dispatch from London

the irony... of falling ill now, here ... is it a late manifestation of Delhi Belly? Was it the terrible food on the plane (I was so appalled that I complained to BA). The 12 degrees temperature difference? Exhaustion?

crap.

But I found inspiration for interior design :)

Last dispatch before takeoff

Was rather happy to leave Goa's monsoon embrace where the weather-feeling increasingly resembled the UK: everything damp, nothing dries; the dogs of the hostel (giant "puppies") gnawed through everything not locked away, including some of my clothing from the washing line; where neither digs, flies or Indian men leave you alone/take no for an answer; and the selfie culture, the spitting and staring makes me feel like an alien.

• I've forgotten how it feels to be really dirty. The goddamn cow shit everywhere, the rudeness and lousy service, something: " yes?! What do you want!"

• The feeling of driving on a scooter fast at night, dodging cows sleeping on the road - I swear they know they are holy and do not give a f.. -

• I like the girls who always smile sweetly back, and never has it felt so good to see young women in pants, in make-up and Western clothing.

• The strange white South Africans who say they've "never seen such poverty" and complain about the lack of meat variety - only veg and chicken does not fulfill nutritional needs, they say...

• Harassed by tuk-tuks who slow down when they see me so it's even more difficult to cross the street, and regularly almost run over by crazy driving.. Several times a day I see cars and these little bee-colored tuk-tuk-taxis on the wrong side of the street, they don't speak English and take you god-knows where...

• Shopkeepers follow you around, standing in your way. Aurora's theory (lovely French girl who works at the alliance française and invited me to stay at  hers in Mumbai) on this us that they want to confuse you so you buy more than you want. In my case, it results in me buying nothing,unfortunately 

• Why all the hairdressers in Goa? I swear people must be cutting their hair at unreasonable rates...

• People are incredibly rude in public, pushy bordering on harassment,inconsiderate, yet privately incredibly willing to be helpful,polite, generous, interested. So many sweet and funny and warm people.

• I feel you can judge the existence and wellbeing of a given civil society by the way it treats its pedestrians. Just look at sidewalks. Are there any,or are the carless ranks not judged worthy of treading safely, comfortably.
•  I really want to get home now, though, too stressful.. Goa was lovely and gorgeous until the monsoon came back, now I'm in Mumbai feeling hackled and struggling with this neo-colonial/do-gooder dichotomy that seems to be the only option.. Dislike the supremacist expats and the yogi-bubbles alike.
• Trying out Mumbai street food: puri, pav bhaji, Ragda pattie, and finally one I found delicious, dosa with coconut chutney... Mjammm!

Some (more serious ?) thoughts

The picture taking is madness and driving me increasingly insane, especially when your "no," your voice, is not respected.
What do they do with those pictures? Do they collect and exchange, do they jerk off on them? It does not matter how exhausted you look, unwashed, eating a potato, the picture is there,in your face.

I'm trying to think it's karma payback for.centuries of white exploitation, fetishization, orientalism etc but it's poor consolation.

The bargaining makes me paranoid, and I dislike most of the co-travellers' paranoia and anxiety over everything, as if everyone is out to get you. Why do we come here? It's like two entrenched sides, the disdainful neo-colonialists and the fantasies of those who "go native" and feel very holy about it. I don't find a niche I would want to be in, and the pull to "sort yourself" is surprisingly strong, as soon as you talk to (or rather, are being talked to) Western tourists. Very old very young people, and many many Germans..

Also, no real supermarkets. I'm in full withdrawal.

Everybody's bathing

Lush green Goa.
Cuddle-greedy stray (?) dogs on the beach, giant brightly colored butterflies, mouse-eating ravens, neon caterpillars, eagles, caravans of cows passing by, morning yoga, unbothered by friendly fishermen.

Helpful people from the toilet lady to people on the bus; I can ask young men for help and they are just eager,polite and lovely. The Portuguese style houses, in full decay admidst the greenery, are soothing to my eyes (even though the green, oddly, is not entirely unlike Leamington, only in warmer)

Goans are lovely - less staring, less or no selfies (with you in it), much less "in your face", less business forced on you, better English all around and, stereotype permitting, like all Indians, they are funny...
Odd observations:
- why the repetitions? Things are usually said twice or three times, sometimes by rhetorically changing the word order ("guys, what is yoga? Yoga is Union. Union, that is the meaning of yoga.")
- There is true creativity in the spelling of dishes on the menus (Greak salad and stakes)

When I arrived there was a day of.almost complete rain but yesterday and today were so sunny I got enough sunburn to last me day in stare capital Panjim (next stop).



Now it feels a bit as if I had been in a cult, from the complete dryness and vegetarianism of the town, where each piece of tofu, paneer or egg had to be struggled and dearly paid for. Daal, cabbage, and oily same-spiced food evey day. I'm so over this.

Greetings from rainy Goa

Trying to make sense of the experience

Tomorrow are the last tests and lessons, and then there will be graduation: another fire ceremony and people are ordering saris left and right (not me). At night I'll take the train to Delhi with Alessio and hand around at the airport until my flight to via and the next part of the journey.
And then there will be more time for reflection, perhaps.
At times I was frustrated with the teaching and the course and not getting more out of it and how the group and its dynamics were so distracting. But today I thought that not only did this offer important corrections and reminders to my self-narratives, but it makes sense to search for a saner, healthier, more spiritual and truthful way of being and living with others, not as an island - which lately had been my problem with therapy. Although this bubble here is therapy.
It's also odd having this experience after the PhD bubble - where these relationships were formed over years of shared marinating/misery. Maybe that too is why I feel a bit less thrown into feelings of eternal bonding and friendships here.

Tuesday: last tests I almost blatantly cheated. I'm weirdly bored but I still have better things to do with my time than learning Sanskrit sutras by heart.
Now I feel oddly deflated. Lucky that Amy is here, who is wonderful and openly states she doesn't like the group.
I'm exhausted from the honking and hassling and the heat and the constant struggle to find food that seems yummy (definitely majorly missing proteins and umami here) and safe. From watered down canned tomatoes soul, daal every day, sugar in everything, even tofu and paneer as a hard-to-get delicatesse. I've started overeating majorly on snacks, as have the others, and it's really weird to overeat on unhealthy food you don't even particularly enjoy.
Tomorrow is the graduation, everyone but me is getting saris made. I feel very estranged again from this whole thing.

Tomorrow are the last tests and lessons, and then there will be graduation: another fire ceremony and people are ordering saris left and right (not me). At night I'll take the train to Delhi with Alessio and hand around at the airport until my flight to via and the next part of the journey.
And then there will be more time for reflection, perhaps.
At times I was frustrated with the teaching and the course and not getting more out of it and how the group and its dynamics were so distracting. But today I thought that not only did this offer important corrections and reminders to my self-narratives, but it makes sense to search for a saner, healthier, more spiritual and truthful way of being and living with others, not as an island - which lately had been my problem with therapy. Although this bubble here is therapy.
It's also odd having this experience after the PhD bubble - where these relationships were formed over years of shared marinating/misery. Maybe that too is why I feel a bit less thrown into feelings of eternal bonding and friendships here.

Tuesday: last tests I almost blatantly cheated. I'm weirdly bored but I still have better things to do with my time than learning Sanskrit sutras by heart.
Now I feel oddly deflated. Lucky that Amy is here, who is wonderful and openly states she doesn't like the group.
I'm exhausted from the honking and hassling and the heat and the constant struggle to find food that seems yummy (definitely majorly missing proteins and umami here) and safe. From watered down canned tomatoes soul, daal every day, sugar in everything, even tofu and paneer as a hard-to-get delicatesse. I've started overeating majorly on snacks, as have the others, and it's really weird to overeat on unhealthy food you don't even particularly enjoy.
Tomorrow is the graduation, everyone but me is getting saris made. I feel very estranged again from this whole thing.

Trying to make sense of the experience

Tomorrow are the last tests and lessons, and then there will be graduation: another fire ceremony and people are ordering saris left and right (not me). At night I'll take the train to Delhi with Alessio and hand around at the airport until my flight to via and the next part of the journey.
And then there will be more time for reflection, perhaps.
At times I was frustrated with the teaching and the course and not getting more out of it and how the group and its dynamics were so distracting. But today I thought that not only did this offer important corrections and reminders to my self-narratives, but it makes sense to search for a saner, healthier, more spiritual and truthful way of being and living with others, not as an island - which lately had been my problem with therapy. Although this bubble here is therapy.
It's also odd having this experience after the PhD bubble - where these relationships were formed over years of shared marinating/misery. Maybe that too is why I feel a bit less thrown into feelings of eternal bonding and friendships here.

Tuesday: last tests I almost blatantly cheated. I'm weirdly bored but I still have better things to do with my time than learning Sanskrit sutras by heart.
Now I feel oddly deflated. Lucky that Amy is here, who is wonderful and openly states she doesn't like the group.
I'm exhausted from the honking and hassling and the heat and the constant struggle to find food that seems yummy (definitely majorly missing proteins and umami here) and safe. From watered down canned tomatoes soul, daal every day, sugar in everything, even tofu and paneer as a hard-to-get delicatesse. I've started overeating majorly on snacks, as have the others, and it's really weird to overeat on unhealthy food you don't even particularly enjoy.
Tomorrow is the graduation, everyone but me is getting saris made. I feel very estranged again from this whole thing.

Recaps

Saturday: Yay! Done my teaching and was really quite uncharacteristically pleased with myself. :) it's hard to tell - none gets or gives proper feedback; everybody is amazing and did a great job. Which is true, I think, but everybody also has room to improve... My class was after rubber girl Vivian's extremely cardio focused class, on a Saturday of the fourth week, so people were exhausted

Sunday: Great things today: early morning yanga yoga, then extensive street chai tea. Several really great conversations; Ayurveda massage as "Sunday fun day" activity. Found nice Tibetan earrings.
Less great things: usual splitting headache - rain related?

We wanted to watch a Bollywood film but were thwarted by technology so we ended up with Breakfast at Tiffany's

Vatta, Pitta, Kapha

Also, since we have an Ayurveda practitioner in our midst, people are lining up to become diagnosed and that stuff actually makes a lot of sense to me. It's not so rigid - the types change over time and with imbalances and we have a dominant and a secondary dosha - but a lot of behaviour and patterns I am drawn to or observed others being drawn to, fit quite neatly, and clashes make more sense now, as well as typical food preferences.
You can see, I am mentally diagnosing my friends and family.. :)

More animal metaphors

There is a general mutiny cooking up. People are pissed about the food (repetitive, non-tasty, lacking in vegetables and protein).  That seems to be the iniator, along with the ridiculous amount of exams in this final week which co-exists with "killing time" lessons. Even though class attendance is taken and obligatory, I skip these kinds of lessons now more liberally.
Of course, that doesn't stop half the course from gobbling up everything else as amazing truth, whenever there is another story of anectodal evidence of yoga healing the paralyzed and Ayurveda against cancer.

The whole thing has definitely put me off the idea of a guru, which seems to be the style here: don't question the teacher. Just believe. Not-belief is a weakness in you. Great excuse for not having to explain stuff.

But honestly, I really feel quite happy ( of course this makes me dread the end of this feeling)
The end is near and I don't care as much, which is a relief. I've had some wonderful lessons from the fellow yogis, including hatha which could finally be fun. I've found those people I like, and I feel a more generous spirit towards those I dislike, something akin to "you too, weird annoying animal that I don't care for, have a right to live in peace. Fare thee well." And the general disenchantment means I feel less like the mole of negativity and more like a wise (&slightly smug) woman with life experience who called it from the beginning.
Tomorrow I teach Vinyasa, the one assignment that I am anxious about, but even that is getting better.. I'll live to tell the tale :)

It's odd - I wrote my last complaint but actually things have quite turned by now. I found those I click with, they do actually seem to like me and I have begun to trust this. And that makes such a huge difference.
I'm still exhausted and cranky about the terrible scheduling but I feel more encouraged than I have felt in a long time, to follow my heart, to accept and befriend myself, to allow art back into my life.

Maybe I just slow. Where others seem to be besties after half a week, I need three to thaw. Also, I emancipated myself today fro!m the more idiotic parts of the programme - dancing in yoga therapy and thinking of teachers we are grateful for - and then the terribly taught hatha yoga, as well as meditation because it suckjs the way it's done, I have a headache, and I wanted to finish my flow for Saturday but there is no internet. Did I mentione that the amount of presentations and exams is ridiculous?

Premlata

Yes, that is my hindi name.
Supposedly it means something like "the tree of life that curls around another tree" (a vine?) but that could well be made up; we obviously all got names that "mean" angel, beautiful sunset, shining light etc. It is quite ridiculous how bad much of the teaching is: on the one hand, attendance is obligatory and we have a gazillion assignments, tests and presentations now, on the other hand hours are wasted talking out admin stuff: who wants to be in which group on which day, then let's do savasana together or sleeping yoga..

Co-yogis, ramblings, and pictures

It's hard to describe why this is so hard. It's 3.5 hours of yoga 6 days a week, but most of that is not cardio, especially the hatha is sometimes even numbingly slow. We sit on the floor almost all the time, it is humid and hot and even though I shower at least three times a day it is hard not to almost always feel covered with a flimsy film of sweat, dust, and humidity.
I barely gain strength and frequently overeat on "healthy" cookies, which annoys me but it's hard to@ deal again with the stress of tests, assignments, teachings.
Emotionally, this is hardcore work for everyone, hope open or closed.

I'm just going to tell you about those I really like here. There is Ayurveda-Andrea, the Scot Nicole who I shared the taxi with from Delhi, she just quit her job as a primary school teacher.
Mercifully Renée, an admirable and hilarious Australian lady gets my dry humour. She will go do the Nepal/Himalaya base camp after this and looks rocking being at least 40. I chat often to Kristen (U.S.) who just spent two Years with the peacecorps in Ghana and is a born yoga teacher. Finally there is also Vivian, Korean-American who is made of rubber, looks like a magazine beauty, came late and, probably because she is so beautiful, is very unassuming and quite goofy.

The Germans are an odd bunch who.might merit their own post..

I thought more about the reiki woman and my own" visions" when she massaged me. I thought at first it was the stuff she would tell me - right when she started at my head, I had an image of myself about to be burnt as a witch, having been betrayed, somebody pulling my hair strongly and I was offering no defense, completely depleted.
I think that might have been my subconsciousness offering me images for this persistent notion I have of myself: that I am somehow toxic for people, I bring them down, I am negative, and the resolve is not to get too close, especially not to people I care about, to protect them from myself, and generally to be guarded in social settings. It makes me so sad to realise that this is what I am doing; I don't know where that idea came from, I only know it is very old.

Yesterday a group of us burnt intentions for/to the new moon/the universe, and we said what we were thankful for, sitting on the roof of our hotel. It was Amy's idea (another one I like a lot, a doctor from Australia). I wish I'd had this in my early twenties (most of them seem to be around 23). The  girls do give each other so much love, and they are never excluding.
Yet I feel separate from it. Maybe it's what that reiki lady meant when she said that I don't trust the universe. I forgot to say that I was actually very relieved that she did NOT say omg your toxic energy is hurting my crystals, away with you..