Yea Yea.... I know

Yea Yea, I know.  Welcome Back.

It's taken me a very long time to revisit this blog.  I apologize to those who have been on my case to make a post.  I've been busy but that's not the reason it's taken me so long.  I think for a while I lost the inspiration, the things I was trying to make sense of didn't seem to be something to share.  Maybe a little too late to regain the inspiration as I have only two more months in India, but I have a feeling there will be much to share as the end nears.  Hope you enjoy. 

My Christmas vacation in Goa.  We rented scooters for a day with no real agenda and found a fort overlooking the coast.  Goa was occupied by Portuguese until 1961, making it a little different than the rest of India but most notably the percent of population that is Catholic is a trademark.  Beaches, Seafood, 80 degrees with sun and a bunch of people celebrating Christmas served me pretty nicely.

Agunda Beach, Goa.  I stayed at a beach hut for 8 nights on this one mile stretch on beach.  I never did see more then 50 people covering this one mile stretch covered with restaurants serving $2 shrimp and calamari plates.  The beach huts, by law, have to be temporary structures and to own land on the beach you must prove local heritage.  When the rainy season begins in May, all the structures from the beach must be removed until it stops in August.  You feel like you're in a slice of heaven that no one else knows about.

Sunset over the Arabian Sea.  Agunda Beach.

This is from the southern most end of Agunda Beach atop the rock coast.  That stretch of beach is the entirety of Agunda Beach.  It really is the most beautiful place I have ever been to.  Sitting in front of a beach hut, eating $2 seafood and drinking $1 rum drinks with only a few people there to bother you is the closest place to paradise I could imagine.

My two beach mates, Christian and Christy.  Miss you guys.  The area around Agunda is just a fishing village, this being the main harbor.  Outside the restaurants would be ice chest displays of giant prawns, lobsters, calamari and all types of fish that I have no idea what they are called.

 

Inside the fort in Goa.

More from the scooter cruise.

The only thing our fishing guide let us keep from our fishing trip.  We had to negotiate with him to let us keep some of the fish from the fishing trip we paid for.  We had both of our fishes fried by the kitchen at our huts with some shrimp and calamari.  Successful day at the beach.

A typical dock in Goa.  These are exactly like the boat we went fishing on.

A 3.3lbs Lobster, a.k.a my Christmas Dinner.  There's no question that I missed home, but I would rather my family and friends to be barefoot on the beach eating lobster with me then to be in Louisiana.  That was one empty carcass.

After my trip to Goa I went on an 11 day trip with thirty-something of my students to Varanasi.  Varanasi is the place you think of when you think of India - people bathing in the Ganges, Gurus with long hair and face paint, hundreds of temples, the smell of incense, etc.  It's located on the Holy River,  the Ganges, and they city has roots here as far back as 4500 years ago.  Truly an awesome place.

I ate at the same restaurant nearly everyday for lunch while I was in Varanasi.  The waiters noticed when my students also came to the restaurant they would always come to my table to tell me hello and the manager wanted to know how these students knew me.  The students told them that I was their teacher, and for the next four days, in the amount of english he could relate to me, told me how happy he was that I was their teacher.  It's awesome when you have these moments with people, because he could not say anything to me to make me understand yet his smile was so genuine I knew exactly what he meant.  Being forced into so many non-verbal interactions since August has probably taught me more, at least about people, then if I knew Hindi.

There used to be this rumor that cows don't like stairs.  I heard that they will walk up stairs, but not down.  I had to jump out of the way of a cow running down stairs in Varanasi.  You can put that rumor to bed.

Between the three teachers, we divided our group of students and went on a hunt for residential buildings to document.  You can learn tons inside of a studio, but there's just somethings you need to go see for yourself.  Lucky for these students they have a teacher that will ramble on and on for the half an hour walk every morning and evening. 

The ghats (the steps leading to the river) are full of life.  At sunrise the pilgrims and locals alike will begin bathing in the holy (and really, really dirty) river and it continues all day.  Every night the gurus host a huge ceremony at the main ghat to pray.  The city is interesting to me, architecturally, because the ghats are one of the two (more on the other in a moment) that are available in the city for public space .  Its where they do laundry, play cricket, take a nap, pray and bury their dead.  The city streets are really no wider than alleys and buildings are so dense there is never an opening of space.. only at the river. 

Mom, it's only my feet.  I guess the place is really spiritual and it got the best of me. 

Raised in a city whose life is owed to a great river, I couldn't help but think about how different our relationship to the river is.  I consider the ghats the park in Varanasi, every turn reveals a different relationship between people and river.  Hopefully that changes for us.

Some people are just naturally photogenic.

Varanasi is the holiest city in India, the center of the Hindu world.  For those who are buried in the river Ganges, they believe it ends the life cycles and gives the soul peace.  I lit this candle to remember my friend Chad.  Others in the boat also lit candles, but  my flame was so much bigger and wilder.  It was Chad's candle, it made sense.

I told you this city was old.  Infrastructure means different things to different people.

I got the chance to hang out on the rooftop of the residence my students documented.  I realized the river ghats were not the only public space in Varanasi.  The buildings are so densely packed and streets so small that no one spends time in either.  All the activities of the houses and streets are forced to the rooftops - Cooking, bathing, laundry, lounging, playing.  It creates this landscape unperceptive from street level.  One of the best results from this landscape, as you may be able to see from the pictures, is kids in Varanasi love to fly kites.  At anytime during the day, you look to the sky and see literally a hundred kites.

The Ghats.

The "Kerala Boys" in the front row, the "Punjabi Boys" in the back.  The entire 11 days was photo session for Mari and I.

 

 

 

The pictures only approach is so much easier haha.  I leave in two days for another trip.  I have been bad at making promises on this blog, so I won't now.  But maybe, just maybe, I'll post soon with more.  All the best and thanks for the patience.

Matt