helping out & teaching away.

teaching has been a lot different than expected. primarily because when speaking of the montessori children i'm meant to teach, teaching becomes impossible. have you ever tried doing activities with up to 75 three year-olds that don't speak your language and don't see you as a person of authority? well, i haven't either. until now, that is. as you can probably imagine, it's REALLY not easy. that's why when it comes to the little ones, i'm more of a helping hand whenever i am needed rather than an actual teacher.

until now, it has been going like this. it's actually quite amusing when i look at it now. no one EVER gives me work to do, people tend to tell me to just sit down and rest. but rest from what? i see people struggling with decorating the wall because they're so small but no one would EVER think of asking me to help, although they know that my arms are way longer than theirs. indian pride. becaues of this, i tend to wander around the building all day looking for stuff to do. by now i've even got my little schedule worked out. every morning, i do the morning meditation with the children. this means that i sit in front of them, we 'meditate' for five minutes (try getting up to 70 little ones to sit still and close their eyes..now THAT's a challenge). afterwards, i tell them good morning and ask them how they are. the standard answer that is yelled at me simultaneously is 'I AM FINE THANK YOU!!!!!' which is lovely. then: vocabulary revision. how many days are there in a week? there are seven days in a week! monday, tuesday... how many months are there in a year? there are twelve months in a year! january, february, march.. and so on. afterwards: body parts. head! nose! eyes! mouth! neck! arms! :) (and can i just say, i know all of those things in tamil as well, just in case).

after this morning ritual, the kids play for about 45 minutes. luckily, we have the original montessori materials here at the school, so all of those carefully designed building blocks, puzzle pieces and things to use in practical life, like sewing kits and zippers to practice with. normally i join them for about 30 minutes and then go downstairs to help the kitchen ladies fill up 70 cups with some kind of porridge consisting of nuts and rice and wheat.. (it looks disgusting, it's some kind of brownish goo but it actually tastes pretty good). after helping the teachers get 70 kids to sit down and eat without spilling it, i clean up and re-join them outside, where they play for two hours in the sun. boy, all the exercise i've been doing here.. (combined with the vegetarian healthy food i've been eating has resulted in me having to cut an extra hole into my belt so that i don't lose my pants, so that's good!). after play: food again. this time, they get what we call 'a nutritious meal' which usually consists of rice and some kind of curry. just for the record, three year-olds are not experts when it comes to eating rice. i sweep the hall where they eat after every lunch and the amount of rice i sweep up would be enough to feed a family of five. anyways.
sleeping time after that, which means i get two hours of free time where i normally sit on 'my' balcony and read. it's lovely to finally have time to read again, i've been reading book after book and never get tired and the capacity of the bodhi zendo library has yet to be exhausted. i've also noticed that i miss school and i miss having to study, i miss having a constant flow of new information coming to my head. being in a play-school doesn't exactly help this feeling, so i've just been reading it off. after nap-time there's another hour of games, rhymes, exercising and storytelling where i participate and help the teachers (!) pronounce the words they're teaching the kids correctly. my montessori day ends after that.

as you can see, there is not a lot of actual teaching involved on my parts. this is due to the fact that the school here works with a very well organized system and basically there is no real use for an extra pair of hands. what is also not particularly advantageous is the fact that i have no official teaching qualificatino and that i have no ambition to be a teacher later on. the teachers rely on me for my knowledge of the english language and for background help, the rest they do. and that's just fine. like i said, wherever i am needed, i help and there's a couple of other things going on where i feel a lot more useful.

one of these things is the evening tuition, which is an entirely different story. 

actually no one ever asked me to be part of it but i just happened to be there once and since then they've literally been begging for more. there are four different groups of kids, aged from 10 to about 16 or 17. for them, the school building is just a place where they can meet and study together. i wander from group to group and just sit and talk to them (aka practicing spoken english). it's hilarious to be with them, because for the majority of them i'm like a mythical creature. they keep on poking me and my hands and my feet, comment on the fact that my skin and hair is sooooooo different, ask me about family details (stuff no one in europe cares about).. the good thing is that they're so intrigued just by my presence, that i don't actually have to plan anything. conversation just happens, slowly and in poor english but it does. and hey, practice makes perfect doesn't it? activities come to my mind naturally when i'm with them and the good thing is that their english has reached a level where playing simon-says actually works. also, i've been playing the games with them that the teachers at the montessori school try to play with the little ones (and may i emphasize on 'try', because the little ones just have no clue what's going on haha) and: the good thing about the tuition is that they regularly have teachers coming in to teach them stuff like gardening or yoga, and that i am urged to participate. it's nice. the garden work i did, reluctantly, but it was definitely more fun than watching them do yoga. i'm not that far yet and not willing to let some french lady tell me to now do the cobra and look at the sun-godess.. so far meditation is enough. :P

what i also wanted to say is that the evening tuition kids and teachers (they have several qualified high-school tamil teachers) teach me tamil in exchange for my english-services, hence my knowledge of important words like 'nose' and 'leg'. yesterday, i learnt 17 new words. it's much more fun to be in the tuition, because i don't feel like a big white alien with no PROPER job. in the montessori school, i feel a bit lost. the teachers are not talkative, the children don't see me as a person of authority and NONE of the activities i've tried to do with them have worked so far. and still, there is always the need of a person translating. also, many of the kids require some 'special' treatment because off some health/family stuff that i don't know about, so it's better if i just step back. one should now that i'm the first actual volunteer they have had who has also lived at the school and who is technically always availible. their system is not made for an extra pair of hands, but i've found my way so far and hope that over time i will get to do more and more things. let's not forget i've only been here for three weeks, and probably it hasn't even been that because there is at least one tamil holiday per week..

anyways. what also HAS been exceptionally good though is the fact that outside the teaching aspect of being at school, i am included in ALL of the running activities. so far, i have had the priviledge to re-design the school information adverts, to write completely new summarizing texts about the school and maria montessori, to photo-document all the running activities and the next big thing is that i have been asked to provide the complete footage for a 10-minute short-film about the school and the evening tuition for information purposes. in that context, i feel extremely useful and people seem happy with my work and ideas. romba nalladhu - very good! :) it seems like from day to day, my imaginary job description is being modified. it all boils down to this. wanda is in india and is the helper at the little flower school project. period.

having established this state of mind, i decided to treat myself to an indian-bus ride. don't worry, i went with my friend shyam. i survived, but it wasn't easy. luckily i didn't have to stand (shyam did) because there are separate seats for women. the system is a bit medieval. anyways. indian buses don't have doors (seriously), never stop completely (hence there are no doors, people just jump in and out) and go faster than any other vehicle on the road. the people standing near the 'door' or who are hanging on the side are actually incredibly talented for surviving a journey on the public bus. i was really really really scared but saved 295 rupees worth of taxi-money. and i got to sit.
haha. what's also funny is that although the buses themselves look like they were stolen from some chinese factory in the early sixties, they have TVs inside. you know those tiny TVs that used to be modern in the 90s? the screen is pretty tiny but the entire thing is about 40cms long at the back.. indian buses have those in them. but they're never on because there's no power supply in the bus. here's to logical thinking!!

to end this post, i'd like to say that i'm flattered at the amount of visitors i've been getting and i really appreciate that you're reading what i have to say. i'm trying to update this blog as often as i can, but please be patient with me. the only real free time i have to write is on weekends. :)

tamil - a mystery.

i have decided to learn tamil. actually i decided that the minute i found out that i would be going to india, and in singapore i bought two self-study books. you can tell by the look of them that they only cost me about 5 dollars - or at the latest when you see the page that gives you a series of symbols and says 'read and pronounce correctly' with no transliteration or clue as to how on earth you pronounce that certain squiggly line.

i was very proud of myself today when i understood what a child said to me, just because i was skimming my book a couple of hours earlier and happened to remember a word. 'thambi' means little brother. anyways. i have figured out how to conjugate verbs and how to form sentences. what's killing me is the vocabulary. in all the other languages i've learned to speak there was something in my previous base of knowledge that i could relate to - even in swedish common sense just seemed to help me, it was logical. tamil is another story. there is nothing, and believe me, absolutely NOTHING that only sounds remotely like it. maybe because it's one of the only two languages worldwide that has existed (unchanged) since the second century BC (!). anyways. believe me, it's difficult. basically it means that i have to learn every single word i would like to use in conversation. conjugations are like in any other language - with a lot of exceptions) and there are at least 5 different ways how to say the same thing, which makes learning it even more difficult because everyone i ask tells me something else. fantastic!

not only understanding/attempting to speak are challenges, the biggest one is without doubt the alphabet. there are 13 vowels, 18 consonants and several hundred uyir kuriyeedugal (no idea what they actually are) that can EACH be combined in 13 ways because there's several versions of the consonants that change. or something like that. that makes 13 times 18 times 13 times several hundred signs. and that's the tamil alphabet ;) believe me, all of those letters basically look the same. it's like closing your eyes and drawing flowers - very big and round. click for larger version - this is a brief extract.

as i was writing this post a couple of days ago, i had still not even attempted to look at the alphabet out of sheer fear of failing miserably. this morning however (it is sunday, or gnayittrukizhamai, pronounced 'night-chy-kalameh' - as you see the transliterations in my self-study books are VERY helpful).. this morning however i decided to take a little peek at it. i locked myself in my room for 4 hours and desperately tried to figure it out. having gone through all of my books, a million print-outs and several tamil newspapers i emerged hours later.. having taught myself the complete alphabet!! how this worked? well, i decided to figure out the system behind the whole thing. and yes, there is one (i am not going to attempt to explain it to you, words fail me). when i showed esther (the manager's wife and the lovely woman who cooks for me and makes me coffee 3x a day), she patted me on the back. i think that means she's proud of me.

having learnt the letters the old-skool way, my room is now filled with piles of paper. this is what most of them look like.
 

this morning i attempted to read a newspaper. i can pronounce the sounds, yes, but eventually i still have no clue what exactly it is i'm reading. everyone is very helpful though, even the three year old children have made it their first priority to teach me tamil. important words like milk, toilet and brother/sister were soon added to my vocabulary. at the evening tuition, which is everyday for the older students in the surrounding villages, the kids teach me things like national anthem, flag, mountain range, tongue piercing and pimple (fantastic). slowly but surely, my vocabulary is growing. actually this is essential, because most of the people's english here is far below average. if even that. so here's to some problem solving! let's just teach the overwhelmed volunteer a completely new and strange language instead of letting her teach english, which is what she is actually here for :)

all in all it's fun. and even in india it's true what people say about languages. if you're surrounded by the language all day, you'll learn it in a couple of weeks. from scratch to proficiency! obviously i'm far from that, but i'm very very motivated and inspired. also, it makes me more local and therefore gets me better deals in the shops in kodai :P speaking of which, here's a couple of pictures.

slowly india is getting very deep inside me. i've settled in.
and you know how indians always shake their head in such a weird way when they talk? every morning i find myself automatically doing the same. it just seems to go so well with the language.

pongal & impressions.

as it seems i have celebrated the new year twice so far. the first time was in singapore at the harbour, where i was squeezed inbetween thousands and thousands of people and admired the gigantic fireworks. apparently the singaporean government has lots of money to spend, because the firework went on for a full 20 minutes. in india, this is different. similar to chinese new year, tamil new year isn't celebrated on january the first, but on the 14th and 15th. the more common name is 'pongal'. pongal is basically like a harvest festival and only celebrated in tamil nadu (my state) and in parts of sri lanka. officially, 'pongal' translates to 'spilling or boiling over'. rice, milk, nuts and some unknown indian spices are mixed together and boiled until it spills over in a claypot over a small fire. this symbolizes material abundance for the household.

almost every household and/or institution in tamil nadu has it's own little pongal celebration, as did my school. i was staying in bodhi zendo at that time and decided to go and see my little children on this special day. father ama samy and all the teachers were gathered outside the building and were cooking - even in this small environment the importance of said little claypot becomes very obvious, it is almost regarded as something holy. again, religion makes itself noticed but doesn't come on too strongly.

 

after a lovely introductory speech about the significance of pongal, father ama lit a part of some golden statue-like candle thing (at the moment i lack the words to properly describe it) that only important people are allowed to touch and light. to my great surprise he called my name, told the bystanders that i was the new teacher at the school (which was followed by a lovely round of applause) and let me light the second part of the statue. i cannot even describe how honored i felt at that very moment, surrounded by people who valued my being part of the team. luckily, my friend gerd (from austria) managed to take a picture in this very important moment :)

after this 'official' part, we proceeded to doing what indians do most and best: eat. promptly i was handed a banana leaf with a bit of pongal (the dish, so the rice-milk-nut-spice mixture) and a huge piece of sugarcane. and here i went again, eating in the traditional south indian way - with my right hand! let me tell you, it's not easy to balance a giant banana leaf on your left hand and still manage not to make a complete fool of yourself by eating only with your fingertips. banana leaves are actually more interesting than i thought, i learned that if you try to form them in some way the automatically break, HOWEVER if you heat them first, they become like rubber and can be shaped into whatever form you wish. before plastic became popular, banana leaves were used as bottles, wrapping foil, and as any sort of container you would now buy from tupperware. quite fascinating! as is the sugarcane. i was a bit confused because i didn't know what exactly to do with this 3cm thick piece of woodish-looking substance, but i soon learned that you tear off the 'bark' with your teeth, take a big piece of it in your mouth, suck on it and then spit out the rest. honestly, it tastes better than any candy you can imagine (which also makes it more damaging for your teeth and health but nevertheless). pongal was a great success!

soon afterwards, after the people had left and the remaining pongal had been eaten by..me.. i went to kodaikanal. unfortunately, i had forgotten my camera in my room at the school so i have yet to go back and take a couple of pictures. honesty, it's nothing like the on the pictures google gives you. when you search for kodaikanal, you either get images of a wonderful lake surrounded by lovely looking trees, somewhere you might see part of a bazaar.. this was precisely what i was expecting. however, as it turns out the lake is quite small, dirty, the bazaar is just a cluster of 5 overpriced stalls and the trees are by far not as green as anticipated. i don't want to say that it's not nice, it's just not AS nice as advertised. still, kodai gives you everything you look for. what the internet advertises is the tourist area. if you go one street further, you find the real kodai. and it's all a matter of what you make of it. if you find the right shops, you get excellent prices. if you find the right people, you get right directions instead of directions leading you out of town. if you find the right hidden path, you get a wonderful view over the city and the hills and it looks as nice as in travel guides. it's just important to keep away from the tourist areas. if i had to pay money to come here, i still would. there are excellent restaurants and spas around the lake and wonderful hidden shops. everything is condensed into two small streets, which means that after 45 minutes of walking around i had kodai figured out, but it doesn't make it less interesting. i've been there three times so far and every time was completely different, i discovered a couple of new things to buy and things to see each time. it's definitely worth a visit! but beware, it's still typically indian. slightly polluted, slightly chaotic, slightly overpriced if you're a foreigner.

which brings me a couple of fun things that happened to me in kodai. the first shop i walked into was and still is the best so far. i went inside and immediately found a couple of blouses i liked. i asked the shopkeeper for the price and seeing as it was insanely cheap, i said okay. big mistake. always bargain, even in shops where prices are fixed (the only exceptions are supermarkets and restaurants). lucky as i am, the shopkeeper taught me how to bargain. 'girl, you've got to bargain. ask me for 200 rupees less, otherwise i won't do business with you'. i ended up paying 350 rupess instead of 600 - 5euros for two typically indian high-quality cotton blouses - and left the shop, completely satisfied. obviously i was very happy and thankful for the shopkeeper's kindness, so i went back after a while to talk to him. as it turns out, he's one of ama samy's oldest and best friends and supplies both the bodhi zendo and the school with his stuff - faruk is the man's name. he told me that ama samy had told him about a new volunteer coming and that he had guessed it was me because i was desperately looking for something  'typically indian' to wear. ever since i bought the two blouses from him, i visit faruk and his shop every time i go to kodai. faruk is very honest with me and told me that normally, he would charge foreigners more but seeing as we're all part of the 'zendo-family' as he calls it, i get the local prices. also, he gives me tips on where to eat, which shops to go to for the best deals, and which taxi driver to ask to take me home. thanks to him, i went on a shopping-spree that lasted a couple of hours and cost me about 20euros, including the taxi ride home (which lasts 35 minutes). so far so good. i can proudly say that i am behaving like a native!

being a foreign native in india requires a lot of insight. it might be weird for me to say this after only two weeks of being here, but i have talked to a lot of people and gotten a lot of practical tips.
these include: always saying that you are part of bodhi zendo - no one wants to disappoint you as it would jeopardize their business, which is largely dependent on the international community from the zendo coming to shop. also, the zendo is well-known in the entire region which is an asset; always ask a taxi driver for the price BEFORE you enter the taxi (taxis here are not marked but mostly just old cars with old men without meters); always try to wear indian-looking shoes (i have found out that a lot of people here judge you based on the shoes you are wearing. tourists tend to wear sneakers, people who have lived here longer wear slippers no matter how cold the weather); drink lots of tea in public (costs about 5 rupees, so approximately 8 cents) because it shows that you are capable of consuming the actual local things, therefore you will get offered cheaper and often better more local food, which adds to not feeling like a tourist.

i'm sure there are more to come, but i have been trying to do these things and there are no beggars circling me, no people offering me overpriced taxi rides, no people looking at me weirdly and no attempts whatsoever in trying to persuade me to buy fake buddha/shiva statues. fantastic!

also, come to think of it there are a couple of things that i have realized about india.
- indian vocabulary consists of words like 'hence', 'therefore', 'spectacles', 'proximity' and 'arranged marriage', but does not include words like 'tomorrow', 'fork' or 'unemployment'.
- the first three things indians want to know about you are 'what is your name, where are you from and are you married?'. other questions include the name of your parents and how many children you are planning to have later on.
- indian traffic is, once again, extreme. nothing can ever make me feel anxious ever again, i swear. overtaking in a curve with 100km/h on a mountain 1500 metres high with nothing apart from a few stones marking the end of the road and the beginning of the cliff.. i really have no sense of fear anymore. sorry mum if you're reading this, i know it doesn't help, but i'm still alive and james and sasim both said that at least they know how to react quickly..they have a point. still, i'm trying to stay away from cars. and roads.
- showering with a bucket instead of a shower hose saves a lot of water and makes you aware of how little water you actually need to get properly clean. i'm very picky when it comes to hygiene, everything has to be disinfected before i come along and i seriously feel marvellous after one of those showers. i have also realized that although the environment here is heavily polluted, even the poorest of the poor here are always showered and very clean. remarkable!
- when confronted with a monkey wanting to steal your food from you, give in. the monkey always wins anyways.

sigh. india sure is different than everything else i have experienced so far. but i like it. meditating has helped me get more in touch with myself (i never thought i would like it THIS much! i've even set up a small meditation space in my room at school now that i'm not at bodhi zendo anymore..) and conversations with people from all sorts of different backgrounds have helped me embrace this experience even more. i'm happy here.
my actual teaching experience has begun today as it seems, neither the children nor the teachers actually understand what i'm trying to say. and boy is tamil difficult. i've been trying to learn five words a day but even that's a challenge. but there will be a separate blog entry on that one when the time is right :)

anyways. i am now officially helping in the montessori school (8:30am to 4:30pm, children aged 3 to 6) AND in the evening tuition (5:00pm to 7:00pm, children aged 10 to 16). my first day of teaching/helping/being there for any work that needs to be done started today. once i have taken an adequate amount of pictures, i will tell you all about it :) but now i'm off to meditate again for a bit. vanakkam! and speaking of meditation, i did manage to take a picture during today's morning meditation for you.

the pilgrims of palani.

i didn't actually know that being here at bodhi zendo could be so much fun. to be honest, i was a bit worried when i got here that all of the people would just be..well, let's say it: weird and uber-religious and quite simply lost within themselves. turns out i was proven wrong. not only SOME of the residents are friendly and fun to be with, ALL of them are. the more i talk to them, the more it dawns on me that we share a major same interest: travel.  which is exactly what we ended up doing together. we traveled.
remember how i told you about the 'german group'? well, it consists of me, a twenty-something year old, a forty-something year old, and three seventy-something year olds. elderly people are very wise and have an excellent sense of humour (realization number 4..or 5?) - i had a fantastic time with them.

we went to palani together.

we decided to convince sasim (the lovely man who picked me up from the airport) to take us there. palani is a town about 60kms away from perumalmalai - it's extremely famous (apparently) because it is home to one of the biggest temples in tamil nadu. therefore a wonderul place for me and petr to take pictures again.

so there we go, driving to palani. we left the zendo at 7am and had planned to arrive there by about 9 or 9:30 at the latest. of course, we're in india and nothing ever goes as planned in india (i've learned that already haha). the road to palani, which would have led us through the wonderful palani ghats, was closed. some bridge had broken down, so there was no way through. the alternative was the four hour drive down the range of hills, around the range of hills, and up the range of hills on the other side. mit der kirche um's kreuz, sozusagen. and that's exactly what we did. the temperature when you reach the bottom of the hills rises by about 10 degrees celsius, so suddenly it felt as if we were driving through the desert, especially because there was no A/C.

there is something i recently learned about indian roads, other than the fact that they are extremely dangerous. there are mostly two lanes. one lane is for people who are walking, cows standing around, little food stalls..and the other is for everything else, meaning cars going in both directions and those coming in from side roads. chaotic and dangerous are the two words that are most fitting. (what's funny though is that although you get the feeling all of the drivers are mad, they still all stop and pull over when they're taking a phone call. just to be safe.)

obviously we were driving for quite a while and it occured to me that although i felt like a really bad tourist, taking a jeep to go across the country and getting out in front of the main sight, you do see quite a lot when you drive. as we all know india is huge, there are so many different cultures and languages and religions combined - it seems that all people share is a certain nationality on paper and nothing else. driving around for four hours leads you through countless villages and therefore through countless different facettes of india. as we were driving, we came by bustling towns celebrating the launch of a new movie, poor villages set around a large 'water hole' where you could see the entire population bathing, gigantic market stalls selling chinese plastic toys and dvds for passing tourists (and their children) at ridiculous prices, people collecting rubbish and burning it by the street.. at every corner, every curve you make, a new face of india emerges. you cannot generalize this country. shyam told me that if you go 50kms away from kerala, where he is from, you cannot understand the people anymore because they speak a different language and have their own script. you cannot fathom the meaning of the word 'contrast' in relation to india.

one of the most striking things about driving to palani was the pilgrims we saw occupying the left lane of the road (everyone/everything else was bound to the right side, so we were basically geisterfahrer most of the time but that doesn't really matter here i guess). these pilgrims, ranging from age 10 to probably 80+, were walking to palani for hours and hours on end - we saw them for a full 2,5 hours while driving and we weren't exactly going slowly.. i was talking to joachim on the back seat for a couple of hours and he said that out of all the things he's seen in india so far in the over 30 years he has traveled, said pilgrims are the most fascinating. they walk a distance of 20, 30, maybe even 40kms per day just to reach palani, climb the mountain and pray (sadly i did take pictures while driving, i really regret that now. maybe petr will lend me his memory card). i have never seen such dedication. even donkeys walked up those steps.

and quite frankly, i was expecting more of this faaaaamous temple. but as it turns out it's just a tribute to a god on a hill (this may sound harsh, but it was not exceptionally beautiful nor exceptionally big or anything else). out of all the indian temples i have seen so far, i can almost say that this one impressed me least. however, what DID impress me was the passion in the people there. as we were walking up the seemingly endless steps, people passed us who were RUNNING up the entire hill, also some carrying huge boxes of tributes on their heads, many of them having already walked for hours and hours just to get there...

religion is huge here, but it is not imposed on you as a tourist. i am someone who is very critical towards religious symbols, beliefs, customs etc but here i never have the feeling that i am worth less just because i do not believe in any god. it has happened before in numerous places actually that people have looked at me weirdly for being without confession (my mother even told me that my grandfather refused to properly accept me as a human being, metaphorically speaking, for the first couple of years of my life because i am not baptized) but in india, the country we all associate with religion and belief and gods, it is different. religion is omnipresent but never forced onto you and you can come as who/whatever you are. it's a pretty unique feeling i can't quite put my finger on just yet. it's almost like i was expecting a certain narrow-mindedness and pride that makes everything else worth less. but here, the people are open. they love to let you be a part of what they believe, they include you, but on the other side they also love to hear about your country, your beliefs, your opinion. they invite you inside their religious life, maybe give you a traditional gift or two, allow you to look around, but would never lock you inside. do you now what i mean? it's fascinating.

what's also quite fabulous is the way the pilgrims present themselves in front of their god. a very large number of people (including women and children) had their heads shaven completely bald and painted with colors. looking at people felt like watching some mysterious, mesmerizing mythical creature. there is so much variety among the people, so many colors, so many different ways of dressing..

we ended up not actually going right to the temple. locals pay 10rs admission fee, non-hindus pay 100-2000rs (it didn't become clear what exactly the fee depended on in the end). also, the temple itself turned out to be a huge construction site - it was being renovated i think - so it wasn't that special after all. still, again the view and the many opportunites just to watch people made the entire journey worth it. 

also engaging in long, philosophical and political conversations with the people in the jeep brought me to this weird state of being constantly very accurately aware of everything going on and feeling ready to absorb anything that comes along. i long for new experiences and impressions and it finally feels like this new chapter of my life has started. i'm really enjoying what this place is doing to me.

speaking of places: as we reached the bottom of the hill, there was this huuuge market selling everything from fresh fruit to fake dolce&gabanna sweaters. what they say in all of the tourist guides is true - as soon as there is a foreigner arriving, about 50 children gather around you, tugging on your clothes and on your bag, asking for a couple of rupees. it's hard to resist, but giving a child a rupee will only attract more and soon you literally cannot escape anymore. still, we managed to buy some nice things - fruit, mala necklaces, scarves.. i myself didn't buy anything (saving it all for upcoming trips) apart from some typically indian candy: it looks like a huge blob of gello with a couple of nuts hovering inside, but it tastes like gummybears - just more healthy. i don't know the name but it's incredibly cheap, sticky and sweet. so i decided to treat myself ;) i am still feasting on it (my first proper intake of unnecessary calories since my arrival).
later on, we went and had a traditional south indian meal at a traditional restaurant (which is a big deal because normally eating ORIGINAL indian food automatically gives everyone a so called 'dehli belly'..) BUT we managed. also, this restaurant had no cutlery so we were forced to eat with our hands. try eating a very liquid form of rice and sauces with only the fingertips of your right hand.. i really should have taken pictures, but my whole arm was covered with food so that would have been too risky :P but here is a picture a traditional meal - cost: 50 euro cents. luckily everything went well, we all survived the intake of foreign food and made our way back to bodhi zendo. 

realization of the day: having sasim as a driver is lovely because he stops every half an hour and lets us get fresh coconut milk from one of the local stalls on the side of the street :) everyone is so friendly here. and i am STILL wondering how the coconut men manage to still have all of their fingers.

life at bodhi zendo.

it's incredibly peaceful here. therefore there is not a lot to tell (but this entry is dedicated to martin, who has asked for more blog-dedication on my parts :)) it's pretty difficult for me to post something regularly. you see, i pre-write everything on my laptop and post as soon as i have internet access, but right now there's been a blockade. i have three entries waiting to be posted - so much is happening around here - but i can only do it one by one. so bear with me, please. i can only access the net at certain times here at the zendo and i'm mostly not really around during those times (because of the many things happening..) but just wait and see.

so. right now there are about 30 people staying at bodhi zendo, coming from all over the world. france, germany, india, scotland, russia, the czech republic, a lot of countries are represented - even austria! i am proud to say that i am one of five austrians in the area at the moment. it's funny to see how people socialize: when we are not meant to be silent, we have free time (officially called personal 'work', but basically you can do whatever you want) and we all sit around and talk. and obviously, as it always is when you mix people, we all seek those who are like us. so now we have an german/austrian group, a french group, an english group, an indian group.. i could go on. nevertheless, let me tell you, it's quite lovely here. and the guests have a fantastic sense of humor. let me just quote my friend shyam who's learning german: mein gesicht sieht heute nicht so gut aus, dafuer habe ich ein sexy skelett. well, at least i thought it was funny. we're only teaching him important things.

the days here go like this. at five thirty in the morning, there is the so called morning call. someone goes around waking everyone up, first meditation starts at 6 and lasts till 7. after that: a hearty, western breakfast. cornflakes, eggs, coffee, whatever you wish. then: 1,5 hours of 'samu', so 'work that is intended not for you but for someone else'. i was allocated to the garden, which means i was on my knees, extracting bad plants from the soil. great. now i know what kind of work my grandmother always does when she goes to her garden.. anyways, it's quite refreshing actually and afterwards you feel like you have done a good deed. which you have indeed, as you are rewarded with coffee immediately after samu. silence and personal 'work' starts then and lasts till 5:30pm, with the exception of lunch at 12:30. afterwards it's meditation till 7, dinner, and half an hour of meditation after dinner. and trust me, you are tired after a day of doing personal 'work' and meditating. i go to sleep at 9pm :) which again brings me to my realization from the last post: a day is actually incredibly long, especially when you have a lot of free time. i usually spend it in the library, with my new friends, or in the 'little flowers hall' - which has a wireless internet connection. really, everything you need is RIGHT HERE. and it's quite fabulous. you suddenly really notice that although life seems so fundamentally different, it's basically the same principle. we all have the same needs, it's just what we decide to make of it (and how much money we spend).

being here has really opened my eyes.

which brings me to the whole concept of zen. being, existing. you see, i'm a good girl so the first thing i did when i arrived was that i went to the library and borrowed 'zen for beginners' and here is what i've learnt so far:
zen is about ultimate reality, liberation from pain and confusion, and our greatest potential. the 'goal' is to realize yourself completely, that is to be enlightened. the way to enlightenment is found through meditation. (admittedly it sounds quite space-y and those of you who know me, know that i'm not a big fan of anything too space-y..like religion.. BUT. it doesn't sound so bad. the whole thing is about realizing that the space inside and outside of us is continuous. we are one with the moment, and we live every day as if it was for the very first time. no fears and prejudices. it's kind of like freeing yourself from intellectual analysis (i LOVE to analyze) and to deepen the actual living experience. sounds a bit like sartre and existentialism, if you ask me. i like sartre and existentialism :)).
so. one of the most famous zen-sayings is 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form'. feel free to interpret that!

let me tell you. what i said about meditation in my last post is not entirely true 100% of the time. sitting still for hours and hours (we never sit for more than 25 minutes at once, but still) is DIFFICULT. in theory it sounds pretty simple. sit still and just exist, realize that you are here, just be with the thoughts that go through your head. if your leg hurts, let it be. say: pain, i feel you, you're there. period. and then drop it.
if everything was just THAT easy.. understanding is NOt realizing. it's not. either i think and think and think and analzye (bad), or i just sit and tell myself that the pain in my leg is soooooooo unbearable.
it takes years to master the art of meditation and to be enlightened (buddha himself took 6 years!). and i've been doing it for three days. this might take a while, but i'm trying.

when i'm not trying, i mostly have free time. the other day, my friends shyam (from india) and petr (from the czech republic) went hiking (yes, me: hiking. don't ask).

for about two hours, we walked uphill. it was steep, let me tell you, but the view was worth it! we were literally standing on a mountain, 2000m high, overlooking the whole hill area. i wish that pictures could capture what it was like, but the feeling was just incredible. it was on the tip of that mountain that i realized that i am in india. india. india of all places. but i'm here. and it's good.

on the top of the mountain was an abandoned hut, so we thought we'd have some fun.

also, we came by a mountain school (literally, it's SO cut off from everything, it took us two hours UP the mountain to get there)..

..and later on a little village..

..where petr found himself a cow.

we had fun ;)

still. to end this post, let me be a bit philosophical. meditating makes you philosophical.
this is a little text taken from that cute little 'zen for beginners' i found, and i think it's very true and very down to earth.
'your mind can be compared to a mirror which reflects everything that appears before it. from the time you begin to think, to feel, and to exert your will, shadows are cast upon your mind which distort its reflections. this condition we call delusion, which is the fundamental sickness of human beings'.
true, don't you think?

settling in.

the mornings here begin when one of the three temples surrounding the school blasts a morning prayer accompanied by something that sounds like indian pop music. indian pop music featuring the muezzin praying. at 5.30am. it's incredibly refreshing, to tell you the truth, because it sounds absolutely unique and it's a nice change when all you've been used to is the sound of your mobile phone's alarm clock. also, seeing as it goes off at 5.30am, i know that i still have over 1,5 hours of sleep left when i hear it. if i manage to fall asleep and am not too annoyed by the honking cars driving by. but still. realization number 1: there is no nicer way to wake up than to the sound of my personal indian early-morning muezzin. by the way, the school looks like this. it's by FAR the nicest building around.

having established this, my days here are still incredibly long. i checked my watch at least 5 times in the morning only to discover that it was still before 9am. let me tell you - days are actually pretty long when you think about it, a lot can be done in 24 hours (realization number 2). my colleagues have been telling me to relax and to enjoy the sun, to walk around within the school premises, to drink coffee.. they said that in one week time, we will start talking about what exactly it is that i will be doing. also, i should STOP WORRYING (i hear that a couple of times each day, i swear), because the school is very similar to a playschool so it's not that they expect anything extraordinary from me. they said they're just thankful someone is here to help. seeing as the other two volunteers left a week before i came here (one being from australia, which causes confusion amongst the staff, and the other from england whose date of return remains unknown), any help/presence is appreciated. still, so far i haven't really done anyhing notable. i was reluctantly given a bit of work to do when i asked for it (ironing and filling cups with milk) but my colleagues insist that i settle in first.

still, i couldn't help sneaking down to the playground to the children to take a few pictures of them and to play ball. they all seemed intrigued by my camera and immediately tried to include me as they were playing ('to include' meaning that they threw balls at me from different sides and yelled 'AUNTIE AUNTIE' heartily :)). my new name is now 'ata', which means aunt (or auntie) and my third realization is that children that are 3 years old do not speak english yet - so telling them that throwing sand at the dog is bad probably didn't really make much sense to them.

speaking of the dog. the montessori school has its own dog, a baby girl, named 'paapi'. or 'blackie'. the name changes depending on who's calling her. she has already learnt how to obey my commands in english AND in german! 

also, we have two guinea pigs called 'chocolate' and 'strawberry', that live in a cage right at the entrance. there's this cute little sign next to the cage telling you some random facts about guinea pigs, and the last sentence is: 'strawberry and chocolate like to eat fruits, nuts and grass, a very healthy diet - you should try it too!' :D

anyways. on monday i will be going to bodhi zendo for one week to take part in their normal meditation schedule. it's part of my 'settling in'. i was already there for a couple of hours and - in complete silence - took part in a meditation session and in a socalled 'teisho' (or something like that). both were very eye-opening experiences. meditating, when done properly, is actually not as hard as it looks. one of the long-term residents gave me a brief introduction and there i was, sitting for an hour without moving, just being. no problem. a 'teisho' is a different story - father ama samy sits in front of us and reads from spiritual texts, talks about life and the purpose of existence (our topic was 'the dimension of seeking approval versus seeking love, ways to combine them, and all of the other dimensions, and: what is the ultimate goal we all seek to reach?'). quite interesting to think about these things, actually ;). then, we recite the heart-mantra (google that). it's very different from what i expected a retreat to be like, but then again, i didn't know what exactly to expect. it's all just lovely and peaceful.
all of this happened in a couple of hours, james, the manager of my school, wanted me to have a look before i commited myself for an entire week. and well, what can i say. i like india and the silence it offers. eventhough it sure seems loud when you get here. but eventually it's all a lot calmer than expected. :) i already wonder if i will have changed as a person after a whole week of spirituality. it's literally the first time i've done something like this. we'll see.

cheers from india!

and ps: the food here is amazing. as is the coffee that comes from the coffee farm right outside my window :)