CAFEMIN, Marisol, Mexico City and the Winter of 2014

Even now, weeks away from Mexico City, I still miss my time At CAFEMIN—el Centro de Acojida y Formación para el Empoderamiento de la Mujer Indígena y Migrante.  I could never, ever have imagined the impact this group had on my winter, and my life, during the winter of 2013.

I first became acquainted with CAFEMIN in October when I was in Mexico City visiting my friend Rachelle.  On my first day there she told me that our mutual friend, Lis, had a project to pitch to me.  We met that night and the project was just too good to pass up.  I’d get to develop a library from scratch.

The next day we met with Sister Mirian, one of the four nuns who was developing CAFEMIN into a refugee center for indigenous and migrant women.  Mirian showed me their massive collection of books, the space they were in, and commented…”We have no idea what to do with them.”

I think Lis knew the frustrations I felt at the Quaker place, but she also knew I was more than able to pursue the project CAFEMIN was offering.

Well I did, and I was excited.  I love projects like this.  Plus, CAFEMIN would give me the structure to allow me to live long-term in Mexico City and not feel like a tourist.

And so I returned in late January.  I really had no idea where to start.

All I had was a large room, rickety old bookshelves, a few thousand books and boxes and boxes of junk.  The nuns threw nothing away!  There was no furniture and no order to anything.

 

I spent all of February just separating things.  The poor nuns.  I’d throw things into plastic bags then move the bags to the garbage area.  The next day I’d find half the things either in the library or tucked away in some other place in the Casa.  It didn’t take long before I became more judicious.  I’d tuck old books into my daypack and carry them home.  Or I’d rip magazines to the point where they couldn’t be salvaged.  That solved the problem!

Because the “library” lacked internet access, I moved a table out the end of a long balcony that ran the entire length of the second floor. My computer was close to an office that had a wireless connection.

For weeks, during the baImy, sun-filled days of February and March, I’d sit outside.  Warm breezes swept through the compound.  Birds chirped.  Several times during the day I could hear the distant sound of freight trains.

I tried to make a goal of 50 books a day which, more or less, I managed to do.  Mid-winter, CAFEMIN was quiet, but there were still guests and I’d be called in at times to translate for refugees from Africa or Asia who only spoke English.  Navigating worldcat.org for catalog numbers could find me in at the National Library of Spain, at a university library in Chile, Australia or Mexico or a public library in the USA.  I often used our local library network to assist me.  At lunch I’d interact with people from Russia, Honduras or Cameroon.  I was never bored.

 

Slowly, book by book, the library took shape.  People would help me periodicallly—moving furniture, fixing the old shelving units.  Leonor, a volunteer from the neighborhood, spent hours typing labels, affixing them to books and then putting them on the shelves.

Early on Mirian began inviting me to lunch—their main meal, actually, at 2:00 pm.  Initially I said no, but though that rude.  But when I did join them, it was no turning back.  It became one of the happy points of the day.  Plus, la comida was always delicious.  I came to enjoy my time with the nuns—Celia, Tere, Magda and Mirian.  There were happy people and their happiness made me happy.

I do not know when Marisol entered my life.  She was not there when I arrived in January and then she was.  She lived in a world of working adults and, looking back on it, was desperate for attention.  She began wandering up to the terrace where I worked.  At the Quaker Casa, I rarely had anything to do with refugees, so what to do with this sweet, beautiful three and half year old?

 

She’d keep me company for a few hours a day.  It wasn’t long before I started bringing in treats—a small bag of popcorn, some chocolate.  She was curious about books, but there was really nothing in the library for her.  So I started buying books, and we’d spend some time during the day sitting on a sofa, on the stairwell, on the floor.  I was determined to read through the pantheon of classic children’s literature—in Spanish.  At the beginning, she’d squirm and wiggle.  “Siéntate,” I’d tell her gently.   “Sit.” 

In time she did, and she learned to respond to my questions.  This had never been part of her culture.

I’d also bring in princess jewelry and tiaras and coloring books and she’d pretend she was Sleeping Beauty and we’d color pictures of castles and princes.  I loved giving her these things as much as she loved getting them.  This was becoming precious time.

One day Mirian asked if she could ask a favor of me.  She shared Marisol and her mother’s story.  It was horrific and not something anyone should have to endure, let alone a child of three.  I had not realized that I was one of the few men with whom she’d interact.  I was not young, nor brown nor Mexican—the profile she feared. 

Would I have lunch with her every day?  Just the two of us?

It cut into the day, but it was no hardship.  So every day at 2:00 Marisol would track me down.  “La comida está lista.”  Lunch is ready.  I’d walk into the dining room and mom had set two place settings.  And Marisol and I would eat…and chat.  For me she’d eat, but I often had to fly the food into her mouth, or walk it in pretending I was an animal. Lunch became joyous.

 In March I began telling her stories of the Easter Bunny.   I told her he delivered chocolate and gifts to boys and girls where I lived.  “He’s my friend,” I told her, “Maybe he’ll come to CAFEMIN if I ask him.”

I had her hooked.

On the Wednesday before Easter I tracked her down.  It was time to call the Conejo.

“Conejo de Pascua? Comó estás? Si. Si. Estoy bien.  Escucha…hay una niña aqui en México.  Yo sé que no vienes a México, pero ella es mi amiga y puedes hacer una excepción?”

Easter Bunny?  How are you? Yes. Yes. I’m fine.  Look, there’s a little girl here in Mexico.  I know that you don’t come here, but she’s my friend and can you make an exception?

She was wide eyed.

Yup,” I told her.  He’ll  come, but I don’t know when.  He’s invisible, you know, and usually comes at night.  But I’ll be here and if you hear me shouting…”Marisol, Marisol, the Easter Bunny came,” You’d better come running.

Thanks to Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven and a few high-end department stores, I was able to pull together an Easter basket, jelly beans and chocolate eggs.  I also picked up crayons, another tiara, and a princess wand and jewelry, juice boxes and packages of cookies.  I hid them around the library, notified the nuns and José Luis who pulled together the guests and a few interns.  Everyone was waiting when I shouted.

“Marisol.  Marisol.  Vino el conjeo de Pascua.  Vino el conjeo de Pascua!”

She tore up the stairs, stopped at the front door to the library, oblivious to fifteen people watching her.  She focused on the basket then shrieked.  José Luis had lived in Philadelphia so he got it.  She raced around the room picking up Easter loot, José Luis goading her on.

Oh the joy of introducing the Easter Bunny to a three and half year old Mexican.

One day a large butterfly was trapped in the large expanse of CAFEMIN.  We could all hear her. “Mariposa,” she screamed with joy.  “Mariposa!”  Watching and sharing that gave me an idea.  I asked her mom if she’d like to go to the zoo. 

And so we did.

Just after we entered there was a kiosk where the owner would face-paint children.  “Would you like to be a butterfly” I asked her. It was a foolish question.  Of course she would.

And so she sat while the man painted her face.  And for 30 pesos more I bought her wings, and a wand, and for the rest of the day she fluttered around Chapultepec.  For weeks afterward, she’d don the wings and run around CAFEMIN pretending to be a butterfly.

 

Winter transitioned to spring.  The days became warmer.  One Friday leapt to another. My computer died and I lost my perch on the terrace and wrapped up my work in a dark office.  I mourned the loss of my outdoor office, the chirp of birds, the distant sound of a train whistle, the warm breezes that would sweep through the central area of the compound.

One day, towards the end of the April, when my Mexico City days were winding down, I was walking through La Raza, one of the massive metro interchanges on my to CAFEMIN, when I realized I was sad.  As tired as I was of this project, I knew my time was coming to an end.  I realized how happy I’d been at the Casa—working, interacting with people, feeling useful, being appreciated.  But I also knew that the chemistry was good between me and CAFEMIN and that there was still a lot left to do.  I liked them and they liked me and I knew that this would be home for a long time to come.

I was in the homestretch and I was spending my time painting furniture, finishing processing books, putting the final touches to the library. 

 

All my hard work culminated in the late afternoon of May 3^rd. 

It was la Gran Inauguración of the CAFEMIN library.  My friend Angela was visiting and we’d spent the afternoon at La Villa, the site of the Basilica to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Actually, she toured the site while I sat in a nearby McDonald’s writing the first speech I’d give in Spanish.

Mirian had gathered together a large group of people associated with the Casa.  Leonor brought a small group of children from her catechism class. José Luis and all the nuns were there.  Angela represented all the people from home who were not present. Lis was there, too, and I was grateful for that. Without her this never would have happened.

Mirian had locked the door to the library and, in Mexican fashion, had tied a red ribbon to it. I untied the bow then opened the door. She spoke some words of thanks, and then I spoke—24 pages of large writing.  Angela said it sounded good, but a week later, when I had my friend Carlos edit it, I saw how many errors I had.

 

Afterwards, we all gathered in the kitchen below—the kitchen where I’d eaten so many meals.  There was wine and a toast, and wonderful quesadillas and two cakes. I was too overwhelmed to be sad, but the sadness would come later, as it had come earlier. 

 

Three days later Angela left and I spent the better part of the week wrapping things up—sorting through 33 boxes of books and separating what to sell, what to bring to the Mother House and what to store away for next year.

On the Saturday before I left for home I felt like a crazy man.  CAFEMIN was just one more thing in a long list of things to do.  With the help of three Honduran guests, we got everything into storage. 

I’d held off until the last the hardest task of the day—saying goodbye to Marisol and letting her know that I wouldn’t return.  A friend had suggested that I give her a photo of the two of us.  I chose one from the day we’d gone to the zoo—she with wings, a wand and her face painted as a butterfly.

“Mariposa,” I told her. “I’m going home and I won’t see you again.”  I gave her a stuffed dog and told her his name was Tio Dan.  I gave her the photo and told her that I would always be with her.

 

She was too young, of course, to understand.  But her mother understood and she sat across from me, tears flowing down her cheeks.

 I held it together, said goodbye to Mirian, Celia, Magda and Tere, and left quickly.  “It’s not a despedida, Dan,” Mirian said.  “It’s just adios until you return.”  It’s not a farewell but just a goodbye until you return again.

I left, got into a taxi, told the driver where to bring me, then settled into the seat.

And that’s when the tears flowed. 

I cried all the way home.

People Remembered: Mrs. Epolito

Mexico City                                                                                                                                                     March 19, 2013

Today is the feast of Saint Joseph. I was reminded of that by Sister Mirian who told me that all the nuns where I volunteer here in Mexico City would be away for the day. Sister Mirian is a Josefina, so it makes sense that this day would be separate from others. They are, after all, named after the patron saint of their order.

March 19^th. The day has no special significance for me. A devotion to Saint Joseph was never part of my tradition. (Mary…yes. The month of May…yes. My mother had a profound devotion to Mary and she made sure she was recognized on the days accorded to her. At 23 Grace Avenue we even crowned her statue one special day in May.)

But this day was special for Mrs. Epolito, our 100% Italian landlady when I was an undergrad at SUNY Fredonia.

It was 1970, and six of us were living in her upstairs apartment at 25 Day Street in Fredonia, New York. The six of us—all Juniors in college--had been thrown together in a four bedroom apartment. Maybe the other guys had known each other before, but I knew no one when I moved in. And for whatever good fortune came my way, I was one of two had his own room. I had a mattress on the floor and a stereo I’d purchased from money earned from my part time job at Aldrich Dairy. There must have been a closet and a chest of drawers, but I don’t remember.

 What I do remember, though, is that that room was a sanctuary. And what I do know is that the six of us bonded closely, that I was happy living there and that Mrs. Epolitio—Mrs. Ep to us—charged each of us a mere $100.00 a semester for the privilege of living there. Our only additional expenses were telephone charges.

 Life was good.

 Mrs. Epolito liked us, and we liked her. She was an old woman. Even now, with advancing age, I still think she was in her 80’s in our Senior year—1971.

 We were slobs, the six of us. One of us, at the end of patience, would tackle the kitchen, wash the floor, and rid the fridge of moldy food. One of us, sooner or later, would clean off the dining room table. But then the cycle would begin again and before long we'd be living in squalor again.

 Never once do I remember Mrs. Epolito scolding us, coming up the stairs for a surprise visit. She was a good natured, happy woman.  I like to think that she, and her children, felt it was a good thing that six young men were living upstairs.  Perhaps all of them felt safer. I don’t know.  It was a different time.  We misbehaved, but not in a malicious sort of way.

 It was a time of great tumult. The war was raging in Vietnam, and the students at Fredonia raged against it with equal fury. Whatever happened at the University of Buffalo—and stuff happened all the time—was felt the next day 50 miles away in Fredonia.  One of the roommates was a veteran, four years older than we. How he put up with us is still a wonder. We weren't a patriotic lot. We loathed President Nixon and loathed what was happening to the United States.  One of us had put a plastic American flag at the entrance to the front door of the apartment.  Somehow Mrs. Epolito found out about it and gave us a call.

 I answered the phone.  “I’m going to call President Roosevelt,” she told us.  We picked up the flag, duly sorry for offending her.

 President Roosevelt? We thought it was funny, as 20 year olds would.  We knew nothing of senility. We knew nothing of the aging process.

 The first year we were there—March of 1970—she called up the stairs and asked one of us to come downstairs.  Maybe it was me.  She’d baked a huge casserole dish of ziti for us—in honor St. Joseph’s Day.  It was the first time I knew of this tradition.  We liked it.  We liked pasta.  We liked food and we were grateful for Mrs. Ep’s generosity on that St. Joseph’s Day.

 Months moved forward.  By now we were Seniors…and friends.  We smoked pot in the attic, had friends in for dinner, went drinking as a group on Saturday night.  We’d sit together—other friends included—drinking local beer, playing pin ball.  Once, in late winter, we’d been out too late.  One of us was extraordinarily drunk, vomiting into the toilet. 

 It had to be past midnight and the phone rang.  In her creaky voice, but still with a smile, I can still hear her saying…”Someone’s praying at the toilet.”  She could have chosen another response, but she didn’t.

 That March there was another plate of ziti, another recognition of St. Joseph.  I doubt any of the ziti had to be thrown away from the fridge.

 It was a good time in our lives, and only later did I realize how the time in that house matured me, pushed me into adulthood.  I was far enough from Plattsburgh that I couldn’t go home at the drop of a hat.  I was forced to deal with my own issues.

 One of them was weight.  Somehow, I’d ballooned to 240 pounds!  I was horrified the Christmas Day that I stepped on the scales.  When I went back to college I somehow was able to stay on a diet.  I did’t tell anyone at home that I was losing weight, but by the time I saw my family in May for graduation I’d lost 55 pounds.  And that’s weight I have, for the most part, kept off until this day.

 It was hard leaving college. It was hard leaving my friends. Several of them stayed on to complete their Masters, and kept their rooms in the apartment we’d rented. I moved back to Plattsburgh, started my career. The following April I returned to 25 Day Street. Three of the guys were still living there. Sometime during those ten months, Mrs. Epolito had sold the house to one of the roommates. I slept on the couch that week and never bothered to contact Mrs. Ep. Years later I inquired about her from Dennis, the roommate who'd bought the house. She'd died. Of course. By that point--the late 1980's--she'd have been well in her 90's.

 I often regretted not contacting her, but that is what young people do. They often just walk away, not realizing they'll never see someone again.

 But I think of Mrs. Epolito every now and then, and I still remember the large plates of pasta she'd bring up on March 19^th.  The Feast of St. Joseph was an integral part of her culture and she shared it with us.

 And I think of her today, more than forty years later, and a country away. The Josefinas invited me to their fiesta in honor of Saint Joseph. Same saint, different tradition. Instead of pasta, we ate chicken with homemade mole poblano, rice, frijoles and potatoes with chorizo. It was a joyous day for them and I know it had been a joyous day for Mrs. Epolito.

 Thank you Mrs. Ep. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your tolerance.

 And thank you for the pasta.





 

In the End: In the Very End

Plattsburgh, NY
December 13, 2012
Altitude: 138'

In the end, the very end,I added two countries to the ongoing list--Qatar and Bhutan.  One of these days I'll hit the illusive 100!  Maybe it will take a cruise in the Caribbean to do it.

In the end, the very end, I was gone exactly six weeks.  Any longer would have been suicide.  I simply could not take any more.

In the end, the very end, I retraced my steps back to Montreal, only this time it was a flight from New Delhi to Doha.  It was 18 hours in the air and almost 25 hours door to door.  My body fought against time zones for five days.  Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to do these long-haul flights.  They're far too stressful on bodies.  From Delhi to Montreal was a total of ten time zones and a total of 8,014 miles.  1/3 of the way around the world!

In the end, the very end, I got as high as 11,059 feet and as low as sea level.  Almost all of Bhutan was well above 5,000'.

In the end, the very end, Bhutan was wonderful.  Yes, it has some ugly history in its past, but any country that puts people first before the bottom line in the form of gross national happiness gets high marks in my book.  I  never saw poverty, nor did I see excessive wealth.  To be fair, I didn't get into the poorer eastern part of the country where things might be different, but from what I could see Bhutan was clean, orderly and it seemed to work.

In the end, the very end, Nepal was Nepal--very touristic, well infrastructured, still cheap and always fascinating.  Wonderful medieval cities and towering mountains, and the finest weather of the year in November when days are in the sunny 70's and nights in he 50's with not a stitch of rain or clouds.

In the end, the very end, I literally counted the hours to departure.  I hated India that much. There has never been a travel time when I've wanted out of a place as much as I wanted out of India.  By the time  I got to Doha early in the morning on the 9th, the airport was abuzz with activity.  There were flights heading to every continent--Cape Town in South Africa, Buenos Aires in South America, multiple destinations in the Europe, North America of course, and many, many to multiple destinations in Asia. Interestingly, I had no interest in any of these destinations.  I'd had quite enough of the "exotic."  I just wanted the flight that said "Montreal."

In the end, the very end, when I finally went through customs and picked up my luggage in Montreal, I was never so glad to see a human  being who loved me more than seeing Steve waiting at arrivals.  I started to cry.

"It was that bad, wasn't it?" he said.  "You have no idea."  But I was home--home to the secure and predictable.  Boring old home without the multiple sensory simulations of the past six weeks. 

Earlier in the trip I'd had dinner with a Danish couple.  When she asked me where I was going, she commented that it was maybe too much.  Really, India AND Nepal aren't exactly stimulus free countries.  She was right.  It really was too much.  I'd seen too much and some of  it was too overwhelming, even for me.

In the end, the very end, two amazing things happenened.  I never lot the baseball cap I started out with and I kicked my Diet Coke habit.  The latter was a planned attempt, complete with four months of drug and alcohol counseling.  Yay!  This I'm proud of!

In the end, the very end, I feel as if I've lost something.  There was a time when I'd just be warming up at six weeks, but I wasn't 63 either and I'd seen far less of the world.  I was a much more curious person.  This doesn't mean it's the end of my travel.  It just means it will be tweaked differently.  there are still too many places I've not seen.  But India will NEVER be part of any itinerary again. 

In the end, the very end, it was very much the right decision to leave early.  I was very, very glad to be home!  But I will not let this temporary set back to affect future travel.  Initially,I felt like a failure coming home early, but that's not the case.  I will not be afraid to try again--just not India. 

In the end, the very end, I missed Plattsburgh, friends, Christmas, December, snow, Steve and home.

Photos of India

Cremation in Varnasi

Cremation in Varanasi

Banks of the Ganges in Varanasi

Another cremation on the Ganges

Sarnath--where the Buddha preached

Streets of the old city of Varnasi

Making an offering to the river goddess

The Ganges at night

A dawn boat ride on the Ganges

Cows on the streets of Varanasi

Nehru's home in Alahabad

The Taj Mahal

From the other side of the river

India Gate in Delhi

India: In the End

Plattsburgh, New York
December 10, 2010
Altitude: 350'

In the end, India was horrible.  That is not something I say lightly.  Perhaps it was the way I entered the country, the 14 hours ride from hell.  Perhaps it was the chaos, filth, squalor, poverty, mayhem.  Perhaps it was the the fact that no one could be trusted, that I always had to be on my guard to protect myself from lies, scams, deceptions.  Perhaps it was because I remember a different India from 1998.  2012 was certainly not the India I experienced 14 years ago.  Perhaps it was because I was no longer the same tolerant/willing/able to put up with the sheer human presence of 1/6 of the world's population in a place smaller than Australia person I was the last time.  Perhaps, perhaps....

In the end, there are over a billion people living in India living in a space less than half the size of Australia.  There are 280,000,000 more people than there were in 1998.  There is no space in India, there is no way to sit and enjoy silence.  It is impossible to sit on a park bench without being harassed in some way.  This is not a country for people in search of some quiet experience.  It's an assault on the senses, it teems with crowds, it's noisy and it's dirty.  And, wuite honestly, while I'm certain there are perfectly nice Indians, they are NOT the ones one meets as a tourist.  I was sick of being lied to.  I as sick of being scammed.  I was sick of smelling urine everywhere.  I was sick of the smell of dirty, polluted air.  I was sick of being stared at.   (One woman and I had a staring match that went on 5 minutes until she finally turned her head.  She wasn't going to stare me down!)I was sick of tring to get simple things done.  I was sick of India and I was sick of Indians!

In the end I say fast track Mother Theresa to sainthood, and all the men and women who have given their lives to make the lives of the Indian poor a better one.  I recoiled at the poverty and recoiled at the beggars and know I am so saint, no Mother Theresa.  I did not like the person I became.

In the end, if I ever return to India it will be an in-transit sort of thing, with flights everywhere and with good hotels.  Dealing with public transportation is too hard.  And dealing with Indians is even harder.  In the end, though, it's highly unlikely I will ever return.  I could not tolerate the squalor and the poverty and,like a character in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I felt as if I was living in some grotesque fantasy.  "We have to get out of here.  I can't say in this country a minute longer," she quipped.  "This country is driving me mad."  Well...that's exactly how I felt.

In the end, I'm actually sorry I built India into the itinerary. 

Allhahabad, Agra and Delhi

New Delhi, India
December 8, 2012
Altitude: 730'



I finally escape Varanasi on the 11:30 train bound for Bombay.  But unlike the others on the train for whom this would be a 26 hour ride, for me it was only three.  My destination was Allahabad, a city famous as the birthplace of Jawarahul Nehru, India's first PM, and his daughter, Indira Gandhi. 

But by the time I arrive I'm sick--physically as well as psychically.  So I check myself into a good hotel, assess the situation, start a regime of antibiotics and ride out the fever.  Behind the doors in a three star hotel with a good restaurant makes life in India more tolerable.

I ask the guys at reception where I can find a travel agency.  It's still early in the day and there's plenty of time to get an air ticked for the next day.  "OH, Sir," they tell me.  "We can arrange that for you." 

Yeah, right!  For three hours, battling a fever and multiple trips to the bathroom, I approach the front desk.  "Ten minutes, Sir," they tell me.  Ten minutes.  Ten minutes.  Ten minutes.  By the end of the day I still have no ticket and, looking back on it, I suppose I didn't give them the bribe money needed to get this done.  Just deeper confirmations what these people are really like.

But the ball truly is beginning to roll and during my first night there I have to maintain contact with home to secure a seat the following weekend out of Delhi...still a 14 hour bus ride away.  Because of the time difference, decisions have to be made at midnight and 2:00 a.m.  All of this is OK.  I'll do what I have to do go get out of India.

Day two in the city I realize that I have to get myself out and can't rely on anyone else in India.  So I take a cab to the airport, wrangle a one-way ticket on Air India to Delhi.  It's only then that I could sit back and try to enjoy this city.  Which I did...with a good lunch at a good restaurant, with a visit to the lovely and very historic Nehru home and with a visit to four Mughal tombs that predate the Taj Mahal. 

The city was a loud mess, with the usually assortment of cows in the streets, cows lying in the middle of public highways, cows on the highways.  But at least here I didn't smell pee and at least in the places I visited didn't have to navigate piles of poo.  And, even more remarkably, this was a city that was relatively free of in-your-face harassment from vendors and the like.  That's probably because in my three days I was the only foreigner I saw.  Allahabad does not attract lots of out of country visitors.

It was a real relief to board the flight and land in Delhi an hour and twenty minutes later. 

I have three days in the city.  Steve and the travel agency in Montreal have been able to get me home on Sunday.  And I have this deep, deep feeling that I'll never return to India, so I want to see the Taj Mahal one last time.  So I buy a tour, on the Thursday morning, the driver pulls into the hotel.  I find I'm the only one.

As we leave the city on a newly built toll road the sun rises.  It only takes two hours to get to  Agra where I meet my guide.  Once we get out of the city, it's a lovely ride.  A low mist hangs above flat fields full of yellow mustard--a plant that's been a constant and pleasant companion for the past six weeks.

But the Taj!  Another example of possibly leaving past memories intact. 

In 1998 I timed my visit to this amazing building to be there during the time of the full moon.  I'd spent the day there, with tourists of course, but not that many that made the place uncomfortable.  That evening I returned and revisited the site--a site softly bathed in a full December moon.  It's one of the great travel images of my life.

But this year!  It's full of tourists--mostly Indians--who are now able to see their own country.  I have to wait in line to get my photo taken in front of the building.  It's hectic and loud and even though the Taj is still the most magnificent building in the world, the pleasure I experience is nothing like the first time.

One of the most endearing travel images of my life involves the Taj.  It's December 1998, and I step behind the building and face the Yumana River.  Few people are there.  Faintly, in the distance, I hear what sounds like an aria.  Then I see a marigolds floating downstream followed by a man in a boat.  He's singing and his voice fills the air.  I sit and watch as he sings he way along the river until voice and man fade out of distance.  

Sadly that was not the case this year.


By late afternoon we head back to Delhi and arrive as the sun sets.  It's a massive red/orange disk that drops gorgeously  into the heavily polluted sties of India's capital.

I spend my last day wrapping up loose ends, going to Qatar Airways to be absolutely certain I'm on the list to get home and shopping.  But that's not easy.  I'm want a very specific shop--a government run souvenir shop that sells products at set prices, where no one will pressure me.  But can I get there?  No!  I walk, but rickshaw driver stop me,lie to me, tell me it's closed (I know it's not), that I'm walking in the wrong direction I was, so I take up one guy's offer.  "Twenty rupees."  Seems like a decent fellow.  Stupid me.  We end up at his shop--a shop with some of the words in its name that the shop I want has.  Then I walk...and walk..and walk.  Of course no one knows where it is because no one will tell me what I want to know, because there's no commission to be made.  They're pigs, I think. Thank heaven for the Xanax that my doctor gave me.  I've been on it  twice a day since Varanasi. I ultimately do get to the shop I want--and it's no more than a ten minute walk from my hotel.  At least going back was easy.

Sometime back I'd wanted to write a fun piece, full of puns.  And it's only a week after being home, as I write this a week before Christmas, on a day with new snow on the ground, with my body fully back in this time zone, that I can find the humor in India to do so.  So here goes...

I wasn't sari to leave India.  I felt burned, singhed at the edges.  Whatever it was I was sikhing I certainly didn't find.  The country was uttarly frustrating, beyond agravating.  Maybe it was bad karma, maybe it was a bad decision.  I don't know.  It's not that I want to caste bad light on a country and its people, but this time India was too over-the-top for me.  I'm a good traveler and can flow with must about anything.  But, ghee, this place....  Too difficult, at least at this juncture in time.  Maybe it's the new travel-normal.  Maybe it was just a blip in travel.  Who knows.  

I became bone weary of saying..."I khan do this, I khan keep going, I khan do another day."  But there was no pleasure.  None at all. It all really ghat to me by the end.  I mean...if ya have live on Xanax just to get through the day....  What does that say!

And so I left and was very glad of it.  

Holy Shit! Varanasi, India

Varanasi, India
December 1, 2012
Altitude 252'

Maybe it's my second night in Varanasi and I'm walking back to my hotel through the tangled crazy maze of alleyways that makes up the Old City.  It's late and I'm beyond tired.  I've been up since 4:30 a.m. after only five hours of bad sleep, on top of a bad night before that.  My body's used to bad sleep cycles, but this one is particularly bad. I'm zigzagging my way way back to the guesthouse when I round a corner.  A straight line runs a few hundred feet. A right turn would then bring me to the hotel.  The alleyway's no more than eight feet wide and a massive bull cow is standing in the middle.  I've navigated this situation before.  The streets are full of cows.  I walk toward it.  This time the cow snorts, turns its head and threatens me.  I back off and return to the alley's entrance.

Holy Shit! I think. How am I going to get to my hotel? I stand on a raised step and wait, hoping the animal will leave. But no. Instead it sits itself down. I wait 30 minutes. Finally, an Indian on his way to the same place starts. "Hey," I tell him. "There's a cow there and he's dangerous." Probably thinks I'm a crazy tourist.

"Not dangerous," he says. "Mother India."

Mother India, I think. More like Holy Mother of God.
I take the opportunity and follow him, stepping beside yet another pile of shit.  I don't like this.  People have told me they've been shit or peed on as they've walked by.  One woman told me a cow bull-horned her butt and that she had a deep bruise.

We get past.

I'm so tired I can't sleep; I'm exhausted and it just won't come.  But I have meds, and this is the time.  I pop a 10 mg Valium and sleep through the night.

Varanasi!

I want to have respect for it.  I really do. It's been on "my list" for a very long time.  It's one of the holiest and most renowned places for pilgrimage: Varanasi or Benares, it's been considered the cultural, spiritual and religious metropolis of northern India for centuries.

In the broad context of Hinduism it's considered the city of polarities, where materialism and spirituality encounter each other in a way that cannot be explained, only experienced.

And I'm about to do that.

But it's also the filthiest city I've ever been to.  Cows roam freely.  I realize it's a cultural thing, and that the cow is the manifestation of the god Shiva.  Mother India.

Piles of poop are everywhere. I've seen piles of it decorated with marigolds.  I've seen devout Hindu women touch the dirtiest part of the tail in some form of respect.  I'm having a major clash of culture, something that doesn't normally happen to me.  Usually I flow with this sort of thing, embrace it  But this is just too bizarre.

Most  tourists stay in the Old City, close to the Ganges River, near the ghats, or steps, that lead lead down to the water.  This city's been high on my list of places to see.  It's one of the holiest cities in India and to die here, then be cremated on the banks of the Ganges, is supposed to liberate the believer from the cycle birth/death/rebirth.

Despite my response to the city, there's a still huge vitality about life on this river, but it's grotesquely dirty.  People come to it to bathe, to make puja--worshipping the river goddess Ganga; early in the morning I see men walking away from the river soaking wet.  They've just taken a "holy dip."; kids fly kites, play cricket; couples come here here to have their wedding photos taken, and because this is the marriage season, there are lots of them; people wash their clothes, brush their teeth, swim in the river; oxen are brought to the river for bathing; a hundred cows have taken up residence.  Men also use the walls banking the ghats as a place to urinate.  A walk from one end to the other--a distance of about four miles--is a lesson in learning how to navigate multiple piles of cow and oxen poo and avoided the stench of urine.  Each night there's a ceremony--more a show--where Ganga is worshipped with fire and holy music.  Through the "show" kids are hawking leaves in the shape of bowls that are filled with flowers and a small candle.  Ten rupees will buy one that you can set sail on the river--your own offering to the goddess.  Actually, watching these small offerings float down the river--and there are hundreds each evening--is quite magical.  It's about the only thing positive I can say about the place.

I want to sit and enjoy life on this vibrant river, but it's difficult.  Men approach, want to shake hands.  There's nothing friendly about this.  They want something.  they always want some ting.  In this case it's a prelude to a massage, which I've had and they're very good, but not here on the banks of this river.  I want a more relaxing place. 

I don't extend my hand.  I've gone through half a bottle of hand sanitizer in my already-short-stay in India.  I'm terrified of a sickness like I had last winter.

One guy approaches my shoulders.  "Don't touch me," I tell him.  He does.  I told you..."get your fucking hands off me."  The person I've  become is ugly. I pass beggars the same way.  I'm in defense mode.  This is not like me at all.  Something in me is snapping, turning me into someone else.  I have to remind myself that no one forced me to come here.  This is certainly not the India I dealt with in 1998.  But Varanasi, and the horrific ride getting here, is what's doing this.

That and the smell--the smell of poo and piss.  It's the filth of the river and the fact that people consider it "holy."  I'm being very judgemental.   It's the guesthouse where I'm staying and the noise the men who run the place make all day.  It's the fact that I can't sleep.  It's cows and cow shit and cow pee all over the streets of the Old City.  I've stepped in the stuff more than once and feel filthy.  It's watching people brush their teeth from the river, let their kids swim in it.  It's seeing people walk barefoot through the streets--streets that are so dirty I don't even want to walk on them with my shoes on.  I know there are perfectly nice Indians out there.  The man who sells me soda water and the man who gives me a massage are two of them.  But more often then not it's not nice people I come in contact with.

And then there are the cremations.  People come here to be cremated.  Hindus consider cremation along the Ganges to be the most propitious spot in the country. Families will save for a lifetime to buy the wood.  Families will bring their loved ones hundreds of kilometers from their homes to be burned at this spot.  It really is one of the things that makes Varanasi so famous.

There are two "burning ghats" on the river--one more auspicious than the other.  All of us are fascinated by this.  I stop to watch.  But of course in India one can never just stop and watch.  Someone approaches me.  "Burn and learn," he tells me.  "Come."  But I don't come,  of course.  There's always a scam and this one will involve big sums of money.  There are two hospices adjoining the site.  People come here to die.  NO matter what my "donation" will be it won't be enough. 

I ultimately do find a seat and sit with other tourists.  Safety in numbers.  It's a Sunday afternoon and I don't know if what I'm seeing in normal or not.  A new family comes in every five to seven minutes.  Each body is wrapped in a shroud then wrapped in another yellow covering.  Bodies are carried on bamboo stretchers that themselves are colored in saffron fabric. They approach the river, walk in, then submerge the body in the water three times. 

What I'm watching is almost post-apocalyptic.  There must be twenty cremations going on simultaneously--all at various stages.  There's nothing reverent about what I'm seeing.  Plastic bags, garbage, marigold garlands, charcoal float in the water.  Kids are running through the site flying kites.  Cows get in the way and have to be shooed out.  Indian pop-music is playing from a nearby shop.  There are huge piles of burned ash waiting to be shoveled into the river.  The place is crawling with tourists--tourists on shore and tourists on small boats in the river.  And because this is Sunday, there are larger boats full of Indians out for the afternoon.

One family--men only--finds a site, buys the wood and arranges it correctly.  Thousands of years of practice have taught Indians just how much wood is needed to completely cremate a human body.

It's extraordinarily difficult to have any emotion, yet the grief must be overwhelming.  These are human beings, they loved and are loved.  Yet to my Western eye this is just wrong.  But that's just it--my Western eye.  This is what Hindus do and Varanasi is one of the few places on the planet to witness this sort of thing.

The oldest son must light the fire but first his head is shaved bald, then he changes into mourning clothes--unbleached muslin and nothing  more.  He circles the pyre three times then starts the fire.  Then they wait.  It will take three hours for the body to burn.

Twice I see something I learn is very rare.  There are five times when a death does not permit a cremation: if someone dies my cobra bite, if a woman is pregnant, if a child is under 16, if the deceased has leprosy or his a sudhu--a holy man.  In this case the body is strapped to a stone, rowed out into the river, and dumped overboard.  I've seen small wrapped yellow bundles floating in the garbage strewn waters near shore.  I can only imagine.

Life in the "new city" of Varanasi is just a jolting, but in a different way.  The city is full of garbage and cows freely roaming the streets.  Piles of shit are everywhere there,too.  Noise levels are horrific.  Twice I take a rickshaw to the train station--5 miles away.  Just negotiating a price is a nuisance.  "200 rupees," the driver tells me.  "50," I retort back.  We end up with a price of 100--$2.00. The piercing honk of horns and the din of traffic rattle my nerves, but in a different way.  Plus, I'm more vulnerable to the hucksters--all of whom want to sell me something or put me a taxi or rickshaw.  I have a mental picture of a piece of undeveloped land piled high with garbage.  People are pouring through it.  Cows are feeding off it.  There are even two pigs in the mess.

I can only take in so much. I think this is where I snap. There are just some things in life you're not supposed to see. Actually, though, I think it started to snap when I saw man die in a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier while I was on a bus. Traffic was stopped for over an hour. Truly, there was nothing we could do, but people were snapping photos of the accident scene. Life just seemed so disposable.

It doesn't seem possible, but the city does redeems itself, somewhat, with a day visit to Sarnath--only ten miles but world's away from Varanasi.

It's one of the four most important Buddhist sites in the world.  It's here where he preached his first sermon and pilgrims from all over the world come here on what is known as the "Buddhist Circuit."  The other three are where he was born, where he achieved enlightenment and where he died. 

Sarnath is a typical Indian town, but there are no cows on the streets, no piles of poo.  There is the stench of piss--human--but that's normal.

I make way way to the 3nd century archaeological site.  It's fully enclosed, full of trees and ancient stupas and monasteries.  There are palm and bhodi trees all around. I actually hear birds chirping.  In the distance monks are chanting.  It's quiet and peaceful and cool in the shade.  There are squirrels and chipmunks and for a brief, illusory moment I think I'm in Chapultepec Park, in Mexico City.

I spend almost the entire day sitting on one of the benches--reading, writing.  I can't bare to return to Varanasi.  I'm growing increasingly anxious about India.  I hate it, and that's not normal for me.  I'm a very flexible traveller and can flow with pretty much anything, but the entry into the country coupled with the intensity of the city, is too much.

It's also December 1st, and I'm acutely aware of the date.  I'm missing home, and December, and snow and the coming of Christmas.  I'm sick of traveling, sick of India, sick of shit and piss and scams and rudeness.  I'm sick of bad hotels and sick of Indians spitting.

The words to James Taylor's song Sweet Baby James runs through my head.

Now the first of December was covered with snow

and so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston.

Though the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting,

with ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go.

Towards dusk I know it's time to return.  The site is closing, and I don't want to  be on these insane roads after dark in an auto- rickshaw.  But it's here that I have my own bit of enlightenment.  It's time to go  home, cut the trip short, pay whatever it is I have to pay to get back to Plattsburgh.

That night I start the ball rolling.  I send both Steve and my travel agent an email.  If I can't change my ticket, it will only cost me $700.00 to get home from Delhi by the weekend.  I don't care what it costs, I just have to get out.

Varanasi had been high on the list of "places to see," but whoever said it would take no prisoners was right.  I'd been warned. I would either love it or hate it.

Sadly, it was the later for me. I stayed four days--three days too many.  It wasn't only time to get our of Varanasi.  It was time to get out of India!