Back in Gujarat!

Well, for the past two weeks I've been back in Gujarat, working on the orientation for the next group of AJWS World Partner Fellows. Overall it's been great -- an interesting kind of homecoming, full of extremes, with most of what I loved and also some of what bothered me about living here.

My first autorickshaw ride through Ahmedabad was a great reminder of some shades of life in this city: the handpainted Gujarati script on storefronts, the huge buses made of welded sheet metal, trucks with people hanging out of every door and window, bicycle carts pulling loads of fruit, markets selling everything from cucumbers to cricket bats, an occasional camel decorated with black designs on its legs and torso, glass-paneled shopping malls, the dust, smoke and garbage of the street, all coming together to make this sprawling city what it is. Subsequent autorickshaw rides haven't been quite as exciting, though I did see an elephant -- the first I'd ever seen in India, actually.

My Gujarati is slowly coming back to me, but my vocabulary and grammar are still worse than they were when I left last June. I'm sure it will be back to where it was if I put in some work over the next few months, and maybe I can improve it by the time I leave.

The group and I have been staying at the Kochrab Ashram, which is in the city. Gandhi founded the Ashram in 1918 after returning to India from South Africa, and lived there with like-minded followers for about two years. There are some limited boarding facilities on the ashram grounds, so I've been sleeping in a simple room on a cot, using a sheet made of khadi, the handspun cotton Gandhi tried so hard to make the backbone of Indian manufacturing. I was a bit worried about how the group would take to the simple accomodations, which also include bucket showers and squat toilets, but everyone has been very positive about it. We've been having our orientation sessions in the ashram's library, and some of the fellows have led yoga or meditation sessions in Gandhi's former study.

The 26th of January was Republic Day, which commemorates the adoption of the Indian constitution. They had a small ceremony at the ashram with students and teachers from a local school, and actually the manager of the ashram made me the guest of honor. My duties entailed unfurling the Indian flag and saluting it, sitting on a chair on the stage, and then making a brief speech thanking everyone on behalf of my group. I said a few simple things in Gujarati, which made the people there very happy because they introduced me expecting to have to translate. I also was garlanded with a necklace made of khadi, which will be a great memento of the day. I was also wearing a "Gandhi topi", or khadi hat like the kind Nehru wore. The manager of the ashram had asked that I wear it.

A few days later, on the 30th, was the anniversary of Gandhi's death. Hundreds of students and staff marched to the ashram from Gujarat Vidyapith, a college Gandhi set up, carrying portable cotton spinning wheels along with them. They sat on the main lawn in front of the dais and spun while listening to a few speakers wax poetic on Gandhi's legacy. A few tv crews were there, and interviewed one of the fellows, and also filmed me trying to spin some khadi. It seemed pretty silly to me that we were getting attention from the camera crews, despite the fact that 500 devotees of Gandhian philosphy were sitting just a few feet away from us. I think that in some ways many Indians still want to have their society validated with the affirmation of Westerners.

Oh, and I took a trip to the vocational training center I worked at last year! It was great. I went along with the new volunteer who will be placed there for the next 9 months It was the last day of that batch of students, so they were having their graduation ceremony. It was so nice to see all of my former colleagues there, and I can't wait to see them again. The whole World Partners group is going to go to the center for a few days at the end of orientation to meet representatives of the NGOs they will be working with, and have some more sessions.

So all in all, things are going well, and I'm happy to be here. I would definitely like to start my work at the primary schools, and I should be able to do that in about two weeks, so that's good.

I'm going to try and post on this blog more often, but I don't have any consistent internet access yet, so we'll see how that goes. Later!