Dancing in Sarees

Just returned from my first camp with the JDC Welfare group. I had a wonderful time and wish I was still in the cool hills of Lonavla, sorrounded by nature and waterfalls, eating chikki with kids and painting kiddush cups and gossiping with the ladies. Friday afternoon, three of them grabbed me and wrapped up in a Saree for the first time!

Tonight I leave for the Golden Age camp in Goa. More to come soon :)

camp time

As of tomorrow I will be heading out to a nearby hillstation for the first of my double-header camp experiences. I will be spending four days in Lonavala with families who participate in the Welfare and Medical programs here via the JDC, and upon my return to Bombay this Sunday I head out immidiatly on another five day camp-retreat with the Golden Age club to Goa. In keeping with my personal ( and now well established) tradition of jam-packed location-hopping, I will be flying to Dehli as soon as I return from Goa.

I am a little nervous about these camps, but very excited to go and really spend some time with the different members of the community. I hope that I have the chance to actually talk to people during the camps and that I won't be too stressed out about the next session or program or night activity or any other thing that will likely go awry. I also now have become such a part of weekly life here in the Bombay JCC that I feel a bit like I am abandoning ship by going away, but I know that life (and my classes here) can continue without me :) I'll be sure to update more as soon as I return. Wish me luck!

Mothers and Daughters

Last Sunday evening I attended the a ceremony at the Fort synagogue in the south of the city, welcoming a new Sefer Torah into the Baghdadi Synagogue. About 30-40 people were in attendance, mostly locals and some travelers, chatting politely as we waited for more to arrive and the ceremony to begin. An older Iraqi-born woman who has become a good friend told me about the event and even made sure the secretary of the Synagogue called me up to ask me to stay for dinner afterwards.

As it became dark we marched across the street to the elegent and stately Sassoon library where the Sefer Torah was being kept. The leader of the congregation went up and brought down the scrolls which are kept in a hard, circular container in the sephardic tradition. A chuppah ( bridal canopy) was opened and the cantor began chanting songs and cheers that the crowd repeated, and one by one, prominent male members of the Bahgdadi community, the Chabad rabbi and the Israeli Consul General took turns carrying the Torah to its new home.

One of the chants repeated that evening spoke about Avraham Avinu, stating that the Patriach Abraham would rejoice with us today. The cantor then playfully changed the name throughout the cheer-like chant, mentioning King David, Joseph, and of course, the Prophet Elijah. I smiled when the women of my people also received their due turns, with Sarah, Abraham's wife, Queen Esther and Rachel all being called up to rejoice with us at this time. Thus, these Jewish father and mother figures ( referred to by my family as 'the mommas and the poppas' during a song at the conclusion of the Passover Seder) accompanied us as we walked back to the synagogue.

That night after the delicious dinner, I went back for real coffee ( okay, it was Nescafe, but after weeks and weeks of sugary milky chai it feels great to drink something strong and black) at my Iraqi friends' house with another young woman who is here volunteering from Canada. Over our warm drinks the conversation turned to Mothers once again, as my Canadian friends' mother had called her nine times during the ceremony. Her mother was worried about her, as she had only arrived a few days earlier and hadn't yet sent an email that day. The Iraqi mother smiled knowingly, as her children now reside in Milan and New York, and I felt similarly connected with the women in the room. We were so far from home, so physically disconnected from families, but also so lucky to be able to pick up the phone, or use skype or email to send messages back.

As we were talking about the ups and downs of relationships between Jewish mothers and daughters, analyzing daughters as extensions of mothers, if arguing and fighting with mothers is a sign of closeness, my phone rang and I joked- it must be my mother. It turns out I was essentially right, and somehow halfway around the world my dear grandmother had been thinking of me at that very moment, and called just to make sure I was alright.

In front of the lens

A photographer from the U.S. has been here, documenting the work that the JDC is doing with endless photos and interviews, and I have been assigned to help. In between my regular schedule of classes, I have been running around Bombay, following the meals-on-wheels program and talking with the recipients as they receive their dabbas ( a multi-layered stacked lunchbox consisting of chapatti bread, rice, a vegetable and a curry dish); waking up early to go to Shacharit services at a synagogue; visiting the cash assistees in their homes, and finally traveling out to the lush village of Alibag where many on the welfare program currently live, and where many of the prominent individuals in the community once lived.

I think the photographers' constant clicking and ease (with two large cameras pointing outwards at all times, on crowded trains or bouncing rikshaw rides!) inspired me, to open my eyes as well and focus in on the details and life around me, though it may be hard. A small lizard almost disappeared into the wall at one of the houses we visited outside Thane, and the faint lines of where the floodwaters had reached a few weeks earlier were still visible only a foot down from the ceiling. Some of our visits were to elderly people, who have nothing left and are desperate to keep us there talking to them, a severely deformed man who lay on a blanket blessed me for coming to visit, as his caretakers son offered me a thums-up soda. Its been an intense experience, helping me see what is going on behind the scenes here, outside of the clean community center and the synagogues. I have learned more about individual people here in this community this last week, somehow it became easier to ask questions about peoples' lives when the camera is present.

at night I watch the news , and witness what has been going on back home thru others' videocamera lenses. TV stations here are all covering the the devastation of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. These unbelievable images of houses going underwater and families stuck on the roof are chilling, reminding me of those stranded here on the tops of the red BEST busses, forming human chains to cross streets that were covered in water. I couldn't believe the damage of the Monsoon here in Bombay, but in this city it almost seems that anything is possible. With the States, I think at times as Americans we ( perhaps foolishly) feel that we are safe from such things as Tsunamis and massive natural disasters, and so I am at loss for words with the disaster that is going on the states right now, the shoot-to-kill policy for looting, the horrifying lack of food and water, the deathtoll perhaps reaching into the thousands...Thousands.

I cant believe my capacity to make comparisons, but I guess that as an American living here in India it is only natural that I veiw the Monsoon here with thru an American lense and note the hurricane back home with Indian-tinted vision. Many of the occurences in the States echo with what happened here in response to the floods- the electric cut-outs, the lack of water and food, or rice and milk. The government criticized for not doing enough, not acting fast enough. Here people began throwing rocks at trains because they ran so infrequently, and a new ban on plastic bags ( a supposed culprit of drain-clogging) has been instated. But was there looting in the streets? Have gas prices here been as greatly affected? Are the stories of good samaritans just not being covered by the international news networks? Has anything been done here to prevent such a thing from happening again...

The lonely helicopter flying over the levys in Louisina, dropping a solitary sand bag into the waters does give me hope.

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