Its worth a shot!

OK, so we admit it. We are very bad at blogging. We have about five very interesting partially written blogs, and hundreds of cutting edge, creative ideas that we just can’t seem to find the time to get them to their cyberspace home. In our d
esperation, we have decided to take a different approach and write many small blogs about any interesting thing that happens during the day. Let us know if we are too boring.

1/25/2011 Varanasi, India

The two things that were most interesting to me today were:

1. Hearing at least 10 horns within 50ft of a “Silence No Horns” sign at the local University.(HORNS ARE CRAZY HERE!!!)

2. A street vender selling necklaces inadvertently making fun of the size of Brooke’s head after his necklaces would not fit over it. While he was explaining how his necklaces were not the problem through demonstrations of how they would fit over any normal persons head, he realized his customer might take offence and he started backtracking. He then tried to explain how her head was just a little abnormally big and how it was really fine…it fit her body… not that her body was too big… no, no.. she had a very nice body… not that he was looking of course. We left cracking up, the poor guy still trying to pull his foot out of his mouth.

1/26/2011 Varanasi

Yeah!! Finally doing some GROW work, sort of. Today we worked with the Asha Deep Vidiashram NGO / school (More information soon on the GROW site) helping them with their struggling computer lab while planning for an environmental day and teacher trainings later in the week. After the daily power outage stopped our work, we enjoyed a long but adorable ceremony put on by the 250 children of the school to celebrate Republic Day. We finished by helping to build a tree house (yes a tree house) in the school yard with some other great volunteers. Good day!

Also on the 26th: My first time wearing a saree.

Sarees are the typical dress for women here in India, and they are beautiful. It’s about 6 meters of fabric wrapped around your body, starting with the skirt part and then wrapping up and eventually the rest tossed over the shoulder. Just getting the contraption on was hard enough, but I did well enough and could pass rather respectably for someone who knew what they were doing (as long as I was just standing perfectly still with a slight lean to my right so it didn't fall off my left shoulder). Then the problem came- after a very long period of having no stomach issues, diarrhea hit while I had on the worst possible outfit. Toilets here are the squat variety and this is usually not a problem, except for me of course when I’m wearing one of these damn sarees. For one thing, underneath I had on pants, so not only was there 6 meters of fabric to somehow bunch up and keep away from the disgusting floor while I squatted in the dark (no light in the bathroom) but I also had to maneuvering my pants away as the rest of the fabric is continuing to fall off my shoulder threatening disaster. To add to the fun the door at this school does not have a lock and therefore I needed to keep one hand free to keep a poor innocent child from walking in and having nightmares the rest of his life of the of the bright white butt of the foreigner who almost hung herself with her own saree while taking a poop! All that and I won’t even go into cleanup! But somehow I survived the experience learning a very important lesson. Wearing a saree and Indian street food…NOT A GOOD COMBINATION!

1/27/2011 Varanasi

So today is Brooke and my four year anniversary. So what better gift for me to give than a surprise fresh chocolate croissant and an Indian vasectomy. All started off to plan as I snuck out of bed and weaved my way through the narrow alleyways to the “German” (no German things there) bakery right as the pastries were coming out of the oven. Perfect! To make sure the bread was hot when I returned I jogged the kilometer return trip ducking between bicycles, goats, buffalo, and venders and skipping over garbage, cow patties, and small dogs. I was one corner away from home when I had to dart between a frail looking holy man and a large bull (a typical maneuver here in Varanasi) when the bull all of a sudden swung its head and its horn caught me in the left thigh, twisting me around and into the holy man who surprisingly felt more like a boney brick wall then an 80 year old man. A very scary moment but miraculously everything was intact down below leaving only a small scratch on my inner leg and a bit of a stiff shoulder from the 80 year old gladiator. In the end Brooke did wake up to a delicious chocolate croissant, and unregrettably, the vasectomy will have to wait for another day.

The Right Way

With India’s population currently over 1.1 billion the competition for any kind of business is stiff. Sometimes this unfortunately means that people will do whatever it takes to get ahead, often at the expense of others or the environment. When we traveled to the northern Punjab territory it was nice to see that it sometimes goes the other way as well. Mr. Singh, owner of Virasat Haveli in Rajewal, Punjab just outside of Amritsar, conducts the business of his home the right way. As is the custom in India, when Mr. Singh’s father retired he handed his holdings over to his sons, the eldest taking the city business and Mr. Singh taking over the old farm house. He now splits his time between the countryside farm and his home and own business in the city. Normally maintaining a country property like this would be very expensive to pay security and maintenance, but instead, he has a mutually beneficial relationship with many people from the village in which everyone profits from the place.

When you get to the Virasat Haveli you will have a warm welcome from a plethora of people who work there, mostly in the kitchen. Although Mr. Singh gets some of the profit when there are paying guests for the night, the restaurant (which serves some of the best food we’ve had in India) profits all are shared amongst the villagers running it, Mr. Singh takes nothing. His hotel patrons get great food and an enhanced experience, and Mr. Singh has the added benefit of more people there to help with the upkeep and make it a success, not the other way around.

He takes a similar approach with his fields of wheat, potatoes and other crops. Pesticides which are very detrimental to the environment are also costly. It would cost him 1,000 rupees to apply the pesticides to his fields, but instead he goes the organic route. He takes those 1,000 rupees he saves by not applying chemicals and keeps it in the community. Village girls come over after school to pull the weeds and get their pocket money for the week.

It is interesting that at least the second mutually beneficial relationship Mr. Singh has with the villagers, with the local girls, would never go over in the US. It would be considered exploitation of child labor, or something else would not be ok with it. But at least under the circumstances that it is, everyone is doing well by everyone else- the money stays in the community, tourists get the chance to get an authentic experience of a rural Indian village, the environment is improved through his organic practices and many people are employed. If you ask us, Mr. Singh is doing things the right way and would be great if others would model themselves after him- we certainly loved our experience there, a highlight of our time in India!

Merry Christmas, in India

We have spent almost the whole of Christmas day at a religious center, but it is not a church and we are not surrounded by Christians. Some who see our gleaming white skin that can’t help but stand out in a crowd have wished us a Merry Christmas, but by and large it could just be any other day here. We are instead at the Golden Temple, the holy shrine of Sikhs. We have learned much about their fascinating and peaceful religion, and been amazed at their kindness. At this temple complex you can sleep and eat for free, they serve food all day long and must feed thousands daily. The food is quite tasty, we can attest! Besides being recipients of such amazing generosity here

of the Sikhs, we also got to do our part and help- peeling onions for about an hour, there must have been 30 of us sitting on the floor peeling with a mountain ridge-line of tons of onions between us.

Another part of our day was at Mata Temple, a Hindu cave temple, and last week we paraded down the streets of Jaipur with the Muslims in one of their biggest festivals of the year. We have learned much about other religions and cultures while here in India and are all the better for it. More so than learning about the people and their religions, we have experienced their amazing kindness and generosity, traits common to Christians as well and we are reminded of the threads of humanity that link us all.

Our hearts do ache for our own familiar traditions, being with our families singing Christmas carols and sipping on hot spiced cider while looking at a snowscape outside, all tucked in by a fire. But our lives are full of too many adventures for that right now, we’ll just enjoy future Christmases as home that much more in the future.

To everyone out there that we love, Merry Christmas, and a very Happy and Blessed New Year when it comes.

And they’re off!

We’re not sure what day it is, or the time, we were up last night from midnight until 3 when we forced ourselves to go to bed at what felt like 1 in the afternoon, but we are here, in India.

Conclusions thus far:

It is hot. The food is delicious. People are friendly and trains are crowded. And it’s true that anything you can say of India, so true is its opposite. The differences are startling, the smells (both good and bad) are overwhelming and there is a feast for all the senses.

More will surely be to come in following blogs now that we’re back to typing. Time to put this jet lag behind us and do some exploring so we have something to write about.

Back in the USA

So we're back, been back for nearly a month now actually but the time seems to fly even faster in the good ol' USofA than it did down in South America, and even there we couldn't keep up with the blogs!

In theory we're going to back blog since we've done some pretty amazing things since we last wrote, but the actuality of it, if we're realistic with ourselves, is we'll probably never get around to it.
So here's the briefing...

• Puno and Lake Titicaca, including the floating islands of the Uros people,

• Cusco, with the wonderful hospitality of Juan Carlos and the beautiful architecture of the Incas
• Machu Pichu, there's a reason for all its fame, yet with its hundreds of visitors every day, at one point we were the very first in and it was as if it was a deserted city all to ourselves slightly hidden by the mist of the morning

• Trekking and ice climbing in the White Mountains of the Andes in Ancash, Peru

• Back into Ecuador to sit at the bottom of a currently erupting volcano
• Time with a Harre Krishna community
• Cuenca and the hospitality of Joaquin plus 8 days of sweets for the festival of Corpus Christi
• The third highest waterfall in the world

• The mountaintop fortress of Kuelap
• Floating down the Amazon on a cargo ship to a city that can only be reached by water or air
• Piranha fishing in a tributary to the Amazon River

• Monkeys stealing Donny's hat and dangling it just out of reach from a fruit tree

• Projects where we worked alongside villagers, learning what Quechua we could; or dressing up as clowns helping fundraise for an after school program to keep kids off the streets
• More good timing of attending festivals and celebrations
• Countless new friends through hitch hiking, couch surfing and the generosity of strangers

Nearly a year and a half exactly since we had taken off from Georgia, it was bittersweet boarding our plane in Lima to head back to the United States. While everyone else on our Spirit Airlines flight was complaining about the lack of room and only one soda on offer for refreshments, we felt like the Beverley Hillbillies when they first reached Beverly Hills. We marveled at the bathroom- a toilet seat! toilet paper! a sink complete with soap, and the kicker of it all, hot water! And even with Spirits cheapness, still we didn't have to pay a dime just to use it.

While the Latin American food and fresh tropical fruits and vegetables are going to be severely missed (you can probably tell we like it by how many pictures we took of our food) we are excited to get back to find a new emergence of farmers markets in the states and can’t wait to cover our hands and faces with the deliciousness of fresh sweet corn and blueberries. We are also excited about experiencing some of our own countries “kindness of strangers”. We are hoping we are going to find similarities to our experience in the south when we try hitchhiking on back roads or randomly knocking on the door of a small farmer in a rural area (already tested and proven these past couple of weeks in New York State).

But most of all we are excited to get back to our friends and family whom we have missed dearly over the past 18 months. Seeing the strong family structures (not uncommon to see four generations living together under the same roof) of every place we have visited outside the states has made us realize even more, just how important family and friends are. And for those that have continued to read our blogs for this long, you must really be a good friend and we can’t wait to see you soon.

Thank you to all of those wonderful people who have followed our travels over the last two years. It has been an incredible ride and could not have been done without your support. We hopefully will be adding more blogs as we decipher our journal notes (any one know what “great ride with chicken man on pineapple tortilla” means? Me neither.) to fill in some of the times we missed. Other than that, we will be picking up the blog when we start our Asian trip this fall. Yes that is right, we are heading back on the road. We plan on working feverishly on our non-profit, The GROW Initiative, this summer and will be continuing our projects in the fall in Southeast Asia. Check out www.growinitiative.org in a couple of weeks to see some of our progress.

Its good to be home!

And We Did It Our Way!

So we are writing this blog in my journal while sitting on summit of a small mountain after an easy half hour hike on a tranquil Sunday morning. Although we are probably close to 13,000 ft of altitude, the sun is bright and warm and perfectly compliments the cool air and slight breeze. Our view over one side of the ridge is Chivey, a small mountain town in the department of Araquipa, in south-central Peru and the location where we began our hike. The city itself is beautiful. Dirt streets with a combination of mud or brick homes, thatch roofs, and probably more cows and alpacas than cars on the street. Today is the start of another festival or maybe the end of yesterdays (there are too many to tell) and there is a parade marching around the Plaza de Armas (central park). Although from our distance they are only dots on a picturesque painting, the traditional music radiating from the band is a perfect serenade for our spot of contemplation. On the other side of the ridge we have the beginning of the Colca Canyon, the second largest canyon in Peru. This part of the canyon is considered more the valley as each side of the walls gradually climb through ancient Inca terracing showing off an array of colors from the different fruits, grains, and vegetables growing on each individual level. The plants are contrasted by the 600 year rock walls and irrigation systems (still in use) and the whole thing is like looking through a portal back in time. It is absolutely amazing!

What is more amazing is that in the two hours that we have been here, Brooke and I have been totally alone. Actually this shouldn’t surprise me, as this seems to be the case every where we travel. Whether it is swimming with turtles in the crystal clear waters of the Galapagos, walking down the soft dark sand beaches of El Salvador, or overlooking a stunning lagoon in a volcano in Nicaragua, the description all seems to include the word deserted. It is always just the two of us! For some of the extraordinary spots we find ourselves in I could spend another 10 days meditating on the reason we are alone and still not come up with an answer. For others I have finally realized; no one really travels like the two of us. Chivey is actually one of the largest tourist destinations in Peru yet other than a couple of tourist here and their on the street or at the bus station, we rarely come in contact with them. They all seem to be part of tour groups booked from Araquipa (the second largest city in Peru three hours away), staying in the same hotels, eating at the same restaurants, and patiently waiting their turn in line to step up to the next lookout to take their picture. Don’t get me wrong, the hotels I am sure are nice, bug-free, and warm, the lookout is probably unbelievable, the food, safe and tasty and probably lacking the animal innards we often find on our plates. But while wonderful in its own way, it is just not the real place. Even if the tourist happen to stay with a host family (which is better), the family has seen so many tourist that slight aspects in the way they act and in the amenities that they have, are changed.

We on the other hand we have been incredibly lucky. Through our connections with local Peace Corps volunteers or local CouchSurfers, we have been able to break though these tourist traps and see a slightly different life than your average traveler. Although most locals and other travelers do not understand it, our severe budget (averaging $16 combined per day) has helped us out as well. It keeps us in the markets and on the streets, eating and shopping where the locals eat and shop. Through our projects we live in the small communities we are helping for sometimes more than a month, working, eating, and playing the way they do on a daily basis. We get to know the real people as work side by side and become more than just a dollar sign, we become friends. In Chivey, we were able to link up with PCVs who live in the city and in the surrounding villages. They are the ones that directed us to this unknown little hike we are on now. They are also the ones that took us to a celebration the day before where we watched their communities put on displays of traditional music, dance and food. Not for tourist, but for themselves. The same way they have been doing it for hundreds of years.

Before arriving in the department of Araquipa we were on the coast checking out the famous (and very touristy) Nazca lines. While these hundreds of years old gigantic pictures that are drawn in the sand are a major highlight for average tourist, our highlight was a bit different. After viewing the amazing lines, instead of taking the luxury overnight bus that most travelers take, we started walking down the desert road with our thumbs out. After not too long a trucker stopped for us and twelve hours later we were spending the night 50 km from our destination on a “comfortable” bed of sugar pallets in the back of his trailer saving us more money and giving us a story of the strangest place we have ever slept. The ride was wonderful as we had twelve hours to really get to know Hernandez (our trucker friend), learn about Peruvian food, culture and life on the road. He was able to learn how diverse American is, that Americans are not just what he sees on TV (they still run the Jerry Springer Show here), and feel really good that people find his culture so interesting. In the end we shake hands and both think to ourselves; life is really good.

So while I know not everybody has the time, the resources, or even the luck that we have had on this trip. However, if it is possible to just skip one or two of the lines for the “must see” incredible views or the next amazing church, and just find a way to get off he beaten path to connect with the locals, I guarantee you will walk away thinking the same thing. Man, life is really good.

Ommmmmmmm, Ommmmmm Part 2

So the schedule of our nose hair contemplation started early and never ended. See below

4:30 – 6:30 Meditation (Yes, that is AM! Yes, it is dark and cold and No we are not allowed to sleep!)
6:30 – 8:00 Breakfast and time for contemplation
8:00 – 9:00 Meditation
9:00 – 10:00 Meditation
10:00 – 11:00 Meditation
11:00 – 12:00 Lunch
12:00 – 1:00 Break
1:00 – 2:30 Meditation
2:30 – 3:30 Meditation
3:30 – 5:00 Meditation
5:00 – 6:00 Dinner (Only a piece of fruit and tea)
6:00 – 7:00 Meditation
7:00 – 8:15 Discourse
8:15 – 9:00 Meditation
9:00 – 9:30 Questions
10:00 – 4:00 Sleep

Between 4:00 and 4:30 we would mindfully (everything is mindfully) stumble in and start preparing our 3x3 foot meditation spot. Originally we were given a small piece of foam and our numbered spot in the center and told this is where we were to be for the remainder of the course. The first morning thinking just in case I may need a little extra padding, I brought down some extra socks for cushioning my feet and Brooke brought down a jacket. I guess the others were thinking the same thing except that each one of them seemed to be entering the door carrying one quarter of Bed Bath and Beyond. There were more blankets, pads, special meditation stools, and down pillows than I had ever seen before in my life. We were seriously undersupplied! It was extremely interesting seeing for the next 15 minutes a hall full of people primping, pawing, pushing, punching, their pads and pillows like a 100 OCD cats that just can’t get comfortable on their new beds from Petsmart. And while I thought they were crazy at first, it only took about 10 minutes into our first hour long meditation that I fully understood their anal retentiveness. What started out as a nice comfortable sitting position (I chose the half lotus because it looked cool on a poster) turned into bone crushing pressure and razor sharp knives digging into my legs as every part of my body that put the slightest amount of weight on another part and even the tiniest wrinkle in my cushion, fold in my pants, or lip on my wonderful sock padding began to take its toll. For the next session I came prepared with a blanket and a sleep sack in tow and by the last session both Brooke and I had every piece of clothing we owned packed into some sort of cushion or another. The other meditators, sitting on their Sharper Image, totally ergonomic, triple padded memory foam, high pedestals must have gotten a pretty good laugh as each morning I fit the Comer ten year yard sale into a seamless fold free mega pad.

So while we quickly found out that equipment was important, it also didn’t take us long to realize that location, location, location, plays a crucial role in ones ability to successfully concentrate. When I say location I am referring to the 15 or so people that are in a breaths distance away from you as you visualize that nose hair. As we were unable to speak we only knew these people by the numbered meditation squares they occupied. For example, I was number 14 and throughout my 10 days of silence I mentally referred to number 16 (two squares beside me) as the nose whistler. You can probably guess why. Number 15 (directly to my right) was the toucher, number 11 was the mover, and the unforgettable 17 was Mr. Sniffer breather / hawk a luggier. Brooke (number 26 on the women’s side) was also too familiar with Mr. Sniffer as well as other noteworthy people in the group like the communicator (always trying to make illegal contact with other women outside the meditation hall) and number 21, a man that when he coughed sounded like our Tsa’chala friend trying to shoo the dogs out of the house.

So once you finally get your pad straight and blocked out the noise around you it is time to get down to business. On day four we were told that we were no longer allowed to move at all during our meditation sessions (sorry number 11). This means no adjusting pillows, no waking up legs that are falling asleep, and absolutely no opening your eyes (not even a peak to see if everyone else is in as much pain as you). In this time we were to concentrate solely on the sensations of feelings up and down our body. By observing these pleasant and painful, strong and subtle feelings without showing favoritism to one or the other we were training our brain to not have attachments or aversions to actions or objects in our life. While recognizing the more subtle sensations did get easier over time, in the beginning other than the shooting pain in my back, the crushing pain in my ankle, and the throbbing pain in my knees, this was proving to be pretty difficult. I remember being so happy as I was trying to find sensations on parts of my body and a fly would land on me providing a tickling feeling on one part then another. Occasionally I would be able to follow the fly all the way around my body successfully completing an entire body scan. I am a meditation master! Of course other times, the insect would just fly up my nose and with me not being able to move, it was no help at all.

So with the help of the pain and the occasional fly the sensations were there and now it was just up to my brain to stay focused on them. Easier said than done. What seemed like every few seconds my wild elephant was running rampant. Once it was writing a comedy (at least it seemed pretty funny at the time) screenplay about two junior high kids filming an interview in a high school weight room, back to the nose hair. Other times wondering what good friends are up too, back to the nose hair, and other times how to successfully combine pantyhose, peanutbutter, two bowling balls and a smurf lunch box full of lady bugs . . .damit! back to the nose hair!

Outside the meditation hall the vow of noble silence was also proving difficult. First of all there is nothing noble about the silence of eight guys sharing a bathroom on a vegetarian diet of beans and tea when the bathroom is located right beside your bed. It is also really hard to get by without being able to say from the bathroom “I have run out of toilet paper, can I borrow some of yours” (we all have our personal toilet paper that we also did not know to bring). I actually broke my silence as I tried to move my spot to lean up against a wall which I quickly found out from the teacher was illegal to do. Apparently the balance of the meditation center and possibly the world (judging by how fast the teacher ran over to me) was relying on our exact positioning as we sat and focused on hairy (I named my nose hair). So my first words after three days were “I would like a blackberry” as I tried to explain to the teacher that like the other ten people sitting against walls (muro in Spanish, not a mora which is a blackberry) the wall would really help my back. Apparently my love of fruit did not convince him and I was quickly back to good old square 14.

So while I probably came up with about fifteen pages of blogs to write while I was supposed to be meditating, I probably should cut myself off at four. It really just gets too crude and a little scary by page five. And although most of my writing seems like the 10 days were basically hell on earth, the truth is that it was amazing. Seeing your mind transform from the from the first day to the tenth and being able to focus in and feel energy you never even knew existed was a absolutely incredible. The lessons I learned about impermanence and detachment, not excepting the gifts of anger or hatred from others, or just the ability to calm myself, are lessons that I will hopefully carry with me for the rest of my life. That and knowledge that the half lotus position is not as cool as it looks. So if we didn’t scare everyone off, the webpage for all the free 10 day meditation courses is written below. Check it out. It could change your life.
Now back to the nose hair!

See dhamma.org.