The 2007 Travel Blog

the 75 cent haircut and Tibetan Thanksgiving/birthday dinners...

liz and i just arrived back in delhi after being on the road for 3 weeks, which was initially going to be only a week. but that's kind of how things have been going, plans are constantly changing as we hear about great organizations and places we want to check out. as cliche as the saying is, the time really has flown by and liz leaves in 2 weeks!! so we've decided to spend the last 2 weeks in delhi building networks with organizations here and hopefully work with student groups doing environmental or social change work. although its going to be rough after having spent time in on farms and amongst the himalayas to be in such a smog filled noisy city...we'll just have to get out once in a while to get a breath of fresh air!



recap on the past few weeks:



the gathering at the deer park institute surpassed any expectations i had. we talked a lot about how to balance our activist lives and make sure to take care of ourselves in order to be able to help others. this included discussions about being authentic/honest with ourselves and others and carrying that honesty into any work we may do. it was also about building strong bonds with others at the gathering in order to create a trusting, open space to discuss difficult and controversial issues.

many of the people attending the gathering are working on different projects related to some sort of alternative way of learning outside of an institutional framework. some are creating learning centers for people to spend time being creative and expressing themselves in ways our jobs and schools sometimes prevent us from doing. others were working with street children to do theater as a form of creative expression. and some were working on creating farm space dependent on people's voluntary work to keep it running.



all of this was interspersed with lots of singing, wandering through buddhist temples, doing a bit of gardening and composting in the garden, and testing out the local tibetan and indian cuisine. liz and i both had some interesting experiences at the local beauty saloon where liz was brave enough to get her hair cut. and that wasnt a typo, they call them beauty SALOONS! i had a wonderful birthday feeding sweets to my friends (an Indian tradition) and eating vegan birthday cake a friend made. We also had an unusual but delicious Tibetan Thanksgiving/birthday feast with a few friends from the gathering.

Then we were off to our next course about 7 hours away from Delhi outside of Dehra Dun. We were going to Bija Vidyapeeth, the organic farm of Navdanya, Vandana Shiva's organization. We took a week long course on Gandhi and Globalization with Satish Kumar, a former Jain monk and long time non-violence and environmental activist. We mainly discussed ways to apply Gandhi's four principles of Sarvodaya, Swaraj, Swadeshi and Satyagraha in order to attempt to live nonviolent lives and bring this idea of non-violence into society. One key component to these 4 principles was living as simple and sustainable as possible, with a lot of emphasis on COMPOSTING!! Participants in the course were from all over: Japan, UK, U.S., Canada, Australia, Brazil and all were great resources for different places and organizations to check out in India and their home countries. Satishji was a wonderful teacher and joined us for activities and meals and was willing to talk to anyone individually about any questions they had!

Upon leaving Bija we headed to Chandigarh in Punjab to visit friends we met at the gathering in Bir who are doing recycled craft work and work with street children. We stayed with a friend and her family who run an organization, CEVA (Centre for Education and Voluntary Action). They make crafts out of recycled materials and work with street children doing theater, and other creative activities. We also visited an organization (Chotti Si Asha http://chottisiasha.blogspot.com/) that helps street children by teaching them how to make crafts to sell, many out of recycled materials, teaching them to read and write hindi. Unfortunately Liz got sick and spent most of the time in Chandigarh in bed but was well taken care of by our friend and her family.

wow a wee uh...that was a long one. so i skipped out on a few things here and there...but hopefully you got the main idea. happy holidays!

peace and love.
kasey


some related websites:

Shikshantar...an organization run by a few people we met at the gathering http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/

Navdanya and Bija Vidyapeeth: Vandana Shiva's organization and the farm where we attended the Gandhi and Globalization course http://www.navdanya.org/bija/index.htm