Tourist Traps and Tour Guides

As I mentioned in an earlier post, having light skin attracts a lot of attention in India. Unfortunately, the extra attention also makes you an easier target for people looking to take advantage of tourists. Of course it didn’t help that nearly all the buses and vans we were driven around in had “TOURIST” written across the top (as pictured above).

Our first night in Jaipur, we were all very excited to have dinner at a cultural festival/theater that was supposed to teach us about the new state we’d just entered: Rajasthan (literally meaning ‘land of kings’ or ‘land of colors,’ depending on who you talk to). This is the largest state in India and also is the farthest northwestern area of the country, bordering Pakistan. While we were given traditional Hindi bindis and blessings as we walked through the gates of this “festival,” it quickly became apparent that we were going to be experiencing something closer to a circus than learning a historically or culturally accurate account of Rajasthani people.

There were camel and elephant rides, horse carriages, tightrope walkers, puppet shows, snake charmers, dancers, monkeys on leashes, people walking on stilts, and acrobats—just to name a few of the “attractions.” Having seen the newly released film “Water for Elephants” I was particularly sensitive to how sad the lone elephant giving rides appeared, when I saw it up close. I was actually looking at his face particularly closely because my younger sister, who is in Vet School at Iowa State and is going to visit an elephant sanctuary in South Africa on a study abroad program in May, warned me about male elephants becoming aggressive when “in Musth.” Apparently, you can tell if they are entering this hormonal craze by a dark streak of sweat that frames their face/jaw area. Luckily for the people taking elephant rides and the elephant handlers, this elephant didn’t appear to be in Musth, at least by my diagnosis.

At one point, a group of us came out from walking through an underground tunnel/cave walkway that passed by a huge (and roaring) dinosaur statue—to find what looked like aboriginal tribesmen holding wooden sticks and dancing crazily around a bonfire. Upon seeing us, they rushed over and handed us their sticks, and indicated that by holding a stick you had to join in on the dancing. While there’s no doubt this was fun for a few minutes, the moment was somewhat ruined when we stopped dancing and tried to hand back our sticks, and were immediately met with stern faces and outstretched palms demanding monetary donations.

The dinner we were served that evening was the most bland and tasteless meal we had the entire three weeks, which definitely added to our disappointment. We were later told that it was because they are cooking for tourists, whom they expect cannot handle traditional Indian spices. But, perhaps the worst part of this ‘fake India’ (or, “India Disney” as most of our group started referring to it) was that our tour guide that evening had told our professor that the experience was already covered in the tour fee for that day, however, upon our return toGurgoan—our professor received a several hundred dollar bill for our group that night.

You live and you learn—and it’s no different in India.

The Girls

In an attempt to keep my post trip depression at bay, I’ll continue on with my favorite things from India list. One of the most incredible aspects of this trip that I never expected was the friendships that were formed by many of us in the group. It’s always a little worrisome to go on a group trip not knowing many people, but my worries were quickly assuaged within the first few days of our journey because we really did have many amazing individuals. If I had time to go through and give a short bio on everyone, I would, but I want to at least recognize my project group members—also the women with whom I was closest throughout the past three weeks—and whom I hope to continue friendships with long, long after our journey.

Meagan, my fellow MPH CBH department cohort member and classmate, travel companion, and dear friend before this trip—I could not have done it, or had such a glowing experience—without her. She went to Illinois State University for her undergrad in Health Education. She is both wise beyond her years and one of the most caring and thoughtful people I’ve ever known. This picture is of us on a bridge overlooking the great Ganga.

Kim is a graduate student in engineering, but comes from a liberal arts background. She is an incredible woman with the most beautiful children; two young teens from Cambodia, a 7- year old from Haiti, and an infant, Gracie. Listening to her stories of other travel experiences (like the trips to get her children), and discussing innovative research papers on subjects like ‘The Water Poverty Index’ (among many others), I could not have been happier to have to opportunity to spend time with and befriend this amazing woman. I know that Meagan and I will continue to work with her in the future. The picture of Kim standing in the middle of me and 4 other girls, in her beautiful orange/gold salwar kameez was specifically taken to show off her new clothes her very stylish daughter Sophie (13).

Meredith was on this course as her last requirement of her undergraduate degree at Iowa. Her degree is in Political Science but the purposes of this course were specifically for her Sustainability certificate. She was such an asset to our team in so many ways, but her interest and passion for learning about the tribal governance issues was much needed. Meagan and I said many times that we never want to travel without her in our lives again, as she is such an advocate and strong voice to have on your side ensuring that no advantage would be taken of us as first timers to India.

Kristina is an undergraduate in Environmental Engineering, and was instrumental to have in our group for the actual process of water testing. One of the pictures shows her (on the far right) and Meredith next to her actually taking samples from some of the villagers we interviewed. She is an avid photographer, whom I went to for advice on my own camera, but also whom I saw many people in our group trying to watch and imitate—as we knew that if she was standing snapping away from a certain angel—it had to be a good shot! She unfortunately got sick with a version of what Meagan and I had on the last days of our trip, and as a precautionary measure, Meredith, Meagan, and I got to experience the Indian hospital system the last night in Delhi, when we took her to be checked out.

Nandita was the second professor on our trip, she has her PhD in Civil and Environmental engineering, from Purdue. She is from Calcutta originally, and it was fascinating hearing her perspective on our journey through northern India, as compared with her youth traveling more in the south. Nandita is such a strong, smart, and delightful person, and our trip was such a glowing and positive experience in large part thanks to her. She (along with Kim) was an integral part of this course for Meagan and I, always advocating for our public health perspective and stressing the need for an integrated approach to the hydrologic problems most of our group was primarily concerned with.

Babies and Bananas

As I sit and type this blog post, I am fighting back the urge to burst into tears—because tonight, we leave India. On that note, I’m going to write about some of my favorite experiences and amazing cultural phenomena learned from this trip.

First—babies. I should start by explaining that everywhere we traveled in India, we were consistently stared at, photographed, and sometimes even swarmed. In a separate post I’ll have to describe some of my worst experiences and the swarming (and tour guides) in much more detail. Anyway, Meagan and I experienced people asking to get a photo with us almost everyday—some people had never seen blonde hair in their lives (and Meagan does have such beautiful and bright blonde hair!). Our Indian professor, Nandita, (whom again, I’ll have to describe in much more detail in another post, as she has become one of my favorite women in the world) explained that because we have light skin, we are viewed basically as “celebrities.” (Meagan and I have a favorite commercial from the one time we tried watching TV. and it was for a skin bleaching cream called “fair-faced.”) So, over these three weeks, we’ve grown quite accustomed to groups of women, school-children, teenage girls and boys, and even grown men coming up to us on the street and asking for a photo standing with us.

Sometimes they want both of us in the picture, sometimes just one or the other. One of the more rare occurrences that I had the good fortune of experiencing several different times, was families coming up to me holding out their babies or toddlers asking me to hold them for a picture. I wish I had asked Meagan to snap each one of the adorable babies I was asked to hold, but unfortunately she was only close enough for me to ask once, and that’s the picture of me and the toddler you see. I think that I was singled out in the group for these sort of photos because I am so crazy about children, and can’t help but break into a huge grin at every small child I see—obviously inviting the photo-op. Nonetheless, as anyone who also loves the feeling of holding a baby can understand, I so completely enjoyed those experiences. I appreciated the trust and sense of familial pride and happiness that is present when a baby is passed over to a complete stranger, just to have the memory memorialized through a photograph. The photo I have posted was the first time this happened, when we were in Haridwar, for the lanterns on the Ganga ceremony.

Another very heartwarming experience for me has been the times I was able to give something to children in need—whether it be kids in the villages, or children beggars on the street. One common food that most hotel breakfasts seemed to include was bananas, and these were actually the only fruit that we could eat without worry because they have such a thick and impenetrable skin/peel. Anyway, on the first day out in Mewat, Meagan and I both packed extra bananas in our bags because we knew we’d get hungry out in the field at some point. Well, it didn’t take us long to realize the conditions that the children in the Mewat villages grow up with in terms of food availability, so at one of the villages that afternoon I tried to hand my banana to one of the little girls that was following us around. To my extreme dismay, she turned and looked at me like I was trying to kill her, and scurried away. I asked one of the guides we were with and she said something like it wouldn’t be okay for her to accept anything from us for cultural reasons that I wouldn’t understand. I felt pretty devastated at this news, and so guilty for carrying around a banana that I knew would be so enjoyed by one of these hungry children. We finally moved on to see the last water tank on our itinerary for that day, and there we were surrounded by teenage boys and older men almost exclusively.

However, I did notice one young girl, maybe 9 years old, and every time I’d look at her I’d give a tiny grin—knowing that she probably was not technically “allowed” to smile back. But amazingly, every time that I did sneak a glance and grin her way, she’d reiterate the smile even bigger, and we’d enter into an infectious (and sneaky) huge smile exchange—all within the safety of our head scarves of course.

This sneaky glancing and smiling went on between us for the whole 20-30 minutes our group was there, and I felt almost overwhelmed with sadness to have to leave this little girl, with whom I’d had such an intense unspoken, yet undeniable connection. It dawned on me that maybe if another Indian offered her the banana she could accept it, and I thought it was worth a try. This was the first time I really interacted personally with Rash Kumar, (another one of my favorites from this trip—the best driver EVER) and I pointed to the girl and handed him my banana from inside of our van, and amazingly, he understood, called her over, and beaming, she accepted a banana from both Meagan and I.

All the little boys and men that were around her just looked at her jealously and almost mockingly—but she just broke into the most proud and shy grin I’ve ever seen and stood holding her bananas staring at us until we were out of sight. She will have a place in my heart and memory forever, and I so appreciate my exchange with her, it’s actually very hard to accurately put it into words. After that experience, I began taking bananas with me every time our hotel offered them and I’ve given them to children beggars (which we encounter all too often) whenever possible.

The last two pictures are of another little girl with whom I had a similar secret smiling exchange during my time at her village, only she and the other children were very willing and interested in being photographed, as compared to the children from our first day in Mewat. The last photo is an example of being swarmed—but one that was safe and I totally enjoyed. This was when all the children at one village crowded around our vans with such excitement and happiness that the drivers could barely drive away. We left that village saying to each other “well, now we know what it’s like to be Brittany Spears…” and honestly—that has been how we’ve felt many, many times during our stay in India.

As I will discuss in my next post, a lot of the attention received just for being Caucasian is overwhelming, and even scary at times… But these experiences I’ve been lucky enough to have with children during these last three weeks have so deeply touched my heart.