Read an Excerpt
Finding Duong, Finding Myself
A Journey of Socially Conscious Travel and Personal Healing
By Robyn Ramsay BALBOA PRESS
Copyright © 2011 Robyn Ramsay
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4525-0345-5
Chapter One
The ledge dwellers of Shimla.
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. Woodrow Wilson.
My extraordinary journey through Vietnam is the primary focus of this story but the story did not begin there. I want to take the reader back to the beginning. The original ideas and impetus for my fundraising efforts; my tour of Vietnam, how the funds raised were distributed, and my desire for socially conscious travel, had their beginnings in a mountain town called Shimla, in the region of Himachal Pradesh in Northern India.
For many years a heartfelt yearning to explore the cities and villages of India, had lain dormant within. It seemed exotic, much more enticing than the safe annual trip to Europe or perhaps to America. Friends had shared their experiences of India and I craved the adventure and the unknown, to feel that I was truly in the thick of things, to feel the pulse of life. I wanted to smell the spices, the incense, the cow dung; to experience bustling markets, overcrowded streets, tooting taxis and the odd elephant in amongst the traffic. Likewise, I anticipated the colours of India; the bright saris, stunning temples, gorgeous sunrises and dusky, atmospheric sunsets that had featured in so many films I had seen over the years.
Stories and accounts from friends had surely left me well prepared for yet another aspect of travel in India. As my partner Gary and I worked on our travel plans and a basic itinerary which included some of the poorest regions in India, I was aware we would undoubtedly witness sights that could prove confronting. I had braced myself accordingly for the poverty that was undoubtedly going to reveal itself as the journey unfolded.
Several days after landing at Delhi in November 2008, Gary and I set out in our small hire car to commence our Indian adventure. We travelled north, away from the heat and smog of the city towards the high mountain town of Shimla, a mecca to Indian and foreign tourists alike. The weather was beginning to turn colder and the late afternoon sun had little warmth. Our car climbed steadily higher and higher during the day, into mountainous countryside, with distant views of high ranges covered with tall pine trees. These panoramas I would normally associate with European countryside. It was easy to understand why this region, with its cooler climate and beautiful mountain views, had become popular with the British in the former days of colonial rule.
Upon our arrival, the town of Shimla appeared prosperous and was certainly buzzing with activity. We drove higher up into the steep and narrow main streets where the hotels were located. Above this level of the town, and accessed in several places by steep stairs, was an extensive pedestrian mall which I looked forward to exploring. We found our way to a cosy, atmospheric hotel, positioned to take in sights of the amazing deep valleys in many directions far below us. The hotel heating was turned on and the room comfortably warm, but it was time to access the fur boots, hat and scarf that I had been advised to pack. Bracing myself for the cold mountain air, I stepped out for a stroll, eager to explore this pretty town after the heat and pollution of the massive city of Delhi that we had left on the plains far below. Gary was content to remain in the hotel to recover from the long drive. As a fellow traveller, his pace was generally slower and calmer than mine. He was always content to spend a great deal of time sketching, journaling or writing poetry. I frequently set off alone on something of a reconnaissance mission, getting my bearings and taking in the sights well before my travel companion joined me.
Shimla was clearly something of an Indian paradise. There were colourful markets stretched along narrow stairways, leading uphill towards the mall high above. Every imaginable item was available here. Spice stalls, fried food vendors and tea sellers with tiny shop fronts, shared the steep steps with clothing, home wares and toy stalls which were only metres in width. There were odd items hanging over the street at eye level and this made climbing upwards a challenge. Buckets, carved wooden stools, colourful saris and bags of pappadams hung in random places along the sides of the street. This ensured that locals and tourists had to duck and weave their way through; ever mindful of holes in the steep concrete steps underfoot.
I emerged quite suddenly from these tightly knit alleyways of intense commerce, out onto the open, expansive and relatively uncrowded pedestrian mall, which is famous in Shimla. The Indian couples promenading along this street were generally well dressed. Women in particular, were wearing the most beautiful saris and their arms were heavy with dozens of colourful glass bangles. This intrigued me because as a civil marriage celebrant in Australia, I had read that this town was a popular destination for young, recently married couples. The wearing of many such bangles is a traditional Indian acknowledgment of marriage.
Above the level of the promenading couples, another unexpected and striking sight caught my eye. Dozens of monkeys were perched on the rooftops, looking down over the street from high window sills, or swinging from tree branches further along the mall. There were females carrying babies, playful youngsters chasing each other and elderly monkeys quietly observing the passing throng below. It was an odd sight indeed in this street of coffee houses and tourist shops filled with travel books, polo shirts and cashmere sweaters.
Essentially the mall was a wide street positioned along the high ridgeline, and the architecture was quintessentially British. If the street before me had been deserted, it could have been a setting in Sussex or Devon. Beyond the Tudor and Victorian facades of this mall, and zigzagging down the mountainside, were the distinctly Indian markets and innumerable stalls which I had witnessed earlier. A quarter of the world's population had once been ruled from this town that had been the summer capital of British India from 1864 until 1939. The viceroy and his entourage had travelled each summer from the hot and dusty plains below, to seek refuge in the cool, crisp air of Shimla. The ascent to the mountains for Raj families from early in the twentieth century had been made easier by the construction of a small railway line. This had further opened up the town and led to the building of opulent mansions, public buildings and British styled churches that appeared as a complete recreation of England.
Having explored a small area of this mall and the shops filled with tourist goods, I began my descent to the hotel before the cool evening air became too uncomfortable. Generally I am quite proficient at navigating my way through areas I have only briefly visited. Shimla's network of market alleyways however, was larger than it had first appeared. As the light faded I became hopelessly lost. The stalls I passed did not look familiar and a few wrong turns here and there, took me away from the well lit wider streets. I entered several small unpaved alleyways. These in turn led to the side of an ancient brick wall, ancient iron gates and a set of dangerous, crumbling stone steps. These walkways were no more than a metre wide at times. I repeatedly retraced my steps trying to find a familiar section of the market, while local residents stared curiously at me from behind doorways and windows.
I felt intrusive and a little alarmed in the very narrow spaces, imagining myself in danger of being robbed in these dingy, dead end alleyways. There was a timeless, almost medieval atmosphere about these secluded areas of old Shimla. This was an astonishing contrast to the wide and well lit mall, with its enormous and opulent, wrought iron street lamps. The inhabitants at this level clearly lived in overcrowded conditions, in tiny stone houses that cascaded randomly one on top of the other, down the slopes of the mountain. The residents here appeared to enjoy few of the benefits of modernisation witnessed in the colonial township above.
That first evening I inadvertently wandered many kilometres away from the direction of our hotel. I eventually identified a corner where local Indians had congregated at a stall earlier that afternoon, seated on small stools and consuming fried sweet pastry balls from a giant wok filled with hot oil. At any other time I would have joined them to sample these tasty looking treats, however I was intent on returning to the hotel to share my experiences. Gary listened to the description of my wanderings and together we planned our evening out on the town. We subsequently identified that same sweet stall with its massive oil cooker, as something of a location marker. It enabled us to find our way back to our hotel after dinner and a late night stroll.
The following morning at dawn we experienced a magnificent sight from the window of our hotel room. Rays of sunshine were reaching the town and slowly melting small icicles that had formed from the rooftops during the night. I arose excited at the prospect of returning to the mall for a promenade, but more so, to thoroughly explore and to lose my way yet again in the narrow market streets with their interesting wares. Gary and I agreed to rendezvous late morning at the fried food stall, to sample the tempting sweets.
Shimla was truly proving to be a wonderful choice to begin our Indian travels. It was a town where we could wander aimlessly and discover new sights fascinating to the western eye. We followed a trail of monkeys to beautiful parkland not far from the town and bought traditional knitted mohair socks, from a display of local village handicrafts. Returning to the hotel with the intention of taking an afternoon rest, I once again felt that strong desire to explore the market alleyways before nightfall. Gary failed to understand my impulsive decision, given that I had become hopelessly lost if not a little afraid the previous night.
Attempting to find a new shortcut that would lead more directly from the hotel to town, I found myself walking downwards along a dirt pathway in the fading afternoon light. Approximately fifty metres from our hotel, tucked just out of sight around a bend and underneath the roadway, I came upon a sight that has remained imprinted in my memory. A very different scene and way of life in Shimla, was revealed to me in that moment. To my left on a wide dirt ledge up higher than eye level, I could see grey figures moving about. Turning briefly towards the ledge I could just make out the figures of several adults and children, however I felt intrusive and hesitant to take a closer look. Instead I had the urge to quickly walk away, feeling that I was virtually in the living room of a family group living right there in the dirt. They had also witnessed a stranger looking in their direction and I consequently experienced a sense of entrapment, as several tiny children surged down the steep sides of the ledge towards me.
The individuals in the group gathered there were particularly small in stature and it was obvious that they were malnourished. They all appeared at first glance to be dressed in grey clothes, as if wearing some sort of grubby uniform. The four children had severely matted hair and runny, snotty noses. I was struck by their remarkably white teeth, which was in contrast to the drabness of their external appearance. Their ages ranged from about three to perhaps ten years old, although this was impossible to accurately gauge given their thin frames. They gathered around me with hands outstretched, pleading for money. It was clearly a routine and well practiced performance. I am ashamed to admit that my first impulse was to avoid being touched by the little grasping hands and to make a run for it. The whole scene and the situation I now found myself in had totally caught me off guard.
A woman I estimated to be in her late thirties came slowly down from the dirt ledge towards me, following after the children. She too was bedraggled and painfully thin. Her arms cradled a tiny baby, who had the large eyes and small face of a child who is simply not receiving enough food to thrive. From a sling around her shoulder, the baby stared at me with a dull fixed gaze. The group surrounded me, clearly anticipating a gift of rupees. I was simply overwhelmed by the whole situation; their poor condition and my own feelings of entrapment and awkwardness.
Complex emotions besieged me that afternoon, triggering memories from an experience some twenty five years earlier. I had not seen children in such bedraggled condition since the late eighties when I worked with Regional Aboriginal Health, located in the far northwest town of Broome, Australia. At that time I was employed to train indigenous health care workers who would return to their own remote, outlying communities in the Kimberley Region. On occasions I accompanied a team of doctors and nurses from Broome who travelled via a small light plane, to distant communities difficult to access by car. I remember looking down from the small windows of the plane over the barren but striking landscape. The deep red soil contrasted with the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean, and the plane would then turn away from the sea towards the interior of this vast region called the Kimberleys. Our pilot would land on a precarious, bumpy dirt runway, where we would be collected in a four wheel drive vehicle to be transported to the local community health centre.
These settlements were extremely basic in terms of amenities. There was generally a local grocery store which was little more than a corrugated iron shed, usually operated by non indigenous people. The health care clinics for local inhabitants were portable, rectangular buildings, elevated from the dusty ground. The staff provided fairly basic healthcare access for surrounding communities hundreds of kilometres away. Aboriginal children would gather, to hang about somewhat listlessly in the dusty street outside the local store, or to observe the movements of the health team. They were thin, runny-nosed kids with big broad smiles. They too had the same white teeth and beautiful big eyes of the children in Shimla; however in the Australian outback there was an additional and distressing sight that was all too common. Bush flies congregated in the corners of children's eyes and around their runny noses and mouths. I was always struck by their tolerance and seeming resignation to the presence of these annoying pests.
Aboriginal people have disturbingly higher rates of health issues than any other group in Australia. According to studies conducted by the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, major concerns for indigenous people include diet, children's health and diseases such as cardiovascular, sexually transmitted disease, and diabetes. The infant mortality rate amongst indigenous people in Australia is three times higher than the national average or fifteen deaths per one thousand births, compared to five per thousand in the remaining population. Newborns are more likely to be underweight. Traditional Aboriginal diets were once rich in nutrients and low in fat however modern diets tended to be high in fat and sugar and low in nutrition. Indigenous Australians have a shorter life expectancy; eighteen to nineteen years less than non indigenous people.
It was sobering for me to acknowledge that Aboriginal children in these outlying communities of the Kimberleys were growing up in Australia, the land of plenty, a so called westernised and developed country. These impressions that I had formed as a health worker some thirty years earlier had faded over time. The children now standing before me beside the dirt ledge brought those memories back into full focus.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Finding Duong, Finding Myself by Robyn Ramsay Copyright © 2011 by Robyn Ramsay. Excerpted by permission of BALBOA PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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