June 16 - 22, 2008. Shillong

Tags that students taped to an AIDS awareness and support poster.

Jenny, teaching kids in Shillong about HIV/AIDS

Women making bags with "loin looms" at a vocational school.

The inputs.

Jenny and me at the Shillong Country Club.

Kids at one of Mother Theresa's Orphanages

Jenny getting the Hindu Bindi placed on her forehead.

Jenny with bindi.

This picture was taken at Kamakhya temple in Guwahati. This is a group of Hindu men who are on the first day of a four day fast. I hope the second guy from the left makes it.

A couple of disclaimers:

1. Due to weather complications, we were unable to ride a military helicopter last week. The colorful, but not quite as glamorous alternative, was a car ride, discussed in paragraph one.

2. I was humbled this weekend while visiting a Hindu festival in Guwahati. Most of the men in attendance were in possession of at least one trident. As you’ll recall from our previous post, I made light of a plaque, at a temple in Delhi, which stated that tridents couldn’t be brought in.

We spent last week in Northeastern India, about 40 miles from Bangladesh, and 150 miles from Bhutan. Winnie, our intern host, arranged everything and joined us for the trip. On Monday, after flying into Guwahati, the capital of Assam, we drove to Shillong in the neighboring state of Meghalaya. To accurately represent the road to Shillong, one would need a wholesale box of hairpins, some Himalayan foothills, green in bulk, 1100 head of cattle, a Scottish loch, and a handful of broken down Tata coal trucks. In other words, while I’ve never been more carsick in my life, Jenny thought the scenery was absolutely incredible.

Shillong was formerly the capital of British Assam (in the mid to late 1800s), and the city still retains some aspects of British culture and architecture. The streets are very thin, and have moss covered, stone walls on either side. Many houses and buildings are built in the Tudor style, and the Shillong Country Club – one of the first golf courses in Asia – is modeled after the early Scottish courses. Shillong is also about 35 miles from Cherrapunjee, statistically the wettest place in the world. As I said before, green in bulk.

Winnie’s husband is a retired military special forces general, and he was the head of the base in Shillong for several years. Apparently he and his troops spent most of their time performing counter-terrorist missions in the region. Fortunately I think the special forces made substantial progress prior to our visit, and very little of the terrorist activity was aimed at American interns in the first place. Maitri started in Shillong, and Winnie still has an apartment near the center of town. From our bedroom windows, we could see soft, green mountains across the valley. The mass of trees made the mountains look like the thick wool on a sheep headed for the shears.

We arrived on Monday afternoon, just in time to catch a rock shattering thunderstorm. After a brief visit to an international trade expo featuring vendors from Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Kenya (of all places), we walked down the main Shillong thoroughfare and did a little window shopping, and finally settled into the apartment. Our first few days consisted of planning the logistics for two school presentations. With the rest of our time, we visited schools, training centers, and an orphanage that was started by Mother Theresa.

Maitri basically has a two person team in Shillong, led by Sanjay, a graphic designer and small business owner. Sanjay lived in Europe for about 5 years, has the best soap collection in Shillong, and is working on a coffee table book on the Rajasthani Regiment that was the only loyalist regiments in colonial India. Sanjay is a very accomplished guy, and he helped us all week long.

Our presentations went off smoothly. One was at a small private school, and the other was at the Army School of Shillong. We basically gave a presentation on HIV/AIDS, performed a brief skit, and answered any questions that the kids had about the subject. The questions ranged from “How much spit would I have to swallow from an infected person to contract HIV?” to “How old should I be before I start a relationship?” The culture in India is very conservative, and these kids – some as old as 17 – hadn’t talked about relationships, AIDS, or many other teenage topics. We administered a survey prior to our presentation, and many kids thought that one could contract HIV just from being close to an infected individual. Jenny gave an oral quiz towards the end of the presentation, and it seemed that most of the misinformation had been cleared up. After our presentation, we had each student write, “I will think before I act because…” on a red piece of paper, followed by their reason. Each student then taped the paper on an outline of a large AIDS ribbon we had drawn. After every student had posted their statement, the ribbon was red, indicating support for those with HIV/AIDS, but also demonstrating the students’ resolve to do everything they could to eradicate the disease.

On Friday, before our visit to the Army School, we stopped by the country club for an early morning walk. After circling a number of the fairways, we stopped on the 9th hole to drive a few balls. I had a hard time proving that I was the best golfer in our group that day, and Jenny frequently out-distanced me.

Jenny, trying to make me look bad.

However, as I grew up on a healthy diet of Fiesta Fun miniature golf, I rely on my short game to compensate. I drained a 40 foot putt at the end of the morning to solidify my status in the group, and the golf pro – a weathered Nepalese man – asked me if I wanted to practice driving again.

(This is what I do.)

Aside from our school visits, we visited an orphanage founded by Mother Theresa. It was neat to see the caretakers in the same indigo-bordered white robes that Mother Theresa wore, and a large photo of Mother Theresa hanging in the main hall. Unfortunately, the caretakers weren’t as eager to have their pictures taken as the children were.

The orphanage had some of the most adorable children, but some heartbreaking stories as well. Most of the children were left at a hospital by their mothers immediately after birth, and several of them were left in the street as newborn infants. The orphanage’s rules indicate that extended family members may retrieve a child, and a set of sisters was split up when an aunt and uncle sought out the older of the two, and likely put her into prostitution. The younger of the two, who is blind, and whose face is somewhat deformed was left at the orphanage by the family.

All of the children were ecstatic to see Winnie, who used to throw them parties at her house, and who still brings them treats when she is in town. This time, Winnie brought little watches for all of the kids. The watches were all different colors, and were painted with cartoon characters and diamonds, etc. I helped Biki (pronounced Beeky), a 12 year old girl, put her green Hello Kitty watch on, and she gave one of the more touching displays of gratitude that I’ve ever seen. Biki is an orphan with cerebral palsy. Needless to say, she didn’t start out with much in this life. But Biki’s smile grew the closer Winnie came to her. After Winnie had waded through the group of children, and was in front of her, Biki struggled to bring her hands together in front of her face and bowed her head, still smiling.

On Saturday, we woke up bright and early, to beat the unpredictable Shillong weather and catch our flight in Guwahati. People frequently get stranded in the road by impassable roads, horrible weather related traffic problems, etc. On good days, the drive is two hours. On bad days, it can be as long as seven hours. We had a one o’clock flight, and we left the house at 7:30, giving ourselves about five hours. As it turned out, the weather cooperated, and there was no traffic. We made it to Guwahati before ten, and Winnie took us to a Hindu festival at the Kamakhya temple on top of a mountain overlooking the city. The festival only takes place once a year, and this was day one of four. Kamakhya is the site where the Hindu goddess, Sati’s, reproductive organs apparently landed after she was inadvertently torn into 51 pieces by gods who were attempting to appease Lord Shiva. It’s a long story. Briefly, though, Kamakhya is an extremely important location in Hinduism for fertility. Sati, the goddess, is also the namesake for the Hindu practice of “sati”, where a widow is forced to throw herself onto her husband’s funeral pyre. That’s another long, interesting story for another post. But the festival and temple were awesome. We didn’t get to go inside, but the outside was more than enough. Nancy, Kaitlyn, Jenny and I had the bindi placed on our foreheads, and flowers placed around our necks. We also performed a ritualistic chant that I’m assuming had something to do with fertility (hopefully it doesn’t work toooo soon – sorry Moms).

So it was a wild, picturesque week, but when Jenny and I arrived in Delhi, we both strangely felt like we were, kind of, home.