When I had just started learning Quechua, I had been told that they didn't have days of the week but since I've moved to the Andes, I have learnt that they actually do have them. I am so in love with them that I have started using their translations when referring to the days of the week in English just so I don't forget. Here they are:
P'unchaykuna --Days of the Week
Intichaw--- Sunday (Day of the Sun)
Killachaw-- Monday (Day of the Moon)
Atichaw-- Tuesday (Day of Power)
Quyllurchaw-- Wednesday (Day of the Stars)
Illapachaw-- Thursday (Day of the Lightening Bolt)
Ch'asqachaw-- Friday (Day of Venus)
K'uychichaw-- Saturday (Day of the Rainbow)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Favourite Quote
Ama suwa, ama qhella, ama llulla (Don't steal, don't be lazy and don't lie)---A greeting the Incas used to say.
I recommend using this completely out of context. It helps to kill awkward silences, especially in elevators, enclosed spaces (crowded busses for example) where people are looking at you funny.
I recommend using this completely out of context. It helps to kill awkward silences, especially in elevators, enclosed spaces (crowded busses for example) where people are looking at you funny.
Aqhata munani ujyayta...When in doubt, speak italian!
Learning a language is the source of a lot of confusion in the house. Needless to say, the first few days are the most difficult for both the hosts and the guest. My host mother Doña Petra has had three run-ins with me that I am sure have left her feeling very confused:
1. I am not a morning person. After my 30 hour journey to Bolivia I decided to rest and to go to school at 1pm instead of 8am like the other students the next day. Joaquín was completely okay with that since I was exhausted when I arrived. Doña Petra woke me up at 7 to ask if I wasn't going to have breakfast before I go to school. Now by her own admission and that of her children, she speaks quechua extremely quickly and spoke for about 5 minutes. The only part I caught was that she asked me if I wasn't going to school. Now at that time of the morning, when my body is exhausted, I don't speak any language. So half asleep I responded, "Oggi non devo andare a scuola. Joaquín ha detto che posso andare verso l'una quindi rimango a casa." Yep, I responded to her in ITALIAN! Of all languages?!?! Somehow, my brain is programmed so that if the language I am hearing is not English or Spanish, then it must be italian. So in my state of between sleep and consciousness, I spoke not in my mother tongue, but in Italian. My response lasted for about 30 seconds and I noticed she was looking at me blankly. Then she said, "Imata ninki? (What are you saying? but her face was more like "what the hell???") Then finally I go, "Mana kanchu yachana wasi kunan pacha. Yachaywasiman rini a la una. Chayqa wasipi qhepakuni. (I don't have class right now. I'll go to school at 1. So I'll stay home). That was a lot of confusion for 7 am. I'm used to confusion at any time after say around noon... but not that early.
2. In Bolivia, they have a typical drink called Chicha. In quechua, the word for chicha is "aqha". The problem is Quechua is a language of explosive, popping sounds so you have to distinguish words sometimes by sound. For example, you have the word tanta which means together, thanta (th is pronounced like hindi so the t sound is heard and the h sound is heard almost separately. It sounds something like ta-hanta) which means old by means of excess use and t'anta (t has a popping sound) which means bread. Now qh is pronounced like you're breathing into the h. It takes a lot of effort and I was really tired so I didn't breathe into the h so it came out as the word "aka". So I was very lazy and said to Doña Petra, "akata munani ujyayta" (I want to drink chicha) "Aqha" is chicha but Aka is sh*t. So she looked at me and just burst out laughing. I had said "I want to drink sh*t." She was like "In Bolivia, we don't drink that." I was sure to clarify that that was a genuine linguistic error and not a cultural one. Jamaicans find drinking that to be apalling too.
3. Janine had told me a story about Bolivian slang. She went to the market with Joaquín and a lady asked her if she liked plátano boliviano (Bolivian plaintain). Janine responded that she loved it because in Switzerland they don't have it and when they import it, its usually very green. In Bolivia however, its so great. They have all this variety in different colours and sizes and she could eat it everyday etc. So of course, Joaquín and the lady burst out laughing because in Bolivia, plátano is slang for penis. So we thought that was really funny and made fun of Janine for the rest of the ride. When I got home, Doña Petra asked me if I liked plantain so of course I just start laughing. She asked me again. So I paused before I responded and eyed her with some suspicion. She assumed I didn't understand and then decided to explain in Spanish that its like a banana, she is going to make it for dinner. I can have it boiled or fried. If I don't like it, I don't have to eat it etc. The whole time I was smiling and then I said, "yeah I'll have it for dinner." I didn't bother explaining but I think I will tomorrow since she continues to look at me awkwardly.
1. I am not a morning person. After my 30 hour journey to Bolivia I decided to rest and to go to school at 1pm instead of 8am like the other students the next day. Joaquín was completely okay with that since I was exhausted when I arrived. Doña Petra woke me up at 7 to ask if I wasn't going to have breakfast before I go to school. Now by her own admission and that of her children, she speaks quechua extremely quickly and spoke for about 5 minutes. The only part I caught was that she asked me if I wasn't going to school. Now at that time of the morning, when my body is exhausted, I don't speak any language. So half asleep I responded, "Oggi non devo andare a scuola. Joaquín ha detto che posso andare verso l'una quindi rimango a casa." Yep, I responded to her in ITALIAN! Of all languages?!?! Somehow, my brain is programmed so that if the language I am hearing is not English or Spanish, then it must be italian. So in my state of between sleep and consciousness, I spoke not in my mother tongue, but in Italian. My response lasted for about 30 seconds and I noticed she was looking at me blankly. Then she said, "Imata ninki? (What are you saying? but her face was more like "what the hell???") Then finally I go, "Mana kanchu yachana wasi kunan pacha. Yachaywasiman rini a la una. Chayqa wasipi qhepakuni. (I don't have class right now. I'll go to school at 1. So I'll stay home). That was a lot of confusion for 7 am. I'm used to confusion at any time after say around noon... but not that early.
2. In Bolivia, they have a typical drink called Chicha. In quechua, the word for chicha is "aqha". The problem is Quechua is a language of explosive, popping sounds so you have to distinguish words sometimes by sound. For example, you have the word tanta which means together, thanta (th is pronounced like hindi so the t sound is heard and the h sound is heard almost separately. It sounds something like ta-hanta) which means old by means of excess use and t'anta (t has a popping sound) which means bread. Now qh is pronounced like you're breathing into the h. It takes a lot of effort and I was really tired so I didn't breathe into the h so it came out as the word "aka". So I was very lazy and said to Doña Petra, "akata munani ujyayta" (I want to drink chicha) "Aqha" is chicha but Aka is sh*t. So she looked at me and just burst out laughing. I had said "I want to drink sh*t." She was like "In Bolivia, we don't drink that." I was sure to clarify that that was a genuine linguistic error and not a cultural one. Jamaicans find drinking that to be apalling too.
3. Janine had told me a story about Bolivian slang. She went to the market with Joaquín and a lady asked her if she liked plátano boliviano (Bolivian plaintain). Janine responded that she loved it because in Switzerland they don't have it and when they import it, its usually very green. In Bolivia however, its so great. They have all this variety in different colours and sizes and she could eat it everyday etc. So of course, Joaquín and the lady burst out laughing because in Bolivia, plátano is slang for penis. So we thought that was really funny and made fun of Janine for the rest of the ride. When I got home, Doña Petra asked me if I liked plantain so of course I just start laughing. She asked me again. So I paused before I responded and eyed her with some suspicion. She assumed I didn't understand and then decided to explain in Spanish that its like a banana, she is going to make it for dinner. I can have it boiled or fried. If I don't like it, I don't have to eat it etc. The whole time I was smiling and then I said, "yeah I'll have it for dinner." I didn't bother explaining but I think I will tomorrow since she continues to look at me awkwardly.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Ima Rayku runa simita munani yachayta? (Why do I want to learn Quechua?)
The hiatus of The Long-Legged-Short-Torso Diaries has come to an end. I restart my blog to chronicle my own process of learning to speak Quechua in Cochabamba, Bolivia. My decision to learn an indigenous language is related to my research on political humour and social change in the Americas as this experience is part of my own engagement with linguistic hegemonies and racist structures of power that shape Latin American humour.
Quechua is a racialised language in the Southern cone that marks its speakers as "outsiders", "inferior", "uneducated/uncivilised", "dangerous" and "backward". There has always been rampant discrimination against indigenous peoples including campaigns of genocide, economic exploitation, political and social marginalisation, imposed assimilationist practices that begun in colonial times and continue to today. (For more information, I would say, just google it!) Indeed, the pressure to assimilate remains and many indigenous people have changed their names, stopped wearing traditional clothes and refuse to teach their children to speak Quechua in order to protect them from discrimination. In fact, during colonial times, speaking Quechua was punishable by death. So of course, my decision as an outsider to learn the language has been greeted with confusion by some Spanish-speakers in Bolivia. A light-skinned Bolivian looked at me as if I was crazy to have decided to learn "that" language. On the other hand, I am greeted with elation by the average Quechua speaker when I start speaking to them in Quechua. I also notice that if I speak quechua in the market, the asking price for any item I am buying is IMMEDIATELY cut by, at least half. So in many ways, learning the language is just a good economic decision.
Apart from the bargaining tools that Quechua offers me, I chose to learn the language because while many Latin Americanist on the left engage with questions of indigeneity and comment on the overwhelming silencing and exclusion of indigenous voices in institutions of power, I know very few who have actually invested in learning an indigenous language. In this way, there continues to exist a certain distance/disconnect between the academic and the indigenous subject despite the presence of rigorous academic debates on indigeneity. I am not suggesting here that learning the language now makes me an authority on everything to do with indigeneity, nor that if they do not speak an indigenous language, then they have no right to critique linguistic hegemonies/structures of power in the Americas. Rather, I argue that the language gives access to realities that have been systemically invisibilised, undervalued and ignored and knowledge of such realities will help me not to participate in and perpetuate the exclusion of indigenous peoples in my academic work. So learning to speak Quechua is an attempt on my part to reduce the distance between myself as a Latin American scholar and the Andean world, to ensure that I place value on the culture and stories of the most disenfranchised and marginalised in my own work and to generate the broadest possible perspectives of the realities that shape performance practices especially humour in Latin America.
Maypi? Where?
It is winter in South America but Cochabamba is one of the warmest cities in the country because it lies in the centre of Bolivia. However, the weather moves from extremely cold weather in the morning (sweaters, hats, underpants and gloves are a must) to very hot temperatures in the afternoons. The constant climatic shift from one extreme to the next in the span of 24 hours can be very hard on your body so I had to take it easy for the first few days.
I am now living with a young professional Roxana, her son Elias and her parents Doña Petra and Don Lino. Her parents and the cook Julia are quechua speakers and her younger brother Eric studies Engineering at the University. Although, only the parents and the cook speak Quechua, Doña Petra insists that I speak to all of them in Quechua especially her grandson Elias because everyone in the family understands it perfectly. They are a middle-class indigenous family from the countryside of Potosí and they run a shop from the house itself.
I am studying at the language school: Escuela Runawasi. It is run by Joaquín and his Swiss wife Janine. Joaquín was part of an armed guerrillero movement in Bolivia. He was tortured in Chile for three months then exiled to Switzerland where he met his wife. After his involvement with the armed struggle, he now defines himself as a pacifist but politically he remains on the ultra left. He is one of my Quechua teachers since it is his mother-tongue. My other professor is an indigenous womyn called Ilda who defines herself as a staunch socialist. She has done a lot of work in adult literacy with indigenous, quechua speaking womyn, indigenous workers unions and is very vocal about womyn's rights.
I live in Villa Juan XXIII and many of the people living in the barrio are indigenous people who migrated from the countryside looking for work. The people in this area voted overwhelmingly for Evo Morales (the first indigenous president) and they mostly identify on the left. There is much elation right now in the community because a new law has just been passed requiring that Quechua be taught in all schools across the country and that all public servants learn to speak the language. Of course, this is a historic moment for the country, as it has created a new space not only for indigenous languages and cultures but also for indigeneity itself within the national imaginary. I will provide a summary documenting reactions to the new law in another post.
The journey to Bolivia
Now I have travelled a lot but I think my 30 hour journey to Bolivia is worthy of mention. I bought the cheapest ticket I could find without paying attention to the length of the journey from NYC to Cochabamba, Bolivia. I flew from NYC to Miami, Miami to Lima Peru, Lima to Santa Cruz Bolivia, Santa Cruz to La Paz, La Paz to Cochabamba. I left on Monday at 3 30pm and got to Cochabamba on Tuesday at 8:00pm. Needless to say I was exhausted. As we flew to La Paz, I noticed we were flying over mountains with snow on their tips and then we landed in the airport El Alto just below a few of the mountains. When I landed in La Paz I exited the plane and noticed the strangest thing: there were oxygen masks at each of the passport/ immigration/customs booths. In fact, below the "Welcome to Bolivia" sign, there were a few tanks with more oxygen masks around them. I thought to myself, "how strange that the message you would send to tourists visiting for the first time is "welcome to Bolivia, have some oxygen...you're gonna need it!" Anyway, I collected my luggage and went on my merry way. I checked into my connecting flight to Cochabamba and as I started walking to pay the airport tax I realised that my heart was racing, my head was spinning and I could hardly breathe. Then I remembered that La Paz's airport: El Alto stands at 4,000 metres above ground. That's higher than CUZCO! But I thought to myself, "I've never gotten altitude sickness. I can handle this. Just look at all these locals walking around just fine." I took a moment to collect myself. Then I looked behind me and the flight attendant who checked me in was no longer standing. She was just on the ground...motionless.
Okay she wasn't. I'm kidding.
But my suitcase was on the ground.
And I was on top of it.
M-O-T-I-O-N-L-E-S-S
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hadn't actually lost consciousness (YET!) but I could barely move. Then I got up and started hugging the wall really tight like a crazy person. A older lady approached me and asked if she needed to notify security so they could bring me an oxygen mask. I told her I was okay, got a hold of myself. She told me to eat something sweet so I bought a cinnamon roll. I know that sounds strange but all the other foods on sale were unfamiliar so I went with what I already knew. It gave me a boost, I thanked the lady, got on my flight and left.
Moral of the story: Cinnamon rolls save lives.
Quechua is a racialised language in the Southern cone that marks its speakers as "outsiders", "inferior", "uneducated/uncivilised", "dangerous" and "backward". There has always been rampant discrimination against indigenous peoples including campaigns of genocide, economic exploitation, political and social marginalisation, imposed assimilationist practices that begun in colonial times and continue to today. (For more information, I would say, just google it!) Indeed, the pressure to assimilate remains and many indigenous people have changed their names, stopped wearing traditional clothes and refuse to teach their children to speak Quechua in order to protect them from discrimination. In fact, during colonial times, speaking Quechua was punishable by death. So of course, my decision as an outsider to learn the language has been greeted with confusion by some Spanish-speakers in Bolivia. A light-skinned Bolivian looked at me as if I was crazy to have decided to learn "that" language. On the other hand, I am greeted with elation by the average Quechua speaker when I start speaking to them in Quechua. I also notice that if I speak quechua in the market, the asking price for any item I am buying is IMMEDIATELY cut by, at least half. So in many ways, learning the language is just a good economic decision.
Apart from the bargaining tools that Quechua offers me, I chose to learn the language because while many Latin Americanist on the left engage with questions of indigeneity and comment on the overwhelming silencing and exclusion of indigenous voices in institutions of power, I know very few who have actually invested in learning an indigenous language. In this way, there continues to exist a certain distance/disconnect between the academic and the indigenous subject despite the presence of rigorous academic debates on indigeneity. I am not suggesting here that learning the language now makes me an authority on everything to do with indigeneity, nor that if they do not speak an indigenous language, then they have no right to critique linguistic hegemonies/structures of power in the Americas. Rather, I argue that the language gives access to realities that have been systemically invisibilised, undervalued and ignored and knowledge of such realities will help me not to participate in and perpetuate the exclusion of indigenous peoples in my academic work. So learning to speak Quechua is an attempt on my part to reduce the distance between myself as a Latin American scholar and the Andean world, to ensure that I place value on the culture and stories of the most disenfranchised and marginalised in my own work and to generate the broadest possible perspectives of the realities that shape performance practices especially humour in Latin America.
Maypi? Where?
It is winter in South America but Cochabamba is one of the warmest cities in the country because it lies in the centre of Bolivia. However, the weather moves from extremely cold weather in the morning (sweaters, hats, underpants and gloves are a must) to very hot temperatures in the afternoons. The constant climatic shift from one extreme to the next in the span of 24 hours can be very hard on your body so I had to take it easy for the first few days.
I am now living with a young professional Roxana, her son Elias and her parents Doña Petra and Don Lino. Her parents and the cook Julia are quechua speakers and her younger brother Eric studies Engineering at the University. Although, only the parents and the cook speak Quechua, Doña Petra insists that I speak to all of them in Quechua especially her grandson Elias because everyone in the family understands it perfectly. They are a middle-class indigenous family from the countryside of Potosí and they run a shop from the house itself.
I am studying at the language school: Escuela Runawasi. It is run by Joaquín and his Swiss wife Janine. Joaquín was part of an armed guerrillero movement in Bolivia. He was tortured in Chile for three months then exiled to Switzerland where he met his wife. After his involvement with the armed struggle, he now defines himself as a pacifist but politically he remains on the ultra left. He is one of my Quechua teachers since it is his mother-tongue. My other professor is an indigenous womyn called Ilda who defines herself as a staunch socialist. She has done a lot of work in adult literacy with indigenous, quechua speaking womyn, indigenous workers unions and is very vocal about womyn's rights.
I live in Villa Juan XXIII and many of the people living in the barrio are indigenous people who migrated from the countryside looking for work. The people in this area voted overwhelmingly for Evo Morales (the first indigenous president) and they mostly identify on the left. There is much elation right now in the community because a new law has just been passed requiring that Quechua be taught in all schools across the country and that all public servants learn to speak the language. Of course, this is a historic moment for the country, as it has created a new space not only for indigenous languages and cultures but also for indigeneity itself within the national imaginary. I will provide a summary documenting reactions to the new law in another post.
The journey to Bolivia
Now I have travelled a lot but I think my 30 hour journey to Bolivia is worthy of mention. I bought the cheapest ticket I could find without paying attention to the length of the journey from NYC to Cochabamba, Bolivia. I flew from NYC to Miami, Miami to Lima Peru, Lima to Santa Cruz Bolivia, Santa Cruz to La Paz, La Paz to Cochabamba. I left on Monday at 3 30pm and got to Cochabamba on Tuesday at 8:00pm. Needless to say I was exhausted. As we flew to La Paz, I noticed we were flying over mountains with snow on their tips and then we landed in the airport El Alto just below a few of the mountains. When I landed in La Paz I exited the plane and noticed the strangest thing: there were oxygen masks at each of the passport/ immigration/customs booths. In fact, below the "Welcome to Bolivia" sign, there were a few tanks with more oxygen masks around them. I thought to myself, "how strange that the message you would send to tourists visiting for the first time is "welcome to Bolivia, have some oxygen...you're gonna need it!" Anyway, I collected my luggage and went on my merry way. I checked into my connecting flight to Cochabamba and as I started walking to pay the airport tax I realised that my heart was racing, my head was spinning and I could hardly breathe. Then I remembered that La Paz's airport: El Alto stands at 4,000 metres above ground. That's higher than CUZCO! But I thought to myself, "I've never gotten altitude sickness. I can handle this. Just look at all these locals walking around just fine." I took a moment to collect myself. Then I looked behind me and the flight attendant who checked me in was no longer standing. She was just on the ground...motionless.
Okay she wasn't. I'm kidding.
But my suitcase was on the ground.
And I was on top of it.
M-O-T-I-O-N-L-E-S-S
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hadn't actually lost consciousness (YET!) but I could barely move. Then I got up and started hugging the wall really tight like a crazy person. A older lady approached me and asked if she needed to notify security so they could bring me an oxygen mask. I told her I was okay, got a hold of myself. She told me to eat something sweet so I bought a cinnamon roll. I know that sounds strange but all the other foods on sale were unfamiliar so I went with what I already knew. It gave me a boost, I thanked the lady, got on my flight and left.
Moral of the story: Cinnamon rolls save lives.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Backpacking South India
Once I got to India, I made a plan to travel through Tamil Nadu and kerala. Travelling alone is always difficult but I am particularly proud about having been able to make it through India because I didn't speak any of the languages and bargaining became my sixth sense. Things to see in India are endless. I just had to pick a region and decide where I wanted to go. I must confess that I got tired of temple seeing and was disappointed that I didn't get to see the bridge that used to connect India to Sri Lanka in Rameswaram. I also lost my cell phone early on and got sick of taking busses by the time I got back to Mumbai. Anyway, I'm leaving you some photos of the trip through South India.
I landed in Chennai (Madras) from Mumbai and when I saw what a horrific city it was, I decided I needed to get out FAST! Apparently I hopped into a 'three wheeler'/auto/rickshaw a little too quickly and lost my cell phone. That was the scary part because I
couldn't contact Mumbai immediately if anything happened. Anyway, I took two long bus rides to get to the Main Bus station and was on the next bus to Mahabalipuram. I saw the five rathas and the Shore temple while the guide explained that they are still rebuilding the town after the tsunami. Mahabalipuram is a fishing village with alot of scultures so its gorgeous to walk around and visit for just a day. But I wouldn't sleep there because the sleeping accomodations were very very sad..so I'm glad I left early. I was disappointed that I couldn't get to send an email to Mumbai when I got there because the internet was down in the entire village. But I just took a local bus and made my way to pondicherry.
Pondicherry is a relaxing place for a lot of people because they have a famous ashram where you can meditate and do yoga. Half of the town has a strong french influence so the architecture is very different from what I saw in other parts of South India. Apart from just spending the day resting and looking out at the beach, I didn't do much there which was nice because the crowded busses can take a lot out of a foreigner. I had to bargain HARD to get th
e autorickshaw driver to drop me to the bus station at 3am so I could leave for Trichy.
Trichy has sooo many temples and I felt like sites to see there were endless. On my way to Trichy, I became friends with a university student Abirami who became my guide in Trichy. She invited me to her house and arranged for me to visit all the temples. It was great to eat a home cooked meal and to make a friend. She really took care of me. I saw many temples and they explained the history of each one of them. I have a picture of my favourite temple.
I did a couple more temple stops and hopped on the next bus to Madurai. I stayed in a very nice hotel in Madurai which was a little more expensive but a lot more comfortable than the places I had crashed before. I decided to take a day trip to Rameswaram where a bridge was built by Rama connecting
to Sri Lanka. Needless to say that I was disappointed when I got there because it was a 7 kilometer walk and I was definitely not up for it especially when I had no guide and needed to get back to my hotel in madurai which was four hours away. I spent the day in the fishing village looking at the beach and then heading back to my hotel in Madurai in the evening.
I decided to check out even more temples in Madurai which I actually found to be less impressive than the ones in Trichy.
Madurai is a lot more touristy than Trichy because it is definitely a center for many tourists even though the tourist attraction there is far less impressive. When I entered the Temple in Madurai I was alarmed to find an elephant inside which was all part of the attraction and so I was sure to be a good tourist and to take my picture with the elephant. However, the elephant saliva or snot or whatever it was made it very difficult for me to smile.
After that I made my way to Kanyakumari. The ride to Kanyakumari was
quite an eventful, bumpy bus ride that took place in the wee hours of the morning. Eventful because I was made to sit "shotgun" on a little ledge connected to the windscreen as the bus tossed and turned and almost toppled over at every corner since our driver was moving at the speed of lightening. Anyway, I made it and got to Kanyakumari at 4am and stayed at the dingiest place I had ever seen for 200 rupees. I avoided the cockroches in my room by sleeping with one eye open and
hugging my backpack REAL tight. Anyway, I got on the first boat jetty and was excited at what I felt was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Kanyakumari is GORGEOUS! It is the southern most tip of India where the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Tibetian Ocean meet. Its wonderful and the colour of the water varies so the sea looks like a painting. I tried to watch the sunset but the monsoon season ensured that it was too cloudy... but I still thought that Sunset point was worth a visit.
I left Kanyakumari and entered Kerala. My first stop was Trivandrum and I found Kerala to be far more peaceful and no where near as hot as Tamil Nadu. Kerala just seemed less chaotic to me and so it was nice to be more relaxed. I spent a night of well-needed rest in Trivandrum before heading out to Fort Cochin to see the famous backwaters of Kerala.
I liked it a lot but there was a Bengali family on the raft who insisted that the tour was way too boring and decided to cut the tour short and leave. I didn't mind because I was bored after the first hour but it was really quite a nice, peaceful ride. If you go to Kerala it is an absolute MUST-SEE! Its really peaceful. I also went to check out the Kathakhali dances, see some Chinese fishing and had an Ayurvedic massage which left my dreds incredibly oily. The oil from the massage was potent and when I entered my flight, the passenger beside me smiled and said: You just had an ayurvedic massage...and I nodded even though I was a bit embarrassed. Anyway, it was a nice ending to the trip and then I headed back to Mumbai. All in all, Southern India was a great trip.
I landed in Chennai (Madras) from Mumbai and when I saw what a horrific city it was, I decided I needed to get out FAST! Apparently I hopped into a 'three wheeler'/auto/rickshaw a little too quickly and lost my cell phone. That was the scary part because I
couldn't contact Mumbai immediately if anything happened. Anyway, I took two long bus rides to get to the Main Bus station and was on the next bus to Mahabalipuram. I saw the five rathas and the Shore temple while the guide explained that they are still rebuilding the town after the tsunami. Mahabalipuram is a fishing village with alot of scultures so its gorgeous to walk around and visit for just a day. But I wouldn't sleep there because the sleeping accomodations were very very sad..so I'm glad I left early. I was disappointed that I couldn't get to send an email to Mumbai when I got there because the internet was down in the entire village. But I just took a local bus and made my way to pondicherry.Pondicherry is a relaxing place for a lot of people because they have a famous ashram where you can meditate and do yoga. Half of the town has a strong french influence so the architecture is very different from what I saw in other parts of South India. Apart from just spending the day resting and looking out at the beach, I didn't do much there which was nice because the crowded busses can take a lot out of a foreigner. I had to bargain HARD to get th
e autorickshaw driver to drop me to the bus station at 3am so I could leave for Trichy.Trichy has sooo many temples and I felt like sites to see there were endless. On my way to Trichy, I became friends with a university student Abirami who became my guide in Trichy. She invited me to her house and arranged for me to visit all the temples. It was great to eat a home cooked meal and to make a friend. She really took care of me. I saw many temples and they explained the history of each one of them. I have a picture of my favourite temple.
I did a couple more temple stops and hopped on the next bus to Madurai. I stayed in a very nice hotel in Madurai which was a little more expensive but a lot more comfortable than the places I had crashed before. I decided to take a day trip to Rameswaram where a bridge was built by Rama connecting
to Sri Lanka. Needless to say that I was disappointed when I got there because it was a 7 kilometer walk and I was definitely not up for it especially when I had no guide and needed to get back to my hotel in madurai which was four hours away. I spent the day in the fishing village looking at the beach and then heading back to my hotel in Madurai in the evening.I decided to check out even more temples in Madurai which I actually found to be less impressive than the ones in Trichy.
Madurai is a lot more touristy than Trichy because it is definitely a center for many tourists even though the tourist attraction there is far less impressive. When I entered the Temple in Madurai I was alarmed to find an elephant inside which was all part of the attraction and so I was sure to be a good tourist and to take my picture with the elephant. However, the elephant saliva or snot or whatever it was made it very difficult for me to smile.After that I made my way to Kanyakumari. The ride to Kanyakumari was
quite an eventful, bumpy bus ride that took place in the wee hours of the morning. Eventful because I was made to sit "shotgun" on a little ledge connected to the windscreen as the bus tossed and turned and almost toppled over at every corner since our driver was moving at the speed of lightening. Anyway, I made it and got to Kanyakumari at 4am and stayed at the dingiest place I had ever seen for 200 rupees. I avoided the cockroches in my room by sleeping with one eye open and
hugging my backpack REAL tight. Anyway, I got on the first boat jetty and was excited at what I felt was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Kanyakumari is GORGEOUS! It is the southern most tip of India where the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Tibetian Ocean meet. Its wonderful and the colour of the water varies so the sea looks like a painting. I tried to watch the sunset but the monsoon season ensured that it was too cloudy... but I still thought that Sunset point was worth a visit.I left Kanyakumari and entered Kerala. My first stop was Trivandrum and I found Kerala to be far more peaceful and no where near as hot as Tamil Nadu. Kerala just seemed less chaotic to me and so it was nice to be more relaxed. I spent a night of well-needed rest in Trivandrum before heading out to Fort Cochin to see the famous backwaters of Kerala.
I liked it a lot but there was a Bengali family on the raft who insisted that the tour was way too boring and decided to cut the tour short and leave. I didn't mind because I was bored after the first hour but it was really quite a nice, peaceful ride. If you go to Kerala it is an absolute MUST-SEE! Its really peaceful. I also went to check out the Kathakhali dances, see some Chinese fishing and had an Ayurvedic massage which left my dreds incredibly oily. The oil from the massage was potent and when I entered my flight, the passenger beside me smiled and said: You just had an ayurvedic massage...and I nodded even though I was a bit embarrassed. Anyway, it was a nice ending to the trip and then I headed back to Mumbai. All in all, Southern India was a great trip.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
A reflection on Dharavi
I did a tour of Dharavi, one of Asia's largest slums, when I first got to Mumbai. I went with the expectation that it would be like Kibera (one of Africa's largest slum) which I visited when I was in Kenya three years ago but the two were less similar than I imagined they would be. Dharavi had a lot more small business enterprises than Kibera even though the general living conditions were about the same.
My guide was a male student, born and raised in Dharavi and explained that he was working as a tour guide to raise enough money to get his masters in commerce. Our tour consisted of visiting the small business enterprises that exist throughout the huge slum. It examined the local industry and livelihood of Dharavi in order to dispel the notion that its residents there are poor because they are 'lazy' or 'naturally prone to violence' and all the other stereotypes about poor people that we know exist everywhere. It also outlined the institutional problems with governmental involvement (or the lack thereof) in the slum.
Dharavi is made up of migrants from Gujurat, Tamil Nadu and different parts of Maharashtra so it was common to find people working with family members or people of the same ethnic group. The first small business enterprise I visited was the plastic recycling business. The residents of a part of Dharavi built a business where the womyn collect and clean the plastic, then the men work the machines to crush it, dry it and resell it to companies. The first obvious advantage of this business was the fact that it is so environmentally friendly and I was lucky enough to see all the machines and watch the whole process of recycling plastic. The second business enterprise that I saw, and for which Dharavi is known, is the leather industry. People were producing and using leather to make lap top bags, clothes, shoes and sold items to companies and store owners. The other two industries I looked at were the pottery and baking industries. The business were thriving to the extent that people actually had employment but the elite business class' exploitation of these businesses is common knowledge for the people of Dharavi. For example, the average person working in the leather industry would make only 18 rupees per bag while the buyers resell each bag for 118 rupees. The guide explained that there is little people can do about this because they are so desperate for any money they earn that they have little choice but to continue selling it to these buyers anyway.
The guide explained to me that some of the major challenges that Dharavi is facing apart from the exploitation of the buyers who benefit from the small business enterprises, have to do with the lack of investment on the government's part in developing the infrastructure of the slum. The government had pledged to build new buildings and homes for Dharavi residents but he explained that only the bottom floor of one or two of the new buildings were for slum dwellers and most buildings were put on the market for sale. He explained that the government's investment in the new buildings did not have Dharavi residents at heart and was really a way for the rich to make money. Also, when we went to his house, he told me that they were going to knock down his own home to build another building which he was sure would be too expensive for his family to rent anyway. He also explained that with the construction of the buildings came the destruction of a lot of the spaces for the small business enterprises to the detriment of people's livelihood and way of life.
He suggested that the government develop Dharavi by cleaning the sewage and re-organising their dumping systems. Also, while building homes for the residents is a basic necessity, any development of the infrastructure of Dharavi should compliment and sustain all local industry and business of the community.
My guide was a male student, born and raised in Dharavi and explained that he was working as a tour guide to raise enough money to get his masters in commerce. Our tour consisted of visiting the small business enterprises that exist throughout the huge slum. It examined the local industry and livelihood of Dharavi in order to dispel the notion that its residents there are poor because they are 'lazy' or 'naturally prone to violence' and all the other stereotypes about poor people that we know exist everywhere. It also outlined the institutional problems with governmental involvement (or the lack thereof) in the slum.
Dharavi is made up of migrants from Gujurat, Tamil Nadu and different parts of Maharashtra so it was common to find people working with family members or people of the same ethnic group. The first small business enterprise I visited was the plastic recycling business. The residents of a part of Dharavi built a business where the womyn collect and clean the plastic, then the men work the machines to crush it, dry it and resell it to companies. The first obvious advantage of this business was the fact that it is so environmentally friendly and I was lucky enough to see all the machines and watch the whole process of recycling plastic. The second business enterprise that I saw, and for which Dharavi is known, is the leather industry. People were producing and using leather to make lap top bags, clothes, shoes and sold items to companies and store owners. The other two industries I looked at were the pottery and baking industries. The business were thriving to the extent that people actually had employment but the elite business class' exploitation of these businesses is common knowledge for the people of Dharavi. For example, the average person working in the leather industry would make only 18 rupees per bag while the buyers resell each bag for 118 rupees. The guide explained that there is little people can do about this because they are so desperate for any money they earn that they have little choice but to continue selling it to these buyers anyway.
The guide explained to me that some of the major challenges that Dharavi is facing apart from the exploitation of the buyers who benefit from the small business enterprises, have to do with the lack of investment on the government's part in developing the infrastructure of the slum. The government had pledged to build new buildings and homes for Dharavi residents but he explained that only the bottom floor of one or two of the new buildings were for slum dwellers and most buildings were put on the market for sale. He explained that the government's investment in the new buildings did not have Dharavi residents at heart and was really a way for the rich to make money. Also, when we went to his house, he told me that they were going to knock down his own home to build another building which he was sure would be too expensive for his family to rent anyway. He also explained that with the construction of the buildings came the destruction of a lot of the spaces for the small business enterprises to the detriment of people's livelihood and way of life.
He suggested that the government develop Dharavi by cleaning the sewage and re-organising their dumping systems. Also, while building homes for the residents is a basic necessity, any development of the infrastructure of Dharavi should compliment and sustain all local industry and business of the community.
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