So where did I leave off…

Jaipur & the Neerja Modi School Experience:

Three months ago I would have never imagined that I would be wishing to go back to Jaipur, or even India for that matter.  It was dirty; here is what was right outside of the school’s walls:

How the heck do I miss it?!  But now, I realize that it might just be the bout of food poisoning and the food-borne illnesses I contracted for the last couple of weeks that made me dislike the country… or at least it’s sanitary problems.

What I have caught myself missing is the constant hustle and bustle of India.  Flagging down a rickshaw and bartering your ride to the city center down to a dollar.  Trying to understand just what they mean when they do the ‘head bob’ – yes? no? what?!  I miss the food – palak paneer, naan, dal marahni, aaloo dum.  And I miss the students, but not so much the teaching…

The Neerja Modi School (NMS) was a great school, filled to the brim with students motivated to learn.  Albeit, learn math and science.  Not so much the arts, which is what I was assigned to teach.  Having graduated from schools that pride themselves in the arts, it was sad to see what I believe to be a great foundation to many disciplines, brushed to the side as it was at NMS.

I was supposed to have full control of how my 11^th grade art class would be taught.  That was not the case as soon as my first assignment was issued: write a paragraph about your favorite piece of art, using both subjective and objective reasoning.  My fellow art teachers told me there should be no writing involved in art and immediately took control of the reigns – apparently I am not cut out to be a teacher.

So what was supposed to be an exciting experiment to bring art to a higher standard at Neerja Modi, actually turned into me giving feedback to student work.  I did get a little leeway when it came to the students wanting to learn how to use photoshop, the only problem was that they had one computer to share between 10 students.  I brought my Macbook to class only to realize that everything I was teaching them wasn’t relevant to the their software, circa 1997.

Apart from the teaching, NMS was fun.  We played games and sports with the students,

shared insights on our respective cultures ( – the school was very strict and the students were not allowed to have much in their possessions, and not allowed to have candy… they had to sneak in this birthday cake…),

and I got to teach one pretty smart 7 year old how to use my camera, when it wasn’t monsooning:

Which seemed to be most of the time.  =)

More to come now that I’m finally getting into a schedule!  Up next will be Ms. Molly (aminnesotalife.wordpress.com) and Tanya’s visit to Jaipur, pictures from around Jaipur and the Pink City, the markets and our 3 day adventure to Jaisalmer.

Every doorway had a new area to explore.  A new sight to see.  A different style of design: carvings, paintings, stonework, stained glass and more mirrors.

Of course, what fun would a fort be if you couldn’t climb it?  Note – I’m pretty sure this wasn’t allowed:

There were also some more legit viewing areas though, too!

And don’t forget about the snake charmers!  Little known fact: the snakes don’t actually move to the sound of the music, but the charmer’s sway of his instrument.

There are about a thousand pictures I took of the Amber Fort, but I’m afraid I’d bore you.  So I’ll leave you with this final image encompassing all that is great about Indian transportation; rickshaws, tour buses, motorcycles, cars, pedestrians and elephants.

I love this Fort.  And will show my love for it in pictures.

This post is really just about my secret love for painted elephants…

I promise no more elephants, since it was only a 20 minute journey up to the fort.  We undocked and climbed the stairs to the entrance of the first open courtyard.

This fort was massive and very well preserved.  No other fort has retained the original details the way that the Amber Fort has.  More to come on the Amber Fort, the rest of my stay in Jaipur, a weekend trip to Jaisalmer to ride camels in the desert, and my return to the Minny (including my first ever engagement photo session with Abby + David)!  Stay tuned!

Again, India likes grandeur.  Everything is massive.  Including the Taj complex.  So many people only pay attention to just the Taj Mahal and disregard the rest of the complex, which is equally as beautiful.  You first enter a large, walled courtyard with just a glimpse of the monument showing .

As soon as you turn down the central lane, you get this view:

Had we gotten there any earlier, this had the potential to be a pretty cool picture (thanks for ruining it, Patrick =).  And finally, you reach the inner courtyard and proceed to take thousands of pictures of the same thing in a variety of ways, enjoy:

Interesting tidbit: the four towers lean slightly outward to adjust for the imperfections of the human eye to make everything appear completely symmetrical.

Jumping pictures are always appropriate.  And close-ups of all the details; I love, love, love Islamic calligraphy – so beautiful!  And the religion is as fascinating as it is misunderstood by the West – if you ever get a chance to take a course in Islam (esp. at CSB/SJU with Armajani), I highly recommend it!

Some people in our group didn’t even wander into the other buildings surrounding the Taj.  They missed out on some incredible Indo-Islamic design in the right-side mosque:

When you are on the actual white granite part of the Taj Mahal, you leave your shoes at the staircase; when it has rained, it is extremely slipper!

A big congratulations goes out to Gar and Kolleen Kellom, who welcomed into the world two twin grandchildren while we were at the Taj.  Gar – “someday I’ll bring them to the Taj and tell them, ‘while you were being born, I was sitting right here”:

After the few hours (to little in my opinion..), we took off for our final destination in the tour of the Golden Triangle and drop off point for Patrick, Ryan and myself, the desert city of Jaipur.  It was a long drive, made longer by traffic jams on the highway, backed up for hours…

Agra was a quick 23 hour stop.  We came, we saw, we ‘awed’.  We started our journey in the late afternoon from Delhi, with a involuntary tea brake along the way (our driver asked us if we wanted to stop, we declined, but this is India folks: you never turn down an opportunitiy for tea. Never.).  Before going to our hotel, we stopped at the famous Agra Fort.  If it wasn’t for the elephants at the Amber Fort (next post), I’d say this was my favorite fort…

… it was a massive complex.  Since I have to run, here is a sneak peak at Agra: Part ‘do’ (2)… =)