Out and About

Well, the program has been over for a few weeks now. Near the end of the program we all did a community stay, we lived and participated in one of the many communities with in Auroville. I stayed at Sadahna forest. Its a reforestation project based on the outskirts of Auroville. They've been planting trees and creating a sustainable home there for the last 6 years. It's run by an Israeli couple who are really amazing people. There are all kinds of things going on at Sadahna besides tree planting. They have permaculture gardens, water saving practices, solar energy, bike-generators, green architecture, and all kinds of stuff. I worked mostly on a project of creating a spirulina pool. Spirulina is "the food for the future" they say. It's super nutritious and easy to grow. First I was helping build a natural experimental pond made from sand, clay, soil, lime, ash, and fermented cactus juice. It was a recipe created by this guy Jesus who has studied Mayan architecture. He was a really interesting guy! He also did my Mayan astrology reading, neat. So yeah, that was really hard work, but it was pretty fun playing in the mud! Speaking of mud, There was a huge mud pool at Sadahna where most people went daily to wash up! haha, yeah, thats right... bathing in the mud made you "clean"! Sanitary? sure... Anyways, so after working on the construction of a new pool, I worked with Gilles, to harvest from the existing pool. Gilles is a french guy who has been going around the world for the last 20 years building spirulina pools in impoverished areas. I was great working with him, I learned so much! How to care for and grow spirulina. How to harvest spirulina. If anyone wants to build a spirulina pool let me know! :) Other then spirulina, I helped cook a few meals, everyone takes turns in the kitchen. All meals there are Vegan. One week I had the delightful task of "poop stirrer". Yep, I got to stir the poop in the composting toilets! Wahoo! haha, not as bad as it sounds. Overall Sadahna was Awesome.
After Community Stays, we had just one week left of classes. Mostly we just wrapped up things and talked about reverse-culture shock... which I think is still to come. There were times in the program when I really didn't even know why I was doing it, times when I thought it was stupid, but I'm so glad I chose this program. I learned more then I even know I've learned... if that makes sense?

After the program Me and bunch of people went to Chennai, where we put a few people on planes and we all went our own ways. Me and Jamie headed for Hampi. We took a train to Guntakal and then went to the bus station to continue onwards. We were so out of place at the bus station! At first a couple beggars came up to us, then came a few guys trying to "help" us find our bus, and after a few minutes we were surrounded by about 15 curious locals, all trying to talk to us. We must have looked pretty pathetic, because soon this girl Shruti, came and asked if we wanted to sit with them. Her mom and her were so nice! She only knew a little english, but they were also going to Bellary so they helped us get on the bus. We had to fight our way onto that bus, it was made for 24 passengers, but at least 50 were crammed in there. What a trip. After That bus they helped us on a second bus and long story short we finally made it to Hampi. Hampi is really beautiful. We were there during the hot season, so few tourist. We hiked around in the boulder strewn landscape and investigated the hundreds of temples scattered throughout. We ran into a few people from Auroville. We also Met up with Matt and Vika, from our program, and we all rented mopeds for a day. So much fun!
After Hampi the four of us went to Goa. Sadly Jamie had to leave after just one day because of some family stuff. We spent about a week staying in these tree house hut things, right on the beach. One day me and Vika hiked up this random trail into the jungle. After an hour or so we happened upon this huge banyon tree that had prayer flags and stuff wrapped around it. When we got closer we realized it was a little Shiva Temple, in the middle of the rainforest? There was a guy living there too! So random. He was probably 50 or 60, wearing all orange, with huge dreads, pretty much exactly what you'd imagine he'd look like! haha. He told he'd been living there off and on for the last twelve years!

Okay, well, after goa, me and Vika took a two day train to Dehli. There we stayed with an Italian guy, a father of one of Vikas friends. He was great, and he introduced us to his friend/neighbor Mr. Bashir who was so welcoming. The fed us, a lot, and told us where to go and what to do, and they invited to there home anytime. Nice people. After a few days in Dehli we wanted headed North to Dharamshala. We got sooo ripped off on our bus ticket! But the good thing was we happened to get on the same bus as our friend from Auroville, Kalsang, who runs the Tibetan Pavillion (the place I lived in Auroville). The bus sucked though. About an hour from Dharamshala the bus ran out of gas, then the clutch broke, then a tire blew. Ahhh! But we finally made it, and Kalsang got us a really nice room in this guesthouse run by a Monastary. Dharamshala is where the Tibetan government resides, the Dalai Lama and all that. Its a nice little city with a view of the Himalayas! So we've been here for four days now. Were not really sure how much longer we'll stay, and there's so many places to visit in India.
Hope everyone is well back in the motherland! e-mail me!