ajws orientation and bodh gaya

well, i certainly have been negligent. i have taken over 300 pictures, and have been trying to sort them so i could post some of them coherently. so much for aspirations. i need to get some stuff written or no one will really believe i am here.

last week was a 4-1/2 day american jewish world service orientation for the nine volunteers, the three staffers and five of the ngo directors. it was outstanding. they used a variety of teaching methods, some lectures, some discussions, a few field trips. indian history (the aryans invaded from the area of mesopotamia, going east and west; cultural do's and don't's (no books or papers on the floor and definitely don't push them with your feet and do not let the launderer do your intimate articles. that is what the sink is for. and cover them with a towel if they are hung on a viewable clothes line); representing judaism (the usual pluralistic approach); indian and american values in the workplace (much more socializing in india, eating in the office together and bringing food for one another; policies on gift giving (can't do it as it creates inappropriate expectations for future volunteers and is not a sustainable way to problem solve). a lot of discussion of the outlawed caste system and the untouchables (dalits) with whom many of the ngo's work.

the overarching themes: sharing the jewish call to social justice and offering our abilities in that spirit, and doing sustainable work. if we are not training or working on a project that will continue/grow after our departure, a project that depends on us alone, we shouldn't be doing it. we are also not here to impose our vision or will, but to respond to the expressed desires and needs of the ngo's with whom we work.

in the ten days before i started work on 26 jan, i stayed in patna, bihar for three days (2 million people, bihar state is one of the fastest growing in india (there are 28 of them), and then took a bus to bodh gaya (4 hours, cost rupees 60 or $1.50) for three days. that was enough for a tourist's view, but it would have been lovely to stay for a week or so. it feels very spiritual and holy.

bodh gaya is one of three central buddhist holy centers. it is the site where guthama siddhartha achieved enlightment after mediating under the boda tree under where he vowed to stay until he achieved enlightenment. it worked. the mahabodhi temple is beautiful and visitors, monks, the devoted, numbering in the hundreds, walk and meditate around it. a cutting from the original bodha tree still grows.

the story of siddhartha is very interesting. raised as a prince, siddhartha's father tried to shelter him from the world outside the family compound. unfortunately (for his father), siddhartha went out one day and saw an aged person, then a sick person, the next a dead person. he could not understand why to live if these were the outcomes and life was such suffering. at the age of 29, he left his home, wife and child, to seek another way, a way to transcend the pain that he had seen. at first a medicant, then a long journey with many turns, it ended with enlightenment in bodh gaya. there, he escaped the perpetual cycle of reincarnation to reach nirvana.













malachala cave, an auto rickshaw ride away, is a cave in which siddhartha meditated, without food or water, for six years before going to the bodha tree. there is a special icon of the fasting buddha in cave. by legend, his navel touched his spine.

my journey then took me by night train to varanasi, the holy site for hindus. cremation on the banks of the ma ganges river allows the departed to go directly to nirvana and leave the cycle of reincarnation.

but more on that next time. it has taken me two hours to write this and figure out how to post pictures.

on the road: bodh gaya and benares

left patna after several days, bus to bodh gaya (a center of buddhist worship, the place where siddhartha gautama (5th century bce) achieved enlightenment after six years mediating in a nearby cave, malachala ).

although hardly enough time, i was there for three days. everybody knew of simon's program for tibetan studies for american students. before simon emailed me, i had found the tibetan monestary (one of four, and two more under construction) where he studied and the burmese vihar where he stayed. everyone in town seemed to know the teacher robert and his program. i also spontaneously met two friends of his, vinay and his brother. vinay runs a booking agency, and supports eleven people from his work. he is sad he cannot save any money. his brother studies computer work in delhi.

a consistent image of india, in both cities and towns, is emerging. noise, kinetic movement everywhere. thousands of small businesses (in the sense that the owner/operator is one and the same, although the equipment may be rented, as in the case of tuk-tuks, either storefronts or street vending. although very dusty, and people drop their trash anywhere, the cadre of street sweepers comes throughout the day, and with shovels, moves the trash to hand pulled carts or very small motor trucks. the shopkeepers are forever sweeping, using long brooms made of rice straw, as are the people in front of their houses. it is dirty, but very tidy, if you look long enough.

there are an incredible number of people, and there is a cultural commitment to making sure everyone works. it doesn't cost much to eat and live minimally, somewhere around rs54,000 ($1000) for a family of four, per annum. no savings, no car, simple housing (one or two rooms, dirt floor, 4-8 people in the extended family living together). there is also a communal commitment to helping one another. social security is provided by the people to one another, less so the government.

a nation of religious pluralism, many hindus (65%) and many muslims (also called mohammedians, around 35%). no jews, except in mubai which i will not visit. a few christians.
the concepts of karma and dharma seem deeply embraced. i have been speaking with many regular folks i meet (a little english, and off we go). when we do something, it will return to us. if i do evil, so it will be. karma. within this life, and also from previous lives and to the next life. reincarnation is a bedrock belief. dharma, as i understand it, is an acceptance of what our individual circumstances are. if i get polio and am a cripple (and there are a number of polio cripples, although immunizations are banishing that disease), it is my karma. i do not get the impression this is simple surrender, but rather acceptance. simon's impression from his four months in india was that the people were happy, and there is nothing in my experience or conversations that does not reinforce that view.

if there are scoundrels and thieves, i have not met them yet. i am a cautious traveler, having been in a small number of non-western countries before. although i walk off the main streets, i don't go in blind alleys. yet. in bodh gaya, i stopped at my first food vendor on the street, and struck up conversation with a buddhist from bengal (a monk for 12 years when he was young). he advised me on food and then helped translate. and then, un requested, he paid for my meal. today, a tuck-tck driver took me around the largest university in asia (benares hindu university). we stopped for chai (tea, coffee, milk and sugar) but i only had a rs500 bill and he could not change it. the young fellow next to me paid for our chai. on the night train from bodh gaya to benares (also known as varanasa), i found myself in conversation with a advocate (lawyer) and commerce graduate. easy conversations (i think indians enjoy using their english skills), he negotiated an auto tuk-tuk (an early learned skill) and then gave me his mobile number with instructions to call him with any questions or problems. a nation of scoundrels!

i am slowly eating street food. so far, only if fried or cooked on a hot skillet. it is very tasty, and not spicy, i do not have to request no spice. i will keep to bottled water, though. far, no gastrointestinal protest.

i have discovered guest houses (simple bed, toilet, shower, chair and table) but no television or lobby, usually no restaurant. cost: rs 300-400/ night ($6-9). a hotel with all the above amenities costs a minimum of rs1000 ($22 and a fixed price) and up to rs10,000 ($222) for something moderately fancy. quite frankly, i am most comfortable in very simple accomodations, not because i am cheap, but because it is where i am comfortable.

yesterday i walked along the ma ganges (the mother ganges river), passed many ghats, stairways leading to the water. benares is a very religious town, one of the oldest in the world (parallel to ancient mesopotamia on a time line) and a center of hindu worship. there were two burning sites where wood pyres are built, one at a time. the wood is purchased or donated (for the very poor), sacred fire is purchased (from a designated keeper of the fire, a position that is handed down through only several families for generations). it is possible to see the outline of the body in the flames as it is consumed. the entire process takes several hours, the flames are sweetened with spices, and pieces of the burned wood are taken home by the family. there are 200-400 burning daily, and the sites run 24 hours.

several centuries ago, it was common for the widow to throw herself (or be thrown) onto the burning pyre, but that practice has been outlawed. in fact, woman are not part of the ceremony now, nor do they accompany the body from town or village to the burning grounds. as it was explained to me, too much emotion, wailing and crying. the eldest son has his head shaven except for a small tassel in the back, and dresses in a white gown. i don't think they do much with death certificates and autopsies in india.

i will now find someplace to meditate, then a quiet spot to read (good luck finding something like that). tomorrow i will take a guided tour from the guest house owner on his motorcycle, and see the usual temples and sites that the tourists see.

again, the indian people i am encountering are simply lovely.

first days in patna

6 jan 2010, 5 am presidents hotel, patna

and so begins my first full day in patna. arrived early afternoon yesterday, greeted at the airport by raja president of dord), still on holiday but there all the same, then turned over to ajitesh (a project coordinator) and mishra (one of two accountants) for a search for a hotel and a general ride around the city center. the agency is being incredibly kind to me. it is wonderful having such supportive help. i am so far from a stranger in a strange land.

i am now in the presidents hotel, 1000 rupees/night ($25). it is remarkably like simple hotels in every non-western country in which i have traveled (costa rica, mexico, thailand). old, clean, bare bones, aging tile. my room has a plastered edge above the baseboard, repairing a more elaborate stone trim from days gone by. industrial bolts on the doors. mismatched furniture. such a contrast to the resort on the mexican riviera in cancun where we stayed on our family vacation. that place was spic and span, and they were planning major redecoration. the haves and the have nots.

walked around last night. it will be to my children’s surprise, but i was approached by no beggars nor anybody foisting their services on me. i suspect patna will be much different than delhi or kulkuta. the street was literally a sea of cars, motorcycles, bicycles, pedaled rickshaws, auto rickshaws, pedestrians. although there were sidewalks, no one used them, preferring the inner lane of the street. a cacophony of sounds, mostly honking. as i’ve read, there are three things necessary for safe driving here: good brakes, good horn, and good luck. no stop signs, no stop-and-go lights, simply a continuous pulsating movement of people and vehicles. crossing the street requires a step of faith, but each moving object is prepared to slow or stop at the last minute, whether a moving conveyance or a person. the worst to do is to stop cold. it interferes with the flow. seriously.

again, as in other non-western countries, the street is lined by food vendors and small shops, carts selling a variety of small wares. no big stores, certainly nothing like the chain stores in the usa (unfortunately now true in both big and small cities back home). i am struck by the empowerment such small businesses allow individuals/families. a 15x10 foot storefront, sufficient for a toiletries or medicine shop, a sundries store. larger plots for shoes, but just shoes or dresses or cloth or rugs. a number of electronics stores, televisions, computers. repair shops everywhere. it seems that very little is thrown away without progressive repair. many shopkeepers sitting alone, waiting for customers. and then there are the street food merchants by the hundreds. there isn’t the despondency that i would expect from my american experience., though. a simpler economy, a slower merchantilism. people can survive on rs 300 ($7)/day, but they are the poor in slums unlike any in the usa. i have done a lot of walking, and will describe what I have seen later.

I haven’t eaten since i arrived and i’m not sure how i will approach food. there are lots of street vendors, and an indian coworker of mine suggested i simply start to eat and get the inevitable diarrhea out of the way. i’ll probably venture to cooked food today, noodles, simple fried breads and such. i am tempted to eat the cooked foods. prepared on small coal or wood fires or small gas burners, a lot of it is fried in woks with hot oil which should kill a lot of microorganisms. the fresh vegies and fruits without a skin i will avoid. still getting used to converting rupees into dollars. i also need to carry smaller bills. i don’t get the sense anybody is out to cheat me, though. i bought a universal plug adapter today, gave him a rs 100, and he returned rs 70. it cost me about 65 cents. he could have charged me anything he wanted, and i certainly expected to pay more.

the weather is pleasant, not hot, and certainly not mosquito season (that comes in july with the rains). there is a floor heater plugged into the wall, but i was ok with two blankets and two light bedspreads. took a lovely shower yesterday. the porter brought in a bucket of hot water, i mixed it with cold water from the tap, and poured it over my head. no shower as such, the water all going down a drain in the floor on the other side of the room. the porter also recognized me as western, and brought a squashed roll of toilet paper. the alternative is the small bucket and spigot near the toilet.

7 jan 2011

I stand corrected. it is very chilly here, stuck in a cold wave for a month. overnight temps ~7 c (45 f), my room has a heater but i’m not using it. two t-shirts, a regular shirt and a jacket. outside, everyone wears a stocking cap and muffler, some wrapped in blankets. i can’t imagine how the poor people sleeping on the sidewalks can stay warm, and they are everywhere.

up at 5 am yesterday, took a walk to gandi maidon, a large park that used to be a race track. i read in the paper they are planning a major facelift, although they don’t specify cost, which they often do in newspaper articles (times of india is delivered under my hotel door).

went to a target like store yesterday, vishal megamart. not sure how to navigate street vendors or small shops yet. i need to be quicker in calculating dollar prices. gym shoes around $25, two alkaline batteries for 66 cents, a liter of mango juice $1.60. the newspaper today reported food inflation over the past year of 18%; onions up 198%, milk 19%, egg/meat/fish 21%, potatoes down 15%, vegies up 58%. it will be interesting to follow the public/political course of such changes.

the newspaper does good reporting, with fair detail. a 35 y/o plumber was killed by a turning truck, a mob pulled the driver out, demanding compensation for the family. police arrived, only to be repelled by stone throwing. in andra pradesh province, telangana wants to secede, but hyperabab resists. a panel made six recommendations to resolve the conflict.

tonight is shabbat (no jewish presence in patna, i lit candles, kiddish with mango juice, rice from yesterday for my bread).

spent the day taking a rickshaw to gandhi ghat in sultanganj locality shahganj muhammadpur area, then walked back, past hundreds of small stores and more hundreds of street vendors. absolutely reminiscent of chicago’s maxwell street in its hey-day, but without vendors trying to cajole one into their stores. no one seems to notice me except when i stop to take a picture. if they notice me, i ask permission by mime. i came across my first two beggars today, both polite and respectful. a man missing his right arm below the elbow, the other an old woman whose appearance cried out for help.

I will be leaving for bodh gaya on sunday, returning by next friday for official ajws orientation. I will take a bus and stay at a hotel run by monks.

i am leaving to be a volunteer in patna, behar province, india on monday jan 3rd. i will be there until april 26th, 2011.

i am going under the sponsorship of the american jewish world service (a non-governmental organization based in new york and headed by ruth messinger, http://ajws.org/). ajws takes jewish philanthropic money and jewish volunteers and pairs them with one of 350 non-jewish ngo's in asia (thailand, cambodia, india), africa (kenya, uganda, ghana) and central america. my program involves volunteering for three months. ajws has a number of other programs, and was one of the first organizations to provide support following the asian tsunami and the haitian earthquake.

patna is a city of 1.8 million people on the ganges river. behar province (northeast india) is one of the indian centers for buddhism. bodh gaya, about 50 miles south of patna, and is the city in which the buddha found enlightenment under the boda tree. patna is also about 350 miles northwest of kulkuta, one of the most populated, most diverse cities in india.

dord (daudnager organization for rural development, http://dord.in/) is based in patna and has 150 workers, including 30 in health related programs. it is unclear what i will be doing, but it will probably be some combination of consulting on health care administration (they have several community clinics and work with several hospitals. i have been the medical director of a residency clinic and have held a number of other administrative posts), teaching (my skills center around childbirth issues, women's health, pain/palliative care and general medical practice), and assistance in grant writing (i have been involved with the successful development of five significant grants while at ravenswood hospital in chicago and lutheran general hospital in park ridge). i will not be seeing patients, as getting a medical license in a foreign country is a major undertaking. i also suspect i will primarily not be working with physicians, but rather non-md health workers.

it is all very exciting. india promised to be incredible, deep and dynamic. its history stretches back millenia, its population exceeds 1.2 billion. india is the birthplace of four major religious traditions (hinduism, buddhism, jainism and sikhism) and was a jewel of the british empire for two centuries. my son simon spent three months at a tibetian buddhist monastery in bodh gaya during a semester abroad in college (as well as traveling for a month with his sisters, rachel and naomi) and returned to say his overriding impression of india was that the people were happy. i confirmed that impression with some of the non-md indians with whom i worked at the hospital. a country of broad poverty, the vestiges of the caste system, expanding capitalism and international trade (since prime minister pv narasimha rao opened the country to foreign investment and liberalized economic policies in 1991), it will be a smorgasbord of sounds, sites, smells and energy.

i fly into munich, stay overnight, then to delhi and onto patna. i will take my homeopathic remedy to minimize jet lag, and set my watch to the time of my final destination on takeoff from chicago.