Two Sick Puppies in Delhi

Both of us have contacted the dreaded Delhi belly bug.  It is not fun.  To make matters worse, I've also gotten an absolutely killer of a head cold.  I'm doing a lot of sneezing in the bathroom.  

Here are a few pictures, first several from the Lodi Garden, not far from our apartment and then some shots taken at Varanasi last Thursday and Friday when we did an overnight trip to talk with Nita Kumar about the time we will spend there in October.

The Lodi Garden

Scenes in Varanasi





Assi Ghats
Pilgrims

The Boy In The Bubble

Made it.  Landed around 8:30 and finally met the heavenly Sharada Nayak.  Just as she said she would, she was waiting to whisk us away to our lodgings at 59 Golf Links.   Unsolicited help with our luggage firmly rejected--don't mess with our cabbie.    40 minute drive through Delhi traffic--we're fully awake now.  In bed by 12:30 and up at 2:30--jet lag rocks and sleeping is for wimps.  Out and about at sunrise--Dell, you nailed it.  

Met with Sunil Kumar and Sharada at noon to go over housing arrangements for the students and discuss Sunil's agenda for Delhi--students and parents, the housing is excellent and the program is brilliant and exhausting.  I'm thinking if we live we'll have a lot of fun.

I'm feeling a bit like Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show."  Is this "real" or have we found ourselves in a ginormous bubble, part of a well scripted but highly implausible plot, directed by a mad genius with  a cast of oh, maybe a billion brilliantly ward-robed actors (good dialogue coaches--great accents) and with absolutely incredible special effects.  Cue the blast furnace-how do they do that?  Cue the soundtrack--love the constant car horns-and add the smells--the large retinue of dogs (and their doggy deposits placed randomly here and there and here) is especially clever and none, we assume, will be injured during this production.  Oh yeah, add a surprise and cue the mid-afternoon downpour that lasts an hour and backs up all the drains, pouring sewage onto streets and into basements--must have gotten that idea from Portland.   

We haven't quite figured out where this story is going, but after the first 24 hours, we're completely hooked--very clever stuff--not at all predictable.  For the time being TLC and I have decided to play along and pretend we don't know what they're up to and just see where it goes.

Off to Varanasi (Banaras) tomorrow to meet with Nita Kumar and discuss the month of October.  Now to bed--with Paul Simon on the soundtrack  "medicine is magical and magical is art and the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart and. . . "

The Monkey Man

We leave Monday and are winding down our preparations. We'll probably leave things we wish we hadn't and take things we wish we hadn't. I'm going with the one thing I can't possibly be without and she's out shopping for last minute gifts as I write.

Carol found a story in this morning's Oregonian Edge. I'll quote just in case you missed it:
"In Lucknow, India, the local train station hired 42-year-old Acchan Miyan to be a "Monkey man" and act like a monkey and scare away real monkeys that were harassing passengers around the station. "There used to be many monkeys here and they'd cause all kinds of mischief," said one passenger. "Sometimes they'd tear the seat covers in trains and snatch bananas from passengers. Acchan's act protects us from the monkey menace."

This story is rich with really good stuff: smart railroad folks in Lucknow (tri-met would hire a consultant, form a task force, and get lots of non-monkey input); good on Acchan--like Warren Buffet, he was born with some valuable skills; maybe this would work at town hall meetings with our domestic terrorist monkey menace, and so on.

We'll be in Lucknow sometime in October, and we will now feel safe traveling with bananas. I hope Acchan has found permanent employment and, if so, I hope to talk to him.

Dell Smith, who along with his very cool wife Helen, led these trips in 03 and 07 wrote the following to his students about India: Jawaharlal Nehru stated, "She was like some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously. All of these existed in our conscious or subconscious selves, though we may not have been aware of them, and they had gone to build up the complex and mysterious personality of India… "

I'm thinking about this and I'm thinking about Mother India, and I'm thinking about our students, and I'm thinking about the Monkey Man and I'm thinking Holy Cow!

The clock is ticking

We leave two weeks from today for India. We'll arrive a week earlier than the students so we can get sick with some degree of privacy. Ben Abdulah Manne has been there since last spring and will join us in Delhi and help us welcome the other 24 students when they arrive a week later.

We're exceptionally excited about this trip. Our excitement is equal parts apprehension and anticipation. We'll be in India almost 4 months with 24 very bright, active, highly motivated and really cool Lewis and Clark students. Our itinerary takes us from Delhi to Hardiware to Rishikish to Dehra Dun to Varanasi to Bangalore to Mysore to Coorg and back to Delhi. All of us have two weeks of independent study/travel and who knows where everyone will go. Carol and I plan on spending our first week of independent travel in Darjeeling in the north and our second week touring Kerala in the south. We have 10 days of travel after the program ends on Dec. 5th and we haven't decided if we're going to Thailand, Laos or Vietnam. Life is hard sometimes.

This trip has been a part of our lives now for about a year and a half. We spoke with Dell and Helen Smith, who led the trip in 03 and 07 after they returned in the spring of 08 and hearing from them of their adventure prompted us to apply to lead the 09 trip. We were accepted as leaders in the fall of 08; interviewed and accepted our super students in the fall of 08; led a semester of orientation with the students in the spring of 09; spent this summer fine tuning the program details and now we leave as the fall of 09 approaches. We'll be back just in time to celebrate our 33rd. anniversary, Carol's xx birthday and the holidays in December of 09.

Right now, Carol's trying to get her garden ready for a four month absence. Mia, who went to Australia with us, will be herding the cats and guarding the gate while she starts her graduate program at Pacific. Joe and Rose will be making sure the hay gets baled. Judy and all our lovely neighbors will assist as needed.

I'll try to write about how we and the students are experiencing India--not so much where we've been, but how we experienced where we've been. Huxley wrote that experience isn't what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you (this won't be on the exam). I'm much more interested in what we do with what happens to us than what we do. Blogging, like journaling is a way of giving voice to those processes and making them conscious--and, more than likely, boring the hell out of everyone else. But hey, it's all about me, right? If you're interested in these musings, then please peep in from time to time and if so inclined, let us know what you're thinking as well. Carol has agreed that she will force herself to write her thoughts now and then and, I'm sure, bring her usual clarity and charm to the task.

We just came back from Peru where the dazzling Yasmina introduced us all to the wonders of Picso Sours. I'm finding they are a marvelous way to deal with apprehension and anxiety and I recommend them to all my fellow Incans headed to India.