Solar Eclipse

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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!

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

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