Friday, September 24, 2010

day 112

I left Calcutta with my heart brimming with gratitude for the experience but my mind was haunted by everything I’d seen and I knew that I would need some time to process it all and it was in this frame of mind that I arrived in Varanasi. Apart from a few fast facts about Varanasi I knew nothing about this place. I had my ‘Rough Guide to India’* and read the Varanasi-chapter once I was settled into my guesthouse overlooking the river Ganga. It was Friday and I decided to stay the weekend, at least. There was a definite holiday-feel to this ‘oldest living city in the World’ and as the sun set over the majestic river I felt the huge contrast between this place and Calcutta. In India you never fully escape the poor and the begging and Varanasi was no different but it was less intense here. It was there tough, just hidden better.

The sound of a sitar and singing far off and the dusk-light across the river made me feel calmer and melancholy. I loved Varanasi immediately but my mind struggled to change gears from Calcutta to Varanasi just like that and I would not have been able to embrace Varanasi fully if it had not been for my 3 new friends.

I met Matthew (from USA), Steev (also USA) and Michael/‘Mee-gal’ (from Israel) on the roof of my guesthouse. We had diverse personalities and very little in common but somehow got on like a house on fire. Thanks to them I eventually eased into the lazed Varanasi-mood.

Varanasi is known as ‘the city of lights’ and the river Ganga (3 times its normal size thanks to the Monsoon and cleaner than usual) flowed right past our guesthouse and great (great!) Indian music was forever playing somewhere. Matthew was taking Sitar lessons and knew all the spots to see live music. Steev knew all the best local places to eat and Michael, well, Michael was our Kramer. One night while we sat on the rooftop, Michael tried to convince us that he was actually from the planet ‘Hoba’ and continued to explain, in exaggerated detail, how things worked on ‘Hoba’, (it had an all-female government and there was no conflict in Hoba, only cornflakes). Michael told his Hoba-story with the thickest Hebrew accent I’ve ever heard which made it impossible to believe that he was from anywhere but Jerusalem. It was hilarious and we laughed like lunatics while Matthew tried to play his tiny little guitar like a sitar.

One night they knocked on my door and invited me to dinner. ‘We’re gonna have some Ganga fish, you wanna come?’ said Matthew. I looked at them thinking they had lost their minds and said ‘fish from the river Ganga, are you kidding? Absolutely!’

As much as I enjoyed Varanasi strange things happened (more than usual). Not everything is worth blogging about but I do feel that I need to mention that I saw a human body burn for 3 hours. At the burning ghat, also right next to my guesthouse, the burning of the dead takes place 24 hours a day. In Hinduism, Varanasi is believed to be the best possible place to die because anyone who dies here receives immediate illumination. Watching that body burn, right there in an open, public place with dogs barking and people talking would have freaked me out if there weren’t at least 6 other foreigners standing next to me seeing the same thing. According to the guidebooks, it’s a must-see. Truthfully, I could have gone without seeing it but ended up staying for the entire 3-hour ceremony (that’s how long it takes for a body to burn) and woke up the next morning with the worst case of sinus, I’ve ever had. For the first time on this trip I opened my medicine bag, took 2 sinutabs and then slept for 20 hours dreaming vividly about burning bodies and Ganga fish. It might have been my imagination but Varanasi had some kind of dark magic flowing through the narrow streets and it was as eerie a city as it was beautiful.

The next day an incident in one of those dark streets made me also now fear cows. Unlike the diseased and starving cows in other parts of India, the cows in Varanasi are well fed, huge and graze around at their leisure in the narrow labyrinth streets. Well fed cows make for large piles of dung that looked like they were left there by elephants rather than cows and I, of course, kept stepping in and slipping on it at every turn. I found cows in India to be placid and harmless so I foolishly thought Varanasi cows would be the same. One day I was walking unsuspectingly past one of them in a very narrow street when the large, moody, holy bull suddenly jerked his head round at me and rammed me into the wall. It frightened me more than it hurt me (just a small bruise above my right elbow) but afterwards my knees would grow a little weak whenever I saw a cow obstructing my path.

‘Holy cow!’

Michael, Matthew and Steev thought it was hilarious and even some locals chuckled when they’d see me, frozen, a few feet from a cow. What is the clinical term for an unholy fear of cows?

*In Calcutta I swopped my ‘Lonely Planet’ for the ‘Rough Guide’ to get a second opinion, so to speak.

Yamaha, tribute

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Kolkata Me Mata























This morning I woke up feeling like I got hit by a bus. Every muscle in my body hurt and I had bruises all over. At Daya Dan, the day before, I had gone up to the roof to fetch some laundry and coming down, slipped and fell down the stairs. Now, it’s true that I do fall down often but even by my standards it was a big fall and it made everyone (volunteers, aunties and children) run to come see if I were ok. It was very embarrassing but it gave me a great opportunity to connect with Leema, the girl who called me a bad auntie on my first day, because after the fall, we were the only ones laughing our heads off.

My time at the Missionaries of Charity made me realize that people under-estimate how popular Mother Teresa was and still is (I certainly did) and I discovered that many of the volunteers had been planning for years to come to Calcutta, fulfilling a life-long dream, while others have such great admiration for her that they’ve been coming for years. My reason for coming, in comparison, was much less significant. I decided to do it, on a whim, after I read about it in a book.

I bought a t-shirt that read: ‘CALCUTTA ME MATA’. The Bengali man selling them said it meant ‘Calcutta my Mother’. As I’ve mentioned, Mother Teresa is greatly loved and admired, if not worshipped, by everyone in Calcutta and even Muslims and Hindus revere her as holy and affectionately call her ‘Mother’ (‘Mudda’). My t-shirt, I thought, was a clever reference to ‘Mother Teresa of Calcutta’ but the next day, having breakfast at Mother House, wearing my new t-shirt, I noticed several Spaniards eyeing me disapprovingly. One of them, Losia (a long-term volunteer) came over and told me that my t-shirt, in Spanish, meant ‘Calcutta kill me’. Shit. Feeling like a callous idiot, I smiled, apologetically, to the large Spanish crowd. How did I manage to put my foot in it so exquisitely and offend so many people? Of course this was a joke to me, I could hear them thinking, I’m not even Catholic. I apologized, pleading ignorance, but then I realized that Calcutta did kill me a little. Calcutta had broken my heart a little and because of it I would be bound to this cruel, crazy, beautiful city forever. But Losia seemed unconvinced, smiled a little strained and left. As she was telling the crowd about our conversation I considered slipping out the back and changing my t-shirt but it was too late. Some of the girls in the crowd were coming over. Crap. ‘Excuse me’ one of them said, ‘where did you buy your t-shirt?’

But there were, seriously, many things about this city that I was still trying to deal with. I’d seen poverty before but here I saw thousands living on the street, so underfed their bones were sticking out (an entire family, with newborn twins, lived on the sidewalk outside my hostel). At a home for the destitute and dying* I saw many old, sick people whose eyes, ears and noses had been chewed off by rats or worms because they were too weak to fight them off any longer. There was one lady that was hard of hearing and every time I said something she turned her head round to bring her other ear close to my mouth (the better to hear me with). It was completely eaten away but, ironically, it was her ‘good’ ear.

One of the things I really struggled with was Karma which, in Calcutta (like everywhere in India) was ever present. I saw it affecting people’s lives, actions and way of thinking in ways that were hard for me to accept. There is a serious lack of compassion for the poor, sick and suffering because Karma says you are suffering for something terrible they did in a past life. People live completely detached from the poverty and suffering on the streets because they believe suffering is deserved and must be endured. I even heard stories of mothers throwing their disabled newborn babies, obviously guilty of some unspeakable evil in a past life, into the river Hooghly to put them back into the Karma-wheel as soon as possible. That would be seen as the right and loving thing for a mother to do, ’karmically’ speaking. I thought of the many conversations about Karma I’d had with fellow travelers in this country and how the common perception is that Karma is a beautiful, endless cycle of life. I felt that my eyes were opened to a darker side of it.

Still, in my mind I was more prepared for the suffering but it touched me deeply that in this dark place there were people, Mother Teresa being one of the first, that were radically opposing this detached way of living by devoting their lives to loving and caring for those who suffer and I felt blessed that I got to help, if only a little. Every day was, for me, a lesson in compassion and gentleness that I was hugely grateful for. My best teacher in compassion turned out to be a Spanish woman named Rachel who worked with me at Daya Dan. Rachel’s a 40-something teenager and works as a laboratory assistant back in Spain for 10 months of the year and then volunteers 2 months, in Calcutta or Africa or wherever). I was blown away by the intimate way she cared for the children, caressing each one for however long she could, like it was her own, like that kid was the most precious person in the world to her. Rachel’s way with people touched many hearts, including mine and I found myself many times, looking at her and thinking ‘this is how you choose to spend your one holiday a year?’ How can you not be moved by that?

There were many things that I learnt here that I wanted to keep forever and never forget. I wanted it to transform my life and way of thinking but I knew that you can lose even a great revelation if you do not hold onto it and let it take root in your heart but I also knew that I was already changed, I was already different and my world back home suddenly seemed so far away and far removed from this life. Calcutta did kill me a little. The old me.

*There is a temple in Calcutta called the Kali Temple, devoted to the goddess of Death and Destruction, Kali. Many Hindus make their way to this temple to die because it’s a holy place. There are thousands of people on the streets, either dead or dying and it was here, right next to the temple despite much resistance from the government and the locals that brave little Mother Teresa set up a home. She wasn’t interested in the politics or religion of it she was only interested in giving the dying a bed, food, care and love them until they died. This is the kind of love that makes impossible things possible.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Daya Dan - day 4

It took me a few days but I managed to get into the swing of things at Daya Dan. I was still a little terrified of the children but I’d relaxed just enough to not freak out anymore. One morning, while I was changing beds, Sanju (the blind boy) was waking up and I got asked to take him ‘potty’ so I carried him to the bathroom. I was not at all prepared for what I saw when I walked in. There was a long line of screaming children, waiting to be washed. The auntie in charge of bathing (a big Bengal woman) was really scary and when she saw me with Sanju she yelled at me to put him down and help her wash instead. Oh please, no, I thought, but before I knew it I was undressing one of the older girls and pouring water over her. The auntie was very impatient with me and I was apparently doing everything wrong because she kept yelling at me. It was horrible and strange and uncomfortable. This was not the detached washing the Japanese preferred, it was interaction with the kids on the most intimate level there was. It was all too much for me to handle and I felt my skin crawl from being uncomfortable but then, just like that, something miraculous happened. Somehow I stopped thinking about what I was doing and my hands and feet started moving by themselves. Following the angry auntie’s lead I fetched the next kid in line, quickly took off his clothes and started scrubbing. It was hard work as some kids were very un-cooperative and soon we were both sweating and out of breath.

After what felt like hours I realized that the auntie had stopped screaming, I’d just finished washing the last boy, little Sanju, and was humming along to a Bengali song the angry auntie was singing while we washed the kids. I was exhausted but I was flying. Whatever happened in that wash room or in my heart during bath time that morning changed everything. After that, I looked at the kids with very different eyes, perhaps because I’d seen them all naked, but I suddenly felt a deep affection for each one of them and even when I wasn’t at Daya Dan, but out exploring Calcutta, I thought about them. Somehow my terrified heart had opened up just enough for 34 broken little kids to climb inside.

A few days later one of the nuns asked me to help carry some of the kids to the 3rd floor which took much longer than I expected and I missed bath time. Afterwards, I went to the wash room and when angry auntie* saw me she threw her hands in the air as if to say, where the hell, were you? But there was way too much affection in her gesture and we both knew she wasn’t really mad at me she just missed having me be there. That simple gesture made me feel ridiculously happy and suppressing a smile, I picked Sanju up, who just finished dressing, and carried him to the therapy room. By now Sanju recognized my voice and smiled when I said his name. A few days before, I heard a volunteer say that she always ends up feeling that she’s getting more than she’s giving which just makes her want to give more. In that moment I understood what she meant. God truly is genius because love is the greatest thing ever, it never runs out, it just keeps growing. I knew that I came to Daya Dan to love these kids but I didn’t expect to be loved in return.

That night, again, I was unable to sleep but this time my heart was not heavy, it was soaring. Thank you, God.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Daya Dan

I’d read about other Teresa of Calcutta in the City of Joy and the plan was to find Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity and volunteer a few of my 183 days to a good cause. The guidebook said it was easy enough and the only thing you need to do is ‘show up’. Before knocking on the nuns’ door however you are advised to take a deep breath.

Volunteering at Mother Teresa’s, I discovered, was hugely popular among foreigners (especially the Spanish and the Japanese). I half expected to be the only when I showed up but thousands of Catholics ‘pilgrimage’ to Calcutta each year to live, work and sweat among the poor (inspired to do so by the holy Mother herself). On the first day there were around a hundred Spanish women (Catholics) and bus-loads of Japanese teenagers. After we signed up and waited for our names to be called I asked the Japanese guy next to me (indicating to the hordes of Japanese) whether volunteering was ‘big in Japan’ and then laughed like an idiot at my own joke.

Before you start volunteering you need to register and get interviewed by a nun, presumably to determine if you are of sound mind (after 3 months in India I was curious about that myself). The nun conducting the interview asks your name, nationality and where you want to work. There are many options and you can really find a charity that suites your needs, so to speak. There are homes for the destitute and dying (strangely, the most popular), for the elderly, for mentally disabled children and so forth. The idea of working with disabled children made me uncomfortable in a way I didn’t expect and I was shocked when I heard myself answer ‘Daya Dan’, a home for disabled children. I volunteered to stay 10 days but after I left, I noticed that the nun had accidently included an extra day on my work card and instead of 10 days, I got 11.

Volunteers have to arrange their own accommodation and meals and I found a dorm-style just around the corner from ‘Mother House’ (the charity headquarters) and shared a room with 2 Spaniards and an Italian, also named Teresa. I attended the 6am Mass at Mother House but I had forgotten what torture Catholic Mass can be and I decided not to go again. After Mass is breakfast, i.e. 2 slices of dry white bread, a tiny banana and a cup of chai. Then you head off to your chosen ‘home’ to volunteer your time and love to the poor and the needy. It all sounded very noble and romantic and I couldn’t wait to roll up my sleeves and help the helpless but I must have forgotten to take a deep breath because what I saw when I walked through the door of ‘Daya Dan’ made me come down to Earth, hard. These children were severely mentally and physically disabled and it was absolute chaos with most of them screaming and crying all at once. Ok, keep it together, I told myself. But it was a shock, all of it, and painfully overwhelming for me.

There was nobody to meet or greet us. You literally walk in the door and try to find something to do as quickly as possible. I saw a Spanish lady squatting down next to a boy and just stroking him. Monkey see monkey do, so I did the same. The girl I chose sat alone to one side and the moment I got close she grabbed both my hands and dug her nails deep into my palms. OUCH! I managed to free myself from her grip and then tried to restrain her clawing fingers. After a long struggle I gave up, clasped her hands together in mine and hugged her so tightly that she couldn’t move. This calmed her down but only for a minute. She freed herself, violently, and grabbed my hair. EINA! Then she was trying to bite me, hitting me in the face and scratching at any unprotected part of me. I looked up at the Spanish lady and saw that her kid was sleeping peacefully in her arms. I smiled at her, sheepishly, and said ‘do you want to trade?’ but immediately regretted my joke. Nothing about this was funny but I was in luck, she didn’t speak English. Phew.

I soon discovered that nobody except a few of the foreigners spoke English. The nuns and local volunteers spoke Bengali (my little bit of Hindi would be useless here), most of the Spanish spoke only Spanish or badly broken English and the Japanese, only Japanese (not to mention that they also keep to themselves). I was in fact the only ‘native English speaker’, as the nun who blessed me with an extra day, pointed out. This bizarre language-barrier made Daya Dan feel like some twisted Tower of Babel scenario where we were all trying to work together without being able to understand one another. At this point my kid relaxed a little but only because she had soiled herself. Thankfully, it was time for her bath and a nun took her away before I could start panicking.

I observed the other volunteers carefully; the Japanese preferred washing and cleaning while the Spaniards just naturally took to nurturing and caring for the children. I was caught somewhere in the middle but having nothing to do was almost as bad as having something unpleasant to do so I joined some Japanese girls, who were wiping the beds down and putting on clean sheets, grateful that I would be occupied for at least the next 10 minutes. Then I followed some other girls into the therapy-room where we’re supposed to give the children physiotherapy. Some of them are so severely deformed that you can’t make out where the body ends and the limbs begin. There was one girl, named Angel, who was still without a volunteer. Her body was so stiff that not even her fingers could bend. I was terrified that I would hurt her and sure enough, when I started to gently massage her tiny, deformed legs, she screamed. Angel couldn’t talk, she couldn’t move. She could only stare at the ceiling. Again there was nobody to give direction and we were terrified of hurting someone. I speak only for myself of course but I recognized the fear in everyone’s eyes and that’s when I started thinking that I may not be able to survive 11 days of this.

I stroked Angel’s arms and legs and tried to act natural but in truth I was ready to make a run for the door. Then suddenly things got worse, much worse. It was feeding time. A nun came in and started pointing at kids and then at volunteers, pairing them up. I would not be able to feed Angel, this both the nun and I knew so she took Angel away and pointed at a boy who was sitting in a chair. The boy, Sanju, had trouble keeping his head up so I had to hold it up with my left hand and feed him with my right (balancing the plate of yellow sludge on my knee). It took me a while to realize that on top of all his other disabilities, Sanju was also blind (each time I brought the spoon close to his mouth he got a fright). The poor Japanese girl next to me had a girl that kept choking, making an unearthly sound that made everyone look up in a panic every few minutes. I could see that she was on the verge of crying.

After lunch I strolled over to a group of girls sitting in a circle. Picking the smallest one up, I made a space for myself in the circle. There were about 6 of them and they eyed me suspiciously when I sat down. Then I made a mother of a mistake, I forgot to support the girl’s head and she fell forward slamming hard into the floor. The circle broke into a frenzied chorus telling me to go. ‘Auntie GO!’ ‘Auntie GO!’ I apologized profusely but it was no use. I had to walk away, in shame, to search for something else to do. I was hoping that by the end of the day they would have forgotten about the unfortunate incident and just before I left I said goodbye and waved. One of them, a particularly bad-tempered down-syndrome girl, named Leema, pointed at me and yelled ‘Auntie BAD!’. No such luck.

Later that night as I was trying to sleep, it felt like Leema had hit the nail on the head. I was a bad Auntie. It seemed ridiculous now but when I decided to volunteer, I was actually worried that I would start feeling really good about myself (like a saint or a martyr) and would miss the point of the experience entirely. But I didn’t feel good about myself, I felt wretched. Even when I started crying, it just made me feel worse. What on earth did I have to cry about? My mind and heart were being tortured by every kid in Daya Dan. I felt defeated and, crying, prayed softly ‘please God, help me to do better tomorrow’.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Calcutta

A jeep ride in India is never uneventful and the one I took from Darjeeling to New Jalpaiguri Station was no different. Our driver had frequent fits of road rage and was severely impatient, not just with other drivers but also with us passengers and was constantly shouting at someone. As a result none of the passengers spoke during the 3 hour journey. As with taxis in South Africa, the drivers also think that there is always space for another passenger and soon we were 15 people crammed inside the jeep, plus one on the roof.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a cat leaped out and ran across the road. Everyone in the jeep gasped. The driver slammed on the brakes, quickly made the sign of a cross over the steering wheel and spat out the window. Bad omen neutralized. Everyone sighed and then we were off again.

The train to Calcutta was nothing like the Radjhani Express (that I took from Delhi to Darjeeling) and I knew immediately what Shallu was trying to shield me from by insisting that I take a 2nd class ticket. This lowest-class coach felt more like a cage than a sleeping cabin and we were 8 people sharing. It was impossible to stretch without touching someone else. This was more what I expected the first time I got on a train in India and I heard a little voice saying ‘be careful what you wish for’. But I wasn’t complaining, it was a very cheap ticket and that was all that mattered. Travelling on this train would also be another window into the India I still wanted to see. So many times, on the Yamaha, I’d seen trains with hundreds of people hanging out of doors and windows smiling and waving and I knew that I wanted to ride that train too, so to speak.

On the train, opposite me, was a Bengali man who started wagging his head at me the moment the train started moving and kept offering me his only bottle of water (a precious commodity on such a long journey). I declined but he was determined to give me something, anything so he insisted that I share his meal with him. Refusing would be pointless. I’d been in situations like this before and I knew that we would not be ‘sharing’ anything. I would be eating while he would refuse to eat and would offer me ‘one more’, ‘one more’ until I had finished his entire meal. But he would be insulted if I refused.

It was very awkward bite I pleaded with him to start eating too but he shook his head while beaming at me. Single servings in India are more than enough for 2 people and soon I was stuffed and couldn’t take another bite. I thanked him and firmly said ‘enough’. He looked like disappointed searched in his small bag for something. He gave me his small bottle of milk and insisted I drink it there and then. It was not milk but spiced buttermilk (imagine a salty lassi with some masala mixed into it). I did not like it but managed to smile and he was delighted that I had eaten almost all of his food and drank his buttermilk. Then he tried again to offer me his bottle of water and wanted to go and buy some chai for me. ’No no no no, thank you, stop!’ I almost yelled but he was still looking around for something more to give me when a woman dressed in a blue sari came up to us asking for money. Then she spoke and I realized that she was a man. My host’s eyes suddenly sparkled. He took out two 10 rupee notes and gave it to the guy in the blue sari who took the money and then put his hand on my host’s head. A blessing. Then he put his hand on my head and then I understood. Luckily I had read ‘the City of Joy’ by Dominique LaPierre* in Darjeeling and knew that this man in the blue sari was not a transvestite but a Eunuch. How to explain.. If Caster Semenya were born in India she would have been a Eunuch.

Eunuchs are believed to be able to take away your sins and transfer it onto themselves (in an attempt to improve their own rotten Karma) and my host was overjoyed that he was able to bless me one last time, with a blessing.

The night on the train was hot and uncomfortable but as the sun was rising, before everyone woke; I got up, hung out the side of the train and saw Calcutta come alive. This city already existed, vividly, in my imagination and I my heart was beating wildly as the train pulled into the station. I knew that Calcutta was a dog-eat-dog kind of place and the moment I got onto the platform I would be bombarded by beggars, porters and taxi-drivers. I always expect to be ripped-off in a new place (it’s like paying an entry-fee) before I get wise in the ways of that particular place.

On the platform, I noticed two other foreigners looking around aimlessly but instinctively decided not to join them. Making peace with getting ripped-off on the first day is one thing but if you look like you don’t even know where you are the sharks will come for you. Walking with as much intent as I could, I put my bag down outside the station and within seconds a taxi driver asked me where I was going. I told him the name of the street. He smiled and said ‘come’. A taxi was my only options as that time of the morning there are no rickshaws on the roads. Taxi drivers capitalize on this shamelessly. If I had to pay for a taxi I would bloody well enjoy every expensive kilometer of the ride. Moments later I was on the backseat of a white Ambassador making myself comfortable. I’d seen thousands of these statuesque cars and now I was riding in one through the streets of Calcutta. The city was just waking up and I settled into the expectation of a proper ride through these notorious streets.

Less than two minutes later the driver of the Ambassador stopped, said we had arrived at the given address and demanded payment of 280 rupees. We had literally just gone around the block. It was a total rip-off but I didn’t argue, I expected to be taken for a ride, I just thought it would be a longer ride. Hello Calcutta

*I don’t mean to sound like Oprah but read it, read it, READ IT!

Gorkhaland continued.















William Chase, the English tourist in my hotel, had formed a fraternity-type friendship with the owner, who for reasons unknown didn’t seem to like me anymore. The two of them spent hours, till late into the night, telling each other stupid jokes in William’s room, right opposite mine. William had a lovely room with wooden floors, a great view and beautiful Indian linen. Mine smelled funny, the light bulb worked only when it felt like it and for warmth I had only one scratchy blanket and ‘hello kitty’ sheets.

During the strike, in my hour of need, my room was a haven that I was grateful for but now in the lucid light of day it was clear that I had the crappiest room in Darjeeling. On top of that, William Chase was beginning to work on my nerves. He had a very heavy British accent (one that would indeed have made the Queen proud) and he wore a stupid Nepali hat and hundreds of prayer beads around his tiny little neck. He was supremely irritating and one afternoon he told me that a police man patrolling the streets had taken him by the arm and told him that it was best that he left Darjeeling as soon as possible. William smelled conspiracy but I knew better. No doubt he had in some way annoyed the members of the police or some merchant who had complained about him because those same police officers always greeted me with a smile and never failed to wish me a happy day. I knew that my feelings towards William stemmed directly from the fact that he didn’t share his biscuits with me during my 3 days of hunger and I decided that I needed to forgive him and move on. Easier said than done.

I had long since my arrival in Darjeeling given up hope of finding a room to rent in the tea plantations (the strike had changed everything) and decided that the moment William checked out I would ask the owner if I could move into his room. Early the next morning I heard William leaving and went straight to the owner but a quiet little Korean girl, who had moved in the day before, had beaten me to it. I sat in my crappy room and felt very sorry for myself. Darjeeling was turning out to be nothing like I expected. I grabbed my MP3 player and was heading out the door for a long, soothing walk when I bumped into Deo.

Deo was a very pretty Japanese boy (he didn’t look older than 16) and he was just checking in. He radiated goodness and was so genuinely friendly that my bad mood lifted instantly and I went for my walk feeling much better, my faith in people momentarily restored. That night Deo wanted to know where he could go for dinner. I suggested a few places and would have joined him if I hadn’t finished off 2 plates of Momos just an hour before. I also gave him my headlamp, warned him that the streets were safe at night but very dark and that he needed to be careful not to fall into a ditch (like I did, many times). Deo had a beautiful way about him and looked like a little Calvin Klein model and I could have eaten him up, he was that sweet. The next day I was coming back from one of my walks when I ran into him again. He was carrying his backpack and told me that he had just checked out and found a wonderful new place and invited me to come check it out. The guesthouse he found was in a quiet part of Darjeeling and from the 3rd floor the rooms had incredible views. The room I checked out had a 180 degree view of the misty hills and a lovely bed with soft, clean linen and it was almost half the price of my crappy room. I switched hotels immediately.

It nothing else I felt that I had survived something in this place and accomplished staying in Darjeeling longer than most passing-by travelers bumping my status from ‘visitor’ up to ‘regular’. Apart from starting to recognize and be recognized by the locals I also found a few spots that I kept going back to. My favorite place to eat was right at the top of the city hill and was run by a local woman about my age. Her name was Daneeka and she made the best momos in Darjeeling. She also sold alcohol, under the table, which made her little dhaba very popular. I went there, sometimes twice a day, because her momos were not only the best, they were the cheapest. For 20 rupees you got a plate of momos (10 per plate) and a bowl of soup. That’s about R4 for a great meal. After a few visits and some shy conversation with Daneeka, I noticed that instead of 10 momos, I was getting 11.

Becoming a regular also means that you get insight into why the locals act the way they do (I can’t speak for the Gorkhas, who knows what they’re thinking). I often saw locals harassing the poor street dogs while I roamed the markets, poking them with their umbrellas or scaring them while they’re sleeping. I felt sorry for the poor dogs but after a few days, I understood. These street dogs, always sleeping during day, are wide awake, barking loudly and viciously during the night and keeps everyone up. After a few sleepless nights I was joining the locals in abruptly waking up every sleeping dog I could find, determined to disturb their sleep as much as I could. It was not cruelty to animals, it was justice.

Nothing it seemed however could lift me out off my Darjeeling depression. Rumors started surfacing that another strike was happening soon. The locals never fully recovered their kindness after my first visit and I experienced a lack of communication, not because the locals didn’t speak English but a lack caused by the local’s unwillingness to tell me what the heck was going on. I felt like finding a loudspeaker and proclaiming to the inhabitants of Darjeeling/Gorkhaland/Whatever that all I ever wanted to do was spend time with them in their beautiful city and get to know them but their silence seemed to say ‘you did get to know us, you just didn’t like what you found’. And so Darjeeling and I broke up. The next morning I took a jeep to the station and hopped on a train. Next stop, Calcutta.