vacation

I am here! On this cliff! It's beautiful!

The address of my hotel is "Cliff, Varkala." On Sunday, I'm going to Trivandrum to pick up my mama and then we're going to lounge here for a few days before going back to Sarang.

This is by far the most touristy place I've been in India. On one hand it's nice to indulge in smoothies and to feel comfortable lounging on the beach with my shoulders and knees exposed. But I've been so concious of being modest here that it's hard to join in the fun of stripping down to my bikini and renting a boogie board with everyone else. Which I really really wanna do because there are perfect waves here. I'll give my shoulders some sun, then see how it goes.

Also, I accidentally watched the live streaming of the moon crash. Then Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. That's the first TV I've watched in months. It was confusing.

lessons in google

Hi Friends,

Each night after dinner, we have general body meetings, where the kids share their journals, review the day and plan for the next. Recently they've started trying to translate their journal entries for me, rather than have Anu or Gauthum do so. Everyone tends to contribute a word or two, until they have the makings of a sentence. Once they get a sentence constructed they all say it together a few times to lock it in.

So as part of the kids computer class, where they are learning photoshop, Gauthum asked them to each make an advertisement. He warned them that when you google image search things, you don't always get exactly what you are looking for. Uni learned this the hard way, when she did a google search for "girl," and "girl advertisement" and then "malayalam girl advertisement" while trying to find a Keralan movie star to use for her advertisement. I was sitting in the corner of the room while she was doing this, and could tell things were not going as planned, but in the spirit of experiential learning, assumed she'd figure it out eventually.

Anyway, last night when she read her journal there was a lot of laughter and the kids quickly figure out a translation, which they sung to me as a chorus (you really have to imagine the chorus of voices and faces hoping I'll understand them for this to have full effect):

"Today. Uniarcha. Googled. Girl. She. Found. Bad. Pictures."

Here they paused while I took it in and then erupted in laughter at my 'oh noooo' face. They continued,

"Then. She. Googled. Girl. Advertisement. She. Still. Got. Bad. Pictures. She. Is. Still. Searching. For. A. Good. Picture."

So, photoshop pros, but still working on the googling skills.

clarification

Alright just so everyone knows, I am not staying in this country until January! Rumors. My bank account, parents, love of Christmas, thesis, and most importantly my visa, will simply not allow it. I'll be home for Thanksgiving.

In other news, Monday was the day in the Malayalam calendar when classes traditionally start. Although the public school system no longer recognizes this day, most of the music and art teachers still do. So, there was a lot of music, excitement, poojas and dakshinas (offerings to new teachers) round these parts. My "guitar students" gave me dakshinas, which I accepted but don't feel like I deserve because I will probably be out of chords to teach them in like a week.

My days are full of yoga, drumming, mutual tiny language lessons, chai, and a kitchen I still don't understand. And books. Many many books. I read when I get tired of not understanding anything. And I'm trying to hold on tightly to my quickly fading English skills.

Love you all!

in their natural state

One thing Jaki and I talked about a lot this summer was our utter ignorance about how many many things come to be. Like pineapples and peanuts and tea. I mean, I had a mental image of a tea leaf and hills of the western ghats covered in plantations, but not until I saw them in June did I GET it. Same with pineapples. Same with nutmeg. Everyone talks about how much you learn about culture and people when you travel but no one ever mentions how much you learn about FOOD!

So, I've been in the kitchen this week. They make their own everything; powders from chili and nutmeg and coriander, butter, coconut oil, etc. You name it, they've made it from step one. I have to embrace my relative ignorance in everything about the kitchen and the food, and ask what everything is all the time. Because cooking is one of the students' subjects here, they are quick in the kitchen and quick to point out when i slice a carrot too thickly or put a pinch too much ground coconut in a dish. It's really intimidating when we're all sitting around at meal time and everyone starts eating and I hear "EmilyCheche" followed by the name of the dish I've made. Sometimes giggles, sometimes thumbs up and (still ambiguous) head bobbles. With the exception of some overcooked yam slices in my aviel, I'm apparently doing okay. Phew. But y'all, Thanksgiving. Just you wait.

But I've also realized why Indian restaurants in the states are expensive.
1) These ingredients are largley things I have never seen in the whole of United States. But again I know nothing about things in their natural state. Maybe all of this grows in Kentucky.
2) This takes TIME. It's no spaghetti or burrito.

It's nice to know these things. In other news, My mom will be here in a little over two weeks! We are going to the beach! This country will make me leave in a little over eight weeks! How does it move so fast??

week 20

You guys i have been away from home for 20 weeks. That's creeping up on half a year. No WONDER I miss you all so much.

Yesterday a few of the students took me to a farm where we climbed trees and picked (more like swatted) nutmegs! If you have never seen the inside of a nutmeg, do some google research. I have never seen nature make such a rich red.

The kids have a show on October 9th, so practices of all kinds have started. They are singing and drumming and planning. Today they started practicing their Kalari, which is the traiditional martial art of Kerala,. It the flexibility and strength of yoga plus the cardiovascular strength of a triathlon. That was my one day experience with it in June, anyway. But these guys are rockstars, so, no problem.

I'm being devoured by mosquitoes I have to leave this computer!

reimagining

Now that I have more regular internet-age, I think I'll post more often so you all don't have to read a novel every month or so.

So, today, things about Sarang that I like:

I have not thrown anything away since I've been here. Only compost. Check plus.

I thought I might become unaddicted to coffee while here, until the kids learned that I like coffee and now it appears in front of me a few times a day with someone saying "EmilyCheche? Coffee?" (Cheche = elder sister)

My music classes won't start up again until next Monday, so I'm spending this week in the kitchen learning the art of this delicious delicious cuisine.

Everyone does yoga together in the mornings.

Adi, the youngest boy, likes our encounters to be a constant trading of English and Malayalam words. He'll just run up to me with some new object and say "Malayalam, ____. English word?" Thus my language immersion begins.

These kids know how to do everything.
They also have a constant craving to learn more.

Oh man guys. I'm not sure where to start.
Three weeks into India round two, and I've finally made it back to where I was in June, Aranmula. But first, a quick run down of where I've been:

Chennai - skippable city.

Mamallapuram - take all the attention you get for being a woman traveling alone in India, plus all the attention you get at a seedy beach town, and you get Mamallapuram. I left pretty quickly after spending an evening with a kid in the Bob Marley Cafe having homosexuality and murder explained to me in terms of sin and cos.

Auroville - Auroville. What the hell. This is a crazytown people. It is LOST meets Carrboro in India. It's a "universal city in the making," started by The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, a famous philospher and poet from Tamil Nadu. I spent a week there just trying to figure out what was going on, and in the process met some of the most amazing people I've ever met. ONE OF WHOM, was a french guy in his sixties who was, I kid you not John Locke. He even used is pocket knife at meal time. Also they drive around cars that look like the Dharma Initiative cars that say "The Auroville Project" Anyawy, I think it's a really special place doing some very important research for humanity, and not somewhere I can be yet. Someday perhaps.

Trichy and Maudrai - saw some big beautiful inspiring temples.

Kodaikanal - got out of big cities to see some MOUNTAINS. had the most exquisite view from my hostel. Went on a nine hour hike down the mountains and couldn't really move the next day. Oh and I was COLD for four days for the first time in SO LONG.


AND 20 hours and six buses later....Aranmula!
I think I've told most of you about what I am doing, but just in case: I am living with a family that runs an alternative boarding school out of their home. Trying to democratize learning and the family structure, they have set up a really amazing place where these kids are becoming responsible, kind and articulate people. They have two campuses: One is on their farm a few hours east of here, where they are teaching and learning through experiments in organic farming and reforestation. They other campus is here in Aranmula, where the kids are able to take arts classes with the teachers from VKV. There are ten kids between 8 and 21, the parents, and Gauthum and Anu, their first son and his wife who are in their mid twenties. So there are 15 of us in this big ole house and there is constant music and laughter and cooking. Yesterday we spent about 22 hours traveling to a city where the kids have a regular radio program. Tomorrow we are trekking into the woods to learn about butterflies and dragonflies. The father is in the process of adapting their most recent radio drama (which they wrote) into a street performance. Am I in heaven?

Ok, all for now. Love you all.