The Remnants of War

A monument hit by errant bullets and shrapnel during the war

This country was broken, but with the hard work of its people, it is on the mend.

In our ten days in the country, we spent only four days in the northern province of Sri Lanka where the government and the Tamil Tigers fought hardest during their thirty years of civil war.

Driving in to Jaffna, the North’s major city, two things struck me.

Northern Jaffna is how I imagine the southern United States might have been after the Civil War. On every block at least a few bombed-out buildings stood. Not one building escaped the cross fire; I found small bullet and shrapnel holes carved into their thick plaster walls. Sri Lanka fought three successive wars against the Tamil Tigers between 1983-2009. The most recent war or “humanitarian effort” as the government calls it lasted from 2006-2009 and culminated with the government soundly defeating the Tamil Tigers. That victory came at great loss of civilian lives and livelihoods. Their families missing, their homes destroyed, and their communities broken, civilians and militants in the north and east of Sri Lanka are returning to their native land after decades in refugee camps.

A bombed-out church in Jaffna

People are slowly recovering. They are opening shops, repairing and rebuilding their homes, and learning new employable skills. Young school girls, dressed all in white, smiled as they meandered past the shells of former shops and homes. As a victor’s peace, the government had the option to deny the defeated Tamils of all reconstruction efforts and foreign aid. For the most part, it has dedicated itself to appeasing the former combatants through reconciliation and rehabilitation so that the war never happens again.

For now, Sri Lanka has peace. It should last, but no one, not the Sri Lankan military officers nor the Tamil civilians would tell us without a doubt that peace would be permanent.

**An additional note: Since returning to America, I have talked with many family members and friends.  Few of them knew that Sri Lanka had a war that ravaged its country off and on for 30 years, or that the two main forces were the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers (LTTE).  The country is rebuilding, but many issues remain unresolved (e.g. property rights, freedom of speech, human rights abuses, and English language education - to name a few).

Reflections upon Leaving Chennai

The gap between the upper and lower classes in India grows by the minute.  India’s burgeoning “middle class” accounts for the top earners in the country as half of its population still lives on less than two dollars per day.  The increasing economic disparity between the top and the bottom classes means an increasing disparity in quality of life.  The expectations of the upper classes increase as their purchasing power increases.  They begin to demand better hospitals, schools, cars, and homes.  The economically irrelevant lower classes do not have the influence that disposable income brings.  The conspicuous consumption of the upper classes serves as a daily reminder of their poverty.  To give my first-hand observations about the contrast between the lives of the upper class and lower class in India, I have four stories to share.

Chennai Mall Life: I have frequented the glossy Express Avenue mall in Chennai a number of times now. The structure rises six stories into the sky, filling the air with its frantic consumerism. Bright lights shine on sparkling saris, trendy Nike shoes, and a bustling KFC. India's middle and upper classes mill in and out of shops. Their expanding waistlines push them to shop at newly opened plus sized stores. From this enclave, India's social and economic problems seem far away. However, just across from the mall, tucked away behind stores, lie the corrugated roofs of a sprawling slum.

Hotel Opulence: In Pondicherry we stayed in a hotel in which surfaces gleamed with polished granite, glittered with crystal chandeliers, and shone with burnished ceilings. Every night the hotel hosted glamorous weddings. The guests chatted while wearing their best silk saris and sipping champagne. Outside the high gates of the hotel, however, a cloud of dirt and noise replaced the cool, clean air conditioning. Maneuvering around the buckling sidewalk and piles of trash outside, I was overwhelmed by the contrast between the hotel's spotless opulence and the unabashedly grimy poverty of the surrounding neighborhood.

The Privileged College Student: Every time I leave the sylvan enclave of MCC's middle class campus for the city I pass beggars who plead for money. They sit in piles of rags with festering wounds, amputated limbs, and raggedy hair, curled up against the battering flow of the passing foot traffic. Instinctually I want to help, but I have been told that any money I give will only attract unwanted attention. My fellow classmates have remarked in guilty tones how easy it is to ignore beggars. Even in Tamil Nadu, one of the most affluent of India's 28 states, abject poverty is normal.  For every day we spend here, Davidson's wide brick sidewalks and innocuously friendly townspeople fade from my mind as a new normal, the Indian normal, replaces them.

Beautification Projects: Sitting in my taxi on the way to a posh department store, a gypsy woman with a small baby approached my window. She made silent gestures from her mouth, to her baby, to me.  Her watery eyes bore into my own.  She is used to being ignored.  Her newly affluent middle class counterparts view her as an unsavory reminder of their former economic hardships. I have even seen many signs on hotels and restaurants telling passerbys that the establishment "reserves the rights of admission.” I take these signs to mean establishments will allow in only "appropriate" well-to-do customers and exclude the dirt-covered lower classes.

Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) petition the government to eliminate slums from the neighborhood.  Since the slums are technically squatters, they should not legally live on the land.  However these largely selfish beautification campaigns have no intention of bettering the conditions of the poor. They move the poor to crowded tenements on the edge of the city or demolish the slum without advance notice. The upper class would rather beautify its city than solve any of its problems.  In the way that India's upper class wants to keep poverty out of site, India is very much like America.  America does a fantastic job of hiding its poverty.  Out of sight, out of mind, right?  In my hometown in Ohio I drove to school every day through a disaffected area of town, but the streets were always wide and clean with out a single homeless person in sight.

The gap between India's rich and poor is growing. The rich buy their fancy cars in air conditioned mega-malls and eat western food with abandon, while the poor live without clean water or toilets.  India’s prosperous accept this lifestyle gap as normal.  I must admit that I accept poverty as normal both in India and at home.  I cannot apportion blame upon others without recognizing my own faults. I ignore poverty in my own city and spend wildly while many of my countrymen have no disposable incomes, homes, or even clothes of their own.  Just because poverty is normal for America and India does not mean that the poor should continue to live in squalor.  In spite of their historical love of socialism, Indians today do not make much effort to redistribute wealth so that everyone might benefit from the country’s prosperity.  As long as pure capitalist morals (i.e. amorality) grip the growing middle class, the gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow.  The gypsy woman will continue to beg.  The hotel in Pondicherry will host elaborate weddings.  The waistlines of the middle class will keep expanding, and India will continue along the same economic path for the foreseeable future.

Bindis and Skin Cream

I recognize that there are many paths to truth, every religion is valid in its attempts to explain the world. I do not hold the monopoly on truth, nor should I pretend to.  My way of life, my opinions, my interpretation of the world are only one person's opinions out of 7+ billion.

Religion is malleable. It molds itself so that it conforms to the expectations of the majority.  For example, in India numerous, colorful statues of saints and biblical figures adorn churches in a manner similar to the gods and goddesses which adorn Hindu temples.

Religion is not only more chameleon in nature, but also more visible in India than in the United States. On the wall behind the concierge of our hotel hung a glow-in-the-dark rosary.  In our houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala hung a picture of Jesus.  Every auto rickshaw I pass has a bumper sticker with pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses, or words like "Baby Jesus" and "Masha Allah"

For better or worse religion in America remains below a layer of consumerism and materialism, a shopaholics two favorite -isms. As the West becomes more secular, India clings to its many religions. In India I see temples and churches and mosques on every block and devotees of each religion display their faiths with turbans, hijabs, bindis, and crosses.

Atheism and the distinctly western "spiritual but not religious" movement seem to play a minimal role in India. However, secularism has its place in India, particularly in the foundation of its government.  It's government is secular in that it allows for the freedom and expression of all religious beliefs, but does not espouse one particular religion in its constitution.  Parties like the Hindu nationalist BJP stand to challenge India's long-standing tradition of religious tolerance.


On another note, when speaking with MCC students a few weeks ago I mentioned that I attracted a lot of stares. A student replied "It's because they think your skin is so beautiful!"  I wasn't sure how to reply. She herself had coffee colored skin, somewhere in between North India light and South India dark.  I told her that her skin was just as beautiful and that in the U.S. I would go outside in the sun just to get tan.  She laughed at the thought.

The face creams and soaps at drug stores are called things like "Fair and Lovely" and claim to lighten skin.
A surprisingly large number of advertisements - from bus companies to clothing stores - feature white babies.
In a forum with college students from Lady Doak College in Madurai, the female students explained that the darker a woman is than her husband, the more expensive her dowry.

This kind of advertising reminds me of the white-centric US products and commercials that promoted light skin over dark skin until the 1960s.  For all I know these advertising techniques may be present in the U.S.  I have just been too oblivious to notice.

What I Take for Granted

Trash collects on the side of the road.  Only the cows dare to touch it as they root through piles of putrid garbage with dainty precision.  On rainy days, the streets stream with warm, grey water and the garbage gloms together in slippery globs.  On dry days, the mud dries only to be blown about by passing autos and the trash globs dry into little moguls over which I must walk.  MCC's campus is forested and lovely.  However, on its many walking paths water bottles, candy wrappers, and rubber flip flops  smother the natural vegetation.  (On an odd side note, I only ever see one flip flop.  Never two.)  While I was on a run last week, a sweet yet putrid odor wafted over the cricket pitch.  At my inquisitive glance, my friend explained it was garbage, specifically plastic, burning.  Beside my thoughts that the airborne carcinogens were negating the healthful effects of my run, I worried about the environmental consequences of the 1.3 billion people of India burning their plastic waste.  Who would step up and enforce environmentally sustainable recycling programs in order to keep India's roads and water ways free of trash?

(A repeat from an earlier post) Om nom.

The power goes out at least two times per day.  The first time it did go out, I was sitting in class and the lecturer was speaking.  Without warning the lights and the projector shut off and the speakers made a feeble popping noise.  The lecturer, a resident professor at MCC, continued right on with her lecture as we all looked around in confusion.  During our next two lectures, the power went out a total of six times.  At MCC and in Chennai, the power supply is constant compared to the power outages the rest of the country faces.  Power cuts in rural areas can last for eight hours or more per day.  This is assuming that the village had access to electricity in the first place.

On a personal observation, not about the energy crisis in India, I depend entirely on electricity and the internet.  How do I get to this restaurant in Chennai?  I Google map it.  How is my family doing?  I email them.  The moment the power goes out, my first instinct is to sit around, twiddling my thumbs until it turns back on.  Even my leisure reading I keep on my iPad, a luxury made useless with the long-term loss of electricity.

This is the longest time I have ever been out of the country. My Egypt trip ended after 3 1/2 weeks.  To date I've spent 4 weeks and 3 days in India.  This program is far more laid back than my adventures in Egypt.  Rather than squeeze out every opportunity, I have almost four months to leisurely explore and plan my own travel occasionally.

I take advantage of my privileges in the West.  I can wear what I want (within reason).  I can go where I want by myself.  I can marry whom I want.  Women in the west do have gains to make with regards to equality.  However, our issues pale in comparison to those facing women in India.  The modern Indian woman lives in an unabashedly patriarchal society suffering from rising rates of rape, dowry debts, honor killings, and sati.  This picture of India is entirely worst-case-scenario and overly pessimistic.  More women today have access to higher education and to job opportunities outside the home.  The law does give women rights on paper, however, the government does not and can not enforce it.  For example, the law states daughters deserve a share of their fathers' property equal to their brothers' share.  Rarely, however, does a woman inherit half, if any, of her father's property.

Indian husbands often define their wives.  Widows are largely worthless in society.  Every day I pass old women begging on the side of the street.  Their hair tangled, feet without shoes, they sell small limes and fragile flower garlands to passerbys.  I can only help but wonder if their families have abandoned them to live the last of their lives on the streets alone.

Last weekend we hopped on a plane from Chennai to Mumbai to the old Portuguese state of Goa.  Over the course of the trip we traveled by ferry, taxi, auto-rickshaw, and foot.  Lots of foot.  A little more than I bargained for, but with good company.  We spent a total of three sun-soaked days wandering around Goa's winding streets.  On either side of us, colorful buildings, centuries old, weathered the crush of the ocean waves with an air of distinction - the peeling plaster only added character to the cobbled and tree-lined side streets. The beautiful architecture was a breath of fresh air from Chennai's monotonous progression of high rises.

Language notes:

• Don't say "oh" for zero.  For example, 2013 is not two-"oh"-one-three.  If you want to get your message across, say two-zero-one-three.
• A "scale" in India is a "ruler" in America.  "Bring me a pencil and a scale" need not merit a search for an Indian "weighing machine."  Language is fascinating.

Getting into a Rhythm

A Hindu Temple in Chennai

At Davidson I run from classes to meetings to Delilahs rehearsals to admissions events.  18 days of India has upended my busy Davidson schedule with its frequent power outages, ambling cows, and bustling traffic.  My typical day begins with 6:15 am yoga, 7:30 breakfast, 8 am language instruction in the local Tamil, 9 am - 12 pm three classes about the politics and society of the Indian Ocean, then lunch at 12:30 pm.  The rest of the day, theoretically, is free.  We have spent many afternoons walking about the streets of our suburb of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, trying new sweets, shopping for vibrant shalwar camises, and walking down narrow alleys simply to breathe in the sweet perfume of the flowers which waft from stalls filled with elaborate garlands. 

The moments of down time have been few and far between.  As I write this, I am sitting on our balcony at the International Guest House of Madras Christian College (MCC) listening to the chirps of crickets, the howling of monkeys, and the occasional yelps of stray dogs.  Oh, and the unexpected bomb blast or gunfire from the nearby naval and Air Force bases. So goes the soundtrack of my evenings on a Friday night in the south of India. 

We left North Carolina on Saturday August 31st and arrived in Chennai on Monday September 2nd.  As we tried to adjust to the new culture and time zone, we fit in a journey down the coast to Mahabalipuram, the site of many Hindu temples from the 6th century, and Pondicherry, the charming former French colony.  I had a surreal realization while wandering the brightly lit streets of Pondicherry's French Quarter (think New Orleans) that all my friends back at Davidson were sitting down to have lunch at commons.  I struggled to tune out the beeping car horns and constant whirr of autos (auto-rickshaws) and imagine sitting outside in the mid-day sun for Saturday morning brunch.

In Pondicherry (Puducherry, Pondy) we stayed in a hotel in which every surface gleamed with polished granite, glittered with crystal chandeliers, and shone with burnished elevator doors and ceilings.  Take one step outside the high gates of the hotel, however, and a wave of dirt and noise smacks you clean across the face.  Maneuvering around the buckling sidewalk and piles of trash, I could not help but think of the contrast between spotless opulence of our hotel and the unabashedly grimy poverty of the neighborhood in which I now found myself.  Indians deal with this contrast between the rich and the poor, the new and the old, every single day.

Rights of admission reserved?

America does a fantastic job of hiding its poverty.  Out of sight, out of mind, no?  In my hometown in Ohio I drove to school every day through a disaffected area of town, but the streets were always wide and clean with not a single homeless person in sight.  Here, every time I leave the sylvan campus of MCC for the city, I pass at least ten beggars who plead for money.  They sit in piles of rags with festering wounds, amputated limbs, and raggedy hair, curled up against the flow of the passing foot traffic.  I want to help, but I have been told that any money I give will only attract unwanted attention.  My fellow classmates have remarked in slightly embarrassed tones how easy it is to ignore beggars.  The physical presence of poverty is normal even here in Tamil Nadu, one of the most affluent of India's 28 states.  As I have already mentioned, with each passing day, the wide brick sidewalks in Davidson fade, confronted by new sights, smells, and tastes.

Market shopping in the city

The culture shock I have heard so much about has yet to hit me.  This delay is due, in part, to the fact that I left the Davidson bubble for a Chennai bubble.  At Davidson we all recognize the presence of the "Davidson bubble," a phenomenon where we hear no news from outside a three-mile radius.  At MCC in Chennai, the seventeen of us exist in our own insular bubble, aware of the news in India and the world only when the wireless decides to work.  At all other times we go to class and live our daily lives caught up in new lives in India. 

Namaste until next time!

The First Few Days: An Impression

 The City of Chennai from St. Thomas's Mount

The window of a colonial era church in Chennai

India has fulfilled my every expectation that it would smell, look, taste and be different from everything I have experienced up until this point.  These first couple of days have been exciting and exhausting all at the same time.  I thought I would share a few of my observations and adjustments.

So many new desserts to try!

Observations: 

1. As Westerners in a city with very few other Westerners, seventeen 19-21 year olds attract plenty of attention.  The good thing is that the staring is simply curiousity on the part of the locals and has not been malicious.
2. In my day-to-day life in the United States, I find myself a part of the social and racial majority.  In Chennai I am a minority, a sweating, glaringly white minority.
3. Despite my every expectation I have yet to experience debilitating culture shock.  I have adjusted fairly well to new foods, the oppressive heat, and daily life in the global south.
4. Our guide at MCC, a Chennai local, lived in Ohio for 6 months a few years ago.  What are the chances of that?  When he found out it was my home state, the first thing he said to me was "Go Bucks!" 
5. I feel like I'm living in a wildlife sanctuary.  Since arriving on MCC's campus I have seen lizards, spotted deer, bats, a few of MCC's 100 varieties of birds, monkeys, stray dogs, and copious amounts of insects.

The sign to our guest house at MCC

A typical scene at MCC

Things to which I've had to adjust:

1. Not using my left hand (more importantly becoming conscious of when I use my left hand, which is all the time).  In India, the left hand is considered dirty, so I have to accept money, hand out gifts, and even pass food with my right hand.  I always considered myself left-handed only when I wrote .  Since coming to India, I have realized the sheer number of actions I automatically and subconsciously perform with my left hand.  Just imagine lots of awkward, last-minute fumbling arounds and you have my behavior in a shop when I go to hand my money to the cashier with my left hand.
2. Eating with my hands, actually just my right hand again (of course).  It makes every meal feel vaguely like a messy, but entertaining and enjoyable art project
3. Spicy food for breakfast: America is the reigning champion of bland breakfast foods and, my personal favorite, dessert barely concealed as breakfast food (think cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip pancakes, and scones).  By contrast, here my taste buds are assaulted early in the morning by flavor and spice.  I particularly liked a chewy rice cake called "idli" we used to sop up our spicy lentil stew Monday morning. (Think soft, moist dough with a faint hint of sourdough flavor shaped into patties and you have igli
4. Early wake ups: I woke up naturally at 5 am this morning with plenty of time for 6 am yoga!

What would this post be without a holy cow?

Until next time!

I think I'm ready for another adventure.

One hundred and four days.  Four countries.  8,627 miles away from home.  One very excited college student.

Over the course of the semester, I will travel to India, Sri Lanka, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  Before I turn twenty I will have been to four continents and fourteen countries.  Only now am I beginning to grasp what amazing opportunities I have had in my life to travel.  I am forever grateful for my parents who allowed me to go abroad without them at the age of thirteen and have indulged my incessant travel bug ever since.

Countries I will have been (December 2013)

Why India?  If you know me, you know I love lists:

1. I have always wanted to go to India.  I blame the glorified version of India I read about in Eat, Pray, Love.
2. As a potential political science major, I can travel to no better place to travel than India, a country emerging as a global political and economic power.  This year, and only this year, the Davidson in India trip will be political science focused, so I need to act on this opportunity now.
3. Always one to think of the future, after I graduate from college I plan to travel extensively around the world and need to be comfortable both as a minority and living in both first and third world countries.

On this blog I will try to post regularly about my adventures around the world, both this semester in India and beyond.  As of right now I have plans to study abroad again in France next fall.  After next fall, who knows?  I'd love to find myself in New Zealand, Chile, Greece, or Turkey.  Stay tuned!

P.S. But before any of this can happen, I need to finish packing.  Baby steps....