The Dirt

Greetings from beautiful Kerala State! I'm still in Varkala, soaking up so much of this beautiful place that my cup is overflowing. I'm not short for words, as usual, but there is so much to see and experience here that I don't even know where to start. The amount of time I could potentially take processing these experiences and putting them into words is far longer than I want to spend in this sweaty internet cafe.

Perhaps I'll start with the title of this entry, The Dirt. I have been thinking about this for some time now. I feel like even the dirt here has character. You can tell a lot about a place by examining the dirt. For example, when I was doing archaeology in central Oregon, I was fortunate enough to find myself 4 meters deep in a hole in the earth. At that strata, the dirt had the deep brown color of used coffee grounds. It was so rich and real that the smell was sweet and the feel between my fingers was unlike any dirt I have ever experienced.

As for the dirt in India, the color is a deep reddish brown color. The colorful fertility of the soil here speaks so much about the people here. This earth is an intricate part of everything built here, everything eaten, and is clearly running through the blood of the Indian people. Without this dirt, bricks for homes would not be made, wonderful vegetables and fruits would not be grown, flowers would not have such vibrant colors and perhaps even the clothing would not be so ornate and colorful. I'm not sure that making this connection will mean anything to anyone else, but I know the smell and feel of the dirt at my home in Oregon is a huge part of who I am and where I come from. I have tasted it and smelled it, scoured it from my wounds and I must say I really dig it. (hehe. you like that one?)

This place, Varkala, is made up of the cliff side resorts and dwellings that butt up against the westernmost shoreline of the Indian subcontinent on the Arabian Sea and then what the locals call the "backside". The "backside" is the eastern inland where nearly all of the locals live and work in daily "normal" life. Varkala itself is a small town with all the necessary amenities but there is an interesting local jealousy between the cliff people and the local Varkalans. I can identify with the folks on the "backside" because they definitely don't reap the same rewards of the western tourist culture as the cliff dwellers do. The majority of the money in this area is spent directly on the cliff in seafood restaurants, ayurvedic resorts and hotels and craft shops. Many of these seasonal establishments are run by out-of-towners, often people from way up north in Kashmir or Delhi. Granted, the people that run the cliff establishments travel for five days on a train to get here and live far from home for six months during the tourist boom... and on top of that, they pay exorbitant amounts for rent and utilities. The rent for a place right on the cliff is about three times what a place would cost on the back side... so it ends up kind of balancing out, kind of.

Kerala is the most progressive state in India, being the first to completely abolish the caste system, reform education and public health care. They boast the highest literacy rate and the lowest infant mortality rates in India as well as the highest life expectancy. The last one though is unfortunately countered by the highest rate of alcoholism and an appalling female suicide rate of almost 34%. Wow. I wonder about this stuff a bit.

Health care here is good and cheap. A person could stay in a hospital for a week here, have an operation and complications and the bill would be maybe 15,000 rupees. Do the math on this and it comes out to be a little under $400 USD. Now, take into account the average salary here might be 5000 Rs. per month, and it comes into perspective for the locals a little bit more. As a socialist state, there are quality government run hospitals and schools that the people seem to be quite proud of. I never thought I would say the words "quality" and "government" in the same phrase before. Most people speak at least a little bit of English and some speak many other languages. My friend Nassar, a restaurant owner on the "backside" reads in Italian, English, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil and maybe even Hindi which is not as common in the South. It's fascinating. My friend Shibu runs a successful business and is well spoken in English and reads Tamil, Malayalam and Arabic (he's Muslim) on only a sixth grade education. Nassar's thirteen year old son read the local Malayali newspaper to me in English. What's great about this is that the papers here write with smart people in mind. In the states, our papers are written to the fifth or sixth grade level and tend not to allow the reader to make connections think critically... I must say, all of the papers I have read here have kept my attention and made me think, and I didn't have to force myself to read it... it was succulent reading.

I have a theory about why the alcoholism and suicide rates here are high. There are several factions within the people's government and represent all ends of the political and religious spectrum. This place is so deeply religious and so political that it is very difficult to make decisions in the interest of the majority. The differences in ideology and philosophy make it hard to identify and then accommodate a majority. That's one thing. Another thing is that with the abolition of the caste system, and a politically mandated opportunity for people to work outside their caste this unfortunately doesn't make any consolation for women. A woman's place in Indian society is still that of home maker, mother and wife. Many women work as cleaners and seamstresses, shop keepers, laborers and such, but still a vast majority of women have no mobility in society. The men work and drink. Women... do what women do, and then put up with drunk men. Without appreciation or societal mobility, I could easily see how many women could find suicide to be a quick way out of the depressing cycle of gender roles. It's sad. Many women and men that have been well educated travel off to the larger cities for work in the corporate world... a totally different kind of depressing circumstance in terms of globalization and the raping of a deeply rooted culture for the fast paces, wealth hungry world of the west.

Alright, enough of the depressing stuff. Soon I will embark on a journey of solace. Emily has started settling into her job as a teacher in Trivandrum. It's a great job and it will be such a great experience for her there. As I have not been sure I wanted to stay until April, for various reasons, I decided not to take a similar job at the same school. I have some things to work out for myself that I feel like I need time and space for. I have the time, I have the space... so I'm going to take it.

I'm planning to travel for several weeks alone. I'll start from Varkala, take a train about 3 hours south to the end of the continent at Kanniyakumari, where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean meet. I was told by a fortune teller that I should go to Varkala temple, pray and be blessed and then go to Kanniyakumari temple and meditate. This is just another reason to go to that fantastic place. After that I head north and east toward Rameswaram, the closest point to Sri Lanka and another great place. A day or two there, then to Pondicherry or thereabouts. Pondicherry is a very historic place, colonized by the Frenchies in the 1500's I think. It's supposed to be fabulous, but I really want to go to this place a bit south that is famous for it's rock carvings. Then further north, through Chennai (a big nasty city where I don't want to stay) and then west again toward Bangalore, south into the hillstations of the western ghats and Munnar to a place called Kumily ( I want to go mountain biking there). I am really excited to be free to do that. My camera, my book, my ipod and me, traveling through south India... what a great adventure.

For those of you that haven't heard, I'll be coming home in November. My plane leaves from Bombay on the 5th of November. I have a wedding to go to on the 1st down here in the south, then 40 hours on a train and a day in Bombay before I fly to Newark, New Jersey. I'll spend a month on the east coast with my awesome family, do Thanksgiving with Nana (guaranteed to be a feast) and then fly to P-Town on the 10th of December. Just in time for Christmas.

I'm going to miss it here kind of like I miss it there at home, but I know that I can always come back and that I will always be welcome here. When I look back on my experiences and think about the great people I have met, places I have been and things I have seen, I will remind myself of the months of prep I did to be able to come here and how it really wasn't so bad. It's not expensive here at all, and now I know how to go for really cheap if I want. I will surely be back. If anyone wants to come to India- ever- you let me know... we'll start planning and saving. It's soooooo worth it!

I really owe Emily for this experience too, I would never have come here without her, and I would have never learned some of the amazing lessons that traveling with a good friend can teach. She's truly a great person and an amazing friend and I love her very much. Thanks Em!

Bombs Over Bangalore

About two weeks ago there were some bombs that went off in Bangalore City. There were 8 explosions in the afternoon. The blasts were spread strategically over the entire city. Several were injured and one person was killed- in Bangalore.

In Andrhabad there were more than a dozen blasts. This time the casualties were more numerous. At least 30 people were killed and dozens more were injured.

At this point there are no leads for the police to follow, no motives from the attackers beyond cowardly malicious violence. No group came forward.

What a sad day for India. Especially South India. People here tend to frown on violent acts and seem to genuinely care about each other. The kindness that exists here is phenomenal. And the violence that happens is far less frequent than in the North in Delhi or up in Kashmir. What is interesting are the economic and political dynamics that are changing the ways people interact with one another. These are some sad changes happening.

One day Em and I were in a rickshaw sitting in traffic. We were on the way to watch our friend's metal band "Nyeh!" perform. They're fantastic if you like metal by the way. Anyhow, our auto driver got impatient while sitting in traffic (happens often) and decided to take some back alleys and side streets. This usually means they're running up the meter and it's time to use some direct verbal persuasion. We knew what he was doing though- he was one of the really nice rickshaw drivers that's not trying to rip you off. So we're barrelling through the back alley ways, late for a show when on the side of the road we see a man having a seizure... like a bad one... as if there is such a thing as a good seizure. Nobody is helping the guy, they're just looking at him flailing around and foaming at the mouth. Our rickshaw driver is the only one with enough balls to help the helpless. He didn't care about his fare or the fact that we were late (nor did we), screeched the rick to a hault and bailed out to help this man, protecting his head from the pavement and wiping his face with cold water.

After a good solid minute of the seizure the man finally was able to relax a little and came back to life. He was scared. We were scared for him. As it turns out he is an eppileptic and his seizures are brought on by any number of things from food choice to stress to lights. He had information in his pocket that explained his situation better than he could in his disoriented state. Also, he spoke Tamil.

The native tongue in Karnataka is Kannada ( like Canada as it would be spoken by a British person, only with a slight emphasis on the second "n"). The rickshaw driver spoke a little Tamil, but fortunately there were some teenage boys that stopped who have been learning Tamil in school. There are like 5 languages commonly spoken in Karnataka. Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, English... That's just what I can name. Each state has it's own state language, though there are dialects upon dialects and small sects of people in rural areas that speak some very random languages. Though the National Language is Hindi.... lot's of folks don't speak it and it seems that even fewer speak more than a handfull of words in English.

So it turns out that this man, in his middle 20's just came from the doctor. He didn't have the money to get the medication he needed, and he was being sent back to Tamil Nadu for some other treatment. He had very little money, no food or water and could very easily have started having a seizure while crossing the street. Since crossing the street here is like playing Frogger in real life, shit man, that's hazardous. We gave him enough money to get to Tamil Nadu on the train, to eat for a couple of days and to buy his medication. For me it would be like a half day of work in the US- Giving that is worth every penny to me, every rupee. I hope he made it to Tamil Nadu and I hope he can get the help he needs. I will never forget that experience.

This is something I have learned about after the fact. The people that were standing around didn't do so because they didn't know how or want to help this man. They stood out of fear. There is a fear here based in political corruption, set ups and swindling. Apparently people have been set up and been blamed for another person's death. Nobody wants to get framed for trying to help someone and having them die while all you're doing is trying to help a fellow human in need. So people stand and look on in fear of legal and political repercussions... gosh... it's starting to sound like the states. It's people like our rickshaw driver, who don't care about the system but that care about real life, that we need so desperately in this world of sheeple.

There is a difference in this though. I'm going to jump back to the bombings.

I was supposed to go from Varkala on a 20 hour train ride to Bangalore the day the bombings occured. I had cancelled my train tickets because Emily was stupid sick. I'm talking cant walk or move or talk kind of sick. I think it was a blessing, because I very well could have been anywhere near where those blasts occurred. You just never know. I'm thankful to have not been there.

Here's something interesting though. In the U.S. if 8 bombs went off in L.A. or San Fran or Portland or oh... say... New York... The media would surely be talking of it for a month. It would be sensationalized and glowing with "Terrorism" and a "war" on some other kind of intangible idea. They would be feeding the nation the usual healthy dose of fear, calling for retaliation in some capacity, trying to place blame on religious groups or that damn "rock and or roll" music. No doubt the majority of the people that watch the glowing screen would surely suckle the teat of sensationalism and go buy "Anti-Terrorism Spray!!! All New From the Makers of Raid. " You know, S.C. Johnson Wax (a family company), Johnson and Johnson (a family company), Philip Morris and Kraft and Heinz and AOL Time Warner and the Federal Reserve Bank of America and the Rockafellers (likely all part of the same very wealthy family company). Not only would people be affraid, but they would buy into something that was fed to them as a solution to either be able to avoid this kind of danger; (by locking yourself into a bulletproof room sealed with plastic and duct tape, hiding under a bedspread beneath the safety of an upside down refrigerator box clutching your "ANTI-TERRORIST SPRAY!!!", a framed picture of Pat Robertson and your Gideon's Bible) and/or would buy into the idea of a solution- by going to war to try to make peace, no matter how counter productive.

My point is...

Here, when the bombs blasted and people died it seemed to be more important that something tragic happened, people died and that it was truly a sad day for a country, a people that pretty much maintain a stance on non-violence. Things just shut down in the emotions of the people. No one spoke of being affraid to go out, they spoke of being saddened that people could be so pointlessly heartless. I won't talk about their government's desire to have a nuclear program more than just to say- the biggest fear in the blood of the east has to do with the rich white men from the west, their lust for wealth and power and their willingness to break the rules and dodge any principles of schivalry or ethics to attain their goal.

I think we all know that unless we choose to rise as people- independently of governments and laws placed upon us, but together as humans supporting the positive and selfless acts of other real humans, for the good of mankind and not the stock market and for just a small portion of mankind, we will continue to be held down by greed and by money and materialism and violence. Is that what we want as our human legacy? When we finally rape the Earth for all she is worth and move on to Mars to rape her too, what will Martian Jesus think? Ask yourselves people... What Would Martian Jesus Do?


So, on the talks of "freedom". There have been clubs here, that have been shut down for playing live music. There is something against live music that is not classical western music or the native Hindustani or Carnatic music. Even those, you must have permission from the "authorities" before you can hold a gathering. Permission means (give us money).



I CALL SHENANNEGANS!!!! WHAT A LOAD OF SHIT!

Lemme explain... my friends in the metal band, have friends in other bands... there is quite a thriving music community in Bangalore. Each Sunday they try to gather in Cubbon Park for Sunday Jam, and each Sunday they are kicked out by the cops. Private establishments will have live bands play... until they are shut down by the cops. Why would a peaceful gathering be shut down simply because of the kind of music they're playing?

Yesterday I attended Sunday Jam in the Park. There were about 40 people there between musicians and onlookers enjoying the company of like-minded peaceful music people. It was all acoustic. There were a total of fiveor six guitarists and two djembe drums... what could be offensive about that. Nobody was drunk or disorderly, there was no booty shaking or permiscuous dress, no drugs, no alcohol and nothing being peddaled... just a friendly gathering. Ok so there were a few cigarrettes.

The jam went on for maybe 30 or 45 minutes before the cops came, waited til the song was over and ordered everyone to disperse. The folks there had signs saying things like "Music is our birth right, and for it we will fight!", "Free the spirit of Bangalore! Music=Life! Don't kill the song!".

How sad.

I have never felt like more of a hippie activist than at that moment as we all just stood and looked at the cops with faces like, "really? seriously? how f'ing lame are you? what if it were a group of school children? would you make them stop singing too?". We eventually dispersed once the point was made. Nobody wanted to get arrested this time. Maybe if there are more people.

That kind of social control sucks.

On a happier note... Em and I are living in Varkala- google it, it's gorgeous. She got a kick ass job at Trivandrum International School and we've rented a 5 bedroom house there that is fantastic. I'll write more about that at another time. You should all come visit, unless you're scared of big f'ing spiders and cock roaches. The pics here are real, not doctored at all. These are average size spiders that come in two or three at a time nearly every time it rains (its monsoon season... so every day). The match box there is about an inch and a half long... that should give you an idea. And I don't know if they're poisonous.


In the last weeks I have truly learned to appreciate some things that I may not have appreciated so much before. There is no hot water unless we boil it on the gas stove. When I shower I just pretend I'm in a tropical waterfall... cuz I kind of am. We have a well that is attached to a pump fortunately, so we only have to pump water into the reservoir on the roof about twice a day. There is no refrigerator and vegetables and fruits spoil very quickly, so every two or three days we get groceries. Eggs are good sitting out for a few days without refrigeration... no problem. Buy a dozen and a half at a time and we're set for three or four days. There are sugar ants that find their way into anything, so things have to be sealed very tightly. We wash our clothes in a bucket and hang them on the indoor line.... for about three days. It's not uncomfortably humid here or hot, but the clothes just absorb the moisture. There's no TV- thank God. Just my computer to watch DVDs if we want. Soon we'll have internet access there so I can share some more stuff and be a little more connected. I'm glad there's no TV though. The beach is about a fifteen minute walk. To get there we pass by two temples that broadcast prayers periodically throughout the early morning and the day... into the night. It is annoying at first but then I reallize that no matter what language or how it is sung... how could prayer be annoying? It's not something that invades my dreams, so I don't mind. The streets are slightly paved, and slightly muddy water in pot holes... wet feet quite often here. In the backyard we have coconut trees, banana trees, a guava tree and I think a Jack Fruit tree. If youve never seen a Jack Fruit... lookit up, it's pretty gnarly. It's the size of a watermellon and kind of spikey on the outside and it hangs from the trunks of trees. When you break it open there is a rich and sweet yellow fruit inside that like a pomegranate on a much bigger scale, houses seeds the size of brazil nuts. I'm not sure if there is one there or not because they just passed out of season. So did the mangoes. There are like 100 kinds of mangoes in India... and they all are fantastic!

The food here is phenomenal. I love to eat, and cook... so I'm trying to find people that will teach me.

I'll write more soon but for now I have some stuff to take care of before I get on the night train for Varkala.


I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

Much Love,

Chris