Tuesday, August 31, 2010

This is not what I was expecting, but that's ok :)

My plans have changed quite drastically in the past week.

On Sunday I arrived in Punjab to begin my internship, and soon found out that the organization was a crapshoot. I'm not entirely sure if it's a scam, or just incredibly badly conceptualized and run. Basically, I had decided to intern with a local NGO because I wanted to learn from local staff – I wanted to learn about Punjabi culture, about traditional ways of interacting with the environment, traditional ways of water conservation. Instead, I found myself in an organization whose boss, although Punjabi, hadn't lived in a rural setting since childhood, and one local staff member whose job was essentially to pick up interns from various train stations and airports. The real work was done by interns – there were about 30 when I was there. This NGO represents everything that angers me and frustrates me about development – Westerners with no local knowledge going to an area for a short period of time, seeing the situation as an outsider, and trying to be make culturally inappropriate changes to the way of life. That is not the kind of development work I believe in. I truly believe that any project needs to start from the bottom-up, needs to be conceptualized by members of the community who have a real understanding about the needs and possibilities of “improvement.”
Instead of doing something that I truly believe is not only ineffective but counter-productive and wrong, I decided to leave the internship. I argued with the head of the NGO on my last day, telling him that I was not comfortable doing the kind of work that he was asking of me, and that I fundamentally disagreed with his idea that “anyone can do anything without knowing anything” (his word!) He told me that “those were just words” and that maybe he could explain things to me in a way that I could “understand” (please read with the most condescending tone of voice imaginable). I don't know if he was so condescending because I'm a woman, but it was really infuriating. My favorite (least favorite?) line that he told me was when he said that I was closed-minded. “If you're blinded I can't explain to you the color blue.” As if his idea of Westerners trying to change rural Punjab was some sort of absolute truth. That signaled the definite end to my internship. I'm still in “talks” with him to try to get my intern fee back, which I doubt he will have the courtesy to return, but either way, I'm out of there, and am I ever glad about it.

I took a bus to Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj on Friday with one of the interns, where we spent the weekend listening to a public teaching by the Dalai Lama. He talked a lot about the science behind calmness, and the scientific benefits of following Buddhist philosophy, which I found really interesting. I love how Buddhist philosophy encourages self-discovery, reasoning, rationality, and logic, rather than blind faith in a God or dogma. He told a story of being invited to speak at a government function in the state of Bihar. The head of the state gave a speech saying how, “with the grace of God,” Bihar would become successful and achieve its goals. When the Dalai Lama got up to speak, he said that if all Bihar needed was the grace of God, it would have gotten everything by now. Instead, the fate of the state was in the hands of the governor and of the people.

The guy I'd travelled with went back to Punjab on Sunday, so I switched into a cheap hostel with stinky sheets but a nice atmosphere, and began this solitary adventure. And I'm loving it :). I love being able to have diner with other travelers when I feel like it, but being able to sit alone and self-reflect when I don't. I love walking to neighboring villages on my own, whenever I want, stopping to take pictures or have tea at a time that suits only me. I love looking through my guide book, knowing that I have 6 weeks in front of me to do absolutely whatever I want in this vastness of Northern India – being able to choose between the mountains of Sikkim and northern West Bengal, the bustle of Kolkota, the desert of Rajasthan, and more. This country is at my fingertips, and I'm so excited.

I think I will stay in Dharamsala for another day or two, then get a bus to Manali. From there, I will make my way around Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand, and Punjab. And then? Who knows...

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Who knew?

Who knew you could fit one white girl and 9 Punjabis in the back of one auto-rickshaw?

Who knew that it was actually possible to get soaked with rain while sitting INSIDE a public bus during monsoon season - leaky roofs :)

Monday, August 16, 2010

Yes, I'm Still Alive, Take Two

On August 6th, at about 12:30am, a cloud burst over Ladakh and caused massive flash floods and mudslides throughout the region. The devastated area includes Ladakh, China, and about one fifth of Pakistan. The death toll will likely never be known for sure, but hundreds were killed in Ladakh, and hundreds more are missing, presumed dead.

Before this happened, we had spent a couple of beautiful days in Nubra Valley, in northern Ladakh. We were in a small village called Hunder, our guesthouse was next to a stream and shadowed by gorgeous mountains. On the night of the 5th, we watched the intense lightning from the safety of our valley, not imagining the devastation that was about to occur. The next morning, as we drove into Leh, on what turned out to be the only road not destroyed by the mudslides, there was an eery feeling, as everything was closed and no locals were around. Turns out, about a quarter of the town of Leh had been destroyed or damaged, including the main bus station and the hospital, and many of the surrounding villages were also devastated.

The next morning, I went to the place where volunteers had been working the previous day, and did what little I could to clear some rubble, in an attempt to find the last body that had yet to be found from a group of destroyed homes. We didn't find a body, but we did find personal belongings. As we pass buckets of mud and bricks down the human chain of volunteers and Tibetan soldiers, we would occasionally see a spoon, a child's toy, a sock... We essentially deconstructed homes, brick by brick, minute possession by minute possession. We would occasionally come across children's school books or family photos, which were put aside by the monks. Every now and then, our human chain of hands would have to stop to let through authorized cars. “Authorized cars” basically meant a funeral procession – a car carrying a dead body up to the mountain to be burned, the following car carrying some monks, and the last car piled high with firewood. That's really when it hits home – these are not just bricks, these are people.
At one point in the afternoon, while I was standing in a mud hole that used to be someone's home, I suddenly looked up and saw everyone running down the road, away from the place where the mudslide had come. A rumor had started that another mudslide was on its way. Within a matter of seconds, I found myself on the top of a steep hill next to the destruction. I had run so fast that I don't even remember how I got there. We waited at the top of the hill, waited for something to come crashing down, women crying in fear. In the end, it turned out just to be a rumor, and it took me a while to figure out how to get down because it was so steep. At the end of the day, we started finding clothes, so assumed we had stumbled upon what could have been a bedroom, where we were likely to find a body. Soldiers took over and uncovered CDs, notebooks, a pair of jeans with a wallet still in the back pocket, but no body. Although I hope for the person's family (and for public health) that the body is found, I'm glad I did not find it. What sort of psychological effect would that have on someone...

By the next day the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) had taken over the coordination of the relief efforts. In the morning, they sent a group of us out on a flatbed truck to a surrounding village to gather firewood to burn the bodies. The truck stopped at every house, and everyone gave some wood. Although they most likely would need it to keep warm over the winter, the sense of community was unmistakable. Something had happened that was bigger than an individual, bigger than one family's immediate comfort. The community was mourning, and everyone did their part to alleviate the pain. That afternoon we were sent to the hospital to start clearing the first floor of the 40 cm of mud that covered it. Back breaking work. I felt like a rice picker. While there, I overheard Western tourist doctor who had been volunteering at the Army's mess hall, by then converted to a makeshift hospital, that they had no more anesthesia. All they could do was hold the children down as they performed surgery...

For the next few days, we were sent to various villages around Leh. We first went to Phiyang, or what used to be Phiyang. On the drive there, we witnessed what seemed like a mass exile of Bahari seasonal migrants – hundreds of men walking on the side of the road with all their possessions strapped to their backs, seemingly getting ready to walk across India, back home to Bihar. I was in a group with 3 Frenchies and a few Ladakhis, and we were the first relief team to make it to Phiyang, since the army had only finished rebuilding the bridge to the village that morning. We walked up to the monastery, one of the only visible structures still intact. As we walked, we passed a gate with a sign saying “Welcome to the Monastery School of Phiyang,” but there was nothing behind the gate. Just mud. In front of the monastery, about 20 shell-shocked locals welcomed us to their tent camp, offered us tea and biscuits that the army had just brought them. “First, we have tea.” It reminded me so much of the book “Three Cups of Tea,” which I had just read. Despite tragedy, these people remained so hospitable and grateful that we were there.
A monk led us down to an area still covered with wet mud that sometimes reached our knees. As we stood on a mound, he poked his walking stick in the earth and said “one body missing from here.” We walked over to the second mound, in front of some trees, and with the same motion and stoic voice said “two bodies missing from here. Dig.” So we dug. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The bodies could have been there, or they could have been in Pakistan, brought down the Indus by the force of the raging waters. In the end, we found nothing but a single, crushed, plastic bottle - the only sign of life that came out of that mud all day.

The following day we went to a beautiful village called Saboo, which is where the cloudburst is rumoured to have occurred. Because roads and bridges had been destroyed, we walked up the mountain for two hours until we found the house we had been looking for. We were to dig out the three remaining rooms of a house, and look for the body of the old man who had been living there. His body would either be in the room to which I was assigned, or else it would have been carried down the valley along with the other two rooms of his house. We found nothing but boulders and mud. At one point while I was digging, the Ladakhi guy that was with us told me “Don't shovel too hard, there might be a body under there...” He had pulled several bodies out of the mud in the previous few days, so he knew what he was talking about...

The next day, a candle-lit march was arranged. Thousands of people, presumably the entire town - survivors, victims, tourists - gathered at the petrol station, and began the assent up the main road that had paved the way for the mud to flow smoothly through civilization. As we walked up through the devastation, surrounded by pentatonic Buddhist chants, candles, and prayer beads being fingered by faithfuls, it really hit home that this could have happened to anyone. We were in the path of destruction at that moment, just like we could have been at 12:30am on August 6th.

After a day of rest to nurse a pulled hamstring, I returned to my digging expeditions, but this time in the devastated Tibetan refugee settlement of Choglamsar. Most of the army brought up from Delhi had been sent there, as the village was in ruins - there were rivers where there once had been roads and homes. Unfortunately, the soldiers seemed quite disinterested with the local population. Their combat clothes were perfectly clean, while us volunteers were covered in mud, cuts, and bruises. More than once I witnessed scores of soldiers standing by as exhausted locals attempted to move heavy furniture or tree stumps from their homes. After lunch, I was walking back to a house in need of digging out with a girl from St Gallen I had met that morning, when a soldier came up to us and asked for our help in digging out a home. We followed, thinking his request was sincere. However, when we got there, shovels were put in our hands while the soldiers sat around and smoked cigarettes, still perfectly clean despite a morning of supposed 'hard work.' The soldier who had asked us to come over told us that when we were tired we could take a rest. I told him that when I got tired I would give him the shovel and it was his turn. “No, I don't shovel. I command.” Well, commander, it's time to stop giving shovels to women, children, and tourists, and have your men do some real work. After berating him for a while, in an attempt to kick some good old Swiss efficiency into these men, he left to go on his lunch break, from which he never returned. With the commander gone, the new and improved Swiss commandos were able to take charge, and get the few remaining soldiers to do some real work (although they were sure to avoid picking up any stones with their bare hands, as it may have dirtied their previous jewels). After about a half hour, though, they were too tired so decided to take a break. We left.

On the final day of work, I returned to Phiyang with a big group of German volunteers. We dug out a family's home alongside the family members, who had all survived but were forced to live in a tent in what used to be their back yard – 3 generations, eating, sleeping, living in one tent. The family was so grateful we were there – one of the women said thank you under her breath every time she filled her shovel with mud – that it almost made me uncomfortable. Why were they so grateful? Why was the fact that human beings were helping other human beings after a disaster like this so unusual? They showered us with biscuits and chai and butter tea, and fed us a wonderful lunch, just like all the other affected communities had. They sacrificed what little they had for us foreigners who have everything, who will soon go back to our cooshy lives where we know that mountains won't come down on our poorly constructed homes, where we know our water will be safe to drink, where we will have enough food for the winter because our only source of food, our crops, has not been destroyed.

Reflecting on the experience, I suppose that what makes me uncomfortable is that I feel like the Ladakhis were so grateful that someone, somewhere was finally caring about them, that they were finally important. It took a disaster to make these people important to the West, to reverse the roles and have the rich foreigners do manual labor for the benefit of the poor brown people. And does the world really care? Pakistan, which was even more severely hit by this same disaster, is not receiving the kind of help from the international community that it so desperately needs. Twenty million people have been affected by the disaster in that country. 3.5 million children are at high risk of water-borne diseases.

I don't really care if this seems tacky, but here's a link to donate to Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders' efforts in Pakistan:
http://www.msf.org.uk/pakistan_floods_update_11aug2010_20100811.news

And to end, a short list of things I've learned from this experience:
- I really do have a talent for shoveling mud out of houses. Maybe I should think about a career in construction?
- After smashing my finger between a rock and a hard place in Phiyang, I realized that I can live quite well with only 9 fully functioning fingers, at least for a few days.
- Thank Novartis for Tetanus shots.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Leh, Ladakh

The beauty of these Himalayas is only equaled by the warmth of the Tibetan people that inhabit the region.

Leh is fantastic. It's a little Buddhist town nestled among mountains in a high altitude desert, relatively near the borders with China and Pakistan, in the Ladakh region. It's technically part of Jammu & Kashmir, but other than the J & K Government cars and banks throughout the town, you would never know that this is anywhere but Tibet. The area is surrounded by monasteries, and throughout the city's streets are many Tibetan refugee markets, and more prayer flags than I've ever seen in my life. The sun is fierce, at 3500m, and the air is incredibly dry, so my lips are chapped beyond recognition. The area reminds me in some ways of northern Vietnam, which I loved and cannot wait to return to. Sapa, like Leh, is a town where Europeans flock to in order to avoid the heat that blankets much of the rest of the country (ie. Vietnam and India), and where mountaineers gather before going on treks. Although Sapa at times feels a little artificial, in the way that it caters almost exclusively to tourists, this place has kept the very spiritual essence of itself, with the monasteries and Buddhist monks dotting the landscape. Zach, the offer still stands for a future trip here. If you're down, I'm down.

Yesterday I got a shared Jeep with 3 other people to go to Pangong Lake for a couple of days, a waterbody that is well into Tibet, and the majority of which actually lies over the Chinese border. The drive there was spectacular driving through the Himalayas for hours, in a scenery that is mostly high-altitude desert, but with several populated valleys of green, as well as some sand dunes on the final stretch, before the magnificent turquoise lake appeared. On the way, we even stopped drove past one of the highest roads in the world, at 5360 m! We were dropped off in our home for the night, a Tibetan homestay right on the banks of the lake. The family, an elderly Tibetan couple and their 16-year-old niece, lived in one house, with their livestock in a stone penn out front. Another house with three rooms had been constructed, where I and the other 3 members of my Jeeping crew slept. Tents were also set up, and were eventually inhabited by a group of French and Spanish backpackers.

As I sat in my single room, I thought about what to do. For the first time since I can remember, I felt a real sense of freedom. I was away from everyone I knew, without a phone, in one of the most peaceful and remote places on the planet. I had no deadlines, no meetings, no essay or application due, no time at which to be back. Especially after the East African trip, where every hour was accounted for by a lecture or NGO visit, it was an incredible feeling to be able to do exactly what I wanted, when I wanted.

After settling in and leafing through the photo album that my new "homestay dad" brought out to show us, I decided to go for a walk along the water. I started walking toward China. Although I knew it was over 100 km away, and that tourists weren't allowed further than about 10 km from where I was standing, it was a nice little goal to set myself. I walked for a few hours, stopping to take pictures and just contemplate the power of nature - these mountains, that have been here for millennia, that move ever so slowly, only allowing water to pass through them to create valleys.

I wish I knew more about nature, about the history of the Earth, about science, about geology, about evolution, about the interconnectedness and interdependence of people and the Earth. I wish that when I looked at a mountain range or a river or a lake I could do more than just admire. I wish I could fundamentally understand the processes at work. I wish Dr. Engstrom and Dr. Shiklomanov could teach me everything they know about hydrology, Arctic climatology, and all their other snipets of scientific knowledge.

Geography is the study of humans' interactions with the environment, and how they both influence one another. Through university, I can learn the science behind the environment, this knowledge that I've craved ever since Dr. Shiklomanov made science interesting something no one had ever been able to do before. (It's crazy to think that this time last year I was sitting in an internet cafe in Vietnam complaining that I had to take a 'Weather and Climate' class with 'some new Russian professor'). Through travel, I can hope to understand people a little bit better, and the many ways in which these interactions with the environment can vary, and more specifically, the level of respect that more traditional societies accord to nature, which we in the West often forget.

“I used to assume that the direction of 'progress' was somehow inevitable, not to be questioned. I do not anymore. In Ladakh, I have learned that there is more than one path into the future and I have had the privilege to witness another, saner, way of life a pattern of existence based on the coevolution between human beings and the earth. Industrialized countries have lessons to learn from people like Ladakhis about building sustainable societies. It may seem absurd to believe that a 'primitive' culture in the Himalaya has anything to teach our industrialized society. But our search for a future that works keeps spiraling back to an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth, an interconnectedness that ancient cultures have never abandoned.”
-Helena Norberg-Hodge, "Ancient Futures”