Friday, Dec. 29, 2006

Today I will try to hold my camera again. My hand is still puffy, but I can make a fist. And I shot a little with a smaller camera yesterday. I’m ready to use the Mark 2 today.

I go to the school at about 9am. I am to meet another mataji, Chatalia. She will take me to some rural Indian villages where she teaches skills to women. She, two other women, a driver and I pile into what looks like a Hummer converted into a pick-up truck and bump down the road.

Where we go is unlike anyplace I have ever seen before. There are rolling fields of yellow mustard flowers. And green fields of wheat. The air is fresh and clean. It is quiet. We pass an occasional tractor or scooter. I feel like I am in southern France again.

And the people here are simple. In Vrindavan there is so much noise and muck; here there is the quiet, slow pace of farm life. Women knead cow dung into patties, and children run around in the dust. Puppies and calves sun themselves everywhere.

It’s so strange. The people here are just as poor or poorer than the people in Vrindavan, but there is less sadness. They seem happier to live simply. There are no beggars that I can see. And everyone is so friendly. Almost everyone we pass in the car greets us, and we greet them back.

We drop one woman off at a Food for Life sewing center, where she will help women learn how to sew. Chatalia tells me I can return later to take photos.

We drive on, and suddenly I spot a girl bathing buffalo in a pond. Can we stop, I ask, pointing? I hop out. Cows and buffalo eye me suspiciously as I crouch in the mud on the shore and shoot.

Finally we arrive at a village where Food for Life hosts adult education courses for women. They learn basic reading and health skills. If they are pregnant, Food for Life employees make sure they are getting check-ups and are doing well. I shoot one of the classes they are hosting.

Chatalia tells me we are stopping next at a place for village chapattis. They are about three times as thick as regular chapattis. Would I like some? My mouth tells me yes, but my stomach tells me no. I am being insanely vigilant in my last few days here so I don’t get sick again.

We head back to the school in almost half the time it took us to get to the villages. I want to come back, but I don’t know if I’ll have time.

****

I head back to MVT briefly to upload my photos and rest. What do I need to photograph in my remaining time here? What will I have time to shoot?

There are so many things left undone. My sickness really made me miss a lot. Damn.

I am frustrated. I have come all the way to India and feel like I am leaving before my job is done. I want to spend another month here. Vrindavan has grown on me.

****

I head back to the school again. Classes are just letting out, and children are going home. They are waiting in rickshaws to be pulled away. The lighting is just right.

Yesterday I went out with Prashant and Nirguna mataji to help distribute blankets to needy families, and today I want to help finish the job. But they aren’t going today.

What to do in the waning hours of daylight? I wander up to the roof of the secondary school, which is still under construction. A woman is mixing cement there. Her son has come with her to her job because she can’t leave him at home. This is the case for many women, unless there are siblings to watch the child.

After this is the kitchri. Children and women from the villages flock to the primary school for the evening meal. One little girl leads her blind grandmother in with a stick.

There are other Westerners here today. From Spain. They will be here until the 2nd, a large group of them. They are sponsors of children in the school and will help pay for a boy’s surgery in Spain next month. The boy, Ajay, was burned and severely disfigured as a baby when a kerosene lamp fell on his bed.

I head home. Two more days. Not enough time.