Diwali and Halloween: A week of festivities

So a quick shout out to the beachland crew is in order! I heard Friday night was quite a great time, looking forward to some street bonding time (hopefully over soup, where did those nights go anyway?) when I get back.

This week has been a blur ( ok it has actually sort of felt like it stretched forever but in a good way, I'm not really in a rush over here). We had two days of class which is becoming increasingly stressful, two days of holiday for Diwali, an all day seminar ( which was brilliant!), and a day trip to Laporiya ( a petty superb example of the power of proper community resource management in an desert) and our Halloween party last night. Whew. and now, I am writing this entry between writing my 10 page paper due tomorrow, studying for my Hindi final on Wednesday ( ok well maybe i'm not actually doing that part), and working on the technicalities of my study project which begins in six days. more on how utterly horrifying that is later.

oh and meanwhile, the world just becomes more and more cyclical, though I'll explain that part as I go.

First things first, festivities! Diwali is celebrated by Hindus and Jains and is known as the festival of lights. It is the most important holiday for Hindus and is celebrated through doing Lakshmi Puja ( Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity), and lots and lots of lights. Over the past few weeks we have increasingly watched Jaipur gear up for this festivities with lights appearing everywhere. On the actual day, my host family and I covered our roof with candles, a welcoming gesture, and the world lit up with fireworks, rockets, and these really loud annoying bomb things which don't even make cool light, just a loud noise. Literally, going outside during the day of Diwali meant risking your ability to take a deep breath, but my goodness it was cool to be surrounded for hours by the sounds of millions and millions of people throughout India celebrating. Really, just think about that. 1.1 billion people live in India, 80% are Hindus, 2% are Jains, and a vast majority of them were shooting fireworks off. Not to mention how in many areas people just shoot of fireworks because who doesn't love fireworks!

and than it was Halloween time! All I can say is that I do adore the people here.

the peacock meets the flower child

boy time. how sweet!

Eco-Tourism, plowing, and some very large mountains

Hello Friends!

It's been a while since my last post and for once, it has nothing to do with my negligent blogging skills and everything to do with my complete and blissful lack of internet for the past 7 days. We are just returned from a trip to northern Uttarakhand, where we stayed in a small village called Raithal with stops in Chamba, Uttarakashi and Dehradun along the way. How far north in India you may ask? Very North, 30 minutes from China ( Tibet) as the crow flies as we were explained. Oh, and just for bragging sake, I do believe I experienced the first snowfall of the year, in India, on top of a Himalayan alpine meadow no less.

Unlike the other excursions where we traveled in our large and rambunctious group of 18 students and 6 very daring teachers and coordinators, we broke into four smaller groups of 4-5. Our group had four students ( including myself), and two teachers/ advisers/ friends and well, was still rather rambunctious.

Just as with previous entries, I'm going to rely on the power of illustration to break this trip down. Basically though, our goal was to look at eco-tourism and development alternatives in the small subsistence village of Raithal. Formerly a community who depended on animal husbandry, they now rely on cash crops, largely potatoes, as their main economy. Fascinatingly enough, the growth of cash crops in villages has a powerful impact on the gender power dynamic. While many rural agricultural communities are female dominated due to male migration to cities, a cash crop often acts as a glue, binding men to the community and lowering migration rates. However, this is where climate change strikes. All too often in my experience climate change is relegated to the discussion of too little water with little question of what happens when there is too much water. Well I can answer that, bad things. Crop yields decrease, profit goes down, and communities, such as Raithal, are left with the decision of what's next? Often turning to unsustainable and ecologically harmful alternatives. One thing which was made very apparent to all of us through this trip is how incredibly complex any development discussion is. We visited this Himalayan community and saw the stunning peaks, the beautiful glaciers and forests, and the beauty in the "simplicty" of agricultural work, however, susbsitence farming is hard work and small rural villages lack access to high quality education and health facilities. Communitiy members want alternatives and have the right to seek them.

The question than is how to do so which works with the environment and the socio-economic needs of the community, and here begins the discussion on eco-tourism and the excellent work by RACHNA to develop a grass-roots, community led, "green constituency". Community advocates for the environment and parallel development strategies. The answers to development very often lies within the community itself, sometimes, a mediator is needed, and that is where RACHNA comes in, definitely check out their website: http://www.rachnaonline.org/

And now, the pictures begin:

If these two are the future of the world, we are in great shape. 

Big Boss Captain Sir + Suzzy Moose Who + Mel warmie party. 

The Tehri Dam, kicking people off their land , decreasing water access to local people and helping to make landslides since 2006. Though not to over simplify, also a primary water and energy source for Delhi. 

and a landslide....

star gazing and warmies. 

see all those kidney bean sticks? bet ya they weren't there when we were finished 

got fodder? we do

Raithal at sunset 

village blacksmith, slowly being replaced for mass produced, impersonal products. Anyone else think we need some alternate development models yet? 

and here begins the 16 km hike, 8 of which is uphill 1300 m to Dayara, the alpine meadows where Butter Holi is played every year. 

Not actually our dog friend Anjay who followed us up the mountain with three legs ( yes three legs). 

G.L.A.C.I.E.R.S.

It was a long hike, and attention spans can be short. So why not be Beethoven with the random sheep horn found lying on the ground? 

and here comes the snow. 

What a lovely group of people to hideaway in the Mountains with!

Due to the extensive amount of time spent traveling for this trip, we had alot of time to enjoy some great music including Calgary by Bon Iver, Stolen Houses by Iron and Wine, Fake Empire by the National and Always Like This by Bombay Bicycle Club. 

Oh and one final thing! It is about time I start thinking about internships for the spring semester. If anyone has any suggestions on great organizations working with environment, food security, public spaces or just practical solutions to reducing our impact on the planet let me know! Current research projects being ran near my university dealing with the environment and the socio-cultural relation to it would be pretty wonderful as well. 

Cheers! 

Goodbye Facebook!

I am officially checked off Facebook for the rest of the semester. 

On another note,

life.is.good. 

Off to northern Uttarakhand with one of my favorite professors and a few other excellent people for the a week of studying. Indie Funk concert tonight with Something Relevant from Mumbai. And some great reading ahead. 

Also, I need to publicly say it; Occupy Wall Street ( and Cleveland, and LA and Boston and well the list could go on for awhile at this point), I support you fully. 

Mountains and Mountains and Laughter?

All I want to do since returning from our trip to the desert is read about mountains. To spend every moment reading the 50 + scholarly articles sitting in my inbox unopened. Do not worry however, I can't sit still for that long/ go without human interaction for much more than an hour so that isn't happening. I think it's my little way of dealing with everything at the moment. and sort of my way to exert some control.

So what to say about the desert. It was intense. We spent much more time on this trip hanging with people our own age. we spent an afternoon at the Balika Shivir Girls education camp just outside of Bikaner. Here, girls who have dropped out of school from anywhere between 5th and 10th standard spend 7 months taking intensive classes to prepare to pass the Indian board exams. An additional challenge was that even my very little Hindi was not usable. Many of the girls, especially the ones in the group I spent time with, spoke Malwari, an offshoot of Rajasthani. So instead, I stuck with my usual fall back. Self deprecating laughter and hand games. I did however spend a great deal of time speaking Hinglish to Renu, a teacher at the school. Though the girls aren't smiling in this photo I promise we all laughed alot. A side note, three of these girls are married. No judgement passed because just as with everything else, this issue is immensely more complicated than I can understand.

The next day we were off to the Village Nathusar. Both Balika Shivir and Nathusar receive assistance ( or are ran in the case of Balika Shivir) from URMUL, a non-profit which began as a dairy co-op but has since widened its focus to pretty much all of the services the government doesn't provide. I actually missed most of the village trip due to a dizzy spell however a woman kindly opened her home up for me to lay down in. I closed my eyes, only to open them 10 minutes later to this group of Hooligan makers. Please note,  when languages fail, nothing goes quite as far as laughter and cameras.

we went on the village excursion with a group of girls from Binani Girl's college, the first women's college in Bikaner. This was excellent for a number of reasons, first, it gave us a chance to use our Hindi, and second, they were just too much fun. According to our teachers, many of these girls come from very conservative families where acting independently outside of the household is a rarity. Clearly this group of 18 missed the message that they were supposed to be shy. A special shout out to Rajmi and Vyas who humored my horrible Hindi and my attempts to sing Teri Meri. Little do they know as awful with English lyrics as I am, Hindi lyrics are probably a lost cause.

and speaking of Bollywood, our Amir Khan photoshoot with Awadheshji and Nicky on the Thar Desert:

Ah. I apologize for how long this entry is. One last very important part to go. So combine all of these people together, and the sharp contrast between what we are seeing during the day and where we are staying at night. and the sunsets over the desert watched by rooftop, and the stars gazed upon also my rooftop anddd I was already mentally exhausted. Now, off to the Pakistani Refugee camp we go.

I have no idea what to say with this one, except that when poor diplomatic relations result in the exclusion of thousands and thousands of people something is desperately wrong. I was one of the last to sit down with our group so while we were primarily addressed by male members of the community I happened to be sitting next to the women and children. The results? Lots of hand holding and playing with small children. Goodbye notebook cover and highlighter, lost to the inquisitive hands of a two year old. I guess I just really struggle over borders. I've never quite understood them, especially when in so many places a border is not tangible and yet has such a significant role to play in your future and access to opportunities. Many of the members of the refugee camp are from Jodhpur originally and a generation or two ago their grandparents/ great grandparents, moved just inside the Pakistani border for work. And than partition happened. An absolute example of the wrong place at the wrong time.

So Here I am however. back in Jaipur with three days off. And lots of city to explore. Most people in my program are off on different excursions but I really needed some time to explore this city and hang with my host family. I'm pretty exhausted at the moment but I know things will look up, and this is why you travel. To have everything you thought you knew become as scrambled as eggs. To use my favorite quote:

"The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white."

touche random quote from quotegarden. you have spoken my heart. Tomorrow, the medieval observatory and hanging with my new best friend, the lassiwala.

Hello Spice market at dusk!