Losing Our Way

Losing Our Way (Mi & Ive)

ivan_miral — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:58:00 GMT

April 5-10, 2010. Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam.

So this is where it all ends. On beaches of powder the color of gingerbread dough, and warm, transparent waters - the turquoise of the Gulf of Thailand. Five days: wake late, beachfront breakfast, snorkel, gulf lunch, hammock nap, swim, nap again, read, stroll, bloodred sunset, beachfront dinner, twlight, midnight... celebrate Miral's 34^th birthday, celebrate 15 months around the world, contemplate 15 months around the world, celebrate, contemplate, celebrate... wake late........

Five days and this is where this book writes to an end. A final chapter here should say something about our three and a half months looping around Southeast Asia – learning its ancient civilizations, rich spiritualities, dazzling smiles, towering-glowing-growing landscapes, soaring thermometer!, chili-and-lemongrass-and-all-things-nice, sights of anything and everything strapped to a motorcycle, and histories of human wars with all the usual suspects: the idealism, the heroes, and the frankly repulsive. Nobody wins a war we learned. Instead, losses grow like cancer. Decades afterward. Cambodia. Laos. Vietnam.

But this chapter will close something more than Southeast Asia. This is where the whole 15-month roller-coaster comes to a halt. .....India. Nepal. Kenya. Tanzania. Uganda. Germany. Switzerland. Peru. Ecuador. Colombia. New languages. Currency exchange rates. Exotic fruits. Burning garbage. Overlapping spiritual systems. Another (!) volume of Lonely Planet. Helping. Receiving. Haggling. Cyst-inducing bus rides. Street food (“Does that one have any meat? MEAT? Dang, what's the word for meat?”). Lost - directions from strangers - still lost - more directions. Mosquito nets. Emphatic hellos from passers-by. Maybe most wonderful of all, unbogged mind, clear mind, open mind. Now down to five days on this tear-shaped island dissolving into infinite waters. Won't ask for a clearer metaphor.....

Won't ask for anything, now.

But they will ask. “How was your trip?” “What did you learn?” “How have you changed?”

Well, actually...

In Asia, they have a saying: “Same Same, But Different.” Mi got a t-shirt. A good answer for us. A good description of the world. When you see the same systems, the same stories, over and over and over again, the world's patterns become very clear. For instance, there REALLY ARE good, kind, generous people everywhere. We met them. So many of them.

A man on our first Indian train platform sees us confused by the system and navigates us through the crowds and Hindi seating charts taped to train doors and conductor clipboards and up to our seats. We surely would have missed our train. A Ugandan man realizes we are arriving to our bus-stop too late in the night for anything but a high-risk motorcycle taxi ride back to our school village, and walks us from hotel to hotel to find a room for the night. When the search turns up no vacant rooms, he calls and wakes up a car-owning friend to come and pick us up and safely deliver us back to our village. That ride may have saved our lives, as we later found out, there had been a string of late night violence on that road. A Kenyan woman houses us and feeds us because she lives close to the bus-route we are seeking, and her son and son-in-law take us to our dawn-hour bus as if we are kin, finding a way to get us there on time even after one of their motorcycles breaks down. A homeless Cambodian man gives us directions. A Vietnamese woman slices us mangoes off trees on her family's small farm. Good, kind people. Everywhere. It is no longer just reciting cliché after you sit down in the homes of so many people who, materially, have so little who insist on offering you tea or home-made bread or moonshine along with attentive smiles and warm embraces – or after you have been helped on with your backpack by one after another passing stranger – or asked a little about yourself by yet another local on a bus struggling in whatever English they can speak, with no goal beyond making you feel welcome in their country. Even in the chaos that is so often the daily experience of the so-called “developing world,” random acts of goodness abound. One of the first words we learned in the language of every country we entered was, “Thank you.” We were given so many instances to use it.

Good, kind people are everywhere. Cliches are now marrow in our bones. “People are more similar than they are different.” “It's a small world after all.” “No matter where you go, there you are.” There are lots of cliches we've taken in this year.

But maybe the cliches that resonate most with us as this journey ends are the ones about living life to the fullest. “Live every moment.” “Seize the day.” “Life is too short.” “Think outside the box.” No matter your life situation, there is always infinite potential to step beyond the apparent limits and do things creatively, express uniqueness, and more deeply and fully live what poet Mary Oliver calls “your one wild and precious life.” Countless times we have stared into the face of a stranger or newfound friend, living exactly in this way and accomplishing what seems like magic...countless times also we have stood at the brink of another ocean just a little further East, hiked wild new terrain, emerged from a religious service or a wedding or a funeral, or from a conversation with someone who brought a perspective we could never have arrived at on our own – and turned to one another and asked, “Why doesn't everybody DO this?” Sometimes we meant it narrowly – why doesn't everyone save up, sell off, give away, rent out, whatever is needed and head out and see the world? It has ended up to be so much more inspiring than we could have imagined, more educational than even college tuition could have bought, and so much easier than anyone might have thought. But of course we know that our situation is not the same is everyone's situation – and our dream is not everyone's dream. Moreso, we meant it much more broadly – why doesn't everyone find a way to take the next step closer to doing something they had always dreamed of doing? For us, it was this chance to really FEEL the world, widening our hearts to embrace more people, more stories, more histories, more cultures. For each person it is something different. Certainly not every dream can or is meant to come true. But taking steps in that direction is always possible. The poor and displaced, the sick and the powerless, they told us so this year. We watched them carefully. What is everyone waiting for?

Long before we first left the US on this trip, Ive found particular inspiration from the life story of Christopher McCandless, subject of the book, and later the movie and the amazing Eddie Vedder soundtrack, “Into The Wild,” who walked away from a comfortable, upper class life to wander the United States in pursuit of his dream of surviving for a time alone in the Alaska wilderness. He didn't survive. Okay, maybe not the best-placed source of inspiration! But little did we know that over our 15-month journey we would meet Christopher McCandless over and over again.

We met Christopher McCandless at each volunteer site we worked at. In Ecuador, we met an urban woman who moved to her husband's family ranch in the rural cloudforest to give a go at sustainable farming and fghting back against deforestation. In Switzerland, we found a man whose heart was moved to love by his spiritual teacher and cultivated an openness to all peoples and ways that still grows. In Uganda, we met an orphaned man who put himself through school, began taking in children, orphaned like himself, and allowed his vision to grow into a model rural school serving hundreds of children. In Ladakh, Ive met a woman who was one of the first Europeans allowed into the region, who came to study the language but fell in love with the people and set to helping them find ways to preserve their unique culture. In Calcutta, Mi met woman after woman who had given everything up to serve the poor in mind, poor in body, poor in spirit – all of whose work was tumbling out miraculous results. In Cambodia, we met a recent American college graduate who completed some volunteer work in Cambodia and signed on for a two-year stint to help further an important school program for street children – with a future dream to serve the people of Somalia!

But it wasn't just at the NGOs where we volunteered. Christopher McCandless was everywhere we turned. Across the months, we met a German guy in Switzerland who participated in the age-old German carpentry tradition called compagnonnage -- one that most of his colleagues no longer observe – hitchiking the world for exactly three years and one day living only off of the skills of his trade and the kindness of others. We met an American girl in Peru who came down to help after a devestating earthquake and never went back. We met a man from Spain who walked away from a six-figure income in San Francisco to travel overland from Spain to Russia to China to Laos (where we met him) and beyond to who knows where “because it's what makes me really happy.” We met an American guy who loved the people of Laos so much that he started a Library Boat program to bring educational materials into the rural villages. We met an American kid in Ecuador who didn't follow his friends to prestigious schools and jobs and, instead, saved his money to buy a small piece of Ecuadorian land to start a farm and live off the land. We met an American veteran of the Vietnam War who returns regularly to Vietnam because, “I love the people here,” to perform random acts of kindness, like helping to reunite a famiy separated in the aftermath of the war. We met a techie from Chicago who left his high paying job in educational technologies to start an NGO to bring these resources to girls in under-privileged countries. We met a woman from Holland who came to Uganda as a volunteer, fell in love with the people and culture, adopted three abandoned local children and now lives as a single foster mother in rural Uganda. The list is endless. Sources of inspiration for doing what your heart really calls you to do have been everywhere. Turns out inspired risk-taking isn't rare, but rather a growing global pattern.

Our next stop, New York City. The USA. The country everyone in the world wants to get to, or so we've been told. A lot. We return to the United States less with a feeling that our great world-wide adventure is over – and more with an awareness that the adventure will continue as long as we see it as one – as long as we continue to answer the call. The United States is simply country number 15 on our list. So much is there to discover (which means the blogging continues...!).

“We shall not cease from exploration” T.S. Elliot wrote, “And the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.”

Can we continue to lose our way in the US? After all, compared to the rest of the globe, the US is, same same, but different. But the difference, like the one we experienced after arriving in Entebbe, Uganda from Zurch, Switzerland, is profound. After living out in the world, it is impossible not to own a deep gratitude for the life situations our country has given us. To be able to be so free as to access nearly anything we want in the world seems built into our passports. We come away from this year with an immense feeling of gratitude for our good fortune. We have grown up with opportunities and resources that are unimaginable to most. In the privileged world, we have the rare daily situation that allows us zero concerns about basic necessities – if the electricity will come on as scheduled, if water will come out of the tap, if the sanitation truck will take away our trash, or if the markets will have food. And we don't often need to ask if there will be enough money this month to buy any of that food... or to send the kids to school or travel to visit a sick relative in the next town. No, we are rich. We began this journey pretty defensive about this idea that we might be rich. “We may seem rich to them, but...” Now we know.

There is a huge chasm. One way it has been explained:

If our so-called global village consisted of 100 people...:

60 would be Asian. 14 would be African. 12 would be European. 8 would be Latin American. 5 would be American/Canadian, and one would be from the South Pacific.
80 would live in substandard housing.
67 would be illiterate.
24 would lack electricity – and most of the rest would only have electricity for limited nighttime hours.
33 would have no access to safe drinking water.
50 would be malnourished.
1 would be dying of starvation.
1 would have a college education.
33 would be attempting to live off of 3% of the wealth of the village.

And 5 of the villagers would control 32% of the village's wealth. All 5 would be American.

This picture has settled into our bones simply because of the time we have spent with the other people in the 100 person village. They are not so far away. And they are not so different from us. What is lacked in the developing world is not due to laziness, some kind of failure of discipline or moral infortitude. No doubt about that. The vast majority of people in developing nations, yes, those that earn less than they need to live on, those that dream only of affording a permanent roof for their home or elementary schooling for their grandchild, begin work hours earlier in the morning than we do, work later into the night than we do, work amidst way harder conditions than we do, ask for much less than we do, and somehow maintain their kindness and generosity and sense of humor at least as well as we do.

In fact, there's no good reason for such a massive lack of equity across the world. No adequate logical or religious explanation for why we were born with so much and they without. So then why? Well, their war-scarred governments are locked in slanted debt-producing contracts with developed governments and multinational corporations, and so take the money from their teachers' (policemen, doctors, technicians, engineers, etc, etc, etc) salaries, which in turn breeds corruption. And farmers all over the developing world are being convinced to abandon subsistence farming in favor of cash crops that corporations want, where they are contracted to become dependent on chemical fertizilzers, hybrid seeds, and insecticides, and get little renumeration for their efforts. And the reasons go on. But it is clear that the chasm is manufactured. It is manufactured to amass riches for the few and dependence for the many.

The chasm is manufacturd in the name of development. We call it development. It sounds good. It brings up images of the introduction of superior medical care, access to clean drinking water, the availability of useful technologies. and certainly those things are happening. But, mostly, its the worst of our culture that is being developed. We have seen that the world is increasingly eating Snickers bars and Lays potato chips, foresaking traditional foods. They are watching Jason Statham movies and Friends re-runs more than learning traditional skills, arts, and customs. It is near-impossible to travel from country to country, research and learn, and not see the hard-engraved pattern of cultural destruction being promoted. It is promoted by a system that sees market opportunities, cheap resources, and cheap labor as more important than human well-being. A system that pits the modern corporate culture against ancient wisdom cultures. A system designed to give us the things we expect for our modern lifestyle and leave them scrounging for the left-overs.

Tolstoy's words now echo for us. “I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.”

So now we must return to you, the land so many we have met simply refer to as “Paradise,” with the intention of losing our way, that we may find new ways...and to be some of the ones climbing off his back. We come with fresh eyes to you, a country that has so generously gifted us – to explore your wisdom. We begin again where we started, to know you for the first time.

See you soon,

Mi & Ive

Photos: VIETNAM: Hanoi; Halong Bay; Ninh Binh, Hoi An; Saigon; Tay Ninh; Ben Tre; Can Tho; Phu Quoc Island.

ivan_miral — Thu, 1 Apr 2010 00:10:00 GMT

Photos: LAOS: Si Phan Don; Pakse; Vientiane; Luang Prabang; Nong Khiaw; Muang Ngoi; Muang Sing

ivan_miral — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:09:00 GMT

Photos: VOLUNTEER SIEM REAP: The Global Child, school for disadvantaged youth

ivan_miral — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:00:00 GMT

Cambodia: Some stories just can't be digested (ive)

ivan_miral — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:45:00 GMT

I vaguely remember hearing reports about Cambodian Boat People on Good Morning, America during my childhood in the 1970s – and from my mother about how these children were increasingly appearing in her first-grade classroom in Brooklyn. And, growing up, I knew one or two people who had visited the Angkor temples and I was told about the extreme poverty and utter lack of infrastructure in Cambodia. In my professional work in Washington State I had a few young Cambodian-American clients over the years and began to become familiar with a pattern of struggles that seemed to include withdrawn fathers, over-protective mothers, intense pressures toward family cohesion, identity struggles with their Cambodian and Buddhist heritage -- and an attraction to violent gang life.

And at some point along the way I learned that a horrific genocide had been committed in Cambodia in the name of extreme communist ideals. A genocide that had spawned the refugee crisis and Boat People I remembered from my childhood. So it wasn't like we entered Cambodia without awareness that visiting here would deepen our understanding of the Khmer Rouge regime and its after-effects. But, when we arrived, I was way too over-focused on my mission of getting to the Angkor temples within two days for my birthday. I wasn't thinking about “the Years of Trauma,” as some here call them. I wasn’t ready for how they would define our first weeks in the country – and how the continuing day-in, day-out anguished trials and tribulations of this otherwise joyful country would hit me. I wasn't ready for Cambodia. But as Stephen Asma writes in his book The Gods Drink Whiskey, “...you can never really be ready for Cambodia. It's sort of like seeing a really good punch coming at your face, bracing yourself as best you can, but getting knocked senseless anyway.”

But it is a different book, not Asma's, that began the process of waking us up – that began helping us to piece together the deeper layers of meaning in our daily interactions and observations in Cambodia. At every tourist book-shop here – staring out at customers from a patchwork of black and red covers with names like Pol Pot's Regime, The Killing Fields, and The S-21 Torture Prison is a book sporting a black-and-white photograph of the befuddled and clearly numbed eyes of what appears to be a six-year-old girl (but is actually a chronically malnourished ten-year-old), holding her name in front of her chest as she is processed into a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand in February 1980. Obscuring her face to various extents, depending on the version of the book, is the title of her story -- First They Killed My Father. I realized that I would not understand this country until I better understood the look in those eyes.

The story is of Loung Ung's descent from a post-colonial middle-class Phnom Penh family – one that eerily resembles many average American families today – into a hell of enslavement, illness, starvation, torture, and murder. Along with the rest of the nation, her family was forced to leave the city and march into the countryside, subjected to endless days of forced agrarian labor in communal concentration camps, provided only rice gruel and no medical care, and exposed to a terrifying propaganda machine violently re-training allegiance away from one's family and toward the central government of The Angkar, offering empty promises of a return to the glories of Cambodia's agrarian past. Over a few short years, this hell brutally stole the lives of several beloved members of her family...the lives of so many beloved members of so many families. 1.7 million people in all. 25% of the population of Cambodia. Loung Ung's stunningly child-like story is simply an excruciating and unthinkable nightmare. There is no other way to say it. Her story leaves searing and scarring images bubbling in the mind. The kind of images that are most familiar to us in the West from films and stories about Nazi concentration camps. Between our time attending the Rwanda Genocide Tribunals in Tanzania and, now, here in Cambodia, this year has included a harsh reminder that, despite a tendency to think otherwise, genocide most definitely did not end with the Holocaust. If for no other reason, this book should be read by Westerners at least as often as the Diary of Anne Frank and Ellie Weisel's Night.

We did what we could to add further layers to our understanding of the Years of Trauma. We visited the S-21 prison -- known as Tuol Svay Prey High School in earlier, more innocent days -- where the Khmer Rouge brutally tortured its “political prisoners,” that included people with any history of education, intellectualism, or urban living, or with ties to nations other than Cambodia. Their blood still stains the mustard-yellow and white tiles of the place. Much harder to stomach, though, are their faces, in the form of black and white mug shots satanically cataloged by the Khmer Rouge, that fill bulletin boards that line the rooms. Faces of everyday people like those walking the streets of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap today. Faces of people whose last days of life were filled with the absolute worst of what humanity can do, often inflicted by people forced against their will to do the harm. Men. Women. Small children. Hollow ghosts with eyes that look directly into yours asking, “How can this be happening?” leaving you staring back through watering eyes and gasping for an answer that, photo after photo, never comes.

We visit the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, where an average of 100 S-21 prisoners were sent each day to be unceremoniously murdered – using blunt force to the head to save precious bullets -- and dumped into mass graves. Seventeen thousand in all. Scraps of their clothing still lay buried in the earthen walkway around the now-excavated pits. We touch pieces of bone still blending in with the dusty dirt to which they have returned. Rising up more than 200-feet above that dirt is a stupa – a traditional monument to the teachings of the Buddha. A stupa not unlike the ones we have now seen throughout our time in Asia. Except for the fact that this one encases in glass nearly 9000 human skulls piled atop one another. That this one is a place for Khmer (Cambodian) people to come and silently contemplate what no mind should ever have to contemplate. That this one was specially blessed by Buddhist monks to help comfort survivors wrenched by the competing need to give these remains a proper Buddhist cremation and the need to have these remains preserved to cry out to humanity. That this one, just weeks before we visited, was the site of a traditional water-sprinkling ceremony to honor the dignity and utter bravery of a group of survivors who dredged up their nightmares – thirty years after the fact – to be witnesses at tribunals finally now just beginning with hopes of bringing some of the Khmer Rouge to some form of justice.

Since neither of us had ever seen it, we borrowed a copy of the film The Killing Fields and sat at a Siem Reap internet cafe watching it. Ignorantly, it wasn't until the empty cafe began to fill with young customers – some foreign, but some Khmer -- that I wondered what they would make of the images on our screen and these two foreigners so publicly digesting them. We found out when we stopped the film to deal with a skipping DVD and a Khmer teenager sitting next to us admitted he was watching along with us. With a shaky voice emanating from a clearly warm heart, he told us a little about himself and explained that he grew up hearing horrible stories from his mother who had survived the Khmer Rouge. Shaking his head and averting his eyes, he told us that he has never been able to fully understand what happened. And he told us that seeing the images we were watching made him very sad. But he sat staring at our screen almost until the end of the film – somewhat glazed and occasionally letting out loud sighs – before hiding behind a wide smile as he waved good-bye to us.

And that is what is most haunting about the Years of Trauma now. Not S-21 or the Killing Fields. Not even Loung Ung's story. But the fact that every Cambodian face we see that is older than 35 is a face that witnessed what happened – a body that starved for adequate nutrition, a mind that became beset with images of death, a set of nerves forced to rattle with worry about survival and by mistrust of everyone and everything, and a heart crushed by the sudden and violent disappearance of loved ones. And the fact that most every Cambodian face we see that is younger than 35 was raised by someone – whether it be parents or relatives or neighbors or orphanage workers – with a face that witnessed what happened. As a research study we later review details, this next generation responds to the stories told by the Khmer Rouge survivors with painful feelings of responsibility and their own pathological levels of anxiety. Whether first-hand or second-hand, Cambodia is a nation of collective Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. In one way or another, every face we see – every Cambodian we meet – suffers from what happened.

At dinner one evening, a Jewish-American we have just met expressed surprise that the scars of the Khmer Rouge have not yet healed. After all, he said, it was over thirty years ago. As Mi explained the havoc that a generation of traumatized people can wreak on their children, he began to nod. “Oh, it's like the children of Survivors,” -- referencing Holocaust survivors. Yes, those of us who are Jews know all too well how the Holocaust has affected, now, four generations of Jews. How painfully difficult it has been for us, as a people, to recover a healthy sense of self, healthy sense of purpose, and healthy sense of security. And our recovery included a new homeland to escape to and from which to begin again. Our recovery was helped by a Western world (finally) extending open and compassionate arms – and a huge amount of financial and military support. With Nuremberg trials that brought Nazis to justice. With the backing of world opinion that what happened to the Jews should never happen again. With centuries of virulent antisemitism showing signs of ebbing.

Yes, some Cambodians escaped the country after the Khmer Rouge – either on rickety boats or with the help of Western sponsors – to begin anew. But most did not. And, yes, tribunals against the perpetrators are now beginning to be held. But this is after thirty years of wondering whether there would ever be any justice and after Pol Pot, the Hitler of the Khmer Rouge, died of apparent natural causes. And, yes, Cambodia seems to be showing signs of enough stability that it is beginning to be cast in a favorable light by the West. But this is after so many insults – like the fact that the United States, in its unending contempt for the Communist regime in Vietnam to which it lost its “police action,” disgracefully supported the Khmer Rouge with arms and money to fight the Vietnamese who invaded Cambodia and chased the Khmer Rouge out of power and into hiding. Like the fact that the United States also imposed devastating economic sanctions against this Vietnam-backed government despite knowledge that the infrastructure needed to feed the nation had been completely destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. Even after it was clear that the Khmer Rouge had committed genocide, the United Nations insisted on seating Khmer Rouge representatives as Cambodia's delegation – and not members of the Vietnamese-backed government that had ousted them. (This is all, of course, not to mention the covert bombing of Cambodia by the United States from 1969 to 1973 that killed countless civilians and caused a refugee crisis that was part of the chaos that allowed the Khmer Rouge to come to power in the first place!)

Whereas Jewish healing was nurtured, at least to some extent, within its new-found Land of Milk and Honey, Cambodia's search for healing has literally occurred amidst a never-ending mine-field. The country was taken over by the Vietnamese – a people who compete with the Thai for the title of Most Hated in Cambodia due to a long history of land grabs and generations-old fears that Cambodia would be swallowed up into these countries. The Khmer Rouge regrouped, maintained a strong-hold in Northwestern Cambodia, and fought a Civil War that raged and ravaged the country until 1998, killing thousands. Having lost nearly all of its educated citizens in the genocide, there were no teachers to teach the next generation – and few doctors to heal the physical (not to mention mental) scars. People swarmed to the cities, which stood abandoned and decaying during the Khmer Rouge years, to escape the farming villages where they had been enslaved. With little in the way of infrastructure, the economy faltered – leaving most of the nation unemployed and impoverished. Those with jobs have been massively overworked and paid with great variability. Homelessness, wandering, and begging became rampant. An inept and corrupt government fed the rich at the expense of the poor. Democracy has struggled to get any sort of foothold. A corrupt and inept justice system bred lawlessness and terrifying street violence. Pollution of every kind choked the people. A country with no history of orphanages, was overwhelmed with the massive numbers of parentless children it needed to raise, leading to awful child-care conditions and ugly adoption scandals. The orphans contributed to the national plague of child sexual slavery. And, then there are the mine fields. Millions of land mines laid by various entities still dotting the countryside, rendering precious farmland unusable, maiming and killing sixty Cambodians every month, and causing a national epidemic of limblessness and sensory impairments. Our days in Cambodia are peppered with sadly awkward “No, thank you”s to land-mine victims trying to eke out an existence by selling books or flowers on the street. We find ourselves trying to digest these more recent elements of Cambodia's tragedy, too. We meet with counselors and representatives from Non-Governmental Organizations to hear about their work. And we wrestle with the complex web of struggles poignantly documented by Karen Coates in her book Cambodia Now. This is decidedly not the kind of conditions that assist recovery and healing.

But there may be some signs of improvement in Cambodia. There are NGOs abounding here trying to help with healing and with development (but probably creating a national dependency on outside entities and infusing the country with foreign values, good and bad). And there are more hopeful tourist-fueled opportunities and comforts growing in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap (but limited appreciation for the problems this tourism also brings). But not unlike the absolutely radiant smiles the locals so famously wear, NGO-led programs and tourism opportunities are a thin veneer over what is still happening at deeper levels. The constant human struggle still palpably fills the air here. Thicker air than I felt in India. Throbbing feelings of unworthiness for the inexplicable blessings of my life still haunt me here. A more painful throb than I felt in Africa. The beginning of our journey into Cambodia unfolded into a time to digest the background story as preparation for the few weeks we will spend volunteering at a Siem Reap school. But some experiences just can't be prepared for. Some stories just can't be digested

Photos: CAMBODIA: Siem Reap; Phnom Penh; Battambang; Kratie.

ivan_miral — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:27:00 GMT

Photos: S INDIA: Shantivanam Ashram; Trichy; Kumily; Amritapuri Ashram; Kollam; Varkala; Kottayam

ivan_miral — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:53:00 GMT

no porter, no guide (mi)

ivan_miral — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:50:00 GMT

no porter, no guide

in october, nepal trekking season begins. the height of it collapses in late november, so within just the two months i imagine that thousands of tourists filter through Kathmandu's international airport...or present themselves, as if in a stupor, at the mad northern indian border after hours of tumbling transport, ready for hours more... holding out hopeful fistfuls of rupees for official entry stamps. probably not many are satisfied with a basic 30 day entry visa though, as renewals are common discussion among tourists. if the two of us are at all representative of the trekkers' tide, we'll let you know that it took us less than two weeks to decide to get in line for an extension. there's a palpable feverish energy that swirls through the country in the autumn. it caught up with us quickly, and we gladly handed over the extra rupees for the chance to spend even a few extra days among the wild peaks of the highest mountain range in the world. for once, nepal is a country that advertises a truism to get your attention: “nepal,” the signs read, “once is not enough.”

once in the country, tourists typically follow a straight pull toward the magnet that is the capital city. ah Kathmandu, how shall i describe you?? between the two of us, ivan and i have walked an amusing number of capital cities. and among Washington D.C., Cairo, Jerusalem, Paris, London, Dublin, Brussels, Belize City, Bogota, Quito, Lima, Bern, Kampala and Delhi (Delhi for crying out loud!) and Kathmandu, neither of us has seen anything quite like Kathmandu when it comes to the tourist scene. since its birthing for a crowd of 1960's hippies, every roadside wanderer or first class traveler who has meandered through its streets can tell you that since then, it's been growing...and growing...it's grown so much it's turned into a giant plastic coca cola bottle. but whether you find this a nightmare production or your secret dream come true depends largely, i've decided, on how you would answer the following questions: A) have you just come straight from 3 months roughing it in India, where the sauna like climate and red ant like touts fused and sparked into a fire that flamed until it managed to literally set your outer skin on fire?! B) would you like to spend your traveling rupees this week on a gourmet Thanksgiving banquet , complete with real wine (not sweet) or ice cold (not room warm) beer? C) do you wish to spend this week lazily browsing through a veritable smorgasbord of good n' plenty clothing, paintings and handmade artisan craft, bookstores and wi-fi zones? D) did you leave your Northface pants, your Mountain Gear boots, or your...sock liners, trekking poles, etc etc etc? on the floor in a box, back across an ocean, a cab ride and a front door key at your neighbors' away? or E) do you have a low pain threshold and just so happen to be traveling the world in desperate need of a real-life AMERICAN dentist who will actually stop the procedure to ask you if the novocaine is working?! if you answered yes to any of these questions, i'd say, Kathmandu welcomes you to is a week's worth of joy! joy! joy! if your ATM card is working, you just might find yourself the happiest American-not-in-America. of course, to get the goodies, you have to play Frogger through the maniacal traffic and its fearsome yearly pedestrian deathtoll. even if you manage to bounce successfully through its seven or so directional streams (ping, ping, PING!), and make it to the other end of the alleyway cross-lined with a rainbow of GIANT store and restaurant name boards, you will probably have to squash yourself a tourist or three to get into an establishment door. but once in, the import biz is your oyster, and any product you're craving is yours for the bargaining. ah, Kathmandu and your celestial tourist bliss!

of course, no matter how high the city's brand of the deity Consumerism makes your lovely spirit soar, a week or so in Kathmandu (breathtaking ancient Durbar Square temple architecture and local tangled street scenes aside) is enough to satisfy almost anyone's cravings, and most tourists, newly outfitted in their fresh hiking attire, spread out like wildfire through the country. toward the famous east and coveted Everest, or on a northern route: toward Langtang valley. there are countless paths for the exploring trekker, making the “once is not enough” tourist-call a very real one. ivan and i decided to head west, to do the Kali Gandaki trek (also known as the Pokhara-Ghorepani-Jomsom-Muktinath) trek. you can begin this trek in a city named Pokhara, which holds Nepal's smaller, more laid-back tourist heaven. we spent a week there catching our first glimpses of the far off peaks of the Annapurna Mountain Range, the mountains we would soon venture into. to put it more accurately, i spent the week camping out in cafes, sipping latte after overpriced latte (mostly because on the first day i made the STUNNING discovery that i could actually request and receive a real live decaffinated coffee, ITALIAN BEANS no less, each with ground-depth, and topped with swirl-designed foam as if delivered directly to my awaiting hand by a genuine seattle barista! and i had quickly decided that it was a sign from above to dwell in appreciation for all the western world has to offer and had spent the week, well, blissfully appreciating. an activity i broke only to browse the occasional hemp shop for flowy clothing). meanwhile, intelligent ivan spent the week on day hikes in the surrounding region getting in shape. about three days into the trek, i found out the hard way i would have done much better to follow his lead. but safely tucked into my chic nepali cafe couch, i could scarsly imagine what two weeks of trail had in store for us. then, one morning at daybreak, my vacation was over, and we threw on our backpacks, waved enthusiastically to our cheering guesthouse hosts, and head out to the trailhead....

once every few countries, i've turned to ivan and said: “i'm going to tell everyone we know that they all HAVE to do this once in their lives!” one by one, i've compiled the itineraries: if you have two weeks and want to taste Africa – go travel Tanzania...go safari, go exotic island hop...go! if you have three weeks and a mouthful of Spanish, go to Peru...go climb ancient ruins, climb canyons, climb rural villages, go swim and sun, go dance, go taste, go...just go! but if you have a month, and you love to walk (and you HAVE TO LOVE TO WALK for this one) Nepal is your destination. like i said, it was october when we head out on our trek, and in october and november in Nepal, the clouds part and the sky opens up into a deep blue that stretches but does not crease like a cool wide ocean. in those months, the rivers are low and inviting, and you can skip across them to the next ceremonial village waiting to fold you into its ancient story. it is in the autumn when the colors of the Himalaya, the highest moutain range in the world, with its peaks and its farms and its monasteries tucked into its folds, shines under a warm sun spotlight. Tanzania has Kilimanjaro and Peru has the Andes and ivan and i touched them both this year, but if i could watercolor you a mountain, i would do it from my memory of Nepal.

the days on the trek were rhythmic. sunrise over the mountain peaks and breakfast served warm to us at 6:30 in the dining room of whichever guesthouse we had landed in the eve before, and by 8 we were into the newest day on the trail. morning was a spectacular time, each of us with our big rested grins and loads of curiosity, giddy expectations and boundless energy. the days brought challenges – the trail had us climbing up stones piled up on top of each other, forming a trekkers' staircase – up, up, UP! down, down, DOWN! across precarious bridges and through sandy valley windstorms. the air was clean only most of the time - the smell of donkey trains passing us by, dusty woolen blankets canvassing their backs loaded with native sacks of goods for sale. but the challenges came along with the sweetness of sinking a bit into village life – passing by yak and cattle, and hens and chicks and roosters that passed their days weaving in and out of fences. the fences led the way, guarding crop squares arrayed in a gold and copper plaid from intruding pests. i flinched at my first sight of the natural barbed wire that line those family fences - entangled bush throns – with berries and budding flowers adding a natural decoration. the farms were terraced, which i hadn't seen since ivan and i had spent a day back last spring at grand Machu Picchu in Peru. we would stop every hour or so at a porter's stone wall, set up through the years by natives as offerings of compassion to allow heavy burdened men and women to rest. we'd gulp water, take a picture, and start walking again. every hour or three, we'd come upon our next village. but with each passing village, i became more entranced with the feel of being there, out on the trail.

each village, and certainly each day, passed us into a fresh landscape - astounding were the number and frequency. our first days, down below, our breath was warm. our coats and local wool hats stayed stuffed into our backpacks. bright flora and wildly giant bamboo hugged the trail; deep layers of lush and velvet and mossy was the green landscape, sprinkled with low waterfalls and, consequently, mosquitos. but as we gained altitude, the insects died out and the wind would blow through me in the mornings and evenings, ducking into my collar and making me clench my bones. we began to walk through desert, and instead of scattered tropical flower petals, we crushed autumn leaves that lay frosted and glistening under the early morning sun. down below the villages were inhabited by Nepali Hindus, their foreheads and village temples showing off their religious adherance. then later the trail wove into Buddhist lands, and the stone religious monuments and iconography and wind-shaken prayer flags decorated the juniper-burned air ahead of us. the old patriarchs and matriarchs carrying their devotion in the hands, their fingers counting off wooden prayer beads as their breath carried their prayers out toward all the universe. prayer wheels lined the stone paths and ivan and i would spin them as we walked by, as if releasing our prayers out for the world, like worshippers raising the sign of prayer-filled incense. like the american poets praising God in the woods, there was the feel of constant recognition of holiness in those mountains. my heart burst with praise to the Creator of the mountains, the rivers, the sun! how blessed are we to behold earth's wealth! and how the villagers adorned their small towns to reflect that wealth! one after the next, the villages all seemed artfully positioned on the sides of Himalayan cliffs, made up of curved streets, tucked away tunnels and ancient stone buildings, all colored into the mountain landscape in hues of white and sand. only the deep dirt-fire color of the monasteries stood out, signaling the focal point of life. we drank in their beauty, every scene worthy of its own film. from the highest among them, we looked out and across to neighboring villages, oil paintings of which i had seen in Kathmandu and Pokhara. often i slowed and waited until ivan walked out well ahead of me, so i could capture the sight of him out there...i took photo after photo of him in the distance, underneath that wide sky and rounding a mountain bend, wanting to remember always what it felt like, those days we were young and healthy and took off after one another, across a Himalayan mountain range.

when we stopped for the evening, we sank into our evening meals around warm tables where all around us guides were busy chatting up their tour groups – paragraphs of information, underlined with interesting tidbits about Nepali traditions, etiquite, and family life. our supper plates would come out, overflowing with Dal Bhat, the local lentil and rice speciality, spicy and rich. or we would ditch the local plate and indulged ourselves in local soups or thick doughy pizzas and chow mein. one town offered us its orchards of crisp apples, crushed into juice - the best juice i have ever tasted – and sweet, steaming and crumbling apple pie. we did our best to curb our cravings and eat local, and stayed away from soda and beer, as all those bottles are hauled in, and hauled empty out, creating the complicated vibe of a local economy catering to a fairly insatiable tourist appetite. and my, were there ever tourists from all over the globe! every evening brought us a chorus of german, french, indian, american, italien, english and dutch and japanese...all singing praises to sights from their day.

unlike many of the couples and groups, we didn't have a porter to carry our equipment, or a guide to point the way. we attested to this fact every time we stopped at a mandatory checkpost to show our Annapurna Range entry passes. “no porter, no guide?” they would ask. in turn, i would point to myself and happily quip: “porter!” and then point to ivan: “guide!!” inevitably, they would laugh, and ivan would demonstrate a mock frown and reverse my pronounced order. “!!” and then we would walk away, hilarious ivan singing under his breath his own rendition of Bob Marley's “No woman, no cry”..... “Noooo porter no guide, no porter no guide......!!!!!”

nah - no porter, no guide. just the two of us making our way together, one step at a time.

eve after day...and ten days later, we arrived at our destination: Muktinath, a small pilgrims' town in the well known district of Mustang. Muktinath is home to a site both Hindus and Buddhists consider holy; there, a complex has been built. arriving at our lodge in early afternoon, we went to visit, and returned awed by the sweet spirit inflamed there by its centuries of visitors.

in contrast to the wild temple complex of Muktinath, the bigger district of Mustang is a surprising dusty kind of beautiful. it is sand-colored, ice-colored, and crop-colored. its only element of contrasting color is found in its strung up Buddhist prayer flags that seem to fly in wisps all over the valleys and mountain tops. they reflect the religious heart of its people, who breath prayers all day long while working, and are complimented by whatever remains in the region of pre-Buddhism (yes, imagine pre-Buddhism). the people are fed daily by the river and their tight networks of community roles and responsibilities. as if to testify to their years working the land, grandmothers in the region look as if they were born a century ago, and old men's skin folds with the same wind-worn, solar-browned droop. like most in Nepal, they rise before the sun, and live well into the night. they carry items in heavy baskets bound to their heads with torn strips of faded cloth. only in the last decades have they been introduced to plastic and to brand names, to strange lyrics and clothes, and to the Westerners sightseeing their lands, accompanied by guides and porters carrying their loads. if offered a “Namaste!” (meaning “i greet God in you!”) hands raised and folded in traditional prayer-like fashion, they smile broadly, and their children too. “Namaste!” they return (“i too greet God in you!”) their grandchildren burst out in singsong Nepali-English: “Namaste-chocolaaaaaaaaate!” calling out to you for sweets. and although their welcome and many of their work and traditions are found elsewhere along the trail, the people of Mustang feel particularly ancient. Mustang borders Tibet and until recently was completely closed to outsiders. today, not far across its southern-most border, you will reach the most northern point you can walk to without having to purchase an additional special government permit. we stopped there, and while i amused myself by watching a small child chasing around local farm animals wandering by on our cobblestone street, ivan asked permission to snap a picture of the sort of “do not enter” sign stationed there, and with satisfaction at our achievement, we turned, and head back.

...

writing this, i find i have forgotten to include at least a dozen or so tales from the trail. moments of abundant laughter, fear or some bizarre tale.... and the photographs, i know, do not do justice to the two weeks ivan and i spent out on the trail. those days, i believe, will turn out to be some of the most magnificent i will ever have spent in my life, wonder-filled and completely cherishable. it is an awesome earth out there. now here we are, some days after we bounced out of the bus and off our trek, back in the capital, Kathmandu. we came back to find that the year, after all, has flown by, and Thanksgiving holiday is already upon us. this year, i find i can hardly begin to name the blessings. we miss you and wish you a season full of wonders, wonders like those that come at 3000 meters up, on top of the world.

Kathmandu and its strange, bewildering time (ive)

ivan_miral — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:04:00 GMT

I have wanted to visit Nepal for a very long time. It started when I was in high school and college, learning about and becoming inspired by the simultaneous social justice and spiritual movements of the 1960s. (This is why I always proudly declare myself 'A Child of the Sixties,' having been alive for the last two days of them!) I read books about Martin Luther King, Bob Dylan, Kent State, Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters, and the questioning of unjust authority. I first began to read books about Eastern spirituality, especially Taoism. And I first read about the scores of Westerners who, during the 60s, traveled the great Silk Road overland, with a final destination of the great Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal. At the time, Nepal had just been opened up to tourism after decades of isolation and was considered pretty exotic. With the stories of those journeys in mind, with a growing attraction to the mountains (odd for a New York City boy), and a healthy dose of the Cat Stevens song “Kathmandu,” I knew by college-age that I wanted to get there someday.

That someday was finally supposed to be in 2005. Having had no opportunities to get out of the United States since visiting Peru in 2000 and antsy to do some kind of international volunteer work, I decided I would go volunteer in Nepal for a month or two. But then the political scene in Nepal shifted. Feeling that the civil government could not effectively manage the insurgency of Maoist communism, the King dissolved the parliament, declared martial law, detained political leaders, and cut Nepal's communication ties with the outside world. I had gotten on the plane to Peru one day after government buildings in Lima were burned by political protesters and the possibility of a coup was at least in discussion – but after consulting with some people who knew Nepal well, it became clear that going to Nepal at this point would be another brand of unwise. Anyway, the program I was going to volunteer with abruptly suspended operations with the political news. So, I changed my plans to volunteering in the Himalaya in Ladakh, India. Incidentally, that trip fell through and a follow-up trip to the Himalaya in Sikkim, India and the Kingdom of Bhutan also fell through, leaving me wondering if I would ever get to see the Great Himalaya. Five years and an unpredictable array of causes and conditions later, my dream was finally realized when I spent this past August volunteering in Ladakh. Yet, still, Nepal held an appeal that I felt like had been in my bones for a very long time. So I was very excited when Miral and I and my parents boarded the plane in Varanasi, India with a destination of Kathmandu.

No doubt the first thing we all noticed as our post-plane taxi took us to the resort outside of Kathmandu that my parents had booked for us was, “We're not in India any more.” The roads were busy, but not utter chaos. The streets were not spotless, but lacked the overt garbage we'd become accustomed to. There were no cows in the street. And they weren't jockeying with bicycle rickshaws for position. There were only motorized vehicles on the road. There were sidewalks. There were Western style storefronts. And more than anything, there was the pulse of a sane oragnization underlying the life we could see through the windows. No, we weren't in India any more. And as much as each one of us, probably in different ways and for different reasons, loved India, there was a palpable sense of relief in the car. It didn't hurt, as well, that Miral and I were trading in ten months of hostels and volunteer quarters for a week at a resort. The daily breakfast buffet was cause enough for celebration – but the grounds were truly beautiful, nestled up in the hills just north of Kathmandu.

When we weren't enjoying the resort facilities, the four of us spent most of our time exploring the three Durbar Squares of the area – Patan, Bhaktapur, and Kathmandu. “Durbar” means palace, and each of the squares houses a kingdom palace – but, more interestingly, an array of temples and other buildings of spectacular traditional architecture of the Newars - the dominant ethnicity in the Khatmandu Valley.

First Patan – just across the Bagmati River from Kathmandu and the second-largest town in the Kathmandu Valley. Lonely Planet recommended tracking down a locally published booklet offering a walking tour of Patan, which we found at a sandwich shop, and we were off on a self-guided morning of wandering the narrow streets and alleys and courtyards, past small and large shrines and temples, and having our first tastes of the unique Nepali friendliness – mainly when showing them pictures we had taken. As we soaked in the culture, I think each of us quickly realized we were in a very magical country. We eventually wound our way to Patan's Durbar Square – an incredibly densely packed array of temples from around the 1600s. Scattered one after another, these buildings with multiple tiered roofs or stone domes or intricately crafted wooden rafters or statues of 'guardians' on the steps were nothing less than visually stunning. We spent a good part of the afternoon taking in a vast collection of bronze and copper statues of Buddhist and Hindu deities at the unusually informative Patan Musuem, itself a refined renovation of a former residence of Nepal's Malla kings. We finished the day at the ornate but warm Kwa Bahal (Golden Temple), a 12th century courtyard monestary.

We spent a similar day exploring the streets and the Durbar Square of Bhaktapur, the third major town in the Khatmandu Valley. In addition to more of the stunning Newari architecture, Bhaktapur is home to incredible traditional craftsmen, including potters, weavers, paper-makers, and their famous wood-carvers. Our day included a stop to gawk in amazement at the “peacock window,” a 15th-century wood carving that is supposed to be the finest example of Bhaktapur wood-carving ever created, and ended with us admiring the Nyatapola Temple, which at five stories and more than 100 feet in height is the highest temple in Nepal – as well as arguably its best example of Newari architecture. A few days later, we also wandered through the Durbar Square of Khatmandu itself – but the usually hectic Square (unlike Patan and Bhaktapur) was teeming with people busily attending to needs for the eve before Diwali – a traditional five-day Festival of Lights that marks the mythical return of Lord Raama to his kingdom after defeating a demon king, signaling the eternal triumph of good over evil. We were not sure what all of the errands are that need to be completed before Diwali begins, but we are pretty certain that all of Kathmandu waited until the last minute to do them. We were swallowed up and eventually gave up our fight through the crowd with an appreciation that it was better to swim with the tide. Eventually we found our way to motor traffic and quickly grabbed a taxi out.

The capper on the great week exploring Nepal with my parents was an overnight stay in Nagarkhot, a resort village on the edge of the Kathmandu Valley that offers great views of the mighty Himalaya. With an unseasonable haziness, we hadn't seen much of the REAL mountains yet – and certainly no visit to Nepal would be complete without a chance to view them. So, we enjoyed a great dinner together at a Nagarkot hotel and then went to sleep in preparation of the 5am wake-up to watch the sunrise to take in the mountain views in the clear skies of the morning. The hotel rooms all have a deck on the eastern side and the morning sunrise ritual is what everyone does in Nagarkot. With bleary eyes and with each tourist drowning out the others' oohs and aahs, we got to see a huge expanse of the Himalaya range – all the way from the mighty Dhaulagiri (26, 795 ft) in the west to the equally breathtaking Kanchenjunga (28, 169) in the east. They say that even Everest is visible as a dot from there, too, but we never seemed able to find it. Still, it was a morning to remember.

In fact, it was a week to remember. With the chaos of India behind us, Miral and my parents and I were even more able to relax in one another's company, share stories from each of our journeys leading up to Nepal, more deeply catch up with what was happening in life for one another, and share many more than a few laughs along the way. (Well, except for the Diwali crowd in Kathmandu -- I think only Miral and I were laughing about that one!) After a visit to the serene and beautiful British-inspired Garden of Dreams, we had an early celebration of my 40th-birthday at an old-house-turned-gourmet-restaurant – complete with appetizers on a bridge overlooking a lily-pond and a dinner mood set by the ever-present Khatmandu power-outage candlelight – that epitomized the really sweet time we had spent all week. As my parents got into their taxi to head to the airport and back to the States, I felt taken by a deep appreciation for them, having journeyed so far and through so much to be with us and having given us so much of their love in so many ways over our two weeks traveling together. I can only say, mom and dad, thank you.

Gallery: NEPAL: Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur, Nagarkot, Pokhara, Kali Gandaki Trek, Kathmandu

ivan_miral — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:40:00 GMT

Searching for India's Sacred Heart (ive)

ivan_miral — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:16:00 GMT

We've been out of blog touch for a while, we know -- but this quickly thrown together, yet astoundingly comprehensive (would you expect any less from us???) account of our weeks exploring India will detail why much time for documenting has been lacking. We are about to leave for three weeks of trekking in the Himalaya in Nepal -- and will get photos up of the end of the India journey when we get back. Our best and all of our love to all of you!!

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After my month volunteering in Ladakh and Miral's month volunteering in Kolkata, the plan was to meet up in Dharamsala – a town in the foothills of the Himalaya that has become the home-in-exile to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government, and scores of Tibetan refugees fleeing Chinese oppression. As a result, it has also become a mecca for spirituality-seeking Western tourists. The original plan was for Miral to fly across India, from Kolkata to Delhi and then Delhi up to Dharamsala -- and for me to complete a two-day jeep ride from Ladakh to Manali, over spectacular Himalayan terrain including the second-highest drivable mountain pass in the world, and then hop a bus from Manali to Dharamsala. But after a month apart that was after seven months of near inseparable travels, a three-day wait felt too long as August came to a close. I bought plane tickets to arrive in Delhi ahead of Miral with a plan to surprise her as she walked off the plane – and got ticketed on her same flight from Delhi to Dharamsala. It was to be a great reunion – and it would have been if not for the first thick fog to roll into Leh on just the day I was leaving. With only two daily flights out of Leh, both happening in the early morning (because the two-gate airport closes by 11am each day!), the fog quickly cancelled all flights. It ended up that Miral successfully flew from Kolkata to Delhi, but the fog also prevented her flight into Dharamsala. So, she was stranded in Delhi and I was stranded in Leh. Luckily the reunion was delayed only one day. We met at the Delhi airport the next day, the surprise having been revealed by email. After a lot of hugs and kisses and smiles and beginnings of stories, we hopped our flight to Dharamsala.

DharamsalaAfter doing a lot of research from Kolkata, Miral had booked several days at the Norbu Guest House at the Norbulinga Institute in the valley that is the outskirts of Dharamsala (located midway up a small mountain) and McLeod Ganj (the touristy neighborhood of Dharamsala that tops the mountain). The grounds were beautiful – serene and expansive gardens for strolling and sitting, buildings (including a huge Buddhist gompa [temple] that are a modern take on traditional Tibetan style, and a garden cafe serving up excellent momos (Tibetan dumplings), thukpa (Tibetan soup), and tenthuk (soup with homemade broad noodles). We lingered on the grounds for a few days, sharing stories and photos of our month apart, and rejuvenating for the push into the second half of our 14-months of travel. We also explored the Institute workshops – the main mission of the Institute is training young Tibetan refugees in traditional Tibetan craftsmanship, like woodworking, sculpting metal statues of religious icons, and painting thankas (traditional iconic wall-hangings). We loved our time there. Nearby, we also spent some time at a Tibetan monastery and a Tibetan nunnery. And up in McLeod Ganj, we wandered around the Dalai Lama's Tsuglagkhang monastery that was built to replace a beloved monastery in Tibet, cried our way through museums documenting the violent destruction of the Tibetan culture by China, and took in the beautiful mountain views. And, of course, we ate lots and lots and lots of momos – of every flavor, shape, and size – and when we felt we had tried every momo in town, we took a momo cooking class so that we will never have to be momo-free again!

Amritsar
After a week or so in Dharamsala, we boarded a pre-dawn bus and made the eight hour ride west to Amritsar in the Punjab. We weren't quite sure what we'd find there, but I had read that the city boasts a Sikh Golden Temple that “rivals the Taj Mahal in its stunning beauty.” Sounded like something worth seeing. Despite the sizable Sikh population in Seattle and some vague awareness that the tradition attempts to “merge” Hinduism and Islam, I felt embarrassingly ignorant about the Sikh religion. So this would also be a chance to learn.

After arriving and a bus-recovering nap took us through sundown, we walked the few congested and active streets from our hostel over to the Golden Temple. We deposited our shoes in a downstairs repository as required. At the entrance to the temple, we washed our hands in a porcelain sink and walked through a trough of moving water to cleanse our feet and climbed a few steps to the entrance. We watched the people around us bend, touch their hand to the raised floor archway, and kiss their hand before climbing over, so we did the same to show our respect and walked through the entrance hall. We found ourselves about twenty steps above a marble floor and a body of water shimmering in the night lights. We began to walk down the steps. Only later did we find out that the descent into the temple, rather that the typical ascent into a temple or church, is meant to symbolize God's immanence in this world. And that temple entrances from each of the four directions are meant to symbolize the temple's openness to people of all religions and all castes.

We watched people drop into prostrations as they arrived at the marble floor below the steps. Even as we knew their prostrations must have specific religious significance, the scene made prostrating seem like a completely organic expression. Under our feet was smooth, perfect marble with beautiful geometric designs inlaid that lined a huge courtyard; in the middle of this walkway was an equally huge tank of sparkling water (Amrit Sarovar, or Pool of Nectar); the walkway was filled with pilgrims – most walking around the water, some sitting on the edge and gazing out at the water, and a few bathing in the water; at one end of the tank was a walkway over the water that led to a stunning, mind-stopping golden temple; and from that temple were emitting beautiful kirtans (chants) that filled the air throughout the temple with incredible sweetness. In fact, the entire scene can only be described as sweet. A very soft sacredness permeated the place and instantaneously overwhelmed both Miral and I.

Over the course of the night, we circumambulated the courtyard with the pilgrims, followed them into the Golden Temple where they/we filed past the kirtan musicians and made our way to a platform where the pilgrims took handfuls of the tank water, sacred to them, and sipped it (we skipped the sipping!) and washed it over their head, and exited as we were handed a very sweet paste to accept as a blessing from the experience. We sat at the edge of the walkway, staring at the water, and soaking in the ambiance. And after we were befriended by some Indian boys, we went with them to the langar for a community dinner where, in silence, lines of pilgrims sat on the floor with plates and servers passed through the lines depositing delicious vegetables, rice, dhal, and chapattis. The langar is an essential feature of all Sikh temples offering meals to any and all comers who need or want – an overt rejection of the Hindu caste system in which only certain people are allowed to dine together. And with 400,000 daily visitors to the Golden Temple, it doesn't take long to realize the enormity of the task of having food on hand for all.

We left that night filled with an amazed joy at this incredible treasure we had found. Our time in Amritsar brought a few other finds – exploring a nearby Hindu Silver Temple, wandering through the market streets, and having a long conversation with an American Sikh from Espanola, New Mexico, who is a part of a thriving western Sikh community there. But we couldn't resist returning each day to the Golden Temple. We returned during our second day to experience the Temple in daylight and to explore its museum – and returned one last time on our last night in Amritsar as dusk settled in, hours before we boarded a train for Haridwar, so that we could leave this Holy Mecca of the Sikhs with a full taste of its sweetness in our mouths.

HaridwarLeaving Amritsar, we boarded our first Indian train with excitement for the first taste of this “must-do” experience. We'd planned to travel “First Class A/C” the first time and then ease our way into lower class train cars for more of the true Indian experience, but the universe pushed us in the pool when First Class was sold out. We ended up in a “Second Class Sleeper” car that we were only able to find with the assistance of a kind Sikh man who decided it was his mission to get us to our seats. We arrived to find two benches facing each other, each seating three people. Each bench had another bench high above it and a middle-height bench that could be folded out, so that all three of the people could lie down to sleep. Miral quickly climbed up into one of the top bunks and was out like a light. I mistakenly decided to read and allowed the other top bunk to be taken. The problem is that the middle bunk can only be folded down once the person in the bottom bunk has agreed to go to sleep because when the middle bunk is open there isn't enough room to sit on the bottom bench. And the three other Indian guys in our section decided that this night was the perfect night to catch up on the last few decades of life, or something. Clearly losing something in translation (because they were friendly enough guys), each time I asked them if we could go to sleep soon, they replied, “No. No sleep.” So I sat reading until about 3am before we finally opened the benches and I fell asleep to the classic nasal cries of “Chai? Chai?” from the tea boys circulating the train. If not for the 3am bedtime, both Miral and I agreed that Second Class Sleeper was surprisingly comfortable and would suit us fine on the journey ahead.

The next morning we finished our eastward journey and arrived in Haridwar, where the Ganges River leaves the Himalaya to spread its holy waters all over India. It is one of the holiest Hindu cities in India. We had read that most Westerners quickly depart Haridwar for nearby Rishikesh, also a holy city and much more tourist friendly. In fact, a Westerner quickly approached us at the train station to ask about sharing a ride to Rishikesh. When we told him we were staying in Haridwar, he replied, “Good luck with this place!” In some ways, the response was understandable. Haridwar is not an easy city for tourists. Its streets are classic Indian chaos – with full sized taxis, two sizes of auto rickshaws, and bicycle rickshaws all trying to share the unpaved and potholed roads with hundreds of pilgrims on foot – not to mention meandering cows and scampering monkeys! Its people seemed happy to take full advantage of the few ignorant Westerners (as well as the thousands of Indians here for Yatra, a traditional pilgrimage period), charging exorbitant prices for hotel rooms, taxi rides, food, and internet use.

But underneath all of the discomforts of Haridwar, we found a vibrant city that provided us a wonderful first introduction to Hinduism. On one day, we set out for a distant area of town along the Holy Ganges River (called “Maa (mother) Ganga” or simply “the Ganga” by Indians) in search of an ashram where we hoped to spend a few days doing yoga and learning more about Hinduism. The ashrams ended up a disappointment, but the area was chock full of temples and wandering pilgrims, so we spent the day wandering ourselves. We viewed temples ranging from ornate candy-colored spires, to simple white boxes, to giant carved-stone buildings and walking with pilgrims wearing clothes that ranged from typical Indian attire, like men in kurtas (long shirts) and dotis (fabric wrapped in a skirt-like way), to bright orange kurtas and dotis, to men wearing loin cloths, caked in ash, with elaborate face paints. We completely loved the day – but also felt incredibly ignorant about Hinduism and what we were seeing.

We spent another day wandering around the temples in the city proper – including the Mansa Devi Temple on a high hilltop above the city that was reached by a Disneyland-style cable car, in which our prasad (traditional offering of various items, like incense, flower petals, a coconut, rice puffs, etc., usually in a container made of leaves) was methodically disassembled and sorted into piles of items by workers in front of the shrine, and from which we had to avoid food-stealing monkeys on the climb back down the hill.

And each of our two nights in Haridwar were spent on the Ganga at the Har-Ki-Pairi ghat (a ghat is a platform or steps allowing access to the river) aarti ceremony. Aarti is a fire offering celebration held at dusk that involves fire lamps, chanting, releasing prasad (offerings to the Ganga of light, flowers, and incense held in little boats made from large leaves) and, for most of the locals, bathing in the Ganga – which is not easy at a spot where the currents are very strong as the river rushes out of the Himalaya. The first night, we were inadvertently snookered into being “helped” to offer our prasad and then “blessed” for a long life of health and happiness – all for a slightly exorbitant charge. Still, we loved the experience and the incredible level of excitement and joy that filled the massive crowd for a ceremony that occurs every night. As the ceremony ended, the skies opened and the rain fell – and we made our way, soaked, for dinner at Choti Walla – an Indian food institution that would be our source of delicious thalis (meals of small portions of a variety of Indian dishes and breads) throughout our days in Haridwar and Rishikesh. Somehow, we also ended up being interviewed by a TV reporter from Chennai about why we attended the aarti at all. We returned to the aarti again the next night, savvy to the blessing touts, and found a space in the crowd where we could more fully take in the scenes and feel the wild and chaotic jubilance.

RishikeshAfter a few days in Haridwar, we finally made the inevitable trip north to “the yoga capital” of Rishikesh – and quickly discovered that it is a more popular tourist destination than Haridwar for reasons beyond its fame as the site the Beatles discovered Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and wrote the White Album. It is more of a town than a city, spread out into several neighborhoods that line the Ganga with a string of restaurants, souvenir stands, bookstores, and, of course, ashrams. On our first night, we attended the aarti ceremony at the famous Parmarth Ashram, sitting on steps leading to the Ganges with many locals and plenty of photo snapping tourists, listening to an hour or so of sweet chants before people released their prasad into the Ganga. It was a much calmer and somewhat more serious scene than the raucous Haridwar aarti. We spent some of our early time in Rishikesh exploring the ashrams, still hoping to find a place to do some yoga – but nothing was really grabbing us. Then, sickness set in. After months of travel with not much more than a cold or a mild tummy ache to slow us down, Miral went down with a flu/stomach virus. Luckily, we were in a pretty cozy hotel and Miral rested her time away.

On one of the days that Miral rested in bed, I made a beautiful pilgrimage to Neelkantha Mahadev, a temple to the god Shiva located 14 kilometers high in the hills above Rishikesh. It was a beautiful walk that included being befriended by many, many Indians along the way who all wanted to know who the lone white guy making this very traditional pilgrimage was. As is tradition, I carried with me a small jug of water collected from the Ganga and poured it over the Shiva linga (a rock that symbolizes Shiva) at the temple. The highlight of the visit to the temple was being walked through the appropriate worship rituals by several elderly Indians at a tree enshrined in the temple – they helped me to rub vermilion on the tree, showed me how to circle it with a fire lamp, and helped me to recite the appropriate chants – and then smiled with deep joy at watching their millennia old practices being performed by someone for the first time. The next day, though, the flu/stomach virus claimed me as its next victim – and Miral and I spent the next few days lying around at the hotel, watching re-runs of Friends and mediocre movies. At least one of the movies was Slumdog Millionaire, which was not out yet before we left the US – and seemed to be the perfect movie to watch in India.

As the bug symptoms dissipated and we slowly returned to the world outside the hotel, we stumbled upon advertising for a week-long yoga retreat at an ashram on the Ganga a few kilometers outside of Rishikesh. We looked at the ashram's website and decided that the Chatti Phool retreat would be a great chance to experience ashram life. So, with about ten or twelve Western tourists and a handful of fairly Westernized Indians, we spent the next week enjoying mornings of silence that included meditation, physical purification practices (most especially, use of a netti pot to clean out our nasal passages by pouring water into one nostril and allowing it to drip out the other), Pranayama (breathing exercises), 90 minutes of yoga asanas (the physical yoga most Westerners are familiar with), and a contemplative walk to one of the many nearby spots of incredible natural beauty. We spent the afternoons and evenings in discussions about Hinduism and yoga practices, completing another 90 minutes of yoga asanas, more Pranayama practices, singing kirtans at an evening temple service, and finishing the day with more meditation. Meals were served, in silence, in the style we had discovered at Amritsar's Golden Temple, with us sitting on the floor in rows and thalis served to us by servers walking down the rows and pouring the food from large pots onto our plates. For me, most of the retreat was a really welcomed chance to more deeply explore Hindu practices and traditions – and the yoga asanas were a chance to see how incredibly inflexible this almost forty-year-old body has become.

Agra
Having spent two weeks in Rishikesh, about five days more than originally planned, we decided to abandon our plans to visit the pink city of Jaipur and decided to head directly to Agra and our chance to visit the must-see Taj Mahal. We took a cab from the ashram back to Haridwar, where we got a little sleep before an early train to Agra. We arrived in Agra mid-day and after a rare disappointment in a Lonely Planet hotel recommendation, settled into a guest house – splurging on one that had much needed air conditioning! After a week in the ashram, the stifling heat was definitely getting to us. We dropped our bags and immediately made our way up to the hotel's rooftop restaurant for our first glimpse at the famed Taj Mahal. And it is as beautiful as everyone says – somehow emanating energies of both sweetness and strength. It was a bit boxier than the picture in my imagination – in fact, it is exactly as wide as it is high. We stood marveling at the white marble beauty and the huge red gate that leads to it, both standing high above the meager Agra skyline.

We spent the entire next day at the mausoleum built by a Moghul king upon the death of his favorite wife that is the Taj Mahal, wandering through its halls ornately decorated in marble carving and marble inlay and exploring the small museum, but mostly just admiring the building from every angle and, as they day ended, watching the marble change colors as the sun set. We topped the day off with drinks at Agra's finest hotel and an attempt at a traditional Moghul dinner – until we realized that, as Muslims and not Hindus, all of their food included meat. The next day we explored the massive Agra Fort – another incredible testament to Moghul architecture and wandered through the old town's Kinari Bazaar, eating amazing samosas and watching the chaos of sari sales.

We realized only after arriving in Agra that we would overlap there with my parents, who were finishing up a two-week organized tour of India before meeting up with us for an additional two weeks of travel. We had planned to meet them in Varanasi a few days later, but since they arrived in Agra that evening, we surprised them at their hotel and enjoyed a great dinner sharing stories of our various adventures in India. Then Miral and I ended our quick stop in Agra and, after realizing we had missed the train we had bought tickets for, caught another overnight train east to see the famous city of Varanasi.

Varanasi
The train we caught at the last minute was sold out of Second Class Sleeper tickets, so we rode General Second Class, which meant no fold down bench to stretch out on, which meant sleeping sitting up, which meant not much sleep. We arrived in Varanasi the next afternoon. We wound our way through the alleys of the old city, led for twenty minutes by a taxi driver looking for an extra tip, only to find out later that the walk should have taken five minutes. Anyway, we were content with our hotel, close to the famous Varanasi ghats where Hindus bathe in the Holy Ganga and cremate their dead. We ate some food and quickly crashed. We were not yet aware of the wild holiness that the city would unveil to us in the days ahead.

The next day we took a walk along the ghats at midday, where we met more people trying to sell us a massage than Ganga bathers. But we did make our way down to Manikarnika ghat (also known as the Burning Ghat). Between the attempts of touts to sell us a tour of the ghat or sell us seating in a viewing area, we watched covered body after covered body being brought down, laid onto carefully arranged piles of wood, covered with more wood, and lit ablaze. If not for the occasional limb being revealed in the flames and the apparent mourners who sat and stared at the pyres (all men, by the way – women now rarely attend cremations in an effort to end the age-old practice of widows throwing themselves onto the funeral pyre of their husband), it would not be clear what was happening. Body after body. An endless flow because in traditional Hindu belief, to die in Varanasi, the Holy City ruled by Lord Shiva, is to instantly achieve moksha, or liberation from the endless cycle of rebirth. Many Hindus travel in their old age to Varanasi so that they will die there. Others take vows from an earlier age to never leave the confines of the city so that whenever death arrives, they will die in Varanasi and achieve liberation.

After wandering the streets of Varanasi for the rest of the day, we returned to the ghats for the evening aarti. The steps of the ghat where it took place were jam packed – mainly with Indian pilgrims there for yatra, but also with locals who attend such events whenever possible, as well as a few scattered tourists and tour groups. In addition to the ghats, the Ganga around the ghat was filled with onlookers sitting in boats. The Varanasi aarti was very much distinct from the aarti ceremonies in both Haridwar and Rishikesh. It included the Hindu chants characterizing the others, but here six or seven men stood on platforms that each included a shrine and engaged in a synchronized waving of their fire-lamps that was really beautiful. The night was made more fun by being joined by a few Indian boys – two young local post-card touts and one adolescent pilgrim from another town – who talked to us about Varanasi and their life in India – and only at the end of the night tried to get us into a tea shop where they would probably get a commission on any purchases we made.

But for sure, the most amazing experience in Varanasi was taking the famed dawn boat ride up and down the Ganga while literally hundreds upon hundreds of local people performed their morning ritual of bathing in the Holy Waters of the river that is believed to descend directly from heaven. The whole scene was incredible – the soft glowing light of sunrise, the feeling of being out on the water, the mammoth steps and steeples of the endless line of ghats, and all of these people joyfully bathing. Baths that began with eyes closed, prayers on the lips, and cupped hands pulling and then pouring water from the river – that then turned to soap suds and furious skin and scalp scratching. A beautiful mix of the so-called “sacred” and “profane” that makes clear that the profane is, in fact, sacred.

On a side trip from Varanasi, we spent one day in Sarnath, one of four pilgrimage sites Buddhists visit in re-tracing the life of the Buddha, for this is where he first turned the wheel of dharma, offering teachings for the first time after achieving enlightenment. The first highlight of the day, actually, was unexpectedly running into my parents' tour group as we entered the town's museum. So we got to tour the museum together, which included an ancient stone rendition of the Buddha with his hands in the teaching mudra which was unearthed in the town. After saying goodbye to my parents and their friends, we walked around the brick stupa that some say marks the spot where the first sermon was offered; it was in fairly poor repair, with only small portions of the original detail still visible. We also walked through the ruins of a temple beside it, built by Ashoka, an ancient emperor of India who adored the teachings of the Buddha, ruled the nation based on the Buddhist way, and oversaw a period in which Buddhism flourished in India. Of course, that didn't last and Buddhism was all but driven out of India by Hindus and Muslims alike. In fact, if not for the diligent work of the Mahabodhi Society, based in Sri Lanka, to return to glory the great Buddhist pilgrimage sites of India at the turn of the last century, even the decayed stupa and temple ruins would not be able to be visited. Their work is honored at a beautiful Sarnath Temple which houses a golden version of the ancient stone teaching Buddha we saw at the museum, The temple is set beside a Bodhi tree that is a relative of the one under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment – for a fifty rupee bribe, the guard allowed me past gates to touch the tree and retrieve a leaf that had fallen from it. The plaza around the tree beautifully displays the Buddha's first sermon in twenty or so languages, and the gates are decorated with prayer flags from many countries. The Mahabodhi Temple and plaza around the Bodhi tree are just a few of the signs that Sarnath is a thriving pilgrimage site again – just about every country with a Buddhist population has built a monastery and temple in the town. So we spent the rest of the day meandering from temple to temple, enjoying the different ways of depicting the Buddha and of honoring shrines to him in each nation. At the final temple we visited, the Japanese Zen temple, a huge crowd of adults and children were being blessed by the priest. We spoke to them later and found out that they were a small community of Indian Buddhists on pilgrimage. With such communities – and with the influx of Tibetan Buddhist refugees – it seems possible that the Buddhadharma will make a comeback in India someday.

After about five days of taking in Varanasi, the final day of my parents' tour finally arrived. We left our pleasant, but simple and mildly run-down hotel in the old city and made our way to the 'fancy part of town' and the much more typical Western hotel my parents had arranged for us to meet at. We spent a few days there, catching up with one another on life and our various adventures on the road, especially comparing notes on our experiences in India. Miral and I also took advantage of the relative luxury of our new digs – especially enjoying some time around the swimming pool! We hadn't been in a swimming pool since Melissa and Scott's wedding in Colombia way back in January. It was great.

Bodhgaya
But after a few days of luxuriating, it was time for some real adventure to begin. The plan my parents had devised for visiting India – a place nearly every friend they have said was crazy for them to visit – was to spend their first two weeks on an organized tour to take in the basics of the country and get acclimated to the Indian ways. But when they met up with us they wanted to try their hand at traveling a little more like the way we typically do. So, we started them off with a pre-dawn visit to the train station and a proper ride on the Indian railway. (Of course, the ride in the SUV from the hotel to the train station and riding the train 'First-Class/AC' was not our typical style – but we had to start slowly!) As much as they loved the train ride, they really seemed to have fun when the four of us crammed into a motorickshaw and bounced our way in the open air for the thirty-minute ride from Gaya, where the train station was, to Bodhgaya, site of the Buddha's enlightenment.

Again, with the hope of doing things more interestingly and spontaneously, we all agreed to stay at one of the monasteries in Bodhgaya that provides a guest house on their grounds. The Lonely Planet description of the Bhutanese monastery sounded great, and as a country I have dreamed of visiting but will not get to this year, it seemed perfect. Well, perfect except for the status of the accommodations that were even a little dirtier and inhospitable than most places Miral and I had been staying. But my brave parents were gung-ho to give it a try anyway. After one pretty sleepless night on the rock hard mattress, though, they became more sensible and we agreed to change locations. Before we left, though, we were invited to a delicious lunch by the Head Lama of the monastery, Lama Dorje, where we enjoyed traditional Bhutanese curry over a really delightful conversation about Bhutan and the lama's life.

We explored a few standard hotels in town, but my parents' adventurousness got the better of them again, and we agreed to give a try to a Buddhist retreat center run by a Gelukpa Tibetan Buddhist group, called Root Wisdom Institute. The rooms were simple but clean – and they even had a room with AC. It worked out perfectly and we stayed there the duration. Each day Miral and I awoke to an early morning meditation session in the gompa (temple) and my parents awoke admiring the beautiful gardens and grounds, dotted with Buddha statues and stupas, outside their window. Each day we also ate a retreat-style simple breakfast in silence in their outdoor dining area. I think we all fell in love with the morning ritual that began our daily explorations of the town.

Much of our time in Bodhgaya was spent in Sarnath-like temple-hopping since, again, nearly every Buddhist nation on earth has a monastery at the site of the Buddha's enlightenment – another of the four great Buddhist pilgrimage sites. We were all especially blown away by the Thai Temple. And my parents braved the temple-hopping by walking, motorickshaws, and bicycle rickshaws – no more tour buses for them! We also made an interesting journey out to some nearby caves where the Buddha is said to have attempted extreme asceticism and bodily deprivation before realizing his Middle Way between indulgence and denial was more appropriate – and did our best to manage the most persistent and mildly harassing group of beggars that followed us most of the way up to and down from the caves.

But the highlight of Bodhgaya was definitely the World Heritage site Mahabodhi Temple -- the grand temple built on the spot where the Buddha sat beneath the Bodhi tree, meditated, fought threw the demons within him, and came threw realizing the nature of the human mind and the nature of human reality. The temple was built in the 6^th century AD on the spot of a destroyed temple built by Ashoka, but stone railings around it are original and date back to around 100 BC. It apparently fell into disarray and was at one point manned by Hindu Brahmins (priests), but, again, the work of the Mahabodhi Society has returned the place to amazing glory. The temple is completely surrounded by stupas and other monuments honoring the Buddha and his dharma in the styles of all nations from all times. The walk up to the temple is lined with ancient shrines – and the temple itself houses a beautiful golden Buddha of an early Indian style.

But the center of everyone's attention is the Vajrasahn (Diamond Throne), a decorated slab marking where the Buddha sat in meditation, and the immense Bodhi tree that shades it. The tree is a relative of the original as, at least legend has it, Ashoka's wife burned the original in jealousy of his love for the Buddha. The spot elicits incredible devotion – robed monks and lay people of every nation sit and read sutras (teachings) or prostrate or meditate or just sit and stare and contemplate the importance of the insights that were gained by one man on that spot. At one point, my father and I sat and watched a thirty-something Asian couple (maybe Japanese) helping a 90-something woman (probably their grandmother) shuffle in her walker to circumambulate the temple in traditional style – and then stopping at a gap in the fencing around the Bodhi tree – and helping her shaking hands to rest on the trunk. The look on her close-eyed face emanated the sudden relaxed joy that comes from a sacred, life-long desire finally fulfilled – and my mind flashed back to my days at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, where that same feeling had overwhelmed me so long ago. Whether it is all in the mind of the believer or whether certain places on the earth really do possess holy magic, I am still amazed at the capacity of such places to elicit what Jewish philosopher Martin Buber called I-Thou experiences – where the sense of self melts away into the infinite net of interconnection of all that has ever been. I left after our second visit to the place, feeling very lucky and very blessed, especially in the incomprehensibility that I had somehow shared this unlikely experience with my parents.

Yes, my parents. Our tale of Bodhgaya is definitely not complete without a recap of our return to Varanasi. Due to a mistake in booking, Miral and I had bought tickets on an overnight train back to Varanasi. We had no problem with overnight trains – but it seemed like it would be a nightmare for my parents who seem to rarely get a good night sleep these days even within the comforts of their own bedroom! But, being the adventurous troopers they are, they insisted on keeping the tickets. So, we asked the Root Wisdom Institute to arrange for us a motorickshaw to pick us up at 8pm to take us to the train station. When we arrived at the gate, the guard said that the rickshaw had come at 7 and left because we were not there. He agreed to call again – and as long as he was doing so, I asked him for a full taxi rather than a rickshaw – it was dark and that seemed more sensible. He assured us a taxi would come in ten minutes. Well, forty minutes later no taxi arrived, but two rickshaws did. We loaded into one and sped off for the train we were beginning to feel late for – only to have the driver stop a few blocks later for “phone call.” “No phone call!” each of the four of us yelled out. We explained we were late for our train and must go. He asked, “Railway? Gaya?” as if he had no idea where we were heading – then nodded – then sped off – and then proceeded to ask again every ten minutes or so, “Railway? Gaya?” leaving us all fairly convinced he had no idea what he was doing. The twenty minute ride seemed to go on for thirty minutes, then forty minutes, and in the darkness of the night I struggled to read street signs to make sure we were heading in the right direction. And then we hit a massive truck convoy that had us stuck motionless in the traffic, while all of the noises and chaos of an Indian street at night encircled our rickshaw – and the visions of an awful night in a Gaya hotel began to run through all of our minds.

The rickshaw driver finally got us to the railway station and somehow we had not missed our train. Although we almost did when the train arrived, and it took us most of the train's stay at the station to find and walk to the correct car, and then found the door locked! We pounded and pounded on the train until someone finally opened the door to the next car over and let us into our car internally, where we found a sleepy attendant as the train began to leave. We settled into our compartment to put the chaos of the ride behind us and settle in for some comfortable sleep – until the Air Conditioning went on – full blast – and after some time our luxury compartment literally turned into a refrigerator car! Miral and mom slept under a few blankets, and Dad and I sat up talking and shivering under another blanket. The attendant seemed shocked when we asked for more blankets and had only one more to provide. As the train finally rolled into Varanasi at 3am, an hour later than scheduled, we couldn't believe that we were desperate to get back into the heat of India that had plagued all of us for weeks, just to escape the bitter, bitter cold of the compartment! Had driver requested from the hotel, who was scheduled to meet us at 2am, left under the assumption we didn't make it, leaving us to another autorickshaw ride through the night to get to the Varanasi hotel, I would not have been surprised if my parents disowned me. But lucky for all of us, the driver was waiting on the platform for us – and as we stepped over the throngs of people sleeping on the sidewalks around the station and back into that SUV, I finally felt content that I had returned my parents to the life they are more used to. This was just another night on the road for Miral and I, albeit a more adventurous one. But this was utter craziness for my parents to go through! And, yet, they pushed through the whole experience without the slightest complaint and, even as parts of it were occurring, were already laughing and joking about their wild adventure! It ended up being a night we will all treasure. From there, it was a short night sleep at the Varanasi hotel and a morning flight to Katmandu and the beginnings of our Himalayan adventures in Nepal. Stay tuned...

Learning to live, Ladakhi style (ive)

ivan_miral — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:03:00 GMT

Miral was in Kolkata during August, swimming in a true underbelly of humanity. While there, she also saw the deep personal transformation that can emerge from engaging such dire circumstances. As some spiritualists remind us, the beautiful lotus flower can only grow from mud and slime at the bottom of the lake. But after spending my August in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, I can't help but also see the mucky misery of giant cities like Kolkata as an extreme example of what can happen when too many people are either forced or convinced (often a combination of both) to live in too small a place with too few reasonable jobs, and then become too focused on trying to get ahead of everyone else. It is the result of urbanization, the result of modernization. This view has come after I spent the same the month living in a Ladakhi world that is, compared to Kolkata, in a much earlier stage of decay – or modernization – call it what you will.

Ladakh is a region in the Western Himalaya. In the modern era, facing choices such as succumbing to Chinese oppression or joining the nation of Pakistan, it made the obvious choice of aligning with the semi-democracy of India, where it is now part of the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K, for short). But Ladakh is not what we imagine when we think of India. Except for some areas closer to Kashmir that are Islamic, the culture in most of Ladakh is basically Tibetan. Now that the Chinese have spent the last fifty years steadily succeeding in murderously “liberating,” re-shaping, raping the resources of, destroying the religious culture of, and “modernizing” the nation of Tibet, Ladakh is one of the few remaining places on Earth where one can find an 'untainted' example of the Tibetan way of life. Or so it may seem...

I lived in the lower part of the village of Likir, about a two hour bus ride through the Himalaya from the region's capital city, Leh. I was taken in for the month by the Larjay family. Tsang Namgyal (who I called aba-le, a term of respect for a father or someone of fatherly age) and Chuskit Dolma (ama-le), a couple in their sixties, provided for me all I needed. A rotating array of family members was also housed with us. Regulars in the house were Tsewang Morup, the 30-ish son of aba-le and ama-le, along with his wife, Phunchok Dolma, and their two children, Tsewang Stanzin (4) and Stanzin Wangtak (2). The two-year-old, “Wangtak,” was in the house the entire month, even when his parents and older brother were away in Leh. When I first arrived, Tsering Dalker (wife of aba-le and ama-le's son Phunchak Tsering) was also in the home with her newborn son, Sonam Phunchak, but she left after about one week to be with her original family elsewhere in the village. And for the last week or so of my month-long visit, aba-le and ama-le's daughter, Rigzen Angmo, returned from university. To a person, they were simple, direct, and kind. Kindness, especially, seems to be part of the Ladakhi make-up.

Like their Tibetan brethren, the Ladakhi people are devoutly Buddhist. After studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism for many years, I felt an instantaneous bond with the land and its people. Stupas, which are large, white physical monuments shaped to honor the teachings of the Buddha, dot the landscape. Mani walls, Mani wheels, and prayer flags, all methods believed to release Buddhist blessings to the world, are also everywhere. The people experience the Dalai Lama as their spiritual guide – the man who is the religious and temporal leader of Tibet, but is more importantly the Nobel Peace Prize winner who has perfected a nonviolent response to the oppression of his people. A Buddhist monastic system, much like Tibet's, thrives: many Ladakhi villages have an active gompa (monastery), with many families still sending at least one of their infant children off to a monastic life. And even though the Ladakhis practice a more magical form of Buddhism than do most Western Buddhists – reciting sacred mantras, for example, rather than sitting in meditation – they seem to have an ease with life, an equanimious response to whatever arises, that feels to observers like me to be a unique result of the Buddhist way.

Until the 1970s, Ladakh was essentially disconnected from the rest of the world, allowing their rich culture to take firm hold. Ladakhis are traditionally farmers, even though Ladakh is in a Himalayan rain shadow and is as arid as any desert. They have mastered the art of capitalizing on glacial rivers. Every village is built around a river, and has an indescribably complex system of irrigation channels that bring the river water to the fields and homes. The channels that distribute the precious water are opened and closed, using rocks and mud, in a perfected pattern that the Ladakhis seem to have memorized. The result is rolling fields of alfalfa, barley, and wheat, thriving vegetable gardens, and orchards of apricot and, sometimes, apple trees (really, mini-apricots and mini-apples by our standards, but some of the tastiest you will ever eat!). Their diet consists mainly of products made from wheat and barley flour (usually in the form of baked bread, steamed bread, or various forms of pasta) and the vegetables they grow; they have traditionally been self-sustained when it comes to food. So although only thorn-bushes with Seabuck Thorn Berries (which do make a delicious juice!) are indigenous to the area, Ladakhi villages are long, lush green agricultural oases amidst the moonscape. The village I lived in, Likir, is a prototype.

How the Ladakhis divided the land in their villages is a mystery that is beyond me. But they have carved out idyllic fields, sometimes terraced, often protected from animals with rugged stonewalls and dried thorns – all eerily reminiscent of the Andean village of Vicos, Peru, that we visited earlier in our journey. Makes one wonder if mountain peoples simply come to the same conclusions about how to live, if it is a remnant of the peoples who crossed the land bridge into North and South America – or if there was cross-continental communication of some form even centuries ago (as some anthropologists have hypothesized). But the explanation seems to matter little when the light, swirling breezes catch the fields of barley and cause a mesmerizing dance seemingly choreographed by a knowing universe. These fields are simply mindstopping in their beauty.

The traditional “farm houses” are mansion-sized by modern standards – perhaps necessary to have enough space to stay sane during the long, harsh winters. They are made of mud-brick, which may sometimes be exposed, but is usually covered in a white stucco-like finish. The window and door-trim are beautifully carved wood, usually painted deep maroon or black. And the interior rooms are large – the biggest being the kitchen which also serves as the living room, where most of daily life happens. Every kitchen in Ladakh includes a wall-sized, glassed cabinet, displaying all of the family's traditional plates and cooking pots, usually handed down from generation to generation. In front of each cabinet is a large metal stove, ornately decorated with Buddhist symbols, like the endless knot symbolizing the infinite interconnection of all life. During the winter chill, the stove warms the entire kitchen as food cooks or the endless supply of tea is prepared (either “milk tea” [like Indian chai masala], sweet black tea, or the traditional salty-tasting butter tea, which I actually acquired a taste for!). So it is not surprising that the warm kitchen has become the hub of life – lined on at least one wall with carpeted platforms for seating and ornately carved, low-to-the-ground tables – it is the traditional gathering place. Everything from family conversations, prayer and mantra recitation, food preparation, to singing and dancing seems to occur in the kitchen.

And the pace of life is very soothing by Western standards. I was in Likir during part of the harvest season – one of the busiest and hardest working times of the year. We harvested alfalfa with a hand sickle (lots and lots and lots of alfalfa!) to feed the livestock through the winter, pulled up mustard to be dried into oil, and picked apricots to be sold at market. The days of harvest are long – but broken up by plentiful rest. On a hard-core harvest day, work in the fields may begin at 6am, after the first few cups of tea are consumed. After a few hours of work, we return to the house for breakfast and tea. By about 10am, work begins again, with a 30 to 45 minute tea break at noon (often right out in the fields) as the hot sun begins to take its toll. The tea breaks offer physical rest, rehydration (the Ladakhis drink almost no water – its all tea all the time), and a psychological lift through lively conversation. After returning to work, lunch is served at about 2pm, either back in the house or as a picnic out in the fields, depending on how far from home the work is occurring. About an hour-long siesta is taken after lunch. Another two or so hours out in the field, and there is another long tea break. Then there is a final push of work until sundown. A common late day task is carrying the harvested crops to various locations for drying – the most tiring of which is the alfalfa, which is dried on the roof and requires climbing several ladders with heavy loads tied to your back. Dinner is served at about 9 or 10pm, and then everyone immediately heads to bed. So, these days are long, but the rhythm seems very natural – and they are helped along by the communal singing and humming that happens in the field throughout the work, Add in that the hard-core harvest days require a few weeks each year – and that there are literally six months each year when no work, beyond household chores, is necessary, and you begin to understand how and why the people are so content and psychologically spacious. Can you imagine a job in the States offering six months annual leave??? And can you imagine how happy you would be if you had that job???

As if the regular tea breaks are not enough to keep one fully caffeinated throughout the day, any time a visitor appears at or anywhere in the general vicinity of a home, whatever is being done is dropped and that person is invited in for tea. It made for a lot more tea than most of us Westerners wanted. Need to mention something to Ali next door? Expect twenty minutes of tea. Meet at Juan's house to set off on a day of trekking? Expect twenty minutes of tea. Wave to a neighbor on return from a walk around town? Expect twenty minutes of tea. On the one hand, tea is a bit like the Ladakhi version of Peruvian coca – it keeps up the energy level for the days of hard work in the fields. But more than that, stopping for tea reflects the high value placed on community and relationships. Tea is an excuse to find out how the other person is doing – to get caught up on their life and the well-being of other family members and friends. It is the mechanism through which news – sometimes important and sometimes just gossip – flies around the village at lightening speed. The people are deeply connected. Even across towns. We would stop in another village for a meal while trekking and when we explained we were doing one-month homestays in Likir, the immediate question was which family we each were with. And when we provided names, the result was a knowing smile or a question about how someone in the home was doing or a request for information about someone in the home. It seemed like every Ladakhi knew every other Ladakhi – and intimately.

And after it all, the things I have learned most during my time in Likir come out sounding like clichés when I try to write about them. “It is nourishing to have daily contact with the earth;” “It is good to slow down and live life more in time with natural rhythms;” “It is more fulfilling to live a life aimed at developing relationships than one aimed at material gain.” But the difference is that these lessons have been experiential – that by actually living in these ways for the month, the benefits are directly felt and have sunk into my bones in a way from which it is difficult to simply go back to 'the old way.' It's like to difference between physicists and realized Buddhists. Physicists know full well that the universe is made up of a tiny percentage of matter and a huge percentage of energy – that nothing in the perceived world has much substance – but it probably doesn't impact their daily approach to life. On the other hand, Buddhist masters who sit with and contemplate and directly feel that their essence and the essence of all phenomena are ungraspable, have it saturate the lenses through which they see the world so that attachments to certainty and solidity dissolve. I can't claim that a month of living the Ladakhi way has brought such deep and unshakable change any more than sitting the month long meditation retreat I completed brought me enlightenment – but both produced a feeling in me that I won't soon forget.

Unfortunately, I have also seen what is probably the beginning of the end of this way of life in Ladakh. Modernity is arriving. And fast. Ever since the doors of tourism were opened in the 1970s and, at about the same time, the Indian government brought in electricity, life in Ladakh has been rapidly changing. Especially in the capital “city” of Leh, which serves as a testament to what the future will bring the villages. With all of its beautiful ancient gompas and stupas, Leh is over-run with foreign products in plastic wrappers that are too often discarded in the ways organic materials always have – simply dropped. These products are now also arriving to the villages to meet the demand created by television, which pumps in images of Indian and Western luxuries and lifestyle. (After nights of watching television with my host family, I still have no idea how they digest it and what they make of it – but they seem to love it – from Bollywood movies to cooking channels.) The streets of Leh are choked with car exhaust and constant car horns prevent any sense of peace – and some cars are now being driven in the villages. And despite the erosion of Leh, Ladakhis by the droves are leaving their mansion-sized farmhouses in the village to live in the slums of Leh because they have been educated for “modern jobs” (which are unavailable) and not for farming. They have been convinced by the powers of development that salaried employment, and not farming, provides the best route to happiness. Influenced by modern media, many of the youth see farming as backward and primitive.

In my host-family, for example, the aba-le (father) and ama-le (mother) are likely to be the last generation of farmers – one of their sons is a driver, another son is in the military and stationed in another region of India, and their daughter is at university in Jammu. One daughter-in-law is actively involved in farming the land, but the others rarely go out to the fields. Maybe after aba-le and ama-le pass, someone will use the Likir farmhouse as a summer getaway from Leh – maybe. But the farm seems unlikely to continue – at least in its current form as a means of self-sustenance. The same story is repeating itself all over Ladakh. And a centuries old way of life will probably be gone within a few generations.

So what to make of this? You can't force the Ladakhis to maintain their traditional way of life. You can't restrict their opportunities to access the modern world. What of the Ladakhis who genuinely have no interest in farming – and dream of being doctors or firemen or entrepreneurs? Who am I to romanticize their farming lifestyle and feel that they should forego all of the modern conveniences I have become accustomed to? No, Ladakh and its people should have the right to “modernize” if they wish – but I deeply wish it could be a more thoughtful, careful process. One fueled by education – opportunities for Ladakhis to know the advantages – and the disadvantages – of modernization, as it has been experienced in other modernizing and modernized areas. Yes, they may be able to access all of the gadgets and junk foods they see on TV – but for it, they are likely to gain the high-speed, stress-making, unspiritual, relationship-diminishing, earth-disconnectedness that pervades the West. If they realized that, then maybe they would make better decisions about the extent to which and the ways in which they want to modernize. But for now, other than a few NGOs, like the one I worked with this month, there are few voices countering the mainstream media and Westernized school system. Few locals aware of the perils – and few Westerners making efforts to teach them about our increasingly degrading and destructive way of life. And so, Leh may never become Kolkata – for there is only one Kolkata – but I do fear, Leh will be another Cuzco – with a McDonalds and a NorthFace store – maybe a Wal-Mart someday – and self-focused people competing with one another for these products, and for jobs and for money – and another beautiful culture replaced by the American Dream.

Gallery: N INDIA: Delhi; Dharamsala; Amritsar; Haridwar; Rishikesh; Agra; Varanasi; Bodhgaya

ivan_miral — Tue, 8 Sep 2009 02:49:00 GMT

Gallery: VOLUNTEER KOLKATA (Calcutta): L'Arche and the Missionaries of Charity (mi)

ivan_miral — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:20:00 GMT

Kolkata (Calcutta) – Encounters with l’Arche & the Missionaries of Charity (mi)

ivan_miral — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:14:00 GMT

I’ve journaled a lot this month, trying to express whatever comes to mind or heart, trying to make sense of this city, which one person described to me today as “a beggars' heaven” the destitute so fill its every hole - trying to figure out why I felt so called to come in the first place, and why if there is one word that stands out from this month, it is suffering. Flipping back through the scrawled lines of my well-tattered street vendor bought notebook, the front cover now completely detached from shoving it in and out of my handbag every day - or several times a day - I realize it’s hard to tell you about why I came to Kolkata without talking about Jesus.

L'Arche - The year after my college graduation was when I came upon my first l’Arche community. L’Arche was founded about 50 years ago in France by a Canadian ex-military officer and his advisor, a Dominican priest. It was founded on a strong theology of faith in action (a good place to start to understand the principles that guide the community is to begin to read books by Thomas Merton, found in just about any bookstore with a religious section). L'Arche communities are composed of people with mental and physical limitations (known as the “core members” of any l’Arche home) who live and work with assistants (long and short-term volunteers and salaried persons). In the beginning, one home became two, became ten, became all over the world... In each community, there may be one or more homes, for adults or children. In each, the background and life of each core member is celebrated, and each is fully accepted in all their uniqueness, and so the language, particular faith practices, and daily rhythm of each l’Arche home will looks different depending on the indigenous culture. However, each home is a replica of the next in a few aspects -

Core members come to l’Arche with mild, moderate or severe limitations. They have intellectual limits, physical disabilities, psychiatric problems and often severe emotional disturbance. For the most part, these are a product of their growing experiences with family and society. Now, assistants have many limitations too, but we are markedly different from the core members in that those limitations are typically not how we are identfied in society (er… typically). Like core members, we learn very early that we should change limitations if we can, and if that doesn’t work, to try and hide them. Like core members, we get praised in subtle and explicit ways for capitalizing on our strengths (this is a universal practice, but depending on which country or region in which we grew up, what exactly counted as a strength to reward is different of course). Unlike core members however, we often possess one or several strengths valued by our families and the particular society we live in, and so grow up without the suffering known only to a person so completely rejected and isolated as a core member.

In countries all over the world, and even until the most recent decades in the West, persons with handicaps have suffered a pain unknown by most in society. I found in Kolkata that perhaps only leprosy can stigmatize a person more. Handicaps bring rejection of a most painful kind – and those persons whose families choose to bear that rejection with them are in turn ostracized by their extended families, their friends. As one person described it to me: The families of core members and the core members are considered cursed by God. They don’t even go to family weddings, to celebrations. They deal with things on their own; it’s just them, in a country where social relationships are everything. And most in Kolkata are also financially destitute - imagine the combination.

Since I first entered into a l’Arche home over ten years ago, I found that assistants come with a desire to give all our strengths to those who are weak. Like anywhere else we go in life, we do not come to offer our limitations, our darkness, our poverty. Often in fact we come unaware of much of this in ourselves, such as we have struggled our whole lives to deny its' existence. But in the paradox that is the l’Arche experience, an assistant is not called to minimize limitations, darkness or poverty. We are asked to enter into these experiences, accept that they are present in us, and recognize that in fact, despite our best efforts, we have a quite altogether frustrating human nature. We can call this process many different things – you can say assistants are called to dump their egos by the roadside, or empty themselves of self... Mother Teresa calls this part of the process of "total surrender"....

However you say it, assistants are not used to this, and the process quickly becomes complicated and difficult - I won’t elaborate on that part here. But I will point out that no one in their right mind wants to identify with their poverty. No one wants to enter into that place where loneliness and all manner of suffering reign. It is an awful sound to hear the call to fully live the experience that core members know every day of their lives. But in the l’Arche community, the view is that: where there is suffering, there can be death to the self, and in that empty space that is left, there the seeds of a resurrection may grow.

Unlike assistants, core members arrive already at the point of death – and so their path looks somewhat different than that of the assistants, who still must shed their ego. In this way, core members and assistants arrive at l’Arche with different needs – As another assistant once described it to me: No one has to tell the l’Arche core membes that they should get poor and empty and good things will happen. They are already there.

Now, however you get there, whether you arrive empty, or come to that place during your stay, the transformation that follows - from death (or as a line from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting might go, “from hitting rock bottom”) to resurrection is a long one – one that each member - core members and assistants - of the community is called to travel. This journey is not automatic. It does not happen in many contexts outside of l'Arche - but at l'Arche, it is possible because the journey is made in the context of mutual relationships - the heart of l’Arche. Mutual relationships are characterized by acceptance and celebration of the other, forgiveness and grace. They are a function of all of love’s actions (kindness, patience, lack of envy, greed or boasting…). Unconditional love is offered to the other members and also received by oneself; the exchange happens in both directions. And on this path, slowly brokeness heals, and new life emerges.

Now I’m leaving out a lot of detail, but essentially the process is that: Where we are poor and empty, where there is death to the self, there, and only there, can transformation – the kind that changes lives and transforms souls, the kind that most everyone yearns for and the kind I believe we were born for – can happen.

As one l’Arche assistant said to me: “We know how the story ends!” He was referring to a practice many l’Arche communities do annually – During the holy week that precedes Easter Sunday every spring, the entire community acts out the last days of Jesus on earth. For example, on Thursday, they do a practice that I have always thought should happen at least every Sunday in Church communities today – they wash each other’s feet to remember that we are called to be humble servants to those we know, those we do not know (listen to me – this is not the Chicago suburbs - in developing countries, where dirt and grime soak the streets, this process is for real!). And on Friday, they act out the rejection of Jesus by some of the leaders in his very own religious community, by his closest friends, they act out his separation from his family. They act out insults, mocking, beating. One person acts as Jesus and carries his cross. They repeat the words he said during his agony, waiting to die, asking God why he abandoned him – and calling out: “I thirst.” The others witness as he takes his last breath. And there, the assistant talking to me paused and said: “Now we’re not crazy to do all this acting with core members who have already lived their crucifixion – we know how the story ends! Resurrection!" Where we submit ourselves to death to the self, there can be new life.

So that is why I go, and go again to l’Arche - digging into this mystical phenomenon with earnestness, always hoping to experience and grow, and to learn more detail about the process of suffering, and of death to life transformation, and the power of relationships in that work. The process has a beautiful and unique rhythm, unlike any other. I believe it to be fundamental to the meaning of life, and universal to all peoples, and whenever I am granted the chance, I jump to immerse myself in its details…there is so much to learn!

Why l’Arche in India in particular?

When I was interviewing the international coordinator for l’Arche at the time of my dissertation, a tall soft-spoken English woman, originally Protestant but who had converted to Catholicism during her time at l’Arche in France, who exudes l’Archeness out of her being it always seems, there was something she talked about that caught my attention but that I had to put aside for the sake of finishing what could certainly have turned into the never-ending project all professors warn about. And of all things during my dissertation defense, I remember most lucidly standing in that American-evangelical Wheaton College classroom, with my family and friends listening, and talking about this phenomenon she cited – that there seemed to be an intense and universal spirituality that transcended specific cognitive thought in all l'Arche communities across the world. This spirituality did not depend on a person’s thoughts about God any more than it depended on their capacity to even have a thought about God. That thoughts about God didn't matter, but actually experientially living God's path did (In the story relayed above, this was described in that Catholic community in France as following Jesus by taking up the cross of suffering, dying to oneself and beginning a new life). If it were otherwise, spirituality would not be available except to those intellectually gifted. But the belief and findings at l'Arche are that spiritual transformation is available to everyone who is poor in spirit, that faith is active, that it is experiential in cross-carrying and new life, rather than thought-based. Which is why the message is universal, available for everyone. Educated or not, intelligent or disabled, across all cultures, poverty in spirit and transformation toward new life is available to all. As a good graduate student in both psychology and theology, someone all about thoughts, thoughts seemed to be very important. How to understand spirituality beyond one's cognition? What exactly was it that was there, present across contexts? What was this process of spiritual transformation, of death to self and transforming resurrection, that appeared to be available to every core member, every assistant, in every l’Arche context in every cultural context? The question dominated a quiet part of my heart, and in the years that followed, slowly, I would start looking for answers.

And because the coordinator had referenced stories from India, where Hindus, Christians and Muslims live and pray and transform together in l’Arche homes – that is how I came, after years of wanting, to be in the l’Arche community in Kolkata, Asha Niketan.

I came with no doubts that the core member is the example to follow if the assistant wants to walk toward spiritual transformation – but seeking understanding about the breadth of the phenomenon. Discovering how the potential for spiritual transformation was so deeply engrained in the human heart of each person across the world, that we all seemed to be created for this process of transformation, and that what I would call the Spirit of God was working in ways beyond our capacity to grasp - this is what pulled me. Like the Bible stories I had grown up with, about God working in controversial ways, using controversial people, beyond the permission of the holiest religious leaders, beyond our limited human revelation of how great and vast and deep the Spirit works, that I had stumbled upon what appeared to be a modern day place functioning solely to be a manifestation of this - this is what pulled me (Pictures of l'Arche in Kolkata are found in the photo section of our website).

But this is only half the story – the other half is found in the person of Mother Teresa.

The Missionaries of Charity - Kolkata is an entire city that reflects the suffering found inside of one home of the Missionaries of Charity. Since the second I stepped outside of the airport, my breath was caught in my throat, my entire rhythm disturbed. On every street, around every corner, on any means of transportation, there is a veritable onslaught of chaotic stimuli that is so invasive to all one’s five senses, that the first few days I experienced as an attack, and the weeks that followed an unending roller coaster ride - even shutting my hotel window didn’t drown out the blaring noise! The emotions I experienced were at times so intense, and so pervaded my early morning wakefulness, my late night insomnia, and my senses all the day’s length! There was such life - life - life! And work, work, work! I never got used to watching the stony facial expressions of the rickshaw pullers, their feet bare or in cheap sandals, sweating and straining to concentrate on their passenger, their tilting vehicle, the traffic assaulting them, the few rupees that await them at their destination. I cannot appreciate the tarp covered homes that line the streets, or the reality that, as one man told me: those in the streets have it much better than those in the slums. I read The City of Joy and cried, knowing that reality is always so much worse than its depiction - when you can actually smell it, fear it touching you.

There was also the sadness that struck in realizing that, in this city that places such great value on what is holy, that has produced such philosophers and literary genius, Kolkata is no different than I have found all over in our travels. So often, Christians, Hindus, Muslims alike – there is a great belief in physical sacrifices and particular prayers and rites (flowers, animals, food, money, scents) necessary to appease God – there is a magical quality that pervades faith. And understand it as I might, it is not easy watching a poor person spend their earnings on incense, when you yourself believe that the sacrifice called for is a broken spirit. Especially since (despite what might be imagined) the poor work – WORK – all day long. They endure a work that is literally incomprehensible to my mind and body. Yet the return is so small, so inadequate! How I wished so often to just disappear from this city where images of poor brothers and sisters are so painted into it, no accurate tableau would be without them! No surprise Rabindrath Tagore, Gandhi and Mother Teresa are such revered names!

In desperation one day, I walked into a book store and purchased three books on the person of Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity (I was to subsequently buy a fourth) hoping to find... something.

Mother Teresa is not without her critics – and rightly so, given her extreme beliefs and lifestyle. The main part of her story is quite simple to tell – how the young Eastern European nun heard a call to serve the poorest of the poor, and by whose perseverance, among other characteristics, was an instrument that eventually turned nothing into a mission in Kolkata, and a mission in one city into a charity that serves in slums all over the world. After her death, private correspondence between her and her spiritual advisors was made public, arousing somewhat of a sensation for those who had any ideas about what a living saint might think and feel. In her scrawled handwriting, there was the truth in her heart – her experience was one of a dark night so intense, a suffering and emptiness so pervasive, that it appears to surpass the length of time of any other mystic known in Christianity. Her dark night was likely due to multiple sources, including what she experienced as a mystical connection between the suffering of Jesus, the suffering of the poor, and her own suffering.

Much has been written about what lies inside the walls of Nirmal Hriday (meaning literally: Pure Heart - a name I found to be so, so, so very perfect), Mother Teresa's first home for the Destitute and Dying, near the Kali Temple in Kolkata. Nirmal Hriday is a living paradox - of despair and peace, death and life. Walking in the first day, I sensed a great joy and a simultaneous pulsing pain. I had also the very strange experience of feeling as if Mother was still there. The first thing I would see is the room for males straight ahead. The very next, on the wall to my right, a greatly enlarged photo of Mother’s old wrinkled, arthritic hands, holding her rosary (Catholic prayer beads). I was splitting my time between l’Arche and Nirmal Hriday, and whereas I began my days at l'Arche meditating in the chapel with the community members, on the afternoons of Nirmal Hriday, I would begin by contemplating Mother's hands, and their prayer in action. I would end the shift often by sitting on the clean hard floor in the small chapel upstairs (the only truly clean floor in the house), joining the sisters in their evening prayers, which included the Rosary, Vespers, and hymns.

I had moments when I was so overwhelmed with joy, I could not contain my smile – I was kissed daily by a little old lady who scurried about the women’s room. Every time she passed me, she would lift up my hand to her lips... how can I describe what that feels like? I went from person to person after the dinner meal and served them with a basin of water for their hands and mouths, experiencing the washing of the feet ceremony on Holy Thursday I explained earlier in this story. I walked from bed to bed in greeting each time I arrived, with my hands pressed together and my head slightly bowed in greeting. And leaving on my last day, this is how I said good-bye. The greeting is typical for the culture, but for me, it also held the reason for my journey – to bow to something greater than me, something we are born to seek, but often do not see or understand – and how the weeks there made me crave to shed my ego! But how difficult it is to let go, to unattach oneself completely, to die to oneself!

On a small, individual scale, it is difficult for me to imagine any person walking into Nirmal Hriday, and not touch suffering. The experience for me was a radical, aching one that flooded me constantly with waves of complex and overwhelming reactions. Because I had long felt a deep desire and what seemed to me a call to come experience this home in particular, and because my faith is encapsulated in the story of Jesus, I felt like I was walking in the Bible - where a story of someone with leprosy is suddenly there in the bed I am sitting on too. I tried to regulate my breathing and work through nausea at several points. I came face to face with the limits of my generosity, joy, and love. I met my intolerance for suffering and my intolerance with others who could not tolerate suffering. One mass of reactions all the time, I realized what might be perhaps Mother Teresa's greatest beauty -

She was faithful in her discipline in prayer and in service. No matter the day, the feeling, the darkness. What a simple example she set, to just show up, day after day, and leave the rest to providence. And there is a call to the sisters and to each of us, to also just show up, do small things with great love, as she would say. Those who serve with the Missionaries of Charity are called to see the Christ who calls for love from each of us in the faces of those before us: “I thirst.”

The words "I thirst" (that I described above in the story of l'Arche) are written under every depiction of Jesus hanging on the cross in every Missionaries of Charity home. These words are a call toward a path of transformation. And Mother too believed it is a universal call - that the poor are already at a place of crucifixion, where their ego is destroyed and they are emptied daily. It is those of us who serve who are called to join them, enter into it with them, imitate them; so that there, grace might abound and a resurrection occur.

I should add that Mother's definition of who is the "poor" was a broad one:

"Around the world, not only in poor countries, I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I am satisfied, I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out of society - that poverty is so hurtful, and so much, that I find it very difficult. Our Sisters are working amongst that kind of people in the West." (from her biography, Mother Teresa, written by Navin Chawla).

Chawla, a Hindu working for the Indian government, had a long and beautiful relationship with Mother Teresa and her work, and his book is a wonderful place to begin if you are interested in learning more about the charism of a woman dedicated to transforming souls through active love.

This transformation, I should add, was in her eyes no more confined to relationships with strangers than it was to serving in the slums. Mother's call was for everyone to begin in their heart, in prayer, and at home, with family. She found the West lacking in prayer, and families lacking in love. It is easy to love someone in a far away land like India, but we are each called to do a much more difficult kind of prayer-filled work, to love those in our families.

(Pictures of Nirmal Hriday are found in the photo section of our website).

I have so much more I would love to share with each of you about the hour to hour experience of walking the streets of Kolkata - so many sights and sounds (and believe you me, smells!). But for now, thank you for joining me! and I will end with this, a third experience of mine this month, one reflecting a different aspect of love's power in the world -

One of the books I picked up on Mother Teresa has an introduction by a medical doctor, Larry Dossey. He talks about the dialogue between medical scientists and prayer, and highlights the benefits of prayer on the one who prays, and also the findings on intercessory or distant prayer on the receiver, whether the receiver is a human, animal or plant, whether aware or unaware that prayer is being offered. He also talks about prayer and meditation as universal phenomena – that across time and specific faith practices, the one factor that appears to matter is love (no surprise to the health fields where empathy and compassion are so discussed!). After I read this introduction, I was reading (yes) another book on Mother – her biography, which includes a story found in many other sources – one in which Mother is nursing a dying person at Nirmal Hriday – I end with her words in that story for two reasons –

The first, because Ivan and I have family and friends from all over the world, with all different cultures and ways of expressing their faith. And prayerful love, I believe, is the greatest thing that binds us. And the second, because I have experienced an abundance of grace this month, directly I believe, from the intercessory prayer of so many of you. I cannot begin to count the ways in which this was made clear to me, when I would receive an email here or there verifying this blessing. Of course, it is possible that I simply had a month full of very strange coincidences. In whatever case, it is beyond my comprehension - dwelling somewhere in the vicinity of faith. And so I ask you, in the words of the woman they call here "The Saint of Calcutta" –

“You say a prayer in your religion, and I will say a prayer as I know it. Together we will say this prayer, and it will be something beautiful for God.”

Gallery: VOLUNTEER LADAKH: Learning from Ladakh Program, Homestay and Harvest Help (Ive)

ivan_miral — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:42:00 GMT

Modern Maasai (ive...and a bit of mi!)

ivan_miral — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:57:00 GMT

Maybe the biggest problem with traveling to thirteen countries in fourteen months is that things happen so fast and furiously that you sometimes barely get a moment to get any of it down on paper. Since we left the KAASO school in Uganda, we spent a week ferrying across Lake Victoria and settling back into the traveling groove after three consecutive months of volunteering (two in Switzerland and one in Uganda). After the ferry ride, we spent the next week on safari in the Serengeti and nearby parks (animal pictures!). Following safari, we stopped by to witness the International Tribunal for the Rwanda Genocide (eery and interesting and provoked for us many thoughts and emotions...another story!). We followed that with a week in Kenya living with a Maasai community (which we'll tell you all about in this story), and then spent our last week in Africa taking in the exotic Swahili/Arab/Indian culture of Zanzibar. A whirlwind of successive adventures to end our time in Africa, and here we are - now in India!

We began this week sweating our way into a brief taste of Delhi, and for the last few days Miral has been settling into the chaos and hassles of Kolkata. She tells me that she discovered wearing a salwar kameez (typical Indian pajama-like outfit with scarf) or a sari (which she is still getting adjusted to wrapping on) has reduced the hassles. Who would have thought? I’d have guessed that like Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese people who can distinguish one another at a glance that the chances of an Egyptian passing for an Indian were nil. Maybe its just the sweat dripping into their eyes, but Miral is apparently pulling it off! A woman actually came up to her in the Metro station asking for directions in Hindi...uh, or more likely Bengali, she wasn't sure which :)! Meanwhile, I am adjusting to the Himalayan altitude in Leh, Ladakh, and wandering around Buddhist gompas and stupas as if in a dream finally coming true. When in all of that are you supposed to find any time to write about any of it?

Well, each of these experiences deserves a long entry on this blog. (What? Me? Long entries?) But if there is one of these experiences that I feel like I MUST say something about before I disappear into the cyber-less hinterlands of a small Ladakhi village for the next month, it is about our time with the Maasai. Our original plans did not include visiting the Maasai any more than the average tourist does (by passing through a village to watch a dance for a few shillings) but our friend Pam spent time with the Maasai in a town called Rombo, Kenya, in February of this year, and her descriptions made us certain we also needed to meet them. So we detoured from our journey through Tanzania for a one week stop over the Kenyan border. Where we found........

To begin with, if you know as little about the Maasai as I did, I suggest a glance at the wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai for important background to appreciating our time with them. We also tried to detail as least some of it in the captions of our pictures in the KENYA picture gallery.

The Maasai are one of the last tribes of Africa holding strong to its traditional customs and beliefs of ancient origin -- customs range from very distinctive clothing to highly ritualized rites of passage (some incredibly controversial, like female circumcision). Their deep spiritual beliefs include understandings about E'ngai (God) and their relationship with creation. For example, they believe that E'ngai has entrusted them with cattle and they are to be deeply thankful for them, care for them lovingly, and that other methods for sustinence that disturb God's earth (farming; hunting) are not appropriate.

But over the past few decades, and especially in the past few years, various groups of Maasai (they span parts of Kenya and Tanzania) have started to find their customs and beliefs facing outside influences and new pressures for change. In Rombo, factors like the most recent deadly drought, increasing education and technology, the arrival of Christianity and Islam with not only their beliefs but also their customs, are just a few factors that have made for a complicated intersection: where their community meets the question of change. And although I cannot do justice to the complexity of what is happening, or the beautiful hearts and spirits of the people we met or the culture they have, I will try to write what I can here.

We arrived to see some families already well in movement, many with cellular phones, some wearing western clothing, or having introduced farming, no longer having as a sole livelihood nomadic cattle/goat/sheep herding. One talked to us about how practices like circumcision are likely to change in a natural way, with the rise of education changing the views of the children of the next generations. We found various families, and even members within families with different opinions on what kinds of changes should occur and what should be resisted, what kinds of customs and beliefs should persist. As with most Africans, beliefs and customs from new religions have not replaced their ancient ones, but rather melded into them, with each person now having a particular mix. No matter who we met however, there was a common statement of pride in the "Maasai way." And the pictures we were shown and stories that were told as our week unfolded told the story of a proud people standing on the brink of a precipice, unsure but hopeful of its future, confident in its spirit.

We arrived for our visit with the Maasai after some initial difficulties figuring out the route from Moshi, Tanzania, to Rombo, Kenya, and enduring a one hour delay for our bus to escape a muddy dirt road that spun its tires. At the Tanzania side of the border, we were greeted by Tumaina (our host) and Jacob (his friend, who brought his motorcycle to transport our luggage). A border crossing and a dala dala (mini-van taxi) ride later, and we were settling into Tumaina’s relatively modern home on the main road in Rombo (permanent structure built of wood with concrete floors, no electricity). His compound included a small separate structure a short distance away from the house for a pit toilet and bucket bathing, as well as two other structures that served as storage and for cooking.

Tumaina, himself is a poster-child for the complex interplay of ancient world meets modern age. On the one hand, he is deeply proud of his Maasai heritage, enjoys wearing traditional Maasai shuka at times (two or more sheets of bright fabrics worn over the shoulder), participates in traditional rituals (for example, he insisted on a fully traditional Maasai wedding), and is active in a small but thriving effort at careful community development (You can see more about their school project at: http://www.adeaafrica.org/Maasai_School.html). On the other hand, Tuamaina is a farmer (violating Maasai beliefs against digging in the sacred earth) and not a traditional nomadic cow-herder. He lives in a fairly modern home and not in a traditional boma complex of mud-brick/thatched dwellings. He insists on having one wife rather than engaging in traditional polygamy and believes in family planning - both of these he stated were because he wanted to be responsible provider. He wears a t-shirt and jeans most days. Tumaina is joined in this complexity by a village full of families, some on either end of the modern-traditional continuum or intersection you could call it, but many somewhere in between.

...So began our week. It went on, packed full of events, meeting people and experiencing their days, hearing their stories. We watched several videos – some of Tumaina’s personal videos of life events, like his wedding and his ceremony for transition from warriorship to junior elder (two of several life stages for a male Maasai), and some media videos, such as National Geographic shows discussing the Maasai. We walked deep into the bush to visit two of the community school programs – both so new that they do not yet have second grade classrooms (there is a long history of no access to education amongst the Maasai). We visited with the local chairmen of each school – both uneducated traditional Maasai men dedicated to a new way forward. We met with a local doctor and his lab-tech brother to discuss community health issues. Miral was introduced to traditional Maasai cooking, weaving, and beading by local women. I walked back into the bush to purchase a goat. We visited the local Friday market, where Maasai people living deep in the bush in every direction make a weekly pilgrimage to Rombo to sell animals, buy supplies, and commune with one another. We participated in the traditional slaughter of a goat and the festive sharing of the meat it produced. Throughout it all, the week was threaded with conversations about the delicate balance between tradition and modernism with people of a wide variety of backgrounds, and especially with Tumaina.

Some of these conversations were with some of the other members of the community development program, each of whom is responsible for one of the program's several projects. These include, among other initiatives, developing alternative income sources (especially for women, such as beadwork and other crafts), developing a cultural museum preserving Maasai artifacts, developing a homestay eco-tourism program, creating schools where now there are none and offering curricula that mesh with the Maasai cultural heritage. We were toured through the growing cultural museum. They also have efforts targeting local environmentalism - desperately needed for survival in the developing world first and foremost! Miral particularly was stunned - and told me it was one of the most impressionable experiences of the week for her. She was stunned she said by the contrast in which uneducated or barely educated Maasai had more knowledge of how making thoughtful decisions and taking thoughtful action with respect to their environment meant the difference between life and death for them and for others who are affected by their actions, whereas many highly educated citizens of the US are so far removed from the immediate effects of cutting down trees, drilling in earth, polluting and damaging energy use, etc that they have no idea the damage they are doing to their futures, let alone their neighbors already suffering from it across the ocean, neighbors who aren't privileged enough to be able to escape from the current effects of environmental damage (at least we can for now). I found her shaking her head in sadness, pondering the gravity of it all. She told me she thought it was one of the greatest sins of wealthy men and women, sheltering themselves in their high standard of living and making decisions every day as though consuming to no end and at any cost to the environment God gave us to care for was a right that carried no consequences. That we need not be scared by the effects of our actions, but that the world we were entrusted with would provide forever, no matter our greedy and glutenous and ingnorant behavior. She said she realized how easy it is to remain ignorant when you grow up in a country that abounds in everything no matter the season - you are always sheltered from the facts, the harsh reality of natural cause and effect. Why would you believe there is a problem, she asked, when there are constant flows of water from several taps in each home, 24 hour electricity, and supermarkets that never seem to run out of stock? Money indeed buys naive consumerism. She told me she was thinking about the first commandment - Watching the complex intersection that the Maasai stood in, she realized with utter clarity: Modernity has caused so many people in the western world to unknowingly stray, heedless of the many warnings most of us have received in the Bible or other religious texts. And I noticed her repeat to herself sadly and with anger: Consumerism has become our country's god! If new beliefs, education and modern customs have the potential to offer life to people, they also carry with them a severe risk to destroy as well....

As Miral was struck, I too felt enriched and educated from the specific activities which were in and of themselves such a gift – one that Tumaina worked endlessly to weave together for us. But more important than any of the specifics was the generosity, a traditional and holy generosity, woven into each one of them. The doctor and his brother treated us to an expensive traditional meal of ugali, kale, and meat for our discussion, and as we departed Rombo, the doctor gave us a gift of a traditional Maasai leadership stick (now a rare item, this one was owned by his grandfather). Tumaina’s friend Ann invited us into her one room home and spent her hard earned money on a delicious home-cooked meal for us to accompany a fun conversation. Another friend of Tumaina, Lamayan, invited us into the back room of his father’s small grocery store nearly every night we were there so we could watch the videos on his TV/VCR in a town with little electricity. We had to convince him to at least let us buy him a soda in thanks (embarrassed, he finally agreed). Indeed his selfless giving and embarrasment in trying to be gifted in return was shared by all we met during the week. Several women gave of their time to teach Miral about the ways of traditional Maasai women, cooking, jewelry-making, milking cows, cleaning and caring for their children, and told her stories through interpreters (we always needed interpreters, another gift we were constantly provided with!) Sankale offered us sweet conversation and yummy breakfast in his boma home and introduced his brother’s family to us (the wife wouldn't let us leave without a parting gift of a traditional necklace for Miral!) before guiding us, along with Mayani, through the Friday market. Teachers Tipapa and Mayani gave of their time to lead us through the bush to the schools, explaining life in Maasailand the whole time. The chairman of one of the schools invited us to his boma and served us a delicious lunch while the teachers served as interpreters for a conversation that helped us move beyond his infectious smile and begin to understand his very traditional life and his struggles as a community leader (not to mention his struggles with wild animals in the bush! Miral was totally taken by all the lion and elephant stories during the week... not to mention running across a troop of Zebra on our walk with the chairman to school!!). Jacob not only brought our luggage to Rombo for us, but brought us spinach from his garden for our dinner the next day, invited us into the home he shares with his mother for dinner and to spend our last night in Kenya, and then (along with his brother-in-law Albert), chauffeured us and our bags by motorcycle to the border to catch our bus south into Tanzania. And Tumaina – arranged EVERYTHING the entire week, spent nearly the entirety of the week by our sides, prepared and gave us all of the rest of our meals, single-handedly put together a large community gathering because we asked him to so we coul thank them all together, and somehow still felt the need to offer us traditional beaded bangles and (with the handiwork assistance of his mother) a traditional calabash (gourd) for holding milk. The Maasai nourished us with their food, with their gifts, with their heartfelt welcomes, and most of all with their honest conversations sharing their lives and their perspectives on being Maasai during these delicate and complicated times... we left them with so much more than we came with - and wondered to ourselves: How can we ever do justice to their generosity, and the generosity of everyone else we have met so far on this one year journey of ours??? Is there a way?

With this big list of generous offerings, I am still only scratching the surface of what was offered to us. So I will share one moment that may have best epitomized the feeling we had the whole week. It happened during our visit to one of the schools in the bush. After a few community elders watched us interact with their children and teach a little about the US, we were introduced to the elders in the back of the classroom. We spoke with them through the classroom teacher interpreting for us. But one elderly woman (the woman in the picture above) put words aside, walked directly up to Miral and I, pulled two small traditional beaded bangles from her own wrist, grabbed our hands and rolled them onto ours (even though she had to fight to get mine over my wrist!). She looked deeply at each of us, and sat back down. No further exchange was needed. She broke both of our hearts.

Throughout the week, Tumaina made clear to us that what felt like royal treatment to us was typical Maasai generosity and community. Of course every community has its issues, its personalities and its clashes. And traditional communities that generate this kind of generosity are often also the communities where obligation to others and conforming to the group precedes one's independence, no matter what the sacrifice to the individual's nature and spirit. But we realized that despite all this, the communal spirit of respect for and investment in humanity, animals, and all of God's creation meant issues are something to be solved together, that no one is alone but is cared for in the best way they know how, that working carefully together, nothing would conquer them as a people.

Whenever we would explain how bowled over we were, Tumaina would simply respond, “This is how we live.” And he didn’t just say it. He lives it every day. When we arrived to his home, we found him to be the host of two local school children whose parents asked him to care for them because of their trust in his ability to structure their time and apply the discipline necessary for academic success. Also living at his home were a man from a distant area, his younger brother, and the entire herd of cattle of their family, rescued from the fate of wandering many, many more miles through the drought-stricken region in search of grazing land. They were taken in by Tumaina to house their cattle and feed them on the maize stalks from his farm. I have read that when asked for a favor, a Maasai can never, ever say no. They can explain the obstacles posed by what is being asked for, but they cannot say no to their fellow human. The spirit of generosity and community also permeates life in Rombo in smaller ways. Like the fact that everyone is always free to stop by one another’s homes unannounced, to share a little while, some words, and a cup of tea or a snack. No one is ever too busy – and the visiting is frequent! And even the simple passing on the street requires a somewhat lengthy and somewhat ritualized exchange in which each person catches the other up on all of the details of life since the last time they met. It’s beautiful to watch, actually, as each small detail is responded to by the other with an “Aaaaye” (Maa for “yes.”). This is how they live. In such marked contrast to how we live.

And so, as they face the dilemma of today: how to ‘join the modern world’ through education, a diversification of occupational opportunities, and infra-structure development, without losing devotion to community and the selfless caring for one another, without losing their best values, they may be at a junction unlike no other they have faced before. Unfortunately, the sense Miral and I got was that they really don’t appreciate the risk they face.

They spoke openly that there is a challenge, and that their hope is that they will be able to gain all the benefits of development, without having to change their worldviews, beliefs or values or "old" customs. As a child of two immigrant parents who left the developed world to go to a place where life customs, values and traditions are replaced by the suburban life, customs and values of the United States, Miral told me she felt in a very profound way the struggle that was to come in the next generations for the Maasai. Development, modernity, higher standards of living, they bring life giving things (like clean water, advanced medical care) and help you realize the harm of some of your "old" ways (such as the harm inflicted during some initiation rites). But they also force you to change in ways you can't possibly foresee. And the changes you anticipate may not be the ones that your children foresee. No one community has individuals who all think exactly alike. Each person will argue for or against different changes. Already this is happening between Maasai children and their parents... Some conflicts will dissipate in several generations, as seen with third and foruth generation immigrants to the Western world. But some....

The Maasai talked to us about not losing the "Maasai way." They do not want to give up the old traditions when bringing in new ways - they seemed to believe that the "old" Maasai way can survive any and all of that. But which is the "old" Maasai? Is it the one that wears traditional clothing? The one that only marries in the "Maasai way?" Is it the one that practices the rites of circumcision? Is it the one that herds but does not farm? Is it the one that does not intertwine Christian or Muslim beliefs within its traditional religious beliefs and practics? Is it the one where the wife works only at home?

Today, changes in some of their beliefs and traditions have already come to the Maasai, some of these new beliefs and traditions have life to offer, but some.... And as they continue to open up to the world, more will come. And although they talked openly – hearing their words, Miral and I both felt that as members of a society that didn’t see its own social disintegration coming, we might contribute to this point in their community's journey through conversations about the reality and risks of development. The developed world may have some privileges and advances to share, but it also has much to learn from the values found in societies like those of the Maasai. In mutual conversation, maybe we can gain some of what they have to offer us. And refrain from exporting to them what will cause them harm (although we will all have differing thoughts on what that is as well of course!).

A discussion of these issues started to occur during our farewell gathering, through a touching and educational exchange of speeches. For example, they were completely shocked to hear even the basics about how cattle are treated so poorly by industry in the West, where torture and poison have become a necessity for profit. The Maasai dearly and deeply care for their cattle, treating them truly as a gift from God, not as a manufactured product, and details about the sickening realities of our chicken, pig and cattle industry deeply disturbed them - they seemed relieved to hear about care and cleanliness of local free-range practices, but also understood when we explained that most people in the US could either not afford to buy the meat from these animals, or were not educated about the sinful practices committed by the big companies. We asked them: Could they understand how development and modernization carries great risks? Such as how the desire for monetary profit can crush spiritually sound practices toward neighbor and creation? How there is a need to be extremely vigilant as you start incorporating the helpful things from development and modernity? It was a start. I think more is going to be needed.

I am about to leave for a month of participating in a program that for over 15 years has been trying to do just that with the “developing culture” of Ladakh – help them to steer clear of the pitfalls we have discovered in the West. Even within this devoutly Buddhist traditional society, it is a huge uphill battle to fight the allure of Westernization. Maybe some of what I learn in this next month will be something we can use to be of benefit to the beautiful people of Rombo. I leave for this next adventure with them in my mind and my heart.

To end, Miral wishes to let you know that she "took advantage of Ivan's initiative write about Rombo and just went ahead and added my thoughts right in and throughout... for easy-reading, I wrote my contributions in Ivan's voice. I also wish to close this entry with a simple request: Please keep us in your hearts and prayers, as the two of us take separate roads this month into our new worlds (Ivan to Ladakh and Mi to Kolkata). You are in ours always; we miss you. Namaste.

Ive ("and a bit of mi!," she adds).

Gallery: KENYA: Rombo (Maasai Community)

ivan_miral — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:39:00 GMT

Join The Global Village (Mi & Ive)

ivan_miral — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:36:00 GMT

Our time at St. Paul KAASO School in Kabira, Uganda has come to an end. We have left behind our co-volunteers and new friends from New Zealand who will continue to offer their time and energy for many months to come. We left behind 600 beautiful, bright students who depend on the school to provide them with a transforming education, and also with clean water, food, and care from adults.

And we tearfully left behind two people, School Director Dominic Mukawaya and his wife, Headmistress Rose, who, with their actions as we observed them over the past month, their history of life decisions they told us about, and their vision for the future, have earned our deep respect and given us a determined purpose to continue to help them, even as the miles between us grow. Let us tell you about them – and why we are asking you to help us help them – with your books and/or your computer supplies.

Dominic and Rose Build St. Paul's KAASO Primary School
Ten years ago, Dominic and Rose found themselves seeking out and caring for a number of children in desperate circumstances. As their bevy of children grew and their hopes to help them all within their home became more untenable, they made the audacious decision to take the two buildings on their plot of land and start a primary school with which they could reach more children. In only ten years, their disciplined efforts have yielded a campus of nine classrooms (with three more under construction), dormitories for 300 of the children (many of them orphaned) to board at the school, and two kitchens to feed the children and staff. They didn't accomplish this alone. With their honest mission and high accountability, the interest of charitable organizations grew speedily. Thanks to local and international Rotary Clubs, they gained piped water and three water filters to provide clean drinking water – and during our stay at the school, they remarkably added around-the-clock electricity from solar panels. With the help of an organization started by a former volunteer, they have constructed a sick bay and are filling it with needed materials.

The work of their hands is unique, as these basic resources they now have at the school are not available to most of the people in their village. But in the spirit of African community that pervades so much of what they do, the Director and Headmistress see their work as integrally linked to their neighbors. KAASO also provides several community programs, including an adult education program, support for local women making and selling handicrafts, a maize mill to help local farmers produce the cornmeal that is a staple of the local diet, and a highly successful piggery program that provides piglets to local women to help them develop an ongoing source of income.

A Library and Computer Lab
But the current situation is not enough for the Director and Headmistress. They continue to cultivate visions for the future. In fact, they now want to realize a very big dream – offering the first library in the sub-county to their students. Imagine, an entire sub-county lacking such an important resource! Their school library would also improve teacher training and be open to local villagers who have no other access to books. Libraries are such a basic foundation for knowledge and advancement – a library in Kabira would open up worlds for its users.

They also dream that their library will provide access to computers. A recent statement by a local government official – the Chairman of Rakai District – at a school fundraising event we attended might best explain why: “Very few of our schools in Rakai District have computer training facilities. You may ask: Why do these people in the developing world need computers? Computers are now part and parcel of life...I appeal to you passionately, please help our children to move forward...The world is now a global village, help us to join it.” Your Old Books and Computers Can

Make a World of Difference The library and computer lab building has already been constructed. It will be available for use as soon as the students temporarily residing in it can be moved into a new dormitory. Our co-volunteers from New Zealand are working to make this new dorm a reality. As a result, offers for donations of books have begun, and a Canadian Rotary Club is working to help access some computers. But for their dreams for this facility to be realized – or maybe even exceeded – more is needed.

What kind of books do they need to fill their library...what kind of computers? As Dominic would tell us as he drove around in the school car with almost 200,000 miles on it, “What is old to you is new to us.” So, with just a little effort, you and some of things you no longer need can lend a very big hand.

* Because Ugandans speak both Luganda and English, your English-language books are incredibly valuable. You can find all of those extra books laying around your home that your children (or you!) have outgrown – picture books, children's literature, novels, non-fiction, dictionaries, encyclopedias, other resource books - really, any book about any topic at all – and you can put them in a box and send them to the school (address below). There is a special need for an encyclopedia set – if you have a set you can donate, please let us know and we will let the Director know it is on its way.

* When you buy a new laptop, you can send the school the “dinosaur” you are replacing. And if you have other computer technology (printers; USB ports; hard drives; etc.) that you are not using, throw them in the box, too. We have pledged to send our two laptops when we get back to the US – every additional computer means that more people can be served.

To mail books and/or computer ware, please send them to the address below. Please include a note that you heard about KAASO from Miral and Ivan. Dominic and Rose give so much of themselves to their volunteers; we were nurtured and educated by their efforts - it is good for them to know that their investment with us will continue to bear fruit even after we have left! And even though the address below looks a little wonky – we have confirmed that it is correct exactly as written!

St Pauls KAASO School
c\o John M. Mpagi Equator Technical Agencies Ltd
Jetha Building Plot 4A
Market Square
Nakasero Kampala
PO Box 9508

As supporters ourselves, we take seriously the issue of accountability, and we would not ask you to give to KAASO if we were not 100% confident that your donations will be used as intended. When we reviewed past donation records and watched Dominic work with new donations while we were at the school, we found that his integrity is matched only by his deep gratitude for everything the school receives. Any offer you can make will be of great service to the children of KAASO and the people of Kabira. We are extremely grateful that you would consider giving to a community that has earned such a big place in our hearts.

Thank you!

Ivan & Miral

weekends away (mi)

ivan_miral — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:00:00 GMT

during our time at volunteering engagements, ivan and i usually get a long weekend or two to travel to visit other parts of the countries we've been in. while at St. Paul's, we took two - one to whitewater raft, and the other to visit a national wildlife park - i treasured both weekends, and i thought i'd send a quick word to you on what they were like...

rafting - we travelled a few hours north to the small city of Jinja. although Egypt is often credited as home of the Nile, Jinja, Uganda is recognized as the great river's source. as part of its reputation, the river source boasts Grade 5 whitewater rafting. rafting is something I had never before done, and decided I must try before we left the country – how many times in life do you get the chance to go whitewater rafting at the source of the Nile??! so after our first evening in the African town flavored by Indian merchants (who have been returning slowly and in small numbers after the horrors of Idi Amin), Ivan and I head out for a day long excursion on the river. We were in one among five big red poofy rafts, all full of tourists of all nationalities, all ages, and, rather noticably all fear-levels :) Each raft had a well-trained crew leader, some more rambunctious than others, and we were all joined by a slew of support crew in individual kayaks. for anyone who has not been rafting, i'll describe: Our day out on the river started as it should – with about an hour of rafting lessons. the crew leaders taught us how to interpret their signals, how to paddle with synchronicity, how to hang on when we hit more torrential waters, and even how to fall in case we capsized – which we did....more than once. once we got started down the river, it took all of about 5 minutes for the kayak support crew to earn my unending respect and affection for all eternity. one strong drop loosened my grip and took my balance, and I was tossed overboard – my lifejacket brought me up for air and before I could tell which direction I was facing, a kayaker swooped in and delivered me to a waiting raft. phew. the day ended with a bountiful campsite barbeque held over a stunning view of the river, mosquitoes, and a late night showing of a video of our day. it was taken by an australian who decided he would kayak around and make videos of the rafters – we couldn't resist sending one to Ivan's nephews and my brother (Note to our parents: We promise it was safer than it looks; we didn't even see a single crocodile!). So besides extreme sports and 4 star Indian food, Jinja is home to a Mahatma Gandi memorial, a gorgeous waterfall (there's a shot of Ivan sitting in front of it in our Uganda picture gallery), bountiful plates of huge grilled Tilapia fish fresh out of Lake Victoria (on which Tangelo heartily feasted), small colorful stores overflowing with local arts and crafts and textiles, Nile Beer, a lot of hydroelectric engineers, a good population of Ugandan students, and tourists and volunteers on weekend.... among other things. it is much smaller than the raging capital of Kampala, a lot more modern than our nearby district capital Kyotera, and cleaner than either. Jinja seemed to me a happy intersection where modern city conveniences meet the slow pace and pleasures of rural life. but nothing's quite like the place you call home, and after two playful days, we head back eagerly to KAASO.

the park - we took another 3 day weekend with Kirsty, one of the Kiwi volunteers (yes, the new zealanders actually do like to be called kiwis), to go together to Queen Elizabeth National Park in the southwestern part of uganda. We took a boat safari and a driving safari and we got really lucky.... besides the tens of hippos and elephants and other sweet animals, we had the gorgeous experience of finding a mother lion and her three baby cubs playing. But even before all that, we stumbled upon, and I exaggerate not, THREE meters from us – a LEOPARD. first of all, the guidebooks are clear - you RARELY ever get to see leopards because they're nocturnal and go alone - but we saw one, OF ALL PLACES, on the taxi drive into the park. the driver, Vincent, slammed on his brakes, hit reverse, and pointed – our jaws dropped and we immediately started flashing cameras. needless to say, we hired the same driver almost immediately to take us on our driving safari for the next afternoon. vincent was good luck - we found the lioness and cubs. after two hours of driving safari, we were all STARING out our respective assigned windows, ivan out the back left window, kirsty out the front left (the cars are english style here with the driver on the right) when all of a sudden out the back right window about 10 meters away i saw two pairs of little yellow round ears sticking out from the tall grasses - i shouted LION!, vincent slammed on his brakes again.... there you go! we even got a video of the mother and 3 cubs (which we tried to upload, but failed - if we succeed in the future we’ll get a chance to share a bit of live elephant and lion action!). maybe the best part of the weekend for me was running into Mary the elephant. so the three of us were taking a morning walk to go check out a campsite nearby, and ran into an elephant on the grounds of the dorms (for student groups who go on field trips to the park). while the staff nonchalantly went about their business, mary walked right up to the outdoor tap, TURNED IT WITH HER TRUNK and proceeded to fill her trunk to take a bath and have something to drink. i flipped out. i knew elephants were smart, but its a whole other story to see one in the wild who's decided to learn how to use a water tap. crazy animals!! leopards, lions and mary... the park felt like a truly magical setting - needless to say, the african sunsets were breathtaking.

we were so taken by the experience that we didn’t hesitate to book a 4 day/3 night camping safari through the Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Lake Manyara this last week in Tanzania. i’ll save those stories for later, but for now, you can find safari pictures in the TANZANIA photo folder on the right side of the welcome webpage. suffice it to say, the serengeti was an experience I never thought I’d have in my life, and it exceeded my most wild imagination. it’s one thing to stand in front of the pyramids and see man’s stunning work – it’s another to journey through the serengeti, and view God’s – the interdependence of everything living, the colors and emotions and play and raw feeding frenzy - it was a humbling, miraculous experience.

i bid you peace, each of you in another corner of God’s magnificently created world.

miral