Magical morning

Sunday 17th / Wed 20th

On Sunday morning my team had the opportunity to tag along with one of our classmates while she did some filming for her thesis project. We left the hotel at 7am and had a completely magical morning watching happy painted elephants have breakfast, enjoy their baths, and be led back to their open enclosure by exotic men with ashed faces and white drape-y loin cloths. We also spent time outside a Hindu temple watching worshippers leave their offerings, and then we sat and interviewed one young film producer, Ayush, from our chosen NGO, drishtimedia.org. All this before 9am! But the best part, the most magical for me, was outside the temple...kids, lots and lots of kids...

In my experience kids love watching themselves on camera video. My nephew loves it when I take video of him doing his performance, we watch it, and then of course I have to take another one immediately. When one of my nieces was only 2, she figured out all by herself how to replay and replay and replay a video of herself on my camera. The kids in the market were no different. When we arrived some women with babies approached us and a couple of teenage girls, but I hadn't seen any young kids. I was taking video of the offering altar outside the temple when I felt the now familiar tug of the teenage girl who'd been following me. I panned her into frame, and then her slightly younger friend wanted some airtime, but they both lost out to the little face who pushed them out of the way and smiled up into my lens. I'm guessing he's about 7, and just like my nephew he hammed it up and then I stopped the video and showed it to him and the group now surrounding me. Laughing their heads off and pointing, this little guy then wanted another video, of just him, then another, and another of him sliding across the stone tiles, until the man with the stick showed up. I didn't see this man because my back was turned, but Anika told me about him afterward, that this man came with a stick to shoo them all away from me. I wondered why they had all took off so suddenly, and why my little friend had suddenly stopped himself mid-slide and hid behind a gate. I have it on video, including the part when he meant to come back, but the man must still have been behind me as he scooted behind the gate again, tucked completely out of sight since the gate was as tall as he is.

This group of kids showed perfectly how they compete for our (a tourist's) attention, and while I realize the little fella was hamming it up for the camera, not me, his gregarious personality captured my attention--and my rupees--while the quieter ones stood by me and became fellow spectator. It's impossible to pay attention to everything your senses are trying to take in here: the smells, sights, sounds, crazy traffic, and unfamiliar goings on, such as these intense and insistent requests for money and attention. Some of the adult women can be quite aggressive, too, grabbing your arm and not letting go until you pull it away. This grabbing hasn't happened to me yet, other than being poked in the arm through a cab window, but my friends have experienced it and I've seen it, too. I guess it's like anything else: whatever is loudest and most disruptive holds your attention the most easily, whether it's a speeding rickshaw or an outgoing little kid. I quickly squished a wadded up 100 rupees (about 2 dollars) into his little hand when he and smiled to myself as, on cue, he vanished. I did this quickly and discreetly so the man with the stick wouldn't see, and before all the other kids came back, too. I find I'm making these decisions to give or not give and to whom and how much in the blink of an eye; all is happening so fast and you just do it or don't. It's a gut thing. Ayush assured us these kids were just working us, they have food and parents who likely run a shop in this area. Regardless, I liked these kids and we had some fun. I gave the little performer something in return for the laughs and insights, and I couldn't do the same for all of them. Knowing that they're fed and OK helped, and I didn't mind being worked over for awhile because for just a few minutes I was the girl with the video camera and they were the kids. And after Ayush had let us know they were fine, I even turned into a bit of a smartass with one of the older girls and started mimicking back to her that eating hand gesture. She'd do it then I would, then I'd speed up and so would she, and whoever lost the rhythm first lost the game and we both laughed. It felt normal, a lot more normal and real than "tourist and street kid."

Right now I'm in the plane for Goa. We're all ready for beaches, a more relaxed schedule, the pool, and the spa. Haley and Krysta are heading straight to the spa for bikini waxes, and AnikaDrishti is a Hindi word which means viewpoint, the power of sight. Drishti's youth initiative, Nazariya, means perspective. Viewpoint; sight; and perspective: mine have been a moving target as I've made my way through Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and whatever viewpoint one has coming in, it won't be the same going home. And Goa will be another one entirely.

Travelling with a group of 30 has begun to take it's toll after 10 plus days, bringing insecurities and weak points to the surface in all of us--leaders included. We're getting along just fine but at this point we're sticking pretty close with our friends to conserve energy. In class the other day we were talking about the personal financial realities of working for an NGO, and Wendy shared that at one point in her career being paid was a bit of joke among some co-workers. They were paid a small salary from their employer, so while they were nearly as "poor" as the communities they were working with they didn't have the insecurity, so the feigned assumed poverty was the punchline. The insecurity of not knowing where you next meal is coming from, of having no sense of the future or even tomorrow because all that matters is trying to make it through today, that's real insecurity, and it's where I plan to keep my focus as a student here. Right now we probably all need to take a good long breath from our own oxygen mask before we can be of any use to anyone else. We have a neutral travel day today, and we're also leaving the dry state of Gujarat which means drinks!, heading to nude beaches, and trance parties, spice tours and cooking classes. What an opposite "drishti"or "nazariya" from Ahmedabad, from ultimate conservativeness to ultimate hedonism. Like my Indian seat mate on the plane said, "Ahmedabad is art, history, culture, but Goa? Goa is party time!"

As I finish this up I'm now in my hotel room which is just lovely, overlooking the pool. We've ventured into town, picked up some happy juice, and dipped our feet in the ocean. There are bed bugs though, and I've drenched my bed in deet spray. I'm not going to sweat it too much though because for one, I'm exhausted, and for two, I'm sleeping inside, with air conditioning, on a bed, in a 5 star hotel, with a pool, a flat screen TV, and a wad of rupees in my wallet. I think I can muster up the courage to face a bed bug, and if I can't, I'll be really disappointed in myself.

(P.S.  It's the next day and the deet worked like a charm!)