7.16.10 - Pondicherry & More

I think I need a planner...I can't keep track of what day it is anymore, and the date has totally eluded me. This is a bad sign. I haven't even had a chance to get on the internet recently! So, I now have a backlog of events to write about, and I'm afraid that it might just result in one long, boring entry. Ah well, here goes nothing.
Pondicherry seems so long ago even though it was only a few days! I'm still adjusting to the way that time moves here, strangely slow and fast at the same time. I was correct in assuming that the overnight bus ride would be the most interesting and adventurous part of my Indian experience thus far. Until I got charged by a cow, but that story will come later. So I arrived at the bus station with Tara and her friend, who was visiting from Mumbai, and the girls who booked the tickets for us were meeting us there. We found our bus, found our friends and got in our seats. Then, the excitement began. We left Bangalore a little after 10pm, and shortly after that we were outside of the city, driving through the rural countryside. The roads are small, unlit by anything that would resemble a streetlight, and lined by jungle on either side. And the bus driver is hauling ass, like the police are trailing him or something! We are not talking about a small bus here; this is one of those busses that you see in NYC with loads of tourists on them. It's long and tall, and not designed for speed racing on the pot hole ridden back roads of southern India. Every time the bus driver took a turn I could swear the bus was just going to tip right over into the palm trees that lined the side of the road. It was dark, and every time I fell asleep I would jolt back awake when I was certain I was going to plummet to my death off of a mountainside in the jungle. The combination of the darkness, and my not having a window seat to be able to see where we were going just exaccerbated my anxiety about tipping over. Listening to the soft snores of other passengers, I was pretty sure I was the only one who was this paranoid. We arrived at Pondi just in time to see the spectacular sun rising over the Bay of Bengal.
After we had gotten situated in the flat we were renting for the two nights, we organized a taxi to take all 12 of us to the beach. With the help of "the Frenchies" (3 friends of Pablo's who were visiting from France) we found a great beach that was kind of secluded and there really weren't any other tourists. Now, this is usually what I look for in a beach; something remote, where you can spread out and read, or play volleyball, or have a beer with out some snotty-nosed kid spraying sand in your face as they run around your blanket screaming. But the corralary to this remote, non-touristy beach is that there are a lot of locals there, all men, and all sitting around watching. No, scratch that. Not watching, staring. For godssake, we went in with all our clothes on so as not to attract unwanted attention, and yet, there they were, sitting on the sand, on the benches, under the palm-thatched huts, staring at us. We were a big group of girls with a few guys with us as well, and the group was mostly Indian people with a handful of foreigners, so it's not that we felt unsafe at all, just annoyed at being subjected to such obvious voyuerism! The water was so warm, and the waves were wonderful, so we spent the majority of the time bobbing around in the water, playing in the surf, getting knocked over by the waves and just generally having a good time. The most ironic thing about it was that here we were, swimming in our dark colored t-shirts and shorts so as to maintain some sort of dignified modesty, and the men who were at the beach were swimming in anything from a pair of old, hole-y tighty-whities to a traditional indian cloth-thong-diaper thing! Why is that ok??? I will just venture a guess that any one of us girls would have looked better in their swim-wear than they did, but of course we were all covered up trying to avoid the attention we were getting anyways! The second day I was a bit more relaxed about covering up every inch of skin possible, seeing as how no matter what we wore we were going to get stared at. Ah, the joys of India!
Pondicherry is an old French colony, and we made ourselves very at home in the Alliance Frances, were we had breakfast and afternoon snack. It was such a lovely atmosphere there, we could come back from the beach and plop our sandy wet-clothed selves down on the lawn of the cafe and just hang out to eat, talk, and drink cold coffees. We also experienced a little bit of Pondi night life on Sunday night at a place called Satsanga were the finals of the world cup was being projected on a large screen. It was a great game, and the place was packed with people from all over, rooting mostly for Spain so it was a very exciting win. The best part about Pondi was the escape from the craziness and business of Bangalore. At nights we could walk down the middle of the street without having to worry about getting run over. On our way home after the match we stopped for a chai at 3 am, sat around under the trees drinking chai and laughing.
The main street in Pondi overlooking the beach is a promenade in true old European fashion, and one of the nights we went for a walk along the promenade and happened upon a dance festival. There was a makeshift stage set up in the middle of the sidewalk, on it was a live band playing a classic Indian dance, and a group of girls performing. They were dressed to the nines in embroidered sarees, bangles, earrings, noserings, and belled anklets with which they kept the beat; it was a really beautiful thing to have wandered to spontaneously. The last day we were there a few of us went to Auroville, which is a commune-like place that was started initially with the idea of being a self-sustaining, non-religious community. Eventually though, people began to worship the man who started it, but the ideals about self-sustainibility remain, as well as commitments to environmental responsibility, including organic farming and recycling. They also had some great post cards there, which made my day.
And of course, no trip would be complete without a little shopping, and a little harmless display of aggression by a cow. We had parked the car and got out to walk down to the shopping district, and right next to our car was a cow, feeding on the old onion skins that were lying on the side of the road. It's not like this is the first cow I've ever seen. Even if I hadn't seen one in the states before (which of course I have) by this time I have become accustomed to seeing them sauntering down the middle of the road here in Bangalore. I've been dying to get a picture of this though, and I don't ever feel comfortable taking my camera out like that in Bangalore, because after all I am staying here for a little while, and I have to walk the same routes frequently. I wouldn't want anyone to know how big of a tourist I am if I might potentially be buying mangos from them later on in the week. So I've waited till I got out of Bangalore to snap some pictures of the signs on the walls saying "Do not urinate here" and the cows. And this was my perfect opportunity: I would never be back in Pondi, and here was this cow, serenely chewing her onion leaves right next to my car. So I get my camera out and walk over to get a good angle, and just as I'm snapping the photo the cow decides that I have no business taking pictures of her eating and she charges at me with her head down ready to send me flying into traffic! I had no idea cows could move that fast!! Fortunately, I was lighter on my feet than she was, and I got out of the way in time, but she really did spoil my photo-op. As I was sitting on the bus ride home contemplating my imminent death by bus driver, I was amazed that I started off that weekend as a stranger, and completed it with a whole new group of friends...the people I've met here have been so warm and welcoming, like I have known them for so much longer than a week, and already I feel like I'm missing out by not spending more time here.
Now I'm back in Bangalore, back to the grindstone of one day of work per week. Today I went on my second outreach to the village with the team from the hospital. This time was much more exciting, as there were three doctors doing consultations, and I got to sit in the room where they were examining patients as well as dispense medications from the pharmacy. Tomorrow I will go early to the hosptial to go on rounds with the doctor and observe his consultations in the office, which will be obstetric as opposed to the general practice that takes place in the outreach clinic. I am really looking forward to that, but before that I have a goodbye party to go to for the Frenchies who are headed back to Paris tomorrow! Well, enough for now... more later!