Connect to ConnecTeach--a link worth following

It's 2013. I haven't touched this blog since I returned home in July, 2011, and as near as I can tell, nobody has really paid much attention. Still, I periodically get comments from those trying to boost their own Google position by linking back to their pages from here. I wonder what they think they're gaining from my little blog. Maybe it's a machine thing.

In less than a week I'm heading back to India though, this time with ConnecTeach. I am very proud to be a part of this effort to make a difference world-wide through working with teachers in underserved (read "high-poverty") communities. Over the next two and half weeks we will provide training and support to teachers in Delhi, Chennai, Madurai, and Hyderabad. Maybe I'll even blog a little about it.

Fatehpur Sikri

Fatehpur Sikri is another World Heritage Site in Agra. This one was built by the Mughal Emperor, Akbar in the 16th century. In an earlier post I called him "Akbar the Great" but I have since then worked out that "Akbar" means "great"(as in Allah akbar--God is great). It seems a bit redundant to call him "Great the Great." I guess he had another name in his childhood but I don't know it. He built a Persian tomb for his father, Humayun, in what is now Delhi. He built Fatehpur Sikri as a palace and governmental seat here to be near the tomb of a Sufi Moslem saint named Salim Chistie.

Touring the complex, which included administrative buildings and religiously appropriate living rooms for Akbar's Moslem, Hindu, and Christian wives, I imagined the now empty Fatehpur buzzing with the life of the court.

Akbar would have sat in his throne on top of this pillar while his ministers sat on the balcony around the edge of the building. Guards, and perhaps supplicants, would have been on the floor where I'm standing to take the picture.

Fatehpur was probably abandoned when the water supply proved to be unstable or insufficient. Water features were an important part of the palace.

This fellow didn't seem concerned about water supply or quality. I don't know that the tank was originally built for swimming or how he got in. He wanted a tip for letting us take pictures.

I didn't think I needed to tip him for doing what he was obviously planning on doing anyway.

The massive and imposing gate leading into the walled enclosure that contains a Masjid (Mosque) and the shrine to Salim Chistie.

As with all holy places in India, we left our shoes at the gate. To enter the shrine, we had to cover our heads. If you didn't have a scarf or hat, you were given a plastic version of the head cover the young man below is wearing.

It was actually fairly crowded inside, but I got lucky with this shot. It's a space that feels very reverent and holy, even with lots of westerners in plastic hats snapping pictures.

The Taj Mahal

Built by Shah Jahan in the 17th century. It's a mausoleum for his wife, the Empress known as Mumtaz--the Jewel of the Mughal Empire. A Persian style garden tomb built over the course of 22 years, people like to talk about it as a testament to love. I don't know . . . I hope Jenny just has me cremated and takes a nice trip with the savings.  It is one of the "Wonders of the World" and it is magnificent. You really have to see it in person to appreciate its full power.

We arrived early in the morning--not early enough to catch the sunrise, but we got to watch the morning haze slowly lift and the crowds and heat were less intense.

This photo was taken from the Mosque that flanks the Taj on the west side.

The marble gleams in the sunshine, though with the haze and my photography skills, it doesn't quite come through.

Looking back toward the gate from atop the plinth (base platform), you can see the symmetry of the gardens. Everthing is organized in quarters, eighths, and sixteenths. In the time of the Mughals the gardens would have been filled with fruit trees and intended to simulate a Garden of Eden, the paradise the Empress was enjoying in heaven. The British came in, cut the trees down, and put in lawns so that the broad vista of the place was not spoiled. At least they didn't take it all down to use the marble.

This mosque (Masjid in India) flanks the Taj Mahal on the West. On East side a guest house provides perfect mirror-symmetry.

A close-up of the inlay work. This is all hand-cut semi-precious stones set into the marble.

After Shah Jahan's death, his son Aurungzeb, had him interred next to Mumtaz. His cenotaph is the only thing in the whole place that spoils the symmetry. You're not allowed to take pictures inside the main mausoleum . . . shhh.

During the years of construction, craftsmen might have stayed in these little cells outside the gate. I liked this view.

VIPs

We’ve been dogged by the police in Agra for the last three days. It’s not so terrible for us, but it’s funny. Apparently the city of Agra is under the impression that we are very important people. Really, I over head one of the officers say “V.I.P.” in referring to us. It began on the road into town. We had already been forced off our route by construction, stopped to change a flat tire, stopped to buy fruit (that one was our fault), stuck in traffic, and stopped at the Indian version of an old route 66 tourist trap for the driver and his assistant to take lunch. We had given up on stopping at Fatehpur Sikri and hoped to make the hotel in time for dinner, when four khaki-clad men in a jeep marked, “UP (Uttar Pradesh) Police” waved the bus over. What now? The bus had already had its horn forcibly removed by the Gurgaon police two weeks ago. The men, three carrying what looked like antique bolt-action rifles and the fourth with a pistol stuck in his belt, had a short conversation with our driver and Aditi, the project director, then got back into the jeep (a Tata, really) and pulled out, motioning for the bus to follow. “They are our police escort,” Aditi said.

So for the rest of the way into Agra the police drove ahead of us, motioning other drivers to make way with little hand gestures, and generally slowing everything down. Sometimes other vehicles got between us until the gesticulating officers would finally get them to go on around or drop back. I was impressed, but a little worried about how they would feel when they got a look at us. Seventeen bedraggled teachers and administrators in road-wrinkled casual wear doesn’t look much like a delegation of V.I.P.s.  As we stepped off the bus, the officers stood in line, holding their hats in their hands and looking, despite their large guns, shockingly subservient. Never in my life before have I had a cop with a great big gun look at me like he really hoped I was pleased. I smiled and tried to look very pleased, indeed.

They left us at the hotel but were back the next morning as we piled on to the bus for an early morning Taj Mahal tour. They still had big guns. I knew we were safe from rampaging elephants. They stayed outside the gates of the monument, but were there to meet us when we came out.

Our afternoon event was a lecture from the Pollution Control Board in Agra. The police stayed outside, but the whole board, the press, and numerous junior bureaucrats all showed up to the basement hotel conference room for the lecture. There was a period of general shuffling as each functionary found their status-appropriate place either out in the hallway, in the back of the room, or at the table in front of us. Then the lectures proceeded and afterward they presented Aditi and Bhavani with flowers. We all got up to shake hands and nod knowingly and pretend to understand the small talk is a necessary part of the ritual in an Indian Bureaucratic function. Finally they left us with our befuddlement.

Our picture appeared in the local Hindi language newspaper this morning, attentively listening as the Pollution Control Board “talks to American teachers about cleaning up pollution in the Yamuna River.” I gather the article went on to say that what the PCB told us and what the press knew to be true were two entirely different things.  But it was the city that invited the press, so I guess they got what they wanted. Our guide read the paper on the bus and his summary was passed down the rows telephone-style and I don’t claim any firsthand knowledge of anything except that only the top of my head is visible in the photo as I look down to take notes. I was probably writing about how the phrase, “as I have already told you in the presentation” turns up frequently in answers to questions. I think it translates as, “I have said all I am willing or able to say so I will now repeat it and imply that you are stupid to cover up my duplicity.” I have not heard anyone involved with an NGO use it. It is government-speak.

On the way out of Agra this morning we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri and the police joined us for the whole tour. One of them tried to run off a stray dog that Bhavani was feeding crackers to, and she scolded him in Hindi. Unfortunately, she wasn’t nearby when they shoved and slapped the young men trying to latch onto us as “guides” inside the tomb of the Sufi saint Chistie. Sure, the kids were a bit of a pain, and basically trying to chisel us for tips, but that was extreme. We were stunned to see police officers behave that way, but none of us really knew what to do about it. I told Bhavani later, and she said she would have stopped them. I believe her, but she wasn’t there. I’m ashamed to have stayed silent for the most part. I might have said “no” once. It was over too quickly to intervene, and I was too intimidated by the situation and by the police to use whatever leverage my V.I.P. status might have lent me. 

I was glad to see the purple UP Police truck leave us soon afterward. I didn’t want to be a V.I.P. anymore.

Happy Fifth Birthday, Quinn Barrie!

in New Delhi, it's July 25, so . . .

Happy Birthday, Quinn!

I love you! I will be home soon! Until I get home, Mama is the boss, so be good!

Wildlife of Hyderabad

This afternoon I stopped by our hotel room after a curriculum meeting and looked out the window to see . . .

A herd of water buffalo. Of course I went downstairs to get a closer shot.

We've actually seen a lot of water buffalo around Hyderabad. They are in the rest of India too, but they seem to be more prevalent in larger numbers inside the city here. This was the first time I saw them when I wasn't looking out a bus window.

Looking out of the bus window, its too hard to take pictures unless we're stuck in traffic. And for some reason, the interesting creatures never show up when we're stuck in traffic. On the road today I looked out to see a camel making his way along the shoulder. To be fair, he wasn't wild, he was a pack animal, but still. I couldn't get the shot, but maybe Ricky did--he's pretty fast with  his camera and keeps it ready on the bus. I also saw two or three peahens and a peacock. Again, too fast.

Dogs are more common than cows, so it's almost cheating to post a picture of one, but I liked this fellow hanging out at Golconda Fort.

Deeper into the fort, we were hit by a smell that I just recently learned to recognize: bat guano. Inside the vaulted chambers of the royal quarters in the ruined Sultanate fortress, we heard their chittering off in a side chamber. I turned on the flash and shot blind. This shot was pure luck and doesn't enlarge well, but here it is.

I also saw a mouse in one of the diaramas at the Nehru Centenary Tribal Museum, but now I'm really reaching.

The Generosity of Self-Help Groups

The women who form self-help groups in India are among the most down-trodden and marginalized people in the country. They are often widows or abandoned women, women living in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 a day), women who have been abused, women of tribal and Dalit heritage.  Dalit can translate as “oppressed,” and it is the self-selected name for those once called “untouchables.” By pooling their resources and getting support and guidance from NGO’s such as the DHAN Foundation, SUCHI, and SCINDEA, with some help from the government, they have managed to lift themselves from absolute poverty to subsistence living and give their children some education and hope for the future. If they were bitter and suspicious of a group like us, I wouldn’t blame them.

But far from being bitter or suspicious, we have found them welcoming, funny, generous, and warm. The SUCHI and SCINDEA affiliated groups both welcomed us with traditional tribal dances that were thrilling to see. I shot some video and hopefully will get it up before too long.  The Yelagiri Hills federation of self-help groups presented us each with the gift of a small enameled brass bowl. The DHAN Foundation group met with us in their village. They received us in a dirt yard, where we sat, with our shoes off, on make-shift rugs of repurposed political banners. While we talked together through an interpreter, a couple of them went out and came back with a cold three-liter bottle of Fanta orange soda and served us in plastic cups so thin they felt like molded plastic wrap. This was a village like most, with a communal water pump, and, I am sure, very limited electricity access. The gift of cold soda must have been an extravagance for them. Often shy at first, the women would eventually be laughing and joking with each other and with us. They spoke unselfconsciously of how their husbands used to beat them and scold them for attending the self-help meetings, until they started bringing in money for the family. Charming and remarkable women, they have inspired all of us.