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For those who don’t know me very well – I love zoos! The zoo is located about an hour or more outside the city (Chennai) so we took a train and a bus to get there. We had to wait a while for the train so we sat on the platform benches and chatted. Six females foreigners– Cadence, Diana, Yael, Kelly, Sara and I – chit chatting on a crowded train platform can cause quite a disruption in India I have realized. It didn’t help that Kelly’s laugh is high-pitched and loud and Sara’s is thunderous! One time Sara and I was in a store and I said something and there was an attendant helping us and Sara flung her head back and busted a laugh so loud that the startled, tiny-built man jumped. It was horrible.

On the platform this tiny little girl began to beg us and as we boarded the train. She, her mother (who looked about our age and was very beautiful we thought) and her baby sibling followed us onto the train. The begging child looked no more than 5 yrs old. Sara gave her a granola bar, Diana gave her a candy and when she got to Yael and I we said no to her. She stood in front of us with her hand out so I began to take pics and Yael suddenly blurted “Oh! She did the face!” and she dug in her bag and handed the girl 5 rupees. I know the face she was talking about. It’s that face that just breaks your heart to see on a child. It doesn’t help that they are dirty and wearing rags either, that only makes the look on their face all the more heart-breaking.

We had to swap trains and the train was so crowded, a lot like New York’s, only there are no train doors here, falling off on to the train tracks is just a push away. It is so interesting that there are ladies’ cars though. There are only one or two cars on the train for ladies (it seems to always be the cars to the back too). When we initially got into the station the train was already there so we had to run like horses from the front of the train to the back to get on the ladies’ car. Imagine if you’re late and the train is pulling off and you have to go to the back of the train to board…so inconvenient and annoying!

We finally made it to the zoo. We did the lion safari first because the zoo was HUGE and doing it first would mean that we get a ride to the end of the zoo and we could walk back to the front and see everything on our way out. We got into this van that literally had a caged around it, and held 12 people. The lions were in open space as if in the wild and they have concrete “houses” for them to escape the sun, I guess. We drove among them and stopped to take pictures. They seemed bored. Aside from when our driver got too close for comfort. He was doing it for spite. The lion was laying against the wall of his house minding his business and our driver drove right up on him (as if meaning to pin him to the wall). The lion paid us no mind. The driver switched off the engine and began to inch the van closer and closer to the lion. At this point, I was right next to the driver (there was no passenger seat) sitting on the floor of the safari van because I wanted good pics. The lion raised his head and shoulders, becoming aware and getting defensive. He looked the driver dead in his eyes! I was in front saying to the driver in my head “do it! do it!” He must have heard me because he inched the van forward a little again and the lion’s gaze just looked a little more devious and he got up on this front paws, his behind still on the ground as if going to pounce. He stared at the driver dead on through the bars around our windscreen as if saying “move another inch and it’s on…” Our wussy driver put the van in reverse and the lion turned his head and looked away as if saying “…thought so!” Like the lion, I too was disappointed. That would have been some good shots!!

That was a good way to start off our zoo trip. I loved that the elephants weren’t in cages. They it looked just as if they were in the wild. They had a huge stomping ground. So did the giraffes. Every other animal was pretty standard. The wild cats – jaguars, tigers, etc – were the best I thought. I was disappointed by the lack of gorillas. However, the monkey that escaped made up for all my disappointment. Zoo attendants were climbing trees, struggling not to fall, while others were launching stones, the crowds began to gather while the monkey was just chilling in the topmost part of the tree, swinging to avoid stones and catching as many as he can. It was hilarious. After the men started to feel their ego’s shrinking as the bunch of foreign girls laughed hysterically at the entire situation, they ran us. I pretended to not understand their broken English and obvious hand gestures for a bit so I could get some good pics.

That afternoon everyone came over to my room and chilled out until it was time for dinner. There is this “American” restaurant called “Sparky’s – Never trust a skinny chef” and they wanted to go. I had been there already and thought the food was a pathetic attempt at western food. They even sold Jamaican jerk chicken which I didn’t dare to order.

After dinner, we decided we should go do karaoke or dancing. Yael and Kelly were leaving in the wee hours of the next morning so we thought we should enjoy the night. We got a tourist guide and looked under “night life” – choices were minimal. We went to the “club” in a hotel called Havana. The music was shocking. They played Jay-Z and all sorts of hip-hop. I wasn’t in India anymore. Well, I was reminded when I saw the sign “only married couples on the dance floor”. Despite the loud music and dimmed lights, most of the crowd were watching cricket on a big screen tv! The dance floor became ours. We were wilding out! Kelly was break-dancing to hip hop and she was surprisingly good! We had a ball.

At dinner the night before the girls, save Cadence, begged me to come to Mahabalapuram with them to see the temples and the so-called center of gravity the following day (Friday). I had my “assignment on anything” due then so I told them I really couldn’t, though I know if I didn’t go I would probably not have the opportunity to do it again. I debated all night whether or not I should skip school and go. School always skips me so why can’t I skip it for once? Well I didn’t, I went to school like I was supposed to and gave up playing tourist, reluctantly. Naturally, just like when I got invited to go to Sri Lanka, I had no class! My morning professor stood me up and the second class the professor didn’t turn up. I was annoyed!! I called the girls and they happily said they were just on their way to the bus and I should hurry. With all my crazy heavy books, I rushed and got a rickshaw to the bus station.

Mahabalapuram is a temple city outside of Chennai, about 2 hours drive away. Honestly, I didn’t care too much about seeing the temples, I think they look all the same – statues of snakes, peacocks, rats, elephant head men, curvy women with multiply arms etc. However, because I appreciate art, I can still enjoy the detailed sculpting of statues from stones and engravings in the surfaces of walls.


HORROR BUS RIDE
We had to wait a while until the bus was ready to pull off. We stood outside for a while and waited until there were a few people were on it before we got into the scorching hot bus. One side of the bus had double seats and the other side had seats for three. We contemplated squeezing us four into a triple seater but opted to pair off in the double seat. There were no more than ten people on the bus at that point. I sat next to Sara and Yael and Kelly sat together right in front of us. A man, who Sara had noted was sitting to the front moved to the back of the bus and sat opposite Sara and I in a triple seater. I didn’t even notice him. There was also another man sitting opposite Yael and Kelly against the window of the triple seater. The man sitting opposite Sara and I pulled down the heavy metal shutters of his window. Again, I didn’t think anything of it, though I should of considering how hot it was in the bus. I was facing Sara, who sat at the window talking my life away. In between conversation, I can see the man staring us dead on, but again, that’s a normal occurrence so I thought nothing of it. Minutes later I looked over at the man who was still gaping and the rapid movement of his hands made my glance drop from his face – his entire privates was out and upright. I was horrified and uncertain. I nudged Sara, who was clueless and I said “Is he…?” I motioned my eyes towards him but I didn’t say what I thought he was doing. She was like “what?? I can’t see…but he knows we are talking about him…” She could see that he was facing us but would have to lean forward over me to see his face. Her hand was on my leg and all of a sudden her fingers squeezed my leg, her posture got upright, her mouth was open, loud gasp flew out and her head was out her window in seconds. Though warranted, she was a little more of a drama queen than I was in this situation. I leaned away too, burying my face in the back of her shoulder. I said “I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry” and she responded “I’m crying”. We composed ourselves. The girls ahead of us were too busy to realize what was going on. By our reactions, he was sure now that he had an audience. Suddenly the man cross from the girls, and ahead of him, turned around and said something to him. I deemed it safe to look now. The pervert quickly pulled his shirt over his exposed self. I gathered that the man asked him if he can open the metal shutter. He opened it and quickly got back to his business. Now, he turned his back to the window so that no one outside would see him. In my peripheral vision I can see that he sat sideways on the triple seaters with his legs open and one knee on the seat almost violently pounding on himself. The bus started to move so I looked around for the conductor. My shock had slowly turned into anger. I said to Sara we have to tell someone because this man is not stopping and I can’t function like this for 2 hours. The conductor was this ‘bookety’ looking old man who was sitting about three rows behind us. I said to Sara that if this were the US I would know that we would be protected but I’m not sure how the males here would respond if we say a man is assaulting us. We are women but our only trump card would be that we are foreigners. As I was having second thoughts about going to get the conductor the bus made its first stop right outside the station and a group of about 10 women hopped on through the back door. I literally heard his zipper go up. He jumped up and stood in the aisle next to me. I thought he was going to touch my face or something. Sara quickly jammed herself to the window and put her hands over my legs and pulled me closer to her. He lingered RIGHT NEXT to me for about 3 seconds then walked to the front of the bus. Sara asked as he walked off “did he touch you??” but his waist-area had only grazed the side of my arm and shoulder. I wasn’t sure if he did it intentionally…but I’m sure he did. I didn’t care too much, once he didn’t touch my face, it was all good.

The rest of the bus ride was surprisingly but thankfully event-free. When we got there we were all hot and hungry and was in no mood to see temples, at least I wasn’t. The guidebook said that the restaurants were on the beach so we asked for directions to the beach and headed off. As we got to the beach, it reminded me too much of Pondicherry and I was waiting for the smell of death to hit me, but it was pleasantly nice. A man told us if we walked along the water we would get to the shore-side restaurants. The beach was beautiful (by Indian standards) and it was refreshing to get our ankles wet. No one was on the beach, well only the vendors selling miscellaneous items that accosted us from time to time. No one went into to water either. Yael shouted “of all the millions in this place…why is no one on the beach?!” There were a few horse-men who offered to ride us along the coast for a price. That was how most tourist (the very few there are) got transported to the restaurants we realized as we couldn’t go any further because of the huge rocks that met the water and blocked the way. We opted to climb! That was fun. There were a lot of local males on top the rocks staring at the foreign girls as we screamed, squatted and slid down the side of the rocks. We went to the best looking restaurant on the beach which wasn't the best by any of our standards. It was comforting when I saw a man walking right off the beach with fish on his head into the restaurant. No two day old, partially decomposing fish for lunch is always a plus. More comforting was the older French couple finishing their meal as we walked in; that, for some reason made the restaurant feel more legit.

The restaurant was on an upstairs balcony and only had about three tables. It overlooked a bunch of fishing boats surrounded by lots of people who came to buy fish as it boats came in. The restaurant seemed to be run by a bunch of young men. Our waiter was especially nice. We were all smiling to one another and accusing the other of “giving him the eyes”. It was hilarious. Anyways, enough about that (haha)…

The food took forever to come! We were relaxing though, still recuperating from the bus ride. That was another comfort; at least I know the food wasn’t being microwaved. Wow, I haven’t seen a microwave in months! Well neither have I seen a stove, but I’m not missing that too much. When the food came though, it was delicious. After our meal, we played Jenga and then we played darts with the boys…to their delight.

It was about 5 o’clock by then and we hadn’t seen a single cave or temple. On our way we were accosted by these three girls selling beaded necklaces who would not give up even though we told them we didn't want anything. They spoke English a bit. I stopped to talk with them, to ask them about themselves. The first things I always ask is “are you in school?” or “how old are you?” They certainly were not sure of their ages, or perhaps they didn’t know how to say it in English. They were arguing with each other about the age they said they were. One girl said she was 11 and the other girls said she wasn’t. One girl said she was 12 and I blurted “you are not 12!” She looked like 7 or 8 to me. Kelly, who was the only one with me as the other two had gone on a momentary shopping spree inside of a street-side stall, looked at me and said “you can never tell in India”. However, I think they were all under 12. So I asked they were they lived but they were gypsies. Two of them had really golden hair that was obviously a result of being in the sun extensively. The third girl had a shaved head. I asked them what they did with the money they got from selling because after all, I have seen Slumdog Millionaire! They said they bought rice. So Kelly and I said to each other that we would get them some rice. So they took us to the store. I asked the woman how much for a kilogram of rice and she said 32 rupees – I thought that was so expensive! No wonder they so thin! So little miss shaved head who I could not stand because of her extreme aggression said to the vendor “5 kilos, 5 kilos, 5 kilos” pointing at her self and each of the girls. I said “no, no…” and she spun around with an angry face, wide eyes and leaned towards me (she was as tall as my waist) saying “madam, madam, big family!” Before she continued I said “1 kilo for you, 1 kilo for you, 1 kilo for you” pointing at each of them. The others, who were quiet all along chimed in about their big families. The shaved head girl started arguing, her general tone and temperament was as if she wanted to fight. I looked down at this little girl and I wanted to box her square – so rude and ungrateful! All this time Kelly is saying “no you get one, and you get one and you get one”. It didn’t surprised me that little miss aggressive was fatter than the others, she had cheeks, she looked well-fed though dirty. As she carried on with her “madam, ok 3 kilos” I was thinking about the study on the child soldiers we did in International Criminology a semester ago and how these children are socialized this way, and know nothing else. She was taught to be aggressive and get mad, but still, she was annoying me. Like a true Caribbean woman I bent towards her with my index finger waving sternly and asked “are you hungry??” She quickly answered with this look of death on her face (she had to practice that in the mirror) “yes, madam, hungry” and rubbed he stomach profusely. I said “then you take what you get…” (I sounded like my mother haha). That hushed her for no more than a second. She turned and said “oil madam?” Kelly stood leaning over the counter ensuring that the woman was weighing out the bags of rice correctly. As she handed them their rice and I paid, aggressive little missy was still trying... “biscuits madam?” I really liked the two other girls – one of them really looked like 6. They took their rice stuck it in their bags and went on their way. I asked them to pose for a pic before they leave and they did but miss shaved head was growling and grimacing. Reflecting on it, I feel so sad for her, but in the moment it took a lot not to say “gimme back meh rice!”

Sara and Yael were done shopping and met us. This dirty woman with a baby comes out of no where when she saw that we bought the girls rice. Lord knows, she really looked hungry. She had a husband, who also had a child strapped to him with cloth. She followed us around saying “rice madam” sticking particularly close to me. She had obviously seen me pay for rice for the girls. Yael asked if we had change and Sara gave her 5 rupees but she took it and said still held her hand out. Yael said “you don’t want it? We’ll take it back you know?” Yael is from the heart of NYC, she is not easy. The woman came by me “madam rice?” looking down at the money. I was thinking that if I could feed all of India I would, but I can’t! I knew very well that 5 rupees couldn’t feed her and her family or even get her a kilo of rice. So I gave her 10 rupees to make 15 and I said “that will get you a half a kilo of rice”. She walked as if going to the shop but when I turned around I wasn’t sure that she went in. Though I rather buy people food than money, I knew she wasn’t going to buy drugs (because drugs is not a problem here, its just poverty).

I had no idea where the other girls went but one girl stayed with us and I asked her about her family. I think she said she was 11 and had 3 other siblings, older and younger. She was really nice. She said she didn’t selling anything that day. I asked her how she would pay for the bus to get to were her family was and she said “5 rupees”…I figured she thought I asked how much…I have a feeling she didn’t pay to be on the bus. It is easy to get away with that here, especially children. She asked me to buy her a soda when we passed this shop and I said happily “I have apple fanta!” The bottle was warm but almost full and she took it without hesitation and stuck it under her arm on top her bag. She said she will take it home. As she walked with me another beggar man stopped her and she held up the fanta bottle and said something to him. I was hoping he didn’t try to take it away, though I felt she could handle herself. He didn’t take it and she kept walking. She talked to me for a little as we continued to walk. She pointed and said she had to go the opposite way for the bus. Kelly and I stopped a little to say bye to her as Yael and Sara walked ahead. She then pointed at my earrings and showed me her ears. She had a piece of stick in either ear. I realized she wanted them but I wasn’t sure so I asked “you want them?” and she nodding very sheepishly. It was weird and I laughed uncomfortably to Kelly and said to the girl “sure”. I couldn’t even remember what earrings I had on that day until I touched them. They were silver studs I got from H&M on a card with like 2 other pairs of earrings for like $5.90. She was happy for them and we said bye to her. Kelly asked “you gave her your earrings?” even though she saw me take them off and hand them to her. I too was surprised that I handed them over without hesitation. I wouldn’t be able to like those earrings the same if I didn’t give them to her. I couldn’t deny her a little femininity. At that age, I liked things like that too.
By the time we got to the temples it was dark and the caves were closed. However, I didn’t care that we drove two hours and didn’t see any of the things we had intended to see. Temples bore me, and the weirdness is extensive. This tour guide came up to us as he was coming out the entrance and said he could get us in and give us a brief tour for 100 rupees and a tip for the security to open the gates. I wanted to see the 2000 year old rock that is believe to be the center of gravity because it’s on a steep slope but never moves and the girls wanted to see the caves. So we paid up and went in (in the dark). I couldn’t concentrate on nothing because the mosquitoes bit like lions in those caves. The tour guide bawl me up “madam are you listening or not?” I really wasn't.

At the rock, the tour guide said that 700 men tried to push this rock off and weren’t successful. I wanted to know how 700 pairs of hands got on that, but I didn’t want to aggravate him again. But it’s a very amazing sight. On the bus ride back we tried to rationalize how it was possible for a rock to stay on a steep slope like that without moving, but we came up with no definite answer. An absolute defiance of gravity!

It took us about an hour to find the bus because there was a huge communist rally and they had to relocate the bus stop. We asked directions all the way, as we walked along this sketchy road. Thankfully, there were a lot of people also going to the bus stop. No one knew what bus would take us back to Chennai. We took a bus that took us ¾ of the way then we took a rickshaw to Chennai and got there at after 10.


That night we went to Mocha Café for dinner. The food was great and the dessert was better! I got home at midnight, the latest I had ever stayed out. We all dreaded getting up the next morning to go to the zoo at 10 am.

On Monday I went to school as usual. I had an exam in the morning but typically, my afternoon class was canceled. I decided to drop in the mall because I wanted to print some pictures and visit the bookstore. I texted Sara just to say hello when I was there and coincidentally she was at the same mall too! We are always excited to have each other’s company because we are both here alone. She ended up coming over to my guest house and having dinner.

This week went by very quickly. I had 2 exams this week, like midterms but not quite. I feel like professors only give tests because they have to show grades. One professor, who never gave me any assignment suddenly, realized he had to give me a grade and said “do assignment…on anything”. While one would think that that’s great, it is in fact very frustrating. Another professor, I feel like I’m harassing him for an exam, and he said laughing “not to worry ma’am exam will come…India university is very free”. So it came as no surprise that when I did get an exam for one of my other classes on Tuesday I had NO clue what the questions were. I think they were simple questions that all the students knew because they were born and raised in India as the questions asked about the political history of India (ie the Muhgal era etc.). I couldn’t even bluff it.

I had been generally annoyed at school recently – the lack of structure is overwhelming. Again I will say, it reminds me of primary school in Trinidad as a child.

Wednesday Sara came over for dinner again. She loves my guest house’s food. Everybody loves it. Its eat all you can eat, buffet style. I’m so over Indian food!
She spent the evening by me because she had to pick up her friends who were coming in from another state in India at the central railway station, which is close to me.

On Thursday (my day off) night Sara, her two friends (Yael and Kelly), Cadence and I went to a Korean restaurant that Diana (Cadence’s coworker who I had met last Saturday night at a women’s monologue reading) had recommended to us. She said “it’s Korean-Korean not Indian-Korean” and that was all I needed to know. Dinner was great there. We all felt like we weren’t in India, which seems to be the case whenever we’re in a fancy place.

Cadence is from Calvary Canada and here in India with ELI as a journalism intern. Yael is from Chelsea, New York and she and Sara went to boarding school together. Yael and Kelly (from Seattle) met at their internship (they work for some NGO that protects indigenous Indian groups) in the northern part of India.

This has been quite a week so far. It has been days since the internet has been working (hence my lack of blogging) and this cannot continue. I made such a big fuss about it to the manager of the guest house until he said “please, ma’am…” with a face that didn’t hide his frustration with me. But he must know – I MUST HAVE INTERNET! So he quickly told one of the receptionist guys to figure out what’s up. It turns out that their internet company has been having “technical difficulties” for over 3 days. I’m not even sure how that’s possible. Anyways, I’m not trying to make too much of fuss (to the powers that be) because I already got one person fired. Poor man is probably out of food and shivering in the monsoon rains because of me. Recently I was thinking to myself that I must have been really tired the night I first landed in India because I cannot remember the man at the reception desk who signed me into my room. I remember thinking he was a little special because he recorded me as being Spanish (from Spain) in the hotel’s log book. Of course, I quickly corrected his error, thinking that he must of saw “Port of Spain” in my passport and figured I was from the land of Christopher Columbus. Only on Sunday on of the guys said something to the effect of I get people fired. They explained to me that Dominic got fired because he gave me the wrong room. Well that would explain why they all treat me so well. I was supposed to have a AC room originally but the night I came in I was placed in a room with no AC. I noticed but didn’t care at that point and thought I would sort it out in the morning. Morning came and I was too tired to move. When I did get up, I hung my Trini flag in position and ‘homified’ my room with pictures and so on. Krish (my coordinator) didn’t want anyone to wake me or disturb me. When I finally left my room and entered the lobby I was rushed by men who all were saying I have to change ASAP. I didn’t want to at that point because I was comfortable already but I still went to see the AC room to ensure that I wasn’t turning down a fabulous room. I didn’t like it at all when I saw it so I insisted that AC wasn’t necessary, even though it was initially what I had requested and paid for. They insisted that I would have to tell Krish myself that I refused to change (it appeared they were too scared to tell him themselves). Krish was upset at the mistake to the extent where all the men were shaking. They say he “started fire”. I guess both figurative and literal as poor Dominic got fired. I feel horrible about it. But is it my fault they treat foreigners like gods?

Anyways, so I said all that to say, internet being down and me being upset about it has caused distressed for many, as lots of staff didn’t want me to make a big deal out of it – and I didn’t (to some extent) – for their sakes.

I thank the Mertz Gilmore Foundation for the financial support permitting CUNY’s participation in the 463rd Session of the Salzburg Global Seminars, ” Greening the Minds: Universities, Climate Leadership, and Sustainable Futures” that took place July 11 -16, 2009.  I was accompanied by Ron Spalter, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of CUNY and Claudio Mazzatenta, Assistant Professor at Bronx Community College.
The Schloss Leopoldskron is a spectacular 18th-century villa with an equally magnificent view of manicured gardens, an artificial lake and the Austrian Alps as a backdrop. In spite of the enticements of the setting and the charm of Salzburg the session was an intense, thought-provoking, exhilarating, and sometimes contentious meeting of minds of more than 70 participants from 23 countries.

I was asked to be a facilitator with Chuck Hopkins, United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Chair, York University, Canada on a two-day break-out Thematic Group for Faculty, which was a tremendously invigorating group of about 20 individuals discussing the roles of faculty in a proposed Sustainable Futures Academy. The discussions (candid, insightful and passionate) were particularly useful because of the diversity of institutions, educational expectations, and cultural backgrounds that were represented. To my mind the single most important outcome was the recognition of the diversity of issues confronting individual regions and the amount of knowledge that the “north” can gain from the insights and cultural perspectives of the “south.”
Martin Lees, Secretary General of the Club of Rome (Winterthur, Switzerland) was the keynote speaker and the “chairman” of the session, who delivered a powerful message throughout the week about the imminent threats of human development on the global environment and the need for immediate and substantial action to alleviate his dire predictions. Part of his arguments rests not only on the need for more scientific interventions but more importantly on a substantive cultural transformation of the way people live within their environments. As a result, education can play an important (although clearly not the only) role and CUNY as a single institution with more than 250,000 students can be an important leader.
As the director of a specialized program for interdisciplinary studies I was particularly interested in the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability and how cross–disciplinary offerings can be exploited for a better understanding of a sustainable future. CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies, a cross-campus baccalaureate, is uniquely positioned in the CUNY system to deliver immediate results on the education of students in sustainability. Working with faculty mentors students have developed concentrations on such issues as: Sustainable Coastlines; Sustainable Energy; Sustainability and International Development; Sustainable Agriculture; Sustainable Water Systems; and Sustainable Tourism, among others. It is the only place in the CUNY system where students can earn bachelor degrees in these areas of study.
I was privileged to participate in this exciting seminar and hope that the Mertz Gilmore Foundation will continue to support such valuable global issues and the students who wish to pursue concentrations on sustainability.

Thursdays I never have class so I told Indra I would come book shopping with her then we will visit some slums so we could give away the bags of baby clothes she had been longing to denote. She didn’t want to give it to an organization as majority of them already have funding from the government, but she wanted to give it to individual families living on the street.

Indra is of East Indian decent, born in Suriname (South America) and raised in Holland. She speaks several languages – two Indian languages (Hindi and another one), German, English – but Dutch is her first language. She came to Indian to find her purpose in life and to help those in need. Her project right now is to build a library in a rural village about 1.5 hours outside of the city. We spent the day buying children’s books, which is more fun than I thought it would be. I left the store tired and wanting to have children just so I can read all these create books for them. I read so many ladybird books today, ones that I had read as a child. It was so funny to remember! Books like “The Little Red Hen” where the cat, the fox and the dog didn’t want to help Hen with the planting or the harvest of the wheat but when the bread made they wanted and “Three Billy Goats Gruff” and the troll who wanted to eat them for crossing his bridge, all had me laughing as I remembered loving these stories many many moons ago. These ladybird books have really good morals too. I choose about 10 of those of the library. Indra’s aim was to make it to 500 books. We spent all day and I don’t think we even crossed 100. It’s a long process! I managed to pick up “Twilight” from the teen’s section. I thought it would be good book to read for entertainment, especially considering that tomorrow is another holiday (Mahatma Gandi’s Birthday) and I have no class.

Indra and I then called Goven to pick us up from the bookstore to take us to a slum, we didn’t care which one. In fact, there are so many he couldn’t make up his mind. We went to a ‘government housing slum’ where people live in around, in between, behind these buildings. It was very interesting to see. I was also able to draw comparisons from the first slum I visited with Evan. Indra said as we were there “we live in a different world, yea?” And I thought we really do. I am living large here compared to how they live but I think they are happy. One of the women asked Indra if we have come to give them money because they are very poor. I am not even sure they have plumbing. There is this place they have gated off in between two buildings that reeked of every possible bad smell you can think about (but it mostly spelt like human waste). Just our luck, as we walked by it, a young girl opened the gate, tossed a bag in and a whiff of it hit us right in the face. I got a glimpse and it looked like it was a giant latrine (I wish I were exaggerating). The people there were very friendly. When they discovered Indra spoke a little of their language, I was ignored. There was no need for the adults to fumble in English. They all asked Indra about me. I can hear her saying key terms like “New York” and “university” as they all stared at my face in awe. The children though, loved me because I played cricket with them and let them take pics with my camera. One kid called me “aunty”…I felt so special! I often can’t write about these experiences because I never feel I can do it any justice. Not even the pictures can tell the story.
Our purpose for going was to find mothers with babies who needed clothing for them. However we don’t have a lot of clothes. On our way back home I asked Indra if she saw anyone she could give the clothes to and she said “No, how can you give one and not give all…”

For pics check link (its easier to upload to facebook):http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=317718&id=862470045&saved#/photo.php?pid=9063549&id=862470045

Today I thought I’d make my 100th public holiday worthwhile so I’d run some errands – print pictures, make some photocopies, do some print out – at the mall. I got into a rickshaw and realized I had forgotten my USB drive so I asked him to turn around. I was walking distance away from my guest house; we weren’t even driving for 3 minutes yet. He took me back but wanted the entire fare we had initially agreed upon to take me to the mall. Well I thought he must have lost his mind. I shouted “NO WAY!” I was geared to give him 20 rupees for his gas and time. He said 25rs. to take me down the block and 25 to bring me back up. I said “No sir! No fair”. Two men on the sidewalk who spoke better English intervened, but I always know that no Indian ever takes the foreigner’s side. They went jabbering off in their language and the man told me to pay the driver 30rs. I said NO WAY! I thought if its 50 rupees to take me all the way to the mall then why should he get more the half the price to take me down the block – “20 rupees sir”, I said repeated. The driver said something and the man translated “25rs is his final” and I repeated “20rs sir”. Just my luck he had no change for 100 rupee bill and neither did I. One of the translators who came over had change and as he handed it to me I gave the man 20 rupees and they all just watched me walk off. I was annoyed for no reason – then I was just annoyed at myself. Then I was sad. I thought his poor children must be eating less tonight because I wanted to be pigheaded.

I started off my journey to the mall again. This time the rickshaw driver, upon getting to my destination, wanted more money. I handed him 50rs and he said “70 madam”. Well if he didn’t know what a “bad eye” was, now he knows. I handed him 10rs and walked away. At the mall I got my usual stares – people on the escalator who can’t face forward because I’m either standing behind them or walking beneath, children who tap their parents as I walk by and of course the stares of my fellow foreigners. Today was exceptionally different though! I was standing in the very busy mall, possibly blocking traffic, digging in my bag for something and these tall black men came out and no where and startled me. One was bent over, almost in my face and blurted in his deep voice and thick accent “where are you from??” He had on his “museum” face, staring at me as if I was a sight to see. I said “USA?” with an uncertain, “if you touch me I’ll scream” expression on my face. He said “Where??”, shouting as if we were in a circus. I shouted back “US, US!” (This was CERTAINLY NOT a time to say ‘I am from Trinidad and Tobago, the best island in the Caribbean!’) His friend repeated “Where?!” and be barked “amerdika, amerdika!” They seemed very disappointed by this for some reason hahaha.
Then I had to hear about all the friends they know in Boston in New York. They were Nigerian. Then as I expected, one asked “so can I have your number?” Now I had my blackberry in my hand because I had my shopping list on it but thankfully I was digging in my bag when they approached me and I had dropped it in there. I quickly said “sorry, I don’t have a phone here” (blatant lie!) Naturally, like they all say, he said “so how am I going to see you again then?” in a very concerned manner. I started making steps backwards to go my way and he started to make steps as if to follow me but his friend placed his hand across his chest to stop him – quite a dramatic scene I must say. I responded “Chennai’s a small place!” (another blatant lie!). At that point I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because I could not believe I was being tracked (hitted on) by a strapped, tall black man in an undersized T-shirt with texturized hair (that was heavily gelled and stood upright) in India!

Just when I thought I was clear of them, as I was standing in the beauty supplies store’s cashier I heard “still shopping?” but before I could answer he was yelling at the cashier. He had wanted some kind of facial soap but clearly didn’t understand how things work. I was thinking he has clearly never been to a store before where you walk through every aisle, pick up what you want, asks the sales-people if you need help, then join the cashier’s line. I looked around at the long cashier’s line and everyone was just staring at him, including me! Then I thought, “OMG, I hope he’s not showing off for me!” and he started snapping his fingers in the man’s face shouting the name of some product he wanted in his thick Nigerian accent. He started snapping and pointing to the back of the store as if telling the cashier to go get his product. The cashier was fumbling to get me my change so I could run out of there. I was shoulder to shoulder with the girl next to me because I wanted to make it clear that I did not know this man. My cashier managed to give me my change (one rupee short, but I didn’t care). I ran up out of there so fast, and sure enough, he ran out after me. He was clearly putting on a show for me, which was so retarded! As I was trying to make my way out of the crowd outside the store he said something to me and touched my camera. Well he had the nerve to ask me to take his pic. Well he is probably the first person in all of Chennai I said no to. I said “sorry no” and walked off. In retrospect, his texturized head would be a hilarious picture to blog, but his behaviour was too deplorable for a pic.

On my way home, sure enough, some rickshaw driver saw me and saw a jackpot. I said “I’m going to Poonamalee High Road” he said “200 rupees!” His audacity and his assertive facial expression caused my head to rock back and a crazy laugh to escape. I repeated without composing myself “200 rupees??!” He looked at me like I was the crazy one for laughing at his bold attempt at robbing me. He quadrupled the regular rate! But poor guy, I had had a long day, and I needed that laugh!

Finally my English Dalit Studies class decides to follow the schedule…well only because I forced them. I went to class and the students told me “no one has come, today no class” because of some freshman welcoming party. Well I went berserk. I went to the secretary of the English department and told her how ridiculous this is and how I spend 100 rupees (a bit of an exaggeration) to get there everyday and they never have class. On Wednesday the chairman of the department told me he himself will conduct class, but he was no where to be found at that moment. I called his cell phone but my call went unanswered. So I left. Not long after, my phone was ringing, it was the secretary sounding a little hysterical asking me who told me there was no class because there was in fact class. She herself had told me to ask the students, they will know whether there was class. Only when my phone rang seconds (literally) after she hung up and the chairman (lord of the English department) was on the other end, I realized what must have happened. The chairperson, when he finally got to the office that morning, was told that the girl from the US was told there was no class today and sent away (for the 100th time) he was not pleased. I had went to the international office and complained about the inconsistency of classes and the head of that office said she would deal with the matter so I have a feeling she gave him a buffing and he in turn gave his secretary a buffing for telling there was no class once again. When I got back upstairs to the office, a swarm of them – secretary, typist, professor etc – was standing in the corridor waiting on me. At once, they all asked “who told you there was no class?” I told them the students did. They told me to go sit in the class but I proceeded to go see Lord ED (English Department) and I explained that he called me. The secretary said “no, no, I called you!” I explained as I walked that he called me right after she did. They all were following me to his office. As I got there, they rushed to explain to him that I was misinformed and that I did not understand what the students told me. I said to him the students explicitly said there was no class today. I was annoyed because they were acting like I’m some kind of a retard, talking as if I weren’t there and insisting that I misunderstood what my classmates said. I quickly realized that my silence would save their butts from the wrath of His Highness, so I said nothing. He barked “don’t listen to students, call me from now on!”

My classmates, I felt were a little upset with me because they wanted to plan for their party that was starting in a couple hours (which is obviously why they told me there was no class initially) and I forced the hand of the department to stick to the schedule. Lord ED decided today he would conduct class (as several professors teach this ONE class). He is a crazy boring rambler! However, I have to say he is ten times more entertaining than my Public Administration professor. The PA professor, wow… I have never come across anything as boring in my lifelong academic journey. And to makes things worse, he likes teaching so there is no stopping him!
Anyway, Lord ED walks into the class and though my back was facing the door I knew immediately because all talking stopped, food bowls were quickly covered and shoved into bags and there was a crazy scampering to seats like cockroaches at the flick of a light-switch. I was eating a sandwich and was on my last bite and as he got to his table at the front of the class everybody stood up (to pay reverence to him of course) besides me. I took my final piece of bread out the foil and crumpled the foil. His Highness looked at me, and did what looked like a ‘come’ gesture and everyone in the class looked around at me. So I asked “what?” and he said “please, you don’t have to stop eating, you can eat…” I held my final piece of bread up and smiled. Well he had some nerve thinking that I was going to throw away my last piece of bread because he walked into the class. Then he continued “…but the rest of you can’t [eat]”.

He then said to me I will need to get a copy of a book he was circulating to the students. He asked if anyone had an extra copy and no one did so he asked (though it seemed to be a question that no one would dare say no to) “will someone give Tonisha their copy?” And then there was a copy passing down to me almost immediately. I paid for an extra copy to be made though.

He announced that before we begin the class we should organize the examination week schedule. To my surprise, he said “Tonisha, you get to choose what day you want the Dalit Studies exam on”. I felt at this point that the favoritism was so obvious that it annoyed everyone in the class – they all hated me.

He began to teach – so slow- the broken English, the thick accent, the boring content would send me in a deep day dream but it was the taunting of his bad spelling that kept my attention sharp. He spelt triple like “traple”, not once but twice on the blackboard. Now for those of you who know me very well, you know that obvious misspellings and bad grammar are my biggest pet peeves. There would be no harm in lifting my hand and saying “its t-r-i-p-l-e” I thought, but then his royal feelings might be hurt in front of the class. Though when he does comparisons about American writings he would look at me as if he is waiting for me to disagree or at several points he would ask “Am I right, Tonisha?” and though most times I have no clue who or what he is talking about, I just nod and smile. I could feel the class hating me more. He asked me at one point if he had spelt a word correct and I said yes but I really wanted to say “yes, but triple is t-r-i-p-l-e” but again, I refrained.

The class had 2 more minutes before ending and he asked “anyone has questions?” and I did. Little did I know that he would start a whole new lecture and steal out of the students’ breaks! They were all looking around at the clock and then looking at me, perhaps thinking evil thoughts.

Because CUNY Baccalaureate is for unique and interdisciplinary studies it seems appropriate that our website be a place to highlight sustainability issues and to give information to our own students and to others interested in this important topic.  As the only place in CUNY where students can pursue bachelor degrees in the field of sustainability – we have graduated several already and have at least twenty in the pipeline – we feel it is, in fact, our obligation to support and promote this interdisciplinary field.  Sustainablity is no longer only about scientific endeavors for a greener environment but also concerns multiple issues such as social and political policies, food consumption, population growth and economic inequality.  It is, therefore, a truly interdisciplinary field and, as such, CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies is the ideal place to pursue such concentrations.

I will be telling you more about sustainability in future blogs and also about other issues concerning CUNY Baccalaureate as well as other topics that I find of interest.

I hope you will return often and that you will make comments about what has been written or even what topics you think I should be addressing.  Your feedback will let me know not only what you think but also will, I hope, urge me to write often.

I'm not even halfway through my trip here and I'm having dreams about food!

French Toast with maple syrup and cream cheese - that was the highlight of my weekend.

I have been eating all Indian, all spicy food for the past month and a half. Jane took Sara and I to her sweet escape – the restaurant of a 5 star hotel called the Taj something. The place was simply beautiful! So quiet and clean, with a fragrance of heaven. I was sure I had entered another world. We all just floated down the hallway in silence, taking it all in. The doorman opened the door with such elegance and grace. I couldn’t help but notice that the Indians sitting in there were all 10 tones lighter than the ones you’d see on the street. I sat down and cracked open the menu and heard heaven’s harps. To my surprise they had an all day breakfast menu and I almost screamed when I saw they had French toast. I have been eating all forms of curry for all 3 meals of my day. Then I asked for cream cheese and they had PHILIDELPHIA cream cheese! That was the BEST breakfast at dinner-time ever!