Last weekend we went to Varanasi. Varanasi is a
big city on the bank of the Ganges. The Ganges is the biggest river in India
and one of the biggest in the world. Some say it's also the oldest city in the world. Friday was a travel day. First we took a
train to Delhi where we waited for 6 hours. We went to a Starbucks in Delhi and
everyone was super excited because they hadn’t been to one in a while. We then
took a super short plane ride to Varanasi. We went to a restaurant to have
dinner and then headed to our hotel. The next morning we got up really early while
it was still dark to go on a sunrise cruise on the Ganges. Unfortunately, I
woke up pretty sick. I had a bad headache and a very sore throat. We took a car
part of the way from the hotel and walked the rest of the way. Surprisingly
there were a lot of people out, and it wasn’t even 6:00 in the morning! It
turns out the boat cruise wasn’t exactly a cruise. It was a ride in a rowboat.
The sun was hidden behind the clouds too, but even though it wasn’t exactly
what we expected, it was fun. After about an hour of being in the water, we
went to see a temple. Our guide said that it was the most popular temple in
India. We walked through crowded, narrow streets full of animal dung. A lot of
people are cremated on the riverbank and the ashes are thrown in the water.
When we were walking the narrow streets, we saw a dead body being carried past.
For me, unlike everybody else, it wasn’t that overwhelming. My senses were at
zero because I had a headache, sore throat, a runny nose, and I was dizzy and
nauseous. For everyone else, it was kind of a shock. It turns out we couldn’t
actually go into the temple but that was okay because we could see it from the
outside, or so we thought. All we saw was the top of a dome made of gold.
We headed back to the hotel after that. We had
breakfast, which was eggs and toast, and rested a little. Our hotel was pretty
unpleasant. It was old, musty, and dark. So, we switched to another one. I
think the new one was a lot better and more welcoming. Before lunch we went to
the site where Siddhartha Gautama, the original Buddha, gave his teachings for
the first time after being enlightened. First we went to his temple and learned
about him and Buddhism; I’ll talk about that later. We also went to the ruins
of the place where he spoke. The whole place was dedicated to Buddha. There was
even a museum that we went in and learned some more. After a long time at the
site we went to have dinner at the same place we did the night before.
The next day we relaxed until 10:00, when we
went back to the Buddha site to see a giant statue of him that was closed the
day before. We had lunch there and then started a city tour of Varanasi. We
visited three temples, one about Mother India, a big Shiva temple, and a Durga
temple. The first one, Mother India, wasn’t exactly the kind of temple that we
were used to. It had a huge 3-D map of India etched in marble on the ground and
some paintings of famous Indians. The Shiva temple was my personal favorite. It
was located inside a university, actually the biggest university in India and
the guide said the third biggest in the world. The temple was really big and
beautiful. The thing that’s interesting about Hindu temples is that the outside
is usually big and decorated, but the inside is just a plain small room. The
Durga temple (Durga is Shiva’s wife) wasn’t that exciting. When the city tour
ended we rode a Rickshaw (bikes with carts on the back) to the Ganges for a
sunset cruise! Every evening the people of Varanasi have a ceremony of lights
and there are about 10,000 people that gather every night. It is so crowded
that it’s hard to move. There were 7 priests who lead the ceremony and tons of
people following. We took another rowboat out on the water and went to see some
cremations, but from a distance. There are a lot of bodies being burned each
night and after one body is burned, another is brought in. It was really
interesting how they do it. They stack sandwood and put the body under. They
light the sandwood on fire and when the body burns, they throw the ashes into
the river. It was a good experience, even though it was a little freaky and
overwhelming. Varanasi wasn’t as fun and relaxing as Goa or Himachal. It wasn’t
as pretty as the Taj Mahal. But I thought it was good in its own way.
Siddhartha Gautama was the main founder of
Buddhism. He was a prince, the son of the king of a tribe called the Shakyas.
His whole childhood and beyond, his father kept him secluded from the world, so
he didn’t have to see the suffering in others. One day, when he was 29 he
finally went out to see the world. He saw a very old man, a diseased man, and a
decaying corpse. His charioteer explained that all men grow old, get sick, and
die. The next day Siddhartha left the kingdom, and his wife and baby to lead an
ascetic life. For six years he did that, but he was never quite satisfied.
Finally he decided that he was going to sit under a tree until he found what he
was looking for. That’s when he became Buddha, the awakened one. He went around
teaching what he had learned to other people. He talked about the four noble
truths and the eightfold path. The four noble truths are: life has suffering,
there’s a cause to suffering, you can end suffering, and how you end suffering,
which is the eightfold path. The eightfold path is right view, right
intentions, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right
mindfulness and right concentration. Buddha said that if you do these things
you would end suffering. Buddhism is not like other religions where you worship
a god or gods. Buddhism is more of a practice. I thought it was cool learning
about a new religion, the 5th most practiced religion in the world.
If you remembered, the Young Dreamers and us had started a new community
service project about child labor and the importance of education. We’re
helping them keep kids in school until 12th grade. So here’s the
update: we executed it! Let me explain. A couple meetings ago we decided we
would have a community discussion, kind of like the one in the Elephant
Village, to talk about education. We also decided that the Young Dreamers would
lead the meeting. (They also pretty much led the project.) We would also have a
pledge that people would sign that said they wouldn’t give or ask for a dowry. On
Wednesday we went door to door asking people to come to our meeting. We had the
meeting on Thursday at 4:00 and everything went as planned. At the beginning, I was
getting nervous because nobody was coming, but at 4:05 the tent space started
filling up. Harish, one of the Young Dreamers, opened up the meeting and
introduced who was going to talk. We had four topics to touch on, the benefits
of education, the importance of daily education through 12th grade,
ending child labor, and the problems with the dowry. It was nice because one Young
Dreamer talked for each topic and for some of them a parent talked also. For
dowry, a dad and a mom talked! The dad went on and read the dowry pledge out
loud in front of everybody, then he said that he completely agrees with it and
that he would sign it, saying he will not offer or provide a dowry for his
daughter. That was a huge risk on his part because a lot of people could be
angered by his words and he depends on them to buy his vegetables every day. I
thought it was really cool that he cared so much about this cause that he was
willing to speak out loud against the dowry. After the meeting we asked people
to line up and sign the pledge. We got 25 signatures! That was a huge success.
Although we got 25 signatures, the biggest thing is that the Young Dreamers
learned how to do a community service project almost all by themselves. Now
when we leave they can continue doing projects on their own. So two projects in
India, the first one was bigger than the second, but the second went deeper
than the first. One thing that has been deeply engrained in my mind by
participating in these projects is this: always take the first step, no matter
how hard it seems, no matter how far away the goal is, take the first step and
everything will fall into place. If you put your mind to something and try
really hard to do it, amazing things will happen.
We leave for Guatemala
on Wednesday so my next post will probably be from there. I’ll tell you all
about our last few days in India.
No comments:
Post a Comment