Moot Leprosy Colony

On Friday we went to Moot Colony: a small leprosy colony with only seven people. When we first arrived, I think all of us volunteers were a little nervous - they don't speak English and we don't speak Tamil. One of the volunteers here is a dancer, and brought some Tamil music and speakers to play. One man, Krishnan, has no feet or hands and gets around on a small, wheeled platform. He couldn't hear the music because he's partially deaf so we cranked it up and held it up to his ear. He got the most beautiful, happy smile on his face and kept saying "Tamil, Tamil." He danced a little, moving his arms back and forth. It was so fun to see because I don't think he had heard music for awhile. Dr. Kumar, the doctor that Rising Star Outreach employs, brought Krishnan a new platform that is lighter and easier to maneuver. Watching Krishnan when he saw the new platform brought tears to my eyes. He was so happy and excited.

To have leprosy here, is to be the lowest of the low. Many people will try to hide it because if word gets out, they will be cast out of the town and their own family members won't even visit them or ever see them again. It's heartbreaking, considering it's a completely curable disease, but it's  I wish I spoke Tamil so I could speak with them and learn more about their lives. But since I don't, I had to be content just sitting with them and enjoying their sereneness.

There was one man, Jai-Raj, who was a real ham and hilarious. He speaks some English, and a whole lot of Tamil and never stops talking. He actually reminds me a little of my brother, Matt. He wanted a lot of pictures taken. For some reason, he likes to pose with his mouth open.
As we were leaving Krishnan motioned us to bend down and he blessed each and every one of us. It was so sweet.

This woman was so sweet. She would just sit and hold my hand and smile.

Me and Jai-Raj and his favorite photo pose.

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The small woman is such a gentle soul. She saves scraps of her food to feed the birds out her window. She barely has enough to eat herself, but always makes sure the birds eat.

Krishnan's leg. He has a wheeled platform to get around.

Getting blessed by Krishnan.

I wish I had a picture of this man by himself. He has the most beautiful face and gray hair.

Rising Star - finally!

I started volunteering with Rising Star Outreach ( http://www.risingstaroutreach.org/) on Monday. A group of seven of us got picked up in Chennai and driven two hours to the tiny village of Thottanaval. Rising Star's goal is to help leprosy colonies become thriving and self-sufficient. They have a school  for kids who have a family member affected with leprosy. The kids are provided with nutritious meals, medical and dental care, and a good education. They also have medical teams go out to the colonies and provide health and dental care. They also do micro-finance and help the leprosy-afflicted set up businesses so they can support themselves so they don't have to beg. Having leprosy is a huge stigma in India: up until a few years ago, it was legal to beat a person with leprosy if they touched you. Rising Star is working to change that stigma. For the three weeks I'm here, I'll be working in the school, as well as going out to the colonies with the medical team.

The first day we got here, we had lunch, had our hair strewn with jasmine, and headed out for to play with the kids for their recess. It was amazing how friendly and loving they all are. As soon as we got there, it was "Aunty - play with me. Aunty - come chase me." They call us all "Aunty" and I'm "Shelly Aunty." It's darling. The kids sleep on campus at their hostel and are broken out into "families." We were assigned into our families. I'm with about 17 boys, the youngest is 5, but the majority are about 10 years old. This has been the first real exposure to boys I've had. Growing up in a family four daughters, I'm not used to boys. But, it's been a ton of fun so far! One little boy, Veerin, has stolen my heart. He's got the sweetest smile and is so charming and knows exactly how to use it. He has a huge lump over one of his eyes. It started growing one day and they're not sure what it is, but it seems like it's starting to get better.

Every night we eat dinner on the roof of the hostel and get to see the sun set over the mango grove that surrounds the playground. Each night we have to say our high and our low for the day. Some days they're silly, other days they're poignant. One of my lows this week was about a little girl with growths on her face. All the kids here love digital cameras and love to have their photos taken so they can see themselves. I was taking some pictures of the kids and this little girl came up to me and wanted to see the photos. I asked her if she wanted her picture taken, and she said "no, I don't have my photo taken because of my face." And she covered her cheek with her hands. My heart just about broke right there.

This week has been a little unusual because the kids were out of school for three days for a Tamil holiday. So we tutored some of the kids who were a little behind in English and Math for the first few days. But every day we head over at 4:30 to to play with them at recess. Dinner is at 6 and then we break out into our families until 9.

Wednesday we headed over to a colony to help build a community center. Basically it was manual labor that I'm sure could've been done a lot faster and more efficiently if we weren't there, but it's the thought, right? Basically we formed a line and passed huge bowls full of sand and rocks down. It was 100 degrees in the shade that day, so you can imagine how hot it was in the sun. I thought the most I've ever sweat was when I was in Italy during that huge heatwave where thousands of people died....but this was much worse. I was soaking wet by the time we finished. But - it felt good.

First day fun! No shy kids here.

Little Veerin

                                                      The playground and kids hostel

Morning assembly, surrounded by palm trees.

One of the students at my "talent" class. We made thank you cards for adults in their lives.

Agra & the Taj Mahal

I took the train back to Delhi and spent one night there before leaving for Agra: home of a lot of beautiful monuments, including the Taj Mahal. I love driving around India, because there are enormous statues of the Hindu gods, in the most random places. I'm especially fond of the Ganesh's and Hanuman-ji's. I spent two nights in Agra and went to Agra Fort and Akbar's Mausoleum. Both were just breathtaking and beautiful. Akbar's Mausoleum is built out of redstone and marble and uses both Hindu and Muslim elements of design. I also loved Agra Fort...it was so much more interesting to me than the Red Fort in Delhi. And of course, I saved the best for last: the Taj Mahal. I was right there at 6am when the gates opened and seeing it in person is just as amazing as you think it will be. I was a little worried it had been built up that it wouldn't seem as impressive, but it's even more awe-inspiring in person. And there weren't that many people there so I was able to get some pictures with hardly anyone in them. Unheard of! 

Akbar's Mausoleum

Darling kids I played with at Agra Fort.

The Wagah Border: Party Time!

After hanging with my baba, I headed up to the Wagah Border which is the Pakistan/India border. I never in a million years thought I would get this close to Pakistan in my life! Each night at 5 pm, they have a ceremony to officially close the border for the evening. Both countries participate, although there weren't too many spectators on the Pakistan side, compared to the cramped conditions on the India side. I thought it would be a solemn, serious ceremony, but it was really raucous and exciting. They started things off with a dance party....seriously, they just cranked the music and people danced in the street and in the aisles. The biggest hit was when they played "Jai Ho." I thought the bleachers were going to collapse. The ceremony is full of a lot of yelling and drawn out screeching. I have no iea what they were saying, but it was quite an an experence. I took some videos too which you can watch at: http://picasaweb.google.com/Shellyneves1
The guards do this fast walk/run with lots of high kicks as they make their way to the border. The offical ending is when both countries lower their flags. I was sitting next to a group of high school boys from Kasmir who were so amped up and excited. It made it that much more fun.

On my way out, I made the mistake of agreeing to take a photo with a family, and boy was that a huge mistake. The floodgates opened and I was literally surrounded by people and flashes were going off all around me. It was almost blinding. I so wanted to take a picture of the wall of people around me, but my camera battery had died. As soon as one picture ended, another person was right by my side asking for one. It could've gone on for hours. I kid you not. Finally, I just put my sunglasses on, started walking, and ignored all other requests.

I waited in four different lines for two hours to get in. They turn away hundreds of people for the ceremony. And this happens every night!

High school boys from Kashmir - they were so much fun to sit with. The Border Patrol would yell "Hindustan" and then we would yell it right back.

The gate between India and Pakistan. The people in the bleachers are in Pakistan.

The peeps representing Pakistan - not nearly as many as on the India side.

The border.

            My favorite Border Patrol Guard - he loves his job. You can tell by that smile :)

Amritsar

After a very long day of travel, I finally made it to Amritsar about 6pm and immediately headed out to see the famous Golden Temple. The Golden Temple is the holiest shrine in Sikhism. My guidebook rates it as the "most tangibly spiritual place in the country". And it gets more visitors than the Taj Mahal, which is hard to imagine. The temple gets its name from the 100kh of gold that is covering the inverted-lotus dome. All visitors must cover their heads, in my case I was provided with a gold sequined bandana. Pretty flashy for a backpacker. I went on a Sunday so the temple had even more visitors than usual. There were thousands of people. I waited in line almost two hours to enter the actual temple. The grounds and the temple are beautiful, but between the crowds and the heat, and the thousands of pairs of eyes watching my every move...well, it was a bit much. I had wanted to visit the kitchen, where they serve a whopping 35,000 people a day - for free! But, after a couple hours, I decided to skip the communal dinner head back to the hotel and grab a fanta and a candy bar instead.

The next day I went to Jallianwalla Bagh. This is the site, where in 1919, fifty British soldiers, opened fire on an unarmed gathering of Indian men, women, and children, killing 1,526 people. The site is now a park with memorials and a museum. The area was surrounded by a high brick wall, making it impossible to escape. They have the bullet holes taped off. The Sikhs I've met here are really eager to share their history with you. They're all really earnest about making sure that foreigners have the story straight.

Bullet holes at Jallianwalla Bagh

 

After that, I went to a coupe of other temples, and I have to admit I was starting to get a little "templed out." Until, I went to the next one: Mata Mandir which is definitely my favorite temple so far. It's a new temple, built in honor of the bespectacled 20th century female Saint Lal Devi. And it's really different than other temples and kind of odd. Everything is really glittery, and 70's, and there are mirrors everwhere. And the path through the temple goes upstairs, then dowstairs,then upstairs again, then you have to crawl through a tunnel, and then wade through ankle deep water. It was like a funhouse and temple in one. 

Crawling through a tunnel in the temple....

To a very shiny room....

Through a 70's mirror tunnel....

Wading through the water...

And then through a trough of water. At the end, I went over to get blessed by the baba (Hindu holy man) and he motioned me to sit down. So, I sat down with him and a few other people, and we were brought Fanta. I saw for a few minutes and drank my Fanta, and got up to leave and he motioned me to sit down. So, I sat again, and this time they brought out some chopped up fruit, liberally doused in water. I sat and ate my fruit, hoping that water won't come back to haunt my stomach :) All the while, people are coming up to the baba and getting his blessing and bringing him food. After a few more minutes, I got up to leave again....feeling a little guilty for taking up so much of the baba's floor space and time, and again, he motioned me to sit. So, I ended up sitting there for over an hour. And the last course was a delicious lunch. It was such a neat experience, watching him interact with people and seeing how grateful people were to talk to him. He ended up giving me a marigold garland and a red threat necklace, called a mauli. Everyone around me told me that I was very blessed to receive these gifts and not to take off the garland for the whole day. 

My Baba

The temple is in honor of this lady. Women hoping to get pregnant visit this temple.

Dharamsala: home of the Dalai Lama

I spent three days in Dharamsala, which has been the official residence of the Dalai Lama since 1959, when he fled the Chinese rule. The town definitely feels more like a little Tibet, than India. There are tons of Tibetan refugees and monks walking all around. As I write this, there are three sitting next to me in the coffee shop, having some chai and talking about philosophy :) It's been a really great place to just walk around and chill. There are quite a few other tourists here, so you don't get quite so much attention which is a welcome relief for a few days. I've
been shopping too much, eating too many mango lassis, and generally having a great time. I visited the various Buddhist temples in town, including the Tsuglagkhang Complex, which is the official residence of the Dalai Lama, as well as the Tibet Museum, and Tsuglagkhang itself: the most revered temple outside of Tibet. It's beautiful inside and also has several old relics rescued from the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, during the Cultural Revolution. The Tibet Museum was really good. I knew some of the atrocities committed by the Chinese, but didn't realize just how horrible it really is. Over 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed since the Chinese occupation. A thousand years worth of priceless Buddhist papers, art, and relics were destroyed. Only 12 of 6000 monasteries were left standing, with the rest destroyed and often times used for target practice. The museum has a really good "Testimony Corner" with Tibetans stories of how they made the dangerous trip through the snow covered mountains to Northern India. The Tibetans are so kind and gentle. I ended up buying quite a few knickknacks I didn't need, just because the vendors were so sweet and kind. All in all, it was a great place to spend a few days.

Tsuglagkhang Complex: Dalai Lama's residence as seen from my hotel window!

Prayer Wheels at Tsuglagkhang

The local schools were having a human rights march that ended at the temple.

These signs abound around Dharamasala. In 1995, the Dalai Lama chose a six year old boy to become the next Panchen Lama, the next highest ranking lama after the Dalai Lama. After he was chosen, the Chinese took the boy and his family into "protective custody" and nobody has heard from them since.

New friends from Punjab.

Monks at Tsuglagkhang. They sit in the courtyard and debate and talk.

The Temple at Norbulingka Institute - an institute devoted to saving traditional Tibetan art forms.

Manali & Bir

My second day in Manali I headed up to Rohtang Pass. I didn't know too much about it, except that the views are supposed to be amazing and it's only 50k out of town so it'd be a nice couple hour day trip, right? Wrong. It took 3 1/2 hours each way to drive that 50k, because the roads are so poor and the traffic is so congested. Apparently, it's the place where Indians go to see their first snow. So, along the drive are dozens of shops renting "snow dresses" or one piece 80's ski suits and super skinny old school skis. So funny. If I had known exactly what it was then I probably wouldn't have spent 7 hours in a car, but it was fun to see people's reactions to snow. And I loved seeing the Sikhs in their turbans and one pieces. It just seems so incongruous.        

   The parking lot at Rohtang.

It started raining and didn't stop for about 36 hours...and I'm talking serious, monsoon rain. I started to worry about mudslides, being in a canyon and all. I got soaked going to see the Hadimba Temple. It's a little bit grisly - every May they have a three day festival where animals are sacrified. And the outside of the temple is adorned with animal skulls and antlers. Inside there is a stone bowl for collecting the blood. This place kind of gave me the creeps.

Hadimba Temple

The next day I left Manali and headed to Bir for the night. Bir is tiny....it's basically just a stop on the way to Dharmasala. It has a big Tibetan population, like Manali, and a nice Buddhist temple. My guesthouse was set in a tea plantation or "tea garden" as they say here. It was a peaceful place to spend an evening. The next day I headed up to Billings to see the world famous paragliding spot. Along the 10k drive, we got stuck behind a herd of goats. There were two tiny, baby goats that I was oooing over and the owner asked if we would drive them up to Billings because they were tired and were walking so slowly. So, we took the goat babies and the owner's kid to the top of the mountain. Is it horrible to say that even after the beautiful Hindu and Buddhist temples I had seen in the past few days, that driving the baby goats was the highlight of my day? :) They were like little puppies and so cuddy. The kid was totally amused at how excited I was about them. It was funny.

If only they could stay small forever....

Billings has world famous paragliding so I stopped and watched a few take off the side of the mountain. I thought about trying it...because the price was cheap, but decided it probably wasn't the best activity to cut corners on :)