India, Part 2

Greetings readers,

So you as you probably now know, Liesl and I will be returning to the US early—the 20^th of February to be exact. You presumably don’t have too many doubts as to why this is, if you’ve read my last post. However, I do need to make some amendments to it—or actually, more like additions, really.

For a while we really weren’t having a particularly good time here. We didn’t feel a strong sense of community, the work wasn’t particularly fulfilling, we were tired of travelling, ready to go back to a more sedentary lifestyle in the western world. However, though I was not expecting this at all, we actually ended up having a really good time here. For a while, anyway.

We made friends with some really awesome people, and actually started leaving Sadhana and going out to eat and such with our friends. Neither of us really had the funds for this, but thriftiness can only last so long, and eventually we went on a binge. So while this was really rather idiotic financially, it was incredibly intelligent emotionally, as it made us much happier not to just sit around bored all the time.

A few weeks ago we made a calendar counting down the days left of our stay here, starting at 37 (?) days. For the first week or so, the wait seemed endless. We began a perpetual discussion about San Diego, the things we missed, what we were excited to do when we got back, etc. We would have conversations that lasted hours, about anything that we could think of that would distract us from the fact that we were here. It worked, too, but reality always came crashing back at the end of these discussions, and was almost worse than before them.

But there was a time—a week, maybe two (when neither of us was I might I add) that instead of going to bed at 7:30, we would stay up and hang out with our friends in the kitchen, or the main hut. There were days when instead of sitting around, lying on our uncomfortable beds, staring blankly at the squirrels scampering across the ceiling, we would go into town with some people, eat, actually have conversations. We finally ate some real Indian food for the first time since being here—and we’d been in India for about, mmm, four weeks at this point—though it was north Indian food, and we’re in the south.

That was the first time that either Liesl or I had ridden on a bike. Just to clarify, “bike” here means motorbike or more commonly in the US, motorcycle. “Bike” does not mean bicycle. “Bicycle” means bicycle. Terminology aside, riding on a motorbike is just the most fun thing ever. The roads here are really bumpy and have a lot of pot holes, and dents and whatnot. The roads right around Sadhana are dirt roads, and have lots of ups and downs. But anyway, motorbikes are definitely the preferable means of transportation around here. Taxis are cheap, but they do start to add up if you go out a lot. Bicycles are fine if you’re comfortable riding on roads with lots of noisy, confusing traffic, but it’s so hot that that’s not really a desirable option. (By the way, they drive on the left side of the road here. Interesting that all of the countries we’ve been to on our travels are the same in this respect). Walking takes a while, and there’s only one town (street, really) here that’s close enough to walk to. Also, it’s really hot, so walking sucks. The other option in going by bike. Conveniently, many people here have bikes, and as an added bonus, know how to drive them, so we’ve been able to hitch a ride most of the time we go out.

Technically bikes are usually meant for two people, but you can fit three, so you do. Riding on the back of a bike with two other people is thrilling, although nerve-wracking. At every bump--to a degree--you’re in danger of being thrown off, so holding on to the person in front of you is very important. It’s so nice rushing past the colorful buildings, the animals crossing the streets, the people going about their everyday lives, feeling the wind blowing on your face, through your hair…it’s even more fun at night, because it’s not so hot, and because things just tend to be a bit more exciting at night. Bikes are great because they’re small enough that you can squeeze in between small spaces and pass up other drivers, as well as go off road for a bit if something is blocking the street—and often something is, say a large truck for construction. I never thought I’d be a motorcycle sort of person, but I really want to learn how to ride a bike (note: I learned to ride a bicycle quite a while ago). Hopefully I’ll find someone to teach me before we leave, though I’m not sure that I’d actually want to drive it on the streets here.

For a while, crossing a day off on the calendar was not at all the most exciting part of our day. It was a part of every day, certainly, but it wasn’t important, it was mechanical. There was a time—a few times, actually—when either or both of us actually felt that not only was the few weeks we had left here not long at all, but that maybe, just maybe three months wouldn’t have been that bad. Though to be clear, the latter was more of a fleeting thought, a testament to our new-found happiness, not an actual desire not to have changed our flights. Even during those moments I would stop and consider, and three months still sounded too long.

The work became more enjoyable. We learned to avoid kitchen work at all costs—impossible really, since we usually got a mandatory dinner cooking shift at least once a week. But we didn’t volunteer for it anyway. Working in the kitchen here is a real drag. It totally sucks. But we volunteered for other jobs instead, like working in the forest.

At first, planting trees wasn’t very fulfilling. It just felt like moderately boring physical work. But gradually what we were actually doing began to sink in, and planting trees became both enjoyable and fulfilling. Hygiene was pretty good too. Hygiene is essentially cleaning the bathrooms, dealing with the compost toilets—the poop is composted and used to plant trees, and the pee is fermented and becomes ammonia. It’s actually pretty cool, though it does sound odd at first, if not sort of disgusting.

We went to an Indian wedding reception a couple of weeks ago. One of the police officers that guard the gate to Sadhana, or their driver or someone like that, was getting married, and the whole community was invited to the reception, which took place a couple of days after the wedding. (Indian weddings generally last for a few days). We got dressed up and went along with most of the community. It was located right down the road at this large sort of mansion-ish, colorful place. We sat in a wall-less room, watching the newlyweds pose for pictures with everyone that came. It’s traditional to give money at weddings here, so a group of people would go up and the photographers would snap a shot of someone in the group handing some money to the bride. This was a rather odd experience, since money tends to be so hush-hush where we come from, or at least in some respects. You certainly wouldn’t go up in front of a ton of people and present someone with a wad of cash. It was rather amusing when all forty or so people from Sadhana went up and took up the entire space posing for a picture.

After the photos, we made our way outside to these long tables where we were to be dining. We had to do it in shifts since there weren’t enough seats. The food was so good though. It was our first experience of authentic south Indian food. It’s cool, you get to eat with you hand—your right hand, since you use your other to wipe yourself when you go to the bathroom, though hopefully you wash it afterwards—and banana leaves are used for plates. The food is spicy, but it’s delicious. We ate rice, and curry, and these little fried cauliflower things. We left after the food, as that was pretty much the end of the event.

We went out for Liesl’s 19^th birthday too, to this place in Kuilapalayum with vegan pizza. A bunch of our friends came along, and it was altogether a very enjoyable evening, though this place that we were going to get a vegan brownie at was closed. That’s the thing about India, or at least the non-big-city parts of India, is that there’s zero nightlife. Everything closes at, uh, maybe 7 or so? The occasional place is open a bit later, but not much.

Liesl started giving weekly discussion-based workshops on LGBTQ, which have been going really well. She’s given five of them already.

So for this period of time, life at Sadhana Forest was not only bearable, but actually enjoyable. Then everything took a turn for the worse. It became apparent to us that pretty much everyone that we had been hanging out with up until this point was leaving. Over the course of a week, all of our friends left to travel more in India, and we quickly sunk into a glum mood. Mostly people left in twos or threes, but last Friday six of our friends left together. Since then we’ve been less than excited about our time here. I know, it sounds stupid, why don’t we just make new friends? But these were people we’d known for weeks, that had arrived roughly around the time that we had, and most people that are here now have just arrived. Not only is it kind of a drag to have to keep putting yourself out there to make friends, but it also seems slightly futile since we’ll only be around them for another week. Don’t get me wrong, there are still awesome people here that we like hanging out with, it’s just that it’s not the same as having a whole group of people to hang out with.

And of course, I've gotten sick again. Our trip was going so well in terms of illness until we came to India. This time I just have a sore throat and I felt really tired a couple of days ago, so it could be worse. But normally when you have a cold or whatever you have the option to just sit on the couch all day and watch movies, and we can’t do that here. I felt like total crap a few days ago, and it sucked. I’m feeling a lot better now.

Liesl must have been sick like five times since we've been here, the most recent time being a couple days ago. She's better now. And while the healing methods for colds and the like are okay, just some natural medicine if you want it, the way they deal with diarrhea here is just really stupid in my opinion. Firstly, they make you fast for as long as you can possibly stand it. Then, when you’re really hungry and you just have to eat something, all that you can eat is plain rice, or worse, rice water (just like it sounds, a few grains of rice in a bowl of water). This is supposed to help clear out your system, as opposed to fruits and vegetables and basically everything else, which supposedly makes the infection worse. What we've noticed from personal experience and from talking to people that have been sick, is that pretty much without fail, everyone gets better only when they say screw it, and start eating whatever the hell they want. Liesl did this a few days before me, and hence got better faster. I waited nearly a week, and then started eating properly, and was better the next day.

Not only is this healing method totally counterintuitive, but no one takes the time to explain to you why it’s supposedly the only way to get better. They say something about sugar, and tell you to keep drinking your revolting rehydration salts. These salts are poured into a couple liters of water, and taste both incredibly salty and incredibly sweet at the same time. They’re thoroughly vile. You also have to take natural medicine, which may or may not work, I don’t know. And as if all of this weren’t enough of an ordeal already, we found out about a week after we’d both gotten better, that we in fact had to pay for the medicine and things that we’d taken. It wasn’t that much, but someone could have told us that it cost.

The next time Liesl was sick, she told them that she was going to deal with it herself, and they literally would not let her. They made her take the medicine, and pay for it, and banned her from eating normal food. I snuck her some fruit though, so no worries, she didn’t die of starvation.

For a while though, every week there were at least a couple of people that were being carted off to the hospital because they were so ill. I heard from one person that went that the doctors said that not eating is not going to help you get better at all.

Also, when you think of going to India, you realize that it comes with the price of getting pretty ill at least once, but after talking to people here that had travelled around India before coming to Sadhana, the standard India illness is nowhere near as bad, and doesn’t last nearly as long as the Sadhana sickness. We’re pretty strict about hygiene here, so I don’t really know why this is. Maybe just because there are so many people living in one small space. There were 130 people here at one point, though it’s dwindled down to about 50 or so now.

The food here, which at first we really liked, has become boring and bland. We’ve literally had the same thing for lunch every day for the past two weeks. Mostly we’ve been surviving off of snacks that we buy in town and keep in our room.

I currently have a really gross wound on my ankle that has gotten infected, been cleaned, healed, and gotten infected again at least five times already. I’ve decided to just keep a bandage on it until I’m back in the US, because honestly, this is getting quite absurd. I think I got it from scratching a mosquito bite on my ankle. I had some other wounds on my feet from mosquito bites as well. Normally if you scratch a bug bite it gets bigger, but it eventually goes away. Here, if you scratch a bug bite, whatever bacteria that is in the environment gets into your skin and then you have a gross, puss-filled wound. It’s ridiculous, because it’s not as if I was scraping the skin off of my ankle. It wasn’t bleeding or anything, it was just like if you scratch your arm and the very, very top layer of skin sort of breaks a bit. You wouldn’t even notice normally.

And the mosquitoes are horrible, they’re relentless. They get in your bug net and buzz around you all night. Covering yourself with a blanket is the only way to deal with this, but it’s been so hot here, even at night, that this really isn’t a good option either. The flies are really bad too.

Liesl and I are both really excited to be leaving in a week, though we have appreciated and even sometimes greatly enjoyed our time here. I’ll probably post once more, maybe after we get back.

Thanks for reading that long post, those who did.

Stephanie