11 July 2012

7 July - New Delhi

Day one is usually for acclimation unless I'm on an assignment and schedules are tight.

In the breakfast room I met a young woman named Jen, a Spanish teacher from Florida working in the summer as a flight coordinator for a youth tour company. She ushers high-schoolers from home to the destination country, hangs out a bit, and escorts them back. She's slated for a city tour today, and I'm slated for the Internet check-in, ATM hunt, and catching up on any lost sleep. We agree to meet this evening.


During the day I took care of such errands as email, arranging my room, surfing the web, and then, finally, when I could delay it no longer, getting out of the hotel for that first solo walk about the hood. This is necessary to conquer the 'I-don't-know-anything-this-is-so-foreign-I-think-I'll-just stay-in-my-room mentality. My goal: ATM finding.

TRAVELER'sTIP  I can't remember the last time I exchanged foreign currency during my International travels. Airports all seem to have ATMs; I tend to have some currency on hand from previous trips; and the transaction fees from ATMS are often far less than exchange fees.

It was a relatively short walk. Down the alley. Turn left onto the side road, Esplande. Walk to the main street. Cross. Bank is on the right. Relatively simple. But here are the instructions they don't give: 
1. Ignore the stares and laughs of men. 
2. Don't panic when you don't see another female until the main road. 
3. Watch out for the homeless dogs and men lying about. 
4. When turning out of the alley, stay in the road as the sidewalk is virtually non-existent. 
5. Be prepared to walk sideways between bicycle taxis on your left and cars and human-drawn carts on your right. 
6. Don't step in the mud. 
7. When crossing the street, find something moving and walk parallel quickly sidestepping to the right in any open space. 
8. Repeat #7 until arrival on the other side. 

Seriously. Isn't there a gaming app called 'Need for Survival: Walking in Chandni Chowk.?'

The miracle wasn't getting to the bank. The miracle was there was cash in the ATM. I was grateful to discover this after having to fight for my place in line. I'm learning Indians (particularly men) have a loose idea of 'line.' The ride from the airport should have prepared me for that.

A rest in the afternoon, and then Jen and I met up for the Cinema. Awesome! Bollywood in Delhi! We were two of about 6 women and two hundred men in the one-theatre cinema. The movie: Bol Balchan. It was a calvacade of Bollywood favorites in an uproariously funny plot of mis-identity, dual-identity, and non-stop action. 3 hours long with Intermission. In Hindi, lightly peppered with the odd English phrase, such as "Hard work is the keyhole to saxophone."



Back outside, it was now after 10pm. Even at night, the same rules applied. Walking sideways over the mud and quickly sidestepping pavement-sleepers, we made our back.

08 July 2012

Arrival in Delhi

On your first visit to India, you must ride in the front seat as you leave the airport. This will prepare you for your visit. The streets in any Indian city are a microcosm of life. I am convinced.

As my driver carefully kept the middle of the car centered over the white dotted line, I marveled at his calm while more frenetic drivers jostled to the left and right blowing their horns like it would make a difference. Though the highway was marked three-lanes, the actual number was in constant flux.

Perhaps the streets are a better picture of India vs. The West. My driver is India: following his own clock, making his own lane, and enjoying the scenery along the way. The crazy drivers blowing their horns and careening past bicyclists, tuk-tuks and other cars? It's the Western way of life: get where you can as fast as you can and never mind the cow in the road.

I like the Indian idea of life. Take it as it comes. Things aren't always what they seem, so one can rarely judge. 

My hotel, for example: When Sahid pulled up in the midst of the cycle market in Old Delhi at 11pm, it looked like a beehive of nefarious activity. Men and boys everywhere doing something, talking, yelling, hanging around... all amidst a background of greasy parts, scattered bikes, and human life. And just down there, a tiny dark alley, is Tara Palace, my driver says assuredly.

The dingy door sign, lit sporadically by the quintessential flashing neon sign above, indicates it was indeed the correct alley. 


Fortunately, I've traveled enough in the developing world to know what's behind the door is often very different than what is lying in the street. While I may have had a bit of apprehension, it wasn't even bordering on 'worry.'

Sure enough, when I stepped into a cool, immaculate marble lobby, I raised my eyes heavenward, smiled, and whispered 'Thanks.'



05 June 2012

The Hidden Cost of Eco-Tourism


While poring through my photo library for a pending project, I came across these images from a past project in Uganda with Hurinet, a Human Rights organization. 

This project was in 2006, and it is never far from my mind. These people live in the most abject poverty I have witnessed. The Batwa Pygmys (along with other indigenous groups in the Bwindi Forest bordering Uganda, DR Congo and Rwanda) were physically ejected from their ancestral forests in the name of 'Eco-Tourism.' 

The three settlements I visited were each just outside the forest perimeter. These people who were raised as caretakers of the forest were forced out without an alternative place to live or being taught alternative skills to survive in the foreign agrarian society they now find themselves. Ostracized by the local villagers, forgotten by the very government that forced them out, they are truly living life on the edge.

These are some of the faces of Eco-tourism gone wrong.


(Please note: all images are copyright Cheryl Nemazie, all rights reserved. Please send me for usage enquiries. Thank you!)

Wife of the Tribal Leader sits by her doorway in the Nyakabungo settlement
outside the Bwindi Forest.

Without a vocabulary to converse in the past, nor words for the future, Batwa men are in limbo following their forced extradition from their ancestral forest.


A Batwa woman nurses her child at the Rwamahano Settlement in Uganda.

Forced from ancestral forests, outcast from local villages, a Batwa child sits in a field somewhere in between the two.

Poverty and ostracization denies Batwa children access to government-run schools. This boy attends a school funded by a Human Rights organization within his Rwamahano settlement.

Human Rights group HURINET works with local NGOs in targeting exceptional Batwa children to attend a village school with the hope of equipping them to advocate for their people's future.