Highlights of settling in

Hello again!

These past few weeks have been full of meeting new amazing people, going new amazing places, and learning new amazing things. I can't remember the order in which anything happened, but I'll give you a few brief highlights, just so you can see the breadth of experiences that make up living in Mumbai and a JDC volunteer.

• Bayiti, the old age home, is an awesome place. There are eight residents during the holiday season (now), and seven year-round. There are only two men and the eighth resident comes in so she has people to be with for services, etc. It is housed in a beautiful apartment with tons of natural sunlight in their screened-in porch. They get three hot, home cooked meals everyday, including kosher chicken on the weekends! The residents are the kindest, most generous people, and they all just want to sit and have long conversations about their lives and my life and their experiences and my experiences and every time I leave they beg me to stay. Kimberly and I went to help them with an arts and crafts project; we are making greeting cards to sell at an upcoming Indian Jewish book fair to raise money for the home. The cards turned out beautifully, and even the home's eldest resident, a 92-year-old woman with parkinson's, was able to create a masterpiece. They've invited us for Shabbat (services, a meal, a place to sleep, and they said they'll do our laundry for us) and I think I'll have to take them up on the offer in the next few weeks. 

Bayiti resident George Taylor with his only photograph of his mother, Panina. 

• Shopping here is un-freaking-believable. It's mind boggling how cheap all these beautiful things are! I've been on a few shopping sprees already and no matter how much I buy, I can't spend over $30. I bought some kurtas (the longer shirts) and leggings so that I can fit in a bit more, some leather sandals so that I can walk like a native as well, skin products (like papaya face scrub, charcoal face mask, etc.) so that I might acquire an Indian glow, and some other odds and ends because it's hard to turn down handmade paper cards with elephants when they're 75 cents for six. 

• I made flyers and have been helping to plan for Limmud, a day of Jewish learning, life and community. The conference will be on November 3rd and there will be Krav Maga, Israeli dancing, Jewish cooking, panels on Jews in business and the future of the Indian Jewish community, etc. It's been very interesting to sit in on the planning meetings and learn both how events are run here and what issues are important to Jews in India. One of the major issues is what they call intercaste marriages, or marrying outside the Jewish community. Although this is an issue worldwide, there are many aspects specific to India, including the fact that the community itself is small and getting smaller. Which brings me to another major problem: Jews leaving India. Making aliyah is very common for young Indian Jews. They either support Israel so strongly that they feel the need to join the army, feel as though they would have a better lifestyle in Israel, or want to meet their future partner. With many Jews leaving and many marrying out, the community is growing smaller every year and many fear it won't last very much longer. 

• It is Sukkoth! This means it's sukkah time. Last week we went to build a sukkah with our Gan Katan kids and other adults in the community. The kids had a blast coloring fruit to decorate the sukkah. One thing I've learned about the education system here is that there is always a right way and a wrong way,  a correct and an incorrect. Most of the time, the kids sit and repeat exactly what the teacher says, or they just copy down words and memorize. There is no "thinking outside the box" because they have to follow the directions. For this reason, I told them the one rule was that they had to be creative with the fruit coloring; I didn't want to see yellow bananas and red pomegranates. The results were amazing! We had green polka-dotted cherries and purple striped apples adorning our sukkah ceiling in no time. I also started doing "kablat panim" at the beginning of every Gat Katan class (thanks, Middlebury Hillel) to make it more interactive and less follow-what-the-teacher-says-and-complete-assignments-like-a-robot-with-no-meaning. With the dwindling Jewish population I mentioned before, and the fact that so many are finding Judaism less and less applicable and important to their own lives, I think it's important for me to make Judaism exciting for the kids in Sunday school. One of my goals for this year is to show the community how leading a Jewish life doesn't necessarily mean being orthodox, keeping Sabbath, keeping kosher, memorizing torah, speaking Hebrew, etc. All things things are great choices if they're the one you want to make, but I think if helping the Jewish community survive is a main concern, there needs to be a more accessible form of religion for them (especially the younger generation). 

 

• I've moved to my new apartment! I've been living in Thane for approximately 28 hours now. It's a very nice flat in a very nice neighborhood. Thane is called "the city of lakes" because there are hundreds of lakes--or what I would call large, industrial puddles--scattered around the suburb. Although it's not the pond surrounded by grassy meadow and with families of ducks that we would imagine if a city in the US were called "the city of lakes," it actually is quite lovely. This area is much more family-oriented and you'll see families going for strolls along the roads next to the lakes in the evening. There are very few beggars and much fewer people living on sidewalks than in the city of Mumbai. It's a little bit cleaner and much quieter as well. There are all the shops I would need within walking distance, a gym down the road and a yoga studio next door. The yoga studio charges 150 rupees a month, which is roughly $2.50. For a month. I spent my first night here scrubbing the walls of the kitchen for what I think was their first bath since the building was constructed. Now that I don't fear I'll get violently ill from cooking in it, I've purchased loads and loads of groceries from the supermarket in the nearby mall, which also houses dozens of clothing stores, toiletry shops, electronics stores, toy stores, shoe stores, restaurants, and even a bowling alley, arcade (with bumper cars), and movie theatre. 

• One thing I'm sad about in my new place is that I was really starting to make some good friends in Mumbai. People here are so friendly and Kimberly and I have really been able to connect with some awesome people around our age. It's very interesting to hear about their lives; they are so different from back home. Education is absolutely the most important thing in many families, and you choose your profession (or at least your area) at age 16. That is also when you go to college, for either arts, science, or commerce. Then, many people go for graduate degrees immediately after college graduation. You're basically done by age 22 or so and you start working, having already completed a master's degree. But through all of this, you still live at home in most cases. Your mom makes you three meals a day; your dad wants you home by 10 o'clock; and dating, smoking and drinking are out of the question (for most). I've loved talking to the young people about what it's like and they are equally surprised and much more perplexed when I say I've been living on my own for four years already (not that Club Midd is actually "living on my own."). They can't understand why I'd go across the country for school, and really don't understand why I would cook for myself (and really REALLY don't understand my eating habits: "Are you sure you don't want another chapati? Why didn't you take any rice? You don't want more sugar in that? You don't want any sugar in that? How come you didn't fry it? Why isn't your salad cooked?"). I've loved making new friends and now that I'm in Thane, I'll have to start meeting people here, too. I'm hoping I'm learning the culture well enough to not offend anyone or do/say something wrong socially. Being unintentionally rude wouldn't make me any friends, but perhaps they'll be more forgiving because I'm foreign.

That's all for now, and I'll update if I think of anything I missed. Feel free to ask questions so that I know what you actually want to hear about.

Love and hugs from India, 

Leah

A ridiculously busy week

Namaste friends!

So I've been here in Mumbai a little bit over a week and I've met more people in the last 9 days than I’d met in the last year of my life. The community here is so welcoming it’s unbelievable. I keep thinking about what my mother always told me (which is what her mother always told her): if you ever find yourself in any kind of trouble or in any new situation, all you have to do is find the nearest synagogue and the Jews will help you. Three nights this week Kimberly and I were invited into people’s homes for dinner, to meet their families and bring in the new year. We met Jews who have been in Mumbai for generations, learning their family history and traditions. It has been wonderful to learn the tunes specific to the Bene Yisrael Jews (the largest group of Jews in India, whose ancestors are said to have landed here centuries ago), and hear the universal ones that all Jews recognize worldwide.

Both last Sunday and today I helped teach the Gat Katan class, which is the Sunday school here in Mumbai. The children are adorable and know a lot about Judaism and Jewish tradition (they definitely know more than I did at their ages). They love to color, sing songs, and chase each other around the room, but also really enjoy learning and pride themselves in knowledge and talent. One of the boys, who is five, is the most amazing colorer I've ever seen, and while he is very humble, he’s also quite proud of his finished products (I would be, too if I were him. He is seriously amazing.).

Monday, Kimberly and I went on a tour of Mumbai with Hannah, another member of the Jewish community. We saw the Gateway of India (a giant archway built at the port to welcome the king and queen in 1924), the Common Laundry (where men wash clothing for people all over the city, mixing it all together and still getting it back to the correct owner), the Victoria Terminus (as seen in Slumdog Millionaire, and also a World Heritage Site), Knesset Eliyahoo (one of the oldest synagogues in Mumbai), the Gandhi Museum (even Obama saw it!), the Hanging Gardens (beautifully landscaped terraced gardens overlooking the bay), the dabbawallah (a huge lunchbox delivery and pick-up service), and more.

That night, we had a text discussion with Rabbi Judith, who is here for the holidays from Israel (though she is originally from Wisconsin). We met some of the active adults in the community and personally, I learned a ton about the forms of Judaism here in Mumbai and how the congregations think about Judaism and god. It is probably not so different from how many people in the US think about it, but very different from the way I look at it as a decidedly Reconstructionist Jew from Los Angeles.

Tuesday morning we woke up early to go to Thane and see the Gabriel Project Mumbai. This was especially exciting for me because this is where I’ll be living and working starting next week. We took the train there (and I forgot to mention I’d taken the train there once already, to see the synagogue and meet the adults taking Hebrew classes). The trains so far really don’t seem as crazy as everyone says. Honestly, I've seen subway cars in New York that are just as crowded and the stacking on buses in Samoa (just sitting on strangers’ laps when there is no more room) trumps the trains here.

I met the people with whom I’ll be working most closely, though the director of GPM, Jacob, lives in Israel most of the year and I won’t meet him until October when the first group of volunteers arrives (But just so I can prove how nice everyone is here, he left a box of chocolates for me to welcome me to the apartment and the GPM team.). We went to the kitchen to meet the women from the Kalwa slums who cook for the schoolchildren everyday. They got a new kitchen about three weeks ago and are so proud to have this business. They work with REAP, which is an organization that provides the women with lessons in English and math as well as this work. One woman I was talking to said, “Before REAP we had to just sit in the house all day and we had no skills. Now we get to come here and learn and do something good.”

Then we walked to the slums, which was HOT HOT HOT. We got there as the women were delivering the food and the children were so happy. I also must point out that this food, unlike the free food children get in the US, is actually quite wholesome and completely unprocessed or sugary. We saw three classrooms, one preschool and two “elementary schools,” all of which are small, one-room shacks made from corrugated metal and blue tarps. They are dark, dingy, and dirty, but the smiles on the children’s faces when they saw us coming melted all of that away. They are so happy to learn. They LOVE education. They all want to do well and be the best. They want to graduate and go to college and get good jobs. They want to speak fluent English. And they love everything the volunteers teach. I taught a song in the second classroom and the kids were still singing it as we left (the banana song, of course).

The slums looked exactly the way I thought they would. But they didn't feel the way I thought they’d feel. People don’t sit there thinking about poverty. They get up in the morning, wash up, put on clean clothes and go to work. They braid their daughters’ hair and send them to the train to go to a better school in the next town. They go to buy supplies for the store they run in the slum. They live their lives and have a community to support them.

That night we went to dinner with a couple from the Jewish community at the Bombay Gymkhana, an historic sports club that felt like the epitome of British luxury in imperial India. It had an old ballroom, a library, grandfather clocks from the turn of the century, etc. It was very different from the slum in which we’d spent the morning.

The rest of the week was a whirlwind of services for Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat, and wonderful dinners in wonderful people’s homes. The services on Thursday were the most meaningful I've ever experienced. It was amazing to see the traditions merging and I kept thinking about how my friends and family would be reacting, especially Paula, my grandmother who passed away in May and loved both foreign eccentricities and Judaism, and Ian, my friend who passed away in June and was constantly attempting to learn all he could about other people’s ways of life and also thinking of converting to Judaism. The community is also just that: a community. If someone has an honor during the service, they go around the room after to shake hands and “share” the honor with the whole congregation. It’s very touching. We went to a lovely dinner at the home of one of the largest families in the congregation and learned the symbolism of their Rosh Hashanah foods.  I also had a very meaningful Shabbat at the JDC India director Elijah’s home. His family is beautiful and their traditions very lovely. I recorded Elijah's wife singing a Shabbat song in the tune that was her mother's favorite and is remembered today by very few people. 

For tashlich, everyone goes to the wharf for prayers and to cast away their sins, but really it’s an excuse for the mothers of eligible youngsters to mingle and make matches. Because of this, everyone wears their very best clothing and the whole ordeal is very colorful.

We’ve also been keeping busy making friends so we’ve had some people over, gone out a few times, and went for a group run yesterday. It’s a very difficult country to get used to and I miss things like sliced turkey, shorts, and being dry. But overall it’s been a very positive first week and I think this year is going to be absolutely life-changing.

Sorry this was such a long post, and sorry if any of it was confusing. Please leave a comment or email me with any questions!

With as much love as colors on the Tashlich wharf,

Leah

Food, glorious food

So if you know me, you know how much I love food. You know how much time I spend thinking about food, cooking food, thinking about cooking food, eating food, thinking about eating food, thinking about what food to order... the list goes on. So in this blog, I will try to keep you updated with all the new foods I try when I go out and all the foods I attempt to make at home using local ingredients.

A word on the food in India: the word "less" means nothing. "Less sugar, please" gets you 9 teaspoons of sugar in you tea instead of 10. "Less oil, please" gets you a funny look and ghee. Nothing seems very healthy and from what I can tell, the "healthy" food is steamed white rice flour in different forms (which by the way, has no nutritional value BUT it doesn't usually have a kilogram of oil, so it's kind of a give-and-take).

I will tell you about all the unhealthy foods I eat, and you can't judge me for it. It's delicious. To make you think I'm a better person than I am, I'll also tell you about my desperate attempts to cook healthier food at home--and all the funny stares I get in the office when I open my salad for lunch.

The fruit is amazing here. There is an unbelievable amount of variety, and like every other developing country, you only get the fruit that is in season, with a small amount of imported "exotic" fruit. I'll leave out the boring ones and jump straight to the amazingly delicious custard apple. Also, I love the papayas here with squeeze of lime juice and the bananas make an excellently refreshing frozen snack.

The Indian food in India is out of this world. They serve samosas for every occasion, usually filled with spiced potato, like a deep-fried indian knish. The two sauces that normally accompany this samosa are a spicy green chutney and a sweet red one. I also like putting whole roasted chili peppers on mine because they lie about how spicy the green chutney really is. I've been surprised by how non-spicy the food they say is spicy is, but I think maybe they're used to white people freaking out about flavor in general. I've yet to try anything so spicy I stopped to notice the spiciness.

We also ate pav bhaji one night, which is a street food specialty in Mumbai made with veggies and spices all blended up and served with white bread rolls basically soaked in ghee. I tried the chicken pav bhaji, which is pretty unheard of; most Indians don't even know it exists and when I tell them I had it they laugh laugh laugh at the ridiculousness of it. I'm not sure why yet.

We also have had a ton of palak paneer (paneer: indian cheese that is hard enough to grill and keep its form; palak: spinach), aloo paneer (aloo: potato), paneer tikka masala (tikka: spicy; masala: spice blend), grilled paneer kebabs with a spicy yogurt sauce and spicy coleslaw, and a million other veggie-in-mystery-sauce dishes that I can't keep track of (some okra, eggplant, cauliflower, capsicum, etc.). It is hard to find sources of protein in restaurants because so many are "pure veg," and only have paneer for protein.

We've also tried patrani machi, which is fish in a spongey green chutney wrapped in banana leaves and steamed (it looks like this). Also, we had rava dosa, which is made from a batter of semolina, fried and can be filled with deliciousness like an oily, crispier, more powerfully flavorful crepe. Idli is similar to dosa, but uses a mold and is steamed. Dosa and idli can be made using different kinds of flour and have a million varieties that I don't yet know. All have chutney. So far I like the coconut one best.

At home I've been trying to eat slightly better. I've been making egg white scrambles with mashed spiced cauliflower and topping it with tabouleh for breakfast. We found the egg guy down the street. He keeps the chickens in cages at the front of the shop and puts a board on top as his business counter. they're 4 rupees each, a dozen for 48, which is about 75 cents. I bought fish at the outdoor, completely-unsanitary-according-to-US-standards fish market (there was literally a cat licking a fish at a briefly unmanned post, as the fish melted in the sun and a rat scurried to hide beneath a pile of fish-soaked towels) and prepared that for dinner and lunch a few days (no side effects). I found a store with edible fresh veggies that I didn't have to boil before consuming and made green salad. I also found ingredients for a "power salad" of raw moong beans, sprouted beans, chickpeas, roasted corn, pomegranate seeds, green onions, lime juice, etc. I've been roasting cauliflower, eggplant, and broccoli because I'm not yet brave enough to try the weirder looking veggies on the streets.

I almost forgot about the sweets! Everything here that is sweet is too sweet. I wont name them 'cause I don't like them. I only like the ones with dried fruit because they don't add sugar. I found some nice fig and mixed nut squares, as well as some mixed fruit barfi which I can only eat a bite a day of because I can feel the oil seeping through every pore on my body after only a nibble. But it's really tasty. The ice cream is also very fresh and they have awesome flavors, like fig, custard apple, saffron pistachio, etc. When they serve it at parties or after dinner, they cut it into squares instead of scooping it out, which I think makes a lot of sense, actually. OH, there's also the ben yisrael halva, which is not the halva you're thinking of, but a specialty made only for the new year by the group of Indian Jews known as Ben Yisrael. It's made with milk, wheat gluten, sugar and almonds, cooked for seven hours and chilled. I've never had anything like it; it's a creamy, mousse-y, pudding-y thing that looks like jello and tastes like heaven.

Anyway, there is more to come about things that actually matter (my job, what I actually do everyday, the people I've met, etc). That's taking longer because it's harder to reflect on than food.

Wishing you all a new year as filled with new things as my first week here and as sweet as the aforementioned halva,
Leah

Shana tova from the Gateway to India!

Happy new year to all my friends and family! May you all have amazingly sweet years filled with health, happiness, and love.

Custard apples and honey,
Leah

P.S. Just kidding about the honey with the custard apples. They're sweet enough on their own! Cant you tell?