Wake Up Call

Sorry I haven’t been updating in awhile, it’s been a busy week. Thursday and Friday we took trips to two different villages. On Thursday we went to a village east of Pune. The story of this village is a testament to what people can do with the land, and how simple things like changing the way you farm or view your land can drastically help people’s welfare.

Twenty years ago this village was full of alcoholics. It was also known for producing really good wrestlers (which apparently is a big thing in India). So the men in the village basically drank, and wrestled. What a life! The amount of poverty, hunger, and water shortage in this village was also very high. A few of the younger men decided that they wanted to help the village and bring people out of poverty. They took over the council from the elders, and started instituting new initiatives to improve the watershed of the land. When these programs started the people did not think it made a difference because the stream that they got water from had the same amount of water, some even thought there was less water. What they soon realized was that their wells were actually higher at certain points in the year. This village now has 1400 people living in it, and only three or four families are below the poverty line. They are known for their farming and there are even a few millionaires within the village.

The second village also improved their watershed, and also diverted a small spring to two hamlets that were not getting enough water.

On Saturday and Sunday our host mom took us to the Ellora and Ajanta caves. These caves were unreal and I have never seen anything like it. The Ajanta caves were carved, by Buddhist monks, into the mountain. The monks lived there and meditated and carved away. The detail that went into these caves was amazing. Just trying to think how they did it boggled my mind. The Ellora caves were even more impressive. They were carved into the rock face, and for some reason just looked more majestic. They consisted of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples. Cave number 16 at Ellora is probably the most famous. It is the Kailasa temple, and it is basically carved from one big rock. The story goes that the Hindu priests made a small version of the temple, put it in a bowl of water, and would scoop away a cup of water at a time. Whatever was not in the water is what they would carve. This would go on until there was no more water in the bowl. If this sounds confusing don’t worry I will post a picture from the top view and it will make sense.

The details on this temple were unreal. There were scenes from the Mahabharata, there was a huge Shivalinga (like Lord Shiva, but male and female form) in the temple, and various gods were carved on the façade of the temple. It was pretty breathtaking.

At dinner on Saturday night we got a text from our program director saying that we had must of heard of what went on in Pune, and that everyone was safe. We had no idea what that meant, and literally a minute later my dad called and said, “Supriya, did you hear what happened and where are you?” He told me that a bomb had gone off in the German Bakery and that eight people had died and thirty or so were injured. This took us all by surprise of course, but was a wake up call at the same time. A few weeks ago the U.S. issued a travel alert for India saying that terrorism attacks would most likely take place in tourist cities. We took this warning seriously but did not think anything of it because we were in Pune, and this city is not a major tourist site. The German Bakery is located in a part of the city that a lot of westerners go to because of the Ashram that is there. We fortunately do not frequent that area a lot and tend to stay more in areas that not many westerners go to, but it was a little scary knowing that two of my friends had been there six or so hours before the bomb went off.

As of now no one has claimed the attack so we do not know the real reason this was done. We do not know what will happen with the program in terms of being suspended or giving students the option of going home. The U.S. did issue another travel alert saying that attacks would most likely continue. It is difficult to gage how safe we are because not much is known right now. I think that most of us do a pretty good job of not drawing attention to ourselves, but that wasn’t really the case in this attack. It makes me feel like I can’t go anywhere that reminds me of home, or tourist sites because they are all going to potentially be targets (this could prove difficult seeing as I’m traveling a lot within the next few weekends). Attacks like this were a thought in the back of my mind when I came here, but I always pushed it aside because you never think something like this is going to happen until it does, and it hits a little too close to home. I will update as soon as more details come in, and as much as I miss you all and home I hope I don’t have to see you anytime soon.

Peace

P.S. Pictures will come I promise! I’ll have a few posts with just pictures- it is sometimes hard to post them because internet is slow here!!!!