Green Beauty

Kerala makes me thing of a sleeping beauty. Ke-Ra-La should be a female name, It sounds beautiful and it is beautiful. It wears a green dress embroidered with mango, jackfruit, guavas, coconut trees and myriads of rice fields. Not to mention the flowers that seem to sprout effortlessly, almost accidentally. My garage is filled with yellow flowers that fall during the day and many more keep reproducing in the arch that adorns the gate…Kerala is full of life everything grows fast, including mold. Yes, if you leave something outside you will find it with a layer of something green after a few days.

Every weekend I have had a date with this sleeping beauty. My traveler’s heart is excited to know my surroundings. I am still in tourist mode and I plan to let it be for a while. It still remains a magical occurrence for me to get to places. We were guided by our expert friend and fellow traveler Candy. She has a penchant for traveling and she loves backpacking and exploring. She is a major asset to our team as she figures out all the directions. I helped in my own personal way by trying out the local language and never being afraid to ask. My role as an interpreter still has a place here as I pick words here and there and I understand the heavy accent of some locals.  I also follow the “You can get to Rome by asking” motto every day. Everything is written in Malayalam, so, we must trust the local people, and so far, they have not failed us. We knew where to take the bus but we didn’t know which bus to take unless we asked every single driver if they were going to the intended place. I can’t read Malayalam, not yet, so I am officially illiterate in this land. Every single day is an adventure. We leave our house trusting that we will make it to our destination and that we will make it back home.  So far , so good.

Some Members of the Group

The second Thursday of our internship we went to the Vazhachal Forest. We saw the Athirappaly waterfalls that claim to be as beautiful as the Niagara falls. They didn’t disappoint.  The riverbed was rock and the falls were strong and abundant. The place was green, full of cheeky monkeys. Around that area there were several “elephant crossing” signs but no signs of elephants. I wish I had seen a free one.

Vazhachal Forest, Clothes and All

Athirappaly Waterfalls

When we “embused” in our trip to the waterfalls, we asked and we arrived to the right place, but once we got there we did not know where to go next. Somehow, from what seemed like thin air,  a boy just started to ask questions about us. He was coming from school and was very friendly. I answered all his questions even if these questions were a bit intrusive: “Is any of you married?” “why not?” “how old are you?” (dreaded question!). They were becoming increasingly personal, I feared he was going to ask if I had showered that morning, or whether I had waxed my legs… It was a bit awkward for me, but I understood that it wasn’t out of impertinence or malice, he wanted to know how to address me. As I am older than he (he was only 18) he could call me “chechi” which means “older sister”.

We might be the wildest of animals around here...

All of us

My “younger brother” and God’s sent guide, took us to all the cool places around the main waterfalls. I ended up bathing in some gorgeous waterfalls, clothes and all! My fellow hikers followed, and we had an unforgettable shower in the forest. It was so refreshing! We had been walking for many kilometers and it was hot and humid. The shower was very welcomed.

My younger brother was quite excited to show us around and we were glad he showed up to guide us. He did so willingly and gladly. He even took us back to the bus at the end of our trip. The trip was very much enhanced by his appearance.

Younger Brother that cut class to go to the waterfalls

This sleeping beauty has endless water, I had the privilege to visit Kerala’s  back waters last Sunday. It seemed like an impossible place, with channels Instead of roads connecting the little houses. It took a while for me to  understand that I had been in the "alter Macondo" or rather, the Asian Macondo?   Yes, only there you can see houses floating  around carrying lovers seeking a romantic night adrift. There are also groups of friends that rent a bigger houseboat to party while the sun sets in the horizon.  The houseboats are a signature of Kerala. They are big boats with everything you need inside: bedrooms, dining room living room and of course a nice deck. I am not sure if technology has reached the houseboats yet, but I would not be surprised if they have wi-fi.

Houseboat at Alapuzha

My friends and I witnessed the spectacle of a sunny day shining upon the channels and rice fields. We rented a Kayak for about 25 US$ each. We ventured in the small channels and visited the floating neighborhood. We saw families of ducks, a snake, three majestic king fisher birds, many eagles, dozens of crows and the much less majestic and quite abundant goats.  We spent 7 hours paddling, resting, taking pictures, eating and paddling again. We crossed many low bridges, including one so low that it is called the limbo. One must lay down in order to cross it. We saw many people tending to many mundane needs out in the open, by the water. They do their laundry in the channels, bathe their children in the channels and unfortunately also throw their trash in the channels.  I did see remains of fruits and other organic debris but actually the one thing that truly grossed me out was to see a plastic bag full of trash. I only saw one. The organic debris seems to blend in with the green scenery, but plastic floating in the channels seems like a travesty to me. Despite this contamination I fell in love with the backwaters of Kerala. Oh, and to make this even more interesting there, there is a floating supermarket that travels around the neighborhood, so you can step out of your house and go shopping! Amazon, you are not nearly as cool as that.

Life in the backwaters

My dream day was only disturbed by dozens of ants that climbed on my right foot during lunch time. Unwittingly, I stepped into one of their houses. I can’t blame them; they were defending themselves with their itchy venom from the giant that dared to stand on their house.  They marched on me all at once and my only defense was to put my foot into the sink, right there, on front of all the onlookers that were getting ready to have lunch.  It was a bit embarrassing but necessary. It was the only way to make them go.

Right after being the lunch of a bunch of ants and right before my lunch

With the unique faceless falcon (according to my friend Patricia)

Sunset in the backwaters

The south of India is at the same latitude as the North of Colombia, so the vegetation is very similar to that of the Isle of San Andres. Whenever I walk around my house I think of my distant Colombia, half the world away. I smile when I realize I am connected to my Colombian family by one imaginary line that crosses the world from west to east. I love seeing the mango trees full of fruit. It reminds me of my childhood in Barrancabermeja. I love to see the jack fruit hanging heavy from the trees. It is from the same family as the bread fruit. In a recent walk, we found a passion fruit just lying on the road. It was an incredible sight as I only see these beauties in the Colombian supermarkets.  I have also seen plants I had never seen before. For instant I saw the black pepper tree a few days ago, for the first time.  This plant is responsible for many of my chocking episodes though. Food here is very peppery sometimes.

Having my own Titanic moment without Leonardo

Palindrome

Malayalam is a palindrome. One of those rare words that reads the same backward or forward. This fact alone made me feel even more interested about the language.  I approached it with the curiosity of Alice in Wonderland. Language is that golden key to someone's culture. I want to speak it and understand it with all my might but it is a challenge. The language is derived from Sanskrit and the sounds are very different from the sounds produced by the languages I speak (English and Spanish). Grasping words is like trying to grab water and put it into a basket. I need to add some type of linguistic "gel". For example, I know the name of one of the breakfast dishes very well because when I approached the dining room to serve my plate, I heard the word "puta" which in Spanish means whore.  "Not very friendly of this gentleman that doesn't know me to call me whore!" I thought. He repeated: "Puta", this time he was signaling my dish and smiling. So, I thought, he can't be insulting me with such a smile! (pfew!,what I relief). He was telling me that the name of the dish was "Puta and tarala". How can I forget that dish :-)

Pretty quickly I learned how to ask "how much". There is this big fear from foreigners about being ripped off. I am slightly afraid of being ripped off so I thought, perhaps I should learn how to say "How much", so I did. I went flaunting my phrase everywhere and, magically, I was getting responses!!! I felt like a pro... except for the fact that I did not understand the responses. Thankfully, people know the numbers in English pretty well.

I wish I had a TV and that I lived with a family that only spoke to me in Malayalam. It really is the only and best way to learn. You get used to the sounds if you are paying attention.  I have a small vocabulary though and I use it every time I can. My accent must be awful because Malayalam has more vowels than Spanish. It actually has twice as many sounds. 

I learned that India has 22 official languages. Each one of them has a different alphabet. It is expected that most people know Hindi and some English too.  Many people speak and understand English, but the local language of Kerala is Malayalam and sometimes it is very hard to communicate.  This impediment is compounded by the head movement which is ambiguous.  In India, an affirmative signal is not very different from a negative signal. In the western world, we nod when we mean yes and we shake our head from side to side when we mean no. Here is different, an affirmative movement is the same as a negative movement.  I can't imagine a marriage proposal with such ambiguity!

I departed Baltimore with a heavy heart as my beloved ones were left behind, however my heart was full of curiosity for the new world to be discovered. I embarked on my 6 month adventure in India on June 14, 2016, during a blue spring morning. As it is customary now and it has been for the past fourteen years!! We do things family style, everyone goes in the car when an important event is happening, so Bill, Camille and Flash accompanied me to the airport. 

The adventures started at the airport when I spilled all my pill supply for six months on the floor of the gate. My white, minuscule pills blended in so perfectly with the granite that it was a chore to find them.  I was already practicing “Asanas” even before my first Yoga class. Thankfully every passer by was so busy in their own world that none stopped their fast pace march toward their gates.

I hope I collected all of my medicines but I will only know once this trip is almost over. In any case, I collected more than my pills, there were hairs, papers and even a piece of gum. Iak!

My trip was pretty much uneventful. I sat in the middle seat of a large plane with first class in the top floor. The staircase of the plane hinted that at the top of that staircase life was so much nicer than where I was. I saw a few bottles of liquor,  selected wines, and obviously a big barrier that stopped me from going up. I was in the slums, dealing with crying babies with better lung capacity that a football player, a neighbor that wanted to borrow my blanket and pillow and a middle seat that would “recline” forward. Thankfully, I had movies, hundreds of them! I watch a grand total of five! Sleeping was hard, so I indulged in movie updating.

Dubai greeted me with the amplest airport I have ever seen. There are no walls, the elevators were as big as my living room and there was a waterfall amidst of the luggage belts. It looked luxurious, new, rich, rich and also rich. The “immigration” and customs process was simple and friendly. No harassing questions at this airport. Very easy.  I had reserved a transportation service that was waiting for me. For the moderate fee of $38, Burton Travel my travel company of choice, arranged for an air conditioned sedan that offers you water and  comfortable leather seats. The driver was from Kerala, so I asked him to teach me a few words in Malayalam. These were very hard to grasp as the language sounds nothing like the ones I know, but it was important to learn how to say thank you in the local language upon arrival in Cochin.

I met with my fellow student Marisa who was already at the hotel reserved for us. It was Ramadan, so I was able to check in regardless of the time of the day. The hotel was located in Jumeirah beach. It was sober and sterile. The reception was decorated with the Prime Minister of Dubai Mohammed Bin Rashid, Sheik Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan and President of the United Arab Emirates: Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan. These portraits were familiar faces to me as the hospital where I worked for a decade of my life received a large donation from Sheik Zayed. The familiar faces didn’t make me feel at home necessarily. Dubai in June was like stepping into an oven, my face felt kissed by the fiery breath of a dragon. Thankfully, public transportation is air conditioned in general. The only moment where I truly struggled with the heat was while wandering in the old town. My friend and I ventured to the spice market and the gold market in the middle of the day. It was a test to our endurance and our body  temperature. At 2:00 PM it was aver a 100 F! I almost fainted. A lady in a store took pity of us and even though during the entire month of Ramadan is impolite to eat or drink in public even if you are a tourist, she gave us water and allowed us to sip in hidden in a back office. Ramadan presented interesting dichotomies because on one hand you feel people might be very strict about rules but on the other hand they are also very kind as part of their religious behavior.

Old Dubai is a typical, costal town with a fishing economy. The places I had a chance to visit were: The gold market , which was unbelievable! With gorgeous intricate designs and large items. Some of the items were so big and luxurious that they were almost obscene. It made me feel curious to see it in an actual person and made me wonder if I ever would meet such person face to face.

I still doubt we went to the actual spice Market. We did see a few shops with a variety of spices but never like the variety I have seen in the Turkey Bazaar. They were dusty and rather small. Nothing remarkable. 

When Oil was discovered in Dubai in 1962,  the city sprouted like a long winged butterfly coming from a chrysalides It became too fantastic for words. We saw unbelievable buildings that would shame any labyrinthic  design depicted by Borges’. They have a dynamic building which has rotating floors so that each floor has a different view at any given time during the day; the tower Burj Al Arab, the tallest building in the world emerges proudly amidst hundreds of other fabulous buildings.  The Mall is so big that a taxi is required to go from place to place; the palm development is a manmade complex of houses, hotels, shops and the Athlantis aquarium and mall. The trunk of the palm is the main roand capped with the mall. The branches are houses with manmade private beaches.  I couldn’t help but feeling a bit inadequate in such display of wealth. My favorite part of that visit was definitely the aquarium. It was large, blue and filled with ruins that pretended to be as old as the ancient civilization. I studied the beautiful fish on display, they offered a plethora of color.  I recognized my own sense of compassion for these animals. Sense that was instilled in me by a good friend with whom I spent a few weeks in Granada, Spain last year. She hasn’t been my only influence but certainly a very important one.  I recognized my sense of shame just by participating in this display by visiting. But, it was undouble a beautiful sight.

Back in the airport I met my fellow students. I will spend the next six months of my life with them. A total of 8 students are visiting India for a period of six months.  We flew in Emirates airlines but we did not seat together. Upon arrival we had to go through a long immigration line. I remember the covert camera which decoration was an elephant. I noticed men with dark hair and streaks of reddish hair. That seemed to be the sign of some kind of hair dye, perhaps henna? Not sure. We waited for about an hour for our luggage, my was certainly the last bag to come out, so we were delayed severely. We were greeted by two very friendly students that took us to our new home located right on front of the college gate.

The cots were distributed in a first come, first served basis. Since my Colombian friend and I were the last in the van, we got the last room.  The pros and cons of each of the rooms didn’t become apparent until a few days later.  Each cot has a mosquito net and a mattress that is less comfortable than a board. The net gives me a sense of security and privacy even though is completely see through.  There are three rooms and two bathrooms and we share two common spaces that we will call the dining room and the living room. 

We went for our first breakfast at the campus and were greeted by very friendly people. They had the Indian version of a pancake but made of rice. To accompany this pancake there is a vegetable stew and the most tasty banana.  The sense of happiness was overwhelming, much more powerful than my desire to sleep. I just wanted to get to know my surroundings, so right after breakfast we went for a walk around the campus. I could feel the stares of the locals. We were, as one of my fellow students describes it, a “walking museum”. Part of the reasons why we were observed was because we were in western clothes. In this case some of us were using tight fitting pants and shirts. We stood out from the crowd.  The need to buy clothes was totally apparent at that moment. I felt almost naked walking on the street, I was violating a rule of the culture.

We arrive on a Friday early morning. That same day my fellow students went to the nearby mall. I stayed trying to catch up some much needed sleep. On Saturday we went to explore the surrounding neighborhoods. I bought my first sets of bindis, a rain coat and a small mattress to supplement the one offered by the school. On Sunday we went back to the mall to buy some much needed clothes. The mall was just like any other mall anywhere in the world, except the stares were continuous. Two of the students have their hair braided and that causes a lot of curiosity.  Let me say I felt the stares but I am pretty sure they were address to my beautiful African friend. She is tall, slender and simply gorgeous. We bought what we needed and we went back to the house, not before we allowed a tax company to rip us off. We paid 500 rupees for a taxi that normally costs 80 rupees ($1=66 rupees). We learned that we don’t need a taxi for that, we could just get into an Otto and call it a day.

The “Otto” (Malayalam pronunciation” is a three wheel diesel vehicle. It is an inexpensive way to get around if you are in a small group.