TOURIST turned traveler

The days after visiting India gained velocity –traveling became a rush against the clock as we docked from one Asian country to the next for the following few weeks, taking the days at sea in between each port to alleviate sleep deprivation and travel-worn, tired feet. India marked the physical halfway point in our journey ‘round the globe, and the thought that we were now turning around ignited our stamina to see and do everything possible. As a result, journal entries became more and more scattered; statements quickly turned to phrases and jots. Like all travel experiences, those crazy days have required some significant processing time. After all, it’s been more than a year since the voyage and I’ve only documented the first half… and I’ve only skimmed the surface.

Before the whirlwind begins, I’d like to take a step back from Malaysia tales and return across the Bay of Bengal to India, to the day I realized how not to travel, and the day that inspired the creation of this blog.

The last two days in New Delhi have been a blur of sights and sounds and buildings and tour guides. Traveling in a large group is getting intense, and half the time we can’t even get out of the bus that reads “TOURIST” in huge block letters across the front. This is not experiencing culture- it’s a human zoo with a metal barrier.

To elaborate on the intensity I described, I’d like to add that the bus reading “TOURIST” was filled with at least 50 American students, and it followed another bus with the same capacity and the same demoralizing word slapped across the front. It was a scorching day with no clouds in the sky. The windows of the bus wouldn’t come open. Someone threw up that morning, and the stench had permeated throughout the entire vehicle. I was doused in sweat and could only focus my thoughts on how rewarding a tall glass of ice water, or maybe a cold brew, sounded. As the bus jumped from Agra to the Taj Mahal to the Fatehpur Sikri village, I watched them float across tattered, foggy windows. Although I spotted all of the famous buildings that the tour guide pointed out, my memories from that day still consist of tang and discomfort on that mucky bus.

When we did get out of the bus, street vendors swarmed us… And for good reason: The “TOURIST” label was practically an invitation to attack us with trinkets for sale. Most of the desperate vendors couldn’t have been more than ten years old, and all I could wonder was whom they would bring their magnet-sale money home to that night, or if there was home to go to at all.

I decided that if I have a label I'd like it to be "traveler" instead of TOURIST.  I knew I was missing out on conversations, (bearable) scents, sounds of the city, smiles with passersby, and the like by sitting sedentarily watching it all go by. I had flashbacks of the huge bus that invaded the favelas in Brazil, and the standardized lion-hunting safari drive in South Africa. In all of those situations I was just sitting in some sort of transportation, removed from the activity around me. It was one of those epiphany, “a-ha!” moments –I didn’t want to be an audience to the bustling streets of India; I wanted to be a participant.  

I kept writing frantically. As I formulated my plan for this blog, the oh-so-overused cliché kept running through my head. “Live for the journey, not the destination.” I overuse it here once more because although chestnut, the phrase reminds me to slow down a bit and take it all in.

I think this blog will help me to tell all my stories –and it will get me started on my future journey. It will be a “travel” blog about virtually anything I do. Let’s face it –traveling means waiting in lines, getting lost, experiencing mass transit, getting confused, feeling uncomfortable and doing a hell of a lot of sitting. You don’t have to be in a new country to do all that. Traveling can happen anywhere, and the results are transformative. I think I’ll call it “En Route” or “In Transit” until I can come up with something cleverer. Endless possibilities because I’m always headed somewhere –I’ll be in transit my whole life.

So now with a breath of fresh air, so to speak, back to Malaysia, and the following countries, and beyond. I continue to journal to this day, and I'm excited for the evolution of Global Osmosis (a much more fitting title than "In Transit," if you ask me). 

A Vindication for Audacity

I spent my last afternoon in Chennai at Mocha, a hookah bar clad with tapestries and dim hanging lights and gem-toned embroidered pillows to lounge on. Friends and I posted up outside to sip chai tea under a the green canopy and write some postcards.

My message to my family couldn’t fit in the scarce white space on my postcard, so I composed a letter in my journal instead. Here’s an excerpt.

          This trip has taken me so far from my comfort zone in so many ways –just as I had hoped. Before the first port, I made it my goal to take a risk in every country, or at least try something new. I would do something that terrified me, or something that I would absolutely refuse to do at home.

         I hiked LenSois and jumped off cliffs in Brazil. I get nervous while precariously hiking because I don’t know where to put my feet and II was once terrified of heights because of what jagged, deathly edge I could land on. I surrendered to all that, though, and finished the six-hour, potentially treacherous hike in its entirety. I marched to the top of the rocks, and dove fearlessly into the dark waters... And I lived.

         I went sand boarding in Namibia. I’m the shameful Coloradoan who has never skied or snowb.oarded in her life. When my traveling group in Africa decided to board down a sand dune, there was no way I could continue being so lame. I lugged my heavy board up the dune and crashed, tumbled and struggled the entire way down... And I loved it.

         I went skydiving in South Africa. At this point, I was a self-proclaimed thrill-seeker, an adrenaline junkie. I had newfound confidence from jumping off cliffs and falling down sand, so I decided the best option for this port would be jumping out of an airplane. I can honestly say that those four minutes of soaring through the sky and falling toward Table Mountain were the most alive I’ve ever felt.

         Now I’m writing from India, where a week ago I was raring to go on the next adventure that would speed my heartbeat and mess up my hair.

But India didn’t have any extreme sports or natural structures that I could jump off of. Although I felt overwhelmed with the intensity of the traffic and crowds of people, I never felt fearful. There was only one instance when I felt especially out of my comfort zone.

         A friend and I wanted to buy silk scarves and saris, so we hailed a rickshaw driver and eventually broke past the language barrier to explain to the driver that we wanted “shopping.” He bobbled his head, which we took as “yes I know exactly where you want to go.” When he drove us to St. Thomas Basilica, we realized that the bobble head meant “I have different plans for you.”

         He drove us to a variety of destinations, and in between each stop we tried to tell him where we wanted to go, each time in a different way –hand gestures, different words for shopping and scarves, drawing stick figures on our arms with a pen – and each time he bobbled his head back and forth, grinned happily and zoomed down the highway. He would pull hastily to a hault at his next stop and wave for us to follow him. He speedily ran everywhere he went. We would shake our heads and submit to his strides. This went on for several hours.

At the mercy of our rickshaw driver and unable to communicate, we never did make it to the shopping center. We did; however, observe a prayer grotto, visit remains of the tsunami damage on the shore, enjoy a snake charming show down a dusty dirt path, and sip spicy tea while at a carpet-weaving lesson in a rug and silk shop. We even arrived back to the ship on time.

         Well, it seems that I did find my risk. I trusted a man whose language I did not speak to transport me through a country I’d never been to before. I kept getting back into the rickshaw after each stop, well aware that I had no clue where I’d be going next. I risked getting lost and missing the ship’s departure. Now that I write about it all, my heartbeat is pumping a little faster. The windy rickshaw ride tangled my hair, too. 

Q and A with the Working Women's Forum

India’s census information reveals that just over a quarter of the women in the country are employed by the labor force. Most of these women are cultivators, or somehow involved in the agricultural industry. One third of them are self-employed. (http://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id2064.html) 

In a country where one is likely to see only one or two women out of every five men on the street, the stats about women’s employment make complete sense. One out of five is not a documented fact, but merely a personal observation from roaming the streets of Chennai. I concluded that the many women I did not see were indoors, at home doing unpaid domestic work.

I was wrong. At the end of the day I found a great number of them at the Working Women’s Forum. And they probably would have been irritated to know that I thought they’d been cooking and cleaning all morning. 

The Working Women’s Forum (WWF) is an Indian grassroots nonprofit that helps women get grants to start their own businesses or go to college. It also provides job training and banking education, so that women can take control of their finances and eliminate debt. It helps them get involved with unions, sign up for inexpensive healthcare and provides education about reproductive rights and care.

The group of women at the organization dressed in vibrant wrap dresses, or saris, and many of them had gold jewels pierced into their noses and ears. They came into the conference room like a rainbow peeks out from the rain, their gems sparkling in the light from the windows. They were incredibly gracious, absolutely insisting that fellow travelers and myself sit in chairs while they all teemed onto the floor. They were also incredibly warm; they communicated with their huge smiles, which I received and reciprocated. None of us spoke each other’s language. I felt welcome nonetheless.

Via translation, the women engaged us in a question and answer session. They asked questions about what jobs women do in the United States, and what roles they fill in families. They wanted to know if men or women controlled household funds, and what single moms did in our culture. When it was our turn to ask questions, here are some of the responses we got in return.

Who works more in your families- women or men?

Women, by a long shot. Many women come to the forum because their husbands aren’t working and they need to sustain their families. Women often work their jobs and then come home to care for children, cook and clean. We don’t know how we find all the time, but we make it work.

What do your husbands think about your involvement in this organization?

Many of them encourage us to come and get involved. Others are threatened by our empowerment. But no matter what, they shut their mouths when we bring home money at the end of the day.

Our mother and father-in-laws present greater opposition. They are more traditional, and feel as if their sons need to be the heads of the household.

When do women in India usually get married?

Usually around the age of twenty, but the socialized limit is 21. One woman here got married when she was ten.

And how many babies do they typically have?

We are different than many women because we know about family planning now. We all hope to have one or two, so that we can provide better for less people. The Working Women’s Forum sponsors a family planning project that many of us volunteer for.

The WWF provides the means to get loans, but do they ever give out actual funds?

No. Sometimes women’s immediate response to cash in hand is to bring it straight to their husbands. That defeats the point.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you face in your every day lives?

The same challenges that you face. Sure there are financial issues, violence, poverty, our children, and many other social problems that lack public solutions, but our biggest challenges are internal rather than external. One woman here pushes a breakfast cart for her job. She is often scared that she will be robbed, and sometimes the police wont even let her set up for her sales. Each woman’s challenge is different than the next.

What keeps you coming back to the WWF?

The sense of community. These are our friends, and we bring our children.

What are you doing at WWF today?

(They pull out a bottle and pass it around for us to smell.) We’re teaching a workshop on how to make aromatherapy products and make profit off of them.

Our day at WWF ended with a shared cup of caramel-flavored chai tea, and a hoopla of dancing and singing with the ladies. We hugged and kissed everyone on our way out. I left hoping to one day exhibit some of the strength, and complete gorgeousness, I found in that room. 

To learn more about WWF and get involved, go to http://www.workingwomensforum.org/index.htm. 

Sunset Slippers

If you’ve seen a picture or a postcard of the Taj Mahal, then you’ve seen the Taj Mahal. You’ve even seen it in its prime.

If you were to see it with your own eyes, it would be much like the postcards that I sent out from India, except the postcards don’t have masses of people in them. Thousands of people walk around barefoot or cover their shoes with gauzy bags to protect this notorious space from their tread. Some of them kneel to pray, and others kneel to get the right camera angles. The immaculate tiled walkways are swarmed with tourists and tour guides, lovers and families, the old and the young. Even with chatter and camera flashes in the background, the scene seems to go silent at sunset just when the planet aligns with the sun to cast a orange glow on the grandiose structure. The orange becomes purple as the sun softens into horizon. And it is brilliant.

So it’s possible to see the Taj in its prime via postcard, but that piece of paper could never allow you to feel it. Standing on that brick is humbling; it makes you fell small, and young. Gazing at those colors and that design is perplexing. And wearing those slippers is itchy, but certainly completes the dazzling experience.

The experience is one inspired by Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of emperor Shah Jahan. As the love story goes, the emperor told the empress on her deathbed that he would build a structure symbolic of their love. One year later, the devoted widower began designing the marble tomb with patterned gemstones.

Maybe it’s the massive headcount on the premises, or perhaps it’s the charming origin that creates the Taj’s majesty. There’s a power about that place that no camera could capture. But it makes sense that we’d all like to take a little sliver of it home... I brought the booties.