Mom in Kerala Part 1

So this time it’s my mom that’s visiting. She spent the first week in Delhi, resting and recuperating from the flight. And then on Saturday we came to Kerala. We were essentially going to retrace the trip that my cousin Jen and I took three years ago.

We started then just south of Kovalam at a resort called Bethsaida whose profits go to support the orphanages they run. The resort has grown a lot in three years – they now have a five story building for rooms and what looks like a future conference hall. They have a more comfortable open air restaurant but that’s still temporary – they are using the room Jen and I stayed in as the staging area for food and the restaurant is really just tables outside. They also built several new upscale cottages and a beautiful pool (top pict is of it and the ocean). We asked why the pool had a sign saying “we’re sorry” next to it and they said they had violated some government regulations and the government had come and destroyed the pool house so it was an apology to the government. I can’t imagine the regulations were anything we cared if they broke but who knows.

Some other things hadn’t changed at all. The fishermen still used boats consisting of three logs tied together. The guy from Bethsaida that is the lifeguard/beach caddy for umbrellas and mats/gardener/letter out of the geese, Babu, is still there and as nice as ever. We met his son on a walk, who takes care of a beach several blocks down. The beaches are probably even more beautiful than I remember – little coves surrounded by cliffs on either side and forests of palm trees on the land-side. Some of the coves aren’t little at all, actually and are huge stretches of totally unoccupied beach (if you don’t count the boats). The resort next door, Surya Sumadra, is still just wonderful. The lady who sells pineapples on the beach – and cores and cuts them before I’ve even found the money in my beach bag is still there. She didn’t give me the sob story about all the medications she requires but she did try to launch into a story of her woeful life. A new fishermen (okay he’s probably been there forever but I met him for the first time this trip) was wonderful and toothless and couldn’t believe I wasn’t married at 31 and told me to come back and visit him with my husband next year, after I turned down his offer to come to his house to see his TV. I think my mother being around makes people want to remind me to get married – because my tailor was also telling me it was about time.

This place reminds me to let down my guard once in a while, as sometimes people are just genuinely nice. Plus the monkey totally ignored me as it walked by this morning. And maybe I misjudged the dog who ran up to me in what I took as an attack – maybe he just wanted to play. Next time I’m introducing the new kittens to the monkey – I think they’d get along nicely.

We ended up skipping the backwaters overnight to spend a little more time in Fort Kochi. Jen and I just had a few hours in Cochin and never even made it to the fort area (which is a little peninsula that used to be settled by the Dutch). So I’m writing this on the 5 hour train ride (versus the 24 hour boat ride). The backwaters are so beautiful – I hope I haven’t made a mistake in skipping them this time.

What a difference a day makes

So Friday I was in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh visiting the field. It was really hot (like 100F) and like most trips I spent most of the time walking around slum areas. Nothing was particularly dirty or upsetting, it was a fairly normal trip. The one moment of note was that one of the areas we do communication activities is in a chili packing area. This is an outdoor "plant", which is where farmers bring their chilis, sell them, and they are packed into burlap bags and then distributed through out the region or country or where ever. As everyone knows, Indians like their chilis (mirchis) and these red ones are apparently the hottest, and therefore best, in the country. I stepped out of our car and immediately could taste the chilis in the air. Mind you I was probably 100ft away from the nearest chili pepper but the spice had infiltrated the air! In the open air!

So I, and thankfully everyone I was with, started coughing, tearing, sneezing, and sweating immediately and continuously throughout the street drama I was observing. About 100 men stood around watching this performance and everyone was coughing and sneezing the whole time! I'm not even sure how our performers made it through. I then tried to interview the audience members, as I always do to see if they are getting the messages we intend, and really was a mess trying not to succumb to the reaction. Can you imagine working there - and apparently never getting used to that?

Then Monday (okay the title of this post says a day and that's three days.... whatever) I'm back in Delhi (with my mom visiting) and have a lunch with Ashley Judd who is in town to promote our activities (She's a PSI board member) and a cocktail/dinner reception with her at this amazing mansion of a rich Delhi-ite in a beautiful garden with waterfalls and stunning flowers on a really nice and warm evening. The contrasts of my stay here in India are pretty stunning sometimes. I attach a picture of Ashley visiting our Delhi staff - she's in the middle with a shawl and flowers. I'm on the right in a brown shirt, in case you were tempted to confuse us!

You know you've been travelling too long....

Seriously - the travel I do for work is so important and valuable to the program and me but I think I may be on the road too much. I am in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh today. Yesterday I arrived in Hyderabad - the hotel pick up guy wasn't there. We eventually tracked each other down (through about 5 people's cell phones). During those phone calls, I discovered that I was supposed to be awake and working in about 10 hours. After checking into the hotel, waiting for them to move a TV into the room, I realized that if I wanted to charge my cell phone I would have to sacrifice the mosquito repellent (only one outlet). Oh, and then the requisite call to reception to ask for toilet paper. Then I realized that I couldn't actually turn the fluorescent light off over my bed, my two options were on and flickering. Yeah, needless to say I woke up a few times to horrible bug bites and to the flickering fluorescent.

Tonight I'm in another hotel, a much much nicer one and had a bizarre craving for spaghetti so ordered it with bolognaise sauce and it might have been the worst thing I've ever tasted. Let's just say it had olives, green peppers and processed melted cheese on top. But the worst part was the mysterious spices that I've not yet gotten out of my mouth after several cups of tea and brushing of the teeth.

Oh, I attach a holi picture to remind all of you what you missed. Two weeks later, still pink hair!

Madurai

So the day Bev left, I headed to Chennai for work. Since i'm in Chennai fairly often, this isn't a big deal, but this time I went to Madurai, which is a smaller city towards the bottom of the state. I did the overnight train to Madurai one night and then another overnight train the following night back to Chennai. I wouldn't recommend this for work purposes - I'm exhausted from not sleeping either night (crazy noisy cabin mates that thought turning on all lights at 3am was a good idea, and ridiculously cold AC). However, I have a policy against allowing myself to complain, because it could become a full time job. And I think if you allow yourself to think negative thoughts the experience becomes negative. So let's concentrate on the good parts, of which there are many.

Madurai is known for it's temples, the biggest of which is the Sri Meenakshi complex. It's a typical tamil (not really the right word, but typical of the style of the rulers whose territory included tamil nadu) style, which is very distinct from the northern buildings of similar times. I'd seen pictures and so the towers pictured above (there are like 5 or 6 and they are 150ft tall) didn't take my breath away but the sculptures inside did. They are so well preserved, there are tons of them and so beautifully done. The temple complex took about 400 years to build (they say that encompassed 64 generations, so life span must have been short) and covers like 15 acres or something. Each temple has over 1000 sculptures in it. Non-hindus aren't allowed in many of the temples, which is the first time I've encountered this. Some of the original paintings remain, which are also stunning. The picture is of me being blessed by a temple elephant, which apparently means being tapped on the head by his trunk.

And I didn't get a picture of this but in the tradition of great promises of indian bottled water, I noticed I was drinking "diet water" this week!

Bev, Rachel and Cheinan

Three friends from DC who are friends themselves all were able to come to Delhi last week, which was wonderful. Rachel (Grad school friend) came for work, Bev (friend from BC) saw an opportunity to come and took it, and Cheinan (introduced through Rachel in DC) has been traveling in India and Sri Lanka since November. It went way too fast but was great while it lasted. Rachel and I started the trip with some souvenir shopping, and then Cheinan joined us for exploring Old Delhi, which on Sundays - when we went - is mostly closed. It's usually so busy that being half closed is a relief, we got lost walking through alleys, went through some very smelly dirty areas which prepared Rachel for her upcoming landfill visit (she works for the EPA), walked in a wedding procession, and rode Delhi's very nice subway (not at all sarcastic)! Bev and Cheinan spent the week doing some sight seeing, including a day trip to the Taj. I learned that visiting the Qutub Minar (the country's biggest minar and oldest ruins of Delhi) is really nice at night, as they light it up. Bev and I pampered ourselves with yoga and facials (lesson: if you want an atmosphere that is not reminiscent of a mental ward, make an advance reservation) and visited Tughlakabad Fort, one of my favorite places in Delhi. We safely passed the monkey gang that has haunted the fort since I arrived in 2003. The top picture is of Bev and I at the fort and the bottom is one of the women working on reconstructing it.

We were all to go to Jaipur for the weekend, but unfortunately Bev got the infamous Delhi Belly and we had to cancel. So instead we spent the weekend exploring Delhi including the Mughal Gardens, which are the presidential palace gardens and are only open for 3 weeks a year. It's free but crazy busy, particularly on weekends, with extensive lines. The first garden is an herb garden, which was a little scary in that did we really just wait through all those lines for these measly herbs? But then you enter the flower, fountain and main gardens which are stunning. I'm firing my gardener! This proves you can grow all these in Delhi weather! We also went to the place where gandhi was killed (see pict) and the national gallery. India's history is so rich and varied that any museum of its history is bound to be shocking. And what strikes me most is that very little of this history has been lost, the jewelry and games dug up from 3000bc are still used today. In a lot of museums you ask what that thing would be used for and living here you know, because they are still used. It's also always revealing how similar the textiles of the world are (india has a lot of similarity to central american patterns). Sadly Cheinan had already gone to Jaipur ahead of us so missed the weekend.

Rachel noted that I've failed in my quest to rid India of men in stone washed jeans. I'll keep working on it! I'll swing it over to Cheinan, Rachel and Bev to share their funny stories, because I am so used to this now, I forget what's funny!