even for an indian, understanding india is very difficult

at the outset, as the indians say, let me apologize for the break in communication. an accessible and reliable internet connection, not to mention time, has been scarce. they are keeping us busy and overly fed (this is not a joke. we are full all the time) and there has been almost no chance to sit down and process what is going on, let alone try and share it with you. i wish you were in my back pocket... explaining india is, basically, impossible.

but i'll try. a few observations.

i have been thinking and talking a lot about space, and how it is used here in india. in america, our space is separate, private. stores are in clusters, set back from the road, houses are at the ends of long driveways. private space is private, public space is public, nice neighborhoods are in one spot and not so nice ones in another. in india, everything is everywhere. and this is not an exaggeration. everything is public space and nothing is separated. shops open up directly into the road, if they are not literally in the road. buses pull over and people have picnics on the side of the highway. nice neighborhoods and not so nice neighborhoods are all one place. temples and other religious sites appear as if out of nowhere. and, people are everywhere you look. gathered around fruit stands, walking everywhere, riding their bikes and motorcycles, drying rice in the middle of the road. you are in the thick of everything all the time. but, everyone gets along. this is one thing i am learning from india. while there may be some social structures or practices that don't sit well with us, i have not seen a fight, an argument, an outburst of any kind. when your space belongs to everyone, you have to learn to live with everyone in your space. i think we could all take a cue from that.

i have also had some interesting political discussions since we started touring cities and staying with host families. one particularly outspoken friend at our first stop, ramnad, claims that all the world's problems would be solved in the u.s. would just leave pakistan. i am not too sure about that. but he and his friends were very interested in why america supports pakistan more than india, which i think is a valid question. our team leader, scott, proposed that america, really, cares more about stability than democracy, which seems a likely explanation, though certainly not a good reason. there were also some complaints about the way india is covered in the american press, which was particularly interesting to me. the general consensus seems to be that india is portrayed as a backwards place ruled by poverty, corruption and disease, and that anything good that comes out of india is treated like an exception rather than the rule. also a valid complaint, i would say. everyone seemed to think i could somehow solve it single-handedly. not too sure about that, either.

and one more general observation (this is all very interesting to me, but maybe not to you. sorry!) when we drove from our second stop, karaikudi, to our third, virduhunagar, yesterday, a college student named ganesh accompanied us. (these rotarians never let us be alone. and, while i appreciate the gesture, being so carefully taken care of is, frankly, exhausting.) we got into a discussion of marriage, arranged and not, and divorce. ganesh contended that americans get married in the morning, divorced in the afternoon, and now india is being infected with that practice as well (i had no idea we were solely responsible for so many things). scott said he was just speaking earlier that day to a man who said, "men and women always used to agree, but now it is different." the idea that men and women have always disagreed but there were social restrictions on expressing it was dismissed out of hand. i am learning that a) indians are less interested in hearing about us than they are in hearing what we think of them and b) they like to ask questions, not because they are interested in our answer, necessarily, but because they want to tell us what they think. and these questions usually involve something that is the fault of america. it is certainly interesting and worthwhile to hear what other people think of you and your country, but it is also difficult to feel like you are getting a full and honest story when there is no room for debate or discussion. maybe that's one thing india can learn from us.

but, enough of the pontificating. here is a quick run-down of some of our recent activities. i know all you really want is pictures, but time is short again. hopefully tomorrow.

our first stop was ramnad where we were very well taken care of by a club led by a most opinionated man named kumar. we spent several hours on a beach at the bay of bengal and visited a very famous temple, built on an island, that has the longest corridor in all of india. on the drive to ramnad, we saw dozens of people walking on a pilgrimage towards another temple. they'll walk for five or six days, all throughout the month of january, to reach it. we had unbelievable receptions with flowers and incense and dots on our foreheads at a hospital and a school, where the children put on an incredible cultural presentation. a question and answer period with some older students afterwards included inquiries such as, "what is the favored mode of transportation in america?" "do you believe in life after death?" and "why has america never elected a woman president?" we did our best. we also visited a sri lankan refugee camp, where the local rotary club had donated a structure where refugees can be processed. there are about 3,000 people living there now, and kumar translated so i could speak to a few of them. i would have loved to have gotten enough information for a decent freelance piece, but time was short. we were also crash-course introduced to all indian food all the time (the spiciness is killing me. i may not be able to taste anything by the time we get home) and indian bathrooms. i'll try to take a picture. words just won't cut it.

from ramnad we went to karakudi, a town famous for its spacious houses and palaces. the homes really were gorgeous, with marble floors and massive, open rooms. we visited a palace with 1,000 windows and got a private tour from the governor of the village. we visited the local club meeting, went to a training meeting at the local college where team member melissa had to give an impromptu 10-minute presentation and then took off for virduhunagar. (we have a driver and van, so despite the constant threat of death on the road, our travels have been very comfortable.) we only stayed in virduhunagar for a few hours, visiting some local artists and meeting with the club, before taking off for sivakasi, about 45 minutes away. we were greeted in sivakasi yesterday by our host families, and we'll be here until the day after tomorrow. it's nice to be a little more settled.

sivakasi is more of a city than the places we have stayed so far, an industrial center with many types of manufacturing. today we saw a truly remarkable printing press operation, the largest in asia, and tomorrow we will visit a match-making plant (the kind that catch on fire, not the kind that puts people together for life before they have ever met and then expects them to never disagree). today we also visited a school run and sponsored by rotary and heard some very impressive speeches from the students. tomorrow we will visit another rotary school as well.

we are getting so we could give our meeting presentations in our sleep, or give some other team member's speech word-for-word. but the people seem to like it. if they can understand us, that is, which remains to be seen. miscommunication happens more often than not, the most famous being the following exchange between melissa and a rotarian.

melissa: do you live around here?
rotarian: business.

we are showered with gifts at every meeting, and our host families are taking incredibly good care of us, washing our clothes, cooking us food night and day, finding us power adaptors. melissa and i are in love with the couple, kartik (husband) and achu (wife), with whom we are staying here in sivakasi. kartik is only 27, but became the head of the household when his parents both died, unexpectedly, his father in 1996 of a heart attack on a pilgrimage and his mother in 2001 in a car accident. he married to set a good example, took over the family business and built a house where everyone, including two younger brothers, could live. he even arranged a marriage for his brother! he and his wife are a love match, which is rare, and i am not sure if it is because of that, or because they are young, or because they are westernized, but they are the happiest most open family i have met yet in india, and part of me wishes i could stay with them for the rest of the trip. they also have an amazing house... huge, with a gorgeous garden, a massive DVD collection and a non-terrifying bathroom situation. their four-year-old son calls me "specs lady." and, this morning, kartik stepped onto the front veranda, shouted "car," and his car, newly washed, appeared. that's the life.

so, that's a run-down of our recent adventures, and hopefully pictures will be coming soon. despite some of the frustrations i mentioned earlier, we are having a time more wonderful than we ever thought possible, and a time more wonderful than words can describe. we are all getting along well, laughing and learning from each other, and from all the people who have let us into their hearts and homes. i'll leave you with one more favorite language mix-up...

someone at a rotary meeting was introducing one of the team members, colleen, and said, "she is not having any children at the moment." and he was right. she wasn't.