(this blog details my summer experience of of 2009. if you want to read it for some reason, i recommend that you do so chronologically, starting with the oldest post.)
You know those times when things get so goddamn bad that it just turns into a joke? Yeah, that's about where I am right now. Please allow me to explain... and pardon the jumbled nature of all this - this has been one of the longest and shittiest days of my life... but at least it's funny!!!
First off, If you've been reading this blog since the beginning you'll recall that I lost my debit card in Thailand and Chase Bank is far from helpful in such predicaments. They wouldn't send me the card overseas so I had it sent to my brother's house and he had to FedEx it to me for $50. So, I got my new card but they didn't let me know that they changed the PIN. They won't tell me the new PIN over the phone, but they were more than happy to inform me that they would send it in an envelope to my brother's house and it would arrive in eight to ten business days.
So I woke up today at 5AM India time and took a flight to London, had a five hour layover, now I'm in the Zurich airport about 10 miles outside the city. I've been up for almost 23 hours and, needless to say, I'm jetlagged as hell - so much so that my left eye is totally bloodshot. So here I am, in Zurich and I'm totally broke, no way to get money. I can't use an ATM and all of the stores in the airport use PINs. There was one money changer but, go figure, their credit card machine was down. I can't take the train into town because I have to use a PIN for that too. So I'm stuck in the Zurich airport with no money and no way to leave. There's a Radisson next door but a room is $300, which I can't afford. So I'll be sleeping on the tile tonight... and I don't know what I'm going to do when security wakes me up in the morning since I'll, still, have no money and no way to get around. One of my team members from India is actually in Zurich right now and she gave me her number but I can't figure out how to use the phones to call her.
But that's not all! Oh, no! There's icing on this cake of misery! All the things that I just mentioned wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that I got my heart seriously broken no less than 30 hours ago. So even with all these practical problems the only thing I can think about is the fucked up love situation. I really want to go into detail about that whole debacle but I would probably regret it later. But I'm kind of glad that this combination of heartache and standedness is happening while I'm so tired, otherwise I wouldn't be able to appreciate the pathetic humor.
I wanted so hard, this summer, to step outside of myself and get a different perspective - the big picture, you know? For a little bit there, I thought that I did. But now, just hours after a tearful farewell to the orphans at Shelter House, the only thing I can think about is myself. And here I am backpacking through Europe, an opportunity that most people will never have, and all I can do is feel sorry for myself and want to go home. It's all very embarrassing. It's disgusting, really. Maybe it's the lack of sleep talking, but I'm feeling very ashamed of myself right now.
After two months in Chennai I'll be in route to the airport in less than twelve hours... it's hard to believe.
A few nights ago I got into a conversation with a Chennai woman at a bar, a conversation that I've had with several natives; she asked what I thought of Chennai. This was a brave question for her to ask as Chennai isn't the most glamorous city in the world - to be perfectly frank, it's hot, humid, dirty, and there's no city planning to speak of. So, when I told her that I loved it, which is the truth, a smile flashed across her face and she knowingly said, "so you got used to it!"
That's the way this city works... it's rough around the edges but after you've been here for a while, you get a feel for the city and in fall in love with it's pulse, it's character, and the unflinching drive that pushes it forward, the citizens working hard to improve their families, their communities, their world. I love this city. I'm going to truly miss it and all of the remarkable people that I have come to know.
Oh... I should say something about the food. Before I coming to India I was completely ignorant to Indian cuisine, I thought that I was going to be eating curry day in and day out. Upon arriving, it was clear that I had died and gone to vegetarian heaven! South Indians have veggie cuisine down to a science and I've never had such a wide variety of positively delicious foods, way too many to remember all of the names. The following picture depicts the best meal of the trip. To..... die..... for!
And so, tomorrow, I'm off to Switzerland. I'll be in Europe for just under two weeks and will be hitting up Austria and Italy after my Swiss fix. I know that I'll have a blast but part of me wishes that I were coming back home. Of course, I had similar thoughts before going to Thailand, thinking that I just wanted to get to India and get into my routine. If my time in Europe is anything close to Thailand, I might not want to come home!
And with that, we're entering Phase III of my summer blog.... Euro travel. But before that, here's a bunch of random pictures that didn't fit into earlier posts.
At the beginning of this year, when I was trying to make up my mind whether or not to come to India, I had conversations with many of you to hash out my thoughts regarding this trip. I had a lot of doubts and concerns as to the relevance of what I would be doing here, that being HIV/AIDS education. Obviously I decided to go, but my skepticism came with me even as I threw myself into the work that I have been doing this summer.
Fundamentally, I believe that people should be granted access to the information that they need in order to invest in the well-being of themselves, their families and their communities. When I say “invest” I don't mean it in the narrow monetary sense – I'm talking about holistic investment into the physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions that, together, make up a human being. (And I contend that spiritual health is important even though I have no faith to speak of.)
But the concept of investing in one's well-being was also the primary source of my doubts. As a white American with college-educated parents, I was born into a life of privilege that is completely unlike the lives of most human beings, in that most people are not American, not white, and poor. I don't particularly stand out among other young, white Americans but by international standards I'm one of the richest people in the world. The fact that I have time to attend college, yet alone to make music, is the result of my privilege. I have the luxury of worrying about things like HIV. I can do so, largely, because I've never had to worry, say, about where my next meal was going to come from. I've never had to worry about taking care of my parents or siblings. I am able to live my life without societal pressure to get married, have kids, and support a family.
I imagine that if I were living a different life, struggling just to keep my family alive, and some rich adventure-seeking kid with illusions of altruism came up to me and told me that I needed to protect myself against HIV, I might hit them, and they would probably deserve it.
In the months leading up to this summer, things only got worse when I came across a lecture by economist Emily Oster on Ted.com in which she speaks about AIDS in Africa. It's very interesting and if you have a few minutes to spare I highly recommend watching it (along with all the other Ted Talks)...
But I'm going to assume that most people don't feel like watching the video. So, in brief, she argues that that HIV education in Africa has done little to stop the spread of the disease and that economic growth, particularly infrastructure, has had a much greater impact than humanitarian groups holding seminars. She's probably right, for all I know, and her argument fell into line with the rest of my doubts. If I was going to trek to the other side of the world, it would probably be more advantageous to focus on infrastructure, not AIDS education. So I got a little list of other NGOs (ie., Habitat For Humanity) with whom I might want to work this summer. But the previously mentioned luxuries of school and music sucked up my time and before I knew it, I was going to India for better or for worse.
I don't mean to imply that I was bummed about coming to India because that is, most certainly, not the case. I was able to negotiate my thoughts and expectations with what I would be able to accomplish. My sister, Natalie, offered sage advice that I trusted, as she is seasoned in humanitarian work, first, in the Peace Corps and, now, running a group home for disabled Armenian orphans. She advised that while focusing on infrastructure would, very well, be a significant way to help, working with people on an individual level fills a niche that larger institutions are unable to address. I took solace in the fact that if I were able to make a difference in one person's life, it would be worth it for me. And on a much more shallow level I love to travel and I have always wanted to travel to India; it was the first country that I became aware of outside the US because, in toddlerhood, my parents were good friends with another couple, one of whom is from India, and they have children that are my age. We're still friends, still in contact, and I credit that relationship with the my early interest in India.
All of the forementioned points were going through my head as I packed my bags, got vaccinated, bought khaki pants and, eventually, made my way to Chennai via Hong Kong and Thailand. When I got here there wasn't any time to sit around and dwell on such things and I, very quickly, got in the groove with my teaching group - James, Kavya and our counterpart, Anbu, who has become a very good friend to all of us.
The vast majority of our teachings took place in secondary schools, what we call high school in America. We cover a combination of basic biology, the immune system, HIV biology, HIV progression, modes of transmission, prevention methods, and stigma, with the primary focus being on stigma, transmission, and prevention.
Over the last two months our entire team has taught somewhere in the vicinity of 4,000 people. With six teaching groups, that's an average of 666 (OMG!) students for each group. But success can't be measured with a number. Was the work sustainable? Did it make any difference? Is this really worth it?
These questions are complicated and I'll probably never know for sure. But I can tell you what I've seen... about 10% of the students could care less about what we're saying - fair enough. The vast majority, I would say 80% of them, enjoy the lesson and appear to be invested in the information. And the last 10% show a keen interest in what we have to present. They hang on every word, you can tell that they're processing the information, internalizing it. From our vantage point it seems safe to infer that the information will be sustained, to varying degrees, in their lives.
My group is really good at teaching, if I may toot my own horn. But being a good teacher only goes so far; a lot of the battle for the students attention is won by, simply, being American. Compared to Indian teachers, we are very animated and energetic - the students get a kick out of this and they relish the time when they are encouraged to be loud and interact. For that majority of students, the 80%, I have no idea if their interest in us will be enough to translate into true learning. I certainly hope so.
But in the end, I'll never know. AIDS education is extremely complicated in that the people that need it the most are people that probably won't listen, or won't be able to. Simply put, most of the kids that we teach probably aren't at risk of contracting HIV. Luckily, AIDS education isn't only about staying AIDS-free. A lot of it has to do with the stigmas that surround HIV, and India is chock-full of those. Unless a miracle-cure is found, HIV is here to stay and at the end of the day, even if the kids are not at risk for HIV, reducing stigma is an important component in the fight against HIV as the fight is not only about keeping people AIDS-free, it's about improving the lives of the unfortunates that do, and will, experience this disease.
But Emily Oster's argument still seems valid and it's still ringing in my ears. Maybe I'm too dense to make an accurate, big-picture assessment of the program, too clouded by personal feelings - after all, my experience has been nothing short of remarkable. So take my answers with a grain of salt, or a whole teaspoon...
I was really bummed out a couple weeks ago... we took a long weekend trip to Kerala in the far south of India. It wasn't the trip that bummed me out, it was the fact that I didn't have a camera in one of the most beautiful places that I've even seen! I bought new batteries, the camera still didn't work, so I inferred that it was broken. A couple weeks later I tried some different batteries and, lo and behold, my camera does work. (The moral of the story: don't buy cheap batteries overseas.) So, regrettably, I was only able to take three pictures at the beginning of the weekend but I hijacked a couple pictures from other people so you can still get the gist of this magical weekend.
To start it off we took an overnight train ride in true Darjeeling Limited fashion...
We arrived the next morning and hopped aboard two houseboats for our first night out. We floated around some gorgeous wetlands as we played cards, ate food, swam, drank and danced the night away.
After the boats, we bused to a resort that was the very definition of beachside luxury. For two days and nights we slept in little huts under a canopy of coconut trees. Cliffside hammocks overlooked the Indian Ocean and made me feel like a proverbial million bucks. It was ridiculous...
The resort offered a wide array of “treatments” for rich health freak hippies – esoteric fourteen day regiments that included obscure messaging techniques, medicated milk baths, therapeutic vomiting, perspiration, ear washes, eye washes and herbal douches/enimas. One of the brochures featured a picture of a woman getting some herbal hoo-haw rhythmically dropped on her forehead from a jug. The general consensus concluded that she looks frighteningly similar to yours truly...
Part 2: Transportation
We've gotten around Chennai using a bus/rickshaw combination. The buses are a joy 85% of the time - they're very affordable and there's an endless supply of interesting sights, sounds and smells. I've chatted with a lot of interesting people and sometimes the bus is so full that I get to hang on the outside! But like most things in life, the mishaps make for more interesting stories. My struggle with the buses lies in that my legs are too big to sit in the seats like a normal person - I have to sit with my legs in the aisle unless I am able to snag one of the few seats that has ample legroom. If I can't get a seat then I have to stand, which wouldn't be an issue if the buses were six inches higher, allowing me to stand up without slouching and cocking my neck to one side. Such is life, I suppose!
The most eventful bus happening took place a few days ago when some officials boarded to check for passes. Udai (one of the US volunteers) and Yogi (one of the Indian counterparts ) misplaced their tickets and the man that issued the tickets refused, for whatever reason, to vouch for them. Udai and Yogi were taken away by the police and, thankfully, were able to dissuade the cops with a 500 rupee bribe just as Udai was being shoved into the police car headed for jail. But to comically and painfully top it off, Ronak (another US volunteer, and my roommate) hopped out of the moving bus to accompany our potentially incarcerated teammates. Jumping out of buses is normal fare in India but Ronak, unfortunately, failed to comply with the laws of physics and instead of running with the motion of the bus, he tried to walk back towards our friends and and got his big toenail ripped off during his spill!
Autos, aka rickshaws, are faster to get around but they're a lot more expensive. White skin assures inflated rates that can be difficult to bargain, but our normal four-people-to-an-auto routine makes it doable. Along with high rates, white skin is a magnet for autos in general - I can rarely walk for 200 feet without an auto driver stopping to see if I need a ride! Autos are a lot of fun, though... weaving in and out of traffic, playing tag with the other team members, going against traffic on one-way streets and narrowly escaping death at every turn. And horns! Chennai drivers make damn good use of their horns! They're used, virtually, all the time and are used to convey a plethora of messages. I've inferred fifteen such meanings although there are undoubtedly more that I haven't picked up on: -I'm going really fast right now. -Move over. -I'm moving over. -You can move over. -I want to pass you. -I'm going to pass you. -You can pass me. -See that little opening? I'm taking it! -Fuck you! -I am driving. -I am honking. -Sorry. -I'm not sorry. -I am acknowledging your presence. -Don't even think about it.
Part 3: Birthday Party at Peace Trust
Peace Trust is another of our partner NGOs, an orphanage for children who have lost their parents to AIDS. Our team made the trek out to Peace Trust with gifts and cake to celebrate the birthday of one of the residents. Good times were had by all and the kids had a great time running around and taking pictures with my camera!
