Namaste. 11.

I haven’t really slept in a week, well during the night when most people sleep at least. I didn’t know jet lag could last this long, but I still feel India hasn’t taken its grip from my mind yet. I’ve been a bad blogger lately. Somehow during my last two weeks in India, I got so busy that even my love for the Internet couldn’t bring me closer to the computer. Instead, I wrote everything down in my journal, hoping to transfer my pages to the web when I returned. The green notebook was filled to the brim with adventure. From those precious last moments with my favorite children to meeting Israeli travelers and eating Shabbat dinner in a pitch black room with 50 Jews. And the time I got swine flu and couldn’t move for two days while the glass encasement to my brain lay broken inside my head and all I could feel was sharp splinters running through my body, that was when I thought I would die, I figured this would happen in India. When I got close with monkeys, found a leprosy colony next door, received wedding proposals from 16-year-old boys, and almost went on antibiotics for amoebas. But, I guess bad things happen to teach you a lesson sometimes, and because India seems to be stuck in a permanent time of mercury in retrograde, and karma this karma that, my karma led my bag with all of my gifts I bought for friends and my journal with all of my writing from my entire trip to be left outside the New Delhi airport for hours in a monsoon and then sit in a plane for 17 hours sopping wet. Everything was ruined including my journal. Every page now looks like this:

Only one page remained, the one I wrote in black ink not green. It was something I wrote while completely delusional with illness and thoughts of death. It goes:

The river is chocolate milk. Frothy, churning sweet nectar with a thick white bubbling topcoat. The butterflies are yellow, the brightest yellow since the sun, and yellow is everywhere, in the children’s hair, bouncing atop our eyelashes skimming along the thin skin forming atop the chocolate milk river. Basil wraps our toes in little green blankets as we climb down to our spot, the little plot of beachfront territory we have claimed to be the magical land for kids like us. All 65 of us, and we are in charge.

We form safety lines on the shifting shale walkway and pass buckets from head to head containing this week’s laundry. It takes serious skill to balance a crayola box worth of colors atop a little head while swimming in a milkshake and jumping over loose ground. We are all superheroes and this Hershey’s flow our great battleground. We all wash clothes like superheroes too, full of strength, wringing out drenched bed sheets, slapping wet saris against hot stones. Some of the super boys have found a log/boat/water catapult/tug of war stick. I sit and watch for hours as a group of them, skinny bones and raggedy undies pile onto the porous wood and then sail off into the Indian mystic without ever needing to actually leave the gold-flecked shore of our Ganges beach.

Once every superhero was super clean we said goodbye to our magical log and the Indian mystic and flew up the mountain atop a carpet of yellow butterflies without any chocolate stains on our newly clean skirts or crushed basil stuck between our toes.

Life is sweet here but for some reason the smells are not. We get back to reality and I immediately go to my shower and spend an hour standing in a dark bathroom with a small blue bucket trying to remove the stench of the chocolate river. Suddenly the butterflies in my mind lose their neon power, my superpowers start to feel a bit week from the sun, and I remember the chocolate milk river was actually raw sewage runoff from the nearby town, and the plant that smelled like basil had thorns and there weren’t enough yellow butterflies to keep me from falling, so I guess even super kids cant make it through too much shit.

P.S. Jane and I just almost died from a heart/tarantula attack.

It’s been a week now since I’ve been back. I keep seeing tan children at the beach and for a second I get a glint of excitement, it’s Pinky! It’s Oinak! It’s Mukul! But it never is, and I really don’t know how long I will be able to go without going back to see them. I miss them all so much it hurts. My friend Jane from Australia is still at the orphanage and luckily sends me updates on facebook about the kids. I heard Narindar was bitten by a scorpion since I left and all the books need to be organized. I know right now they are all sleeping soundly in their packed beds, soon to awake to the heat of another day. Tomorrow is Thursday, dance class, they’ll all pack into the room with the wood floors with a deck you have to jump onto to enter and take turns spinning and twitching their wrists. I feel so amazingly blessed to have had the opportunity to meet them, to know that I helped make a positive difference in their lives and to be able to know them for the rest of my life. I cant thank everyone who donated towards my trip enough, and I hope that I will have inspired others to do the same, travel, volunteer, help. The most rewarding experiences in my life have been the ones in which I was giving myself completely to the cause of another. I think this trip has helped to remember this, guess it’s time to quit college and head to Zimbabwe. Just kidding, no seriously, don’t worry, as in you don’t have to call me and tell me to stay in school, I will.

Man eating hair creatures from hell and deadly vipers. 10.

Glowing, writhing, squirmy bugs light up the thin veins of the inside of my eyelids. I only see exoskeletons, like those little glass fish at aquariums, but bugs, the horrible kind you don't want to haunt your dreams. Two light bright boards of creepy crawlers plastered like billboards telling me to stay awake when driving, but I'm not driving, I'm sleeping, damnit. Who knew lice could scar? Well, not in the physical burying into my soft scalp sense, but emotionally, I feel burned. I'm writing with a flashlight again, I can't sleep. I won't sleep, I can't seem to shut my eyes for a second without visions of lice running from the dark corners of the room in a wild stampede, onto the bed, up my toes, through the covers, until only my eyes are visible beneath their massive undertaking. I must shave my legs tomorrow.
In the shade of a bamboo veranda, I spent the rainy afternoon gripping thick Indian hair at the dark roots of little heads and yanking a tight bristled narwhool tooth comb through those lice infested locks. By the end of 3 grueling hours I had filled 2buckets of water with thousands of swimming and hopefully painfully dying insects. I completed 4 girls and 3 boys then spent the rest of the day staring at my arm hair in horror, convinced I couldn't have made it through that process without a couple of eggs latching on. I guess we'll find out tomorrow, great, the anticipation is just killing me.
Life here in my high up hogan on the orphanage has fallen into routine. My diary entries are getting fewer and shorter as repetition patterns my pages and more and more responsibilities limit me from exploration outside our walls. I wake up at exactly 6:05AM every morning to the sweet serenade of screaching and screaming rice farmers below whipping large oxen and racing through wet fields. At 7:30AM I rush to eat breakfast with the other teachers, papaya, banana, mango and chai, 8:00AM Second grade English, screams from both sides, 9:00 First grade, science, English, cursive, damn, why can't I just teach art. 10:00 Read and lay on bed under fan exhausted. 1:00Mushy indistinguishable rice soup mixture for lunch. 2:00 HW time, I try and help kids with math I know nothing about and then we laugh alot instead. 6:30PM Mushy indistinguishable rice soup mixture for dinner. 7:30 Satsang. Everyone looks super adorable in their little yoga poses and we sing and meditate. 8:30 scream some more till we all lose our voices and I am so tired I must retire . 9:30 sleep. repeat. Of course, between the dotted schedule lines there is always the unexpected, the infected wound, quarelling kinders, dirty laundry, and tonight the most exciting so far, attacking poisonous snakes.
We all lept and lunged like leapfrogs. Some closer to the snake with metal objects to try and catch it mid squirm, others such as myself-onto the table to continue my frantic jumping dance from a better (safer) viewpoint. The eccentric shrew who runs the home looks like a mad woman on hot coals, hopping from foot to foot, spatula high in hand, glowing in an all white robe. She managed to catch it a few times, but dropped it when it lunged for her paper white ankles. According to her, it was the kids fault for not being speedy enough with the bucket, denial? I'd say so. In the end we lost our midnight dance dance revolution game with the deadly viper and now it will stay roaming the ground, angry and waiting for juicy flesh to step off it's balcony in the middle of the night and....so many reasons to not sleep tonight.

Here's another one. My bathroom.


To see the rest of my photos from India go: HERE

Trivial Pursuit. 9.

We lose days like buttons, pencils.
There is still that part of me that misses the simple conveniences of a life in modernity. Hugging tight to day dreams of chilled drinks with large floating ice cubes, showers not served in a bucket, plush beds that actually like you instead of punish you for sleeping, and of course, precious air conditioning that cuts the moist damper of humidity as well as the angry heat. This part, however still present in trying times, dissolves as more buttons disappear, more time lost here, and more smiling grins grace my dreams while I have become completely enamored with love for these amazing children.
It's raining, again. I am soaking wet, again. I am waiting for barnacles to cling to my toes and seaweed to wrap my legs into one long shimmering fin. I am becoming a mermaid.
The children cannot sit still today. The rain bouncing up and down in their heads, shaking creeping bed bugs from sleepy eyes. The sandman has turned to mud. It's early, even for me. The teacher did not show again today. This is not an unusual occurrence, in fact happening more than not. Suddenly my non existent teaching skills are put to the test as I become Ms. Jessica, the 2nd grade home room teacher. I imagine my orange skirt has turned cloudy as we delve into science class, my earrings now beakers, I am Mrs. Frizzle. No one wants to sit today, this is not a day for that. It is a day to jump in puddles, sing louder than the torpedoing drops, yell at the rain, show the monsoon we are bigger, we shall overcome you, you won't make us stay inside... but unable, we sit, and I teach, and everyone is silently angry at the grave injustice the educational system is thrusting upon them in this moment of potential glory. Times tables.
The teacher is not the only one absent today. The usual line of chapas(hindi for sandals)normally reaching past the cement floor to a dirt patch on the side of the building, now barely makes it past the big wooden door. Stomach ulcers, bloating to the degree of suspected pregnancy, diarrhea, boils, infected wounds, something seems to have crept up and taken half the school. The other volunteers have caught a bug or two as well. I feel slighted, I am doomed.
My journal no longer shuts snug as a pile of 15 or more perfectly colored notes that read "I love you Jessica" sit stacked like a chimney in the middle of my notebook. I miss them already. Every ache, laugh, tear, and bad dream a shared experience. Such innocence and blissfulness through such intense struggle and hardship. My 11 year old "husband" (according to him) Oinak, has fainted 10 times this year from exhaustion he says. The cutest old yogi man in a 5 year old's body named Raju is the survivor of attempted murder by his stepmother while his twin sister is unable to say the same. Parun, the most angelic soul in the whole wide world, is a 12 year old still in preschool because he was beaten so badly as a child that the loss of blood has permanently affected his brain function. Pinky, my BFF, who will only wear pink saris, a precocious 8 year old who speaks perfect English but can't seem to focus for a second on HW, can only see from one eye while the other just sits immobile in its socket due to the impact of someone hitting her in her head with a rock when she was a baby. Kids without parents, kids with parents who can't afford them or don't want them. This place, these people, are true examples of survival. They don't complain about the card they were handed, they play this game full out with all of their might. Determination with true happiness, never questioning the bad just living the good. I will never complain about having nothing to wear ever again. Trivial pursuit is an Americans way of life, not the name of a board game.



To see the rest of my photos from India go: HERE

Always invite dreadlocked Sadhus to dinner. 8.

I woke up on a crispy sheet. Snap crackle pop, dried brown flakes of henna stuck all over my face and neck where I had rested my hands while sleeping. I can't stop looking at these hands, transformed hands that were once mine, have now become something closer to this place than before, something more colorful and artistic than my natural skin. Simple white flesh, now decorated intricately with swirls and leaves, lines hugging every finger and extending past my palm to my wrist. Deep red like the quickly enveloping sinking sand that I pulled a 4 year old out of at the Ganga yesterday. The same red lines as those swimming under my feet like hot tomato soup on our adobe floor. I want my hands to stay this beautiful forever, but I know of the impermanence of beauty.
The magical shaman told me I have a very good hand. I went back after school as told, to his street-shop nestled into the dusty marketplace. I know he is very magical, I know this because I was drawn to this magical spark the second I met him, a powerful force radiating from his smile. He is full of joy like I would imagine an enlightened one to be. A round pudgy happy face frames deep large brown eyes wrinkled with laugh lines. When he looks into you, those eyes don't twitch back and forth, searching like most people for your eyes left and right, his eyes lock. He read Jane's hand first. His two pudgy happy children watching his shop as the 3 of us sat in a small rectangular room built only for us. I watched as he bent her fingers every way, index touch the pinky, now flatten, stretch, then fist. Lines of poetic wisdom flowing from every crevice on her left hand. She was destined for a great life with an amazing true love he told her after her reading. Everything he said was right. He held my left hand, it was my turn now, we inhaled together and then let our breath turn into 3 om's and he began. He went on a timeline of monumental changes in my life, moves and people that mattered, told me my younger sister should avoid wearing blue and stick to pink. You have a very good hand, he would say. Deeper now, looking at my palm little and talking much, everything was included in his reading, everything but the amazing knight in shining armor true love Jane was to meet. At the "Any questions?" moment of closure I jumped to ask why he completely dis-included any romance in my future, am I destined to be a traveling nun I pondered. According to my magical shaman friend, I have come to this existence to learn from everything, and will always have the strongest devotion to my work which will be very important and help the world. I liked this, he was on the right track, now ehem, boys... He told me I do not have one true love, but will love many people throughout my life and will be with them till I have learned enough and then go learn some more... Damn, I hope this life he is speaking of is not as promiscuous as he makes it sound. He then told me about the importance of dreadlocked people in my life and that I should upon meeting such people invite them to dinner if I have enough food. A little bit of "hocus pocus" he chuckled. I love him.

To see the rest of my photos from India go: HERE

Hollywood to Bollywood. 7.

The bony little French guard has snapped. White chalky paint smeared across his high forehead, exaggerating the wrinkles above his nose, a large stamp of black replacing his normal smudge of bright orange. He used to remind me of an emaciated mouse, but his new garb has really brought to life his inner jungle man. Everyone is on edge. The rumors running in the papers by the Indian press have gone from "Ridiculously wrong-who would actually believe that bull crap in a million years" to "Ridiculously wrong-people are sheep and now the Indian government wants to shut down the whole orphanage. These horrible rumors, calling the organic farm and school "A slave labor camp," which I know are wrong because I am here, were supposedly started by angry neighbors wanting more land and according to some-millionaire perverts who want to turn the orphanage into a boys school. Newly deemed "Jungle man from the darkest depths of the world" explains the significance of his white makeup to me. As caretaker and guard of the site, it is up to him to defend us against the evil doers. He is dressed in the manner of a tribesman from a group of cannibals that live high in the Himalayan mountains and survive by eating the flesh of the dead out of cemeteries thus giving them magical powers and dark ways. He tells me when the police come, which according to him, they will any day now, they will see one of these feared cannibals and we will all be safe from their bad intentions. All we can do is hope he is as frightening to the cops as he is to- well, I'm not quite sure yet what he is in fact frightening to, so I just hope his plan works.
It seems to me I may just be destined to live a life riddled with scenes from an overly dramatic cinema. From Hollywood to Bollywood, Entourage premiere to real life Indian press scandal, this dramatic novela seems to follow along, holding my hand while we skip alongside the stories laughing at the irony that unfolds. Aside from this running script of screaming reporters, cannibalistic French anorexics and an orphanage run by a woman who speaks deeper with her golden labs than her volunteers, my English classes are going fantastically. In fact, the two homeroom teachers have asked if I would teach more and help them incorporate the English games I made up into their other subjects as well. After school, which goes until around 5:00pm including time to help with HW and study for tomorrows tests, Ive been able to sneak into town a few more times to drink banana milkshakes and photograph wandering sadhu's. Last time, a magical shaman man found me, I've decided this happening was divine, and explained a few of the secrets of the universe, gave me a small bluish crystal and told me to return tomorrow at 6:00pm for a palm reading. In my mind I'm already there drinking up his magical knowledge. I think these sort of magical things happen more often here.

Reggae treehouses and hospital walls. 6.

The walls were cold like all hospital walls. Hallways tall and skinny extending in every direction, left, right, up, down, diagonal. Men wearing face masks pushing carts of toxic containers, serious faces, very serious, sick bodies, waiting bodies lying on the ground in the packed skinny hallways. We are now in the third world. I took Avery to Dehradun, the only actual town slightly near to us with a medical institute. For the past 2 days through random shouts of pain while teaching, he has suffered an ear-ache that resembles "A knife digging into his brain." It was time for a checkup. We got lost 3 times inside the cold walls filled with hot humid air. In the back corner of the massive institution we found our doctor. He poked and prodded without remorse inside Avery's ear while explaining to me the issue, drawing with his free hand an ear canal with Ganges water trapped behind wax. Suddenly he pulled out the long stick that looked as though it had drilled into Ave's brain and showed us proudly a gigantic glob of earwax. "See" he explained. He then showed me everything Avery must do and told me to be back tomorrow morning for a serious ear cleaning. I think he may have forgotten that it was Avery, not I with the issue. We took a taxi back to Rishikesh after waiting outside under a balcony protected from the fierce monsoon. The drive was peace compared to the hectic hospital. Eucalyptus trees fragrancing the musky old cab with a sweeter aroma. I had never seen a teak tree until I came to India. Thin windy branches reaching, spiraling, and stretching above the dense forest of other lesser woods. The road to Rishikesh was a teak paradise.
Tired of mush, upon arrival back home, we left again. Crossing the swaying foot bridge above the Ganga River with stampeding bulls and speeding mopeds.

We found ourselves the only cafe playing Bob Marley and sat down aside other like minded travelers. While drinking mango lassi's topped with fresh ice-cream we smoked cigarettes wrapped in thin leaves and lounged for the first time since we got here. The restaurant overlooked the beautiful muddy river now lit up with the tiny lights of many neighboring towns. It was truly magical. We sat on a bamboo floor covered in silk pillows in an open tree-house building above the bustling street. Dreadlocked sadhus smoked strange pipes, and our Nepalese waiter was gigglier than I am, with a permanent grin and a t-shirt that read "Why drink and drive, when you can smoke and fly?" I am taking him home with me, I have decided.Shanu, our waiter.

On our way back to our new home we were celebrities, left and right camera phones and SLRs snapped away at the odd tourists, I honestly liked it, I felt so much better taking pictures of these people if they were going to do the same to me. I must look like a scary hideous beast in all of these photos but they seem to not care. We took our last photo 25 times with 7 old men wearing white turbans, I then stepped on a cockroach, saw 5 frogs and one mouse and went to bed. For the first time I actually used my top sheet. Please god let that mean it will be cooler today.

To see the rest of my photos from India go: HERE

Eclipse of the stomach illness. 5.

Today was the first day of school since the orange cloaked Shiva men forced our village into a holiday. We are teaching kindergarten, pre-school, 1st and 2nd grade English, and spent the past 4 hours singing "Head, shoulders, knees and toes," and acting out monkey sounds while pantomiming elephants roaring and babies crying.
Everyone is tired. This morning the whole orphanage woke up at 5am to meditate and chant in a dimly lit screen bamboo patio overlooking the Himalayan Mountains during the solar eclipse. We must have all had our eyes shut when it happened because no one can recall darkness actually falling. In the Delhi Times my eclipse horoscope told me I was to have serious health problems during the solar phenomenon. Thank god the Times here cannot be trusted with everything, I'm really really trying to not get this stomach illness everyone who comes to India including myself will eventually get. We moved into a new room today on the grounds of the orphanage. This room is circular, with windows on all angles overlooking corn fields and bamboo trees. There are many more bugs here but the view is unbeatably better than our previous garbage dump. We were planning on moving tomorrow but when we came back from our peaceful meditation we found the front of our house including our screen door to be smeared all over with shit. Families of flies were having their hayday swarming all over the feces that someone had gone through the trouble to pick up with bare hands and spread so artistically all around the pink adobe of our entrance. How welcoming.

So we moved again. I feel much better about this new house. We are closer to the children and I think the thin metal stairs coming up to our hogan haven are super neat and rustic. I tried street food today for the first time, a thin rolled up crepe fried till a crispy brown with cream in the center, I'm feeling daring, I think I might go try the ice cream now.

To see the rest of my photos from India go: HERE