The Green School

Jan.28.09

Well that was intense! In more ways then one. We just returned from a seven hour journey to and fro from the Green School with a tour and dinner in between. I do not suggest taking a motor bike to the Green School. I do not suggest driving a motor bike in Bali period! Unless you are in a small town where the cops don’t care or you have already paid them off. The Lonely Planet book warned that you really do need an International license to drive here and unfortunately we didn’t believe it!

We got pulled over on the way to the school and had to pay 200,000 rupiah ($20) to the cop who pulled us over for having our bike slightly twisted to the right while waiting at a light, i.e. any reason that he could ask us for our non-existent International license. After we paid him he generously offered to show us the way to the school (maybe he felt guilty) and we were really lost. This was going okay until we ran out of gas. We luckily were close enough to a “petrol station” but by that time we had lost our cop tour guide. At this point we were not sure where we were on the map or where exactly we were headed. Even though we had directions from out hotel manager they didn’t seem to help because there were no visible signs for any of the roads. It became clear after asking three people for directions that counting street lights is the main way most people will direct you... “go through four lights and then take a left.” Amazingly, we left at 1:30 to travel the 45 minutes to the school for a tour scheduled at 3:00 p.m. “sharp” according to the website. We arrived at 3:15. We managed to take 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete the ride there. Yikes! We were grateful that we made it at all. We quickly jumped into the already started tour and interestingly enough found that 4 out of the 8 people on the tour had ties to Boulder. Go figure! Steve and I were two, then a woman named Sunny and the admissions director Ben, who was giving the tour.

The bamboo structures (as the website shows) are beautiful. (www.greenschool.org) The design, practicality and “greenness” of the campus is quite impressive. They have soaked the bamboo in Boric Acid to keep the termites away which is typically a problem when building with bamboo in the jungle. There is even a truck made of bamboo! The toilets are composting and even the pre-schoolers are aware of the pee seat and pooh seat which are separated. There is a very cool water vortex which will soon have a water turbine attached to create enough power for two or three households.

There are gardens close to all the “classrooms”. The preschool and kindergarten were growing egg plant to make baba ganoosh (sp?).



These classes are not really rooms and don’t really have walls. It turns out that the teachers are quite puzzled with how to present the student’s work. I am sure there are many complications like this when teaching in the jungle.



I feel excited about the whole place even with its challenges. It is growing and it isn’t perfect. Seven families left this year. A new director was brought in on December 1st, 2008. He has been there for two months and apparently walked in the day that all of the families were meeting for a group meeting to discuss their grievances. To top it all off CNN happen to be there for a special on the school. The revolting parents gave him a deadline (that is quickly approaching) of February 15th for a list of 78 things that they wanted changed. As I have experienced with Wondertree, communication seems to be at the heart of all the major problems. So now they have a fancy director and it seems that things are headed in the right direction. I hope so. It is a massive undertaking but the kind of thing that would really impact the world.




It is funny to have both Steve and I experiencing this together. I see all problems and think, “cool, this is the best time to jump in and get our feet wet”. While Steve thinks, “let’s wait and see if the school exists two years from now and then see”. It will probably be the latter for us so that Steve can get his Masters in teaching and I can get some more teaching experience but I do think that this was more than just a tour for us. If the school does succeed there will be plenty of positions that need to be filled. They currently have 104 students split up between a preschool, kindergarten and have children combined for grades 1st and 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 5th and 6th, and 7th and 8th. They hope to open up their classes to each grade on its own and adding a high school. We will definitely keep tabs on this project and I wish them the best in creating a school that combines “greenness”, "internationality", culture, and creativity!

RELAX

Jan. 24th 2009

Here I am sitting in a Starbucks in a Malaysian mall typing on my Mac. I feel strange here. First of all, I actually miss working. I have come to a time in my life that I want to be dedicating a majority of my energy to a project, to a cause, to the things I care about most. The only question is, what are the things that I care about most and where exactly can I go to focus on these things? The first thing that comes to mind... inside... it is what my dad would say. Ya ya, go inside, get clear and then the universe will provide the logistics as long as you do the “foot work”. So first step, am I clear? I love kids. I love teaching and watching someone learn. I love being around children who make no bones about being honest. I love photography. I love finding the shot that says something beautiful or meaningful in the place you least expect it. I love moving through the crowd or the event and seeing the thing that speaks to me and then capturing that in one single moment. I love yoga, running, dancing. I love breathing so much that I remember I have a body and that I can feel things. I love working with a team of inspired people. I love the energy of people who are creating something important and know that what they do makes a difference. I want to part of the solution for the human races’ evolution. So what is that? What “job” is that? 
Do I have to go back to school to get that job? Will I like that job once I have been there for five years? Is it working for a magazine that deals with children/yoga/the evolving planet? Is it teaching at an International/Green School? I want to sink my teeth into this thing... whatever it is and I want to do it fast. I think that is my biggest problem I am feeling old at 28 because I don’t have this figured out... I am not even 28 yet... I still have six weeks for God’s sake! I make it sound like I am dead. It is like I feel stuck in honey and the only thing that is changing is my age. Weird! I am young, I have time, things change and I change with them, I am useful right in this moment on the planet and figuring this out is part of the whole journey... RELAX!

It turns out that this post is about malls.

January 20th, 2009

Tonight included an Obama Inaugural Party for Democrats of Asia at the “Salsa Havana” Club in the oldest hotel of Kuala Lumpur, with Kenyan food served and free salsa dance lessons... say what?

Who says that four months and four days into our journey our blog couldn’t become current? We are in Kuala Lumpur otherwise known as KL. It is in Malaysia... just in case you didn’t know... because I didn’t. Malaysia is underneath Thailand and above Singapore. We just came from Singapore. Singapore is an island that is a city/country... which didn’t make much sense at first but after being there for four days I kinda get it. It is totally different than Malaysia and has enough going on to claim it’s country-ship. Both of these cities are super modern and beat Denver’s transit on any day of the week. I have to say that Americans, specifically myself are clueless to how modern Asia really is.
In KL specifically they have the tallest buildings in the world (or second tallest to Dubai... Steve is still doing research),
they have malls that are 8 floors high... and in Singapore you literally will see more malls than you will see pieces of trash....It is crazy! Although I am not a big mall fan, I have to say that Singapore has the coolest mall I have ever seen. It is called Vivo City and it is fully loaded with a lake on the top level of the mall, restaurants with a view of the ocean, a Swiss market replica restaurant, and a ridding track for rolling horses and other various animals...I could go on but basically Asia kicks our ass at malls...


Stay tuned... Steve and I shook today on our next goal of the journey...that is all I am giving you for now!

Driving in India: Explained

In order to drive in India you must break down the act of driving into it’s most bare essentials. i.e. How wide is your car? and I don’t mean how wide is the lane or any broad guess, but exactly, to the inch(or centimeter in India). This is important because the exact width of your car is the
exact width of your “lane”... always. Every time you were driving in the West and you had that momentary burst of heart rate because that reckless bastard in the SUV almost ran into you, guess what?, they didn’t “almost hit you”. Not even close. In India they were hogging the lane. Driving up a pothole strewn mountain road with steep thousand foot drops and no guard rails while a brightly painted semi-truck bares down on you from the other direction will quickly teach you how narrow a real “two-lane” road is. If you aren’t rolling down a mountain than there is plenty of room.

These same bare essentials refer to other parts of traffic and driving as well. Speed limits are determined by how fast your car can hit one of the chasm’s that would terrify an American pothole without disintegrating the entire poorly made Indian vehicle (luckily the speed you can hit these potholes without destruction is, “not very fast”, or I’d be dead already).

Remember how the width of your car is the exact width of your lane. Now here’s the real kicker. The exact length of your car is the length of your lane. Take a moment to digest this. It means that two cars can be hurtling down the highway dodging cows dogs and donkeys simultaneously aiming for a direct head on collision with each driver calm and composed with the knowledge that they’re well within their lane.

In practice these few rules account for just about all of the rules of the Indian road. Oh, one last rule. DON’T HIT THE COWS. that’s it, all the rules. If this seems like too few rules to you, if you think the end result of the rules would be total chaos... then you are definitely correct. Good luck. Buckle-up... just kidding your car doesn’t have seat belts!

Back and Better Than Ever!

I guess most of you have noticed that we haven’t been blogging much in the past month/s. I could say that we’ve been overloaded, or too busy, but the truth is I am still unsure as to what topics I should even be writing about for a blog. So... luckily for you... I’m just going to rant I guess.

First off, second time in India is definitely the charm. Though India is still India, maybe it’s the South or maybe it’s our far more relaxed itinerary (read: no plans at all), but I’m really enjoying the chaos this time around. We just had a wonderful visit from my mother and my brother in the southern state of Kerala. Kerala is known for it’s labyrinth like canals that stretch from the middle of the state around Kochi all the way to the far southern state capital, Thiruvananthapuram (trying saying that 10 times fast, just kidding, you can’t say it at all). Us white people are thankfully aloud to use the colonial name Trivandrum. Anyway, Kerala is a completely lovely state, and, like most states in India, it has an entire language all it’s own called Malayalam, but as far as I know it’s the only language that is also a palindrome. We stayed in the Portuguese colonial town of Fort Cochin also known as Kochi, because every place in India has at least three names in order to confuse foreigners. Fort Cochin was very interesting because the city had one part that was all colonial buildings and white tourists, and another hidden side which Jasleen(Tara) and I discovered only after Evan and my mom left... sorry guys.

The touristy side had beautiful buildings and churches as well as an amazing line of Chinese Fishing Nets that make for a pretty amazing site backlit against the rising sun, while all the sinewy fisherman haul in net after net of sparkling fish/algae. We learned that we were visiting in the dry season so the fishing was not all that great, but the typically entrepreneurial fisherman also had a side business of inviting weakling tourists onto the fishing platform to give the whole process a try... for a small donation.
Because my Mom was in town, an additional aspect of Fort Cochin took on more importance... Shopping! Hooray! Ok, so those were sarcastic exclamation points. Though I’m not immune to the array of very cheap and beautiful trinkets, statues, shawls, rugs, etc. on sale, I am always very aware that my home’s square footage at the moments is the whopping 6 sq. ft. that is my backpack. Not much room for intricate teak carvings or bronze dancing Ganeshas in the 2 bags that make up all my major possessions in the world. Oh well, it was fun to shop vicariously through my Mom, and to a lesser extent through Evan. A quick side note: can anyone explain why practically all Indian shopkeepers are from Kashmir? I mean you can’t get much further from Kashmir in India than Kerala, but there they were, Kashmiri shop after Kashmiri shop. Anyway, they may be nonsensical, but they sure have great rugs, right Mom?

Jasleen and I discovered the hidden side of Fort Cochin when we took our long awaited walk to the synagogue in “Jew Town”(don’t be offended, I didn’t make it up). On the way there we moved further and further out of the tourist track and Jasleen summed up our local very well when she said, “It looks like we just landed in Bagdad!” Yah, it took only a 10-15 minute walk away from the tourist center to get from beautiful cafes and craft stores to middle-eastern war zone. However, despite the derelict buildings around us, there was something beautiful about the fading pastel paint on the buildings and the contrasting brightly Sunday sari’d woman passing by on their way to church. Sure most of the buildings didn’t have roofs, or had a pile of antiques (read: trash) under the stairs, but in a perfectly Indian way, all the entropy and seeming disrepair created a scene that in it’s entirety was as beautiful as any five-star colonial, neo-classically furnished restaurant.

K, that’s all for now... but I’ll actually be adding updating soon as we’re forcing ourselves to stay put until we actually make our blog something worth reading. Also, please enjoy the Driving in India explanation I wrote after our first trip through the sub-continent.

The views from Shimla...

Shimla is funny... it is like France and India put together. It also feels like Boulder with its fancy walking mall. It was a nice refreshing change from the heat below.

This is Anil he is our Indian Travel Agent. We met him through a long process of connections. Here it goes: I know Sunder from Boulder, She is marrying Hargobind, Hargobind has known Harman since he was young, Harman said I will have to get you in touch with my friends that I went to University with in Shimla, Narender is one of his friends and Anil is the other... Amazing to me the generosity that this one little connection created! The majority of our trip was planned our discussed with Anil... So if you are going to North India... I have a man for you! And the connection continues!
This is me making the trek up to the Monkey Temple. It was a good little hike!

Beautiful scenes as we hiked up higher and higher.
This adorable punk monkey would not stop staring us down... he was hilarious!
This monkey liked us. He let us take about 25 pictures while he made funny faces and funny noises and ate peanuts... sticking his tongue out at us was included!
I like em!
Wise monkey...
They asked me if they could have me take a picture with them?

He is contemplating his navel.
Just the normal way of moving crates of bottles... no problem!

We found our first real espresso coffee since we were in India. All over India the coffee is "Nescafe" or something along those lines... more sweet than coffee flavor :[ Notice the background... Yes that is a monkey!
Steve asking a policeman something.

Just another roadside attraction... with good lighting.

We are know the proud owner of an Indian cell phone!

If you enjoyed these pictures and want to see more click on one of the pictures to the right of the blog underneath flickr... There are loads more... this was a teaser!

On the Road Again...

After a week in Amritsar we head to Shimla. Shimla being a mountain top Hill Station is hard to imagine starting the trip in an "air conditioned" coach with sweat forming at the backs of my knees. Five hours for the mountains to prove that they really do exist. Leaving Amritsar was perfect. Param Jit would not let us go without tea and a pastry flaked dunker (not the official name). We drank the tea standing feeling half obliged and half grateful to have some home town love running through our system. This was a big departure from a week of relaxing with friends, having everything figured out for us and over all feeling as cushiony as we could imagine in India. Amar Jit and I discussed that their living room clock was a half an hour off and that the bus was leaving in ten minutes time as we shuffled into the early morning light. We were already five minutes late from the suggested time to calmly find our seat at the back of the bus. Instead we waited five more minutes while Amar Jit and Param Jit argued if it would take 10 or 3 minutes to drive to the bus. Param Jit seemed to win as we departed the house with three minutes to go. We arrived to the bus stop, handed over our nicely packed bags to the young man who threw them under the bus and we hurriedly walked past all the other patiently waiting passengers. Steve assured me not to worry as one more sorry chap won the prize of last man on the bus. A moment before we boarded, Param Jit gave me a huge hug and whispered God Bless. And moments before that he said, "see only three minutes!" A perfect good bye.

Comforts of a Home

Sept. 29th, 2008 By the Grace and workings of the Universe my dear friend Sunder Kaur and her husband Hargobind just happen to arrive to India to visit with his parents for a week or so in Amritsar. They found out two weeks before we left that they were landing in India the day after we would! We joined them after our jaunt to the Taj Mahal. Hargobind's parents, Amar Jit and Param Jit (both have the same middle name) are retired doctors who we soon found out were well known all over Amritsar. They are both amazing, loving and talented people who we felt instantly at home with. Our week was wonderful. We enjoyed the early morning walk in the park with the Jits. I discovered the fox bat... I swear it was as big as a cat with wings. And get this there were at least 200 of them all in one tree hanging upside down with their bony wings wrapped around themselves screeching and settling down for a sleep. The people who walk there everyday said "that they had never noticed them before and that they probably just showed up... migrating fox bats?" We enjoyed new spectacle buying... three pairs of glasses for $40... not bad... Steve really likes his pairs. My pair look a little like something Elton John would wear but I like that they are rose colored and the only sunglasses I own with my prescription. We enjoyed the Golden Temple in all its glory. It was so awesome to see the bustling city outside and then rinse our feet and hands, walk in and be embraced with the calm of the temple. There are tons of people bathing in the pool of water that surrounds the temple and others just sitting enjoying the spectacle of a building covered in 24 karate gold. I am sad to say we did not go to the Lungar which is served throughout the day to anyone and everyone who wants or needs. We are talking hours of service from the community to keep thousands of visitors and local people fed every single day. Next time we will enjoy the food which I am sure is tasty because of the powerful vibration of the place. We had a chance to listen to the Kirtan playing inside the temple. Steve and Hargobind sat on the men's side and Sunder and I sat on the women's side. It was like a breath of fresh air listening and meditating in the cool center of this place of worship. Most of all I think we enjoyed the relaxing in a home. There was little struggle to do much of anything throughout the week, where as the couple days of India we had before this part of the trip was a constant job of adjusting and figuring everything out on our part. ..............................................................................................................................................................

The Little Things

So I have to admit we have been blog shy. We are posting pictures and writing from about two weeks ago. I am trying my hardest not to be a blog perfectionist because really I know that the few things I can say here and there are welcomed and not judged... so here we go.

Here is my journal entry from Sept. 22, 2008

Today we arrived to the welcoming arms of Sunder Kaur and Hargobind in the crowded train station which was ironically filled with white people. Sunder said her "ideal finding mechanism for us was foiled by all these white people!" It is a wonderful thing finding friends who are familiar in a place where everything else is still very foreign.

Stephen's father has asked about the little tings. I think of this as a difficult task because the little things are my world right now. Every moment I am figuring something else out... to name all the ahas is probably impossible...

And yet, as always just starting the impossible will get me closer to the possible!

1. Colors are Everywhere

a. Steve says, "Indian people (from what we have seen thus far) are the opposite of peacocks and hens (the National bird of India) . The women where very bright colors and the men are usually in neutral earth tones. In the remote roadside villages it is common to see women covered from head to toe in neon colored saris.

b. As for the landscapes no decrepit building are safe from bright cellphone to underwear ads. There are painted on the concrete and brick walls of people's homes and businesses. I assume the family is paid for their visual place along the busy one lane road "highway".

2. Smells

a. Clorhine Bleach of our fancy hotel

b. Urine everywhere-By the way, I have seen more men peeing on the side of the road than I every expected in a lifetime. Men's public bathrooms are concrete tile structures that face the road so that the man's back side is visible to everyone usually no exposed body parts but everone knows what they are doing. I also have the keen ability to spot all the men along the road who couldn't wait for the public bathroom.

c. Burning Smell- not always sure of what

d. Dusty lung filling pollution smell :) yum

3. Customs

a. The head bob which Stephen aspires to learn. It means many things but mostly "yes"

Sometimes it can mean "okay if you say so but not what I was hoping to hear"

b. Namaste... thus far this greeting and goodbye has been very rare... maybe because we are whities but mostly we get the handshake.

c. "As you wish" means tip is included

Just a few of the little things... and so much more to come!

Day Six

I am writing on the sixth day of our trip in India. If you were to tell me that I would know this much after six days I might say that I am afraid to see what I know after six months. Things move very fast here and I must say that I had the stereo type that only in America did things move so fast. One day in a car on a New Delhi street changed that perception.

I have to come to figure out that there are layers of culture shock. I think this will be an on going process of thinking I know something about this place and then realizing that I have no clue.

Steve and I have decided to offer many different ways of posting on this blog. As of now it has been difficult to get good Internet connection at Hargobind’s house... this is probably the only difficult thing that we have experienced here... I feel as though we have been wrapped up in the love and welcome of this family. It has been great.
Here is a little overview of the monuments we have seen, and mentionable activities:

8/18 Day One- New Delhi adventuring- Red Fort and Baha’i House of Worship
8/19 Day Two- Beginning “The Golden Triangle” tour- Driving to Jaipur-
Amber Fort......... “Water Palace” ...

8/20 Day Three-Animal watching- Keoladeo Ghana National Park- We had a blast here!


The bikes were, let's say, less than smooth
Watch out serious nature photographers coming through! Soooo Cool!
and the Grand Fatehpur Sikri Mosque


8/21 Day Four- Seeing the indescribable Taj Mahal driving back to New Delhi


Security doing their job The detail is unbelievable A buzzard chillin'
We can't take her anywhere!

8/22 Day Five- Train to Amritsar and Hargobind’s Family

Morning tea from the tea man... is lovely



8/23 Day Six- Golden Temple, being special guests at a friend of the families

I was encouraging him to smile with his teeth... apparently he didn't like the way they looked :) prassad is a sweet blessing
8/24 Day Seven- Going for an early walk in the park, suit shopping and seeing Sunder Kaur’s wedding ring being finished by the jeweler
8/25-29th
hanging at the Punjab Academy and principal Harman house
Party at the "club" A beautifully done play Ah aren't they cute! Stephen watching OBAMA Jasleen publizing her new must read: "Vegetable, Animal, Miracle" By Barbra Kingsolver People enjoying us taking pictures of them
"Guru" Jasleen Teaching Paramjit Yoga excercices for his hurting back
If you would like to see more pictures from Amritsar click on the flickr pictures to the right of this blog.