Another weekend, come and almost-gone. I’m amazed at how quickly they go, but I guess that tends to happen when I sleep and bum around for most of the days. Thursday night is my favorite; there’s that sense of having a whole two days off, to myself, for rest and read and veg. But then, suddenly, it’s noon on Saturday, and I realize I have less than 24 hours until I’m back at the office again. I am grateful, however, that I don’t work on the Indian 6-day work week. One day off is hardly a weekend…
This week was pretty typical: busy Sunday, lazy Monday, class Tuesday night, lazy Wednesday and Thursday. My Tanakh class is moving through the Book of 2 Samuel pretty quickly. I anticipate that before I leave, we’ll have started 1 Kings, which is exciting. Then again, I also still don’t know when departure will be… so I guess that’s an up-in-the-air statement.
Sarah and I stayed pretty low-key, caught up on some season finales of favorite shows, and even baked a loafcake (we couldn’t find a cupcake tin in Mumbai!).
TV, loafcake, frosting, and milk - a happy evening
Cat joined us, then fell asleep on Sarah's leg
The highlight of the week was Wednesday night dinner, in which Sarah and I, along with our friend Natasha, went to another mutual friend’s house. He lives in Thane and graciously picked us up from the JCC in his comfortable, air-conditioned car for the 45-minute drive (a bit more with traffic) to the Bombay suburb. He lives in a great neighborhood, in a nice house, with his parents, grandmother, and older sister. They’re incredibly well-traveled, highly educated, and beyond hospitable. We relaxed with snacks and cold drinks, while we chatted, ate a great dinner (a special family masala chicken for the meat-eaters, dal and aloo mutter – peas/potatoes – for me), and shared a very nice bottle of Chilean red wine. After dinner, we played a few rounds of Uno before surrendering to watching The Pursuit of Happyness. Conversations were great, we laughed a lot, and I think everyone enjoyed the evening to the fullest. It was so nice to feel included in a family atmosphere; it was one of the first times this year that I felt incorporated to this extent. I think part of it is that it just takes time to become a part of a larger community, and I’m so glad that the evening was as comfortable and pleasurable as it was, designating to me (and to Sarah, too) that, though we are not Bene Israeli by any means, we fit in, in some small way.
The upcoming week should pick up a little bit work-wise, with the preparations I’ll be doing for day camp (June 1-5). Hopefully I’ll be kept occupied and (moderately) entertained while I color and craft the decorations and materials we need for camp. The theme for this camp will be “The Jewish Time Machine.” Each day will be a different time period around the world:
- Day 1: Golden Age of Spanish Jewry and Everyday Ashkenaz
- Day 2: Inquisition/Expulsion/Starting anew
- Day 3: Years of Unrest (Pogroms, Hassidism/Reform Judaism, Immigration to America)
- Day 4: Israel (Anti-Semitism/Zionism, Establishment, Israeli wars)
- Day 5: Judaism tomorrow (we’re building time capsules!)
In the mornings, the kids will move an arrow to a place on a room-long timeline and a star on a world map, to figure out where in time/the world we are. Then, they will be divided by age, to go to stations on sub-topics under the day’s title, where the Szarvas youth will run programs they’ve planned over the past few weeks. After lunch, the kids will be divided into mishpachim, families, of mixed ages, in which they will compete in various activites (human-sized board games, hide-and-seek, sardines, etc.). They will also have the chance to earn points for their teams, by enacting good behavior, or to lose points, with bad behavior.
Overall, I think this camp will give the kids a great overview of Jewish history, and it’s going to elevate the Szarvas youth in their abilities as madrichim (Jewish leaders). I’m really excited for the camp, and I promise to post info and pictures through/after the camp.
In other news, I’ve booked my trip to Nepal, with Sarah, for the week after day camp.
Nepal, Himalayas, etc.
Most of you are probably jumping out of your pants with excitement about my trip, and I am, too, in some ways, but I should also explain that, at this point in the year, I’m less excited than I think I should be. I’m definitely more prepared for a week in Nepal now than I was eight or ten months ago, but I think I’m also fairly burned out. I’m not tired of living in India (at least, not all the time). But I do feel like I’ve traveled a lot, at least within India. And travel in India, and I would imagine, also in the rest of southeast Asia, is not your average leisure vacation – if you’re traveling like I do, anyway. I tend to stay in hotels that are really better termed “hostels,” where I check the bed mattress before paying for the room, to make sure there aren’t bedbugs, where I usually end up killing a few cockroaches during my stay, where I double-lock the doors at night and never carry valuables.
Now, I don’t mean to freak anyone out. I’ve found cockroaches in my New York apartments/dorms. I tend to double-lock doors in American hotels, too. And I should underline that cities tend to be dirty anywhere, and that I’m usually a cautious person, but it’s different on this side of the world. It’s different when people try to take advantage (of everything) purely because of where I’m from (America) and what I am (white and female). It’s also different when I don’t speak any semblance of the language, and when most people don’t speak much (any) English. It’s different when the power shuts off for most of the day, or when there’s no running water, just because. It’s different when I have to watch out for what I eat, check bottle seals on my purchased bottled water, and take care wherever I go. It’s different when I carry pepper spray at night because I’m not sure who I’ll run into and how they’ll treat me. [Parents: don't worry, please, any more than you already do, with me a 17-hour plane ride away. I take care of myself as best I can. This isn't to scare anyone - it's just to awaken you to the realities of budget travel in India.]
All things considered, I have a feeling that travel elsewhere in southeast Asia will be very similar to that in India. It’s not a breeze, all touring and relaxation. Travel plans change at the drop of a hat, bugs, heat, and rain complicate and frustrate life, and the trip can be fantastic or miserable, partially from luck and partially from attitude. [I'll take this opportunity to commend anyone who's traveled in India/southeast Asia on a budget, or at all, especially for more than a week. It's tough, and I think you're impressive for, most likely, maintaining a positive, energetic, and enthused attitude, and having a flexibility beyond compare.]
I think I’ve grown a little more flexible this year, more adaptable, more willing to accept ridiculous situations and more expectant of irritating, ennervating issues. But I’ve also learned to listen to myself in some ways; I acknowledge when I need a day at the Bagel Shop, for a bagel and an americano, a/c and wireless Internet. I know when I need a day in my bed, watching American tv and reading. I know when to exercise, what I want for a snack, when to stop eating, and how to destress myself. But I’m still trying to mediate my feelings about my limitations and my desires to avoid regret.
That’s where this trip comes in. I’m excited for the prospect of seeing another country and for breaking up routine, but I’m also not looking forward to being away from my bed and my cat, and all of my life in Bombay, especially with so little time left here. [Granted, I won't be going to Nepal, if it turns out that I have to leave India before June 17, because my visa expires then.] I’m not excited for the nitty gritty, disgusting, uncomfortable parts of travel here. I don’t know if I want to put myself through that, especially since I’ve already traveled a lot this year (Delhi, Agra, Rishikesh, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, all over Kerala, Shimla, Aurangabad, Nasik, Amritsar, and Israel twice). I originally wanted to travel even more around India (I’d still like to see Varanasi and the eastern coast of India someday, but I don’t think it’ll be this trip). I even thought I would take a few months after finishing this job to backpack around southeast Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal, Tibet, etc.
But now I’m sort of ready to come home, to apply for graduate school, to spend time with my family and friends, to pick back up with the trajectory of my life and to feel like I fit in again.
Obviously, I’ll miss some critical parts of this year, of life in India. And I don’t want to regret passing up travel opportunities. I just also don’t want to miss out on chances to enhance and fortify my personal relationships, my career, and myself.
I know there are no right and wrong decisions. There are just different choices.
There’s the chance that the Indian government will make my decision for me, by refusing to extend my visa. Then I’ll come home in just a few short weeks, sans Nepal or Thailand (which I haven’t booked yet, and won’t unless I get the extension – and even then, I have to do some thinking about it).
Or I could be the one to pick my path and forge my own way.
Two roads diverged in a wood - except real life has more than two roads...
A lot of the time this year, I’ve been frustrated by things being out of my hands, left up to someone else (or many someone elses). It’s made me question how much control we really have over our lives, if any. To some extent, I think we’re in fate’s grasp, but when we’re presented with an opportunity, a problem, or a fork in the road, we get to formulate our response. Maybe we don’t get to determine what happens in the beginning or the end, but we can make choices in the middle. We get to choose the route we take, how we take it, who we travel with, and the attitude we adopt as we continue on.
1 Comment
July 31, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Nice to hear that you are going for trip to Nepal.
Truly, its a great country, I am saying so, cause I live in Nepal. See you, here in Nepal.