who's been keeping me busy since i have been home:

to making it out alive

i am very pleased to report that both sean and i are alive and well.....in america!! toasting 'to making it out alive' as we drank beer in delhi must have done the trick. our flights went well, other than delays, and we are luxuriating in american food and i am quite reluctant to leave my comfy, soft bed.

i am moving kind of slowly, but i am looking forward to talking to everyone. my phonebook in my cell phone disappeared so e-mail me your numbers, or better yet, just give me a call. 513-519-7996.

and now, it is time for a nap.

love!

k.

there are new photos!!

duff has put more photos on his photo site from our trip. please follow the link to the right. new albums include hainan, kashgar, kashgar to lhasa trip, kathmandu, lhasa, lhasa to kathmandu, monastaries near lhasa, urumqi to kashgar, and wuhan to urumqi.

there is a really great photo of duff's chinese nephew in the urumqi to kashgar album.

enjoy!!

...in which sean and i have an amazing experience in batala

sean and i spent two amazing days with some very kind people in batala, india, visiting the school that my great aunt lilly started as a methodist missionary. it will take a number of posts to share about the school, program, and the things we have learned.

amritsar is the big city south of batala in the punjab. the punjab is an amazing region with a sikh majority. the state of punjab has been split on two occasions. first, partition in 1947 when india and pakistan split, and then again in 1966 when the new hindu speaking state of haryana was created. in the punjab they speak punjabi. the area surrounding the city is farm land, and very green and clean looking. we saw a lot of rice and wheat growing. we caught an evening train, 5:30 to batala. we have been trying to communicate with the school in batala, but this has been difficult. i sent a number of letters while still in china, but the chinese mail system is not good, and the indian system worse, and none of them made it through. i have been trying to e-mail through my grandparents and the bishop in delhi, but was never able to make direct contact with anyone at the school. as a result, sean and i had no idea what was waiting for us. after being crammed with 6 people to a bench in 100 degree heat for an hour we stopped in batala. we hopped off the train for our fist major shock: we hadn't stopped at a platform! with my hurt ankle, and our heavy packs, we took a minute to stare at each other in shock, looking up and down the rows between the trains hoping none of the decided to move before we found a way out. eventually some kind people directed us to hop through another train and we found our way to the platform. we climbed up and down the trains from the gravel, pushing my pack ahead of us.

we took a moment to collect ourselves and it was clear that our communication efforts had failed and there was no one to meet us. we struck out from the train station looking for a hotel. we got a lot more stares than normal, i can't imagine foreigners are a common sight in batala (which i am told has a population of about 200,000, but seemed a lot smaller). when sean and i bought our tickets in amritsar the ticket agent thought he had misheard me when i announced our destination. i had to yell three times before he said, "you mean batala? you want to go to batala?!" yes!!

we found a hotel, and then decided we didn't like it and found another. by this time it was dark, so we camped out in the restaurant for some amazing chicken tikka, paneer tikka, and a beer. while we were there a little boy came in and said his father invited us for breakfast the next morning at 9:00. we accepted the invitation and went to bed feeling excited and welcome.

the next morning was the dawn of the 59th indian independence day. it was cool and rainy and we went to wait for the boy downstairs to go to breakfast. he never showed up, so sean and i started walking to find the school or breakfast, which ever we found first. i was worried that we would find no one at the school, no school would be open in america on the 4th of july, and we didn't realize that august 15th was independece day when we planned our trip. sean and i walked for a while and found kahnuwan road, the address we had for the school. after wandering around for a while, looking extremely lost, i am sure, a man helped us find the school. as soon as we showed him the address he knew exactly where we wanted to go. he led us past the church, and pointed us down a road. at the end of the road we saw a sign:

lilly swords methodist college of education

we found it!! it was a white sign with blue and white lettering and the methodist cross and flame. the school did look deserted, however. we asked a group of little boys where we could find the head master the pointed us to the assembly hall. when we got there, we realized we had arrived right in the middle of an independece day assembly. we met miss alka hamid masih, and the principal of the high school. we explained to them who were were and were warmly welcomed. they had no idea we were coming. no idea. we felt badly, like we were crashing their party, but they were quick thinkers and made us feel very welcome. we were seated in the front of the hall and listened to the pastor speak. the children were sitting cross-legged on mats in rows all the way to the back of the room. there were 30 children per row and perhaps 25 rows or more. it was hard to count. i was particularly struck by how well behaved the children were, peace and quiet and attention like nothing i could ever expect out of my students in china. even the tiny little kids, 5 years old, were paying rapt attention. miss alka made an impromptu announcement of our visit and introduced us. we stood at the front of the room and waved at the children and i said a few words. this, and we had only arrived 5 minutes ago! then, they welcomed us with garlands of sparkling something, which girls came and placed around our necks like they do in hawaii. i wish i could remember what they were called, but i didn't catch the name. we finished up the ceremony and went to have a snack with the staff.

they explained that indian independence day is really celebrated for 2 days. on the 15th the students come to school and there are presentations and festivities. we missed most of the morning program but we were invited to attend the afternoon program at 5:00. it was a cultural program put on by the hostel students (the children who live at the school, 425 residents in all). more about that later. on the 16th, there are no classes and teachers have the day off.

sean and i need to get going, but next time i write i will recount our tour of the school. we had an amazing tour filled with great information and history. before we go, though, i will give some basic facts. the school was started by my great aunt, lilly swords, from germany, educated in america. she and another german missionary, hildegard grams, are largely responsible for building the school into what it is today. miss grams enlarged the school substantially. miss swords was involved in the purchasing of the land, the school has 13 acres and even grow their own rice and wheat, which they process on the school grounds. they also grow some vegetables. the school now has about 1600 students, from the ages of 5-20. of these students, 425 live in beautiful hostel accommodation...more on all of this later. classes are taught in three different programs, in the punjabi, hindi, and english languages. sean and i were very impressed by the peace and serenity of the school grounds. india is a very chaotic place, and at times the noise and dirt can be overwhelming. these children are very lucky to have this safe and beautiful school. the grounds are amazingly well-cared for and there are many trees with green, healthy grass. birds sang and chipmunks ran around. the paths connecting the brick buildings are all brick, too. the campus is extremely beautiful and seems a whole world away from crazy batala, right outside the gates.

i will write more later, but if you had questions or specific details you would like me address, please leave those comments so i don't leave anything out.

also: the site for the school and their newest project, the lilly swords methodist college of education, is:

www.lillyswordsbatala.org

amritsar and the golden temple

sean and i are closing in on the end of our trip. now, after 30 hours of train travel from jodhpur, we are in amritsar. today we saw the magnificent golden temple. we both agreed that it is far more impressive than the taj mahal. the golden temple is a large complex that is a holy place for sikhs, and it was so amazing to see all of the people worshiping. pilgrims can stay in the dormitories there with no charge and eat for free. one of the cafeterias serves 10,000 people a day and can seat 3,000 people at a time. there were that many people wandering around the temple and gardens, it was so crowded. the complex is mostly white marble, and buildings surround a pool of water where people were bathing. in the center of the pool is the golden temple, amazingly golden. the bottom part of the temple is white marble with pietra dura, which is the italian for the type of inlay. beautiful, precious and semi-precious stones are set into the panels of marbel. the scenes are so delicate and beautiful and the detail is fascinating. the stones are all colors and they have the most brilliant blues and teals and the deepest reds. most of the panels are flowers, and they were at the taj mahal, but here there we also scenes with delicate birds and peacocks, holy men, tigers, and all sorts of amazing stuff.

inside the main temle there were three holy mean singing prayers and playing instruments that are amplified by speaker throughout the complex. the halls and stairs were crowded with people relaxing, reflecting, and praying. many were reading small books. the ceilings were elaborate, raised gold backed by blue, green and red paint. there were amazing garden scenes painted along the walls. the ceilings had mirrors with dazzling effects.

in a few hours sean and i head on to batala. we don't know what awaits us there, if someone will meet us, or if we will even be able to find the school, but we are armed with all the information we have, and we are are ready for adventure. we will spend indian independence day there, and since i was foolish and scheduled our visit on a national holiday when the school is most likely closed, we may spend a half day on the 16th before heading back to delhi and then home. wish us luck, we are out of cities that start with 'j' because those places and sean and i don't mix.

enchanting gujarat countryside

yay!! sean and i finally got into the countryside a couple of days ago. we hired a driver from the tourist office in bhuj, wildly expensive, but worth it, and set off into the gujarati countryside surrounding bhuj. i told the driver that i wanted to see some people and handicrafts, but i mostly wanted to see nature and wildlife. there are flamingos in the area and i thought it would be neat to see them in their natural habitat. the driver heard me, i guess, but didn't listen because we went in the opposite direction. he told us that it was monday and there is a market in anjar on mondays and all of the desert tribal people come. this sounded amazing, so i will leave the flamingos for another trip.

the driver took us to the homes of local people so we could see the handicrafts of kutch. we saw block printing, silk weaving, woodworking, and the most amazing embroidery ever. it was neat to see the people working, most of the work was done out of private homes and we got to sit and chat with the people, mostly tribal rabaris, and have tea with them and ask them about their work. it was a really neat experience, and i am now obsessed with block printing. when we were traveling in nepal there were carved wood blocks everywhere. duff encouraged me to buy some but i couldn't really see any use for them and i didn't want to carry them so i didn't. now i wish i had, i would love to make my own blockprints. i am keeping an eye out for the blocks.

the villages that we visited were so quiet and peaceful, and remarkably clean. many homes were destroyed by the earthquake and we visited a group of houses built by the government, one or two rooms to each one story home. we went into one where there were more than 10 women leaning up against the walls in a room with concrete floors and no furniture. they spend their days sitting there embroidering the most amazing stuff. mostly saris. one girl showed us how she sews the tiny mirrors they use onto the cloth. sean and i ended up getting some amazing embroidery to use as wall hangings. all the places we visited showed the crafts they wanted to sell. i hate this because i always feel forced or guilted into to buying something and the prices are generally really high, but when we saw the embroidering we were both eager to get to the part where they would try to sell us stuff. we were ready to buy.

as we were driving towards anjar and the market the driver stopped and proclaimed that we were very lucky tourists because we could see gypsies. having had not all together positive experiences with gypsies in ireland, i was a little wary, but we went and talked to the people. finally, people who were willing to stare at us as openly as we wanted to stare at them! they were fascinated by my watch, as everyone we met that day was, and i got a lot of questions about it. these families are nomadic and move everyday, according to our guide. they were rabari and each day pack all their belongings onto camels and move on. they belongings include a huge wooden bed, which we assumed collapsed, but doesn't. the camel walks around with a huge platform on its back and the children ride on it, oh, and lambs. later in the day we saw another group of nomads on the move. in the camp there are only elders, women, and children. the men herd sheep and goats and they are off wandering with their flocks. the rabari are beautiful and striking people. the women wear all black and sport huge gold jewelry and amazing tatoos, especially on their feet and ankles, arms and necks. i am wary of tatoos as it is and the thought of getting a home tatoo on my neck gives me the chills. still, they are very beautiful. we saw one older woman who had giant gold bars as earrings, her earlobes stretched out so far the bottoms of the holes in her ears were brushing the tops of her shoulders.

when we got to the market in anjar we were emboldened, having visited a few small villages of rabari and anhir people. i think it is anhir, i couldn't really understand the guide. the anhir women wore these very beautiful shirts with open backs, completely open backs. they were long sleeves and full coverage in the front, but there was no back to the shirt. it was a really beautiful effect and they wore a long piece of cloth over their head which fell down their backs, covering them for the most part, all the way to the ground. they also wore long embroidered skirts. at the market we saw all manner of people selling all kinds of stuff. at one point we wandered into a vegetable market and i was shocked at how empty the stalls were. vegetable markets in china are overflowing with really healthy looking food, but here it seemed that there was very little, and what there was didn't look very good.

at the market we also saw men, and boys in red turbans. our guide told us that those in red turbans will get married within ten days. they wore white (as rabari men do) and had high-heeled leather shoes in addition to the bright turbans. some of the boys were amazingly young. we asked the guide about it and he said people get married at all ages, as young as 10 or 11. the bride is generally the same age as the groom. wow.

in the afternoon, we stopped at a bird sanctuary to try and satisfy my craving for nature. there weren't any birds, apparently migration isn't until next month, but we got to relax for a while near a lake that comes just from monsoon. the waters were light brown and we were told that in a month all the sediment will settle to the bottom and the water is a brilliant blue. nearby sean and i visited a tomb, which struck us as a really neat place to hang out as a teenager and the caretaker gave us a blue plastic bag of sugar. this we were to eat, or to give away to children.

after our short visit to bhuj we caught the overnight train back to ahmedabad to get our stuff from the tailors. it all came out beautifully, but we were in a huge rush and didn't have any time for alterations and it is all too big. how this happens, i have no idea. they take our measurements!! sean had a dashing navy blue suit made and even though we got it taken in it is still too big. my tailor didn't even want to deal with my alterations so we will try to find someone in amritsar who can take my kurtas in. the fabric is mostly gujarati block prints and it is so beautiful.

we are now in jodhpur and will be here for a few days resting and healing (i fell down the steps at the train station yesterday morning) and then we move on to the punjab. to amritsar to see the golden temple, and to batala where my opa's sister lived and taught school.

prag mahal: pigeon sanctuary

sean and i, having left cloth at tailors all over ahmedabad, have moved on to bhuj. katie's recommendations have proved to be wonderful recommendations indeed. thank you, katie!! we are now in the region of kutch, completely fascinating. i can only wonder what it looked like when she was here, now it is green and there are puddles everywhere. sadly, we only have two days in bhuj (this trip is flying, we have less than 2 weeks left!). today we spent in town sightseeing and tomorrow we are off on a tour of the countryside. i am really excited about this: we have been doing all of our traveling by train and at night and so i have no idea what the area between the cities we have visited looks like. the countryside is the most interesting to me. we told the tourist bureau we wanted to see the wildlife, people, and handicrafts of kutch. we'll see what we get.

today sean and i visited the prag mahal, the aina mahal, and sarad bagh palace. most impressive by far was the prag mahal. in 2001 there was a huge earthquake in gujarat, 7.7, and the epicenter was in kutch. evidence of the earthquake can still be seen everywhere... or maybe it is just typical less-developed country rubble, but the signs of the earthquake are obvious. since the earthquake destroyed (leveled) a lot of the town, city planners took the opportunity to make some changes. the streets were widened. today walking in the old city we could see where buildings would have extended into the road, but now they just end where rooms used to be. the earthquake killed 20,000 people, including 400 school kids who were marching in a parade for republic day (this year duff and i were walking the hills around ooty for india's republic day and some kids road by on bikes with indian flags attached to the handle bars and gave us little paper flags). the buildings that fared the worst were the newly built highrises, but the buildings we visited today suffered obvious damage.

there was far to little information about the prag mahal. it is a huge building that can be seen from all over the city. the area is abandoned now, and the walls are crumbling and the surrounding area is overgrown. only a handful of rooms in the huge castle (basically) were open and it KILLED me that we couldn't explore all of them. the place had a really ghostly feel to it and was completely inhabited by flapping pigeons. the main room visitors see is the dilapidated durbar hall, which looks like it is right out of a haunted house movie set. the walls are crumbling, there are 11 crystal chandeliers in the room, caked in dust and pigeon droppings. they also are set with large red stones. lining the walls are european classical statues and TONS of taxidermy. i mean tons. there was a taxidermied hippo as well as dear, bears, and all manner of big cats. like everything else these were covered in dust, and pigeons perched on the heads on the dead animals. it was so creepy and fun! the rooms was filthy and a little light made it in through red and blue stained glass windows. i am crushed that we couldn't see the rest of the palace. we did get to visit another room to the side of the main hall, filled with large mirrors and more taxidermy with carpet worn through to the floor. there were absolutely no protective measures engaged here, it is one of the most fascinating buildings i have ever seen.

interestingly, there were some automaton statues similar to those that sean is familiar with from his work with the magic collection. there were two, apparently one from france in terrible condition, and another of an indian man sitting cross-legged smoking a hooka. when we went next door to the aina mahal, which is a museum, sean got into a neat discussion with the curator about their collection. the curator had a passion for the history and culture of kutch and showed us a book and a number of articles he had written on the region, all pre-earthquake. he talked about the challenges of running the museum and preserving the collection because the building was so damaged by the earthquake. apparently they have a very large collection but most of it is in storage because the whole second floor was destroyed. monsoon also seems to cause a problem for the collection, now housed in a non-secure building.

the sarad bagh palace was the home of the maharaja of kutch but the entire third floor of the structure disappeared after the earthquake. the man only died in 1991 and it was neat to see the artifacts of his life which included a number of taxidermied lions and tigers with photos of the kill when he shot them and their measurements (all over 10 feet).

early to bed, our driver picks us up at 8:30 tomorrow morning.

back on track...where everyone thinks sean looks like harry potter

sean and i stalled out for a few days in jaipur. i guess monsoon is cold and flu season here, and we caught the bugs. the illness hit me a lot harder than it did sean (since illness generally hits him harder in life, it was a fair trade-off), and for a few days i stayed in bed. luckily, we were in the beautiful town of jaipur at an amazing hotel with hot water and a.c. there was no better place to be wretchedly ill anywhere else in india.

our second night in jaipur, sean and i went to the cinema to see our first hindi bollywood movie, fanaa. i hear it got mixed reviews, and none of it was in english, but we both really enjoyed the film. the storyline was remarkably easy to follow, and interesting. it is the story of a blind girl from kashmir who goes to delhi for some kind of dance performance and falls in love with a tour guide. they court and love and the parents, i suppose, approve of the match and come to delhi to meet the guy. while on their way, the girl and guy go to the hospital to get retinal replacement surgery in hopes the girl can see. while the girl is recovering, and before she can see, a bomb explodes (at a gov't complex near the hospital) and she is told her boyfriend has died in the explosion. she's crushed and goes back to kashmir with her parents. it turns out, though, that the guy was leading a double life and was actually a kashmiri freedom fighter planning with his grandfather and other kashmiri soldiers to pressure india, pakistan, and russia to let their kashmir regions go. oh, the "pressure" was with a handheld nuclear device that could destroy delhi, or islamabad. the story gets complex, and i recommend you see the movie, so i won't go into it anymore, but it is a beautiful movie with amazing scenery and really fun music and dancing. sean was laughing at some of the cheezy parts and now i know that i have spent too much time watching chinese movies because it didn't seem that hoaky to me.

laying in bed watching the news i learned that everyone is getting sore throats now because of monsoon. they showed throat exercises and yoga positions to help your throat heal. and the tv told me to eat lots of yogurt.

sean and i are now in amedhamad, in gujarat, plotting our next move. our next immediate move will be to the tailor. and then, hopefully, out into the countryside a bit.

interestingly, traveling with sean, people here tend to think he looks like harry potter, and more than once we have been walking down the street and they will say "harry potter" over and over again, and point, and tell their friends. we were walking behind a guy on the way to the internet cafe today who told the people we passed, "hey, the guy behind me looks just like harry potter!" how cute.