I have developed a kind of aural spatial perception of traffic over the last few weeks, enabling me to give just enough room for a rickshaw or car to pass without looking, or to know when to dive into the muck or off a cliff in the event of an approaching bus. Sometimes, however, the buses have deceptively high-pitched horns, leading one to believe a mere motorbike is encroaching. Both Sarina and I have had the occasion to look behind us casually only to behold the monstrous visage of "BABY JESUS" lettering the top of a hellbent deluxe-AC bus barrelling down on us. Needless to say this has scarred our psyches in ways unfathomable to the imperial proletariat.
The bus ride up the mountains to Munnar lasted approximately 4.5 hours, careening up through innumerable switchbacks and narrowly missing downward-bound traffic with remarkable accuracy. Regarding the ordeal with enormous levity, I began to question my sanity when I noticed the nervous terror etched into the miens of the local passengers, who numbered fewer and fewer the higher we climbed. One old woman seated directly in front of me leaned out to spew chunks; Sarina was listening to her IPod behind me and no doubt thought the spray to be a refreshing monsoon sprinkle. If I ever require extensive knowledge of momentum, inertia, topography, or surface tension, I will immediately seek a Keralan bus driver over say, a physicist or engineer. It is no wonder that the state provides a plurality of drivers to the rest of India, as well as to various Middle Eastern countries. I suspect that roller-coasters will be rather hum-drum from now on.
I saw my first wild monkey on a tree branch during the trip up.
I now much more fully appreciate the class in Collins' Ethnographic Field Methods in which we covered methodology informing theory and theory informing methodology. And studying anthropology has overall given me a subtle awareness of commonality and difference,
and has especially heightened my listening faculty (likely also due to experiences with Spanish and French). The people I meet are generally pleasantly surprised at my mimicry of pronunciation and ability to distinguish rapid speech.
I knew going into this that cultural anthropology is a discipline in many ways based on appreciating contradictions without erasing or reconciling them, but I still wonder whether India especially lends itself to confusion and contradiction.
In his original draft of Guerrilla Warfare, Che wrote that without the support of the people, a guerrilla band is reduced to mere banditry. However, in his incomplete revisions following the failed Congo experience, he noted this paragraph for deletion or correction.
Yesterday I rented a motorcycle with which to explore the surrounding mountains; it's a very old Bajaj 100cc 4-stroke, with flames on the side. I have never ridden a bike with a passenger, and our combined weight was enough that I dumped us within 30 seconds; our marijuana-toking rickshaw driver friends have been laughing ever since. I went to Top Station alone. I cannot begin to describe the joy that I felt riding up the 34 km to Top Station and back on this piece of crap machine, dodging cows, people, dogs, motor vehicles, landslides, and elephants. The village at the top was extremely small and incomparably friendly. The final stretch was on foot, down a long and perilous stone and dirt stairway, but the view into Tamil Nadu brought me to my knees. I took pictures, but they don't do any justice, especially considering the midday lighting. This computer won't read my memory card anyhow.
The bus ride up the mountains to Munnar lasted approximately 4.5 hours, careening up through innumerable switchbacks and narrowly missing downward-bound traffic with remarkable accuracy. Regarding the ordeal with enormous levity, I began to question my sanity when I noticed the nervous terror etched into the miens of the local passengers, who numbered fewer and fewer the higher we climbed. One old woman seated directly in front of me leaned out to spew chunks; Sarina was listening to her IPod behind me and no doubt thought the spray to be a refreshing monsoon sprinkle. If I ever require extensive knowledge of momentum, inertia, topography, or surface tension, I will immediately seek a Keralan bus driver over say, a physicist or engineer. It is no wonder that the state provides a plurality of drivers to the rest of India, as well as to various Middle Eastern countries. I suspect that roller-coasters will be rather hum-drum from now on.
I saw my first wild monkey on a tree branch during the trip up.
I now much more fully appreciate the class in Collins' Ethnographic Field Methods in which we covered methodology informing theory and theory informing methodology. And studying anthropology has overall given me a subtle awareness of commonality and difference,
and has especially heightened my listening faculty (likely also due to experiences with Spanish and French). The people I meet are generally pleasantly surprised at my mimicry of pronunciation and ability to distinguish rapid speech.
I knew going into this that cultural anthropology is a discipline in many ways based on appreciating contradictions without erasing or reconciling them, but I still wonder whether India especially lends itself to confusion and contradiction.
In his original draft of Guerrilla Warfare, Che wrote that without the support of the people, a guerrilla band is reduced to mere banditry. However, in his incomplete revisions following the failed Congo experience, he noted this paragraph for deletion or correction.
Yesterday I rented a motorcycle with which to explore the surrounding mountains; it's a very old Bajaj 100cc 4-stroke, with flames on the side. I have never ridden a bike with a passenger, and our combined weight was enough that I dumped us within 30 seconds; our marijuana-toking rickshaw driver friends have been laughing ever since. I went to Top Station alone. I cannot begin to describe the joy that I felt riding up the 34 km to Top Station and back on this piece of crap machine, dodging cows, people, dogs, motor vehicles, landslides, and elephants. The village at the top was extremely small and incomparably friendly. The final stretch was on foot, down a long and perilous stone and dirt stairway, but the view into Tamil Nadu brought me to my knees. I took pictures, but they don't do any justice, especially considering the midday lighting. This computer won't read my memory card anyhow.
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