yes, this is india

I was chatting with one of my best friend's from home the other day and our conversation turned to Slumdog Millionaire:

friend: my friend from greece was sitting next to me at the theater and kept turning to me and saying - is that NOW? are people living like that now?
me: seriously?
friend: yeah...

Cow Killers

The other day, being a bit grumpy, I had the following interaction with my younger colleague:

Colleague: "So, do you think its odd that we have cows on the road?"
Caro: <<bah, no I currently live in this country and have become accustomed to the cows and hate this game of comparing countries>> "Um, no I don't think it's strange that they are on the streets, but I do think it's strange that cows are sacred in this country and yet they are dying because of all the plastic bags that litter the streets, accumulate in their four stomachs and kill them. Doesn't seem like a nice way to treat a sacred animal right?"

Well, that kind of ended the conversation.

So in the meantime I've done a bit more research on the state of the dying cows in India. Yes, they are free to wander the streets and every once in a while take me by surprise, but they are now part of the landscape, part of my walk to work and through the streets of Delhi. But the fact that they are suffocating and dying because the lack of proper disposal of the flimsy plastic bags in this country is a bit appalling.

Recycling is actually quite efficient in India, with all the sorting done at the end of the chain, where ragpickers illegally climb atop piles of waste and sell the "valuable" scraps every day. It seems that the plastic bags are too thin to have any recycling value and are thus left to accumulate on the streets. Where the sacred cows are waiting.

"The Indian government and the plastics industry claim that India has the highest rate of plastic recovery in the world - between 40 per cent and 80 per cent of all plastics produced. But be this as it may, the waste problem remains; and mainly for the simple reason that the ragpickers don't collect plastic bags, for simple reasons of economics. Although plastic fetches about 12 rupees per kilo in the waste market, it takes between 450 and 800 flimsy polythene bags to make up a kilo - and if they are soiled the price drops. This makes them an extremely unattractive economic proposition for even the most destitute ragpicker." (Source: The Ecologist, Nov 2000)

Cows are pretty dumb animals and eat everything and anything. Including plastic. Hopefully the National Plastics Waste Management Task Force will be able to find a solution that will actually be implemented (supposedly plastic is illegal in UP by the way). In the meantime, I guess we should leave it to the cow cowboys to round up the sacred animals for safe harbors free from plastic!

a little dose of sark

everyone can use some sark in their day....

__________/LIFE balance

On Republic Day this week, I settled down and tried to figure out my travel plans for the next five months of my time here in India. A side benefit of this process was a rediscovery of my love for Excel and the font Jenkins 2.0. Now I just have to download Calibri. But I digress....

So, I am posting this in hopes that any friends who have been to India will be able to advise me on what is realistic, if I am missing a MUST SEE place on this list, and if I should remove something. I have indicated my preferences (i heart YOU conditional formatting) but at some point am going to have to be realistic about what is within my budget and timeframe; but in the meantime, I'll shoot for everything ;)

undies on the aloe*

Washington DC: Because I hate doing laundry, John does the washing and I do the folding. Fair deal I think.

Korea: My host mother introduced me to the Korean way of doing laundry after she took my clothes out of the washing machine, folded them wet, put them in a stack and then walked on them to iron them flat. While I adopted the pressing down on the clothes in a pile, I could never bring myself to walk on clean clothes. Thank god for dryers.

India: I have yet to do any of my own laundry in this country. In a way I find this incredibly strange, but at the same time incredibly wonderful. I do hate the process of doing laundry and when I lived alone would wait until the very last pair of granny panties before putting in a load. Here, I have a housekeeper (who looks about 14 but is perhaps 20?) who comes sporadically and when she arrives I frantically hand her piles of clothing and sheets as I have a limited stash of undies in this country. You can see them in all their glory on the plant here (sorry, the socks are on the aloe, but it's a bit catchier to say undies on aloe. rgs). There are dangers of hanging your clothes outside though.... such as the pigeon crap I found on a shirt I was folding.... le sigh....

Slumdog Millionaire and Q&A by Vikas Swarup

To close my Republic Day holiday, I sat down at the local Café Coffee Day around 4:00 pm and started Q&A by Vikas Swarup, the book that Slumdog Millionaire is loosely based on, and by 10:30 pm that night had finished it.

Although photos of the Slumdog characters Latika and Jamal smile on the cover of the book, their equivalents in Q&A, Ram Mohammad Thomas and Nita, barely resemble each other. But the inspiration for the film is certainly there. Swarup examines the underbelly of Indian society: the slums, violence, poverty, corruption, alcoholism, and beggar masters in all their dank and depressing reality.

Similar to the film, Ram recounts his life story, the tragic and sometimes redemptive characters that have affected him over the course of his eighteen years and help him to answers to all the questions on the fictitious “Who Wants to be a Billionaire?".

There are equally lovable and despicable characters in Swarup’s novel: the Catholic priest that cares for Ram in the first years of his life (and is also the reason he can speak the Queen’s English); an autistic friend who provides him with shelter and companionship; the abused prostitute who, with the magical backdrop of the Taj Mahal, shows Ram the redemptive powers of love. On the other side of this coin are the brutal beggar master masquerading as a caretaker of disabled children; the abusive alcoholic father whose demons blur the line between father and molester; the voyeuristic, untrusting Australian diplomat. These are complex characters, though, who cannot be characterized as good or evil, and with each question the reader learns their stories.

They are the stories of India and all the dichotomies that the country represents: wealth and poverty, love and hate, good and evil; sacred and vile; the beautiful and the grotesque; generosity and parsimony.

Go read it. Whether you've seen the movie or not, fell in love with Latika and Jamal or not, the book provides another, multi-layered glimpse of India that has as much value as the movie and provides the foundation for the vignettes in a way that the movie did not and could not. Go go now... shoo....

Lomography and Me

Some of you are aware of my obsession with cameras, particularly little lomo toy cameras. Lomography is a a kind of photography that emphasizes casual, snapshot photography (thank you wikipedia) using small, sturdy cameras with high light sensitivity.

Click here for the “10 Rules” of lomography, the history of lomography, and the installations at MOMA Design Stores.

John gave me a Fisheye No. 2 for Christmas and I also splurged on two more cameras and brought them with me to India. Hopefully I will get off my duff soon and start shooting! Using a lomo, you never really know what’s going to develop and also let's me use all that extra film I bought for my film SLR back in the day.

Here are some samples!:


Feeding the giraffe in Nairobi (Vivitar Wide and Slim)


Double exposure in the Sculpture Garden, Washington DC (Holga)


Scary Donnie Darko rabbit in the Sculpture Garden with double exposure and multi-image filter (Holga)


Quadruple exposure with color filters of Washington Monument (Holga)


Thanksgiving 2007: Walk by National Cathedral and Rock Creek Park (Vivitar Wide and Slim)

Bell Bajao!

or Ring the Bell! is the most recent campaign that the organization I am working for, Breakthrough, launched in August 2008. Bell Bajao is what Breakthrough calls a 360 degree campaign, meaning that they employ a variety of multimedia approaches to address an issue, in this case domestic violence. Using television, print, and radio advertisements, traveling video vans, community and youth leadership trainings, and an interactive website, Breakthrough targets young men and boys to bring a halt to domestic violence.

The below advertisements have run across the country. I am still a bit torn on the efficacy of these types of interventions - it seems like such a simple quick fix to a very complicated and somewhat socially accepted form of behavior. Ring the bell; stop the act of violence in the middle; let the perpetrator be shamed into knowing that you know; but does it work? Breakthrough is certainly a key part of this dialogue, bringing these types of conversations to the fore. Let me know what you think.






Also, an interesting question recently posed on the Times of India website.

Your Guide to AIF Fellow Blogs

After spending some QT with my fellow fellows, I wanted to give a quick shout out to some quality AIF fellow blogs (please note these superlatives were much more difficult than originally anticipated and apologies if yours is not here.)

1. Most Likely to Make you Laugh: Pooja's "either here or there"

2. Most Likely to Make You Want to (a) Live in Ahmedabad, (b) Work at Indian NGO, (c) read Edward Luce's In Spite of the Gods: Rick's "finding rickshaw"

3. Most Likely to Inspire Backpacking across the Subcontinent: Michael's "Yaudaipur"

4. Most Highly Recommended for Jaded Development Professional/AIF Fellow: Ekta's "Living, Learning and Serving"

Ok, I'm not clever enough to come up with other ones, but you can find the links to the right. AND, the AIF Service Corps Blog has posts from all the fellows, including those without their own personal blogs!

Coming Home

Home by Marilynne Robinson

“That odd capacity for destitution, as if by nature we ought to have so much more than nature gives us. As if we are shockingly unclothed when we lack the complacencies of ordinary life. In destitution, even of feeling or purpose, a human being is more hauntingly human and vulnerable to kindnesses because there is the sense that things should be otherwise, and then the thought of what is wanting and what alleviation would be, and how the soul could be put at ease, restored. At home. But the soul finds its own home if it ever has a home at all.”

“The old man nodded, ‘Yes, we did. We had some good times, too, didn’t we?’ He looked at his hands. ‘Hard to believe it now, when I can’t even tie my own shoes! I think back to those times, when I was just an ordinary man, not even a young man, and it’s like remembering that I used to be the sun and the wind! Taking the steps two at a time --!’”

“Ames took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He felt a sort of wonder for this wife of his, in so many ways so unknown to him, and he could be suddenly moved by some glimpse he had never had before of the days of her youth or her loneliness, or of the thoughts of her soul.”

“How to announce the return of comfort and well-being except by cooking something fragrant. That is what her mother always did. After every calamity of any significance she would fill the atmosphere of the house with the smell of cinnamon rolls or brownies, or with chicken and dumplings, and it would mean, This house has a soul that loves us all, no matter what. It would mean peace if they had fought and amnesty if they had been in trouble. It had meant, You can come down to dinner now, and no one will say a thing to bother you, unless you have forgotten to wash your hands. And her father would offer the grace, inevitable with minor variations, thanking the Lord for all the wonderful faces he saw around the table.”

Anandwan - woman threading card with her feet

Middle of the country, middle of the fellowship

Last week was the AIF Service Corps midpoint retreat at the Baba Amte ashram near the geographic center of the country. Honestly, a big part of me was dreading this reunion of sorts, reuniting with a group of people who had such motivation and high expectations for the next ten months of their lives at orientation. Probably because I felt like a majority of the expectations I came with to this country had not been realized. I do see this as a failure on my part, but meeting with the other fellows did prove to be a refreshing restart for the next five and a half months of this fellowship.

It sometimes seems odd to me that being almost thirty I am still attracted to these kinds of programs that herd you around like a flock of sheep, but that’s another post for another day.

The atmosphere of positivity was echoed in our surroundings, living at the Anandwan ashram that was founded as a leper colony that is completely self-sustaining and supports around 2,500 people each day. There are hospitals, schools, agriculture, livelihoods projects, embodying much of the “everything and the kitchen sink” kind of mentality that I have found with the various NGOs that I have worked with in the past. But here it supports the daily lives of its citizens, and has created a community of peace and mutual responsibility.

1. Playing with the kiddies: Pooja and I took what we thought would be a very leisurely stroll through the ashram and our meanderings took us near some of the housing units of the ashram. At one point we turned around and four young girls, around classes third through five, were running across an open field towards us. They befriended us and immediately took us to another playground area where they exhausted the poop out of us with games like tag, some other sort of chasing game and lots and lots of spinning them around. Our chance encounter ended with them picking up small fruits that had fallen off a tree, to which Pooja and I graciously said that we would share with the rest of the fellows for fear of severe bowel movements for the rest of our time at midpoint.

2. Fellows: The stories and work of my fellow fellows was truly inspiring – working with sex workers, developing an alternative elementary curriculum, extensive monitoring and evaluation, establishing a primary health care center in a highly politicized and contentiously divided slum area, living in extremely rural parts of the country, creating documentaries with schoolchildren about issues of their choosing, the list goes on and on. Basically a great group of people who are really open to all the challenges and beauty that this country has to offer. But also a fun group: celebrity, dance parties, taboo, and group massages were all part of the mix as well.

3. Environs: The land all around the ashram was ideal for morning and afternoon walks, seeing all the birds and the agriculture, friendly greetings from all the people living at the ashram, random cages of elk and emus and clean air with no honking.


4. Simple, delicious food: Similar to my experience in Korea, I had shied away from a strictly Indian diet right before I went home for the holidays. The daily roti and vegetables was just not cutting it for me and I had started splurging on a daily lunch of arugula, walnuts, and tomatoes and a breakfast of pomegranate, yogurt and granola. Being at Anandwan we ate delicious food, all of which had been grown and harvested on site: cauliflower, onions, potatoes, roti, dhokla, poha, rice, and peppers were all very sassifying and welcomed meals each day.

Forty-percent-point retreat preparations

(written January 8, 2009)

As I try and finish this blasted powerpoint presentation for my midpoint retreat for this fellowship, due tomorrow and to be presented next week, I am still wrapping my head around my biggest challenges and accomplishments thus far in Delhi. I worry that I am not approaching the next six months with the same enthusiasm as my fellow fellows and am trying to get to the heart of it. What expectations did I have coming to India? Have they been met? Will they be met? Did I make the right decision to come to India in the first place? Would I make the same decision? What do I hope to accomplish over the next six months?

sweet home alabama

After a refreshing trip home for Christmas, I am back in Delhi. I must admit, the return to India was far more difficult than the original departure.

Coming home to Montgomery is always such a strange experience, even more so when the port of departure is India. It seems like home because it is where my parents have retired, but I barely have any friends left in the city and can never imagine living there again for any extended period of time. It’s comforting in a I-know-I’m-leaving-in-X-number-of-days sort of way. This time, though, I was itching to stay for longer....

The highlight reel:

1. FOOD!: I ate my way through the holidays basically, beginning with my mother’s homecooked lasagna and gnocchi and ending with her standing rib roast and scalloped potatoes. The only culinary disappointment of my visit was not having time (or stomach capacity) for Cracker Barrel, Krystal, or Waffle House. The Korean part of me decided to take lots of pictures of food. Enjoy!

(1) Christmas Day dinner; (2) my breakfast every morning at home; (3) cookies!; (4) pulled pork sandwich; (5) Jan's homemade lasagna; (6) soft shell crab sandwich; (7) last supper in Montgomery from Greg's Grill; (8) brunch at the beach... crab eggs benedict, corned beef hash, sampler plate and pancakes. yum. (9) BBQ sampler plate at Dreamland... ribs, sausage, pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw and potato salad

2. Friends: Prathap, Purnima and Sid made the looooooong trek down (yes, driving) from Washington DC to come see the heart of Dixie for themselves. John and I gave them the grand tour of Montgomery, from the First White House of the Confederacy, Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the Rosa Parks Museum to, um, the grand tour of The Montgomery Academy (my high school), the bowling alley, and rousing games of Scrabble in the Florey household.

eating our second meal of BBQ

3. Family: Daily seven mile walks with my father and John around the neighborhood, board games with the family, the tradition of opening of presents on Christmas Eve and dinners that must end with black bottom pie. I miss them already.

(1) me and mother making kloesse balls with the requisite glass of champagne; (2) family photo

4. Florida: John had never seen the Gulf of Mexico so we took a short trip to the beach. White sands, dunes, yummy seafood, outlet shopping – who could ask for more?

feet in white sands of Destin

And pretty soon, it was back on the plane for India. Pretty soon, the pilot was telling us the weather over the speaker system – we’re arriving in Delhi soon and the outlook is, well, smoggy. I’m still trying to figure out if the smile that cracked on my face was out of happiness to be going back, that Delhi (and its pollution) hadn’t changed in my absence; or being resigned that this would be my home base for the next six months. In any case, I’m home.