Accidentally in Love

What defines falling in love? Furtive glances, an intoxication with a smell, an obsession with a feeling, all consuming thoughts, a pull deep inside your chest.

Perhaps not entirely on accident, and aganst my best wishes, I have fallen truly in love. Head over heels madly in love...with India. Gregory David Robers (author of Shantaram, which is my new favorite book and which everyone should read right now) put it far better than I could ever dream to. "This is not like any other place. This is India. Everyone who comes here falls in love-- most of us fall in love many times over. And the Indians, they love most of all...That is how they manage to live together, a billion of them, in reasonable peace. They are not perfect, of course. They know how to fight and lie and cheat each other and all the things that all of us do. But more than any other people in he world, the Indians know how to love one another."

Those of you who know me well know that I love with the entirety of my heart; I'm all or nothing with my love for people and when I let someone into my life deeply, I will do anything for them and I do my best to devote myself fully to their happiness. It is this same emotion that I see mirrored in the Indian people that I have met. Following our final Hindi lesson on Tuesday, our Hindi teacher (whose name I still cannot remember) produced a small gift for us and told us how difficult it would be to see us go after getting to know us so well and spending so much time with us. This is a man whose arrival we dreaded and frequently openly criticied in ways that I believe it would have been impossible not to notice; this is a man for whom we had never done any work and some of us didn't even show him the respect of waking up in the mornigs. And yet, I could tell that he genuinely meant every word that he said and that deep down, he would miss us.

Roberts perfectly captures the Indian people. When I chose to come to India, many questioned my decision, peppering me with questions and well meant concerns about the safety, drilled me on how I would handle beggars (knowing that I am prone to heart wrenching guilt at the sight of someone in need), and generally doubting the sanity in my choice. There are so many horror stories of India out there, from the movie Slumdog Millionaire, which was the first introduction for many to India, to various news specials on the extreme poverty that plagues India, but underneath all of the horror stories, which very much true, exists that pervasive theme of love. By simple necessity, many Indians may initially seem hardened to the plight of their countrymen in our very Western and naive eyes, but that couldn't be farther than the truth. The India that I have encountered (and yes, I have been cheated and swindled during my trip thus far by various peoples who saw my white skin and assume that I was a passing through tourist), is an India full of love and inclusion; an India where people want to open up their homes, and most importantly their hearts, to you. And when someone opens themselves so fully and genuinely to you, its impossible not to love them back with every fibre of your being.

India is never what you expect, no matter how well you think you understand it. I hoped that when I came, I would find my inner peace through extensive meditation and yoga. Instead, as I reflect on what I refer to as Phase I of my trip, I realize that coming to India hasn't change who I am, but, instead, gave me a mirror to better understanding myself. I am still just as bubbly, energetic, loving and caring as I believe I was before I left. The poverty hasn't hardened my heart (I still feel a sharp pain in my chest every time I pass a beggar) and the sprituality hasn't necessarily made me any more spiritual than I was before I boarded the plane. Instead, so far, India has forced me to see what type of person I am, serving as an inward mirror instead of a window to a different self. I've learned that I tend to live in the future, instead of in the present, always living a day, a week, a step ahead of the moment I'm in, and thus never truly appreciating where I am except in reference to its value as a stepping stone to the future. She has taught me that I love unconditionally and that although the pain of seperation (yes, in this instance from the beautiful children at Lepcha Cottage) may be difficult to bear at times, it's worth it for the love that you receive. India has taught me that I am the type of person who will take a brief moment of extreme happiness over a lifetime of mediocrity. Most importantly, India has taught me the importance of trusting my gut and my intuition.

All of that being said, my adventure is not over and I certainly have more to learn. Each phase of the I believe will teach me incredibly different but all incredibly valuable lessons about myself and about life. Each portion will help to make me a better, more mature and wordly person, with a deeper awareness for the world and life around me.

I have fallen in love with India; in love with the wide array of religions, the vast differences in culture, the child selling "holi" (colored chalk thrown during festivals) and firecrackers on the street. I have fallen in love with every single one of the children at Lepcha Cottage, the taxi drivers of Gangok, and Mr. Softy ice cream. I have fallen head over heels for the lull of Indian accent on English words and the pervasive British undertones that still define much of Indian society. I am a lovesick, swooning teenager for momos (similar to dumplings), dal (lentils) and dosas (crepe-like pancake with spicy potato filling). And like in any relationship, I recognize the not-so-great aspects of my love- the poverty, the cheating, the corruption- and accept them with pride and love.

Sending love from Kalimpong,
A lovesick teenager.

Catching Up...

Wow. Wow. I really suck at keeping this up. It's been over two weeks I believe since my last post and I apologize profusely. Things have been pretty crazy around here and in the midst of it I just didn't feel up to the challenge of blogging...apologies.

Let's start with the most pressing first- my current illness. Some of you may know bits and pieces of what is going on, but here is the full story. For the past week or so, I've been fighting off a pretty nasty cold. A few days ago I noticed that a lymph node on the right side of my neck was massively swollen (approximately the size of a solid rubber ball in my neck). Yesterday, Rajiv took Steven and I (Steven has also been fighting off a nasty cold) to the local hospital to see a doctor.

Reasons I love India: I saw three specialists yesterday for a grand total of...drumroll please) $2.50. Less than I spend on a Subway sandwich. Steven and I jointly began our adventures with the ENT specialist, who told Steven that he had a nasty virus and told me that I had essentially a nasty cold. She prescribed us 5 and 4 medications respectively. I then journeyed onto the eye doctor, who took one look at my bloodshot eyes and told me that I had conjunctivitis which CAN be pink eye. However, I refuse to accept the hypothesis that I have pink eye because I lack the most obvious symptoms (the eyes that crust over while sleeping and are incredibly itchy to bein with).

Our final stop was the dermatologist for a look at my nose which (thanks to the lack of true tissues here...something I will definitely appreciate once home!) has become crusty/almost scabby and definitely not healthy looking. After all of my visits, I had a grand total of 6 different medications prescribed to me which were available and purchased for a grand total of under $15. The lesson learned? Third world countries might make you sick but they sure know how to take care of you!

After coming home, I emailed the incredible Mother for her/our doctor's opinion of the situation (email complete with pictures, never fear!). She said, which I agree with and find much more plausible, that the whole situation actually looks a LOT more like strep, to which I am INCREDBILY prone, or a staff infection (on my nose), both of which can be treated. After speaking with the lovely Dr. Gary Miya and my regular doctor, Dr. Asha Deveroux, we confirmed that the medications I had been given would treat either of these options as well. So, I am hopefully on my way to feeling like myself again :) However, it's a long process and unfortunately, being sick makes you 100x more homesick.

Next up...my current travel plans. I don't want to go into too many details, but an opportunity arose for me (and anyone else if they so wished) to take some time and visit Southern India more extensively than previously planned. However, this meant that we would have to depart our program early (opting out of the Everest trek portion); after much deliberation because it was not a decision easily made, I decided that I would take this option. Alex and Claudia have decided to join me (although Claudia will actually be leaving on Nov. 26th because for her own reasons, she has decided to do the trek with a family friend and her trek begins Nov. 29th) and we are busy planning our trip! It is too soon to give extensive details of our itinerary as we are still roughing it out but as soon as I know, I will update you.

This was a very difficult decision to come to, especially given the kindness that Rajiv and Anu have shown us, but after extensive discussions with Mom and Dad, we decided that this was best for me. I want to truly make the most of my gap year and I think that this will help me. Additionally, for a multitude of reasons, Mom and Dad weren't comfortable with the trek situation/scenario per se and we all agreed that this was for the best J If this explanation does not satiate your desire to know more about what’s going on, shoot me an email and I’ll give you more details.

Since I last blogged, Laura has actually left our program for personal reasons. She has safetly returned to New York and is hopefully taking good care of herself :) We love and miss her!

Over the past week or so at Lepcha Cottage, we have been working with our 3's and 4's on a writing assignment; they were given a list of 15 'new' words and asked to choose 6/7 of them to incorporate into a story they wrote with a partner. It's been quite a learning experience all around I'd say; many of the kids were intimidated by the idea that they should be writing their 'own' story and instead essentially wrote well known fairy or folk tales again. Originally, Alex and I were against this and tried very hard to get them to write their own story or at least an adaptation of the story but eventually, we were forced to give in somewhat as we realized we were fighting a losing battle. The kids finished the majority of the stories yesterday, along with their beautifully designed covers, and they are fantastic! It was a great feeling to see the kids so excited about finishing their stories and about finishing something they'd really thrown themselves into. Pictures of the covers of the stories are to come and will likely be loaded to my Picasa if not Facebook. If you want to see the Picasa, click on the slideshow of pictures that should be next to my blog and it will take you directly to it.

On Wednesday, Claudia, Alex and I went to see the kids' school. While quite a few kids are from Lecha Cottage (especially the younger ones) most of them are just from under privileged families and they live in the Boys' or Girls' Hostel on campus. The school is really nice, with a lot of playgrounds and it seems like a good teaching staff. As they were short on teachers that day, they asked us to fill in a little bit. We spent the morning with our 3’s (most of them were from Lepcha Cottage) essentially just playing games. Then, the vice-principal took us to the Boys’ Hostel for lunch where yet again, Indian hospitality amazed me. They refused to let us eat in the dining hall or on the steps with the boys, and insisted on serving us a far nicer and more complex lunch than the students were eating. After this, we went to the 7^th and then 8^th grade classrooms (Class 6 and 7 here) and talked about ourselves. It was incredibly awkward to be honest and I’m not entirely sure it was productive for either party but it provided us with some good laughs: Claudia and I trying to sing “Colors of the Wind” with our voices cracking, our utter shock and disgust at how well known Justin Bieber is around the world, and desperate attempts to explain where North Carolina (or even California) is within the United States.

Anyways, I think this post is officially getting to be too long and packed with information. I hope you all have amazing days J Feel free to email me at sjlinssen@gmail.com if you ever want to!

ALSO: If you’ve ever wanted to know some more about Lepcha Cottage, or if you’re interested in sponsoring one of the kids (a grand total of $300/year), go to www.sikkimchildren.net.

A Thousand Miles Away and Yet So Close

When I think of tradition, I instantly picture Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof" singing about tradition from the rooftops. Tradition is something that I've been a part of my entire life as a Jew, something that I embody and something that has created a part of who I am. But until being thousands of miles away from home, I'm not sure I entirely understood tradition, or at least definitely not as I do now.

India is a country utterly steeped in tradition; tradition oozes out of every person, and the tentacles of tradition find their way into everyday life. A few weeks ago, there was a holiday to celebrate the 'machine gods', thus everyone spent the day honoring their cars, computers...anything mechanical. But tradition really became evident during the past holiday of Desai.

We were lucky enough to be in Kalimpong for Desai (thank goodness because apparently Sikkim has essentially banned celebrations here following the earthquake). The heart of the festival of Desai is being with family; every day one must go and visit an elder member of the family and be blessed. We were lucky enough to observe this occuring in Kalimpong, when some cousins of Anu's were blessed by the eldest uncle in the family. This tradition highlights the importance of family in Indian culture, something I think we've started to lose a little in the West.

While looking at schools last year, I sat in on a class at Oxford College at Emory University about the social status of the elderly in our culture. Before information became available at our fingertips, the elderly were revered as the ones to whom we went for information and help because they knew more than anyone else in the community. But as books became readily available, we stopped learning from our elders and turned instead to books and then, eventually, the wide expanses of the internet. And with this, the value of being an 'elder' in the community began to decrease.

But in India, despite an ever increasing Western influence and a quickly changing community, the value placed in family and your elders still remains. Indians remember that there is still much to learn from someone who has lived far more than you; it may not be knowledge about the planets or calculus or biology, but they teach us about life. As children, Indians are taught to respect those older than them and to defer to their wisdom, whether it be practical wisdom or more frequently, life wisdom.

Of course, this is somewhat of an oversimplification; as Western influence grows, there will always be plenty of youth who do not properly respect their elders and who do not return for holiday. But in Kalimpong, we saw Anu's family from all over India flock to the family home to pay their respect to their elders. We were lucky enough to be a fly on the wall as her family celebrated something that is lost, or at least temporarily misplaced, in Western culture.

Interestingly, Desai somewhat coincided with the Jewish High Holy Days, which caused me to reflect on my own traditions and beliefs. I have always been a half-hearted Jew; I believe in a God, but I have fought against the constraints of religion and prayer for longer than was probably necessary. But suddenly, being thousands of miles away from home, I found that I wanted to participate in the small Jewish ceremonies I had always taken for granted; I found myself chanting the Sh'ma, attempting Kol Nidre and eventually Google-ing all of the prayers so that I could have my own attempt at a Yom Kippur service, something I could almost share with my family and friends back home. A thousand miles away from home, and the traditions I took for granted and avoided at home are now what make me feel that home isn't necessarily so far away. Because, with my eyes closed for the Sh'ma, I could see Rebecca and Rachel next to me at services in 4th grade, my father falling asleep at Rosh Hashanah services, and everyone gathered for my Bat Mitzvah almost six years ago. But more importantly, it allowed me to access the home that is inside and will always be there.

Lots of love as always,

Sara

Nine.

Greetings from India :)

So we just spent the past three days (essentially) in Kalimpong, West Bengal, which is where Anu's family lives. I'm going to split the stories from the trip into a few posts because I'd rather not overwhelm anyone with a dauntingly long post. It also will allow me to talk about a few other things in more detail :) So from the beginning...

Anu had been in Delhi for her son's wedding (which was great apparently and she had a fantastic time), and was going to Kalimpong to set up a few things there with their propety and her family. We were supposed to be going to Kalimpong over these dates for a celebration for the wedding but after the earthquake Anu and Rajiv (along with the children) decided not to have the party and to donate all the money that was going towards the party to earthquake victims. We'd had to get special permits to go (and by special permits, I mean Rajiv and Anu treated some government official to drinks) and it seemed pointless to waste our special permits so we decided to go ahead with our trip to Kalimpong just for fun :) Rajiv had decided that we would drive 2.5/3ish hour drive and then walk/hike for what he said would be 3 hours to get to Kalimpong.

We were told that we had to leave at 6.30 AM so I woke up at 6 and took a shower. We had a bit of trouble getting Rebecca (the group sleepyhead) out so we left a little late. We didn't have breakfast before leaving and Rajiv told us that we'd be able to find water on the way so we set off. When we got the hiking point, Laura still wasn't feeling well and asked to take a cab to Kalimpong as she had a stomach issue and wasn't up to the hike. As it was no easy feat at this point to get a cab, we waited for about an hour (we had some nice tea and biscuits while waiting) for someone to drive from Kalimpong to drive Laura.

And then we began the adventure. Rajiv told us it would be approximately 3km uphill and the rest downhill...lies. Claudia, Alex and I pulled ahead and stopped for a cold drink as we were starting to get thirsty (approximately at 1.5km into the hike) so we stopped to get a Sprite. The others caught up and decided to stop for a cold beer; growing impatient, the three of us pulled away again and began up the hill. At about 3km, we stopped someone to ask them how much farther up it was. Naively, I expected them to say one more kilometer (a daunting distance to be sure still).  No. We were informed that we had NINE more kilometers to go uphill, and TWENTY-FOUR more total. NINE. Meaning approximately 11-12km total uphill. Not the promised three. This was, understandbly, frustrating, but once we had a definitive distance for the walking it didn't matter as much. We stopped for awhile to finish off the last of the water Claudia had brilliantly brought along and to share a few powerbars I had.

We quickly realized that we were going to run into an issue soon if we didn't find any water soon. We were officially out of water and it was incredibly hot that day. We walked for quite awhile without any hope of finding anywhere for water. We finally came upon a few houses and a small store, and bought the most disgusting, overly sugary mango drink you can possibly imagine; out of sheer desperation and the fear of dehydration, we finished the entire, disgusting thing. We were beginning to be faced with a dillemma though, which was that there was clear, fresh water that we could very easily drink except that we had no iodine tablets/filter with us and no way of ensuring where the water was from or how clean it was. Despite incredible temptation, Claudia and Alex pulled me away from the water, threatening giardia as the price of a drink of cool water. Eventually, we grew so desperate for water that we stopped at a house and begged a woman inside to boil water for us.

After our adventures, we came up with a new set of rules to live by.

1) Never Trust Rajiv.

2) Always have Iodine.

3) Never Trust Rajiv.

To end the hike, Rajiv forced us into a cab to get to Kalimpong (we could have kept going although considering how we had no breakfast and no lunch/food aside from biscuits and protein bars). We had lunch at a very nice place called 'Gumpys' - apparently one of the few quality places in Kalimpong according to Rajiv- and discovered our newest adventure. Across the street we saw a place to paraglide and Alex, Claudia and I (eventualy joined by Laura) decided that we wanted to paraglide here. Unfortuantely, due to timing, we weren't able to do it on this trip, but we're going through Kalimpong on our way to Bhutan in November so we'll do it then. But, as someone who is incrediby afraid of heights, I was proud of my decision to attempt to jump off a mountain and soar up above.

That night we went to Cloud 9 (a restaurant near out hotel) to meet some of Anu's family which was incredibly fun as they are all fantastic. We are in 'festival time' (more about festival stuff tomorrow!) as they call it, so her family has come from all over India to celebrate together and Anu was reunited with a sister she hasn't seen in about ten years which was incredibly fun to be a part of.

Anyways, I believe that this is enough for one night as I don't want to overwhelm anyone :)

Happy Desai to all,

Sara

PS. Funny side story for my Jews- I met an Israeli couple in "Gumpys" (the first of all of the Israelis that I was told invade India) who attempted to speak to me in Hebrew...something I am definitely NOT able to do. Whoops. But it was great wishing them a happy New Year.

Truly In a World Far, Far Away

 Wow. Wow. That is all I have to say for what happened just now.

I've spent quite a few of my past blog posts talking about Asha and her situation here. Yesterday, Laura and Claudia had bought her a pair of dark skinny jeans (she had mentioned that those were her favorites and given them her size) as a gift. We'd discussed when to give them to her and decided to wait until we knew about the decision regarding her giving us massages (see last blog post if this is confusing). I think I mentioned this at the end of the last post, but Mr. Prutan had agreed to it, while Mrs. Prutan (or Auntie) had said it wasn't okay as it would take away from her work. Asha was going to try to talk to her again sine Mr. Prutan had agreed to it.

(Quick note before I begin...this is all second hand as I was not actually in the room when any of this happened) So flash forward to earlier tonight when Laura and Claudia were sitting talking to Asha (as they frequently do at night), when Auntie walked in. Asha instantly stiffened and stood up and went to the other side of the room, and Auntie harshly said something to her in Nepalese. Auntie then turned to the girls and said, "Laura and Claudia, please do not treat Asha as an equal. Asha likes to talk and she comes down here and then doesn't get her sleep so that she can work in the morning. When you treat her like an equal she gives me trouble (AS IF!), and takes advantage of me. Please don't treat her as an equal." OH. MY. GOD. First of all, she said all of this with Asha standing right next to her. The girls had NO idea what to say (obviously) and were simply speechless. Auntie then went into Rajiv's room to ask him to not bring up the "massage thing" and essentially repeated what she'd said to the girls.

Auntie then returned to the still dumbstruck girls and said "I know all humans are created equal, but there's just some...space between some of us."

So. That was our night. As Rajiv put it, quite the eye opener to Indian caste system and culture. And now we have absolutely no idea what to do for the next month. Apparently Asha doesn't actually want to go to Delhi which causes a few problems when it comes to finding another job. And the truth is, that as an uneducated female, it's very likely that Asha will simply return to working as household help in someone's home in a similar situation. Rajiv pointed out that to a certain extent, this house really is one of the better ones because she's not beaten...something he's seen many times before in homes.

Gah. Apologies for the fact that this post is a little all over the place (we are concurrently having a discussion about "Slut Walk" and the term slut and everything associated with that) and I'm incredibly tired. And trying to process what happened tonight. It's one of those moments where something you've been aware of in the abstract and tried to deny exists in front of your face suddenly has just jumped out and slapped me in the face. This is truly another world, a world where people treat their help as though they are literally a possesion or pet, a world where people don't feel a true human connection with someone else and where people aren't, by my definition, human. 

And a world where a pair of jeans could cause more problems than we can possibly imagine.

I think that's all that I have energy to rant about tonight. I'll update a little more tomorrow about the situation and what else we've been doing.

Lots of love from a world far, far away from reality,

Sara