Dehradun-Rishikesh Excusion!

A week without any form of technology (no internet, didn't bring my laptop, ipod wasn't charged, and my phone was roaming) feels like such a long time!

We arrived back in Jaipur this morning at 4:00am and slept at the Center in the library for a few hours until it was late enough to go back to our home-stay families without waking them up (I got back home at 8:00am.) I didn't sleep much on the train and haven't been able to fall asleep back home, so apologies for any typos or incoherent sentences. 

This past week has been one of the most valuable experiences in my past 15+ years of education. I've learned so much, and for me to delve into it all would probably get redundant and lengthy, so I'll just list the places we visited and the people we spoke to in brief.

Monday, September 17, 2012 

12:15pm: We arrived at the train station in Haridwar, a small city on the banks of the Ganges river in the northern Uttarakhand state.  Driving through the city was an experience itself. It was dotted with massive statues of Hindu gods like Krishna and Ganesh. All around the banks of the river were settlements of tents with by masses of people and an especially high number of holy men (sadhus) who typically wear orange or yellow cloth, have long beards, walk with canes, and migrate around to various religious sites in the country.

A rough photo os my sleep-bunk in the train. I realized later on that most of the bunks didn't have windows, so I was lucky to have one with two! 

1:00pm: Chai break!

4:00pm: We arrived at the RLEK guesthouse (Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra) in the city of Dehradun. RLEK is a well-established NGO with many international connections and donors. They provided us with transportation, dormitory rooms, fed us breakfast every morning, escorted us to our excursion sites, and talked with us one-on-one about their projects and missions. Dehradun felt really different from Jaipur. It felt cooler, had less garbage in the streets, less ridiculous traffic, and barely any beggars, which was SUCH a nice change. It's apparently known as being a hub to a lot of universities and research institutes too.

4:30pm- Chai break....mmmm

6:00pm: The staff gave each of us a 2000 rupee stipend to cover the 8 meals that we were scheduled to have on our own in the town during the week. This = 250 rupees for each meal. Converted to dollar$ it may not seem like a lot ($5 tops per meal?) but it's more than enough here. A decent quality meal like a masal dosa (a crepe-esque thing stuffed with veggies) can cost 150 rupees ($3.) I tried to save money by getting a lot of naan (tandoori cooked bread stuffed with things like paneer- an indian cheese that looks like tofu but is much more tasty-, onions, garlic, or the classic- BUTTER) (usually around 40 rupees per serving) and lassies (tasty yogurt drinks usually around 50 rupees.) *SIDE NOTE*: One of my favorite Indian treats back in the states are mango-lassies. When I saw one on the menu at a restaurant in Dehradun, I got really excited and ordered it, but was told they weren't serving them any more because mangos are out of season now (March-July is the prime time, apparently....should have applied for the spring semester?) Here in India, people's produce is usually sourced locally from within the country, so the availability of different fruits-veggies depends on the season (unlike in America where you can get a ripe papaya shipped from Indonesia in the middle of January.) 

Tuesday, September 18, 2012 

7:30am: I woke up early to read on the roof of the center and discovered the most AMAZING VIEW of the foothills of the Himalayas. Out of context, they didn't look much different than the Adirondacks, but knowing what was beyond them was pretty awesome. We had breakfast downstairs in the RLEK cafeteria that consisted of hard-boiled eggs, a fried potato-eque item, porrige, and chai. We had an informal Hindi class with our 2 Hindi professors (who accompanied us on this excursion to help us translate and practice.) RLEK makes all of their guests wash their own dishes, which I thought was a pretty interesting move. Apparently, when RLEK hosts high-profile government officials or other well-to-do guests, they are usually shocked and reluctant to wash their own dishes in the beginning of their stay. (Why should *I* wash my *own* dishes???) But by the end of their stay, they were willing to do their own dishes and others too! *SIDE NOTE*: Since sustainability and environmental responsibility is one of the main concentrations in this program, they do a really great job of implementing it in as many ways as possible. We were told to use as little water as possible while taking showers/washing dishes/using the bathroom, to refill our water bottles with filtered water from the center instead of buying new ones, and the plates we eat off of are pressed leaves that you can compost super easily. 

9:00am: We split into two buses to drive 2 hours to visit a community called the Van Gujjars, a group of pastoralists whose main livelihood is producing and selling buffalo milk ( it's higher in fat that cow’s milk, so it’s more valuable.) They stay in the highlands of the Himalayas during the summer months grazing their buffalo, then move down to the lowlands to the more temperate climate during the winter months.  We met them right as they are beginning to settle in the lowlands around Dehradun for the winter season (that’s about as far south as they go.) RLEK is working with the Van Gujjars because their once open grazing lands have been displaced by roads, buildings, and other infrastructure. You can now see these people herding 6-10 giant buffalo around the city streets because they have no other place to go. As a result of these changes, the Van Gujjars face challenges like being sued by people for using land that was once public but now has now become privatized. Another challenge is that their buffalo are being killed by cars and trucks on the roads. And most unfortunately, the mainly illiterate Van Guggars are being taken advantage of by merchants to whom they sell their milk because they do not understand the mathematics that go into the process. Pretty much, they’re being ripped off for their valuable products. 

Our group took a pit stop at the banks of the Yamane river, a "half-way" point for the Van Guggars as they travel back and forth between the lowlands and the highlands. Not sure whose dog this is, but it's most likely a street dog (seeing as they're everywhere.) It was pretty amazing. We sat as a group on the edge of the river and skipped rocks and had some hardcore bonding time.

RLEK is responsible for making over 21,000 Van Guggars literate (amazing.) They started out working with the adults to teach them how to read and write and how to do basic mathematics and after much success, the Van Guggars asked RLEK to help them teach their children as well. RLEK has set up a series of schools to educate the Van Guggar children. We were fortunate enough to visit one of their schools. One really cool thing RLEK did was design the school buildings to replicate the architecture of the Van Gujjars homes (pointy huts) as a way to make them feel more at home. The children were very sweet, and although we couldn’t verbally communicate with them well, we were still able to play games. *SIDE NOTE*: The traditional hat that the Van Guggars wear is called a Krishna cap (interestingly the Van Gujjars are Muslim.) Their colorful, pointy hats are made by the Van Guggar women and are made to be visible in the forests so they can better spot each other. I asked one of the boys if I could see his hat, and looking up-close at it, I don’t think I’ve seen anything so intricately woven before. They were beautiful.

Some children at the school. See some of their Krishna caps?? I wasn't able to take a close up of one of them. I still feel awkward taking photos of people because it feels pretty exploitative...especially while they're at school.

Part 2 of this trip to come later.....Nap time calls.