This is a pic I found of the inner sancutuary. Havnt been inside yet, but hope to soon.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Auroville
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sadhana Livin
Woke up early to Pheebs playing the dijorri doo and our other friend benny playing the drums. Those guys are the designated wake up people for this week. My job is CHEF!!! Hoping i can learn some good vegan cooking and bring some of that knowledge back home. OH yea i guess i forgot to say that Sadhana is vegan and dam is it tough, but for reasons unknown the food is actually pretty good. Fresh fruit salad everyday with organic mangos, papayas, pomegranates, pineapples, and bananas yumm yummm! Also Sadhana does not allow any drugs that includes caffine and sugar as well. So no coffee, no tea...obviously no alcohol and not even the native ganga herb that is frequent all over India. But even so, I am having more fun here than anywhere else on my trip. There is about 70 other people living here and everyone is awesome. They do workshops every day, and I am hoping to learn Capoeira, jimbe drumming, and some good ole fashion yoga.
Sadhana forest is part of the city of Auroville. Auroville is a new city that was started in the late 60s and is focused around peace and human unity. From the sky the city looks similar to a galaxy. It is extremely gorgeous. The city has this future feel but also has dozens of farms and bakeries and everything that a city needs to survive, clean water especially. Sadhana is a forest community outside of Auroville. We live in these beautiful huts constucted of bamboo and woven coconut leaves for roofs. And sleep on bed frames that is made of string and a 2 inch mattress. My hut has a great view of the sunset. I work 4 hrs a day and pay 150 rubbies a day for food ($3).
Yesterday, which was my first day of work, I worked on breakfast. Cut open and ate my first coconut and was suprised that it tasted nothing like coconut flavor. After that I worked on filling all the poop-water buckets...so if you didnt already know, in india there really is no toilet paper or even a toilet. So you poop over a hole in the ground and wipe your butt with your left hand. The left hand in Indian culture is this extremely nasty taboo. You never shake with your left hand, you never eat with your left hand and if you do the Indians will have a fit. Also the poop shoots, where ya do your business, gets composed and used for planting later. So my job was to fill up the buckets next to the poop holes so you can clean your bum.
Today I worked in the kitchen again, cutting up fruits for 70 people. And after worked in the garden clearing brush. FUUNN!!
Computer is about to die, so ill work on this later. Peace.
Sadhana forest is part of the city of Auroville. Auroville is a new city that was started in the late 60s and is focused around peace and human unity. From the sky the city looks similar to a galaxy. It is extremely gorgeous. The city has this future feel but also has dozens of farms and bakeries and everything that a city needs to survive, clean water especially. Sadhana is a forest community outside of Auroville. We live in these beautiful huts constucted of bamboo and woven coconut leaves for roofs. And sleep on bed frames that is made of string and a 2 inch mattress. My hut has a great view of the sunset. I work 4 hrs a day and pay 150 rubbies a day for food ($3).
Yesterday, which was my first day of work, I worked on breakfast. Cut open and ate my first coconut and was suprised that it tasted nothing like coconut flavor. After that I worked on filling all the poop-water buckets...so if you didnt already know, in india there really is no toilet paper or even a toilet. So you poop over a hole in the ground and wipe your butt with your left hand. The left hand in Indian culture is this extremely nasty taboo. You never shake with your left hand, you never eat with your left hand and if you do the Indians will have a fit. Also the poop shoots, where ya do your business, gets composed and used for planting later. So my job was to fill up the buckets next to the poop holes so you can clean your bum.
Today I worked in the kitchen again, cutting up fruits for 70 people. And after worked in the garden clearing brush. FUUNN!!
Computer is about to die, so ill work on this later. Peace.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
LATE START
So right now we have settled down in a jungle community outside of Auroville called Sadhana Forest. And WWOOOOWW is this place awesome, but I will get to the down and dirty with details of Sadhana later. First I will try and recap where we have gone and what weve done so far.
So when we got off the plane in Delhi we came face to face with india modern art all around the airport...from paintings of shiva to giant mediation hands protuding from walls. So excited that we were finally in India...of course I did the tourist thing and took some pictures of the airport. We met a guy named Al in the airport who taught us the power of kindness. The culture shock alone in Delhi has been known to send the whitest of westerners packing back to their home country. Luckily our new friend, Al invited us to stay with him in his hotel room for the night while we get ourselves settled into India. He bought us drink and food, and gave us the queen size bed while he insisted he sleep on the ground. Al is the man! He works as a field technician for a company called INFINIA, which builds the newest model of solar panels around the world. Now he was working on one in Delhi. Meeting Al was a good transition into the hussle and bussle of indian city life.
The next day we took off, carrying our bags and pushing through the crowds. The whole time keeping one hand in my pocket watching my money, just in case. I mean you hear things about 3rd world countries and i wasnt about to get my wallet or passport stolen by some pickpocketer. The heavy musk of Delhi slows down your breathing by a half a second, but that is enough to turn your lungs into dumbbells and make you start breathing like darth vader. Trying to navigate ourselves in this mess with little water and extreme 100degree heat made everything kind of hazy. So our first plan of action, find a hotel room and then figure everything out from there. Started walking to the center of town, thinking that would be better than getting a taxi. After walking for about 20 minutes, we flagged a rickshaw. A rickshaw for all those who dont know, is a small taxi cab that can only go about 20 miles an hour. And are usually hired by hotels and travel agencies to bring unsuspecting tourists to their providers. And we were just those tourists. So no matter how many times we asked him to bring us to the YMCA Youth Hostel he would not move from the travel agency he had just stopped out front of. Out of the travel agency an indian John Stamose walks out telling us to come inside, have a coke and he can help us get a room for the night. Of course we accept, it is John Stamose...pheebis loves John Stomase. Being half coherent and in a slight haze, the next thing I knew we had planned a month of our trip with his company but i was also handing him a third of my cash. BOOM Bam...just like that we had hotels booked, got tickets for trains and buses and for the next week we had a personal driver. WHHAATT!!! We got scammed! We did not need all those extra emenaties and we did not need the luxerious rooms they put us in but we were stuck and he did not do refunds. That was just our first experience at being scammed. We needed to get faster on our toes if we were to keep our money and survive in this new world.
So the next week we had a personal driver named Nick (NEEK). Who drove us from Delhi to Jaipur and then to Agra where he dropped us off at the trainstation. Neek told us stories of his family and jokes about white people. He brought us for dinner at his families house in Jaipur...which was sweeeet. Home made indian food and whisky umm ummm. In India guests are considered gods, and they live up to that reputation. Stuffing your plates with food until your bellies are verging on exploding and at least for me, continually crying at the unusually curry content and spciy pickles that I have never heard of. Oh yea pickles in India are not pickles, they are SPICY hot peppers.
Okay well getting tired so I will finish this later. Its getting late at the Sadhana and Ive got to be up at 530 for breakfast duty and plant work. First day of work, yikes!!
So when we got off the plane in Delhi we came face to face with india modern art all around the airport...from paintings of shiva to giant mediation hands protuding from walls. So excited that we were finally in India...of course I did the tourist thing and took some pictures of the airport. We met a guy named Al in the airport who taught us the power of kindness. The culture shock alone in Delhi has been known to send the whitest of westerners packing back to their home country. Luckily our new friend, Al invited us to stay with him in his hotel room for the night while we get ourselves settled into India. He bought us drink and food, and gave us the queen size bed while he insisted he sleep on the ground. Al is the man! He works as a field technician for a company called INFINIA, which builds the newest model of solar panels around the world. Now he was working on one in Delhi. Meeting Al was a good transition into the hussle and bussle of indian city life.
The next day we took off, carrying our bags and pushing through the crowds. The whole time keeping one hand in my pocket watching my money, just in case. I mean you hear things about 3rd world countries and i wasnt about to get my wallet or passport stolen by some pickpocketer. The heavy musk of Delhi slows down your breathing by a half a second, but that is enough to turn your lungs into dumbbells and make you start breathing like darth vader. Trying to navigate ourselves in this mess with little water and extreme 100degree heat made everything kind of hazy. So our first plan of action, find a hotel room and then figure everything out from there. Started walking to the center of town, thinking that would be better than getting a taxi. After walking for about 20 minutes, we flagged a rickshaw. A rickshaw for all those who dont know, is a small taxi cab that can only go about 20 miles an hour. And are usually hired by hotels and travel agencies to bring unsuspecting tourists to their providers. And we were just those tourists. So no matter how many times we asked him to bring us to the YMCA Youth Hostel he would not move from the travel agency he had just stopped out front of. Out of the travel agency an indian John Stamose walks out telling us to come inside, have a coke and he can help us get a room for the night. Of course we accept, it is John Stamose...pheebis loves John Stomase. Being half coherent and in a slight haze, the next thing I knew we had planned a month of our trip with his company but i was also handing him a third of my cash. BOOM Bam...just like that we had hotels booked, got tickets for trains and buses and for the next week we had a personal driver. WHHAATT!!! We got scammed! We did not need all those extra emenaties and we did not need the luxerious rooms they put us in but we were stuck and he did not do refunds. That was just our first experience at being scammed. We needed to get faster on our toes if we were to keep our money and survive in this new world.
So the next week we had a personal driver named Nick (NEEK). Who drove us from Delhi to Jaipur and then to Agra where he dropped us off at the trainstation. Neek told us stories of his family and jokes about white people. He brought us for dinner at his families house in Jaipur...which was sweeeet. Home made indian food and whisky umm ummm. In India guests are considered gods, and they live up to that reputation. Stuffing your plates with food until your bellies are verging on exploding and at least for me, continually crying at the unusually curry content and spciy pickles that I have never heard of. Oh yea pickles in India are not pickles, they are SPICY hot peppers.
Okay well getting tired so I will finish this later. Its getting late at the Sadhana and Ive got to be up at 530 for breakfast duty and plant work. First day of work, yikes!!
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