Sara goes to India!

almost done….

So, i’ve gotten really behind on this, but things have gotten really busy.  Before art classes started, we had a few days off which were nice.  I got a lot of work done.  Then art classes started.  We leave campus at 9am, and don’t leave the factory until about 5pm.  I’m in a handmade paper class.  The first day started out alright.  We got there and had a tour of the factory in Auroville where we were going to be and looked through some books to get project ideas.  Then we got put to work.  Literally. Herve (he’s french and his name gets pronounced as anything between air-vay and ell-way with all the accents) distributed the 5 of us around the factory doing different jobs.  Lindsay and I worked on folders.  We had little pieces of paper that had to be fan folded 4 times so that the edges lined up exactly.  Half a mm off, and it wasn’t good enough.  After doing an hour or two of the folding, we got to glue some together.  The gluing was not any better.  Everything had to be exactly lined up and glued in the right direction with no paste coming out on the edges but with every edge glued securely down.  In the afternoon, we folded and glued envelopes together. All the stuff was for export to different places in Europe.

The second day, he must have decided that we weren’t good enough to be factory workers, or picked up on the fact that working wasn’t really what we wanted to do, and we got to start our own projects.  We made banana paper.  We started with boiled banana stalk fibers and pounded them on a rock with a wooden hammer until they were a pulpy texture. We only did that for a little while.  Then we put the rest in a machine (that’s normally used for rice grinding - common here, not so much at home) and let it do the rest of the work.  Then we mixed the pulp with water and dipped screens in it to make sheets of paper.  After dipping the screen, you flip the paper over onto a cloth, and stack all the sheets on top of each other, with cloths between.  Then it gets pressed and peeled off the cloth, and put between pieces of big thick paper to dry for a few days.   We got through about 125 sheets. 

The next 2 days, we did the same thing, but starting with ready make pulp mostly made out of ground up cotton scraps from the t-shirt factory.  We got through about 250 sheets a day.

When the cotton paper was done, we got to make notebooks out of it.  We sewed the binding and glued them together and made nice covers.  They came out really well. We each got to make 2.

Since then, we have been working on independent projects.  Brad is making a model boat that is taking all the time.  The rest of us are just making a bunch of little projects.  It is surprisingly difficult to come up with paper projects that take more than half a day to do.  So far I have made a mask, 5 pairs of earrings, a woven basket out of strips of paper, some other woven things, a lantern, a smaller notebook, a set of cards, and 4 folding paper stars.  I am running out of ideas, but we still have 3 more days - 20 or so hours of work time.

Days are long there, but there are some nice people.  Herve is a little bit intimidating, but kind of funny.  There are some European ladies who work there who are always very nice to us.  There is one American guy, Joshua, who also works there.  He is very nice.  I think he is the only American outside our group that we have met.  Most of the people who work there are Indian.  Most of them don’t speak much English, but they are nice to us.  We a comically bad at some of the things they have tried to teach us.  Generally, I think most people have no idea what we are doing there and we are kind of in their way though.

The factory is actually a pretty nice place.  While the work seems very dull and repetitive, everyone seems happy.  There is a lunch break and tea time twice a day.  Inside the factory is not air conditioned, but there are lots of fans that keep it tolerably cool (and keep blowing my papers around).  Men work making the paper pulp and the paper and running the press.  Women work in the other half of the factory making finished products out of the paper.

We have been eating lunch at a place next door to the factory.  It has been interesting to see the population of Auroville.  It is mostly European hippies that live there.  We see all sorts of interesting hair styles and outfits, and even more interesting hair styles and outfits that they put on their little kids.  It is quite a place.  The food at the restaurant is not spectacular, but it is good enough.

Along with all the paper work, I’ve been working on my research project, trying to come up with a Princeton quality junior research paper with out a Princeton adviser or Princeton resources.  It’s taking a while, but I’m finally starting to feel like I’m getting somewhere.  It is no fun to come back and work after 8 hours of paper though.

This week, we have 2 days off, which is nice.  Today was election day and tomorrow is Tamil new years.  It is nice to have a chance to catch up on sleep and work because with class on Saturdays, we have very little time to do anything.

It is good to have time off, but it is also really boring.  There is not much to do here.  I am very ready to come home next week.  Good food, soft bed, other people who speak English, fast internet, and lots of other things to look forward to.  I leave Thursday night from here, and get back Friday evening at home - just in time for Easter!

Week 12- a trip south

So last Sunday night we left on the train to head south to Tuticorin.  It was an overnight trip, and it was pretty miserable.  It was really hot in our compartment and I was surrounded by 4 snoring men while i was trying to sleep on a bunk not big enough to sit up in.  I was also sick.  I came down with giardia on Saturday night.  It wasn’t too bad as long as I didn’t eat much.  I went from the almost all carbs normal Indian diet to the all carbs diet, and was on anti biotics for the week.  Needless to say, the 6 classes on Monday did not go very well.  I stayed in bed for the first 3, got up for lunch and managed to get through the other 3. The hotel we were at was kind of cool.  The rooms were made out of old train cars and there was a playground outside.  It was a small hotel - the 13 of us took up the whole thing.

The week got a lot better after that.  Tuesday we were in the field for most of the day visiting fish landings.  It was really hot, and everything smelled like fish, but it is always cool to see the local boats and what the catch is.  There was one landing where they just fished for crabs, and the other one they brought in some huge fish - the biggest we’ve seen.  There were some swordfish big enough that it took 2 men to carry it around.  On our way out, a guy showed us the area where they dry the swordfish tails and heads after they sell the meat, and we saw some even parts of even bigger fish.  He said one had weighed 440 kg - about 1000 lb.  The head and tail were huge.  I didn’t know fish got that big.

That night we rode the train further south to Maduri.  It was only about 3 hours, and not overnight, so it was no big deal.  Maduri was clearly a tourist town.  We stayed in a big hotel with 2 restaurants inside and a ‘spaceship bar’ in the basement.  The reason we went there was to go on a temple visit.  The biggest temple complex in Southern India is in the center of the city.  The hotel lobby had 2 signs - one pointing to the bar, the other pointing to the temple. 

We spent Wednesday morning at the temple.  We were not allowed to wear shoes inside, and everyone had to have long pants on.  The temple is built kind of in layers, with the tallest walls and towers on the outside, and then a maze through everything on the inside.  I took a lot of pictures.  The big towers were really high and very ornate.  They were built on granite bases with all sorts of figures carved into them and then the tower part was all plaster statues of all the gods that were painted with very bright colors.  We had a guide telling us about all the gods and what different things were supposed to stand for, but it was all so complicated that I didn’t catch much of it.  There are a bunch of different gods and they all have a bunch of different forms and can be riding a bunch of different creatures, and according to different sects of Hindus, they have all done different things and married different other gods. By the end I knew that the green one in the paintings was Parvati, the other one was usually Shiva, and the elephant one is Ganesha. 

It was kind of weird being some place that was such a tourist attraction but still very much a functioning temple.  We were not the only white people wandering around taking pictures, and there were definitely a lot of Indian tourists, but a lot of the people there were there to worship.  We saw people laying down on the floor bowing in different directions after they walked in.  Lighting candles near the statues is a common form of worship, as is rubbing different spices/powders on the different statues.  The very center part of the temple, they only allow Indian Hindus to go in.  There is an even stricter dress code, and no cameras are allowed.  It would have been nice to see the whole things, but I think it is good that some of it is left as just a temple.

That afternoon, we visited a giant sari store.  They had every color and pattern imaginable.  Most are made out of cotton or silk.  The cotton ones are the more expensive ones, but the silk ones are softer, cooler, and can be more ornate.  Some of them here were very inexpensive.  I got a really nice blue and purple silk one for about $5.  The underskirt I got to go with it was another $3.  The saris come with a piece of cloth to make the shirt out of.  I will try to get it made while we are here, if not I will figure it out at home.  We had a fun time trying to figure out how to wrap the saris we got.  I think I kind of have it figured out.  It is 9 yards of fabric, so it’s a lot to wrap around yourself.

That night we traveled again, and got to Rameshwaram.  We didn’t really do too much there.  We went on a ‘glass bottomed boat’ ride, where we were told to look over the edge at the water because the little strip of glass was too dirty to see through and the water was crystal clear.  We also visited a museum where they had a lot of dead fish preserved in jars and some live ones in tanks.  They also had 3 sea turtles, which were really cool to see, but were very sad.  At least one of them had been kept there for decades, in a very small tank.  They were very pretty though, and really big. 

Grant jokingly said that it would be fun to try to ride one, but apparently Zach has actually tried.  They are apparently all over the place, in the Galapagos, where he studied abroad last semester.  Apparently if you try to hold on they just push you off right away.

The big event that night was the cricket game - India vs Australia.  We were supposed to have afternoon class, but out teacher ended up watching the match.  We didn’t have class until that night on the train, where there was no tv, but live online updates continued throughout the class.  In the end, India won.  We were very excited.  That night on the train wasn’t nearly as bad.  We had to get off at 4:30 am, so I didn’t end up sleeping much, but we didn’t have to do anything until late Friday afternoon so I could go back and sleep for a few hours.

Saturday, we went into Pondy.  We wandered around for a long time looking for a musical instrument shop because some people wanted to buy citars, but we never found it.   After that we had a nice lunch and went to the market.  I bought 3 scarves and 2 pairs of pants - some for me and some to bring home as gifts.  I have almost all my shopping done for the semester.  There are still some more gifts I want to buy, but not to much home.  I am going to have to go through all my stuff before I leave and decide what to leave here so my suitcases don’t get to heavy!

Sunday was a quiet day.  We really didn’t do too much.  Half the people started art classes today.  They are doing ceramics.  Ours don’t start until Friday.  We are doing paper making.  Today I did some work on my project and we went swimming in the well at Anu’s house.  Tomorrow I am going to collect the rest of the data I need for my project.  I’m not sure what we will do the rest of the week.  We don’t have any plans.  Once art starts, it is 9-5, Monday-Saturday, so we will enjoy our free time now.

1 month to go!

Last Saturday we went into Pondy and went shopping.  I am slowly acquiring all the things I want to get before I go home.  I bought a pair of black puffy pants and a red kurta that I can wear with them.  Kurtas are a kind of tunic.  they are usually short sleeved and go down almost to knee level but are split on the sides up to hip level.  They are worn with pants.  The one I got is really nice.  It is dark red and has trim on it with elephants.  It is a little big, but the next size down didn’t even go on over my shoulders.  When I see Indian people wearing them, some times they are really tight, but I have no idea how they get them on and off. Stretchy fabric is pretty rare here.

The next thing I need to get is a sari.  A sari is basically a big piece of cloth that is wrapped around several times like a skirt and then goes up over the left shoulder.  They are worn with very tight short shirts under them, exposing some skin.  The shirts confused me for a while because I didn’t know how to get them on and off, but I discovered that they have buttons down the front.  They are just never visible when there is a sari over them.

Sunday we didn’t do much.  The rest of the week was pretty slow too.  Lots of research and classes.  I have almost all my data for my project collected.  I just need one more morning to collect some more sand.  I am looking at beach erosion along the coast.  We also gave a lot of presentations this week.  They were all pretty uneventful.  People have come up with some cool projects though.  Brad is dissecting barracudas and  trying to identify what they eat by what he finds in their stomachs.  Dale is looking at fiddler crab behavior.  A bunch of people are looking at bycatch - the stuff that fishermen catch but don’t want.  Eleanor is making art out of garbage we find at different places.  So far she had made a bag out of plastic bags, some bracelets, and a laptop case.  It looks a lot more fun than my project, but I don’t think Princeton Geosciences would approve. 

We have had a lot of fun in our free time this week.  Zach brought a slack line to India with him and he put it up recently.  A slack line is basically a canvas strap about an inch and a half wide that gets strung between 2 poles and tightened so that you can walk on it.  It moves around a lot when you try to balance on it.  It’s been fun figuring out how to do it though.  I can walk all the way across now!

We have also been on quite a few walks.  We are starting to explore the area around feral.  There is a ‘Hippy settlement’ not too far away.  We can see the tops of their huts and hear them singing and chanting and drumming.  They have planted lots of forests around.  They are all the same type of pine tree, and the trees are all in strait rows, and all about the same size.  It is a cool place to walk around.  We decided to call it Narnia because going in there is like going into a different, very strange place.  We have also come across their labeled medicinal plant garden and the ‘ecodome’ - which appears to be a largish muc igloo. 

We aren’t really sure who the people who live there are.  We know they are not Indian and that most people tend to avoid them.  They are probably an offshoot of the people that live in Auroville, a few miles away.  Auroville is a town started by the french in the 60s, and it has all sorts of odd people in it.  They make the people at Old Songs look completely normal, and dressed conservatively.  We have been there to shop and go to restaurants several times.

Yesterday, we had a really fun day.  We went swimming in the giant well near Anu’s house, a short walk away.  It was nice to get in the water and cool off.

In the afternoon we went out and learned to play cricket.  One of the guys who works here was with us, and him and some from our group who have been watching a lot of cricket taught us how to play.  It was a lot of fun.  Basically, there are 2 poles - one where the pitcher stands, and one where the ball is hit from.  There are 2 batters.  They stand across from each other - one near the pitcher, and one across the field.  The far away batter hits first.  The pitcher - called the bowler - throws the ball so that it bounces before it gets to the batter, and the batter hits it.  While the ball is getting fielded, the batters run back and forth switching places as many times as possible - each time across is a run. Before one of the fielders gets the ball back.  Outs happen when the ball hits one of the poles before the batter reaches it.  When a batter gets out, another comes and replaces him. Batters bat until they get out.  Bowlers throw 6 good pitches, and then switch.  The inning goes until all the batters on the batting team are out.  Then the teams switch.  In the professional games, there is only one inning.

After cricket, Anu taught us some Indian cooking.  We made a ton of food, and she is going to send us all the recipes.  Unfortunately I started really not feeling good after I ate it.  I’m trying to figure out if I’m actually sick, or if it was just the food and it will go away soon.  I feel better now than i did this morning.

Today is otherwise going pretty well though.  We are watching and Indian movie - ‘Bollywood movie’ called Dhoom.  It seems to be kind of an Indian version of The Fast and the Furious (I haven’t seen it, but that’s what other people are saying).  It is mostly in Hindi, but there are English subtitles.  I haven’t really been paying attention enough to follow it.  It seems very dramatic, with some singing and dancing scenes and a few good chases.  Now there is a boat chasing a truck through some flames.  A while ago there was a song that sounded like ‘salami’ repeated over and over.  It’s entertaining.

Later we are going to celebrate Holi, a North Indian festival where they throw colored paint at each other.  It should be fun.  We have some other American exchange students visiting this weekend and they brought the paint.  They seem really nice.  We cooked with them last night.  They are studying social work in Chennai.

Tonight we leave for Tuticorin, down near the tip of India.  We have an overnight train ride and then classes tomorrow.  It will be a busy couple of days.  We are down there until Thursday night.  We have classes and field work and a temple visit, which should be really cool.  After that, we have 3 weeks of art classes, and then I go home!  This semester has gone really fast.

Week 9 – back to class, Weekend – Carnival, and Week 10 – more class

So, I’ve fallen behind on these, so this post is extra long.

First, a few thing I forgot to say about break week:

The hotel we stayed at in Baga was nice, for India. We had 3 people to a room. Each had a big bed and a mattress on the floor, a tv, and a balcony. I lived with Eleanor and Zach. We got along well.

The whole time we have been here, they have had a band together. They call themselves the Charismatic Megafauna. They have a facebook page. You should look them up and like them. It started out as kind of a joke I think, but they have gotten really good, and they are very nice to listen too. I’m working to figure out some violin parts to their songs, but it’s going really slowly.

The hotel also had a pool. It was nice to be able to swim in the fresh water after being in the ocean.

One night we went swimming at sunset. It was gorgeous, just laying there in the water. After a while we got out and threw a frisbee for a while. It was one of the best parts of the week.

Second - pictures!  There are now 9 weeks worth of pictures up on facebook.  Hopefully you can see them all.  There are some really nice ones.

Anyway, Sunday night we took a cab out of Baga to get to the train station, and then took the train down to Karwar, just south of Goa, in a different state.  We started off strong, with 6am class on Monday morning.  We were all really dragging, but that’s when low tide was.  We went to a beach, and were going to hike out around the rocky point and look at what was there.  What we forgot to take into account was that the beach is the local bathroom, and that sunrise is prime pooping time.  The rocks were filled with people squatting.  We didn’t get to close.  Instead, we walked around on the road, and went in the back way through the woods.  It was a nice walk, but we were tired and not dressed for it.  The beach on the other side was very nice.  It was rocky, with some sandy areas that had black sand. 

That afternoon we had a short lecture at Karnatak University, and then went out to look at the different weather stations they get readings from.  They get readings and then use them along with satellite data to predict where shoals of fish will be and put the results on a monitor at the fishing boat landing for the fisherman to see.  One of the stations was at the end of the dock, where all the by-catch (little stuff that comes up in the nets that fishermen can’t sell) was sitting out drying.  It gets dried in the sun and then sold to make ‘fish meal’.  There were fields of it sitting out.  It smelled horrendous.

The next day, we got up early again and went on a fishing boat. Our last trip out on a similar boat was miserable. It was cold, and the waves were giant and everyone got seasick. In anticipation of another one, most people took an Indian version of Dramamine. They were all passed out for the entire day. It must have been extra-drowsy. I took my chances with the boat trip and didn’t take any. The boat ride ended up being absolutely gorgeous. The waves weren’t bad at all. We saw the sunrise over the water. We also saw a bunch of dolphins. I tried to get pictures, but I don’t think any of them came out very well.

Eventually we found a school of fish and the fishermen put their net into the water. It was a gigantic net. One guy in a rowboat held one end of it and the big boat traveled around in a big circle. Once the 2 ends met, they pulled a drawstring, closing the bottom of the net, trapping everything in. Then the process of pulling it in began. It took about an hour. About 10 guys were working at it. They chanted as they pulled, the same thing over and over. It was really cool to watch. I have a video of a few seconds of it. At home with fast internet maybe I’ll be able to post it.

That afternoon we went out and looked at some mangroves. We had a lecture on how mangroves plants are grown when people are trying to regenerate forests.

That night, we left Karwar and went up to central Goa just outside of Panjim to the National Institute for Oceanography (NIO). It was a very nice place. It is a government funded research facility, and lots of scientists work there. It wasn’t really a school, but we had a series of lectures from a bunch of different professors. We had a lot of lectures – 4 a day, and they were pretty long. It was nice though, because it was the first stuff we’ve done that really relates to my major. It was more oceanography than marine biology.

Outside of classes, it was a really fun place to be. We walked down to Dona Paula, where there is a nice pier to walk on with some little shops and a few restaurants. Other nights were more exciting. Panjim was a short bus ride away, and we went there several times.

The public bus was an adventure. It was only 5 rupees to ride to the market. People are packed onto the buses though. The seats “fit” 2 people each. 2 people my size are fairly cozy. They also have people stand in the aisles. The sign at the front says 11 fit, but 25 is probably more realistic in terms of how many people there usually are. Somehow, even with the crowd, the fare collector always makes his way through to collect the money.

The first place we went was the market. It is 2 stories. The ground floor was all produce. It smelled really good. Up the stairs there were a bunch of little shops that sold clothing and bangles and toys and lots of other things. We looked around for quite a while.

Goa used to be ruled by the Portuguese, and the influence still shows. We went to some restaurants with Portuguese food, and some of the buildings show the influence too. The main thing that we experienced was the celebration of Carnival. Carnival is a big celebration before lent starts. It is kind of like Mardi Gras but there is no flashing for beads and it starts earlier and lasts all week. In Goa, the celebration happens in one city each day and travels around.

The Panjim parade was on Saturday. We went in around 3:30 and things were already started. People were lining the streets watching the parade. There were all sorts of elaborate floats. There was a dragon, several gorillas, and a giant praying mantis. There were also a lot of dancers. Many of them looked like they might be high school groups who were not terribly excited. There were also a lot of cross dressers, some who were wearing scary, Halloween style masks. We couldn’t see that much because the lines on the sides were 5 people deep, but it was still really cool.

We saw a bunch of people walking around covered in paint. We didn’t know why or where they were coming from. We hoped we wouldn’t get hit. When we walked down a ways, we found the paint. There were a bunch of people throwing around brightly colored chalk powder. The first time we walked through, we tried not to get hit. Some of us did anyway. After that we walked through several more times and got completely covered. We had a blast.

At 6:45 we had to meet for dinner a couple blocks away. only half of us had gone in together, and the rest had avoided the paint. We were fairly surprised they let us in the restaurant. The next day we went to the beach. We had all showered, but some paint didn’t come off until we had soaked for quite a while.

Monday was a holiday, so we had it off. We spent the day walking around Panjim. Nicole and Lindsey and I found a nice park by the water that had some shade and a fairly empty playground. We went on the swings, and there was a really nice climbing tree. Even I could get up it.

Tuesday we flew back to the east coast. Now we are back in feral for almost the whole time we have left here. Later this month, we go south for a few days, but otherwise we stay here. There are only a couple more weeks of the science classes. For the last 3 weeks, we do an art class. I am also taking a class on culture, class and gender which started this week. It will be a lot of writing, but it will be very interesting.

Not too much had happened this week. We have had some down time. I started my field work for my research project, and I’m working on my funding proposal for my senior thesis.

We started playing volleyball again. We were playing everyday for a while, but then we started traveling so we hadn’t played in quite a while. It is a lot of fun. We have gotten noticeably better since we started. We go out and play after classes, when it is cool enough to be out in the sun for a while.

Tomorrow I think we are going into Pondy to do some shopping and otherwise having a slow day off. We have class in the morning, but it should only be an hour or so. It’s good to have things a little slower for a while.

Spring Break!!!

Saturday night we left i Pondy to go to Goa for spring break. We took 2 trains. The first one left at 10pm and was 10 hours. We were in 3^rd AC class which means the cars were closed in and air conditioned and bunks were stacked 3 high. Each of us had a bunk. There was not enough room to sit up between them and it was rather cold. The bunks were basically brown vinyl padded benches, and were fairly comfortable. I read for a couple hours and slept most of the night.

Sunday we had a long layover in Bangalore, a city in the middle of India. We went out for breakfast, and spent most of the day looking around a shopping mall. It was fairly similar to malls at home. I went to the bookstore and bought some Indian novels to read. One was really trashy – about a bunch of kids just out of college figuring out their lives. It was entertaining. The other one has a little more substance. It’s about a guy in 1950s Calcutta who works at a giant hotel. I’m not done with it yet.

What we saw of Bangalore looked nice. It was very pretty. There were lots of the squarish sort of buildings with flat roofs like porches. It seemed cleaner than some other places. I didn’t see any really big buildings modern with lots of windows and stuff like we did in Chennai, but it was still definitely a city.

At 3pm our second train left. This train was pretty similar but only 2 bunks stacked and they were blue. It was nice to have room to sit, because we were awake for a long time. This ride was 14 hours. We got of the train at 5am, and then into cabs for an hour or 2 to get to where we were staying.

My original plan was to go trekking in the mountains with a small group, but we just couldn’t figure out how to plan it so we decided to be at the Baga beach in the north where most other people were going to be, for the first half of the week, and then go to the south for the other half. They told us North Goa would be very crowded and very tourist-y and south Goa would be more empty and calm.

We got to Baga around 7am. It was completely deserted. We checked into the hotel and went for a walk looking for breakfast. Nothing opened for at least an hour. Eventually we ate, then went to the beach. The beach was gorgeous. It got busy during the day, but never as busy as I expected. The people who told us it would be crowded should visit the Jersey Shore. The beach was lined with beach shacks that sell food and drinks. They were basically pavilions with palm thatched roofs with restaurants under them. During the day they put out lounge chairs that are free for anyone to sit in, with umbrellas. At night they move some tables out and you can sit and watch the sunset or eat dinner out there.

Monday we just hung out on the beach and relaxed after a long weekend of traveling. Tuesday was more beach. Nicole and I built a sand sea turtle on the beach. Zach said we could bury him if we bought him a beer, but he didn’t actually let us until later in the week.

We were supposed to leave and go to South Goa after that, but we decided not to. It was too nice having the whole group together. Only half of us had been planning on going. I would have liked to see it, but we had a lot of fun where we were.

Wednesday we went to the Anjuna market. It was really cool. There were aisles and aisles of stands selling clothes, figurines, jewelry, tapestries, and lot of other things. It was very touristy, but then everything in Baga was. It was different to not be around just Indian people all the time. There were a lot of European tourists - Austrians, Russians, British, Scandanavian, etc. There were not that many people our age there. It was mostly an older crowd. Probably closer to normal spring break time more college age people come in. But the market was really nice. Prices were pretty low. I bought a few things to take home either as souvenirs or as gifts.

The rest of the week was more beach. It was a lot of fun. I got very sunburned. It was nice to be with people who liked to go on walks and be in the water and stay active all day, although we all did a fair amount of just laying around in the sun. It was a true vacation.

Saturday we finally buried Zach. We made him into a beautiful mermaid. I took pictures. That night, as our last night, we had balloon pants night, where everyone wore the poofy pants they have bought in India. Someone else got pictures of that. They are very comfy, and very cheap. I got a pair of rainbow striped ones for 150 rupees - $3 or so. Chris and Eleanor had whole jumpsuits – stretchy tops that went down into balloon pants. They looked pretty awesome. We were going to go sing karaoke, but it turned out that karaoke night at the beach hut was Sunday instead. We just had a nice night out on the beach. There is a Saturday night market that we almost went to, but it didn’t start until 2:30am, and we just got too tired. Still, we had a good time.

Sunday, Nicole and Eleanor and I had a spa day. Spas are a whole lot cheaper here than at home, so we decided we might as well go. We all had manicures and I got a facial. Then they went for massages. It was a lot of fun, although there was no way of getting all the dirt out from my nails. That night we left for Karwar, where we are now, starting classes again. Couldn’t let our brains rot for too long.

Pulicat week 2

Last weekend we left Pulicat and came back to feral for the weekend.  it was uneventful.  Sunday we drove back by way of Chennai.  Chennai is one of the biggest cities in India.  We’ve been on the outskirts, at the airport and at a college, but not in the city before.  It was not what I expected. 

We were told Pondicherry was a small town, but it’s easily bigger than Syracuse.  There are busy streets, tons of shops, tons of people, etc.  I figured a city would be the same but bigger.  What I’ve learned is that city vs town vs village isn’t really about population here.  It’s about infrastructure and modernization. 

Pulicat is a rural village.  There are a lot of people, a lot more than I expected to be in a rural village, but they live fairly simply.  many people fish for a living.  buildings are not very big.  there is not much shopping besides food and a few odds and ends.  Cows and goats and dogs are around everywhere.  There are not too many vehicles, but especially not cars.  Pondicherry is bigger and more modern.  There is lots of traffic.  Still very few cars, but tons of motorcycles and scooters and buses and trucks.  The buildings are bigger - 3-4 stories, and you can buy almost anything there.  I was able to get glasses.  There are restaurants and clothing stores and electronics stores and most everything else. There are still dogs and cats around, and the occasional cow, especially on the edges of town.

Chennai was very different.  There was still a lot of traffic, but there were cars, and not nearly so many motorcycles.  I didn’t see any animals around.  The only place we went was an actual shopping mall.  We ate dinner at the food court.  Nicole and I went to Subway.  I ordered the roasted turkey breast sub off the international favorites menu.  It was exactly like home.  The rest of the menu was very Indian (tandoori chicken sandwich and stuff).  I kept a copy of a little one to bring home.  The mall reminded me of penn station and port authority - with lots of stuff crammed in and fairly low ceilings and lots of people around.  Stuff was pretty cheap and they had all sorts of stuff. 

The clothing being sold and the clothing we saw people wearing was much more western.  In Pulicat and even in Pondy, most women wear saris.  The younger women, especially ones who are from the cities wear tunics with pants.  Most men wear more western things - lots of short sleeved button up shirts and khakis.  Some, especially the older and lower class ones wear skirt like things that I don’t remember the name of.  They are basically pieces of cloth that are worn wrapped around like a towel.  They are either floor length or folded in half to about knee length.  In Chennai, we saw a lot more jeans and t-shirts, for both genders.  Very few saris.  Stores sold a lot of ordinary looking western clothing.  Stores in Pondy sell some, but you don’t see people wearing it.  It’s mostly a tourist market.

Pulicat was the same as it was before.  There were tons and tons of mosquitoes. Lectures were long and rather boring.  Powerpoint is still new to most professors, so they haven’t really got the hang of using it to give lectures, so they are not very good.

On one day we went to a shrimp farm.  They have giant ponds where they raise shrimp to export.  It was interesting.  I had never seen anything like it. 

One day we went on a walk around town and I took a bunch of pictures.  I haven’t looked at them yet.  I hope they came out well.  It was nice to be able to walk into town.  There were a few good bakeries and an ice cream stand.

Thursday we went on a tour of a nearby island.  It felt like a safari because we were riding in a van on really rough roads and the professor was telling us about stuff as we went along, but we were looking at people and towns, not animals.  The island used to be very isolated, and the tribes there had lived there in their own way for generations.  Most people fished.  Even now, many people try to.  The caste system there is very prominent.  The lowest people have their own little settlement away from the others.  Their job is to go clean out the toilet pits in the other town by hand and carry the waste away.  They only get paid 2 rupees a month, but they are given food and clothing.  They are basically slaves.  At a local temple, there were human sacrifices going on until the 1990s, usually virgin girls.  It’s scary to think that this kind of thing still goes on in the world.

People used to live all over the island, but recently industries have moved into the southern end of it.  There are desalination and petrochemical plants all dumping sludge into the ocean.  This has driven away most of the fish.  People work in the factories, but the factory provided housing looked really bad, and there is no education.  People have moved north, but there is still not sufficient fishing for everyone.  Some resort to illegal distilleries.  It seemed that there was a lot of alcoholism on the island.  I can see why.  I guess the island is what is below villages on the scale here. They are still back a couple of centuries with only the bad parts of modernization coming in.

Thursday afternoon we left Pulicat for good.  We stopped at MCC on the way back to have tea with the professors again, and we all got certificates and free MCC mugs to take home.  It was very cute.  They tried to make everything very official seeming.  It’s a very old school kind of place.

Now we are back at feral.  Today we had off and we went into Pondy.  We had lunch out and I bought a few things to take to Goa with me for break.

We leave on the train for Goa tomorrow night.  We have an overnight ride to Bangalore, a day in Bangalore, and then an overnight train to Goa.  I hope I can sleep.  We each get a bunk, so hopefully it will be ok.  I’m excited to see Bangalore.  It’s another big city, and it is where Tara, one of our main teachers, is from.  I need to find a used book store.  I’m also excited for spring break in Goa.  There should be a lot to see!

quilter504 asked: Hi Sara,
I've read several of your entries and viewed your pictures. Thanks for letting others in on what you are doing and seeing. It must be amazing. Kathy Barden

thanks!  it is amazing here.  i’m glad you like it!

Sara

Pulicat week 1

On Monday we left for Pulicat, a big lake north of Chennai.  We live at a field station for Madras Christian College - MCC (Madras and Chennai are 2 names for the same place).  On the way to the station, we stopped at MCC.  We are the first BCA group to work with MCC so there were all sorts of formalities of meeting professors and touring laboratories.  We had tea with everyone.  At one point we were just introduced to a room full of masters students and told to socialize.  It was really awkward at first, but I started talking to some girls and they were really nice.  Some things were kind of awkward.  I asked what they did for fun, and they told me they didn’t go out for fun because of a strict upbringing, so I’m not quite sure what they meant.  I did eventually find out that they liked shopping at the market down the street and going to the movies.  It was cool to talk to them.

When we got to Pulicat, we went on a boat ride around the lake.  That evening we went into town.  we had been told that it would be very rural and there wouldn’t be much around.  It’s actually a decent size town with a main street of shops.  The research station is across the street from a school.  During the day there are tons of kids in khaki uniforms running around.  They all want to talk to us.  To get between the classroom building and the building where the girls are staying, we have to walk down the street a little, so we pass everyone.

The building we stay in is one big room with beds.  All 7 girls are there.  There is a curtain separating the other half, where some MCC girls were staying.  They are all nice, but several nights they were up later then we wanted to be and sound carries extremely well in the room, so any talking seems incredibly loud.  I feel bad we don’t socialize with them more.  We did a bunch of name games the first day in hopes of getting us to interact, but they didn’t really help the interaction.

The rest of the week, we had classes with various MCC faculty and various assignments.  everything was pretty good.  we weren’t too busy and it was very relaxing.  It was warmer than it has been so far, and more mosquitoes, but good food (all indian).

no one uses silverware in India, you eat with your hands.  I’m good with using the breads to scoop things up, but i’m still awkward with the rice and sauce meals.  I will learn.

This weekend we are back at feral, and we go back to Pulicat tomorrow night.  the next weekend we leave for spring break in Goa.  the trekking idea fell through, so we are spending some time in north goa and some time in the south.  i’m excited.

Week at feral

Monday and Tuesday were slow days of classes.  I am back to doing GIS work - equally fascinating and frustrating. 

Wednesday we went out on a trawling trip, on a fishing boat that drags a net along the bottom of the ocean.  We were warned that the water may be a little choppy.  Actually there were 10 ft swells constantly rocking the not-very-big boat.  I’m not one to get motion sickness, but it was impossible to feel good on this boat.  It didn’t help that we left very early in the morning.  Still, it was cool to see what the catch was.  There is a big over fishing problem in the area, so really all that is caught is little stuff.  We also had a sonar unit that would tell us when ever there was a fish near the boat.  It was cool.

Thursday we did beach profiling.  It was fun, and we got to go in the water afterwords.  I will probably be doing more profiling for my research project.

Friday we went to the Pichavaram mangroves.  We had a very peaceful boat ride and learned to identify some different species.  At the end of the ride, the rower let each of us try to row for a bit.  No one was very good, but it was fun.  That night we went out to a big buffet restaurant by the beach.  It was very nice and there was lots of dessert.

We also started playing volleyball this week.  We got a court and a net set up, and we went out and played every day after class.  It is a lot of fun.  Some of the Indian guys who work here come play with us, and sometimes Anu’s daughters come (they are 8 and 11 i think).  I think after a week we are starting to improve.  My forearms are thoroughly bruised.

Anu’s daughters are very cute.  I was talking to the older one today and she is reading some of my favorite books from when i was that age.  Harry potter and Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and some others.  She offered to let me borrow one.  I might take her up on it later in the semester.

Now I am reading Nicole’s Jane Austen book.  It started really slow, but I’m kind of getting into it now.  The characters have grown on me.  It only took 200 pages….

Saturday was not a good day for me.  I was trying to figure out a research project and was repeatedly hitting dead ends.  We supposedly have weekends off, but we really don’t (thus I was having meetings abut a research project on Saturday morning….), so I haven’t had a real day off in months, so I got very frustrated very quickly.  Eventually I completely changed my topic and everything seems to be working out now.  It isn’t geochemistry anymore (which is kind of my major…) but it is still within the realm of geo and it is within the realm of what people at feral are studying, which makes everything much easier.

Today was better.  It was more of a day off.  I went into Auroville and got the violin i saw last week.  it isn’t very good, but it is playable and I am happy to have one.

Tomorrow we leave at 5:30 am for Pulicat lake, a field research station north of Chennai.  I may or may not have internet there.  it should be a nice place though.  I am excited to see what it is like.

1 month!

I left home a full month ago!! In 2 days, I will have been in India a full month - travel time plus the time zone difference adds up to a lot.  The time has gone by really quickly.  I’m happy I still have almost 3 more months left.

It is nice to be done with finals.  I have a lot more time just to hang out, although things here are pretty busy.

Friday we did a lot.  We went into Pondy and had a lecture about how the Pondicherry Harbor is affecting the coast line.  The government funded the building of this harbor, which wasn’t needed and now isn’t used, and it stops sand from being transported up the coast so the beaches south of the harbor are expanding and the beaches to the north of the harbor are being severely eroded.  This means that Pondy now has a rock wall instead of a nice beach along the coast.  Now they want to expand the harbor, which could put much of the city in the water in a few years.  It is actually a very similar problem to the beach erosion faced along the New Jersey shore line.  After the lecture, we went to see the harbor.  It was very empty.  We also went to see a village to the North, where their beach is almost gone.  There isn’t any place for the fishermen to shore their boats anymore, and there are houses that have been recently damaged in storms, because they are much closer to the water than they used to be.

Friday afternoon, we went to a botany class at Pondicherry University.  It was cool, but between the strong Indian accent and all of the Latin plant names he used, I hardly understood anything.  We were learning about dry tropical evergreen forests.

After the lecture, we went on a field trip with the class.  There were probably about 50 people total, a whole bus full.  We went to a bunch of different sites.  Most of the forests we went to were around temples.  It was cool to learn about the plants and to see the temples.  At the first site we also say monkeys! They were really cute.  I took some pictures.

Friday and Saturday night were both fun.  We hung out on campus and played cards and ping pong.

We technically have weekends off now, but Saturday and Sunday were still busy.  Saturday we went into Aurville, a settlement started by some Europeans in the 60s.  They have a meditation center shaped like a giant golden golf ball that we were going to see, but we ended up just looking around the shops and having lunch.  I bought a dress and a necklace.  I found a violin at one of the shops, but I decided I would probably be able to find a better one for cheaper in Pondy, so I didn’t get it.  Lunch was good.  I had an excellent hummus sandwich.

Sunday we went back into Pondy.  Sunday is a big market day, when lots of clothes and things are for sale.  We had lunch and then Zach and I went on a music store expedition.  The driver didn’t speak English very well, so all 3 of us ended up talking on the phone to various people to try to find what we were looking for.  Our first stop was a closed CD store.  Not quite what we wanted.  We did eventually find a musical instrument store, but it was also closed.  We called the number on the sign, and apparently they don’t have violins anyway.  That seems to be the only music store any one knows about, so I might end up going back to the little shop in Aurville and getting the one that was there.  I hope I can get there soon.  I really want to have a violin.  After the music store expedition, we went to Nilgiri’s, a supermarket sort of place, and then headed back to campus.  I got mango flavored tic tacs and an Indian candy similar to starbursts and some laundry detergent.  I was really disappointed about not finding a violin.  I really miss it, and I know every week i don’t get it makes less of a point of me getting one, because we aren’t here for that long.  Still, I should be able to at least get one next weekend.

Today was supposed to be a quieter day, just classes on campus, so I got up early and went for a run.  Nicole was going to come with me, but she hadn’t slept well, so she stayed in bed.  I figured I would be fine alone, since I was just going on the little dirt road that leads to campus.  About 30 seconds into my run, I tripped on a rock and fell.  My right knee and left elbow got scraped pretty good, and my right elbow got completely torn up.  For some reason, I decided to run anyway, so I had a short run and then came back.  Once I was cleaned up I started to feel kind of sick.  I’ve been getting progressively better all day, but I’m still slightly nauseous and dizzy.  No more running for a while…  and not alone.  Other than that we just had classes and meals.  We got the volleyball court set up this evening and I played a little for a while.  We actually had a pretty good game going.  I’m sure that will be fun the rest of the time we are here.

The rest of this week is more classes and a few more days in the field.  I never really know until it happens.