catie travels

Farmer's Market in Lyon

2010-11-01T22:21:00.002+06:00

Several times now, Dan and I have found ourselves on the steps next to the Rhône, under the shade of the huge trees lining the street, and at the most magnificent farmer's market. The first time, we simply stumbled upon the market, but since then we have marked it on our mental calendars and have been sure to venture back. As you'd imagine, like any good French market there are booths full of dozens of varieties of cheese, stands selling cured sausages and raw meats, tables with flowers, vegetables, olives, breads, and cakes. It's actually turned into a really good way for both Dan and me to practice a little French, since some of the vendors don't speak much English, and even when they do, they seem to have the time and mentality fit for stopping to have a little conversation with two obvious foreigners.

The market, as I said, is right next to some steps that lead from the street down to the Rhône. So, after walking through the market Dan and I are sure to sit on the steps and eat berries, fruits, and breads, and watch the swans in the river below. What makes the market so amazing isn't just the variety in the types of fruits and cheeses, but the fact that every thing I have gotten there has just been delicious. The berries, which are much smaller than what we're used to finding at grocery stores in the US, are so sweet and delicious- it's really almost like eating candy. I don't know how long the market will keep on going as the weather becomes increasingly more and more cool, but I hope it never ends!

Dan selecting out some perfect French Nectarines

So many delicious fruits and berries and cheese!

This was the most perfect and delicious tiny strawberry I had ever had!

We even went back in the rain!

more berries than I could handle!

The Day I Finally Found God.

2010-09-26T04:12:00.001+06:00

Today is Saturday, and Dan and I decided to get out of the apartment. We had no goals or projects that we were planning on working on, and so we just wandered. We found ourselves in the heart of Lyon near a Cathedral that I had had my eye on for some time. I haven't done my research on this Cathedral, so I can't really write about it much, and I didn't take any photos while I was in the Cathedral, but I did make a friend when I was there.

Dan had his camera with him, and since the Cathedral had amazing stained glass windows he wandered around photographing them. I picked up some literature on the Cathedral and after wandering around a bit I sat down in one of the pews near the middle of the church and started to try my hand at reading some of the French information offered about what I was seeing. I looked up when a young handsome man was walking towards me. He smiled at me and sat across the aisle from me in another pew. Now, I'll preface this by saying that this Cathedral has fairly high ceilings, and is large enough to not allow for sound to carry well at all. The man smiled at me and whispered something in French. Whispering is always hard to understand, and my French is certainly not good enough to decipher whispering in such an un-ideal setting, so I had no idea what he was saying. I whispered back and asked him if he spoke English, and he then broke into perfect English and asked me where I was from. I told him and he began asking me all sorts of questions about Alaska. I'm used to answering questions about Alaska, since so many people seem to consider it an almost mythical land, but this man was asking questions that were new to me. He first asked me simply what it was like, and since whispering is awkward under any circumstance I replied simply that 'it's cold.' I figured that would satiate his curiosity about Alaska, but he went on to ask me if Alaskans have different accents than the rest of the US, what we eat, if we eat a lot of fish, if we eat a lot of salmon, and how our mentality compares to the rest of the US. I was a little surprised at these really specific questions. He kept repeating "I have never met someone from Alaska before!", which isn't altogether that surprising, considering Alaska's extremely small population.

He then asked me if I was alone, and I was glad to be able to turn around and point to Dan who was busy photographing a statue of St. Anthony de Padua a few yards away from where I was sitting. This man seemed friendly enough, but I tend to feel vulnerable when I have to admit that I'm alone. The man next asked me if I was Christian, and looked up towards the altar. I thought I was in for a bit of proselytizing, but decided to answer honestly and said 'No'. So he asked me if I was atheist. I didn't really know how to respond so I just shrugged and smiled. I thought: here it comes, and braced myself, but the next thing he said surprised me. He looked at me smiled, and then quite seriously said: I am Christ. For a moment I thought that maybe his seemingly perfect English had failed him and he had meant to say that he was Christian, but then he went on to say: I am the messiah. I smiled, nodded, and said, Okay. He told me that I shouldn't spread the word around because the world was not ready to accept him yet. I smiled and nodded and didn't know what to say. He then told me "I am the son of god!" He then shifted away from me and turned his attention back to the altar.

What I found most interesting about this was that I found myself appreciating his words in the same way that I always am interested when people tell me things about their religion. I remember going to a church in India where a family told me that they had a cow that never gave milk, so they brought it holy water that had been blessed by Mother Mary, let the cow drink the water, and then the cow gave sweet milk for years and years to come. When I saw them they were returning to the church to give thanks. I heard a lot of stories like this in churches and temples in India, and it never occurred to me to question the validity of the stories. Again, today it never occurred to me to question whether or not this man actually was the messiah, or whether or not he actually thought he was the messiah. I just found it interesting. I wanted to ask him more questions- why was he sitting in this church, in a pew near the middle, on a Saturday afternoon. How did he get there? How did he know he was the messiah. I guess I could have asked him any of these questions, but I didn't, and I guess I'll never get the chance again.

When I related this story to Dan a few minutes later as he showed me his favorite chapel, I started to realize how ridiculous the story sounded. Dan, being the cynic that he is, told me that this guy was obviously just trying to 'pick me up'. If that is the case, I can honestly say "I am the messiah" is the weirdest/worst pick up line I have ever heard. But, I like to think that this man was sincerely there just to take in the ambiance of the church. Maybe he really thought he was the messiah. Maybe he was just moved by the beautiful rose windows and stunning stained glass and crystal chandeliers dripping delicately from the heavy stone ceilings. I guess I'll never know the whole story.

St. Jean's Cathedral

2010-09-23T18:28:00.000+06:00

In Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon) one of the main sights to visit is the Cathedral of St. Jean (Saint John). The Cathedral itself is pretty great for those of us from the oh-so-young America, and especially for those of us who were raised in baby-new Alaska where an "old" building is anything that survived the 1964 earthquake. This beauty was finished in 1476- nearly 20 years before Columbus 'sailed the ocean blue'! The Cathedral isn't gigantic compared to some others I've seen- Grenada, Tours, St. Peter's, but it's got spirit. The outside is peppered with gargoyles looming down over a small square, and the inside is adorned with some very gorgeous stained glass windows.

I've only been inside the Cathedral a few times so far, and never for very long. I want to go back more and more, because each time I return I find something interesting inside that I missed on my previous visits. Plus, there are great little plaques set up describing in both French and English the images in the stained glass, so I can practice my iconography and my French at the same time- magnifique!

Dan and I ventured to St. Jean's last Saturday just before closing time. We only had a few minutes to take in what we could before we were told to get out. But, we noticed that the very next day there was going to be an organ concert in the Cathedral. So, on Sunday we walked over two bridges and through a few streets in Old Lyon and made our way into a pew near the front of the Cathedral. We were handed a pamphlet in French and I read what I could about our young organ master that we were there to see. He was born in 1980, was admitted to some great school for organ music at some obscenely young age, and has since mastered both classic and modern organ music. There was very little ceremony about the concert. A man came out, spoke for a minute in French, and then organ music began to fill the cathedral. The problem with going to a concert in a cathedral is that the main fixture of the apse is the altar rather than the organ. The organ is placed to the side sort of in the ambulatory, and was impossible to see from where we were sitting. This is a great set up if you're there for mass, but not so convenient if you're there to hear and hopefully see an organ concert. So, while listening to the music we instead got to just take in the stained glass, the architecture, and the people around us.

If there's one thing I can say I know basically nothing about it's organ music. I'm only a little embarassed to say that to me the sound of an organ is synonymous with Halloween, vampires, and The Addams Family. Needless to say, I can't really give a good review of the music I heard. But, I can say that I enjoyed sitting there in that old Cathedral listening to the organ, played by someone I couldn't even see. Sometimes a few women would come out to where we could see them, stand with their backs to us, and sing in what I guess must be latin (it wasn't French and it certainly wasn't English). Although the organ music was interesting and a new experience, I have to admit that the parts with the singing were probably my favorites. Next time I hope to venture back when I can hear a choir.

Figured it out! I can stomach stomach!

2010-09-18T02:59:00.001+06:00

Dan and I wandered around tonight looking for a place to eat. We wandered down one street, and deciding it was too chic for our slobbish selves, decided to move on (I've never before felt as though I was underdressed for an entire street). We ended up at a restaurant on the same street as the place I described in my last post - Aux 3 Cochons. After eating dinner tonight (some jambon cru with melon, and some lasagne, and a small bowl of chocolate mousse for me), we wandered by the other restaurant so I could check out the menu.

I am proud to say that since the first time we went there, I can now understand much more of the menu. The only thing listed in what I had ordered that I didn't understand was andouillette. I knew this was a type of sausage, but didn't know what differentiated it from other sausages. Well, I just looked it up and apparently I have been eating (a few times now) and Loving (every time!) sausage made from the intestines and stomaches of pigs. And, I'm excited to say that this is apparently a sausage that Lyon is apparently known for. Wikipedia tells me that some restaurants in Lyon are even rated on the quality of their andouillette! It also said that this is an acquired taste, which wasn't true for me; it was complete love at first taste.

I've never really considered myself a particularly picky eater (not since I was about 12 anyway), but I've never considered myself much of a worldly eater either- I generally steer clear of seafood if I can, and I loathe mushrooms. That being said, I have no problem eating interesting animal parts. tongue? brain? sweetbread? bring it on. pig stomach? just another delicious notch in the ol' belt. I guess the next step for me will be to try frog legs, although, I think I'm going to look it up first. I don't understand how you can eat something so tiny that still has bones. Anyone out there have any advice? Let me know!

--- Catie

Oh the food!

2010-09-15T18:08:00.001+06:00

Dan and I wandered down a street just across the bridge from our apartment. There were many little restaurants- some Italian, one Tunisian, and one called "Aux 3 Cochons". I looked at the menu, understood very little, but it seemed pretty French, so I suggested we go there. We sat down inside since the terrace seating was all full, and looked around. Every free surface- walls, shelves, windows- was filled with photos, paintings, prints, and sculptures of pigs. I stared into the sweet face of a cardboard-cut out Babe that was grinning at me from over Dan's shoulder across from me, and then delved into the menu. I had my trusty French-English-French dictionary with me, but it wasn't altogether that helpful since so many terms used on the menus are really specific. For example, when a menu uses a word that my dictionary tells me means "stove", I can only assume that the menu is referring to some specific way of cooking something. Some of the things that we could find in the dictionary were frog legs, cow-tails, and calf-brain and tongue. I ended up ordering something that had potatoes in it, but that's all I really knew about it. Dan went for the salmon.

Both of our dishes came in shallow ceramic dishes (I can't remember what they're called... my mom cooks asparagus in hers). I still have no idea what I ate, and I've been meaning to go back to the restaurant and write down the name of the dish I ordered so I can look it up online, but I can definitely say it was one of the tastier things I've ever put in my mouth. The dish was filled with two thin triangles of shredded and fried potatoes- cooked almost like polenta, crispy on the outside and smooth on the inside- and a sauce that hid a ton of tiny shredded pieces of fatty meat. There was some spice that looked like mustard seed, but didn't taste like it. The sauce was fairly thick and creamy, and the meat was pretty white. I'm guessing it was some sort of pork, but I'm not sure what kind, since it was fattier than any kind I've had before. The next 15 minutes or so are just a blur in my memory since I was so enthralled with whatever it was I was eating. This was probably about a week and a half ago, and I've been thinking of very little else ever since. I Need to investigate more! I wish I had had a pen with me, or even my camera. I'll just have to go back!

For dessert I got a fondant au chocolat, which even Dan tried and said would have been delicious had it not been chocolate.

In other news, we found what is apparently Dan's new favorite place on the planet. Now, I love a crêpe just as much as the next guy, but Dan is rapidly becoming a crêpe connoisseur. We found a tiny little crêperie which we've now gone to twice. The first time we went in it was about 7pm, and the place was virtually empty. The decor is seriously eccentric- the walls are all covered in murals of goblins, trolls, fairies, and ghoulish mangled trees, and there are a few figurines of these things sitting on shelves and hanging from the ceiling. I figured that this eccentric decor might have deterred people from regularly visiting this place, but as we sat there throughout our meal every single seat in the restaurant filled up. The second time we went at about 8:30 and watched as the waiter had to turn away a total of about 15 people who came in and couldn't find seating for dinner.

The reason that Dan and I have started to really like this place isn't the odd decoration, or even the really friendly and patient waiter, but the interesting menu. Other crêperies we've been to have a variety of vegetables and cheeses that they offer on their crêpes, but this place offers many types of sausages, meats, cremes, cheeses, and vegetables in various combinations. It's been fun to order twice now, and then go home and look up what I ate. Both Dan and I have loved what we ordered each time, so the record is four for four, which is pretty solid.

All this food talk is making me hungry! Off to make some lunch!

From the delicious goblin filled crêperie

(an average crêpe at an average place- eggplant purée)

(dan's average crêpe at some average place- spinach and butter)

Getting to know Lyon

2010-09-15T17:25:00.005+06:00

Two rainbows above the Saône River in Lyon on one of the only rainy days since I've arrived

Since Dan's arrival, he and I have spent a fair amount of time exploring the city together. For the first few days that I was here I would wander aimlessly, just taking in whatever I could. Now our wanderings are usually task-oriented. Dan need some shoes, so we've spent a lot of time looking for shoes in a size that is apparently abnormally large for French people (as a result of this size issue, we still haven't found shoes that he likes in his size). I needed a watch, so we've probably spent at least 6-10 hours, spread over several days, searching for a watch store we had once walked by late at night, but couldn't find again during the day. Eventually we found it- 10 minutes from our apartment. doh.

Here are some photos from our various wanderings on various afternoons in Lyon. As you can see, the weather has been amazing. It's just now starting to cool down in the evenings, which I'm loving!

We found a shady spot by the Saône one afternoon near a pedestrian bridge

This is my street. It was obviously named after me. Many of you may not know it, but I'm generally known as "Saint Catherine" in most parts of the world. Yeah. Believe it.

Notre-Dame de Fourviére

In the crypt of the Notre-Dame de Fourviére- A Tamil Mother Mary

One building casts shadows onto another in the afternoon on the Fourviére Hill

Dan and I walked up to le Parc de la Tête d'Or, where I studied French in the rose garden. Trés Parfait!

bonjour france, au revoir vegetarianism

2010-09-13T19:50:00.000+06:00

As some of you might know, I've been experimenting with a sort of pseudo-vegetarianism for the last few months. While I've been avoiding pork, beef, chicken, turkey, and most fish, I've still been eating anything that I can feel confident was never pumped full of antibiotics, was not raised or harvested in a horribly unsustainable way, and I've been trying to eat meat just less in general. In Alaska this basically means that I was eating moose, bear, halibut and rockfish that either I caught, my sister or her husband caught, or my sister's friends caught. The idea behind this was that, sure, the animal suffered in its death- that's a reality that you have to accept to be an omnivore- but if I eat it less frequently it can still be more sustainable, and if I know where the food came from, I can greatly reduce the amount of chemicals I inadvertently eat, and hopefully reduce my global footprint somewhat. I know that traveling inherently increases your global footprint, and that in a lot of ways some of my actions will contradict some of my other actions, but in the words of Walt Whitman, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" I think all I can do is make the efforts I can where I can.

That being said, Lyon is considered the gastronomic capital of France, and I've been thinking 'when in lyon...'. For the last few weeks since I decided to travel to France I was wondering what to do about this issue- how do I enjoy all that Lyon has to offer, while still trying to avoid the meats that I was avoiding in the USA? Luckily this issue isn't as big of a deal as it could be if I were permanently residing here. Since I'm only staying here for three months, I figure I can digress from my otherwise obviously iron clad and stead-fast resolutions (har har).

My first few days here I sustained myself by eating some basic bread, tomatoes, and some spreadable laughing cow cheese. I quickly branched out and bought a bag of spaghetti and some spaghetti sauce, and added that to my diet. But, after I slightly recovered from my jet lag, I was realizing that when filling my days with mile upon mile of walking, filling my belly with bread and cheese was simply not going to be sufficient. And so I started eating out.

I haven't tried anything to daring yet, although I did see grenouilles on the menu the other day, but I have been willing to order something even when I don't understand all of the ingredients listed in the description on the menu, which I feel is an accomplishment and a learning experience in of itself.

My first meal out was what, in the USA, we call French onion soup, although here it's just cheese onion soup- gratinée à l'oignon.

I haven't done my research on this, but my impression has always been that this soup was a wintertime soup- eaten when all that was left in the house were some onions, stale bread, and some cheese. This is a brilliant way to eat stale bread- soak it in oniony soup and cover it in cheese. The cheese, which is sprinkled on top, melts into a pretty solid layer that keeps the soup hot. Needless to say I burnt my mouth in several places. It was perfect because I had spent that afternoon wandering about on the hill above Lyon, the wind had been blowing, and I was actually feeling remarkably chilly for it being an August night. The next thing that came was bavette sauce échalote et gratin dauphinois. Basically this was a thin steak smothered in a brown shallot gravy and potatoes smothered in cheese. The sauce on the steak was delicious- I want it on everything- although the steak wasn't as tender as I had hoped. After a few months of politely and sadly declining my mom's dishes such as filet mignon and bleu cheese, I have to admit that the tenderness and quality of the steak didn't *quite* live up to my expectations. I'm not sure if that was intentional, or if the steak should have been more tender, but I do know it was more chewy than I would have liked. The potatoes were delicious, although since everything- the soup, the steak, the potatoes- were all served in such a high quantity, I simply could not finish them- let alone allow myself to get the dessert that was supposed to come with the menu. I was just stuffed- remarkable, since all I had had earlier in the day was a few pieces of bread and some laughing cow cheese.

Since that meal I've gone out a few times with Dan. We got crepes one time- his had tuna and olives on it, and mine had tomato sauce and mozzarella. Last night we somehow ended up at an Italian restaurant where Dan got a caprese salad and I got gnocchi au trois fromages- pretty tasty stuff, and not as heavy as you might expect. Gnocchi can turn out dense, heavy, and almost sickening at times, but this was just right. I even felt okay with dipping some bread in the bleu cheesey sauce after I finished the gnocchi.

Well, that's probably a fair update on eating in Lyon, so far. I will add one more note, which is that you can find chocolate anywhere. I think back to living in India where, sure, you could buy milk chocolate at just about any corner, but you could only get dark chocolate at one shop, down by the temple, where they sold American things like cherrios and DVDs that weren't illegal. Here I can literally walk next-door to the tiny grocery store and be treated to 40 different varieties of dark chocolate and milk chocolate- white chocolate and truffles. I know not everyone out there is a chocolate fan, but for those who are, this is a pretty fun place to live.

Bon apetite!

Bonjour from Lyon!

2010-09-05T02:51:00.006+06:00

Well, this was supposed to have photos, but for some reason it wouldn't post with them. But, you can check them out on facebook. Sorry!

I can't believe I've already been here a week! After a journey which felt surprisingly long for someone who has flown back and forth between Asia and the US a few times in the last year, I arrived directly in Lyon last Friday morning. I went straight to what I was hoping would soon be my apartment, and found that everyone working there was at lunch. So, I sat for an hour in the lobby, waiting, and then threw myself on their mercy. They were so helpful and wonderfully patient with a very tired me who spoke very little French. They sent me to a bank where I would have to open an account and buy home insurance, and then to another building down the street where I could pay my rent in advance. Then, I got to go into my apartment, brush my teeth, and passed out, still in my clothes, for the first time in days. It wasn't until the next night that I got to go out and explore Lyon at all.

Here's a brief introduction to Lyon: It's basically the second largest city in France and is near the alps. On a clear day you can walk to the top of the hill overlooking Lyon and be treated to some views of Mont Blanc in the East. Despite having travelled around France once before, this is my first time in Lyon, and I'm already wondering how it never made it onto my radar before. The city is really beautiful. The older parts are nestled in-between and around two rivers, the Saône on the West and the Rhône on the East. To the West of the Saône is a hill where the Romans settled over two thousand years ago, and you can still find the ruins of the roman amphitheater hidden away on the top of the hill. Also, much more noticeable is the gigantic basilica Fourviere that was built a bit more recently and looms over the city.

The older part of the city, Vieux Lyon, is at the base of this hill, West of the Saône. There you can find a lot of renaissance buildings, a huge Cathedral (St. Jean), and a lot of touristy shops and
restaurants. Maybe it's because I'm used to traveling in Asia, but I'm really impressed with how little English I see written, even in the shops on the touristy Rue St. Jean. If I'm struggling to communicate most people will slip into some English, but for the most part people

are content to speak French with me when I go out. I should also really mention how unbelievably wonderful and helpful everyone here is. Without exception everyone I've spoken to has been really kind and patient with me. One man, who didn't speak any English, tried to direct me to a shop where I could buy an electric adaptor, because he didn't have any in his store. Since I couldn't understand him he literally walked me a block down the street to show me the store he was referring to. People are just really friendly. Another man told me that All French people love Americans. I don't know how true that is, but so far people just seem really excited that I'm here, trying to learn their language and are excited to tell me how to say things like 'thirteen' in French.

So, between the two rivers is a narrow strip of land that I've spent a lot of time wandering about on. There are a few pedestrian streets that are full of street performers, big stores like H&M, and many many ice-cream shops. There are also many smaller winding cobble stone streets where I've seen a plethora of boutiques of every variety. And, of course, all of these streets empty out into beautiful squares with plenty of fountains and cafés where you can rest.

Then, to the East of the Rhône is the more commercial district- sort of the Lyon equivalent of NYC's mid-town, although it's clearly a lot less American, and a lot more European. All of this is within walking distance from where I live, which is about a block to the East of the Rhône. My neighborhood has a lot of tree-lined streets and a ton of halal eateries and south asian clothing and book stores, so I'm basically feeling right at home. On Friday the street was filled with men in Kurthas walking about, although I haven't seen a mosque, or heard the call to prayer.

I've generally just been wandering a lot. My first few days I would just pick something I'd see in the distance- an adorned rooftop a few streets over, or a fountain at the end of a street I was crossing, and just walk towards it. I've been criss-crossing Lyon for a week now, and have gotten a pretty good feel for the different parts of town. I'm still finding new things all the time, but am becoming familiar with the major land-marks and streets. My first few days (and now still, to a certain extent) I've had a lot of errands to put myself on- find a lamp, find a pillow, get an alarm clock, etc. so this has really had me walking a lot- today, for example, Dan and I walked 5 miles without even realizing it.

Dan arrived two days ago, and was immediately on a better sleep schedule than I was. Our apartment is a little studio in a building reserved entirely for students. We live on the bottom floor, and our window looks out on a small road where there's rarely any traffic. We keep the shutter closed a lot because we don't want people looking in, or breaking in when we're away, but with the shutter open we get a good amount of light in our apartment. I tried to buy curtains my second day here, but with my extremely limited French I ended up buying a bed sheet instead (Draps, apparently, doesn't mean drapes...FYI). Ironically, the bed sheet is the perfect size for the window, so it's hanging up, and offering some privacy while still letting some sunlight in.

For those of you who didn't know, I don't really speak any French. When I came here I could probably order a crepe with about 75% confidence that I wasn't going to end up accidentally ordering something else. I'm also pretty much awesome and ordering a bottle of water. Other than that, my French is extremely limited. So I'm here taking French classes for three hours a day. Right now it's pretty basic stuff and is moving a little slow for me, since the basics between french and spanish are pretty similar (tu vs. vous, etc.) What I really want to do is get a better ear for understanding what people are saying to me, and really finally figure out how to pronounce
French! I can pick up just about anything, read it, and get the basic gist of it because it is so similar to Spanish, but I don't know how to pronounce even the most basic words. So, hopefully we're going to really start working on pronunciation in class. I think that my intuition for French vocabulary is pretty good (again, because it's so similar to Spanish), and I could probably get pretty good pretty quickly if I knew at all how to pronounce things. Right now I think that I pronounce things the way that a French character in the Simpsons or something would- some exaggerated caricature of what Americans think that French sounds like. Anyway, fingers crossed that I'll learn some French for real in the next three months!

Well, It seems like this is definitely long enough to suffice! Consider yourself updated!

Missing the USA and everyone a lot, even though France is pretty much awesome.

--- Catie

I hope she dances better than she welds!

2010-03-16T17:30:00.002+06:00

A note about welding in Bangladesh.

As some of you may have gleaned from my blog posts, or general accurate stereotypes of South Asia that you might have heard, this region is not known for it's safety precautions. I would normally make some comment about how perhaps in the United States we are too obsessed with safety precautions. I recently heard that despite Bangladesh's horrendous traffic patterns, the US still has more fatal accidents (citation needed, obviously). However, when it comes to safety precautions for welding, less isn't more.

Maybe it's because of the state of Bangladesh's economy, or maybe it's because the buildings are not built to last, and constantly need repair work, or maybe it's because Bangladesh doesn't compartmentalize and hide away the grittier elements of life the way we do in the US, but not a day passes by when I don't see someone welding something. When I drive down the streets a flash of white light catches my eye as we pass men working on the side of the road. When we take a trip to the ship breaking yard, the smell of hot metal permeates the entire scene and many welders can be spotted. Right now, as I sit on my balcony, a hissing sound draws my attention to the building across the way where a man is welding on the roof.

I'm definitely no expert on welding, but it's my impression that serious safety issues are involved in the practice. The hot flames and metal can lead to serious burns while the bright light can lead to permanent eye damage. In the United States, I believe people wear protective gear on their body, arms, hands, head, eyes, and feet. In Bangladesh most or all of this is disregarded. No doubt there is slim to no availability of this protective gear, or where it does exist it's too expensive for most projects.

The man who is working on the building near mine is in sandals, and a t-shirt and is squatting down peering at the area he is welding. With his left hand he sometimes lifts an eye guard to his face while he does the welding with his right hand, but sometimes he neglects to do this. He has no gloves on.

I wish I knew more about the economics and philosophy of Bangladesh. While of course in the USA we also talk about people being 'expendable' in certain jobs, there's a general attitude that human life itself isn't quite as expendable. If it comes down to either a job being done and a life lost, or a life saved and the job never being done, we usually choose the latter. Maybe we could assert that this solution, which obviously isn't really a solution at all, is the reason why we outsource and globalize. The life of a citizen in the US isn't expendable, but the life of an illegal immigrant in Southern California, or of a factory worker in Bangladesh is one we have less of a problem labeling as expendable.

There's no doubt that working at the ship breaking yards is dangerous. Not only are workers there working literally up to their knees in toxic waste, but they are also engaging in completely dangerous activities. Despite the danger and the cost to the environment, Bangladesh's economy relies on ship breaking. A few lives lost benefits thousands, perhaps millions, in theory. But is it worth it? I heard a figure recently that once a person starts going through trash in Bangladesh (to pick out valuable things and sell them- like paper, metal, bottles, etc.), they have 15 years left in their life. Do we just say, it's a rough job, but somebody's got to do it? I want to know what the cost would be to make these jobs more safe. How much less money would Bangladesh make if they ensured the safety of all of their ship breaking workers?

I think it's safe to say that condoning the safety and methods of these jobs is essentially classist, but at what point will we admit that ignoring this global classism is also wrong?

The Joys of Power Outages

2010-03-15T18:16:00.003+06:00

I remember when I was little on a few occasions during big wind storms in the Alaskan spring, with a sudden flicker the lights in our house would go out, and our world would plunge into darkness. Nothing was more exciting than rummaging through the drawers in the dining room and pulling out every candle and candlestick holder we could find until our house was filled with that soft glow and that waxy spice smell of candles burning. Maybe I have always been a little bit of a romantic, but for some reason I loved it when the power went out. Even today I feel like the proper thing to do by candlelight is to read an old dusty codex with a clay mug of cider nearby. However, I may also attribute some of these romantic notions to the infrequency of power outages in Alaska while I was growing up.

In Bangladesh, the power goes out probably 5 times a day. I haven't kept track, but several times a day the light cuts out, the UPS starts beeping from my dining room, and I wait patiently for the generator to kick in. Somewhere from a few seconds to a few minutes later a churchurchurchur starts from six floors below my apartment, the unmistakable smell of gasoline wafts in through the window, and the lights come back on. This has become such a normal part of the day that I hardly blink an eye when it happens. However, as you can imagine, for certain activities, constant light is absolutely necessary. Cooking is one of these activities. If I'm chopping vegetables, I can simply pause and wait until the lights come back on. However, if I'm making french fries, popping pop corn, or any number of other cookng activities, (probably equally as unhealthy as french fry and popcorn making) the risk of burning whatever I'm working on is infuriating. On a few occasions the risk of burning myself is also in the forefront of my mind.

It's amazing to think of all the things I've taken for granted for so many years of my life. A nearly constant and unwavering supply of electricity is definitely on that list.

Traffic Jam from Hell

2010-02-26T15:32:00.003+06:00

Last night I dropped Dan off at the airport for his first leg on his journey back to the USA, and on my way back found myself in one of the worst traffic jams I have ever seen. This was a traffic jam of epic proportions, which provided me with wonderful opportunities to people watch, practice reading Bangla signs, and breathe in fumes (three of my favorite things to do in Bangladesh). I know it's probably not usual to find respite in a traffic jam, but it offered my mind the perfect opportunity to fall back into Bangladesh and avoid turning the CNG around and getting on the plane with Dan. Ironically, if I had done this, I would have ended up in Dhaka faster than I ended up back at my apartment.

The drive, which usually lasts 45 minutes, took a good 2 hours (a good portion of which time we spent on the opposite side of the road, driving against traffic) to return me to the intersection near my apartment. At first, things seemed to be normal- the streets were full of cars, busses, trucks, CNGs, rickshaws, cows, and goats, all moving in their own individual directions, but moving nonetheless. However, it was only after about ten minutes of driving time that my friendly CNG driver and I found ourselves stopped, engine off, between a flatbed truck and a crowded bus with a flaming soccer ball painted on the side. At this point my driver turned around to me, said something in Bangla and then said: Jam. We smiled knowingly at each other, and then watched what we could see of the scene around us.

What's amazing about Bangladeshi traffic is that it's not "bumper to bumper" like we say in the US. On one side of the road there is an innumerable amount of lanes. If there are three huge trucks side to side, there are three lanes. If there is one truck and 6 rickshaws and two motorcycles, then there are 9 lanes. The number of lanes is fluid, based on the mode of transportation around you. Also, as traffic moves in one "lane", rickshaws, CNGs, and other small vehicles will angle themselves perpendicular to the "flow" of traffic in an attempt to edge their way into the mobile lane. They also do this maneuver when they're trying to get better views of if and when the traffic will move, and if they're trying to get out of the way of a truck's exhaust pipe. Luckily for me I had a great driver and I only once or twice was caught in stopped traffic, sitting next to a huge truck's pipe blowing exhaust right into my face (in these instances I leaned out the other side of the CNG and gasped for a breath of air and then pushed my dupatha into my face to offer some relief).

I've heard that in general the rest of the world doesn't do lines as well as North Americans. In the US if someone cuts in line it's grounds for an 'excuse me, please... there's a line', or if you're in NY, it's possible grounds for a public display of your dominant attitude. There's little to no indication that I've seen that Bangladeshi's have any inclination towards this kind of mentality towards lines. If you're at the grocery store trying to check out, someone may feel like they have fewer items than you, so they simply push ahead of you and put their stuff on the counter (often with your stuff, so you then have to specify what is yours and what is theirs). Even at the orderly airports lines are fluid and flexible. Traffic is no exception. The vehicle behind you, be it a rickshaw, CNG, or car, will feel no qualm with nudging you forward, just to let you know that they're there. This results in any number of touches and bumps- what we would call fender benders in the US- but no hard feelings! At one point when my CNG was blocking the way for a bus to go by in the opposite direction (whoops, our bad), the driver of the bus took a huge scrub brush, leaned out the window, and gave one hard THWACK on the roof of our CNG. My driver then yelled forward to the CNGs and rickshaws in front of him and, aided by a man trying to cross the street, everyone moved, was moved, or was pushed forward the several inches it took so that the bus could pass.

I loved sitting in traffic last night. The exhaust was brutal, and I came home feeling like smoked salmon of a particularly nasty variety, but it was great. If I wasn't stuck between two busses, the views were fabulous. The markets were opening along the edges of the streets and I could watch women out buying fish, vegetables, and fruits. The vendors had lit candles and stuck them into their products so that people could see better (what better way to show what you're selling!). At any give point on my side of the median would be a truck, a bus with a hundred people in it, several CNGs and rickshaws, and then me in my CNG, able still to reach out and pick a cauliflower out of a vendor's basket if I wanted (makes you really realize what kind of pollution those veggies are exposed to, right?).

There were only several times when driving on the wrong side of the road almost resulted in serious accidents (when people crossing the road wouldn't look towards us, assuming all traffic would be going in the "correct" direction, and would step out into the road). When we finally got to GEC moore near my apartment the driver got out and immediately turned down someone looking for a ride. I think he and I were both really exhausted. I ended paying him waaaay more than normal, but he kept me alive and entertained.

Mother Language Day

2010-02-21T14:14:00.003+06:00

Happy International Mother Language Day! In celebration, the country of Bangladesh has made it impossible to think, let alone speak.

International Mother Language day is a pretty big deal in Bangladesh, so I understand... but STILL! it is soooo loud!

Chittagong Sounds

2010-01-22T18:48:00.002+06:00

Dan and I live on the sixth floor, but that doesn't really remove us from the many sounds of the city below. Each day, five times a day, our entire apartment fills with the call to prayer. Whenever there are pujas going on at the hindu temple down the road our apartment fills with the sounds of bells and songs. The *tring tring* of bicycle rickshaws and the surprisingly melodious truck horns can be heard 20 hours a day. During the day we hear goats bleating and cows mooing. At night we hear dogs fighting. Today while taking a nap I was awoken for a moment by a parade passing by. Just now an unfamiliar noise came through the window into the living room where Dan was blogging, looking up words on his online dictionary, and I was drawing. I asked, 'what is that?' and Dan asked, 'is it human or animal?'. I guess we'll never know.

Eid-al-Adha

2009-11-29T10:02:00.008+07:00

EID MUBARAK!

This weekend is Eid-al-Adha. The holiday is based around the story of Ibrahim and his son (either Ishmael or Ishak), or Abraham and Isaac as many Christians know them (an interesting point is that in Islam it's apparently not specified that it's Ishak, unlike in Christianity where it is definitely Isaac).

For those of my friends who may be a little rusty on their sunday school stories, very briefly- Abraham was told by god to go into the wilderness and sacrifice his son. He has his son carry the wood for the burnt offering, and he carried the knife. The son asked, 'where's the sheep' and Abraham told him, 'god will provide it'. Then they got to this clearing and Abraham somehow manages to tie up his son and put him on the altar. Just as he was about to lower the knife to sacrifice his son, an angel came and told him that he has proved that he is god fearing, and pointed out that there's a ram nearby that he can sacrifice instead.

The story in Islam is a little different, but the basic points are all the same. So, to commemorate this story, Muslims have the holiday Eid-al-Adha, which basically means festival of sacrifice. We had heard a lot about the festival, but weren't totally sure what to expect. I knew that a lot of animals were sacrificed, and that there would be a lot of blood, but nothing quite prepared me for what I saw yesterday.

I should start out by saying that in the last week or so in Chittagong I saw many many decorated cows. I saw cows with flowers around their necks, cows with funny hats, and cows that were actually entirely covered in hot pink or silver glitter. I also saw some goats and sheep, but they were less decorated.

Yesterday morning Dan and I woke up to an early call to prayer when it was still dark. I lay in bed with my eyes closed and I almost felt like I was in India. I could hear cows on the streets below, and dogs barking. There was no traffic (which is quite unusual for port-city Chittagong), and there was bollywood dance music blaring from somewhere in the distance. Dan and I got out of bed when the sun was coming up and were greeted by a new prayer over the loud speakers from the mosques near our apartment: 'Allah akbar allah akbar allah akbar Eid Mubarak Eid Mubarak Eid Mubarak!' I had read the night before that this prayer preceded the sacrifice, so Dan and I hurriedly got dressed (me in my most conservative salwar-kameez with my head covered), and ran out the door. We walked over to Panchlaish (the other AUW apartment) where we met Denise. The only people we saw out on the streets were men walking towards the mosques. People were bundled up because the weather has cooled down a bit, and mist was still lingering along the slanted Chittagonian streets.

Denise told us that she knew of a residential area near Panchlaish. We headed off and were quickly in streets surrounded by many cows, goats, and the occasional sheep. Families were out photographing their huge cows and bathing them. They took care to heat up water, add soap, and wash the bulls head to toe. The animals were also given water to drink, it seemed. Soon the streets were all covered with water, as if it had rained, when really it's been dry for weeks.

A cow about to be bathed

A woman and her baby, with their family's cow

A decorated cow, watching me

A large cow and a Bengali man

Sheep and cows. A typical street scene.

A cow and bricks

A huge cow

A goat with a flower lei

A cow staring me down

We spent several hours, I think, wandering around the winding streets of this one residential area. We met up with a group of young women who eagerly chatted with us in our limited Bangla. One girl, named Pakhi, decided that it was her duty to be our personal tour-guide, and spent much of the next hour or so hunting out the largest cows in the neighborhood and taking us to them. We were quickly surrounded by a pack of children, and were somehow just as much of a spectacle as the cows themselves.

A cow and the posse of people following us around

What is interesting is that the value of the cow isn't measured in its usefulness as a worker, or give or milk or life. It is simply the largest cows. As a result there is a tendency to fatten up the cows with uria or steroids, until the meat is actually not healthy to eat. There also seemed to be some politics involved, as the neighbors all gathered on the streets to check out each other's cows, and show off their own. As we wandered to one huge cow to photograph it, someone else would clearly get a little jealous and pull us over to his cow. As a result we saw a lot of cows, and spent a lot of time demonstratively admiring each and every one.

A stubborn cow refusing to go where they wanted him. I think they won out in the end.

Sorry, Cow.

Dan with some big cows!

Pakhi, who made herself our personal tour guide.

Eventually we wandered by a mosque, which was filled to the brim with men and a sermon was going on. A few minutes later we heard the call to prayer start, and suddenly the street was filled with men sprinting and being taken by rickshaws, in an attempt to get to the mosque in time. The sacrifice cannot be done if it is not preceded by a prayer, and it was clear that everyone was trying to get to the mosque before the prayer was over. We wandered by the mosque again and noticed that this time it was so full that people were actually praying in the streets!

Men Running to the mosque:

We continued to wander around, but pretty quickly after this we found ourselves in the middle of the sacrifice itself. The streets that had so recently been filled with living cows, goats, and sheep, now served as the altars for the sacrifices of these animals.

I don't want to get too explicit and graphic for those of you who might not want to see or hear about it. So you might not want to read on, or look at the following pictures if you're a little weak-stomached. I had originally intended to do a "read more" button on Blogger, but I can't figure out how to do it. sorry.

Since coming home yesterday, I have done a little research on halal methods of killing animals, and it, for the most part, confirms what I saw yesterday. The entire method is done in such a way that there is less blood in the body (because blood is not halal), so that the animal does not suffer, and so that the meat is kept clean and undamaged. Despite how disturbing this whole event was to see in a lot of ways, the idea is that it is the most humane way to kill animals. Of course, like anything, this is a controversy. Some of the information I found online said that some people say that since it takes up to two minutes for the animal to die it should be considered inhumane. I read this and balked because yesterday we saw cows bleeding to death for upwards of twenty minutes.

Cows on the street bleeding to death

Cow on the street bleeding to death, and a man preparing to skin the cow.

Dan photographing dead goats, with a cow being skinned in the background

The way the sacrifice works is that a group of men work together to tie the cow's legs together and push it over onto its side. I don't want to get too sentimental, but there is something automatically disturbing about watching or hearing a cow fall over. It's such an unnatural sound that it alone is notable from yesterday's events.

Once the cow is on its back, it is killed. It seemed like there would be one man per area of street doing the actually slitting of the throat. He wore a white kurta and white taqiyah on his head. It's my theory that since the animal has to be killed in a very specific way in order to be halal, someone who is an expert in this does it for all of the families to insure that no one accidentally kills the animal in a haraam (forbidden) way. Therefore, this man had a lot of work to do.

The man who did the actual killing, going from one animal to the next. If you enlarge this you can see there is a lot of blood on his right arm. Dan watched from the sidelines.

One family would work to secure their cow on its back, with its throat pulled taught and its head thrust back against the street pavement. This man would then rush over and in a few swift motions almost entirely sever the animal's head from its body. The head is still attached by the spine, because it is important that the spine is not cut through. The idea behind this method is twofold. One, it is considered more humane because the animal will no longer have blood going to its brain and will thus black out, and it will not have to feel the pain of having its spine severed. Two, it's important that the animal's body is rid of the extra blood, as blood is haraam in Islam.

Cow bleeding to death in the sunlight

A cow dying and streaking the hilly street with its blood.

This, you may imagine, was a little hard to watch. Once a cow was dead I didn't feel squeamish about the families skinning it, or cutting it up (although I didn't see much of the cutting up). It was only the part where the animal goes from alive to dead that was upsetting to me. My breaking point came when a cow in front of us was cut and its jugular started spurting blood four feet in the air- in our direction. We quickly backed away, but found ourselves backing into a cow that was on the ground, bleeding out, kicking, and trying to breathe. I suddenly felt very trapped, and decided I wanted to go home. Denise and I ventured back through the maze of blood stained streets and dying cows, but Dan stayed until the cows were completely disassembled, and the streets were washed mostly clean. While there he received some dozen invitations from friendly families who wanted to share their feast with him (unfortunately those feasts happen at 2 in the morning!)

Denise retreating down the blood stained road

Sweet families keeping us company

An adorable boy up early and bundled up for the day's events.

At one point a man who spoke English asked us if we were enjoying the sight. We politely said, 'yes, it's very interesting,' but then asked if it was okay to be there and watch. He replied by saying that it was definitely okay, and we were free to have some of the meat later on. We were constantly being smiled at by passers by, and were surrounded by women (who would not have to do any of the work until later when they would have to cut up the meat and cook the feast).

All of the meat is cut up and divided into thirds. One third stays with the family. One third is given to relatives. One third is given to those in need. The skin is also used for leather. Later in the day Dan and I saw the only wasted part of the animal, the guts, being pulled out of the trash piles by stray dogs. Literally everything was used in some way by something.

I do feel like such an American city girl right now. I am used to buying meat pre-packaged, wrapped up in cellophane, and weighed- the inedible parts disposed of long before I arrived. I'm not saying that's better. A part of me feels like if you're going to eat meat, you should be able to face the fact that you're taking an animal's life, and that that action is probably going to be disturbing in some way no matter what. I think my sister may have said once that she would never eat an animal that she couldn't kill herself, and I admire her for that.

I wrote once before about the transparency that you find in everything in Bangladesh. Before, I was writing in the context of buying spices at a little shop, and the men tasted each spice until they found cinnamon for me. Again today, I'm thinking about transparency. I know how these cows were killed, and what they went through. I saw the face of the man who killed them. I know that man spent time before hand, praying to god and appreciating the life he was about to take. This is so vastly different from the US where when you buy ground beef you're probably eating meat from 15 different cows from 3 different countries and 6 different states. The cows were probably killed in an assembly line style, broken legged and shot through with electricity until they were stunned to death. This is clearly not any better than what I saw yesterday in Bangladesh. I had to somehow admire the little boys playing, the way children do, as their fathers and brothers killed animals in the street in front of them. Death is a part of life that people do not, or cannot, shy away from here.

I don't want to get into a rant about how in the US I am more willing to eat meat because I am distanced from the animal, and how that is like people being able to kill humans with guns when they wouldn't be able to do it with their own hands (although there's something to be said there, I think). I do just want to say that it was an incredible experience- emotionally provocative as well as thought provoking. I think once is enough and I wouldn't go out of my way to see this same event again, but I can definitely say I learned a lot, and came out of the day with a lot to think about. I feel like I have gone 24 years without completely knowing what it means to be an omnivore.

Sarah in the Fish Market

2009-11-29T09:54:00.002+07:00

The other day we went out in search of decorated cows for Eid, but instead wandered into an awesome market place. At first we were surrounded by fruit and vegetable vendors (and I bought about 12 feet of sugar cane), but the streets grew more and more narrow. As the streets narrowed we were suddenly treated to the pungent odor of dried fish. Ahead of us the stalls all changed from fruits (and flies) to dried fish (and flies). We met intersection after intersection as the small winding lanes came together around us and stalls of dried fish sprawled out in every direction. The vendors were friendly and excited that we had somehow found our way into their section of the market. We continued on and were delighted to suddenly smell, behind the dried fish, the smell of Christmas- cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom... we turned left and the path narrowed to a one man walk way framed on each side by spice vendors. The smell was overpowering and wonderful- chili, turmeric, onion powder, coriander powder, fenugreek, cumin, cumin powder, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon sticks, cinnamon powder, cloves... it was wonderful. We trudged on, treating our noses to the smells from around us, but soon found that we were in a fresh fish market. Stall after stall sold the same types of fresh fish on ice. Only after a few minutes did we realize that the buckets full of fish actually had live fish in them. Sometimes the fish were barely in an inch of water. I wonder if this has to do with halal food, since fish that die in water are not halal.

As we passed by one such stand of fresh and live fish, the vendor motioned us over, and tried to hand Sarah a fish. This is what happened:

More Crows at the Call To Prayer

2009-11-22T15:36:00.002+07:00

As promised, here's a better video of the crows during the sunset call to prayer. This was taken yesterday by dan. These crows are crazy.

Halloween in Bandarban

2009-11-21T19:24:00.032+07:00

A few weeks ago Dan and I teamed up with Polly and Denise and ventured out to the Chittagong Hill Tracts for a weekend getaway. The Hill Tracts are considered the most "remote" area of Bangladesh. The people who live there are generally not considered "Bengali", but are local tribes that have been in the area for a long time. Whereas I feel like most people in Bangladesh look like they're from South Asia, the people in the Hill Tracts look more like they're from South East Asia, so maybe the area could be considered as sort of a junction between South and South East Asia. Beyond looks, there are some other interesting differentiators between the people in most of Bangladesh and the people in the Hill Tracts. For example, although most people in Bangladesh are Muslim, in the Hill Tracts Buddhism and animism are widely practiced. Additionally, in most of Bangladesh it seems that women have to dress extremely conservatively- sometimes wearing the burka, or simply just covering from head to foot, or at least neck to foot. However, in the Hill Tracts, many women wore sarong-like fabric wrapped around their bodies, with bare chests covered in dozens of beaded necklaces.

I'm not totally great on the history, but I know that there are a lot of politics that have been caught up in the region, which have caused the area to be highly scrutinized by the military and government authority in Bangladesh. As a result, before we left Chittagong we had to register with the government and tell them that us four foreigners were planning on going, and when we got there we had to sign in, and before we left we had to tell them we were leaving. I think there's technically a rule that you must have a military escort with you at all times, but we just threw that out the window and hiked around on our own.

We arrived at night after a grueling winding three hour van ride, directed by an aspiring Bengali race car driver (I'm sure). I'll spare you all the car-sick details, but it's safe to say that by the time we got there I definitely needed some recovery time. We were greeted with a delicious dinner and then shown to our rooms. We had two rooms in the same bungalow. There were two options where we were staying- concrete, or tribal. We went for tribal. The bungalow was entirely made out of bamboo (except for the bathroom, which was concrete). It was really amazing- built with bamboo supports and then covered with woven bamboo so you could walk around in it easily.

Dan taking some photos in our Bamboo bungalow in Bandarban the morning after we arrived

Dan and I crawled under our purple mosquito netting, turned off the lights, and were in outer space. Lights from the pathway outside streamed in through the holes in the bamboo weave and shot stars all over our room. They were coming from the walls, ceiling, and floor, and were scattered on every surface, including our mosquito netting. It was definitely like sleeping in the Milky Way, or at least a planetarium!

The next day I woke up to find that I had been mistaken the night before- our bungalow, which I thought was on somewhat even ground, was actually on a hill. This meant that during the day you could see through the bamboo weave and see that you were walking over nothing!

Morning light streaming in through the floor of our bungalow

I went out onto the balcony and we were in a cloud. I couldn't see more than a few yards out into the day. It was such a dreamy change from what I wake up to in Chittagong. There were only the occasional scattered jungle sounds and the thick green leaves popping up from the fog surrounding us.

Morning view in a cloud

A few hours later the fog had lifted and we were greeted with this view of the valley below us.

Our bungalow in the morning after we went and grabbed some breakfast

After grabbing some breakfast we decided to go out for a hike. We were told that the best way to get to town was actually to hike down to the river and catch a boat. One of the helpful people at our resort drew us a map. Some of the landmarks on the map were "banana aria" (I think that's Banana area), "large mango tree" and "small water passing". We knew we were in for a good walk if the landmarks included all natural features.

We were pointed in the right direction and off we went. Whatever we were expecting in terms of a path was definitely a lot more than what we encountered. At times we had to ask ourselves- is this the path, or is this a goat trail? because we encountered several goats wandering about. But true to the map, we found ourselves pretty soon in a banana aria.

Dan and Denise in the banana aria

Banana leaves in the banana aria

Denise making her way down out of the banana aria

The next landmark was a large mango tree. When I was in India there was a mango tree right outside of my apartment, so it was up to me to recognize our next landmark. I started to doubt myself, or our friend's map, when after quite awhile we hadn't found what I was looking for. Then suddenly the banana trees cleared and we found ourselves face to face with a Huge mango tree. I wish I had a picture.

After the mango tree we had to find what looked like a small river. Now, if someone in the US draws you a map in which you follow a small river, you might assume that the path goes along next to the river. This is not the case in Bangladesh. We spent a minute or two looking for the path along the stream, but then realized that the stream was the path. Again, in the US this wouldn't be too problematic because the stream would be filled with pebbles or stones that you could gain traction on. But, in Bangladesh there isn't much more than just highly plastic silt. Polly ended up taking one for the team as she attempted to get down into the stream, slipped on the silty bank, and slid down on her side. Although our trip down the stream was really only a few hundred feet (at most), it took us quite awhile because we were being so careful not to slip. At times we grabbed bamboo and tried to push against the banks with it to gain some leverage against the near lack of friction in the stream-bed. At one point Polly grabbed some vines hanging from the jungle above us and just slid down the stream, Tarzan style. We basically all managed to somehow stay pretty dry, which was impressive considering!

Dan and Denise slowly and carefully making their way down the slippery stream bed

Polly looking thrilled to finally be at the end of the stream-trail.

Now how to get up this embankment?

Dan and Denise working their way down another steep slippery slope later on in the hike

Dan in a second banana aria, taking a moment to take it all in

After we emerged from the jungle, we were face to face with a wide slow shallow river. We were told that it wouldn't be difficult to find a boat to take us to town, and that the journey on the boat would be about 250 taka and would take about 1 and a half hours. We walked out into a field where a man was chopping away with a machete. We saw him and told him where we wanted to go. He stood up, yelled across the river, and a man on the other side climbed into a shallow wooden boat and started pushing across the river using a large stick. After minimal negotiation (we were in no position to negotiate, really), we carefully climbed into the boat, and off we went. I didn't take many photos while in the boat because I simply wanted to just take it all in. If you want to see some really amazingly beautiful photos of the life by the river in Bandarban (which you should), definitely check out Dan's blog entry about it. For now, here are a few photos that I took:

Cows grazing by the slow river

Polly taking with our helpful farmer

Dan emerging from the jungle

Women working by the river

Our boat driver, pushing us away from the riverbank

The entire journey down the river was one of the most amazing things I've ever done. We simply sat in this carved out wooden boat and watched a fascinating world roll by us. We saw many women washing clothes, washing themselves, and washing pots and pans at the water's edge. We saw men working- throwing fishing nets into the river, looking for gas, building bamboo rafts, and transporting goods. We saw dozens of children playing- climbing up onto the cliffs and jumping in, swimming with their friends and families, chasing after our boat, and even one kid rolling around in mud until he was filthy and then flipping into the river. It was a beautiful, hot, and amazing ride.

We got to the town of Bandarban, or "mox's bazar" (I'm not really sure if this is the true name, or the part of the town we were dropped off in). We were totally exhausted from sitting on the boat, and immediately grabbed some food to eat. At one point when we were wandering around trying to find a place to eat and I got kind of tired. I sat down on the sidewalk in front of a closed jewelry shop, and Denise and Polly went on to look down the street for a restaurant. Dan and I sat there for about five minutes, but then decided we could venture off after Polly and Denise. Now, this is a small town, so we figured we could probably just walk in the direction they went in and find them pretty quickly. Unfortunately for Dan and me we immediately lost their scent. We walked down the street but pretty quickly came to a big intersection. Not knowing what to do we stood there for awhile hoping that Polly and Denise would magically emerge. In a moment of desperation I turned to a man selling nuts on the side of the street, pointed to Dan and me, and then gestured 'two', implying, 'have you seen two other white people around here?'. The man pointed down the street and off we went. We did this every hundred feet or so, and at every intersection, until we eventually found Denise and Polly, who had been doing the same thing looking for us. It was basically like following a trail of white-people breadcrumbs.

The town was pretty laid back. There were a few people out selling things, but for the most part it was fairly quite in the heat of the afternoon. After eating we decided to walk out to the Buddhist temple that was outside of town. The walk took quite awhile, but went through some beautiful countryside. We were greeted by a monk in a rickshaw, who quickly and gladly descended and walked the remaining length of the journey with us. Dan and I quickly fell behind because we kept stopping to take in the scenery, take photos, or hang out with little children (that last one was mostly Dan).

A cow outside of town

The river

A cow in a boat, and a calf watching curiously

Men selling vegetables in front of the mosque.

Thread for sale. I bought blue, pink, and green.

Rickshaw in the shade

Dan trying to catch up after no doubt taking some amazing photos of children

A wood-working store front

Some chickens

Polly and Denise shopping in Bandarban at night

There's a lot of Che paraphernalia in Bangladesh.

Denise and a cow, taking a stroll through town at night.

The golden pagoda off in the distance

At the golden pagoda, with the sunset and moon in the background.

The monks' dog.

When we arrived at the golden pagoda, we were free to wander around and look at everything. The pagoda was up on a hill and looked out over the whole valley around us. We got there right at dusk, which was an amazing and calm time to arrive. I spent a lot of time walking around the pagoda, looking at all of the different statues and gongs and carvings. I wish I knew more about Buddhism though, because there were a few really interesting paintings and carvings that were clearly related to a story that I was unfamiliar with.

After a few hours at the pagoda we took some rickshaws back to town. It was halloween eve and I managed to look up just in time to see a giant fruit bat fly in-front of the moon.

The next day we decided we should stick around our hotel a little bit, take some hikes in the area, and head back to Chittagong before it was too late in the day. Little did we know that we were about to hike up up up up up and become so sweaty. Denise had the brilliant idea of wearing the sweaty clothes from the day before, and we all wisely followed suit.

Denise and Polly and Tiger Hill in the background. That's where we're hiking!

Denise, Polly, and some local children passing each other

on the "brick road" that we were following.

A small bungalow off the path

Dan looking probably much more optimistic than he was feeling about hiking up that hill.

Little flowers

And then things got steep...

...and our brick road deteriorated

...but the little flowers remained.

The view from the top. If you enlarge this you can see the golden pagoda in the distance.

Another view from the top

Denise showing the hard work she just went through

A very sweaty me

A very sweaty Dan.

A very tired Polly

Green! Blue! Clouds!

Polly and the vista.

A wandering goat at the top of Tiger Hill

A snack shop at the top of Tiger Hill. These shops are actually incredibly common all over Bangladesh. Want chips? You probably won't have to go more than 50 yards without being able to find them in one of these little shops.

Denise on the swing-set at the top of Tiger Hill

The next step in our journey was to hike down to this village.

Little white and yellow flowers on the way down

The final steps down to the village. After getting there we didn't take any photos.

The village was really small- just a few dozen families probably. The huts were made out of bamboo, mostly. A few men sat around, but mostly I saw women and children in the village. One woman came out and sat and talked with us for awhile. She spoke a little Bangla, and we spoke a little Bangla, but that was the extent of our ability to communicate. Some women were fanning their babies who slept in cribs hanging from the rafters of their porches. An old woman sat and watched us from the stoop of her bungalow as we tried to identify the grain that was spread out to dry in the sun. The woman was wearing a sarong tied around herself, had dozens of beads around her neck, had spikes going through the top part of her ears and the bottom of her ears had been stretched to fit in a thick stud, she had at least a dozen silver bracelets on, and a nose piercing. Like I said, we didn't take any photos, but here's an example of the adornment I'm referring to.

We had some candy, which we gave to the children in the village. I felt bad coming into the village and not having anything to contribute, and then giving candy to children with distended stomaches. I felt especially bad when the children then unwrapped the candies, popped them in their mouths, and then dropped the plastic wrappers on the ground. At least Denise went and picked them up.

The village was surrounded by some farms, which I'm guessing is the village's main export and source of income. We had also been told that this was a particularly impoverished community. We didn't stay long, feeling like we had nothing to offer these people, and like they knew we had nothing to offer them, and we started the trek back up to our hotel.

bungalow in a farm

Some yellow flowers

Back to the main road where we could catch a break in the shade and have some water!

Crows and the Call to Prayer

2009-11-21T18:49:00.003+07:00

So as long as I'm dredging up media from the past, I thought I would post this video from Ramadan.

Every night in Bangladesh, as the sun starts to drift behind the low tree-covered hills in the distance, swarms of crows take to the skies. I'm not sure how to exactly articulate the mass of crows that I see every day out of my window, or off my balcony. One way would be to use a simile- the crows at sunset in Bangladesh are like bees buzzing away at a hive. If you've ever stumbled upon a bee-hive at the foot of a tree in a forest you know what I'm talking about. At first you see one bee sprout up, then another, and then within seconds there are hundreds of black spots darting around the base of the tree. Another parallel example would be if you've ever lived in a hot place and left fruit out for way too long. When you finally decide that the time has come to do something about your rotting banana, and you pick it up, fruit flies swarm from out of nowhere until the air is dusted with their black little bodies. This is what crows in Bangladesh are like at sundown.

I may have more videos to come on this subject, thanks to Dan taking some video tonight as we sat out on the balcony drinking tea, but for now you can watch the video below. This video is mostly interesting for two reasons- Reason number one- check out the crows. There are a Lot of them. Reason number two- this video was taken during Ramadan when the call to prayer each night was preceded by a siren informing any fasting Muslims that they could now eat for the first time since sunrise. So this video starts off with that siren, continues with the call to prayer, and is punctuated by the flapping and flighting of crows throughout.

Garment Factory

2009-11-21T17:52:00.011+07:00

Well, this is a blast from the Bangladeshi past, but I thought I would upload some photos about the garment factory that we were able to visit here in Chittagong a few months ago.

For most people, what comes to mind when I say "Bangladesh" is natural disasters, extreme poverty, Islam, and garment factories. I would hazard a guess that most of us in the states have something in our closets that is 'adorned' with the Made In Bangladesh tag. On one trip we were able to go to a warehouse full of boxes awaiting export- many of these said Wal-Mart or Macy's on the sides. What I also thought was interesting to see is that a single box would contain dozens or hundreds of the exact same item, going to the exact same store: Macy's- Nude Bra Medium. It really is amazing to think about how much is produced in the world, and how much is consumed, and where all of that production is happening, and where a lot of that consuming is happening. I'm not even trying to start a discussion on how in the US we may have a tendency to over-consume. I'm simply trying to say that there is a LOT of stuff in the world.

What I found really interesting, though, was going to a garment factory. We were invited to go by the owner of the factory, who is part of the same family that owns the ship-breaking yard we went to, and a tea plantation that we were invited to, (and also maybe a shrimp farm?- this family is a pretty big deal). The man who invited us in encouraged us to talk to the workers, and to take photos. He told me that the women got paid a fair salary, and that they got paid overtime if they worked for more than 8 hours or if they worked weekends.

Here's a general shot of the garment factory. You can see that the majority of the people doing the sewing are women, and that the supervisor is a man. I should note that there were a few female supervisors, but for the most part they were mostly men. When we first walked into the factory a few women stopped sewing and cutting to watch us, but were quickly and quietly told that they had to get back to work. Later it seemed like they mostly were encouraged to talk to us. You can also see in this photo that mostly there is good lighting and good ventilation in the factory- one wall was all gigantic fans going outside, and the other was all open windows.

A woman sorting through hundreds of the same plaid shirt before they get shipped off to Wal-Mart.

I don't really understand this sign. Good to see that they have smoking detectors at least, regardless of what a "hit detector" might be.

This is a photo of the room where the women can eat during their break. I have read about garment factories where these rooms are kept locked, along with the bathroom- so it was nice to see that at least while we were there the doors were all open and unlocked and everything.

The Exit is that way.

Women sitting on the tables and cutting out patterns, I think.

Buttons or grommets or something?

Some female garment factory workers smiling as we passed.

The whole factory was really interesting and moving. I've read a few articles for classes and for personal interest's sake about garment factory workers in South and South-East Asia, so it was really interesting to go see one first hand. My cynical side wonders what it's like when foreign visitors aren't there, but it did seem like the women were treated pretty fairly.

Just something to think about the next time you're shopping in the US.

Go Tigers!

2009-11-10T22:08:00.002+07:00

Last week Dan and I got the awesome opportunity to attend an international cricket match! The teams were Bangladesh vs. Zimbabwe. I would love to be the kind of writer that could just whip out an awesome run-down on the entire match, highlighting the most riveting points and downfalls so that my readers could feel the same tension we felt in the last 10 minutes, or the elation that simply filled the stands when Bangladesh won. Sadly, I'm just not that kind of writer. Plus, while the match lasted for 9 hours and probably provided many satisfying, story-worthy moments, I only went to the last two hours or so.

I'm definitely no cricket expert. In fact, with the exception of one rainy day when I was stranded in my hotel bar in Chennai (which turned out to be awesome) and the movie Lagaan, I haven't watched much cricket. Luckily, Dan has lived in Australia, and had some time the day of to do a quick refresher course online so he caught me up to speed on all of the nitty gritty details of how to play (or watch) cricket.

On the drive out to the stadium we went through parts of Chittagong that I had never been to. One interesting stretch of road was lined with gigantic mountains of waste. But, when I looked closer I could see that it was all organized- so there was one gigantic mountain that was all old shoes, or one gigantic mountain that was all fabric scraps. I wonder what the process is that these things are going through, and where they'll eventually end up.

We had free tickets that were in the "nicer" part of the stadium. This basically meant that it was less crowded, and was covered. All of the seating was actually separated from the field by a high barbed wire fence. Something else that was a little jarring at first was that there were many many armed guards around us at all times. I remember vaguely reading a blog about Australians following their cricket team to Chittagong and watching as the "cheap seats" erupted into a small riot during the match. I'm guessing this is why the guards were there.

By the time we got there the Bangladesh team was already batting, and it looked like it was going to be a close game. In the end it came down to 1 wicket left, 6 overs and about 15 runs left before Bangladesh could take the lead. Luckily they had a few great hits and got enough runs to win! Near the end though the stands were going crazy. In between each play a DJ would start blasting deafeningly loud Bangla dance music. The music would fill the stadium for 20 seconds tops and then halt as abruptly as it had started. There was one intro to a song that the crowds would go crazy for whenever it was played. I think it's the equivalent to soccer's "oleee ole ole oleeee". And at one point I noticed that I was recognizing a song, and only after a few seconds did I realize that it was the same remix of this song that was playing on repeat at a temple for durga puja.

So when the end became more close and Bangladesh started looking like it might really have a chance to pull through, the crowds were going nuts. The ice cream vendor near where we were sitting picked up his own chair and started waving it in the air above his head and screaming. This was only topped when the guards who were sitting in front of us started to do the same thing! People around us were taking off their shirts and waving them, and chants of Bangladesh! Bangladesh! Bangladesh! reached a crescendo and moved through the crowds.

After the match we all filed out into the streets. There were no CNGs in sight, so we decided to walk with the crowds until we could find one. We quickly realized that although there was no animosity towards us, many Bangladeshi cricket fans assumed that since we were clearly not Bangladeshi we must have been rooting for Zimbabwe. After we eventually found a CNG we were passed by another CNG full of Bangladeshi men yelling "LOSERS! LOSERS! LOSERS!" and pointing to us. We laughed it off, but next time I am definitely wearing green and red.

Christmas?

2009-11-09T18:59:00.006+07:00

Me with three AUW students at Durga Puja in October

Well, I have several completely overdue posts to write. I think I'll separate them by time/theme and instead of just writing one long one, will give just a few shorter updates.

So, One thing that I never got a chance to write about is Durga Puja. For those of you who follow Dan's Travel Blog you may have already heard his perspective on the whole matter, and seen some of his fabulous photos (definitely worth checking out if you haven't already).

So the whole evening started with a trip to Tava, a nice restaurant here in Chittagong. Tava is right above an ATM, and since Dan and I were out of money at this point I ran down to the ATM before we had to pay the bill. So when Denise, Dan and I decided that we were going to try to go to Durga Puja, I decided that the best plan of action would be to take my newly acquired wad of cash and hide it in my bra. I'll leave it at that and spare you all the sweaty details, but just inform you that this was a brilliant idea on my part and saved me many moments of anxiety throughout the remainder of the evening.

Me, Dan, Eva, and Denise in a CNG on the way to Tava

Denise and Dan and I had been hearing all weekend about "durga puja" this and "durga puja" that. Now, I'm no stranger to Hindu festivals. Some of my old blog posts from when I was in India will give insight into my experiences with Hinduism and Hindu festivals. However, Durga Puja isn't celebrated in the South of India at all, so I knew nothing about it. After the fact I found that it is actually most widely (or wildly) celebrated in certain parts of India, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Since Bangladesh is a Muslim country, and Chittagong is a fairly Muslim city (I only have occasional encounters with Buddhists, Christians, or Hindus), Denise, Dan and I had no idea where to go to celebrate Durga Puja. On the previous night we had taken a CNG from the airport to AUW and had seen several Durga statues, but had no idea how to get to them. We tried asking the waiters at Tava, but they just told us they were Muslim, and that Durga Puja was only celebrated by Hindus (as a side note- the latter part of this statement turned out to be untrue in the end; many muslims celebrate Durga Puja). So, in a moment of desperation Denise, Dan and I went down to the road, hailed a CNG and said: Durga Puja?! This would be like going to a yellow taxi in the states on the 25th of December and saying: Christmas? Luckily for us the CNG driver simply laughed and motioned for us to get in. Even more luckily for us he actually took us to a raging hopping Durga Puja somewhere near to where we lived. AND, as our luck continued, practically the moment we clambered out of our CNG we ran into three AUW students who were eager to show us the ropes.

So while in India I had many amazing, awe-inspiring, sometimes frantic, sometimes chaotic, sometimes even scary experiences at Hindu festivals. But, nothing I experienced in India prepared me for what I was about to encounter here in Chittagong. The first major difference between what I had experienced in India and what I was soon to experience in Chittagong was that the entire temple was segregated by sex. So right off the bat Dan was separated from us. I had planned on walking him through the steps (perhaps literally) of going to a Hindu temple. Unlike most Buddhist temples I've been to, Hindu temples are far less strict about where you can go, what you can do, what you should do, how you do it, etc. Usually in Hinduism it's more about the thought than the action. However, there are still some basic rules- like no wearing shoes, no entering the sanctum sanctorum unless you're invited, etc. Plus there are some things you can do if you want to enhance your experience a little bit. As soon as I realized that Dan was going to be on his own (or rather, surrounded by throngs of eager Bengali men instead of me) I just yelled to him over the general melee at the temple steps, "Just do what everyone else does!" and we parted ways, without a way of finding each other or communicating.

Durga slaying the demon

So the major difference between the festivals I've been to in South India and Durga Puja in Chittagong is that there was dancing! And actually, there was a lot of dancing! So we entered the temple and at the front they had set up a temporary altar with Durga slaying the demon on it. There were also some other statues- like Ganesh, and Saraswati- but Durga was definitely center stage. Also, the entire inside was a basic dance party. Since this whole event was so long ago, I'm still a little vague on the details. What I do remember is that we went to several temples. Some of them had drummers, some of them blared disco music, but every single one was a dance party. I could sometimes see Dan's mop of blonde hair standing tall surrounded by Bengali men behind me, but he was mostly on his own this whole time.

Three AUW students at Durga Puja

I definitely hadn't planned on dancing, and I have to admit that when I saw many women- young and old- dancing at the front in front of the alter, there was a part of me that felt like retreating. But, when I got up there a tiny little girl took my hand and wanted to dance with me. Because I can't say no to children I started dancing with her. This inevitably led to my being spotted by a teenage girl who grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the crowed of sweaty dancing women. They were all having so much fun, and laughing and spinning around. There were little girls who couldn't have been older than 5, and old women who were probably in their 80s, and they were all dancing. I remember at one point when we decided to leave to go to the next temple a young teenage girl grabbed my wrists and wouldn't let me go. She was pleading with me in Bangla and I felt really uncomfortable with her. But, luckily for me, I had three amazing AUW student body-guards who immediately stepped in and came to my defense.

Fire at the altar

Sometimes we would take a CNG from one temple to the next, but mostly we walked through streets that had been closed to traffic and were covered in twinkle lights. There were food and toy vendors all over- which just added to the beautiful chaotic rhythm that night. At a few points there were men selling bubble blowers, so the whole street would be filled with bubbles.

I got home completely exhausted and covered in sweat from so much dancing. Dan seemed to have a good time, with the exception of getting his glasses stolen. We're still working on getting them replaced. Luckily we live in Bangladesh where a trip to the eye doctor is something like 7 dollars, and a pair of glasses is something like 14 dollars.

Wow, this post didn't turn out nearly as short as I thought it would! But, I guess it was just a really memorable evening.

The Little Things

2009-10-03T14:13:00.002+07:00

It's the little things in Bangladesh that make me love living here.

The other day Dan and Sarah and I went out for dinner to a nearby restaurant called Kashundi. Afterward, we started walking back and passed by a little shop called Mr. Moonshine's. Mr. Moonshine himself is from Tamil-Nadu and he and I speak a little Tamil whenever I go in. I'm finding it hard to really communicate with him (no surprise there after 3 years of not really speaking Tamil) but he's pretty patient with me and always seems excited when I come in. So when we went in this time I said hello and asked if they had any cinnamon powder. The plan was that we could keep some cinnamon around and sometime fry up some bananas in ghee and eat them with vanilla ice cream and cinnamon. The three other people working in the store set out to find the cinnamon. Apparently their more obscure spices weren't labeled though, so this task proved somewhat difficult. I waited for about five minutes, and in the meantime watched as the men working at Mr. Moonshine's went through all of their mysterious unlabeled or mislabeled powders and tasted each on in turn. The fact that this is the system in place at this store just made me smile. Eventually they produced a small bottle labeled BLACK PEPPER and gave it to me. I smelled it and sure enough, it was filled with cinnamon.

I've yet to make the banana dessert, but that's neither really here nor there. The point, if there is one, is that I love how human everything is here. From the way spices are bought in the stores to the way people eat or clean themselves on the streets- everything is openly human here. Perhaps someone could make the argument (and I can already hear Dan or Mitch beginning to) that our automated systems in the US are also human. Here in Bangladesh, however, everything tactile- and I mean touched by humans or an expression of the human experience- is out of doors and out in the open. There's no backroom where people wash after eating or where men in uniforms unpack boxes full of neatly labeled spices- these things are all done right in the store front where everyone can see.

There's probably a greater message that I'm getting at through retelling my observations. When I figure out how to best express it, I'll let you all know.

Monkey. Many Monkey.

2009-09-28T16:41:00.019+07:00

Well, Dan and I have returned from our break for Eid in Malaysia. Just a bit of back story: I first visited Kuala Lumpur in 2007, on my way to Indonesia. Sandwiched between time in India and Indonesia, my one day in KL was a much needed break from chaos. The city is so much calmer than South Asian cities. The roads are paved, there are sidewalks, and being white isn't criteria for being interesting. However, since this week-long break was for Eid, the Muslim holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan, I was a little nervous that Kuala Lumpur, the capital of a Muslim country, would be a little crazy. Beyond that I was also a little nervous that getting out of KL would be somewhat impossible. We booked a hostel for one night in KL and got in pretty late. After spending what I later realized was literally 10 times the amount we should on a cab, we arrived at our clean and conveniently located hostel in Chinatown. The room was small enough so that you could almost stand in the middle and touch all four walls at once, and sleeping on the spring-loaded bed was basically like getting a night-long back massage from a car radiator, but the hostel was clean and not too expensive for Kuala Lumpur.

Dan in our tiny room in Kuala Lumpur

The next day we went first thing in the morning to the bus station and tried to get tickets to Mersing- a relatively small town on the East Coast of Malaysia where we would be able to catch a ferry to Pulau Tioman- a small island off the coast. To our dismay we were told that there were no tickets to Mersing for another few days. Eventually we were told to just buy a ticket to a larger inland city and try to catch a bus from there.

So with a plan ahead of us we set out in search of some delicious Chinese food in Chinatown. I should mention that despite the fact that both Malaysia and Bangladesh are Muslim countries, they are very different from each other. So, I was only a little surprised to find myself sitting in Chinatown in a Muslim country eating pork and noodle soup during the day during Ramadan. Malaysia is incredibly diverse, religiously and culturally. It's not uncommon to see women wearing long sleeves and a veil across their face next to women in short mini-skirts and spaghetti strap tank tops. Similarly, it's not uncommon to see a large mosque next to a Buddhist temple, next to a Hindu temple. I was also left with the impression that most people in Malaysia have a relatively negative view of Bangladesh. I was told it was conservative (when it's actually classified as a "moderate" country), there are many terrorists here, there are bombs all of the time, and that Bengali's have no respect for people who aren't Muslim.

After our soup, Denise (who we had met up with by chance at the bus station when we were all trying to get tickets), Dan and I all decided to get some moon pies. Apparently for the autumn festival in China there's a tradition of eating (and gifting) little pastries called moon pies. Since the festival was a few weeks ago they were still available in little packages in Chinatown. The cheapest I saw were about 2 ringgit (so about 60 cents) and the most expensive were about 20 ringgit (about 6 dollars). We bought some of the cheap cakes and enjoyed them on the street.

Dan and Denise with their moon cakes!

Dan's kitty shaped moon cake

Me and my moon cake in front of a moon cake advertisement

Denise and Dan with the Petronas Twin Towers in the background.

So after eating and relaxing for most of the day in Kuala Lumpur, Dan and I caught a bus to a town called Kluang. The bus ride was completely easy. We got to sit in the very front, and they played two US movies during the ride. I mostly looked out the window and came to the conclusion that Malaysia is very beautiful and very green! We got off in Kluang and had about a two hour wait for the bus to Mersing. In that time we managed to grab a bite to eat and some tea. Plus it was nice to have a little break after being on the last bus for about three and a half hours. That night was the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid, so everyone was celebrating. As we waited for the bus people around us were setting off fireworks. The ride to Mersing was pretty short- about an hour and a half- and when we arrived we were greeted by many moths, some stray cats (chasing, catching, and eating said moths) and a man with a notebook full of photos of his hostel. It was pretty late, about 11:30, and we weren't sure if we should go with this man. His price seemed reasonable, but he was being pretty pushy. An Italian woman we had chatted a little with seemed to think this man was trying to take us for a ride and overcharge us, and so she stormed off. Not really sure what to do, Dan and I followed her and quickly found ourselves walking along a deserted road hoping that a taxi would somehow chance by us. Eventually we gave up and went back to the bus station to take that man up on his offer. However, when we got back the man was gone, and we were shortly tracked down by the Italian woman who had managed to find a taxi in the meantime. The taxi driver confirmed what the man with the binder had told her- the place in Lonely Planet was closed. So he took us to the next place Lonely Planet listed and we ended up paying only 5 ringgit less than what the man with the binder had been proposing. Now, I'm not too picky about where I sleep, but on first impressions this place was pushing my limit. It was a little dingy- dirty looking sheets and walls that didn't reach the ceiling, so you could hear anything then went on in the place. There were huge dead months in a few places, and big holes in the walls. Omar, the man who ran the place (called Omar's Backpacker's Hostel) was a friendly sort of guy, and I took note that the kitchen was clean, and the bathroom didn't give me the heeby jeebies.

Our nasty bed at Omar's Backpacker's Hostel

Dan, trying to be optimistic about Omar's. Note the dead moth stuck in the chicken wire wall above Dan.
Yeah, Omar's is a pretty classy place.

After we paid and started to get into bed, being sure to take out our sleep sheets and wrap them securely around us, I noticed that the sheets were covered in tiny little blood stains- an indication that there were bedbugs. I pulled my silk sleep sheet tighter around my neck hoping that the sheets were old and that any potential bug problem had since been taken care of. So at about 12:30 in the morning Dan and I shut the lights off and went to sleep. I dozed uncomfortably for about a half an hour and then woke up from being afraid of bugs. I woke Dan up (somewhat unsympathetically) and asked him to turn the light on. I then asked him to hand me my camera bag where my flashlight was. I was hoping that I could get out my flashlight, closely examine the bed, and then sleep feeling more assured that there actually weren't any bugs. BUT, as Dan dropped my bag onto the bed in front of me I saw, to my horror, a bed bug scurry quickly into the seam of the bag. No flashlight necessary! It was confirmed: we had bedbugs! So Dan and I spent the next half an hour or so removing the stuff from our room one item at a time, thoroughly checking every seam and crease and removing any bugs that we found. We put everything in the kitchen and then sat down at the kitchen table. We sat there, exhausted, until six in the morning, playing cards and playing the game: What would __________ do if he/she/they were here? After going through basically everyone we knew we decided there was no good solution. We were stuck in a small town that we didn't know our way around, in the middle of the night, with basically no other options. I spent a long time looking at a sign that said: Malaysia: Fascinating Destination. It apparently took me being awake at 5am at Omar's for me to realize what an interesting word combination that was:
Fascinating
Destination
So we sat there until six am when we went to the jetty to try and catch a boat to Tioman Island. Much to our dismay we were told that the early ferry wasn't running, and the mid-morning ferry was full. We bought two tickets for the 2pm ferry and started our mental countdown for the eight hours remaining before we could get out of Mersing. We tried to look on the bright side of things- we now had time to go to an ATM and get some breakfast before leaving (we actually had time to do these things several times over, but let's not get too specific...) We decided to search for someone who could tell us where an ATM was and the first person we ran into was the man who had been soliciting us at the bus station the night before. 'How are you?' he asked with a great smile on his face? We told him we were tired and that we had tried to find him. We explained that we had stayed somewhere with bedbugs and he immediately said: oh, Omar's? He then asked us if we had gotten tickets for the 10am bus. When we said they were all sold out he told us that he had come down to get tickets for the people that ended up staying with him and, finding that they were sold out, had dome some finagling and had managed to get seats anyway. He pointed to the three people who were staying with him. I looked over and saw three people, all seemingly well rested, laughing, and eating something. The man then chatted with us for awhile about Bangladesh and the importance for educating women. He referenced female politicians in the US and Bangladesh and Malaysia and gave us his opinion on Bangladeshi politics and religion. Eventually he pointed us in the direction of an ATM and told us where we could get a bite to eat, and we trudged off, resenting Omar's at every step.

We ended up getting a bite to eat from a food stand run by a Chinese family. We weren't sure how it worked, and were much too exhausted by this point to really try hard to get food. We probably spent 5 minutes just standing or sitting with our mouths open, watching other people come and go, buying lots of food and eating it. Eventually someone took pity on us and asked what we wanted. She gave Dan a bag and he started filling it with pastries. We paid and went into a nearby coffee shop to eat.

I honestly don't even remember eating this.

After getting some tea and eating enough to at least quell our hunger a little bit, we headed back to the jetty.

A funky boat on the jetty

Dan stayed with our bags, and took a little nap, and I sat politely in front of where the handed out boarding passes. After waiting for awhile someone took pity on me and gave me a boarding pass for the 10am ferry. We were quickly herded onto the boat and slept the entire way until the boat slowed down as it headed into the first jetty on Tioman Island!

On the ferry to Tioman Island, at last!

The boat dropped us off on ABC (Air Batang beach). I'm not exactly clear on what we did next, but I know we ended up finding a great place on the beach and I think we may have even gone swimming. We got food, and properly went to sleep after being awake for over 36 hours.

We spent the next week mostly on ABC. The decisions we had to make each day were: where do we eat? Should we swim, snorkel, sunbathe, lie in a hammock, or go for a walk? what should I eat? That was basically life on Tioman. We went snorkeling a few times. Part of the reason we decided to stay on ABC was that right off the beach there was nice snorkeling. We would just walk into the water, stick our faces in, and see pink and yellow coral, rainbow fish, jelly fish (with fish living under them), clown fish and anemones, sting rays, and many other kinds of fish! We pretty much spent every night eating at a sea-side restaurant that wasn't too expensive and watched the sunset. Most nights there was a lightning storm going on on the other side of the island and we could see glimpses of it when the lightning lit up the sky behind the high ridge of the island. Also nearly every night we were treated to an Eid fireworks display put on by the children who lived on the island.

Noodle soup- Noodles, squid, chicken, shrimp, cauliflower, corn, tomatoes, greens, chillis, cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, cardamom, mystery white balls... pretty good but a little tricky to eat since there was so much that actually wasn't edible.

Watching the sunset on the beach.

Going for a short hike to the next beach over.

Watching the Sunset, again!

Lovely Tioman Sunset

Sleeping in a hammock some afternoon.

Probably verging on sunburnt

Island Monkeys! Mama and her baby.

Monkeys on the road (path) that went along our beach.

All Monkeys!

A firework being shot off!

View of Tioman from the jetty on ABC

In a hammock next to the restaurant where we most often ate.

On the beach after snorkeling

Our beach- it's lovely.

Island cats. We were always in danger of being followed by these guys. They were professional beggars. One night at dinner I was sitting too far forward in my chair and a cat jumped up behind me. I was startled, but was even more startled when two seconds later a second cat jumped up. The next night I was sure to sit all the way back in my chair, but then the cats just jumped onto my lap.

So the highlight for the entire week on the island was probably the day that Dan and I decided to go on a trek through the jungle. The island has a ridge going through the middle, so the hike was mostly uphill. We prepared with plenty of DEET lots of water, and our cameras (I regret to inform you all, however, that I shot almost exclusively in film that day, so the photos won't be available until I get myself out into Chittagong and find a place to develop film for me).

Before we could set out into the jungle we had to walk through Tikkek, the beach/city that was just south of our beach. It was basically one of the most brutal walks of my life. We had sunblock on (and with us) but it was a long walk along a wide concrete road without any shade. We definitely should have headed out earlier to avoid having to make the walk to the jungle trail head in such heat. But, I can honestly say it was worth it when we got into jungle. The path was a a narrow boulder path with some stone steps put in place during the steeper parts. It followed the power lines across the island, but the jungle around us was still really dense. There were times I couldn't see more than about 10 feet to the right or left of me. We were basically just surrounded by forty foot high ferns and huge trees, bugs, bats, birds, monkeys, and giant squirrels (which we were luckily quiet enough to see!) The entire walk was pretty tiring and I haven't been that sweaty in a long time, but it was also completely awesome. We hiked up to a waterfall and then decided we should head back because we didn't want to get caught at night in the jungle when the snakes and bugs really started coming out.

So after 5 nights on the island we headed back to Kuala Lumpur for one night (where we stayed in a really nice hotel), and then back to Chittagong.

Dan among the throngs of street vendors in Chinatown in KL

Back to Chinese noodle soup with sweet pork! Okay, not too creative of us, but delicious nonetheless.

Fresh kiwi juice! mmmmm!

Fruit vendor selling interesting fruits.

Dan in Chinatown. Not *really* smiling because it is a little overwhelming.

Dan and a statue in Chinatown. Which one's Dan? Which one's the Chinese statue? It's hard to say.

Ramadan in Chittagong

2009-09-09T17:35:00.004+07:00

I should admit that I haven't been updating for several reasons. Primarily my life here in Chittagong has settled into a routine schedule of work and eat. Additionally, I spent about a week and a half sicker than I can remember ever being before, so my energy for even writing emails was entirely diminished. More on that later, though!

So despite finding myself back in a routine in life, things here are still staying interesting. With a bit of turbulence and some improvising the school year here at AUW has started. I probably only know about 30% of my 75 students' names so far, but am learning more every day- and like I said, I was sick for a week (that's my excuse anyway).

Life in Chittagong has changed dramatically for me in the last few weeks in two ways. Firstly, Dan has arrived! I'll post a link to his blog at the end of this entry. He will probably be better than I am at posting interesting photos. He arrived right when I was starting to actually recover from the flu (perhaps of the swiney variety?!), so it was nice to have someone feeding me right when my appetite came back. I think Dan was a little shocked when the nurse came in to check on me and said that I was looking more lively than I had in a week. I think Dan had thought I was looking horrible- little did he know how horrible I had been! Basically I was stuck in bed with fevers that spiked and dropped as if someone were tuning through my internal radio stations looking for a good song- 99.8 100.3 101.5 102.4 103.6 102.3 100.0 101.3 99.6 100.5... up and down up and down. I developed a rash basically all over my body. I basically couldn't open my eyes without feeling pain behind them. After a few retrospectively hysterical bouts of delirium (during which time I found myself clutching desperately at a thread that I found in my bed and weeping that the thread was my closest friend...) the nurses and doctors at AUW decided that they should take some blood to make sure I didn't have typhoid or malaria. A man came in from the lab that AUW uses and I was called forward to sit at the table in the Health and Wellness Center and have my blood taken. However, this man and I were not on the same page. As soon as I started sitting at that table I started feeling light headed. I lost my vision and started losing my hearing- I was definitely about to black out. However, there was a part of my consciousness that was aware of the fact that this man had to take my blood so that eventually someone could give me something to make me feel better. So I resolved to stay sitting at that table until he took as much of my blood as he needed! But as I was sitting there my arm would start to droop sadly and the man would say: HOLD STILL! And I would mumble an apology and try to hold still- which is harder than it sounds when you think the room around you is moving. As soon as I felt him finish up taking my blood I decided I needed to lye down. "I think I need to lye down" I said, and I started to crawl onto the floor right there under the table. The man, panicking and perhaps a little nervous that someone might come in and think he had put me in this floored state, grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. He called for a nurse who rushed in and found me, once again, trying to lye down on the floor. The nurse pulled me up and started herding me towards the "chill out room" where I had made myself a nest on one of the spare beds. Luckily I was lucid enough to alert her of the fact that I was about to throw up, and she managed to get me into the bathroom in time. After throwing up and then sleeping for the rest of the day I started feeling better. Eventually they got my test results back and I came up negative for both typhoid and malaria, and have actually been feeling great the last few days!

So I have physically recovered, and Dan is here to entertain me, so thing have been going great in that respect!

The other huge change that's happened in Chittagong in the last few weeks is that Ramadan has started. For those of you who aren't familiar with the ins-and-outs of Ramadan, I'll just give you a short run down. Basically Ramadan is the month of fasting in Islam. What this means is that Muslims who are observing Ramadan do not drink any water and do not eat any food from sunrise to sundown every day for the month. This has become a part of my life for several reasons despite the fact that I'm not fasting. Firstly, every morning at about 5:20 a siren alerts all people in Chittagong that it is now officially time to stop eating. The siren then sounds again at about 7:30 in the evening to alert everyone that it is now okay to eat again. The first time I heard this siren I thought it was a tsunami warning and I found myself wondering if living on the 6th floor of my building would be protection enough against a tsunami. However, I soon realized what the siren was actually for and now I anticipate its sound in the morning while I'm half-awake after my neighbors inadvertently wake me up when they get up to make an early meal for themselves, and again in the evening after work.

Because there is no eating during the day during Ramadan, every restaurant is closed all day. This basically means that Dan and I are making all of our own meals. It's still possible to go out during the day and buy uncooked food- vegetables and fruits, grains and lentils, etc. because people really do feast during Ramadan after sunset. Also on the streets you can buy what's called iftar (iftar is actually the meal that happens at the end of the day after sunset- but people also refer to the food by this name). So every restaurant that is closed during the day opens up street stalls at night and sells all sorts of iftar- samosas, chick peas, fried chilis (a lot of deep fried food actually), and desserts (also deep fried). I've found it's difficult now to buy naan or parota or roti on the streets, whereas before it was incredibly easy, but now it's easy to go out and buy samosas, so it's a compromise.

Something that I find interesting here is that by the end of the day people are far less productive. Dan and I went to Central Plaza to buy fabric and even though iftar time was still not for another half an hour, we were told to come back another time. People just get so hungry that things literally shut down. Also right after iftar time it's possible to go out onto the street and just walk down the middle of it. Traffic has stopped, and shops are quiet. Even beggars won't follow you around during this time because everyone is busy eating for the first time in 14 hours. When I was working in NYC I had a job taking 15 boys to Central Park to go ice skating. Needless to say that experience was loud and chaotic. When the boys were back on the bus, however, we would give each of them two chocolate chip cookies. The moments that followed us handing out the cookies were the only quiet moments in the entire afternoon, and this is much what Bangladesh is like at iftar time. The streets calm down, the beggars don't follow you down the street, and people don't yell at you from their shops. Everyone is busy eating.

Well, I should actually get going to go buy some samosas and some bananas before things start closing at iftar. I'll try to give some general updates soon- maybe with photos! There's a vegetable market near my house that Dan and I went to the other day, and I really want to return to with a camera. You basically get to it by walking through a little alley where men sell fruit and dried fish. In the market you can buy all sorts of vegetables or you can buy fish or shrimp, mutton (which hangs, whole, from the rafters) or chickens (which you pick out, live, and they kill and feather for you). So hopefully I can get up the courage to take some photos there, because it's a pretty awesome spot.

I hope you all are well

--- Catie

Dan's Blog:

http://blog.danbretl.com/travel/

Solar Eclipse

2009-07-25T17:40:00.006+07:00

Some of you may have read that there was going to be a solar eclipse in this part of the world. Most articles highlighted the fact that it would be visible through India, China, and then the Pacific Ocean, with no mention given to us here in Bangladesh. But we all knew what to look for. So early on Wednesday morning we all met downstairs at the van and drove out to the future AUW site. AUW is currently located in a series of not-quite-finished-yet buildings here in Chittagong, but someday it will be housed on 100 acres of hilly land just outside of the city. The drive out there was pleasant- shopkeepers were just setting up shop, and we drove through what appeared to be a rickshaw colony just before we got to the gate to future AUW. Apparently whoever has the keys to the gate was still asleep, or possibly eating breakfast by this point, so we all got out of the van and walked a few hundred meters through the future AUW site.

At this point the site is nearly completely wild. There's a main dirt road that runs into the land a ways, and a few families living here and there along the road. Michelle pointed out to us where the property ended on the other side of a ravine. Apparently the AUW side of the ravine is completely picked dry because villagers come out and take whatever they can use- sticks and branches, plants, etc. So as we walked along we could see these little huts with wood fires in front, families making breakfast and dogs stretching to wake up.

Apparently like most of Bangladesh, the AUW site was nearly entirely clay- gray clay and red clay. Sometimes something that looked like a piece of schist would be in our path, but really it was just dried up clay that broke as soon as you put any pressure on it. What a job it will be for these engineers to come in here and figure out how to build a campus on this flood prone clay ridden area.

Zelda, Michelle's intrepid daughter, down in a ravine at the AUW campus.

So we got as far as the picture above and started to look for the sun. We then realized that we had walked ourselves into a kind of bowl where the hills around us were blocking out the sun. So we walked back on the dirt road a ways and stopped to wait for the clouds to clear and the eclipse to reveal itself. Unfortunately it's the monsoon in Bangladesh right now, so things are pretty cloudy. We had prepared a pin hole (actually, pen hole) camera, but couldn't get enough direct sunlight to actually cast a shadow.

Jalene, Zelda, and Denise working on our pin hole camera.

So despite many warnings to not look directly at the sun, we all wanted to know if we would be able to see it. The sky was completely filled with clouds, but they were moving quickly, and were layered, so we were hoping they would clear enough so that we could get a glimpse.

Sarah, Eva, Polly, Faheem, Meg, and Calvin, all theoretically avoiding looking directly at where we were hoping the sun would show itself.

In the end we did get a few glimpses of the eclipse. The clouds would break apart long enough for us all to say: "OOH LOOK! oh NO! Don't Look directly at it!" and then the clouds would pass in front of the sun again and we would be back to waiting. I did manage to get a few shots, mostly of clouds, but here's the best of them:

I know this looks like the moon, but it's actually the sun during the eclipse. I swear.

Even if we couldn't exactly see the eclipse, we could tell that it was getting darker instead of lighter out. Frogs and crickets came out in full force for a few minutes, and I felt satisfied.

Other than that things here have been pretty work centered for me. I've been recovering nicely from a little bit of a stomach thing I had going last week, and have been enjoying Bangladesh a lot. Two nights ago at 11pm a parade went down my street. I couldn't see it, but I could hear a whole loud brass section, drums, and people marching along and cheering. Then last night at about 11pm a concert started from somewhere in my neighborhood. South Asia seems to have a way of using speakers that is unknown in America. Basically I've found that the sound quality has no value compared to the sound quantity; the louder, the better. So last night the sounds of this concert filled my room- over the sound of the fan on high, over the sound of the dogs barking on the street and the cars honking from below. This lasted until I fell asleep at 1am, and continued for what I think was several hours after- I kept waking up and realizing that the music was still going, and then would fall back asleep, assured that Bangladesh water was just as I had left it when I fell asleep at 1am.

So I've been having some thoughts about life in Chittagong. At home in Anchorage the city butts against the hills and flows down to the inlet. There, 250,000 people do their best to keep nature at bay. Still, a spider creeps in to your house and dogs wake you up at night, barking at wandering bears. A car hits a moose and your friends all hear about it.

Here in Chittagong, again between hills and water, it's nature that's doing its best to keep the 3 and a half million people at bay in the jungle. We creep into ant hills, curl up and take a nap, and call it our bed. We put concrete where moss once grew, and act surprised to see it returning on our white washed walls and floors. Instead of a moose wandering into a city and trying to live skirting around traffic jams and construction sites, Chittagong is a city wandering into a jungle, unsuccessfully trying to force the wild life to submit to man-made boundaries and barriers.

bat poem

2009-07-19T22:41:00.002+07:00

Not to make excuses, but I don't consider myself a poet. That being said, I've really started to appreciate writing poetry since I've arrived here. Even if I'm just jotting down images and adjectives and arranging them into some form that I think has some meaning derived from rhythm, it's been helping me understand my interactions with the energy that permeates everything here.

I spent some time in the last few days getting out a little bit. I walked to a vegetable market where I bought a vegetable called portal (the texture of which is probably best described as being similar to what you would imagine a mini-alien to be like). I also got some oranges and a large mango and some candy from a man who is known as Mr. Moonshine and is apparently from Tamil Nadu (so I got to stretch my Tamil skills a little bit). Then this evening I spent some time up on the roof with Denise and Eva. When we first got up to the roof it was still pretty light out and there were dozens of crows everywhere you looked (very reminiscent of some certain Hitchcock scenes), but as the sun dropped behind the trees on a hill near our building, the crows started to disappear and the bats started to emerge. So this is kind of coming from that. Again, I'm not a poet, but I've been thinking a lot about content versus conventions in writing (from the TESL standpoint) and at least the ideas get across in this, even if they aren't necessarily the most eloquent.

slow silent bat wings somehow manage
to dampen the chaos
pumping up from the streets below:
the quick sounds of
screeched breaks
hands on horns
bicycle chains gritting
and grinding
and crackling, metal
against oil
against metal.
unfed or underfed
babies, wives, workers, beggars.
clothing, mostly unwashed,
rattling on the line
monsoon wet and snapping
air against water
against fabric
against twine.
chicken and beef
sizzling from inches below
oil turning in its pan.
chicken and cows
cackling and clopping and
cleaning up everything that
we've left behind in the
streets,
too busy to notice our own
peels and papers and piles
as we step over them,
force our way into our refuge
through our silent rooms,
up our lonely staircases
up to the red roof
where we're met by bats, still higher,
enabling us to leave everything below.

Fishing Village

2009-07-14T18:13:00.016+07:00

I just returned from our 'Survival Bangla' trip to a fishing village outside of Chittagong (I would offer which direction from Chittagong, but the ideas of East, West, North, & South seem to be esoteric here). So every morning the faculty and TLC staff (I'm part of TLC- the 'Teaching and Learning Centre') meet to learn a little Bangla. Today the whole gang piled into a 14 passenger van and drove out to practice what we had learned and to gain a little experience and knowledge about this place we're living!

On the drive out there I kept expecting the traffic to break up, the roads to narrow, and the buildings to diminish in size or frequency. However, this never happened. I guess in a country so densely populated even the rural areas seem urban in some ways. However, as we turned off of one of the main roads and drove into this village area there was a drastic difference in the types of buildings and shops that we saw. Suddenly billboards were replaced with baskets full of eggs, hanging from open front shops. The streets really did narrow, and when our van pulled to a stop and we stepped out, we were stepping onto mud roads. Somewhat predictably we were immediately surrounded by a crowd of interested Bengalis. We were led into a complex of houses- down narrow little footpaths between two houses, or between a house and a wall.

This is Sarah and a little bit of Sangita working their way between a house and a wall in the fishing village.

We were led into a little court yard with maybe four or five homes surrounding it.

Katrina, Sangita, Sarah, Matt, and others standing in the small courtyard between the homes.

The young women and little girls came out of their houses and asked us, in English, what our names were, and how we were doing. A few gestured to Carol and me to join them in their home, so we went in.

Young women standing in the doorway to their house.

The house was probably three small rooms- one entrance, a step up into a living room area that was probably about the size of a queen sized bed, and one bedroom with an elevated cot in it. In the living room area there was an image of a Hindu goddess and two swamis. The woman then told me they were Hindu and that was their god, but they didn't tell me her name.

Next we walked for about 5 or 10 minutes out to the beach. On the way out there I attempted to chat with about four girls who were about 10 years old or so. They taught me how to say goat, wind, flower, dog, and rice patty (just a hint at what we were experiencing on the walk out there).

Fool in Bangla (Flower). The girls I was speaking with kept picking these and giving them to me.

One girl told me that her mom works in the rice field (at least, that's what I think she was telling me). When we got out to the beach we saw huge ships in the distance and small fishing boats near the shore. Instead of sand on the beach there were huge square man-made stones that had been placed where the water meets the land. No one spoke to this, so I'm not exactly sure if this was an erosion or flooding solution or what.

Ships, Fishing Boats, and huge cement (?) stones on the shore

So we spent some time walking along the beach and just madly attempting to speak with the people that had gathered around us out there.

A group of boys that had gathered and were excited about having their photos taken.

A group of girls and their fool which I'm pretty sure was eventually given to me.

Okay, I don't really want to spend a lot of time bragging or anything, but this cow photo is probably the greatest photo of all time. This was taken right on the beach.

Some young boys were playing in the waves crashing against the square stones.

Just a quick glimpse at the crowd that had gathered around us. The two white folk are Meg and Matt.

A very colorful Polly surrounded by some very happy young girls.

Me and a young girl I bonded with on the beach.

Chittagong Trash, Bats, and a Golf Club Getaway

2009-07-12T23:01:00.017+07:00

Today is Sunday- the beginning of the week here in Chittagong, so I think I'll write a bit about how I spent the weekend here. But before I get into the nitty gritty of my weekend getaway to a golf club outside of Chittagong, I think it's important to first illustrate to you all what kind of atmosphere there is in here in the city.

Despite the fact that I'm here in Bangladesh as a "writing specialist" there is no way that I can adequately describe to you all, in words, what the streets here are like. For those of you who have spent some time living or traveling in South or South East Asia you probably have a good idea of what it's like. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing the sheer tumult of Asian traffic, let me just tell you it is chaos. At times I'll be riding around in the back of a CNG (aka auto rickshaw, aka tuk tuk) and actually manage to forget which side of the road people here drive on because so few drivers actually adhere to this lax suggestion of order. The driving laws here are actually survival of the fittest; the larger vehicle you drive, the more likely you are to have the right of way.

Keeping all of this in mind, I will tell you A) that I walk mostly everywhere and B) in terms of pecking order and road rules, pedestrians are pretty much as low as it gets. Even if you do find a strip of road that is more or less unoccupied by a moving vehicle, it's probably occupied by something else only slightly less unpleasent. For example:

Here you can see a street that's near AUW in Chittagong. So in this you can see that this two way street is mostly filled with oncoming traffic (somehow always the case). There are CNGs, rickshaws, and a parked car. But where a pedestrian might have some room to maneuver there is a pile of trash and crows. The crows here are a form of recycling, I suppose. Everything organic here gets consumed in some way- by crows or dogs or cats, or possibly the occasional goat or cow. Definitely the most common feature of every pile of trash on every street though is 10 or so crows having their pick of the garbage.

So in an attempt to get out of Chittagong and search for an oasis of sorts, a few of us loaded into some vans and headed out to the Golf Club outside of the city. The morning was beautiful and clear but by the time we got there it was pouring. Still, we had driven all the way out there, found some green, and were dedicated to taking advantage of it! So the 10 or so of us wandered out onto the course.

Here is the whole group wandering through some trees somewhere along the golf course. The woman in red is Nussrat, my Bangla teacher who was kind enough to take us out here. As you can see, this place is immeasurably greener and calmer than the street pictured above.

This is just a shot I took of Sarah's umbrella, which she put on the ground while she attempted to roll her pants up so they wouldn't drag so badly in the rain and mud (an inevitability which I'm pretty sure she soon submitted to).
Here's a photo of myself, Eva, and Sarah (two other ESL writing specialists) after getting a little drenched in the rain on the golf course. Still, you can tell that all three of us were happy to be out in grass and fresh rain (in Chittagong rain pretty much means you're walking through wet garbage, which is somehow worse). Also, check out my sweet hot pink salwar in this picture. haha. I didn't realize when I bought it that it was just one big hot pink suit- kind of ridiculous, but when in Bangladesh...

So this is sunset from the roof of the building I'm staying in right now. Apparently last night Eva and Sarah went up to the roof and saw lots of bats, so tonight a few of us headed up there, cameras in hand, bug dope applied, and went in search for these bats. And boy did we see them! These weren't the fast flittering bats that I've seen in California before- these were huge loping slow fruit bats- bodies as large as cats, wingspans as long as maybe 3 or 4 feet sometimes. A few flew really low above us- coming out of the thick trees around the building and setting off in search of something. We actually got out there just in time to see a crow chasing a fruit bat away. For every 5 beats that the crow's wings would take, the bat would beat once. It was pretty amazing. I took this photo of the sunset with a bat in front, but it turns out it really just looks like a spec. Take my word on it though, this is a really serious fruit bat! I've got to get Dan up there when he gets here finally and get him to take some adequate photos!

Well, that's the update from here. Let me just leave you with these two hilarious photos from Chittagong:

This is a photo of Eva and Sarah posing in front of the sewage system here in Chittagong. Usually these trenches of water are mostly covered, and you're actually walking over them (hoping over the gaping holes in the cement when the need arises). I liked that you can see some sort of trash hanging up in the background like laundry. I also find Eva's and Sarah's expressions hilarious. For some reason Eva is really skeptical of the trash and water, and Sarah just seems so pleased to be standing next to this disgusting river of trash water.

So this photo is from an adventure that Eva and Sarah and I went on in search of the legendary Jack fruit. Many people here at AUW haven't experienced the joys and woes of eating a jack fruit, so Eva got the idea that we could go out, purchase one, bring it back to AUW, cut it up, and share it with whoever would like one. So yesterday afternoon the three of us set out in search of a jackfruit, armed with our knowledge that the bangla word for the fruit, when written out in English script, looks like this: kathal. We wandered near and far but there were no jackfruits to be found. We eventually started asking people- kaathal? kaadal? kathaal? kadhal? jackfruit?, gesticulating frantically (if you've never tried to mime out "jackfruit" before, it's well worth trying, FYI). Eventually we approached a man in a store filled with books. We showed him our best guess as to how to write the name of the fruit out in bangla, and when he didn't understand we pathetically asked "jackfruit?". At last! he understood! So he wrote down the Bangla name for the fruit (we were way off, by the way), and also wrote down the name of a market where we might be able to purchase a jackfruit. He also was kind enough to tell us how much a rickshaw ride to the market would cost, and how much a single fruit would cost. So the three of us loaded into two rickshaws- Sarah and I took the younger, spryer looking cyclists, and Eva flew solo with an elderly rickshaw driver. The ride there was mostly downhill and took us to an interesting part of Chittagong which was much different from the area we're staying in at AUW. The streets were narrower and filled mostly with cycle rickshaws and potholes. The buildings were really low and by the time we got where we were going almost every shop was a small fruit vendor. So Sarah and I got there first and I managed to snap this photo of Eva pulling up. I have to admit that I think this photo might have cost us about 50 taka because pulling out my camera probably wasn't the most modest thing to do. In the end we paid about 50 tk too much and ended up with more jackfruit than I would care to consume in a year (it's definitely not my favorite fruit).

Well, that's the update from here! I hope you're all doing well. I have to get up early for bangla and curriculum planning tomorrow! Give me some updates from America, etc.

with love

--- catie

Chittagong, Bangladesh

2009-07-09T20:28:00.010+07:00

Hello all,

It's Thursday night in Chittagong. I'm sitting on the 9th floor of a building where I'm currently staying and the wind is howling outside. It's dark out, with an occasional flash of lightning, and as per usual, it's raining. In about a half an hour I think the final call to prayer will sound for the night.

I realized today that it was exactly one week ago that I flew into Chittagong and took the hour long van ride from the airport to the AUW buildings in the city. I left New York from JFK and boarded my flight to Abu Dhabi. While boarding I was forced to wait in line until I could get back to my seat- no big deal, and not surprising. I think it's pretty common that we get stuck in first class on our way back to coach, and stand there just long enough to absorb the little details of comfort that we're about to be deprived of for the next 24 hours. Anyway, while taking in all of these painful little details, a man seated in first class smiled at me. He pointed to my Alaskan Grown shirt and told me he was from Palmer, Alaska. What a small world.

So, I have to just summarize and say that my journey here was long but pain-free. There were no hitches or problems- not even turbulence, really. The highlight was probably stopping over in Abu Dhabi and getting to see their amazing airport. The design was appealing to me, although a little confusing when it came to reading signs- simply because everything was so stimulating.

Here's a photo of the inside of the Abu Dhabi airport, which was mosaiced with shades of green and blue.

When I arrived in Dhaka I was so afraid of making my flight to Chittagong. I went through customs and then waited and waited for my one bag to come. I was constantly counting down until my flight to Chittagong- 3 hours, 2 hours 45 minutes, 2 hours! I was staring to get nervous. Eventually my bag came and I hurried over to the domestic "terminal". When I got there I found myself in a room with several small counters with various airline names over them. Just to put this into a familiar context, these counters were about the size of a booth you would expect to find at a college job fair, and there were about five of them. I quickly located my counter- easily spotted by the balloon and rainbow decor- and headed that way. My airline was UNITED AIRWAYS. The motto is "FLY YOUR OWN AIRLINE" which seems to be somewhat problematic to me in that I would actually prefer it if someone else would fly my airlines for me.

When I got to the deserted counter a man stood up from the waiting area and asked, Chittagong? I showed him my itinerary and he told me to sit down. I sat and watched the domestic terminal come to life in front of me for the next hour. Women in saris came in and started opening up the counters. Men started filing papers away, organizing luggage tags, and cleaning counters. When I had about 50 minutes until my flight they asked me to come up. I showed them my itinerary and they hand-wrote me out a boarding pass, stapled my luggage claim to it, and sent me off towards security. There was no ID checking or bag weighing (which could have been an issue, I'm told)- they just simply sent me through. So security consisted of an x-ray machine and a metal detector-the working order of which I'm suspect, on both accounts. I then found a seat in the one room domestic terminal- referred to as the "departure lounge".

This is my view from the departure lounge- TOILET GENTS

While sitting there waiting a man in front of me turned around and started chatting. He gave me his card and told me that he owned the only rated hotel in Chittagong which happens to be directly behind AUW. He told me that we'd definitely run into each other again, and I actually just saw him yesterday! Despite being in a country so packed full of people I manage to already have chance run-ins with those that I know!

So I continued to wait in the departure lounge until five minutes before my flight was scheduled to take off. Then a man entered the room and simply yelled: UNITED 523! and a few of us started lining up. We then all loaded onto a bus which drove us to a little airplane. Since it's monsoon season I wasn't really able to catch many glimpses of Bangladesh from the flight, but could occasionally see brown strips of river splattered and sliced through really green land. At times I was definitely seeing more of the murky brown than of the rich green- just a hint at how wet it really is here!

An interesting juxtaposition of things in the newspaper that I was given on the Dhaka-Chittagong flight. And here are some shots of what I saw while landing in Chittagong:

Probably an oil ship, which I've seen quite a few of. Chittagong is the major port for Bangladesh because it's slightly hilly so there's actually enough depth in the water for ships to come into port.

Some smaller boats- maybe fishing boats? I'm not really sure.

So the drive from the airport to AUW was exciting and refreshing. It's good to be back in South Asia! Of course I found myself inadvertently stepping on my imaginary break in front of the passenger's seat- a habit which I eventually lost in India after being there for some time. I immediately saw that Chittagong, like Madurai, has a lot of poverty and economic issues. But how different this city feels from Madurai, overall! The traffic may be a little crazier here- there are fewer cows and goats wandering into traffic, and fewer bullock carts and bicycles. On the other hand there are so many more bicycle rickshaws. It also seems that Chittagong has a much better system (read: a system) for getting water out of the streets after it rains. In Madurai during the monsoon we would walk through the streets and be actually wading through dirty waste water run-off up to our knees. Here the streets get muddy, but the water drains into deep (mostly) covered trenches on the sides of the roads.

I'm still piecing together this city and the neighborhood that I live in. Things seem to be a bit more expensive than Madurai, but maybe it's the places I'm going. For example, a "butter masala dosa" here costs 150 Tk, which is about $2.20. In Madurai I remember masala dosa being about a dollar. (then again, in NYC a masala dosa would cost somewhere near $15!)

Well, that's mostly the update from here. I'm living in temporary housing until tomorrow, when I move to slightly less temporary housing. I'm anticipating moving at least twice more before being put in the apartment where I'll live for the year. Basically they're still working on the building where I'm going to be living with other ESL writing specialists and staff.

Well, the call to prayer is just sounding for the evening, which is my cue for bed time. Tomorrow I'm going to go on a trip out to the Chittagong Golf Club, just to check out what it's all about. Then on Saturday a few of us are going out in a van to Cox's Bazaar- the longest beach in the world. It will be about 4 hours driving each way, so hopefully I won't get too sick!

Review: I'm really liking it here, and enjoying being back in S. Asia. I'm finding Bangladesh to be a lot like India in some regards (I've been proposed to once by a stranger already! haha), but I'm also finding the style of life to be a lot more posh here- my fingernails aren't getting as dirty as quickly, I'm eating at nicer restaurants, etc. We'll see how that progresses as I begin to settle in to the community more. I'll keep you all updated!

Much love

--- Catie

Siva Ratiri

2007-02-17T13:11:00.000+06:00

Yesterday was one of the most amazing days since I came to India- and maybe one of the most memorable days ever! It was "Siva's Night"- which is apparently a pretty big festival here. About a month ago one of the families that lives below us wanted to know if we'd come with them to their village and celebrate the festival with them. We told them we would, and we said we'd pay for the car (they said we wouldn't do well on a bus- which i scoffed at- but after yesterday i really believe them!)- which came out to less than 10 dollars for each of us (Laura, Emily, and me).

The day started with us going to this temple next to a sacred lotus pond under a huge banion tree. We had been to the temple one time before because it's next to a huge rock (called a Jain Mountain) with Jain caves in it about half way up. When we came before we didn't go into the temple- but this time the family led us in and we were blessed and then washed off a little in the pond. Then the family said we should climb the mountain.

It's not a huge mountain- really it's just one huge piece of rock reddish gold rock with desert varnish up and down the sides. There are some steps carved in for the first twenty yards or so- but after that you just climb up it. Before it was sort of a steep climb, but we did it at 8 am or so before it was too hot- but even then we were exhausted by the time we got down (as it had begun to be hot already). This time we were doing it in the middle of the day. We had water, but really I just needed a hose or something. To make things crazier, we didn't have any shoes on because we had just been in the temple. So- Emily and Laura and about 10 Tamils and I were running up this rock in the middle of the day, trying to get to the shrine at the top. We all had to periodically stop and sit down to give our feet a rest from the burning rock. They were throbbing! Finally we all got to the top to find that the only thing that was there was just a big post. So- we took pictures in front of the post and rested for awhile before starting down. The way down was somehow just as hard as the way up- maybe it was because of the knowledge that we were working out way towards a shady pond in which we could put our feet.

After some icecream we all got back into the car and headed out towards the village. It was a beautiful drive down uneven dirt roads surrounded by patty fields and grazing cows. When we got there we rested inside in the shade for a few minutes and then they suggested we all go bathing. They had mentioned this a few times over the last month- but we weren't really sure what they were talking about. There seems to be quite the tradition of bathing in India- usually religious bathing where you go to a sacred pond or waterfall and immerse yourself- one side for me, one side for women of course- But it didn't seem like there was anything like that out at this village. So we agreed, and we all started walking. We left the village and were suddenly in the most beautiful country. We followed narrow paths through marigold fields where workers were picking flowers- occasionally they'd give them to us, so the entire group had flowers all in their hair. There were so many different types of flowers in the different fields- ones that were so bright and colorful and ones that were so aromatic- but the only ones i recognized were marigolds.

We got to the "bathing pit"- which was just a huge hole in the ground filled with water. I was peering over the edge when I heard a loud machinery noise followed by rushing water and then water was blasted out of a hose with fire-fighter pressure. Pretty much what followed was women in their nicest saris and salwars being hosed down in the middle of a field in India. It was a little crazy, but one of the most refreshing feelings ever! especially after the morning's jaunt up the hot rock. It was such a nice feeling though because it was all just families. It seems that so often in India where there is a great experience to be had it's wrecked by hoards of teenage boys yelling "white woman white woman" and harassing anything that moves. But here it was just a few families- the one we have gotten to know over the last six months of living above them- and a few families that we had spent the morning with. It was sweet to see the shy little kids being led into the water- the flowers were all soaked out of our hair and any bindis or puja marks on our forehead were washed away. It was really comforting- the only men around were brothers and fathers with their families- and all the women were so sweet and sisterly. By the end we were all soaked in water and were actually pretty thankful for the sun to be out!

There was a nearby house that someone suggested we walk to- so we started through fields again. This time there were delicious beans on one side and rice on the other. We got to the house which was small and stuck in a little shaded grove of coconut trees. A boy who was about ten or twelve climbed up a coconut tree and knocked down enough for us to all have one. Then we sat around and drank the milk and then ate the coconut. Nothing is as refreshing as that after a long hot day! The family that lived in the house seemed really nice. They had a lot of children who were running around playing with the dozens of animals around. They would pick up baby chicks and hand them to us- and Laura spent a good portion of her time there playing with a puppy. Then we were led to the back of the house where there was a rose garden. I actually went out of my way to smell the roses! The women who brought us there picked the roses and put them in our hair (which had already dried because it's India and is So hot!), and then we all just sat around smelling flowers for awhile!

It's interesting to look at this serene little house out in the middle of nowhere India and feel so safe and comfortable. I find it interesting that India is mostly rural- and yet is also thriving in technology. I guess this could be my Alaskan shortsightedness- but somehow I feel like India's relationship with the rural life style is somewhat contradicting. I hear statistics like how women are much less likely to get infections from dirty menstrual rags because they wash them more in villages (although, compared to the US it's still likely they get infections). But then I hear other statistics like how something like 70 percent of women in villages will, at some point, get an infection that leads to their uterine lining hanging out and they don't do anything about it- a statistic that isn't true for women in urban India. Anyway- I found myself thinking about these things yesterday- looking at this family in this patty field. The children are probably going to grow up and be educated- maybe engineers or lawyers- Tamil Nadu, i hear, has great education, urban or rural. I guess these kids will probably grow up educated, for sure literate, and then move away from their village and come back for holidays like my family here (although my family isn't literate- but their children are). These issues are so complicated- and I haven't even begun to understand them.

When the sun started to set we walked back through the fields to the house we had left our stuff at. There we ate a delicious dinner and rested for a bit. I was feeling really satisfied and relaxed. It was nice to have a little Indian style vacation as opposed to going to the touristy places for vacation and having a US style vacation in India.

We all piled back into the car, and I thought we were going home (was really looking forward to getting back in time to maybe do some work!) and then someone announced that we were off to see 11 temples. So we spent the rest of the night going around to different temples for this festival. There were so many thousands of people on the move. We'd leave the car in one place and then walk from temple to temple- like trick-or-treating, but instead of candy you get ash smeared on your forehead. Whenever we did get back in the car we just sort of piled in (also reminiscent of trick or treating!). I think I constantly had a little toddler on my lap sleeping- and was sitting half on Emily or Laura almost every time.

By the end of it I was so exhausted from walking and so tired of being yelled at by Tamil guys. I was just dragging my poor little bare feet along the gravely ground, occasionally stopping to pick thorns out of them. Danu, the girl who lives below us, held my hand the whole time. I think they had a sort of system going on in which someone watched each of us so that we were constantly surrounded by family members and thus unable to be harassed too badly by the groups of passing guys. I was thankful for it, honestly.

We eventually got back home at 2 am, and I slept so soundly! So- the day was at times a little painful and at times amazing. All in all quite the experience!

Paint Gun The Cow?

2007-01-17T16:35:00.001+06:00

I woke up to find that all of the cows and goats in Madurai looked like this.

This is to celebrate the end of the South Indian harvest festival, Pongal.

To celebrate, I went to our friend's house (Sateya and Nateya) and watched a lot of Tamil music videos and ate a lot of sugar cane. It's nice because you're so blatantly eating something that resembles a tree you feel like you're eating health food. Although, there is something strange in being invited over to someone's house and then chewing up tree bits and spitting them on the floor (but everyone was doing it!)

Because it's a harvest festival everything related to harvesting is celebrated and worshiped. So, one of the last days was dedicated to the sun. To greet the sun, the families below us (and everyone else in Madurai, really) drew huge elaborate Coloumms in front of our house.

This is Danu to the left, stirring the colors to spread in front of the houses.

This, on the right, is one of the designs already completed. Emily is helping with the other one.

Me in my living room- eating some sugarcane that Emily brought over.

So, other than that things have been mostly academics. Although, i probably have lice? Will get that checked out.

Hope you all are well!

--- catie

Cooking Class

2007-01-12T15:24:00.000+06:00

Today I had my first cooking class of the semester. The woman I'm learning from is an elderly woman named Achee, and is part of the Chetiyar caste. I'm learning at her house, which is about a half an hour bike ride from the program house.

A note on biking in India:
So, when we got to Madurai the program gave us each a cycle and told us that we had to pay for the upkeep of these cycles. Sounds fair, right? Well, I think the longest my bike has gone without needing to be fixed is probably four days. Mostly I've been either desperately trying to balance on the back of Emily's bike, or borrowing whatever bike isn't being used when I need one. So, this week I went to the cycle fix-it man who works on the side of the road (the larger-scale shop this time. Before I had been messing around with going to the guy who works under the tree near my house, but now I actually am investing in the man who sort of has a covered area on the side of the road), and I asked him to give me two new tubes and two new tires (my old tires were cracked actually). So, now I finally have a cycle that actually works.

Anyway, today I followed Sekar to the cook's house. This was a little complicated for me because it's a fair distance from the program house, and I was biking on much bigger streets than I'm use to. It was mostly not a problem except that Sekar was on a motorcycle, and we made a lot of right hand turns around five point intersection/roundabouts. After a few times of thinking I was going to die we got there fine and with a little confidence gained on my part. On the way back I had to go without Sekar, so it took a little more work on my part. Mostly when I got to really big intersections I'd watch the other people around me to see how they handled it. In general in India I've found that if you want to make a right hand turn (equivalent of a left hand turn in the USA) then you just turn right into oncoming traffic and go there for as long as you can before you have to dodge into the left side of the road. This works especially well if you're a bus or semi, and not so well if you're a cyclest- but I'm managing.

Anyway, Achee is really nice. She lives in a really really nice house- complete with furniture and fans and quite a few rooms from what I could see. She lives with (i think?) her daughter in-law and her son and their two children (a girl who's four, and a little baby who turns one in a week or so). They have two servants (that I met) who, I think (?) live with them. One is a girl who is probably about fifteen and helped out in the kitchen the whole time. The other is a girl who is probably about ten and took care of the baby the whole time I was there.

She started out by showing me all the different ingredients we were going to be using. We made three dishes using pretty much the same or similar simple ingredients. They were all dhal dishes that could go with either chapatee or rice. At one point she said that we would normally be just using a mixer, but she would show me that traditional methods. so we went outside, and her kitchen-helper servant ground all of the ingredients on this granite slab using a granite rolling pin. She told me it wasn't very hard, but that it just takes a lot of practice. They also said that because of her posture while she's doing it, and the way her arms, shoulders, and hips move- it's really good for your health. But people aren't using that technique anymore, and so they lose some of the benefits of cooking.

Throughout the entire class she would sit me down and we would go through the ingredients together and the process together, and I would write it all down (In English, but with the names of the dishes and some of the ingredients in Tamil- By the way, it's interesting when someone tries to teach you how to spell in Tamil. It's not like in English when someone says letter after letter until you have a word. In Tamil they just tell you the sounds. It would be like spelling words out based on their syllables instead of the letters. like: SOW- UUN- D instead of S-O-U-N-D).

Then she would go through all the ingredients we had used and would tell me all of the different properties of the ingredients. This was my favorite part, probably. She would first tell me what vitamins and minerals each thing was high in. She would then tell me what types of people those foods were best for- babies, elderly, pregnant women, people with fevers, etc- And would explain the different ailments that the different ingredients helped cure. She would then tell me different old wives tales about them- like wake a baby up and give it a table spoon of honey right away- and then the baby will learn how to talk earlier and will be extremely articulate. She also said honey is a health food? Sounds good to me!

In the end I sat and ate an Amazing meal while she and the girl who had been helping her out watched me. That was a little awkward. But, they were really nice. At one point I mixed a side dish with the main rice dish and the girl started laughing- but they were really nice and explained that you don't traditionally mix those at once. Just eat a mouthful of one, and then a mouthful of the next.

All in all, it was really really fun! I told her about my family's general interest in food and cooking and the relationship between food and culture and she seemed really excited about that. She was also excited to get American recipes and dessert recipes from me. We'll see how I do!

--- catie

my house!

2007-01-11T14:27:00.000+06:00

I realized that I hadn't put up any photos of my house- so here are some for you (minus Laura's room, 'cause it was too messy apparently?)

This is a picture of our kitchen. We just got the stove yesterday. I cleaned it today (was fairly disgusting) and have so far only used to to boil water for tea.

This is the other side of my kitchen with all of our new pots & pans! And our somewhat grimy sink with (2?) faucets)

This is our living room- (Emily got me that plant, named 'Hercules" for my birthday). And you can kind of see into Emily's room from there.
Our living room again, with another new plant and a curtain over the door which Emily's dog, Chooli, sort of ate a corner of.

This is our God Closet in our livingroom. We keep two brooms, one mop, and an old dirty mat in it.

This is my bedroom! bed, window (with SuperStar looking in), map of the world, prayer beads i picked up somewhere.. etc.

hmm...well, i was going to put all of my house photos right on the blog, but for some unknown reason (user error, i'm guessing?) the internet wont let me do it anymore. BUT, if you want to check out the other few photos (9 or so) of my house, they're on my webshots account- so feel free to go look at them if you're interested! sorry I couldn't make this simpler. I tried. ohhh computers... imeanme...

http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/556956963BbQLuK

So, there you have it.
I hope you all are well

--- catie

In Conclusion: I'm allergic to Madurai

2007-01-08T12:43:00.000+06:00

I've spent the last month or so gallivanting around Southern India, for those of you who didn't know.
the numbers don't add up right, but i feel like this is how it went:
3 weeks with Emily, Emily, and Nate in Kerela
1 week with just nate in Karnataka
3 weeks with Emily Dingman harassing our new friends, Jay & Braleigh in Palolem, Goa.

really maybe it was a total of two weeks before i got to palolem and less than three weeks there--- but i think how it feels is more important anyway.

i suppose there's too much to update on, really- but maybe i'll just give you guys a run-down on the highlights.

* I have learned that knowing Tamil has two effects on purchasing things
a) the shop keeper is so delighted that you speak Tamil that you get an automatic price reduction
b) the shop keeper is delighted that you speak Tamil and engages in a long (for foreign language- five minutes maybe?) conversation with you and then guilts you into buying from them at a still relatively high price.
as a result of this (along with Goa being more expensive) I ended up spending much too much beyond my alloted budget for this vacation.
* The medical system in India works! I went to the doctor after a month of denial towards some illness (i was fearing worms?). The doctor barely asked me any questions, poked my stomach a little, told me i had a intestine lining infection, and prescribed me four or five different types of medicine. I was reluctant to take any of them, and wanted to just stick with my 'water solves all' solutions- but i took the pills and was better within two days! now i'm a believer (lie- i'm a half-believer. but it's a step in the right direction, right?)
* Travel agencies almost always (in my so-far experience) try to con you into something. In fact, come to think of it, almost anyone at any given point is trying to con Someone into Something. It's just a matter of which end of it you end up on. I'd say I'm doing pretty good--- minus a few hundred rupees here and there.
* Travel books are either complete lies or completely outdated. Either way they lead to adventures you weren't really expecting.
* I realized while being stranded at a provincial train station in Karnataka called Murdershwar, that it's all about your mentality and not really about where you end up. Nate and I were more or less just pushed off of the train and told to find our own way to the beach(after bribing the conductor to at least take us as far as he could). Instead of panicking we decided to just sit and watch the sparrows, and wait for the next train to come, and see how it went from there. I blame this mentality (mostly inspired by the sparrows, to be honest) for our good luck on catching an easy train to Gokarna within a few hours.
* My impression of monkeys will forever be altered from a jovial ooo-aahhh, arms flailing and imaginary tail swinging about the place, to nails extended teeth barred and sharp growling barks. This can be attributed to a run-in Emily and I had with a pack of monkeys in Tekkidy, on our way back from a trek through a Tiger preserve. Luckily I had an apple, and Emily had a life vest to protect us with. I have to admit I thought of all those books that say never to throw food when an animal is attacking you (because it might just think of you as a food source--- but i'm pretty sure this monkey did already)--- but the apple did the trick. I tossed it aside, and in the second the monkey turned to see where it went Emily and i managed to skirt around it and were headed in the right direction away from it. Anyway- my views on monkeys have definitely changed in the last month.
* For Christmas Emily and Jay and Braleigh and I got stranded on the most extreme weather island i've ever been on. For quite the deal we got a boat to take us out to butterfly island. they dropped us off with a tent, food, water, some beer, some firewood (complete with nails--- i guess in case we needed some?) half a liter of petroleum and a rusty lighter. The food was delicious- a few whole fish, cheese-olive naan, salad (onions and cucumbers mostly), finger chips, and pineapple & oranges. Braleigh took to the christmas spirit, and with the help of emily's pocket-knife chopped off all of her hair. We tried, at first, to just burn the cut off hair- but decided that the fumes might attract some sort of jungle cat, and so instead she just filled a bag with what she cut off and be lit it the next morning.
The tent they left with us was probably one of the more useless things i've ever seen in my life. I like to think of technology as the lazy-man's best friend. We make things and all of a sudden some tasks are easier, right? (technically this is all debatable on so many levels, but i'm going to just leave it as a general statement and probably not come back to it. feel free to comment though!) Anyway- i feel that when this tent was designed it was made in such a way as to completely ignore all needs, solutions, and creative designs found useful up until this point. The tent was pretty much a ground cloth with a dome attached to it at each corner. this made it a pretty nice wind tunnel that quickly filled with sand (which was lucky, because the sand was, at times, pretty much the only thing holding it down). We ended up spending a good portion of the evening designing ways to make the tent stationary (settled for filling bottles with sand and putting them, along with Chooli into the tent).
It was a pretty rough night, all in all. I probably only didn't freeze to death because i slept on top of Chooli and uncomfortably close to Emily and Jay (and Braleigh for that matter... although Jay was in between us. it was that close).

On christmas day we awoke to find that Santa wasn't aware of butterfly island, and had neglected to visit us. So we played cards, and ate oranges for breakfast (atleast one christmas tradition kept!) the boat was scheduled to pick us up at 1 in the afternoon. Pretty quickly the beach got unbearably hot, and so we decided to just jump into the ocean- clothes and all (it feels amazing!- and then there's less laundry to do?). The waves were pretty strong, and lots of fun to play in. But I got pretty tired pretty quickly, so Jay and I sat out on a rock. It kept getting hotter and hotter as we waited for the boat. We were all pretty hungry, and Jay and I started cooking snails with a lighter and eating them (not too bad, really). Besides the hunger and the heat the wait wasn't so bad. we had some (now warm) water, and there were dolphins jumping around in the distance- it was pretty nice.
But we waited- stranded at butterfly island, until our boat came. Then the boat got us about half way back and broke down. So we had to wait for another boat to come and tow us back. but for some reason, instead of towing us straight back, they took us in about four or five circles before heading to shore. We finally got back, ate, and I went to bed probably around 8 or 9 pm. All in all a pretty good Christmas
* New Years really just amplified my distaste towards men in general, and more specifically, grabby Indian men. out of the four of us I definitely received the least amount of harassment. This is due to a) a general (soon to be world-wide, I think) obsession with Braleigh Nelson. b) Emily's small size and sweet nature and c) a convenient misconception that Jay has some claim on me (Braleigh's theory on the matter). Anyway- the night just resulted in a lot of harassment and an eventual hide-out in our house, which was fine with me.
* The highlight of New Years Eve in Palolem, however, was the fireworks. It seems that people delight in firing explosives into crowds of dancing indian tourists and foreigners. Furthermore, it also seems that these dancers delight in the fireworks erupting either feet infront of or above them. The effect is especially powerful when the dancers are showered in falling flames. This always results in people cheering out and laughing uncontrollably. For me it mostly resulted in hiding out behind whoever was closest to me.
* Bonoffee pie is the most delicious thing in the world... probably. I couldn't possibly do it justice, so just take my word for it. If you ever find yourself in a situation in which you can consume massive amounts (or really any amount at all) of Bonoffee pie, rejoice. because it is amazing.

Actually, let me give you all a quotation from Jay's blog (hope he doesn't mind?)
"For those of you who have never had the pleasure to indulge in Banoffee pie I feel in many respects great pity for you. It isn't a fledging sustainance apparatus or a pitiful attempt at combining two good things to make them better. Banoffe pie is an artistic bid at making the world a better place, at this, it doesn't succeed, but, it could be easily characterized as the embodiment of edible indulgent bliss.

I have devoured four different pieces of Banoffe pie from four unique restaurants. Each piece was made from a combination of buscuits, bananas, butter, cream and condensed milk. At first thought one would assume that eating four seperate pieces of the same thing would yield the same result in every case. If you think this you are wrong, about EVERYTHING. Each solitary piece of Banoffee pie was unrepeated, unique and produced an arrestingly contradistinctive result."
* With that in mind, one of my new years resolutions was to eat less sugar.
* Another new year's resolution is to do more art (this seems to be a recurring resolution. by this time i should probably be spending about 87% of my time doing nothing but art. i guess i should resolve to keep my resolutions?). So, i bought a little journal, and have done five drawings so far, but have fell behind since i left Goa.
* I was lucky enough to make friends (?) with Braleigh and Jay's friends in Goa- mainly the staff at a restaurant, Baba's Little Italy. One of them was a waiter named, Prem, who has inspired me to use the word "Prem" as an ajective and noun. I think people can get "Premmed" or be too "Prem"... maybe no one can be too Prem? Anyway- it got me sort of excited to become less afraid of men in Madurai, and more eager to be friends with them (but still... minorly afraid of friendship with men here).
* On the way back Emily and I took an auto to the train station, getting there about fourty minutes early so that we could make sure to get Chooli in her compartment with plenty of time to spare. However, when we got there the parcel man told us there is only one dog allowed on the train at a time, and a girl had already come to reserve it. We were told to bribe the man with 1000 rupees (about 25 dollars), but he wouldn't take it.

At this point we started examining our options. my first impulse, i must admit, was to stay in goa forever. luckily emily was there to shake me to my senses and explained in somewhat great detail why we had to go back to Madurai. So we started examining our tools and decided what we Really needed was a basket. However, there was no basket to be found. We did have a blanket, however- so we decided to wrap Chooli in it, baby-style. This mostly worked except that Emily has never (she admitted) held a baby before, and looked really awkward pretending her blanketed dog was a person. We walked to the platform to wait for the train and noticed that behind a tea-stall there was a pile of cardboard boxes. We started examining them. The tea-vendor saw us, and was inappropriately excited to give us one of them. So we ventured to a quiet part of the platform and hid behind some other white people. Emily put Chooli into the box and i went to look for some string. It became really apparently really quickly that there was no way that Chooli would stay in the flimsy box unless it was bound shut with something much stronger than the loose pieces of string I collected from around the platform. Eventually an Indian man came over from the group of people who had gathered around to watch, and whispered to us: put the stuff in the box- put the dog in the bag. So, Emily and I figured with nothing to lose (except for some expensive bags?) we might as well try. My bag was slightly bigger so I dumped everything of mine into the cardboard box and the two of us began stuffing the dog into my bag. As we were doing this we began to hear the train approaching. So pretty frantically we were shoving paws and tails and ears into the bag and zipping it as quickly as we could. Emily put my bag on, I grabbed hers, and we tried to lift the box up. Mostly this was difficult because the box was reluctant to not fall apart. We ended up trading the box off back and forth as we ran down the platform- being jostled around by other passengers- afraid that two weeks of dirty underwear were going to end up scattered around platform 5. We shoved our stuff onto the train and found our compartment just as Chooli started getting out of the bag. the family we were sharing our compartment with looked a little surprised, but were really comforting. This was a relief because many indian families hate dogs (if it were my host family they may have found the heaviest object near by and thrown it at Chooli). But this family told us "No Problem!" and they told us to be quiet for 10 minutes until the conductor passed, and then we'd be fine. So we hid Chooli up on a top bunk and draped a blanket across. Then Emily spent the night up there trying to keep her quiet. Somehow we managed to get to bangalore without having to offer bribes to anyone else. We got off of the train and dumped poor chooli out onto the platform where dozens of people started, mouths open, at what had just fallen out of our bags.

Then we had about five hours in Bangalore. We were pretty exhausted, and not really too interested in the city- so we just looked for a quiet place to sit down at the train station. We quickly realized there was no such quiet place inside the station, so we ventured out onto the road. We found a pretty shady spot, put the cardboard box down and sort of collapsed onto it. It was honestly the most comfortable sidewalk i've collapsed onto in a really long time! And we were in just the right place to get harassed by a crazy man for three hours, which made the time pass pretty quickly! he wasn't a dangerous type of crazy man- he just liked dogs a LOT. he kept going and finding stray dogs and picking them up and bringing them to us. then he'd ask us if we were hungry, and then he'd start hitting the dog until it ran away. Then he'd leave and go buy buns, and tear them up and throw them at our feet until Chooli ate all of them. then we'd make him leave, and a few minutes he would come back and repeat this all. I think the weirdest thing he did was to suck on his fingers and then try to touch Chooli with them. Pretty harmless though, all in all.

Anyway, Emily and I made it back to Madurai this morning, where I promptly felt sick again. SO--- i really think I am allergic to it here- and maybe have to go back to Goa?

Well, i guess that's sort of the shorthand update for things. How did everyone else spend their holidays? I'd really really like to know!

Thinking of you all

--- catie

It's been awhile!

2006-11-23T16:37:00.000+06:00

Hello All,

It's been a really long time since I've updated. A lot has happened, and I've done a lot, so I'll just update on the last few events.

Emma came to visit for a week or so. It was really nice to have her here. She was sick when she got here, and got progressively worse, and then a little better, and then she left. But it was still nice to have her here. The day after she got here was Diwali. Diwali is this huge festival all over India. In the North it's the festival of lights- and I think they just light little oil lamps all over the country for that. But in the South they have a different festival for lights. So Diwali was pretty much just a huge display of fireworks, and more firecrackers than I've ever cared to hear in my life. For a week or two leading up to the festival firecrackers were getting louder and more and more frequent. On Diwali I woke up pretty sure war had started. All day there wasn't a second of silence. It was honestly a constant stream of insanely loud firecrackers. Some of them were so loud I would temporarily lose my hearing, and then regain it a few seconds later to find that a nearby car alarm had been set off by the cracker. They were some pretty serious stuff. And to make things even crazier (and more Indian) the people who were really into these crackers weren't just your expected, run-of-the-mill teenage boys, but little little children. Ajit, who is 6 years old and lives below us LOVED setting these things off in his hand, and then waiting, and throwing them just in time to see them explode in the air. Some of these, I am fairly certain, could easily take your arm off. But, his parents were there providing "adult supervision"- which pretty much just meant- when they were out of fireworks, going and getting more. Or when they were out of those- going and getting matches to light.

Mostly everyone on Diwali gets a new dress. Because all of my clothes are new here, I just wore a sari. We spent a good portion of the day going from house to house in our little neighborhood, eating and taking photos. That night we went up to this huge hotel called Hotel Supreme- and ate dinner. Emma was wanting some soup for her cold- so we chose that restaurant. It is close to the temple, and overlooks the city. It was amazing how many fireworks there were. All around us there was a constant display of flashing, popping, glittering fireworks. Some of them were a little close for comfort- but for the most part it was just really beautiful.

While Emma was here we went to Chennai. Emily and Laura (the two girls I live with) came along. We stayed in a pretty nice, and relatively expensive (for Indian standards) hotel that smelled a little like mildew. To be fair, it was raining the whole time we were there, so the room didn't have much of a chance to air out or anything. We got there via sleeper train- which I found pretty comfortable, but I think maybe Laura and Emily were a little harder to please. I slept great though for pretty much the whole 9 or so hour ride. While we were in Chennai we spent a good amount of our time trying to barter with the auto drivers. In Madurai I have the advantage of knowing how much it Should cost for me to get from one place to the next- but I was so clueless in Chennai. It made it really hard, not knowing how much I was being ripped off at any given point. But we got around okay. It was raining pretty horribly the whole time- which was unfortunate- but I guess that's what we get for going there during the monsoon season. It was interesting, however, to turn on a national news channel and see the weather danger warning for a place that I was currently in.

We went outside of Chennai one day and went to a crocodile farm. There were a lot of varieties of Crocodiles and alligators there, and a lot of tourists, Indian and Western. Some of the crocodiles had their own cages, but a lot were crammed into one small enclosure with a little space to swim and pretty much no space to move around in. I don't really know how much room it takes to make a crocodile happy- but it was pretty sad at times. On the other hand, most of these are endangered species, given a chance to reproduce. I guess it's the age old zoo debate again.

On our last morning in Chennai Emma and I went to the beach. Chennai has one of the longest (perhaps second longest?) beaches in the world. I think it was called Marina beach, although I could be wrong. A few years back there was a radioactive waste spill or coverup or scandal of some sort- but people were still kickin it in the waves. Mostly it wasn't people swimming around and playing, as far as I could tell, but people who were there to bathe. There were a lot of tourists, and a lot of people selling things. One man came up to us and asked us if we wanted to buy his stuff. In Tamil I said we didn't want to- and then he was curious about us knowing Tamil. And then he asked if we knew Spanish. Emma replied that she did, and then he proceeded to speakin in some language (that was definitely not Spanish). And then he took something out and said we were his friends, and here was a gift. He unwrapped a little parcel, and took out a few pearls, and put one in Emma's hand. He told us he was a deep sea fisherman, and nodded as if this explained a) why he had these pearls and b) why he just put one in her hand. We just kind of looked down at it, and then Emma handed it to him, and we said goodbye and walked off. A young man who had been watching this all followed us down the beach and asked if we would take a picture with him. So we did, and then he asked us if we had American coins, which we didn't (I think I exchanged pretty much every last penny when I got here). Anyway, it was all a pretty good experience- not too much harassment while we were there, and it only smelled mildly awful- but it was nice to be on the beach (and at this point, for some reason, it wasn't raining).

That day Emily and Laura and I went back via train to Madurai, and Emma went back to the US.

Since then things have been progressively getting crazier and crazier. I've spent the last week or so doing mostly only fieldwork stuff. I've interviewed three Catholic priests, one catholic family, and one Hindu priest, and have written, I think, about 19 informal response pages, along with about 15 pages of interview transcriptions. And still I'm pretty far behind.

My fieldwork project is probably going to end up being about something having to do with the differences in the relationships between prayer, images, and God in the educated and uneducated Catholic and Hindu groups in Tamil Nadu. So I think I'm going to have to end up conducting interviews on Hindu and Catholic priests both, and then also educated and uneducated groups of Hindus and Catholics here. Tonight I meet with my Advisor for the first time (officially) to discuss my paper, and what I'm doing, and what resources I need, etc. I'm hoping he can help me out with some books or something because so far I haven't really found anything that's Much help (especially regarding Catholicism).

I have, however, managed to slightly offend two different priests. The first just seemed a little taken aback at me asking him what roll the different statues of saints, or the crucifix, play in prayer. As a result he didn't answer the question and I had to cut my interview short. I guess it was a learning experiences, and his reluctance to answer the question said something about his views, I think. The other instance was when I asked a Catholic priest about the idea of "impurities" within the Church. I meant impurities to mean something in the spiritual sense- sort of like Hinduism and "pollution". But the priest thought I was asking him about priests acting inappropriately. To make things worse it took me way too long to figure out this is what he thought I was talking about, so I was asking him questions like "wait... There's none of What here?". But in the end, people have been really nice and helpful and eager to talk to me.

Last night Nate and I went to this place in Madurai called Vidiyal. Vidiyal is this program that was set up sometime in the last decade or so for working and street children of Madurai. India has a really serious problem of children being sold to work, or children being in abusive positions in their homes, and leaving to find work. Most of these children come from rural areas, and are sold into cities. They end up working as shoe-shiners, or table cleaners in restaurants, or as people cleaning up trash and stuff on the street. They get paid what probably comes out to about five cents an hour, and about 95% percent of them are sexually abused by the time they're 10. Then to make things worse, really none of them are going to school because they're spending so much time working- and so they're in a horrible dead-end position. So this program, Vidiyal, was set up to give children a place to stay if they need it, and to encourage children to get back into school. Nate and I went there to see what it was about. He brought a chess board, and I played badminton with some of the kids. They were honestly the most well behaved children I've ever been around. The program was run amazingly well from what I could see. A few hundred kids were there, and by the end of the night they had all spent a few hours studying and a little bit of time playing, and all of them had been fed. When we left I saw that there was a room where the woman who was in charge that day was doing medical check ups on the kids- giving medicines and just making sure everything was okay.

The kids were really fun. It was sad to see how many of them had scars on their faces and arms, but they were so excited to be there, and so excited to be able to talk with Nate and me. We ended up all playing soccer for quite awhile (they were really surprised that I knew how to play soccer, and by the end of the night we had gotten two of the little girls to play with us so it wasn't ALL boys). Mostly it was just Nate and me vs. 10 or 12 little kids. I would guess the oldest was about 15, and the youngest playing soccer with us was about 8. We were playing in a small muddy field without any shoes on, with a flat ball, and these kids were loving it. It was so much fun- pretty hard- but really fun. Then, when it was time to eat, one little girl said: enough! And all the kids immediately stopped playing, and went and cleaned up. It was amazing that there weren't any who tried to keep playing or anything- they all just seemed to glad to have gotten to play a little.

Nate and I ate there, and then as we were leaving stopped in to talk to the women in charge. She said that we should come back on the weekends to play more chess and soccer, but on the weekdays we should come back to teach English. We asked what grades and she said 2nd to 12th. She said we should just come and see what they're doing in their English books, and help out. So, hopefully we'll be able to make that happen. Already for this weekend there are scheduling conflicts (Saturday we have a seminar with local college students about gender and sexuality, and Sunday I'm going to meet with the potter priest to discuss temple tower statues).

Well, I should get going to meet with my Advisor. Thanks to all of you who've been keeping in touch. I hope everything's going well in the US. And Happy Thanksgiving!

Missing you all,

much love

--- Catie

Magic show, churches, Dvds...

2006-10-12T10:56:00.000+06:00

this last weekend the eight of us went away to a town about three hours south west of Madurai called Tirunelveli. It's not really a village, but it's a lot smaller than Madurai. We drove down there in the evening and stopped and got dinner on the way. By the time we got there I was so exhausted. I've been going to sleep here around 9.30 every night, so staying up until about 11 was kind of extreme. I guess there's just something about being here that makes me sleep more regularly- go to bed at 9.30 and get up at 7.30 everyday. (the family that lived below me goes to sleep around 10 each night and gets up, i think, about five am!)

So, our first day in Tirunelveli we drove to a village nearby where there are a lot of waterfalls. people here flock to waterfalls because many of them are considered to be sacred. This means that if you plan on doing your laundry there (which a lot of people do) you have to bring extra money- because it's extra to wash your clothes in holy water.

That day we also went on a small hike up through this herb jungle. it's the place i've been in India so far that has the least amount of trash. It's also the only place I've been that had anything posted about not dumping trash. It was a pretty walk, and when we got to the top of this hill we could see for miles all around us- into small villages and over farms and ponds and mango groves. We hiked back down and sat under a huge tree and Dr. V. gave us a lecture on the different types of herbs that we could find around us, and the history of herbal medicine in Tamil-Nadu. It was pretty impossible to pay attention though, because there were so many monkeys doing interesting stuff all around us. Right behind Dr. V was a man selling many different types of fruit. So, i got pretty interested in watching him throw rocks at the monkeys and wave a machete thing at them whenever they got too near. At one point his back was turned for just a second and a monkey jumped down and ran off with a jackfruit in its mouth (jackfruit are huge- probably about one and a half times the size of a human head).

The next day we all separated and went out with our field assistants to do practice interviews. The idea is that if we mess up really horribly on these interviews it's not that much of a problem because we're far enough away from Madurai that we're not effecting any relationship we're going to need to have for the next year. My field assistant is a guy named Eugene. He's Catholic (which is why they put us together), and pretty shy, but really nice. I think he's probably around 22- but that's just a guess. So, Eugene and I took an auto to this catholic church. There were two parts to the church, which was pretty small. The older part was about 300 years old, and the newer part was about a decade old. I interviewed this really old woman who didn't speak any English. Her job was to keep the church clean- sweep it etc, and light the candles during mass. Eugene translated everything back and forth, which made the interview a lot less intimidating, but also a lot more difficult in many ways. For example, she mentioned that the caretaker had died, and so they were needing to hire a new one. I didn't really understand that part of the interview, but i found out later that I was supposed to be interviewing the caretaker as well as her (no one told me this) and that he had died the day before. I think my reaction (because i misunderstood what she was saying) was something like: "oh." So, i'm guessing she thought I was fairly insensitive.

Anyway, the interview went pretty well. It was nice to talk to someone instead of just observe what goes on in the church. It was so interesting to her her perspective on all of the rituals, and all of her beliefs.

In Catholic churches here if you pray for something, like your brother getting well, and he gets well, the you make an offering of salt to God to thank Him. So there are big baskets full of salt in the churches. Then when someone goes to the church to pray they take a little bit of the salt and put it in their mouth. So Eugene was explaining this to me after the interview, and I kept asking him why they put the salt in their mouth- or why it is salt that they offer- and he laughed and said he didn't know- that it's something he's done a lot in his life, but he doesn't know why they do it. So we asked the woman and she just sort of gave a reply like: we do it because it's tradition. I thought it was interesting that all of these people are doing this thing and they have no idea why. I later found out from my academic advisor here that the first Christian converts in India were salt farmers on the coast. So when they were converted to Christianity they took the Hindu ritual of offerings into Christianity with them. But the only thing they had to offer was salt. Then as the religion spread across India, the practice of offering salt spread with it. An interesting progression anyway.

That night after we all did our interviews we decided to go to a magic show. It was one of the most memorable and strange things i've ever witnessed. the entire thing was set to really loud upbeat music- some electronic "instrumental" versions of Aqua songs, and some songs that sounded pretty Tamil- but didn't have words. The music was so loud that people in the audience were all plugging their ears, but they didn't seem upset about it like people in the US might be (i think). They were all just watching the show and casually plugging their ears. The stage was constantly filled with women dancing in sparkling outfits- which was probably a really good diversion for the magician. The magician was so loud and energetic. He spoke all in English with a really heavy accent. His mannerisms and intonation were so animated it was sometimes impossible to understand what he was saying- but it was always amusing. His tricks were, for the most part, really convincing and impressive. At one point he asked for a male of over 18 years to come up onto stage and assist him. So nate stood up and ran up there. Everyone in the audience was so excited that a white kid was up on stage, and everyone was constantly cheering and laughing for him. So after a short introduction the magician put nate's head in a guillotine and dropped the blade, and somehow nate's head magically stayed on. When he left the stage people in the audience stood up and as he walked by them they took his hand and shook it. The next day some girls in an elevator recognized him and got really giggly and excited.

Since our trip to tirunelveli things have been pretty regular. Last night a few of us decided to go run some errands in the city. I tried to go to the post office but found that it was impossible. the line was so long, and because so many people were cutting, the longer we stood in it the farther from the front of it we got. So eventually we abandoned hope and left. We went to the tailor to get some more appropriate clothing and then Nate and Laura and I decided to wander around. We asked the Tailor how to get to the palace. He told us that the palace was closed for a week because they're shooting a music video for a Hindi film. He explained that they wont let anyone but foreigners in- so if we went there and didn't speak any Tamil to them and acted like any run of the mill tourists they'd probably let us in. So we left and took a cycle rickshaw to the palace. We just sort of walked in and started to look around. They were still building the set within the palace, and we could see men making costumes and people setting up lighting. A man approached us and told us we had to leave. We told him that we really wanted to see the palace because it was our last night in Madurai. It was really hard to not speak Tamil to him. Although my Tamil isn't great- it's always so helpful to be able to speak atleast just a little bit. And people are always so much more friendly when we speak in Tamil. The man was still a little reluctant to let us look around, so we told him we'd give him 30 rupees (which is about 75 cents). So he walked us around the palace. It was one huge open room with a ton of Gigantic pillars and very ornate carvings all around the high ceiling (where there was a ceiling). It was also really interesting to see them building the set (which is a huge swimming pool in the middle of this huge palace room), and see them setting up all of the lighting equiptment and making all of the props and decorations. I really wish I could go back and see them filming- but it seemed like that would be out of the question.

After that Nate and Laura and I decided to head back towards the temple. We decided to walk, and found a restaurant that was called "Modern Restaurant". We went in and they led us upstairs to an open roof with tables set up. There were eight other white people up there- from the Chezch Republic. They didn't speak any Tamil though. The waiters all seemed really excited that we spoke a little Tamil, and we told them we only wanted to speak in Tamil that night. they got really excited and all gathered around us the whole time we ate. They kept bringing us extra sauces to try and asking us what we thought of each. They brought out something that was "really spicy" but i think it was one of the least spicy things i've had since I got here so maybe there was a communication error. Before we left they all gathered around and wanted to take pictures of us. Nate's birthday is next week and so he told them he's coming back on his birthday, and he'll bring a copy of all the photos for them to keep. It's nice to just have really good interactions with people in Tamil finally.

We left and decided to go to this little road that sells all electronics stuff. I've been there once before- and both last night and the first time I was there I didn't see a single woman on that street. It was really intimidating the first time, but last night it seemed much more manageable. We went to a shop on the street and they brought out a ton of DVDs for us to look at. I think I ended up buying about 20 DVDs for about 50 cents each, and one CD with 180 Tamil cinema songs on it for about 75 cents. The movies seem to be okay quality (with the exception of one- but he warned me ahead of time). The only problem seems to be with the audio in that it's maybe a little quieter than it should be. or maybe my computer just has really horrible speakers all of a sudden.

Anyway, it was a pretty fun night all in all. I came pretty close to adopting a puppy that was following us around for awhile. (not really but it was so cute) It kept chasing its tail and jumping up and down around us. I was pretty glad though when it found a pile of trash and stopped following us eventually.

Speaking of puppies, Emily's puppy, Choolie (which means "cowlick" in Tamil) is at my house right now, so I think I'm going to go help entertain it.

I hope you are all well!

--- catie

ps, you may notice that I added my webshots account to the links on the side, aswell as Laura's webshots account. She has more photos up than I do (about a quarter of which are photos I took), so you may be interested to look through hers as well.

Take Care!

more photos

2006-10-04T16:15:00.000+06:00

just thought i'd let you know that i updated my webshots account... so there are some more photos there if anyone's interested.

Weekend update

2006-10-02T12:46:00.000+06:00

FRIDAY:
this friday emily and laura and i had made plans to go with our family to celebrate the festival Naviratiri. I don't really know a lot about the festival. I know it lasts 9 nights. for the first three nights they worship Durga, the second three nights they worship Lakshmi, and the third three the worship Saraswati. I guess as a result of this goddess worship it's a family female dominated festival. the women downstairs had made plans to take us somewhere (we weren't really sure where) at 6.00. So Laura and Emily got dressed up in Saris, and I wore a Salwar Kameez ('cause my Sari petticoat doesn't fit right)and we met our family downstairs. They said we were walking to a house near where the program house is. When we got there we went inside and were led to a small room with a huge "gobra" set up. It was basically a huge display of dolls- all set up on different levels of this elevated platform. Most of the dolls were gods and goddesses, but some were of cricket players or little toy trucks. So we sat there and had slightly awkward broken tamil conversations with the people who lived in the house, and then they decided to sing a song. It was really relaxing- sitting there on the floor with these women singing these slow tamil songs over a recorded chant that was playing quietly in the background. The room was really hot and pretty suffy from the insence- but it was comfortable too somehow. Then the women brought out Prasada and gave us little bags with beans and coconut and bananas and bangles (where were too small for any of our hands), and flowers for our hair and sandlewood paste for our forheads. Then we said goodbye and I thought we were going to head home but our mom from downstairs said we were going to another house. We ended up going to three houses to see the Gobras, and then a few after that to meet our family's family around our neighborhood. Everyone was so nice and so excited to meet us. it was one of the first times i've been introducted to someone and not felt like it was someone just showing off a white person- it was more like the women from downstairs wanted us to meet their family- not just that they wanted their family to meet us. Then today I saw my mom's mom and recognized her as i was biking by and she smiled. i guess it's maybe just a reassuring feeling- like i wont always be quite the foreigner.

So by the time we went around to all of these houses we were all really tired and hungry and our family invited us back for dinner. the family we live directly above is working class. they have two children and both the husband and the wife work as ironers on the street. they're really traditional in a lot of ways- very religious- but are pretty progressive in others - like the fact the wife and husband work together. The family who's house we went to for dinner is right next door to us. They're really well off and have huge bedrooms with beds (most people here sleep all in their entry way on the floor), and they have a water filter, a big TV, couches, a dinning room table, and a son in New Jersy. Anyway, we went to their house for dinner and they fed us so many delicious dosai until we were so full and i had to hobble up to bed.

SATURDAY:

Saturday we drove out to a village to see a kind of colony where all the work that's done is done with the Gandhian mentality. Everything that can be done by hand is done by hand, even if a machine could do it- and most of the dyes for the fabrics are all natural (i guess there's a movment in India to get rid of chemical dyes by 2010!). It was interesting to see all of the places where people were working- making honey, making food, weaving and dying fabrics. There is also a school on the grounds so there were a lot of young boys playing cricket. We went into a small classroom for little kids that were mostly orphans and they sang songs for us in different languages that they're learning. Our guide for the day was this guy who was probably in his 20s. He said that he was born on the colony and went to school there and now he's working there. The people didn't get paid a lot to work there, but they got good benifits and retirement plans- which seems pretty progressive to me.

I guess that was mostly my weekend. Although- last night was the last night of Naviratiri, and so all of the trees have lights in them, and all of the cars have flowers and banana leaves on them. We saw dozens of rickshaws lined up in a field that's usually empty- all really decorated. We were wondering what they were doing there and then about 3 hours later they all drove by our house on parade- honking their horns, full of screaming children. And our litte brother Ajit ran after them- really excited to see them pass by.

Today i went to the potter and he took some pictures of me and his nephew and neice and the potters wheel. I will maybe post them up online later this week. Pottery is so thereputic. no matter how tired or stressed or exhausted from India I am- it always makes me feel better.

that's it for now. I hope you're all well! keep me updated on what you're up to!

much love,

--- catie

Observation exercize &c.

2006-09-25T12:39:00.000+06:00

Hello All,

Well, things are really settled down here. I think i've got my schedle down and things are falling into place.

This weekend was really laid back. I went to the temple district to buy a few things and then from Saturday night until Sunday afternoon I more or less just sat and read in my house. Then Last night I went out to eat and ate chicken for the first time since I got here. I've actually gotten into the habit of telling people that I'm a vegetarian because it seems to make things a lot more simple- and i don't really trust the meat preparation and storage here all that much. So the chicken was an interesting change. it seemed to have been fried (like most of the food here is, I would say)- and it had a crispy red outter layer and was SO hot i could barely eat it. It was alright (and one of the only things I've had since I got here that hasn't been spicy), but I think I'm going to stick to the veg. food for now.

Last night the family that lives below us made a huge pile of wood in our yard. They then took all of the dirt around the pile of wood and dug it up and then added buckets of water to it. Women would go with their jugs and fetch the water from the well and then carry it back on their heads and leave it with the men who would do the mixing. The shovels here are long and flat and the handles sort of come out at about a 20 degree angle from the blade. The men bend over and shovel between their legs- sort of like how dogs dig up dirt. So- then they took all of this mud that they had made and mixed it with small branches and leaves and put it all around the huge pile of wood. finally they had what looked like a 12 foot high pile of mud outside our house, and then they lit it on fire from an opening below. We asked what they were doing it for, and they explained to us that they were making coal (because they are the neighborhood ironers- after you get your clothes washed you take them to the family under us and they iron them on the side of the street). Anyway- it was an interesting process to see, and I thought I'd share it with anyone who's interested. It was only sort of problimatic when the wood was burning all night and filled our rooms with smoke. Emily even tried sleeping on the roof for awhile it was that bad.

It seems as though there's always something new here. Just when I think I'm starting to understand the patterns of the people that i'm living around, something new comes up and I'm completely surprised again. sometimes there are huge fires in our yard- and I still can't figure out what they're burning. maybe trash? Sometimes there is drumming for hours, and firecrackers going off and no one seems to notice- in fact, I asked the woman who lives below me about it and she said that there weren't ay firecackers- that all people were doing that day was praying.

I went out to the potter's village today. I go again tomorrow. I think I'm not very good at it- but the potter priest says I'm a really fast student because I'm already making really big pots. It's hard work, and i get sore doing it, and really muddy. I'm also getting much better at navigating the bus system to get out there.

Last week I went to a professor's house to talk about my fieldwork ideas. He is a man named Dianechu Carr (an odd coinsidence?). He's pretty old and extremely smart. He's been guest a guest lecturer all over Europe, and maybe in the US a few times and was formally the president of a theology university in India. We talked a lot about Christianity and some about Hindusim and the use of symbols in each. By the end of it I was so excited to learn about all of it, but also completely at a loss about what I want to specifically study.

That night I went to a Roman Catholic church with Eugene, a field assistant, to do a practice observation exercize. We got there thinking there was going to be an English mass, but I guess we were misinformed or something because it was in Tamil. The church was really amazing to see though. It was really big and really colorful. There were huge statues of mother mary and christ on the outside of the church with neon signs that said, in tamil, here is your mother. Inside there were a lot of statues of different saints and a few crusifixes, and a few statues of the mother mary. It was interesting to see how people prayed there. I haven't spent a lot of time (or any time maybe?) in a Roman Catholic chuch in the US, so I was trying to compare what I saw to Hindu worshiping techniques rather than to US Catholic worshiping techniques. A lot of people were kneeling down in the front and just praying silently, focusing on the crusifix or on the figure of Mary. At the end of the Mass a lot of people got up and touched one of the crusifixes and then would bring their hands to their eyes- a guesture that is really common in Hinduism and puja ceremonies. There were some other Hindu-type elements in the church. The women still wear sacred threads instead of wedding bands and I saw a few babies with black dots on their cheeks- put there to keep away the evil eye- a hindu superstition. Also, some people took their shoes off before they entered the church, although most kept them on still.

It was an interesting experience- although I still don't really know where I should go with my research. I'm tempted to mainly focus on Hindusim and then focus on Christianity later in my life... maybe just next year. Just keeping in mind the idea that while I'm in a Hindu culture it might be good to take advantage of that.

Either way I think I'm going to try to go to a temple in the next few days- maybe over the weekend- and do a similar type of observational exercize. It seems, however, that people are more likely to pay attention to me at a hindu temple than at the catholic church. So- in temples it gets kind of difficult to be an observer without effecting the enviroment that i'm observing and thus changing the results of what i'm seeing.

well, i guess that's the update for now. I have a tamil test on Thursday that I'm not really ready for, but am not really sure how to get ready for. I have four rolls of film being developed, and they're going to put them on a CD, so maybe i'll upload them onto my webshots account when I get them back.

I hope you are all well, thanks to those of you who are sending me emails!

much love

--- catie

hopefully a substantial update

2006-09-16T16:30:00.000+06:00

so, i've been trying to start a blog that i can update regularly, but somehow the internet is being complicated. maybe it has to do with the connection here, or maybe it's just that i'm inept, but i'm finding it fairly difficult to access most blog sites.

so, until i have that figured out, i'm going to probably continue with the mass emails. sorry, again, for the lack of personal touch to these- but i just have a few things i think i'd like to tell most of everyone, and it makes more sense this way than writing it over and over again. but, please, write to me, and i'll respond more personally.

So, i guess it's been awhile since i talked to everyone. orientation here is over, and i'm all settled in (for the most part). There are still a few things that are sort of sketcy (like our cell phones working off and on...) and I had to go back to the police station and redo my paper work because i filled it out in green (i find this amusing because none of the papers have my proper name on them- they all leave out Miller- and the authorities don't mind that, they just don't like that i wrote in green...)- but for the most part everything is going okay.

I live above a really sweet family in a relatively quite suburb of Madurai. we're a 60 rupee auto rickshaw drive from the temple in the centre- just north east of the centre in a neighborhood called Park Town. The family I live above is a mother who's 27, her husband (also her uncle), and her two completely sweet sweet children- an 8 year old and 6 year old. The mother's name is Mutha, which means pearl, and she takes really good care of us. She and her 8 year old daughter, Santhya, made us dessert and brought it up for us. They feed us fruit and peanuts too. The peanuts here, by the way, are completely different. they're soft and taste like alfalfa sprouts. And when our family brought them up to Lauras room and we were eating them they just shelled them and threw the shells over their shoulders around Laura's room. Anyway, the family is really nice and takes really good care of us.

I go out into the village twice a week to do pottery with a potter priest in a hut. I have lectures twice a week and go to Tamil class twice a week. Somehow, even though i'm not in class a lot, I find that I'm constantly exhausted. It's also hard because the one time of the day that i'm sure to not have anything is right after lunch, but everything is closed then so i can't do any sort of errand running. I guess it's like a siesta, but they don't have a word for it.

Yesterday Emily, Laura, our program director, Shaker, and I went out into a village to go see part of this 15 day festival. It was a really long trip out there, and i got so carsick. The last leg of it we were in a private bus, crammed in with people all around us, and with insanely loud tamil music blaring. So we got out in this village, and went to find the priest. I guess the festival had already started, but it doesn't really 'take off' until next week.

So this is the story for the festival: a long time ago there was a mother who had seven daughters. The daughters got along really well with the mother's older sister. whenever she came to visit the daughters got so excited and they all loved eachother so much.However, the mother got really jealous of her sister. So, one day when the sister came to visit the mother hid her seven daughters under a chicken basket. Then when the sister left the mother lifted up the basket and found that her daughters had turned into seven little dolls. A goddess came and told her that her daughters would be restored to her only when she was free from jealousy. So, now, every year the priest in this village gets posessed by the goddess and selects seven little girls to represent the seven daughters. the seven girls are all prepubescent and have to stay within the temple for the 15 day. Then they are blessed with good fortune for the rest of their lives. I still have a hard time exactly connecting the myth with the festival and how they directly relate- but i thought it would still be interesting to see what was going on.

So we went and talked to the priest and he had the seven little girls all come out and see us. they lined up by height and all recieted a prayer for rain. We had to put the sacred ash on our heads, and eat a little bit- which i guess could be considered sort of weird 'cause it's burnt cow pies (in the north they use dead human body ash!), but i figure ash is ash.

Then we talked to the priest for about an hour and a half. At first it was really interesting, but then we started to realize that he was a little unreliable. he told us that his temple was 3000 years old and that the festival was that old also. then he told us that the goddess of his temple was originally called Durga, but now her name was changed. Then he told us the story of Durga (which is a really common story), and explained that she was the original goddess 3000 years ago, and now she goes by a different name in his temple. I found this interesting because Durga and the myths surrounding Durga aren't specific to any village- they're pan indian and relatively new, coming from a western influence. So, i wondered if he was trying to convince us that she was the original goddess, or if he was convinced of it and was just trying to tell us what he thought was true. Then this same sort of thing happened a few times. he told us all about his four sons, saying each one was smarter than the previous- each getting the highest marks in Tamil Nadu, running hospitals and software companies etc. Then he told us that he had traveled and worked all over the world and knows 15 languages without ever studying them- just because he is so spiritual and full of Shakti and energy from Durga. Then he went into a trans where he was speaking another language, but it wasn't any language any of us recognized- and he then continued as if nothing had happened.

so after an hour and a half we took some photos (which probably didn't turn out great 'cause it wasn't very good lighting in the temple), and then left. I guess it was mostly just interesting to observe how this priest presented himself. I guess it would be a really difficult (maybe impossible? i dont know) psychological study- but interesting to see how mysticism works psychologically. When i saw the woman being posessed at the last temple i was convinced that she was convinced she was being posessed- and here it seemed so mechanical as if he had produced it and was trying to sell it to us.

Anyway, that was sort of the adventure for yesterday. We also got some sacred cow-pie ash to bring home with us to our friends- so i have two little parcels in my room if anyone's interested.

i'm still pretty afraid of indian men in general. the two girls that i live with seem to be less afraid- and yesterday had some 18 year old guys up on our roof. But, for the most part the men here seem sort of sketchy. I guess that's a generalization- but it's pretty frequent that men call out to us and yell "white women!" in Tamil when we pass, or ask us if we're married (we all have started saying yes. Emily now apparently has a husband in the US named "Bob"). I think i'll feel a lot more comfortable when i know the language. According to the 18 year old guys on our roof yesterday, everyone at their school knows who we are- and that really weirds me out. I would much rather keep as low a profile as i can- even though that's pretty hard when we stick out so much.

For the most part, however, Indian people are so friendly. So many families invite us into their homes and try to feed us. They always ask if you've eaten, and what you ate, and when they can give you food. Our mom downstairs did a sort of henna type of design on our hands (maybe i mentioned this already?), flowers and mine is a swastica, and she braided our hair and put bindis on us and is eager to help put saris on us if we ever want to wear them.

well, the internet is starting to get even more sketchy, so i think i should sign off. plus lunch is due to happen in a minute or so.

I hope you're all well! keep me updated!

I'm missing all of you a lot, and trying to not think too much about the US right now- about fall in alaska and the beginning of school in NY. But, still, keep me up to date on all the happenings!

much love,

--- catie

photos

2006-09-14T15:19:00.000+06:00

alright- i made a webshots account. my username is Catie20 so i'm pretty sure you can all go and look at a few of my pictures. it takes awhile to upload them from this computer- and its kinda a huge process to move them from my computer to this one, so i wont be able to put up all the ones i've taken- but here are a few. i hope you are all well!

--- catie

http://community.webshots.com/album/554109051kkLqly

cell phone

2006-09-07T17:22:00.000+06:00

hey, just a quick note to tell you all that i got my cell phone. right now i don't have a lot of money on it- and i can't make international calls from it- but i can recieve international calls for free. SO... if you ever really need to get ahold of me or whatever--- it will probably cost a lot for you, but nothing for me. there is always the option, however, of getting a skype out account and calling me from that. it will probably be a lot cheaper- so, mom, emma, etc- if you guys want to be able to call me, maybe it's worth looking into? www.skype.com

so, here's my number (not counting international calling codes- which somehow seem complicated- i looked it up and it looks as though the international calling code to get out of the us is 011 and the india code is 91- sooo... if that makes more sense to someone besides me, maybe explain?)

my number:

994-409-7493

right now my ring tone is a little child giggling... just thought i'd share that info.

i'm going to go see if anyone will play pictionary with me. earlier i tried to do Reykjavik, but no one got it so i lost a point. i need to go try to gain that point back!

much love,

--- catie

pottery

2006-09-05T17:39:00.000+06:00

mom, will you forward these to all the people who i should be sending them to but who's address i don't have? Thanks!

So- I'm just writing a quick update to let you all know about my potter experience! Yesterday afternoon Shaker, the resident coordinater, took whoever wanted to out into the village to go see the potter/priest. For those who don't know we have one tutorial a semester and mine is going to be pottery. anyone who was interested in pottery was going to go out to the village (which is only me), but the other three girls on the trip came out too just to see what it was all about.
So, we took an auto rickshaw to the bus station, and then from there got a bus out to a stop that really looks like it is in the middle of nowhere. from there we walked for about 15 minutes on a dirt road scattered with cow pies, winding through a sugar cane field. The whole time a group of little boys on their way home from school were following us. At the end of it we got to a Sivite temple without any covering- just a lot of statues under a huge banion tree.

The potter came to visit us when we were walking into the village, and as we all walked towards his house more and more children began to follow us. By the time we were at the potter's house there were dozens of children surrounding us. First the potter set up a manual wheel, and put clay on it and we all took turns spinning it for him as we watched him work. When i was spinning the wheel he told me that i was getting to distracted by watching him, and not remebering to spin it fast enough. atleast i'm observant though? So then we all took turns making these little cups to keep oil in to light for puja and prayer, and the potter turned the wheele. None of us was very good- it was really really hard because his technique was so specific. He got really excited when it was my turn- and said that the first part of the process i did perfectly, and then i rushed too much on the second. Anyway, either he recognized me from the one time we met before (at this welcoming function that was this weekend), or he thought i had a lot of potential- because he told Shaker that I was going to be his student. I like to think he just thought I could get good.

Anyway, this entire time the children were standing around watching and more and more from the village were gatherine around, along with some elderly people, and some parents with babies. Towards the end we started to talk to the children and they got really really excited. They all wanted to shake our hands, and anytime we said anything in Tamil they'd laugh hysterically. Near the end they got out a paper and a pen and had us all write our names in Tamil over and over again like autographs. It was nice to be able to interact with all of the children, and they were all so excited to meet us (Shaker said we were probably the only foreign visitors they had ever seen in their village)- but the entire thing was also a little disheartening because all of the children were a little bit dirtier than the city children that we see shoppig with their parents- and they were all sick and coughing a lot.

It was an interesting experience though- and one i'm probably going to have to get use to because i'll be spending about three hours a week in the village doing potter with the potter. It sounds good to me, because i like how quiet and nice the village was. Oh, there were water buffalo everywhere, and dozens of paraqueets up in the palm trees above us- it was a really nice setting. I guess I'll be learning how to make little oil cups first, and eventually will work my way up to figurines of gods and other characters.

anyway, things here just got really stressful, so i have to go.

much love,

--- catie

hello again

2006-09-04T12:17:00.000+06:00

well, i should make this quick, but i thought i'd let you all know that i'm all moved into my new house!

i'm living with two other girls from my trip, Emily and Laura. i have my own room, which is light blue, and there's actually a western toilet in the apartment- which is alright... i have mixed feelings about it. the best part is the family we live above. we met them when we were looking at the apartment, and they are really nice and eager to have us there. There are a lot of children, most of which are really shy. two of the daughters came up and said hello to us- but our tamil is still extremely limited so pretty much we asked how they were, and then told them we didn't speak very good tamil, and then stood around awkwardly. i'm sure it will get better soon. Tomorrow we start our tamil classes. Emma- there's definitely room for you to stay if you want to come to India still! and anyone else, for that matter! Our house is on a dirt road, and all of our neighbors seem really nice. we dont really talk to or smile or wave at the men- partially because weve been told not to really, but also because we're getting a little to cautious after a lot of harassment so far. But the women and children are all really nice. Also, there are tons of goats and cows and dogs around where we live. they wander into our yard, and then out again. There are geckos in my apartment, and we saw a red iguana in our front yard. Ayway, it's a really nice living sitation so far- but then again i only moved in yesterday.

I went to the tailor yesterday after our yoga class to get some clothes that i would be comfortable in but that would also be appropriate for India. I've decided I'm not too big a fan of Salwar Kameez- although they're bearable, and i sort of have started to loath Saris... i don't know how the women here do it- yards and yards and yards of fabric all tied around you and pinned in and tightened... impossible to do anything in as far as i'm concerened, but still you see them riding bikes in them, and cleaning and going places. amazing!

well, i was going to give more of an update than this, but i have to go eat breakfast! i love indian breakfasts! they're soo good. then in the afternoon we're going to the potters village to meet the potter that i'm going to be doing my first semester tutorial with.

much love, and missing all of you! --- catie

oh ps! i saw the greatest procession in the street downtown yesterday with elephants and horses and hundreds upon hundreds of women and men and children and music and a holy man. it was so amazing and colorful!

that's it for now!

love,

-- catie

hey all

2006-08-31T16:23:00.000+06:00

sorry to make this a group email- but internet access is somewhat limited at this point. i thought you all might like an update from india!

i'm in Madurai right now.

here is my address for mailing things. it's the program house, not my own house, but there is always going to be someone here, so this is where you should mail stuff. letters and packages and whatnot are all okay! it may take a while, depending what you send them through, but usually, i hear is between 10 days and three weeks. also.... nothing meltable because boy is it hot here!

so here it is:

Catie Miller
Plot No. 5, 4th Street
'D' Block, Park Town
Madurai, 625017
Tamil Nadu, India

also, incase of emergencies, here are the program house's numbers (the director's name is Vidya, FYI)

Office: 4252642900
and her email is:
maduraimonitor@rediffmail.com

okay. so that's all the official stuff, here's for maybe a more intimate (?) update.

I left NY just one week ago. in a lot of ways it seems like it's been much longer. the idea of sitting in NY seems like ages ago. But then again, i'm constantly learning new things and seeing things i've never seen before, so it feels like i haven't been here long at all. We spend the first few days here at a resort in the mountains at a village called Kodaikanal. It was cool there- and actually really uncomfortably cold at night and in the mornings. Its also a lot lot lot quieter than where we were staying in Madurai, so it was a good way to transition into the country. when we were there we went shopping at the bazaars, and learned more about indian food and ordering, and what to order at what meals, and how to eat. We also went for a guided trek up into the mountains through the jungle surrounding the villages. i guess there use to be tigers there, but now they've all been driven out of the area. The entire place was really interesting because although it's a steep mountain side, people still do a lot of agriculture there. They make long flat strips where they plant their crops- so the part of the mountain populated by the farmers looks like hundreds of steps all over the place. it was really interesting. and the whole thing was scattered with goats and chickens cows, and the occasional monkey or two.

we also went to an orchid orchard when we were up in the hills. they weren't in season so there weren't a lot of blooming flowers, but it was still really beautiful and we saw some amazing prehistoric looking ferns. one, actually, is so old that they told us it's pretty much identical to the kind of ferns dinosaurs ate!

We got back to Madurai yesterday and checked back into our hotel. Then we went and looked at houses to live in. There aren't any family stay options, but most of the houses are on the side or above a family. plus all the neighbors are all really friendly. The houses are all really beautiful. Most of them are middle class, according to my advisors, and what we're looking at are made for one or two people to live in. My friends Laura, and Emily and I decided that we'd like to live together, and so we found a really ridiculously nice house for three or four people. It's actually really excessive, and i feel sort of badly about living in such a nice living situation while i'm here surrounded by so much poverty. but on the other hand the rent, per person if we split it three ways) is just the same, or even cheaper, than living alone here. Anyway, it's a goregous place and i think we're going to live there. the biggest downside is that it's not above a family. The neighborhood is really nice though, and people seem to be really friendly. it's actually on the same street as the program house, which is right down the street from some quiet little shops and right near where everyone's planning on living. we're going to figure that out in the next few days.

tomorrow we start our tamil classes. so far i haven't been too successful in talking to people, but it's been alright. i can greet people, and from that they usually assume i know a lot more tamil than i do- which is a good sign for how my greeting is, but also means there's a few lines of confusion following my greeting them.

the weather is... really hot. i'm sort of just sweating all of the time. I currently own one Salwar Kammex that's bright teel and hot pink ('cause that's a subtle color combination, i guess). I also bought a fancy sari yesterday, but have to get the blouse part tailored today or tomorrow before our huge welcoming "function" (party) on Saturday. Actually, i have one friend here in Madurai who's not with the program that i'm doing- his name is Drew and he goes to SLC- and i randomly saw him on the street yesterday and it turns out he's going to be coming to our function this weekend. so it will be good to have a connection there.

i havent finalized anything accedemically yet, but i think i'm going to study pottery first semester, and cooking second semester (i want to learn how to make dosai!). and i think my field work is going to be about (maybe) the use of imagery and icons in Visnava vs Shivites, and maybe also Indian Christianity. Oh, when we were in Kodaikanal we went to a christian church on the top of a hill, and it was so amazing and different from anything i've ever seen in any other part of the world. it was really awesome to see. it was so bright and colorful!

we've only been to the meenakshee aman coil once since i got here (the huge temple in the centre of madurai). We went on the first day we got here, and i was so tired i was sort of not enjoying being there too much. But, it was still amazing to see it. it's such a huge temple. i gave a rupee to a painted elephant and it blessed me with its trunk!

also- there are animals here everywhere! i have successfully avoided any temptations to pet the dogs, even if they're domesticated- and i've only seen a few cats, but there are chickens and goats and cows everywhere. i have seen cows sleeping on four lane highways and cars and bullock carts and motorcycles and rickshaws swerving into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting them. it's actually really amazing to see the drivers here. i've only seen a few accidents, and only got hit once, slightly, when someone was backing up and the tapped me- no harm done- but for the most part the driving is really fast and loud and intense. you honk your horn whenever you're going around corners, or passing someone, or when there's someone on the side of the road- so you can imagine how loud it is.

anyway, i suppose that's about it for now. I was so glad to get emails from you, mom and dad. Also, i should maybe mention to you two that rent is probably going to be about 1500 ruppes a month, so about 35 dollars or so.

well, that's it for now. please write me back! i want to hear some US/ russian news! i'm thinking of you all and missing you all a lot!

much love

--- catie