pinched pockets and fresh fish

Tuesday August 28, 2007

So my wallet got nicked in the Chowk the other day… it was my own stupid fault though. I had one of those tourist fanny pack thingies that you are supposed to keep around your waist. I just had it in my sidebag though, and someone unzipped the picket it was in and walked away with it! I certainly didn’t even notice… but I should rewind a little bit, because the rest of the days adventures are interesting, too!

Saturday night I ended up going to a rally-type thing with about 150 of the kids from the water contaminated communities. The intention was to show them a movie about Bhopal, but Rachna wasn’t able to get the video projector to work, so Sareeta just got on the megaphone and got them chanting anti-Union Carbide/Dow slogans. Sareeta is the main kid for the photo project, who I have high hopes for. She is something of a political activist here, even at the age of fourteen! Unfortunately, because there was no video to distract them, all hundred and fifty kids became very interested in the white lady taking photos (me). Throughout the evening, various people played bodyguard on my behalf, including Rachna, Meera, Sareeta and a group of her girlfriends, and Rashida Bee. After a while it became rather embarrassing, and I felt like I was being more trouble than I was worth. It was a bit frustrating to feel so powerless, but in a crowd like that what can you do? Part of me wanted just to tell the others not to worry about it and let the kids harass me; I’m used to the constant abuse at this point anyway. But I know if I had said that I would have been told that the kids would only get worse if they weren’t told to get lost (which is probably true). Anyway, after a bumpy motorbike ride with Sathyu through the field that the gathering was in, I went back to the clinic and did some reading before bed.

Sunday was a fairly eventful day, even without the added fun of having my wallet stolen! Mausam was back from Delhi, so I asked him to come and translate for the photo project. I had the kids’ photos back, as and was sure that they would be eager to discuss them. Unfortunately it rained in crazy monsoon-fashion on Sunday afternoon (to the point that I was actually worried that it might flood the clinic like last year!). So in the end, only the three die-hard kids came for the photo project: Sureeta, her younger brother and her friend Pinkie (who is very shy but very sweet). They were excited to look over the photos, but it was hard to have a discussion with them. I think that Mausam is a bit shy about translating things directly, because when I would ask him to tell the kids something he would just say “okay” and then not say anything to them. Anyway, I hope that in the end everything was fine, because I went upstairs to get something and Masaum told me that he would tell them everything while I was up there…

I had seen Sareeta the night before at the rally thing for the kids and had promised that I would go to her house with her and say hi to her mother (translation: have chai), as well as go to the Chowk with her to visit a woman she described as her “Big Mother”. I could only imagine that she meant her grandmother, and agreed to both trips. I should mention here that Sareeta lives north of the old UC factory, across the railway tracks by a few hundred yards. The last time I was there, with Emily and Aanya when they interviewed Sareeta’s mother, it was a bumpy ride down a street made of broken up chunks of brick, and then just a hop across the railway tracks. This time, however, because of the heavy rain, things were a bit different. I had decided that she lived close enough that we didn’t need to take an auto, which is true. So instead we walked the twenty minute walk through approximately three inches of mud pretty much the entire way there. At the railroad tracks, I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming presence of runny human crap all over the tracks (I think my train ride to Delhi alerted me as to how many people use the tracks as an open-air toilet). On the other side of the tracks there was about si inches of mud the few hundred yards leading to Sareetas house. Just as we reached the outdoor water tank my flip flop became so sunken into the mud that the thong in the middle ripped out when I pulled my foot free from the suction. Fortunately Sareeta was able to fix it without much trouble, and then rinsed my feet off with the water from the tank.

We sat and had chai with her mom, grandfather and several other miscellaneous people (one of whom was one of the women Emily and Aanya interviewed, the woman with the little boy there are all of the photos of). I felt that we were interrupting, since everyone was clearly partaking in some extra work at home, sewing these little plastic things onto heavy strips of canvass. However, it wasn’t long before Mausam had to get going back home, and we were off through the mud again. This time I decided that it would be much easier if I just took my shoes off entirely, since they were providing me with no protection as it was. This plan worked well, until I had to put them back on at the tracks. Because my feet were still covered in mud, as I tried to climb up the steep hill to the tracks my feet slid backwards out of my flip flops! Anyway, thankfully I managed to get up the hill and down the other side without loosing my shoes… there was no way I was going to cross the tracks without my shoes on.

We then got into an auto and went to the Chowk to visit Sareeta’s “Big Mother”. We wandered around the Chowk for a while, where I succumbed to guilt and purchased a Rs. 30/- stuffed dog for Anjolie’s maybe-birthday. Then Sareeta lead me down a quieter street, and up a tidy set of stairs. She knocked at the second floor door, and a fifty-ish woman answered. A few words were exchanged, and we were invited inside. I was rather embarrassed by the state of my feet, which were caked completely in still-fresh mud. The apartment itself was quite lavish, particularly in comparison to the bastee houses that I have become accustomed to. There was Western-style furniture (ie. couches, beds, dining room set, etc.) in all of the rooms, and the whole place was decorated with wood paneling type-stuff on the walls. I was lead by the smiling woman to a bathroom (! - most of the bastee houses just have little outhouses) to rinse my feet off. I was then seated in the living room on an enormous black l-couch. Eventually two young people came into the room, who clearly spoke more English than either Sareeta or this mystery-woman. I was still trying to figure out why Sareeta’s grandmother had two kids the same age as Sareeta, and why their house was so fancy as we exchanged pleasantries and I explained how I knew Sareeta. Eventually I asked what their realtionship to Sareeta was, since clearly this was not Sareeta’s grandmother. It was revealed that Sareeta’s father worked for the family as some sort or servant... a-ha! That would account for the discrepancy in salaries…

The family was really friendly, and it was much easier to carry on a conversation since both of the kids spoke fluent English. The son was still in highschool, but the daughter was my age exactly, as was visiting home from Mumbai, where she works as a fashion designer, for Rakhi. The mother insisted that I come back and have one of the numerous aunts (who were all actually sitting in one of the bedrooms drinking chai and looking at photos) would do some mehindi on my arm. I eventually had to excuse myself to go get back to Sambhavna to clean myself up before the fish dinner we were to have at Vishal and Pooja’s house.

Sareeta took me back home through the Chowk, and we made several stops at the numerous vendors selling Rakhi bracelets. Rakhi is a holiday where sisters tie a bracelet around the wrist of their brothers, and the brother then promises to protect the sister (and, moreover, has to buy her whichever present she wants). We had stopped at a bangle vendor who Sareeta seemed to know, and I was about to buy us matching bangles, when I realized that my wallet was gone! I must have pulled it out three of four times in the past few blocks, so it would have been easy for someone to see which pocket I was keeping it in in my bag. I was more mad at myself for keeping it in my bag rather than around my waist where it should have been (it was one of those tourist fanny pack thingies). Luckily I was smart enough not to keep my Visa in there, but I did loose my ATM card and about Rs. 300 ($7.50 CND). Hopefully my parents will be able to send me a new ATM card before too long, but until then I’ll have to keep taking money out on my visa. Oh well… live and learn.

We took an auto back to Sambhavna and then Sareeta home it in, which Derek was fortunately able to pay for. I phone mom and dad to tell them to cancel my bank card, and then took a quick shower to get the mud off the back of my legs and feet before heading out to dinner across the street. At first we were lead into Ankeeta and Paupoo’s house (btw Mel, that’s a nickname that everyone uses, Baupoo means dad). I took out the camera, and we took about four hundred photos of each of the kids. Ankeeta got Shilvani all dressed up in an outfit that Diana had bought her, and then tried to dress Sumit up as well (he, however, was overwhelmed and started to cry). Eventually we went next door and were served dinner. I have to admit, I normally don’t eat fish (as we all know), and about the only person I will let cook it for me is Dan, but this fish was actually delicious! There were still little bones in it, which suited me fine, because it gave me an excuse to eat super slowly, but even then I couldn’t finish everything that was given to me. I always feel guilty for not being able to finish my food here, but the servings you get in people’s homes are usually about five times what I can eat. At any rate, two men came home as Derek and I were finishing our meals. I don’t know for sure, but I think that it was the dad… he thought that we were hilarious though, and kept trying to ask us things in Hindi. I just nodded and smiled a lot. Eventually it was decided that we would come back this Sunday for chicken and beer! I can’t say that I think that it’s a good idea that I become known as the beer-swilling, meat-devouring Canadian, but what the hell, you only live once.

So that was Sunday… Monday was less eventful. I spent the morning trying to finish typing the report for Rachna (almost done, finally). In the afternoon I went over to Arushi and started taking photos for them. I got quite a bit done, but I made arrangements to go back on Thursday to do some portraits and shots of the exterior of the building. They gave me this cute little model of one of the stupas at Sanchi to say thank you, which was really sweet. I went to New Market on the way home to try to exchange my still-malfunctioning headphones, but the store was closed.

As I mentioned, today was Rakhi, so the clinic was actually closed. I spent the morning farting around on the computer, and then decided that we needed to get out for a while. We went to New Market first to get my headphones first. I was given another pair of crap ones, so I decided to forget it and went to the Sony store and got a pair that work fine at an only slightly higher price than I would have paid in Canada (they were about the equivalent of $15 CND), but they do actually work. Then we went to the Chowk so that I could get some material to make long courtas (shirts) out of, since the pants I had made are presently sitting unused for a lack of long shirts. We got quite happily lost in the market today, which was nice. We just wandered around until we were able to get our bearings, but because it was a holiday there were fewer people there than usual to wade through. I kept my ziplock bag of money tucked safely in the inside pocket of my bag.

Later this evening Derek said that he was going to go for a walk along Berasia road. How revolutionary! Previously none of the volunteers have dared venture out there after dark, because it is full of single, sleazy dudes. I decided that as long as I had some male company I would be okay though, and I was. We were actually quite successful in buying several fruits and veggies (including carrots!!), and discovered a new little area off the beaten track that we hadn’t known about. All in all it was quite fun! Anyway, now I’m getting tired because we actually walked somewhere today instead of just taking autos, so I’m going to read more of A Fine Balance.

Thanks everyone who responded to my Facebook thingie saying that my wallet got stolen!

pinches and family politics

arushi part one and kids in the garden">arushi part one and kids in the garden" border="0" alt="" />
In case you didn’t notice, I have finally sorted out the photo problems and have uploaded them into the appropriate posts. So please check out the past few posts, which were without photos before!

I’ve managed to keep myself quite busy the past few days, despite the fact that I was worried that I was going t be horribly bored and lonely without the other girls here. It is certainly harder to communicate with people without Anisha around to translate the stuff that I can’t communicate, but I think that I’m slowly getting the hang of it. Mostly I am referring to Ankeeta and the kids across the street when I say that, because they speak almost no English, but I spend a significant amount of time with them. I realy enjoy their company, I suppose partly because they are a family, so it seems very familiar and homey to me. Although, the longer I’m here, the more I start to realize that they’re family has their dysfunctions as well!

After moving into the two-person room on Thursday, and spending most of the day cleaning, I was glad to get out of the clinic on Friday. Derek and I made arrangements to go to Arushi for Friday afternoon and sort some things out, and take some photos. I had also promised Ankeeta that I would get her photos of Risen developed by Friday, so I decided to stop by New Market to pick up the films that the kids had left and drop off the CD of photos for Ankeeta. Things were going smoothly until then, but unfortunately the address we had for Arushi was wrong. It turned out that the address that was on the back of pamphlet that we had was old, and they had moved. So after a long and bumpy auto ride, we arrived in the complete wrong part of town. Luckily I had my trusty cell phone, so we called Arushi and got straightened out. Anil, one of the people we had been in contact with there got straight to work orchestrating photo ops for me… until my camera battery died!!! Ack!! I think I must have left it on over night, because it has never died so quickly before; it usually lasts for over a thousand photos. Anyway, we made arrangements to come back on Monday afternoon, so I’ll have to make sure to recharge it properly this time.

Rachna phoned and asked if I could get enlargements of a couple of the photos that the kids had taken. There is a meeting in one of the Basti’s nearby tonight (about what I’m not entirely sure, but I plan to find out when we get there), and they wanted photos of the solar evaporation ponds to display. In case you don’t know, Union Carbide decided that the best way to get rid of the chemicals was to dump them into these large pools of water so that they would evaporate with the water and get dispersed so thinly that they are no longer hazardous. Ahem, except for it doesn’t work like that, and now there are these giant pools of poisonous water leeching into the groundwater supply. Euch… apparently the kids play in them, too, because they have nowhere else to play.

So after Arushi we went back to New Market to get those developed. We had to wait a bit, and I decided that I wanted a scrub brush for my filthy feet and fingernails, as well as to return the headphones I had bought that didn’t work. All was well until I went into the electronics store to exchange the headphones. I was in there for quite some time arguing with the guy because he kept trying to sell me different pairs of faulty headphones, and Derek had decided to wait outside. When I was finally finished arguing, Derek had moved inside, and told me that there was a group of beggar kids outside who were seriously harassing him and pinching him. They had moved on when we came out again, but caught up with us in front of the photo lab. At first they seemed innocent enough, but then one of them body-checked me into the oncoming traffic and I lost it on them. I was about to pinch one of them back, but caught myself. Luckily Derek found and auto quickly and we were able to drive off, unscathed other than my wounded pride at being beat up by a bunch of kids, and the red marks all up my arms where they had pinched me so many times. It was another one of those times I wished that I spoke Hindi, because I later decided that they were really just looking for attention, and that if I had been able to answer them then the whole scenario could have been avoided… at any rate, since it is always the same kids there, I’m not looking forward to going back to get my (yet another pair of) replacement headphones. I’ll have to figure out some why of dealing with those (pardon my French, but) little fuckers.

I went over to Ankeeta’s house last night and dropped off the photos, which I think that she appreciated. Although there never seems to be a moment without family politics involved. Derek and I were invited over by Ankeeta’s sister-in-law, Sunita (well, actually, her kids, Vishal and Pooja) for a fish dinner. It seemed innocent enough, but I got the sense that it was to show up Ankeeta and Paupoo, who are always short of cash for reasons I won’t go into. After the mayhem of the photos had died down a bit, Pooja started telling me (albeit in very broken English) that it was both Anjolie (her younger sister) and her mother’s birthdays on Sunday! So what a coincidence that we would be coming over for dinner! Then she said that we had better bring presents of else Anjolie would cry… hmmmm. I asked Ankeeta when we had a moment alone, and, as I suspected, it is no ones birthday on Sunday. Pooja had been taken out for her birthday a month or two ago by some of the other volunteers here, so I think she was fishing for more goodies, but it really infuriated me that she would lie so greedily and selfishly. Afterwards she kept telling me over and over again that Ankeeta had such-and-such a photos, and she wanted that one too. The first time I agreed to print her a double, but after I lost it and said firmly (and perhaps a little too loudly) “Pooja! Bas!” (meaning “enough” or “stop”). I should mention here that Pooja is thirteen years old, so I felt a little stupid yelling something like that at her, but her behaviour seriously merited it. Anyway, now I’m not sure if I should bring something small for Anjolie to keep up the charade that it actually is her birthday… sigh.

I spent most of today running around doing little things. I worked on the premature menopause booklet a bit, and discovered that I’m a far worse artist than I thought. Some kids from a convent school were here learning about the garden, so I went and took some photos of them. At one point while hanging around the gazeebo the kids surrounded me and demanded autographs once again. Fortunately the teacher was there, and she kept yelling "One turn at a time" at them, which seemed to quell the crush a bit. One little girl was albino, and I almost went up to her and asked her if people mistake her for a foreigner and yell “Didi! Hi!” when she walks down the street. Either way, I feel her pain at being different looking from everyone else.

I spent most of the afternoon stuffing the kids photos into the free little booklets that they came with and writing out little comments on stickies so I can remember what I wanted to tell them tomorrow. I don’t know which photos belong to who, but a couple of the rolls are really good. I can’t wait to talk to the kids about them tomorrow. Masaum has agreed to come and translate for me in the afternoon…

Anyway, I think that’s about enough for now… its super-hot out and I’ve been sweating like a pig all day. I think another shower is in order. By the way, they have ketchup chips here! I don’t even like them in Canada, I’m just so desperate for food that’s familiar that I’m eating them anyway! Haha…

the snake catcher and a room change

New Market and the Snake Catcher">New Market and the Snake Catcher" border="0" alt="" />
It has been a few days since I last wrote, so my apologies for the absence. It hasn’t been the most interesting few days, but I do feel that I am finding more things to do in a productive capacity (rather than a “filling the days” ort of way). Anisha left on Monday morning, so we lost our Hindi-English translator, and a good friend as well. It has been interesting getting around without someone who speaks the language to rely on. Even though I had done a few little excursions on my own, Anisha was usually present for the big things. It certainly has forced me to focus on my Hindi much more though. I was at Ankeeta’s house last night, and her sister-in-law was trying to invite us over for dinner, ask us our ages and other things, and I was able, with the help of Ankeeta’s few words of English, to actually answer most of the questions! Yay! It was sad to see Anisha off at the train station though…

Anyway, after Anisha left, Casey got us organized to do a couple of things that she had been wanting to do during her time here. Casey had spent several weeks in Bhopal a couple of summers ago, and had been to a centre for the disabled called Arushi, in New Bhopal. So on Tuesday afternoon we went to Arushi to check out the facilities and see if there was anything that we could do. I was struck immediately by how much the facilities could benefit the kids with disabilities that Chingari Trust is trying to get for their kids. I’m hoping that I can get the two organizations to connect and help each other out (or rather Arushi to help Chingari at any rate). Anyway, Arushi has all sorts of things going on, from a recording studio for books on tape, to a physical therapy room for some of the kids with physical disabilities. They were interested in us working on a booklet for them, and asked me if I would like to do a photo project to make posters. It sounds like it would be pretty interesting work, and it would get me out of the clinic for at least a little while, so I’m all for it!

After we went to Arushi, we came back to the clinic for a little while, but ended up going out again shortly to the snake catcher! This guy catches snakes by profession, and Sambhavna has used his services on a couple of occasions when they have found poisonous snakes, like cobras, in the garden. Anyway, we went back to New Bhopal to his “office” where he keeps the snakes that he catches. It was pretty amazing; he had two full-grown cobras, which he let us take amble photos of, and three baby cobras which were no less vicious. He also took out this one giant snake, which he conveyed was quite harmless by putting his face up against the snakes’! Casey and Derek both had a turn holding the snake, but I chickened out and wouldn’t do it. It was just too slimy and gross looking…. Although there was a small part of me that wanted to pet the snake!

Aside from that particular adventure, I haven’t done anything too exciting this week. We went to the Chowk market again yesterday, as it was Casey’s last time and she wanted to get more scarves and some material. I ended up buying some very nice silk scarves that one of our usual vendors had just gotten into stock to give to people back home. We also went to pick up our clothes at the tailors. I had gotten these pants called churidad made, which are a funny shape. They are baggy like clown pants at the top, but are skin tight round the calves and ankles. It turns out that you need to wear at least knee-length courtas (shirts) with these, or else they look quite ridiculous… so that means that I’m going to have to get a couple more shirts made! Although the shirts that she made for me turned out quite well... I’ll have to take some photos.

This morning Casey left for the airport. I decided to go with her and send her off, so it was yet another sad goodbye! I can’t help but be a little bit jealous of the people who are all leaving to go back home. I’m enjoying my time here, but I still miss Dan, as I expect that I will until I’m with him and he’s driving me insane again. I miss a lot of the comforts of home, too. Food that I really want and enjoy, endless Diet Coke, walking the streets at night without worry, wearing clothes that I like and not worrying about them attracting the wrong kind of attention. You know, the little things. However, I’ve already been here for longer than a month, and I feel like I am really just getting settled. I wish so much that I could speak Hindi better so that I could talk to people more. I feel that I’m getting better at communicating with people on a simple level, but the more complex things I still can’t do.

After I came back from dropping Casey off I decided to clean out the girls’ dorm room, which has a plethora of things that past volunteers have left behind. Everything from old shoes, to half-finished bottles of vodka, to expired pills were in the cupboards, so I decided to throw out all the junk. I then thought that this was a good opportunity to move into the two-person dorm room that I am to share with Prabjit when she gets here. So I okayed it with Sathyu, and then spent the rest of the morning washing the thick layer of dust off of the cupboards and re-arranging the furniture. It took me the better part of the day, but I eventually managed to get all of my many belongings into the one cupboard and squirreled away various other places. It’s certainly nice to have a room to myself after sharing with so many other people for all this time. On the other hand, it feels a little bit lonely not to have other people around all the time…

Derek and I ventured to New Market yet again this afternoon so that I could drop off the first rolls of film that the kids took!! The kids came and dropped it off while I was out on Tuesday, and I had to laugh: Sareeta had told me that they would need two weeks to take the photos, and they had only needed three days! Anyway, they’re supposed to come back on Sunday afternoon, so I’ll have to get someone to tell them that I can only develop one roll of film each every week! I’m excited to see how the films turned out though! The computer in the conference room has a scanner, so eventually I’ll have to figure out how to use it properly so that I can put the kids photos up for you to see! By the way, I have received just over $1000 in donations! So thank you to everyone who has sent money!!

Casey and Anisha weren’t able to complete all of the work from their study before they left, so I have been passed on their project. They were working on a study to see if the gas had caused premature menopause. The community heath workers at the clinic are still conducting the study on the control group of people. I’m supposed to help with data entry (or at least as much as I can considering the surveys are written in Hindi, but there is some numeric data I can enter), and also work on the booklet about menopause that the clinic is going to release. Anyway, I’m glad that I am finally getting to do something related to my actual internship. I think that this will be a good opportunity for me to get to talk to the community health workers about future projects as well, so I’m really glad about it.

By the way, I have almost got the photo problem worked out on my computer, although it involves a lot of tedious re-organizing, so you’ll have to excuse the lack of photos on the blog; I know that it’s the best part.

goat dinner and the photo project begins!

First Day of Photos!">First Day of Photos!" border="0" alt="" />
Goat Dinner!">Goat Dinner!" border="0" alt="" />
The past few days have been fairly uneventful. I haven’t been taking a lot of photos, especially since I can’t seem to figure out what is wrong with the stupid iPhoto on the computer. I can’t seem to get it to upload the photos properly, and it keeps telling me that it can’t find the originals on the hard drive. Arg! Anyway, I’ve been trying to remedy that particular problem, but have been so far unsuccessful. I did back them all up on my iPod though, all ten gigs worth, so at least they are safe and sound. Anisha, Casey and I went to a place called Shoba Studio on the main road the other day and had a bunch of photos printed up. They only charge Rs. 4/- per photo (about ten cents CND). Unfortunately the quality wasn’t great, and they were all a little washed out and greenish-tinted b my standards. Anyway, those ones were to give away to some of the kids and families in the neighbourhood, so next time I’ll have to try another place.

I ended up not being able to go to Chingari Trust on Thursday to do the photos of the kids, since Anisha wasn’t available to translate for me. I was a little disappointed not to be able to get started on that right away, but it did give me a chance to buy a tripod for the low, low price of Rs. 800/- (about $20 CND). I’m hoping that Masaum or someone can help me do a little translating at some point next week.

We went to dinner at Reshma’s house on Friday night, which is the daughter of the corner store owner. You may remember we went and had mehendi done by her a while ago. She asked us to come over for her birthday dinner though, which was really good. Reshma had literally spent the entire day cooking for us beforehand, and it was absolutely fantastic. Her family is Muslim, so they had made goat, which was really, really good. It was also pretty much the first time I had eaten meat since I got here, apart from the odd bite or two of chicken from Joe. It was funny though, she insisted that she would eat after we had left and she had cleaned up the massive pile of dinner dishes! Anyway, it was a great meal, and I have decided that I want to try to find a good Muslim restaurant. The flavours are very different from Hindu cooking, so it was interesting to try the difference.

Rachna was talking to Sareeta the other day in her office, so I decided just to set up a time and place with Sareeta for the photo project then. We decided that Sunday was the best day because the kids don’t have school that day, and the clinic is closed so its quiet. I asked Biju where the best place to get camera and film supplies was, and he told me about this place in New Market, so I went yesterday with Derek. The prices were a bit better than the place that I had gone to nearby, and the guy said that we might be able to work out a deal for the developing. At any rate, I ended up buying film and batteries for five cameras, since Rachna told me to start the kids off by having them share the cameras. Biju also told me about a place that sold bootleg DVDs across the street from the photolab in New Market, so we went there afterwards. It turns out that they had a way better selection than the place that Joe had been going, so I went a little DVD crazy and bought a while bunch. A lot of the bootleg DVDs here are packed into “8-in-1” sets, where you get eight movies on a single DVD. The quality isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. So now I have lots of Hollywood drivel to keep me company at night…☺

Anisha, Casey and I went to this fabric fair thing with Rachna last night. It was a bit disappointing though, because it turned out to be run by the MP government, so the prices were all really high. There were some beautiful silk saris though… We ended up going to the Chowk instead, since Anisha is leaving on Monday. I bought a really beautiful dupta and some material to make a summer dress. I know that I don’t be able to wear it here, since anything knee-length is more than just frowned on. Casey, Derek and Masaum took an overnight train to Pachmari. Apparently it is one of the most beautiful places in the province. I decided to stay here though, which was a good thing, because the arrangements with the kids were for them to come on Sunday (today).

That has been the highlight of the day so far, the kids coming to start the photo project. Sareeta brought nine other kids, although some of them are too young to really do the project. Her community is gas-affected, so these kids are the perfect group. They were all really calm and well-behaved and happy just to sit and learn about the cameras and stuff. It was so fun when they all opened up their cameras and put the films in. They were so excited!! Anyway, they said that they wanted two weeks before they wanted more film, but they’re coming back next Sunday to ask questions and to make sure that there aren’t any problems. I’m really looking forward to getting their first rolls of film back. I think that they’ll do a really good job. Especially Sareeta, she seemed to know a lot about cameras and how to take photos, so I think that she’ll be good at it.

Anyway, now I’m sitting and watching movies and being very lazy, which is really nice. I don’t think that I have had a single Sunday where I just farted around and did nothing. I’m supposed to go over to Ankeeta’s house for dinner tonight with Anisha, which I’m looking forward to.

there are some photos of a couple of random things in here being:

1) the care package that my mom sent me about a week into my trip here. i was desperate for some food from home when my stomach was still getting acclimatized, so my dear, sweet mother xpress-posted a parcel of food to me. it was supposed to take 10-14 days, and instead took about a month. you can tell from the photos that the parcel wasn't exactly treated well, either. the toilet paper she used as padding looked like it may, at one time, have been soaked with water!! she paid $120 for this lousy service, so i would suggest that if you are going to mail me something, bubble wrap it to death and don't bother paying for it to get here fast, because it won't!!

2) the mouse that we caught in the humane mousetrap. it was in there for about 24 hours because we weren't sure what to do with it... eventually derek and i released in the heap of garbage across the street from the clinic. i think it will be happy there...

independance day

Meera's House">Meera's House" border="0" alt="" />
Independance Day">Independance Day" border="0" alt="" />
Independence Day was Wednesday, August 15th so it was time to do our dance at Orya Basti. It was a pretty intense day of activities, because apparently Independence Day festivities start at 7:30am here. School kids get up extra early in the morning and they go sing songs and march around with their schools in uniform. I took some pictures of one school all dressed up in their uniforms so you can see what I’m talking about. We were asked to be at the school by 7:30am, in order to get dressed up in our costumes and whatnot. It turned out that they didn’t start to get us dressed until much later, so we got to watch the beginning of the ceremonies. It started with a flag-raising and singing the Indian national anthem, then some of the kids recited poetry and sang little songs. After that some older guys came and did some traditional warrior-style moves with spears and stuff. It was really neat. At that point Anisha and I were told that we needed to go get suited up.

They had a costume that was big enough for Anisha, but they decided that I was small enough to fit into one of the costumes made for the little girls!! The elastic waist couldn’t have been more than about six inches across, but somehow I managed to squeeze myself into it, fat spilling out from every angle! The costume itself was a somewhat garish pink, with silver shiny polka dots all over that made me look about the same age as the rest of the kids that we were dancing with. They eventually found a sari big enough for Casey, that actually made her look quite stately. You can see in the photos… anyway, the dance itself was pretty hilarious. The little girls didn’t remember the moves any better than we did, so the whole thing looked a little garbled. Masaum took lots of photos with my camera, so when I can get things working again on the photo end of my blog I’ll put them all up. Biju. Dr. Jay, Ritesh and Devaker all came to watch the performance, and Biju video taped it, so hopefully I’ll get a copy that I can bring back with me.

After the performances were over, we went back to the clinic for a little while and rested. Then Masaum came and got us, and we went to Meera’s house. She lives out pretty far from the city centre. I wa glad that I got to go with Masaum on his bike, because everyone else was on the bus, which took quite some time longer. Masaum’s family actually lives quite close down the street. His dad is a guard at the Bhopal prison, which is apparently one of the biggest prisons in India. He pointed out where the perimeter starts and ends, and the prison seriously goes on forever! Meera’s house is nestled in a little community of houses at the foot of a large Mont Royal-sized hill. She decided almost immediately after we got there that we should go for a hike up the giant hill!! It looked okay from the bottom, but I quickly realized that the only way to the top was to do some actual climbing on the rocks, which proved difficult in my flip-flops.

We walked around on the top of the mountain for a while, since it was really beautiful up there. It was strange that we were so close to the city, but it was so quiet and peaceful up there. There were so few other houses around, you can see it in my photos, there’s so much green around. Anyway, I almost killed Meera on the way back down, because she decided that I needed help o the way down and kept holding my hand, making it infinitely more difficult to get down. After that we were brought around to a bunch of different people’s homes (who I think were all of Meera’s sisters, but I’m not really sure). After that we decided that the day had been long enough and we headed back to Sambhavna. Anisha and I were decided that we wanted to go and pick up the shirts that we had had made though. I had also bought some really cool material from the Chowk, so I brought that and had myself measured for three pairs of pants and another shirt. The shirts that we picked up were really nice. The material is nice and light, and she had made them a bit loose fitting, so they’ll be perfect for hotter days (which we still are having sometimes).

Phew, I can’t say that I’m not glad that Canada doesn’t celebrate Canada Day with so much enthusiasm… as just the one time was exhausting enough. Apparently everyone does it all over again on the day that the constitution was signed, but I think next time I’ll refrain from doing any dancing….

actual dancing and chengari

Chingari and Dancing">Chingari and Dancing" border="0" alt="" />
Tuesday August 14, 2007

That about brings us up to speed, I think. Today, as you may have noticed, is a quiet day. The internet has been in the fritz and I haven’t been able to get on all morning. Anyway, it has proven useful to write out the entries for my blog. Posting them will be a problem without the internet though….

Monday morning we went to the Chowk market, because Anisha and Casey are both leaving soon, and wanted one last trip. I ended up buying some metal bangles so that they won’t break when I put them on and cut up my hands. They’re much more my style anyway… so you can all expect massive numbers of bangles upon my return, because they are all super-cheap and they look pretty. We went back to some of the places that Rachna took us to get some material. I bought some really cool stuff to make a shirt and pants out of, as well as some plain black to make pants out of. The store still hadn’t gotten the nice scarves that we all wanted more of in yet, but we reminded him that we were still interested. I’ve decided that I am getting lots more clothes made before I leave, but I’ll just make the waist a bit big so that I can still wear them in Canada when I gain back all the weight I lost!

We didn’t stay as long as we had though we would at the Chowk, but had missed lunch, so we went to Manohar on our way back. I have found a few things that I absolutely love on the menu, and I’m even finding that the spice isn’t getting to me so badly anymore. Anyway, Manohar is great… you know those mushroom things that you get at Chu Chai? They taste like chicken wings, but they’re veg? Well, you can get those everywhere in India!! They’re called kote, and I’ve become obsessed with them. Manohar does them really well…

After that we went back to Ory Basti for our dance lessons. I find it kind of hilarious that we go out there for hours at a time, but we actually only went through our dance three times. They’re doing about six other dances, so they practice all of them, too. Derek decided to come with us. I think he was bored out of his head after a while though… poor guy. His first day in Bhopal he gets the family vacation from hell, and then he’s subject to hours of Bollywood dance!

It was the first day they I had actually gotten to dance, though, and the kids thought that I was absolutely hilarious. Anisha and Casey had already gone through the dance a few times on Saturday when I was in Delhi, but I was utterly lost the whole time. This was not helped by the fact that both the kids and the dance instructor would occasionally forget a move, or be doing it on the wrong side, so I was forever trying to figure out which was the right way to be doing it. Anyway, I apparently had a confused look on my face the whole time, and the kids kept making fun of me… Sigh. At least I can be the source of some amusement for them.

Gangaram sent our auto guy away when he came to get us at 6:30pm, and told him to come back at 7:30pm. By the time we left it was 8pm, and we got stuck at the train tracks in the biggest traffic jam I have yet to see in India. When a train goes through, cars, trucks, motorcycles and people line up along the whole width of the road on both sides. When the wigwags go up (yes, amazingly, there are wigwags), there is no space for anyone to get through on the opposite side. I think that matters were made worse because that particular road is a thoroughfare for gigantic Tata truacks, which really clog up the traffic. At any rate, it took us about an hour to get back to Sambhavna, whereas it usually only takes about fifteen or twenty minutes.

Masaum was waiting for us when we got back, as we were supposed to go to this activist girl, Meera’s, house for dinner. Since it was about 8:45pm, we decided to leave it for tonight instead though.

I think that that’s about it for now… I’ve been doing laundry all day, and have done up all the sheets and blankets from the other beds so that they’ll be nice and clean for new volunteers. I’ve also been in touch with the other CIDA volunteer coming to Bhopal. Her name is Prabjit, and she seems really nice. She’ll get here in early to mid-September sometime, so not long now.

By the way, it has already been a month since I got here!!! Can you believe it??

family vacation and mischevious monkeys

Risen">Risen" border="0" alt="" />
Sunday August 12, 2007

When I got back to Sambhavna at about 8am on Sunday there was a new volunteer sitting at the kitchen table reading!! Yay! Fresh blood! He new guy’s name is Derek, and he’ll be here until December, so I’ll never be completely alone at the clinic! And better still, you may have noticed that he’s a guy, so I can make him take me places after dark (athough I think he’s too skinny to be really intimidating)! Anisha, Casey, Masaum and I had planned to go to a small town about an hour outside of Bhopal called Risen that day. It turned out that Anisha had invited Ankeeta (who runs the canteen) and her family to come with us, which was great because she has really sweet little kids. However, Ankeeta’s neice, (who lives in the same housing complex across from Sambhavna along with Ankeet’s three other in-law families), had overheard the conversation and decided that it was an open invitation for EVERYONE! We left about two hours after we had planned to with the following troops in tow:

Ankeeta and Papoo, their three kids: Hersheeta (2), Shilvani (8), and Sumit (5). Ankeeta’s sister in law and her tiny baby (maybe about 6 months old, if that), another sister in law and her kids, Pooja (13), Vishal (11 or 12), Nancie (7), Anjolie (5), as well as myself, Anisha, Casey, Derek and Masaum. In all, there were seventeen of us and we had to take three autos to the bus stand. We actually filled the seats on one of the tiny buses (although by Indian standards it wasn’t even half full, because they crammed another twenty or so people on there). The kids were all excited and full of beans, but of course fell asleep within moments of being on the bus, so they were all the more hyper when we reached Risen an hour later. First we visited a temple that was quite crowded with other visitors. The kids wanted me to take pictures of the dozens of monkeys all over the place, and the moms all wanted their photo pretending to do various religious things. So you will excuse the rather excessive amount of photos of these things. However, once every other child in the place saw that I was taking photos of that family I was followed around by a group no smaller than about twenty-fie kids all begging to have their photo taken. I decided that this would quickly get out of control and said no to all of them, not that that prevented them from all following me anyway. At one point I had Derek pull out his camera and take a few group photos of the crowd to distract them so that I could take photos of other things. The whole “Didi! Photo!” thing has reached the point of extreme annoyance rather than “aww, that’s so cute”.

Anyway, we didn’t stay long because it wasn’t that pretty and there wasn’t that much to do. Instead we started the (what seemed like) twenty-mile hike to and up a hill about the same size as Mont Royal. Keep in mind that we had in tow six kids under the age of ten. Needless to say that it was a slow walk… especially because every time I took out my camera to take a photo of something Pooja would say ‘oh! Didi! One photo! Me!” and look pleadingly at me. So you will notice the vast number of photos of a girl in an orange shirt. About half way up the mountain I was ready to have an Annie-Dad moment and throw her in a snow bank. She was whining worse than any of the little kids and kept pulling this sucky face at me. I think she wanted me to trade shoes with her, but there was NO WAY I was going to wear the frikken’ heels she had worn. Anyway, it made me realize how annoying teenagers are, and dread the day I have any. Annie can take them when they hit twelve, and I’ll keep them when they’re little. But I digress… about half way up the hill I sped ahead and walked with Casey, who carried the two0year old the entire way up the hill without breaking a sweat, making me feel horribly out of shape as I huffed and puffed my way. I was reminded vaguely of my recent trip up Mt. St. Hilaire, although I think I would have died had I been that hung over on this trip. Only myself, Caey and Derek had brought any water, so it was quickly gone, because the kids kept asking for it. Paupoo re-filed our bottles at the top, but we didn’t know where the water was from, so that was it for us.

Anyway, once we got to the top it was quite pretty and breezy. Paupoo and Ankeeta had made a really yummy picnic lunch for everyone, so we sat and had puri (thicker versions of roti), potato subgie (which thank heavens wasn’t too spicy because we were out of water), and pekoras (my favourite). All was going well until two things happened: 1) a group of sleazy-looking guys that had been hanging around started taking photos of Casey and I with their camera phone (which apparently happened to Mel when she was there as well) and 2) we were surrounded by monkeys who wanted our lunch.

Masaum (our ever-brave protector), grabbed the guy’s cell phone and smashed it on the rocks, and told him off. A few smacks were exchanged but nothing serious, and the guys moved off. Then the monkeys moved in, so Vishal and Paupoo took turns chasing them off with sticks while we quickly finished lunch. Paupoo threw all of the leftovers their way once we were done. It was pretty amazing how aggressive they were, so we decided we had better head down. However, at precisely that moment, the group of guys returned with the “registration” guy who was supposed to be keeping order over the whole mountain. Ahem. Yeah right, the guy was like a hundread, but anyway. They had told him that Masaum had broken their phone, so he asked us to leave!!! Can you believe that? He asked the group with all the small kids to leave instead of the pack of wild dogs, er, boys!! I was fuming of course, but a few more smacks were thrown around (this time Paupoo got involved, too), so I moved away. Then the mother of Pooja and co. stepped in and told the whole lot of them off, and broke up the fight. I’ve never seen anyone quiet a crowd so fast. I don’t know what she said, but she kept telling the registration guy off the whole way down the mountain, so it seemed to be effective.

Anyway, it didn’t dampen our spirits too much, as we were leaving anyway. So we made it back down the hill and caught a slightly less crowded bus back to Bhopal. Although Masaum did comment to me that he hated Risen and he was never going back…. Poor Masaum. This time everyone fell asleep except for the kids who ran up and down the aisle screaming and dancing to the Hindi music barring from the speakers. I was relieved to get back to Sambhavna and have a break, and very thankful that Anisha had begged our excuses from Dance lessons that night, because I think I might have actually died of exhaustion if I had to endure two more hours of screaming kids. All I have to say is that Mom, Dad I now know why you decided against long family vacations. I have already vetoed them for when I have kids.

delhi and an awards show

Delhi and the Dalal Awards">Delhi and the Dalal Awards" border="0" alt="" />
Saturday August 11, 2007
Obviously I’m not posting all of this on the day I wrote it, but I thought that it would be easier to read if I posted a day or two’s events under one date.

Friday at 4:30pm an auto showed up to take us to Orya Basti for our first two-hour dance lesson. Which, of course, everyone for three miles had showed up to watch. The stereo system had yet to be set up when we got there, so we spent the first hour and forty-five minutes watching the kids recite various poems and songs in Hindi. Then, when the system had been set up, the kids showed up about six different dances, one of which we were supposed to emulate, although I wasn’t sure which one exactly. Gangaram of course, served us chai and pekoras, and insisted that we stay, pretty much indefinitely. He was about to send the auto driver (who we had told to come back at 6:30pm) away, but we caught him in time, and I insisted that we leave (mostly because I had a terrible headache from the persistent screams of sixty-odd children and the blasting speaker system, but also because I had to get ready for my trip to Delhi in a couple of hours). It has since become apparent to me that Gangaram would like us to live in Orya Basti, and, without somewhat forceful removal, will never let us leave. Anyway, more on that later…

I went to Delhi on Friday night, for an event on Saturday afternoon that Sathyu, Rachna and a lot of Bhopal supporters were organizing, particularly student groups in Delhi. The idea was to have a mock awards ceremony for all of the people who have sold India out to corporate American interests, which happens a lot here from what I can tell. This was the first year that they’ve done the awards, and naturally the focus was on Bhopal, since a lot of government officials, bureaucrats and other corporate people have been doing just that on the Bhopal issue. Apparently India is trying to enter a nuclear deal with the US, and is basically selling out any and everything else so that this deal will go through, and one of the things that the US has asked (in response to corporate lobbying) is for Dow to be deemed free from liability in Bhopal. Anyway, the even went really well and was well attended. There was a fair bit of media coverage, too. Here are some links to the media outlets that covered it:

NDTV: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070022324
Asian Age: http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/india/'mir-jafar'-awards-for-bhopal-'84.aspx
Kerela Next: http://www.keralanext.com/India/read.asp?id=1067923

The trip to Delhi was, er, “exciting”. I went on an over-night train on Friday night, which Rachna booed for me. She got me non-AC sleeper class, which is exactly like 3-tier AC sleeper, but the windows open. I was a little bit nervous about going back to Delhi after my god-awful experience with the fracking cab driver there when I arrived in India. I decided that, armed with a cell phone and the numbers of at least ten different people from the clinic to call in case I got into trouble (or, more likely, lost), I would be okay. So Friday at about 8pm, I left the clinic on my own. I should mention a few things here: 1) I have been warned that women traveling alone in India are subject to sexual harassment (as are pretty much any women at any time) 2) it had just gotten dark out, so there were still lots of people out and about in Qazi camp 3) Casey had offered to walk me to Berasia road, where the auto guys wait, and I had said “oh no, its still early! There are lots of people out and about still!”.

Ahem. So as soon as I walked out of the gates at Sambhavna, there were these two young guys sitting on the ledge of the dried-up well. They were like “excuse me, miss!” as soon as I walked out of the gate, and I saw them start to follow me when I ignored them. Its only, maybe, a hundred meters along that street, and then you get to the corner store, where we know the family, so I wasn’t worried. Except for one of them ran up behind me and tried to grab my ass!!!! (He kind of missed though and kind of flicked it instead… but anyway). I whirled around and yelled at him to fuck off, and they both ran off down the street. I was absolutely furious! I mean, talk about the nerve!! They were probably waiting outside of Sambhavna for some volunteer to be walking to the corner store or something!! In retrospect I should have tried to chase them down and beat the living crap out of them… either that or call the guard at Sambhavna and get him to do it for me. Anyway, as it was I just continued on and got an auto to the train station (luckily it was my favourite auto guy, who always wears the Che Guvera hat, and who always drives us places, otherwise I think I would have taken my anger out on him).

So needless to say I was feeling a little on the vulnerable side when I reached the train station… especially because there were like NO other women there. Indian women don’t go out alone at night (probably because of experiences like when I just described), so there were a few women traveling with men, but none on their own, which didn’t exactly make me feel too safe. Anyway, I made it on to the train to discover, of course, that I was about the only woman on the entire car. There were three or four other young women traveling together, who were carrying large amounts of sports equipment, but that was it. I found my seat (which in the sleeper cars are the bottom of three bunks, the middle of which is flipped up), and sat down with the fife other guys sharing my compartment. Most of them just politely averted their eyes, but this one young guy in a pink shirt kept grinning at me. He was probably just trying to be friendly, but I glared at him and gave him a dirty look to be o the safe side.

I ended up having to ask the guy next to me which of the bunks was mine, because it wasn’t exactly clear. He was helpful and just not friendly enough not to be intimidating (I find it a bit on the creepy side when guys are too interested), so that was good. I was on the bottom bunk, but he left me have the middle one, which I felt safer in, because its not so close to the ground. The train ride was actually on the uneventful side, so I have learned not to be afraid of the train, although I would certainly think twice about traveling around India all by myself. I’m glad that Andrea is planning on coming with her boyfriend, because guys will leave you along for the most part if you are with another guy. Although I can’t say that any of this makes me happy. I think that is totally fucking ridiculous that women are intimidated into having a male escort every time they leave the house after dark on their own (and to a degree, even during the day its better to be with another woman). The whole thing reminds me just a bit too much of The Handmaid’s Tale. Sickening. I’ve decided that the women in the communities around here should have a Take Back the Night-style march. I have also though that perhaps I will start carrying pepper spray… hahahaha, that’s probably a bad idea. Although Rachna did say that if men are leering at you or try to grab you it is perfectly socially acceptable to kick the crap out of them. Maybe I’ll invest in a punching bag for practice…

Anyway, Delhi was really fun. I got to meet lots of Bhopal-supporters, and hang around the Other Media office (a big NGO that houses the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal). It was fun because everyone stayed in one room with the AC and drank chai and talked. Rashida Bee from Changari Trust was there, and I had one of the students express my interest in starting the photo project that she had suggested with her, so I am going over this afternoon to commence. She wants me to take artsy photos of all the kids with serious birth deformities as a result of the contaminated water or gas exposure. They have already started compiling medical-type photos, but she wants to tell the stories of these kids and what their daily lives are, too. She’s planning on getting someone to come and record fuller and more complete stories from them too. I’m hoping that these photos will turn into something that we can turn into a photo exhibit so that Changari can get more money and volunteers. They need surgeons to do free surgeries on these kids, fixing cleft palates and lips, leg problems and other things. Anyway, I’m super excited about it!!

The train ride back from Delhi was uneventful. Although there was a young guy sitting next to me who did everything in his power to get me to notice him and ended up thoroughly annoying the shit out of me. He kept talking to his girlfriend or someone on his cell phone really loud in English, and when she asking him why he was talking in English he was like “I have to talk in English right now”. Yes, so the white girl sitting next to you will notice you and sleep with you because we’re all like the sluts you see on MTV. Sigh. I’m quickly beginning to understand Mel’s frustration with men in this country…

more mehendi and a night out on the town

hmmm, the photos on this post turn out kind of weird. click on the title of the post to see the photos, or the long, thin, rectangular box under the title. it'll take you to photobucket.com, and you can see my photos there...

i know that i still have to explain the last series of photos from orya basti, but i wanted to try out photobucket.com for my new photos. my stupid webpicassa is already saying that i have maxed out the number of photos that i'm allowed to put up on the site, so i've had to change to another photo thingie. it seems better anyway...

these photos are from friday night. anisha, casey and i decided to go out to this restaurant in a hotel, called hotel ranjeet. a lot of restaurants here are called "hotel something-or-other" and are just restaurants, but hotel ranjeet really is a hotel. at any rate, the food was pretty good but we couldn't help but notice that aside from a british couple who retired soon after we got there, we were the only women there. as the night wore on we realized that because the restaurant serves alcohol it was a bit of a drinking establishment in the evenings. i, of course, took up this rare opportunity to have a beer. the beer here is pretty light, and has a very distinct aftertaste that i wasn't all that crazy about. on the upside, it cost about $2 canadian for a 600ml bottle. it might even be cheaper than idee fixe.... the waiter did think, however, that we were all splitting the beer, which sadly, no, was all for myself:)

after diner we stopped at the corner store, and anisha and i had , you guessed it, more mehendi done! the daughter of the store owner did a really good job on both anisha's arms and my right arm! you can see the photos... the whole family was really sweet and nice though. they have an eight-year-old son who was really cute. i actually taught him how to use my nikon camera, so some of the photos attached are ones that he took. anyway, we ended up staying there until midnight getting the mehendi and hanging out. it was nice to spend some time with a very happy family. they thought i was hilarious because i kept miming everything i wanted to try to say... we also got a tour of the actual store, which is jam-packed with about a million different things. the space is tiny, but you can get everything from fresh eggs, to race-car shaped toothbrushes, to indian sweets there! the photo only show a fraction of what is actually available.

anyway, i'll write about my trip to delhi later. there are some good photos from sunday in particular:)

orya basti and dance lessons

Orya Basti">Orya Basti" border="0" alt="" />

i don't have time to write right now, but i wanted to put up these photos. they are from a community near the union carbide factory that is made up of people mostly from a rural area (i think its called orissa). sambhavna sponsors a school there, where the kids learn traditional languages, as well as english and hindi. anyway, i'll tell you all about it later, but enjoy the photos!

here's the day's post:

It has been a few days since I wrote anything properly, so I’ll try to fill in what is missing from the photos!

First off, these ones of Orya Basti are of a school that Sambhavna helped to start up, and I think is even able to provide some funding for. The headmaster at the school is this very authoritative little guy named Gangaram. He is a gas survivor, and features largely in the book Five Past Midnight in Bhopal from what I have heard (I haven’t read the book yet). At any rate, Anisha, Casey and I originally went to the school to see the kids there do some dances, because Anisha is in her university’s Bollywood dance troop. Ganagaram immediately decided that we should partake in the Independence Day celebrations on the 15th.. which means that we are to learn one of the dances and perform it for the community on for the celebrations. Ahem… the last choreographed dance I did was to Baby Got Back in the twelfth grade, so needless to say, it’s been a while.

The kids at the school were really sweet though, and they loved having their photos taken and whatnot. I wrote my name in Hindi in one of their books and damn near started a riot, because afterwards they ALL wanted me to write my name in their books afterwards. You can see it in the photos a little bit…

Ganagaram showed us around the community garden that surrounds the school. It’s a pretty impressive garden, and the whole community just works together and takes what they need from the garden. It’s a really nice example of how group efforts can work really well actually. Gangaram seems to be the kind of leader of the community. Everyone just kind of does what he tells them too, which I found impressive. The kids will even sit down and listen when he tells them too (this is opposed to most of the kids in the other neighbourhoods we’ve visited. The presence of a camera makes the children absolutely insane and vying for the attentions of the photographer, and there’s absolutely no calming them down afterwards).

So we were told that we would come back at 4:30pm everyday to learn the dance. I was going to Delhi the next day, so I missed the next lesson, but you can read about that later… Gangaram also asked us if we could bring some school supplies (which I suspect might be the reason behind some of the rather excessive hospitality), so we agreed to bring some notebooks and pencils and whatnot. The notebooks are only Rs. 5, so it’s not exactly a huge financial commitment. The school itself runs off of nothing as far as I can tell. For fifty students they have two teachers who both look like they are about fourteen years old (although Sathyu informed us that they are in fact older), as Gangaram to maintain order. There is just one actual room of the schoolhouse, and another little patio-like area, where they sit when it is hot outside. There is no electricity, and they just use chalkboards, and the students all share a few textbooks. Its pretty impressive how much they have accomplished though, especially considering the school is free. A lot of the schools here require that the students pay for their own uniforms and supplies, which means that a lot of families can not afford to send their kids. So not having uniforms and providing the supplies means that almost all the kids can go… especially the younger girls, which I like!

Anyway Gangaram insisted on serving us chai, and we stayed until after lunch being shown around the garden and making arrangements for the coming to learn the dance. At the end of the day he insisted that Anisha get up in front of the older students (who come back after lunch) and pretend to teach them some English so that Casey and I could take photos. I had to laugh, because she wasn’t actually teaching them anything, so god only knows what he wanted the photos for.

after this, we went out for dinner at hotel ranjeet, which i wrote about in the next post, so enjoy!

focus group and fabrics

Focus Group & Chok">Focus Group & Chok" border="0" alt="" />
I was worried that I would be bored without all the other volunteers here to keep me busy and entertained, but that hasn’t been the case the past few days! After everyone left on Monday, I had a quiet morning mostly by myself just hanging around. Later in the afternoon, however, I decided that today was the day I was going to get my metal, mouse-proof bins from the Chowk market, and Casey and Anisha decided that they were going to come with me. Well, it turned out that Rachna, who works here at Sambhavna, needed to pick up a dupta that she had sent for dying, so we ended up meeting her in the market as well. We wanted to explore some of the areas that we had never seen before, and Rachna proved to be a perfect guide around the twisted and confusing streets of the market. She knew where all of the good deals and best shops were, and which materials were good for what sort of clothing and whatnot. I ended up buying two really beautiful scarves from this one store (which had some of the most fantastic fabrics and the shopkeeper spoke English!) for Rs. 50 each (about $1.25 CND). I had seen the exact same ones on St. Laurent in Montreal for $35 each!!! So you’re all getting one, whether or not you want it. I also bought a Gujarati-styled embroidered bed sheet for $10, and two pieces of really nice Madhya Pradesh-dyed fabric for about $3 to make shirts out of! However, in all the excitement over buying all of this fantastic material, I completely forgot about my mouse-proof bins! I finally had the courage to take photos in the Chowk though, so there are a few up here. I hope they’ll give you the sense of how completely tiny and small the streets and stores are. There are a million things packed into one little area!

Rachna had invited us over to her house afterwards, so I had a slightly hair-raising ride on the back of her scooter to her apartment. Rachna lived in the US for thirteen years, and actually worked at Dow for a year or two when she graduated from college. She is amazingly spirited and passionate about her work in Bhopal, and told us all the exciting stories from the fast that happened earlier this year in order to make the government concede to the Bhopalis demands. You could tell that she was very much in her element with all of the action and excitement, with the police chasing them down, and how they outwitted the officers! Rachna told us about a satirical awards show that they (some of the Sambhavna people) were going to in Delhi this weekend. The idea is to give awards to all of the people who have sold India out to corporate American interest, a la Yes Men style. So I decided that I would like to go as well, and Rachna has booked me a train ticket! So I’ll be in Delhi for a day on the 10th and 11th!

The next day, Tuesday, I ended up not doing too much during the day as well. Mostly I just typed up a chunk of the report for Rachna, and tried to do laundry, and farted around. I cleaned out the cupboard with all of the food in it, and much to my dismay, the mice had managed to get into a lot of things that we had thought was tightly sealed up!! They bit through the Styrofoam cups that Genvieve had bought with Cup-O-Noodles in them, and two bags of sealed pasta that I had bought! Anyway, this prompted me to throw out anything that I thought they might be able to get into, much to the shock and dismay of the cleaning lady, Chandra Kanta. Anam, Maya and Shaziya (the girls responsible for my makeover) stopped by early in the afternoon to bid me a happy friendship day, and Anam gave me a little gold bracelet with two little faux diamonds in it. It was really sweet, and I felt terrible for not having something noce to give them in return, so I went and got some bangles that I had bought a few days earlier from the Chowk and gave those to Shaziya and Maya, but I had nothing for Anam. I’m still racking my brain about what to get a nine or ten year old girl. She’s too old for kids toys, but I think she’s still a bit young for some of the beauty projects that her sisters are into…

Anyway, in the afternoon I decided that I would go back to the Chowk on my own in order to get those metal bins. Casey decided that she wanted more fabric and ended up coming with me. We got completely lost for a little while, but eventually found out way back to the shops that Rachna had shown us. I found some fabric that is very much perfect for Whitney and Richard, so if you are reading this, then be prepared to get something little in the mail from me! I also found three huge storage containers for flour and rice and whatnot, and got those for the mouse-proofing project! They only cost about $12 too!

Anyway, as soon as we got back to Sambhavna, we rushed out again to meet the translator that Anisha had used when she came here last summer, Aditi. We went all the way to Bittle Market, in New Bhopal to meet her, because she lives on that side of the lake. We had ridiculously sweet and decadent chocolate cakes and brownies at Café Coffee Day (also known as CCD by the locals), where we were joined by her cousin, Krishna. She invited us back to her parents house afterwards, where we were fed dried Poha (the non-dried thing that we are served for breakfast every morning), those cheese-looking sweets that I had at the other girls’ home, samosas and eventually chow mein that her mother prepared for her. I spent most of the time trying to talk as much as I possibly could in order to slow down the flow of food coming from the kitchen (although her mother’s chow mein was delicious and had no spice whatsoever so I had two servings). I was really nice to go to someone’s home and be able to communicate so easily. Her parents only spoke a bit on English, but seemed content to just hang out and listen to us. Aditi has an amazing amount of energy, and was totally full of life, chattering away the whole time we were there. Its too bad that she was leaving to go to a Master’s degree in another city the next day, because I have the feeling that she and I could have become fast friends.

We didn’t leave until after eleven, and her father insisted on driving us back to Sambhavna, convinced that we wouldn’t get an auto at that late hour. It was raining pretty hard, and Aditi told us about how the previous summer the bridge across the lake had been flooded (as was Sambhavna I was later reminded) and they were stuck there for a couple of days. Her father drove very quickly in the most ancient and bet up jeep I have ever seen. It actually looked like it might have been used in a war. Like a lot of the jeeps here, the front seat faces forward, but the back seats are just benches along the sides of the car, so it felt much more harrowing that it actually was. Anyway, we didn’t get back to Samnbhavna until after midnight (late by everyone’s standards here). The guard even told us we should be back by ten in the future because we worries about us! I collapsed into bed instantly and fell asleep with Harry Potter in my hand.

This afternoon was really fun. I went with Anisha and Casey to the community that they’ve been doing their surveys in so that I could see the focus group they were conducting about menopause. The women that came to the focus group were really animated and interested in the topic, and had a lot to say about it. I got to take photos, so make sure you take a look at them!

After that we came back to Sambhavna and Rachna told Anisha and I where we could go to get our shirts made, so we did that. Then two of the girls from across the street came over and did mehendi on my feet. Its still drying as we speak, but it already looks fantastic. As a side note, as Anisha and I were going to the corner store to get the mehendi we saw a goat that was practically decapitated lying dead in the street. A man in an auto stopped and picked it up, put it on the floor of the auto and drive off with it. It was most upsetting to see this little creature just lying in the street like that, after such a brutal death. I have become rather fond of goats, because they are everywhere here, and are do all sorts of strange and funny things. The other day when we were at the corner store, two goats butted their way under the awning with us to get away from the rain. The baby was kind of nuzzling up against my pant legs, and after a few minutes decided that it was going to try to eat them! It didn’t get very far, but I thought that it was pretty hilarious.

On that note, I think that I’m going to try giving Dan a wake-up call. Enjoy the photos!

friendhsip day and visiting the neighbours

Ankeeta's House">Ankeeta's House" border="0" alt="" />
The past few days here have been pretty quiet. It has been raining pretty much non-stop until today, which makes I hard to go out and do things. I have spent my time trying to type up the never-ending report that Rachna gave me, and cleaning up parts of the volunteer areas. There has been a small problem with the dinner dishes, which the volunteers are supposed to do on a rotating basis. Shanti Bai comes every evening around 7pm to make dinner for the volunteers and, inevitably Sathyu because he is always sill here at 9pm, when dinner is finished. The volunteers are supposed to take turns doing the dishes, but the system seems to have fallen apart, and often the dishes and leftover food are left out over night. Normally this wouldn’t be such a problem, but because the kitchen is fairly open concept, the food attracts massive numbers of flies, ants and those Indian chipmunks. I generally get up early in the morning to discover the mess in the kitchen, and frequently end up doing the dishes. It annoys me to no end, but it’s hard to be the one to try to instill order, so I haven’t made any complaints so far.

The current group of volunteers are slowly moving on to other travels and back to the States. The other Emily and Aaya left early this morning, Genevieve and Juliet leave late tonight, and Joe leaves first thing tomorrow morning. So then it will be myself, Casey and Anisha. I think that the dishes will be easier to monitor with a smaller group, so that is a perk. It has certainly been nice to have such a large group of other volunteers here for my first few weeks though. It has meant that there is always someone else around to do things with and to show me around.

I spent the morning trying to clean out some of the communal spaces, and managed to rope some of the other volunteers into my efforts. First we attacked the volunteer room, where the internet works, which had gotten pretty sloppy. We wiped down all of the tables, took all of the books off the shelf, wiped it down and rearranged the books in an orderly fashion. Anisha organized some of the papers from a survey that she conducted last summer, and put back a lot of the material that had been taken from the library. I think that we may have even curbed some of the ant problem in this room (which I am especially happy about because I was getting worried that the really little ones were infesting my keyboard and slowly eating my new computer!).

Next Joe, Casey and I moved al of the stuff that wasn’t being used from the room behind the gazebo, where Mel had the kids come and do activities. A lot of it just got thrown out, but we salvaged some of the paper, crayons and whatnot that was in better shape for future use. Then I did a brief tidy of the two-person room that Aanya and Emily had been staying in. I’m hoping that I will be allowed to stay in that room once the other CIDA volunteer gets here, so I thought that it wasn’t a bad idea to get rid of some of the garbage so that the cleaning lady could give it a sweep. I know that its boring to hear about all of the cleaning activities but the neat freak in me just can’t stop organizing and cleaning once I get started.

In other news, there is a mouse (or rather mice) living in the girls dorm room. There isn’t really anywhere to put food in the kitchen where the chipmunks and ants won’t get at it, so we have all been storing our non-perishables in the bedroom. This of course has attracted our friendly neighbourhood mice. Anisha, as it turns out, it utterly terrified of the furry little rodents, so when Casey found one in her bed the other night Anisha freaked out a little bit. Mice don’t really bother me, aside from the initial startle that you get when they creep out from somewhere, but I am concerned about sharing food with them because of all the diseases that they can carry. Since the initial sighting of the mouse in the bed, Genevieve has seen them a few other places, so I have resolved to buy some of the big metal storage containers that they use for rice and flour in the kitchen so that I can put all of my food in them.

On a side note, the other day the staff had some sort of meeting in the afternoon during one of the biggest monsoon storms I’ve seen yet. Ankeeta and her husband Paupoo, who run the canteen, made these delicious fried-potato things as a treat for the staff. There was some left over, so they invited the volunteers down to the kitchen to have some. It was really nice hanging out in there with the whole family. They have three adorable little kids, who were all in there with us. Hersheeta, the youngest who is about two, was sleeping on the kitchen floor. We were making so much noise laughing and horsing around that she woke up though. In a few moments of quiet we could hear this squeaking and rustling around under the cupboards. I assumed that it was the chipmunks, which invade everywhere and are impossible to keep out, but Ankeeta told Anisha that it was rats!!! Anisha freaked out again, which the kids thought was hilarious, and the middle one, Sumit (who is a holy terror), made a game out of opening up the cupboards to scare her. At one point we even saw a big black rat run by!! Anyway, it was after that that I decided that constant vigilance was in order to keep the rats at bay!

Rita came by today and explained to us that it was “Friendship Day” in India (which explains all those text message ads I keep getting on my cell phone saying that you can get special rates for “Friendship Day”). From what I can figure out, this is kind of like Valentine’s Day in North America, but an even better marketing scheme because you have to buy everyone little presents. Anyway, big Vishal (there are two of them) came by and gave Anisha and Joe little presents), and when I went to buy some mango juice Nancie gave me a little white flower, and asked if I could come over later. I was happy to have something to do, so I told her after lunch would come by. She lives in this kind of compound right in front of Sambhavna, where Ankeeta and her family and about a million other people also live. So I went over and brought some cookies for “Friendship Day”. I was immediately accosted by Nikita and her many “Didis” (older sisters), who I quickly realized were not all actually sisters. They wanted to know who had done my mehendi and insisted on painting my nails (again), so I let them do that. They were asking where all the other volunteers were, and I explained that Joe, Juliet and Genevieve were leaving soon, so then of course they wanted me to go and get them so that they could say goodbye.

So I went back to Samnbhavna to retrieve Joe and my camera, and went back to the compound. The kids always get a huge kick out of the camera, so I have about a million photos of each and every kid, mostly with Joe (who is a human jungle gym for some of the little kids). Juliet and Genevieve showed up then, and started taking photos and horsing around with the kids. It was madness, Genevieve started a dance party in one room, Juliet and I were taking photos, kids were yelling and screaming and running all over the place, a cow kept stampeding through the courtyard. It was a bit of a relief when Ankeeta and Paupoo invited us into their little room in the house and made us coffee, which lucky for me is sweetened like nobody’s business and has more milk than coffee. Ankeeta is so sweet. Make sure that you check out the photos of her with Hersheeta and Sumit in the house. So cute!!

Anyway, tonight we are going out to dinner at Manohar (sp?) for Joe, Juliet and Genevieve’s last night in town. The other volunteers all love Manohar, so I’m looking forward to that. Apparently they have pizza that almost tastes like North American pizza…

Dan's birthday is tomorrow, so I will be thinking of him. Email him and wish him a happy birthday!!

mehendi and water contamination

Sareeta's House">Sareeta's House" border="0" alt="" />
Yesterday I had a really fun and interesting day. I spent part of the morning trying to do some of the typing work that Rachna gave me. It was pretty slow going, because the report has been badly photocopied from somewhere, so parts of the text are almost completely blanked-out. However, after doing that for a couple of hours I was informed that the cleaning staff was doing a thorough scrub of the bathroom! Apparently the cleaning staff that had been responsible for the upstairs was moved downstairs, where an eye could be kept on him… all of the dirty areas that I had assumed were the responsibility of the volunteers to keep clean, are, in fact, his job, has just wasn’t doing it. So the woman who had been cleaning downstairs has been moved upstairs, and has been scrubbing the entire floor!! Oh cleanliness, how I love thee…

Anyway, after I found out that I didn’t need to spend my day cleaning the bathroom I went back to my typing, only to be interrupted by Joe telling me that there were some girls downstairs asking for me. I thought that it might be a mother and daughter who had invited me over the day before, but had never shown up back at the clinic, so I went to investigate. At first I didn’t recognize any of the girls, and was rather confused at how they knew to ask for me by name. After a minute I recognized the little girl, who has been coming to the gazebo sometimes to play. We sat in awkward silence for a few minutes before I decided to go and get Aanya to translate what they were asking me to do. She came downstairs and said that they were inviting me over to their house. I decided why the hell not, got my camera and headed out. They lived just around the corner from Sambhavna, in a clean but extremely stuffy little house. The power was off in the neighbourhood (which seems to happen in brief but frequent intervals), so the cooler couldn’t be turned on, which meant that it was absolutely sweltering. For those of you who don’t know, coolers are these kind of budget versions on air conditioners. There is one in the girls’ dorm here at Sambhavna, as well as in several of the offices. Essentially they are these metal boxes with mesh sides about two by three feet long and high. You open the tops of them and then pour in a bucket or two of water and then this giant fan blows the cool water around. I’m not entirely sure how they work, but they are pretty effective because I’ve been into a lot of stores that have them. At any rate, the cooler was off, and I was absolutely sweating to death in the house.

I had brought my camera with me for some photo ops, which of course attracted a crowd (it seems to no matter where I go in India). Many of the other women on the street hovered around outside the door, and one woman kept asking me to take picture of her and the pants-less baby boy she had on her hip. She thought it was hilarious that she was having her picture taken when he didn’t have any pants on, and kept yelling something in Hindi and pointing at his naked butt and laughing hysterically. It was pretty funny.

The girls gave me a glass of Fanta to cool me off, and almost immediately set to work beautifying me. First up, it was decided that I needed some bangles. Unfortunately my hands are too fat, and they weren’t able to fit any of the bangles they had past my thumb. In the process of trying to squeeze my hand into one, it snapped and actually cut into my hand a little bit. The girls took some cream out of the fridge and put it on the cut… I have no idea what the cream was, so hopefully it was some sort of disinfectant. Eventually they found a fat-hand bangle and managed to squeeze it on with the help of some soapy water, but I have the feeling its never going to come off unless I smash it. After that they painted all of my finger- and toenails a bright, rather garish, red. I’m not a fan of having polish on my fingers, so I have since managed to chip it all off, but I left it on my feet. It makes them look cleaner, or at least relatively. Then, the little one, Anam, went out and returned a minute later with a tube if mehendi (henna), which one of the older girls used to make a fantastic design on my arm and hand with. It looks really cool, and I’ve decided to get it done on my feet too. I’ve been told that the tubes only cost about Rs. 3 here, so if anyone wants me to bring some back, let me know! Finally, a bindi was stuck on my head, and I was deemed beautiful. I couldn’t help but feel like I full-grown Barbie-doll with all of this stuff, especially since the mehendi has to take a few hours to dry, so I was stuck not being able to use that arm for quite some time.

After that the father came home with a little baby boy and some sweets from the street vendors. I had been warned countless times not to eat anything from the street vendors because the quality of the food is highly questionable. However, they were quite insistent that I have some of this little white square that looked like cheese and tasted like pure sugar. Luckily they didn’t insist that I have the other thing he brought, which looked like tiny red intestines curled into a little ball (which Anisha says are delicious sweets as well). After eating a bit of the sweet, I decided that I needed to get back to the clinic and do some work, so I begged my excuses which I’m sure they didn’t understand) and they returned me to Sambhavna.

Joe, Aanya and the other Emily had a good laugh at me when I came back, because I was so covered, but they also took some photos of me in the wet mehendi, so make sure you take a look. Soon after that, Aanya told me that she and he other Emily were going to the community just North of the Union Carbide factory to do some interviews with gas-affected women. They invited me to tag along and take photos, so I was off again (with my Mehendi still wet). We took an auto down the bumpiest road I had ever experienced in my life; it was literally made out of chunks of brick and rock that jutted out of the road in such a way that it was almost impossible to drive on. Sareeta, a fifteen year old girl who was guiding us around and taking us to her house, kept arguing with the auto driver that the road wasn’t that bad so that she could get us a cheaper rate, which I thought was kind of hilarious. As soon as we got out of the auto we were surrounded by en enormous group of kids all wanting their photo taken. Sareeta kept telling me not to take any photos, because each photo seemed to provoke the desperate cry of “DIDI!! PHOTO!!” from about twenty more kids.

We crossed a set of train tracks and maneuvered around huge piles of mud until we were at Sareeta’s house. Her house was a bit off the beaten track, so it was a bit quieter there. Her mother had just finished re-mudding the floor of the house, so the outside was still sticky with cow-dung and hay. We made ourselves comfortable inside the little house though (of which there are lots of photos, so please check them out!). I couldn’t help but notice that even though there was only one bed for four or five people, there was still a TV and DVD player. Anyway, Sareeta’s mother was really nice and friendly. She made us the best chai I’ve had since getting to India and we sat and chatted for a while. It turns out that Sareeta knew Jennifer and Diana, last years CIDA interns. She seems to be really active in all the political stuff surrounding Bhopal, and from what I know she is essentially the leader of the group of kids that Rachna has been working with to create awareness among the youth here.

Anyway, Sareeta brought over the mother of one of her friends for Emily and Aanya to interview. This woman had a four-year old son who could neither talk nor walk. He seemed to be in some sort of chronic pain, because every time she touched his legs or feet he would start to whimper and cry. It was absolutely heart-breaking to look at his little face, he was obviously so unhappy, you just wanted to give him the world to try to help him. They think that he was affected by the contaminated water in utero, but they really don’t know. They’ve been going to the government hospital for gas survivors, but she said that the help that they got was entirely symptomatic relief and did nothing to help the root of the problem. All over the neighbourhood there were these huge black drums with safe, uncontaminated water in them. But from what I’ve heard, there’s only about half enough water shipped into the neighbourhood as they need. We even saw one woman using a hand pump that obviously brought up contaminated water. You just wanted to scream at her not to touch the stuff, but without it they’d have no water.

Anyway, after that they did a couple of other short, impromptu interviews with women as e passed through the community. We had a group of about fifty kids fallowing us around begging me to take their photos. Sareeta forbid me from taking any more photos because of the crowd that we had attracted. Then we took an auto to the Chok, but since Sareeta was our guide we got to see an entirely new area of the market that I’d never seen before. I ended up buying more bangles (and broke yet another one in the process of trying to try them on), four dupptas (scarves) and two more shirts that are much nicer than the other ones I bought. I still haven’t found the kind of scarves that I really wanted to buy while I was here, which are silk ones with fancy gold embroidery on them. Maybe in my travels I’ll find the places that sell them, but until then I haven’t bought anyone any gifts yet! Sorry!

Anyway, as usual I’ve been writing this on and off all day. Today has been fairly uneventful though. I did do my first errand on my own today, which was entirely successful (I’m happy to report!). I took an auto to the local police station to have some stupid form signed by literally three different people, and then all the way back to Sambhavna. I also stopped by the tailor to have the sleeves put on my two new shirts (when you buy shirts here the sleeves are often not attached, they come sewn onto the back or something so that you can add them if you want to). So yes, I am finally becoming independent enough to do some things on my own! I think that it is about time, too, because, five of the seven other volunteers are leaving on Sunday and Monday, so its about to get pretty quiet around here!

I think that that’s about it for now… the internet hasn’t been working on and off again all day, so hopefully it won’t be too long before I’m online again!