see you

This blogging business ain't easy, I tell you.

I just got off an airplane yesterday, where I existed in limbo for fifteen hours of a threatening headache, prior to which I'd already travelled by plane, a bus, and a taxi, after a teary morning meltdown and Carnival paint smeared on my arm, forehead, and left boob a la Tony; as if I don't smear enough things on that boob by myself.

Dinha's crew on my last day. Joe couldn't even fire me.

And today, I have to write a post. Thursdays can be so demanding, though I imagine much of my international audience is now reading this on Friday. But I promised you a weekly post. I think it might be the biggest commitment I've ever made, actually. It's been a joyous, terrifying, wonderfully strange journey, but I really wouldn't have it any other way; though my obsession with consistent timely posting often leaves my friends looking confused at my dedication to something that pays nothing. Welcome to being a writer.

--------------------------

So, let me prop my jet-lagged eyes open because the show must go on...


Leaving India was hard. I feel so loved and happy in Benaulim, I'm tempted to cut my losses, accept Tony's marriage proposal(s), and go native. But nearing the Newark airport, Springsteen's American buttocks album seemed like a fitting way to welcome myself back. And I really did start feeling happy to have been "born in the USA." Writing "American" under nationality on the customs form and stepping to the end of the line for citizens, I felt a growing giddy sense of identity. I'm no staunch patriot, but the familiarity feels good, reminds me who I am and will continue to be no matter what part of the world I traverse. Home is home, and I love being an American. It's nice to be reminded once in a while.

Then I passed a couple taxi drivers looking to negotiate fares in the Jersey airport and wondered if I had actually brought India home with me. Sandy jeans and colorfully packaged teas are reminders scattered across the wood floor of my old bedroom. I'm trying to reclaim sleep I've missed for several weeks while steady rain patters on the rooftop. Listening to one of Pascal's favorite Indian mystic CDs, I feel happy and quiet. Experience has a way of organizing itself in memories over time. The next thing can wait.

Farewell flower petals left outside my door.

And the flying carpet? I don't think any explanation, even if there was one, could rival whatever you can imagine.


Now back to sleep. Sweet dreams.


OneArmGirl      

now we take over

"Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization."

 from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues 

I’m an even greater curiosity in India. Regardless of averted eyes or speed of step, I’m greeted every day walking to the village center by stares of shopkeepers, taxi drivers, bicycle vendors and pedestrians; when I’m passed, I feel their eyes on my back. 

Indians stare without shame. Sometimes six, ten eyes wide, faces blank, necks twisting, arms and legs suddenly in slow motion. Waiting for Little Gen to squeeze the scooter into a parking slot at the market, I take three watchers on, attempting to outstare them, to limited avail. This is a place where you should never be surprised to see anything: twenty people in a rickshaw, someone peeing in the street, an establishment called Baby Jesus Coffee Shop; and I’m a freak. 

Anonymity is simply not an option here for a blondish curly-haired white girl, without mentioning the miniature left arm. The bubble gum pink nail polish and single-handed bicycle riding nearly bumps me up to circus performer status.

I’m not certain why I currently wear a hot pink bathing suit. Though I've been familiar with pool attention since I was wearing floaties, the left one bobbing helplessly on the surface of the water like a buoyed dingy. I might drown, but that arm wasn't getting anywhere near the water.

Now striding round the pool, I pray nothing trips me before I can get in the water. I’m more comfortable after submerged, but I’m still on stage. I can almost hear a collective intake of breath as I push away from the edge and disappear under the water. The eyes of three portly men on reclining chairs travel back and forth with me from pool end to end. I pretend not to notice, feigning the indifference of an astronaut at space camp, but I wonder what they’re thinking.

After two months, the abundance of onlookers is making me feel far more important than I’m sure is healthy. I’m exhausted. Self-importance can be so tiring. The novelty is wearing thin.

--------------------------------------

An older woman watches me poolside as I give the froggy breast stroke my best shot.

But her gaze is different. More knowing than curious, she holds an unabashed smile on her lips. She seems to revel in my swim. It’s disconcerting. This is the second day I’ve noticed her watching me, and when I meet her eye from a neighboring pool chair, she walks over to me and looks down warmly.

“I have to tell you, I just think you’re wonderful,” she beams. She tells me she has a grandson who was born with only one ear. She says the other kids at school are doing their part to confirm his abnormality.

“I know I’m his grandmother, but he is really very smart and very handsome,” she continues, regaling several scholastic and athletic accolades.

I picture fortune-cookie-colored skin and dark eyes from an Egyptian mother and English father, and smile, agreeing that he must be very special. And I know he is. But I can feel her burden. I want to give her something more to give him, to relieve his pain, to let him know that what seems loss is likely gain. A serum for immunity to conformity, now that’s the kind of vaccination I could get behind.

I recognize this woman’s story, but I’m suddenly humbled, because it’s not about me. When I can muster the generosity to meet stares with a wave of my tiny arm, it’s like a magic wand, turning blank faces into smiles. Works every time.

I was told this week of two blind men who used to visit this village. During a soccer match at a local sports bar, a power outage suddenly cut the television and the lights. 

Out of the silent darkness, one of the men said with conviction, “Now we take over!” 

OneArmGirl

creature of comfort

Scratch the elephant and scooter, I just want to go to the spa.

In celebration of my slowly returning health, Little Gen and I decided to splurge and have both a manicure and pedicure, something unheard of in my usual existence. So we motored down to the newly opened Ocean salon, which had an oddly Japanese feel inside. Apparently, even Asian décor in other parts of Asia means Zen gardens. Finneas got the whole treatment and seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly; though I’ve decided Barbie doll pink may not be his color. 

Why two colors, you ask? Because I can. But now I’m hooked...I want the facial, deep hair conditioning, head massage, and whatever else I can fit into the next week. Some come to the third world to experience poverty; I come for the bikini wax. Actually, in that particular department, I find the gain not worth the pain. I’m really not a spa junkie, but highlights for $20 ain’t bad. I might even go for the ‘Body Souffle with Green Clay’ because if you add ‘souffle’ to any title, it must be good. They should never have let me take the menu home. 

------------------------

Alas, my stay in India is coming to an end, which, of course, leaves me contemplating the meaning and purpose of my visit in the greater context of my life’s journey. So far, I got nothing. I’ve worked a little for no wage, become ill in every way possible, and barely managed to post to this blog once a week. I haven’t even rested successfully.

I have spent a great deal of time absorbing information and thinking too much, as per my usual routine; and, as per usual, have not arrived at any conclusions except that I should spend less time thinking. In fact, my time would be better spent learning the rules of cricket, so I can hold my own in current World Cup conversations. PS, call me American, but I still think baseball is better; our pitchers don’t need a running start.

In the two months that I’ve been here, I’ve hardly been out of the village. I’ve seen a lot of backpackers coming and going, little Benaulim but a tiny dot on their mapped pilgrimage, but all I need is an iced coffee at Dinha’s to convince me to stay. Here are a few other reasons:

Accessibility to this, my toilet, where I know I will not be disturbed and there will always be toilet paper. Next to the ceiling fan, this is my lifeblood.

And...

Sharing my hair with Mikey Man.

OneArmGirl

  

nirvana lost

The handicapped lifestyle is not all fun and popsicles, as one might suppose. It is the best of adventures, to be sure, one for which I’d hate to be left behind, but adventure rarely comes easily; otherwise we’d have a misnomer on our hands.

Just when I thought the Thursday regularity of my posts from India might be giving the oh-so-false impression that I write to you easily from a seaside cabana, whilst sipping Bacardi Breezers, pausing here and there to look wistfully toward the horizon for poetic inspiration, I got sick to prove the point. 

Take-a-way lunch from Dinha's

I write to you now through a haze of flu medication, three days separated from any reality outside the bounds of bed and tissues. Or has it been four days; not sure. Apparently, while I was busy soaking up India and trying to condense it into 600 words of weekly post, my brain and my body held a caucus, where they conspired against me, ultimately voting across the board for a time out. And no, I am not that picky about word count, I just feel like a failure with anything under 850.

In fact, this is my second illness in the last month, but tales of simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea in India are cliché, and I couldn’t stomach regaling it. Having survived my first stay in India without the ever-popular ten-pounds-in-two-days weight loss program, I naively considered my stomach to be in the front guard of superior spice tolerance. Pride goeth…

And so, as if the variability of internet connection, temporarily unavailable websites (Blogger, I’d be talking to corporate right now if you weren’t so obnoxiously free), HTML error codes, and unrelenting mosquito raids at the internet café weren’t obstacle enough, add sore throat and head congestion to the dragons I must slay to bring you this post. Can someone please get me a mosquito net to innocently hang from my ceiling fan, having forgotten the power is out, and not off? True story, but not mine.

And now I’d like to tell you how dirty India is…

Ok, I’m not that vindictive. And I kind of like it that way.

India, have I told you lately that I love you? Stay cool, ok? And never change. Really.

Ahem…did I mention I’m on cold tablets and can’t hear myself speak? It’s interesting how sickness narrows your priorities. Instead of where will I go today, what work will I do, who will I talk to, it becomes how can I find a quiet place to lie down, with easy access to ginger lemon honey…Tea?, you ask. No, that would insinuate the inclusion of a tea bag, which is an entirely different drink, so I’ve learned. So ‘ginger lemon honey’ it is, and will continue to be, if this keeps up much longer.

My digs

I find being ill an inconvenience, mostly to all the well people who want you back at the party. After two days of it, I start to feel like a real pooper, reducing my public appearances to avoid bringing down the high.

Asking for help is not something I do well; and helping is not something many people really know how to do. Joe, Pascal, and Tony turn up from time to time at my room to make sure I'm still alive. Conveniently my mobile phone stops working.

“I just need someone to hold my hand,” I squeak to Little Gen, “figuratively speaking," I add between tears. But I reach the little arm out to rest on her two extended fingers.

I go to the pharmacy and point to my throat. I’m handed some whitish horse pills without the outside wrapping, no indication of dosage or desired affect; but mostly I just want to exchange my consciousness for another one. I take one, desperately trusting wherever it takes me.

It takes me to Little Gen’s apartment, where the next twenty-four hours observe me watching back-to-back episodes of Ricky Gervais’ An Idiot Abroad, wherein reluctant traveler Karl Pilkington visits the Seven Wonders of the World, while leaving the rest of us feeling glad we stayed home.

Balcony at Savio's Guesthouse

But this morning, I wobble my way to German Bakery, desperate for contact with the outside world. I find myself sitting across from a bearded professor who tells me, according to Zen, enlightenment is the sound of one hand clapping.

Apparently, I’m closer than I thought.

OneArmGirl      

free love and german baked goods

At least once a day, I make a pilgrimage to the German Bakery. How does there come to be a German bakery in a small village in India? I don’t know, but if there was ever a people group capable of such a feat, it’s the Germans. My family tree is full of them, and they won’t be shaken out.

Savio’s Guesthouse, or Benaulim Hippie Central, is accumulating more and more every day. Soon, it will be Savio’s German Guesthouse, clean and organized, which will completely ruin its shabby reputation.

My next-door neighbor, Michael, is a German hippie, if that’s possible. He wasn’t at Woodstock, but he laments a world without free love. “It’s a shit,” he says. His red bicycle with a pink flower on the handlebars winks at me. 

But why is the German Bakery operated by a bunch of Asian guys from Nepal is, perhaps, a more obvious question. I don’t know, but they are adorable and I love them. They also make a decent latte, though it bears an almost exact resemblance to the cappuccino.

I sit with Michael at the bakery while he smokes a homemade cigarette and drinks a cappuccino; alcohol and other drugs are left to the past. He explains why east Germany is better than west and teaches me to ask for a rolled cigarette in Deutche. I add this to my repertoire of 'gesundheit.' Michael’s never been to the States, but he dreams about surfing in the Pacific. 

We sit quietly at the outdoor tables, but this is anything but a Parisian café. Rickshaws and taxis tilt around the main village intersection. All the new tourists of the week turn up curbside, looking confused.

“Ack, too many Indians here,” Michael complains, indicating the out-of-towners from Mumbai or Delhi. “It’s a shit.”

I smile.

The bakery, with its enticing case of bread, shaped into various pastries, offers a beacon of comfort to newcomers. It is a rare spot in the world where I can watch as much as I am usually watched.

Tuk tuk a la Michael

Last evening, Michael finds he has less mint leaves in his tea than his west German friend. I propose this could be intentional discrimination against east Germans. Then we discuss the silliness of dread-locked westerners who feel superior in rarely-washed clothing.

Life without Michael would be a shit. 

OneArmGirl

the good life

I’ve been in need of a massage, something I believe to be as essential to the human existence as skin. Even animals stretch first thing after waking.

So, I finally convinced Tony to introduce me at a local “parlor.” And by parlor, I mean metal shack on the beach, a place I am loathe to go at any time, much less at midday with all the sun-soaking tourists. But I would go to the moon if I had to for a good massage.

During my standard siesta time between the hours of 1pm and 4pm, when I am usually holed up in my tiny room under the fan, I had a massage with Supa (pronounced ‘Shuba’). I addressed her with my usual speech to therapists about their liberty to press, pull, squeeze, or otherwise massage Finneas. I refrained from referring to Finneas by name, as the language gulf between us was already muddy. I’m foreign; no need to let her know I’m also crazy. I was already speaking without articles or adjectives.

She tested Finneas with a gentle pull. Then she asked me to perform some small exercises [stop laughing] of pulling and pushing her finger. Then, if my interpretation was correct, she asked me to swing Finneas vigorously, slapping her index finger. Ok. I whipped him with dexterity and hit my mark. She smiled, pleased. 

“This is good idea, I think,” she said. I heartily agreed, thinking she meant God’s gifting me with a small arm in general. But then I realized she was possibly speaking of Finneas’ self defense skills; that if necessary, he could go to bat for me in a back alley situation. Really? I would have to be completely incapacitated for the idea of miniature-arm-slapping myself out of harms way. And what if Finneas is a pacifist?!

----------------------

And now this...in the last week, the keywords “handicap sex tattoo arm amputee” brought, presumably by accident, some visitor to my site. Sorry, I just can’t keep these to myself.

Meanwhile, Pascal, who I made a mental note never to write about again because of several serious bouts of shyness due to recent posts, expressed disappointment that I’d used a photo of Dinha’s fruit salad with curd and coconut, and not their famous poached eggs on toast. So, it is here righted:

Breakfast never looked so good

Now, if you’re not hungry for breakfast again, regardless of the time, there’s something wrong with you. Then again, I’m one to talk. “A born freak can only go uphill,” claims the primary character in my current literary preoccupation, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins.

---------------------

Today, my new artist friend Janet of Ireland was determined to help me swim in the shimmering pool waters of the resort where she lives. Thus commenced a comedy of experiments involving various flotation devices, requiring me to squeeze into a child-sized inner tube, and nearly drown squirming out.

It should be noted that I’ve been “swimming” since I was a kid with some sort of doggie paddle/side stroke/sheer determination combination, but proper technique has thus far eluded me. In the end, we gave up on assisted swimming gear, and Janet demonstrated the breaststroke, stomach down on a reclined pool chair, arms and legs swimming in air; something for the poolside city-dwellers-on-holiday to write home on a postcard. 

Romantic walk with Asif and Mikey Man in hand

And speaking of postcards, what's better than a long walk on the beach with a guy? A long walk on the beach with two guys (plus one sister behind with a camera).

OneArmGirl

handicapped

When asked what I was going to “do” in India, the answer I settled on was: “I don’t know.” And that was nearly the truth, though completely insufficient and irresponsible for most American ears. For just reason, I suppose; imagine asking the first settlers what they were going to do in the New World, if they replied, “Oh, I dunno, guess we’ll see when we get there.” Though I’m fairly certain starving to death and introducing smallpox wasn’t on the agenda.

Truth is, I had some idea of what I might do, but I had no concrete goals. Last time I came to India, I only wanted a great cup of chai, and that I accomplished exceptionally well. I’ve had some time to mull it over, however...and so, my current ‘to do’ list for India is, in no particular order,

1. Ride an elephant

2. Drive a scooter

3. Visit an orphanage for handicapped children

The first is cliché, I know, but I would argue that everyone should live a good cliché, now and again. It’s good for digestion. The second seems doable (according to Mikey Man, who claims to drive routinely one-handed on the scooter, I can only assume, because he's been here so long, driving in India now bores him). The third just seems the sort of humanitarian thing you do in India. And I am happy to say, I accomplished it this past weekend.

I met a nice couple at Dinha’s who knew of an orphanage for handicapped children, which incidentally, is also when I decided it would be my third goal to visit such a place. So Friday last, friend Cameron and I set off for Chorao Island. Yes, the orphans live on an island which, I suggested to Cameron, could be to keep them from escaping. I saw Annie, ok.

The drive took about an hour, or maybe two; I’m not certain because I was in the process of acquiring a heat stroke on the back of the scooter. We stopped for a $6 tank of gas, then onto the highway at 40mph, Cameron wearing a required helmet as the driver, me wearing nothing because it’s not a problem if the passenger falls off the back and gets run over by 30 motorbikes from behind. In India, you stop asking why.

We stopped in the capital city of Panjim, rumored to be the location of a fancy bookstore. After asking 20 people along the road for directions(allow for authorial exaggeration), and walking several blocks [it was just like the Amazing Race...before editing; wonderful, glorious editing], we found it. Cameron was a kid in a candy store as soon as we entered; it’s too bad there’s not much allowance for baggage on a scooter.

New books in tow, we were off to the orphans, who mostly turned out not to be orphans at all, but boys who just needed another place to live. And though several had minor cognitive handicaps, they were not without ability (even exceptional artistic skill). None seemed particularly in need of inspiration, and I’ll admit, I was a little disappointed no one was missing arms or legs.

Meanwhile, I was having trouble remembering my name, and spent most of the afternoon on the couch, inhaling water and wondering if I might faint. Busy drawing freehand cartoon replications and decorating hand-shaped construction paper greeting cards, they had little time for interest in my small appendage. Once in a while, I caught a shy smile, and a glance of what I’m sure was pity, cast in the direction of the invalid foreigner in their living room.

We were treated to a wonderful meal of curry and homegrown rice, and to the company of big-hearted people in a home full of hospitality. And thankfully, after some reviving coffee, I was able to get back on the scooter without assistance.

The drive home was darker and cooler and I contemplated inviting some orphans to come visit me next time.

OneArmGirl