “difficult” seems overexagerated. All I know is that it was the first trek of 5 kilometers and it was all up-hill. Later, I found out that, when trekking the Himalayas, unless one is at the top of Mt. Everest, EVERYTHING is uphill. Uphill was a battle, but I spent so much time realizing what I was doing, while I was doing it. I was trekking the Himalayas. # 2 on my list. At t! he end of every trek, no matter how steep, difficult, wet, muddy, or the distance covered, I knew I had just conquered something. Something most other people will never do. Something that was really important to me. And it made me thankful, to be in such good health. Grateful, to be able to have the opportunity at this time in my life to take a month and pursue such a huge dream. Humble, to be in the middle of what seemed like nowhere, though still be able to see the Creator’s detail in every scene. Mahatma Gandhi once said “When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the Creator.” I was also prideful, to know that I finished every trek w! e set out on, regardless of the distance or difficulty. My answer to the guys when thy would ask me my preference about which trek to go on or which way to go was always, “I’m just following you.”
The first couple of days brought every type of weather imaginable. There were a few days when we had sun, wind, rain, sleet, snow, and hail, all while trekking. It ultimately brought about the best thing possible as one morning we woke up to our very own crystal clear mountain range, covered in fresh glistening-white snow, and a beautiful bright blue sky in the back-ground. Bundled up in my pajamas, which happened to be just about every piece of clothing I had taken, shoes and all, I stood in amazement. I felt like a lone spectator in the midst of a tremendous galaxy. Now then, I’ve seen mountains before, but seeing this huge range of peaks and valleys, also known as part of the Himalaya Mountains, in India, well that was a first for me. And though we went along day after day trekking from one village to the next, all the while ! seeing the same mountains, I never tired of looking at and admiring them. The surrounding of every place I saw them from just added to their beauty, and made it an original sight all over again….mountains with clouds, mountains in the night with the moon, mountains with the animals, mountains with bright yellow mustard plants at their base, mountains with vibrant green wheat fields in the view…..all more beautiful and amazing than the times before.
The villages we stayed in were another true aspect of India. Most times we stayed in a government rest house with at least a toilet. The further and further we got into the mountains, the less and less “amenities” we had access to. After the first village, we left running water behind. From then on, water was provided in buckets. By the end of the trek, we stayed in a village where the toilet was two stones on either side of a stream going through the village. There was a potato sack on a stick in the front and a plastic bag on a stick in the back used as a sort of door or window, I’m still not sure why, considering, the only way to know that someone was using the “bathroom” was to either go and see for yourself or join the line, if people were waiting. Whil! e we were in this village, we took a morning trek to another village, at the top of kimolmeterS of stairs. I’ve come to find out through my time in Japan that being stared at by the nationals is just part of being a foreigner, but as we approached this village, it seemed as if people were looking into the eyes of aliens. As we sat down for tea on the edge of a ledge, our guide who was chatting with one of the locals, turned to us and said, “Some of these people have never seen foreigners before.” Then, amazingly, I sat there next to a 12 year old boy and carried on a full conversation with him in English. Hindi is the national language of India, but English is taught in the schools from a young age and nearly everywhere I went, someone spoke English really well, ! or had no problem using the few English words that they did know, to talk with me. The complete opposite of my life in Japan. The Indian people were so hospitable. Even if we were just walking by some isolated houses on a trek from one place to another, someone would be outside and invite us to stop and have some chai.
The women and children do most of the physical labor in the villages, moving rocks on their backs, cutting down branches to use for fire, or gathering leaves to haul in huge baskets, supported by their foreheads, to feed the animals. These people often did all of this work in flip-flops, or no shoes at all. The men were all congregated around tiny store-fronts or the front of houses, just talking and laughing, smoking tobacco and drinking chai. Most of the time our chai was served in steel cups, burning lips, tongues, and hands from the heat. This type of dish ware was so easy to watch and to clean and couldn’t be br! oken. The food was delicious! Super DUPER delicious. All spicy enough to leave me with my mouth on fire. The typical things we ate were potatoes, dahl, egg curry, jipate, purry, rice, omelets, and spicy ramen. After trekking all day, it was if no amount of food could be enough, but it always was. The fact that it was always so good, and so different from anything I would normally eat, made the waiting time between meals worth every second. I never had any “problems” with the water or food, though I did have a couple of instances when I would bite into something with an unbreakable texture, which turned out to be pebbles, some of the time, and rocks, the other times. There were also times when I would be handed something to drink in a glass that, while finishing, ended with me looking straight to the bottom where mud was caked onto its surface. Needless to say, I became comfortable with situations I could never even imagine, let alone be living through.
Among the beauty found everywhere….colors of the women’s sarees, old-style construction, Hindu temples, flowers, mustard plants, wheat, and the faces of the children, there was also so much poverty, dirt, pain, disease, sickness, mud, use, and lack. In the little summary I wrote for “The Amazing Race” I referred to my trip as being “life-altering”. These are big words to use in describing an experience. I said it because I meant it. It did so in more ways than one. It reminded me of where I am from, and that the worst possible conditions in the US are nothing in comparison to the best of places I saw in India. It also made me see how important it is for each of us to do our part to help others, and not just by religious means through missionaries and prayer, but into a real-life, every day, hands-on type of help. This doesn’t have to be by spending years and years in another country carrying rocks up the side of a hill, but really can be done in out own communities and neighborhoods. It’s a real revelation to see the unity that exists between people in other countries, for no reason other than they share the same nationality and pride for their country.
There are a lot of other things I would love to share with everyone, but this email would be never-ending. I plan on writing up more about things that happened on my trip as I go back through my journal and pull out specifics about the people and villages and food and oddities. I will be typing them up and putting them in my blog. Thanks so much for reading and letting me share.
