Fall Break in Delhi

We had our fall break last week and I headed down with 6 other staff members to Delhi. Saahil, from Delhi, organized the trip. We took the evening train Wednesday and returned Sunday. It was a good change of pace from Woodstock, but I am happy to
be back. We stayed mostly at Saahil's place in south Delhi (Friends Colony), but also spent a night at Kapil's nice house about a half hour south of Delhi.

Some Highlights:
-2 flat tires in 2 days
-seeing the Taj
-eating a salad
-trying on saris at a fancy boutique (and buying one)
-hanging out at our friends' houses (and not having to stay at a hotel or figure out any travel logistics)
-auto-rickshaws!!! my new favorite mode of transportation
-having the transmission fall out of the car and then running it over, only to realize that we had no brakes and then were stranded on the highway in extreme heat...yay!
-running late on saturday when the bomb blast happened a mere half-kilometer from where we were supposed to be had we been on time
-having indian friends fend off pesky beggars and street vendors in hilarious ways.
-making fun of indian accents (you are wery velcome)
-Dilli Haat at night (a nice craft market)
-returning to the mountains!!!!

More on the Tibetan Presence

HAPPY VALLEY:
Last Saturday, I chaperoned an excursion to Happy Valley (the Tibetan neighborhood in Mussoorie). Our job was to help out at the old folks' home - sweeping, window washing, and cutting grass (by hand). The very little amount of work we did seemed a little pathetic to me, but some of the Woodstock students proclaimed "Wow, I've never swept before!" So I guess it was worthwhile. After we finished, we played with the kids in the building next door. These buildings were constructed through the Tibetan Homes Foundation. It seems like most of Happy Valley (homes and schools) is funded by this organization. One of the Tibetan women told us that 12,000 Tibetans have moved to the area. (I think Mussoorie has around 6,000 Tibetans, which is a high number considering the total population of Mussoorie is 26,000.) Most of the children we played with had been sent by their parents (who remain in Tibet) in order to get a better education. The elders are recent refugees who have no other place to go. The Tibetan kids were very enthusiastic to have new people to play with. I was most surprised when they brought out a carrom board! Who would've thought! The board and pieces were slightly different (the corner pockets about the size of a silver dollar), but it was definitely the same game!







FLAG HILL:
After my excursion to Happy Valley, I headed back to campus and packed for my first camping trip...finally! My host teacher, Christina, and her husband organized a short campout for staff on Flag Hill, which is in walking distance from campus. Only a small group of us braved the looming rain, but it was so wonderful to be camping! Flag hill is a foothill and has great views of the snow-capped Himalayas in the distance (except it is still monsoon, so we just saw a lot of foothills and clouds). And, go figure, it is covered with flags. Tibetan prayer flags. While camping was fabulous, the best part was when we were packing up to leave the next morning and some Tibetan refugees living in Rajpur hiked up the hill to hang flags. They make the pilgrimmage about three times a year. The older woman hand-printed all of the prayers on the flags and then sewed them on the rope - a lot of work! Just about any high point in northern india is covered with these flags. There are five colors to represent water, fire, space, clouds, and earth. It was fun to see the young boy climb the trees like a monkey to hang the them. The belief is that the wind will carry the prayers on the flags. The prayers aren't to a god, but rather are blessings over all people for compassion, good will, and peace. The flags stay up until they fall apart, symbolizing that the prayers become a permanent part of the universe. I think it is a really beautiful concept. It was so peaceful to wake up early (I'm still in the canoe guide habit of waking up well before everyone else) and sit on the hilside looking out into the sunrise over the distant mountains with the prayer flags surrounding me.

Woodstock and Environs

As I said earlier, Woodstock is (much like St. Olaf) a little bubble community just outside of town. Technically, I guess it is in Landour (a small hillside community with no real downtown) rather than Mussoorie (which has a population of around 25,000, I think). Woodstock is not closed-gated but rather has some locals living on campus and many passing through on two of the town's major roads that cut through the campus. The area has been known for being a very safe place until recently. However, I'm more nervous about monkey attacks than unwanted interactions with people!

I've never felt more disoriented than I do here. There are no maps of anything and rarely is there a street or path sign. There are footpaths everywhere on the hillsides but only people who have lived here for years have any idea
which is the right one to take. I'm still trying to figure out the paths on campus. I'm getting bolder, thankfully, and am starting to explore more.

I have made the 20min walk downtown many times already (it is about the only walk that is predominantly flat!). There is one main road that goes through town. It is very narrow (in the states we would deem it "one-way")but has lots of traffic - cars, mopeds, animals, vendors, pedestrians, and buses (that are covered with puke stains from nauseous travellers). The shops are very small and specialized - mostly fabric, electronic, gift, very small grocery, and hardware stores. I love browsing through the fabric shops - so many colorful textiles for making Indian saris and salwar-kameez. I haven't yet had either of those made, but now have two tailor-made shirts and a pair of handmade leather sandals. For the sandals, I walked into a tiny tiny shop with two Indian men sitting on the floor, pointed at the design I wanted, and then proceeded to have my foot traced (like in kindergarten) in an old notebook. It was pretty exciting.

The demographics of the area are interesting. About 50 years ago the Dalai Lama declared Mussoorie to be home of the Tibetan Goverment in Exile (which has now moved north to Dharamsala), so there is a large Tibetan population (who inhabit "Happy Valley" - such a great name!). There is also a large Muslim population, on top of Christian, Sikh, and Hindu. At school, I can constantly hear singing and prayers being broadcast over a loudspeaker in town.

I was warned that Mussoorie is very touristy. I'm not sure how much I agree. While there are a good number of foreigners, most of them are atypical or have taken up residency here. Most non-Asians are connected somehow with Woodstock or have come to learn Hindi at the language school in Landour. There aren't very many "creature-comfort" places around, but there are a good amount of restaurants that visitors can eat at in Mussoorie without suffering the effects.

It is very easy to identify the Woodstock students when they are in town (they are allowed to walk downtown most Saturdays). In general they are very stylish and, of course, wear their ipods at all times. Probably 90% of the student body is Asian, with Indians and Koreans making up most of that. Most of them come from very wealthy homes. I have at least one student who is some kind of Indian prince (he's not the best artist though:) and many students who come from families that own multiple businesses (and homes) worldwide. It is a little intimidating! At first I was frustrated with their wealth and privilege. Now I am starting to see that one of the best things for them is to come to a school like this where they don't have all of the amenities that they would at home, where they are forced to live in community, and where some of them get much more positive adult contact and attention than they do from their career-driven parents.

First Weeks at Woodstock, INDIA

I have just completed my second week here in Mussoorie, India where I am student teaching at Woodstock International School for four months. I have been placed with the high school art teacher who is from Manitoba and is in her second year of teaching at Woodstock. The program has five art classes, three of which I have started to teach: Design, Drawing and Painting, and Sculpture. This is my first week taking over these classes and it is going well! I am teaching figure drawing, some color theory, and today my sculpture class started abstract plaster sculptures. I also am taking responsibility for the Clay Center which is a 20 min walk downhill from the school. I make the clay (both stoneware and terracotta) and open it up for various staff members and groups who want to use it. It has been a great way to get to know people.



The campus here is incredible. Mussoorie is a small hill station town in the foothills of the Himalayas. It is not too far north from Delhi, but takes a good 8 or 9 hours to drive due to bad roads and crazy traffic. Woodstock is about a mile from town and occupies the side of a hill (more like a mountain, if you ask me!). To walk from the bottom (where the student dorms are) to the top (where many staff live) takes a good 45 minutes of difficult walking (PHOTO: taken from near the top of the hill, looking over campus and into the valley). Luckily, the school buildings are in the middle. Unluckily, I live at the very bottom of campus and my classroom is the highest in the school. I will definitely be in shape living here! Thankfully, the natural setting is gorgeous. The hills are covered in forest. I see lots of cool birds and hundreds of monkeys. The monkeys can be violent, so most people carry rocks in their pockets. I mostly find them entertaining (when they leap from tree to tree and eat all the food the kids have dropped) but also quite annoying (like when they decide to jump around on our tin roof at 5:30am). My host teacher says she learned her lesson about closing the windows last year when she was having her classes draw a still life and a monkey came in through the window and stole the apple!

I'm living in a duplex with another student teacher from St. Olaf and the new PE teacher. We live on dorm level (close to the kids, but far from other staff). The apartment is quite large. I was surprised to have a water filter in our kitchen and hot water in the showers. We eat in the cafeterias on campus, which has been fine. It is a good way to try new Indian food. We just hired an ayah to clean our apt twice a month. We also have sort of hired a dobhi to wash our clothes. Just about everyday for the first week we had locals stopping by asking if we would hire them for various jobs. People are very persistant!


Right now, we are nearing the end of monsoon season (PHOTO: taken on my walk home from school). A typical day during monsoon includes very dense fog and heavy downpouring. Living on the side of a mountain, it feels like we inhabit the edge of the world when the fog rolls in. The hillside is a beautiful green though. Everything is covered in gorgeous ferns. The downfall of monsoon is that nothing ever dries out. This can be advantageous when working on a clay or painting project, but everything starts growing mold (clothes, backpacks, food, etc). The days are slowly getting sunnier. September and October are some of the most beautiful months here, so they say. Mostly because of the clear skies that lend way for great views of the distant Himalayas. I hope to get out and do some hiking soon.

Summer 2008: Canoe Guide

I thought I should sum up (briefly) my summer since I think this blog will serve as a way of documenting my post-gradutation wanderings :)

The day after graduation, I headed north for my 6th summer at Wilderness Canoe Base (Boundary Waters, Grand Marais side, northern MN). It was my second summer guiding and I was lucky to guide six canoe trips.

Trip 1: Guiding a staff trip was quite an honor and incredibly enjoyable. In four nights we covered good territory and endured torrential downpours and extreme winds: Ottertrack, Kek, Gabi ("it looks like the ocean!"), Jap. The group of staff was phenomenal.

Trip 2: My second trip was an all-girls trip from a Twin Cities org, Treehouse, that reaches out to at-risk youth. Not experienced with camping, we did an easy Red Rock loop in 4 days. It was the loudest group I've ever heard, to say the least.

Trip 3: With a group from Gustavus Adolphus Church (twin cities?), we did work projects on base for 2 days and then went on a short trip for 2 nights. The group was excellent. Highlights included convincing them that boreal monkeys exist and doing the Grandpa portage, which was a big challenge for them.

Trip 4: This was by far the easiest trip to guide. The group was very experienced camping and, to top it off, I had two swampers. We were incredibly efficient on portages and so just flew. The route was mostly new to me as well (Ogish, Little Sag, Tusc, Long Island, pick up on Ham). Definitely a beautiful route! Highlights were the Tusc portage (over a mile) and just enjoying the beauty of a canoe trip where you aren't nagging kids to do things all the time.




Trip 5: An enthusiastic group of 8th and 9th graders from Calvary. In three nights, we went up to Sag, then down the Granite river and got a pick up at Larch Creek. Once again, it was exciting for me to do a less typical route. The kids were inexperienced, but full of joy and wonder. Highlights included our last day of "adventure!" (which really means "obstacle"). We trudged through mud and muck, walked up deep rapids, and crossed many beaver dams.

Trip 6: The reason I love canoe guiding! This group was from PYC (Plymouth Youth Center - an alternative high school from North Mpls). I was a bit nervous going into the trip because it was my third trip in a row without a day off and also because it had been a while since I had worked with urban kids. With absolutely no camping experience, the group had a rough start to the week. By the end, however, we saw quite a turn-around. I have never laughed so much on a canoe trip before. I've also never seen jump-roping while hanging a bear pack or had the soulja boy dance done in a tent! It was fabulous. It affirmed my desire to work with urban kids.

Overall the summer went well. Each of my trips brought new challenges and new joys. I left base a few days early to go home and pack for INDIA!!!!