Posthumous India, Day Eight, Part Two

We piled all of the inventory and display supplies into a couple cars: I got to ride in the back of a stripped-out utility Jeep. The shocks on the Indian roads were rough, but it felt like an adventure, sitting sideways on the benches in the back, closed in with a flap of plastic loosely separating us from the world receding outside.

Back at the Farley House, we set up the sitting room with extra tables and jewel-colored swaths of fabrics, to serve as tablecloths. The cards were placed out in neat lines, displaying the freshly stamped fronts and cute, little gift tags in time for Christmas. We set necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and sets up on partial busts, Scrabble tile holders, and in configurations on flat table as presentable as possible. In the end, entering the cozy room from the Colonial foyer was impressive and quite pretty. All that inventory cleaned up real nice. Soon after the set up (and after Annette, the Farley House keeper, also set the dining room up with sweets and teas of which I can still recall the caramels and the gooey coconut bars with hot Nilgiri tea), the first of the visiting ladies arrived. Between the fellow volunteers and the few Ruhamah girls that had joined us (a couple had decided not to come after work), you would be hard-pressed not to find help shopping the room or checking out. Rilla hoovered over the "cash register," where she double-checked our rupee-math with an eagle eye. There was a full-length, Victorian-style mirror set up in the corner, where women tried knotted wooden bead necklaces against their saris or dangled seed bead bracelets around their slender wrists. It was touching to watch the rescued ladies watch the sales, listen to the tally of rupees coming in. You could tell their eyes were opened--as their eyes actually widened--to the possibilities of business. They were proud, too.

In the end, we sold quite a bit (a huge amount to ourselves) and made a sizable sum for Ruhamah. I hope it was enough to spring them forward into their future, into the internet launch and their new designs. Women noshed around, little blue and gold be-ribboned boxes in one hand, a plate of candies or a saucer balancing a tea cup in the other. They chatted in low voices, exclaimed loudly about the jewelry lines, the ribbon cards, the tasty bites.

After which we made our way upstairs and onto Arielle's and my beds, where we divided the remaining inventory up into what we wanted to purchase or put back in Ruhamah inventory or to sell back in the US. It took awhile, and we are all laughing together, talking about the day and about random things. Things fade into getting ready for bed, Sarah is blogging on the laptop in her pjs and I have packed the best that I can, considering I may have more souvenirs after the next morning and less room than I need, already. We ate at some point. I can't remember where or when. Did we visit The Garden again after the sale? Is that the night we sat at the circle booth in the middle and I had more chili ghobi and dosa and a sweet lime water? (By now my stomach was pretty unforgiving.) Was that the night we went from coffee shop to coffee shop as they closed? Begged a record store to open back up for a couple CD sales? Jumped under a dropping sliding door as a bread shop closed? No, that last one must have been earlier in the week. Time is wiping the details. Malaise and exhaustion while in India don't help.

To bed, to bed. I think, "This is my last night," but I can barely keep my eyes open. I still wake in the night to feel the cold house, the ticks and creaks in the silence, remember the first night when the wind rushed the tree tops like a waterfall in the dark and I thought Ooty must always be loud and mysterious at night. I fumble for my glasses in the black of the room, shiver slippered down the hall, bouncing the beam of my flashlight against the bathroom door. I wash up in cold water, return to bed, and feel the weight of nine blankets pressing the cold out of me. I slip away again from the silence, the light breathing, the chilly and dark woven together in a single sensation.

Now, in America, I think of leaving the shop in the afternoon; it makes my hands tingle. Sometimes I get that sensation, when I am hostage to something permanent. It is hard for me to deal with this sort of permanence, I think from losing my brother as a child. It always makes the palms of my hands feel queer, and sometimes the insides of my forearms, like something is slipping out of my grasp. Imagine grasping something in your hands or hugging it hard to yourself, and then having it pulled away. On your skin and in your soul, something isn't right. Hollowness is a lightness pushing on your palms.

There was a small point in time when I realized I had to gather my things at the Ruhamah shop, to leave. Another point, I realized that I would not be coming back. Another, I noticed that we were going to be leaving sort of in a hurry and also while doing something else; loading inventory in the cars, heading to the sale. Embarking on another adventure. Melancholy washed over me, but there were things to do. These moments, like all others, were transient. The brick red floors, the white walls, all pock-marked and utilitarian, slipped away from me even as I stood in the room, tried not to walk away, tried not to move out the door, stared around at the work tables cluttered with work, the stacks of bead jars, the chai cups neatly rinsed and stacked with the chai pot, people moving through the space in blurs of movement and color.

We piled all of the inventory and display supplies into a couple cars: I got to ride in the back of a stripped-out utility Jeep. The shocks on the Indian roads were rough, but it felt like an adventure, sitting sideways on the benches in the back, closed in with a flap of plastic loosely separating us from the world receding outside. India became smaller out the back, one person and building and motor rickshaw at a time. I braced for the drops into the potholes, held my lumpy bag to my chest, applied Burts Bees chapstick, embarking on yet another journey, as every day is.

Merry Christmas, Oh and...

I have the most beautiful children, ever. Just see.

Pothsumous India, Day Eight, Part One

So, this is it.

This is the final day of working in India, and the next day will be busy and very abbreviated: we leave Ooty at 3pm for the three-hour descent to the airport. We are suddenly right up against the end and we (at least I) are feeling it from the moment we step foot in the Ruhamah shop and feel it all day long, breathing down our necks.

[This is one of the stamps that I carved, for Eden (named changed again for safety). She designed it, and this is the result stamped and taped in my journal. Now she will be able to make cards a-plenty, all bearing her unique "signature," and ultimately, her story.]

Sure, it's sad. A lot of lasts. And very little time with these people we have been in close proximity with, getting to know. But then we are also very busy. There are lots of loose ends to tie up at the shop, from a business perspective. Ultimately, we want to leave Ruhamah better prepared for their internet launch, for increased business, and for smoother operations than when we joined them, just five short days ago. So lots to do there. Also, the longer-term workers have their game on for the big event this evening, which is a Christmas sale at the Farley House. It's a big deal, women church and community members have been formally invited, and the bar has been set high. So there's all the inventory to get organized and sorted and fixed (when needed, which is unfortunately quite a bit) and priced and displayed.

Personally, I am just putting the finishing touches on Susan's aari work center and then I need to make a kit of some sort to leave behind which will be like training-in-a-box for paper beads. We did not have time to teach paper beads, but it would be a marketable and sustainable enterprise if they should ever choose to teach the process from scratch, so they have asked that I leave the knowledge and supplies behind. How will I manage this? I don't yet know. But there are plenty of other places I am needed to pitch in, too, if I have a moment to spare. Maybe even if I don't.

Under the surface of my skin, I can feel the frustration, too, of having run out of film. Despite my efforts all week of popping into shops while moving at warp speed, I have not found any to supplement my meager four rolls. There will be no parting shots, none of the journalistic photos that I have been sort of planning in the back of my mind all week. And tomorrow there will be none either--as we whip through Ooty for the last time--as far as I can tell. I still feel off. And nauseous. And I am just starting to really miss my family. (I have this knack for never feeling homesick--no matter how long or short the trip--until the last couple days away. It's handy.)

And here I am. This is it.

In the morning sometime I finish up Susan's corner by pinning up the templates with the names I have given the designs: Masala; India; Flourish; Elegant; Growth; Eternal; Aari. I snag an empty box from Arielle and I piece together that kit for paper beads, including bent paperclips and yet more templates and hand-written instructions and samples which I sit there and make with their current paper supply and also some Indian newspapers and magazines they have given me. I hang wires which will be used to dry the beads on one of the only empty spaces on the wall, and set the box below them. Then I train the current longer-term volunteer on the contents in the box and in making the beads, themselves. She seems a little overwhelmed... or maybe underwhelmed?, and I hope that one day this kit might come in handy. Personally, I can't wait to make some paper bead projects at home, but that's just me. Everyone--including the rescued girls--love the way the beads turn out; two dozen shiny, tiny things colored pale yellow, pale blue, deep red and purple, black and white, cupped in the palm of my hand. So that's promising.

And of course, of course, Rilla (name change) has to thread my eyebrows. Wow, where did that come from? Hmmm... since first laying eyes on me, Rilla has been maybe a little obsessed with my eyebrows. In America, they are thick, yes, but we can call that "character" as long as they don't get too messy or unruly (which they were messy and unruly when I got to India, anyhow). But I actually knew this ahead of time: I am way too hairy for the Indian sensibility. Many Indian woman religiously shave both legs and arms and the perfect Indian eyebrows are very thin and sculpted. They seem to favor arched, as well. Mine are more pointy. Dramatic. Full. And I kind of like them, when they are clean (as in no stray hairs). Silly American me! Rilla, who also happens to be trained in cosmetology or something of the sort, asked me again on this Friday, "You eyebrows? I thread?" And this time, instead of, "Okey, later, when your work is done," I say, "Yes. Now."

Threading, also called epilation, is according to Wikipedia, "an ancient method of hair removal. It is popular in Indian and Persian culture where it is called Bande Abru ("Abru" means eyebrow, and "Band" is the thread) .... Practitioners use a pure, thin, twisted cotton thread which is rolled over untidy hairlines, moustaches and so on, plucking the hair at the follicle level. Unlike tweezing, where a single hair is pulled out each time, threading can remove an entire row of hair, resulting in a straighter line. However, due to a larger area of hair being removed at once, it can be quite painful for some." Wussy Wiki people. It wasn't that bad. But it was an experience. And Rilla was so very serious while managing my eyebrows, hoovering over me with a string pulled taught between her hands and to her mouth, magically moving in quick snaps that sent a small burn across my forehead. She wanted them perfect. Probably didn't help that I was out of matching clothes and was wearing striped tights with a plaid dress. Rilla and the others were calling me "zebra legs." Represent.

We were so busy I was the only one to go with the rescued girls over to lunch. If you know me, I can't skip a meal; my blood sugar plummets and besides about passing out I am suddenly at very high risk for a migraine. I was glad to go, though, because it was our last lunch with the ladies, and some of the last few hours with them period. I can't recall the halting conversations we had. As of right now, I can't even remember the kind of conversation I had with the ladies, from the day I arrived until I left. Information gathering? (Are you married?) Information giving? (In America, almost everyone has their own car.) Practical? ("Have you ever stamped on paper before?) Time-killing? ("It is so cold today.") A little of everything, and a lot of silence and listening to them twitter together in Hindi and laugh at you-don't-know-what-but-it-could-be-at-your-expense-it's-happened-before-and-Monique-has-caught-them. They baby me a little because I am the only one there, showing me again how to do things like eat and advising me on food issues and any other issues that they see I could use advising on. They still can not believe I have a husband ("a good man" I am always saying) and two kids, all of which I left at home to gallivant. It doesn't help that I left their photos in my other wallet and that in the online photo that has been showed to the ladies we are all dressed up in traditional Native American costume.

It's still cold. It's still misty. There is a drizzle suspended in the air. And still there is the edge of land right outside the courtyard of the cafeteria, dropping down and away to verdant, fuzzy hills and undulating tea leaves, solitary women bent over them, rusty red slashes of dirt, gnarled trees at odd places and a wandering, white cow. There is the Ruhamah shop, buzzing with work and smelling of clean-swept cement and glue and worn wood counters sticky with hundred of days of chai. The ghosts of chai past. There are the ladies' desks, now in a shady darkness in the back room, lined in a row and facing a black board, a tiny window covered with wire mesh and viewing a steep hill side so as all you see through this tiny porthole is green. There is the squatty potty, looking like a decent outhouse, whitewashed on the outside and padlocked with an elegant, little lock, and with it's backside to a spectacular view of lush valley and pastoral scenes of just-ouside Ooty.

And here I am with my hand covered in rice and lentil mush, the ding of tin plates and cups on the table top, the taste of masala in my mouth and in my nose and maybe even in my pores and my hair, by now. And these ladies across from me are just going about their business. They see people like me come, they see us go. (Freedom Firm keeps their short-term volunteers down to three times a year, but they also have 3-6 month volunteers.) I am choking on their reality, their future, but mostly their past. One of them was married, at eleven, and when she had multiple pregnancies that she could not carry to term (it was later discovered she had diabetes), she was discarded into a brothel. Another one of them was also married at eleven or twelve. When her husband fell in love with someone else, she was sent back to her family. They sent her to a brothel and used her two small children as collateral against her. A third was only a little girl when she left home to find medicine for an ailing father and was befriended by an older woman at a bus station who drugged her and kidnapped her into a brothel. And now? They are encouraged to reach past their pasts, to envision a future for themselves that has independence, hope, and maybe even (what they want) happy marriages and families. Can I contribute to the fulfillment of these dreams? There is a huge part of me that--at this juncture--wants to partner with them with larger scope: to come back on a regular basis to help in the shop; to help sell their goods in the US. But I don't know what I am capable of. What I have to offer them. I can barely come up with conversation over lunch. I have altitude sickness.

I'm not sure how to end this post. I am stuck in the middle of the day in India, reluctant to keep going and see how this all ends. Stateside, as I write this, it is the middle of the night, Kevin is on the night shift, and I have written and written until I should be in bed. I know that I will lay awake for awhile, rewriting things in my head, writing new things that will be lost as soon as I fall asleep. I have learned to let these things go, to consider them exercises, and ideas for another day, if they chose to return. Despite my best intentions, sometimes I am sad to see them go, even as I think them, imagine them, dream them, plan them. Fluid paragraphs of architectural sentences deconstruct into the ether in the dark and silence of sub-urban America. It strikes me one night how life is lived in fragments. It strikes my one day while driving (another time I try to let creations be transient) that I am seriously racing through this life and that it really, truly has an end and I'm not very far from it. Put the two together and?

There is redemption. There is a perfecting, a making permanent. There is an eternal. And I believe. I believe. (Not that believing makes something true. It doesn't. But when whittled down to a thinness, it is your belief that defines you and builds your future out of that reality.) I believe. And there it is.

Have Yourself a Yummy Little Christmas

I have been wanting to return to the world of entertaining, a little bit. Our lives are so crazy and of course we don't have the money or the energy for it, but we used to love it. So when we realized that Kev would have nearly a month off (speaking weekdays, strictly) for the holidays and we both felt like seeing some friends and celebrating the Savior's birth, we sent out an Evite for a sort-of last-minute open house. I like open houses because you don't have to provide as much food (well, maybe) and you don't have to come up with clever things to do (like cellophane-body-wrap races or kindergarten costume contests... both of which we have done) and people feel like they are low-commitment so they can just "drop by." With a house our size, as well, you can invite scads of people and likely they won't all show up at the same time (you hope). [Photo is missing the roasted potatoes, which were staying warm in the oven.]

So in the end we had some 20 or 30 people cycle through the house, ranging from the minute it started to four hours later (which was an hour past the Evite time). It was a pretty random smattering of people; there were several hopefuls who were already out of town or who had other prior-commitment-parties, and at the last we lost a few to a moved wedding (crazy story). There was lots of chatting and hugging and tour-de-house-es and well-wishing and a little cookie-eating-then-jumping-leading-to-vomiting. But the talk of the evening (besides our Christmas tree (see entry titled "How Lovely Are Your Branches") and our charming little house (there were quite a few invitees that had never been over)) was the food. I don't believe I have ever had such a successful spread. And if you know me, I always overdo it with the food, in both quantity and scope. I often cook for days up to any occasion and attempt things like brand new recipes, homemade candy, fresh-baked bread, pickling, whatever ridiculous culinary feat pops into my head, really. So this spread didn't seem that special to me--created with a very low budget and "easy" recipes in mind--but it was just hoovered over and exclaimed over until, well, until the chef felt very tickled.

For Hors d'oevres:
Broccoli and Carrot Crudites with Creamy Curry Chutney Dip
Mixed Olives Marinated in Wine, Garlic and Herbs
Roasted Potato Wedges with Chile Mayonnaise
Mixed Bread with Parmesan Fondue
Crackers with Your Choice of Vegetarian Confit or Hot Artichoke Dip

For Sweets:
Soft Peppermint Shortbread Cookies
Homemade Marshmallows Dipped in Dark Chocolate and Coconut
Crunchy Caramel Corn with Peanuts and Pretzels

For Beverages:
Hot Coffee
Hot Tea Bar
Homemade Virgin Eggnog

So I will gift your Christmas with the most requested recipes from last night (even though they are going to reveal just how easy upscale foods can be)... and have yourself a merry little.

Creamy Curry Chutney Dip
[Modified from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone]

-Mix together 1/2 cup smooth mango chutney, 1 cup mayonnaise, 4 chopped scallions, 1 tablespoon curry powder, juice of 1 lime, 1/4 cup yogurt or sour cream, and salt to taste.
-Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour-1 day. Taste for lime and salt before serving.
-Serve with raw carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, or other veggie of choice. I heard the roasted potatoes worked well.

Mixed Olives Marinated in Wine, Garlic and Herbs
[Modified from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone]

-In a shallow baking dish with a lip, dump 4 cups drained olives in a single layer. (Everyone suggests Kalamata, but I used a mixture of pitted green and black.)
-Add 1 cup white wine, 4 tablespoons olive oil, 3 thin-sliced garlic cloves, 2 bay leaves, several pinches red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon marjoram, 1 teaspoon oregano, and 1 tablespoon fresh, chopped parsley. Season with pepper.
-Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 375F for at least 45 minutes, until fragrant and swollen.
-Remove with a slotted spoon (keeping the garlic and herbs, but not the bay leaf) to serving container and let stand for several hours before serving.

Parmesan Fondue
[Modified from Allrecipes.com, submitted by Gwynne Fleener]

-In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, carefully heat over medium heat (stirring regularly) 1 1/2 cups milk, 16 ounces cream cheese or neufchatel, 1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan, and 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt. (Not sure the last was necessary, but boy did people luuuurve this stuff. I might change that to some garlic powder or granules instead.)
-Transfer to a fondue pot or mini-crockpot and serve warm with French bread cubes.

Virgin 'Nog
[Modified from Allrecipes.com, submitted by Sal; I made this party quantity of eggnog in four batches in the blender. So that is how the directions are written]

-In a blender, pour 4 cups whole milk, 4 exceptional quality eggs, 1/3 cup sugar, a scant tablespoon vanilla, and a couple dashes nutmeg.
-Blend until completely smooth and incorporated and frothy.
-Repeat three more times and then store in the fridge for up to a few hours and serve chilled and with a shaker of cinnamon on the side.

Modern Momma's Lasagna

This goes together so fast, but it takes forever to bake. My kids love lasagna, so when I have some time to whip this up (and even refrigerate it) on a day I can pop it in the oven at 4:00 or 4:30, it's a great dinner for the fam. I created it with veggies that my kids will eat, but if your kids will eat spinach, broccoli, zucchini, or they won't eat olives, modify as needed. If you are a meat-eating family, you would just add some browned meat to the tomato sauce.

Modern Momma's Lasagna

-Open a jar of marinara sauce. (My fave is Newman's Organics Marinara or Tomato Basil.) Spread a fourth of it on the bottom of a 9x14 or 8x11 inch lasagna pan or Pyrex.
-Open a box of no-bake lasagna noodles. (Whole Foods now makes them, but from what I can tell they are not whole grain.) Spread a single layer of noodles over the sauce.
-Spread another 1/4 of the tomato sauce on the noodles.
-In a saute pan, heat 1-2 tablespoon olive oil and saute 1/2-1 finely chopped onion and a few cloves pressed garlic. When it has softened, add 6 grated carrots and continue to saute for 3 minutes, salting to taste.
-Spread all of the veggie mixture into the pan over the sauce.
-Grate 3/4-1 pound mozzarella cheese (fresh works well here, but I just slice it). Sprinkle (or lay) half of it over the veggies.
-Top with another layer of noodles and then another 1/4 of the sauce. Sprinkle with the other half cheese and then 1 can black olives, sliced.
-Top with final layer of noodles and then the last of the tomato sauce.
-Finally, cover with a sprinkling of grated Parmesan. Cover with foil and bake at 400F for between an hour and two hours. When it is done, it will be bubbly and the noodles will be tender all the way through.
-If desired, remove foil and broil until browned. Let cool a little to set and enjoy lasagna on a week night!

We Interrupt This India for Another Cookie Sweet Cookie

This is the recipe you are looking for, Carol. I might have used cow milk instead of the alternative milk when I made them that night. Then for the frosting, I used a very typical chocolate buttercream made with no-hormone butter and primo sugar. You could find a recipe for the frosting in Betty Crocker or other standard, or at allrecipes.com.

I tacked on a bonus recipe; my favorite chocolate chip cookies, perfected over years of experimenting with a perfect recipe (as in my parents would use dates with me to barter for them) with not-so-perfect ingredients (like butter flavored shortening and refined white flour). I rarely make them--as they are basically sugar in your palm--but they are a real treat.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Bars
(modified from How It All Vegan)

-In a mixing bowl, cream together 1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar, evaporated cane juice or sucanat and 1 cup virgin coconut oil.
-Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 cup room temperature almond, rice, or mixed grain milk (or water, actually).
-Mix in 2 cups whole spelt flour and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. (Directions always tell you to mix the dry ingredients first, but I have never had a problem with this.)
-Stir in 1 cup dark chocolate chips until just mixed.
-Pour mixture into a 9x13 inch bar pan and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350F. Easy peasy.


Chocolate Chip Cookies to Barter With
(I always make a double batch of these, so the measurements are for a double batch.)

-In a mixing bowl, cream together 1 1/2 cups raw turbinado sugar, 1 1/2 cups organic brown sugar, and 4 sticks no-hormone butter, softened.
-Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla and 4 lightly beaten eggs.
-Mix in 4 cups whole wheat flour (pastry flour works well), 1/4 cup wheat or oat bran, 1/4 cup wheat germ, 2 teaspoons baking soda, and 2 teaspoons sea salt. To accomplish this, I pour the flour in first and then make a dent where I place the leavening in salt. Working from the center outward, I sort of mix the leavening into the flour before mixing it into the rest of the batter.
-Stir in 12 ounces dark chocolate chips just until evenly distributed.
-Mound onto bake sheets with a large table spoon and bake for 10 minutes at 375F. Do not overbake. Let cook for 3-5 minutes, and transfer to cooling rack. Repeat until cookies are all done.
-Store tightly sealed.

Posthumous India, Day Seven

[To view these photos of the aari work I helped this rescued girl with and more India trip photos like them, see Rachel Grace Photography on Flickr.]

It's already day four out of five of our work days, which is hard to believe. More than half way and sure the day will fly by like the rest. As we all settle into our work and our relationships, we (at least I) have more particular goals for each ensuing day. It is Thursday, the 11th of November, and my goal is to get one of the rescued girls settled in her new designs. This means I have to first create the designs for the bracelets she has been making, and then make templates for them, and color-coded diagrams, and label the supplies for each one, and then organize it all with a new design board (which I have to make from scrap) and a neatly organized corner shelf. I am excited to have something specific to do and something that I am heading. We Americans notice that each one of us has found a very specialized niche where our work is needed and our particular talents shine. I wouldn't have guessed, but I am needed and used in aari work, to make designs and organize them. I can organize. I am built to create. I have a flair for design.

Aari work? Yes. Aari is basically just an Indian (Hindi?) word for bead work, but it encompasses sequins and embroidery as well. All that bling on Indian clothing? Aari. As for how it is accomplished, after watching Susan (that is what I will call her, leaving her name off for security's sake) very closely for days, I could not really tell you. What I know is this: Susan was sent away to learn the trade; she takes a fabric and strings it up and pulls it tight so that she has a "table top" of taught fabric on a table frame; then she takes this long and thin implement with some sort of hooked needle on the end; she picks up beads or sequins with the point (or embroidery? the tool might be slightly different for the embroidery) and lines them up on the tool; she then picks up threads from the fabric itself and now comes the magic... a second later the bling is secure on the fabric and she has moved on to like three more beads or sequins or stitches before you can say "aari".

Susan (as a note: the ladies tend to change their names after they have been rescued and voluntarily baptized, signifying a new life and a new beginning for them. Some of them are Western, some are not.) has recently been working on aari bracelets. But she is tiring of the patterns (stripes and circles) and they are not selling as well as Ruhumah needs. My job is to sync American ideas of a cool Indian look with what Susan can actually make happen. I start with a book of Indian patterns for clothing and a blank piece of paper, a pencil. We up the size of the template (as the bracelets do not tend to fit the typical wrist of the American market very well, either) and I sketch leaves, flowers, swirls. I choose bold and lively colors, which is what the Indians love, but try to make them current America. And when my feet hit the pavement--ie. when I am walking around the shop looking through towers of jarred beads and sequins and boxes of thread and then asking Susan if each one will work--I have to go back to the drawing board again and again. These beads are too big. (Seriously? They look the same to me.) This thread is not the right kind. (Isn't that the same spool as the one I just brought over?) I can't fit three beads in that hole. (Alrighty then. Two-bead petals it is.) I learn a lot, not just about aari, but about troubleshooting and about patience and about flexibility. A coral background becomes salmon. A translucent ruby petal becomes shiny eggplant. A three-pointed pyramid becomes a triangle with an extra step.

Susan and I are still working, waving our hands at each other and speaking broken English (even me) and occasionally looking exasperated and begging translation when the sun sinks, burdening the Western sky and signaling us to shut down shop. I gather my things: a side satchel with about sixteen pockets; water bottle full of purchased water; a half-eaten pack of coconut cookies or a coconut candy bar; electrolyte packets; pink bismuth that has spilled out of my bag; my umbrella; my sunglasses; a scratchy, vibrant Indian sweater with cable knit eyelet sleeves; a turquoise windbreaker; scarf wound around my neck; and always a pencil that I have forgotten is still in my hair. We end the day quietly but with sudden bursts of conversation, bears emerging from a hibernation of purpose. We sort of stand around outside the front door until we have all moseyed out, waiting while facing the door, our backs to the stone stairs up to the road, the other Smyrna buildings, and the end of the world breaking out over the tea fields, the steppes, the mist of Ooty under the last, strong brilliance of the day: dusk, sunset, twilight.

We all walk up the stairs and then down the hill, past the shacks and around the occasional honking car careening like a bull to avoid potholes. We remark on laundry that could never dry and jostle and poke little jokes at one another. My eyebrows are too crazy, but that is a story for tomorrow's blog.

For dinner we work our way to Fernhills Palace. It really is a palace, and a hotel, and they are setting up a movie shoot in what might have been a ballroom in its day. But it is late, and we are nearly alone in the restaurant, which is tucked away at the back (perhaps there is a nice view of the grounds when it is not dark?) and chilly. I am disappointed, maybe because the menu is too huge to wrap my tired mind around, or because the food is not that great (come on! It should be... a palace?) or maybe it's not that great to my tired stomach. I think mostly it's because my drink of choice is unavailable and when I change it I am brought the wrong thing, and then my first and second entree of choice is unavailable and the third the waiter refuses to bring me because it is officially a side dish and without telling me he orders for me, and then I don't like what he brings. Yeah, that and I am so tired (and again, it might have something to do with the altitude) that I have to force back an outburst of tears each time I come up against a food disappointment. I excuse myself to the bathroom.

I walk through the "ball room," which looks like a Bollywood film, but expanded so that you can see the cameras and the lights on poles and the wires. I can see the ghosts of tomorrow, dancing and singing, sashaying their hips and flitting their pretty fingers like birds on strings. Again I am tired. This is hard. This is an uphill climb. This is a slow breaking of the heart, a painful putting the pieces back together. This is not Bollywood. This is human trafficking. This is tragedy. This is redemption.

Posthumous India, Day Six

The mornings are so early for me, in India. So quiet, so still, so cold. At 6am I am usually awake and laying still in bed (before or after making my way in my socks and slippers to the chilly bathroom down the hall), when the air raid siren goes off in town (for what, no one seems to know, let alone notice) and then the church bells, the call to prayer, the Hindi singing. The dogs, the rooster, and the cluck of other animals outside our window. The odd single-file line of noises gives way to still and quiet, again, when I notice that there is now the noise of traffic (which means all that honking) underneath, in the distance. And then I might hear some footsteps on the stairs, the smack of a door, the creak of a rusty spigot outside.

Today I tell myself I should be washing clothes in a bucket of water and hanging them to dry (thank goodness I didn't, because the days remaining to us were wet and cold and clothes would not have dried, no matter), but instead I get dressed and sit on my bed with a grumbling stomach and swollen ankles, thinking.

Then the walk all the way down and through Ooty and to the bus stop. On the bus. Off the bus. On the other bus. Music pumping, people piling on, incense wafting, bus swaaayyyiiing up the mountain. Down the steps to the shop. Work. Played with one of the rescued ladies' toddler daughter who stays at the shop for lack of other options. Work. Chai. Work. Came up with a brilliant idea for helping to stamp centered and clean. It mostly worked. Ate lunch with my hands. Work. Work. Chai. Work. Close up shop.

Today, instead of a walk down the hill to the bus, we were picked up by the Freedom Firm driver. (There was a bit of a fiasco on this point and we actually did end up walking down the hill first, but whatever. We ended up in the car with the driver.) We stopped at a couple places on the way across town and grabbed some sodas, among other things. I was usually relegated to the back of the Freedom Firm car, since I do not get motion sickness even sitting backwards or sideways, but I am starting to wonder--despite the Coca Cola that I am drinking to ward off nauseousness--if I am not affected. It is hard to tell between all the spice, the foreign food, the lack of roughage, the foreign bacteria, the change in lifestyle, the jet lag, the altitude sickness... where one thing leaves off and another begins. Between us six Americans, we all seem to be randomly and halfheartedly popping pink bismuth and Imodium at odd times, hardly convinced of what ails us.

The driver (even after doing some research, I have no idea how I might spell his name) drove us into the woods, where we cut back and forth on some mountain roads for just a bit before he pulled off into a little clearing at the side of the road. We were due at Greg and Mala Malstead's (Freedom Firm workers) house for dinner. There we got out of the car--no home in sight--and walked off down a narrow path through the woods. Really? Really. Apparently, there were some legal disputes going on during which the government had repeatedly bulldozed the Malstead's driveway, despite their best efforts to "follow the law." You could come up on the side of the bulldozed drive, but you would need a hearty Jeep, something that we did not have available to us. So we were coming from above the house, on a maybe-quarter-mile hike through the woods, "down and down, the tree limbs sticking in your hair, and your feet tripping up .... We mused all the way down on grocery day or rainy days or acquiring even a small piece of furniture. When you step out of the jungle brush and see their very Western and nice and roomy home, it's quite a shock."

We oohed and ahhed at their home-in-progress, with it's Western kitchen and neat flourishes and tiled bathroom and acquired art and spiral staircase. We sat down at the dining room table and were treated to a fresh salad (which was great: we were not usually eating raw fruits and veggies) and chipped beef (the only meat I had eaten, which is not unusual for me) and creamy, mashed potatoes. We chatted and laughed and Mala told stories of India. About half-way through the meal, despite everything including the warm home and the pleasant candlelight, I found myself unreasonably nauseous and exhausted. I walked away from the meal and what seemed like nice conversation and seated myself on a couch by a fire. Soon, everyone joined me with dessert and coffee, which I could not hold up, let alone stomach. Nor could I hold up my head or my eyelids. I didn't talk during the mid-week de-brief, my mind a fuzz, and drifting in and out. I wanted to be anywhere that I could be prone and allowed sleep. "In hindsight, it could have been part and parcel with the altitude sickness, but at the time I was frustrated with my deep dread of getting up off the couch and tromping back through the jungle, this time uphill, the distinct possibility of panthers in the dark emerging from the only-somewhat-tongue-in-cheek conversation. Normally I love adventure, but I was too tired and irritated and sick to even ask Mala if I might lay down for an hour, for the night, for a few days..."

The evenings have become just too much for me, my exhaustion defeating any enjoyment. The mornings a refuge of quiet and solitude. The days, a race run: sometimes like wild turkeys, stupid to the bigger picture and chasing after the small things that present themselves. The days, a mountain ascended one foot fall at a time, one stamp on paper at a time, one jar of beads placed on a shelf at a time, one chai sip, one smile, one prayer.

Posthumous India, Day Five

At 530 am I woke in the dark and quiet of the Farley House. I lay in the bed thinking about home; I knew that my sister's ultrasound had happened and that soon my little family and my sister and brother-in-law and my mom (in NC watching the kids) would be sitting around a table unveiling the gender of my first niece/nephew and--I filled in the details, here--at Red Robins, the table in the middle, and the kids would have new hair cuts and new shoes (Boy's a brown, leather pair of casuals),. Lindsay would say it was a boy. And if I was there, I would assure her that her boy was going to be calm, like our brother (and not like Boy), and that he was going to have Dan's (let's face it) unmanageable hair. I made my way down the silent hall, through the bathrooom (locking it up from the inside) and out the outside door and across the sort-of-courtyard to fill a bucket with lukewarm (on some mornings, hot) water. I shivered, shooed the turkeys aside. They warbled at me from the back of their throats: a peaceful sound, really.

When everyone else became active, I jumped on the computer to call Lindsay via Skype. (So right before I left for India, a friend of ours informed me that you can buy Skype units and then you can "call" a phone in the US from the internet anywhere in the world. He advised me that $10 would be enough. So I invested, a little dubiously. Turned out to be a great moment for following advice. I easily called (not videod, mind you) Kevin several times from India using my Skype account, as well as my mom, Lindsay, and the kids. In the end, I hadn't even used up $3!) Lindsay was surprised to hear from me. I left her saying I would hear all about it on my return, since I had no idea if I could be in touch and wasn't going to spend all my time trying. But she gladly shared the news with me: It's a boy! And Boy has new, brown shoes! And they ate at Red Robins! Hurrah!

We had to be up pretty early and dressed warm for a sizable speed-walk down the mountainside and across Ooty to the bus stop. Dawn light shifting through the trees on women sweeping their stoops against an impossible conglomeration of garbage; a white horse stood unmotivated in the road; newspapers for sale; honking. Honking. Honking. I'm pretty sure that by now I was getting used to walking in India, but would never completely get the hang of it. For one, all the honking at pedestrians I just couldn't get over: I always felt yelled at, when really what I think was happening was more of a conversation by tone. Drivers keep a thumb always hovering over the horn, and they press it frequently. Personally, I would sit in the back of a car or motor rickshaw and watch the thumb (boy, it was lightning speed!) and use sheer mental force to try to decode this language. It was impossible, as it was to figure their driving. Sure, there was a side of the road on which Indian's drove (the left), but they rarely stayed there, even around blind turns. They just honked, instead. Why? Lord help me! Trying to understand even this one aspect of Indian driving is like trying to know why the Indian shopkeeper that you just asked for an orange shirt stopped first to package up three saris and then help one more customer before happily doing it for you. Linear? What?

So perhaps now you understand the problem of walking in India, just a little. A few more pieces of this problem: there are people and vehicles just everywhere; people do not (at least not reliably) walk on the sidewalks; and, as alluded to earlier, all rules are up for sudden amending. Except this--the bigger thing wins. Always. That makes pedestrians the bottom of the road food chain. So step lightly and stay alert. And after that, never touch other people's feet, make up your own rules and wander. Wander, that is, unless you are trying to keep up with Sarah, in which case you need to fly down the road while not getting smashed by a bus hanging with people and spewing exhaust.

Tuesday was the first day that we took the bus, which was an experience I looked forward to with excitement, curiosity, and nervousness. When we boarded, thankfully, it was nearly empty and so we doubled up on the benches with each other and with the Ruhamah ladies. But not until after we put that first foot on the bottom stair of the bus and kapow! the most raucous, loud, and happy music you have ever experienced just assails all your senses. If that is possible. I think it is. The bus did get crowded, but no one really hanging out of it. It smelled, a little, but mostly of incense (which was burning on the front dash.) We made one transfer in the middle of town. And there are flashing shrines and hanging marigold chains and the all-seeing eye (or else a loud window decal proclaiming "I love Jesus!") But just like the rest of Ooty, there is a distinct lack of invasive poverty: I am approached exactly once during the entire trip with a plea for money, and I see only one legless man laying roadside. There is still poverty, which we walk right through on the weekday afternoons, peering through make-shift front doors and into make-shift dwellings flush with the narrow roads down the mountain from Smyrna. But it is not quite the kind you hear tell of in India. Mother Teresa's India. This is tourism India, even though Westerners do not tour here. Apparently they want Mother Teresa's India? Or just the Taj Mahal: the iconoclastic India.

And I have not even arrived at Smyrna and Ruhamah. But every day we do (and every day I am just bewildered that the bus driver manages to navigate the bus up this narrow mountain road that has almost disappeared into cavernous potholes and wadi-rivulets, just taking it slow and allowing the bus to sway in and out of the holes). Then the day flew by. And that was that.

Or so it felt. But let's pause and explain a few things. Hmm...

I spent the morning doing busy work. There was plenty of that laying around: things that just took time and lots of hands but were working toward the larger goals of having merchandise ready for sale for Friday and also for the launch of the website. In the afternoon, the two of us "paper" ladies tackled Rebekah's pet project: helping the five Ruhamah ladies design their own stamps and then carve them. This was so fun. I can't really explain the process to you, just suffice it to say that when you are born into a situation and a caste where you are not then raised in any way inconsistent with your future position in this world, you just don't develop certain basic (I mean way basic) skills that we would flippintly define in the US as "natural" or even "nature." It's not just that they don't know how to use scissors... it's more that they lack the basic ideas and instincts that are needed to want to use scissors and then to go through the various steps needed to learn how to scis. Every step in these processes is an adventure for the teacher and can be protracted and difficult and I suppose, sometimes, even unusurpable. But today the ladies did end up designing, even though we ended up carving (it was so much fun!), and they ended up being proud of their unique work. By clean-up, my mind is swirling with the issues that face us tomorrow: Can they be taught to stamp straight and centered and clean... and how? How much of their developmental "delays" are from emotional and psychological damage? How much work Freedom Firm has ahead of them for every girl! And, as we are reminded over and over, how far each of them comes, even in a day. Over the length of their stories, there are miracles and miracles and miracles. What stalwart hearts they posses and what gifts they have for the world.

Another thing to mention: chai time. So, obviously this is a remnant of the British occupation, and is only a slightly variant of tea time. For one, it must be had, and at the prescribed time (which is twice during our work day). In Ooty, we are talking heated water and milk (half and half) with a sort-of powdered tea stirred in along with sugar and--if you prefer it this way--masala spices. It is served in these dinky little cups (which if they are metal, you can easily burn yourself on) and all work stops for chai time. The girls found us either funny or exasperating when we did any of the following: did not take chai time; took herbal or plain tea instead of chai; worked through chai time (even if balancing a steaming cup over our bead work); or pleaded off a bad stomach and just sucked on our own water bottles. (The ladies at Ruhamah do not appear to drink water. Ever.) We all took our fair share of unwanted chais just to oblige.

And last thing to discuss right now about our Ruhamah days: lunch time. For lunch, we would all walk across the Smyrna compound (like winding around buildings and over dirt-tracked hills, through gardens growing rosemary and thyme (?!), and past roomy cages of ducks) to the cafeteria. It was enough like a western idea of a cafeteria, really, except that we only ever occupied about 1/4 of it. There were women there who made lunch before we arrived in a quite "primitive" kitchen (and using what home-grown foods, I'm not sure. In India, there is usually some other person doing nearly everything for you. You don't often cook for yourself, clean up after yourself, do your own laundry, etc. Everyone has a specified job, which is why many relocated Westerners find themselves eventually caving in to having housekeepers and drivers and cooks, after a weak and probably uninformed fight). After a group prayer, we lined up at the counter and grabbed a large, shiny, tin plate, flat, more like a platter. Then the cooks filled it up with a long-grain white rice (Basmati?) and with some vegetable or lentil stew of sorts and usually a third thing: like a green bean chutney. There was also a liquid that they would give you in a cup... I can't remember the name of it... like a spicy broth floating with chilies and veggies. This was not my favorite, for some reason. Then you sit down and eat. With you hands. Actually, with your right hand, only. Ideally, I am told, limiting yourself to your first three fingers (which act as a scoop) and your thumb (which you use to push the food off the scoop and into your mouth, without shoving your fingers inside your face). Can I tell you, if you are not used to this it is exhausting. Seriously. I think I burned more calories eating (mostly brain activity) than I ingested.

Although everything was really that exhausting. All the travel, the walking, the taking in new things and processing this new world around you (and throw in some degree of altitude sickness). I was falling asleep sitting up and in the back of some vehicle every night. At like 8 o'clock.

Posthumous India, Day Four

So I have reasons, usually, for disappearing. This time it was finals week for Kevin, and he had the laptop almost glued to his lap top. Studying, I hear. So now I can continue with the stories of an Indian traveler.

I'll start with a photo of the Farley House, since that is where each day began. The window on the upper left is my window... in fact, the head of my little bed/cot was right up abbutting this window. I would scootch up at night and look out of it, mostly at the trees flailing against a sky, both of which you could barely discern in the pervading dark. There is no dark like that at home. And in the morning I would sit up with my back against the wall and the window and draw the scratchy, white curtians (pictured here) to the side and loop them on a nearby nail. Then by the filtered light of Ooty I would start the day, in quiet and in thoughts of cold and of colder "bucket showers"...

On Monday, we began our first work day with Tarrah arriving with their little family van--a Suzuki--to drive us all to work. Normally, we would be taking the bus. We piled in the back with Jovie (their youngest) and drove the long way down into Ooty and around it, taking the scenic way, which ended up being a good thing because it was our only tour around Lake Ooty, which seems to be a honeymoon hub (although we are told, no swimming, just boating). On the other side, we had to work our way up these narrow, deeply rutted (that's a gross understatement) roads to our workplace. The Suzuki (which Tarrah claimed is very reliable but has the motor of a lawnmower) just wouldn't make it with all nine of us. Like seriously, it just stopped. So out we all piled, except for Tarrah and Jovie, leaving them to first coast back down the hill (in reverse) and then get a running start before passing us by. Oh, Indian living.

About 7/8th of the way up the particular, steep bit of mountain we had to ascend to get to Smyrna (the compound where Freedom Firm rents a building for Ruhamah, which is the jewelry-making enterprise and school), Arielle (who was always heading up the rear to keep an eye on all of us) and I stopped to catch our breath. When goaded on, I took several more steps before it occurred to me that something was seriously wrong. It crossed my mind as I saw the van pull up only 20 feet in front of us at the top of the hill that I might not make it there. I sort of hobbled to it, in my mind I was running forward, and I collapsed into the van and threw my head between my knees, gasping for breath and sobbing bodily. I was generally confused.

We arrived at Smyrna in less than a minute and I forced myself down the stairs to Ruhamah and into a chair inside the shop. Ray Campbell--the visiting missionary/Anika's dad from our trip up to Ooty--urged me in this wonderfully soothing and paternal way to go with Tarrah back to her home. I was torn, with guilt/disappointment and physical urgency on either side of the rift. Only minutes away, I lay on the bed at the Palm's unable to breathe, calm my heart, or to stop crying. Tarrah made me tea as we joked about our sudden vulnerability and she looked up altitude sickness on the internet. Turns out, I have/had it. Ooty is around 2200 meters above sea level (which I believe translates to 8000-9000 feet), and altitude sickness kicks in around 2000 meters. Normal symptoms include headache, fatigue, dizziness, lightheartedness, pins and needles, shortness of breath upon exertion, persistent rapid pulse, drowsiness, malaise, edema (all of which I had), and (what I did not have) nausea, vomiting, insomnia, nosebleed, and diarrhea. The uncontrollable crying I am attributing to both my body's response to a lack of oxygen and racing heart (ie. physiological panic) and sheer terror. I couldn't breathe! What can you do about it? GO DOWN THE MOUNTAIN! Not really a viable option, so we decided to wait it out a little.

So, Jayson Palm is an old friend of mine from Taylor University. Like not just any friend, but among my closest circles, and someone who I had road-tripped with out east, studied in Jerusalem, traced the Nile with, hiked in the Golan Heights, photographed his Bmidji, Minnesota wedding. The last of which was when I met his bride, Tarrah. When I was first educating myself about the startling reality of human trafficking, I came across Freedom Firm and really liked their organization. I had some art shows lined up that year and I posted their info at my shows, sent some proceeds to them. Soon after, I find out that my church also had Freedom Firm in its sights (we have several organizations/ministries that we support continually). Then, about the same time, I figure out that Jayson and Tarrah have moved their brood of four little ones all the way around the world and to India to work with Freedom Firm! When I caught wind of a trip over there, I expressed very particular interest. Lo and behold, I was asked to join the trip, which ended up being in need of creative and crafty women. Seriously?

[Note: I stole this photo from the Palm's blog.] Back to November, on a Monday, and a couple hours later--when my heart had finally (just) started to calm--Jayson took an unplanned, long lunch at home. It was such a great day. Hours with Tarrah just talking and hearing from both Jovie and Sydney (the next-youngest, home from a half-day of school) and then a long, leisurely lunch on their front patio, in the breaking sun, just flapping our jaws and sharing our developing stories, our struggles, our joys and triumphs. Most of the conversation was of the between-friend sort, and was just immensely enjoyable. It was more than enough to understand that being missionaries is not easy, that Jayson has himself quite and wife and that their kids have themselves quite the parents, and that just my being there with them was refreshing for them. They were pretty good at asking me a question every time there was a break, but I managed to get some in. Honestly, I didn't want to leave.

And I wanted to leave, too, because I was in India to work at Ruhamah. In the late afternoon, Tarrah drove me back to the shop and I wandered in, a (physically weak and socially humbled) stranger. I'll say more about the shop later. I only spent a short time there Monday. And there is much to say. So much. Words won't be enough, when you are standing there and everything is so different, saturated in newness and permeated in layers of meaning, of graduations of light, dark, texture, color, happiness, pain, wonder.

On our walk back through town (apparently downhill holds no sting for me), two of the Ruhamah ladies insisted that a few of us stop and buy proper, Indian nose rings (not these ugly rhinestone and silver ones we have, but something glittering with real gold!), so they drug us from one shop to another, haggling, as the twilight crept over the streets and the raucous lights again lit for the evening. We had dinner at an American food place (Indian style), humorously named The Sidewalk Cafe, for how could you possibly put a table out on a sidewalk in Ooty, let alone eat at it?

Posthumous India, Day Three

(If you are wondering where day two is, it disappeared into traveling. We'll start here with three.)

So on our first full day in Ooty, we were still warming up for our work. We had more acclimating to do, people to meet, and plenty of expectations to go over.

But we began our day with Jayson and his wife Tarrah and their three kids at a nearby Holiday Inn for an Indian buffet. The dosas were wonderful... crispy and spicy and creamy and soft all at once. (A dosa is like an airy, savory crepe wrapped around a filling of spiced potatoes (masala) and, in my preference, melted paneer (cheese), and cooked until browned on the outside. You break off pieces--only with your right/"clean" hand--as they do not traditionally use utensils in India.) Of course there were many other options at the buffet, but that is still the taste that lingers in my memory. The hotel dining room also boasted a beautiful view of Ooty, from a spot nestled in the mountainside above the downtown. If Farley House hadn't been surrounded by woods, this is similar to the view we would have had.

Then to church, which I can not for the life of me remember the name of. There are four separate services each Sunday to cover four different languages. We went to English, thankfully. Ooty is a tourist/honeymoon destination for a lot of Indians, so even though it is officially Tamil speaking, there are plenty of Hindi speakers (which is the majority Indian language). Since English is the langua franca (left over from British occupation, when a unified India was first conceived of), however, and especially since those in the tourist trade need to speak the langua franca for the other something-like-1400-local language speakers, English is also spoken "universally." English is taught in the schools (which still excludes many people from learning it) and Ooty has another reason for speaking English: missionaries. One of the only missionary-kid schools left in the country (Hebron) is right there in Ooty, attracting missions and missionaries from various stripes and countries. I believe this may have been one of the reasons Freedom Firm's rehabilitation program ended up in the area, besides the fact that it is also a very conservative town and one with low crime and nestled away in the mountains from usual urbanity, effectively snuggling the girls to its bosom.

After church--an unassuming, simple service in an historic chapel at the tail-end of the pastor's long stint there--we walked close-by to yet another chain coffee shop. (I guess I'll just have it said here and then try to drop it: I'm not too big on chain coffee shops here in the states (not that I am never at one, mind you), but I detest them abroad. I think it has something to do with that I expect America to be manufactured and capitalist and chintzy-for-the-sake-of-a-buck. But I want other countries to maintain their integrity and cultural identity. I hate McAmericas. And really, I much prefer a local, flavorful, grass-roots kind of place stateside, as well. Plus, I am not a coffee drinker, except for socially. So all this coffee shop stopping felt a little like wasted time to me. Apparently, though, necessary to most of the other ladies. But all that is beside the point.) Mala Malstead, the woman who directs Ruhamah (the jewelry and card making enterprise), sat with us for well over an hour and gave us information, answered questions, and generally attempted to head-off issues that may come up later. Our time in India was already ticking away.

She dipped in and out of some of the girl's stories as she gave us the information we needed to do what they wanted us to do. We had not really met the girls, and being just that much closer to victims of trafficking really choked me up. Trafficking victims' stories usually have very similar themes, and very definable patterns. It was more of the same, but a little closer to a face: a name, a proximity, a common friend. (If you want to know more about trafficking worldwide and where to continue your research, see my blog entry from September, 2010, titled "Join Me!".) I wasn't sure I was ready to look them in the face and to know these stories. How could people be vessels of such pain and still live redeemed? Rejection; family abuse; miscarriages and broken marriages; separation from children; deceit; drugs; lack of basic education; poverty; hunger; and that's all before they got to the physical and sexual abuse and the other horrors of the brothel life, several at the tender age of eleven or twelve.

What could I possibly do for them? Would me being there make a difference? After all, India is not even one of the prime locations for slave trafficking. Despite India's monstrous population and the very real presence of slaves, places like Thailand and Germany are just churning out and absorbing in slaves at an astronomical rate. The US. I reminded myself that I had once said to Kevin after reading a book on trafficking, "If I worked the rest of my life with the issue of trafficking and in the end I had helped to save only one girl, it would be enough." You would want as much done for you. You would want as much done for your daughter. And Jesus counts each one as a precious individual.

Details worked out, we went with the fearless, red-scarf-adorned Sarah into downtown Ooty to do some shopping, since the rest of our week would lack time for doing much else besides working and meeting with people. It was so cold that I bought two sweaters and a thick scarf with the limited funds I had along, hoping to bolster my meager cold-weather packings, but also managed to gather together some souvenirs. It was a backwards sort of way to shop: we had no knowledge of anything, and we were supposed to figure out the currency, bartering practices, and local goods and snag acceptable deals while speaking English-Hindi-Body Language and deciding on the right shops and flash-decision shopping lists. We did okey. It was fun, at least.

Turns out Ooty was not the best place for bargain hunting, as the tourism drives the prices up. I mostly had to stay away from silk and gold jewelry for this reason. We did some shopping in the marketplace, which reminded me a lot of the marketplace in Jerusalem and I'm sure many other cities around the world. It was basically a giant grid of shops set up from various building material (if you want to call all of it building material) and covered along the narrow alleyways with white, translucent plastic and blue and yellow tarps. There were foul smells and some pleasant as you tripped along through the uneven walkways, and sights too many to take in: fruits and veggies arranged artfully and bounteous; animal carcases hanging along the way; stalls completely filled with neatly packaged bangles glinting gold and red and fuschia in the glaring, bare bulbs of nighttime Ooty. And so much more.

We did most of our shopping, however, somewhere around a giant fountain in Ooty called Charring Cross (where a few roads came together in the this giant--oddly--triangle.) Here, the stores were more like you might find American stores in a downtown: in buildings, separated by walls, spilling out onto the sidewalk and nearly into the street (the delineation of which we will have to talk about later with the entire issue of walking in India). There were counters inside, shelves and racks of clothing and jewelry and food and home goods and fabrics, etc. Clothes were often packed in slender cellophane packages and stacked from floor to ceiling behind the counter. You want to see some? They start yanking out samples 2, 3, 10 at a time and opening them out for you to observe, now a brightly-colored, multi-patterned mound on the counter. By the end of my time there, I had purchased two hand bags (everything is bedazzled in India!); two letter openers shaped like peacocks; one full costume for me, one each for the kids; one tunic; several small enameled, hand-painted objects for the kids, like elephants and ducks and boxes; one carved-wood box with filigree on the front; one silk purse with an elephant embroidered on the front; two totally bedazzled clutches; several scarves of varying materials and styles; an Ooty-exclusive hat to keep me warm at night; a local tourist magazine; some Hindi newspapers; some indie-Hindi CD; a few random peasant skirts; half-a-dozen set of metal or glass bangles; a gold nose ring which I later realized was a significantly higher gauge than I want; and I think that may be it. Pretty typical. (The jewelry came later, from Ruhamah.) One of the best parts of Ooty? Customer service! People wanted to help me! They smiled at me! They were nice! They would check other stores for a specific color or sleeve design... BY HOOFING IT! That, I am going to miss, sorely.

For a late dinner, we went to The Garden, a smallish place with some local flair which Sarah knew pretty well. Monique went ahead and ordered us a spread, punctuated by chili ghobi (spicy cauliflower), buttered chapati (flat bread), and paneer butter masala (cheese in a spicy butter sauce). In my journal I described it as "seriously yum," although any mention of Indian food makes me physically nauseous right now, but more on the that later. Also had the requisite foreign Fanta. I think the romance of them may be wearing off for me.

On our return walk and then motor rickshaw ride up the mountain, "It darkened, drizzled, fogged. It was a peculiar scene, the Ooty market in the dark and mist and fog. Breathtaking in its own way: the cacophony of horns; the headlights slanting through the fog; saris wrapped in sweaters and draped in scarves, even topped with hats; dogs curled in the refuse under neat towers of radishes and roots, lines of shiny bangles, bags of rice, and lentils. And all of it disappearing into a cloud, only feet away from your immediate gaze."

Posthumous India, Day One

So we'll just do this one day at a time.

The first day of the trip (plus) was spent traveling. I have never been completely on the other side of the world, and the jet lag is a little rough, especially when you travel to a harder-to-reach destination. I'm sure there are much longer records, but we traveled for 35 hours just to get there, and our days were then completely flipped (at 10 1/2 hours difference. Yes, you read that right). So, here in the blog as well as way back in November and on the ground, I kind of have no real distinction for where the days left off and began. I'll just tell you about the travels, first. Perhaps that's not what you were waiting for. Too bad for you.

First, a six-or-something-like-that international flight from Raleigh to London. I had been one of the ladies really pushing for a trip out and about in London during our long layover, and my wishes had been granted by train tickets from our gracious church. We caught the Express Train (15 miles in 15 minutes!) from Heathrow with carry-ons in tow, to Paddington Station. We stepped out of Paddington and into downtown London, which is a life-long dream of mine. It was exciting, but such a short stay makes it a bit less dreamy. Plus, you know, I wasn't exactly on the pub, academia, and literature tour, which is what my choices would have been.A few blocks later and we were in Hyde Park, which we walked all around.


London was as expected--"grey, watery," "appropriately overcast with an ineffective drizzle and cool"--and I found myself longing for the wild, verdant Duke Gardens of Durham, NC, as opposed to the vast, flat spaces of Hyde Park. We covered a lot of ground in just a few hours, had coffee at a chain coffee shop (the chocolate croissant was a consolation), and sat out front of Harrod's... saw red phone booths and double-decker buses and Kensington Palace, etc. I walked blisters onto my toes, which was my own fault for wearing new galoshes and ended the exploration a little dazed and confused: sure it was barely afternoon in London, but I would have been fast asleep in my bed at home, tired from a day of travel and speed-walking.

Flight to Bangalore. Already making use of the change of clothes I had in my carry-on, and stuck in the purgatory that is airport even though officially we had made it to India. Our flight on the prop plane was delayed and we did some sitting-up nodding-off over (oh boy! more chain coffee! and) my first mango lassi of the trip. Monique also ordered some plate of her favorite Indian snacks and we waited... for a puddle jump to Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, the southern-most state in India. Imagine India in your mind. We're talking the bottom tip, but inland. I didn't yet know this, but we would end up practically on the equator, but so high in the mountains that you really would not have guessed.

As expected, pretty hot in Coimbatore at the teeny-tiny airport. The drivers were waiting for us, thank goodness, because a couple of us started to hand bags off to men willing to act familiar and "help." Our little band of six (plus two drivers) were led by (our seventh,) Sara, who was to be our guide for our whole stay. And we were rounded off by one of the short-term-volunteer's dad, who just happened to be in India (which by the sounds of it may as well have been another country) and was stopping by for a visit. Missionary stock. Tied some luggage on top of two cars, pulled away from the curb and into the churn of India.

"Mile after mile after mile after mile of palm tree farms, buildings crumbling away at the foundation and patched together with spit and a prayer at the top, and near-head-on-collisions averted by the bullying of the bigger vehicle. But mostly the backsides of motorcycles with the crescent flap of the vibrant sari, every shade of a graduated rainbow; one family member stacked slipshod front to back (and sometimes on): the most brightly-festooned passenger, side-saddling, a rear view ornament of humanity and fabrics of startling beauty and ostentatiousness."

We arrived on Diwali, the New Year, which I can't believe we failed to know ahead of time. We zipped first across the flat parts of life, through city and then more rural area, although there seems to be no un-populated place anywhere. Then we climb, and we climb, clinging to the sides of mountains and switching back and forth on hairpin turns for hours. "Full of new sights and cliched ones, full of breath-taking vistas. The clouds enveloped the mountains, stepped with tea fields and dotted with flaming poinsettias so big they were gnarled trees." None of us can quite stay awake, by now, on only light airplane sleep for a over two days. We nod off, our heads bob on our chest and sway loose to the sides with the erratic, Indian driving style (especially on mountainous roads). This is a testimony to our sleepiness, for if we had been firing on all four-cylinders, we should have been terrified.We were installed in a guest house near the tip-top of the tourist town of Ooty, Tamil Nadu. The Farley House is I'm sure one of the nicer places in town, with a western-style toilet that works if you don't put paper in it and a spigot for (mostly) hot water. The room that Arielle and I took, come to find out, is none other than the old summer room of Amy Carmichle (sp.), the famous missionary. We basically all flopped onto out cot-like beds (festooned with no less than nine blankets a piece) and just lay there... Until I heard Jayse's voice outside and went running to meet the Palms. More about them later, because I am tiring even now of my own travels and am getting ready for bed myself.

We managed to explore the town a bit with Sara that evening, had some Indian food, and then took our first motor-rickshaw ride back up the mountainside to our House. All this done in a haze of exhaustion and sensory overload. What I recall is the whip of cold, mountain air crashing in the sides of the rickshaw, its light frame bouncing hard over the potholed road in the deep dark of less-traveled roads of Ooty at night, the streak of smell and sound and points of light smearing across the enclosed world from the outside and then receding below us. I was thinking about how exciting it was to be there and how grateful I was to be there and how the freezing air had managed to shock me out of the stupor of exhaustion just long enough to think those two thoughts clearly before closing my very long, boundriless day from Durham to Ooty and into bed.

Tetrazzini Blues

If you are at a loss for what to do with all that turkey, and another dish of tetrazzini or soup just won't cut it, then here are a couple just-a-little-bit-different meals to help you fill out those last days on leftover turkey.

Turkey Cheese Soup
(This is a crowd pleaser, and would make a great after-Thanksgiving tradition, as some of the relatives roll in from Black Friday and everyone else is catching one game or another on TV. You could easily substitute for the Swiss cheese if you don't like Swiss. Try Gruyere or sharp cheddar. Also, this soup could stand the addition of potatoes, broccoli or cauliflower, if you happened to have some around.)

-Melt 2 tablespoons butter in the bottom of a soup pot.
-Saute 1 diced onion, 3 diced carrots, and 1 diced red bell pepper until turning golden.
-Work in 2 tablespoons flour.
-Whisk in 3 cups turkey or chicken broth until bubbling and thickening.
-Stir in 8 ounces grated Swiss cheese, a handful at a time, until dissolved and warm.
-Stir in 1 cup milk, 1-2 cups de-skinned and de-fatted, diced, leftover turkey, and 1 cup peas and heat until peas are hot, making sure not to boil.
-Taste for salt and pepper and serve warm. My kids like a spoon of sour cream on the top and chopped dill and chives would not be unwelcome. For more people, go with some sort of bread.


Honoring the Natives Turkey Chili
(If you're not sick of your house guests by now, this would be another great meal for a crowd. A couple diced carrots and even some sliced summer squash would be welcome here.)

-Heat 1-2 T olive oil in a large soup pot.
-Saute 1 diced onion, 2 stalks diced celery, 3 pressed garlic cloves, and 1 small, diced butternut squash until onion is browning.
-Work in 1 small can tomato paste.
-Stir in 2 tablespoons chili powder, 1 teaspoon Mexican oregano (or not Mexican), and optional 1/2 teaspoon basil.
-Stir in 2 cups diced tomatoes (or 15 oz can), 2 cups tomato juice or sauce, 1 cup turkey or beef broth, 1 cup leftover mulled cider (or 1 cup apple juice or cider with a sprinkle of cinnamon and clove). Simmer covered for 20 minutes.
-Add 2 cups corn and 2 cans pinto or black beans, or a combination, and up to 4 cups de-fatted, skinned, diced, leftover turkey. Simmer another 20 minutes.
-Taste for salt and pepper and serve with either wonderful corn bread or a steaming bowl of quinoa and topped with plenty of chopped cilantro.