kam kam lekin khush khush

 It has been so busy and full of work but i have been in such high spirits while doing it! every day i look around bhopal on a walk in the clear fall sun or on the back of a bike with 2 people and just think how lucky i am, how fortuitously the linkages of people and events in my life have come together to get me to this point, to this place the magnificent and hilarious Bhopal, India. a place where time and fact and language are all flexible in the most unthinkable ways- where life flows by, sicknesses like malaria and dengue come and go, projects fade in and out in waves of work and interest, the consistency of the dal (soupy with oil flotillas on top means the canteen lady is trying to make a larger profit, thick and lumpy with visible tomato and chili chunks means khushi eclipsed thoughts of profit and love went into it) fluctuates and fruits come and go in the unexpected swoops of seasons...

 for a month every cart bore mosambi (thick skinned green oranges) and within a few days a full transformation occured-- now mosambis are rare at best and guavas (or GWAWAS if you wanna emulate the local accent precisely) sit in piles on every other cart where burqa-ed mothers pick carefully through, hunting for the ripe white ones that are soft almost paste inside (but often victims of hordes of camouflaged worms we've heard).  The guavas are abundant on the trees around Bhopal so any kid can pick one off a tree limb with a little hoisting, slight bending of a leafy branch and one big lunge. all indian children seem united by their love for the hard green guavas that look just like avocados until you gnaw through the first tough layer into the tangy white core studded with tan seeds.Little girls with pigtail braids folded into bunny ear loops and pressed plaid uniforms bite them while walking home from catholic school. a girl who begs on the street with sunstreaked, tangled hair and a tattered dress and bare dusty feet balances a baby on one hip and munches a little green guava in the other hand, a treasured treat in the middle of a long fall day. south of the clinic, near the mosque that blasts the call to prayer 5 times a day through our open windows, boys and girls in the industrial area of town stand in clusters outside of the buildings packed from floor to ceiling with garbage (empty bottles, greasy cardboard scraps, ripped black plastic bags) pressed into cubes and stare into space and chew hard green guavas. alizarin and i eat them before lunch with vikas and diana, passing them around like a joint, each person getting a big juicy bite and handing it over to the next in the circle with a full mouthed giggle. 

we live in this place where people bake cakes in their pressure cookers. and where people insist on keeping secrets that everyone knows about while everyone else pretends not to know. and where coffee is just sweet sweet milk with the slightest brown tinge. and where there are rules for when you can drink water with food (e.g. no water with greasy food like puri and no water after eating cucumber, guava) because otherwise your stomach will get upset. and where neem or tulsi (holy basil) or coconut oil can apparently cure anything from dry hair to mosquito bites to infections to malaria to coughs. and where people insist that eating with your hands makes the food taste much better. and where goats where ripped turtlenecks and where the idea of wearing one anklet not two in absurd. this place is pure chaos that somehow fits and pushes onward. its like the traffic. to the untrained eye the traffic appears to be a hellish race with every vehicle pursuing its own route with no regard to laws or patterns, undoubtedly about combust, but really the the roads contain a massively complex community that functions like a petrol-powered bee hive, tons of rushing with constant communication and coordination making a group of individuals into one intricate organism. bhopal is unraveling in front of us and we can trace the paths that we follow through the city like mice in a maze-  memorizing the classic route from berasia road, past chowk market (where you can find chappals next to electrical appliances next to safron flavored ice cream scooped into a bright orange cone), around the corner where a series of dark, smoke-blackened shops begins (complete with old men crouching on their haunches enjoying the beedis tucked in their oil stained fingers and boys with coal smudged faces dodging the streams of sparks that fly off spinning wheels as they cut metal pipes) to furniture row where you can find any kind of chair, cabinet, bed or couch you could possibly need, past the soap and chemical row full of shops piled high with bubble gum pink chemicals in 3 gallon jugs to the looming stone gates that bring you to the open, lakeside spaces of new bhopal. and then back. bhopal is unfolding with all of its passion and absurdities and its moments of pure glee in the form of a bright new coat of paint over the mud and dung walls of a house, or a genuine smile from woman selling bloated yellow papayas. There are also those moments when you look around, full of love for bhopal and its people  realize the pain that is still lurking even 25 years after the gas, still  torturing so many via ailments or continued poisoning from the water and you feel this horrible tugging sensation inside, pulling out tears of anguish. you think- who could ever do that to these people- they must not know, not understand, must truly blind themselves. anyway this is what i'm thinking about as we zoom around bhopal and reflect on this mystery of a city that has become our home.

crows, Eh-spray paynt caines and gulab jamun....

Wooooow (as our friend Dr J would say)! Its been so long since we have blogged! Even this catch up, in which I will try and undoubtedly fail to sum up the last 2 weeks, must be brief cause its almost 11 pm, my laptop battery is at 32 percent and its cold out here on the stone ground outside of my machhar net and cozy sleeping bag that makes me look like a content glow worm.

Since Rachna, the coordinator of the ICJB (bhopal.net) and Sathyu's wife and essentially the strongest woman of my life (besides you, mom), got back from the Bhopal bus tour in Europe things have been crazy here. Every day Rachna gives like 10 interviews with local, national and international reporters (look out for Sambhavna on BBC, CBC, Al Jazeera, AP, etc.) while getting tons of work done and giving us tons of work to do. Alizarin has been slaving away on Photoshop making placards, I have been scanning and typing documents, we have been sketching and painting and printing and building and reading/writing about the disaster (for a slideshow we are preparing chronicling the lead up, disaster and aftermath) and so much more. Its been insane. Luckily, this place embodies that balance between serious commitment to one's work to improve the world and the pure hilarity that keeps your mind and body alive and happy! We work work work then laugh with kids, zip around with 3 of us on a motorcycle in the clear fall sunlight and learn grotesque hindi dancemoves from videos of hritik rochan and do yoga and cook spicy dinners (dal, chapati, chaval, curry aloo and fresh GUAVA was our last brilliant creation) and keep smiling all the while. then we go home or back to our computers or projects and get back to work. Its great. 

Another important thing in our recent lives is that we have had the privelege to work as apprentices of sort of an amazing professional muralist, Janet Braun-Reinitz. Janet is a riot at 71 years and 5 feet she is constantly seeing the beauty in lines and colors and spouting stories  rich in detail and walking about in red platform heals over little white socks leading up to paint-splattered overalls and puffing out her new york accent while chain smoking pall mall reds. in short, she's brilliant. most of her murals are in NYC (she lives in Bedstuy, Brooklyn) but she has them all over the world from Nicaragua to Rome to Pensicola. we've been helping her sketch out and paint a beautiful bright mural about the disaster and the corporate crimes of UCC and Dow and the survivors struggle for justice on a wall across from the abandoned UCC factory. we've now been featured in the Bhopali newspaper for this (me and alizarin both concentrating on painting within the lines) and have been recognized aournd the neighborhood a few times as those artists from the paper!

I have to go as I'm running on reserve battery but today was great! finished a secret building project, got about 1/2 way done with a hip-high crow sculpture (to be explained soon), ung out with ICJB right hand man Vikas and learned about Hindi and village life an then topped off the night with ridiculous bollywood esque dancing and lots of sweets (GULAB JAMUN seconds yum!) at a wedding of SAmbhavna's accountant. I love this community and feel so (i hate to say it cause its so damn corny but here goes) blessed to be apart of it! Bhopal zinda bad!

grooveshark classics

most overplayed songs in our bhopali life...

'girl' and 'sex laws' by beck

'hello operator' and 'you don't know what love is' by white stripes

'be healthy' by dead prez

'hey ma' by cameron

'oh yoko' by john lennon

'country cousins' by talib kweli

'single ladies' by beyonce as well as our own cover, 'all my muslim ladies remix' based on the call to prayer.... basically think beyonce and replace the lyrics with 'up in the mosque, on this namaz, doin my own little thang, call me to prayer, hijab on my hair, soon as that old guy starts to sang. a-a-llah a-a-a-a-allah'etc.

'L.E.S. artistes' by santogold

'grillz' nuff said

'i've just seen a face' 'two of us' (shout out to our rickshaw driver who had to hear us sing that to console ourselves on the way home from dropping ruth at airport) and other beatles jams

'April 1992' by sublime (whistling that shit daily...driving everyone insane)

'todi milli geya' by sharukh khan from the hindi movie Kuch Kuck Hota Hai (our fav and apparently the pachmari driver's too cause he played it like 20 times)

Pachmahri. WOOOOWWWW!

Chale!!! Our trip started off with the nineof us, all rushing, still stuffing towels and shirts into our backpacks, to pile into one suburban (with a driver who had crazy bright honey and green eyes and henna maroon hair). We were off to Pachmari, a hill resort in a jungly mountainous area of Madhya Pradesh. The six hour drive was crammed but fun. We ate snacks (not to be confused with snakes as Vikas did many times throughout the trip. then there was the famous kitchen-chicken debacle..), blasted bollywood jams (kuch kuch hota ey is the besttt) and put our heads out the windows as we zipped through the countryside. Outside of Bhopal (we were heading south) it was all farms and the occasional little village or town, jampacked with life and commotion and neon colors as our car was with sweaty people. The sun set over the fields in a blaze of orange and red as round and sundar as jayshree’s chapattis and alizarin and I knew this weekend was about to be incredible.

After dark we reached the area around Pachmari, and you could tell cause suddenly the car was dipping and reeling at the most unlikely angles, defying physics with every turn, and headlights were shining at thick tangles of trees, brush and vines. We rejoiced all the way, making us tired out and starving by the time we got through about a million bamboo-pole toll stops and to our hotel. We quickly set up in our room, which was the physical embodiment of a longtime fantasy for alizarin and i, literally a BED room. all of it save for a narrow path bisecting it lengthwise was one giant Indian cotton patterned bed, perfectly conducive to a 2 night slumber party of the best kind. We shoveled malai kofta and chana into our bodies in the silent, zombielike manner of some tiredass clinic workers then went on a Roopa-inspired post-meal walk in a tight circle around Pachmari’s little, relatively bare streets. We treated Biju to an icecream and grilled him about his life story while Vikas tried to convince everyone to go to a “night club” to dance (which sounded to us sensible gori goris like the everyday experience of having tons of Indian men standing around leering creepily at you except intensified +techno bollywood and like 2 colored lights… essentially hell). Back at the room Biju and I donned turbans and we all played cards- bullshit or, as Indians say, bluffmaster. It was hilarious because Roopa, Biju, Jay and especially Vikas were hilariously inept and kept trying moves like ’15 tens’ or putting down a 9 when they were supposed to put 8 because ‘that’s what i have. i have a lot of 9’s”. We laughed a lot, had a brief and destructive ladies vs. gents pillow fight and then went to sleep.

The next day was 100 percent amazing site seeing. We got in the suburban and didn’t stop til we had traversed pachmari’s wonders to the max. the itinerary went…

-a shiva temple carved into a deep, narrow, rocky ravine complete with old ladies kissing and worshipping smoothed stalagtites believed to be shiva lingams (aka the holy penis of hinduism’s “great destroyer”) and men in just their skivvies bathing in holy mineral water (that had a hindi sign in front of it specifically prohibiting swimming!). littering the steps leading down to the temple were tons of carts full of ayurvedic treatments and spices- all plants from the surrounding forests including gigantic jungle onions and some suspicious red, bony things that alizarin and I are convinced were dried monkeys’ hands

-a brief stop at a 19^th century Anglican church built for the british officers of the hill station. it was funny how foreign and impressive the place seemed just because it was so outlandish in landscape of asian-influenced mosques and temples. we sat outside on an odd reclining stone bench with vikas and had a few bites of his parathas then briefly entered the cool chamber, again a world apart from the blinding Indian sun outside.

-went to ‘suicide point’ basically a high cliff overlooking gorgeous mountains, where we ate sitaphal for the first time. we had seen the mysterious fruit before on the bhopali streets and always thought it was some bitter vegetable, based on its resemblance to an artichoke, but now discovered that inside the spiky green shell there are tons of miniature white mangos around black overgrown watermelon-looking seeds.

-our next stop was at echo point, another cliff above gorges of jungle trees. biju immediately howled into the valley, which howled back after a moment, but when we tried the rocks refused to acknowledge our peeps as return-worthy. eventually dede's got reflected, but the rest of us got shamed.

-we returned to the vehicle and got psyched to hike the 2 km to the temple at the top of the mountain. unfortunately, we never made it to the temple. we stopped and got snacks of poha, vegetable patties, jalebi and kachori in the midst of a giant farmer picnic that was going on near the temple. we lost dr. jay and roopa on their voyage to find a bathroom so we decided to sit and wait for them. to our good fortune, we ended up sitting near the camping ground of a sweet lady who looked just like laura radigan. she insisted on feeding us boiled peanuts, something i'd only had in dong tee (like a chinese tamale) before, and delicious home-prepared masala snacks. by the time we decided to head back to the vehicle for our lost party, it was too late to see the temple.

-Bee Falls was our next stop, so named because when the British colonized this shit back in the 18/19th centuries, they thought that standing under the waterfall felt like being stung by thousands of bees at once. Vikas and Dr. Jay jumped in to the chilled upper-fall pools, closely followed by Biju and Dede (fully clothed, gleefully following Indian dress codes). Everyone else lingered around the edges of the water and Victoria and I started to dip our toes in, which turned out to be an AWFUL idea because it put us close enough to the thoroughly drenched that they grabbed me by all limbs and dropped me, jeans and all, straight into the rushing, littered-in water of Bee Falls. We dried out on the rocks before trudging back into the car, ready to head out for...

-THE TALLEST MOUNTAIN IN MADHYA PRADESH!

It was a victory to watch the sun set from there.

We returned to the hotel after that, rejoiced, snacked, and made fun, then went to a fancy dinner place where we made friends with some ladies from New Bhopal who tried to teach us to dance and tended the firepit.

Back to the hotel, the four Amrikis singing Beatles and Simon & Garfunkle with Biju trying to join in even though he'd never heard the songs before packed into the rear of the suv, then Dede and Vikas battled yoga-style while we all tapered off to sleep after a long, glorious day of sightseeing.

The next morning Dr. Jay let us sleep in a little longer than the day before. Breakfast was served in bed to us (cuz there isn't any other furniture in that room!!) by the hotel chicken...whoops i mean kitchen, before we sat outside to wait for our tourguide.

Sight seeing day number two:

-some more rocks to climb.
-another gorgeous but more remote waterfall.
-a looong walk through a couple caves and back again. Dede and I spent a lot of our walking time appreciating a couple of our favorite teachers and appreciating the diversity of Chicago's cuisine.
-Dr. Jay stopped at EVERY POSSIBLE POINT to have someone take a serious nature photo of him.
-another cliff from where we could see the spot that the British used to execute people at by pushing them off, as opposed to hanging.

We ended the day with masala dosas at a little restaurant near the hotel followed by another 5-hour ride home, but what are close quarters among the greatest of traveling companions if not the optimal time to rejoice?

Colorful Cuties

Nuff said

two of us sending postcards, writing letters

ruth left last night. for awhile the three of us were a bit of a rickshaw-borne wreck, but by the time we saw her off past the final security guard, we'd realized that it was a time to rejoice and that we'll be reunited before we know it. no mushy stuff on the blog.

while we were dropping ruth off at the airport, we got a new roommate. her name's corina and she's from switzerland. she'll be with us for a few weeks and she's a physical therapist. her mind's being blown by beena's (a beautiful and sweet panchakarma therapist) ayurvedic masage techniques, but she's hoping to integrate some of these moves with her western training.

since then, i've made a garden map while dede weeded in the garden, we planted a new mossy floor on the playground, done so much yoga, had dosa thursday (dosas are a southern food. they're made of pureed black lentils, rice, water, a little salt and some onion and are pretty comparable to crepes. we had them with coconut/cilantro chutney, aloo (potatos), and leftover mattar (peas). nobody beats Jayshree's cooking), we almost finished our sculpture, we've been interviewed numerous times by journalists hanging around Sambhavna, and studied hindi diligently.

we're anticipating an awesome retreat this weekend with a some sambhavna workers and the rest of the volunteers.

also, scroll down because there are tons of new posts down there. we're finally catching up after an intense backblog.

sita, ram, strippers and rice pudding..SUNDAY FUNDAY!

This past sunday the 5 of us (alizarin, ruth, me and the victorias) set off at 7 am - in a sketchy white kidnappers van with dirty shag carpeted seats facing eachother like a diner booth -into the Madhya Pradesh countryside. As we took berasia road out of the city we watched the UCC Factory's presence slowly and eerily stretch and then diminish- first the factory itself and then a series of dingy, patchily overgrown fields (undoubtedly heavily contaminated) studded with the occasional metal structure, and then just past some railroad tracks where we saw what we believe to be the infamous solar evaporation ponds full of toxic waste that are causing much of the contamination (completely unguarded and not roped off with a few people walking on their edges). once we got out of the city the atmosphere was so different- small, rough brick houses with neatly painted teak columns, openness unimagined in the bustle of Bhopal in the form of fields and fields.. some with little green sprigs, some dry and burning (we couldn’t figure out why but it was definitely intentional), and a few full of marigolds. Our driver blasted the one bollywood cd he brought along, sang off key and chewed neon red paan (a mix of betel nut, spices, sometimes tobacco and paan leaves that many Indians love/are addicted to) incessantly, often stopping to our dismay to buy more and spit globs of bloody-looking saliva through his maroon striped teeth. As you can probably guess, we weren’t to happy with him but it was Sunday funday and no one could bring us down.

After about 45 min we made it to Sanchi, one of the most impressive series of stupas (buddhist structures commemorating Guatama and his teachings.. They are shaped like upside down bows because when a disciple asked buddha to design a structure that followers could congregate around to remember him in the future he used his only 3 objects a walking stick, a beggar's bowl and a shawl.. TADA a stupa! one more buddhist factoid: according to the book i was browsin on at Sanchi when buddha had his epiphany he saw 4 things- a diseased man, a dead man, a monk and the last which i had never heard before STRIPPERS. i thought that was funny...) in India- initially built by the highly regarded Buddhist leader Ashoke and then added on to over the ages before being deserted, rediscovered amidst the jungle.

Sanchi was beautiful. We were ripped off for the white girl price of 250 rps. each compared to the indian 5!!! We entered only after wading through a rowdy procession of cows that happened to cross in front of the gate just ahead of us. they were all still decorated from divali with painted horns and henna dalmatian polka dots. once in we walked around, appreciating the ornate gateways, massive stupas, parthenon-esque ruins and many smooth buddhas with their faces taken off (we thought by thieves or maybe the mughals, muslim leaders in the 16th century, or other muslims since portraying the human form is sacrilege in Islam). We met some buddhists from singapore who were circumemulating (in other words walkin round and round and chanting real solemn like) and chuckled a bit at some snatched white american buddhists humming and rocking in corners.

We fumbled back into the conversation-encouraging van with only the driver in the front seat this time and began our trek to Udaygiri in neutral down the mini-mountain that Sanchi's stupas are perched on. We wondered at the burning method we saw some people using on their crops and laughed at the driver for stopping more times than we could count for paan, water (he made dede get out and hold his bottle under the tap while he pumped from a spiggot on the side of the road. humiliating), and to ask for directions, because when you're stuck in the backseat of someone's van and are hours away from anywhere you know and everything's in Hindi but you speak only English, all you can do is laugh.

When we got to Udaygiri, which was only 16 km away from Sanchi, we were greeted with choruses of "Money? Chocolate? Pen?" from all the local kids. And really, if you were to know only three words in English, could choose three with more crutial significance than these? We walked into the open metal gates that surrounded Udaygiri's rock formations and started searching for the Hindu and Jain cave temples that we'd read about in our guide books. Shortly, we realized that the temples were spread out over kilometers of land and that we wouldn't really be able to see many of them anyway and that a few had been locked up years ago because the ceilings were in dangerous condition. We hiked to the top of the rock formations and wondered at all of the people chopping up this plant (smelled like Sweet Annie, which can help fight malaria, but we never figured out what it was) for its branches. The view from the peak was vast and serene. The sun suggested we take a sit-down to collect ourselves and admire the moseying river, acres of farm plots, and chortle at the one satisfied cow that was grazing the who field on its lonesome. What a contrast to the American meat industry, something we've all been hearing a ton about since Dede picked up Food, Inc. It was a beautiful place but our visit was cut short because we all got separated and had to meet a Victoria at the car because we couldn't find her up in the rocks.

We debated going to Bhojpur (waaay south) and decided to stick with the original plan and visit Vidaisha. We traded numbers with the driver and told him we'd be back after some time so we could walk around and get a bite to eat on our own. We started asking around for a restaurant and quickly realized that there was only one restaurant spot in Vidaisha and it was about a kilometer away. We stopped at a vender on the ground to buy jingly ankle bracelets and didn't get as ripped off as we could have thanks to Victoria's bartering skills before we got to the restaurant. We had a delicious meal of chapaatis, curried vegetables, chana (chickpeas), kafta (a paneer dish), and another paneer dish, coming to a grand total of Rs. 300 (6 dollars for 5 people! I love hindustannnn!)

On the way back to the van we stopped in a curtained-off storefront temple and got invited to sing and cymbol-chime along to "Sita RAM!" with a bunch of wrinkly, enthusiastic and friendly old men (one of whom we nicknamed snoop for his resemblance to the rapper and who was dancing around like a madman and smilingly teaching ruth his bell-making method).We were jamming and laughing so hard that we didn't realize the crowd gathering outside looking in until it was so thick we couldn't see the street. Turns out they don't get many tourists in Vidaisha.

Ruth and I picked up a couple mini Hindi-English dictionaries and Dede got a neon orange anklet on our way back to meeting our disgruntled driver, who we thankfully saw driving down the road. We hopped in and ended Sunday Funday with Roman's pasta and sauce made from scratch and some 30 Rock in Sathyu's room.

sculpture before and after and after and after

love her up.

Extra Extra! white girls REJOICE with ice cream!

divali came and went with tons of booms and crashes that made us think bombs were going off around sambhavna. I painted all day (made 3 crazy patchy paintings on newspaper canvases glued together with flour and water paste.. ahh all natural materials prove the impact that the sambhavnan state of mind is having on me). Alizarin and Ruth spent their time ‘rejoicing’ (as Roopa would earnestly say) with Roopa on this precious day off (she’s a hardworking ayurvedic doc) playing Indian card games.

 

We made eggplant with a coconut, peanut, cilantro sauce as well as rice and chapattis cause jayshree didn’t come to cook

 

Sunday we read in the library- I picked up Food, Inc. and got really into it

At night we watched 2 movies with Amarin, Roman and Roopa (Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World it think. SHOUT OUT TO NICK HEMENWAY #1 werner Herzog fan du monde.. and District 9 later)

 

The rest of the week flew by but here are some things that happened…

Tuesday we paper mached hardcore at ICJB with the Children against Dow Carbide, finishing the sculpture’s head, face, body, hair and arms

Alizarin and Ruth watched Casablanca with the kids and Roopa while I talked with two new volunteers who had just arrived after a 36 hour train ride from Calcutta. I wanted to give them the low dows about Sambhavna so it would be easier for them to understand what the system is here than it was for us. They are both named Victoria, very bubbly, from NY and New Orleans respectively and have been traveling all over the middle east and India since July now. They’re here for 10 days. Already we’re having a lot of fun with them.

Wednesday we went to Chowk (a nearby market composed of tiny winding lanes of stands with fabrics, popcorn sellers meandering about, every type of chappal you could possibly want) and to 2 nearby mosques with a schoolteacher who does a lot of work with Sambhavna, Shakila. She originally asked us to do an English lesson but we ended up just kind of hanging out and exploring with her. She was very sweet but a little unclear about the whole thing. We got a new type of ice cream, funky flavored scoops in bright orange cones (alizarin and I got saffron and pistachio, ruth got a neon purple raisin flavor. Indiatastic yum) and saw out of the corner of our eyes a man snapping picks of us enjoying the treat…

Thursday a researcher told us we were in the paper. The random ice cream pick was in the centerfold of the Raj Express! It was Alizarin and the 2 Victorias getting down on their ice cream looking fierce. the caption says how happy they are to be enjoying the ‘beautiful capital’ but they all look they’re about to battle somebody. very funny that 5 white girls is worthy of that kind of coverage. we joked that we eat ice cream so much that many papers could start to feature us in a sort of 'where's waldo?' series where bhopalis would guess where we were lickin' our cones... Also, CNN international came to the clinic that day to interview Sathyu and ended up asking Ruth a few questions about Bhopal and why we were there. Very odd. We just ate our usual 4 sprigs of holy basil (also called tulsi and supposedly an ayurvedic malaria prophalaxis… can’t hurt. maximum malaria protection is the plan) and went on with our day.. Ah and I finished Food Inc.- it was a quite good intro for me to the horror of industrial food production, the harm of ethanol production, the migrant labor system and GM and also a helpful guide in terms of what to do to protest this unnatural, uber-corporate situation that Americans are trapped in. I highly recommend it.

We had a major breakthrough with the kids at ICJB and finally got them involved with the sculpture which they had hitherto been kinda reluctant to get into- partially cause the paper mache was so messy and in a way hard to do. They painted so much- everyone shared bowls of the all natural paint we made from gulal pigment and water or oil (after Sathyu’s rejection of the idea of us using acrylic, the toxicity of which we had never thought about before). Even the little kids got into it- painting her sari yellow and green, her hair black and even criticizing the brown we had mixed and making a better one! it was a great feeling to see all the kids getting into it- joking and teasing us about our hindi all the while. the victories took pictures of the process and we talked about Dow and the water contamination. when the sculpture was all covered with layer # 1 and looking pretty fine, we thought, we had a mini hindi dance party! after the kids left- this time without cajoling from us- we walked with Vikas and got our indulgent post-work tradition underway- TOP ‘N TOWN ICE CREAM TIME! we walked home victorious with the victories…

Today I woke up and did hindi; I can now decipher a lot of sounds from the symbols. my brain is primed with a rocky foundation for really learning this language in-depth. then I helped the victories de-rock the dry ground in the playground area for kids (a work in progress that the gardener, Ratna, told me they will be covering with soft, fastgrowing mossy lawn grass tomorrow and Monday. I pledged our help) Ratna and I made plans to meet Monday about us making a permanent metal sign showing the different plants grown on a map of the garden and she also asked if we could teach her to bake western style bread. I said hell yes but we do have to find an oven or at least the materials to make the solar one we’ve been dreaming of… Later I finished a poster the cleaning lady asked us to do about how to make all natural soap from arita nuts (which the clinic does all the time), read 90 rambling and intense and frankly manic pages to finish off Moon Palace by Paul Auster. I went down to the ping pong room and found Ruth and Alizarin playing a beatly 2 hour long tournament with a bunch of Sambhavna workers who had stayed for the occasion. It was hilarious and so impressive. Then I read more, part of an autobiography of Gandhi in French, and we chilled before a long, amazing dinner. Aloo gobi with green lentils and paratha with cilantro in the batter. My eyes were filled with hearts for Jayshree, as usual. Sathyu teased Ruth mercilessly and that was great. After dinner it was scrabble, envelope making out of hindi newspapers inspired by Ruth and another long story-filled conversation with the Victorias who mostly talked about (and acted out animatedly) crazy experiences they had working together in one of New Orleans’ most famous bars on Bourbon street. There were insane roommates, meth dealers, bounty hunters, hookers from vegas, a attempted shooting and the wacky and dark aftermath of Katrina- in short a whole lot of crazy shit with New Orleans flavor. The two are hilarious and so far very fun to hang out with. We made plans for gardening for tomorrow and alarms are set. Time for teethbrushing with filtered agua and sleep sleep sleep.

We owe you a big thank you

Sorry we haven't posted this earlier-the list keeps growing-but we're sending out a HUGE post of thanks to everyone who contributed to our Sambhavna Trust donation fundraiser.

Here goes...

Thank you so much Joe Gencarelli, Kathryn Tholin, Heidi Ong, the Crowell family, the Hines family, the Mrvickas, Pat Eichenold, the Lazarus clan, the Knowlton family, Roni Seltzberg, Mrs. Yu, the Hemenways, Grammy and Grampy, Michelle and Phillipe Leroux, Anne Northrup, Susan Kilbane, Nancy Kelly, Gay Swenson, Randi Friedman and Lester Krumholz, Adele Simmons, Bradley and Karen Shea, Rachel DeWoskin, Grandma Mari, Karen Bopp (we love you!), Bonnie Eddy, Kim Menninga, Larry and Mary Menninga, Dr. DeeDee, Mary Castiglione and Scott Minter, Mark Pickus and Donna Caplin, Chrisabeth Menninga, the Berman-Brotmen, Fabio Beron, Michael Cates, Patricia Tebeau, Barbara Di Eugenio, B. J. Richards, Bill Ayers, Grandpa Minter, Bill Rehm and Joanny Ruby, Tracey Shafroth, Karen Fogg (for everything!), Margaret Lin, Papa Eddy, Mama Eddy, Shannon Azaria, the Menninga-Fongs, the Burgi-Huttons, Rick Ayers and Ilene Abrams, Anne and Frederick Klonsky, Kimberly Allen, Richard Pokorny and Ellen Wehrle, and Uncle Mike.

If there's anyone we forgot to mention, don't hesitate to let us know. We appreciate you!

Sathyu and Rachna were so grateful when we handed over the contributions (which came to about $ 3,500!) and they will definitely put them to good use running the clinic. Just to give you all a basic idea about what your money is going toward and what an impact you are having here's some info about the daily ongoings at Sambhavna (all of which are made possible by individuals' donations as Sambhavna does not take any corporate sponsorship on principle).

There are 2 ayurvedic doctors here who each see about 35-40 patients a day and 2 allopathic doctors as well (one is a pediatrician). Roughly 200 patients receive care every day -in the form of checkups, panchakarma therapy like massages, enemas etc., yoga and ayurvedic/allopathic medicine from the free dispensary. These patients come from any of 17 neighborhoods in Old Bhopal which are either effected by contaminated water/soil or were effected by the MIC gas leak in 1984. one must have been alive during the disaster, effected in utero or second generation effected (because the toxins have infiltrated genes) or be using the contaminated water to be elligible for care. People recieve all kinds of care here, not just for directly or overtly gas-related ailments; kids often come for general checkups and people come for fevers/colds or yoga that relates to diabetes and obesity.

Sambhavna is unique as a clinic in the sense that it is multi-faceted and its opreations pertain to the many different factors relating to Bhopalis' health and the disaster. There are 12+ researchers who go out into the effected communities daily to take surveys on health and the surrounding environment. They are currrently working on an extensive project on the incidence of cervical cancer among those effected by the toxins. There is also a team of health workers whose job entails going around the bastis (slums) and other neighborhoods to see if people need to be referred to Sambhavna for care, do follow ups on those who have been treated (creating a sort of check and balance system), make sure people are using medicine and dieting correctly (a major problem in Bhopal has been abuse/overuse of medicine because of lack of instruction, etc. many people who now go to Sambhavna were ingesting high doses of harmful, expensive steroids and painkillers before.), do malaria & anemia control and do screening for cervical cancer. The healthworkers also do special projects like health camps on certain days for people in the most effected areas (cause they are so far from the clinic) like the neighborhoods of nawab colony and shivshaktinagar which are nearest the factory site. In the past they have brought medicinal and vitamin rich herbs to people for planting family gardens and have set up 2 herbal gardens in the most effected areas.

The plants and seeds come from the herb garden around Sambhavna where 3 gardeners work daily to grow tons of plants including bamboo, hibiscus, aloe, guavas, tulsi 'holy basil', roses, tumeric, neem and more. These plants are used to make about 80 different ayurvedic medicines for everything ranging from malaria prevention to diarrhea meds to treatment of skin issues.

Most importantly, Sambhavna lives up to the ideals that prompted its creation. The name means compassion and possibility, sentiments that are reflected in the work the clinic achieves and how it is run. One of the most impressive things about Sambhavna is the egalitarianism of its inner workings; all workers, from the managing trustee to the doctors to the gardeners to the cleaning ladies, assemble together at a weekly meeting on Friday. People sit in a large circle lining the walls of a cricular, thatch roofed hut between the main building and the garden and have a thorough discussion of the goings-on of the week. Anyone can bring up a topic or concern and they do! quite directly and bluntly. Health workers question the effectiveness of doctors' work, researchers criticize the cleaners' attention to detail, people voice their concern if the dal at the canteen is too watery and they think there should be a new chef. But they also congratulate eachother, pinpoint successes, joke and laugh a lot and make big decisions collectively about expenditures and rules. The workers are truly a community with ample communication, friendship and dedication to work binding them together (along with widely shared loves of ping pong and karams). Also, Sambhavna's principle of valuing all types of workers is illustrated by its pay scale. No worker (even the highest paid doctor and the managing trustee) makes more than 5 times what the lowest paid worker receives (including those who clean, cook and do security). Not many businesses or NGOs can say the same.

Again, the contributions that we brought and those of others who are concerned are used to do all of what I have described by composing the budget of Sambhavna and supplying the wages of its deserving workers. Thank you all again for your generosity and compassion. And for those who would like to donate you can go to Sambhavna's website (bhopal.org) for more info. Much love.

The definition of eerie

On Wednesday Oct. 14 our mission was to gain entry to and explore the rotting, old Union Carbide Factory- the sight on the disastrous chemical leak on Dec. 3 &4 1984. The disaster cost 20,000 Bhopalis their lives and continues to haunt Old Bhopal in the form of chemical contanimation in the soil and water, as well as, on going health problems (which Sambhavna strives to treat people for). 

 

Our first task was to get permission from the Madhya Pradesh gov. We headed over the the collector's office at 11 am. We rode up to a chaotic site with a dozen men sitting at an outdoor table to the right of a building made of semi-open tiles which tons of people were crowded around and along shoving papers, requests, hazy passport photos and IDs through the holes to numerous government peons, who were themselves barricaded by stacks of grey-brown old papers frosted with a thick layer of dust, and were quickly shuffling through them and sending people off in a million directions. We finally got assigned a room in the building- 101. I would go on but describing each room we were sent to would be so arduous and repetitive. Each one had people in dark corners idly flipping through dingy books, jotting down page-long numbers, and shuffling and reshuffling the books and string-tied stacks of ancient-looking dust grey papers that lined every wall. Copies were made, things were shuffled, looks were given, we were once asked why we wished to 'go and see nothing' (and we replied with a few bats of our eyelashes that we learned about it in school and were oh so interested) and about 20 Indian men signed our sheet and sent us on our way. VICTORY NUMBER TWO WITH THE INFAMOUS BUREAUCRACY OF THE INDIAN GOV! (no. 1 being our visas)

 

 Entering the compound. (2 guides, shehnaz, alizarin and me)

 

After lunch we met up with Shehnaz, who had never been and decided to come with us on our tour of the factory. We walked North for approx. 10 minutes and then sauntered up to the gate with our fancy MP-backed permission papers and handed them to the guards lounging at the end of an overgrowth-lined path. 2 men offered to show us around. The factory sits in a vast compound (we were told of 100 acres) which is largely overgrown with vines, grass, leafy bushes and mint all interspersed with crumbling brown bricks, the sparkled of monsoon-flattened litter and the occasional rusted metal object. The first thing we saw was a little clearing where about 6 giant black water buffalo were grazing green stalks grown on contaminated soil. My first instinct: this shit is eerie. then a thin, man with dark leathery skin emerged from the brush to the right our path carrying a long pole across his shoulders and cutting plants. 

 

We walked past a large, rusty 3 legged metal tower and the guards explained in Hindi (Shehnaz translated) that it was the control tower that was supposed to sound the alarm continuously to warn people of a chemical on the night of the disaster. In fact, it was deactivated  to avoid alarming people (!). 

                     

We approached the actual factory and the specific area where the pesticide Sevin was produced using the lethal chemical that leaked that night, methyl isocyanate or MIC. It was a mass of Dr.Seuss-esque piping, screws, furry thermocole insolation and corrogated metal. It was rusting and  it was obvious that parts had fallen off or been stripped off by desperate residents of the nearby slums to sell as scrap metal. A strange acidic smell merged with that of buffalo dung and mint. It may have been phsycological but Shehnaz started to feel strange as we walked around. We stepped on a pile of some stuff that looked like hampster pellets and, in fact, was a substance used to mop up a chemical that leaked (according to the guard). 

 

  The MIC tank.   

 

Next we walked past a giant black structure surrounded by trees and shrubs. It looked like an old submarine or an enormous black pill. It was the tank that leaked 40 tons of MIC into the air in 1984. The plants we nearly overtaking it and like many structures around the factory, it seemed as if nature was trying to gobble up the toxic remains of that horrible night, though we know that it can't. On the contrary, the remains have the potential to gobble up nature.

  The shed.   

 

Then we passed a shed that the guard told us contained more MIC (though Sathyu later told us this must have simply been a bad translation and that there is no MIC in that tank). Alizarin and Ruth peered in and took pictures but Shehnaz and I ran away because we were freaked out by the guards warnings that cobras and other poisonous snakes dwell there. Overall, the shock of this surreal and utterly eerie place was sinking in. 

 

Us in the former control room  

Next we went to a building that was mostly overrun with cobwebs and dirt. After quickly surveying a small room that must have once been an office (in which we found an old broom and a purple kite, the first concrete proof that kids still play on the factory site) we hoisted ourselves through a broken window into the former control room, where UCC workers once sat when they were informed of the leak and hesitantly fiddled with the broken valves, to no avail. It was a creepy moment looking at the 3d architectural plans of the factory which were clearly labeled with different chemicals (including MIC and Sevin) below the empty sockets where valve control switches must have been below a big yellow sticker reading "SAFETY IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS". 

 

Finally, we walked around behind the factory after prodding the guards for a while to let us see the slums. I expected a high metal wall with maybe some barbed wire to separate them from the factory compound. What we found was a dilapidated brick wall with makeshift structures lining every inch of it (greying wooden poles propped up burlap and plastic tarps). We were shocked to watch a 12 yr old boy scale it with ease until we saw the gaping, 10 foot holes where there wasn't even wall. Kids skipped in and out, women had hung colorful laundry across it and there was a muddy, plastic studded stream just outside it that a few toddlers splashed across to come see us, the gori goris, and wave hi. Seeing the intimate, direct contact that these people have with such an acutely contaminated site left us floored and speechless. I challenge anyone who doubts the gravity of the humanitarian crisis in Old Bhopal to do so while walking around that compound, while beholding rusty tanks leaching stagnant chemicals and tiny, fragile, smiling children ankle-deep in mud within 20 feet of eachother. I know that after that experience I will keep fighting until Dow takes responsibility, the site is cleaned and justice is achieved for Bhopalis.

Supplies and buckwild little activists

Yesterday was a strange one. The morning wasn't very eventful cause Ruth and Alizarin woke up at 10!!! Man we have got to get back on track with our 7 am wake up calls cause right now we're slacking! We did a little bit of Hindi with the Yoga instructor Bharti and then headed off to Bharat Bhawan (the art/cultural center) where we had a brief meeting with a taciturn, little man who is the head of the graphic arts department. We paid 500 rupees and filled out a few forms and now we're set to make silkscreens with cool Indian artists whenever we want!

Our next mission: to get supplies for the sculpture we are making with the Children against Dow-Carbide and start to make the foundation for it. Only one of us can go with Vikas (a polite and handsome, or interesting as Roopa would say, ICJB worker) to buy what we need (which is a 4x4' plank of plywood, flour, a bendable metal screen, mad thick wire, yellow cloth, nails, red markers) so we nominated the healthiest among us. ALIZARIN! She just jumped on the back of Vikas' bike and was off! When Ruth and I met up with her later at ICJB headquarters she told us how she carried the plywood on the back of the bike and felt like all the Indians who we see every day carrying chairs, speakers, large quantities of babychildren, futons or 20 ft poles.

We started our work at ICJB around 1:30 (or DAYR in hindi) by molding the screen into a skirt shape, nailing it to the plywood, making a supportive structure inside out of spare wood and wire and then (to the kids' amusement when they showed up at 4) crumpling up tons of newspaper and filling the skirt up. We also had the kids write their ideas and feelings about the water contamination in red sharpie on a giant yellow cloth that we will drape on the sculpture as a sari in the later stages. By the end of the meeting we were so tired out by the kids who are very rambunctious and hyper and were constantly tugging us around and mocking our lack of hindi skills..

After an intense floor cleaning session (without the kids' help as they had just been herded out by our screams of 'FIR MELENGE!' meaning see you later and 'CHALO!' lets go).. We celebrated our work by treating Vikas to icecream at the snack store that we now know is the ultimate snack emporium of BHOPAL! If you happen to be stoppin' by just know there's no street name; tell your shaw driver snack zone across from hospital (and theres about a billion in Bhopal so your gonna have to specify Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital).

At home we had dinner with the giant family that Sambhavna's volunteer population has become. Let's count em--- Me, Alizarin, Ruth, Roman (the Austrian computer programmer who works for the Bhopal medical appeal), Javed (Kashmiri ICJB student coordinator), Maude, Roopa, Amiran (traveling freelance photojournalist ), Jimmy, Ashish, Sathyu, and Rachna...12 in ALLL! We also made a chart so that everyday 2 people will be responsible for doing a little (or a lot) extra cleanup.. this was prompted by an incident a few days ago when dal, rice and chapatis were left out and we found some chipmunks feasting like kings!

Our family grows and Vodafones

We've been pretty busy as of late. We went to bed with plans to cook an American brunch of french toast, apple pancakes, omelets, and fruit salad, but when we woke up Rachna said we had to hang the signs in Bharat Bhawan (the art center on the other side of the lake where the Yes Men Fix the World premier is tonight). We rickshawed it over (first time on our own) and talked to some of the artists there before Rachna arrived. They pay Rs. 200 a month and have access to incredible facilities, a deal we're hoping to get in on so that we can mass-produce some Bhopal propaganda or something equally awesome. Bharat Bhawan is similar to Sambhavna in that when you walk in its gates, you feel like you're traveling worlds apart. When you enter Sambhavna's gates, the air clears up and the noise dies down and space opens around you like magic. The picture on the right is of the view from a ledge that we sat on admiring the view, reading (demonstrated by Dede, left) and talking about communal living and tipping.

Besides relaxing in the sun at Bharat Bhavan, we made and set up some more Yes Men posters.

We rickshawed home, had some lunch, then hopped the back of two ICJB guys' motorcycles to the Children Against Dow Carbide meeting. Most open, thrilling form of transportation yet. The meeting was going smoothly, everyone liked our ideas and we're excited to get the project started tomorrow. The best part, though, was the breakdown. They decided to postpone the rest of the meeting agenda because enough had been accomplished, and all of a sudden everyone started singing in Hindi. Once they were done with that, kids would request songs then get up and do their individual dance routines. Best meeting ever.

The Yes Men Fix the World premier later that night. The house was packed and we laughed louder than anyone else there, but everyone enjoyed it and we highly recommend it to all of you out there. Check out their website to see if the movie will be showing anywhere near you: www.theyesmen.org.

It was a long day, but I don't think we can say anything's taken us as long as it did to get our cell phone chips today. We had to go to the same place three times before coming away with newly equipped inter-India Vodafones. The first time, the guy behind the counter told us we needed a resident's identification, so we walked the blocks back to the clinic and got copies of Sathyu's passport. When we returned, he told us that we actually needed three separate passport photos of him. Are you serious? Where the hell are we supposed to get three passport photos of Sathyu? He probably doesn't even have those. This sucks.

But being the resourceful little girls that we are, Dede remembered that we'd been snapping shots of him at the premier last night and that they were still on my camera in her bag! So we took a rickshaw to a photo place on Hamidia Road and had them crop and zoom in on the above photo to be just his head. They told us it was going to take at least half an hour to get the pictures done, so we went to the Taj-ul Masjid (third largest mosque in Asia, built in 1877) in the mean time with our neighbor friends. This is a picture she took of us in front of a view from the side of the mosque looking shine-tastic.

Bottom line: we got our mobiles and now we can call Roopa any time we want! Yes!!

By dinnertime tonight, our modest gang of volunteers (Maude and us) had grown by three: two journalists and a Kashmiri guy working with ICJB. And now it's time for bed.

Hogaya.

I don't know why you say ruko, I say chalo.

Prep yourselves for a short post because Ruth just invited me to her bunk and you know I can't turn that down. Toast and malaria pills for breakfast, yoga with Bharti for Ruth and I, painting another huge Yes Men Fix the World advertisement for Dede.

Next stop: canteen lunch.













Then Ruth and I took our now-regular post-meal walk through the garden, a habit picked up from the ayurvedic professional Roopa.
Some flowers from the garden. Anybody know what they are? We have yet to delve into the plants and their uses.

We made some more posters after lunch then hopped the bus (Rs. 1 per kilometer the bus drives you) to Shehnaz's where we spent the evening getting to know her family, neighbors, and failing at cooking rotis. She lives in a one flat with an accessable roof (as all roofs are) with fifteen other family members. We spent hours with them and got to know her sisters and neighbors, all of whom seemed somewhat fascinated by our being there.

This is a picture of Shehnaz, our friend, translator, and the keeper of files.

postermaking

      Ashish gets ahold of the camera   
    Ashish's photos of us painting  

 shehnaz's drawing of sathyu yawning! haha

 Alizarin lookin fly in that manly muscle shirt!