Palampur June 27, 2009

I had a bit of trouble keeping up with this blogging considering they keep us so busy here. A couple days ago I asked if I could tag along on an intern-only excursion to the University of Agriculture. The campus sprawls itself across the rolling hills and encompasses whole fields of rice and valleys overflowing with tea bushes. It was really awesome to bear witness to the organic movement in a place not so well-off - just proving the point that returning to organic farming is a point that is relevant not only to the wealthy Whole Foods frequenters. One of the deans led us through a tour of the school and emphasized how the use of chemicals will completely ruin the soil in a time span of a mere 25 years. We wandered through a biochemistry lab and a relieving 68 degree room stacked with various cultures, a veterinary surgical room, and the college where textiles are sewn and meals cooked in huge vats and ovens and such. 

The day before yesterday we went to an ancient temple dedicated to the Lord Shiva (who destroys all of creation so that it can start over again). We washed our feet and hands before entering the temple barefoot, and rang a huge bell before entering the temple, where a man stood before an altar and spewed out prayers at rapid-fire while flicking water from a wet flower onto the heads of a family. He then blessed some puffed rice and we took turns going up to him and receiving a handful, which I then ate with attempted reverence. I took a bunch of pictures of the intricate carvings of different gods that vertically stacked themselves along the sides of the temple. There was also an interesting display of Lord Shiva's balls entering the vagina of another god (forgot her name). It didn't look too erotically evocative to me, sort of just like a modern sculpture - took a few pictures next to that. 

Then we went to a Buddhist monastery which was AMAZING. Okay, so I know I haven't dedicated myself to being a Buddhist practitioner, but I just get chills in these places. First we took a bunch of group pictures with all the little monks-in-training - the cutest chinese boys adorned in their red monk robes hopping about the stairs in their croqs (spelled right? I don't know). I felt a more natural sense of reverence in this monastery than I had in the temple. I placed an oil lamp as an act of prayer, and then noticed a tree growing out of a shrine. I was immediately drawn towards it and while I was standing in front of it I felt a huge whoosh of existence cementing me into the fact of my very being. I found out a bit later from a monk that one of their masters' hearts had been preserved and placed in that shrine, and the tree's roots grew into the heart and around the little statue of Lord Buddha. The most fantasmical part was climbing up a steep hill towards the shrine where their most recent guru had been mummified using salt and not chemicals. His body was set in full lotus meditation posture, and he's been that way for three years without any signs of degradation - which is frankly incredible. Apparently his spiritual prowess has kept his body quite intact. I felt an immediate love for this person as I looked at his picture and felt the dense energy of all the devotion of his followers who had come here before me and placed their offerings upon his shrine. It was a powerful experience and I very much wanted to meditate in that room with him. I'm considering going back to do so. 

Last night we went out to a hotel to celebrate a birthday. We all got super rowdy and I felt like quite the American spectacle. When we got back we had a birthday-cake-gone-cake-fight with the staff, watched some Bollywood music videos, and laid out on the grass under the stars and did some random yoga poses. Yoga under the stars - how did I never think of this before? 

I'm starting to figure out my niche in my volunteering and getting super motivated. I spent all morning re-reading all my placement books, researching activity ideas, and brainstorming. I'm going to try to instigate a garden project so that the kids can plant their own food and flowers. This daycare center is actually an abandoned post office that looks pretty decrepit and bland. There's nothing on the walls except for a phrase in Hindi that's apparently a warning against becoming an alcoholic. We decided the place needs color - badly. So we painted a blackboard and started on a mural today, along with the alphabet and numbers. The kids are getting a lot more comfortable with me and will come and sit on my lap or hold my hand or imitate what I'm doing or let me tickle them. They were quite shy the first couple days. There was a period today when I had them super engaged, after playing a few rounds of ring-around--the-rosy (which they LOVE, we "all fall down" a good fifteen times), and I suddenly became the focal point of their rapt attention. So we did head shoulders knees and toes and they repeated a bunch of body parts after me. The teacher taught me a song in Hindi and the kids were so incredibly cute while dancing to it. We're going to bring a CD player for more music and dancing, and I'm going to make pill bottle shakers with rice inside for them to shake while they dance. I also started creating a schedule - like Monday is alphabet, Tuesday is fruits (I'm going to bring in the actual fruits to eat), Wednesday is numbers etc. There's basically no structure, so I thought that could help things move along a bit more. I love this work sooo much, I feel like this is all I want to do with my life - just go around to different cultures and connect with the kids and teach them.