Namaste to the Motherland

With exactly two days left to go of our five -month stay in Varanasi I find myself constantly cataloging my favorite memories, nostalgically swerving back through them, attempting to grapple with the major transition I am about to make. The following are some of the moments I have been re living:

Back in March I ventured solo off to an evening of classical Indian music. A regular, government sponsored concert series, run over a five- day period where musicians play into the early hours of the morning. I remember sitting cross -legged on the ground listening to the sitar and tabla echo out through the monkey temple and up through the roofless stage into the night sky. Sitting alone, eyes closed, my reality collapsed as the music floated my thoughts into a different realm. I could have been anywhere, let alone in a Hindu temple, half way across the world.

Watching the first hint of monsoons back in May. Early one morning during yoga class, myself and the other students ran with our yoga blankets off the temple to take shelter below in the home of our yoga guru ji. Sipping chi as I looked out on the first of the season’s sheet of water showering the streets. It will continue to amaze me the naturalness and innate ability to treat strangers and guests as warmly as family members.

The maturation of our guesthouse into a home; it did not happen over night but it is no surprise that my enjoyment of this internship increased exponentially the closer my relationships became with the family members I live and work with. Mera ji and Mamta ji fulfilled pseudo mother / sister roles while our brother/ personal chef, Lalu, spoiled us daily with his delicious, home cooked food. We became a family and when it rained whoever was around home ran out and pulled everyone’s clothes in off the line.

I can safely say that food was an integral part of our internship. Gulping down servings of oiling okra subji and tasty aloo gobi, guiltily swallowing as I calculate just how vigorous my workout routine will have to be back in Canada if I indulge in a third / fourth serving, I lose count. Apple pie, cakes, amazing reincarnations of our western favorites, to say we have been spoiled, treated as princesses, waited on hand and foot is not an exaggeration.

The Tulsi Kunj community library fashion police – aka library assistant Sarika ji and her less vocal comrade Chandana ji, swelling my head with praises and compliments for my newest salwar kaeej. Sarika, one day, almost losing her balance as I entered the library in a traditional chudar suit, so overwhelmed with my transformation from a Canadian into “pure Indian”. If I am honest with myself my amassing collection of Indian suits might have been encouraged by her constant praise and approval.

The continual, genuine friendship and pride I feel as a teacher for my tutoring students. The generosity our students have shown us as they freely and regularly invited us into their homes for elaborate meals and hilarious conversations. Without a doubt the last hour each day I spent tutoring was the most enjoyable and rewarding part of my internship.

Thank you World Literacy Canada, thank you to the Yadav family and thank you India…. until we meet again.

“The Off Season” – You know it’s the off season when…

It was forty five to forty seven degrees for two months straight. We might have been the only westerners in Varanasi; even my beloved yoga teacher vacated his temple studio to take refuge from the heat in the mountains, leaving me stiff and unfocused. It was so hot that showering in ones clothes, for some, became the only reprieve. Yes, it was so hot that the library children looked at me in utter dismay, as my light grey suit soaked its way to a navy blue, as I discovered new sweat glands like Easter eggs.

I believe now that surviving extreme weather builds a special kind of endurance. Entering spring after a long bout of Canadian winter can feel like a rebirth. Similarly, emerging from the extreme heat we have endured over the last five months feels like a triumph. The weather tests and strengthens your endurance in so many ways. Hot weather, I find, has the tendency to amplify current emotional states for example, impatience easily turns to frustration when a heard of cows suddenly blocks your path or their trail of manure throws you off balance. The heat presents you with a choice; you either fight it or slow down. You either shower ten times a day or you learn to accept feeling sweaty. When you choose to slow down, the heat moves you to function in an overall calmer, slower manner, you can’t afford to lose your temper, or get too worked up because it all requires too much energy and will only raise your body temperature. Certain things become unimportant, previous annoyances begin rolling off your back. The heat ironically cools you off. Instead of fighting how your feel, you accept it and learn that, like the weather, this too will pass.

The benefits of health education

A small but valuable service is provided by WLC in Varanasi and rural communities: health education meetings. During these meetings, members of our Mahila Mandals acquire useful knowledge about health issues that can affect community members’ lives. This past month, I surveyed 10 of the 20 health groups, to check up on where their knowledge level is at and how these meetings might be changing daily lives.
Though knowledge levels varied between communities, there were certain topics that everybody knew about. Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) is a life-saving, simple treatment for diarrhea and related GI illnesses, and every single mother in every single group knew how to make it and when to use it because they learned about it in health meetings. The benefit of this knowledge may be immeasurable, but I’m certain that at sometime, for one of these women’s family members, it has made the difference between life and death.
And although malaria isn’t a major problem in Varanasi, every year some people in the community contract it. Women at WLC health meetings know how malaria spreads, how they can protect themselves against it, and how to recognize its symptoms. Their use of mosquito nets is high (in some places it's 100%), and when they don’t use a net, they use a mosquito coil. These women are empowered by knowledge that is keeping themselves and their families healthier. They also act as leaders in their community, telling neighbours, in-laws, and co-workers about information they learn at WLC health meetings.
It’s been a pleasure to conduct this survey, and I’m certainly grateful that WLC has declared health education a necessary service for the community. I’m hopeful that WLC can continue to advocate for community health by pursuing avenues in which the rural communities it serves in Ghazipur can build latrines—a vital part of sanitation in the 21st century.

TOP 10 THINGS I LOVE TO DO IN V CITY !

1. Sitting out on the steps of Assi Ghat listening to Ganga Arti (the daily ceremony that pays tribute to the Ganga river) and sipping on some chai from a cullard (clay) cup.

2. Taking a 20 rupee cycle rickshaw ride to Godwolia market to go shopping for saris, suits, fabric, jewelry, and more. Break time from the shopping madness usually consists of us grabbing a fried snack from a local trustworthy vender. “Aloo tikki anybody?”

3. Taking a 20 rupee cycle riksha ride back from Godwolia to Assi Ghat, and stopping along the way at Cheersagar (sweet shop) to pick up a large box of sweets for all of us to eat at home. Here’s my regular order: “Ek jalebi, do laddu’s, char coconut burfi’s, teen gulab jamun, paanch malpua’s, achaaa ehhh ek hor gulab jamun dado !”

4. Playing Scrabble competitively with the other interns. It is becoming a nightly ritual for Kelly Anne, Andrea and I to play Scrabble before going to bed. Each of us play solely for the purpose of winning, so we can brag about it after ( “ I am the Scrabble Queen….”)


5. Going to I.P. mall every Sunday. This eventful outing usually starts at 3pm, when we auto rickshaw it to I.P mall, grab a late lunch at McDonalds or Dominos and buy tickets for a 4:30 show of a recently released Bollywood movie, usually of my pick of course.

7. Eating cakes and pies. My god! Lalu is the cake master who is making the online game “Cake Mania” into a reality. So far we have tried the vanilla cake, banana cake, carrot cake and my favorite: apple pie cake. Lalu has made us all into little “gol gappas” with his home made yummy treats.

8. Walking, sitting and napping on the roof. Usually after having a large dinner made by Lalu, which of course always includes dessert. I end up walking around the roof 20 times to digest all that deliciousness. Also there are times when it is so hot and my room feels like a sauna, I end up lying down on the cool cement and star gazing. This is when I feel most at peace.


9. Watching goatman yell “chaal hut” to herd his goats up the stairs of Assi Ghat. I know this seems like a boring thing to do on my list, but honestly it’s remarkable to watch how the goats follow this tiny patient man who has such a controlling voice.

10. Calling out Lalu’s name when I come home from work, and asking for the same fried snacks that I know he will not make. A typical conversation sounds like this……
Herleen: “Laluuuuuu! mujko bhooke lagi hai”
Lalu: “ Kha khanna hai ?”
Herleen: “Aloo tikki, GOL GAPPA !, chaat, samosa, jalebi”
Lalu: “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” ….Smile……. “No possible ! ”

Non-reserve trains and grade 11 physics

In the midst of our week long vacation to the Indian northwest, Andrea, Herleen and I were in the Amritsar train station hoping to buy some non-reserve tickets that would get us halfway to our next destination, Dharamshala. After defending our place in the ladies ticket line and partially dodging bombs of pigeon crap (it landed on my backpack, not head—thank God) we secured our 17 Rs. tickets to Pathankot.
Walking onto the platform was not unlike other train station experiences, save and except a much larger than normal congregation of passengers near the end of the platform on the left. I spoke aloud to myself, “I wonder what they’re all doing over there,” but didn’t give it much more thought. One of us set out to purchase our go-to travel food—Parle-G biscuits—while the other two stood waiting. Not more than ten minutes later, a train moved its way into the station. “Great!” I thought, “It’s on time!” It seemed like a positive omen for our next leg of travel.
My optimistic thoughts took a drastic downturn when I noticed how abnormally short the train was, and I immediately realized why those astute Indian travelers all stood near the end, while we naively stood in the middle.
The train was no more than 8 cars long. My brain went back to high school physics and tried to calculate how fast we needed to run to score a seat on that thing as it glided past us with the cool, indifferent composure of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. The answer came to me quickly, and it was simple; we needed to sprint. Fast.
There was a chaotic herd—think wildebeest stampede circa the Lion King—of people trying to get onto that train. Grown men were flinging themselves into the open windows, as mothers with children displayed no caution in charging toward any open door.
From behind me, I could hear Andrea and Herleen call out, “Kelly Anne!!!!! We’re not gonna make it!!” as I panted with my luggage in the 45 degree weather, trying to find a car with empty seats. The last car on the train had a locked door and initial attempts to open it from the outside were unsuccessful. I moved on.
I had already caught up to the second last car when I heard my name called again. I turned my head quickly to see my fellow interns floating onto the last car of the train in the front of a current of pushy travelers.
I blurted an expletive and adrenaline propelled me toward that open door. Surprisingly, I made it on and found one seat—one glorious, shining, open seat—waiting for me in the first row. I sat down, and settled in for an otherwise non-eventful 3 hour ride to Pathankot.

Lessons I’ve Learned

If life is a classroom then Varanasi is a lecture hall that I find myself frequenting daily. As time continues to passe, I am able to observe the emotional ebbs and flows this experience has produced for me. Have I been inter-culturally effective? Manulea, our CIDA facilitator with whom we took an ‘intercultural effective course’ prior to our departure to India, might diagnose me as ‘right on track,’ the point in the trip where the graph levels out. With the honeymoon and homesick phases over and done with I am now feeling like a regular Varanasi resident, so much so that I would like to drop in at a city meeting and voice my opinion re: electrical power outages; but that’s a whole different blog.

My Varanasi residency brings with it an uncanny sense of familiarity with the city. The warmth and unmatched Indian hospitality create this feeling, as does the daily encounters with the chai walas, the slow moving street cows who have been great teachers in patience. My patience has also been tested in the Tulsi Kunj library. The combination of deadlines and scorching heat have had an exhausting effect on my energy levels, which are consistently tested by the ‘hard to say no to’ faces of children pleading me to play with them. As I write this blog in the Gandhi room of the Tulsi Kunj library I have eight of these beautiful young faces who are, periodically peering up at me from their books, begging me to entertain them. At last I oblige and show them pictures from a wedding I attended last night.

The epic and long anticipated wedding has come and gone. Shitanshue, The Banaras office’s program director, is married! The excitement for this wedding rippled down to us interns who, I can confidently say, have been looking forward to this wedding since our arrival three and a half months ago. An opportunity to buy and wear a sari might have had something to do with our level of anticipation. Shopping for saris: a monumental event alluded to in a former blog.

After the wedding, on our late night rickshaw ride home, buzzing with happy exhaustion, we began tailing the rear of a tractor pulling a truck full of men chanting a haunting chorus: “Ram Ram Satya Ram, Ram Ram Satya Ram.” The disturbing and evocative mantra moved us from our post wedding contentment into sober reflection. The men were traveling to the Ganges with the body of a dead relative. Their chant translates into “Ram is our God, Ram is our God.” Aware of the stark proximity of life and death in Varanasi, for me this was a palpable example of how vivaciousness lives a rickshaw away from mortality in this city of contrasts.

I remember our first meeting in Toronto when Mamta Mishra described Varanasi’s ability

to cultivate resilience in the absence of the West’s artifice surrounding death; now I can see that she was completely right. Watching a boy fly a kite next to a funeral pyre on a burning ghat or leaving the bliss of a wedding only to run up against a funeral procession has stripped away some of my fear of and blindness towards death. A beautiful Buddhist proverb says: “when you were born you cried and the world rejoiced and when you die the world cries and you rejoice.” Death has a whole new meaning in Varanasi, an ancient meaning. As the days march on I know the lessons I teach my students in the Tulsi library will always fall short of the lessons I continue to learn from the ghats of Varanasi.

It's wedding season in Varanasi. You know what that means.

I went shopping for saris on Saturday. I was excited to go. It was my first time. I’m going to admit to you now that I didn’t adequately prepare myself for the experience. It was kind of like braving the crowds you encounter at the local mall in the weeks leading up to Christmas, mixed with the fierce competition you’d find at a sample sale for wedding gowns. High estrogen, lots of elbows, and not enough A/C.
So anyway, there we were, in the thick of things, when my fellow intern spotted a beautiful sky blue sequined number from across the room. By the time she navigated her way over to the salesperson, he had made the sale. Blast! We needed to move more quickly—the only problem with this practical advice was that there were literally mountains of saris in our way.
We made our way into our fourth store, and I was getting exhausted. Before the day began, I had an idea of the colour I wanted. That idea had faded. Instead of focusing on my future sari, I was concentrating on ducking my head as henchman threw vibrantly coloured sequined silk over my head from every angle.
I made my way upstairs to where they keep the slightly more pricey saris, which helped slimmed down the density of the crowd. I blurted out some colours in the same manner a gunshot victim would try to name his shooter while the cops questioned him on the emergency room table: “…Buh-lue…….greh-een….dark”. The salesperson held up the first sari that arrived. I caved immediately. “OK…I’ll take it,” I said, in a merciful plea to end the chaos. I emerged from the store dazed, but with an overarching sense of calm. I was victorious, and I had a midnight blue stunner to prove it.

- Kelly Anne