Teaching in the Himalayas

After nearly 3 weeks without the internet (so it goes in rural India), I am please to announce that we have made our triumphant return the the 21st century and the world of blogging...

Once our week in Delhi drew to a close, it was time to head up north to Uttarakhand, a state in the northwest which boarders China to the north and Nepal to the east. Our ultimate destination there was Sonapani, the resort where Nathan stayed while studying abroad in India two and a half years ago. Sitla, a small collection of shops and houses draped over the crest of a hill, is the closest village to Sonapani. The first leg of the journey involved an overnight train ride from the Old Delhi station to Kathgodam, the last stop on India’s northern plains before you plunge into the Himalayan foothills (if you can call them that; these giants reach over 7,000 feet). A train ride seemed innocent enough. Little did we know what we were in for.

Here’s the Old Delhi train station in a nutshell: the stench of trash and piss, the scurry of rat feet, the pushing and shoving of hundreds of bodies, and the unrelenting, unsmiling stare coming from every pair of eyes. After a seemingly endless 45 minute delay, our train finally rolled in and was met with a frantic wave of humanity rushing towards its small doors. Pushing our way into our sleeper compartment, we found our ‘beds’ for the night, which consisted of slightly cushioned planks folded out from the walls and stacked 3 high. People chattered loudly well into the night, the train rocked and creaked, and every half an hour, without fail, a vender traversed the narrow aisle screaming ‘Pani pani! Pani pani!’ – Hindi for water. Needless to say, it was not the best night’s sleep.

From Kathgodam we caught a bus up to Sitla. And we’re not talking about a Metro bus here. We’re talking a rickety, decrepit specimen of a bus jammed packed with toothless old men and clambering small children. All that was missing was the live poultry. A large empty metal barrel was strapped to the top along with our backpacks, and its clanging from side to side accompanied the blaring Hindi music as the bus careened around endless hairpin curves. The journey towards Sitla is a long and nerve-wracking series of ascents and descents as you venture deep into the rugged mountain terrain.

Miraculously, I fell asleep on Nathan’s shoulder shortly into the 4 hour drive. When I woke up the bus had stopped for a quick chai break at a village clinging to the steep hillside. Nathan pulled me out of the bus and beyond the small collection of shop fronts. He pointed towards the horizon, then upwards. And there they were: the Himalayas. They took my breath away – quite literally. The day was perfectly clear and it seemed like if I reached out I could touch these mountains to end all mountains. They stretched from horizon to horizon, all the way into Nepal to the east. And I understood why the Himalayas are called the rooftop of the world.

We got off the bus at the sign for an ashram. A small paved road leads off the main thoroughfare and down a steep hill to the ashram’s compound. Then the pavement ends and a dirt road begins. Soon enough the road is replaced by a simple foot path. You walk for a half and hour. And then you reach Sonapani. How to describe Sonapani? It’s a resort, but only in the best sense of the word, with none of the commercial trappings. There are 12 beautiful red cabins perched on a hillside. White-washed walls and warm tones make the interiors cozy and inviting. Above the cabins is a dining hall, a large kitchen where the staff prepares scrumptious Indian feasts, and the home of the owners, Ashish and Deepa. Every space which isn’t occupied by a building or a footpath is filled with garden. We’ve come at the perfect time to see the place come to life. Peach, apricot, and apple trees are blooming, lemon trees are fruiting, and all sorts of flowers are opening their petals towards the sun. From anywhere on the slope you can look out over a verdant pine covered ridge and out to the more distant foothills. About 25km away the town of Almora lies draped over the crest of a hill. In the dark it becomes a net of stars cast out over a sea of mountains. Beyond there it is just layer upon layer of green until, on a clear day, your eyes to take in the Himalayas. The days at Sonapani are filled with the chirping and fluttering of a myriad birds, and the nights are deeply quiet and tranquil.

Beyond its physical beauty, however, what really makes Sonapani a fantastic place to stay is the kindness, warmth, and good humor of our hosts Ashish and Deepa. They’re both originally from this region, and after living and working in Delhi for some time, they returned here to open Sonapani 5 years ago. They have two awesome kids: Vanya, who’s five and a half, and Arunya, who’s 14 months old. Many a morning has been spent hanging out in the garden while Arunya speed-crawls and Vanya scampers about, and many and evening has been whiled away chatting around a bonfire. The lively, communal feel at Sonapani means we also get to visit with all of the guests. Most are urbanites who’ve made their way up to the mountains to escape the oppressive Delhi heat. There’s no more interesting of a way to learn about a country than discussing it with the citizens themselves, and everyone has been happy to contribute to our Indian education.

Our main purpose in coming to the village of Sitla (aside from general enjoyment, of course) was to volunteer with the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG), a local NGO. Nathan worked with CHIRAG the last time he was here, so he contacted the director about English teaching opportunities. As it turns out, just as we arrived CHIRAG was beginning a program to train youth to work in the hospitality industry. We would be their English teachers.

CHIRAG’s located about 5km away from Sonapani. Getting there entails summiting a peak and traversing down the other side – so basically, it’s uphill both ways. We’ve been working on some killer thighs. When we arrived after our long walk on the first day of class we were greeted by12 slightly shy but smiling boys, all around 20 years old. These would be our students for the next three weeks. Hailing from small villages in the surrounding region, these boys had been hand-picked by CHIRAG to learn the ways of the hospitality industry – cleaning rooms, serving food, greeting guests, and the like – so that they would have a leg up in the job market. Working on the fly, we developed a curriculum based on grammar and vocabulary useful in this industry, and created exercises, role plays, and homework assignments. It certainly helped that Nathan has a handle on Hindi (I stumbled along with my beginner’s phrases) because some of the boys had very little prior knowledge of English. While they’d all been taught the Roman alphabet and some basic words in school, a few of them hadn’t completed high school. Others were pretty decent with basic English though, and most of the boys fell somewhere in between; it was a happy medium overall.

The boys were split up into two groups. We generally taught one class in the morning and one in the afternoon. On the second day of class Naveen, one of the boys in the afternoon group, spotted a drum in the corner of the classroom. When we were done with the lesson he seized the opportunity to bang out a joyous rhythm, and the rest of the boys burst into song. A couple of them even jumped up and danced raucously. The ice had officially been broken. Nathan mentioned that he plays the guitar, and some of the boys replied that they’d never seen that instrument in person. We had to rectify that, of course, so Nathan brought his guitar one day and we belted out Credence Clearwater songs for them. That’s what I call education.

During the second week we put class on hold for a couple of days and skipped town. March 11th was Holi – a festival of spring notorious for its bright colors and general debauchery. Ashish and Deepa invited us to spend the holiday with their family and them in Kathgodam. The day lived up to it’s reputation; in other words, it was a fabulous, psychedelic time. Nathan had procured a cheap all-white kurta and pants set and I was clad in an old kurta of Deepa’s and my baggy salwar pants (we were explicitly instructed not to wear nice clothes). As soon as we entered the garden of Ashish’s family’s house we were mobbed by smiling people with globs of bright colored powder in their hands. In accordance with glorious Holi tradition, they smeared the color over our faces and shoulders. Before we knew it we were looking like bad Jackson Pollack paintings, covered head to toe in glowing pink, yellow, red, and green. It was 10am and already the alcohol was flowing. Assuming that the festivities would last all day and well into the night, our first thought was "damn, these Indians really know how to party." Later we were to discover that the goal is to get as drunk as possible before lunch; after that the party subsides and people stumble back to their homes to shower and work off their hangovers. And so we embraced the Holi atmosphere, accepting the vodkas thrust into our hands, smothering people with bright colors, getting drenched with colored water pumped from squirt guns and dumped from buckets, and dancing wildly to the tiny-but-loud drum and trumpet band which had wandered into the garden to entertain our party. And when the mood would strike us we'd yell out, just like everyone else, "Holi hai!" - "It's Holi!"

After our foray into the wonderful world of Indian festivites, we made it back to Sonapani in one piece only to promptly fall ill with food poising. We speculate that a nasty bug came along with the greasy food at our Kathgodam hotel. We were back on our feet soon enough though, and picked up where we left off with English classes. The boys' last day of hospitality training was Saturday the 22nd. We helped them work out two short English role plays to present to all of the people who had worked on the program. They were a smash hit. The thank yous we recieved from the boys were really quite touching. It was very rewarding to hear that our English classes were helpful and enjoyable for them. We were sad to see the program end.
Since then we've been hanging out a Sonapani, sneaking into the kitchen to whip up some down home American cookin' (a la pancakes and cookies), trying to sneak in an English class or two with the staff here when they aren't too busy with guests, and plotting our adventures to come....