Perceptions of time

Written on Sunday 27th June

Time may be constant, but our perception of time passing certainly isn't.

In my previous life I had no concept of time slowly ticking away, it rushed ever onwards, filled with work, evening activities, meals out, yoga classes, climbing, cinema trips, cooking, housework, love. Granted, work time often dragged but weekends never seemed long enough, and the months leading up to my imminent VSO departure flew by with last minute preparations and meaningful moments spent with loved ones who I would soon have to leave.

In Laporiya it's a different story. I can't say I've never had this much time, because I've always had 24 hours in every day so far, what is more accurate is to say that I've never had this much time with so few daily activities to fill it. In my reawakening I don't have household responsibilities like I did in England. I don't have to shop for food or cook, I don't clean, apart from occassionally sweeping my room of dust and pouring water on my bathroom surfaces which takes all of 5 minutes. I don't have to wash my own clothes, except for my underwear, something I strangely look forward to. It's the theraputic properties that sitting in the bathroom on a plastic stool, listening to BBC World Service and rubbing knickers with a clothes brush can have.

I spend a grand total of 2 minutes commuting to work. There are no opportunities for organised social events, drinks with new friends or outside excercise. In the last 8 days I haven't even left the boundary of our haveli (fort). My entire life is contained inside the sandy yellow walls of our house. When I first arrived this drove me crazy, but somehow I've adapted. It's almost like I've come to see each area of the house as a seperate destination.

The pastimes and chores that filled my pre-VSO life have almost all been snatched away. It's the ultimate opportunity to be responsibile for my own entertainment. It's not as easy as meeting up with someone, or going to the swimming pool. If I want to do yoga here, I have to motivate myself to go to the roof, set up my mat and teach myself the asanas using a book. It's a challenge but it was a challenge I had anticipated, having agreed to a rural placement. I came prepared with painting material, half a suitcase of books I'd bought in the last few years but never had a chance to read, DVDs, games and intentions to write poetry and do lots of meditating on the meaning of life.

But sometimes I can't help feeling lost with all this time to fill. I'm forcing myself to take advantage of it, thinking I may not ever get this chance again. I do write, I really enjoy putting the blog together, I have painted, I read alot, I watch films and I examine things in minute detail. This morning for example I counted all the multi-vitamins in my pot. Around 190. Every evening when I come into my room from work I cross a day off the desk calendar my sister had made with photos of my family, and I cross a day off my VSO wall planner, which has all my planned holidays marked out in thick pink pen. I focus on anniversaries, for example in 3 days I will have been in India 4 months, over a third of my total placement time, and it will be 1.5 months until Rob visits. I've been improving my soduko skills and this morning I wrote a list of all the countries I've been to. 18; 23 if you include England, Wales, Scotland, Jersey and Guernsey. I'm telling myself I'm not going mad, I'm reflecting on my 25 years and keeping my mind busy. Almost like those people who were in blacked out solitary confinement in Alkatraz who threw pebbles on the ground then found them in the dark, just to stay occupied.

I'm using the year to do some mental filing, to look at where I am and where I want to be. To appreciate what I've got, to fine tune my life philosophies.

But the truth is, I actually enjoy being busy, I like rushing around having fun, I find pottering around doing household tasks reassuring, and I'm organised enough to fit a lot into each day. Having said that, one of my favourite books is 'In Praise of Slowness' by Carl Honore, who documents the rise of the Slow Movement, where more and more people around the world are slowing down, not to become lazy, but to appreciate life at the right speed. "It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting." www.carlhonore.com

Although I packed my life back in Bristol full of meaningful activites, I like to think it wasn't particulary fast. I enjoyed weekend holidays and travelling, but I rarely watched TV. I travelled by foot or bike, rather than by car. I suppose I'm living the slow dream now, but perhaps too slow. It's useful to be able to see the contrast, but what I'm after is a happy medium, neither too rushed, nor too under stimulated. I know I have to get through this year, I don't want to leave early, so I look at the days as blocks between holidays and pink ringed days, days I look forward to. I'm vowing not to clock watch, in fact I don't wear a watch, sometimes in India there doesn't seem much point. I do however check my emails incessantly, but I think that's more because it's one of my few connections to the outside world.

I'll leave you with this final thought from Carl Honore: "One of the key benefits of decelerating is that it gives us the time and tranquility to look inside ourselves, to listen to our hearts, to get in touch with our souls, to ask the big questions in life." After 4 months, with another 7 months to go, I wonder how my perception of time will change again, and how this will effect the speed of my life when I return back to England next year.

Everything I eat in a day

People frequently ask me what I eat here in Laporiya, so I decided to document all the meals and drinks I consumed in 24 hours.

6am chai, expertly prepared my Mama. My favourite drink of the day.
8.30am breakfast- dhal (lentil curry), chatch (buttermilk), puri (deep fried flat bread), subgee (vegetables) from the night before, and poura (tasty deep friend sweet doughnut type snack). Prepared by Mama, my boss' wife, my aunty and a servant. Normally breakfast is two rotis and a vegetable dish, so this was quite an elaborate meal by comparison. I'm not sure what the occassion was.
11am chai. Prepared my me, but usually prepared by Sanju, the office cook, if she's not working in the field fufilling her other role as Health Supervisor.
1.30pm lunch- dhal, dahi (curd), 2 roti and poura. Generally it's the food prepared at breakfast, which Mama puts in my tiffin (stainless steel Indian lunchbox) so I can help myself.
2.45pm mango from my own personal supply. This wakes me up ready for work after my lunchtime nap.
4pm chai, prepared by Sanju.
7.30pm dinner- rice with a chickpea flour and buttermilk spicy sauce. Prepared by Mama, my boss' wife, and my aunty. Again, this meal is usually 2 roti and a vegetable dish. We rarely eat rice.
8.15pm freshly boiled cow milk, milk provided by our own cows, milked by mama and boiled on the chula (clay stove).

My duty to jooti

In rural Rajasthan jootis are obligatory. Traditional, hardwearing pointed shoes made from either camel or cow leather that stretch over time providing a perfect fit for the wearer. They are usually worn by men, whilst women tend to stick to rubber flip flops. Often a pair of well-made jootis will last two years with daily use.

The first pair I bought weren't well made, they were tourist tat from Pushkar and although ridiculously comfortable, after three weeks they'd developed large holes on both soles and the upper stitched was coming apart. Wear flip flops every day in India at your peril- heels quickly become cracked from the dust exposure and require a regular care plan using a soft brush, pumice and monthly trips to the beauty parlour who grate the fine pieces of dead skin off. Not pleasant I know, but very neccessary. I was keen to find some appropriate heel protecting footwear that would last longer than a month and my disintergrating jootis quickly became a talking point as I shared my predicament.

With help from my Indian father I discovered that almost all the men living in my household purchase their jootis from a village 6 kms away where they are handmade and of a very high quality, with the sole consisting of a single piece of thick leather. Dasrat. the office boy took me through the desert on the 'official' motorbike (everything related to work is official here) and in the middle of a group of mud and clay houses was our target. Three men sitting outside with a few scraps of leather and some metal tools. Embarrassed, I showed them the offending jootis, they casually measured my feet and, repeatedly emphasised how wide they are, I chose the leather colour and basic style and two days later went to pick them up.

Another 30 minutes on the bike along dusty tracks to nowhere, 350 rupees were exchanged (£4.50) and I went away with my very own made-to-measure shoes which remarkably fitted perfectly. All the men folk were mighty impressed as we compared jootis and discussed sole material, colour, price, stitching, durability and how long it would take until they softened and moulded to my feet. In fact, that afternoon, initiated by Dasrat we held a small, intimate jooti party in the office to celebrate their arrival. Chai was served and numkeen (basically bombay mix) flowed.

I had been instructed to give my new item of footwear an oil massage 10 days after purchasing and now they've turned a rich tertiary colour but seem to have become tighter. I'm persevering, determined that they will last the 8 months until the end of my placement. After last night when Grandma looked disapprovingly at my feet I'll have to be careful not to wear them whilst eating. Apparently leather isn't allowed, I have to change into flip flops, or slippers as they're called here. I asked what would happen if we were eating non-veg (which we very rarely do but I thought it was an interesting idea, to be eating meat but not allowed to wear animal skin shoes). My boss said when eating non veg anything goes!

A cool retreat to Manali

India is hot this time of year touching temperatures of almost 50 degrees as millions anticipate the cooling monsoon. One place that isn't burning is Himachal Pradesh in northern India. Manali, in the centre of this Himalayan state was our cool retreat of choice. Jen, a fellow VSO UK volunteer based in Delhi was my travelling companion as we set off on the luxurious government night bus. After 12 hours we began skirting speedily round the edges of mountains, waking up as dawn emerged over the peaks. 4 hours of stomach churning turns later we had arrived.

We'd primarily come to Manali to trek in the surrounding countryside but with a day either side to spend in the town we filled the time shopping for woollen wear, drinking lattes and eavesdropping on hippy travellers recalling tall tales of countries far, far away. Although Manali is an isolated place with a population of 4,500, it holds many draws for travellers of all varieties- adventurous types enjoy the rafting, treking and paragliding on offer; Indian honeymooners come for the cool mountain air and their first touch of snow; and backpackers are drawn in from around the world to sample Manali's famous charas. June is peak season so the streets were packed, one end with Indian tourists being sold fake sunglasses and bird whistles, and Old Manali at the other full of all manner of felted goods for sale, baggy, almost skirt like travellers pants, fake Tibetan jewellery and cafes with wifi and never ending supplies of banana pancakes. As expats we like to think we're slightly above these crowds of cliched gap year students and seek out the 'real' Indian experience, showcasing our limited Hindi, eating in local restaurants and saying things like "you wouldn't pay this much for a massage in Delhi" and "have you seen what she's wearing, that's so inappropiate".
Our three day trek around Solang Valley with the River Beas running through it was simply stunning. We went with a tour company recommended by an ex-VSO volunteer and although it was pricey and almost used up our entire volunteer allowance for the month, we were well looked after with double thick sleeping bags, fed three course meals and delicious packed lunches, camped in spectacular spots and above all felt safe. We had the assistance of two cooks, a porter, horseman with four horses and a guide. The first couple of days involved walking for 3-4 hours in the morning, then settling down at our campsite to eat lunch with the entire afternoon to laze about, gaze at the mountain scenery and read novels about the great Hindustan. At first I felt that perhaps I should be doing more walking, but I don't get many opportunities to lie in volumptous grass, enjoy being in the sun and gaze out at magnigicent views, so I took full advantage. Thoughts switched between forgetting I was in India, convinced this is European scenery, and admiring the environmental diversity of a country where alpine and desert are less than a day's journey apart. Nights were spent reading by torchlight tucked up in bed, wearing all our clothes at once as the cold set in. Our new canine friend Terry, the tourist tart followed us around for an entire day so we took pity and let him sleep in our tent porch all night. Luckily he wasn't sick, even after all the left over dinner we fed him on the sly.

We ended the trek on a high at 3,500 metres. It wasn't the top of the mountain we had been aiming for, but after 4 hours of steep uphill climbing we decided we had already achieved enough and made our quick descent down to Solang village. Fortunatley we'd bumped into some Hungarians who independantly verified our height using a clever contraption and 3,500 seemed a good a landmark as any. On the way to reaching our goal there were a few times when we'd felt like giving up. Jen had blisters, I was steadily climbing as my legs felt like they were on fire, and our new friend Niall decided the best way to get up there in his sandals was by using a combination of uphill running immediatley followed by panting and near collapse. Once we'd decided the altitude was to blame for our breathing problems rather than our fittest levels, we felt a lot better.

Collapsing into our beds after a pizza in Manali we slept and waddled around town the next day with our damaged bodies before taking the nightmare journey home on one of the most uncomfortable buses I've ever been on because our lovely premium grade Volvo had broken down. Squashed between two seats, unable to move our legs or do more than doze through the night, we arrived in Delhi grumpy but were greeted with a refund, free rose water handed out on the streets marking a festival we couldn't quite work out and most importantly, AC.

All in all a refreshing break, a wonderful change of scenery that fulfilled my craving for English countryside and some great company. It's got me all fired up for work again and motivated to plan the rest of my holidays for the year.

Case Study: clean streets in Rahlana thanks to a new soak pit

Just three months ago the streets next to Jagdish Sharma's house were filthy. Flies and mosquitos hovered over the dirty surface water and the smell was overpowering. All the waste water from Rahlana's hand pumps flowed over the land. Pigs enjoyed the cool mud but villagers were often ill with stomach problems from the bacteria. These unhygienic conditions were dangerously close to the drinking water source and affected many children in the nearby school. Women collecting water after dark often fell over, vehicles found it hard to navigate the uneven roads, pregnant ladies and the elderly found it dangerous and Jagdish felt embarrassed when guests came to stay. From 4am until 9.30pm the hand pump was constantly in use providing water for 40 families and when women washed cooking pots at the well there was even more waste water.

In December 2009 GVNML built a soak pit next to all 15 hand pumps in Rahlana, with funding from Wells For India. The closest pump to Jagdish's house also has a khali, or animal trough. Waste water from the pump first flows into the trough for birds, cattle and dogs to drink, then excess reaches the soak pit and percolates into the soil, recharging the ground water. The streets and drinking water are kept free from dangerous waste water and the villagers are healthy and happy.

Before GVNML started work on the soak pits, Jagdish thought the problem could never be solved. There was little unity between the village community to take action and they didn't have the technical expertise. There is now a new sense of cooperation in the village. Residents are proud of their clean streets and work together to keep them that way.