it will probably end up better in the end: OR "There are no beggers in America, right?"
First of all, sorry I’ve been bad about finding e-mail. When I describe my days, maybe you’ll see why I haven’t been able to sit down and type before now. Still I know you guys worry and I’ll try to at least keep you posted on when I expect to be interneting next.
But now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: what HAS Alison been up to? This week at the hospital was really quiet, since Dr. Gigi was in London visiting her husband. Still, there were a few interesting things; including a guy who turned up in the ER claiming he had "fallen off his bike", but he had one long cut across his forehead. Dr. Roy was pretty sure that he had gotten the wrong end of a sword in some family dispute. Ouch!
My last day at the hospital was incredibly sad. Kyla and I had an early breakfast together before she caught a train to Kodkia. The guys at the restaurant had been after me for days about bringing them gifts for my last day (I responded that they should give ME a gift, or at least tea at lunch, but they were having nonne of that nonsense). I took a picture and planned to have it printed out for them. Still, it was hard to leave them, and the lovely free food that they provided! I spent the day saying goodbye to the nurses, all of who took pictures with me and then asked for copies, and doctors. I had to go to Dr. Gigi’s house to say goodbye to her, since she had returned from England but hadn’t gone back to work. I was afraid of disturbing her, but she was glad to see me, gave me a rose embroidered napkin set from England, and said that she would never forget my laughter. I was very much crying by the time I left her house. Dr. Banu insisted that I wait for her to return for evening outpatient (around 6:00…my train was a 7:00 so I had wanted to leave right them) and then presented me with a lovely blue stone necklace. I was really touched by them, they are incredible doctors and I’m so lucky to have gotten to work with them.
I spent much of Friday with Jackie, helping to show her the ropes. She arrived Thursday and is 40, a nursing assistant, married with kids and from England (though born in Kenya). She’s a really interesting person, who had done tons of travelling by herself in various ways. She’s only there for two weeks, but I’m sure she’s going to have a great time!
Friday night, after tearful goodbyes to Dr. Banu, John, and Jackie, I put myself on the train to Chenni. This is a very popular route, and even though I’d booked a week early, I still didn’t have a berth, only a seat. When I found my seat, a man was sitting in it. I had my ticked way in my backpack and didn’t want to look, but I said that this was my seat, I thought. "Are you damn sure?" he said, which took me aback so much that he decided it wasn’t, and told me to perch on the bench with a family. I admit I kind of lost it for a minute and wondered exactly how far it was to the nearest international airport, but pulled it together when the little girls came over to me and started babbling in Tamil. I w/as hoping that one would open up later, but it was a no-go. So, I spent the night curled up on a sort of half-bunk (by putting the seat back down and ignoring the fact that you are probably making the person across from you uncomfortable, you can do it). Still, I got more sleep that way than the night we spent with the snorer going to Kochin.
The next morning around 9am we arrived in Chenni, and I trudged with my stuff to the Salvation Army Guest House, where I called Lisette and told her where I was. She and her cousin were in Mallalpuram, about 60 km south of the city, but would be back later that afternoon. I had nothing to do (and a much lighter pack) so I set off to walk to the beach, planning to stop at the West Bengal Tourist Office on the way. They run the Jaldapara park, which I had been hoping to visit but you needed to show up in person to book a room at the lodge. I managed with the Rough Guide map (Yeah, Rough Guide!) to find it with only a few misteps. It was Saturday, so the office was closed, but the caretaker was there and invited me in to sit for a moment. He asked about my travels and when I told him about the hospital he nearly fell off the chair. "I am from there!" he said, "Dr. Gigi delivered my children!". He insisted that I tell him all about it, and had me stay for tea in his office. He called over to the office in Calcutta, and they apparently told him that there would be rooms available, then he gave me three copies of the same brochure and pointed me out toward the beach. It is a very small world.
Walking down to the beach was nice, even if it was getting warm by then. The marina itself is one of the largest in the world, and the whole thing was dotted with stalls selling everything from sea-shell trinkets to key-chains- to ice-cream to knock off hats. I bought one of those, since my own hat was sadly lost in Kollum, but managed to avoid everything else until I spotted the "you pick it, we fry it" fish place. I hadn’t had lunch yet, and those fish looked wonderful. So I sat down on the sand under the shade of their tent and had a wonderful masala fried fish. Then, feeling myself burning, I walked back to the sidewalk and checked my guidebook for what to do next. I saw that, about 10 km south of the beach, there was a cave that St. Thomas was supposed to have hidden in when he was being persecuted by some Raja. That sounded pretty good, so I called over a ricksaw and begun negotiations for the journey. They started at 200, but I didn’t want to go that badly, so after three walk aways we ended up with a 50 rps tour of the city (including some of it’s finest shopping establishments). We started out with a building that had been and old ice house, but then was used by Vivekananda when he returned to Chenni after visiting America. My religious education sort of skipped him, so I wasn’t that interested in anything expect the building itself (which had a gorgeous Raj era round porch overlooking the ocean) and the pictures of the Swami at the Chicago Worlds Fair. The guide, who was following me (the only guest) though the museum, smiled when I started jumping up and down and saying "That’s my native! That’s my native!". Clearly, I have been here to long as I am 1) speaking Indian English and 2) homesick.
They did have one other interesting exhibit, a series of 50 paintings showing the progression of Indian thought. They were quite beautiful some of them (especially those representing the different religions of India) but after 50 it was had to remember what ANY of them looked like. The major theme was "India awesome! Everyone else…took our awesome!"
After that trip, we went to our first store. Kashmiris who have a kind of funny ingratiating way of talking run them all. Everything in these stores is super expensive, and I wasn’t going to buy anything, but the drive got money every time I looked (50 rps is the going rate for an American). At the first store I met a girl who had also been taken there by her driver. Her name was Marie, and she was a teacher at the international school at Kodikai. I told her that my friend was there now, and she was really pleased, hoped you liked it. She was really sweet, but was leaving that night so we said goodbye as we left the store.
Next, we went to the cave which was down a windy road from the main street, peopled by children playing cricket at beggars waiting for people to get out of Church. The cave itself was in the basement of an old Church, built in 1550 by the Spanish to Our Lady of Good Health. It was lovely and peaceful, like the chapel in "An Affair to Remember" and to the left of the altar were the stairs down to the lighted cave. It was small, not someplace you’d like to hide, but had the same feeling as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, like a place sort of out of time. I really enjoyed it, and was just leaving the chapel when the caretaker called me over and took me into another chapel where there was a miraculous spring that Thomas had drunk from. He gave me a sip, and I drank it though I couldn’t help but wonder about the state of the water.
We stopped at a few more shops, but I was pretty much done touring and called Lisette from the drivers cell phone. She and her cousin (Pauline) were at the hotel, so I joined them there and they told me about their lovely weekend (they went to a hotel with a pool and had been chauffeured by a private car!). The three of us headed out to "The Fort" which was listed as one of the main sights in all of the guidebooks. Perhaps the fact that none of the rickshaw drivers we asked knew where it was should have clued us in that this might not be the attraction we were looking for, but we went anyway. It was, mostly, just a working fort. It reminded me more of the Pentagon than anything, sort of interesting, but most people were there to do a job. We did see St. Mary’s Church, the oldest English church in India. It was great, because there were memorial plaques to old British soliders and their wives on all the walls. "Here lies Major Reginald Reyolds, who served his distinguished career at Madras Fort, and died here on June 23rd, 1768. This plaque was placed with loving memories by the men with whom he served" ect. I never really thought how many British people died here. I more thought about all those who went home (or didn’t) after the end of colonization. I wonder if their families ever came here to visit their graves.
After our visit to the fort, we walked back to the hotel, and the other girls rested while I asked the manager how to take a bus to Mallalpuram (having no private car). He was very helpful, and ended up telling me and a Swedish boy who was also staying there, his life story. He was found as a 4 day old baby by the Salvation Army, brought up by missionaries, and has been working at the guest house for 17 years. He was so kind, he got Paulie (who wasn’t even technically staying there) a ricksaw to take her to the airport for later, and gave us a recommendation for a restaurant down the street. It was lovely, with red checkered table clothes, Indian and Western food, and a staff who was tickled pink by Lisette and my attempts at Tamil.
After that I was pretty pooped, so I just went to bed while Lisette chatted with Pauline in the front room. The next morning, I got up bright and early and headed out to the bus stand to go to Mallalpuram. It a little town near Channi which is famous for its monuments and stoneworkers. I got there around 9:30 in the morning, and after a quick dosa for breakfast headed out to see the sights. At the first one, I was a little harassed by a postcard dealer, and another traveler came over to rescue me. His name was Gerald, from Britain, and as we got to talking I learned that he had lived in DC (Clerandon, actually) working with litigation support and had been to Marrakech. In his early life (he was about 55ish) he had been in the British Navy, and so had cheap tattoos on his arms that fascinated all of the Indians we passed. We toured the monuments talking about cricket and baseball, traveling and college and had a really nice time. Unfortunately, we spit up for about 20 minutes while he went into a monument and I went to shop (and had to bargain longer than I hoped) and I lost him. So, Jack, if you ever in your litigation support career happen to meet a man named Gerald who was working in Washington about 4 years ago, please tell him that I am ok.
I did spend some time looking for him, drawing the attention of several of the guide and salesmen in the area. One of them was incredibly kind, even giving me a lift around town looking for him on his scooter! Truth be told, I was almost as upset to loose my ride back (he had had a car hired by his company) as Gerald, but when I told the guide where I was staying in Chenni he said that he lived very close to there and would give me a lift, no problem. In the meantime, every salesman and ricksaw driver had an APB on Gerald, and would call him if he was spotted. He told me to go eat. I went off and had lunch at a lovely tourist café, on the second floor, painted bright pink, with lots of fun foods like pasta salad and crepes. They also had spice tea with bits of cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom floating in it. It was lovely, and I made lunch last until almost 4, when I met the guide again and got a lift back into town. On the way to Chenni, we stopped at his sister’s house for coffee (and so he could change). Her children were adorable, trying on my shoes, playing with my hair, and the little boy cried when I left. We got back tot eh hotel around 6:30, and I was just in time to meet Lisette for dinner at 7:00. Her train was at 8, we ate a quick snack and then I saw her off. Ever since, people have been asking me if I have friends in India, and I say "Yes, but not with me" and they look and I feel sad. Lisette, Kyla, John, Jackie I can’t thank you enough for how much fun you made even 3 hour hysterectomies, and hope you all keep in touch!
At 9 the next morning, my train left for Calcutta. This was the first of two long train trips that I am taking, and I was really excited about it. The way I see it, I don’t have that much time to see India, and I see the train rides and transportation, accomedation, and tours of all the places I don’t get to stop, but can see. In addition, they are social clubs! This time, I was seated with a group of teenagers coming back from Christian Youth Camp in Chenni. The girls (Uma, 18 and Christie 16) were full of questions about America: what kind of house did I live in, did I have a boyfriend, what did my parents do, did I hve brothers and sisters…I usually simplify answers to questions like this, it just makes everything easier (yes, I’m a Christian; my sister is a teacher; my roommates are both other girl students, ect). This got me in trouble this time, though, since I had to answer questions about how often I went to church, how long services were, and how we celebrated Christmas (for this one at least I didn’t fib…I told them all about the children’s service at church and they sounded enthused!). They were really nice kids, sharing all of their food with me, listening to my I-Pod (I realized after they made a face I probably shouldn’t have started them on random play. "Sweeney Todd" is not for everyone), and making the boys be quiet when I wanted to sleep. They had some funny ideas about America, how we had no poor people and everyone lived in huge houses (Ah, TV). One of the boys who takled ot me was really sweet (prehaps Freddie sweet...it's hard to tell here). He loves books, and we talked about Roald Dahl and Harry Potter and how he wants to write 5 books in his life and open a bookshop in every counrty. He asked me about my goals, and I told him some (become an advanced nurse, travel a lot, have a lovely house when I'm older with a huge garden and kitchen so I can learn to cook). It was nice.
The train went through Andrah Predesh and Orrissa, and for the most part the differences were subtle, but there. Wheat fields instead of rice paddies, block bulls instead of white cows, women in short saries carrying loads of hay on their heads, houses made from tile rather than banana leaves, pools with blue, rather than white, lilies. The woman sitting across from me was Bengali, and spoke almost no English, but gave me tea every time I turned around and wanted my mobile number. At night, the fires burning in the fields lit up the sky, and everything smelled like a bonfire. I had a whole bunk this time, and slept very well. Indian trains get very quiet at around 10:30pm, and by 11 there isn’t usually a sound to be heard except the motion of the wheels. In both second class compartments I’ve been in, I haven’t had one snorer. This is made up for by the 5:30 wake up time, though. It’s pretty easy to doze during the day, and that’s what I did until about 10, when I chatted more with the girls and then got ready for when the train arrived around 12.
After saying goodbye, I took the cross-town bus so that I could leave my luggage at Saldeah station, which is where my next train leaves. Moving through the traffic, I could see that this city is totally different in style from Tamil Nadu. Like all of India, it looks as though structures that were meant to last 10 years have been left up for 50, but these are townhouses with ornate wooden screened balconies, peeking out from leafy trees. The street life is amazing, everything is sold from blankets on the sidewalk. The chai is served not in glasses but in ceramic pots. There is a whole street of men who sit at typewriters typing letters for other people. I dropped off my luggage at the station cloak room, and walked about 3 miles through the town to the main tourist area, just letting myself go bug-eyed (oh, and also stopping at the tourist office to book a double room for myself at Jaldapara lodge. It’s elephant ride of bust! Thank you for your birthday present, Aunt Karen. I finally found somewhere that takes credit cards!).
About halfway though my walk, I ran into a protest of people saying they were against "Imperialism, Globalization, Zionism, and War". The were holding lots of signs saying "Stop US and UK Imperialism in Other Countries!" and, yes, there was a lovely picture of President Bush (in his flight suit, no less) Tony Blair and Rumsfeld looking very evil. ON the one hand, I could see their point. It’s not like I voted for him, or support most of what he does. On the other, something inside of me was screaming "You guys are supposed to LIKE us! If you don’t like us, nobody does!", which may, in fact, be the case. I felt a little awkward standing my the side of the road, but I wasn’t about to let myself get off the route I knew so I waited the 30 minutes while about 250 people marched by. It was pretty clear that some people were passionate about their cause, and others were street people who didn’t seem to have a clue why they were walking this way.
After finding a hotel, I wandered about some more (finally finding this place, which has 10 rps Internet. I promise I’ll try to be less frugal when I comes to Internet, since I don’t want you to worry, but they tried to charge me 40rps in Mallalapuram! That’s just not fair!). I stopped for dinner at a "rolls" stand, which is a Calcutta specialty. They prepare a kabab, then a vegetable mush mixture, and roll the whole thing in a thick chipatti. It was delicious!
Tomorrow, my train for NJP (and from there Jaldapara and Darjeeling) leaves about 10:00pm. I probably won’t be able to write again until I get to Darjeeling (not counting on there being Internet in the forest preserve) on the 30th. I miss you all very much (more every time someone says "Do you miss your Family, Boyfriend, Friends) but am having adventures (as you see). Next time I write, I will have fullfilled one of my Travel Goals: Elephant Ride!
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