If my plans to go to Nepal go through, this was my last Shabbos in Dharamsala. It was a pretty quiet one, especially because the power as out for most of it, but it's warm enough now that I don't need my heater during the day. A lot of people take a walk on Shabbos, but no way in hell was I going out after racing around trying to get errands done for the last few days with everything on an uphill slant. I'm somewhat packed, with only assorted things left to get done before leaving for Delhi Monday night. The only reason my trip isn't one hundred percent booked is I need to triple-check some new visa rules, because as of the month of March, India has decided to get needlessly restrictive about tourist visas and sometimes whether you can enter an airport is somewhat to the whims of the officer behind the desk, or so many people have told me despite the consulate's reassurances. India has always been a little silly about visas - it makes the volunteer and other visas needlessly hard to get (this may be a matter of national pride), so everyone gets the six month tourist visa and then violates it by doing things other than tourism. Some Lubavitchers were kicked out of Chochin last month for violating their tourist visa by holding religious services, though it's hard to really know what's up with that, as some Indian-Israeli politics and Pakistani threats may have been involved.
I am sad to be leaving Dharamsala, but not as sad as I thought I'd be when I started working here. This is an incredible place, but it's also exhausting, and I admire people who work here for a year or more. Many long term volunteers develop some kind of sickness that isn't necessarily related to external factors, or at least have severe weight gain/loss or insomnia by the end of their trip. I read a lot of unpublished travel memoirs because it's the kind of thing both my bosses are interested in at work and lots of people write them, so I know it's true even when people don't admit it outright. I've been very healthy this trip and very grateful for that fact, but I've also been sleeping a lot more in the States, partially because there's not a lot to do at night here and partially because I need to keep my health up.
The main thing still to do for the project is make transcripts from the audio files and get people's names written out in Tibetan script because it was something I promised backers at Kickstarter and for some reason like everyone chose that one and I totally forgot about it until Thursday. I might do one transcript as a literal transcript to show what the translator really said, because English is her third language (after Tibetan and Nepali) and there's a lot of interpretation going on into what she actually said and how I'm actually going to write it. Transcripts, as a general rule, take twice as long as the audio file, either because you keep stopping to write it down or you write really quickly the first time and have to go through it twice. And then there's historical notes explaining things after, which I will put in the file. That's plenty of work to do when I'm a zombie trying to stay awake in the US after I come home (I also plan to see "hunger Games" and whatever else is playing in the middle of the morning and is shiny and loud).
There may be another post here in India, there may not. For people to whom this is a concern, please note that my Indian cell phone will not be on after Tuesday, and email will be the way to reach me again until April 2nd.
No comments:
Post a Comment