As far as birthdays go, this might be one of the most interesting. As my Mom pointed out, I don't remember what I did on my 12th birthday onward, but I will most likely remember this one. I'm still trying to figure out if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Okay, so it wasn't a James Bond movie or anything. As my Mom also pointed out, I will have plenty of parties back home and I should consider this my birthday month. First off, it's never fun to wake up early on your birthday, but I had no escape, since we had to drive early from Bodhagaya to Patna to make our flight. Since it is the "fog season" planes are known for being delayed so we were inserted with a mixture of worry, desperation, stress, and exclusively for me, stomach cramps that wouldn't go away as we waited in the Patna airport. We finally learned that our flight was on time, hallelujah, and we grogily made our way to the poorly signed boarding area after being pat down like criminals.
IndiGo, our airline slightly resembled JetBlue in the blue symbols and logo. And ofcourse, being my quirky father, my Dad bought a hat with it's logo on it for fun. Our hour and a half trip felt like 30 minutes as I devored my novel eagerly to the near finish.
For our last night here, we decided on a little treat, a five-star Hilton branch in the middle of Delhi, where we stayed in modern style class and took long showers and baths instead of getting out early because the hot water had decided to stop. The endless buffet was overwhelming but we managed to rack up an assumingly large bill, in which my parents refused to tell me the amount followed by the classic "it's your birthday" excuse.
We relaxed in our room together eating the delicious chocolate birthday cake, compliments of the house, and watching Discovery Channel on the gorgeous flat screen TV. We finished the cake for breakfast, well I finished the cake for breakfast, and we are now using the day to fish around for last minute presents in Delhi's modern shopping district. We will later make our way to the airport where we fly to Moscow, arriving at a pleasant 4:30 in the morning.
I'm sure that by the time we leave, you will all be either heading for work or for school, while we sleep uneasily in our stiff airplane seats. I am dreading the day we arrive home since I have to go to school the next day. I hope you are all enjoying your work. At least we aren't beggars on the streets of India feasting on the appearance of tourists. You have no idea how many times I've wanted to give all of our money to them like free candy. Sometimes you just can't win.
I wish you all a merry non-holiday and a happy new year.
Namaste from Delhi,
Thai
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Schools and Trees and Education, Oh My!
Yesterday was quite a holy day. We took a trip to the Mahabodhi Temple, a monument in front of the Bodhi tree that is a descendant of the real one where the Buddha attained enlightenment. It was surrounded by a village-like area with multiple levels. It had it’s own meditation park and butter lamp houses which are greenhouses filled with hundreds of enchanting burning candles for the Buddha. At the tree, hundreds of people walked around and around it, some monks and some foreigners. Some walked all day, bowing their heads in contemplation.Others like ourselves sat around it and just meditated for a while, in awe that we were meditating under the Bodhi Tree.
And a group of Tibetan kids sat at it and chanted in warbled yet holy speech for hours at a time. At night time clusters of soft lights lit up the entire park with a magical orange glow. Gold ribbons were tied to every tree in sight. Historic chanting filled the air everywhere you went. It was such an inspiring place that my Mom went three times.
Today we went to visit the Pragna Vihar School, the place where all your money has gone. It has amounted to 3,000 dollars which is loosely 90,000 rupees. To put it in perspective, about 50,000 rupees educates every kid in the school for a year. Today was actually a holiday, so none of the kids had to come in to school. But word that we were coming got around and almost 300 kids came to see us. Ranging from 5 years old to 15 years old, the kids were obedient and adorable in their matching red outfits. They got in line by age and sat in the dirt as if it were shiny new concrete. I was suddenly brought back to first grade.
Sister Shoba, the principal of the school announced to the kids who we were and translated how much we’d given them. They all clapped nonchalantly as if this happened all the time, but then again they were little kids. We sang them Do Re Mi and Getting To Know You and in return the 5 year olds sang to us about fish and a counting song about a princess. An equivalent to Row Row Row Your Boat or Mary Had a Little Lamb.
A few of the older teens who spoke better English asked us questions and translated to the rest. All of the boys wanted to be computer software engineers.One girl wanted to be a doctor in which we praised her with good lucks. Afterward we looked inside the homey 3 story building. With three or four classrooms on each floor, it was remarkable how they could fit 580 students into the building. Each classroom was about ¾ the size of one of mine and looked like traditional 20th century classrooms with connecting seats and decaying blackboards. Each room fit 60 kids, two times the amount of kids in my homeroom. They had one computer room that also served as a music and dance room. In my elementary school we had two music rooms, the auditorium for dance and a separate computer room stocked with 40 Macs. The contrast was mind boggling.
Another magical thing about the school was that unlike many schools, they mixed casts so that the poor kids became friends with the more working class kids and were exposed to the different lifestyles. It’s all a nonprofit school so anyone can come. They try to go to the homes of the beggar kids and ask for them to come to the school instead of beg on the streets.
The older girls and boys stayed a while to talk to us about graduating. There they graduated at 15 and then if they could, moved on to college, our high school. They sang some songs for us, more pop culture ones and told us a little about their movie stars and tv shows. One of the boys who sang to us was especially American-looking all the way down to the baggy, dragging jeans, hoodie sweatshirt, earphones in his ears and overly gelled hair. It was interesting how influenced these kids were from American teens, when they lived on the other side of the world and barely had any TV.
I left feeling grateful that I could be whatever I wanted to be in the future where as these kids had to be geniuses at maths (that's what they call math) and science to get places. Most of the kids didn’t speak any English at the age of 11 or 13. I already know quite a bit of Spanish at 14 to get my way through Spain.
All in all Bodhgaya has so far been an exploration of spiritual and educational values. It will be strange to leave the more suburban streets here to go to the hectic New Yorkish avenues of Delhi. It’ll be even more strange to be travelling on my birthday tomorrow instead of relaxing and celebrating. But then again, it is an adventure.
Sorry for the absence of pictures, these darn PCs are hard to master. (No offence to PC owners.)
Ciao for now,
Thai
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| The Bodhi tree underwhich the Buddha achieved enlightenment |
Today we went to visit the Pragna Vihar School, the place where all your money has gone. It has amounted to 3,000 dollars which is loosely 90,000 rupees. To put it in perspective, about 50,000 rupees educates every kid in the school for a year. Today was actually a holiday, so none of the kids had to come in to school. But word that we were coming got around and almost 300 kids came to see us. Ranging from 5 years old to 15 years old, the kids were obedient and adorable in their matching red outfits. They got in line by age and sat in the dirt as if it were shiny new concrete. I was suddenly brought back to first grade.
 |
| The Mahabodhi Temple |
 |
| Handing over your donations to Sister Shobha |
Sister Shoba, the principal of the school announced to the kids who we were and translated how much we’d given them. They all clapped nonchalantly as if this happened all the time, but then again they were little kids. We sang them Do Re Mi and Getting To Know You and in return the 5 year olds sang to us about fish and a counting song about a princess. An equivalent to Row Row Row Your Boat or Mary Had a Little Lamb.
A few of the older teens who spoke better English asked us questions and translated to the rest. All of the boys wanted to be computer software engineers.One girl wanted to be a doctor in which we praised her with good lucks. Afterward we looked inside the homey 3 story building. With three or four classrooms on each floor, it was remarkable how they could fit 580 students into the building. Each classroom was about ¾ the size of one of mine and looked like traditional 20th century classrooms with connecting seats and decaying blackboards. Each room fit 60 kids, two times the amount of kids in my homeroom. They had one computer room that also served as a music and dance room. In my elementary school we had two music rooms, the auditorium for dance and a separate computer room stocked with 40 Macs. The contrast was mind boggling.
Another magical thing about the school was that unlike many schools, they mixed casts so that the poor kids became friends with the more working class kids and were exposed to the different lifestyles. It’s all a nonprofit school so anyone can come. They try to go to the homes of the beggar kids and ask for them to come to the school instead of beg on the streets.
 |
| Almost 300 students came on their day off to meet us! |
The older girls and boys stayed a while to talk to us about graduating. There they graduated at 15 and then if they could, moved on to college, our high school. They sang some songs for us, more pop culture ones and told us a little about their movie stars and tv shows. One of the boys who sang to us was especially American-looking all the way down to the baggy, dragging jeans, hoodie sweatshirt, earphones in his ears and overly gelled hair. It was interesting how influenced these kids were from American teens, when they lived on the other side of the world and barely had any TV.
I left feeling grateful that I could be whatever I wanted to be in the future where as these kids had to be geniuses at maths (that's what they call math) and science to get places. Most of the kids didn’t speak any English at the age of 11 or 13. I already know quite a bit of Spanish at 14 to get my way through Spain.
All in all Bodhgaya has so far been an exploration of spiritual and educational values. It will be strange to leave the more suburban streets here to go to the hectic New Yorkish avenues of Delhi. It’ll be even more strange to be travelling on my birthday tomorrow instead of relaxing and celebrating. But then again, it is an adventure.
Sorry for the absence of pictures, these darn PCs are hard to master. (No offence to PC owners.)
Ciao for now,
Thai
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Years with the Buddha
Right now I am currently in Bodhgaya, the last destination of our trip and the site of the school. But first I need to back up a bit. The last time I wrote I was in Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. We did get to see it in all it’s beauty, as you can tell from the photo I posted. In case you don’t know, the Taj was built by the king in the 1500s for his second wife who died. It’s known as the greatest building ever built for love. Pretty cool, eh? That day we made our way back to Delhi, la automobile, where we then made our way across the platform trying to figure out where our car was, while beggars and dust equally approached us like wild animals. When we found our car, the small, two bunk bed area turned out to be 2nd class and not tourist class like we thought it would be. It was strangely homey and camp-like as the train rocked us to sleep, my mom and I tangled in each other to try to fit onto the slim mattress.
After arriving at our top end hotel in Varanasi, we found that we hadn’t exactly got what we paid for. There was no hot water, our balcony looking out onto the Ganges River was bombarded with a noisy generator and at 5 am the next morning, we woke to a loud rattling that sounded like the whole building was going to collapse.
Thai:)
Christmas at the Taj
This was written on the 26th, just as a heads up. Happy New Years, everyone! I feel really bad that it's hot here. Oh well, it'll make me appreciate this weather better. An updated post will arrive soon.
Well, Christmas was certainly different this year. The four hour trip to Agra from Delhi amounted to 7 hours. It took up the whole day. No Taj Mahal at sunset, no rooftop dinner. Only a small bump into another car (everyone is fine), an insane amount of traffic, a crazy intersection, trained monkeys, transvestites begging for money and a cow crossing the road. And to add to that, because we didn’t have any internet for the past few days, our reservations for our hotel was cancelled and we had to find another one in the dark. We found a nice place that claimed they had hot water, but wound up not.
At heart, I’m still a little kid when it comes to Christmas. In fact, it’s actually my favorite day of the year. So with no family and presents by the fire in the morning, it was disorienting but quite the adventure. It will be a story that I can never forget, and my mom has promised me a Christmas in July, when our family comes to visit.
We were going to visit the Taj this morning for sunrise, but just our luck, today is the first day of “the fog”. From our balcony, you’re supposed to see a great view of the Taj, but instead all we can see is gray. We are now waiting for the fog to settle.
Today we’re driving back down to Delhi to take the train to Varanasi. We will stay there for 3 days in a fancy shmancy hotel. Love to all, and a little advice for the future: If you ever want to come to India, don’t come during the holidays.
Thai
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