Pondy from Madurai

Greatest hits of Shanti Bhavan week of March 8th

Walking under the tree all the berries are falling off. The berries crunch under my flip flops and it's even better than walking on bubble wrap.

Eating more candy than I previously thought possible every day. In fact, eating so much candy that I'm shunning other, more nutritious food in favor of it.

Developing the sense that not only does every person deserve respect, but every thing in the entire world does. I feel in harmony with the planet.

I found a bunch of puppet stuff and I'm planning to use it!

One of my student's (Angel Mary Martin) sister's name is Himmaculate Sweetie.

Staying up late and having TRL with Steve and Jack.

Pondicherry Trip
We went to Pondicherry. We left Friday after lunch and headed to Hosur to buy our train tickets for next week. Then we were off and pacing on a national highway. The barely two lane road with minimal potholes was a pleasure to ride along with our trusty driver, Manju. The scenery as we drove by was both varied and delightful: mountains, rice fields, temples, dry scrubby land, palm trees, busses coming straight at us, cows, monkeys, pigs, jumbled towns, thatch villages, old women with wrinkled skin, gangs of young men holding hands and children naked save a red thread at the waist. India. I was counting down the kilometers and estimating that at our current average speed we would arrive in a few hours. At ever mile marker I kept telling myself how much longer until we were there. I was strongly reminded of being on road trips with my family. My mom used to tell us "four more Inspector Gadgets until we're there." I found myself calculating the time in 'Inspector Gadgets' and giving little updates to the others. (I tried to play the alphabet game by myself, but it's hard when you don't already have an idea of what the sign might say or what language the sign will be in.) Unfortunately the distance to Pondicherry indicated by the signs was really only the distance to the off ramp to Pondicherry and we still had a thirty minute drive from there.

Nonetheless, when we arrived we were all very excited to sample the Western cuisine and relax on the beach. We arrived, after some confusion, at our hotel, Qualithe. It was not so quality at all. In fact, the ground floor is a bar. The front desk is the bar. They didn't have our reservation until the next day, so we went decided to look somewhere else. On the recommendation of a girl in the bar we went to Mother Guest House. She said it was next to a great restaurant called Hot Breads. So we went over. We had to climb up the stairs inside a store to get there, but when they offered us a room with two enormous beds and one small bed, AC and TV for RS 1500 a night, we took it. For the two nights we stayed it was only $10 a person. So the six of us had two adjoining rooms and a bathroom. It worked out really well. As soon as we deposited our belongings in the room we went out to dinner at Le Club. It. Was. Sublime. The list of beverages we consumed included milkshakes, beers, cosmopolitans, lemonade, shirley temples, wine, lassis and mineral water. We shared some garlic bread, which we like so much that we ordered two more servings. I had a salad and steak au poivre. Mmm. For desert I had apple tart. Doesn't get much better than that.

In the morning I woke up and saw a tiny almost clear scorpion running across the room and heading for Molly's bag. I stepped on in it in my flip flop. I'm so smart.

We went to watch the sunrise at the beach and had breakfast at Le Cafe. I had a croissant and cafe au lait. So good. We saw a really cool Indian looking Catholic church and tried to rent scooters. This failed because we don't have international drivers licenses. Right next door was an amazing colorful temple. It was really fun to explore. After making a pooja, or little prayer, they gave us a whitish gray dot instead of the usual red. Hmm...

Next we headed to Auroville. It's a huge community of people working towards a better future for humanity. The center of the community is called Matrimandir. It looks like a big golden Spaceship Earth. Inside there's a huge crystal with light focused in it. In any case, it's a beautiful and interesting place full of handicrafts and sustainable ways of life. All their water is drawn from wells using wind power and there are literally gardens of solar panels. I'm definitely interested in what they're doing there.

After Auroville, it was beach time. We went swimming at Auro Beach, in the Bay of Bengal. To get there we had to walk through a narrow sand pathway, but the sand was so hot that I burned the bottoms of my feet trying to get there wearing flip flops. I sprinted for the water. The water was warm and there were many people swimming. All of them were Indian men, most of whom were wearing underwear, undershirts and orange vests. Some of the youngest were completely naked. It was fun, but it was a little ridiculous, because us girls went swimming in our bathing suits. We were asking for the unwanted attention, so it didn't bother us too much. After completely burning ourselves at the beach, we split up to pursue our own fun. For Joe and Arjun that meant finding a place outside of town to rent scooters to them. For the rest of us it meant taking showers, eating lunch at Hot Breads (I had salad, soup, bread sticks, roll, fried chicken, chicken pizza and a tart for $2.50), and heading into town for some shopping. The girls went to FabIndia. I bought a couple tops. We all met up again at the Ghandi statue at seven. Arjun, Joe and Molly headed to find internet, while the rest of us went in search of a massage or something. We found a benefit concert catered by the restaurant where we wanted to eat dinner and raising money to fix the erosion of the beaches in Pondicherry. It was really interesting because there were many expats in charge of the concert. The group who organized is called PondyCAN and they plan to use political pressure to solve many of the problems in Pondicherry. The funny thing was watching the issues of India enumerated in a slideshow presentation. The music was a cool fusion: basso nova; classical violin, sitar and tabla; and reggae. The food was great and the people who attended were both interesting and fun. The whole thing cost about $12 a person. It was totally worth it.

The next morning we all slept in. Once we got going, about nine, we stopped for pastries and headed for Sri Aurobindo ashram. We meditated outside the mother's tomb. It was really interesting. Then afterwords we went to a weekly street market. On a street where scooters, cars and auto rickshaws careened ahead at full speed, people sold anything and everything imaginable. I found a passageway to a fish market that sold all sorts of interesting things. The smell was a little overwhelming. So I decided to go find a massage and we all agreed to meet in time to check out of our hotels.

My massage was amazing. It was at an ayurvedic hospital. It started with the masseuse telling me to "remove my dress." Since I didn't know how much 'dress' I was meant to remove I was exceedingly awkward. I kept confirming with her after each article of clothing that I should remove another. She probable thought I was an idiot, but I didn't want to offend her by stripping naked in front of her. It's not like the U.S. where they leave the room. She tied a paper loincloth around me and had me sit in a chair. After applying a generous amount of oil to my head and hair, she proceeded to give me the strangest and most amazing hair/ scalp massage. This included little clumps of my hair being pulled quite hard all around my scalp. She commented on my dandruff. I had a hard time conveying the fact that constantly eating new foods, using different water, experiencing new things and getting sun burnt weren't the best way to keep your scalp healthy. Next she told me to get on the table. She proceeded to slather me in oil to the point where I wondered if I would be able to stay on the table. I felt a little bit like meat being prepared to cook. The massage was amazing. Of note: they did in fact again massage my breasts. After the really long and relaxing massage that included more or less every inch of surface area I have, she patted me repeatedly with a packet of hot banana leaves. It was hot to the point of making me flinch few times. For the most part it was relaxing, though. When she did my sunburn I almost cried. I should mention that at a couple points she asked me to "make a little prayer" and she prayed before going on. Then she wiped off my feet and right hand, and led me into the adjoining shower. She showed me a towel and a bowl of soupy mud and told me to wash my whole body with it. It was of course, some kind of grainy soap. The only awkward part of that was she kept coming in and out and monitoring my progress. She told me to use "whole soap," which I took to mean I was supposed to use up the entire bowl. So I went for it. Head to toe I rubbed that stuff in. Then I rinsed it out and felt infinitely better. When I came out she let me get dressed, then put a hand on my arm, started to pray over me like she was anointing me with the holy spirit, then rubbed some spicy smelling stuff into my part. I'm not gonna lie, I felt pretty. Despite the fact that I had no make up and was wearing crumpled clothes, being clean and sunned made me feel great. A few minutes later I was walking down the street and a man said "Excuse me, madame, you smell good."

We all met at the hotel and ate a Sastanga before heading out of town. The trip back was marked by us all falling asleep all over each other. And by Jack buying a sitar.

This week at Shanti Bhavan has been a restful one. The fourth grade has been continuously improving in their studies and behavior. I could easily put them in with a class from the U.S. now and have them do well. All of the art projects are coming together well, and I'm trying to select students to teach tap, add to the choir and give piano lessons.