New pictures posted at right. Click on 'em for captions.
Last Tuesday Phrangsngi, Ronald, Moselaus (the Khasi speaking bamboo workers) Mirza and I left the Garden of Peace school at 4am after a night of the first rain I have experienced in India (complete with lightening and thunder) and boarded a train in Tamil Nadu in the south of India to visit the northeast. Indian trains are an amazing experience. You're packed liked sardines into compartments where one foldout bed is stacked on top of another. There is a constant din of dozens of languages, the slow rocking motion of the train, and the Indian countryside rolling by as you go from town to town on what ended up being a 51 hour journey.
As we left Tamil Nadu we journeyed into Andhara Pradesh, one of the most developed Indian states replete with power plants and factories and incredibly green fields that make it India's breadbasket. Ten hours later we entered into Orissa, a much more impoverished state with brown fields, limited dirt roads, and soldiers with machine guns at the train stations. As I slept overnight I had some of the most bizarre dreams of my life inspired by the different languages gurgling around me, the bright lights of each station, the motion of the train, and the negotiations to purchase cell phones, rubix cubes, and Casio keyboards that occurred loudly at the foot of my cot in the middle of the night.
When we awoke the next morning we had moved into West Bengal with water everywhere. A gorgeous place but I think it would be a terror in the monsoon season. From there we entered into Kolkata - the largest city in India - with tenaments and shacks taking every piece of dry land above the tracks. From West Bengal the second night we entered into Assam - in the morning crossing the Brahmaputra river - the widest in Asia - more of a sea than a river really. When we alighted in Guwati, the capitol of Assam, we took a Sumo (sort of a cross between a Hummer and a Land Rover but downscale if you can imagine that - they serve as the primary public transportation in the region) into the East Khasi hills region of Meghalaya. As soon as you leave Assam the terrain changes into green hills with severe drops and houses built in every nook and valley. The landscape is not unlike West Virgina - including the non-stop march of coal trucks chugging at 10 miles per hour on the winding and climbing roads. When we reached the capital Shillong we found a city completely built on hills with narrow streets and winding staircases as the primary way to get around. We stayed in the basement of a church journeying out at night to the old market which exists along stair cases in the center of the city. At night with the stands of odd fruits and vegetables as well as every imaginable craft and electronic ware the surroundings felt like a scene out of Blade Runner.
The next day we had breakfast at Matthew's house (he had originally journeyed with Father Lumlang to escort Phrangsni, Ronald and Moselaus to Tamil Nadu since they had not left their home region before but he had earlier traveled with Father back to Meghalaya). The accomplish the journey east from Shillong to the Khasis home village of Mawlynnong we traveled on the main east/west highway in Meghalaya (at points a narrow two lane paved road - at points a one land rock road - always a construction project) through a region of rocks and dry mountains - a hard land straight out of a Cormac McCarthy novel where I could imagine a circle of drug runners trucks with kc lights and bodies picked away by carrion - not at all the green paradise the Khasis had described. But after three hours driving we drove down into a ravine into a green bamboo forest with jackfruit and betel nut trees. The land did indeed turn gorgeous before we hit the literal end of the road - the 90 house village of Mawlynnong where Phrangsni, Ronald, Moselaus and Father Lumlang live.
To call Mawlynnong paradise feels too easy - and yet it is damn close. The environment is amazing: green hills with waterfalls and rocky rivers. (Note to Lisa/Debra, Molly/Adam, Peggy/Tim, Katherine/Corrie and anyone else getting married soon - I have found your ideal honeymoon location: Mawlynnong!) The people were incredible - practically everyone is related and over my six days there we spent half the time walking in the forest and half going from house to house drinking tea, chewing betel nuts and eating amazing food (you can always just have the veg options - but Meghalaya is a much more meat based diet than the south - sorry Sita!). While the village is not wealthy by any imagination it is an amazing well organized community. Every house has flowers and gardens - in contrast with the burning piles of trash in Kaniyambadi there are bamboo wastebaskets tied to polls and absolutely no litter. After the village was connected to a road six years ago - Phrangsni led the building of a bamboo tree guest house. He also constructed a bamboo tower which we climbed and overlooked the last five kilometers of the Khasi hills as they descended and abruptly ended into the Bangladeshi plain. In Mawlynnong I stayed for a couple of days in the guest house when there were no other occupants - and then the last couple of days I stayed with Father Lumlang and Phrangsni's family.
The feeling of community in this village is really amazing. There are so many collective projects. They built the church at the center of the village 10 years ago together almost entirely with materials found in the forests. Ronald built his house (# 90) on the outskirts of the village for his wife and young children almost entirely out of bamboo and local trees he cut down. A couple of days the villagers came up to help set it up. That ethic reached back generations. Phrangsni and his friend, an elementary teacher named Rishot, took me down a path from one village to another that leads through a river that used to be impassable during the six month long rainy season. Three hundred years ago the locals began directing the roots of two trees across the river ravine towards each other. They estimate it took 50-100 years for the roots to connect and to form a perfect bridge for people to pass from one side of the river to another. The people who began the project of directing the roots had no chance of seeing their bridge completed - only later their grand-children or great-grandchildren would benefit from their work.
During the days we would travel around with Phrangsni and Rishot and their friends Shempur and Moselaus's brother Makhelot stuffed six or seven into a small Maruti/Suzuki (Owatonnans should picture the orange Rabbit I purchased off of Smedsted in high school before I drove it into the side of a pickup truck). As we drove the Khasis blasted everything from Bollywood music to Boyz to Men to Guns 'N Roses to Khasi love songs. After a while I heard a familiar voice singing and rapping. Sort of raspy and yet sort of syrupy at the same time - really quite Wheezy after another listen. Ah Lil' Wayne. From Hollygrove in New Orleans to the East Khasi hills - even you don't know how far you've come.
Yesterday I look a bus to meet Mirza in his home city in Jorhat in the tea garden area of upper Assam. From here we will travel to the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh on the Chinese boarder. Hope all is well in America.
Ryan
Last Tuesday Phrangsngi, Ronald, Moselaus (the Khasi speaking bamboo workers) Mirza and I left the Garden of Peace school at 4am after a night of the first rain I have experienced in India (complete with lightening and thunder) and boarded a train in Tamil Nadu in the south of India to visit the northeast. Indian trains are an amazing experience. You're packed liked sardines into compartments where one foldout bed is stacked on top of another. There is a constant din of dozens of languages, the slow rocking motion of the train, and the Indian countryside rolling by as you go from town to town on what ended up being a 51 hour journey.
As we left Tamil Nadu we journeyed into Andhara Pradesh, one of the most developed Indian states replete with power plants and factories and incredibly green fields that make it India's breadbasket. Ten hours later we entered into Orissa, a much more impoverished state with brown fields, limited dirt roads, and soldiers with machine guns at the train stations. As I slept overnight I had some of the most bizarre dreams of my life inspired by the different languages gurgling around me, the bright lights of each station, the motion of the train, and the negotiations to purchase cell phones, rubix cubes, and Casio keyboards that occurred loudly at the foot of my cot in the middle of the night.
When we awoke the next morning we had moved into West Bengal with water everywhere. A gorgeous place but I think it would be a terror in the monsoon season. From there we entered into Kolkata - the largest city in India - with tenaments and shacks taking every piece of dry land above the tracks. From West Bengal the second night we entered into Assam - in the morning crossing the Brahmaputra river - the widest in Asia - more of a sea than a river really. When we alighted in Guwati, the capitol of Assam, we took a Sumo (sort of a cross between a Hummer and a Land Rover but downscale if you can imagine that - they serve as the primary public transportation in the region) into the East Khasi hills region of Meghalaya. As soon as you leave Assam the terrain changes into green hills with severe drops and houses built in every nook and valley. The landscape is not unlike West Virgina - including the non-stop march of coal trucks chugging at 10 miles per hour on the winding and climbing roads. When we reached the capital Shillong we found a city completely built on hills with narrow streets and winding staircases as the primary way to get around. We stayed in the basement of a church journeying out at night to the old market which exists along stair cases in the center of the city. At night with the stands of odd fruits and vegetables as well as every imaginable craft and electronic ware the surroundings felt like a scene out of Blade Runner.
The next day we had breakfast at Matthew's house (he had originally journeyed with Father Lumlang to escort Phrangsni, Ronald and Moselaus to Tamil Nadu since they had not left their home region before but he had earlier traveled with Father back to Meghalaya). The accomplish the journey east from Shillong to the Khasis home village of Mawlynnong we traveled on the main east/west highway in Meghalaya (at points a narrow two lane paved road - at points a one land rock road - always a construction project) through a region of rocks and dry mountains - a hard land straight out of a Cormac McCarthy novel where I could imagine a circle of drug runners trucks with kc lights and bodies picked away by carrion - not at all the green paradise the Khasis had described. But after three hours driving we drove down into a ravine into a green bamboo forest with jackfruit and betel nut trees. The land did indeed turn gorgeous before we hit the literal end of the road - the 90 house village of Mawlynnong where Phrangsni, Ronald, Moselaus and Father Lumlang live.
To call Mawlynnong paradise feels too easy - and yet it is damn close. The environment is amazing: green hills with waterfalls and rocky rivers. (Note to Lisa/Debra, Molly/Adam, Peggy/Tim, Katherine/Corrie and anyone else getting married soon - I have found your ideal honeymoon location: Mawlynnong!) The people were incredible - practically everyone is related and over my six days there we spent half the time walking in the forest and half going from house to house drinking tea, chewing betel nuts and eating amazing food (you can always just have the veg options - but Meghalaya is a much more meat based diet than the south - sorry Sita!). While the village is not wealthy by any imagination it is an amazing well organized community. Every house has flowers and gardens - in contrast with the burning piles of trash in Kaniyambadi there are bamboo wastebaskets tied to polls and absolutely no litter. After the village was connected to a road six years ago - Phrangsni led the building of a bamboo tree guest house. He also constructed a bamboo tower which we climbed and overlooked the last five kilometers of the Khasi hills as they descended and abruptly ended into the Bangladeshi plain. In Mawlynnong I stayed for a couple of days in the guest house when there were no other occupants - and then the last couple of days I stayed with Father Lumlang and Phrangsni's family.
The feeling of community in this village is really amazing. There are so many collective projects. They built the church at the center of the village 10 years ago together almost entirely with materials found in the forests. Ronald built his house (# 90) on the outskirts of the village for his wife and young children almost entirely out of bamboo and local trees he cut down. A couple of days the villagers came up to help set it up. That ethic reached back generations. Phrangsni and his friend, an elementary teacher named Rishot, took me down a path from one village to another that leads through a river that used to be impassable during the six month long rainy season. Three hundred years ago the locals began directing the roots of two trees across the river ravine towards each other. They estimate it took 50-100 years for the roots to connect and to form a perfect bridge for people to pass from one side of the river to another. The people who began the project of directing the roots had no chance of seeing their bridge completed - only later their grand-children or great-grandchildren would benefit from their work.
During the days we would travel around with Phrangsni and Rishot and their friends Shempur and Moselaus's brother Makhelot stuffed six or seven into a small Maruti/Suzuki (Owatonnans should picture the orange Rabbit I purchased off of Smedsted in high school before I drove it into the side of a pickup truck). As we drove the Khasis blasted everything from Bollywood music to Boyz to Men to Guns 'N Roses to Khasi love songs. After a while I heard a familiar voice singing and rapping. Sort of raspy and yet sort of syrupy at the same time - really quite Wheezy after another listen. Ah Lil' Wayne. From Hollygrove in New Orleans to the East Khasi hills - even you don't know how far you've come.
Yesterday I look a bus to meet Mirza in his home city in Jorhat in the tea garden area of upper Assam. From here we will travel to the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh on the Chinese boarder. Hope all is well in America.
Ryan
Ryan, Your mom got Kirsten's blog address, so I got yours. The last batch of photos are amazing. You are having some fantastic experiences.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad you're writing these, Ryan. Gives us in the States a glimpse. And your writing is really great. I can still picture the bull running alongside you (to your relief and to your mutual freedom) in one of your early posts.
ReplyDeleteMajor actions continue in Madison Wisconsin over huge corporate grab for power. Big Farmer-Labor Tractorcade today (which LSP helped to catalyze and organize), followed by major rally led by AFL-CIO.
Peace with Justice -
Mark