Ugh... The flight which had 1 number was actually 3 flights, each involving deplaning, going through security and waiting an hour or two to reboard.  I mostly napped and watched movies.

On my last Sunday here, I woke up early to go meet my friend Manoj to watch/play cricket.  This friend's nickname is "Dhoni" after the captain of the Indian cricket team because he plays so well.  I took the bus to a village about halfway from Bilaspur to his house, and had a glass of fresh mango juice while I waited.  After I was done and was standing and waiting, a rickshaw driver started asking me questions about where I was from, why was I here, etc., and a small crowd gathered around.

I was picked up and we went off to the cricket ground, which was a dusty field in front of a school.  Dhoni's teammates (who are all from his village) were waiting, and soon the game began.  Dhoni started out batting in both games, and in both games was out before he scored any runs - the only two times in his life it had happened, he told me.  He said he was so excited to show off that he got out quickly.  When it was their turn to field, I played with them, fielding 2 or 3 balls, and not making any real mistakes.  Dhoni made up for his batting by doing a good job of bowling, getting a few batters out.  They won both games, which were played for the stakes of 50 rupees per game.

After the game, I took some team photos and promised to send them to the team.  The players were all from the same village, and I went back with them to the small hotel where they go every Sunday after their match.  We filled up a table in the back and they got samosas.  I can't eat samosas, so I had a cup of tea and a Mazaa, which Dhoni insisted on buying for me.  One thing that happens often in the village is that people will always insist on paying for things.

It was a small village hotel, on the freshly (and only) paved main road.  It had an uneven cement/rock floor, and the front was filled with an open-air display of its fried foods. As we sat, the children of the owner snuck peeks at me from the back room, and a crowd gathered around the table.  The owner (who may have been drunk) asked me if I wanted a number of specific local wines, one by one... "do you want GP"... "do you want mahua...", etc.  At this point it was around noon, and I told him it was too too early to drink, but at night I would.

After the hotel, we went to Dhoni's house.  It was a fairly standard village house, two small buildings sandwiching a courtyard.  The front building has the father's bedroom, a small store, and a room that acts as something like living room during the day and a bedroom for everybody else during the night.  At one end is a small TV hooked up to a satellite dish that sits on their tile roof.  The back building has a kitchen with small wood/dung burning stoves and another with a gas range, along with storage room for a year's worth of rice.  The back building also has a bedroom for his older brother who is often away, as he works for the railroad.  His mom, dad, sister-in-law, and two nieces (from his oldest brother) live there.  He stays there on Saturday and Sunday nights, but otherwise lives on the JSS Ganiyari campus.  There is also a cowshed and a hand pump off to one side.

He had not yet showered, and I went with him and his friend Sanju to his oldest brother's house, where they have a small concrete shower area.  I think that the pump there is powered, so they can wash in the overflow from the tank without having to do extra work.  They showered, while I waited inside in the shade.  Everyone else in the house (his oldest brother, sister-in-law, and nephew - their son lives at home while the daughters live with the grandparents) was asleep in the afternoon heat.

We went back for a meal of rice and daal, accompanied by raw onions, kerela (a bitter vegetable), and pickle, and then we went back to the main road where I waited for the bus.  While I was waiting, I saw a scarf across the street I wanted to buy, so I asked Dhoni to come with me to help... I decided to purchase it, and once again he wouldn't let me pay.  When  I took out my money, Sanju put me in a bear hug, and Dhoni and the shopkeeper agreed to use this transaction to settle some earlier debt (I will find a way to pay him back before I leave, even if it means slipped money into his pocket!)

The day in the sun gave me my first (mild) sunburn of my India adventure, on one of the last days.  When I made it home, I put a plastic chair in the bathroom and poured cool water on myself.

After months of work (not constant work, I've been working on other things too...), the JSS web site is now live.  Check it out: http://www.jssbilaspur.org/

  -Seth

Dolly and I went to the local zoo last weekend, and met up with one of our friends who had been there about 50 times.  Its a local hangout, with a couple of animals - white tigers, lions, deer and mooise like critters, and some birds and small mammals, but no monkeys(!).  It also has many playgrounds and grassy areas where you can sit in the shade, which are rarities in this area, and is as much a reason for its popularity as the animals.

It was a bit difficult to get there, even though buses go right by.  We ended up on three buses that were going that way, before the conductor told us to get off.  Apparently, the fare isn't enough to justify the ride/stop, especially if they are running behind - and all of these shennanigans happened while backed up at the train crossing.  The locals have to deal with this, too, but some of the villagers will beat up the bus drivers for not stopped, so to be safe they usually pick them up.  We were clearly not from the villages, so I guess they weren't afraid of us showing up later with a vigilante posse.

After we visited the zoo we went to the next village down, Sukri, which is the first sizeable village past Bilaspur.  We go through it every day on the way to Ganiyari.  I was starving, so our friend took us to a Dhaba for chicken, even though he is a Brahmin and does not eat chicken.  It was my first time in a proper dhaba... it has a dirt floor, and the kitchen was an outdoor conrete counter.  The dining room in the back had a wooden bed with the blankets and thin matress rolled up... this was also the proprietor's bedroom.

We got chicken biriyani, which was as good as any I have had, not too greasy, the right amount of heat, and accompanied by a savory gravy.  Luckily we did not get sick later!  We followed that up with fresh mango juice for some refreshing after-dinner sweetness.

Outlook magazine, an Indian news magazine similar to Time or Newsweek has just published a very in depth article by Arundhati Roy about the Naxals/Maoists in this part of India and the Government's (and Corporations... not that there's much difference) war against them.

A few words from the article:

Over the past five years or so, the governments of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal have signed hundreds of MoUs with corporate houses, worth several billion dollars, all of them secret, for steel plants, sponge-iron factories, power plants, aluminium refineries, dams and mines. In order for the MoUs to translate into real money, tribal people must be moved.
 
...

We passed the house of the Superintendent of Police (SP), which I recognised from my last visit. He was a candid man, the SP: “See Ma’am, frankly speaking this problem can’t be solved by us police or military. The problem with these tribals is they don’t understand greed. Unless they become greedy, there’s no hope for us. I have told my boss, remove the force and instead put a TV in every home. Everything will be automatically sorted out.”

Walking with the Comrades

This post is more for people who may be googling "Kenstar" appliances or refrigerators than for people who may normally read this blog.  I am hoping that maybe I can save someone the trouble of buying one of Kenstar's poor-quality products.

We bought a Kenstar refrigerator in October, buying based on price.  We only needed the refrigerator to last a year or two (actually, it turns out we needed it for a much shorter amount of time), so we didn't concern ourselves too much with durability.  However, this Kenstar refrigerator broke in about 2 months, and it took a month to get someone to come and finally fix it.  Actually to get it fixed, we had to haul it to a repair center ourselves, even though someone was supposed to come.

The Kenstar customer service line was useless, all they could do was take a ticket and tell us that a ticket had already been taken.  Kenstar took no interest or responsibility in getting it fixed.

It broke twice more after that, the first time taking another week to get it fixed, and we've currently been waiting a month, though we've kind of slacked off on harassing the repairmen, since I'll be leaving and Dolly is unsure of her plans.

We suspect that part of the difficulty is that Kenstar is sexist (ok, its actually the local repairmen, but now google has the words "Kenstar" and "sexist" next to each other... twice!), with the repair center not taking Dolly seriously as she is a woman.  I don't speak Hindi, so I can't help much.

So... if anyone is India is thinking of buying a Kenstar appliance, don't!

... its only March and the temperatures are already hitting 100 degrees.  I've started waking up sticky and sweaty, I sweat through  my clothes on the way to and from work (especially the evening ride home), and our *^&^%$ refrigerator doesn't work - we've been trying to 2/3 weeks to get the repairman to show up and fix the compressor.

These lists apply mostly to Bilaspur, a place I am not too fond of.  India is a big place, and the conditions aren't the same everywhere.  Taking "I don't like Bilaspur" to mean "I don't like India" is the same as taking "I don't like Camden" to mean "I don't like America." I hope to return someday as a tourist, and I'm sure I will have a wonderful time.

Things I won't miss
Moquitos:  every night I kill around 30 of them as they fly around and try to bite me.  They fly low and stay out of sight and then get your feet.  Since the buildings don't have climate control, there is no reason to have insulation or even windows that close.  So the mosquitos can jusy fly right in and bite.

Buses:  Bus drivers drive like they don't get paid unless they're maniacs, so they're always barrelling down the road at too high a speed and passing in inappropriate places.  Unless they are picking up/dropping off passenegers, and they'll stop wherever they want, traffic be damned.

Horns:  Horns here aren't "push the button for the beep", they're "flip the switch for the cacaphony".  They are used all the time.

My celebrity status:  I stand out everywhere.  If someone wants to say hello or snap a quick picture, thats fine.  Sometimes they try to drag me into long conversations or take me over somewhere else to meet their family.  Thats not so fine.

The heat:  Last summer the high was 48 degrees C.  I refuse to convert that into Fahrenheit, but I think thats the temperature for slow-cooking BBQ pork.

Sanitation: Open sewers that overflow daily in monsoon.  Eww.  Also, people doing their business (both one and two) everywhere, and in plain sight.  This may be a cultural thing, but my cultural programming says "eww".  I have no plans on reprogramming.

Festivals:  There are more festival days than non-festival days.  There are so many that most half the time no one can tell us what the festival actually is.  I suspect its part of some kind of prank, and/or an excuse to get drunk and make noise all night. 

Random signature gathering: the other day I went to use the ATM, and as I was walking out the security guard pointed to the register to have me enter my name, bank, celll phone number and signature.  It was the first time this had happened... why do they need these records?  Can't they electronically track who's sticking cards into the machine?  There is also a habit of when a meeting is announced (work, or in the apartment building) of someone coming around to get signatures.  They are rather instant, and I'm not sure if they just want confirmation that you were notified, or if it indicates you will attend.  Also, sometimes shopkeepers want you to sign YOUR copy of the receipt.  Makes no sense.

Things I'll Miss
Cheap prices: The other day I went to the market and bought rice and vegetables.  Three dinners worth of veggies for 2 people was under $1.50, and the rice was $2.50 for 6.5 pounds, enough to last about 3 weeks.  Haircuts are under 50 cents, and as I've mentioned we have a woman who cooks/does dishes/sweeps and wipes the floor for about $20/month.

Monkeys: They haven't been around in awhile, but they sometimes hang around the neighborhood.  I was trying to think of good things about Bilaspur.  The best I could come up with was "they have some monkeys". (Second place was "the mosquitos don't carry malaria")


Both ways:
The food:  Indian food is very good.  I like Indian food.  However, I am not eating "Indian Food," I am eating a narrow regional cuisine. I am sick of white rice and potato curry and the same 5 or 6 vegetables.  I still haven't figured out breakfast.  (Idlis and dosas are good, but I don't make them at home).  A lot of the culture, including the food culture, seems dependent on having a woman to wake up early and do a bunch of housework.

Customer Service:  Customer service is personalized and attentive.   When shopping for clothes/fabrics, you sit and they'll bring you dozens of options.  The success of this depends how on-the-ball the shopkeeper is.  Sometimes they will listen to what you are looking for an expertly guide your selection.  Sometimes they will bring you things randomly in desparate effort to please.  If you are unlucky, your feedback will actually result in the opposite of what should happen - "I don't like the flowers... do you have plain patterns?" and they bring more flowers, or "I don't like the the purple, what do you have in yellow?" and they bring every hue of purple you could imagine.

What I have learned about India is that whatever you are trying to do it will be much more difficult and involve many more steps and days than you expected.  It took us 2 months to get a bank account open.  Our refrigerator has been broken more days than it worked.  So of course getting a plane ticket home proved to be more involved than expected.

Calling a travel agent in the US is difficult because of the time difference and international calling, so after a few attempts through an intermediary (my mom), Dolly talked me into talking to a local travel agent, on the grounds that whenever she or her friends have travelled to/from India, travel agents always got the best price.

The first travel agent I talked to seemed reasonable, but was from out of town.  She is located in Raipur, the nearest "big" city, and the city I will be flying out of.  She found a decent itinerary at a good price, but then when it came time to pay, it turned out that you can't just give a credit card number over the phone.  They needed a photocopy (or imprint) of the card and of the card-holders gov't issued ID... so basically you need to visit them in person.  The other option was to make a deposit to their account in the local branch of their bank and then mail them confirmation of payment.  Both options were way too much work, so we found a local agent.

Dolly talked to them for me because they are Hindi speakers, and I am not, and they had a little trouble answering basic questions: "What time does the flight leave Raipur?" "You land in Chicago at 10:50" "No, what time does the plane LEAVE from RAIPUR?"  "The connection is though Bombay".  So we went into visit them this morning to clear it up, and they guy we had talked to was gone for most of the day for an exam of some kind, even though we had talked to him earlier in the morning, and told him we were coming in.  You think he would have mentioned that he wouldn't be there.

We setup a flight plan with the other guy in the office, and then agreed to come back later that evening to pay.  In retrospect, I'm not sure why we didn't just pay then, but maybe the guy we were working with wasn't authorized to collect payments or something. 

I rode my bike there in the evening, and it was a festival day.  The second of nine nights of Navatri (basically translates to "9 nights"), where every day they worship one of Krisha's (or is it Shiva's) nine forms.  I smiled at a man who noticed that he was standing across from a mandir (temple), and at a rickshaw driver with his hair and bushy mustache dyed a ridculous red with henna.  I was in a good mood, happy to be on my way to obtaining my ticket home, and not bothered by the congestion and noise and chaos that is part of the culture with more gods to celebrate than days on the calendar. 

When I got to the agency, the price had gone up 7000 rupees (about $150)!  Though we were willing and able to pay in the morning, they decided that it wasn't important, and in the meantime, the price had increased 20%.  So I walked out, and rode back home, once again irriated by the traffic and the dust.

When I got back to the neighborhood and went to one of the doctors' houses, borrowed the Internet and booked online, like I should have done in the first place.  My mood was then restored.  If I had a working fridge, I would have bought a small bottle of vodka and a mixer, and chilled them for my not-to-much-later enjoyment.  I don't have a working fridge so I just went and got a popsicle.  I'm flying out of Raipur on the 7th, and will land in Chicago on the morning of the 8th.

When we were at Bahmni to see the clinic, we took a walk and came across this woman making brooms.

This was taken in January, just getting it up now.  The narrator is speaking Hindi,but isn't really saying anything important, and you get to see the layout of the mobile clinic and the activity within.

After much thought, I have decided to bring my trip to an end! I will be returning to the US next month (in April).

Though the plan was initially to stay for 2 years, it turned out being much harder living here than I expected.  Though I had been to Europe, both Western and Eastern, I was not prepared for how foreign a place I was coming to.  Not only is there a different language, there is a different set of ideas and values behind it, (as well as a new alphabet, and new sounds - there's 4 different t's and 4 different d's) and I didn't pick up as quickly as I had thought I would.

Beyond the broad differences in culture, the specific place in India in which we are living is a difficult place.  There are no young educated people here.  If they are lucky enough to be educated, they flee.  There are no supermarkets (there are places they CALL supermarkets, but they have only a little more variety than the small stores).  There is nothing to do, not even any parks or sidewalks for taking a walk.  It is hard to get anywhere as the roads inside and out of town are all small and of poor quality, and distances become magnified.  Going 200km isn't something you can do before breakfast - it takes all morning.

The result has been crushing isolation and boredom, and there is nothing I look forward to in my day to day life.  So in the interest of my happiness and mental health, I am coming back!

Last night our cook didn't show up, so we went out to dinner.  We walked to the main road, where there was only one auto (3-wheeler), which we took.  It had no shocks, and on the bumpy road out of our neighborhood, I hit my head twice on the metal crossbar.   After the second time, I told Dolly that if it happened one more time, I was getting out.  Thankfully, that didn't happen.

We went along, the decrepit auto struggling even to go downhill, and came to a busy intersection.  There was a rickshaw driver going in the same direction as us, pulling his vehicle across the road.  As we got to the middle of the street, we bumped into his back wheel with the front of our auto.  This was the first time I had ever been in an auto that hit something!  Then his handlebar got caught in the back opening of the auto, and we dragged his it the rest of the way across the intersection.

The rest of the ride was uneventful, until we got to the last stretch of road.  We told the driver to take a right, and he took the right and went down the wrong side of a divided road, and we drove against busy traffic for the half kilometer until we reached the restaurant.  He said we told him to go on wrong side, but by this point we couldn't take anything he said seriously.

Yesterday was Holi, the festival of colors.  Unlike Diwale and the autumn festivals, it does not have much religious significance.  It is a celebration of the winter harvest and the beginning of spring.  Basically, people buy a bunch of colored powders and throw them around.  The kids on our floor mixed them with water and shot them through squirt guns.  People were riding around on motorcycles throwing the powder as they drove by.  (Given how bright the colors are, it wouldn't surprise me if they contain lead or other heavy metals).  By noon, our apartment building was a colorful mess. 

The rest of the day seemed like any quiet, normal day... I guess my western expectation was that  the festival would be more evening based, especially since I was expecting more of a party atmosphere.  One of the traditional Holi drinks is supposedly a bhang (cannabis) based beverage, but aside from a few beers in the morning, there were no intoxicants of any kind (and supports my theory that they haven't figured out drinking here... starting drinking in the morning, and then stopping by lunch?  I just don't get it.)

Weddings and marriage are a big part of life in the villages, and almost all marriages here are arranged.  Its not a we-picked-this-person-for-you-when-you-were-4 arranged, but it is still very much a family affair to find a partner for a young unmarried family member.

I have been asked many times if I will have a "love marriage" or if my friends and family had love marriages or arranged marriages, and I have to explain that in America, we just say "marriage" and that we don't use the term "love marriage" because there's nothing else (except for in immigrant families/communities).

I was asked about the marriage ceremony in the US, and when I got to the "you may kiss the bride" part, I got some interesting responses... first: "Is it their first time kissing?", because in an arranged marriage you may not have had any physical contact with your partner-to-be.  The second "Oh my... in front of all those people?" because public displays of affection are very rare in India and indicate some kind of moral deficiency.

They are also shocked when they find out that Dolly and I have both had serious girl/boyfriends before.  Here, you fall in love once, and that's it.  If you're lucky you get to marry the person.  They have a saying "In America you fall in love and then get married, in India, you get married and then fall in love."  If you have had a serious relationship and it didn't work out, you are considered tainted or faulty, especially if you are a woman;

They think that their way is better because our way so often ends in divorce.  They overlook that divorce is not an option in India, as women are economically and socially dependent on their husbands' families and their own families may not take them back, a vulnerable situation which can lead to domestic violence and abuse. 

There is also a gap between belief and practice, and this goes for all of the moralizing.  Many of the people who will say, "Indian rules about love are perfect" are having affairs, they say "drinking is bad" but then they go get plastered, they say that you shouldn't date, but are seeing someone.  This is probably true of all small-town conservative societies, and I'm looking forward to returning to a liberal big-city!

Dolly and I were invited to a wedding by Ajay, one of the JSS workers.  It was his brother's wedding, and in India the groom travel's to the where the bride lives, to go get her and take her home.  We were told this bride lived some distance away, and they were taking a JSS vehicle to bring the guests.

We spent the night on the JSS campus so we would be there when the jeep left early.  We piled into the vehicle, filling every seat.  Then we picked up someone else, jamming him into the back.  We made our way to the groom's house about 20 minutes away.

At the grooms house a crowd was gathered, and they fed us an early lunch.  Fireworks were being set off outside.  At this point it began to be clear that even more people wewre going to be packed into the jeep, and we were headed to a location 6 hours away, the amount of time it takes to drive from Boston to Philly.

My plan was to sleep in the vehicle, and it became clear that would be difficult due to lack of comfortable space.  Staying awake was not a great option either, as there were no English speakers aside from Dolly, and my Hindi is not much better than greetings and pleasantries, simple questions, and being able to say what I ate last night.

So, I told them I wasn't feeling well, and got dropped off at the nearest town and I took the bus back.  I felt bad, as everyone was very excited to be going and also genuinely worried about my health.  However, I would have felt worse jammed uncomfortably in a jeep for 12 hours.

Dolly went, and they ended up staying at the wedding for a shorter amount of time than the car ride in one direction.  The men who went drank, including (and maybe especially) the ones who always say drinking is bad.  This attitude is partially because when they drink they drink like fools, and get stupid, falling down drunk.

Being in Bilaspur has given me some perspective on US road projects like the Big Dig.  India is capable of pulling off giant engineering projects.  They just opened the Sea Bridge in Bombay.  They have built nuclear weapons and enormous dams that.  But in Bilaspur, they can't build a simple bridge or pave a road.

I spent half an hour this morning waiting at a level crossing, where the road crosses the railroad tracks.  We sat for most of this time with no train coming.  I was not able to get a definitive answer as to why the gate was down for so long with no train coming, but the consensus was that people lack the discipline to obey the gate, so they put it down as soon as the train is scheduled to leave the station.  This discussion of the lack of discipline was accompanied by a demonstration; as we waited, vehicles filled the lane for oncoming traffic and setting up the inevitable traffic jam when the gate went up.

This scene unfolded in the shadow of the flyover they are building next to the road.  This has been under construction for over four years.  In the 9 months I have been here, there appears to have been no progress.  The two sides of the bridge do not line up properly, and the building stones on the side of the ramps are bulging outward from the pressure of the earth they are holding back.  The structure does not appear to be engineered to withstand the monsoon, and even when complete, I don't think I would want to travel across it.

Another project being undertaken in the neighborhoods is hooking up a sewer pipe.  Even in our middle class neighborhood there is currently no sewer connection, only open gutters (gross).  They are putting in the pipes, but not connecting the houses at this time.  So they are digging up the road to put in the pipe, and just pushing the dirt back because they don't want to patch thing up properly, as they will be dug up again when they connect the houses.  The result is that for kilometers in any direction, the roads are terrible.  There is a paved strip the size of a sidewalk down the middle, and the rest is dirt than gets torn up when it is wet, and then hardens like wavy concrete when it is dry and sunny, making a bumpy ride for any type of vehicle.

Over the weekend we got an invite to dinner from Joseph and Briana (the American girl) for Monday or Tuesday.  We choose Tuesday because it fit our schedule better, but it also happened to be my birthday.

When we got to their house, I was amazed to find out that they were making beef for dinner!  There is no beef available in Bilaspur, but Joseph is from Hyderabad, and when we was home recently his brother bought some beef.  Bilaspur is a day's train ride away, so they boiled the beef, wrapped it in plastic and put it in the freezer when they got home.

They used it to make a curry and a soup, and I would describe the cut, or at least the result, as being like a pot roast.  It was a really nice surprise.

I also got a few gifts from the JSS workers.  One of the lab techs bought me a shirt in true local style, red and white stripes with random English words on it.  It was a very sweet gift, as he only has a few shirts himself.  I also got a small Hanuman figurine from one of the workers who found out it was my birthday.  Hanuman is a monkey god and warrior, and so when I told Dolly I got a "little sparkly monkey" she pointed out the blasphemy, lol.

In a span of about 2 weeks, its gone from "cold feet when you're barefoot on the floor" to "starting to sweat" and "sleeping with the fan on".  Summer comes fast and early here.

A vaguely-connected, but funny story: The other day, Dolly was not feeling well (nothing serious, just a little nausea).  One of the village health workers asked her if she had showered that morning, because in warmer weather, sometimes you fell sick if you don't shower.  People here are very serious about hygiene.  My theory is that the environment is so dirty, they compensate by themselves being very clean!

This is a description of the types of patients seen on one day by a single doctor at JSS.  The doctors not only see patients, they run the whole place.  There are no other managers or administrators, so they mind the budgets, secure the funding, handle communications, and run the programs... and still have to find time to practice medicine (or vice versa).

http://ramani-fieldnotes.blogspot.com/2010/02/typical-clinic.html

Dolly and I went out to dinner one more time with Jonathan on the last night we would both be in town.  We went to a vegetarian restaurant named Swad that we had heard good things about.  We had not yet visited it because usually when we go out for dinner, we are going for chicken, so do not often visit strictly vegetarian establishments.  However, we had eaten out 2 or 3 time in the past week, so we weren't as protein crazy.

The food started out good, the fries (called "finger chips") and spring rolls were enjoyable, and then after awhile the entrees came.

I have many allergies/food intolerences, among them a dairy allergy.  My dish came out with a sprinkling of cheese on top, which is a common garnish.  This has happened before, and I should know by now to ask that they not put it on.  I scraped the cheese off, and noticed that there were cheese chunks throughout the sauce.

These chunks were too small and numerous to remove, so I ordered another dish, tawa vegetables.  A tawa is a flat frying pan, so basically I was ordering stir fry vegetables.  I asked specifically and multiple times for "no cheese, no paneer", and Dolly added "no cream".  It is not enough to ask for no dairy products, as that is not a food grouping that is known here.  I'm sure sure if you asked specifically about each product, people would know that it came from a cow, but you can't generalize under that description.

When my vegetables came out, there was the sprinkling of cheese on top.  And on closer inspection, there was paneer in the dish.  I called the waiter over, explained the difference in what I had asked for and what I had received, and he took the dish away.  A few minutes later, the dish came back out, clearly the same food with the paneer chunks removed and some, but not all, of the cheese scraped from the top.

I pointed this out to him, and showed him that there were still cheese shavings, which he claimed were gobi (cauliflower) pieces.  After I showed him it was clearly cheese, he told me it was not cheese, it was "decoration" (made of cheese).  I started saying that I had ordered something clearly and specifically, and he had not brought it.  In India, there isn't the concept of "sending a dish back," so I wanted to make it clear that I was not accepting this dish, as it was not what I ordered.  I guess I was getting loud and/or angry, so Dolly took over.  Eventually a manager came over and had the kitchen make something I could eat... by this time is was past 10 oclock, so I was very hungry.

Also, I saw a mouse running under some of the booths, but didn't mention it because Dolly would have freaked out. I don't think we'll be eating there again.

In the course of trying to get my visa situation straightened out, we learned that there is another American in Bilaspur, a white girl who married an Indian man, who is a pastor at a local Protestant church with the suspiciously Catholic name of St. Augustines.

I tracked down the couple, and last night we went to dinner with them.  The husband, Joseph, had been in Bilaspur for about 5 years, and the wife, Bryana, had been here for three months.  They asked us what type of food we were in the food for, and we settled on Chinese, and they knew a place.

The sign out front said "China Bowl: Chinese and Italian Food" and when we went in it felt suprisingly like we could have been in an American strip mall.  Except there was also pizza and pasta on the menu.  The staff was Chinese, and the menu was in English, so I started ordering in English and then realized I wasn't sure what language I should be speaking.  So I spoke my English-for-Indians and pointed.

The food ranged from bland to good, and it was also interesting to see how another American was coping with the local culture.  She seems to be mostly staying at home, as a housewife.  She speaks almost no Hindi, and said she doesn't go to the market by herself.

It was nice to hang out with some other people around our own age who spoke English.

We currently have a visitor from the US at JSS, Dr. Jonathan Fine, a resident of Cambridge, MA.  Jonathan is associated with the Boston chapter of AID (Association for India's Development) and is in the last week of a month-long stay.  Jonathan is 78 and retired, and has spent much of his life in human rights activism in places such as Iraq and the Philippines, among others.

Jonathan is very talkative, and asks questions machine-gun style, one right after another.  You only get time to answer a small percentage of them, as before the answer to one question has started to come, another question knocks that answer out of the way.  He is also very large-hearted, and has been very taken with JSS.  This stay was supposed to be 2 weeks, and he extended it, and he plans on coming back in the summer.

His task is to interview the most oppressed and unfortunate stories to shed light on the relationship of poverty and disease.  His first "case" is a boy who fell into the fire during an epileptic fit, requiring surgery to treat his burns.  This is not an uncommon story.  Jonathan has interviewed the family, finding that they can not afford enough food, they have borrowed heavily against their small plot of land, and they do not even have enough blankets to stay warm at night.  So Jonathan gave them the money to claim their land, buy blankets and buy dal.  His form of philanthropism (or at least, one of his forms) is very immediate.  (For a much more detailed version of this story, visit his newly formed blog at povertyandhealth.blogspot.com)

Last night Dolly and I decided to go out for dinner and we invited Jonathan.  Upon arriving at the restaurant, he invited the auto driver in to join us.  The driver was clearly embarrassed, and after much coaxing agreed to come in for something to eat, but he would not sit with us, and he ordered one of the least expensive things on the menu (a half order of chicken Briyani), which we told the waiters to make a full order.  The waiters, in the comically bungling manner we have come to expect, brought him a half order of mutton Briyani.  The driver ate this quickly and retreated to the comfort of his vehicle.  The other half of the order (this time chicken) was brought to our table near the close of the meal... we had this packed and gave it to the driver.

On the way back, Jonathan, energized by the food, kicked into question mode.  I learned some things I had been wondering about.  The driver owned the auto, and had paid 40,000 rps (about $850) for it.  He was saving to buy a new one, which would cost 110,000 rps (about $2300).  He had 50,000 rupees saved, and loans from the money lender were paid back with 10% monthly interest (as best we could understand).  His savings would take a hit as he is getting married this month.  His bride-to-be is a waitress/counter girl selling tea and samosa, and he is not taking dowry.  He is 35, and used to be an electrician, and he lost his lower leg when he got hit by a truck 3 years ago (oh yeah, he's missing a lower leg, and came into the restaurant on crutches.) .  He has a prosthesis from the government, but it is unusable.

By the end of the ride home, Jonathan had offered to find out more about getting him a proper prosthetic leg, and Dolly had ended up offering to help plan his wedding, which was a difficulty for him as he only had one woman at home to help.

It's been very nice having Jonathan here, not just for the comfort of having a fellow American and Bostonian around to relate to, but also because his energy is inspirational.  Dolly and I have fallen into a kind of crankiness and weariness and to see him jump in with a fresh enthusiasm has been refreshing.

Last week they were building a door on the small enclosure that had been the chowkidar's (watchman's) quarters, where he lived with his wife (our cook) and their daughter.  Its a small area, maybe 8x15, concrete on all sides, with a bench on one side.  This one room was their bedroom, living room, and kitchen.  They had no bathroom, only a tap on the outside of the building. 

The chowkidar was an alcoholic and abandoned his family at the end of November.  His wife continued on performing his duties for the month of December, when she gave up hope on his return and moved in with her family.

Dolly and I always thought it was outrageous that they didn't have a door, and we asked a few times why they didn't have one an how they could get one.  The space now has a door, and new occupants.  It is a man and his wife living there, and we haven't had a chance to find out more about them.

The other night we were driving home from Ganiyari on the busy main road when a motorcycle going the opposite way and carrying three people wiped out.  The passengers skidded along the road with the cycle, starting their slide at their driving speed of around 30 mph, traveling unprotected in the middle of the road as friction brought them to a halt.  Our driver luckily had time to swerve to avoid running them over, and fortunately none of them were seriously injured.

In this first month of the year we have already seen a number of wrecks on the road.  On New Year's day we saw the smashed remains of two big trucks which had hit head on.  These trucks are not as big as 18-wheelers, but are built like dump trucks, made for hauling cargo.  Based on what was left of the passenger compartments it would have been a miracle if there were no fatalities.

A week or two later an SUV T-boned a passenger van.  The first evening we saw the vehicles on the side of the road, and the debris from the accident marked the intersection for many days.  JSS was involved with those injured in this incident, and in this case there were several fatalities.

I have been told that India has the highest number of deaths per 1000 vehicles. No one wears seat belts.  The roads here are crowded and often in poor condition.  Major routes are often barely two lanes wide, like a rural county road in the US, and these roads are shared by massive trucks, 3 wheel taxis, bicycles and even ox-carts.   When two trucks pass there is room for no one else.  Truck drivers don't appear to be particularly regulated, and the drivers may be drunk/sleep-deprived/who-knows-what.  These rural highways seem to be more dangerous than the city, where it is more crowded, but people are more aware and driving slower.

It is in the back of our minds that we could be victims of a traffic accident.  JSS has good drivers to pilot the vehicles, and we are in sizeable SUV's, so we have reason to hope we make it out OK!

A few weeks ago a friend from the lab organized a day trip to a temple site called Amarkantuk. His friend picked me up early in the morning and we headed on our way, stopping by the JSS clinic to pick up the rest of the people, 11 of us jammed into a van. Shortly after this we stopped for tea.

On the way we made a roadside stop for firewood which we gathered in the woods, and after another 80km, we stopped again for tea.

We wound through the forests for a total of three or four hours and then as we approached a gate, we turned off down a dirt road. I thought we were going around some toll, but we were headed to a lunch spot at an "ashram" (basically a hut in the woods by a stream) where they cooked a lunch of mixed veggie curry, dal, and rice, served as always on leaf plates. Also, they made tea. A short distance from the where we ate was the edge of a cliff at the center of a horseshoe-shaped valley, which gave us nice views.

After lunch, which probably took 2 hours in total, we went to a waterfall, about 120 feet high where there was a path to the bottom and you could walk under and behind it. Most of the men bathed (their daily bath). I went in, not to clean myself, but because it was a chance to get under a waterfall. It was cold water on an already chilly day, but it was an invigorating dip.

By this point it was late in the afternoon, and we visited a few temples. The men are all religious, to varying degrees, and so they acted devout and respectful. Temples are to India as churches are to Europe, and after awhile, you've seen enough of them, and in Amankartuk there are dozens of temples of different sizes. The scenery was very nice, as many of the temples were along the edge of the cliff.

The ride home was long and windy and most of us slept.

Here are some videos posted by Pampi who came to visit at the end of November:

Seven months after landing, I have started Hindi lessons, with an elementary school teacher on our floor. Hopefully this will give my Hindi skills a kick in the butt.

Now I have Hindi lessons three days a week and tabla lessons another three... I feel like I'm back in grade school going from soccer practice to cub scouts to play dates (these days set up by Dolly).

This is the most common way of feeding a large group in India. Make a big pot of rice, a big pot of dal (beans/lentils), and a big pot of sabji (vegetable curry). Sit everybody on the ground on mats, and give them a leaf plate. Serve the food on the plates, and keep coming around until everyone is full. At the end, throw the leaves back into the forest/field.

JSS has three outreach clinics in different villages, and I had been to the closer two. Last week, Dolly and I went out to the most remote one in Bamhni. The Bamhni clinic is in the tiger reserve, and JSS leases the land it is on. They can not buy the land because only tribals can buy land from other tribals. It was built with labor volunteered by the village, and when it was complete, the government filed a lawsuit against JSS for having a health center in a forest area. The people of the villages went and had a sit-in in the government buildings, and the case was dropped.

The clinic is about 70km outside of Bilaspur, and it took about an hour and half to reach from Ganiyari. On the way, we went through a few gates marking the edge of the forest area. The village itself is "rather large" for a forest village - about 300 people. When they have the clinics, people come from even further in the forest, sometimes walking for hours even if they are sick.





The building which houses the clinic is built in the traditional manner, from mud and straw. It is horse-shoe shaped, with two examining rooms and a storeroom on one side, a long open room in the back, and a pharmacy and kitchen on the other side. There is also a laboratory area near the back, under the roof, but otherwise outside. When the weekly clinics are held, at least one lab tech goes with a microscope and an array of chemicals and tests, allowing them to examine blood and other fluids for parisites and other problems.





White people are infrequent visitors to Bamhni, and I got a lot of stares. At one point around sunset, I took a walk with two of the workers to find the one spot in the village where you get cellphone reception, and we ended up standing for a while in front of a house, messing with the phones. A little boy, maybe 7, and his younger sister stood at the wooden front gate staring at us. After a short time the little boy went to the back and came back a few minutes later with an axe. He made some slow and deliberate chops on the gate while staring at us, as best I could tell threatening us, and specifically me. It might have been menacing if he weren't so small. After about 30 seconds his mom yelled at him, and he moved onto staring at us from some shadows, still holding the axe.

The morning we were there, the doctor was waiting for her tea, and explained that she had asked them not to make it "like syrup". When the tea came, it was clear what she meant. My black tea could have passed for warm, flat Coke.

We used to leave our trash can outside in front of our door every morning. The watchman would come and dump it into his big can, and then take it out to its appropriate place.

Now that we have no watchman, we have to take care of the trash ourselves, and we have learned what that "appropriate place" is... its behind the building. You take the trash out and throw it into the open lot. Pigs and cows and dogs will eat the organic stuff, and the plastic stuff is just gonna pile up.

The first picture is of some young girls in a creche (nursery) run by JSS. The other of a man washing in a stream in Bahmni. The river is almost empty now, but in rainy season, it floods and makes the river crossing impossible by vehicle and dangerous on foot.

(I meant to post this last week, but somehow it didn't make it up)

The other night, Dolly got left behind at the JSS campus. Most nights, two cars come back, and on this night Dolly stayed to play volleyball, intending to catch the second vehicle. The driver knew she was coming on that car, but had fallen asleep and was startled awake by the doctor who had stayed behind. In his sleepy confusion, he forgot about Dolly until they were about 20 minutes away. They called Dolly to see if they should come back, and she told them she would just stay the night.

She hung out talking with friends until about 1 in the morning, when she went back to the guest room, which shares and entrance/front room with the living quarters of one of the doctors. She isn't a nun, but her last position was at a mission. During an earlier conversation about eating habits and ghee (clarified butter), someone noticed that she ate a lot of it and remained thin. They wondered where it went - "Rightous Indignation" was someone's accurrate answer.

This doctor was still awake and about when Dolly came back, and started questioning her about where she had been. Had she been out doing work? (no). Was she out with girls or boys? (both). Give me their names! Dolly didn't tell her who she was out with, and she "banned" Dolly from the guest room. We found out later she has been on a bit of a rampage of late, harassing people (working adults) for staying out/up late.

Many of the women especially are intimidated by this type of behavior, and for the young women telling the threat of having their parents told these things is legitimately scary. For Dolly, it was an annoyance, but for staff, getting on the wrong side of a "sir" can mean the loss of a job. Fortunately, the rest of the doctors are more reasonable, and the doctor who's staff was most harassed told her that this isn't her ashram.

Our cook, Choti, left at the end of last month. She went back to her village with her brother. Since then we have been cooking for ourselves, except for one day where we had a new woman come so we could try her food. While her food wasn't amazing, it was very good, and she left the kitchen clean. (Dolly managed to make some eggplant the other night that was excellent, despite having no confidence in her process of cooking)

We will start having her come daily soon, and she will come when we are at work, so when we get home there will be dinner ready. This will be very nice, as we often get back hungry and unsure of when the cook would show up, and when she did it would be another 45 minutes of babysitting before we would eat. Its sad that she had to leave the way she did, but we had been talking about finding a different cook from about the first month after we hired her.