Again, there's too much to say. So I'm just going to say what I recall right now, get to the point, skip the fancy storytelling,
We had to wait in the airport forever for our flight, which was long. When we got to the Chennai airport, we had to wait for our bags for forever. The ATM didn't work for us. The airport was disorganized. We stepped outside into a horrible, all-engulfing, moist heat.
We found our driver and again, waited. He brought the car and drove us to our hotel. I don't mean any disrespect to the culture by what I say, this is simply my opinion, and India is just not for me. The streets of Chennai were absolutely filthy and revolting, piled with trash. Bone-thin cows and stray dogs lined the roads, and cars honked at them to clear the street.
The people we talked to at the hotel barely spoke English. They took us to a different hotel with no explanation. They didn't speak much English there either. They kept wanting to call us a cab, even though we'd already booked one. People have told us that we probably got ripped off.
The room was dingy, hot, full of mosquitoes. We felt horrible, anxious, worried, displaced. We couldn't sleep.
Our cab came in the morning, thankfully, and we drove the three hours to Sadhana Forest. It was dreadfully sunny. The way driving works here is everyone honks their horns at everyone else. It's quite headache inducing.
We got money at an ATM. When we arrived at our destination, some people said hello, but we didn't really know where to go. We eventually were shown around a bit.
There are no "indoor" buildings here. It's all huts, made of bamboo or something, and open on the sides. There are no regular toilets, just stalls with holes in the ground. No toilet paper, just water. There aren't regular showers or laundry facilities, just buckets to fill with water and soap and whatnot. There's nowhere with any privacy. Luckily we got the best dorm, I think. the "rooms" are just curtain partitions, and we have uncomfortable wood and rope beds that sag in the middle and rise on the ends. The pillows and mattresses are hard and lumpy. The blankets are rough. The floor is dirt. Other rooms on top floors just have beds on the floor. We all have mosquito nets around our beds, easily the best comfort feature. The main hut has cushions to sit on, but no matter how you position yourself, there is really no comfortable place to sit around here.
There are tons of bugs here. The first day or so. Liesl and I got so many mosquito bites, it was insane. Liesl had more than fifty bites on one of her legs. She also got ringworm a few days ago, and has to change her bandages all the time. It's really contagious, but it's not an actual worm, it's a fungus, so it's not quite as gross as it sounds. Liesl's mosquito bites are mostly better, but a lot of mine are still really itchy.
Flies constantly land on me, and I hate it. It tickles and flies are gross, and the flies here are totally relentless, they won't leave you alone. We saw this giant spider--the biggest non-tarantula spider I've seen in my life--in the forest while we were planting trees.
The forest isn't tall like our forest in Ireland, it's more shrubby.
The project does really great things for the world. They plant trees to regrow the depleted tropical dry evergreen forest here, they use solar energy, grow a bit of food...The food they serve here is very good, it's all vegan, and it's totally wholesome, not processed, no refined sugar. It's easily my favorite thing about this place. Everything they do here is very low-impact, environmentally, which Liesl and I totally support. But somehow, it's just...unpleasant.
During the first few days, Liesl and I both felt the same sort of roller-coaster emotions: part of the time we felt a horrible foreboding, and thought that there was no way that we could possibly stay here for three months. Then, for a spell, we would feel better, and think that three months was doable. Eventually our negative feelings prevailed, and we decided that there was no way that we could stay here for three months.
We went to Koot Road the second day, which smelled bad and didn't have anything of interest for me. I felt sick on the way back, and spent three hours or so lying in bed, restlessly tossing and turning, with horrible stomach cramps. I tried taking pills, but they didn't help. I eventually threw up and then I felt a lot better.
We arrived on a Friday, and there's no work on the weekends, unless you have a dinner-cooking shift or something. I was awakened in the night by incredibly loud, amplified music coming from three different temples nearby. It was a reminder of just how far we are from the Western world...it lasts for multiple hours, and begins at maybe 3 a.m.
We wake up at 5:30 a.m. on weekdays to work. It's not as horrible as it sounds, because the singing from the temple has mostly woken you up by then, but it is early. The work includes cooking, cleaning the toilets, planting trees...most of it is about maintaining the facilities really.
I don't like work in the kitchen. Planting trees is better, but to be quite honest, it's not as fulfilling as you'd think. It's okay, it's just not rewarding really.
There are two work shifts; the first one ends around 8:30 and then we have breakfast. The second one ends around 12:30 for lunch. Ash and coconut husks are used to clean the dishes.
The rest of the day is free, unless you have a shift. There are workshops that people give, on whatever subject they want, yoga, making things, whatever. People make it sound like you're never bored here because there's so much to do, but honestly, unless you have the money and the desire to go into Auroville, or Pondicherry, or another place, the name of which I can't really pronounce, there's not much. We can't afford to go into town all the time, even though India is really cheap, and honestly, we don't have a great desire to go. Maybe we'll go once or something.
The days here are often hot: horribly, wretchedly, disgustingly hot. Sometimes is moderately cool though, I mean for India. It gets cold at night sometimes.
We've met some nice people here, but in general, we have not felt a connection to most people here, or to the community at large. There are a lot of people that we don't like, actually. The family that owns this place, that started the project, are disappointingly unlikeable. They were out of town when we got here, and they came back, never introduced themselves, and they barely participate in the community. I didn't even know who the family was for the first few days. Liesl only recognized them from the website.
There's a lot of diversity here, which is really cool. People from all over the world come here. It's kind of the opposite of our experience of Ireland in that way, and in many other ways, but somehow it's also very similar. Again, the duration of the stay seems unbearable. Again, we're sinking into a depression. But this time there are too many people: there's not privacy, which I hate. and the climate is not at all to my liking, and it's not pretty here to me. And this time, toughing it out does not seem doable.
The first thing that the guy that runs this place said to the community when we were here, was that Sadhana Forest is is really struggling financially, that they're in debt, and that they need donations, or at least would encourage us to ask our friends and family for money for them. While, like I said, we totally approve of the environmental work, neither of us felt compelled to take any action. Every day, the things that we don't like about this place accumulate. Every day we like this place less and less.
I realize that this is a big judgement to make without really having been to much of the country, but I can honestly say that I do not like India at all. Even though it's green here, I don't find it beautiful. It's hot, it's humid, and it's sunny almost all the time--in the south, that is. From what we saw of the city, that doesn't seem nice either. I can't really think of anything that I like about this country.
Another thing that is good about Sadhana is that there's this adorable little puppy that lives here. There are other cute dogs too; at some point they decided to take in stray dogs, only if they came here on their own, or followed someone here. I think they're hoping to make an animal shelter here, which is great. There's also Sadhana Forest in Haiti and one is coming soon to Kenya.
On Saturday night, I had horrible, uncontrollable diarrhea, and literally shit my pants multiple times in the night. I must have gone to the toilet six times. It was the worst diarrhea I've ever had. Liesl got sick in the night too, but she got cold, very, very cold. She was wearing my thick long underwear and sweatpants and layers on top and had two or three blankets and she was shivering. It wasn't that cold. She threw up and has also had diarrhea since then. People are very nice and helpful when you're sick; they've been taking care of us. I'm still sick. I was getting better, and then I had diarrhea again. I think Liesl is mostly better. Everyone gets sick in India. I was just hoping that I'd had my illness last week and that that was it.
Dinner on Saturday was the last real meal that Liesl and I ate, and I only ate a little, I wasn't hungry really. Probably because I was getting sick. Then we didn't eat anything until Monday at lunch, when we had some rice. We can't have fruit or some other things when we're sick, we can only eat plain things like rice. We didn't eat dinner or breakfast, but we ate some rice and mashed potatoes for lunch. It was so nice to eat something.
Now I'm afraid that if I leave Sadhana, go to Auroville or something, I'll get sick again. And I do not want to be sick again.
The whole time we've been here we've been missing somewhere else. For a while it was England, and our lovely house in Clapham. It felt like home. At times it's even been Ireland that we've missed. Liesl really misses camp. Now we miss San Diego. But changing our flights is so expensive that it makes the situation very difficult.
We've spent the last couple of days not really doing anything because we have been sick, mostly just talking about San Diego, and how much we wish we weren't here. I've been reading a lot. I finished one book and I'm close to be done with another. I'm happiest when I forget that I'm here, like when I'm reading. I don't want to be here for another minute, I hate it.
We don't know what our plans are right now, we're working on it.
That's all.
Stephanie
We had to wait in the airport forever for our flight, which was long. When we got to the Chennai airport, we had to wait for our bags for forever. The ATM didn't work for us. The airport was disorganized. We stepped outside into a horrible, all-engulfing, moist heat.
We found our driver and again, waited. He brought the car and drove us to our hotel. I don't mean any disrespect to the culture by what I say, this is simply my opinion, and India is just not for me. The streets of Chennai were absolutely filthy and revolting, piled with trash. Bone-thin cows and stray dogs lined the roads, and cars honked at them to clear the street.
The people we talked to at the hotel barely spoke English. They took us to a different hotel with no explanation. They didn't speak much English there either. They kept wanting to call us a cab, even though we'd already booked one. People have told us that we probably got ripped off.
The room was dingy, hot, full of mosquitoes. We felt horrible, anxious, worried, displaced. We couldn't sleep.
Our cab came in the morning, thankfully, and we drove the three hours to Sadhana Forest. It was dreadfully sunny. The way driving works here is everyone honks their horns at everyone else. It's quite headache inducing.
We got money at an ATM. When we arrived at our destination, some people said hello, but we didn't really know where to go. We eventually were shown around a bit.
There are no "indoor" buildings here. It's all huts, made of bamboo or something, and open on the sides. There are no regular toilets, just stalls with holes in the ground. No toilet paper, just water. There aren't regular showers or laundry facilities, just buckets to fill with water and soap and whatnot. There's nowhere with any privacy. Luckily we got the best dorm, I think. the "rooms" are just curtain partitions, and we have uncomfortable wood and rope beds that sag in the middle and rise on the ends. The pillows and mattresses are hard and lumpy. The blankets are rough. The floor is dirt. Other rooms on top floors just have beds on the floor. We all have mosquito nets around our beds, easily the best comfort feature. The main hut has cushions to sit on, but no matter how you position yourself, there is really no comfortable place to sit around here.
There are tons of bugs here. The first day or so. Liesl and I got so many mosquito bites, it was insane. Liesl had more than fifty bites on one of her legs. She also got ringworm a few days ago, and has to change her bandages all the time. It's really contagious, but it's not an actual worm, it's a fungus, so it's not quite as gross as it sounds. Liesl's mosquito bites are mostly better, but a lot of mine are still really itchy.
Flies constantly land on me, and I hate it. It tickles and flies are gross, and the flies here are totally relentless, they won't leave you alone. We saw this giant spider--the biggest non-tarantula spider I've seen in my life--in the forest while we were planting trees.
The forest isn't tall like our forest in Ireland, it's more shrubby.
The project does really great things for the world. They plant trees to regrow the depleted tropical dry evergreen forest here, they use solar energy, grow a bit of food...The food they serve here is very good, it's all vegan, and it's totally wholesome, not processed, no refined sugar. It's easily my favorite thing about this place. Everything they do here is very low-impact, environmentally, which Liesl and I totally support. But somehow, it's just...unpleasant.
During the first few days, Liesl and I both felt the same sort of roller-coaster emotions: part of the time we felt a horrible foreboding, and thought that there was no way that we could possibly stay here for three months. Then, for a spell, we would feel better, and think that three months was doable. Eventually our negative feelings prevailed, and we decided that there was no way that we could stay here for three months.
We went to Koot Road the second day, which smelled bad and didn't have anything of interest for me. I felt sick on the way back, and spent three hours or so lying in bed, restlessly tossing and turning, with horrible stomach cramps. I tried taking pills, but they didn't help. I eventually threw up and then I felt a lot better.
We arrived on a Friday, and there's no work on the weekends, unless you have a dinner-cooking shift or something. I was awakened in the night by incredibly loud, amplified music coming from three different temples nearby. It was a reminder of just how far we are from the Western world...it lasts for multiple hours, and begins at maybe 3 a.m.
We wake up at 5:30 a.m. on weekdays to work. It's not as horrible as it sounds, because the singing from the temple has mostly woken you up by then, but it is early. The work includes cooking, cleaning the toilets, planting trees...most of it is about maintaining the facilities really.
I don't like work in the kitchen. Planting trees is better, but to be quite honest, it's not as fulfilling as you'd think. It's okay, it's just not rewarding really.
There are two work shifts; the first one ends around 8:30 and then we have breakfast. The second one ends around 12:30 for lunch. Ash and coconut husks are used to clean the dishes.
The rest of the day is free, unless you have a shift. There are workshops that people give, on whatever subject they want, yoga, making things, whatever. People make it sound like you're never bored here because there's so much to do, but honestly, unless you have the money and the desire to go into Auroville, or Pondicherry, or another place, the name of which I can't really pronounce, there's not much. We can't afford to go into town all the time, even though India is really cheap, and honestly, we don't have a great desire to go. Maybe we'll go once or something.
The days here are often hot: horribly, wretchedly, disgustingly hot. Sometimes is moderately cool though, I mean for India. It gets cold at night sometimes.
We've met some nice people here, but in general, we have not felt a connection to most people here, or to the community at large. There are a lot of people that we don't like, actually. The family that owns this place, that started the project, are disappointingly unlikeable. They were out of town when we got here, and they came back, never introduced themselves, and they barely participate in the community. I didn't even know who the family was for the first few days. Liesl only recognized them from the website.
There's a lot of diversity here, which is really cool. People from all over the world come here. It's kind of the opposite of our experience of Ireland in that way, and in many other ways, but somehow it's also very similar. Again, the duration of the stay seems unbearable. Again, we're sinking into a depression. But this time there are too many people: there's not privacy, which I hate. and the climate is not at all to my liking, and it's not pretty here to me. And this time, toughing it out does not seem doable.
The first thing that the guy that runs this place said to the community when we were here, was that Sadhana Forest is is really struggling financially, that they're in debt, and that they need donations, or at least would encourage us to ask our friends and family for money for them. While, like I said, we totally approve of the environmental work, neither of us felt compelled to take any action. Every day, the things that we don't like about this place accumulate. Every day we like this place less and less.
I realize that this is a big judgement to make without really having been to much of the country, but I can honestly say that I do not like India at all. Even though it's green here, I don't find it beautiful. It's hot, it's humid, and it's sunny almost all the time--in the south, that is. From what we saw of the city, that doesn't seem nice either. I can't really think of anything that I like about this country.
Another thing that is good about Sadhana is that there's this adorable little puppy that lives here. There are other cute dogs too; at some point they decided to take in stray dogs, only if they came here on their own, or followed someone here. I think they're hoping to make an animal shelter here, which is great. There's also Sadhana Forest in Haiti and one is coming soon to Kenya.
On Saturday night, I had horrible, uncontrollable diarrhea, and literally shit my pants multiple times in the night. I must have gone to the toilet six times. It was the worst diarrhea I've ever had. Liesl got sick in the night too, but she got cold, very, very cold. She was wearing my thick long underwear and sweatpants and layers on top and had two or three blankets and she was shivering. It wasn't that cold. She threw up and has also had diarrhea since then. People are very nice and helpful when you're sick; they've been taking care of us. I'm still sick. I was getting better, and then I had diarrhea again. I think Liesl is mostly better. Everyone gets sick in India. I was just hoping that I'd had my illness last week and that that was it.
Dinner on Saturday was the last real meal that Liesl and I ate, and I only ate a little, I wasn't hungry really. Probably because I was getting sick. Then we didn't eat anything until Monday at lunch, when we had some rice. We can't have fruit or some other things when we're sick, we can only eat plain things like rice. We didn't eat dinner or breakfast, but we ate some rice and mashed potatoes for lunch. It was so nice to eat something.
Now I'm afraid that if I leave Sadhana, go to Auroville or something, I'll get sick again. And I do not want to be sick again.
The whole time we've been here we've been missing somewhere else. For a while it was England, and our lovely house in Clapham. It felt like home. At times it's even been Ireland that we've missed. Liesl really misses camp. Now we miss San Diego. But changing our flights is so expensive that it makes the situation very difficult.
We've spent the last couple of days not really doing anything because we have been sick, mostly just talking about San Diego, and how much we wish we weren't here. I've been reading a lot. I finished one book and I'm close to be done with another. I'm happiest when I forget that I'm here, like when I'm reading. I don't want to be here for another minute, I hate it.
We don't know what our plans are right now, we're working on it.
That's all.
Stephanie
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