To round out my time abroad, I hopped over to Thailand to visit some friends for a week. Well, the week has quickly passed but still I remain in Chiang Mai! As I'm sure most of you know, the land of smiles is going through a period of feisty politics and it has built up to the occupation of both Bangkok airports by political demonstrators. News Report. Bangkok closed on Wednesday (my flights were on Thursday) and will remain closed until Saturday evening at the earliest. It seems like the situation could either dissolve smoothly or escalate quickly. I am incredibly thankful to be in Chiang Mai with friends rather than in an airport or unfamiliar city. And, instead of eating Thanksgiving dinner on a plane (meaning it would have been thai or indian food), I was thankful to share turkey, potatoes, pie, etc with other St. Olaf students.
My plans are to stay in Chiang Mai until the airports re-open. Right now I am guessing that I will not get out until Monday or Tuesday.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Jaipur (and a bit of Delhi)
I left Woodstock on Saturday and headed to Delhi with Megan and Saahil. We met up with another student teacher from Olaf who has been teaching at Kodai. Early Sunday morning, we headed southwest of Delhi to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. Highlights from the trip:
-Stopping at a McDonalds and, upon reading some literature about how healthy it is to eat there, I discovered that they offer guided tours per request of the kitchen. It was all young Indian men working there, and if we hadn't gotten enough stares by just being female and white, we certainly did when we were wearing hairnets and pretending to be super interested in the difference between how they store plain buns and sesame buns.
-Meeting up with one of my drawing students and his family, pardon me, his royal family. I'm not really sure what their status is, but they are part of the Rajasthani royal family and the were very eager to welcome us to Jaipur. We met them at the Polo Club, which turned out to be a very exclusive, members only club. Then they brought us to a 5 star hotel for dinner. The dinner wasn't terribly fancy, as it was traditional Indian cuisine (which you eat with your fingers), but it was definitely pricey and delicious. Among many, having connections to wealthy families all over Asia is one of the benefit of working at Woodstock.
-Sight seeing old forts and palaces. Jaipur is called the "Pink City" because all of its old buidings (which it has plenty of) are pink. Everything is very beautiful.
-Chokidani: A tourist trap catered to middle-class Indians. It is a "reinacted Indian village" complete with a fake dinosaur, a HUGE game of snakes and ladders, and other more typical village things. We rode camels and elephants (camels are way more exciting!) We also ate dinner, village-style (this part was actually authentic), and by the end of the meal we had a wall of Indian men watching us eat...they quickly became fascinated after hearing us speak Hindi.
-Shopping! Jaipur is the best place for shopping. I had to work extremely hard to control myself. They are known for their beautiful textiles and jootis (camel leather slippers). Everything is so gorgeous and, if you excell at bartering, you can get it really cheaply. We spent hours walking up and down the streets.
The terrifying camel ride at Chokidani.
Bangles galore!
Juuti shopping.
Beautiful wall paintings at the City Palace.
We were excited to be tourists...complete with headsets, maps, and cameras.
One of the many gardens at Amber Fort.
Women outside of Amber Fort
-Stopping at a McDonalds and, upon reading some literature about how healthy it is to eat there, I discovered that they offer guided tours per request of the kitchen. It was all young Indian men working there, and if we hadn't gotten enough stares by just being female and white, we certainly did when we were wearing hairnets and pretending to be super interested in the difference between how they store plain buns and sesame buns.
-Meeting up with one of my drawing students and his family, pardon me, his royal family. I'm not really sure what their status is, but they are part of the Rajasthani royal family and the were very eager to welcome us to Jaipur. We met them at the Polo Club, which turned out to be a very exclusive, members only club. Then they brought us to a 5 star hotel for dinner. The dinner wasn't terribly fancy, as it was traditional Indian cuisine (which you eat with your fingers), but it was definitely pricey and delicious. Among many, having connections to wealthy families all over Asia is one of the benefit of working at Woodstock.
-Sight seeing old forts and palaces. Jaipur is called the "Pink City" because all of its old buidings (which it has plenty of) are pink. Everything is very beautiful.
-Chokidani: A tourist trap catered to middle-class Indians. It is a "reinacted Indian village" complete with a fake dinosaur, a HUGE game of snakes and ladders, and other more typical village things. We rode camels and elephants (camels are way more exciting!) We also ate dinner, village-style (this part was actually authentic), and by the end of the meal we had a wall of Indian men watching us eat...they quickly became fascinated after hearing us speak Hindi.
-Shopping! Jaipur is the best place for shopping. I had to work extremely hard to control myself. They are known for their beautiful textiles and jootis (camel leather slippers). Everything is so gorgeous and, if you excell at bartering, you can get it really cheaply. We spent hours walking up and down the streets.
The terrifying camel ride at Chokidani.
Bangles galore!
Juuti shopping.
Beautiful wall paintings at the City Palace.
We were excited to be tourists...complete with headsets, maps, and cameras.
One of the many gardens at Amber Fort.
Women outside of Amber Fort
Friday, November 14, 2008
Last week at Woodstock
Today I leave Woodstock! I'm not ready to be done in India yet, so maybe I will wander back this way in the future. But, for now at least, I am heading off.
It has been a crazy week tieing up loose ends, packing, and saying goodbyes. The farewell has been uplifting, though. Almost everyday this week we have done something special. Tuesday, a group of friends spent hours up at Char Dukan having a very greasy (but delicious) dinner with lots of overdue gossip. Thursday, Megan and I were treated to a fancy dinner at the Carlton by our host teachers. Friday, we had a party in our sculpture class that entailed parading around campus to take photos of the collaborative sculpture that we had just finished. And eating lots of cookies, of course. Then I met with my Activity Week ninth graders one last time and we celebrated with fake tears, group hugs, and one last riddle. In the evening, Christina hosted a bonfire farewell party which was perfect. Today, we are heading into the bazaar one last time and then leaving for Delhi this afternoon.
Fancy dinner with the host teachers.
The place was full of stuffed tigers...
Parading our sculpture. It's not meant to be a hat.
BUT, my travels are not over! I stay in India until Tuesday - mostly in Jaipur (capital of Rajasthan...yippee!) and a bit in Delhi. Late Tuesday night, I hop on a plane to Thailand to visit friends for 8 days in Chiang Mai. Then a ridiculously long day (more like two) of travel (4 flights...yuck) and I am home Nov 28.
It has been a crazy week tieing up loose ends, packing, and saying goodbyes. The farewell has been uplifting, though. Almost everyday this week we have done something special. Tuesday, a group of friends spent hours up at Char Dukan having a very greasy (but delicious) dinner with lots of overdue gossip. Thursday, Megan and I were treated to a fancy dinner at the Carlton by our host teachers. Friday, we had a party in our sculpture class that entailed parading around campus to take photos of the collaborative sculpture that we had just finished. And eating lots of cookies, of course. Then I met with my Activity Week ninth graders one last time and we celebrated with fake tears, group hugs, and one last riddle. In the evening, Christina hosted a bonfire farewell party which was perfect. Today, we are heading into the bazaar one last time and then leaving for Delhi this afternoon.
Fancy dinner with the host teachers.
The place was full of stuffed tigers...
Parading our sculpture. It's not meant to be a hat.
BUT, my travels are not over! I stay in India until Tuesday - mostly in Jaipur (capital of Rajasthan...yippee!) and a bit in Delhi. Late Tuesday night, I hop on a plane to Thailand to visit friends for 8 days in Chiang Mai. Then a ridiculously long day (more like two) of travel (4 flights...yuck) and I am home Nov 28.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Politics, Politics, Politics: School Closing #2
At the end of August, Woodstock unexpectedly closed for a day after religious riots broke out in Orissa (a state near Calcutta, far from Mussoorie). Christian schools were asked to close primarily to take a stand against the violence, but also just in case more religious riots broke out.
On Wednesday, we started school as usual but during second period an assembly was called to cancel school for the remainder of the day. This marks the second time school has been closed this semester. In fact, these are the only two instances where school has been closed unexpectedly like this in years. The decision was made, like Orissa, for solidarity as well as safety. It has been difficult to sort through the information and news as there is little national coverage of the events and Woodstock has to speak lightly in the best interests of the students.
From what I have gathered, the BJP (conservative political party) has called for a nation-wide closing of educational institutions. Their reasoning for the bandh (strike) is to protest recent violence, particularly the unusual number of bomb blasts that have occured in the last few months. They have labeled undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants as the source of the bomb blasts and so are blaming the INC (political party in power) for the presence of these Bangladeshis in India. Along with the closing of schools, there are some marches, one of which was rumored to be going through Mussoorie and passing through campus. Some Woodstock staff members have no fears about this, but others were concerned that violence could result. Woodstock is put in a difficult position. By closing the school, it is in some ways acting in solidarity with the conservative political party against Bangladeshi immigrants (which there are a good number of at Woodstock). If it doesn't close, it is isolating itself and potentially could become a target. Turns out, as I had guessed, nothing happened except the enjoyment of skipping classes for the day!
On Wednesday, we started school as usual but during second period an assembly was called to cancel school for the remainder of the day. This marks the second time school has been closed this semester. In fact, these are the only two instances where school has been closed unexpectedly like this in years. The decision was made, like Orissa, for solidarity as well as safety. It has been difficult to sort through the information and news as there is little national coverage of the events and Woodstock has to speak lightly in the best interests of the students.
From what I have gathered, the BJP (conservative political party) has called for a nation-wide closing of educational institutions. Their reasoning for the bandh (strike) is to protest recent violence, particularly the unusual number of bomb blasts that have occured in the last few months. They have labeled undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants as the source of the bomb blasts and so are blaming the INC (political party in power) for the presence of these Bangladeshis in India. Along with the closing of schools, there are some marches, one of which was rumored to be going through Mussoorie and passing through campus. Some Woodstock staff members have no fears about this, but others were concerned that violence could result. Woodstock is put in a difficult position. By closing the school, it is in some ways acting in solidarity with the conservative political party against Bangladeshi immigrants (which there are a good number of at Woodstock). If it doesn't close, it is isolating itself and potentially could become a target. Turns out, as I had guessed, nothing happened except the enjoyment of skipping classes for the day!
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Grade Nine Activity Week: Khaas Kudoan
Woodstock is just returning back to campus after Activity Week, a week where all students and staff take a break from classes and go off on different adventures around northern India. Some are service trips, some are treks and outdoor adventures, and others are tourism in major cities. I was placed on a grade nine village trip to Khaas Kudoan, which is near Mussoorie, but it takes almost two hours to get there. We arrived on Sunday and hiked 6km into the village. The village has only about 17 families living in it, but nearly 250 people (those are some huge families!). We set up tents on the outskirts of the village. Each day we had a different activity, usually away from the village but then each night we would go visit the village families and ask them questions. The villagers only know very very basic english, so we had to rely on Hindi speaking students to translate. We learned some very cool things in these conversations. The village is Hindu and predominantly vegetarian. They raise nearly 100% of the food that they eat (they buy salt and sometimes buy oil). (They fed us all week and it was very tasty!) It is typical to have 20 or more family members living in one house. They have phones and mobiles and usually one lightbulb per room, but they have no tap water or water storage. They walk about 10min up the hillside everytime they need water and fill their container from a spring.
The group I was with consisted of 15 students and 2 other chaperones. The kids were absolutely phenomenal. Hands down the best group of high school students I have ever spent a week with. I had known a few of them from my classes, but most of them were new faces. I pulled out some camp counselor tricks, and soon the whole group was obsessed with riddles and mini-mysteries. I have never played such a rowdy game of "Who's in the Middle" in my life. It was fabulous.
View of our camp from the village.
Day 1: After all the kids were sick from the van ride and then incredibly drowsy from motion sickness meds, we hiked into the village, set up camp, and crashed for the afternoon.
Village kids helping us carry our tents...they loved it. On the rights, those are chili peppers drying on the roofs of the houses.
Day 2: We woke up early and hiked to the very top of the mountain (it took about 3 hours to get there). It was very steep and there is little vegetation on the hillsides, so we were hot and exhausted. At the top, there is the temple that the villagers go to on special occasions. We had lunch and then hiked down.
The Woodstock kids on the top of the mountain in front of the temple.
Day 3 and 4: We visited three different village schools. The Woodstock students had to teach the village kids, which turned out to be a good challenge for them and very entertaining for the chaperones. I was almost in hysterics watching some of the woodstock kids struggling with teaching the letter "F" for about a half hour. They couldn't get the village kids to stop saying "yef."
Day 5: We spent the day in Khaas Kudoan. First we learned how to plow and "cow surf" (which is another form of plowing where you stand on a board and hold onto the cow's tail...very fun.) Then we pulled out an invasive plant from the hillside and then learned how to make bamboo baskets. In the evening, I took a few students with me to go cook pasta for dinner. It was an incredible cultural interaction, as villagers were also cooking in the room. They had never seen pasta before and we were equally intrigued watching them make roti (flat bread). They were pretty wide-eyed when I started stabbing the tomato puree cans with my leatherman to open them (and of course I was wearing my headlamp too)...I'm pretty sure they thought I was crazy.
Day 6: We hiked down to the bottom of the mountain to spend the day at the river. The hike was pretty treacherous (and adventurous!) - lots of "landslide" areas and jumping over rapids. In the evening, we learned some more dances from the villagers.
Day 7: We packed up and hiked back out. Now I am gearing up for my last week at Woodstock :(
The group I was with consisted of 15 students and 2 other chaperones. The kids were absolutely phenomenal. Hands down the best group of high school students I have ever spent a week with. I had known a few of them from my classes, but most of them were new faces. I pulled out some camp counselor tricks, and soon the whole group was obsessed with riddles and mini-mysteries. I have never played such a rowdy game of "Who's in the Middle" in my life. It was fabulous.
View of our camp from the village.
Day 1: After all the kids were sick from the van ride and then incredibly drowsy from motion sickness meds, we hiked into the village, set up camp, and crashed for the afternoon.
Village kids helping us carry our tents...they loved it. On the rights, those are chili peppers drying on the roofs of the houses.
Day 2: We woke up early and hiked to the very top of the mountain (it took about 3 hours to get there). It was very steep and there is little vegetation on the hillsides, so we were hot and exhausted. At the top, there is the temple that the villagers go to on special occasions. We had lunch and then hiked down.
The Woodstock kids on the top of the mountain in front of the temple.
Day 3 and 4: We visited three different village schools. The Woodstock students had to teach the village kids, which turned out to be a good challenge for them and very entertaining for the chaperones. I was almost in hysterics watching some of the woodstock kids struggling with teaching the letter "F" for about a half hour. They couldn't get the village kids to stop saying "yef."
Day 5: We spent the day in Khaas Kudoan. First we learned how to plow and "cow surf" (which is another form of plowing where you stand on a board and hold onto the cow's tail...very fun.) Then we pulled out an invasive plant from the hillside and then learned how to make bamboo baskets. In the evening, I took a few students with me to go cook pasta for dinner. It was an incredible cultural interaction, as villagers were also cooking in the room. They had never seen pasta before and we were equally intrigued watching them make roti (flat bread). They were pretty wide-eyed when I started stabbing the tomato puree cans with my leatherman to open them (and of course I was wearing my headlamp too)...I'm pretty sure they thought I was crazy.
Day 6: We hiked down to the bottom of the mountain to spend the day at the river. The hike was pretty treacherous (and adventurous!) - lots of "landslide" areas and jumping over rapids. In the evening, we learned some more dances from the villagers.
Day 7: We packed up and hiked back out. Now I am gearing up for my last week at Woodstock :(
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Family
My parents and Al are on a 20-day India trip. They spent a week in Mussoorie visiting me, enjoying good food, hamming it up with the local tailors, and seeing the beautiful foothills and Himalayas. Mussoorie was their first stop. Now they are heading to Rishikesh for the weekend and then on to Delhi and Agra.
Breakfast at the hotel. This turned into a 2 hour morning ritual.
Atop Gun HIll (highest point in Mussoorie)
Mom and Dad in front of the snow capped Himalayas.
Sunday brunch up at Char Dukan. Delicious banana pancakes, lassis, and a jolly cake (pancake with a candy bar!)...not very traditional, but indian nonetheless!
Hiking Benog Tibba.
Picnic atop Benog TIbba. The Himalayas had just disappeared into the clouds.
View from the Hindu Temple atop Benog Tibba.
Afternoon trip to Himalaya weavers (in a village past Woodstock). Looking at the beautiful colors of the natural dyes.
Seeing where and how the wool is dyed.
Getting a tour of Faiz tailor's house.
Al getting fitted by Islam for a vest at Inam's.
Breakfast at the hotel. This turned into a 2 hour morning ritual.
Atop Gun HIll (highest point in Mussoorie)
Mom and Dad in front of the snow capped Himalayas.
Sunday brunch up at Char Dukan. Delicious banana pancakes, lassis, and a jolly cake (pancake with a candy bar!)...not very traditional, but indian nonetheless!
Hiking Benog Tibba.
Picnic atop Benog TIbba. The Himalayas had just disappeared into the clouds.
View from the Hindu Temple atop Benog Tibba.
Afternoon trip to Himalaya weavers (in a village past Woodstock). Looking at the beautiful colors of the natural dyes.
Seeing where and how the wool is dyed.
Getting a tour of Faiz tailor's house.
Al getting fitted by Islam for a vest at Inam's.
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