I wrote about the organization SCAD (Social Change and Development) in my previous story. I told you it’s a big and rich organization, which does a lot for all kinds of underprivileged people. I ended up staying with them for two weeks. I worked in a centre where physically and mentally challenged children are given care and education. One man, by the fantastic name of Stalin (a pretty common name in Tamil Nadu), forms the “orthotic unit”. He has a workshop where he makes all kinds of orthopedic devices for the children: crutches, braces, splints, even wheelchairs. He makes all these things, which can be pretty expensive when you buy them from big manufacturers, in his own creative and low-cost way. The idea was that I would see if I could help him improve the design of some devices; if it didn’t work out, I would just leave. Quite frankly, I didn’t expect much of it – but I thought, why not give it a go? And in the end, I must say, even though my stay was relatively short, I think both of us (me and Stalin, yes) were satisfied. Of course, I didn’t have much to contribute to this man, who has been doing this job for more than ten years. And of course, for me as an engineer, it was too basic and low-level to really allow me to apply or improve my skills. But on the other hand, we get so much theory and so little practice in our education, that it’s always interesting to have some hands-on experience. And to keep it as simple as possible is a challenge in any design. It was really fun to design something and see the result in a matter of hours. So, I’m satisfied, and I hope Stalin was too; he did say I gave him a couple of good ideas.
Like last time I was at SCAD, I stayed at the fancy guesthouse on the campus. I was all alone in this building that can accommodate a dozen people, and so I even had my own private cook, who always made me delicious food in ridiculous amounts. Since I wasn’t sure about the value of my contribution to SCAD, I paid them the amount my stay would cost them. Apparently, some people pay 30-50EUR a day, which is a pretty high amount in India, even considering the comfort. I think this is a good time to talk about volunteering, as I promised before. Actually, before even talking about volunteering, I have a lot to say about NGO’s; but I decided not to get into that now, as it would lead me too far.
Both the times I worked as a volunteer, not only did I work for free, but I paid money to the organization. As I said, in the case of SCAD I supposedly paid only to cover my cost – even though the amount still seemed a bit high, especially considering the salaries; I estimate I paid three times what the cook earns. In Cuddalore, on the other hand, I am sure I paid much more than Bhanu could spend. She had the honesty to admit that, which I appreciated, but I suppose that someone coming straight from Europe wouldn’t even realize that. In many cases, volunteering is a way of getting funds. I’ve seen websites where people pay 1000$ to volunteer for two weeks. One thousand dollars! That’s what I spend in three months! But some people are ready to pay this. All they want is a “life-changing” experience, something to impress their friends with and/or put on their CV, without having to go to the trouble of arranging everything. A lot of the volunteers I met in Pondicherry were Danes; they paid a Danish organization to set them up with a Dutch organization, which they paid to set them up with a local organization. Volunteering is big business. People don’t only work for free, but they pay money on top of that. In return, they get there life-changing experience. Sometimes, in the best of cases, the money they pay goes to the organization – nothing wrong with that then, is there? A win-win situation, you say? It depends. I, for one, do not like it so much. First of all, it’s not transparent: you don’t know how much of your money is actually spent on your food and accommodation, and how much goes to the organization. Second, you don’t really know if they want you for the work you do, or for the money you pay. Third, paying to work doesn’t really improve your motivation - I’ve seen with my own eyes the attitude of “I’m paying for this, so if I don’t want to work, I don’t” in some volunteers. Four, they will still try to give the volunteer the impression that he’s doing useful work. In many cases, that means people are doing work that someone else could do much better than them; their work is useless, and sometimes even counterproductive - couldn’t this persons’ time and energy be used in a better way? What’s even worse, is that they might be used to do someone else’s job for free.
In Cuddalore, the original purpose was for me to go to villages to tell people about the dangers of HIV/AIDS, with the help of a translator. Why on earth should I do that? Will they not listen with much more benevolence to someone of there own culture and language? Bhanu admitted this was true, and even conceded that whatever the volunteer says, the translator knows what to say. The volunteer is completely useless – it’s one big farce. I told you about my English teaching. First of all, nothing proves that I’m even remotely competent to do that. But more importantly, what’s the use? I went there, taught them some vocabulary, and went away; they probably forgot everything again by now. It would have been much better if a competent person had trained a local person to teach them. And even then, I don’t really know why I had to teach English to precisely those children. They were healthy, didn’t seem poor, and most of them went to school and learned English there. Sometimes I felt like I was just being used to entertain the bored village children during their summer holidays.
To be perfectly honest, there are cases in which the volunteers do perform useful work. The girl who set me up with Bhanu did a lot of organizational work, and another girl, a real English teacher, trained local people to be teachers. But in at least as many cases, the work the volunteer does is either useless, or could be done better by someone else. And additional, important question is: why should we come here to do this work? There are so many people in this country, and more and more of them have knowledge and money. In fact, the Indian embassy doesn’t issue visas to volunteers anymore (that’s why they always take tourist visas) – India can handle his own problems. The only answer I have to this question is that we are still in a better position to afford working for free for a while.
What about me, you may ask? Am I not guilty of the crimes I plea against? Partially, Your Honor. One of the objectives of my Big Trip was to learn more about the world of NGO’s, to see if there’s a possibility for me to work in that field someday. So, by doing some field work, I wanted to gain insight in the working of the type of organization where I would, perhaps, someday, have a more high-level function. Besides, I feel a bit guilty about being able to afford such a long trip on only a couple of months’ savings, just because the value of my currency is so much higher than the local one - as the cliché goes, “I wanted to give something back”. That’s one part of the truth. Another part of the truth is that I don’t really like the feeling of being a tourist. I much rather feel like I’m really living somewhere, and volunteering is an easy way of obtaining that. I have never denied it’s a kind of tourism. I have never thought or pretended that what I did was noble. Volunteering abroad is great; you’re in a completely different environment, have the craziest experiences, and end up with amazing stories to tell your friends. To me, the real noble people are the ones who work as volunteers back home: people who work with disabled people, or the poor, or elderly people, humbly, without bragging about them or writing about it on some blog. And back home, it seems, is the only place you can really do good work. Of what use can I be in a country where I can’t even properly communicate with the people, let alone understand their culture? Of course, this insight is far from being new; that’s why, nowadays, big NGO’s support local, grassroots organization, instead of doing the work themselves.
As an attempt for a conclusion: I think volunteering abroad is only useful in very specific situations. If volunteering is a kind of tourism – which, in many cases, it is – it is no doubt better than brainless, polluting mass tourism. But I only agree with it under three conditions:
1) The volunteer is aware he’s a tourist
2) There’s full transparency regarding where the money goes
3) The volunteer makes sure he’s doing something useful, or at least not harmful, and that he’s not taking away anyone else’s job
The last point is extremely difficult to assess, especially from a distance, in an unknown situation, in a different culture. When I look back at my “work” in India, there’s not much to be proud of: Delhi was a joke, Cuddalore was probably not harmful, but not so useful either, and Tirunelvely was okay but very limited. I’ve changed India forever…
July 2, 2010
June 27, 2010
The Keralan dream
(aargh, I'm so late with my posts! this happened more than one month ago. But I like to tell my stories in a good way, and I haven't really had a lot of internet opportunities lately. Right now I'm in Mumbai, and tonight I leave to Ahmedabad, going back towards Delhi. After that I'll go to the very north of India. I'll try to publish my next stories more quickly.)
After two weeks of playing English teacher, I went traveling again. The plan was to be back in Cuddalore two weeks later, after the summer holidays. That would give me enough time to go around the southeast coast, and the state of Kerala. My main destination was the famous backwaters: a chain of brackish lagoons and lakes lying parallel to the Arabian Sea coast of Kerala, forming a network of more than 900km of waterways (Wikipedia, it’s good to have you). A French guy I met in the North had told me how he rented a canoe, and spent 7 days on the backwaters on his own, just paddling around, sleeping in villages, where he hung his hammock between two palm trees. I was dreaming of doing the same; my only potential enemy was the monsoon, which usually starts around the 1st of June (I left on May, 15th). But instead of going there first, as any logically thinking idiot would, I went straight south first. The reason for this was that the Danish girl who worked for Bhanu before me was going that way at the same time, and when you’re in South India in low season, company is a scarce and precious good.
The first and obligatory stop was Madurai, that houses the “Taj Mahal of the South”. The Meenakshi Sundareswaran temple, which stands as one of India’s greatest cultural and architectural landmarks, is one of the greatest Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu (Wikipedia, I think I love you). This house of gods is one of the must-sees according to my personal catechism, “25 ultimate experiences in India”. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood; maybe it wasn’t the right period to visit; or perhaps I’m just not the temple-visiting type of guy – whatever the reason, I didn’t really feel the magic. Don’t get me wrong, the place is nice. It’s a big and impressive complex, with colorful gopurams (towers) on the outside, and a maze of corridors and halls on the inside. We went early in the morning, and the atmosphere was relaxed, people piously and serenely performing their religious rituals. So let’s say it was nice to see, but I wouldn’t really include it in my India Hit Parade 2010.
Madurai itself was hot and dusty, so we didn’t stay long. We took a bus to Kanyakumari, a.k.a. Cape Comorin, the southernmost tip of India. It’s a special place, because three seas meet there: the Arabian Sea (west), the Indian Ocean (south) and the Gulf of Mannar (east). I had been looking forward to being there. I would stand there, I pictured, arms spread and wind in my hair, with a sense of joy and victory, thinking about all this distance I crossed, all this land I conquered, the waves of three different seas crashing on the rocks in roaring thunder, the sun projecting rainbows in the water drops, children cheering and dozens of sitars playing victorious tunes, and… okay, okay, enough. Anyway, surprisingly, it wasn’t like that. After careful investigation, I have identified the most important cause of this failure: Indian mass tourism. Believe it or not, it’s kind of hard to enjoy the tip of India when it’s crowded by approx. 50 people/m2. Sunrise and sunset are, of course, the biggest attractions. There again, my idea of a romantic sunset on some beautiful beach resulted somewhat illusionary. The sinking sun can only be admired from and ugly and, of course, overcrowded concrete viewing point. Sunrise, on the other hand, is visible from the seaside; but, unfortunately, it was foggy. This didn’t stop hordes of tourists from staring at the invisible horizon and taking dozens of pictures when the long-risen sun finally pierced through the clouds; it was Tiger Hill all over again (for more details on this and many other amazing adventures in the North, the reader is kindly referred to http://julienisgone.blogspot.com/2010/04/serendipity-vs-planning.html). What I did like about Kanya South, are the two small islands just off the coast. One is the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, built in 1970 for this fellow who reportedly meditated on a rock there (contrary to what it might sound like, he’s not a popular musician, but a spiritual teacher). The other island is the gigantic 405m tall statue of Tamil saint-poet Thiruvalluvar, completed on January 1st, 2000 (Wikipedia, would you marry me?).
After Kanyakumari, as my Danish companion proceeded southwest, I went back to some 80km north from there. Why, you may ask? Let me explain. My father had sent me an email a couple of weeks before to tell me that if I wanted to work in an NGO in South India, I could try to contact an organization called SCAD, where many people from Antwerp are involved. Some weeks later, when I told the girl who had set me up with Bhanu about my traveling plans, she recommended the exact same organization. I knew it was somewhere in South India, but I had no idea of where exactly. When I was in Madurai, even though with the backwaters on my mind I didn’t feel like working at that time, I thought I might as well look up the address, in case I would be in the neighborhood. The name of the city, Tirunelveli, didn’t sound familiar, so I resolved to buy a map of Tamil Nadu – which, of course, I forgot. The next day, on the bus to Kanyakumari, at some point I was staring out the window and I saw a name that sounded strangely familiar: Tirunelveli! Serendipity, anyone? SCAD (Social Change and Development) is a huge organization. They operate from Tirunelveli, but their area is huge; they are active in dozens of villages, and reach thousands of people. They take care of all kinds of underprivileged people and communities, like homeless people, disabled children, saltpan workers and their children, gypsies, leprosies, snake catchers, elderly people, quarry workers, left-handed people, Jessica Simpson fans, … (okay, maybe not the last two). They get a lot of funding from abroad, but they make quite some money themselves as well. They have huge colleges and schools, where students pay according to their parents’ income. All the money generated there, of course, flows to the projects. Even though I had called just one day ahead, I was received like a king – which make me feel a bit uncomfortable. I was picked up at the bus station by an empty school bus and brought to a fancy guest house, in the most luxurious room I had seen in months: real shower, flat-screen TV, AC, … SCAD doesn’t lack money, that much is clear. There was only one other guest, with whom I shared the delicious and hearty dinner, made by our private cook. The next day I briefly met the chairman – a very busy man – and talked to a couple of his staff members. They told me that perhaps I could work with the ortho-technician, who makes all kinds of orthopedic devices for the disabled children. I had to wait until June, though, because of the summer holidays - same story as in Cuddalore, and perfectly compatible with my plans. The only problem was that Bhanu expected me to come back to Cuddalore. Luckily, in a rare moment of foresight, I had taken all my luggage, for in case I wouldn’t come back. Since I felt I could do something a bit more related to my qualifications, and since, despite the external funding, SCAD is a good example of social entrepreneurship, one of my hobby-horses, the choice was easily made: exit Blessing Kids, enter SCAD.
But before getting back to work, I had ten days to pursue my Keralan dream – the backwaters. But again, instead of going there directly, I made an intermediate stop on the coast of Kerala. Varkala is a beach town I had heart many good things about. I was planning to stay there only one night, though, because I expected it to be kind of dead. But then, disaster struck. The condensation of moist, hot air over the Bay of Bengal had slowly led to the formation of cyclone Laila. This temperamental lady was so big, that her outskirts reached the coast of Kerala. And the heavy winds that tormented the east coast of India, at the same time snatched away my romantic dream. Damn you, weather gods! Fortunately, I met some nice people there, some of which were going to the backwaters too, “the day after tomorrow”. So I thought I’d spend one more night there and join them, so we could rent a houseboat together. I ended up staying for five days. This is partly due to the fact that, as I found out, my potential backwater buddies said they would leave “the day after tomorrow” every day. But mainly, the place was so laid-back, the company so nice, and the weather so bad, that it seemed to be the best option to stick around in Varkala. I must admit it weren’t the most active days of my trip. The days passed according to a fixed schedule: sleeping late, having brunch, going to the beach, having dinner, and finally, where it all led up to, having a drink, or two. I think I spent about four times more on alcohol than on the room (don’t worry mum, it’s not as bad as it sounds; it’s just that the room was very a and the alcohol very expensive). After five days, it was definitely time to move on. A Dutch friend I new from Cuddalore had caught up with me, so we went to the backwaters together. The others were reportedly leaving “definitely the day after tomorrow”.
And so there I finally was: the backwaters. Not in a canoe, as I had hoped, but in a noisy, polluting, motorized houseboat. But at least I saw the place, and the weather gods seemed to have a bit of compassion: it didn’t rain. The backwaters…remember when I told you about the beautiful landscapes and roadside of Tamil Nadu? The backwaters are similar, but the roads are replaced by water, and the fields by lakes. The thousands of palm trees are beautifully reflected in the perfectly still water. At the sides of the canals, women are washing clothes, kids are playing in the water, and men are bathing or fishing. Long canoes pass by, transporting sometimes old men, sometimes young children, sometimes entire families.
After a beautiful night in the backwaters, we went to Kochi. The island of Fort Kochi was the first European settlement in India. It has been ruled subsequently by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Fort Kochi is the most relaxed town I’ve been to in India. There was a cultural centre where we saw local music and theater, which was very special, and very nice. Then, as my Dutch friend headed further north, I had a couple of days left before I had to go back to Tamil Nadu. So I returned to the backwaters, and I spent one night in a “homestay” there, a room in local people’s house, in the middle of the backwaters. I did a bicycle trip on one of the islands, where I ended up in at the side of really small canals with wooden bridges and a natural roof of palm leaves; just beautiful. And guess what, I actually got to do some canoeing! Which, of course, just made me realize even more what I had missed out on. I definitely need to go back someday…
After two weeks of playing English teacher, I went traveling again. The plan was to be back in Cuddalore two weeks later, after the summer holidays. That would give me enough time to go around the southeast coast, and the state of Kerala. My main destination was the famous backwaters: a chain of brackish lagoons and lakes lying parallel to the Arabian Sea coast of Kerala, forming a network of more than 900km of waterways (Wikipedia, it’s good to have you). A French guy I met in the North had told me how he rented a canoe, and spent 7 days on the backwaters on his own, just paddling around, sleeping in villages, where he hung his hammock between two palm trees. I was dreaming of doing the same; my only potential enemy was the monsoon, which usually starts around the 1st of June (I left on May, 15th). But instead of going there first, as any logically thinking idiot would, I went straight south first. The reason for this was that the Danish girl who worked for Bhanu before me was going that way at the same time, and when you’re in South India in low season, company is a scarce and precious good.
The first and obligatory stop was Madurai, that houses the “Taj Mahal of the South”. The Meenakshi Sundareswaran temple, which stands as one of India’s greatest cultural and architectural landmarks, is one of the greatest Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu (Wikipedia, I think I love you). This house of gods is one of the must-sees according to my personal catechism, “25 ultimate experiences in India”. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood; maybe it wasn’t the right period to visit; or perhaps I’m just not the temple-visiting type of guy – whatever the reason, I didn’t really feel the magic. Don’t get me wrong, the place is nice. It’s a big and impressive complex, with colorful gopurams (towers) on the outside, and a maze of corridors and halls on the inside. We went early in the morning, and the atmosphere was relaxed, people piously and serenely performing their religious rituals. So let’s say it was nice to see, but I wouldn’t really include it in my India Hit Parade 2010.
Madurai itself was hot and dusty, so we didn’t stay long. We took a bus to Kanyakumari, a.k.a. Cape Comorin, the southernmost tip of India. It’s a special place, because three seas meet there: the Arabian Sea (west), the Indian Ocean (south) and the Gulf of Mannar (east). I had been looking forward to being there. I would stand there, I pictured, arms spread and wind in my hair, with a sense of joy and victory, thinking about all this distance I crossed, all this land I conquered, the waves of three different seas crashing on the rocks in roaring thunder, the sun projecting rainbows in the water drops, children cheering and dozens of sitars playing victorious tunes, and… okay, okay, enough. Anyway, surprisingly, it wasn’t like that. After careful investigation, I have identified the most important cause of this failure: Indian mass tourism. Believe it or not, it’s kind of hard to enjoy the tip of India when it’s crowded by approx. 50 people/m2. Sunrise and sunset are, of course, the biggest attractions. There again, my idea of a romantic sunset on some beautiful beach resulted somewhat illusionary. The sinking sun can only be admired from and ugly and, of course, overcrowded concrete viewing point. Sunrise, on the other hand, is visible from the seaside; but, unfortunately, it was foggy. This didn’t stop hordes of tourists from staring at the invisible horizon and taking dozens of pictures when the long-risen sun finally pierced through the clouds; it was Tiger Hill all over again (for more details on this and many other amazing adventures in the North, the reader is kindly referred to http://julienisgone.blogspot.com/2010/04/serendipity-vs-planning.html). What I did like about Kanya South, are the two small islands just off the coast. One is the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, built in 1970 for this fellow who reportedly meditated on a rock there (contrary to what it might sound like, he’s not a popular musician, but a spiritual teacher). The other island is the gigantic 405m tall statue of Tamil saint-poet Thiruvalluvar, completed on January 1st, 2000 (Wikipedia, would you marry me?).
After Kanyakumari, as my Danish companion proceeded southwest, I went back to some 80km north from there. Why, you may ask? Let me explain. My father had sent me an email a couple of weeks before to tell me that if I wanted to work in an NGO in South India, I could try to contact an organization called SCAD, where many people from Antwerp are involved. Some weeks later, when I told the girl who had set me up with Bhanu about my traveling plans, she recommended the exact same organization. I knew it was somewhere in South India, but I had no idea of where exactly. When I was in Madurai, even though with the backwaters on my mind I didn’t feel like working at that time, I thought I might as well look up the address, in case I would be in the neighborhood. The name of the city, Tirunelveli, didn’t sound familiar, so I resolved to buy a map of Tamil Nadu – which, of course, I forgot. The next day, on the bus to Kanyakumari, at some point I was staring out the window and I saw a name that sounded strangely familiar: Tirunelveli! Serendipity, anyone? SCAD (Social Change and Development) is a huge organization. They operate from Tirunelveli, but their area is huge; they are active in dozens of villages, and reach thousands of people. They take care of all kinds of underprivileged people and communities, like homeless people, disabled children, saltpan workers and their children, gypsies, leprosies, snake catchers, elderly people, quarry workers, left-handed people, Jessica Simpson fans, … (okay, maybe not the last two). They get a lot of funding from abroad, but they make quite some money themselves as well. They have huge colleges and schools, where students pay according to their parents’ income. All the money generated there, of course, flows to the projects. Even though I had called just one day ahead, I was received like a king – which make me feel a bit uncomfortable. I was picked up at the bus station by an empty school bus and brought to a fancy guest house, in the most luxurious room I had seen in months: real shower, flat-screen TV, AC, … SCAD doesn’t lack money, that much is clear. There was only one other guest, with whom I shared the delicious and hearty dinner, made by our private cook. The next day I briefly met the chairman – a very busy man – and talked to a couple of his staff members. They told me that perhaps I could work with the ortho-technician, who makes all kinds of orthopedic devices for the disabled children. I had to wait until June, though, because of the summer holidays - same story as in Cuddalore, and perfectly compatible with my plans. The only problem was that Bhanu expected me to come back to Cuddalore. Luckily, in a rare moment of foresight, I had taken all my luggage, for in case I wouldn’t come back. Since I felt I could do something a bit more related to my qualifications, and since, despite the external funding, SCAD is a good example of social entrepreneurship, one of my hobby-horses, the choice was easily made: exit Blessing Kids, enter SCAD.
But before getting back to work, I had ten days to pursue my Keralan dream – the backwaters. But again, instead of going there directly, I made an intermediate stop on the coast of Kerala. Varkala is a beach town I had heart many good things about. I was planning to stay there only one night, though, because I expected it to be kind of dead. But then, disaster struck. The condensation of moist, hot air over the Bay of Bengal had slowly led to the formation of cyclone Laila. This temperamental lady was so big, that her outskirts reached the coast of Kerala. And the heavy winds that tormented the east coast of India, at the same time snatched away my romantic dream. Damn you, weather gods! Fortunately, I met some nice people there, some of which were going to the backwaters too, “the day after tomorrow”. So I thought I’d spend one more night there and join them, so we could rent a houseboat together. I ended up staying for five days. This is partly due to the fact that, as I found out, my potential backwater buddies said they would leave “the day after tomorrow” every day. But mainly, the place was so laid-back, the company so nice, and the weather so bad, that it seemed to be the best option to stick around in Varkala. I must admit it weren’t the most active days of my trip. The days passed according to a fixed schedule: sleeping late, having brunch, going to the beach, having dinner, and finally, where it all led up to, having a drink, or two. I think I spent about four times more on alcohol than on the room (don’t worry mum, it’s not as bad as it sounds; it’s just that the room was very a and the alcohol very expensive). After five days, it was definitely time to move on. A Dutch friend I new from Cuddalore had caught up with me, so we went to the backwaters together. The others were reportedly leaving “definitely the day after tomorrow”.
And so there I finally was: the backwaters. Not in a canoe, as I had hoped, but in a noisy, polluting, motorized houseboat. But at least I saw the place, and the weather gods seemed to have a bit of compassion: it didn’t rain. The backwaters…remember when I told you about the beautiful landscapes and roadside of Tamil Nadu? The backwaters are similar, but the roads are replaced by water, and the fields by lakes. The thousands of palm trees are beautifully reflected in the perfectly still water. At the sides of the canals, women are washing clothes, kids are playing in the water, and men are bathing or fishing. Long canoes pass by, transporting sometimes old men, sometimes young children, sometimes entire families.
After a beautiful night in the backwaters, we went to Kochi. The island of Fort Kochi was the first European settlement in India. It has been ruled subsequently by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Fort Kochi is the most relaxed town I’ve been to in India. There was a cultural centre where we saw local music and theater, which was very special, and very nice. Then, as my Dutch friend headed further north, I had a couple of days left before I had to go back to Tamil Nadu. So I returned to the backwaters, and I spent one night in a “homestay” there, a room in local people’s house, in the middle of the backwaters. I did a bicycle trip on one of the islands, where I ended up in at the side of really small canals with wooden bridges and a natural roof of palm leaves; just beautiful. And guess what, I actually got to do some canoeing! Which, of course, just made me realize even more what I had missed out on. I definitely need to go back someday…
June 17, 2010
Tamil Nadu - additional considerations
In my previous post, I talked about Tamil Nadu and Indian culture. I realized afterwards that I had written mainly negative things. Just like the news tends to focus only on the bad things that happen in the world, I told you only about the downsides of this extremely traditional state. I will try to rectify that in this post.
More than once, in my previous stories, I have written lyrically about the traditional dresses, means of transportation, etc. It is, indeed, very romantic and picturesque to see women in sari, men on bullock carts, and people working in the fields, like they have been doing for centuries. This, however, is but appearance; it has no intrinsic value. Much more essential, with this the old tradition come values that we, in our culture, are slowly forgetting. I don’t want to sound like Sarah Palin, but it’s true that in our society, less and less attention is given to family. Not so in Tamil Nadu. Family is everything; as a man, you will live with your parents, together with your wife and kids, earning money for all of them if you have to, and you will take care for them until they die. A similar thing happens with friendship. In our culture, it’s all about being ‘cool’, and not showing too much affection. Call your friends every day, and you will look like kind of a stalker. In India – because this holds, I think, for the whole country – friendship is much more intense. Sometimes foreigners mistakenly think a lot of Indian boys are gay; holding hands or putting their arms around each other’s shoulders is common for guys here. From the couple of Indian friends I made, I receive messages like “good night”, or “have a good day”, or sometimes poems about friendship which, to me, are very corny and ‘un-cool’ – but in the end, they are just being very nice. One last example I would like to give is the children. The two weeks I taught English weren’t the easiest, but I must say, that was in spite of the children’s character. They listened when I talked, were respectful, always called me ‘sir’, and cooperated well (that is, when they understood what I was saying). They don’t seem to have that arrogance that our kids, spoilt by TV and Internet, get more and more nowadays.
To sum up, most people here are extremely sweet. In Tamil Nadu, a lot of people don’t really know how to behave with foreign people. They stare, giggle, and ask you the same annoying questions every time. But when you need some help, the can be the nicest people you’ll ever meet. In general, I shouldn’t forget to mention that if a considerable part of the people I meet here in India either act strange or try to sell me something, to trick me or to rip me off, many are the ones that help me out in difficult situations. I am often completely helpless, especially when I’m trying to find the way, or looking for a bus or for the right platform in a railway stations. Dozens of people help me throughout my journey, most of them in the kindest way, in spite of the language problems. And oftentimes, in the stress and the chaos of the moment, I probably don’t even thank them in a decent way. So here, once and for all, I say: thank you to all those nice people who help me, because I would be lost without them.
June 15, 2010
Tamil Nadu and Indian culture
The first thing that struck me about Tamil Nadu is the way people dress. Literally all women wear traditional clothes, as do many men, and you will virtually never see a man who doesn’t sport a thick black mustache. The most commonly worn clothing by women is the sari - for those who don’t know this symbol of Indian culture: it’s a long piece of cloth wrapped around the body. Women also wear a lot of jewelry: golden earrings, necklaces and bangles, silver chains with tinkling bells on both ankles, and toe rings. A lot of them wear flowers in their hair; the first day I asked Bhanu if there was some kind of a celebration, so cheerfully dressed everybody looked. Many men – I estimate around half of them – wear a lungi, a simple piece of cloth they tie around their waste. This forms a skirt that normally covers their entire legs, but often they fold it to make it shorter, so that it reaches just above their knees. The most formal dress for a man is a dhoti, a kind of lungi, usually white –that's what most politicians wear. Not only the clothes have barely altered in many years. Tamil is one of the oldest living languages in the world; the earliest records date from about 200BC. According to some scholars, its ancestor, Proto-Dravidian, is related to the language of the Harappans, the people of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization.
Men vs women:
It’s fascinating that people keep century-old traditions in these modern times, but the downsides of tradition seem to be kept alive as well. Even the clothes reflect an inequality between men and women, deeply rooted in their society. While women are wrapped up like candy – I’ve been told that a sari is very uncomfortable and hot, because of the many layers of cloth – men walk around in their short kilts, often proudly parading their fat brown bellies. As for the anklets, although they are my favorite piece of their jewelry, I can’t help but interpret them as “I want to hear wherever my woman goes”, a bit like a cowbell – but that's probably exaggerated. Either way, the relations between men and women are very restricted. Girls and boys are not really allowed to interact until they get married – a marriage that is, in a vast majority of the cases, arranged (official numbers are hard to find; many sources on the internet say 95% in India). Arranged marriages are, as I understand it, a consequence of another well-known source of inequalities in India: the caste system. Three main elements define communities in India: language, religion and caste. Marrying someone from another community, and especially from a lower caste, is regarded as a disgrace. That’s why marriages are arranged, and that’s why contact between boys and girls is restricted: falling in love with the wrong person could ruin their lives. Bhanu, my host in Cuddalore, comes from a Hindu family and married, out of love, a Christian, supposedly from a lower caste. According to what she told me, she seems to live in permanent conflict with most members of her family. I lived and worked on a university campus, where the canteens were separated for boys and girls - as were, of course, the dorms. And – with my legendary sense of observation, it took me a while to notice it – in buses, the front seats, where I usually sat at first, are exclusively occupied by women (yes, it took me a while to notice; and even when I did notice, the first few times I just thought :"wow, I'm surrounded by ladies! It must be my magnetic charm....").
Religion and caste influence more than just relationships between men and women. One day, at the copy shop, I saw someone printing his resume. Apart from mentioning religion – that alone is pretty unusual to us – the personal data included “community”, a two-letter abbreviation. I questioned Bhanu about it, and she told me that it was, in effect, the caste. If someone from a higher caste applies for the same job as you, she said, you will never get it, no matter how qualified you are. On the other hand, there seems to be some positive discrimination, as political actions are being undertaken to improve the situation of people from lower castes. The Indian law contains a controversial quota system for employment and education, referred to as “reservation” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India). I didn’t realize the caste system was official; indeed, it’s Indian government that gives you a “caste certificate” and thus puts you in a fictive category with names like “backward classes”. I must admit the caste system is complex, and I would need to do much more research to fully understand it. Apparently, the use of castes by the government was initiated by the British, who grouped the population into communities, equivalently to their own class system, to facilitate the organization of the country. This grouping was based on existing religious castes and tribes. There was a certain hierarchy in these castes, but the British made it more rigid than it was. So any person in India is a member of some caste, usually associated with the occupation of his ancestors. And this caste is classified in one of the big groups, like “backward classes” or “upper classes”. These big groups are the ones that determine the quota for employment and education. When it comes to marriage, people usually stay inside their specific caste. (I’m sure some of you understand this better than I do; feel free to explain!) Another tradition that is still in use is the payment of a dowry. The family of the bride pays a sum of money (or gives a car, or a TV, ...) to the family of the groom; the higher the caste, the higher the sum. The couple usually moves in with the husband's family; so I guess the dowry can be considered as a payment for the wife's food and accommodation. What people don't really seem to know, is that Indian law prohibits the payment of dowry since 1961. The dowry system unavoidably led (and leads?) to sex selection. That's why prenatal determination of sex is illegal here in India - to prevent sex-selective abortion.
Apart from caste, I have mentioned religion. “What is your religion?” is a very common question in India. I have met many Hindus, Muslims and Christians, and they have one thing in common: all of them are very dedicated to their religion. When I answer, as I always do, “no religion; I’m atheist”, they usually look at me as if I came from another planet. It’s funny, by the way, to go to church and see all these Indian people being more devoted Christians then our grandparents ever were. It makes you realize how little religion has to do with culture, I guess – religion is shaped to fit the local culture, and not the contrary. People who are scared of “the Muslims” or “the Hindus” should come to India: people here are Hindu, or Muslim, or Christian, or Sikh, or Sufi, or whatever, but in the end I find it similarly hard to interact with either one of them, simply because they are Indians, and Indian culture is so different from European culture (and even that last statement, I realize, is probably an unacceptable generalization).
Now, all of this – the religion, the castes, the chasteness – is just the cover, the official truth. Not all the young people actually want an arranged marriage, or to have no contact with the opposite sex until they get married, or to be able to marry only someone from their own caste. But they don’t really have a choice. The way I see it – but I’m just guessing; I wish I was an anthropologist, and a historian, and a theologist – people got stuck in this community-based system. No-one ventures not to be religious, or to marry someone from another community, or to wear jeans, or they will be expelled from their community and become outcasts. This means conflict, struggling to find a job, and not being able to marry their children; so it’s just easier to play along. The risks are just too high; if the truth comes out, and you get a bad reputation, you will have a very hard time getting married – especially if you’re a girl. Sometimes it gets even worse; every couple of weeks, I read things like “girl hacked to death for eloping with lover”, “couple shot dead in honour killing in Punjab”, “yet another ‘honour killing’ in Haryana”. It used to be not so very different in our society (apart maybe from the killings). I know my grandmother’s marriage was kind of arranged, and when they went dancing it was never without the company of chaperons; and I suppose that if she would have fallen in love with a factory worker, she wouldn’t even have to think about marrying him. How did it change, then? The sexual revolution, I guess? The only way to break out of that system of hypocrisy is when some strong personalities, some rebels, say what everybody thinks and do what every wants to do. Many of the heroes of our recent generations are rebels: Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Serge Gainsbourg, Jim Morrison, Madonna, … That’s the kind of people who push radical changes in society, where everybody gets rid of those self-imposed handcuffs and finally breaks out of that vicious circle of hypocrisy. I asked one of my friends about singers and actors here in Tamil Nadu, and he told me they are just as hypocrite as everybody else, if not more. They try to look like ideal son-in-laws, while they probably take drugs and party more than other people. Their pop stars are (or pretend to be) conformists, who are religious, chaste, and care about their family. What a contrast with the Lady Gagas, Paris Hiltons and Kurt Cobains of our Western culture! I'm not saying that they should have Lady Gagas – I begging them not to – but I think maybe some rebellion wouldn't do harm. There is hope, though. Especially in the cities, things aren’t that extreme anymore - actually, these things I talked about hold mainly for villages. In big cities, people dress however they want, have boyfriends and girlfriends, and even marry out of love sometimes. This is slowly spreading out to the rural areas. Parents of the next generation will probably be much milder to their children, and the old system will slowly disappear. I hope they will keep wearing their traditional clothes every once in a while, though, because it's a pleasure to the eye.
Men vs women:
It’s fascinating that people keep century-old traditions in these modern times, but the downsides of tradition seem to be kept alive as well. Even the clothes reflect an inequality between men and women, deeply rooted in their society. While women are wrapped up like candy – I’ve been told that a sari is very uncomfortable and hot, because of the many layers of cloth – men walk around in their short kilts, often proudly parading their fat brown bellies. As for the anklets, although they are my favorite piece of their jewelry, I can’t help but interpret them as “I want to hear wherever my woman goes”, a bit like a cowbell – but that's probably exaggerated. Either way, the relations between men and women are very restricted. Girls and boys are not really allowed to interact until they get married – a marriage that is, in a vast majority of the cases, arranged (official numbers are hard to find; many sources on the internet say 95% in India). Arranged marriages are, as I understand it, a consequence of another well-known source of inequalities in India: the caste system. Three main elements define communities in India: language, religion and caste. Marrying someone from another community, and especially from a lower caste, is regarded as a disgrace. That’s why marriages are arranged, and that’s why contact between boys and girls is restricted: falling in love with the wrong person could ruin their lives. Bhanu, my host in Cuddalore, comes from a Hindu family and married, out of love, a Christian, supposedly from a lower caste. According to what she told me, she seems to live in permanent conflict with most members of her family. I lived and worked on a university campus, where the canteens were separated for boys and girls - as were, of course, the dorms. And – with my legendary sense of observation, it took me a while to notice it – in buses, the front seats, where I usually sat at first, are exclusively occupied by women (yes, it took me a while to notice; and even when I did notice, the first few times I just thought :"wow, I'm surrounded by ladies! It must be my magnetic charm....").
Religion and caste influence more than just relationships between men and women. One day, at the copy shop, I saw someone printing his resume. Apart from mentioning religion – that alone is pretty unusual to us – the personal data included “community”, a two-letter abbreviation. I questioned Bhanu about it, and she told me that it was, in effect, the caste. If someone from a higher caste applies for the same job as you, she said, you will never get it, no matter how qualified you are. On the other hand, there seems to be some positive discrimination, as political actions are being undertaken to improve the situation of people from lower castes. The Indian law contains a controversial quota system for employment and education, referred to as “reservation” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India). I didn’t realize the caste system was official; indeed, it’s Indian government that gives you a “caste certificate” and thus puts you in a fictive category with names like “backward classes”. I must admit the caste system is complex, and I would need to do much more research to fully understand it. Apparently, the use of castes by the government was initiated by the British, who grouped the population into communities, equivalently to their own class system, to facilitate the organization of the country. This grouping was based on existing religious castes and tribes. There was a certain hierarchy in these castes, but the British made it more rigid than it was. So any person in India is a member of some caste, usually associated with the occupation of his ancestors. And this caste is classified in one of the big groups, like “backward classes” or “upper classes”. These big groups are the ones that determine the quota for employment and education. When it comes to marriage, people usually stay inside their specific caste. (I’m sure some of you understand this better than I do; feel free to explain!) Another tradition that is still in use is the payment of a dowry. The family of the bride pays a sum of money (or gives a car, or a TV, ...) to the family of the groom; the higher the caste, the higher the sum. The couple usually moves in with the husband's family; so I guess the dowry can be considered as a payment for the wife's food and accommodation. What people don't really seem to know, is that Indian law prohibits the payment of dowry since 1961. The dowry system unavoidably led (and leads?) to sex selection. That's why prenatal determination of sex is illegal here in India - to prevent sex-selective abortion.
Apart from caste, I have mentioned religion. “What is your religion?” is a very common question in India. I have met many Hindus, Muslims and Christians, and they have one thing in common: all of them are very dedicated to their religion. When I answer, as I always do, “no religion; I’m atheist”, they usually look at me as if I came from another planet. It’s funny, by the way, to go to church and see all these Indian people being more devoted Christians then our grandparents ever were. It makes you realize how little religion has to do with culture, I guess – religion is shaped to fit the local culture, and not the contrary. People who are scared of “the Muslims” or “the Hindus” should come to India: people here are Hindu, or Muslim, or Christian, or Sikh, or Sufi, or whatever, but in the end I find it similarly hard to interact with either one of them, simply because they are Indians, and Indian culture is so different from European culture (and even that last statement, I realize, is probably an unacceptable generalization).
Now, all of this – the religion, the castes, the chasteness – is just the cover, the official truth. Not all the young people actually want an arranged marriage, or to have no contact with the opposite sex until they get married, or to be able to marry only someone from their own caste. But they don’t really have a choice. The way I see it – but I’m just guessing; I wish I was an anthropologist, and a historian, and a theologist – people got stuck in this community-based system. No-one ventures not to be religious, or to marry someone from another community, or to wear jeans, or they will be expelled from their community and become outcasts. This means conflict, struggling to find a job, and not being able to marry their children; so it’s just easier to play along. The risks are just too high; if the truth comes out, and you get a bad reputation, you will have a very hard time getting married – especially if you’re a girl. Sometimes it gets even worse; every couple of weeks, I read things like “girl hacked to death for eloping with lover”, “couple shot dead in honour killing in Punjab”, “yet another ‘honour killing’ in Haryana”. It used to be not so very different in our society (apart maybe from the killings). I know my grandmother’s marriage was kind of arranged, and when they went dancing it was never without the company of chaperons; and I suppose that if she would have fallen in love with a factory worker, she wouldn’t even have to think about marrying him. How did it change, then? The sexual revolution, I guess? The only way to break out of that system of hypocrisy is when some strong personalities, some rebels, say what everybody thinks and do what every wants to do. Many of the heroes of our recent generations are rebels: Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Serge Gainsbourg, Jim Morrison, Madonna, … That’s the kind of people who push radical changes in society, where everybody gets rid of those self-imposed handcuffs and finally breaks out of that vicious circle of hypocrisy. I asked one of my friends about singers and actors here in Tamil Nadu, and he told me they are just as hypocrite as everybody else, if not more. They try to look like ideal son-in-laws, while they probably take drugs and party more than other people. Their pop stars are (or pretend to be) conformists, who are religious, chaste, and care about their family. What a contrast with the Lady Gagas, Paris Hiltons and Kurt Cobains of our Western culture! I'm not saying that they should have Lady Gagas – I begging them not to – but I think maybe some rebellion wouldn't do harm. There is hope, though. Especially in the cities, things aren’t that extreme anymore - actually, these things I talked about hold mainly for villages. In big cities, people dress however they want, have boyfriends and girlfriends, and even marry out of love sometimes. This is slowly spreading out to the rural areas. Parents of the next generation will probably be much milder to their children, and the old system will slowly disappear. I hope they will keep wearing their traditional clothes every once in a while, though, because it's a pleasure to the eye.
June 7, 2010
English vocabulary, Chinese football and Indian roads
When we got back from the trip to Ooty and Mysore, I still didn’t know what I was going to do for Blessing Kids. Bhanu took me to a village to meet a lady who has a trust that takes care of the physically disabled. She asked me if I could conduct some sort of summer camp for children, where I would teach them English and play games with them. I told Bhanu this wasn’t exactly what I had come to do, and that I wasn’t really qualified to do it. But since there was nothing else to do – because of the summer holidays, her own projects weren’t running – I agreed to give it a try for two weeks. This humble engineer had to convert himself into a merciless English teacher. I was going to have to take care of 15 healthy and 15 disabled children, on my own, starting the next day. With hindsight, I realize this was madness; luckily, it never got to this point.
The next day, without any preparation, I took care of 11 children, only one of which was slightly disabled. I improvised, testing their basic reading, writing and language skills and letting them play their own games. That was on Friday; the next Monday I went back to the same village, better prepared this time. A couple of children had been added to the group, so, flexible as I am, I tested their knowledge too and let them join in. The differences in education were big, ranging from almost illiterate to a good knowledge of basic English vocabulary and spelling. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to play some language games and I started to really get to know the children. You can imagine my frustration when the next morning, an hour before leaving for work, I was told I would go to another village. That’s where I spent the rest of the two weeks. I taught English, literally under a tree, with nothing more than a chair and a tiny blackboard. I had to start remembering names and testing knowledge all over again. The group of children, apart from a couple of faithful followers, changed a lot; almost every day, children would leave or join the group. Again, there were big differences in education level, and also in age – the youngest kid was 7 years old, the oldest one 14.
The biggest problem was that I had no translator. Luckily, the oldest children had a reasonable level of English. They learn it at school, 45 minutes every day, and some of the children had just completed their 5th year. No need to explain them what a cucumber or a helicopter is, or to tell them how to write those words. But the teachers in Tamil Nadu seem to overlook some crucial points. Try to ask these children a question – or anyone Tamil Nadu, for that matter – and you will most likely end up in a mad house. They don’t seem to ever even have heard words like “why”, “where” or “who”. What’s more, some basic verbs, like “to know”, “to mean” or “to understand”, seem to be unknown to them as well. What makes communicating even more difficult, is that people here have a very hard time admitting they don’t understand a single word of what you’re trying to tell them. They usually say “okay”, or “yes”, or just repeat part of what you said. So imagine conversations like:
Me: Who took the ball yesterday?
Children: …
Me: Who, which person? Don’t you know what “who” means?
Children: …
Me: Who knows what “who” means?
Children: …
Me: (slowly) Who knows what “who” means?
Children: (in chorus, at the same speed) Oo no what oo min.
Me: No no, I’m asking you, question: who knows what “who” means?
Children: …
Me: Anand, do you know what “who” means?
Anand: Okay, sir.
Me: (sigh) Do…you, Anand (pointing at Anand)…know (pointing at my head)…what…who, the word who, means?
Anand: (staring blankly)
Me: The meaning of the word who. Meaning, to mean, don’t you know what “to mean” means?
Children: …
Sometimes I did want them to repeat after me, for instance when I was teaching them a song:
Me: Okay, so repeat after me. If you’re happy…
Children: …
Me: Repeat…after…me, okay? So I say (pointing at myself)… you say (pointing at the children).
Children: (enthusiastically, in chorus) I say (pointing at themselves), you say (pointing at me)!
Me: (sigh) Okay, let’s try this. If you’re happy…
Children: …and you know it…
Me: No! Repeat…after…me! Repeat! Don’t you know what “to repeat” means?
Etc…
The biggest challenge came when one day, all of a sudden, a severely disabled boy, both physically and mentally, was dropped between the other children – they were all non-disabled (except for one kid, who proudly showed me his 12 fingers and 12 toes). I tried to explain that it would be really hard to manage, but they told me he was only there for one day and that I didn’t have to take care of him, he would just sit there and observe the others. He ended up staying until the last day, being relatively discrete but claiming my attention every once in a while. And just imagine having the type of conversations I described earlier, with in the background a kid that is literally crawling around and uttering incoherent sounds. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for those nerves of steel I ordered a couple of months ago.
Luckily, the number of children rarely exceeded 15, and I worked only from 10am to 3pm (with lunch break). I still had two challenging weeks, though. It was no doubt the most difficult part of my trip until now; I felt lonely, discouraged by the many problems, and I missed the careless life of a backpacker. But I dealt with it the only way I could: trying to be the best darn English teacher I could. Every day I spent several hours preparing games and exercises; luckily, I had some reference material from someone who did something similar before. When I taught them vocabulary, things usually went well. We had a lot of fun playing games like Memory and Pictionary; it was rewarding to hear them enthusiastically cry out words I had taught them. During the breaks, we played games I remembered from my childhood – the biggest hit was Chinese football. “Sir, sir, Chinese football, sir!”, I can still here them call out every five minutes. So I managed, but I still felt reluctant to go to work, and I was relieved every time that part of the day was over.
In the weekends, I usually went to Pondicherry, where thanks to the Danish girl I knew some other volunteers. Before going to Cuddalore, I had this romantic idea of being completely isolated in some Indian village; but when you have to face big challenges every day in an unfamiliar environment, it’s such a relief to have a beer and talk to people you can actually communicate with, that it’s hard to renounce. On weekdays, my favorite way of escaping reality was my scooter. After that first time I rented a moped in Pondy, I decided the fun it gave me was worth taking the risk of facing Indian traffic – as a compromise, I wore a helmet, contrary to 99.9% of local drivers. It was interesting to become an active part of the crazy traffic I had been observing for several months. It was exhausting at first, but once I got the hang of it – left thumb on the horn, the rest of the fingers on the brake, and following the most important (and only) priority rule: “I always have priority, except if you’re big enough to kill me”– I enjoyed it a lot. It was a way to feel free, and to explore the surroundings. Around Cuddalore like in all of India, I love the roads. I drove among many motorbikes – a lot of them with women sitting sideways –, cars, noisy autorickshaws, rusty bicycles, bullock carts, and unreasonably fast trucks and buses with their loud horns, all overtaking each other from both sides, honking frantically. The dusty roadside is populated by women in their colorful sarees, sometimes carrying things on their heads, men adjusting their lunghis (traditional skirts), kids in their school uniforms, and various animals like cows, goats and dogs, who have the great habit of crossing the road at the most random moments – quite unusual obstacles. Sometimes, when there was not too much traffic around, I would pick up speed and enjoy the green landscape flashing by, feeling free as a bird.
After two weeks, as the relative comfort of routine was slowly setting in, my task of English teaching came to an end. I was still wondering what I was going to do next, when one night Bhanu suggested me to go traveling for two weeks and come back in June. Because of the holidays, there was no work for me, and I could take the opportunity to do some tourism before the monsoon came. Even though that sounded like a good plan, and in spite of the tough time I had had, I didn’t feel like leaving; I really started to feel at home in Melpattambakkam, and I would miss cruising around on my scooter and sitting on my terrace, gazing at the fields and palm trees that surrounded me. I would get bored if I stayed, though, so I decided to leave. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the start of a new adventure; I will tell you all about it in my next story.
The next day, without any preparation, I took care of 11 children, only one of which was slightly disabled. I improvised, testing their basic reading, writing and language skills and letting them play their own games. That was on Friday; the next Monday I went back to the same village, better prepared this time. A couple of children had been added to the group, so, flexible as I am, I tested their knowledge too and let them join in. The differences in education were big, ranging from almost illiterate to a good knowledge of basic English vocabulary and spelling. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to play some language games and I started to really get to know the children. You can imagine my frustration when the next morning, an hour before leaving for work, I was told I would go to another village. That’s where I spent the rest of the two weeks. I taught English, literally under a tree, with nothing more than a chair and a tiny blackboard. I had to start remembering names and testing knowledge all over again. The group of children, apart from a couple of faithful followers, changed a lot; almost every day, children would leave or join the group. Again, there were big differences in education level, and also in age – the youngest kid was 7 years old, the oldest one 14.
The biggest problem was that I had no translator. Luckily, the oldest children had a reasonable level of English. They learn it at school, 45 minutes every day, and some of the children had just completed their 5th year. No need to explain them what a cucumber or a helicopter is, or to tell them how to write those words. But the teachers in Tamil Nadu seem to overlook some crucial points. Try to ask these children a question – or anyone Tamil Nadu, for that matter – and you will most likely end up in a mad house. They don’t seem to ever even have heard words like “why”, “where” or “who”. What’s more, some basic verbs, like “to know”, “to mean” or “to understand”, seem to be unknown to them as well. What makes communicating even more difficult, is that people here have a very hard time admitting they don’t understand a single word of what you’re trying to tell them. They usually say “okay”, or “yes”, or just repeat part of what you said. So imagine conversations like:
Me: Who took the ball yesterday?
Children: …
Me: Who, which person? Don’t you know what “who” means?
Children: …
Me: Who knows what “who” means?
Children: …
Me: (slowly) Who knows what “who” means?
Children: (in chorus, at the same speed) Oo no what oo min.
Me: No no, I’m asking you, question: who knows what “who” means?
Children: …
Me: Anand, do you know what “who” means?
Anand: Okay, sir.
Me: (sigh) Do…you, Anand (pointing at Anand)…know (pointing at my head)…what…who, the word who, means?
Anand: (staring blankly)
Me: The meaning of the word who. Meaning, to mean, don’t you know what “to mean” means?
Children: …
Sometimes I did want them to repeat after me, for instance when I was teaching them a song:
Me: Okay, so repeat after me. If you’re happy…
Children: …
Me: Repeat…after…me, okay? So I say (pointing at myself)… you say (pointing at the children).
Children: (enthusiastically, in chorus) I say (pointing at themselves), you say (pointing at me)!
Me: (sigh) Okay, let’s try this. If you’re happy…
Children: …and you know it…
Me: No! Repeat…after…me! Repeat! Don’t you know what “to repeat” means?
Etc…
The biggest challenge came when one day, all of a sudden, a severely disabled boy, both physically and mentally, was dropped between the other children – they were all non-disabled (except for one kid, who proudly showed me his 12 fingers and 12 toes). I tried to explain that it would be really hard to manage, but they told me he was only there for one day and that I didn’t have to take care of him, he would just sit there and observe the others. He ended up staying until the last day, being relatively discrete but claiming my attention every once in a while. And just imagine having the type of conversations I described earlier, with in the background a kid that is literally crawling around and uttering incoherent sounds. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for those nerves of steel I ordered a couple of months ago.
Luckily, the number of children rarely exceeded 15, and I worked only from 10am to 3pm (with lunch break). I still had two challenging weeks, though. It was no doubt the most difficult part of my trip until now; I felt lonely, discouraged by the many problems, and I missed the careless life of a backpacker. But I dealt with it the only way I could: trying to be the best darn English teacher I could. Every day I spent several hours preparing games and exercises; luckily, I had some reference material from someone who did something similar before. When I taught them vocabulary, things usually went well. We had a lot of fun playing games like Memory and Pictionary; it was rewarding to hear them enthusiastically cry out words I had taught them. During the breaks, we played games I remembered from my childhood – the biggest hit was Chinese football. “Sir, sir, Chinese football, sir!”, I can still here them call out every five minutes. So I managed, but I still felt reluctant to go to work, and I was relieved every time that part of the day was over.
(Me with some of the children, under the tree where I taught them English)
In the weekends, I usually went to Pondicherry, where thanks to the Danish girl I knew some other volunteers. Before going to Cuddalore, I had this romantic idea of being completely isolated in some Indian village; but when you have to face big challenges every day in an unfamiliar environment, it’s such a relief to have a beer and talk to people you can actually communicate with, that it’s hard to renounce. On weekdays, my favorite way of escaping reality was my scooter. After that first time I rented a moped in Pondy, I decided the fun it gave me was worth taking the risk of facing Indian traffic – as a compromise, I wore a helmet, contrary to 99.9% of local drivers. It was interesting to become an active part of the crazy traffic I had been observing for several months. It was exhausting at first, but once I got the hang of it – left thumb on the horn, the rest of the fingers on the brake, and following the most important (and only) priority rule: “I always have priority, except if you’re big enough to kill me”– I enjoyed it a lot. It was a way to feel free, and to explore the surroundings. Around Cuddalore like in all of India, I love the roads. I drove among many motorbikes – a lot of them with women sitting sideways –, cars, noisy autorickshaws, rusty bicycles, bullock carts, and unreasonably fast trucks and buses with their loud horns, all overtaking each other from both sides, honking frantically. The dusty roadside is populated by women in their colorful sarees, sometimes carrying things on their heads, men adjusting their lunghis (traditional skirts), kids in their school uniforms, and various animals like cows, goats and dogs, who have the great habit of crossing the road at the most random moments – quite unusual obstacles. Sometimes, when there was not too much traffic around, I would pick up speed and enjoy the green landscape flashing by, feeling free as a bird.
(A couple of random pictures of roads)
After two weeks, as the relative comfort of routine was slowly setting in, my task of English teaching came to an end. I was still wondering what I was going to do next, when one night Bhanu suggested me to go traveling for two weeks and come back in June. Because of the holidays, there was no work for me, and I could take the opportunity to do some tourism before the monsoon came. Even though that sounded like a good plan, and in spite of the tough time I had had, I didn’t feel like leaving; I really started to feel at home in Melpattambakkam, and I would miss cruising around on my scooter and sitting on my terrace, gazing at the fields and palm trees that surrounded me. I would get bored if I stayed, though, so I decided to leave. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the start of a new adventure; I will tell you all about it in my next story.
June 3, 2010
From the mountains to the seaside
After 8 days of trekking, away from civilization, I had to get back to the chaos and the heat of the Subcontinent. I had to travel from Yuksom, in the mountains of Sikkim, to Cuddalore, at the coast of Tamil Nadu; a journey of about 2500 km. The trip would take three days: the first day I would take two jeeps to get out of Sikkim; that same day I would take a night bus to Kolkata, from where a plane would fly me to Chennai the next afternoon; I would spend the night in Chennai, and on the third day take two buses to reach Cuddalore. That’s two jeeps, three buses and one plane in three days – a pretty heavy schedule, especially after a cold and almost sleepless week in the mountains.
The first jeep brought me to a town called Jorethang, close to the southern border of Sikkim. As soon as I got out of the jeep, I felt like I was back in “real India”. I found myself struggling at a ticket booth, surrounded by pushy Indians who never seemed to have heard of a queue, sweating under the burning sun with my heavy bags. My old frustrations, that I seemed to have abandoned right there on my way to the mountains, came back to me like a tsunami of irritation. But a few moments later, when I ended up on a small, crowded market, seeing all the colors, smelling the spices, feeling the energy, I realized I had a big smile on my face. My love-hate relationship with India was resumed.
After one last bumpy jeep ride and an eventless night in the bus, I got to Kolkata at around 9am. After a couple of minutes I was soaking wet, even the slightest movement causing thick drops of sweat to stream down my face – the heat I had felt in Jorethang was nothing compared to what awaited me down south. When I arrived in Chennai, some 12 hours later, it was even hotter. Chennai has a reputation for being overly hot and crowded. I spent about an hour looking for a hotel at a reasonable price, and when I finally found it, I turned out to be the only guest, all alone in a big, dusty dormitory. I felt tired, lonely and really down, for the first time since I had left Belgium.
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, I felt much better already. My first stop that day was Pondicherry (officially Puducherry, commonly called Pondy), a former French colonial coastal town. Nowadays, it looks almost completely like any other Indian city, except for the French street names, the policemen who – strangely enough – wear red “képis” and some bakeries and restaurants with so-called French cuisine. Close to the seaside, the streets are more quiet, leading up to the “promenade”, where it’s nice to take a stroll along the water or gaze at the horizon of the Bay of Bengal. I spent a couple of hours in Pondy. I treated myself to a steak with french fries and some bread from the bakery, sunbathed on the beach and drove around on a rented moped. It felt great to cruise along the seaside, the wind in my hair, enjoying the smell of sea and sand and the humbling view of that endless mass of water.
That night I took a bus to Cuddalore, where I met the Indian family I was going to live with. Bhanu, a 31 year old woman, is the head of the organization “Blessing Kids”, for which I would work as a volunteer. She and her husband picked me up and brought me to their home in Melpattambakkam, a small village 15 km east of Cuddalore. They live in her parents-in-law’s house with their two kids, a 13 year old girl and an 8 year old boy. I felt right at home, petting their dog and fooling around with the little boy. I arrived on a Tuesday; on Friday night we were going to leave on a trip with the family. I was told I would start working after the trip, leaving me a couple of days to settle in Melpattambakkam. I slept in a separate house, in a nice room with a bathroom, a big balcony and even a TV. I would pay a fixed amount per month for the room, the food and the transportation, and work, of course, for free. There is a lot to say about this and about volunteering in general, so I will try to dedicate a separate blog entry to this.
I spent the next few days exploring the surroundings and discovering, little by little, the peculiarities of South India and the state of Tamil Nadu. The setting is very green, dominated by coconut trees, mostly scattered around fields of various crops, sometimes grouped into small woods. The patches without greenery reveal the reddish, ochre colored earth that is characteristic to the region. Melpattambakkam, like many villages, is situated along a crowded road that leads directly to Cuddalore. The commercial centre – hair dressers, copy shops, internet cafés, a myriad of small shops selling food, drinks, fruit, phones, clothes, sweets, etc. – is situated along the side of the main road, while smaller side roads lead to the humble houses where the people live. The side of the road is one continuous string of shops, with virtually no space between different villages. It makes you wonder how so many shops can survive – but then you realize you’re in one of the most highly populated countries in the world. Most of these shops seem to have at least one or two clients at all times. I have been told that owners of the typical small shops – they sell snacks, drinks, cigarettes and all kinds of day-to-day products like tooth paste and mosquito repellent, and you can find everywhere without doing more that a few steps – earn loads of money. Apart from the setting, the food as well is completely different in South India than in North India. Again I had to get used to new and strange names like dosa, idli, parotta, sambar and chutney. With all the palm trees around, it won’t surprise you that they use a lot of coconut in their food here. Coconut happens to be one of the few things I have a very hard time shoving down my throat, but since I don’t really have a choice, I’m slowly starting to like it. One curious detail: while in the North people are totally hooked up to milk tea (chai), in the South they drink more milk coffee. I had never thought I would ever drink so much Nescafe, but with fresh milk and a lot of sugar it can be surprisingly tasty.
(I have much more to say about Tamil Nadu and its culture, but I will do so in a separate blog entry. I have had quite a few remarks on my stories being a bit long. Even though I don’t like to give in to commercial pressure, I understand it and I will try my best, not to make them shorter but to cut them into smaller pieces.)
After three days in Melpattambakkam, we left on a trip to Ooty, a popular hill station, and Mysore, a city in Karnataka famous for its beautiful palace. Bhanu had rented a minibus with a driver to transport her family, a cousin, an old lady who works for Blessing Kids, a Danish girl that worked for her before me, that girl's mother and a friend of hers, and myself. Being with children and elderly people doesn’t usually lead to crazy adventures, so I will save you the details of our trip. May is holiday season in South India, so the places we went were packed with Indian tourists. The few times Indian mass tourism has crossed my path, I have found it to be of the worst kind: everything for the cheesy picture, mass consumption of useless and ridiculous junk, and worst of all, no respect whatsoever for the environment. As a result, we did a lot of endless queuing with nervous and impatient people for silly five-minute boat or elephant rides. A highlight, though, was the horseback riding in the green hills around Ooty; although my beloved buttocks hurt for several days afterwards, I found it a very pleasant experience. Also worth mentioning is the palace in Mysore, positively one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve seen in India; it looks like it’s right out of a fairy tale. A less pleasant moment was when we had an accident with the van. I was alone with the family when it happened– the Danish girls had gone shopping. We were about to overtake an autorickshaw, when all of a sudden it took a sharp turn. We hit him right on the side, and although we weren’t driving fast, we dragged him for a couple of meters, completely wrecking the autorickshaw, before coming to a stop. I was sure that the driver would be, if not killed, at least very badly hurt. After remaining in shock for a couple of seconds, I wanted to rush out of the van behind Bhanu’s husband, but he stopped me. “Don’t show yourself”, Bhanu explained, “or we pay more.” Seeing the crowd that had gathered in the meantime, and although it seemed cynical to worry about money on such a moment, I stayed inside and hid in the back of the van. After negotiating for fifteen minutes, the men came back and we drove away. Luckily, the driver of the autorickshaw had somehow managed to stay unharmed. We had to pay 3000 rupees (50EUR), even though the witnesses confirmed that we were not in fault. Bhanu says that we would have had to pay 10 times more had they seen me. Even so, apparently, it’s best not to call the police, as they would ask for even more money.
I was happy when we got back from the trip; I would finally get to do something. Only, I still didn’t know what… (how's that for a cliffhanger! Okay, maybe I do give in to commercial pressure...)
(me and some of my trekking buddies at the goecha-la pass, a couple of days earlier)
The first jeep brought me to a town called Jorethang, close to the southern border of Sikkim. As soon as I got out of the jeep, I felt like I was back in “real India”. I found myself struggling at a ticket booth, surrounded by pushy Indians who never seemed to have heard of a queue, sweating under the burning sun with my heavy bags. My old frustrations, that I seemed to have abandoned right there on my way to the mountains, came back to me like a tsunami of irritation. But a few moments later, when I ended up on a small, crowded market, seeing all the colors, smelling the spices, feeling the energy, I realized I had a big smile on my face. My love-hate relationship with India was resumed.
After one last bumpy jeep ride and an eventless night in the bus, I got to Kolkata at around 9am. After a couple of minutes I was soaking wet, even the slightest movement causing thick drops of sweat to stream down my face – the heat I had felt in Jorethang was nothing compared to what awaited me down south. When I arrived in Chennai, some 12 hours later, it was even hotter. Chennai has a reputation for being overly hot and crowded. I spent about an hour looking for a hotel at a reasonable price, and when I finally found it, I turned out to be the only guest, all alone in a big, dusty dormitory. I felt tired, lonely and really down, for the first time since I had left Belgium.
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, I felt much better already. My first stop that day was Pondicherry (officially Puducherry, commonly called Pondy), a former French colonial coastal town. Nowadays, it looks almost completely like any other Indian city, except for the French street names, the policemen who – strangely enough – wear red “képis” and some bakeries and restaurants with so-called French cuisine. Close to the seaside, the streets are more quiet, leading up to the “promenade”, where it’s nice to take a stroll along the water or gaze at the horizon of the Bay of Bengal. I spent a couple of hours in Pondy. I treated myself to a steak with french fries and some bread from the bakery, sunbathed on the beach and drove around on a rented moped. It felt great to cruise along the seaside, the wind in my hair, enjoying the smell of sea and sand and the humbling view of that endless mass of water.
(this is the only, very bad picture I took of the promenade in Pondy)
That night I took a bus to Cuddalore, where I met the Indian family I was going to live with. Bhanu, a 31 year old woman, is the head of the organization “Blessing Kids”, for which I would work as a volunteer. She and her husband picked me up and brought me to their home in Melpattambakkam, a small village 15 km east of Cuddalore. They live in her parents-in-law’s house with their two kids, a 13 year old girl and an 8 year old boy. I felt right at home, petting their dog and fooling around with the little boy. I arrived on a Tuesday; on Friday night we were going to leave on a trip with the family. I was told I would start working after the trip, leaving me a couple of days to settle in Melpattambakkam. I slept in a separate house, in a nice room with a bathroom, a big balcony and even a TV. I would pay a fixed amount per month for the room, the food and the transportation, and work, of course, for free. There is a lot to say about this and about volunteering in general, so I will try to dedicate a separate blog entry to this.
I spent the next few days exploring the surroundings and discovering, little by little, the peculiarities of South India and the state of Tamil Nadu. The setting is very green, dominated by coconut trees, mostly scattered around fields of various crops, sometimes grouped into small woods. The patches without greenery reveal the reddish, ochre colored earth that is characteristic to the region. Melpattambakkam, like many villages, is situated along a crowded road that leads directly to Cuddalore. The commercial centre – hair dressers, copy shops, internet cafés, a myriad of small shops selling food, drinks, fruit, phones, clothes, sweets, etc. – is situated along the side of the main road, while smaller side roads lead to the humble houses where the people live. The side of the road is one continuous string of shops, with virtually no space between different villages. It makes you wonder how so many shops can survive – but then you realize you’re in one of the most highly populated countries in the world. Most of these shops seem to have at least one or two clients at all times. I have been told that owners of the typical small shops – they sell snacks, drinks, cigarettes and all kinds of day-to-day products like tooth paste and mosquito repellent, and you can find everywhere without doing more that a few steps – earn loads of money. Apart from the setting, the food as well is completely different in South India than in North India. Again I had to get used to new and strange names like dosa, idli, parotta, sambar and chutney. With all the palm trees around, it won’t surprise you that they use a lot of coconut in their food here. Coconut happens to be one of the few things I have a very hard time shoving down my throat, but since I don’t really have a choice, I’m slowly starting to like it. One curious detail: while in the North people are totally hooked up to milk tea (chai), in the South they drink more milk coffee. I had never thought I would ever drink so much Nescafe, but with fresh milk and a lot of sugar it can be surprisingly tasty.
(I have much more to say about Tamil Nadu and its culture, but I will do so in a separate blog entry. I have had quite a few remarks on my stories being a bit long. Even though I don’t like to give in to commercial pressure, I understand it and I will try my best, not to make them shorter but to cut them into smaller pieces.)
(since I left earlier than foreseen, I didn’t get any chance to take pictures of the surroundings; I did find this nice picture on the internet, taken near Cuddalore)
After three days in Melpattambakkam, we left on a trip to Ooty, a popular hill station, and Mysore, a city in Karnataka famous for its beautiful palace. Bhanu had rented a minibus with a driver to transport her family, a cousin, an old lady who works for Blessing Kids, a Danish girl that worked for her before me, that girl's mother and a friend of hers, and myself. Being with children and elderly people doesn’t usually lead to crazy adventures, so I will save you the details of our trip. May is holiday season in South India, so the places we went were packed with Indian tourists. The few times Indian mass tourism has crossed my path, I have found it to be of the worst kind: everything for the cheesy picture, mass consumption of useless and ridiculous junk, and worst of all, no respect whatsoever for the environment. As a result, we did a lot of endless queuing with nervous and impatient people for silly five-minute boat or elephant rides. A highlight, though, was the horseback riding in the green hills around Ooty; although my beloved buttocks hurt for several days afterwards, I found it a very pleasant experience. Also worth mentioning is the palace in Mysore, positively one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve seen in India; it looks like it’s right out of a fairy tale. A less pleasant moment was when we had an accident with the van. I was alone with the family when it happened– the Danish girls had gone shopping. We were about to overtake an autorickshaw, when all of a sudden it took a sharp turn. We hit him right on the side, and although we weren’t driving fast, we dragged him for a couple of meters, completely wrecking the autorickshaw, before coming to a stop. I was sure that the driver would be, if not killed, at least very badly hurt. After remaining in shock for a couple of seconds, I wanted to rush out of the van behind Bhanu’s husband, but he stopped me. “Don’t show yourself”, Bhanu explained, “or we pay more.” Seeing the crowd that had gathered in the meantime, and although it seemed cynical to worry about money on such a moment, I stayed inside and hid in the back of the van. After negotiating for fifteen minutes, the men came back and we drove away. Luckily, the driver of the autorickshaw had somehow managed to stay unharmed. We had to pay 3000 rupees (50EUR), even though the witnesses confirmed that we were not in fault. Bhanu says that we would have had to pay 10 times more had they seen me. Even so, apparently, it’s best not to call the police, as they would ask for even more money.
(mysore palace by night)
I was happy when we got back from the trip; I would finally get to do something. Only, I still didn’t know what… (how's that for a cliffhanger! Okay, maybe I do give in to commercial pressure...)
May 15, 2010
Trekking to Goecha La
And so I left on an 8-day trip with people I had met just the night before. Since I was supposed to be heading south, I had only summer clothes, and I didn’t nearly have enough cash to pay for it (there’s no ATM in the small village I was in); well prepared as always. Luckily, I could rent a good jacket, and my kind Danish friend was prepared to lend me a huge amount of money (especially by Indian standards).
The group was nice and international: I shared a guide with a Hungarian girl, a Frenchman, an Aussie, an Israeli and an Indian girl from Mumbai; a different group (but we would always walk and eat with them) was composed of an elderly German couple and a young German girl; and a third group consisted of two Czech couples, with whom we didn’t interact that much. Except for the couples, everybody was traveling on his own, which gave excellent conditions for good social interaction.
The first day, we had to climb to the village of Tsokha (3000m), at 19km from our starting point Yuksom (1800m). The first few hours of the hike were truly beautiful. The trail led us up and down, alongside the flanks of the green hills, offering superb views with waterfalls from high above between the trees and rivers deep down in the valleys. The last six kilometers were a steep ascent to Tsokha. When we paused in a village at 2700m, we noticed the nice view had completely disappeared. Dark clouds had gathered, and echoes of thunder reached us from the other side of the mountain. We left quickly to reach Tsokha in time, but after a few minutes, the first rain drops started to fall. The rain soon turned into a blistering hail, and the small paths into muddy streamlets. By the time we reached the hut, we were soaked to the bone and shivering from the cold. Bad news awaited us: the yaks, which carried our bags with dry clothes, hadn’t arrived yet and were delayed by the storm. To make it worse, it’s illegal to make a fire in Sikkim. Our only source of heat – as would be the case throughout the rest of the journey – was the cup of tea we gratefully accepted from our guide. For more than one hour, which seemed like an eternity, we waited for those damn yaks, unable to get warm in our wet clothes. On the bright side, it did greatly accelerate the social cohesion. Sitting close together, shivering by candlelight; handing each other warm clothes (I lent someone my jacket and borrowed someone else’s pants) and sharing the only available blanket; trying, with frozen hands, to play some tunes on the guitar we had brought; it was cold as hell, but, as the Germans call it, gemütlich. That night set the tone for the rest of the trek. The thunderstorm that had surprised us that day wasn’t just bad luck; the weather followed the same pattern every day. In the morning, the sky was clear, offering sunshine and stunning views. Then, invariably, around noon, clouds would appear on the horizon. Around 2pm, the fog would kick in, and in the late afternoon we would get rain, hail or even snow. Locals know these are just the symptoms of early monsoon; they just forgot two warn us, just as they didn’t really warn us for the cold (“don’t worry, it’s spring!”, dixit the travel agent). So there I was, absolutely unprepared, with my summer clothes and a sleeping bag with a comfort limit of 11°C, when the temperature on some occasions would drop well below zero at night. Every evening I had to fight to get a blanket, and even so I was cold every single night – and I wasn’t the only one. We slept in huts, always with at least one broken window and/or cracks in the walls, so that didn’t really help.
After our first cold night, we were to go from 3000m to 4000m, to a place called Dzongri. Since my travel advice pamphlet urged me not to ascend more than 500m a day above 3000m and my doctor/father had warned me numerous times about altitude sickness, I was a bit worried, which my companions seemed to find quite amusing. Fortunately, apart from a strange pressure in my head and a short moment of feverishness, I turned out to be fine; the guide did confirm that sometimes people get sick, though. The path, that second day, was pretty steep, but the setting was again superb, with lots of rhododendrons and magnolias in bloom. As always, the hike ended in the fog, so we didn’t get the rewarding view at the end. Dzongri is the place where we would acclimatize; we would spend two nights there, to let our bodies get used to the altitude. This acclimatization, though it might sound a bit boring, turned out to be one of the nicest parts of the whole trekking. An American guy and a German girl (both thirty something) were stranded there, waiting for some permit; with them and the others we spent hours chattering, playing games, sipping tea and eating biscuits. Sehr gemütlich indeed! It wasn’t all resting and playing, though; the second day, we woke up at five to climb up to a ridge and see the sunrise. At last we got a first clear view of the magnificent white peaks of the Himalayas. After that, three brave ones (which included, you’ve guessed it, your faithful narrator) ascended to the Dzongri La pass (4500m) for and even better view. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the clouds had closed on the panorama like big white curtains.
On day four, being fully acclimatized, we walked to Thangsing (3840m), the place from which we would ascend to the pass of Goecha La (4940m), the main objective of the trip, the next day. After walking for some time, we got to a ridge, and my heart leapt up with joy: the white mountains seemed so big and close by! We could finally really see what we were walking to. We arrived in Thangsing in time to admire the extraordinary beauty of the place. It lies at the end of a gigantic plain, formed by a melted glacier. There are hills at both sides of the plain, making it kind of a huge canyon. At the end of this canyon, almost like a fata morgana, emerges a massive mountain with snowy peaks. At the left side of the valley, a turbulent river makes its way through a small gorge of its own. It’s great to sit at the side of the river, shielded from the wind, when the sun shines and the view is splendid…a paradise. But paradise can turn into a kind of hell quickly. After a couple of hours, the nice view and the sun had made room for a dense fog. We were sitting in the hut, trying to ignore the cold by challenging each other with riddles, when all of a sudden we noticed that there was a true blizzard going on outside. Snow poured down from the sky and heavy winds were blowing away the tents, causing their owners to struggle with ropes and rocks. The cold was worse then ever, and we were craving for a source of heat so much that we were even considering making an illegal fire. It wouldn’t have been the first time; some people had plundered the roof of one of the huts for wood. The snow was bad news for us. We were supposed to wake up at 2 that night to ascend to Goecha La, the highlight of the trip. The guide said it might be too dangerous with the snow. It kept snowing and snowing, which further diminished our hope. We decided we would wake up at 2 (we had to leave so early to reach Goecha La before sunrise) and evaluate the situation at that moment, so we went to bed early.
When around midnight nature’s call woke me up (that’s what you get with all that tea) and I somehow found the courage to go out in the cold, it was still snowing and the ground was covered with a white layer of 5cm. Having lost all hope of going to Goecha La that night, I went back to bed, expecting the guide wouldn’t even bother to wake us up. So I wasn’t really mentally prepared when, a bit after 2, the American dashed into our hut: “Wake up, the sky is clear, let’s go!”. Although the snow hadn’t disappeared, the guide considered it worth trying, not promising we would actually reach the pass. So off we went, after a tea and two cookies, in the dark, cold, snowy night with our flashlights. The first part of the hike, we walked in the valley, towards the big mountain at the end. The scenery was beautiful and surreal. With the starry sky and the white, mountainous landscape, I felt like we were walking on the moon. The snow we had cursed so much the night before turned out to be a blessing. There’s a lesson in that… I tried to enjoy the view, although I had to concentrate on the path and the many small rivers we had to cross. After some time, as the stars started slowly disappearing, the typical blue glow of the snow allowed us to turn off our flashlights. Unfortunately, we had only one guide (one was ill), so we couldn’t move faster than the slowest person; we were going to miss the sunrise. As we slowly started climbing, we reached Samti Lake (4200m). This small lake was, to me, the most wonderful place of the whole trek. With its sharp outline and perfectly still surface, it forms a big natural mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains. The lake is the starting point of a steep ascent to Goecha La. With the sun about to rise, we left the guide with the slower ones and started climbing at an excruciating pace. The air was getting really thin now, and more than once I had to stop to catch my breath. Meanwhile, the sun was already caressing the tops of the highest peaks. Not much later, we reached the pass. We had (kind of) made it! Mount Kangchenjunga (8586m), third highest in the world, The Mountain where it’s all about, was already partially covered by clouds, but it didn’t matter; the view was still amazing. After the first moments of euphoria, we slowly got our senses back: cold! Sweaty from the effort, in the freezing wind, we were cooling down rapidly. We waited for the others to arrive, which took almost one hour. In the meantime, between two pictures, we kept warm by singing and dancing. “Incredible”, I thought, ”I was supposed to be in South India by now, and here I am instead, dancing the Macarena in the snow at 5000m altitude!”. Great moments. New feelings of euphoria arose when the others one by one reached the top - we hadn’t thought they were going to make it. After a quick group picture, we started the descent. Having reached our goal, we could finally take it easy and enjoy the view. By the time we got back to the lake, the sun had risen above the mountain tops. We took a beautiful break there, before heading back to Thangsing. The rest of the day, we got some well-deserved rest. When I saw a group of Indian crew (cooks, porters, etc.) playing football on the plain, I joined them. I had to catch my breath after every action, but it was doable. Football at 4000m altitude, check!
The next 3 days, we slowly headed back to Yuksom. I felt like I was returning from a successful mission, satisfied and enjoying the rest of the time. We visited a couple of nice lakes along the way, but the weather had turned even worse. When we got back to Tsokha (where we had spent the first and the last night), Yuskom was visible far away in the valley: civilization! It’s funny how fast one gets estranged. We were glad to get back to bearable temperatures and relative comfort after our short, but intense trek.
And then it was time to say goodbye again; I had to leave to Kolkata the next morning to catch a plane to Chennai. From North to South, from snow to 40ºC, from the mountains to the coast, everything was going to change again!
Right now I have spent three weeks in Tamil Nadu, living with a local family and working for their organization. I have been teaching English to children in a village for two weeks, which was quite challenging; I’ll write about it soon. I was planning to stay a bit longer, but since it’s summer holidays here, there’s not much work to do. So it’s best for me to travel around in South India for two weeks, and return in June, when the projects will start again. It’s a bit of a pity, because I was just starting to feel a bit at home there, but now I’m in backpacker mode again!
Thanks for reading this and for all the positive comments, it’s nice to hear and encourages me to fulfill my resolution of trying to write a good blog. Feedback is always appreciated! As is news from you, of course:-)
The group was nice and international: I shared a guide with a Hungarian girl, a Frenchman, an Aussie, an Israeli and an Indian girl from Mumbai; a different group (but we would always walk and eat with them) was composed of an elderly German couple and a young German girl; and a third group consisted of two Czech couples, with whom we didn’t interact that much. Except for the couples, everybody was traveling on his own, which gave excellent conditions for good social interaction.
The first day, we had to climb to the village of Tsokha (3000m), at 19km from our starting point Yuksom (1800m). The first few hours of the hike were truly beautiful. The trail led us up and down, alongside the flanks of the green hills, offering superb views with waterfalls from high above between the trees and rivers deep down in the valleys. The last six kilometers were a steep ascent to Tsokha. When we paused in a village at 2700m, we noticed the nice view had completely disappeared. Dark clouds had gathered, and echoes of thunder reached us from the other side of the mountain. We left quickly to reach Tsokha in time, but after a few minutes, the first rain drops started to fall. The rain soon turned into a blistering hail, and the small paths into muddy streamlets. By the time we reached the hut, we were soaked to the bone and shivering from the cold. Bad news awaited us: the yaks, which carried our bags with dry clothes, hadn’t arrived yet and were delayed by the storm. To make it worse, it’s illegal to make a fire in Sikkim. Our only source of heat – as would be the case throughout the rest of the journey – was the cup of tea we gratefully accepted from our guide. For more than one hour, which seemed like an eternity, we waited for those damn yaks, unable to get warm in our wet clothes. On the bright side, it did greatly accelerate the social cohesion. Sitting close together, shivering by candlelight; handing each other warm clothes (I lent someone my jacket and borrowed someone else’s pants) and sharing the only available blanket; trying, with frozen hands, to play some tunes on the guitar we had brought; it was cold as hell, but, as the Germans call it, gemütlich. That night set the tone for the rest of the trek. The thunderstorm that had surprised us that day wasn’t just bad luck; the weather followed the same pattern every day. In the morning, the sky was clear, offering sunshine and stunning views. Then, invariably, around noon, clouds would appear on the horizon. Around 2pm, the fog would kick in, and in the late afternoon we would get rain, hail or even snow. Locals know these are just the symptoms of early monsoon; they just forgot two warn us, just as they didn’t really warn us for the cold (“don’t worry, it’s spring!”, dixit the travel agent). So there I was, absolutely unprepared, with my summer clothes and a sleeping bag with a comfort limit of 11°C, when the temperature on some occasions would drop well below zero at night. Every evening I had to fight to get a blanket, and even so I was cold every single night – and I wasn’t the only one. We slept in huts, always with at least one broken window and/or cracks in the walls, so that didn’t really help.
After our first cold night, we were to go from 3000m to 4000m, to a place called Dzongri. Since my travel advice pamphlet urged me not to ascend more than 500m a day above 3000m and my doctor/father had warned me numerous times about altitude sickness, I was a bit worried, which my companions seemed to find quite amusing. Fortunately, apart from a strange pressure in my head and a short moment of feverishness, I turned out to be fine; the guide did confirm that sometimes people get sick, though. The path, that second day, was pretty steep, but the setting was again superb, with lots of rhododendrons and magnolias in bloom. As always, the hike ended in the fog, so we didn’t get the rewarding view at the end. Dzongri is the place where we would acclimatize; we would spend two nights there, to let our bodies get used to the altitude. This acclimatization, though it might sound a bit boring, turned out to be one of the nicest parts of the whole trekking. An American guy and a German girl (both thirty something) were stranded there, waiting for some permit; with them and the others we spent hours chattering, playing games, sipping tea and eating biscuits. Sehr gemütlich indeed! It wasn’t all resting and playing, though; the second day, we woke up at five to climb up to a ridge and see the sunrise. At last we got a first clear view of the magnificent white peaks of the Himalayas. After that, three brave ones (which included, you’ve guessed it, your faithful narrator) ascended to the Dzongri La pass (4500m) for and even better view. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the clouds had closed on the panorama like big white curtains.
On day four, being fully acclimatized, we walked to Thangsing (3840m), the place from which we would ascend to the pass of Goecha La (4940m), the main objective of the trip, the next day. After walking for some time, we got to a ridge, and my heart leapt up with joy: the white mountains seemed so big and close by! We could finally really see what we were walking to. We arrived in Thangsing in time to admire the extraordinary beauty of the place. It lies at the end of a gigantic plain, formed by a melted glacier. There are hills at both sides of the plain, making it kind of a huge canyon. At the end of this canyon, almost like a fata morgana, emerges a massive mountain with snowy peaks. At the left side of the valley, a turbulent river makes its way through a small gorge of its own. It’s great to sit at the side of the river, shielded from the wind, when the sun shines and the view is splendid…a paradise. But paradise can turn into a kind of hell quickly. After a couple of hours, the nice view and the sun had made room for a dense fog. We were sitting in the hut, trying to ignore the cold by challenging each other with riddles, when all of a sudden we noticed that there was a true blizzard going on outside. Snow poured down from the sky and heavy winds were blowing away the tents, causing their owners to struggle with ropes and rocks. The cold was worse then ever, and we were craving for a source of heat so much that we were even considering making an illegal fire. It wouldn’t have been the first time; some people had plundered the roof of one of the huts for wood. The snow was bad news for us. We were supposed to wake up at 2 that night to ascend to Goecha La, the highlight of the trip. The guide said it might be too dangerous with the snow. It kept snowing and snowing, which further diminished our hope. We decided we would wake up at 2 (we had to leave so early to reach Goecha La before sunrise) and evaluate the situation at that moment, so we went to bed early.
When around midnight nature’s call woke me up (that’s what you get with all that tea) and I somehow found the courage to go out in the cold, it was still snowing and the ground was covered with a white layer of 5cm. Having lost all hope of going to Goecha La that night, I went back to bed, expecting the guide wouldn’t even bother to wake us up. So I wasn’t really mentally prepared when, a bit after 2, the American dashed into our hut: “Wake up, the sky is clear, let’s go!”. Although the snow hadn’t disappeared, the guide considered it worth trying, not promising we would actually reach the pass. So off we went, after a tea and two cookies, in the dark, cold, snowy night with our flashlights. The first part of the hike, we walked in the valley, towards the big mountain at the end. The scenery was beautiful and surreal. With the starry sky and the white, mountainous landscape, I felt like we were walking on the moon. The snow we had cursed so much the night before turned out to be a blessing. There’s a lesson in that… I tried to enjoy the view, although I had to concentrate on the path and the many small rivers we had to cross. After some time, as the stars started slowly disappearing, the typical blue glow of the snow allowed us to turn off our flashlights. Unfortunately, we had only one guide (one was ill), so we couldn’t move faster than the slowest person; we were going to miss the sunrise. As we slowly started climbing, we reached Samti Lake (4200m). This small lake was, to me, the most wonderful place of the whole trek. With its sharp outline and perfectly still surface, it forms a big natural mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains. The lake is the starting point of a steep ascent to Goecha La. With the sun about to rise, we left the guide with the slower ones and started climbing at an excruciating pace. The air was getting really thin now, and more than once I had to stop to catch my breath. Meanwhile, the sun was already caressing the tops of the highest peaks. Not much later, we reached the pass. We had (kind of) made it! Mount Kangchenjunga (8586m), third highest in the world, The Mountain where it’s all about, was already partially covered by clouds, but it didn’t matter; the view was still amazing. After the first moments of euphoria, we slowly got our senses back: cold! Sweaty from the effort, in the freezing wind, we were cooling down rapidly. We waited for the others to arrive, which took almost one hour. In the meantime, between two pictures, we kept warm by singing and dancing. “Incredible”, I thought, ”I was supposed to be in South India by now, and here I am instead, dancing the Macarena in the snow at 5000m altitude!”. Great moments. New feelings of euphoria arose when the others one by one reached the top - we hadn’t thought they were going to make it. After a quick group picture, we started the descent. Having reached our goal, we could finally take it easy and enjoy the view. By the time we got back to the lake, the sun had risen above the mountain tops. We took a beautiful break there, before heading back to Thangsing. The rest of the day, we got some well-deserved rest. When I saw a group of Indian crew (cooks, porters, etc.) playing football on the plain, I joined them. I had to catch my breath after every action, but it was doable. Football at 4000m altitude, check!
The next 3 days, we slowly headed back to Yuksom. I felt like I was returning from a successful mission, satisfied and enjoying the rest of the time. We visited a couple of nice lakes along the way, but the weather had turned even worse. When we got back to Tsokha (where we had spent the first and the last night), Yuskom was visible far away in the valley: civilization! It’s funny how fast one gets estranged. We were glad to get back to bearable temperatures and relative comfort after our short, but intense trek.
And then it was time to say goodbye again; I had to leave to Kolkata the next morning to catch a plane to Chennai. From North to South, from snow to 40ºC, from the mountains to the coast, everything was going to change again!
Right now I have spent three weeks in Tamil Nadu, living with a local family and working for their organization. I have been teaching English to children in a village for two weeks, which was quite challenging; I’ll write about it soon. I was planning to stay a bit longer, but since it’s summer holidays here, there’s not much work to do. So it’s best for me to travel around in South India for two weeks, and return in June, when the projects will start again. It’s a bit of a pity, because I was just starting to feel a bit at home there, but now I’m in backpacker mode again!
Thanks for reading this and for all the positive comments, it’s nice to hear and encourages me to fulfill my resolution of trying to write a good blog. Feedback is always appreciated! As is news from you, of course:-)
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