I'll show you ethical food

Westerners savour 'homemade' bread even if it's just pouring ingredients from store-bought packages into a bread-maker with water from the tap. A month here has taught me to live with very little, which means the only garbage I regretfully discard in shrubs are 20-20 wrappers. Toilet paper, hot water, baby diapers, eggs, meat, and beds all seem like frivolous luxuries to me now. My meal arrives as a sheath of flour and bundle of vegetables.

Today a 10 year old showed me how to remove oil based paints from my hand. The trick is to get your hands wet and rub them in sand. I'm not sure how exportable this knowledge is, given the absence of sand in my front lawn, but it has given me a new way of looking at things.

I have lost access to global news. Instead I heard about the Japanese tsunami from my Indian dad who used very complicated gestures punctuated with the word Japan. I insisted my country was Canada, not Japan, thinking he was confused. It wasn't until he tied 'Japan' to one of his few other English words, 'finished,' that I clued in. When realization hit, Jen and many locals joined me in trying to decipher from the TV the magnitude of the situation. A challenging translation that was only accomplished with the cumulative English fragments of a dozen concerned neighbourhood men.

Holi Cow

Holi, the Rhajasthani Hindu holiday, is a photographers dream, as the objective of the day is to get everyone as colorful as possible. To kick things off the night before we had a meal with the extended family followed by 'doon.' This is a ritual where Soonu and baby Kuishy were placed on a small platform beneath sticks that were beat together as onlookers sang a holi song. Money was exchanged but no one had enough English to clarify the situation to me.

The day of Holi began with an extreme version of the traditional water fight. Preparing to meet Jen, I was about to head out when my older brothers came running down the sandy path from the direction of a beating drum. An army of about 20 teenage boys were approaching and there was going to be war. Armed with water squirters loaded with dyed kerosene, they were marching straight for our home. My sisters and I were brought to my room with two Sambhali girls (whom Usha has sent to fetch me). There we were barricaded in as a battering ram of fists started pounding on our front door. Through a secret entrance more male relations came to our protection and only barely kept off the attackers. When I peeked one man was being beat outside. After the attack I waited first ten, then twenty, then thirty minutes before my messengers determined it was safe for me to journey the 35 meters to meet Jen and Usha at Usha'a house.

At Usha's house, a dozen or so Sambhali students gathered to delight in harmlessly throwing colours at each other. Colours are essentially dry tempra paint, although after a while the colours were mixed with water. Kerosene is a malicious addition that only some use to make the colours permanent for up to six weeks. Soon we were covered from between our toes to in our ears with colours. The homes were splattered and the ditches were flowing with pink. The fun continued throughout the heat of the day as we used buckets and water from outdoor faucets to clean ourselves on the front steps of Usha's home. After two hours of persistent scrubbing Kerry, a lovely volunteer who joined us from Jodhpur, still had one red ear. Usha had a pink neck; Jen a purple chest, and I red eyebrows. Manz of the bozs remained stained pink for the rest of the week. I even saw a cow with a large blue streak. All in all, a tremendously successful day.

'Megnifishint' Ceremonies

A cricket has just jumped into my bed, preventing me from sleeping restfully, so I blog. Yesterday I attended the unusual ceremony of introductions. I was sat down on a bed with four other girls facing Pooja's new husband and some of his male companions on an opposite bed. After an intolerably long time of staring at each other and passing around awful candies I was prompted (by whispers in my ears from my bed fellows) to ask questions to the groom. It turns out the awkward staring was actually everyone waiting for me to ask the first question. Having very limited Hindi skills and him being equally incompetent in English I was restricted to asking him about the size of his family and their names. Awkward giggling followed and we, the girls, then attempted to leave. The men objected and the questioning continued in our direction this time. Eventually we left the room without objection and it dawned on me that this may be how they connect with their in-laws. The formal and shallow conversation we had, shapes the understanding the participants have of each other.

This morning was one of the final marriage ceremonies. I like to call it the "Home Town Holy Tour." Unceremoniously, I was woken up and instructed to get ready quickly. Without asking for my cooperation, and feeling hopeless at objecting, I was led by my two sisters and a cousin in a full sprint down the sandy desert path. We were late and a wedding parade was exiting the Pinky's home. They threw down a sheet in front of the home. Pooja and Husband sat on it, did some ritual or other, and then walked around four times. Fighting for the only patch of shade with a view, we joined the spectators. After the 15min ceremony, we all piled into the very small jeep which had been providing the shade. All 18 of us. Pooja, Husband, Driver, Drummer Boy (onto the roof), and fourteen spectators participated in space competition. The jeep then drove to the big tree in the market where goat legs dangle from the branches. Clearly a holy site (or warning sign for nomadic goats). The ritual was repeated. Next we crossed the street to the old temple. Repeat ritual. Back into the jeep. Repeat ritual at two houses. It continued for three hours like a complicated dance move: return to jeep, new location, repeat ritual. We hit up every holy site in the greater Setrawa area. My favorite was an oasis destination far into the dessert. A god had been set up under a lone tree with bright pink, purple, and turquoise fabric scraps hanging from the limbs (in my opinion, preferable to goat legs). When we finally finished I was slightly confused, late for school, and severely parched.

On the other end of the ceremonial spectrum I had a very special moment with my host mother, Pushpa. As I sat on the floor of our home she came to stand next to me. With her hand, she leaned my head against her thigh. She looked affectionately down at me and said in her adorable fragmented English, "Call me mum. I be mum you." She then took me to her special shelf and placed a Bindi (dot) between my eyes. And, in case that isn't evidence enough that I have bonded with my new family, my two young sisters and some young male relations have taken to calling me 'Didi.' The name is an endearing term meaning 'older sister.' I've never had a sister before.

The chaos, the affection, the order, and the shouting. It is all beginning to jumble up in me. If there is an official point when a person is in love, I am there. The point in a relationship when one awkwardly and hesitatingly says the "L" word to their partner. The brave point when one offers their whole self up to the other person. I am 23 years old (a sentence I have taught to my class in English) and in love with a country, a subcontinent drowning in character and tradition. My students are 'megnifishint' (one student's synonym for beautiful) even if (and perhaps especially because) they colour their people blue and orange. My family, although they kidnapped me for the holy site tour, is the most wholesome functioning unit I have ever seen.

Last night, I was permitted to help milk the goat which lives in our house. Normally a single handed job for Pushpa, in her absense it took four of us. Brother Santosh herded the goat off the staircase, I wrestled the goat against the wall, Rakhi milked her, and Soonu provided a flashlight when halfway through we lost power. Perhaps it was drinking the chai that came from the goat that sealed the deal. India, I love you. 

Pooja Marry

Arriving in Setrawa was overwhelming, but more because of my family than the culture. They have truly adopted me as one of their children which is splendidly heart warming but also severely debilitating for my independence. I enjoy being stepped through the culture, "sit here" "eat this" "eat more," but in the last five years I have forgotten how to be a good daughter and ask permission for every activity (not that I was ever particularly good at doing this). That is where my spies come in. Using Hindi numbers I have learnt to communicate how long I'll be at the Sambhali school, but if I venture anywhere during my breaks or on my way home, there always seems to be a child (usually one of my sisters accompanied by a friend) lurking in the doorway of my destination waiting to deliver me a message about when and where I am to go next (usually to eat, but once most enjoyably to see Rakhi, my 13 year old sister, try on her first sari).

This first week in Setrawa has been particularly scheduled because a neighbor, Pooja, is having her week long wedding celebrations and on my second night the world's most cooperative baby celebrated her first birthday. The birthday celebration was surprisingly western with a frosted cake and "happy birthday" sung in english (but to an unexpected tune).

Meanwhile 18 year old Pooja is swept in emotion as she prepares to leave everything she knows for a man who she knows through a photo-shopped picture she has framed in her house. Each night the community gathers at a different home for some ritual of marriage. This includes 11 girls sitting on the floor in a tight circle feeding Pooja and each other, but not themselves. The next night it was nine boys doing the same. Other traditions exist during the day, most of which I missed, because of my commitment to the Sambhali school, but I did catch the cocunut feeding. Women in sequence gave Pooja rice in place of a Bindi dot and then fed her pieces of coconut chased by sour coconut milk. She never failed to squirm from the milk. All in all, it seemed the wedding rituals were cohesive with the Indian objective to fatten young women. Pooja was a success. One man I spoke to at market told me that he approved of Pooja, because she was sturdy. I inferred that he considered her sufficiently fattened up, like a prized cow ready to be slaughtered at last. Of course they don't eat meat here and especially not cows, but it has occurred to me that their devout vegetarianism may be to lure us in and in reality they hope to fatten up young women whom they then devour.

Before evening celebrations I enjoy bonding with my sisters in international girl activities such as painting nails, selecting jewelry and French braiding their unlimited thick Indian hair. Additionally I was painted with henna and wrapped in a yellow sari for the final night. We also used this girl time to rehearse our dance moves. On one occasion I lightened the mood with some classic North American dance moves such as the shopping car and the funky chicken. Which they could not figure out. However, when bent over bringing my right arm to my left shoe and extending quickly in mimic of pulling the jump cord on a lawnmower, the girls squealed with delight and cried  "Taxi!"

Each night preceding the wedding included music and dancing that started with the mothers gathering on Pooja's yard, singing nasally Hindi wedding songs. At first I though they were replacing lyrics with Pooja's name, especially when they chanted "Pooja marry." I was delighted and confused until it was dramatically explained to me that "Pooja" is a popular lyric meaning prayer and "marry" has an entirely different meaning that cannot be explained by charades. The singing is followed by dancing. First young girls perform school-taught dances to Indian pop tunes blasted from an out-of-place indoor-made-outdoor state of the art sound system. This is followed by more traditional and intergenerational dances of both genders done to the catchy beat of a large drum that is brought over to the yard. The nights are long, but the climate is very favorable, the twirling colours are vibrant, and the food sits pleasantly in my expanding stomach. One time I found a place to escape for a nap.

I lay next to baby Kuishy as she slept motionless except for periodic involuntary swats at her face to scatter the flies. Occasionally the back lash of her swat would land her tiny ineffectual fist on my face. I fell asleep just the same and entered a deep slumber as the dancing continued outside. It was not a Kuishy fist in my face that eventually woke me, but en entire screaming Kuishy. She had deliberately climbed up on top of me in a desperate attempt to wake me. A delightfully cooperative baby, she is truly being raised by a village and saw me as she sees most people, as her playthings.

All of this celebrating led to the grand climax of the final wedding night. Rituals went on all day and night. The groom arrived, the wedding parade visited my house, food was served (in orderly Indian chaos), and after all that, finally at 11:30pm Pooja was fully decorated and brought to the party. Already finding rituals tedious, I found myself nestled up to some Indians moms watching ceremonies until past 2 am. Then one more parade and the ceremonies begun to repeat at a new location, at which point I snuck off to bed.

I expected to see my family exhausted the next day, but I was astounded by how sleepy a person can be. My little sister of 10 years, was shouted and dragged out of bed at a reasonable hour. I had been given my turn to wake her, but had not succeeded. Brought to the kitchen, she fell face forward from her sitting position on the floor and returned to sleep right there on the kitchen floor with her face down on the hard ground amongst the kitchen chaos that produces "very very tasty" meals.