anniversary and awards

I have to admit that I breathed a giant sigh of relief once the anniversary of the gas disaster was over. Not to complain, because overall the entire experience was good, but it’s hard to sustain yourself on that level of high intensity for too many days. There were actually several different things going on in commemoration of the people who died, and actions against Dow and the Indian government, condemning them for their inaction on the issue twenty-three years later. I have photos of everything, so I’m sorry but you’ll have to read through all of the explanations…

The actual gas leak occurred shortly after midnight on the evening on December 2nd, so there are things going on both the 2nd and the 3rd. On the 2nd Sambhavna had its action, which was attempting to make demands on the government concerning the treatment of gas-affected people – namely to have yoga taught and used medicinally in the gas-victims government sponsored hospitals. Anyway, the plan was to get as many Sambhavna patients as possible together outside of Kamla Park, near the lake, and form a human chain. I think that maybe about three or four hundred people turned out, which was pretty good. It was nice to see that the posters I had done such hard work on were going to use! The human chain didn’t last for too long before people got kind of bored and started wandering off, but there did seem to be a fair bit of media attention, which is good.

After that we all trekked up to New Market, about a half-hour walk away. There was a candlelight vigil for the people who dies, which the media went absolutely insane over. A local Bhopal rock band had written a song about the gas disaster, and they were to perform their first-ever show. Unfortunately things were a bit on the disorganized side; they couldn’t get certain equipment to work, and the lead singer kept starting the song, and then stopping because he decided it didn’t sound any good. The result was that it felt like I was at a practice for a high school band. The sound was pretty terrible, so when they finally did get the whole way through the song, I wasn’t terribly impressed.

After that we were all starving so we went to the Indian Coffee House in New Market, where we were ushered upstairs where “Ladies and Families” are seated. Weird. Anyway, we had a quick dinner since Rachna phone halfway through and said that the torch lit march to the factory had already started. It was only from a few blocks away from the factory itself, so by the time we got there we had actually missed the torch lit march. People had already gathered in a square around candles that spelled out “No More Bhopals” with large black banners. It was really beautiful, and very moving if it hadn’t been for the vast quantity of misogynist twelve-year old buys behind me. I was allowed to crouch inside the banners because I was taking photos, but the kids behind me kept poking, pushing and hollering at me. I couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t very many women around at all. Most of the vigil’s attendees were young men and boys out late at night in large groups, and spending most of their time hassling the white people from Sambhavna. I was pretty disgusted with their behaviour, especially because this was a memorial of sorts for many people who had died that night. It really pissed me off that these guys could have so little respect for their friends and neighbours.

We finally went back to the clinic around 9:30pm, completely exhausted from the day’s activities. However, before we could start relaxing, Rachna told us that we had to finish off some other signs for the protest the next day. We started a production line, and so we were lucky enough to finish up fairly quickly, or at least within the next couple of hours. The next day I slept in a bit, and by the time I was making my breakfast in my pj’s a small horde of children – Sareeta and people she had rangled together – had trailed into the clinic dressed in suits. They were supposed to be the CEOs and whatnot of corporations that are screwing India over. Unfortunately they looked more like a bunch of school children, so Rachna told us to hurry up and get dressed so that we could make them cardboard hats and briefcases with corporate names on them. The march to the Union Carbide factory was supposed to start at 11:30, so with little time to spare, Prabjit, about ten eager eight to ten year old kids and myself managed to churn out hats and briefcases for each of them. For young-ish kids, I have to admit that they were remarkably efficient, especially since they cleaned up absolutely everything without me having to tell them to do so.

We managed to get together two rickshaws, and all of the little boys piled, squealing with glee, into one, while Prabjit, the three other girls and myself got into the other one. I felt kind of like a schoolteacher as we herded everyone into the rickshaws and then piled out again at the meeting spot for the protest. There was a fair bit of waiting around before the protest actually started, but eventually we got under way. The turnout was really good for the march, maybe five hundred or more people, mostly women marched for about three and a half hours from just off of Hamidia Road to the Union Carbide factory. Admittedly I had not exactly been prepared for quite that long a walk, especially in the blazing sun and with more frequent that necessary stops to chant slogans against Dow and Union Carbide in Hindi. By the time we got there I was completely exhausted, and about ready to collapse. Luckly some chairs had been set up, so I nabbed one of those while the twenty-foot tall effigy of Warren Anderson (CEO of Union Carbide) was burned to the ground and his ashes stomped on. Then I realized that the terrible band was going to play yet again, although this time they were a little more together, so it wasn’t so bad.

After the band played and people started dispersing, every child in a fifty-foot radius around me moved closer so that they could stare at me. When an older woman came and sat next to me to get a better look and started asking me questions in Hindi, I decided I’d had enough of this, so I got up to look for some of the other volunteers. I ran into Eurig not far off, but he hissed under his breath “the creepy guy from the wedding is over there! Keep walking!!”, so we walked down Chola Road until we got to the gap in the wall and hid behind it… The creepy guy from the wedding, you may recall, was the one who told us that we were “enhancing the beauty of the evening” and that I was “helping the backwards people of India”. Euch…

When everyone reconvened at Sambhavna shortly afterwards, we discovered that no one had remembered to take the fifty-odd posters that we (mainly Prabjit) had spent the previous three days making. Arg… talk about wasted work. We all took showers and relaxed as much as possible for the next few hours, since the next day everyone was going to start getting ready for the Chingari Awards. I had offered my services to write up a short presentation of what Chingari had been doing since its beginning, and make a slideshow of photos to go along with it, so I had been working on this for the past few days pretty continuously, but hadn’t yet finished, so I spent a few hours that evening finishing a rough version.

Most of Wednesday was spent pretty lazily, since the Board of Trustees for Chingari had all shown up at this point and started taking command of the situation. They decided that instead of the ten-minute long presentation I had been told to make, they wanted something only three minutes, and that they would get Suresh to write the dialog. So I handed what I had over the Suresh, and he commenced work. At about 10pm, however, Suresh asked me if I wouldn’t mind copying all of the photos I had collected from Chingari (about 2 gigs worth), onto his memory stick so that he could start making the slideshow. I pointed out that I had already pulled out most of the really good ones, so why not take a look at what I had done already, but he insisted not. I spent until about 1:30am with Suresh and Biju trying to find the best photos out of what we already had, to go with about three minutes of text that Suresh had written out. I gave up at 1:30 because one or all of the four memory stick we were using had viruses on them and crashed both the computer we were using, and Suresh’s laptop crashed with the viruses, and lost all of the work we had done.

The next morning Shalini told me that Biju was starting all over again from scratch, since they hadn’t been able to recover what we had already done, so I spent the better part of the day in Biju’s office making the slideshow all over again (please note here that they had decided to trash having text all together, and were just making a collage of about ten minutes worth of photos). It went a lot more smoothly this time though, sine Biju and I seemed to have a fairly similar idea of what we wanted to show in the slides. Although we did have a scare when we stopped for lunch, and his computer crashed, but the show was recovered, so all was well.

The show was actually pretty good in the end, if I do say so myself. The one criticism I would have is that Biju wanted to put it to music, which was fine, but I thought that the music should only be instrumental since Rashida Bee would be speaking overtop of it. Our compromise ended up being that Biju took the first few bars of some classical song (I don’t know what it was called, but its really famous) and looped it over and over again. The effect, especially on an extra-loud style India speaker system, was a little jarring.

Nonetheless, the awards went extremely well. The auditorium was absolutely jam packed with women and children that Chingari has helped, which was really touching to see. I had misty eyes when Rashida and Champa were making speeches, even though I have no idea what they were saying. It just made me so happy to think about the work that they do, and how much the community supports them. I mean, they are trying to help the people who have been screwed over the most by the disaster; who have no money; who work long hours; who are trying to take care of severely disabled kids with the most meager of resources; who are blamed by their families and neighbours for their children’s birth defects. I think that they are possibly the most inspiring women I have ever met, or ever will meet. The entire awards ceremony just made me so proud of what they have accomplished in their lifetime.

Once again, having a vast number of people here from Delhi and other more cosmopolitan Indian cities made me realize the awesome fashion that exists outside of colloquial old Bhopal. After spending an hour trying on everything I own before the Chingari Awards, Prabjit and I both finally raided Tarunima’s closet, and that sealed the deal – I need at least one or two nice warm kourtas before I make it Shimla or Rajasthan!
Tarunima has absolutely beautiful, heavier kourtas from the Khadi Shops in Delhi, which I am absolutely set on finding when we go back. It has gotten cold enough here that all of the salwar suits I’ve had made are too cold on their own, so that is the perfect excuse to buy a couple of other things, even though I had already put the kaibosh (sp?) on buying more clothes.

The woman who won the award this year is a woman from Orissa who has been rallying people in her community to fight against a mining company for about fourteen years. Someone pointed her out to me at the march on the 3rd, and I have to admit that the first thing I noticed was he she and all of the women who had come with her from Orissa all had their septum’s pierced!! (I’m talking about a nose ring through the middle of their noses). I was totally dying to go up to them and pull out my hidden node ring and be like “hey!! I have one of those too!”. I did manage to contain myself though, so I narrowly escaped that particular embarrassment. Anyway, during the awards she was really nervous-looking on stage, until she got up to the podium in her traditional sari and started shouting slogans! Then you could totally see the fire in her eyes, and man, did she look pissed. I guess I would be pissed to if some corporation was mining my land and exploiting my family…

While I was off making the slideshow with Biju, you’ll never guess who arrived at the clinic!?! SHREE! I was so happy to see her, when I finally did several hours later. I didn’t really get a chance to sit down and talk to her until we all sat down together for dinner at Hotel Ranjit on Hamidia Road. We were a crowd of about twenty-five, so Sathyu forbade us from drinking alcohol (which is the point of going to Ranjeet, since the food isn’t great there), as he was concerned with the image that it would give of both Chingari and Sambhavna. I was a little miffed that I wasn’t allowed to have the beer I had been looking forward to, but I understand his sentiment: Bhopal is ridiculously conservative, and word travels fast about things like this. Unfortunately, this sparked a lengthy debate about drinking alcohol in the clinic at all, and why there was no official ban on it blah blah blah… Christ the politics of this place get to me sometimes. Everyone is into everyone else’s business and gossiping about everyone else behind their backs. Not that I’m not guilty of my fair share of these indulgences, but considering that the weekly staff meetings are supposed to air out the dirty laundry, so to speak, there sure is a lot going on under the surface that no one talks about up front. Anyway, I won’t dwell on it any longer, suffice to say that there are certain standards for some people, and other standards for everyone else. Ppppbbbtt…

Eurig left Bhopal for ten days yesterday evening, so Tony and I escorted him to the train station. It turned out that his train was almost two hours late, so we went to Ranjeet again and had the beer that had been forbidden to us the previous night. I had spent most of the day drawing up yet another project proposal to get the kids taking photos to show Shree, since I know that once she has a say in it, the ball will get rolling with great momentum. She has already helped Prabjit out tremendously with the study that she has been trying to start for the past three months, and I know that she will do the same for me as well.

I spent all day today finally wrapping up the rest of my cervical cancer inspection model in plaster of Paris-soaked cloth. I have to admit that I think it is starting to look pretty good. I need to go over it tomorrow with a thick layer of plaster to smooth it out as much as possible (right now it still has a slightly mummified look). But I managed to buy some varnish this afternoon, so as soon as I am finished with that I can seal it up so that it won’t continue to crumble away. Oh yes, and my mom is bringing an old thera-band to use as the vagina, so everything is falling into place. This afternoon the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB) opened their offices on the second floor of Chingari Trust. They invited everyone from Sambhavna over, as well as a fair number of other people, to eat a quite delicious meal on their rooftop, which was pretty fun.

I think that about sums up the past week, although I haven’t commented on the vast number of people here right now. Sara, the Italian girl left earlier in the week. But gained what feels like about a million people in the meantime. Tarunima, who is doing the field work with Eurig and Dharmesh, arrived on the first; Shree and one of Sambhavna/Chingari’s trusteed, Mira, arrived on the fifth; two of Dharmesh’s friends from Chennai were here for a few days; two other Chingari Trustees were here; there was another couple from Chennai here for a few days; Shalini from SfB is here now; Dharmesh’s girlfriend Shweta is here; and a new volunteer named Robyn from Seattle came a coupe of days ago.

Anyway, the dorm rooms and everyone’s houses have been jam-packed with people, and the upstairs kitchen has never seen so much action – people making chai and French toast and coffee pretty much constantly. The bustle is nice, I certainly like having lots of other people around. It’s intense though, and there isn’t a whole lot of time for reflection or “alone time,” which can be a bit trying at times. To be honest though, I think I prefer the insanity of all the action around here. There is no time to be bored, or homesick or to feel as though you are being useless and unproductive. I think that the craziness actually motivates me to do more work…

My parents arrive tomorrow night! I don’t think I have ever been so excited to see them (with perhaps the exception of when I came back from my two weeks at overnight camp when I was eight years old). The hot water hasn’t been working here, since some asshole threw a rock at the solar panels that power the water heater, so I am fully planning on showering at their shwanky hotel! Okay, I’ll update again once they are here are we are driving each other nuts☺

p.s. i have more photos to post, but i haven't yet uploaded them on my computer... soon... sooooooon...

the poster-master and nothing exciting

My apologies for not writing as frequently as I used to – especially you Mel, since I know that you have been itching for more updates on the kids in particular! Things have been pretty busy for the past couple of weeks with the upcoming anniversary, and I have had trouble finding the time to spend an hour or two typing up the goings on here. That said, here are the goings on…

The goings on are not actually that interesting, now that I am thinking about it. The clinic has been making a poster display for the anniversary, which is going to be ferried around various hospitals and whatnot in Bhopal to try to raise some awareness about Sambhavna and the demands that the gas survivors have on the government and their hospitals. At any rate, Prabjit and I were elected to make some additional posters on water contamination and its effects, since that is an important aspect of the demands. After we started working on those posters, however, Jyoti, the yoga instructor quickly co-opted us to make some more posters with her. Prabjit soon managed to fall out of the running with the poster-making (mostly because I think that she despised doing it), but also because she was quite sick for a few days, and had meetings about her study going on. Sooooo… I ended up getting roped into doing quite a few posters about water contamination, yoga, etc. It was kind of nice to have something that actually kept me busy for a few days, but I think that I could have done about three fewer posters quite happily, since they quickly took up my entire week. I ended up spending several days listening to movies on my laptop while I outlined people displaying various symptoms of water contamination (think diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, abdominal pain, etc.). Apparently my drawing of “constipation” is a favourite among the staff.

During this time, I have also volunteered to help out at Chingari Trust on December 5th, since they are having their first awards ceremony! Every year they pick out a woman in India who is fighting against corporate crime, so I guess they need some extra hands for the event. I am also attempting to make a slideshow for them to use on the night of the awards that introduces Chingari Trust and explains a bit about the work that they are doing. I’ve been trying to work on it all week, but every time I thought I was finally finished the posters, another one cropped up. However, after two trips to Chingari to download all of their photos, and a couple of hours of organizing, I have finally put all of the photos of Chingari into some discernable order. I still have yet to actually make the slideshow, but I am two steps closer now!

The photo project is still not moving forward at all, especially because everyone is so wrapped up in anniversary plans. I spoke to Mel about it on the phone the other day, and I think that she had some good suggestions for which directions to move it in. My hope now is that in the next couple of weeks I will be able to find a good translator, and talk to Rashida Bi, Sathyu and Rachna about my plans so that I can, at the very least, get started as soon as I get back from my trip with mom and dad. I was a bit disappointed to realize that Micha, the French photographer who was here for a week, had already taken a lot of really beautiful photos of the kids with disabilities at Chingari. I know that Rashida Bi was enthusiastic for me to do whatever work I wanted to, but I think that I would simply be repeating work that has already been done if I was to do this again. It would be more useful for me to do work on their website, and to record the kids stories in some more detail. I’m hoping that once I find a translator for the kids taking photos project that I will be able to do this work fairly easily, but who knows. Part of me has given up entirely on actually completing anything of use while I am here. Le sigh…

This blog entry is becoming very boring very quickly… my apologies. I haven’t done anything that interesting this past week. I bought a 2gb usb key for the equivalent of $22, which I thought was a pretty good deal. The weather is slowly getting fractionally colder which I don’t mind except for the fact that there isn’t much hot water in the mornings, so showers are a bit unpleasant. I’m glad I bought that fleece thing…

Oh yeah! We went to see a Bollywood movie called Om Shanti Om a week or so ago, which was a lot of fun. Prabjit and I had been seeing ads for it absolutely everywhere in Delhi, and it looked really fun, so we were itching to go see it when we got back (we had to wait until both of us were clear of the diarrhea before we could sit through the feature-length 3 hours that is Bollywood though). Anyway, all of the volunteers went, along with Vikas and Satish. Luckily I was next to Prabjit, and she translated for me what I didn’t catch – although, as before, I was surprised at how much I could understand! Anyway, the basic premise of the film is that a guy who is obsessed with a Bollywood actress in the 70’s watches her gruesome murder and then dies himself. He is re-incarnated as a spoiled, famous Bollywood actor in present-day, eventually remembers what happened in his previous life and wants to avenge her death. Sounds pretty cheesy, no? Okay, but the amazing thing about this movie was the fact that the first half was a total satire of the entire film industry here, including all of the over-the-top acting, song-and-dance routines, and pointlessly-scantily-clad women! It was absolutely hilarious! Unfortunately not long after the intermission (yes, of course it had an intermission), the plot got a bit on the boring side, since they had to devise a scheme to get the murderous producer arrested. Anyway, thanks to the booming bootlegging industry here I have already managed to find a DVD-quality copy of the movie so we can re-watch all of our favourite songs every night… My favourite is the one called “Darde Disco” where Sharu Kahn dances sound shirtless and glistening with oil surrounded by a team of nearly nude women. Its frigging hilarious! Is it sad that the most exciting thing I have done in the past ten days has been to buy a usb key and watch a Bollywood movie?

Other exciting news… none, really. We had another dinner at Jehan Numa last week, which was nice. Mmmmm… pizza. Mom and Dad are coming very soon! That is exciting. They arrive on Dec. 8th, so it is only about ten days or so now! Yay! Fun times ahead! Okay, I’m going until I have something more exciting to write. Sorry for the lack of photos… I don’t have none.

delhi belly and other adventures

I started this entry when I had just got back from Delhi, thinking that I would write all about the fun and adventures we had while it was still fresh in my mind. I got distracted, and now it is a week later, so there you have it.

Derek, Prabjit and I all went to Delhi together on Tuesday night, catching one of the trains that makes the run from Bhopal overnight. Because it was a few days before Divali, about half the country is traveling somewhere to visit family, and the trains were really booked up by the time we got our tickets. We got ourselves two-tier A/C tickets, which is the highest tier that you can get on the trains here, and it was pretty luxurious, especially when you compare it to the train service between Montreal and Toronto. You get an entire little bed to yourself, complete with your own curtains, so that when you are ready to sleep all you have to do is pull them shut, and doze off. I do have to admit though, that I found it a bit hard to sleep very soundly through my vague paranoia that all of my stuff was going to get stolen while I slept… but I did manage to sleep for a while. Our train got into Nizamuddin station in Delhi at about 6:30am, so needless to say I was still pretty groggy when we got there. We took an auto-rickshaw to Pahar Ganj, which is the neighbourhood in Delhi (actually right opposite the other, New Delhi train station) where a lot of the backpackers and tourists stay.

Almost nothing was open because it was so early in the morning, so we went into the first guest house that we saw on the main street. It wasn’t very expensive - Rs. 496/night, which is about $12 for both Prabjit and I – and I was so tired that I didn’t really care where we went so long as it was big enough that I could lie down. Prabjit and Derek were wide awake though, and decided that they would go to the airport and drop off Derek’s extra baggage for storage there, so while they did that, I got caught up on my sleep. It turned that it took them about three hours to get there and back on a combination of public transportation and by rickshaw, so it wasn’t until almost noon that Prabjit got back to the room. We decided that for our first meal in the “big city” we would have no other than McDonald’s, more out of curiosity and than craving. There are no shortages of fast food chains in Connaught Circle, which is only a short walk away from Pahar Ganj, so Prabjit went over their for our McDonald’s fix, and then went on a little shopping trip.

Connaught Circle has a plethora of American chain stores, which aren’t terribly appealing, especially since the prices are about the same. I did, however, manage to find myself a newer version of the Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia guide, and a pair of Converse All-Stars for $20, so the shopping wasn’t entirely wasted. I also looked extensively at a store called FabIndia that sells some nice stuff, but I couldn’t find any pants that I wanted, and since I’m all courta-ed out, I decided not to get anything there. The real shopping fun actually happened in Pahar Ganj, since most of the stores in the main bazaar cater to the massive numbers of tourists. I ended up buying more scarves thatn I know what to do with (so if you are reading this then you probably have a scarf coming your way), as well as a couple of pairs of what I would call “hippie pants,” since all of the dirty hippies in Pahar Ganj wear them. We also found this extremely cute little store in the lobby of one of the guest houses that sold adorable skirts, dresses and so on at pretty good prices. I actually ended up going back a second time I liked it so much and chatted with the Israeli girl that owned the place. She expained that she buys the clothes from the manufacturers in India, but that they are all brand names back in the States. Anyway, I bought a sweatshirt, a tank top and a skirt (none of which I can wear in Bhopal), and have promised myself a dress when I go back to Delhi with my parents next month.

I really liked Delhi, despite my previous misgivings on my previous trip (I’m referring here to the cab ride from hell). It was extremely easy to navigate by comparison to Bhopal – especially Pahar Ganj because of all the tourists. That was actually the weirdest thing about Delhi – all the white people!! There must be hundreds of them in Pahar Ganj alone! No one even looked twice at me, and only one kid called me “Angreezi!” during the entire trip. It was pretty awesome to go almost entirely unnoticed for four whole days☺ It was a nice break…

Not that Delhi was the perfect place by any means. On our last day there we went to South Delhi to explore a market that Rachna had suggested to us for buying granola bars and the like. While we were there four little beggar kids approached us, one of whose hand and arm had obviously been held over a fire so that her skin was crusted in huge black scabs almost up to the elbow. You could tell that someone had done this to her in order for her to be able to make more money while she begged, which is totally fucking sick. But I think that the thing that made it more disturbing was the fact that when we left the market to explore another store that the Lonely Planet recommended we ended up in a neighbourhood not all that dissimilar to Yorkville in Toronto. It was so ritzy and expensive, with shiny new cars and million dollar homes everywhere that the disparity between the rich and poor was really just a bit too much. After that we went to a restaurant in another area called Punjabi by Nature (which we were interested in mostly because of Naughty by Nature, but anyway), which turned out to be even fancier. It reminded me of the restaurants that you see in suburban malls - $25 cheeseburgers and ridiculously over-the-top décor. I paid the equivalent of $10 for a Corona (admittedly a splurge on a mediocre beer), and our meals all came in American-sized portions (ie. I ordered a chicken dish and got four leg and thighs of meat!). Anyway, it was all a bit much, but nothing quite beats the strip of stores that this restaurant was located in. Pretty much all of the stores were expensive American chains, and it was bustling with middle-class families and teenagers. I went to get my haircut (it only cost Rs. 500, or $12 but I’d say that it wasn’t even worth that) while Derek and Prabjit walked around the stores in a bit of disbelief. There was even this little gang of white teenaged boys wearing baggy jeans and Slipknot t-shirts that looked like they had been transplanted right out of an American suburb… so weird. Anyway, we went back to Pahar Ganj feeling a little disturbed by the extreme of rich and poor living quite literally side by side.

Contrary to my earlier statement that my plan was to shop and only shop, I did conceded to some sightseeing. On our second day we took a trip to the Red Fort, which was pretty neat (there are some nice photos). We also visited the biggest mosque (possibly in India although I always get my facts wrong about these things), and of course I can’t remember its name now either. I think its Jama Masjit, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, there were these two guys outside the mosque who insisted we pay Rs. 200/- to bring our cameras in, which I was not terribly enthusiastic about. Derek waited outside with our cameras and shoes, while Prajit and I took a look around inside. I know that im supposed to be all impressed with stuff like that, but it just looked like a really big mosque, and there wasn’t much else to say about it than that. The more exciting thing was while Prabjit and I were looking after Derek’s shoes outside this adorable little black cat came up to us and was soooo friendly! Against my mother’s wishes I gave the little cat a few scratches (she forbids me to pet any of the stray animals here and I don’t blame her because you can see the festering open wounds on a lot of them). As we were leaving we saw these boys trying to catch the cat, which really pissed me off because I’m sure that they were only going to torture the poor thing. I think it ran off in the end, but who knows… We also saw a Sikh Gurdwara nearby which was pretty cool. We were lucky that Prabjit was there to tell us what to do because they were doing a prayer service type thing, and there were several rules I wouldn’t have been able to figure out myself. For example, instead of just leaving your shoes in a giant pile in front of the door, you give them to these women who store them in a little cubby-hole and they give you a ticket. Men and women both have to cover their heads when they go into the Gurdwara, so there is this bucket of headscarves that you can borrow at the door as well, which was kind of neat.

After our day of sightseeing we took the newly-build subway back to Pahar Ganj. We had taken it in the morning, and it has been pretty quiet, and therefore significantly easier to manage. Firstly, because of terrorist threats, they have decided that they need to send everyone through metal detectors before they are allowed on the subway… so you can imagine the lineup of two hundred-odd men (and about five women in a separate line, surprise, surprise) waiting to go through. Of course absolutely everyone sets off the metal detectors, but they just glance into your bag and send you on your way anyway, making the entire routine completely pointless. Once you actually get on the subway, no one moves into the cars at all, but when you get to another stop, more people just push you mosh-pit style so that they can crowd on. I have to admit that after having my ass grabbed so many times here in Bhopal I was pretty uncomfortable with having that many men in such close proximity, especially without being able to see whose hands were where, but fortunately no one did any groping... maybe the illusion of security prevents men from being perverts on the tube here.


On Divali proper (which is the biggest Hindu holidy) we randomly met a guy from the UK who was lost in Connaught Circle and trying to get back to Pahar Ganj, so we walked with him. We ended up getting dinner with him at a rooftop restaurant in Pahar Ganj. The food wasn’t great, but it was definitely the best place to be sitting, since we could see all of the fireworks shooting up from every one of the narrow streets in and around Pahar Ganj. In addition to this, the restaurant owners were also setting off fireworks, or rather, they were allowing their five year old son to do so. When he was (to the great relief of the patrons) unsuccessful at lighting, one of the older employees/family members took over. My pictures of the fireworks really don’t do it justice, but the guy set off a number of those fireworks that just shoot a large shower of sparks straight up into the air. I don’t know what they are called, but from twenty feet away they are pretty impressive to watch. I should mention that Divali is the festival of lights, and, as far as I can tell, just an excuse for every man d child between the ages of five and five and forty-five to set off as many explosive devices as he can afford. The fireworks started at about 6pm, and they were still going strong when we left the restaurant almost two hours later. It was a rather nerve-racking walk from the restaurant to a bar that we thought would be open (oh my god, yes, Delhi does have bars and god I forgot how much I love them), since we had to dodge groups of rowdy men and excited children setting off more fireworks about three feet from each other. I was pretty sure that before the evening we were going to witness someone lose a limb or be blinded, if it didn’t happen to one of us. The bar we were going to was long since closed when we got there, and a walk in the other direction proved that pretty much the only thing open were the numerous guest houses in Pahar Ganj. We settled on another rooftop patio to continue to watch the numerous fireworks and drink a hot chai. We stayed up there for another hour or two, sitting in pretty much stunned silence as the fireworks just kept on going. I swear, whoever manufactures fireworks in India must be a fucking millionaire, since this went on long after we had gone to bed at about 11pm.

Delhi was quite a bit colder than Bhopal, particularly at night. Although I noticed it more during the day, because Bhopal still goes up to at least 25 degrees during the day because the sun is so strong, but what can only be described as the thickest smog I have ever seen in my life blocks out most of the direct sunlight in Delhi, making the days far less scorching than Bhopal. It should be noted here that although the smog in Delhi actually blocks the sunlight (you can actually see it as you descend into the city in the plane), I have heard from numerous people that Delhi has significantly lessened its pollution in the fast five or ten years since now the autorickshaws and public busses run on some kind of fuel. I also noticed that there is some sort of recycling system in place, since there are two separate dumpsters for biodegradable and non-biodegradable items… a far cry from the burning heaps of trash in Qazi camp. (Although I have seen a garbage truck twice in Qazi camp now, collecting garbage from one particularly overloaded garbage heap).

Anyway, I am now back in sunny Bhopal, which is hard to do after you have been having fun in tourist-ville for a few days, drinking beer and not getting harassed. Prabjit and I have had to move out of our private room since there is an older woman coming to do some work who takes precedence over us. It took me a lot longer to move out of there than it did to move in, since I have accumulated a large amount of stuff. I took the bed that I had originally had when I got here and just dumped everything into the two drawers at the bottom… until they were full, and then I dumped all of the clothes that I was actually wearing into one of the cupboards. I finally went through the drawers today (I couldn’t find my mosquito repellent anywhere) and packed all of the stuff that I’m sending home with mom and dad into my big suitcase…. And its full. Uo-oh. I’m lucky that they are coming or else there is no way that I would be able to get all of the stuff that I have bought home with me. Mostly it is clothes that I brought that I shouldn’t have, but there are quite a few books and a LOT of scarves for gifts.

Prabjit and I have both been feeling pretty sick the past couple of days. Late on Monday evening I had terrible diarrhea and fever and muscle aches. It went away overnight, and the next morning I felt better, but it keeps re-appearing in the evening every couple of days, which is kind of awful. I felt pretty shitty all day today, and spent most of the day sleeping and watching Superman movies in bed. Prabjit didn’t start feeling crappy at all until a couple of days ago, but has felt more consistently bad than I have… so who knows what is going on. I’m a little worried that I have malaria a second time, since my flu-like symptoms keep going away and then coming back, but I guess I will go get yet another malaria test tomorrow morning and find out.

There really isn’t anything exciting going on here other than that. There was an action against the gas minister on Wednesday, so we spent several afternoons cutting out people-shapes from cardboard and painting them. The anniversary of the gas disaster is coming up an a couple of weeks (Dec. 2nd) and I have been designated as resident poster-maker, so I am busy drawing pictures on poster board these days. There is also a new volunteer named Sara here from Italy for a month. She is living in the north of India (I forget the name of the town) doing work in a farm of some sort up there. A guy from Derek’s hometown, near Chicago, named Tony also arrived a couple of days ago. Tony was here for eight months, and had only left Bhopal a month or two before I got here in July, so it is kind of nice to have someone around who already knows the ropes so the speak. Eurig has hired two people to conduct interviews for his project here, and one of them has already arrived. His name is Darmesh, and he has been involved in the Bhopal campaign for quite some time. He’s not living at the clinic with us, but is around quite a bit, and has an apartment close by.

Anyway, I’m finally going to post this since it is now a week since I started writing it…

real cheese on pizza and adventures in model-building

Well, now that the malaria fun appears to have died down things are getting back to normal around here. I have been testing out ways to make my model for cervical cancer detection, which has been pretty fun. At first I tried using this stuff that I guess is essentially just mud. Unfortunately it proved not to be sticky enough, so all of the newspaper strips just fell right off of the chicken wire frame that I made. The librarian, Shahnaz, recommended that I use plaster-of-Paris, since the mice and rats won’t eat that either (which is the main reason I didn’t use the traditional flour-and-water paper-mache mix). Anyway, I tested it our to make sure that it would work, and it certainly is a lot studier than the mud that I was using before. On Sunday I spent a long time tearing up strips of cloth to use on the model, and experimenting with the plaster-of-Paris. Things to keep in mind in the future: it hardens in about a minute if you are not constantly stirring it. I lost a half of a bag of the powder because I let it sit too long while I rinsed off the sink… anyway, Chantra Kanta saw what I was doing, and showed me a much better method, that looks wayyyy smoother and takes about half of the time than what I was doing! Eventually I’ll get around to posting some photos of her showing me what to do☺

The post-malaria blues seem to have pretty much dissipated for me. I’m left, instead, with a kind of a dull ache of longing to get home again. I keep telling myself that the hard part of the internship is over; my parents will be here in one month (almost to the day), and I have plenty of work to do before they get here. See, I have somehow become the resident “artistic person” even though my drawing skills are pretty sub-par (or at least they are next to Dan’s), so Prabjit and I have been recruited to make posters for the upcoming anniversary of the gas disaster. I can’t say that I mind this at all, because it means that I have something practical and fun to do for the next three weeks. It also means that we got to go to the stationary store and buy a bunch of paints and markers and stuff, and we all know that I am addicted to buying stationary supplies, so this is good. I also have my model to finish, which takes some time as I have to wait between layers and body parts so that things can dry. Not to mention that I fully intend to get started on looking for a translator to do my photo project in the next week or so. I really want to get started on that before I leave in December with mom and dad, especially since when I get back in January, I really only have about six weeks left here in Bhopal before I can start traveling! Woo hoo! Oh yes, and of course Andrea will be here as of January eleventh or so, and Mel is returning in February, so I suspect that the rest of my time here is going to be pretty busy. Which is good, provided I don’t get malaria again. If I get malaria again I’m going to the fuck home.

Speaking of illnesses, Aio has still been pretty under the weather, and actually got a second malaria test on Monday because he was feeling so sick on Sunday night. The test came back negative, which is good. However, this begs the question of what exactly he is sick with… I feel really bad for him, since he has only been here about three weeks, and he has been sick for at least two of them now. Although, we did go to Jehan Numa Palace Hotel for dinner last night, and I think that did us all a world of good in terms of morale. Jehan Numa is the most expensive hotel in Bhopal (or at least as far a s I can tell), although the bottom end of rooms are less than $100 per night, just to put that into perspective for you. They have the only restaurant that serves Western food that actually tastes like Western food though, at their Italian restaurant. I actually (decadence of decadence!) have been twice this week, since Eurig, Derek and I decided to go and check the place out on Friday night. Derek, Prabjit, Aio and I went back last night, since it was Derek’s last night in Bhopal, and therefore his choice of whre dinner was to be.

I had spinach and cheese ravioli (and no, the cheese was not paneer thank god), on the first visit, and then peanut chicken satay, a pizza and lasagna that I split with Prabjit last night. We couldn’t resist but get a bottle of wine on both of our trips, particularly because so far as I know there is no other restaurant that serves wine in the city. Considering that this place is really about one of the priciest places that you can eat, it is still pretty damn cheap by Canadian standards. The bottle of wine (there are only two red on the list) was about $30, and the main courses are each about $5.00. This restaurant is actually quite a bit cheaper than the “mixed cuisine” (read: Indian food) restaurant that we ate at before. I wasn’t overly impressed with the Indian food that we got at the other restaurant before, so I would say that I win all the way around: Western food is cheaper! Yay!

I have been shying away from the food in the canteen lately, as I am getting thoroughly sick of rice, daal, subjie and roti two meals a day, every day. I know that it is about the healthiest food that I could be eating, but I’ve been craving a bit of variety lately, and I the canteen just can’t give it! I know that I can’t afford to eat Jehan Numa style for next three solid months, but I think that just knowing that the option is available once in a while is uplifting. I am heading to Delhi this evening with Derek and Prabjit, on a much-needed break from the clinic, and Bhopal in general. Derek is going to continue up to Shimla and McCleod-Ganj after Delhi, and then he will be heading back to Chicago… for which I am very sad. As I said last night on our second toast to Derek: “I wasn’t sure about you at first…but now I’m sure!”. I’ll really miss him here, and I just don’t think that things will be the same at the clinic without him. Anyway, our trip to Delhi will be a nice farewell. I am also planning on raiding the city for certain Western items that I haven’t been able to find in Bhopal – granola bars, mosquito repellent, several particular brands of crackers, red wine, and hopefully a decent haircut. Is it sad that I am more excited about visiting the McDonald’s in Delhi than the Indira Ghandi museum? Hmmmm…

Anyway, I don’t think that there is much else to report before the trip. I’ll be sure to write about Delhi once I get back, as I’m sure that this time I won’t get lost with an evil cab driver at eleven o’clock at night. And if I do I will be armed with Prabjit, Derek and a cell phone.

more malaria and marriage madness

This past week has been a series of ups and downs that is making me slowly lose my mind. I have been homesick a lot, I think mostly because I’ve been sick in bed, feeling weak and tired, so I’ve had nothing to do or think about but coming home again. On the other hand, I’ve been helping to reserve hotels and make some travel arrangements for mom and dad when they come, which is peaking my interest in traveling once again. I think that at this point that is what I am more interested in doing in terms of my time here. The frustration of feeling like I’m not actually doing much to help or to make a difference has really hit me hard the past week or so. Now that I am feeling better from my bout of malaria, I’m just looking forward to the part of my trip that involves the traveling. Too bad that is still another three months away…

I went to my first Indian wedding this weekend. It was a two-day affair of absolutely mayhem. I’m not entirely sure whether I actually enjoyed it or not, I’m still processing the insanity of it all. I’m not exactly sure whose wedding it was that we were at. We were invited by Ries, one of the rickshaw drivers who always waits at the edge of Qazi camp on Berasia Road, and I think that it was his brother-in-law that was getting married, but we’ll never know for sure. Anyway, we were told to meet Ries’s at his house, where we went to dinner last week for Eid, and that they would take us to the venue on Saturday nights. Well, Ries lives on the other side of Berasia Road, where I a not so familiar with the streets. We were headed in what I thought was the right direction, and rounded a bend to see somewhere in ballpark of two hundred men dancing in the street to music pumping out of loudspeakers on a truck. All at once, every face in the crowd turned and faced our little group, with me at the front. And then we were descended upon like vultures to a carcass. Every guy in the street surrounded us to ask us questions and say hello, but mostly just to stare with the most unabashed intensity.

At first I wasn’t entirely convinced that we were in the right place at all, since we seemed to have stumbled upon an enormous street party, and there wasn’t a familiar face in sight. After a few minutes though, there was a ruckus on the street behind us, and when I turned around I saw the groom approaching on a large white horse. At that point a semi-hysterical Ries jumped out from somewhere shoving us next to the horse so that our photo could be taken with the groom on his horse. Men were jumping around like Mexican jumping beans, shooting prays of party foam, and showering the crowd in sparkly confetti. After being sufficiently stared and photographed for about twenty minutes, all six of us were ushered into a Honda civic decorated with ribbons and marigolds. The car lined up behind the truck with the sound system, so we got to watch all of the men bump and grind with one another behind the speakers.

We were moving along at a snails pace, but I expected that we would speed up once we got out to Berasia Road again. However, we didn’t move much more once we got to Berasia as we inched along with the throng of pelvic thrusting dudes in front of us, setting off fireworks at regular intervals along the street. Our car stopped numerous times, and we were told to get out a couple of times so that we could watch the fireworks. As we stood about ten feet from where they were setting off long rows of cracking fireworks, I was a little nervous that a) I was going to go deaf from the blasts and b) either myself or one of the guys setting off the fireworks were going to get their face blown off. Eventually, Derek, Aio, Prabjit and I got into the car with Salman’s younger brother, Azmat, while Ruskin and Eurig were shuffled off into an open jeep of young men. We crawled along the street for about two and a half hours before we actually made it to the wedding reception. The whole procession was absolutely insane, since most of the guys who had been dancing had packed themselves three to a motorcycle, and were following the sound system with great reverie.

Once we arrived at the actually cite of the wedding, Prabjit and I were let to a separate area that was just for the women, where, once again, we were descended upon by everyone curious to know why there was a foreigner at the wedding. Although, after being stuck in a procession with a hundreds of gyrating men I was somewhat relieved to find out that there were also women at the wedding, the women were perhaps even more overwhelming than the men. Ries’ sister-in-law dragged me around by the arm, and up onto the stage where the bride-to-be was sitting with her eyes downcast, looking a lot like she was about to slit her wrists. I sat for a minute in silence, no sure whether I should say something to her or not, since no one else was talking to her, and then blurted out “congratulations?” with a confused smile. I saw her eyes flicker up at me as she tried to repress a smile, and I figured that my work here was done ☺ Melanie told me that the tradition in India is that the sadder the bride looks on her wedding day, the happier the marriage is supposed to be. I think it is also supposed to be symbolic of her being sad about leaving her parents’ home and family. Anyway, call me culturally insensitive, but I thought that it was the most insane thing ever. After that we were lead to a tent full of house wares and furniture, which I was told were “wedding gifts” (read: dowry according to Prabjit) to which I responded something along the lines of “Oh, isn’t that nice”.

Salman’s family was there, and his mother tried her best to protect us from the throng of women obsessed with introducing me to every member of their family and general fawning over the angreez. Very quickly after being introduced to the bride, we were lead to a tent over on the groom’s side, where all the men were hanging out, to eat dinner. We were pretty much the last people to arrive, and therefore the last people to eat, so I had some slightly cold rice and aloo curry with a puri, while being talked at by the extremely nervous brother of the groom. He was obviously wanted to impress everyone at the wedding, and felt particularly compelled to welcome us whities to the ceremony. About a minute into our conversation he told me that I was “doing good work here with the backwards people in India”… to which I responded “thank you,” and “I think” under my breath. He also insisted on telling us about fifty times that we were “lightening up the occasion” while deliberately turning his back to Prabjit while he said this.

At this point it was about one-thirty at night, so Ries told us that he would arrange for us to take a car home again. We milled around the outside of the venue (which was basically a large tent in a field) until a battered white Ambassador pulled up, and we all piled in. The drive home on the empty night streets took about five minutes in contrast to two-and-a-half hours that it took to get there. Also, I would point out that we spent less than an hour at the wedding itself. We missed the actual ceremony, which apparently took another two hours, since Salman’s mother told us that she was there until three-thirty in the morning. Prabjit told me afterwards that the first night of the wedding is about the bride’s departure from her family, while the second night is about celebrating the newlyweds joining, which might explain the whole procession thing about our arrival. At any rate, we arrived back at Sambhavna slightly after two in the morning, and, speaking for myself anyway, half insane from the evening’s events.

Now, the second night of the wedding Salman’s mom had invited us over to their house so that she could help us to put on our sari’s properly. We went over at seven o’clock, since the evening’s festivities were to start at eight instead of ten. It took the better part of an hour for Salman’s mom and younger sister to mummify both Prabjit and I in our saris, which made me realize why so many women wear salwar suits instead. I wasn’t entirely convinced I actually looked good at the end of it all, either, since I felt like I was about three times my actual width from all of the material wrapped around me. Salaman’s mom also put some large white costume jewelry on me as well, so that I looked like a proper lady for the wedding. We spent another hour waiting for the rickshaws to arrive to drive us there, and finally piled into three rickshaws and sped off to a different place that the previous night. Again, it was basically a huge open field fenced in by white cloth, with separate entrances for men and women.

Now, I had thought that there were a lot of people at the first evening’s celebration, but that was nothing compared to the number of people who were at the second night! I would have guestimated that there was somewhere in the ballpark of five hundred men women and children happily chowing down on mutton biryani, pani puri and a variety of other things. Being overly cautious of buffet food in general, I insisted on having veg food with Prabjit, so after a slight tug-of-war with Ries’ pushy sister-in-law about when I would have my photo taken with the bride and groom (they shared a stage this evening), Prabjit and I were lead over to an empty corner where the veg food was being served. It being a Muslim wedding I suppose that most of the guests were Muslim, so the veg buffet was pretty much deserted. We actually ate in relative peace, and were then lead over to the bride and groom to have our photos taken with them and the rest of the family.

After that we all piled into a rickshaw and made in home relatively early, or at least compared with the previous evening. Eurig, Prabjit and I had a few beers while discussing the evening’s events. Unfortunately, I think the residual malaria or possibly the med made the alcohol an unpleasant combination, and I have spent all of today feeling horribly depressed an sad. Note to self: no more alcohol for at least another week, and hopefully then my liver will have had a chance to recover from the malaria…

In other news, Aio also has malaria, although he seems to be coping with it pretty well. Salman, too, has malaria, and I found out about and hour ago that Dr. Quaiser, the allopathic doctor who prescribed my chloroquine, also has malaria. I guess that it is going around.

malaria fun!

Well, I apparently have malaria. Humph. Lucky for me I seem to have either an extremely mild strain of it, or the anti-malarials that I was taking are helping to keep the full effects of it at bay. In fact, I would say that it is only by complete accident that I even found out that I have it. Vikas phoned on Sunday night to find out if we were interested in seeing a movie, but I told him that I was feeling a little under the weather, and that I had a bit of a fever, so I was going to pass. Vikas phoned Dr. Jai, they ayruvedic doctor here, and he insisted that I have a malaria test the next day, even though I felt quite a bit better. So go figure, I tested positive for vivax malaria, one of the less dangerous strains! Anyway, I’ve been feeling shitty on and off since Sunday, although not in any extreme way. From what I have heard from everyone else who has had malaria, you feel absolutely terrible, like you are dying, when you are sick with it, so I can’t help but wonder why I don’t feel too bad. Anyway, I phoned Dan last night, and apparently he is feeling far worse than I am with some sort of flu-y cold. Poor thing!

The past week has mostly consisted of eating giant meals at people’s homes and Indian Coffee house, which we are completely addicted to. Last Wednesday we went to Sareeta’s house for her fifteenth birthday party. It was very sweet, a lot of the neighbourhood boys were there dancing up a storm. It was pretty funny to watch these little guys do these totally over-sexualized dances, pelvic-thrusting dances with the utmost of sincerity. Thursday night we ended up going to Indian Coffee House for dinner yet again, so that was slightly less eventful. Friday, however, Rashida Bee, who runs Chingari Trust invited us over to her house for a belated Eid dinner. We ended up talking business a bit as well, which was just fine, since I have been eager to do some more work for them for a while. It turns out that they already have fourteen interviews with gas and water affected people translated into English, and they are really eager to get them up on the website. My idea is to read through the interviews and try to find some of the families that wouldn’t mind me taking their photos to put up on the website. I could also, with Prabjit, do some more interviews with other families if we have enough time and there is a need for it.

Rashida Bee’s family are extremely sweet. She lives with her husband, her brother-in-law and his seven children. Her four sisters all live in the neighbourhood though, and they all came over to join in the fun. When dinner was over, everyone just hung out in the living room together, laughing and talking. One of the brother’s seven kids was this extremely sweet, absolutely adorable little boy who had been born with some sort of problem with his feet as a result of the water contamination. His feet have grown so that they are curved, almost completely underneath his body, and his legs are just skin and bone, with no muscle. He can’t talk at all, but he seems to understand a lot of what is going on around him, and makes gestures and little cries to communicate. The best part of the night, though, was when he came into the room, the first thing he did was to crawl over to me, climb into my lap and give me a bone-crushing hug. I’m not sure exactly why, but he seemed to take a shine to me, and spent a good hour alternately hugging me, and showing me some of the simple things that he had learned how to do – like making a ball out of a scrap of paper. Anyway, I left feeling very good about life in general, and even more so about the project that I want to do for Chingari Trust. I find Rashida Bee a very inspiring person, as she always speaks about the importance of women in struggles for justice on a global level. She told us (through Prabjit’s translation) that she has been all over the world, Africa, Europe, Asia, America, and she sees that women are held down in different ways in all of these places. I think that it is absolutely incredible that a woman with barely any education and so few resources has done so much with herself, and becomes such a spokesperson on an international scale.

In terms of work, I also spoke to Sathyu about my project ideas for the Health Workers on Saturday, and he was enthusiastic about all of them. The Health Workers wanted to tools to show women in the bastees how to check for signs of cervical cancer using acetic acid, how to do BSE, ad to explain the different causes, symptoms and cures for abnormal vaginal discharge. Essentially what I had though was to make a model of a woman from the waist down out of paper mache, and with a piece of rubber in the crotch to simulate a vagina. Then, I would also build a cervix out of paper mache so that the women could practice using a speculum to open up the vagina, and looking at the cervix. The second idea was essentially to make a female torso and arms, with a space left for a breast made out of two balloons – one inside the other. The inner balloon would have sand in it, and the outer one water, which I think would somewhat accurately simulate the feeling of a breast. That way the Health Workers can show the women how to do BSE, and get them to practice. The third thing is the discharge, the idea for which I just got out of a book called Helping Health Workers Learn. Basically, I’m going to make a few puzzles with each of the different types of vaginal discharge, the symptoms and some easy cures. Each puzzle will be of a different cause of abnormal discharge, so that way the women will figure out which types of discharge require which treatment! So fun…

In other news, we have been invited to our first wedding on Saturday AND Sunday evenings! The rickshaw drivers who always stand at the edge of Qazi camp invited us to their younger brother’s wedding, which should be fun. I have been waiting for an excuse like this to buy myself a really fancy sari, so I am tickled that this gives me the excuse. I’ve already looked at a bunch of stores in both Chowk market and this other market that Mausam took us to on Monday afternoon. I haven’t found anything that I absolutely love yet, but I am going to go to New Market and look in the expensive store operated by the Madhya Pradesh government to see what they have. The other times I have been in there I have noticed some absolutely gorgeous saris in styles that I haven’t seen in the Chowk or other markets. So wish me luck, those of you have been shopping with me know that I can take about a millennium deciding on what I want, and I’ll refuse to buy anything that I’m not sure about☺

I don’t have too much else to report right now. It’s only six weeks until my mom and dad arrive! Yay! I’m really looking forward to seeing them and getting to do some traveling with them… and then after that its only another few weeks until Andrea gets here!! Woo hoo!

eiding and more eiding

As of today, I have officially been in Bhopal for three months. It doesn’t really feel like it has been so long since I arrived here, but then, when I think back at all I have seen and done over the months, it feels like much longer.

The weather is finally starting to cool off to what I would consider an acceptable temperature. The heat of the day, in the afternoon, is still fairly warm, but nothing compared to the heat and humidity that I experienced when I first arrived. The monsoons are officially over, I suppose as of last month, and now it is dry and dusty here all of the time. I looked on the internet, and apparently Bhopal has only an average rainfall of a few days a month, except during the monsoon. I can’t say I mind, so long as the weather doesn’t get so hot again while I am here (which it is not supposed to).

We have another new volunteer, a Swiss-German guy named Aio. As per usual, Sathyu didn’t tell anyone that Aio was coming, most likely he completely forgot. However, just before dinner on Thursday night, Dr. Jai announced to Prabjit and I that there was a new volunteer in the boy’s dorm. We all crowded into the room and asked him a million questions, and just generally hassled him until we were ready to go and eat dinner. He was very patient with my hundred-miles-an-hour talking, so I think that he has passed the test, and we can be friends now. Just kidding Aio…

On Friday night we went to see a Bollywood movie with a huge troupe of people, which was actually really fun. I had been reluctant to go to an actual Bollywood film in the theater, mostly because they are never shorter that about three hours, and if it was as boring as some of them are, then I might have had to try to sleep through the entire thing. The whole night turned out to be quite fun though. We went out to Indian Coffee House for dinner, where I am quickly never tiring of eating, and then to the theater right next door. It turned out that the film we were planning on watching was sold out, so we all managed to pack ourselves onto Rachna’s, Vikas’ and Dr. Jai’s bikes, and drove a few blocks away to the other movie theater. The film was about a small-town girl trying to make it in Bombay, and who ends up becoming a high-class call-girl. According to Dr. Jai, this is a huge problem, since so many young women show up in Bombay every year trying to make money to send back to their families. Anyway, the film was really entertaining, and (Dan and G, are you ready for this?) everyone talks the entire way through the film!! It was great! People even boo and hiss at the screen when the villain came onscreen and cheer when the heroine prevails! It was like the Rocky Horror Picture Show with better songs. I love talking in movies, but am always reprimanded for doing it (except for when I watch movies with Lily and Sylvan, who may in fact talk more than I do), so this was like a dream come true for me! Also, it was somewhat necessary in order to follow some of the finer plot points, since it was all in Hindi and had no subtitles, Prabjit spent a lot of time translating for me. I was, however, surprised to see how much I could follow without her telling me… maybe it speaks to the expressiveness (or over-acting) of Bollywood cinema.

The Muslim holiday, Ramsan (or as we call it in North America, Ramadan) was over as of Sunday. Actually, when it was over was the source of great concern and confusion for us volunteers. Salman came by the day after Aio arrived (Salman always seems to have a sixth sense about these sorts of things, and shows up at exactly the right moment) and invited us all to his house for lunch on Eid, which follows the end of Ramsan. Unfortunately, no one was able to really explain to us what the last day of Ramsan was. We kept getting these vague answers about the moon, and it either being Saturday or Sunday. Eventually someone explained to us ignorant angrezies that if the moon is not seen on Friday night, then it means that Ramsan continues for another day, and Eid is then on Sunday instead of Saturday. It turns out that there was no moon on Friday night, so lunch at Salman’s was on Sunday.

I suppose that after a solid month of fasting I would be starving too, but lunch at Salman’s was like no other. There must have been ten or twelve different dishes; mutton kabobs, chicken biryani, chickpeas, roti, and so on. I stuffed myself silly, and thought that this will make up for the fact that I missed out on Thanksgiving dinner this year. Especially because there was this dessert thing made out of what I can only describe as noodles made out of sugar, that are then boiled or fried and served swimming in milk and topped with dried fruit. I can’t, of course, remember what it was called, but I have been assured that it is not a special Eid thing, and that I will be able to find it when Eid is over.

There was one particular kind of funny, and eye-opening incident at Salman’s house, that I couldn’t help but laugh at when Derek, Prabjit and I were talking about it later. Salman’s family appear to be fairly devout Muslims, and I’m not sure if his attitudes are the result of religious upbringing, or simply a cultural attitude that he holds more than most of the other people I have met here. In any case, the only women eating the Eid lunch were myself, Prabjit and Rachna. This was fine, but when lunch was over and Rachna took off, we were left in a room full of white courta-clad men. So Salman, dear boy, says to us “Emily, Prabjit, I’m thinking that you should go and help my mother in the kitchen”. Derek said that he was watching my face when Salman said this to me, and the look I gave Salman could have broken mirrors, but I managed to compose myself again fairly quickly. I realized that he was trying to be hospitable, and felt that we would be more comfortable hanging out with the other women, rather than in a room full of men, and to a degree he was right. I did not, however, have any interest whatsoever in doing the dishes unless all the other (male) guests were also about to help. I felt bad for his mom and sisters when we went into the kitchen, since there were enough dishes to rival one of Whitney and my Yanksgiving dinners, and as far as I could tell, no running water to wash them in. Yikes! Anyway, as soon as we came in, one of Salman’s sisters sat on the floor and chatted with us, and soon his mom and aunt came in and made paan. Essentially, there was no work being done, or at least not immediately, which I was glad to see. Oh man, I still shake my head when I think of Salman telling me to go to the kitchen to do the dishes….

We have since been invited to more people’s homes than I can count for Eid, despite the fact that the three day festival has now ended. In fact, we have dinner arrangements this entire week, from Monday through Friday, because of Eid. We’ve even had to turn a few people’s invitations down! I was talking to my mom and dad about it on the phone last night, and we couldn’t help but comment that if we had to spend an entire week entertaining people we would go completely nuts. I suppose that the Christmas season is somewhat like that, but it seems much more intense here for some reason. Anyway, I’m a little concerned that I am going to gain back the twenty or so pounds that I lost since I got here with all of this Eid food! Last night we went to the home of one of the rickshaw drivers who are always hanging around on Berasia Road outside of Qazi Camp. It was the guy that I really like, Ries, with the hat (although he has stopped wearing the hat). He had a really nice family, and about a million of his own kids and nieces and nephews running around the house while we ate. We also got our first wedding invitation!! Hurrah! An excuse to finally buy a sari! The wedding is next week, on Saturday and Sunday (we have been invited to the reception and the party, whatever that means…its two days anyway), so I had better get cracking and go sari shopping!!

This evening we are off to the birthday party of Sareeta, who is turning fifteen today! Prabjit and I actually took quite a bit of care to pick out a shirt that we thought that she would like in the Chowk yesterday. I also found some beautiful embroidered fabric for a churidad suit, so I of course had to buy that as well. I had only intended to get a nice black duppta to wear with some of my outfits, but couldn’t find one at the store I like. I ended up getting a white one, since I was told that it could be dyed black. The tailor, however, told me that its hard to dye anything black since it fades after just a few washes, so now I’m not too sure what to do with this white duppta. I suppose exchange it for a different colour…

tikrit and new friends

I left off pontificating yesterday, so I thought that I should change pace a little bit and write more about how I have been spending my time the past week or so. We have gotten into the habit of doing little day trips with Mausam on our Sunday’s, since that is the only day that the clinic is closed and we can go exploring. This past Sunday Mausam took Prabjit and I up to Tikrit (sp?), which is a temple on the top of this really high hill just at the outskirts of the city. There is a little cable-car ride up to the top, although we took Mausam’s bike because it is wayyy more fun. …and also I’m not entirely sure if I trust cable-cars in general, and more so in India. It was neat, because you could see almost the entire city from up at the top. We went up the stairs to this gorgeous temple (which I believe Prabjit said was to Hanuman, but what do I know about these things?). You weren’t allowed to take photos inside so I don’t have any photos, but it was a lot nicer than most of the other temples I have seen; the floors were all gleaming marble, and everything was completely immaculate. It had these really neat chandeliers made out of these glass orb-type things. I bet that had they been all lit up it would have been even more beautiful, because the orbs were each different coloured glass.

Mausam took us to the side of the hill that faced the sun so that we could watch it set. I have to admit that sunsets in India are a lot more intense than in Canada. Every night it seems like there is a spectacular sunset, even the ones that I just see here at the clinic. The sun is just so huge and deep orange. Also, they are a lot faster than Canadian sunsets, which suits me just fine, since I am too impatient to wait three hours for the stupid thing just to get under the horizon. Anyway, we ate ice cream and joked around and giggled at all of the romantic couples who had come to also watch the sunset. It was fun.

While we were up there watching the sunset, Mausam got very very serious all of a sudden and said he had to ask us something important. For a minute I was actually worried that he was going to ask us both to marry him. Luckily that was not the case. However, you remember how I talked about a different understanding about sentimentality here? The attitude is somewhat akin to being filtered through a cheesy, poorly translated Japanese greeting card. So keep that in mind when I say that Mausam officially requested that Prabjit and I become his friends. I was a little taken aback by it, since I of course had assumed that we were, in fact, already friends. But I guess Mausam was making some sort of distinction between the kind of friends that you see and hang out with once in a while, and the kind of friends that you pour your heart out to. I suppose I make that distinction as well, but usually I don’t offer the second kind to people so openly; I just decide after the third pint that sure, were good enough friends that I can tell them my deepest, darkest secrets. Anyway, after my initial shock, I decided that it was a really sweet gesture on his part. I of course gallantly accepted. Now when Dan proposes, I’ll be ready to look appropriately shocked without seeming silly, since I’ve gotten it all out of my system in this practice run!

After our special moment at the top of the hill, Mausam took us to his friend Monty’s house for dinner. Monty lives on the opposite side of the city from Qazi camp, actually much closer to Tikrit. His family’s house was very neat, since the living room was all open concept, and opened up onto this large deck. There was also a swing in the house, how cool is that? Anyway, Monty’s family was very nice, and we got to hang out with several of his little nieces and nephews and one of his sisters. We also got tomato soup, which I thought was absolutely delicious. There isn’t enough soup here I don’t think. Anyway, we also had really great chicken for dinner, but I, once again, was the source of great embarrassment by not being able to finish all of the food that was served to me. This happens pretty much no matter whose house we are at for dinner. I have tried to cheat the India stuff-you-till-you-vomit system by only taking excessively tiny portions, but watchful hosts, like Monty, always catch me in the act and put ten times as much food on my plate, which I, of course, then can not finish. Anyway, I have decided that I like being twenty pounds thinner, and I’m not stretching out my stomach to its previous girth for any reason if I can help it, so I’m not eating what I can’t finish… I just hope that it isn’t too rude…

When we got back to the clinic we realized that Derek had still not returned from a walk to New Market that he had left on at about noon. Since it was now 9:30pm, we were a little alarmed that we hadn’t heard anything from him. I went to inform Sathyu that we were starting to become concerned, to which Sathyu immediately replied “why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”. I grit my teeth and explained that we had only just returned ourselves. Anyway, Sathyu was about to leave for town for a meeting for two days, and he instructed us to contact the US Embassy if Derek wasn’t back by about midnight. In the meantime, we started calling every number we could think of to see if perhaps he had run into a friend on his way back; Rachna called shortly afterwards and said that she was calling the police; Biju and Vikas both went to New Market on their bikes to see if they could track him down: in short, we panicked. After Prabjit and I returned from rapping on Ankeeta’s door across the street and waking up the entire family to see if anyone had seen him, Derek came strolling down the street. It turned out that he had gone to Bharat Bhavan, the cultural centre, and had taken in a Hindi play. He had just forgotten to call. Anyway, we are all happy that Derek is safe and sound and back here at the clinic with us. Although his little disappearance reminds me of the time I went for a walk at Bill and Faye’s house, down by the beach, and everyone thought I had drowned.

We went out for dinner at the infamous Jehan Numa Palace on Thursday of last week. We had decided that we were going to take Derek out for his triumphant return to Bhopal after his terrible experience in Delhi. It also happened to be the same night that the new group of students came from Delhi, and previously the dinners for the large group had consisted mostly of rice, so we were eager to avoid dinner at the clinic. Anyway, Jehan Numa is certainly outrageously priced, or at least it is far more expensive than any other place in India that I have seen so far. That said, for four people to eat, I believe it cost about $47.00 CND (about Rs. 1800). I was upset because I had wanted a glass of wine if we were going to eat there, but my head was so stuffed up that I knew I would regret it if I did, so I didn’t get my wine. The food was good, but not out-of-this-world, and I think that if I was to go back (which I am sure that we will at some point), I would order off of the Thai menu or the Italian menu instead of the Indian now. In fact, I’m not sure why I didn’t this time around. After dinner we took a little stroll around the hotel grounds, which are really beautiful; everything is immaculately neat, fresh painted, decorated etc. I’m looking forward to mom and dad staying there when they come to visit. Maybe it’ll be warm enough that I can go swimming in the pool…

I won’t go into the details of the work I have been doing, since they aren’t that interesting. Suffice to say I have been looking up the causes of white vaginal discharge. Although I did have a good meeting with Masurat and Aziza late last week, and they showed me some of the teaching aids that they currently use, and explained what other ones they thought they needed. If anyone has any brilliant ideas of how I could make a life-sized torso that opens up and has the female reproductive organ in there, please do let me know. Oh yes, and you have to be able to take the organs out of the body and open them up and look inside of them, too. My best idea so far has been papier-mâché, so, as you can see, I am in need of some inspiration.

I’ve spent the past hour re-arranging the furniture in the volunteer’s room with Prabjit. I quite like the new setup, since now Prabjit and I are facing each other and can spend all of our time making faces at one another. Joking aside, I do think that the set up is far superior to the previous one. We also rearranged the furniture in our bedroom yesterday, and Prabjit finally unpacked the last of her suitcase. I joked that she had finally decided that she was going to stay.

Mausam came by after his coaching lessons (or as we call them, tutoring) last night. We sat in the empty canteen and got eaten alive by mosquitoes and chatted about various things. Mausam is interested in going to the US, either to finish university or afterwards, so I got one of the world maps from upstairs and showed him where Prabjit and I lived. I think that for anyone from pretty much anywhere else in the world it is impossible to grasp just how huge North America is. Just looking at how tiny India is by comparison really kind of shocked me. But I did promise Mausam that if he was ever to go and live in California (that’s where he wants to go) I would certainly come and visit him. I think that that is about all the news that is fit to print for now… so adios.

englightening thoughts and goodbye to an old friend

I’m over my head-cold, and back in full force! Whatever that means… I say that mostly because I spent one hour working in the garden this morning, between 9:30 and 10:30, and by the time I was calling it quits I was so tired and thirsty that I had to go and get a bottle of Limca and some mango-cream-filled cookies, which I of course ate all of and thoroughly spoiled my lunch. After my enormous sugar-rush I decided that I had to go and lie down for a while. Unfortunately there was still too much sugar sludge in my veins and I couldn’t fall asleep either, so I spent the best part of two hours writing in my journal (which, for those of you wondering, is where I write down all of my private and nasty thoughts that I can’t publish on here…yes, you Derek). Besides this being sad commentary on both my physical form and my work ethic, I came to some rather interesting conclusions about myself, or at least I hope that I did after two full hours of fracking self-reflection.

Last night I drank my third beer while in India (I would like to note here that I am now averaging one beer per month…not bad if I do say so myself!). We had decided to go out for dinner at a place Derek was curious about, in a hotel down by the lakeshore. We called Mausam to see if he wanted to come and hang out with us, but we hungry soon and decided to go to dinner after about an hour. As we were walking to the hotel/restaurant Mausam asked me why we were going to dinner. An excellent question: why were we going to dinner when there was a perfectly good free dinner waiting for us at Sambhavna if we should so choose. I have, of course, thought of several other good reasons to go for dinner since then, namely: we get the same four meals six nights a week at the clinic; that we have precious few other excuses to ever leave the clinic grounds…etc. At the time however, all I could come up was that we were bored and wanted to get out of the clinic, and this was what we decided to do. When I said it though, it just sounded kind of spoiled and decadent. I felt worse when the restaurant turned out to be fancy-ish (by Indian standards anyway, meaning linens on the table and no florescent lights), but cheap by North American standards (the main courses were about Rs. 120, or $3.00 CND).

I hadn’t really thought much of it before, mostly because I hadn’t been going out to eat very much, but Rs. 120 for most people here is a fair bit of money to throw away on a single dinner, even if it wasn’t for us. I also started to feel uncomfortable about my beautiful beer, which I even split with Ruskin because even I knew that I couldn’t (or rather shouldn’t) finish all 700mL to myself. As we sat there discussing the flavour of the beer and comparing it to British and North American beers respectively, I couldn’t help but see myself through the eyes of the Bhopalis sitting in the restaurant. And then I suddenly realized why Westerners are such celebrities here: we are totally fucking weird. How many places in the world is it considered appropriate for an unmarried woman, who *gasp* LIVED with her boyfriend in the West, to sit at a table with three other unmarried men, drink a beer and compare it to the millions, okay, thousands, of other beers that she had drank in her young life? Parents millions of miles away, and still trusted to be marriageable and respectable the next morning? I’m not saying that I agree with the mentality, I still believe that women have just as much of a right as men to get drunk, sleep with whoever they want etc. It was just the first time that I had ever really thought about how crazy I must look to the average Indian man. No wonder white women have the reputation of floozies here.

However, this did make me think, a lot actually, about the changes I was willing to make in myself for the time that I am here. Considering I have been here for almost three months, this may seem a bit delayed, but I don’t think that it is at all. I think that it takes a long time to figure out exactly what is expected of you for a variety of reasons, and which rules you can ignore, and which ones you can’t. Its certainly taken me quite some time to figure it out anyway. Three months in Bhopal hasn’t changed my attitude about certain things; I don’t really give a rat’s ass what people think if I drink a beer, I still like to wear my Western clothes on occasion (within reason of course -- no mini skirts); and part of me is absolutely desperate to take my nose ring out so that people can see it (I mean not have it flipped inside my nose). I know that that is a weird thing by which to define oneself, but I have good reason, or at least intellectually. Having a hole and a piece of metal through my nose interrupts the viewing pleasure of men staring at me, for one thing. It also contradicts everything else about my short, sweet appearance. I honestly think that in Canada anyway, people give me less shit if they see my nose ring, because without it I am far from intimidating. Besides, it looks cool, right? Hahaha. One of these days I’m going to walk down Berasia Road with my nose ring in plain sight and see if I still suffer the same harassment from all the hooligan men out there… little shits that they are. Humph.

The flipside of all of these thoughts swirling around my head, however, is that there are things about myself that I am flexible on, or even want to change. The main thing that I have noticed so much since I got here was my consumerism. I’ve even noticed this in Canada, in comparison to other people, but I buy a lot of stuff that I don’t actually need. I buy clothes that I never wear, food that I never eat, junk that I never use, and all of this becomes even more glaringly apparent when some of that crap costs more than most people in this neighbourhood make in a month. I won’t say that it makes me feel guilty, because change shouldn’t be motivated by guilt, but it does make me think twice about buying shit I don’t need when I have to walk by dozens of homes who could never afford those things. Even when I bought my Limca today, I was also buying one for Prabjit, and as I walked back to the clinic, I couldn’t help but wonder if a lot of the people in this area have ever even had a Limca before, let alone could buy two at a time.

Anyway, I remember during my pre-departure training from CIDA, the instructor was talking a lot about the re-entry shock that people experience when they come back home, and find that not only have things changed in their absence, but they have changed as well. Until I had my long contemplation today, I had been thinking that very little about me had changed since I left, and that I wouldn’t have any problem fitting right back in when I got home. Now, to put this in perspective, I was also very flippant about the culture shock I would experience when I got here, and simply assumed that it wouldn’t be so bad because I was expecting it… I of course, spent two weeks with my mouth catching flies in shock at every sight, sound and smell here, and could barely venture outside of the clinic without taking a small arsenal of hand sanitizers, Kleenex, water bottles, cameras etc. So, I am beginning to realize that maybe, as I once suspected it might in a glimmer of premonition, I might not be changing India so much as India is changing me... despite my intentions to spread my morally loose Western-woman ways of drinking and sleeping around among the women here (just kidding… sort of). I’ll admit that I have even thought about wearing a burkha so that the men can’t tell I’m white and will stop hassling me… however I later decided that that is another thing that I am not willing to budge on, and if it means poking out the eyes of every uncooperative man in Bhopal, then so be it.

Anyway, I just got off of the phone with Dan, who has had some very bad news: his cat, and best friend, Winnie, had to be put to sleep yesterday. His mom has been looking after Winnie since Dan moved to Montreal a few years ago, so Dan is very upset that he wasn’t there to say goodbye to his old pal. I was going to write more about my own lingering thoughts, but instead if you are reading this, I think that you should pick up the phone and give Dan a call or send him an email, since I can’t be there with him. Thank you.

dinner out and again...

Derek has returned to Sambhavna, after his passport and wallet were stolen as he slept on the train the other night on his way to Delhi. He was supposed to be on his way to Thailand for a month-long trip, but since he had his knapsack stolen, he wasn’t able to catch his flight. It certainly made me nervous about traveling around India once my internship is done. I’ve already had my wallet stolen while I was in the market here, and I like to think that that made me more aware of the dangers that I face, but I think that it is still hard to be on your guard absolutely all of the time. It should help that I’ll be in a group with Andrea and Louis, but you never really know, especially when it is so clear that white people are the target of theft so often.

I’ve got a nasty head-cold now, which is really annoying. Mostly my head is just stuffed up, but its hard to stay hydrate in the heat, especially because its still too hot to sleep without the fan on at night. I hate getting sick when it is hot out, somehow it feels worse than having a cold when its cold outside.

Another group of students came from Delhi this morning. This time they are from different disciplines, instead of all being psyche students, so Shalini was discussing what to do with them once they got here. She came up with a really interesting idea for how to get them involved and engage with people here in Bhopal. One group is going to do a sting-type operation at the gas relief hospitals here in Bhopal, by pretending to be patients needing treatment. Another group is going to spend some time with some of the kids with disabilities, and the third group is going to do some work with the women who do work at the trade union. Anyway, I think that it sounds like a really interesting way to get people involved in the campaign.

Tuesday was Gandhi’s birthday, so the clinic was closed, and most things were closed for the day. Mausam came and took Prabjit and I to Bhojpur, a little town about forty-five minutes outside of Bhopal. There is a thousand-year old temple there, which was very pretty. Although the Pundit was washing this giant phallus in the middle of the temple, which I have to say, made me mildly uncomfortable. Anyway, after the phallus-washing, we went to the edge of this huge rock formation, and hung around there watching the sunset. At the bottom of the rock cliffs is this river, so it was nice and cool as well. I took some very pretty photos of the sunset…so enjoy☺

We went to another pooja last night at Ankeeta’s house. Ankeeta is one of four daughters-in-law across the street, so there was quite a large group of people there. It was held outside, which was nice, since there is a lot of burning of things that goes on during poojas, and last time it got pretty smoky in the room that we were in. Anyway, the pooja was shorter than last time, which was fine, since the kids each wanted about four million photos of themselves taken with the other family members. Some of them actually turned out pretty well.

We ended up going out for dinner again last night, which we have been doing a lot lately. We branched out and went to a placed called Indian Coffee House, not to far from Manohaur, where we usually go. It was absolutely delicious, and incredibly cheap: Prabjit, Shalini and I ate for Rs. 150/- (about $4 CND). Tonight, in honor of Derek’s return to the clinic, we are thinking about heading to Jehan Numa Palace for dinner, to experience the wonder of vaguely North American food! Too bad I have a cold, otherwise I might even try to have a glass of wine or something… maybe I still will.