tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84585374843917280052024-03-20T22:10:15.486-07:00Singing my days...one teacher's search for stories and how they hold us togetherAnneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-73991916292937523412007-09-28T15:10:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:32.172-08:00We Found the Bhopa!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nSXS-gmXmzM13hyzJGFknn4O30QkvWkTJENS-rkxG_3R_ROZ6wc85wKadmy24XZCxKp5KywnHGtE08zNTYeDO8DtCa6BDkgW2_FyKIWKZwsL3kxY8rEj9loYCBWFahKA8TP51hWIZOI/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd20992c94d100000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nSXS-gmXmzM13hyzJGFknn4O30QkvWkTJENS-rkxG_3R_ROZ6wc85wKadmy24XZCxKp5KywnHGtE08zNTYeDO8DtCa6BDkgW2_FyKIWKZwsL3kxY8rEj9loYCBWFahKA8TP51hWIZOI/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd20992c94d100000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406478625268434" /></a>Sitting on the steps of Lake Pichola with the Bopa family.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXip-wrfeMTWFHArISinTRYlq8p91n7F9dkKU_I1n0mnCTT4a3WX_QeXKt7Of1S_5yJjNSJIzB-M9CGMiqXwubROo6LKlX3NbRgOckuHXhN6ttKjUL-RjcOahAOnCJquKLbav_nFIzFnw/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd2087a6156400000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXip-wrfeMTWFHArISinTRYlq8p91n7F9dkKU_I1n0mnCTT4a3WX_QeXKt7Of1S_5yJjNSJIzB-M9CGMiqXwubROo6LKlX3NbRgOckuHXhN6ttKjUL-RjcOahAOnCJquKLbav_nFIzFnw/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd2087a6156400000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406212337296018" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6dPQhRl1J_AKY6QHnitS9trlzEiXkwJzMbXc_o2_jBCfUYq2Efg8a_UGi6ENYdxkOQrPVsSeGgkUDVhgicv6vUgL2RwuxJAkOvPp6OwPX5frPYIDKWnEiuh6hPYCl94bAknVt5bak8v0/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd20936015a800000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6dPQhRl1J_AKY6QHnitS9trlzEiXkwJzMbXc_o2_jBCfUYq2Efg8a_UGi6ENYdxkOQrPVsSeGgkUDVhgicv6vUgL2RwuxJAkOvPp6OwPX5frPYIDKWnEiuh6hPYCl94bAknVt5bak8v0/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd20936015a800000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406607474287330" /></a>That's an elephant back there!<br /><br />Naru Ram Bopa spends six months of the year living with his wife and six children in his native village near the Thar Desert. The whole family spends the other six months living in a tent just outside Udaipur, where it is easier to make money from entertaining tourists than it is by traveling from rural village to rural village singing in the hopes of getting a little rice or a few rupees from each house. <br /><br />Traditionally, a Bhopa was kept by a Maharaja or Raja family. The Bhopa would entertain the family that kept him by singing epic poems about Pabuji, a medieval Rajput prince. Singing through the night in front of a long tapestry, called a phad, a Bhopa would point to different stories from Pabuji's life while his wife held a lantern to the phad. I've read that some of the poems the Bhopa sings are six times as long as the bible. A Bhopa would also keep the history of the family that kept him, and, if they let their Bhopa go, he took their stories with him.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbluJWxla7adQH4C0PuM36FG9-HqfchlrEowkhQ_gsFFS035y9QIoN4V_AYaSo67IFfT3PT2CigEdV5HRKnnctqgqrAV4xgEGimb8xoHBQBwBkYhLtFqIi6wRo9PHv8_SjzR2iCdZmeKk/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd20850b15c800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbluJWxla7adQH4C0PuM36FG9-HqfchlrEowkhQ_gsFFS035y9QIoN4V_AYaSo67IFfT3PT2CigEdV5HRKnnctqgqrAV4xgEGimb8xoHBQBwBkYhLtFqIi6wRo9PHv8_SjzR2iCdZmeKk/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd20850b15c800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406474330301090" /></a>Pabuji<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWUsyQJFGp7N8K0Tr2CuzIVDUJnHSwZkYJP8aosD9yRz0RwzrM3y0alxyy48WJzIjlif57CLVgm5eAK1L-v4GeU659LvFIXEPyIzULtNoUb4o2ZqnwXUyaqsEc-QKuP1BSh3WVpKubt8/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd20867dd41700000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWUsyQJFGp7N8K0Tr2CuzIVDUJnHSwZkYJP8aosD9yRz0RwzrM3y0alxyy48WJzIjlif57CLVgm5eAK1L-v4GeU659LvFIXEPyIzULtNoUb4o2ZqnwXUyaqsEc-QKuP1BSh3WVpKubt8/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd20867dd41700000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406474330301106" /></a>Pabuji was raised by his mother and a tigress.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGsw-0eL36lDohm2Eue6F4JJU_Bx-bp4a6GiID9N_cEOYQMLNbmor2JUGIzObpA01uJ8mGrTSUrpP2xfx8yvXkFRVqxCGHHAuyekBywUxNCaOhLivDA95_71gkLQD3QU03u4maFPnz5s0/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd20968e55dc00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGsw-0eL36lDohm2Eue6F4JJU_Bx-bp4a6GiID9N_cEOYQMLNbmor2JUGIzObpA01uJ8mGrTSUrpP2xfx8yvXkFRVqxCGHHAuyekBywUxNCaOhLivDA95_71gkLQD3QU03u4maFPnz5s0/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd20968e55dc00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406478625268418" /></a><br />Naru is a handsome man with a dark, deeply lined face, jet black hair and hazelnut eyes. He wears a turban around his head and totes a ravanhatha, a traditional instrument made from a hollowed coconut and a stalk of bamboo. It is somewhat like a primitive violin, and, as he plays, he fingers steel strings with a horse hair bow adorned with little bells whose jingling keeps time. When we first meet him and he plays for us on the shore of Lake Pichola, the sound is magical carrying out across the water and back again. He taps his pointy toed slippers and his wife, Shipya, holds one of their babies, while their seven-year-old son hops up and down the steps leading toward the lake. <br /><br />We found this Bhopa family after a day of wandering the winding lanes of the Udaipur. We came here specifically to find the Bhopa, but when we actually did, it was by accident. In fact, I had almost given up on finding one, as all my leads had some to dead ends. But then, Chris and I wandered down to the water to wait for sunset, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the red Turban.<br /><br />"Chris," I whispered, "Is that a Bhopa?"<br /><br />After meeting the Bhopa and listening to him play for a while, Naru told us in broken English about other tourists he was friends with. There was a musician who bought a ravanhatha from him and learned how to play it. (I tried a little and it sounded like I was killing a cat.) He also showed us a picture of himself next to a beautiful portrait of him and proudly told us that the artist he had sat for sold the painting for thousands of dollars. Finally he showed us pictures of is children, all dark with hazel eyes and wild, black hair. We were sad to learn that Naru and his wife do not send their children to school, even though primary school is now free in India and provides children with a free midday meal. Naru said he sees no point in it.<br /><br />We arranged to meet Naru in the same place two days later. He promised to bring his phad and to tell us some of the story of Pabuji. When the appointed time came, it was pouring rain. It was, after all, monsoon season. But we made our way to the water anyway and ran into Naru and Shipya halfway there. He had asked a friend who owns a shop to store his phad, which makes sense considering that not only was it the rainy season, but Naru lived in a tent. In fact, he told us that the day before heavy rain had torn the plastic roof off of his makeshift home.<br /><br />In the end, we bought his phad and he gave us a CD of he and Shipya playing music together. We walked down to the water afterward for one more song. Along the way, Naru happily used his recent riches to buy a pocketful of beedies, small hand-rolled cigarettes commonly smoked all over India. Hopefully, he bought a new roof for his tent too.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAdgL6lvBdWu7OD-inD5reD913GHXWnq_lIVfbSDVH9ZtJQ9r8bSRRyFL2jUh8JyejFErsepqxUeAQn1p7ZML766kVoUec_iwe7yt9wvMNgOG21koREEr6QxuB8hdszzwuPNmqC_ifbgQ/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd20950694fd00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAdgL6lvBdWu7OD-inD5reD913GHXWnq_lIVfbSDVH9ZtJQ9r8bSRRyFL2jUh8JyejFErsepqxUeAQn1p7ZML766kVoUec_iwe7yt9wvMNgOG21koREEr6QxuB8hdszzwuPNmqC_ifbgQ/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd20950694fd00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406607474287346" /></a>Early morning bathers on the steps to Lake Pichola below our hotel window.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs1nAQ67PkxywtHS_K10AdUgaaFNygev8zZwUjMCnHLj86RMojl2Kta84Ohge8z7n8nnwZtyrWhF-77Tkk3OJwNDdrmeQx_ArnwF1F7LcuxdyuHvtCB0_lDQIexJA7IREocMFWZDrTv44/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9b3e946cdc900000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs1nAQ67PkxywtHS_K10AdUgaaFNygev8zZwUjMCnHLj86RMojl2Kta84Ohge8z7n8nnwZtyrWhF-77Tkk3OJwNDdrmeQx_ArnwF1F7LcuxdyuHvtCB0_lDQIexJA7IREocMFWZDrTv44/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9b3e946cdc900000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406208042328674" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDgAn9YD07J9vJs8iVvPMsnKoT0A7r9AmKy2a3WpbuWf4SBaVDDobmwx8bdR1D0eVgIk-nTnsY4isyrryVJBkkwRCMGcm-9orkZMPhktNgUdNK35dGGx7_QNdDaWO6Fu1Ugk85Ulpm5E/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd209be8152400000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDgAn9YD07J9vJs8iVvPMsnKoT0A7r9AmKy2a3WpbuWf4SBaVDDobmwx8bdR1D0eVgIk-nTnsY4isyrryVJBkkwRCMGcm-9orkZMPhktNgUdNK35dGGx7_QNdDaWO6Fu1Ugk85Ulpm5E/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd209be8152400000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115406212337296002" /></a>A monkey checking out the view from the roof of our hotel.Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-50806952759063144152007-08-10T07:05:00.001-07:002008-12-12T00:00:33.311-08:00Monkey Mind<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieInq7ijDDVKvzLE8LESlqeRjHcNSc9fNskkSLX-3vxb8G97wcYUUIIah8Bz0GyX8eCXClApb-NcvNwjDmqI7utonaWtJJwfsukhRPMeq69JMrBxrlSMif3YoyeDcUcvD7IOTlyEoBJLo/s1600-h/47b7d631b3127cceb9eb316d657400000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieInq7ijDDVKvzLE8LESlqeRjHcNSc9fNskkSLX-3vxb8G97wcYUUIIah8Bz0GyX8eCXClApb-NcvNwjDmqI7utonaWtJJwfsukhRPMeq69JMrBxrlSMif3YoyeDcUcvD7IOTlyEoBJLo/s320/47b7d631b3127cceb9eb316d657400000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115198503423894066" /></a>Whenever Chris and I started to get cranky on a long drive from one tribe or temple to the next, our guide, Samar, would turn around in the front seat and tell us a story. He seemed to have a real knack for sensing through the back of his head exactly when his passengers were on the brink of going postal. So every few hours he would save us with a story, or he would point out a beautiful banyan tree, or he would have Dija stop the car so he could hop out and buy us some bananas. His tactics were all nice ways to break the monotony of bumping over the primative road network that gave us whiplash every day. They also distracted us from the battle that was waging in our stomaches between the good old American bacteria we brought with us to India and the army of foreign invaders we had introduced in the form of sweet lassis,l desserts and a steady diet of samosas.<br /><br />But the stories. They were generally folktales about things like the monkey and the crocodile (my favorite which I will recount later), the monkey and the crow or the monkey and the tiger. As you can see, a lot of these stories involved monkeys, probably because there are a lot of monkeys swinging around India. Samar told us he had learned most of the stories he knew from his grandfather and that his older son, aged four, already knew many of them by heart. Pervez, our host in Delhi, told us stories too. One morning, as we checked email in his office, he shared with us his three favorite stories, one of which was a haiku. The scroll painters in Naya had stories to tell, the tribal women in Orissa had stories, the Bhopa we found playing to the sunset over Lake Pichola had stories. Our cab driver in Kolkata, Rafick, had stories. Not folk tales; he told us about his wild youth and his stint in jail. Then he charged us double for our ride, and we paid it. <br /><br />Everybody in India, it seemed, had a story to tell. Even the temples, ornately carved with maidens dancing or washing their hair or waiting for their suitors, offered layers and layers of stories. One temple, in Bhubaneswar, even had the story of the monkey and the crocodile carved among its elephants and lions and maidens and monks. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzR4TB0VvxfomUdgyOhu4NgfPM9y5dAZlyrmUrplzuqhkM1KzF3SDnCA0zCq27WD_3C1BBP7UYsxCoWTLF4YbtEdsXC4wGv_3xeJ-96aaKDs6y4EilY_lrcsumUbA2cLNZXMnvWc6DyE/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd2097b8157200000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzR4TB0VvxfomUdgyOhu4NgfPM9y5dAZlyrmUrplzuqhkM1KzF3SDnCA0zCq27WD_3C1BBP7UYsxCoWTLF4YbtEdsXC4wGv_3xeJ-96aaKDs6y4EilY_lrcsumUbA2cLNZXMnvWc6DyE/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd2097b8157200000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115428576232006402" /></a>As a teacher, I tell my students not to tell me in their writing, but to show me. And in India, that's what it seems they do: they show you. For example, where an American might explain being absent-minded or distracted as having ADD, Samar explained the same thing as having a "monkey mind" (there are those monkeys again). "Monkey mind" comes from a Buddhist description of the mind of a person who is not in the present moment. The mind of such a person is said to be likened to a monkey that goes from tree to tree tasting a piece of fruit from each and then dropping it and moving on to the next tree. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQhk5Jdv_eaoj31bQvG5Y_HHDjTELtdBTxCOthH5l4YLr8nw8yXcjirddEJJ8A4okpXm5oI10tAN0B0jtrIlPJh4esio06VF6uclzDB6V2vOoUkrTIlUNxnsa0IsPhd8WgfwxazKHr1T0/s1600-h/47b7d709b3127ccebd2097ef941500000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQhk5Jdv_eaoj31bQvG5Y_HHDjTELtdBTxCOthH5l4YLr8nw8yXcjirddEJJ8A4okpXm5oI10tAN0B0jtrIlPJh4esio06VF6uclzDB6V2vOoUkrTIlUNxnsa0IsPhd8WgfwxazKHr1T0/s320/47b7d709b3127ccebd2097ef941500000025100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115428576232006418" /></a><br />I went to India in search of stories from three specific groups. What I found were stories everywhere, and now I have the task of organizing them. So here is my plan. I have begun with pictures, which I am sorting through and will begin to post shortly once I figure out some of the technical glitches I'm running into (see how the picture at the beginning of this post is sideways). Then I have some writing to do, to explain more about where we went and what we encountered. You'll notice that a lot of my entries from internet cafes are incomplete. Finally, I will be posting film clips of all the story tellers I found. Suffice to say, I will need to tame my monkey mind to accomplish all of this. In the meantime, consider this site under construction. Keep checking back, hopefully you will find something new, and for now...<br /><br />The Monkey and the Crocodile <br />as told by Samar<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4RhbexwqOdZmV1ocoQLvgGF6cEBtU_7aqJFYA7-qoJyKqdHClDgAHxXoZU41X_NI5dU8_NLyhKVd1QXG5WcHFWge25pc6wzDtUp1Xw3BBP_BC7k2ODRQ9Bma1zxofRk9fXtT6cjpXj8/s1600-h/47b7d631b3127cceb9eb3154e47d00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4RhbexwqOdZmV1ocoQLvgGF6cEBtU_7aqJFYA7-qoJyKqdHClDgAHxXoZU41X_NI5dU8_NLyhKVd1QXG5WcHFWge25pc6wzDtUp1Xw3BBP_BC7k2ODRQ9Bma1zxofRk9fXtT6cjpXj8/s320/47b7d631b3127cceb9eb3154e47d00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115198507718861378" /></a><br />There once was a monkey who lived happily by the edge of a great swamp in a blackberry tree. His best friend was a crocodile who lived with his wife on a small island in the middle of that same swamp. <br />Day after day, the monkey would pick sweet blackberries from his tree, eat some and throw some down to his friend the crocodile. They were so good and sweet that one day the crocodile brought some berries home to his wife.<br />"Oh my," said the crocodile's wife, "these berries are so good and sweet and delicious!"<br />She smacked her lips.<br />"Where did you get them?" she asked.<br />The crocodile explained that he got them from his friend the monkey.<br />His wife licked her lips and closed her eyes and thought for a moment.<br />"You know what would taste even better?" she asked the crocodile and then told him before he even tried to answer. "The monkey's heart. If the berries are this good and sweet and delicious, his heart must be even better. I want you to bring me the monkey's heart to eat."<br />The crocodile was horrified.<br />"But the monkey is my friend," he said sadly.<br />"And I am your wife, and I want you to bring me the monkey's heart."<br />So the crocodile swam to the edge of the pond and called up to the monkey.<br />"My wife loved the berries you sent her and she'd like me to invite you over for dinner.<br />"What a lovely invitation!" replied the monkey. "But I can't swim."<br />"Don't worry at all about that. You can ride safely on my back," responded the crocodile. So the monkey jumped on the crocodile's back and off they went.<br />But after a little while the crocodile's conscience got the best of him, and he told the monkey everything.<br />"Oh dear," said the monkey. Then he thought a bit before saying, "I wish you'de told me that before we left, because I don't have my heart with me. I keep it hidden in my tree. Can we swim back and get it?"<br />The crocodile was relieved to have told the truth and happily turned around to take his friend back to pick up his heart. When they got to shore the monkey hopped off the crocodile's back and scampered up his tree.<br />"False and foolish friend," he called. "Don't you know that we carry our hearts within us? I will never trust you again or ever give you fruit from my tree. Go away and don't come back again."Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-55149426708760115902007-07-31T20:37:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:34.159-08:00The Connection<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_it_slfU676hSW74h4s3uOaZDtgh5is6XhFzkxA3z2MH_4azSUPmCKtluxYelukqnuvSXxS5ALjoUK3K6G1ZweO4VLwH-aQScezBGWXvDRNdRRo_suVIbcE4GY_dYePduZGGdwFBWVMg/s1600-h/47b7d626b3127cceb9dbd75ea71700000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_it_slfU676hSW74h4s3uOaZDtgh5is6XhFzkxA3z2MH_4azSUPmCKtluxYelukqnuvSXxS5ALjoUK3K6G1ZweO4VLwH-aQScezBGWXvDRNdRRo_suVIbcE4GY_dYePduZGGdwFBWVMg/s320/47b7d626b3127cceb9dbd75ea71700000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115432557666689890" /></a><br />The woman sitting across from us passes a hollowed gourd that has been sealed with fire. It is filled with alcohol made from fermented rice and brought by her tribe to sell at this weekly market in the hills. She is a Bonda, and we are now in Orissa, a lush green state on the eastern coast of India, to study her tribe along with the other indigenous groups that still populate this region. Our guide is Samar and our driver is Dija. They are Hindu, but both seem to have a deep respect and love for the tribes in this part of their home state. Shortly after picking me and Chris up at the train station in Visha, as we drove through ridiculously beautiful hills and valleys, Samar told us, "Maybe we will make a connection." Huh? "A connection," he said again, as if it didn't need much explaining. I was too tired from our overnight train ride from Kolkata to ask to many questions, but now I've been wondering. Where is the connection? <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8xJYUgDenN6mLRM7PoyORys4lsgzdW_qFjT294ZncmcKJVOdebn8HVROq13NxKq6xoYoFFj-1_JtBa7eWdKjIXBlE5R4NliQeWX6iGm2YXR06xHr3mJXZhOrOyPhd4F3JKF0t3lWCqxA/s1600-h/47b7d626b3127cceb9db18da665c00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8xJYUgDenN6mLRM7PoyORys4lsgzdW_qFjT294ZncmcKJVOdebn8HVROq13NxKq6xoYoFFj-1_JtBa7eWdKjIXBlE5R4NliQeWX6iGm2YXR06xHr3mJXZhOrOyPhd4F3JKF0t3lWCqxA/s320/47b7d626b3127cceb9db18da665c00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115432377278063426" /></a><br />Our new tribal friend’s name is Bubhai, which means Wednesday in the Bonda language. It is customary for all children in the tribe to be named for the day on which they were born. She, like the other Bonda women who have come to the market, is draped with hundreds of beaded necklaces which conceal her breasts and stomach. Beside this, she wears nothing but a short sisal skirt tied around her hips and a bright lungi tied over her shoulders. Bubhai’s hair is shorn, as is customary for married women and her scalp is wrapped in more strings of beads. A pile of thick aluminum necklaces rests on her collarbone, bangles are stacked along both of her forearms, and she is barefoot.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVj-UA4PFBwcyntsirkgDIUIZC6OYJQ3LdDm0hM7IJPN7Na4i_-THbcB5BbilTB3p-jEtQS5PO5Xrq1QmlOK1dRs8ydAyuAO9F7UNujKuf6bIOaedKXAJSNo205iLsYtHcVNDi7By7Olk/s1600-h/47b7d626b3127cceb9dbd737264e00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVj-UA4PFBwcyntsirkgDIUIZC6OYJQ3LdDm0hM7IJPN7Na4i_-THbcB5BbilTB3p-jEtQS5PO5Xrq1QmlOK1dRs8ydAyuAO9F7UNujKuf6bIOaedKXAJSNo205iLsYtHcVNDi7By7Olk/s320/47b7d626b3127cceb9dbd737264e00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115432557666689906" /></a><br />Of 8.15 million tribes people in the state, the Bonda only account for about 5,000. They are considered among the most primitive tribes in India. To get to the market, they walk hours through the forest from their village in the hills with urns of the fermented rice alcohol they produce perched upon their heads. They also distill a mild beer from the sago palm trees that grow in the area. At the market they set themselves up in a small field along the road to sell their wares. Samar, explains that many of the tribes people stay on after the market has finished to drink and dance into the night. Afterward they make their way on narrow paths back through the forest to get home. But now it is monsoon season. Today, the sky opens up periodically, sellers cover their goods and we get wet, so there are not as many people here as usual. Bubhai tells Samar that this means it is not worth it for the Bonda to stay long and try to sell their alcohol, let alone stay to celebrate.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7KpBvhkBEAVy-OzrTYBK9YAg3vyZylE3Sovnnvk5lvTX-NbRSHvd1fhWvo59kcfkmdYErxx8hg9py_jZTGuiSXxGEaiSNlmZQIe573lR4BSHRabuH3DY6Y7Srtk1dwDbRzL1ez0bCC4/s1600-h/47b7d626b3127cceb9dbd74f263600000025130QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7KpBvhkBEAVy-OzrTYBK9YAg3vyZylE3Sovnnvk5lvTX-NbRSHvd1fhWvo59kcfkmdYErxx8hg9py_jZTGuiSXxGEaiSNlmZQIe573lR4BSHRabuH3DY6Y7Srtk1dwDbRzL1ez0bCC4/s320/47b7d626b3127cceb9dbd74f263600000025130QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115432377278063442" /></a><br />Samar sends us to explore while he reconnects with some old friends. The market is a carnival of color, sights and smells. Spices hang in the air, and goats wander past. Women in saris and assorted styles of tribal dress sell their wares and see to their shopping. As we pass stalls of everything from brass pots to chickens and tarps scattered with vegetables, it is clear that we, big and sunburned and curious, are the oddities here. All eyes seem to shift with us as we crouch to examine some okra and bitter gourd. When we stop and talk to someone, a small crowd gathers. The Bonda prove to be among the most forward of the tribes people at the market when two women approach us and cajole me into buying them snacks. No less persistent than the women who sold me some of their beaded necklaces as soon as we entered the market, they pull me over to a stall and point to their open mouths until I relent and buy them a few plastic baggies of what looks like Chex mix. The men hang back, and the guide books warn that tourists should not try to take their pictures. Like all the tribes people gathered here, the Bonda are thin but muscular, lithe from hard work and walking.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hZxheNN9eBaUwwFvnVhhPzH1HTph-zHVn8l6b_SVezesSkxVSjHKkrPqAtWGHgJZ0VLTIUgV3WLVrokbBRhBoxnOchV82kai9vHRpnm_ux7F3BW-0nQC7tzPcTEPuHQvtfBhPAXu6rk/s1600-h/47b7d626b3127cceb9dbe14ba71900000025130QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hZxheNN9eBaUwwFvnVhhPzH1HTph-zHVn8l6b_SVezesSkxVSjHKkrPqAtWGHgJZ0VLTIUgV3WLVrokbBRhBoxnOchV82kai9vHRpnm_ux7F3BW-0nQC7tzPcTEPuHQvtfBhPAXu6rk/s320/47b7d626b3127cceb9dbe14ba71900000025130QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115432561961657218" /></a><br />While we wander, Samar finds a clearing in front of a neglected looking Christian church where we can talk to the Bonda. When we do finally sit down together, we regard each other with curiosity. Bubhai is joined by a woman with a sweet, self-conscious smile who looks about her age, as well as another woman who looks ten years older and lacks the colorful attire of many of the Bonda. Once we begin talking, a Bonda man appears and keeps trying to interrupt Bubhai as she answers my questions. Eventually the women shoo him away. Bubhai does not ask me about where I came from or why I want to talk to her. I realize that even if she did, my answers would mean nothing to her. How does someone who may have never held a book visualize a school? Suddenly my students in New York seem very far away. My life seems far away.<br /><br />Bubhai has had six children in all, but two died as infants. The infant mortality rate among the tribe is about 14 percent. When I ask through Samar what kinds of stories her mother told her as a child, she looks puzzled for a moment. Samar rephrases the question and after thinking Bubhai says,<br /><br />“When I was young, and I would not go to sleep, my mother would tell me, ‘If you don’t sleep, the tiger in the forest will know. He will smell you and know you are awake and he will come and eat you up.’”<br /><br />This confirmed what my research before meeting the Bonda had suggested. Their stories are not about once upon a time or happily ever after, but are instructive about the lives they live and the world they live in. It’s a hard life. The Bonda still rely on hunting and gathering. They lack safe drinking water, are malnourished and live in poverty. It is easy to romanticize the lives of the tribes, especially when they are as striking as the Bonda. What is more difficult is determining how to preserve their culture, but at the same time help them to live better lives.<br /><br />Some of their practices, while alien to me, actually make a lot of sense. For example, a Bonda woman of about age twenty-five will choose a ten year old boy as her husband. It is not a sexual relationship, at least not at first. The match is made with the understanding that the bride will take care of her husband at the beginning of his life, when he is vulnerable, and the groom will take care of his wife later, when she becomes weaker.<br /><br />Before we go, Bubhai and the women sitting with her start to sing a song that a bride’s friends and sisters sing to her on her way to get married. They are shy in their singing, bowing their chins slightly and looking at me a little sideways. I am taken off guard by the sadness in the harmony of their voices. I’ve never heard anything like it. The notes go down where I expect them to go up. It is as unfamiliar and surprising as all of India itself. It is beautiful.<br /><br />I ask what the song means and Samar translates:<br /><br />“It means the women are sad their sister is leaving. They know that this step, getting married, will take her away from them and bring her closer to dying.”<br /><br />This somewhat same existential idea comes up in “Our Town,” a play by the American playwright Thorton Wilder. The story takes place in a small town called Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. It follows the courtship of two high school sweethearts, George and Emily. When the couple gets married, Emily gives a soliloquy in which she professes her own fears about the transience of life as she approaches the altar. She sees her steps down the aisle and away from her girlhood as steps toward her own mortality. It’s one of my favorite plays, for its sweet depiction of life in a simpler time, but also in its reminder to appreciate life while you live it.<br /><br />So I listen to the Bonda women sing a song which in its own way is so much like Emily’s speech, and realize that, even here, in a clearing in a forest in the hills of Orissa, where life seems to be lived as it has been for hundreds of years, time is fleeting. Our time will end. In itself, this is not the idea that I’ve traveled thousands of miles to bring back to my students. Rather it is this understanding that however different the Bonda may be from us on the surface, there are still fundamental experiences that we all share: birth, death and singing our song.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3t4ic7kPoPDcTnqltA4UHaxyW1NVQkzwaT_FaMhH4_Gi4EVH56V5bbUTcVonBQdIFUthat4EZFuDL8-A_TIrGAFUmexcyz0zmfbZGN9jP_tbco4Avy2U9MM284bXMjjh_CLHg0FnY3lU/s1600-h/47b7d626b3127cceb9db18cfe77900000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3t4ic7kPoPDcTnqltA4UHaxyW1NVQkzwaT_FaMhH4_Gi4EVH56V5bbUTcVonBQdIFUthat4EZFuDL8-A_TIrGAFUmexcyz0zmfbZGN9jP_tbco4Avy2U9MM284bXMjjh_CLHg0FnY3lU/s320/47b7d626b3127cceb9db18cfe77900000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115432372983096114" /></a>Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-66266118373435073762007-07-31T00:13:00.000-07:002009-10-25T07:12:42.538-07:00Try This at HomeMayna Chitrakar, wearing flip-flops and a bright, multicolored sari, is walking purposefully around to the back of her square, two-story concrete house in Naya, a small village in the Mindapore district of West Bengal. Slightly less than five feet tall, she is a pretty woman in her late twenties or early thirties, a bit rounder than some of the other women in the village with a gold earring in her nose. She grabs a hoe on the way, and when she arrives at the edge of what could be a small pond or a large puddle from the current monsoon, she begins to dig up a plant. <br />"Tumeric," she says, holding the root for me to see. <br />Mayna then heads back toward the front of the house, pulls a few blue flowers from somewhere along the way, as well as some broad, flat, green leaves. She squats next to a stone slab she has set on the dirt path leading up to her doorway, and as some of the villagers gather around to see the show (the American lady has her camera out again), she picks up a pestle and begins to grind the tumeric, creating a bright yellow paste. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVtruyR0u5tfeA85Fcq0tBK-yLgq6btQxbxjCRPmICHWNwZI5v_70NUc2ts7YK4moUxiGPe-3rBK2Ah3YgrHamju_ywqwG5v5arCXs3Sr8W5q2X90A46mByGvJ2R4yeESRKfniv-zCSTU/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd51778d3f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVtruyR0u5tfeA85Fcq0tBK-yLgq6btQxbxjCRPmICHWNwZI5v_70NUc2ts7YK4moUxiGPe-3rBK2Ah3YgrHamju_ywqwG5v5arCXs3Sr8W5q2X90A46mByGvJ2R4yeESRKfniv-zCSTU/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd51778d3f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115573913630336050" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-bTpzMdyuVScLWYaLJB_1GEqVlbDgPD0J0xKKdIMLtqXd3HVWnLE7CjhJd6QQhsAh7oQMMOPS49yJKE1FN2tARoHMm6RZSZ3jLGHavjBPdlHq2Enzrrb7Jf_HHqii9kqmTSDsRNH3iJU/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd5db80cc600000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-bTpzMdyuVScLWYaLJB_1GEqVlbDgPD0J0xKKdIMLtqXd3HVWnLE7CjhJd6QQhsAh7oQMMOPS49yJKE1FN2tARoHMm6RZSZ3jLGHavjBPdlHq2Enzrrb7Jf_HHqii9kqmTSDsRNH3iJU/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd5db80cc600000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115571001642509250" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN8U6c6dwJFPuESA7q7-aEwbV0bti95HDBdlwYkHQYX5FqvK73GAnrwV7BorcAGf8-op3tAasAflvo27_BSLR4Inbu7AJQVygSf0MFp3cd4HYDi_pSgoFHvpz5LtVqhTfXiT46qq6XJGQ/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd5d798d3700000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN8U6c6dwJFPuESA7q7-aEwbV0bti95HDBdlwYkHQYX5FqvK73GAnrwV7BorcAGf8-op3tAasAflvo27_BSLR4Inbu7AJQVygSf0MFp3cd4HYDi_pSgoFHvpz5LtVqhTfXiT46qq6XJGQ/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd5d798d3700000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115571001642509234" /></a><br />While she does this, Prabir, another member of the Chitrakar clan, snatches up the large green leaves Mayna picked and begins rubbing them between his hands. He is around seventeen or eighteen years old and a new father, but he grins like a child when he holds up his two palms, blood-red from the leaves, a sight worthy of Lady Macbeth if anyone in the village were familiar with Shakespeare.<br />Mayna crushes another kind of leaf to make dark green paste, grinds up the flowers to make an unsatisfying blue, collects her pallet together and heads into the house to demonstrate how traditional patachitra scrolls are painted using natural paints and a basic pallet.<br />As she paints the forms of four figures in the stylized fashion of the pats, her mother, Jamuna, joins in and paints a beautiful large bird by her side. Her long, loose graying hair, glasses and smile as beautiful as her daughter's, despite a few missing teeth, give a good sense of what Mayna will probably look like in about twenty five years. I was suprised, watching them, to realize that they block in the shapes of each form first and paint the outline last.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjPeSt2J-Y1_gV5PO1v_PCuXnk2h_9IWcA-O_uOGlIPUmUEedXxvhnzkHnMNL6y7u-DajGH2yabq6p63HmxF9iFWS2yicUQM45Dyx3r87nhDeOPpAbCWUHwwgKHWLuHkDPnv3FzxAfcmc/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd50c7cd1700000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjPeSt2J-Y1_gV5PO1v_PCuXnk2h_9IWcA-O_uOGlIPUmUEedXxvhnzkHnMNL6y7u-DajGH2yabq6p63HmxF9iFWS2yicUQM45Dyx3r87nhDeOPpAbCWUHwwgKHWLuHkDPnv3FzxAfcmc/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd50c7cd1700000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115572444751520738" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukkYdhYRuVcbxZtw_urJ5bfA1XgAi2p5gN863B6-LocPkeUz-PeLF4yplKZoADi-OMhif1BjjayCwrMnb13CfS_1Jks3K4beTdDcPggB2ras-c4zyLsN_DvNi6LXl84Ede06wMZegKtM/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd51b98df100000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukkYdhYRuVcbxZtw_urJ5bfA1XgAi2p5gN863B6-LocPkeUz-PeLF4yplKZoADi-OMhif1BjjayCwrMnb13CfS_1Jks3K4beTdDcPggB2ras-c4zyLsN_DvNi6LXl84Ede06wMZegKtM/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd51b98df100000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115572444751520754" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjdF8W2nJUNZIP4YBRAJxFXqpdxJdwfhANaUbZ49uK292QKps7oFbBKha-KTTDg14JFJH_cwFjC4wX5LX6V23hGVz24WE7SGdAFpgM_obkB8oAeDIZ-Y3R4LXpwqMFhZHDdsWCnkwLl8k/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd53168d5f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjdF8W2nJUNZIP4YBRAJxFXqpdxJdwfhANaUbZ49uK292QKps7oFbBKha-KTTDg14JFJH_cwFjC4wX5LX6V23hGVz24WE7SGdAFpgM_obkB8oAeDIZ-Y3R4LXpwqMFhZHDdsWCnkwLl8k/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd53168d5f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115573913630336066" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggJE-7MtRNSwbv-rK6lm44XZuzzg_AgOu8ZEzUGwTrsVe-myJeV5q4sQlwAG7KIMD-JkVtXkMeix9OMPqKQZDpJXaWIJVDR8epmuykhR64-8BTVPYKSdLFuyaa32l29Re_zaTFan_aTtc/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd5d600c1e00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggJE-7MtRNSwbv-rK6lm44XZuzzg_AgOu8ZEzUGwTrsVe-myJeV5q4sQlwAG7KIMD-JkVtXkMeix9OMPqKQZDpJXaWIJVDR8epmuykhR64-8BTVPYKSdLFuyaa32l29Re_zaTFan_aTtc/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd5d600c1e00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115570997347541906" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVGp-1unvHjiM8QqYy7zYYBOiPIqSI3IUNn0wP9tYH6T8jWwYFLGEvydnVqm2NFZ16_CshG0IjjPx4g95VwYzvXU7EHtCzHLqmfeJSzgLwJbjqzFKY_y0IGafY4RJJsVAKgo0MuC900Q4/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd5d718d3f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVGp-1unvHjiM8QqYy7zYYBOiPIqSI3IUNn0wP9tYH6T8jWwYFLGEvydnVqm2NFZ16_CshG0IjjPx4g95VwYzvXU7EHtCzHLqmfeJSzgLwJbjqzFKY_y0IGafY4RJJsVAKgo0MuC900Q4/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd5d718d3f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115571001642509218" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTfgErC836-RfuLeJVoQ-uZ6e8aywjy0ebGgZjP2XgZv5KBdnc_ni_mrePS4CLQLp6tN96MuAuz0oxfUq22gFMRtERJtNrtdLQrxQKw64xkOZa2N-kxnBh95quVtNKchmEYa4M1g01fjo/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9be9e8eaded00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTfgErC836-RfuLeJVoQ-uZ6e8aywjy0ebGgZjP2XgZv5KBdnc_ni_mrePS4CLQLp6tN96MuAuz0oxfUq22gFMRtERJtNrtdLQrxQKw64xkOZa2N-kxnBh95quVtNKchmEYa4M1g01fjo/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9be9e8eaded00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115573917925303378" /></a>After the presentation is over, Mayna shoos us out of the house to make lunch and we head over to her sister Manimala's house. Manimala also lives in a sort of concrete bungalow, rather than a mud hut, singifying that she has done well with her srolls. To get there we step gingerly across a makeshift footbridge of bricks set in the soggy mud. We learn that we were supposed to visit her the day before, but the rains had flooded her front yard. She proudly shows us her passport while we are there, and when we leave she gives us a business card that the crafts council may have printed for her.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdsm3mAsUn3NCzOkyz3mWralDo7QIBMEGSRkissowlmsbZqH0JmWOrAG753ux67i1fA384fXdXuDjbzDVP5DmQtbBro002mBkuelarKIz4K7FTaWAQEiM8nor_KJ3bedRFJCc-A5DrxIM/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd53d50cac00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdsm3mAsUn3NCzOkyz3mWralDo7QIBMEGSRkissowlmsbZqH0JmWOrAG753ux67i1fA384fXdXuDjbzDVP5DmQtbBro002mBkuelarKIz4K7FTaWAQEiM8nor_KJ3bedRFJCc-A5DrxIM/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd53d50cac00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115572449046488082" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-iU6RZX3Rm2pphzLRZd_l6griyqAVkzpqAf0Y_fe-k8_72fyfHCFZHJMedEXDEdbWyiU2uwQ600CZwOlyLRHWg7SIeilEW3fy9dTdX4PM1DyKdVfDDyFAwIY3xMN74LN3Ws0woEGY1k/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9be9f136cd800000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-iU6RZX3Rm2pphzLRZd_l6griyqAVkzpqAf0Y_fe-k8_72fyfHCFZHJMedEXDEdbWyiU2uwQ600CZwOlyLRHWg7SIeilEW3fy9dTdX4PM1DyKdVfDDyFAwIY3xMN74LN3Ws0woEGY1k/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9be9f136cd800000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115576387531498626" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYE6yK3OXQgW9MdfmqbGLGQqmJc5JrDW7Jw5DLg2AUFJ9kI8ekDh_ljcLfbvnIz4BgDF15G1akBYQfOdCqWaPTfpMeVYg-6j0p48DV-AeqtEoclJuSuQEShUtQB_ehMh39O_U1ab9zvek/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd52e4cd3500000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYE6yK3OXQgW9MdfmqbGLGQqmJc5JrDW7Jw5DLg2AUFJ9kI8ekDh_ljcLfbvnIz4BgDF15G1akBYQfOdCqWaPTfpMeVYg-6j0p48DV-AeqtEoclJuSuQEShUtQB_ehMh39O_U1ab9zvek/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd52e4cd3500000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115572449046488066" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXLCHgLhqdB-1pp5s5i3ipaAdyipBZ5KdnIyk7UzH13ImRn11BFUlbJSV3YOGbL6FBg6oHBEq6yY__HUsc33Ghh-2-3XWz_-AfUWHcTsZjDRlLX2fH8QCT724I06_318Qex7BGOJoJjI/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd526d4c8c00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXLCHgLhqdB-1pp5s5i3ipaAdyipBZ5KdnIyk7UzH13ImRn11BFUlbJSV3YOGbL6FBg6oHBEq6yY__HUsc33Ghh-2-3XWz_-AfUWHcTsZjDRlLX2fH8QCT724I06_318Qex7BGOJoJjI/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd526d4c8c00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115572453341455394" /></a><br />When we arrive, Manimala immediately begins pulling out scrolls, then sits and begins to sing as she unrolls one. She is the most convincing performer we have encountered, and she sings in an emotional way that demands silence, even from the young children who had moments ago been running around. <br /><br />Here is a translation of her song about the Tsunami:<br /><br />Tsunami<br /><br />How much longer will you make us weep oh Tsunami. As soon as I start talking about it my heart weeps. Oh merciful one, my heart weeps.<br />On 26th December, 2004 Tsunami came with terrible destruction. It was terrible. Oh merciful one, my heart weeps.<br />Some lost their mothers & fathers who were swept away. Indians were dying. So many children hung on to doors but were swept away by the waves. What did you spare? Nothing. Oh merciful one, my heart weeps.<br />Getting the news journalists came out in droves. They wept at the scene . Oh merciful one, my heart weeps.<br />Some mothers lost their children; some kids lost their mothers; some husbands their wives. Oh what agony. Oh merciful one, my heart weeps.<br />Oh Kanya Kumari, the goddess of the ocean. Tell me how you could take; so many lives. Oh merciful one, my heart weeps.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhACM193P-CcI0DHsV_gbfNfpeQzSl6Jc_Tod-oVHJ9YNgQyOhOugOPUazNLij8RFE2JHCatOBLoVB9FgXFQ8M4-JMe6oJj-vwZ6nyMQ7xzUhoWYuSiQr2-B56wxG6lmyzFcJ54oXZQACU/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd50b7cd6700000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhACM193P-CcI0DHsV_gbfNfpeQzSl6Jc_Tod-oVHJ9YNgQyOhOugOPUazNLij8RFE2JHCatOBLoVB9FgXFQ8M4-JMe6oJj-vwZ6nyMQ7xzUhoWYuSiQr2-B56wxG6lmyzFcJ54oXZQACU/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd50b7cd6700000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115571005937476562" /></a>Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-10860931623319843152007-07-26T23:00:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:37.281-08:00Hello. How are you?Here are some images from Orissa. I'm about five entries behind. I never was good on a deadline.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhydo0fnY8ByDlAZmtv7vNfcs0vqkMGwC7wR1WpX7ShSCyVrSTsvDN_Ec3rZIV3X_aWdsq9bVj8ugJ-_mttxITz0qeSGBPWy1uz8z1M9v14YybwF7GJCK7OdXeLOA7f4Hj_fePUyB7NW8Q/s1600-h/anneke+092.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhydo0fnY8ByDlAZmtv7vNfcs0vqkMGwC7wR1WpX7ShSCyVrSTsvDN_Ec3rZIV3X_aWdsq9bVj8ugJ-_mttxITz0qeSGBPWy1uz8z1M9v14YybwF7GJCK7OdXeLOA7f4Hj_fePUyB7NW8Q/s320/anneke+092.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091757690792851682" /></a>Two Bonda women share the stories and traditions of their people. <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1FLzRK2PE-z3yxxt2Dq_okAXeYAQfA8BqWBIn48EVdQBG0QaJhtKjS_KQb23J_K2wwCRNB6eyreZXYsjVUJNw6XXwFU5eVUOVzVV8Fw4nkd8l5lIt-JoHjVO99MlmtMEuYSqHRkhnpb4/s1600-h/anneke+381.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1FLzRK2PE-z3yxxt2Dq_okAXeYAQfA8BqWBIn48EVdQBG0QaJhtKjS_KQb23J_K2wwCRNB6eyreZXYsjVUJNw6XXwFU5eVUOVzVV8Fw4nkd8l5lIt-JoHjVO99MlmtMEuYSqHRkhnpb4/s320/anneke+381.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091756788849719506" /></a>Chris and Anneke and about 350 new friends at a home for tribal orphans, mostly girls, who are often "thrown away", because they are not as valued as men in many tribal cultures.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA3e8ERB3AzaRM7qNAGv9BhU4yAB4lbUIU-UYwCyOgsLT-3TnOzlZpb5QJ4gF3VeR7GYpLO4APdilheAl-gj52EJiEDoFRcEvp7RehJ_zJNVLM7zw4j8bT1OIqvLLpd_9hH6DuCYXxy1g/s1600-h/anneke+038.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA3e8ERB3AzaRM7qNAGv9BhU4yAB4lbUIU-UYwCyOgsLT-3TnOzlZpb5QJ4gF3VeR7GYpLO4APdilheAl-gj52EJiEDoFRcEvp7RehJ_zJNVLM7zw4j8bT1OIqvLLpd_9hH6DuCYXxy1g/s320/anneke+038.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091755483179661506" /></a>Sirens.Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-34758953965824352932007-07-24T22:51:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:37.519-08:00Sweets for the SweetI have had some memorable meals on the road; meals I will never forget.<br />Couscous at an outdoor cafe in Fes with Katherine and our guide Mohammed. Fresh shrimp the size of small lobsters served with cold beer and homemade taro chips in Pinar Del Rio with Sarah and company. Daily meals cooked by my host mother, Cecile, in Archachon, France, regional delights fried and baked and topped with creme fraiche every noon with nary a thought to calories or cholesterol. Almost anywhere I have gone, there has been good food in surprising places or with surprising company. India has been no exception. <br />In Kolkata we were invited for lunch in the home of Ruby Palchoudhuri, the Director of the Crafts Council of West Bengal. I first discovered the organization on the internet when I was putting my grant proposal together and researching where I might be able to connect with the Patua. The mission of the council is to help the craftspeople, folk artists and artisans of West Bengal gain recognition for their crafts and work. This is no small task. For example, the council has facilitated literacy classes in the small village of Naya where we visited the Patua. They have brought the scroll painters to the United States, Hawaii and Australia to demonstrate their crafts and even helped one scroll painter, Rani Chitrakar, produce a children's book.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE2fpTUww_jeWag202z1g_aFK8L-BmEJ98fh_fySEE1xlQ2nnYTWbyu_ttxYdbx-StYNLEMr4ldu-LuKTDjQ7OQpgXrJwNzlZrfQVLnaIzepVy20wZV7anUbJ5FXuOAuFcUiEzr_36hfc/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bc02aaed1f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE2fpTUww_jeWag202z1g_aFK8L-BmEJ98fh_fySEE1xlQ2nnYTWbyu_ttxYdbx-StYNLEMr4ldu-LuKTDjQ7OQpgXrJwNzlZrfQVLnaIzepVy20wZV7anUbJ5FXuOAuFcUiEzr_36hfc/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bc02aaed1f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115429813182587682" /></a>Ruby and I standing outside her house in Kolkata.<br /><br />But I digress. We learned about most of the council's work sitting comfortably in Ruby's living room in Kolkata, surrounded by beautiful paintings done by noted Bengali artists (she later arranged for us to meet with the Bengali artist Paritosh Sen, noted for bringing modernism to India). Our conversation with Ruby, the driving force behind the crafts council, was one of our first indications of the deep pride that Bengalis have in their culture. This is perhaps the quality that we most fell in love with during our stay in Kolkata. In fact, throughout India we have found that while Indians are very curious about Americans, they are intensely proud of their country, their religion and their culture. And, as the way to the heart is the stomache, the way we have best come to appreciate this culture is through the food.<br />Whatever neurotic fears about eating the local food we might have harbored to this point in our journey dissipated in Ruby's elegant, curved dining room over the delicious fried bitter leaves, each about the size of the palm of your hand, that she served us as an appetizer. This was followed by hot rice and dal (a kind of lentil stew), okra and fragrantly seasoned bherar mangsho (goat). As our trip progressed we found that some of these are typical not only of Bengali cuisine, but are also common in the neighboring state of Orissa. Other popular local items include bitter gourd and fish; Bengalis and Orissans love their fish. <br />The meal ended with tea, a sweet yogurt custard in a small terra cotta bowl (terra cotta bowls are kind of like disposable dishes here) and what I think was shôndesh, little balls of chhena (unripened cheese) mixed with wheat flour and sugar, fried and soaked in honey or sugar. They resemble doughnut holes, but are moist and dripping with syrup.<br />Ruby was a grand host, urbane and witty and very much connected to Kolkata, the city that is her home. After lunch she sent us packing with her driver and a guide to visit the Gurusaday Museum, which showcases Bengal's arts and crafts and houses a large patachitra scroll collection. She arranged for us to spend time with the director and have a personal tour of the collection. Having learned that Chris is a painter, she then had us delivered to the CIMA gallery, Kolkata's premier gallery of modern art. By the end of our trip I came to see Ruby as Kolkata's hostess, someone wise enough to see the city's flaws but enough in love to overlook them. <br />She shared that when she had the chance to meet former French President Francois Mitterand she told him, all Kolkata can offer you is her soul, and, by the end of our visit, I felt she'd offered the same to us. <br /><br /><br />Again, we are off, Erin, I promise my next entry will begin with a full detailing of the desserts and food we've eaten on the way. True to form, we've eaten a lot. I'm about five entries behind, but today we're off to Rajasthan where we hear there are plenty of internet cafes and a cooking class to look forward to.Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-77651554811406057292007-07-16T22:44:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:42.436-08:00Fish from the RiverWe returned late last night from two days in Naya, a small village in the Mindapore district. Our driver was Sohom Daw, and our guide was Biswajit. <br />As soon as we left Kolkata, the landscape changed completely. Well, perhaps not so completely. The buildings outside the city still seemed to be in varying states of construction or demolition, farm animals still wandered across the road as freely as you please, and there were still people, people, people everywhere, but less condensed. There were also fields, generally of rice, waterlogged from the monsoon, being tilled by cows dragging ploughs or shored up by men and women with picks and shovels. We drove past a river and saw boys casting their nets into the water from long, almost elegant, fishing boats.<br />There is a lot of horn honking in India. Most taxis don't seem to have all or any of their rearview mirrors, so drivers beep instead. If you're going to pass someone, you beep. If there seem to be a lot of pedestrians on any given street, you beep. If a goat is in your path, you beep. So we beeped along, past bikes and motorbikes laden with bags of sand or a pallet of oil cans strapped together with jute rope, trucks and busloads of people. After driving for about two and a half hours, we dropped our bags at the circuit house in Mindapore town, a somewhat large hamlet situated in the middle of the district, and set off again for the last thirty kilometers to Naya.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiePG_eMLVgEihnyCveAme39NTAwuVqq0yC8yj6kj10S5OAeh0QodYAJrAPB8hCU-4R0p4ayBwejDj-6wkqXwvvUhgw_3zygzZPvqv4-9je8S3xFnlG0m7rgb8Czv1NLiHkcoOla1rY2i0/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9be8fbb6c7800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiePG_eMLVgEihnyCveAme39NTAwuVqq0yC8yj6kj10S5OAeh0QodYAJrAPB8hCU-4R0p4ayBwejDj-6wkqXwvvUhgw_3zygzZPvqv4-9je8S3xFnlG0m7rgb8Czv1NLiHkcoOla1rY2i0/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9be8fbb6c7800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114996738745229842" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9TwtgIkgat0N6HYYSb6KdQ8kBcmFEMwW0D2dgyZPxQ8ZFOd0RP0BkjAT-dnrrMH6EpRq_BlyBouVR2pSCiuo9SWOC-ceDoDLA3HNsjRELu7RGFR8jbcB7G6IHhyphenhyphenvbDYxDRY6WMyEW5yc/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9be8fb96c7a00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; 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margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6bQOvgRR6FIoZYy8mWn12MvyKEbQzIA2gJ76mzGgQgmN8DfqchcQwvi2QCysYEJDrIlp-6aEAYaQPXtf4xrr5lV7hWzZchjaIA4oEZk9HX16me9MdJtpyAcabwvDpZvyuhGLmWtjTArQ/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bdd9860cba00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114995832507130322" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY9Hb_H3jIILw5s7NhlG81kAvs4Frl4P6LtEQyAHbYsK-SLko0hyR-LPVBjrGDrAkVKeeVjQ2HkQYPG-oFTYd3grAw05iVflsOj5nyG-A6GoWuqc6CyJjjrOVKnb2ptJK0KXjuP_poWLg/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bdb7030c0800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY9Hb_H3jIILw5s7NhlG81kAvs4Frl4P6LtEQyAHbYsK-SLko0hyR-LPVBjrGDrAkVKeeVjQ2HkQYPG-oFTYd3grAw05iVflsOj5nyG-A6GoWuqc6CyJjjrOVKnb2ptJK0KXjuP_poWLg/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bdb7030c0800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114993706498318738" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYQVkI9cUlNb1vC6vEgK6Rjqpmo5Tjo7UqqP5KqxiiYp7zlbs1C9HZKj8kOsNst-poqbYcWrnMQQfdyAVYGIMMbCiSze2rVby5KNHlXYyDKnXuafhZWUAhLn7mkTAL-6f4sisYqxxHlA/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bdb1e18dd900000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYQVkI9cUlNb1vC6vEgK6Rjqpmo5Tjo7UqqP5KqxiiYp7zlbs1C9HZKj8kOsNst-poqbYcWrnMQQfdyAVYGIMMbCiSze2rVby5KNHlXYyDKnXuafhZWUAhLn7mkTAL-6f4sisYqxxHlA/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bdb1e18dd900000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114992224734601538" /></a><br />Suffice to say, we aroused curiosity everywhere we went. In fact, by the time we finished our visit and wandered from the last few houses we visited to our car, we had a small parade clustered behind us. Apparently, American tourists don't swing through Mindapore on a regular basis.<br />But Naya, our destination, and the scroll painters who live there, have seen a few. We arrived at the village and were immediately ushered into the home of Shyamsunder Chitrakar. This is when it occurred to me that we should have studied Bengali a little more. A lot more. I wasn't sure where to sit, or what to say, or how to introduce myself and explain why I was there. Anyone who knows me knows how awkward I can get at in such a situation. I was saved when Shyamsunder's wife, Rani, immediately unrolled a Patachitra scroll and began singing about HIV in India. She had a beautiful soulful voice, and as she sang and pointed to each scene on the scroll, I was able to follow, even though I couldn't understand a word of what she was singing...<br />Okay, that's all for now. We're off for our overnight train to Orissa in about thirty minutes. I'll write more about our visit to Naya as soon as I get the chance. And, while we haven't had any icecream since we've been here, we've had plenty of other sweets and amazing food which I'll write about later. We played it pretty safe on the culinary front for the first few days, but when a family offers you fish from their river, how can you say no?<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-6qVR8f-FuoLmg2RLPy4ZvhkA64hsM5F0TxUffRNvtHdVWQ4_bZhPuIzFkHzbY-9GIYPMZdfQs0v_OzrHtBlieDanArLzdSFWHa_HSwQEbpoE-GGSUx40vbFAy4ogGsY_7phtWKX5hM/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bdc91b8d1f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-6qVR8f-FuoLmg2RLPy4ZvhkA64hsM5F0TxUffRNvtHdVWQ4_bZhPuIzFkHzbY-9GIYPMZdfQs0v_OzrHtBlieDanArLzdSFWHa_HSwQEbpoE-GGSUx40vbFAy4ogGsY_7phtWKX5hM/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bdc91b8d1f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114994367923282338" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_qeE2fg_85EEWAGaJNrLxxaXwCAZTRjeP631VJ_9Cr_BmZv1skGi2xWxeOcmXZNw0KbPofKFpimkmeR-J8HSmJ2gfh1xgn8pDzFLIxn-8giAeve5ccnK7z_o7_T27pLDG2kNyJayigM/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bdb1ca0cc200000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; 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margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJLfCgyldkgiBEwGY85yb9I2-fyEOmDpjbH1qtTR-MSkaqfcd-6GYHYIThTQv8CyuR2gu_l1nLUMPP403g8iPucqEJ5n4uHh7Xk_KcSt7mD0_sqna9LZ24x7i1gF6Sb8Eh7xBewQUo9_k/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd40c5cd1d00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114991125222973618" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOb6x-ysPh-GPrKYDYJ1SH4VZ26lLHkfWwAb7AbXjVal_rHIYcc7LO0L7WsiFczfDRUxSTcnyC92W3YvtK9Pft-KzaP4NGKHksJout9UgzswDhkjCIjm-7ler6hyC6c8jSZyrwuztCJQ/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd427d4c9400000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOb6x-ysPh-GPrKYDYJ1SH4VZ26lLHkfWwAb7AbXjVal_rHIYcc7LO0L7WsiFczfDRUxSTcnyC92W3YvtK9Pft-KzaP4NGKHksJout9UgzswDhkjCIjm-7ler6hyC6c8jSZyrwuztCJQ/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd427d4c9400000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114991760878133490" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fCqTgleBz8hW1fek0QehKUHsYk_XIwhFmmdfmQABO2zKtSQUaEHgRmwWFE3fE9f71I7aVendvaWNgTNv2IXA5vyfV3u-RB3OtdhPPCv7vk_WdvlIDvt_c85yZ5k1aUoeHgYrFKImCCY/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd4c764c9800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fCqTgleBz8hW1fek0QehKUHsYk_XIwhFmmdfmQABO2zKtSQUaEHgRmwWFE3fE9f71I7aVendvaWNgTNv2IXA5vyfV3u-RB3OtdhPPCv7vk_WdvlIDvt_c85yZ5k1aUoeHgYrFKImCCY/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bd4c764c9800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114990987784020114" /></a>Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-68575367743803926752007-07-11T22:00:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:46.521-08:005 Days and 6 Nights in KolkataChris was dozing on our bed at the <a href="http://www.fairlawnhotel.com">Fairlawn Hotel</a> last night while I washed some of our clothes in the sink. He drifted off for a moment and had a dream. He dreampt that his father, Chris Sr., was standing out in the dark, crowded street in front of the hotel calling him, "Chris, I can't move the car, Chris..."<br /><br />That's how surreal Kolkata is. I was going to tell you about the autorickshaws in Delhi. I was going to tell those who know the thrill of riding the Cyclone at Coney Island, and the rickety assurance that death could be waiting around every creaking, hairpin turn, that they would appreciate the thrill of an autorickshaw ride in Delhi. But those little motorcycle cars have nothing on a taxi ride into Kolkata. Delhi is Disneyland compared to the twilight streets of the City of Joy.<br /><br />We prepaid for our taxi inside the airport to avoid the tiresome haggling that has accompanied every transaction on the trip. But that measure of security did not ensure that our driver would speak English, or have any interest in our attempts at Hindi, or have a safe car, or even know the way. None of the above. And once we'd careened onto the congested highway, peering through the cracked windshield and trying to blink back the tears that came with the stinging exhaust that thickens the air here, we knew we were in for quite a ride. <br /><br />At every intersection our driver stops to joke with other drivers, buys and swallows down little "energy packets" from passing street vendors, or leans out the window to spit and ask directions. <br /><br />We sat quietly in the back seat as he pulled out of the way of two buses that seemed to be drag-racing down the road; we looked out the window at little vignettes of life that rolled past: women in dusty saris with babies on their hips, cows grazing on littered islands of grass wedged between the street and pond sized puddles ringed with debris left over from the recent monsoon beating. Dirty children chased each other. Beautifully painted rickshaws peddled past. Once we got into the winding streets of the city, we drove through whole blocks with no power, candles shining out of small cave-like store fronts and people, people, people everywhere.<br /><br />And I haven't even told you about our hotel yet. Today we are going to meet with Ruby from the Crafts Council of West Bengal to find out the where's, when's and how's of our trip to meet the Patua in Naya. This little internet cafe will burn our photos onto a CD, so I should be able to post some pictures in a day or two. Thanks for your comments! <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2b6ux_ujOzVoB5IjILwHIjdVJtDTiHtGtTzTp0_NoZ1xKN-0uHOAfamNfDLP9Xc_KMeTquxszIGMe4_AHLZCbzqI3iDqBYzEpnIfBlDzihcMW5LnrxoBxBtCFnLlH7QNiD7mB5IXKQkU/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9a21d1aeda700000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2b6ux_ujOzVoB5IjILwHIjdVJtDTiHtGtTzTp0_NoZ1xKN-0uHOAfamNfDLP9Xc_KMeTquxszIGMe4_AHLZCbzqI3iDqBYzEpnIfBlDzihcMW5LnrxoBxBtCFnLlH7QNiD7mB5IXKQkU/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9a21d1aeda700000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114965424138673938" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwe5LB6WyVOsCVu0LcRwyokOm0dD6EG-QCDbUgc5gRAPxTpCzGcdK4leyNcPAN16R6_lkCQhd0AGinURkcsQ-Iah854VWUs9Sxa6nLkdiM6RgSiQfXVTLZSwptDnaGDKDqqhEJsMp_-9E/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9a21d10edad00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; 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margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsCbNoixXexeCpfjjF-u1K6ohcO0NP4kQPgrZuoOwNbeEBQx6giNB94Ck8pR3EiWLQfqiRNYj3othOTgxzAbfGlNuQkUrgxN9k02Yfp_yZwoXxbob2uED7DimDAPsOVw73dBgCEMW7Io0/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bc30f3ed5f00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114969469997867138" /></a>Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-83561818642143802632007-07-09T21:36:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:48.239-08:00Delhi BellyWe arrived safe and sound after 24 hours of travel. The Delhi airport was more mellow than I expected; perhaps because we landed after midnight. Our driver was waiting with our names on a sign and brought the car around immediately. The drive to the hotel was smooth, though I was surprised at one point to look up at the sound of honking horns to see two cows ambling down the highway on either side of the car. <br /><br />Our host, Pervez was waiting in the night when we arrived at the <a href="http://www.delhibedandbreakfast.com">Delhi Bed and Breakfast</a>. He showed us to our room, and we managed to get a few hours sleep before getting up to a lovely breakfast and our first day of sightseeing. Welcome to India.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirDie5WqFgZQDozIliCWmeZLS0Tt82PiknfNV78lyZ7-6Oo4geej0ohA03T6JvXZUyoRiwBjv5dRPwpfKIMPo3vntuPPSjwViiGkUWJTEc1E5E1DM940auD9KBP0T5lEk3nRm3Jr2Zzhc/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bee1966c6200000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirDie5WqFgZQDozIliCWmeZLS0Tt82PiknfNV78lyZ7-6Oo4geej0ohA03T6JvXZUyoRiwBjv5dRPwpfKIMPo3vntuPPSjwViiGkUWJTEc1E5E1DM940auD9KBP0T5lEk3nRm3Jr2Zzhc/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bee1966c6200000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114958573665836722" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkLCF7ZnaT9KEp1ggB8dHApeaUheGr_8mddkS3fRXyO-a-geBruVG6WEfNMXJETWqYkitcbkuU0HWzwnXZwdRJpI2QqAWsCWmZ7zw_uiMVlmVv11lZmk2N3GsDinC65jirkSXzXP3sN4U/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bee9fa6c0a00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; 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margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0l1f3WHQlx58iUczACAwsfmGTCvzQmNDwaJq3-ArJzNtWtfVo7zyRsVTyet_RG8HevAWOSCadTSA6Prlwj0hTZA6AR_udGA2tDOpZ9ZhyQXQkDLt3ScTpd_yttyE0_C4bCBq_er8OZew/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9be767f2c5800000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114958298787929730" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfrCjiAhcLY7w2o7BlUUegxcA375pbPHUq4wupxp_0HCdxKpdsPHd8UL9IPKJwil5m8aOslghAlsA_EL-hXOfrFI0XluvBB47BFmp4C1Og8Vk2muOC0oBjghSCGVX8RFLwubONoCduv0/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9a282142c4e00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfrCjiAhcLY7w2o7BlUUegxcA375pbPHUq4wupxp_0HCdxKpdsPHd8UL9IPKJwil5m8aOslghAlsA_EL-hXOfrFI0XluvBB47BFmp4C1Og8Vk2muOC0oBjghSCGVX8RFLwubONoCduv0/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9a282142c4e00000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114958217183551090" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg7NJZusU0zRy8wBENla3wz0ZKOHzbAtTt4KqwHinX_WsNycuOFj6_Nz6Q0GtEWcerAC3T-6-rDnI_CBUfbXpS7xWnWACTpM6nfHac2dANekEHdotYx5bNCp9K01sLj_1_1qkPdC-cdzc/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9bf9e330c2c00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg7NJZusU0zRy8wBENla3wz0ZKOHzbAtTt4KqwHinX_WsNycuOFj6_Nz6Q0GtEWcerAC3T-6-rDnI_CBUfbXpS7xWnWACTpM6nfHac2dANekEHdotYx5bNCp9K01sLj_1_1qkPdC-cdzc/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9bf9e330c2c00000025110QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114957577233423970" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdw2i9rlimRSaLMZWj_fr_eHWqE4OXo1LFJuoIPIGp6ok4J4IS3migwRlMHMEdJyk3VzvwZYebYQeaf69HY8pQZ14VSW5JNqhpH0iPuq8X0lnt-2z_2miT3Uru4Ctzycy9XSMhDpE2BY/s1600-h/47b7d632b3127cceb9a177ea0c8600000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdw2i9rlimRSaLMZWj_fr_eHWqE4OXo1LFJuoIPIGp6ok4J4IS3migwRlMHMEdJyk3VzvwZYebYQeaf69HY8pQZ14VSW5JNqhpH0iPuq8X0lnt-2z_2miT3Uru4Ctzycy9XSMhDpE2BY/s320/47b7d632b3127cceb9a177ea0c8600000026100QbuWzFmzbsT.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114959875040927442" /></a>Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-15054389268035255512007-07-06T04:59:00.000-07:002007-07-06T06:15:13.118-07:00The Road More TraveledI went to Morocco more than ten years ago. It was when I was in college and kind of on a lark - my friend Katherine and I wanted to get to the most exotic destination possible for spring break when we were both on a semester abroad in Bath, England. So we chose Morocco. She was going to travel through Spain for the first week of the break while I visited with some friends in Northern England. Then I flew to meet her in Malaga, and from there we took a ferry to an old Spanish Fort, Melilla, where we planned to cross the border and take a bus to what's one of the oldest and most sacred cities in Morocco, Fes.<br /><br />This was before every hotel had its own website. This was before every traveler posted his or her photos on Flickr or Snapfish and all you had to do was type in a place to see what would be there. This was before you could download a podcast of a language lesson and listen to it on the plane, or read about every type of traveler malaise possible on three different travel forums. That much has changed in ten years.<br /><br />I too have changed. For that trip, I lost my passport and only realized it the week before I had to leave. That meant an emergency day at the embassy in London for which some people will always deserve to be thanked. For that trip, Katherine didn't pay close enough attention to the balance in her bank account, which meant spending a few days in a bank in Morocco getting money wired. Luckily, those were the worst of our troubles.<br /><br />When we got to the border, perhaps because we'd taken a less tourist-traveled route into the country, we found no signage in English. There we no guides trying to get our business. I don't know who we thought would be there to help us, but there was no one. We did finally manage to meet a nice Algerian man who spoke English and got us into Morocco and onto our bus to Fes. Though he didn't warn me not to drink too much water, because there was no toilet on the bus and it would be a long time before we stopped anywhere. A long time. <br /><br />When we arrived in Fes, we took the first friendly guide who approached us at the gates of the old city, despite the warnings in the guidebook. Abdullah was his name; he was young so he didn't freak us out as much as the older guides leaning against the wall and whistling "Sweetheart," and he worked out just fine. He took us around the Medina, to the tannery and the rug and leather shops. We bought trinkets big and small. We saw the sights and watched the people. We ate a lot of unleavened bread and oranges from street vendors. The oranges were the best I've ever had.<br /><br />On our last day, we splurged and went to Moulay Yacoub, a spa in the mountains that wasn't in our guidebook but was recommended by the locals. We paid close to our last twenty dollars for a taxi to take us there, visions of poolside leisure in our heads. When we arrived, we discovered the pool was indoors, it reeked of sulfur, and it was full of topless Moroccan women, young and old, who didn't seem to be too impressed by our arrival.<br /><br />My point is this - the best experiences of the trip came from the unexpected. The best stories came from the surprises, and almost everything was a surprise because we were so completely unprepared.<br /><br />This time, we're totally prepared, and my fear is that we've taken the surprise right out of it. The internet has made the world so small that I know exactly what I'm walking into - right down to the weather in Kolkata, minute by minute. <br /><br />So my hope is that, despite our hours poring over guidebooks, making lists and looking at travel websites, there will still be some adventure, some suprises, some stories. <br /><br />And who knows, maybe I'll leave the guidebooks at home, but don't tell Chris;)Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-90353292874031214222007-07-05T09:02:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:48.803-08:00How did you ever get Grandpa to India?!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvXWj1aGF8UjtIk27qOCsI_ML0x-h4j0PDgnPvxASMI7r2ifV9uOZxmJAR0Gf4CuRpE4Gl6LxFT6z5W9C2QxeRuMiTyKEPmdp2sZDz6lqIClG2TYuVOojnxYFqyF0DaNwyAsPMwI3igYk/s1600-h/IMG_2309.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvXWj1aGF8UjtIk27qOCsI_ML0x-h4j0PDgnPvxASMI7r2ifV9uOZxmJAR0Gf4CuRpE4Gl6LxFT6z5W9C2QxeRuMiTyKEPmdp2sZDz6lqIClG2TYuVOojnxYFqyF0DaNwyAsPMwI3igYk/s320/IMG_2309.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5083746868632712882" /></a><br />Next stop: Delhi!<br /><br />We're leaving in two days, so I just wanted to fit one last post in before we take off. In case you ever decide to take up globe-trotting, here are some of the important things we've had to do to get prepared:<br /><br /> - Make sure passports are in order.<br /> - Spend day at Indian consulate to get visas.<br /> - Get shots.<br /> - Get prescriptions for drugs that will save our lives if we get bitten by a malaria carrying mosquito or eat too much parasite soup.<br /> - Buy and study several travel books.<br /> - Deliver cat to friendly woman in Queens.<br /> - Check weather in Kolkata daily (ack!).<br /> - Calm spouse.<br /> - Think about dressing appropriately and pack light.<br /> - Buy a water purifier.<br /> - Get a phrase book and start practicing: "Namaste."<br /> - Get lots of advice.<br /><br />This is not a complete list, and it's just the practical stuff. I never imagined the hours that would go into planning and preparing for this trip. We are not going to bring a laptop with us, so we'll be at the mercy of hotel and internet cafe technology to keep the blog updated. <br /><br />I'm very excited to meet the Patua and the Kondh, but we're still scratching our heads a little about the Bhopa. We hope to find some in Udaipur, or to arrange to travel to see them in the desert. That's where this guy, Sohan Lal Bhopa, lives. I think he might be the Keith Richards of Rajasthan.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ecigxV81UjLIXL3dWB88yfG0YzmawIHuPn5G-L2dk3qUhZbH1mLnX0XecyO-wZy0K9uoc9rDNqw_Ea9V5dBEg4rcMPlrhslKDF6cuzPygCYsUbI1pQJg0IDYYxVLatcHfINz_RdJSIU/s1600-h/bj-4.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ecigxV81UjLIXL3dWB88yfG0YzmawIHuPn5G-L2dk3qUhZbH1mLnX0XecyO-wZy0K9uoc9rDNqw_Ea9V5dBEg4rcMPlrhslKDF6cuzPygCYsUbI1pQJg0IDYYxVLatcHfINz_RdJSIU/s320/bj-4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5083751326808766162" /></a>Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-31030781235580855622007-04-15T06:24:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:50.070-08:00Let it RainHere's the kicker. I've planned our trip for monsoon season. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiei7R4EFGhKLI_j8nOEjLi8Gq_c9GSJy7eXQcWc2U78KEFqnnjfAoV84cBAIZQ6t8V9nZNgXy35hYh6NqsleAFHxltaPmgHA98xXlEViO2Go03BvOuB31bb64SFpaerTiEqoqWEXXLccY/s1600-h/57494313_efd88d74a6_m.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiei7R4EFGhKLI_j8nOEjLi8Gq_c9GSJy7eXQcWc2U78KEFqnnjfAoV84cBAIZQ6t8V9nZNgXy35hYh6NqsleAFHxltaPmgHA98xXlEViO2Go03BvOuB31bb64SFpaerTiEqoqWEXXLccY/s320/57494313_efd88d74a6_m.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5053667064861523570" /></a>photo by Arindam Thokder<br /><br />Who knew? I'm a teacher, so I really have no choice in the matter of when we go, but the night we rented City of Joy (okay, maybe not the best choice) for inspiration as I put the finishing touches on my proposal, and watched Patrick Swayze SWIM to save someone washed away in the rains, we started to get a little nervous.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMaKGL3_on3Bq5p5E4QlLSv9xiyZ9GlhgK7Plz0O8ZZoENml9I9QO7PIJ2n-ZYuDP5hr8yJ4iVhhY8shmPOVh2YrxdYDo25t9SK9xMeMKiE2AdATlNlcV3ABfNK5uc0xO0PSvbjtYEVl8/s1600-h/city13.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMaKGL3_on3Bq5p5E4QlLSv9xiyZ9GlhgK7Plz0O8ZZoENml9I9QO7PIJ2n-ZYuDP5hr8yJ4iVhhY8shmPOVh2YrxdYDo25t9SK9xMeMKiE2AdATlNlcV3ABfNK5uc0xO0PSvbjtYEVl8/s320/city13.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5053667661861977730" /></a><br />Now, some people have told me it's no big deal, just expect a misting every day. Others have raised their eyebrows and said, "You know you're going during monsoon season, don't you?" I've seen pictures of the Rath Yatra festival we plan to see in Puri and, from what I can tell, the thousands assembled seem pretty dry. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJaPvvJ3vPUejGVFhTWxDMALJLRVMsGG5F-JB08oU7xUJ3nx_pXCjzwLsRAQ7NDDbGhyyPCsj3MMcW3CP2kjQVFhlBRRde6KQEau6H3v9uPBxLYMb2yeT5WnrcSYuQztx_lYVKoazzCI0/s1600-h/198102358_1e326028ff_t.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJaPvvJ3vPUejGVFhTWxDMALJLRVMsGG5F-JB08oU7xUJ3nx_pXCjzwLsRAQ7NDDbGhyyPCsj3MMcW3CP2kjQVFhlBRRde6KQEau6H3v9uPBxLYMb2yeT5WnrcSYuQztx_lYVKoazzCI0/s320/198102358_1e326028ff_t.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5053669259589811874" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgruKmvmwRK5YBRQn9PiW4gceqb61gCcmk2oklLsPjDveMCJA87jZorwBTXKG9fkhiw_wthoVaICBx0fhqyjOIAPD9gelXxBULlXciIzUi80lNJVFfgYgPHDbGh8qubLcMqtzcZDx0YBM/s1600-h/182198668_3b38bdc87c.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgruKmvmwRK5YBRQn9PiW4gceqb61gCcmk2oklLsPjDveMCJA87jZorwBTXKG9fkhiw_wthoVaICBx0fhqyjOIAPD9gelXxBULlXciIzUi80lNJVFfgYgPHDbGh8qubLcMqtzcZDx0YBM/s320/182198668_3b38bdc87c.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5053668958942101138" /></a>photos by Akshay Mahajan<br /><br />But I've found old news articles about severe rainfall at the exact times we plan to be in West Bengal that describe a sea of mud and puddles, roads being washed away and trains being put out of service.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2BkH8esPjiaQYm68FMuJXZwtTvniLdRsPVnY6NpfC4TuZawDxUtFzPkeCoZvl4vRYs3Y0SEbOuoNfArkbk1kDVs656F0PgBfGEZyL4EHfRrD-DTus0hyphenhyphenyfN4Z1y43APnj9TxM8UlfnUI/s1600-h/225409942_e381fb2fa4_m.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2BkH8esPjiaQYm68FMuJXZwtTvniLdRsPVnY6NpfC4TuZawDxUtFzPkeCoZvl4vRYs3Y0SEbOuoNfArkbk1kDVs656F0PgBfGEZyL4EHfRrD-DTus0hyphenhyphenyfN4Z1y43APnj9TxM8UlfnUI/s320/225409942_e381fb2fa4_m.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5053675186644680386" /></a>photo by Akshay Mahajan<br /><br />While I know why I am going to India, I'm not so sure of what I will find. What I mean is, I have long wanted to go to India, to someplace as foreign to my daily sensabilities as possible. I suppose many of my travel fantasies are rooted in the idea of change and possibility, and that my desire to hear another people's stories stems not only from the hope of coming to know another place, but from the hope that I will find a few of my own stories to tell. It doesn't hurt that the images I've seen of India have always been filled with color, life and light. I follow the sun the way a houseplant presses its leaves against the window. I suppose one of the reasons I prefer living in New York is that we have plenty of color and life, maybe not so much light, but more than I'm used to where Chris and I are from in Central New York. <br /><br />So my sunny fantasies are being replaced by my determination to be an intrepid traveler, waterproof and prepared. Chris and I have been scouring outdoor gear sites for the perfect waterproof shoes and bags, quick dry everything, including underwear. We're getting ready, so let it rain.Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-20248401249359920932007-04-10T06:54:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:50.691-08:00Idle hands...Today is the last day of my spring break, and I have so much to do! I'm going to the doctor in an hour to get a general check up and to find out about vaccinations. I have to get photos taken to update my passport, I have to email the Indian consulate about using the Circuit House while we are in Naya, and I'm still looking for the Bhopa!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj20qru1BksazAe1TNBEdVP36SRm2ME0RQuhlvm_T8jNfIj-qYfCPxoRpxqWroyOBfwT28Km9Zed7QdFLM7ycxWWiHzDyehtsTvqMq64caEuck1z8Zcd_K3pE-1DLlVEPjJbV02h84-BfI/s1600-h/t-hennaHands.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj20qru1BksazAe1TNBEdVP36SRm2ME0RQuhlvm_T8jNfIj-qYfCPxoRpxqWroyOBfwT28Km9Zed7QdFLM7ycxWWiHzDyehtsTvqMq64caEuck1z8Zcd_K3pE-1DLlVEPjJbV02h84-BfI/s320/t-hennaHands.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5051802731227479650" /></a><br />We've roughed out our general itinerary. I'm going to include it here hoping for advice about hotels, getting around the country, things we absolutely must see, etc...<br /><br />The plan so far is this:<br />July 7: Depart New York<br />July 8: Arrive Delhi<br />July 11: Arrive Kolkata<br />July 14: Naya<br />July 16: Return Kolkata<br />July 18: Visakapatnam (embark on guided tribal tour)<br />July 19: Jeypore<br />July 20: Rayagada<br />July 21: Taptapani (meet the Kondh)<br />July 22: Bhubaneswar<br />July 23: Konark<br />July 24: Puri<br />July 25: Puri for the Rath Yatra return festival<br />July 26: Bhubaneswar (tour over)<br />July 27: Delhi<br />July 28 - Aug 5:...<br /><br />We're still planning the last week of our trip. It all depends on where we will find the Bhopa. I would really like to spend some time in Jaipur and the surrounding area, taking a painting class, a cooking class, a yoga class... In the meantime, there is dreaming and there is doing.Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-10791138487418167272007-04-08T06:54:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:50.879-08:00Careful What You Wish for!Here I'm posting the proposal that landed me the FFT grant. Being able to read the grant proposals of previous fellows was incredibly helpful to me as I put my own proposal together. <br /><br />The initial idea came to me when we had dinner in a Polish restaurant with Chris's friend Aaron. As we walked toward the restaurant, Aaron told me about these scrolls he had seen in India and how the artists who made them wrote songs, then painted scrolls to illustrate the songs, then traveled from village to village singing and showing the scrolls. My research based on that conversation led me to the Patua of West Bengal. Looking around in the region and south, I found the Kondh tribe in Orissa, and I was introduced to the Bhopa of Rajastan by <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/20/061120fa_fact_dalrymple">an article by William Dalrymple in the New Yorker last fall</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin5jPVITpYiCAj60ih5tsIf6bEtBswEH0x6zlXUdYdmGKh7gzj13tcRGhUh-Aw_681KEm5DDQBKGRE18AdmVqmEHAzYFaFnS8-kNKnu9tyhN6FMz-NpNFUjh_ZAFxCMXKJICyjmNvwiRw/s1600-h/tsunami_scroll6_det.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin5jPVITpYiCAj60ih5tsIf6bEtBswEH0x6zlXUdYdmGKh7gzj13tcRGhUh-Aw_681KEm5DDQBKGRE18AdmVqmEHAzYFaFnS8-kNKnu9tyhN6FMz-NpNFUjh_ZAFxCMXKJICyjmNvwiRw/s320/tsunami_scroll6_det.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5051059714185516258" /></a><br />FELLOWSHIP RATIONALE AND PURPOSE: <br />As an eleventh grade English teacher, I trade in stories. Be it poems, short fiction, novels, plays or non-fiction, my students read about the world they live in and worlds they may never see. In response to our reading, traditional academic writing is one means by which my students present arguments about the ideas they see. But I also challenge students to craft their own creative work in response to what they encounter in reading. My students have written dramatic monologues, poetry, short-fiction and personal memoir for such assignments, and, because the study of film runs through my school’s curriculum, they also write and produce their own short films.<br /><br />For my students, every step of the creative process can raise daunting questions such as: What story should I tell? How do I tell it? When is it done? Why does this matter? My students struggle to select a story from their experiences for these assignments, and also, in telling a story, they struggle to select details that will best bring it to life. They don’t yet know how to share what they observe in the world around them and they don’t yet see value in documenting their personal histories, or that such histories hold a community together. <br /><br />Further challenges arise, particularly with film projects, because my students are so excited to get a camera in their hands, to get their friends into their places and to shoot a movie. These budding filmmakers often rush the difficult process of crafting a story, writing a script and planning a shoot through storyboarding. They are suspicious of the notion that a well-developed script and a well-planned shoot make for a better film, and they do not foresee the issues that will arise in filming and editing because of deficits in the early stages of creating a film.<br /><br />To address these issues in my own teaching and in my students’ learning, I want to design a project that calls upon my students to tell their own stories on film, that also strengthens their sense of personal history, their sense of the value of storytelling in other cultures, their appreciation for the process of storytelling and the crafting of a story. <br /><br />This summer, I want to travel to India to study and film the stories and storytelling of three groups: the Patua of West Bengal, the Kondh tribe in the neighboring state of Orissa and the Bhopa of Rajasthan. In different ways, each of these groups lives by the tradition of telling stories. I want to research these groups and their customs to help my students understand that the stories they know and tell about their own lives, families, communities and history are a part of the greater tradition of global story telling. I want my students to examine the unique sense of time and process that yields a very personal and panoramic view of a specific cultural history, first as observers of the Patua, Kondh and Bhopa, and, finally, as artists themselves. <br /><br />PROJECT DESCRIPTION:<br />The Patua’s Creed<br />To speak the truth is our vow.<br />Our work will be to establish the truth. <br />We shall follow the path trodden by great men and women. <br />We shall serve the poor and downtrodden. <br />That will be our religion.<br /><br />With the help of FFT I would like to travel to India for three weeks to study the stories and scrolls of the Patua of West Bengal, the life and songs of the Kondh tribe of Orissa and, finally, the epic poems of the Bhopa of Rajasthan. To share this experience with the school community I plan to film and photograph the communities I visit, conduct interviews and keep a journal, as well as work with a translator to transfer the songs and conversations I will be having in Bengali to English. I will spend the rest of the summer editing my footage into a short film that explores the following key questions:<br /><br />What is the process of crafting a story?<br />What makes a story important?<br />What happens to a culture when its stories are forgotten?<br /><br />The journal I will keep of my observations and experiences in India will provide the text for a website to be used by students and the school community as we undertake this unit of study in the classroom.<br /><br />I plan to begin my investigation in Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal. Here I will work with the Crafts Council of West Bengal (http://www.craftsbengal.org/ab_us.html), an organization whose main aim is to revive, preserve and support declining indigenous knowledge, resources and skills, and to ensure the continuity of cultural traditions. <br />With the council’s help I will begin my research into the practices and challenges of groups whose culture is clearly dependant on the sharing of stories, starting with the Patua. <br /><br />The Patua compose stories as songs, paint them in storyboards on handmade scrolls called Pat, then set them to music. They sing about traditional tales from mythology as well as contemporary events, improvising new lyrics for rural audiences. As traveling showmen they are complete artists: painters, scriptwriters, singers, performers, all in one, who document not only the history that has been passed down to them but also the world they live in today. As I have never traveled to India and do not speak Bengali, the council has also agreed to help me secure a guide/translator to assist me in traveling to the village of Naya, where the largest number of Patua live, and where I will interview and film them making and presenting their songs and scrolls. <br /><br />What is the process of crafting a story?<br />Upon arriving in the small West Bengal village of Naya, I will film and photograph the Patua, and document their process of conceiving a story, writing a song and painting the Patachitra scroll that brings it to life. The subjects of these songs and scrolls vary. Some are sacred, for example relaying the exploits of Ravana, the ten-headed demon who kidnaps Rama’s wife Sita in the epic Ramayana. Some scrolls recount current events and issues in India, such as conflict in Kashmir, the death of Mother Theresa, the Tsunami, warning about AIDS prevention and encouraging literacy. There are even scrolls commenting on world events, like the attack on the World Trade Center and the war in Afghanistan, with songs about George W. Bush. And some are more personal to the life of the Patua, such as “The Patua’s Creed”, quoted above. The Patua essentially serve as historians, newscasters, moral commentators and plain old entertainers. I am interested in learning how the Patuas are inspired to bring a story to life and the painstaking process by which they do this.<br /><br />What makes a story important?<br />From West Bengal, I plan to travel to Bhubaneswar in Orissa, where I will meet up with Kar Yugabrata who runs a tour company, HeritageTours (www.heritagetoursorissa.com), and was recommended to me as a reputable guide. From Bhubaneswar we will travel to Bissamcuttack and other points to witness the Rath Yatra festival and meet the Dunguria Kondh tribe. The Kondh are an indigenous tribal group of India who practice elaborate birth, marriage and death rituals. They compose their own songs on love, marriage ceremony, harvesting and nature and use this oral tradition to school each generation in the ways of their culture. For example, young women in the tribe are placed in what is essentially a maiden’s dormitory. In the dormitory, the maiden girls are trained about the tribe’s norms, values and taboos by a senior, often married, women who is the leader of the dormitory. The dormitory is the source of mostly cultural education orally transmitted for learning folklore, riddles, proverbs, legends, myths and songs. Young women stay there until they attain marriageable age and have acquired all the skills and knowledge that are expected from a good ideal wife/woman in their society. With the Kondh particularly, I am interested in discovering how the stories they tell are the fibers that weave together their daily lives, practices and traditions.<br /><br />What happens to a culture when its stories are forgotten?<br />My final stop will be in the city of Jaipur and its surrounding area in the western state Rajasthan. There I will find the Bhopa, a nomadic community of storytellers who are considered to be priest singers, sometimes even credited with shamanistic powers. The Bhopas recite the great epics, some of them many thousands of stanzas long, from memory. They sing in front of an unfurled phad, a large, painted, rectangular canvas panel that depicts the life story of the fighter hero Pabuli and the neo-Hindu incarnation of Vishnu, Dev Narayan of Rajasthan. Unlike the Patua, the Bhopa themselves do not create their visual story aid. Rather, the phad is passed down from generation to generation, as are the long poems that the Bhopa commit to memory. The phad panels are rolled and carried around by the Bhopa and in this way are almost considered traveling temples. While the Patua carry on an old tradition, they often tell stories that deal with modern day life. The Bhopa, on the other hand, tell only the great epics, many of which have not been written down, and some of which have been lost with the passing of each generation of storytellers. Those stories that persist are remarkably unchanged, although it seems that as literacy among the Bhopa increases, their memory decreases. Thus progress has put the rich tradition of Bhopa in serious jeopardy. Finally, in the process of learning the history of how and why stories are important to these groups, I would like to also begin to assess what is lost if these stories and traditions die. <br /><br />TEACHER GROWTH AND LEARNING:<br />Guiding Questions:<br />What is the process of crafting a story?<br />What makes a story important?<br />What happens when the stories of a culture are forgotten?<br /><br />Stories and storytellers have always enchanted me. This is what propelled me into my life as an English teacher. I feel I have come to know the world and myself through stories. At the same time, while stories are all around us, I know as a teacher that telling them can be a difficult task. The first obstacle is perhaps deciding that a story deserves to be told. I hope that my research will illustrate that the importance of a story is not in its grandness or urgency, but in its ability to communicate and bring people together. <br /><br />The next obstacle is having the commitment to develop a story. By observing storytellers for whom telling a story is a vocation, I’m hoping to gain insight for my instruction of writing beyond suggesting multiple drafts and added details to my students. I want to understand the crafting and telling of a story as an experience. I hope during my project to absorb the pacing of the Patua as they draft their songs and paint their scrolls; I hope to absorb the structure of the Kondh as they weave stories and traditions into every passage of daily life; I hope to absorb the discipline of the Bhopa as they memorize texts six times the length of the bible, twenty lines at a time. Further, in experiencing the stories of a culture so removed from the western tradition of storytelling I have always known, I hope to gain another point of reference to draw upon as a teacher. <br /><br />Finally, receiving this grant from FFT will allow me to look closely at what happens to a country whose traditions are so threatened by the modern world we live in. What happens when a community no longer supports the artists who protect its history? I want observe this culture so rich in stories and see the risk of letting stories slip away to fuel my own passion as an English teacher and as a catalyst to spark my students to consider the value of their own personal histories. <br /><br />STUDENT GROWTH AND LEARNING:<br />Guiding Questions:<br />What is the process of crafting a story?<br />What makes a story important?<br />What happens when the stories of a culture are forgotten?<br /><br />I hope to show my eleventh grade English class the value of stories, not only as something we read to prepare for state exams and assessments or to hone our skills of analysis, but as a way to connect with people and experiences. To do this, the same questions that will guide my own inquiry will guide my students as they experience the rich story telling traditions of India and approach their own culminating project: To actively engage in the creative process to make a short film that tells a story that should not go untold. <br /><br />By sharing my observations of India, I want to illustrate to my students that the stories they know and tell about their own lives, families, communities and history are a part of the greater tradition of global story telling. Hopefully the insight I gain as a result of this project, will help my students see that while the means of sharing information may evolve, the compulsion and necessity for doing so is ageless.<br /><br />While addressing the value of telling stories, I want my students to gain a window into the process of taking a story and making an experience out of it. In previous film projects, students have become so caught up in learning the language of film, the how-to’s of camera handling and the basic steps of editing, that they have glossed over the first initial steps of conceiving a compelling story, scripting it an a well-thought out way, and carefully planning the film they will make through storyboarding. This deficit in their process is one of the first things that drew me to the Patua and their scrolls. In many ways the stories, songs and scrolls of the Patua mirror the first, important steps of the filmmaking process. As such, it is my hope that examining the life and work of the Patua will inform my own students in their scripting and planning process.<br /><br />Finally, in asking students to select and invest themselves in sharing stories of their own, I hope that their experience of studying the endangered storytelling traditions of India will help them to see the importance of this process. In this way they might see that it is stories that are the fibers that hold their lives, experiences and communities together.<br /><br />BENEFITS TO SCHOOL COMMUNITY:<br />My project will benefit the school community in three ways. First, prior to leaving I will meet with other teachers in my school to identify ways in which my research in India could support learning across content areas. In this way, I may learn about specific questions I should ask or places I could document that might assist other teachers in their instruction. <br /><br />Second, upon my return, I will edit the film of my project and make it available to the school community on a website that chronicles my trip and my findings. Further, upon completion of my students’ film projects, I will work with the administration and student government of my school to invite the community to a screening of our work and a cultural celebration of story. <br /><br />Finally, should I receive funding from FFT for the project I have described, I expect my experience to create a dialogue among teachers about more innovative ways to instruct and engage students. <br /><br />DOCUMENTATION OF LEARNING:<br />Drawing from the methods of the research I have studied in planning my project, I will document my learning and experience in India through journals, photographs, film and interviews with Indians. With their permission, interview subjects will include the Patua, Kondh, and Bhopa, representatives of the Crafts Council of West Bengal, my guides and translators, as well as people I encounter in my travels. Upon my return, I hope to edit the footage I have captured to create a film that chronicles my project and poses the three questions that I have set forth in this proposal:<br /><br />What is the process of crafting a story?<br />What makes a story important?<br />What happens when the stories of a culture are forgotten?<br /><br />This film will be posted to a website I will create to share my experience through photos, journal entries and web links.<br /><br />Further documentation of learning will be provided by student film projects created in response to the same three questions listed above. These films as well as mine will be presented in a screening for the school and community.<br /><br />BUDGET NARRATIVE:<br />The total projected budget for my project is $5,108 based largely on Internet research. To document the Patua, Kondh and Bhopa, I anticipate the trip will take about three weeks. This allows time with each group and time to travel between the three locations they live in. I anticipate that the trip will take place during the month of July, leaving August to edit the footage I’ve captured into a film and to put the finishing touches on the unit I will undertake with my students.<br /> <br />The bulk of my budget will go toward round trip airfare to Kolkata, which I estimate will cost roughly $2,000.<br /><br />I have budgeted $50 a night for 21 nights of lodging, for a total of $1,050 and $25 dollars a day for 22 days of meals, for a total of $550.<br /><br />I will travel between cities by train and bus and will buy a 21-day Indrail Pass for $198.00.<br /><br />Based on research and estimates from the Craft Council of West Bengal and HeritageTours Orissa that guides will cost about $40-50 a day, I am budgeting $600 for these services.<br /><br />I am budgeting $200 for incidental bus and taxi transportation.<br /><br />A travel visa will cost $60 and necessary immunizations will cost $350.<br /><br />I am budgeting $100 dollars for mini-dv tapes to document my trip.<br /><br />CURRICULUM UNIT:<br />Learning To Sing Our Songs<br />Essential Questions:<br />What is the process of crafting a story?<br />What makes a story important?<br />What happens when the stories of a culture are forgotten?<br /><br />New York State ELA Standard #4<br />Language for Social Interaction: Students will listen, speak, read, and write for social interaction. Students will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language for effective social communication with a wide variety of people. As readers and listeners, they will use the social communications of others to enrich their understanding of people and their views.<br /><br />In this unit we will discover the oral traditions of India by looking closely at three distinct groups of storytellers: The Patua of West Bengal, the Kondh of Orissa and the Bhopa of Rajasthan. Each group occupies a distinctly different niche in India’s caste system and tells its unique stories in its own way. As we look at each group, students will learn why they tell the stories they do and how they craft their stories into an experience for the audience. Finally students will consider the consequences of the challenges that these storytellers face and whether or not a traditional culture can continue to exist in a modern world.<br /><br />In response to their learning, students will work collaboratively in groups to select and record their own significant stories, stories that they do not want to see forgotten, to be used as the voiceover for a short film not to exceed three minutes in length. <br />The stories students select must be somehow relate to the their lives, but they may not necessarily be the students’ stories to tell. For example, a piece for the project might be a parent’s narration of the day their child was born or a brother’s narration of walking to school with his sister everyday. It might be someone’s personal observations of a historical event, like the blackout of 2003 or the reports of Hurricane Katrina. <br /><br />Once a story has been chosen, students must carefully develop it as a script and then record the narrator reading it. In doing this, students should consider the storytelling traditions we have studied and how the groups they have learned about develop a story. Once students have scripted a voiceover track, they must devise and storyboard a short film to support the voiceover. The film may have actors that act out the story but have no dialogue or may be a series of shots and images that support the filmmaker’s vision. After planning the scenes of the film, students will cast, shoot, record and edit. <br /><br />Final projects will be graded on: story development, visual impact, technical artistry, and collaboration. Students will also be required to submit a series of written journals responding to the experience of learning about the oral traditions of India and how their learning connects to their own lives as storytellers.<br /><br />Our final projects will be presented to the school community and a screening/cultural festival that celebrates the richness of the culture of India and what we have learned from its traditions.<br /><br />SHARING CURRICULUM:<br />Upon my return, I will edit the film of my project and make it available to the school community on a website that chronicles my trip and my findings. Further, upon completion of my students’ film projects, I will work with the administration and student government of my school to invite the school and community to a screening of our work and a cultural celebration of India and its rich history of storytelling.Anneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8458537484391728005.post-27906730410859481532007-04-07T14:00:00.000-07:002008-12-12T00:00:51.096-08:00Passage to IndiaWell, the nail biting is over! I got the <a href="http://www.fundforteachers.org/">Fund for Teachers</a> grant I applied for, and Chris and I will be spending a month in India this summer. He will be my trusty cameraman as I study the oral traditions of the Patua of West Bengal, the Kondh tribe of Orissa and the Bhopa of Rajastan as the basis for an oral history project I would like to do with my students next year. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXajfAdTOvU1oXi8b4p2Ujiwww7Mzx4q3XPPwZekYe3PfeIgIi2KISphTRrh2U0MAU0sDfuHuGnnRvHIe8znU8qWX5KmLI2lIAJZKFb_ac0KZuXXiyEFb4-DkNe7m7QwjZ9yjh7R_SHw0/s1600-h/sm31.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXajfAdTOvU1oXi8b4p2Ujiwww7Mzx4q3XPPwZekYe3PfeIgIi2KISphTRrh2U0MAU0sDfuHuGnnRvHIe8znU8qWX5KmLI2lIAJZKFb_ac0KZuXXiyEFb4-DkNe7m7QwjZ9yjh7R_SHw0/s320/sm31.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5050802467119322322" /></a>Tomorrow I will post the proposal I wrote to get this grant, and, as I make my plans, I will post any resources I find pertaining to the trip. For now, I'm posting this poem by Walt Whitman, another Brooklynite dreaming of India.<br /><br />Passage to India <br /><br />1<br />Singing my days, <br />Singing the great achievements of the present, <br />Singing the strong, light works of engineers, <br />Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,) <br />In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,<br />The New by its mighty railroad spann’d, <br />The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires, <br />I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul, <br />The Past! the Past! the Past! <br /> <br />The Past! the dark, unfathom’d retrospect!<br />The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows! <br />The past! the infinite greatness of the past! <br />For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past? <br />(As a projectile, form’d, impell’d, passing a certain line, still keeps on, <br />So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by the past.)<br /><br />2<br />Passage, O soul, to India! <br />Eclaircise the myths Asiatic—the primitive fables. <br /> <br />Not you alone, proud truths of the world! <br />Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science! <br />But myths and fables of eld—Asia’s, Africa’s fables!<br />The far-darting beams of the spirit!—the unloos’d dreams! <br />The deep diving bibles and legends; <br />The daring plots of the poets—the elder religions; <br />—O you temples fairer than lilies, pour’d over by the rising sun! <br />O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known,<br /> mounting to heaven!<br />You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d with gold! <br />Towers of fables immortal, fashion’d from mortal dreams! <br />You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest; <br />You too with joy I sing. <br /><br />3<br />Passage to India! <br />Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first? <br />The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work, <br />The people to become brothers and sisters, <br />The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage, <br />The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near, <br />The lands to be welded together. <br /> <br />(A worship new, I sing; <br />You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours! <br />You engineers! you architects, machinists, your! <br />You, not for trade or transportation only, <br />But in God’s name, and for thy sake, O soul.) <br /> <br />4<br />Passage to India! <br />Lo, soul, for thee, of tableaus twain, <br />I see, in one, the Suez canal initiated, open’d, <br />I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Eugenie’s leading the van; <br />I mark, from on deck, the strange landscape, the pure sky, the level sand<br /> in the distance; <br />I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen gather’d, <br />The gigantic dredging machines. <br /> <br />In one, again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul, the same,) <br />I see over my own continent the Pacific Railroad, surmounting every barrier;<br />I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte, carrying freight<br /> and passengers; <br />I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam-whistle, <br />I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the world; <br />I cross the Laramie plains—I note the rocks in grotesque shapes—the buttes; <br />I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions—the barren, colorless,<br /> sage-deserts;<br />I see in glimpses afar, or towering immediately above me, the great mountains—<br /> I see the Wind River and the Wahsatch mountains; <br />I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s Nest—I pass the Promontory—<br /> I ascend the Nevadas; <br />I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around its base; <br />I see the Humboldt range—I thread the valley and cross the river, <br />I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe—I see forests of majestic pines,<br />Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold enchanting mirages<br /> of waters and meadows; <br />Marking through these, and after all, in duplicate slender lines, <br />Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel, <br />Tying the Eastern to the Western sea, <br />The road between Europe and Asia.<br /> <br />(Ah Genoese, thy dream! thy dream! <br />Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave, <br />The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream!) <br /> <br />5<br />Passage to India! <br />Struggles of many a captain—tales of many a sailor dead!<br />Over my mood, stealing and spreading they come, <br />Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach’d sky. <br /> <br />Along all history, down the slopes, <br />As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to the surface rising, <br />A ceaseless thought, a varied train—Lo, soul! to thee, thy sight, they rise,<br />The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions: <br />Again Vasco de Gama sails forth; <br />Again the knowledge gain’d, the mariner’s compass, <br />Lands found, and nations born—thou born, America, (a hemisphere unborn,) <br />For purpose vast, man’s long probation fill’d,<br />Thou, rondure of the world, at last accomplish’d. <br /> <br />6<br />O, vast Rondure, swimming in space! <br />Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty! <br />Alternate light and day, and the teeming, spiritual darkness; <br />Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and countless stars, above;<br />Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees; <br />With inscrutable purpose—some hidden, prophetic intention; <br />Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee. <br /> <br />Down from the gardens of Asia, descending, radiating, <br />Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,<br />Wandering, yearning, curious—with restless explorations, <br />With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish—with never-happy hearts, <br />With that sad, incessant refrain, Wherefore, unsatisfied Soul? and<br /> Whither, O mocking Life? <br /> <br />Ah, who shall soothe these feverish children? <br />Who justify these restless explorations?<br />Who speak the secret of impassive Earth? <br />Who bind it to us? What is this separate Nature, so unnatural? <br />What is this Earth, to our affections? (unloving earth, without a throb to answer ours; <br />Cold earth, the place of graves.) <br /> <br />Yet, soul, be sure the first intent remains—and shall be carried out;<br />(Perhaps even now the time has arrived.) <br /> <br />After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,) <br />After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work, <br />After the noble inventors—after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist, <br />Finally shall come the Poet, worthy that name;<br />The true Son of God shall come, singing his songs. <br /> <br />Then, not your deeds only, O voyagers, O scientists and inventors, shall be<br /> justified, <br />All these hearts, as of fretted children, shall be sooth’d, <br />All affection shall be fully responded to—the secret shall be told; <br />All these separations and gaps shall be taken up, and hook’d and link’d together; <br />The whole Earth—this cold, impassive, voiceless Earth, shall be completely<br /> justified; <br />Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish’d and compacted by the Son<br /> of God, the poet, <br />(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains, <br />He shall double the Cape of Good Hope to some purpose;) <br />Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more,<br />The true Son of God shall absolutely fuse them. <br /> <br />7<br />Year at whose open’d, wide-flung door I sing! <br />Year of the purpose accomplish’d! <br />Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans! <br />(No mere Doge of Venice now, wedding the Adriatic;) <br />I see, O year, in you, the vast terraqueous globe, given, and giving all, <br />Europe to Asia, Africa join’d, and they to the New World; <br />The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival garland, <br />As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand. <br /> <br />8<br />Passage to India!<br />Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man, <br />The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again. <br /> <br />Lo, soul, the retrospect, brought forward; <br />The old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth’s lands, <br />The streams of the Indus and the Ganges, and their many affluents;<br />(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold, resuming all,) <br />The tale of Alexander, on his warlike marches, suddenly dying, <br />On one side China, and on the other side Persia and Arabia, <br />To the south the great seas, and the Bay of Bengal; <br />The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, castes,<br />Old occult Brahma, interminably far back—the tender and junior Buddha, <br />Central and southern empires, and all their belongings, possessors, <br />The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe, <br />The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese, <br />The first travelers, famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,<br />Doubts to be solv’d, the map incognita, blanks to be fill’d, <br />The foot of man unstay’d, the hands never at rest, <br />Thyself, O soul, that will not brook a challenge. <br /> <br />9<br />The medieval navigators rise before me, <br />The world of 1492, with its awaken’d enterprise;<br />Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in spring, <br />The sunset splendor of chivalry declining. <br /> <br />And who art thou, sad shade? <br />Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary, <br />With majestic limbs, and pious, beaming eyes, <br />Spreading around, with every look of thine, a golden world, <br />Enhuing it with gorgeous hues. <br /> <br />As the chief histrion, <br />Down to the footlights walks, in some great scena, <br />Dominating the rest, I see the Admiral himself, <br />(History’s type of courage, action, faith;) <br />Behold him sail from Palos, leading his little fleet; <br />His voyage behold—his return—his great fame, <br />His misfortunes, calumniators—behold him a prisoner, chain’d, <br />Behold his dejection, poverty, death.<br /> <br />(Curious, in time, I stand, noting the efforts of heroes; <br />Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death? <br />Lies the seed unreck’d for centuries in the ground? Lo! to God’s due occasion, <br />Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms, <br />And fills the earth with use and beauty.) <br /> <br />10<br />Passage indeed, O soul, to primal thought! <br />Not lands and seas alone—thy own clear freshness, <br />The young maturity of brood and bloom; <br />To realms of budding bibles. <br /> <br />O soul, repressless, I with thee, and thou with me, <br />Thy circumnavigation of the world begin; <br />Of man, the voyage of his mind’s return, <br />To reason’s early paradise, <br />Back, back to wisdom’s birth, to innocent intuitions, <br />Again with fair Creation. <br /> <br />11<br />O we can wait no longer! <br />We too take ship, O soul! <br />Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas! <br />Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of extasy to sail, <br />Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,) <br />Caroling free—singing our song of God, <br />Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration. <br /> <br />With laugh, and many a kiss, <br />(Let others deprecate—let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation;) <br />O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee. <br /> <br />Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe in God; <br />But with the mystery of God we dare not dally. <br /> <br />O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee; <br />Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in the night, <br />Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and Death, like waters flowing,<br />Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite, <br />Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear—lave me all over; <br />Bathe me, O God, in thee—mounting to thee, <br />I and my soul to range in range of thee. <br /> <br />O Thou transcendant! <br />Nameless—the fibre and the breath! <br />Light of the light—shedding forth universes—thou centre of them! <br />Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving! <br />Thou moral, spiritual fountain! affection’s source! thou reservoir! <br />(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied! waitest not there? <br />Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the Comrade perfect?) <br />Thou pulse! thou motive of the stars, suns, systems, <br />That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious, <br />Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space! <br /> <br />How should I think—how breathe a single breath—how speak—if, out of myself,<br />I could not launch, to those, superior universes? <br /> <br />Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God, <br />At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death, <br />But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou actual Me, <br />And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs,<br />Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death, <br />And fillest, swellest full, the vastnesses of Space. <br /> <br />Greater than stars or suns, <br />Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth; <br />—What love, than thine and ours could wider amplify? <br />What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, O soul? <br />What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength? <br />What cheerful willingness, for others’ sake, to give up all? <br />For others’ sake to suffer all? <br /> <br />Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d,<br />(The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,) <br />Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d, <br />As, fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found, <br />The Younger melts in fondness in his arms. <br /> <br />12<br />Passage to more than India!<br />Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? <br />O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like these? <br />Disportest thou on waters such as these? <br />Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas? <br />Then have thy bent unleash’d.<br /> <br />Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas! <br />Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems! <br />You, strew’d with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach’d you. <br /> <br />13<br />Passage to more than India! <br />O secret of the earth and sky! <br />Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers! <br />Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong mountains of my land! <br />Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks! <br />O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows! <br />O day and night, passage to you!<br /> <br />O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter! <br />Passage to you! <br /> <br />Passage—immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins! <br />Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor! <br />Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail! <br />Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough? <br />Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes? <br />Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough? <br /> <br />Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! <br />Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; <br />For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, <br />And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. <br /> <br />O my brave soul! <br />O farther, farther sail! <br />O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God? <br />O farther, farther, farther sail!<br /><br />Walt WhitmanAnneke McEvoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08062358428761750450noreply@blogger.com0