India – Jaipur

The streets of Jaipur have lived up to my hopes of India madness.  Divided highways with cars driving both ways on both sides, motorcycles claiming right of way via horn, colorful textiles, fruits, and flowers for sale in roadside stalls, men peeing in random places, air thick with desert dust and exhaust fumes, piles of trash, cows roaming freely, camels and elephants being used as vehicles, harrowing rickshaw rides, and horrifying smells.  While I don’t understand how millions of people, generation after generation, implicitly make a social contract to co-exist this way, it is very fun to observe (on a temporary basis).

Jaipur “C-Class”

Jaipur “E-Class”

I am enrolled in a 4-week “Work & Travel” program based in Jaipur with Sankalp Volunteer Society that entails volunteer work and trips to highlights throughout the state of Rajasthan.  I am staying at the program’s volunteer house which I share with 15 others from Europe, Australia, Canada, and the U.S.  The house is comfortable and has a college dorm feel to it.  There is a cook who makes our lunch and dinner so we all eat together and have plenty of time to sit and chat.  Little entertainments get planned and enacted, like trivia night, team charades, MP3 exchanges, and guided yoga and meditations.

My volunteer work assignment is teaching English at a public school in Jaipur.  I am partnered with another volunteer and together we teach 3 classes per day; 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade.  The school is short of resources, so we’re not just assistant teachers participating in a minimal way–we are the only teachers in the room and get to plan the lessons and run the classes as best we can.  The students are, unsurprisingly, way behind the government-outlined curriculum so their text books are not particularly useful.  Further, the traditional Western expectations of order and discipline have not been firmly instilled, so it gets unruly from time to time.  So our task is to entertain, encourage, focus, threaten, and sneak in some teaching in the precious few moments of opportunity.

The school house

3rd grade hard at work

On the bright side, while the kids are mischievous they are also bright and charming.  I would often prefer to watch them do something fun than make them watch me do something boring.  Each time they complete an assignment in their notebook, they besiege us with cries of “Sir, good!” hoping we will certify it by writing “Good!” on the page.  Even the ones who torment you all class run up to give you high fives and secret handshakes afterward.  I can’t really get mad at any of them, I understand why school doesn’t seem that important.  But I yell and glare at them just the same in the hope of just getting them into the routine of paying attention to their teacher.

Masters of the alphabet

Jaipur has some interesting sites and I have been out with my roommates to see a few of them.  This month India is hosting Australia for a series of cricket matches in cities across the country.  We caught the match in Jaipur in which India came back to win from a deficit of 360 runs.

Cricket: India vs. Australia

We also visited some former royal estates.  Located within the Old City, the City Palace has the famous Jaipur “pink” color and some outstanding doorway decorations.  Nearby Hawa Mahal is a narrow 5-story building in which the maharaja’s maidens would watch the city safe from view.  It is very beautiful with ornate white screens and window trim offsetting its bold salmon exterior.

Jaipur City Palace

Jaipur City Palace

Hawa Mahal

Nahargarh Fort’s walls in pink and burnt yellow add to the hot and desolate feeling of the desert around it.  There isn’t much to see inside other than the walls and pathways and a step well filled with bright green water, but there are long views over dry hills back to the city.

Jaigarh Fort is big and mostly empty.  However, the raised walkway around the courtyard is nice and offers panoramic views of the surrounding fort walls and a look at the front of the Amber Fort.

Jal Mahal is a small palace constructed in the center of a lake, with water reaching right up to its walls.  You can’t actually get to it, but there is a boardwalk across the water with good views.

Nahargarh Fort

Nahargarh Fort

Jaigarh Fort

Jal Mahal, a palace constructed in the center of a lake

It’s an exciting feeling to be in India, where so much of the present moment of human history is taking place.  I can’t say anything novel about it, but in my opinion it lives up to its reputation for cultural uniqueness and endless potential for craziness.  A billion people can’t be wrong, can they?