Modesty: What do you think about it?

I had a few questions in my comments section about my opinions on Indian dress after this blog post where I wrote about learning to wear the Indian saree. As I've thought about it I realized I've actually had quite a few conversations lately, not necessarily with locals but with other field studies students and other volunteers living where I am, regarding topics of modesty and dress, and so I'm going to spend the rest of this post answering the questions from my previous post.

I'll start by answering the questions I was asked.

I would be interested to hear what you as a woman have to say about clothing in India. Do you find them oppressive that women have to be so covered? 

The simple answer?
No.
I hadn't thought about it a lot. I have some semblance of a memory when way back when they were telling me I had to be sure to cover my ankles in India that I may have found it frustrating to seek out the right clothing to take with me, but mostly I was excited to get to India and buy and wear their clothing, ankle length or not, and stop wondering about what from America would work.

Also, I don't remember thinking so much about how they had to be "so covered" as I found it interesting what it was they had to have covered. This is a topic that has been of interest to me for a while. For Indians showing a part of a bare midriff with the sari is not immodest, I, however, cannot wear the sari without some alterations due to the religious garment I wear that symbolizes part of my commitment to my faith and dictates some aspects of my modesty due to the need to cover it.

This thought on what needs to be covered lead to a conversation with another field studies student in which we discussed the varying perceptions on modesty throughout the world. They mentioned a group I can't name nor do I know how fictional or historically accurate they are, but the story demonstrates an idea of modesty and the differences our society can place on us that can be quite influential and important to look into when trying to understand behavior.

 

 He talked of an indigenous tribe that wore almost nothing, nudity was acceptable and common and their perception of being "immodest" was to dress as their Gods. When the colonizers came they found their lack of clothing primitive and offensive and went about dressing them in layers of clothes and it was at that point that promiscuity rose to an all time high in that community, because for them they were now dressed in immodest and alluring ways whereas their simplicity before was what they were used to.

I wouldn't say we all undress and accept our bodies as a normal thing to see in public, it wouldn't work because that is not what all societies have decided is proper or modest and many things have been sexualized so as to create the necessity of certain standards if desiring a certain attitude or behavior to follow. Do I think some of that is too bad? Well, yes. I think that the body is a beautiful and sacred creation, it is also a sexual one and this is normal and good, but in general many societies have disgraced the body and sexuality. That is what I find oppressive and sad, that is what dictates a lot of what is required in different cultures for modesty - though other factors that play into it would be an interesting study, why does my very specific culture find shoulders and midriffs immodest while Indians think ankles are, etc.?

 Modesty is a lot about an attitude, and this can be a personal attitude or one held by society at large. This is mostly getting at the fact that modesty has to do with deportment and this combined with dress. Also, it doesn't have to be considered bad or oppressive that our very individual society defines how we choose to behave, it just is and maybe we want to change it and maybe we want to go against it, but society will give us the consequence of that regardless of our choice so sometimes it's better to conform, it gives us time to consider and work on more important matters.

Take "ain't" for example, (read about ain't here), linguists may debate that it is correct in following a certain pattern and could be legitimately used, and yet it's a rather stigmatized word in professional settings and so despite my linguistics professors spouting off that it's perfectly acceptable, they simultaneously say it's not acceptable and we should avoid it in certain settings so as to remain academically and professionally respected - because society says so and that hasn't changed yet. I could spend my life trying to make ain't acceptable again, or use it and take the consequences of society that come, like maybe not getting a job, but I'd rather focus my time on other things, but that's a personal choice. The same kind of thing is true with some aspects of modesty, and I think it doesn't hurt us to follow along with society in some things. It is interesting what society chooses to do and how they choose to feel about certain things, along with the process of changing it, or looking at why it came to be that way in the first place.

Currently I would say these are things happening and changing in India. Although it's surely different in each area, the one I am in has not felt as prudish as some made it out to seem.  Though most women you see are still wearing clothing to cover the whole leg, some do not, or at least not as strictly as it was made out to be - and nobody seems excessively offended by the matter. Similar to what I mentioned in my Sari post, dress standards and styles are also changing and with that a few concepts of modesty. The traditional dress is slowly beginning to lose some of its popularity, and change is in the air for what is stylish and what is acceptable by society in India. Personal choices or small groups withing society's choices are still seen everywhere; from those who wear the burka to cover nearly everything, to those in the traditional sari to a little more modernized and maybe shorter style.

These very basic and limited to my own small area observations made, let me point out that the biggest reason why my answer holds very little legitimacy - I'm surrounded by Tibetans. Although I often see Indians I have not interacted very personally with any of them, I haven't asked these questions or heard conversation on the matter. I don't know at all what they feel about it and I don't even see them that much. What is interesting is how different the Tibetans are. We came ready to cover our ankles and be respectful and found ourselves surrounded by shorts, shorter ones than I wear, and casual t-shirts and many other western styles.

The Tibetans have mentioned to us that it is better to be more covered than they often are in causal settings when going out into the Indian community. I appreciate that they would make the statement and suggest it to us. Although they have different ideas of what is acceptable and when, they live in an area where it is different from their own culture and society and they understand that and are aware of it enough to then choose to what degree they will respect it.
Another reason I might be a silly person to ask, I'm kind of hyper modest myself and personally like to have certain things covered a certain amount, on myself - and don't mind a culture who respects certain ideals of modesty because I think going towards the opposite where nothing is considered unacceptable is a worse direction.


How would you feel if you had to dress that way everyday, would it be great, would you get tired of it and want shorts and t-shirts back again? 

All of that said - and now answering this second question - I like having the freedom to choose what I wear, but like Averyl said in her comment on my post, I feel somewhat oppressed in my own society by the fact that by wearing one of the beautiful and intricate every day outfits of the Indians I would be a bit stared at, and unacceptable, even, as being professional or properly dressed for certain situations. Our cultures are just different, I wouldn't say one is bad and one is good, just different. I would say society is always oppressive in some way, just different ways, and a big part of what makes life and history interesting is the tug of war happening between society and groups or individuals in society that changes what is acceptable for the majority. Let's put a plug in for BYU accepting beards again right here and now and leave it at that.

One last thing:
When deciding to write this response as an actual post of its own I decided I wanted to read up on the topic a little bit also, so of course I went to Wikipedia (and if you click on that link it should take you to a page talking about modesty that I actually enjoyed reading). There weren't a lot of new things there but I felt like it addressed a variety of topics regarding modesty well, in one place. It was also interesting to note that of the few religions they specifically talked about, mine was one of them!

This is partially interesting due to my religions smallness in comparison to all others. Despite being small there are some topics I know we're known for and our statements, doings and otherwise might be mentioned regarding those things but I guess i just hadn't expected modesty to be one of them. This is not because I don't think my religion places modesty as an important issue, I just didn't think it was one of the issues we talk about that the rest of the world would care about much.

I'm afraid I've now talked about a lot of things in a rather unorganized way that I don't feel like fixing right now; and my own writing brought up even more questions to be answered or addressed than I began with, for myself and maybe for my original questioners also. All us field studiers live in very different locations and societies and if anyone from one of them reads this and thinks they have additional insights on what is modest where they are, and why, I think that would be an interesting addition to this conversation. 

Power in the Word

Happy Independence Day to the U.S.A.!

I was thinking about my own country that I am currently far from, and the culture of freedom. Though it’s time that will tell what direction we’ll take this concept of freedom, the men and women who traveled from afar to settle in America were often those coming in search of religious freedom, the freedom to worship their God in the way they see fit.

I was also pondering last few days this topic with regard to the Tibetans that I live with. It is this very freedom of religion that they fled to India for, and the reason their sacred leader remains here in exile, and many still in the autonomous region of Tibet risk the long and dangerous trek over the Himalayas – to preserve those things they hold most dear – their language and their religion and the freedom to both that America now enjoys and has been celebrating over the last two days.

I also spent the day writing up a reflection paper for my English teaching Internship work I’ve been doing here, and decided it was finally time to share some of the many thoughts, observations and conversations I have had on language over the last two months stay in India. The question I was reflecting on in my paper was, why it is my students want to learn English. I’ve at this point asked quite a few of my students, and other teachers, this question. Their answers have been particularly intriguing to me because I am working with an interesting population. In India there are many languages, English became prevalent in their history because of the British and has now remained an important common language tying people from differing regions and languages together. The Tibetan refugees that I work with add just one more language to the mix.

Some of them came recently from Tibet. Often these students struggle the most with English because they were not taught it or surrounded by it like those who grew up in India. They are, however, the ones with one of the stronger agendas for why they want to learn English. I’ll come to that reason later. A large majority of students I talk with want to learn or improve their English simply because it is the common language of the country they live in. They want it to be able to shop, travel and, negotiate other day-to-day endeavors with the people around them who aren’t Tibetan.

A few mentioned specifically wanting to be more respected in professional settings, such as a nurse I was tutoring. This idea helped me understand their desire to learn English – not Indian languages - in order to communicate with the Indians, because not only do the Tibetans from India speak Tibetan, they usually speak some Hindi along with Kannada (the language of the region of India I am in), or if not that another Indian language from the region they are from. Knowing multiple foreign languages is no foreign thing to them, but English in India has been used for years now in elitist settings and is, therefore, necessary when seeking out higher education or desiring to be respected in professional settings. I won’t comment on this fact much further, other than to say I understand their position in wanting and maybe needing English to help their situation, and therefore respect the Tibetans even more for maintaining such a strong connection to their mother tongue and holding it in such high esteem.   

I had a conversation with a young teacher where I am staying who told me a common proverb he grew up hearing. He said that the body is the native language, for him Tibetan, and every other language you learn is a beautiful jewel that you wear on a necklace. The problem is that the beautiful jewels are worth nothing if the body is not preserved so as to wear the necklace. I valued this idea because language learning is important to me.

 I see many benefits in the process of learning a language and in being able to communicate, but I value above that the importance of first language. A quote I read from a Tibetan scholar and leader demonstrates the Tibetans view on this further – “Some people treat language as a tool to use. When the environment to use it in is small then they think it is not a necessity to learn it. They don’t recognize that language is the spirit of a nationality and they don’t know the importance of preserving it.” – Alak Thurshu Rinpoche

Language is a tool, I would argue that most of the time second, and third languages etc. are used mainly as a tool, but the first language maintains a different depth of processing the world, understanding yourself and the world and is even the base in which to learn other languages. The really interesting response I’ve had from many, especially those recently in Tibet – as I mentioned I would get to in the beginning of this post - is that they want to learn English to promote the cause of Tibet to the world. Tibetan is their soul. English is an important tool in preserving that soul. After hearing this response the first time it took me off guard, but then I started seeing it more and more. I read the school newspaper one day and found a series of articles to the students regarding seeking freedom for Tibet. His Holiness the Dalai Lama encouraged the children to, “Equip themselves with education and knowledge, and prepare themselves for the battle for freedom.” Another lecturer came and reminded the children that, “The pen is always mightier than the sword.” 

Talking about the pen (or words), being mightier than the sword, and the need for education in order to fight their battle for freedom, brings me back to the U.S. and the recent freedom of religion, among other things, being celebrated. For a former Buddhist monk the freedom to learn Tibetan and practice Buddhism are intimately connected. He explained to me that the Tibetan language was created for Buddhism. He is sincerely afraid that with many Tibetans in exile throughout the world, and even those in Tibet needing to fight to maintain their education in their first language, that Buddhism is what is at risk. 

The monks study philosophy and debate their studies as a means of coming to truth. Through the process of memorization of text, processing, and then analyzing and debating and reanalyzing they are able to fully learn the concepts of Buddhism and great truths. He often found himself unable to fully explain to his liking concepts of Buddhist philosophy because the Tibetan word was what was needed to understand it, an understanding of Tibetan was, for him, an understanding of Buddhism. Therefore, preserving Tibetan is a means of preserving freedom to study and worship in their religion.

A teacher I talked with at the school told me stories of children currently studying at their school who traveled alone with siblings or cousins, leaving parents in Tibet, in order to study at a Tibetan school, in the Tibetan language. 

She told me that the school has been going through the rigorous process of translating text books and curriculum all into Tibetan. They have through grade five completed and besides their hour of English class all subjects are taught in the mother tongue. She told me of a few students who learned some Chinese while still in Tibet that are continuing the study and teaching others.

The children had a drawing contest. They put the winners up on a common area for all to see and one stood out to me in particular. As I was examining this photo a child walked by and I said, “What is this?” They replied to me simply, “China.” 

 

They want to learn Chinese so they can know what the Chinese are saying about them, and like with the learning of English use these languages to preserve their Tibetan -their body and spirit- and subsequently their Buddhism and ultimately their freedom; using words to save their words and what I'm coming to understand in a new way is that somewhere within all our words and all our languages is a piece of who we are that we must fight for, that must be saved, that needs to be free.

Alternative Life #...

I actually wrote this post for my personal blog, but decided to post it here as well to break up the wait for the actual field studies blog post I've been writing up. The content is what has been on my mind over the last few days here in India while I've been working out my class schedule for the fall, and working on my classes for the summer. I have delayed my graduation a couple of times now and officially could have graduated last April if I hadn't delayed it again for India. My life often doesn't take me anywhere I fully imagined ahead of time, and I find it interesting to live in this world full of people living so many different kinds of lives, so sometimes it gets me pondering about what directions I might or could go next.
 
Here's a conversation I just had on g-chat with a friend about my upcoming graduation plans. There are a few things about graduation that come up in my mind - like that I'm so over it even being a big deal anymore because now it just seems like a desperate attempt to actually finish before I've been in school for ten years, or something tragic like that - to wishing I could just stay forever.

In the mean time (as in all these years I've been in school), I've come up with a series of alternative lives for post graduation years and I explain a few in this chat...so because I'm lazy and don't want to re-type out the ideas, you're getting a copy paste job below.
***

Now that I realized my field studies classes will finish my International Development minor I really only have the three humanities classes I delayed last winter left to graduate -- I should just graduate in December and be done with it.

I'm partially afraid to move on to...who knows what, and I partially, already, miss school since I know I'll be done soon now and it's been my life for - most of my life.

I want to get a job in an office on campus and take a free class every semester -- and go to all the free lectures and stuff I usually don't make time for these days. I was a lot better at that my first few years of school, actually...but also a lot less busy.

Actually...alternative life:

I want to be a teacher, and live in my own small one or two room apartment, and come home and learn to make new foods and eat them while I devour shelves of books that I've been collecting and piling up over the years of reading what was dictated to me - which I'm often grateful of because it introduced me to things I should know or are good to know and authors I do want to read - but choosing will be nice for once.

Alternative life #2...

Maybe live in an even smaller but probably more expensive single apartment and work in an office in a really big city

and eat small breakfasts at small cafes really early in the morning while I read - 
and work in some big office with lots of interesting people to see every day, where I have to dress up...kind of fancy...like office fancy - and I'll take yoga classes in the evening and maybe pick up painting even though I'm rather not artistic in that way

it would be like therapy, artistic therapy that people stuck in big cities with too many people always need, right?

Alternative life #3

I'll take a yoga instruction course and go live in a small town in the mountains of Colorado and provide yoga classes for all the visitors. While I live in this quaint tourist town I'll take skiing lessons on the side and hike during my spare time...hike places where I will read and write for hours and contemplate publishing something one day.

Alternative life #...I've lost track

I'll live outside the U.S....and Canada - and teach English while studying languages.

I'll probably hone in on my piano skills, listen to good music all the time, crochet, and maybe a little tap dancing (other dancing is a given for every life choice) - this all on the side of most of these life choices.

Probably audition to be in community theater production.
***

And that's where it ends.

My Wandering Feet

Actually, that's just where my g-chat conversation ends, but there are so many "alternative lives" to come up with and so many things that could happen, and a variety of things to experience and try and work on...
Yet I'm dreading (ahead of time) the thought of moving on to any one of them, or a couple of them over a period of life after graduation, and just wishing I could stay in school.

It's really the fear of disappointment, or of being disappointing. So, I'll work on my faith and my hope in myself and in life and mostly in God, which faith improves my ability to have faith and hope in those other two -- and all will be well.

Sarees: An Art

Putting on a saree or sari is an art, and one I have not fully accomplished learning yet. 
The first thing I learned about sarees when arriving in India is that they are still a very prevalent form of dress. Although many reports and statistics claim the decline in use of the traditional dress styles, such as the sari, is occurring due to more women entering into business and simply finding other fashion options to be more manageable, I would never have guessed it stepping off the plane.

For the first few days I was in a state of never ending shock at how beautiful everyone looked all the time. I decided that Indians have fashion right. Everyone looks nice and even fancy, from the very old, wrinkled and bent over woman to the small child, rich elite to beggar on the street, with their bright, colorful, embroidered, beaded clothing and covered in every range of design imaginable. I’ve never tired of looking at everyone.

Now is time for a small confession. I have a terrible habit of staring. I’m also fairly shameless about it. I decided a while back that the glance, glance away system was not good enough for me. When I see something or someone I want to look at, I want to look at it and fully take it in. When I see someone walking on campus with  interesting shoes or intriguing way of walking I watch them for a while, I examine their face and their clothing combinations and I take as much time as I like to fully see why it was they caught my gaze in the first place. If anyone reading this has found themselves feeling awkward or offended due to my habit, let me ask your forgiveness now and inform you that I simply find you very interesting and I’m okay with you staring back at me if you like. Here in India I get a taste of my own medicine because something about being white simply gets you stared at, I guess, so I won’t ask their forgiveness for spending three months here staring at them and their never ending, beautiful textiles.

Now, on to the story: we knew we wanted at least one fairly nice sari to practice this art form on our own and maybe feel as beautiful as everyone we’re around always looks. Shopping in India is really fantastic. As you can see in my pictures you walk into a store and wall to wall there are packages of material. They put the material for the tops and bottoms and a scarf (these are usually long tunic style tops and genie pants or tight bunched legging style bottoms and always with the scarf, the Indian scarf deserves its own post some time but it’s always a part of their dress), all together in one package so you can choose an outfit that way rather than worrying about putting it together on your own. Below is an example of a salwar kameez (the pant and tunic outfit). 

We’ve spent a good amount of time wandering in and out of stores looking at lots of different material. After making a choice you take it to the tailor. We have a favorite, his shop is on the corner and is a small room packed with material and folded hanging collared shirts covering the back wall. He sits at a chunky metal and manually operated foot petal sewing machine and gives you a big smile while his hands never stop with the perfectly straight line of stitching he’s currently working on. His two helpers, who take measurements and cut out patterns, then begin. You stand there and have every part of you imaginable measured, quickly, while someone writes down all your sizes, you’re glad you don’t quite understand in their language or you’d be slightly afraid you need to do more of that jogging now that your running partner has arrived, yeah, that’s me. Two days later your full outfit is done for about six American dollars. After working with the tailor we found a store that specializes in sarees and a new process began. 

The back half of their store is covered in soft cushions and I took my shoes off to step onto it as they unpackaged yards and yards of material. The sari material will range from four to nine yards and at the end is a piece of material with decoration that they cut off and sew into the top, which is called a choli. I never cease to be overwhelmed by choices, especially with regard to fashion, so she continued to pull different colors and designs out for me until I was surrounded, standing in the center of folds and folds of colorful material. I started holding pieces up to me and asking which looked nice with my face.

I believe the small Indian woman helping us found us somewhat amusing and at this point she gestured me over to the center of her padded floor and began to dress me, maybe thinking this would help in the decision process, or maybe thinking it would be fun to dress up the American girl surrounded by all the material she was trying to offer me.

 This was unexpected and exciting all at once. We’d been fairly concerned that learning the sari art would be difficult for us and we didn’t know who we could find to teach it, and now here I was being dressed by a woman in the sari store! Lori and Beau took many pictures and near the end we got a video of her doing the more essential beginning wraps and folds so we can practice on our own.

One of the first things I learned is that you wrap the sari material over a petticoat and that is what you tuck the pleats into. You begin by wrapping the material around yourself entirely like a long skirt and tucking it in near the hip. Then is the most difficult part, I’d say. She did it quickly and with ease, pleating the material back and forth in about 1 ½ inch folds. Well done this produces what I called the mermaid like bunch at the feet. All the folds are tucked in at the navel. The remaining length of material is the more decorative part and she left it draped over my shoulder. At this point the real art of sari work became apparent to me, the many, many forms of draping.

She began by pulling it all around my torso and then proceeded to pull it across my chest, then pleat it at my shoulder leaving it draping in the back.  She then undid it and pulled it up over my head, undid it again and draped it elegantly over my arm and had me pose to the front, to the side, turn in a circle. *snap, snap* 

We had the cameras going as she showed us all the many styles redressing me over and over again. I finally understood the usefulness of a dressing maid and how it can be fun instead of just completely awkward to have someone help you dress.

My reading has informed me that these styles are often regional and have also evolved over time. Different styles also function for different situations, while the mother needs her hand free of the long bit of material she will pleat it all at the shoulder  and pin it there, and the professional sari look that began with airplane hostesses has a longer top, tight and pressed pleats down the skirt and is pinned up entirely on the shoulder. Women will frequently use the extra material to drape over their heads, acting as the scarf that is so very important to all forms of dress in India.

 

While she dressed me another few women walked into the store to do some shopping but were intrigued by the American girl playing doll while the Indian woman played dress up, and they decided to join in.

Pre-headband Ditching

I not only had the wrong kind of shirt (pink, old and slightly baggy cotton spandex blend) to go with my lovely sari wrap, but I was wearing a bandana as a headband with my hair pulled back in a big white scrunchy. I succeeded in removing the bandana to continue the photo shoot but the woman in red decided this was not sufficient and walked right over to me and pulled the scrunchy out of my hair, letting the poor unkempt tangles fall over my shoulders and down in my eyes. I swept the short pieces back out of my eyes and the *snap, snap* of the camera continued. 

Getting Rid of The Headband

The Woman Who Finished My Hair

I finally settled on the dark royal purple one. The tailor was called in and they began work on my top. There were so many beautiful colors and designs but that’s the one I’d been wearing so I probably bonded with it enough to decide it was fun and bold and worth becoming my one expensive sari purchase; plus it’s a great reminder of the day I got to play dress up with the Indian sales lady.   

Now that I have my top I've been working on wrapping myself up and I miss having the help, but I'm getting better. Here's one quick picture of my attempt. Besides the lighting being not so great and the colors not as vibrant, my wrapping is coming along okay.

I'm still highly impressed with Indian women and their skills at pleating, creative wrapping and most of all doing nearly anything imaginable while wearing a sari from chasing children to construction work out in the middle of the road, you'll see it all here In India!

The Couple and a Couple of Brit(a)n(e)yS

We are complete! 

Britany arrived this week and is getting settled and enjoying all

India and the Tibetans have to offer, so far - minus this coconut juice.

To be honest I also didn't love the juice but eating the delicious

soft coconut fruit was a joy. Now that we are complete and I've written

almost everything anyone could want to know about food, expect some good

project updates and a post about the day we walked around and bought

these coconuts; the Tibetan Buddhism holy of all holy days, (they would call
it the most auspicious day), during their month long saka dawa celebration. 
Another great food perk of this particular Tibetan calendar month holiday,
(that started during our May and finishes in June),

is that they all go vegetarian for the month!

Good Thing My Running Buddy Arrived

...because according to my camera, eating is all I do here. Our Tibetan India group is complete now; Britany arrived early this morning in India and made it to the Karuna Home this afternoon. All of us are getting more into our projects and the community now, also. My English classes are going well and this week in town we met a man who teaches English at one of the local monasteries. We got permission for me to go help there and I hope to go for the first time next week. We're enjoying finding opportunities to get more involved in the community now that all our legal papers are finished. One thing we've definitely been enjoying since arriving in India is the food, so I decided to finally share some pictures and talk about a few of the food experiences we've been having.

This is a green mango, cut up in slices with salt and chile powder sprinkled on top. They are hard and sour and ridiculously delicious. When I saw the man selling them outside the Golden Temple where we were going to eat momos I couldn't resist buying one, after knocking his high price down by half, that is. I ate these same kind of mangos all the time in the Philippines, but we ate them dipped in soy sauce with pepper seeds, similar idea I guess.

 

 This is the first Tibetan restaurant we went to. We had meat momos there. I don't prefer the meat momos but the cooks at the Karuna Home made meat momos that I really enjoyed. They included vegetables and in general the cooks where we are staying make very good food. If I learned their dishes I would never get bored with vegetables again. They think of more ways than I ever would have to prepare more vegetables than I usually ever remember exist.

  

 This was the first Indian restaurant I went to. Southern Indian food is VERY spicy. I got paneer masala and Indian rice with vegetables. It was all delicious but my nose wouldn't stop running. Of all the food we ordered I somehow ordered the two dishes with the most kick. Beau kindly helped me finish my food that day, boys are good for things like that.

 

 We had the special privileged of attending a Tibetan wedding. I didn't get the best pictures of the food, but there were LOTS of options. This was one of the coolest things I've ever seen, all made out of vegetables including the flower carvings, and designed like a beautiful cake. That's the healthiest cake I think I'll ever eat.

 

We stopped for small ice cream cones in town one day. Usually Lori and Beau like to buy these small ice treats at this place but I was craving ice cream so we tried it out and enjoyed a rest. 

 

 This is one of our favorite restaurants so far. It's inside the gates of the Golden Temple, meaning it's also all vegetarian which I'm plenty okay with. We tried our first fried momos there but have all agreed we prefer them steamed. I also ordered chow mein with cheese, mostly to see what they were going to do with the cheese, it was interesting but deliciously flavored. I got it without cheese the next time we went.

 

 Here Lori is displaying the pepsi we bought for our meal that day. We usually go for coke but there wasn't any to be found. Apparently me and foreign countries means the only time I drink soda regularly. They say it's good for your stomach and killing off the bad stuff you might be getting or not used to in foreign lands so I'll go with it.

 

 Here is me with my mini coke at the wedding. We don't drink tea so we got a lot of coke with small fried sweet treats and little chocolates that day. The great thing about coke in foreign countries is the real sugar. I just finished a book for my sociology of development class that talks all about America hurting other countries with big crops like sugar and coffee by choosing to produce and use the cheaper and less delicious - less healthy - corn syrup. I found my reading particularly interesting while sitting and drinking my coke with real sugar in one of those foreign lands it was talking of...and speaking of sugar cane...

 

 ...here's a stand of it!

 

 This is the best lemonade stand I've ever stopped at. He runs shoots of this sugar cane through his machine over and over again and a few times with a lemon and a lime attached, letting all the juices run out and then you drink the pure sugar. Delicious experience to say the least.

We've eaten a lot of new food, and a lot of good food. Every day at the Karuna Home we have rice and Dahl as a part of the meal. Dahl is a soupy mixture of crushed beans often with some tomato involved and they eat it with everything - I've gotten to the point that I don't much like my meal without it, either. 

To finish off the post I'll share the picture of this adorable Tibetan baby. This picture doesn't do her justice at all, in fact it's kind of a squished looking photo but the Tibetan children are all beautiful and this baby was so squishy and sweet I could have eaten her too! To say the least, our stomachs are very happy and so are the rest of us.

My Fragile Internet and This Fragile Life

At the moment it feels like my blog posts are going to take a serious cut in length. The only Internet we have found seems to be fairly fragile and not so convenient to get to. I have felt lucky to stay connected for longer than five minutes without something going wrong and I guess that is just one of the many changes we are all getting used to here. My guess is that we will become more familiar with the surroundings and find something that works out for us a little better, or learn to adapt to exactly what we have found and how we have found it.

Apart from trying to email my family, finish my blog posts and find teaching resources online I feel rather happy about my disconnectedness from the being "connected" world. Our lifestyle here in Bylakuppe has been simple and peaceful for the most part; with opportunities to travel to to some busy and happening Indian cities that more than make up for our peaceful times with all their clamor. A myriad of smells and sights are all around but I haven't found it shocking, overwhelming or "in your face" like many warned me it would be. I always felt that my time in the Philippines might have prepared me at least a little for what I would experience here, and it more than did. Although the culture is quite different, clothing styles, language etc. everything I see around me, the climate, the smells, vegetable and fruit stands all over the streets and along the highways, green and more green is all very familiar and so far even less intense, I would say, than things I've experienced before. In many ways I feel like I have come home and it's very happy.

Another happy thing is that today my English teaching classes got started. This is exciting news and has also made me a little nervous about my preparation. I hadn't planned on being able to hold full classes so I mostly planned for tutoring sessions and the possibility of joining a school where classes and curriculum for classes were already set up. Where I am staying has a staff that wants to learn or improve their English and they have a room and everything for me. There is an advanced class and a beginning class but within each are many, many different levels. Three classes and the many levels in each are two big obstacles I hadn't fully prepared for that have already come up. The people are all very kind and I hope to share with them what I know and help them to improve, but I hope they will be also patient and accepting of what I have to offer since I am also still learning.

I realized this post didn't get published when I first tried to do it - this really is fragile internet - and what did save was not all I had written. I no longer remember what I wrote to finish my post. So, before posting it and hopefully having it work today I will share a small account from a conversation I had with one of the Monks who lives where I am staying.

I told him that one of my sisters is married but does not yet have children. He looked a little surprised and concerned and then told me that children are important, in his words. His English is good but you can tell he struggles to express just what he might like to say, I liked the way he expressed it anyway. That is something wonderful about language, it is inadequate in so many ways - in expressing actual experience and feelings but the very sincere and attempted use of it between people to communicate truth can often be so enlightening. I remember feeling that way when I would hear the way people talked about certain things in Tagalog. I would suddenly realize I understood what they said, but also feel deeply that I had understood something very new about what they were talking about because of what these new words to express it with were teaching me.

This dear Buddhist Monk then said to me, "memories, children are memories," and it made so much sense. I don't think that's what he meant to say but the idea of it sounded lovely and enlightening as it came out of his mouth. He then said, "Two people must have one child as a memory, then two is another memory and the love grows and grows." In Buddhism the meaning of life or existence is in relationships and he demonstrated this understanding to me here. I understood the idea of a marital relationship and what building that can mean and the ways it happens and what love is more just because of his very simple expressions to me of very important truths. I think it was more powerful to me to hear after the conversation we had just been having about his own family.

He mistook my question to him about a young girl from the home there going on holiday and thought I was asking if he ever went on holiday. He looked at me somber faced and said that was a very difficult question for him. I could feel the sadness somewhere in his words. He explained to me that he is an only child and when he was still quite young his mother became ill. After looking after her for many months she passed, his father has also since passed. What he said was, "they have both left." Then he shook his head and made a motion with his hands going up and down to express how life can be, unpredictable and at times so hard. We both agreed that the great trials can make us stronger and more prepared later in life to better serve. He has such strong feelings about families and love being a part of life and yet he is alone and has no family now, but not. He's not alone because the Karuna home is his home. It is a home for the disabled that he helped to start. Karuna is compassion in sanskrit and it is truly a home of compassion.

Because it had been a holiday some of the children were returning or being visited by relations. During my conversation a man came and talked with a beautiful young Tibetan girl in a small pink wheelchair. He looked at her lovingly, took her picture and handed her a choice of candy from a bag and a gelatin treat of her choice. She chose pink and then sat there and slurped it out of the cup while my friend the monk went and talked with the man before he left. He then sat and talked with and smiled at the children who had been crowding around trying to get into the pictures or peeking at the candy in the bags.

I stared ahead of me at the beautiful green trees and big flowers, not really seeing them but rather seeing the whole vision of what was in my periphery, the children, the smiles, the humanity. what my friend had said at the start of our conversation came to mind, "This home is good. No matter who you are, Buddhist, Christian, anything as long as you are human this is good." I was surprised by the tears that started to form in my eyes, I felt overwhelmed by the entire experience but no tears ever fell. The formation of them simply reminded me that I was feeling and to recognize it and remember the moment. I think I always will.