I Heart India

There comes a time, in each girl's blog, when she writes about leaving something behind. Relationships, houses, jobs, useless cars, old habits....countries. I've been reading the most incredible book ever, Shantaram, recounting the true story of an Australian criminal who escapes from a high-security prison and ends up living in the Bombay slums and joining the mafia. He says that India may not be the country where love was created, but it is the country where love was perfected. ...

There is something disarmingly innocent and playful about this great country's people. It seems that anytime someone looks at you, they are sifting through all that is malice, guilt, fear and hate, to uncover, probe, tease and expand that shining lotus of a heart that they know you have. In India, your heart is poked, ripped, and smashed. It is resurrected with the food of smiles, it is sculpted with the sweet trills of Tamil. But then sometimes it grows as heavy and as unwieldy as a boulder and there you are, bending over, struggling to wrap your arms around it, lift with your legs not your back until you are again standing straight, pressing that bulk of stone back into the appropriate place in your chest. It is then polished over and over with every sight of a child carrying his baby sibling, a puppy following your footsteps in complete trust of the direction you've chosen, the almond shaped and deep eyes of a plodding cow, the gentle gait of a group of women heading to the village well. Sometimes you feel that you are slapping your heart, trying to revive it from a stupor, and then sometimes you want to wrestle it to its rightful place, so often it seems to have appropriated the position of CEO in your life. And then, maybe it's just the sight of a man standing so perfectly straight, staring into the endless dust and thorns of the Tiruchuli fallow lands, that makes your heart break into pieces so small you think you can't ever find them, that they will be blown away by the one tree that holds station by your cement room. You walk down the trash filled roads, and find in your short trek all those torn heart pieces being glued back together with the stick of sugar rich teas and the calm of incense smoke, pressed and shaped by the hands of the hundreds of people who only just met you but see that heart as you and you as the heart that needs mending. India is a country where you will never lose your heart, but where it will never know such turmoil and transformation, where everyday you walk forward with the full weight and meaning of its pulse, where you can never forget that you have one and where, besides, no one around would give you the breathing room to forget it. Where some mornings you wake up and it seems that the heart is a river that has captured your entire body in its rush to the ocean and you step out onto your porch as the sun pours onto the world and you can't believe you ever thought to leave.

Roger boy!

When I was little, I promised that I would become something like Dr. Doolittle who was my fictional childhood hero. I remember plotting how I might construct a squirrel playground in the woods by our house, and can only imagine my parents' relief when I became distracted by other activities. Such as playing "Rescue Rangers" with my friend Amelia (saving our stuffed animals from uncertain peril on the living room rug RE: stormy ocean while scooting around in child-sized plastic cars) or solemnly burying dead moles with my friend Alyson because we couldn't stand to see their bodies left to wild animals. Even if cows are holy here, I didn't think that I would reconnect with my great affection for animals while living in Tiruchuli.

Two weeks ago I was walking to the office and saw something very odd ahead of me by the school. A little moving something by a fence. It looked a bit like Gollum stuffed into a pink body the size of modest handbag, or some squirmy creature hailing from the red planet. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was a very skinny, very sick puppy who had contracted such an awful skin rash that he no longer had any fur and spent the better part of his existence practically nibbling his tail off. His skin sagged off of his starving body and his baby eyes looked at me with terror. The next day I brought him a fried ball of dough and pointed him out to the Director.

"Oh look at the poor thing" I said, feeling slightly guilty that I cared about quite possibly the world's ugliest puppy while I lived in a district where people's daily wage has plummeted below a dollar. The Director couldn't help but smile at my concern for the "thing" and promised him some free medical care.

I started sharing my lunch and dinner with the dog, the staff initially watching in horror. It was if they were all Frenchmen, watching me squat down in the Paris metro to share my nutella crepe with a sewer rat. Mon Dieu. As the little guy trotted behind me one day, I looked back and decided in an instant that he would be named "Roger."

Sunday I was sitting in the office when I heard the taunting voices of adolescent boys and the squealing of some animal. I don't know if I've ever had a true motherly instinct before, but I shot up from my chair, bolted outside and was horrified to see a group of boys surrounding Roger. He had a thick twine tied to his neck and while one boy tried to pull him via the very effective "if you don't follow me you will choke to death" ploy, another was viciously whipping his back with a stick. The Manager of the biodiesel plant stood just feet away from them, reading the newspaper. "Oh stop!" I cried. The Manager looked at up at me quizzically. "Why are they doing this, ask them to stop." I pleaded. He muttered a few words to the boys, glancing back at me as if I had lost all my marbles and slowly explained that they were trying to take him to the vet but didn't want to have to touch him. Roger was having none of the treatment and finally ripped the twine from the boy's hand and shot off down the road with the boys screaming after him. Ha. I was sorry to see that all the food I'd given him would be burnt up in his energetic flight for freedom. I also thought "This is one tough puppy."

Instead of allowing the boys to pursue the cruel "vet" treatment, I have been applying Neem oil produced at our biodiesel plant to poor Roger's skin and with great success. But not enough for one of the staff members to not note the other day, "That is an ugly dog." But when I look at him I have all the blinders of a mother on, and think he's just the most delightful, beautiful little pup. And everyone here is now calling him their "friend."

Frangil Rock

American, Tamil and French conversation via the English language, otherwise known as Frangil.

Setting: ODAM office.
Who: Phoebe, Elango (Executive Coordinator), Claire (French volunteer)
Topic: Village Festivals

E: The villagers be honoring their village guard.
C: What is this thing called a guard?
P: A guard is sorta like a policeman.
E: Yes. He be protecting the village.
P: (after some consideration) Oh! You mean a GOD.
E: Yes. That's what I be saying. A God. They make him offerings.
C: How is a Policeman a God?
P: No, no, the God watches over the village.
E: Yes, the people be giving him rums and drinking it themselves.
C: Rhume? (French word for the flu)
P & E: Alcohol. Rum.
C: Ah.

Quintessentially India.

If you're wondering, because you just might have been, the answer is "No." No - you have no control over anything when you're in India. No - you can not decide for yourself here. No - it doesn't matter how hard you try, things will just be the way they darn well feel like being. India, you see, is a sari-wearing, sugarcane stick-wielding dominatrix. She knows all of the rules, and I was so wrong when I thought I'd found the book of regulations. A couple weeks back, I was sure I had the riddle solved. If I simply maintained very, very long lists of even the most mundane of things to be accomplished, and read and re-read the list over the course of the day, then I could get things done, be efficient, beat India at her game. Oh. But she is very competitive.



By a Thursday, I was congratulating myself on almost finishing a report on Fair Trade. My lists conquered all! The next day I fell ill. My whole body ached, I felt faint, I didn't dare eat anything, and I was quickly brought over to the "hospital" where I was told that I would need a needle in my arm. To pump saline drips into my veins. Baptiste had succumbed to the treatment, and I had maintained some unsavory visions of his battered arm. I managed to escape this fate and found myself left alone in a white, cement room, the sort of space either made for crazy people, or a place that makes one crazy. I was left with water and no company. The monsoon kicked in and I could practically hear it pulverizing the road outside. I stared at the ceiling and then slept on my bed covered with thick brown leather, just glad that there wasn't a nurse popping in every 15 minutes to check my vitals and force feed me cheap jello pocked with fruit bits.



By Sunday, I was considering reverting back to my lists, but forgot to as I rushed to the office, in a hurry to send out a job application and prepare for a trip to the Araku Valley. My legs were still wobbly and once I made it to the office, the power went out. I sat staring bleakly out into the garden. The Director approached me.

"You be going to meeting at 11 am."

It was Sunday and the last thing I wanted to do was go to a meeting, one that would be entirely conducted in Tamil. I acquiesced, however, and while I thought I might be off to a meeting about eco-tourism, I instead found myself surrounded by 80 senior citizens, gathered for reasons that were never fully disclosed. I came in late and was asked to sit in a row with other speakers. Someone was giving a speech, and in hushed tones the Director tried introducing me to a little man.

"This is Phoebe."

"Veepee?"

"Phoebe."

"Bee-pee?"

"Phoebe."

"Pheevee?"

"PHOEBE."

"Oh."

I was prompted to approach the stage, where someone donned a bright red and yellow plaid towel over my shoulders to honor my presence. Upon returning to my seat, the little man said "Now you be giving speech. You be speaking about old peoples in America, the meetings they have together in your cultures." I couldn't believe it. How inconsiderate! I needed to give a speech at an event whose purpose was never made clear, and I was to discuss senior citizen gatherings in the US. I didn't think Bingo night would count, and couldn't seem to think of a single thing other than retirement communities that brought people in their 80's together. I smiled, albeit weakly, and slowly made my way over to the microphone. My "interpreter" coughed out about 20% of what I said, and people nodded quizzically as I chortled on about my work in Tiruchuli and the need to respect one's elders, all very boring and cliche. The Director spirited me out of the hall once I finished. Someone brought me lunch in the office and I looked at it with apprehension. Alone. I ate alone. And tried not to cry. The electricity was still out.



Later, as I prepared to finish packing, the monsoon hit. One of the staff members was directed to bring me to my room, but the only vehicle left in the driveway was a miniature truck of sorts, a glorified auto rickshaw, something that a kid misplaced from his Lego collection. The wheels spun in the mud, and the driver got out, barefoot, stepping into 6 inches of rain to shove the toy contraption into the road, where we chugged off at a not-so-inspiring pace to my room. We returned with my luggage for the trip, pulling into the now runny-nose of a driveway filled to the brim with rain.



I had promised that I wouldn't leave on my trip without handing over the Fair Trade report that I had so diligently been working on. I went to add the finishing touches, only to find that because of all previous power failures, only half of the document had been saved. I mouthed an expletive.



And later, as I was whisked off in the night train to Madras, preparing for yet another adventure , I wondered, "Does it really matter? these lists? these accomplishments?" I know India is competitive, and maybe I've been a sore loser. But I also think I've got it all wrong. Maybe, just maybe, India is a great friend, the one who doesn't tell me what I want to hear, the one with something closer to an answer than I've found for a very long while.

Biodiesel-ing

Last night, one of the staff members found me alone, typing in the office. He said "Oh, Phoebe lonely. Volunteers all gone." He started gesturing with one hand, raising it to his mouth and leaning his head back with his lips slightly open. "If you need, you tell me." From this I understood that if I wanted alcohol, he could supply it for me. As a woman in Tiruchuli, it is strictly forbidden that I buy anything to drink. Once he had furtively brought me a huge, warm, poorly brewed 40, a kind gesture of cultural sensitivity. I took one sip and poured it down the drain after he left.

"Yes, a bit lonely." I stated, still typing but looking over to him.

"You need a beer?" he asked "I go and buy for you."

I didn't dare mention that the thought of drinking a fizzy and tepid "beer" in my room while sweating and listening to the roar of the fan probably wouldn't do much to make me feel any less alone. If anything, it would only amplify my solitude. I wanted to say "While you're at the store, why don't you pick me up a volunteer, preferably one with cold snickers bar, a supply of gum and maybe a mini-fridge for said beer that we could both share on my balcony." But I just mumbled oh, no thank you, I am all set. I returned to my work, which was the best remedy I'd found for blocking out the absence of others.

I have become fully reliant on work as a great balm for letting the hours pass. The computer is my buddy, and if I'm not on the computer, I am usually found joking around with the staff or drinking chai. Today, however, challenged my happy status quo. A power failure hit at 9:30 am. "Tirichuli no have power all day" stated the Director's son. I winced "But" he continued (and my ears perked up), "the biodiesel plant be having the electricity." I nodded, relieved, and asked if we couldn't make soap at the plant, to which a generous display of nods and head bobbles followed. I idiotically (or hopefully) took this to mean 'of course. '

I was joined by three individuals from an NGO in Chennai on a 'fact-finding' mission. The other day, one of them had given me his business card, which clearly stated the NGO's interest in everything health care related. This did not explain their interest in the biodiesel plant, and though I had politely probed for an explanation, all I unearthed was something about women and crops and children begging in Delhi. Three ODAM staff members were busy testing a new round of biofuel production, and the remaining 4 of us sat on plastic chairs. We were soon joined by a chemist from Madurai who had a fancy belt and a funny way of leaning over the machines to see just what was going on. Although the group from Chennai was purportedly in Tiruchuli to gather learning about biodiesel production, they did a great job of wandering around outside or staring in complete silence. I didn't see a notebook or camera amongst them. For some reason, all the coverings of the machines had been removed, and we watched the steady whir of belts and pulleys and metal wheels. In our chairs, I felt like we'd suddenly become complacent directors on the Bollywood set of Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times."

"Cut!" I wanted to yell "Time to move to the soap production scene."

I waited and waited and started reading a book, made some useless notes. Outside three adolescent goats were busy eating some of the seeds used for biodiesel production, and I wanted to pat them. I approached, they pranced away. Later, I saw a bird happily twittering away on the back of the smallest goat, and was miffed that she got to sit there while I couldn't even kindly rest my hand on the goat's scruffy little head.

Three hours later, a minor soap experiment took place. After heating some black and unrefined glycerin on a camping stove, adding an unmeasured amount of NaOH and stirring the mixture with a sugarcane stick, we had a little vessel of nubby, brown soap which bore a disturbing resemblance to something you'd find in the very dirty part of a pig farm. I sighed. Lunch arrived and I found myself, again, eating off of the bed frame of a cot, this time joined by the NGO crew and the professor. I ate an omelet that had enough salt in it to make another sea dead. I choked it back with a slimy mixture of rice mixed with curd. I thought how very un-spiritualy advanced I must be to care that I had spent the better part of my morning glued to a dirty plastic chair. I won't lie, I haven't discovered the seven wonders of the inner world here, though I have much advanced my knowledge of how to eat sauce with my right hand.

When we were finished, I rolled up my palm leaf. The Director waved for me to throw it away in "that direction", somewhere eastward by the back of the plant where the goats had all but murdered a little set of trees with their munching. Back inside I watched the man from Chennai cleaning his teeth with a sewing needle. I prayed that he would not produce another from his pocket to share with me.

I left at three, graciously attempting to hide my relief and delighted to hear that the power was back up and running. Work, I resolved, is a true gift.

The Office.

Sundays in Tiruchuli. Just when you thought that doing nothing had reached its apex around, say, Wednesday, Sunday is a day when residents move seamlessly from doing nothing, to really, really doing nothing. I, on the other hand, rise at 6 am, buy "coffee" to be put into a carrying tin I keep, and mix in the precious store of chocolate powder offered as a farewell gift by one of the volunteers. After consuming my very unsophisticated cafe mocha, I rush over to the office and get to work. When I'm in Tiruchuli, I work seven days a week, as boredom is the only other alternative, but Sundays are most conducive to being productive. Most of the staff stays at home, or just drops by to take a bath in the garden watering tub. This means: no heated Tamil chattering, constant phone ringing, or forced participation in a very involved and time-consuming game of musical computers.

Despite my newly gained efficiency, the office becomes just that - an office. It is stripped of its character, safe possibly for the crusty towels that cover all of the equipment, or the very scary saber knife that the director has kept by his desk ever since Rambo and her puppies were transferred to protect the biodiesel plant. Otherwise, I could be anywhere, doing research for anyone, on any day. And that's when I start to hate the computer and the sticky keypad. I leave to go back into town. I buy sweets for two old ladies and drink a tea. On my way back, I stop to pat a herd of goats, at least one of them unwittingly voyaging to their doom. Sunday is official goat-cuisine day, and they are making a beeline for the butcher.

I am invited to one of the project manager's homes for lunch. The director and three other staff members join. They are concerned that there is no dining table, and while I make an attempt to explain that I don't mind sitting on the floor, they rush into the bedroom, fold the flimsy mattress in half, and set up my palm leaf (RE: my plate) on the metal surface of the bed frame. They pull up a chair for me and I eat rice and meat and a large pile of onions mixed into curd. I graciously decline "tomorrow's egg eaten today" - a mushy ball taken from the inside of a slaughtered hen. Everyone else watches TV in the adjacent room, and I stick around for ten minutes to watch a real winner of a direct-to-video movie that Reese Witherspoon stars in. Afterwards, I go to my room. It is hot and I sweep. I sit on my bed. I listen to the second song on the Dirty Dancing CD that a volunteer just left me. I pour bleach all around my bathroom, which is presently being invaded by ants. They appear to materialize out of thin air and I'm ready to refute all scientific knowledge about procreation by documenting their spontaneous generation. All the clothes in my cement room are folded neatly. My books are arranged, the bed made, the bathroom situation covered, my work well on its way to being deemed work. And it is only 3 pm.

It is the Great Crossroads. I have the opportunity to say either "hey, today is really boring and I'm all alone because the other volunteers have escaped to destinations with ice-cream that isn't spotted with large ice crystals and I think I'll just sit here to contemplate this," or "Whoo! I love Tiruchuli and the people here and the work I do and it's time to get moving." Which I do. Back to the office. To this blog. And because I still have access to the computer, to drafting an all new proposal on climate change and sustainable livelihoods. Tiruchuli has this going for it: working every day means that one can never lament the end of a weekend.

Getting away from that place I initially got away to

I am writing this from a wonderfully comfortable couch in a luxurious apartment in Abu Dhabi. The (almost illegal) caffeine content of my latest double espresso shot mocha latte grande frappi drinky thing (code for something from Starbucks, which all you Fair Trade groupies can detest me for, but I swear, no other options out here!), while making typing a bit of choreographically challenged exercise, has inspired me to once again clog up the internet arteries with some more musings. While I thought that I might gain some major perspective on the great India adventure during my time in the Emirates, I have instead found that it has become more of a Major Blur. Which makes me wonder if I'm not in a state of Major Denial about going back, since the week's lifestyle that has included a steady diet of fresh fruits, exercise and the much needed presence of a dear, dear friend (xox Alex) has turned my otherwise friend and vitamin and sleep deprived world upside down. If India has been a true opportunity for personal inquiry, it has not been nearly as kind on my physical well-being. I took trips to the village doctor, trying to understand a plague of headaches, sleeplessness, weight-loss and weakness. Oddly enough, the prescription to eat more goat, throw back some vitamins and take a longer afternoon nap didn't quite do the trick. Maybe because the staff seemed to be confusing chicken with goat. Or because the vitamins not only looked just like M&M's, but were M&M's.

Nadine, (another volunteer) and I, started swapping sleeping horror stories "Hey, last night I slept 2 hours! And got up at 4:30 am! And I've had five fake chicory root coffees since! and I can't remember my name!" The ever-important work, once a passion, was morphing into a terrifying and insurmountable chore. During a typical night of insomnia, I miraculously developed a 6 week action plan for a Fair Trade cottage industry soap program. I handed it over to the staff after drinking enough faux cafe to give me the jolt I needed to make it over to the office. They seemed delighted with it. The next day, at 5 am as I was driven to the airport to make the great-escape to health-land (RE: Abu Dhabi), Semai (staff member of the century) remarked "We spent an hour discussing your plan. We will do all we can to help you with this initiative." I thanked him, and (not kidding) thought "Wow, when I'm away, I'll probably do a bunch of work on this." But I haven't spent a moment on the project. I've been working on the more important task of physical rejuvenation, realizing that what I for so long took for granted - my body's well-being - had been effectively eroded in a few short months and with it went many other things as well. Between the intense heat, and a diet based on white rice and spicy yet, frankly, nutrient deprived sauces, not only was I getting physically smaller, but my motivation, was corroding around the edges. I felt a crisis of conscious ebbing my way. From being a woman who constantly defined herself by her ability to "work hard" I was becoming a couch potato with no television. And no couch. I was turning into my own worst nightmare, and although Baptisite and I would simply joke saying that we'd adopted a new way of working that seemed to reflect the relaxed demeanor of those around us, I still wanted to point an accusatory finger and wasn't scared to direct it at myself. And, well, that's what going around the world can do for a girl. The conditions around foist upon you mise en cause of your sense of self. You're one of those snow globes that suddenly gets a vigorous shake after many years of sitting still on a forgotten shelf. Displacement has literally rattled my every fiber, and each flake in this globe of mine represents all those things I thought I'd tamed and tucked away. And there they go, blurring my vision.