After 3 plans, 2 trains, a bus, and countless taxis and rickshaws, I finally got to Bir, home to the Dharmalaya Institute. Tibetan food with a friend of the director of Dharmalaya, I found out that the project is at a significantly earlier stage of development than I thought from my correspondence with the director. It turns out that I would be the only volunteer, and thus the only person camping out at the site. While I was planning to devote my time to organic farming and learning yoga, currently, there is only a very small garden bed and no yoga teachers to speak of. Despite my initial nervousness, I figured that since all my broken plans so far have had incredible results, this was bound to be good.
The next day, as my luck in India goes, I ran into my new friend Dani, who had come to Bir hoping to volunteer with me (though neither of us has a phone). We went over to the director’s house for lunch, and had an absolutely incredible conversation about his inspiration and vision for the Dharmalaya Institute, religion, sustainability, and all sorts of fun stuff. He’s an amazing source of knowledge, and even more so, wisdom, and I feel so grateful for this time to learn from him.
We then went up to the site, and I was blown away from the view. Dharmalaya is located on the side of a hill overlooking the valley in which Bir and several gorgeous monasteries are located on one side, and the snow-covered peaks of the Himalayas on the other side. It really is breathtaking. The piece of land is incredible- the main building and several smaller cottages are being built on tiered pieces of land, and not a single tree was cut for the road up to the site or on the site itself.
My volunteering has turned out to be helping the local workers build the main building, which will be a lodge, office, and community space. I truly will never think of green building in the same way. This is as green as it gets. Almost all the building materials come from the site itself- mud, straw, and bamboo are about all that goes into this large two-story building. The idea of this building is to use traditional Himalayan building techniques to out-compete unsustainable concrete construction by demonstrating that green building can be practical, modern, and beautiful. Mud construction is not only greener, but has better insulating properties, is longer lasting, stronger, and safer than concrete construction, which developing countries have mostly switched over to, since it is a symbol of modernity.
Helping with this construction has given me an incredible look into rural India. We are constructing this two-story building with literally no machines or even hand tools. The 15 or so other workers and I spent all of the first day moving piles of stones and gravel, which honestly would have taken a dump truck all of half an hour. I learned how to use my head to carry in classic Indian style…seriously, balancing rocks on your head is quite a skill. Despite the tediousness of this work, I’m really grateful for the opportunity to do manual labor, as my idea of ‘work’ usually revolves around a computer.
The remainder of my time so far has been spent mud plastering, which I love, since gives me a legitimate excuse to play with mud. It’s really like having a mud fight with yourself: You take a handful of mud, throw it against the mud brick wall, and smear it around with the palm of your hand. It’s pretty satisfying and often meditative.
The best part about helping to construct Dharmalaya is working with the people, in a way that most tourists definitely don’t get access to. Only one of the workers speaks decent English, so it’s been an adventure trying to communicate with everyone else. Not to be too cliché, but building together is such a team process that I’m starting to get close to several of the women despite the language barrier. And, I’ve been learning some Hindi, which is a pretty darn cool language.
The group dynamics are very interesting- the workers are broken down into a gang of teenage boys, and women who range from just a little older than me to grandma age. The boys are just like boys everywhere- wrestling each other, throwing water on the girls, asking me to sing Shakira and Akon…and the women are lovely. They take really good care of me- feeding me delicious lunch and making sure I sit down and rest.
To say the least, Himalayan work culture is quite different from the American work ethic. When these folks don’t feel like working, they simply don’t. Every hour or so, someone will call out “rest,” and everyone will go sit down in the shade. Yesterday, we had two tea breaks, a nice sit-down lunch, and naptime afterwards. Coming from my job in an office building on 5th Avenue where everyone even ate lunch in front of their computers, this is quite a change of pace for me. I’m being intentional about learning to work at “Indian speed” not “Elana speed”.
It’s cool to see how these folks make use of everything around them, in absence of what I would call “tools”. Rather than scaffolding or a manufactured ladder, we balance on empty oil barrels and a plank of wood. Yesterday, I cut my toe and it started gushing blood. I felt sort of lost without a Band-Aid nearby. But my friend Rina made a paste out up ground up leaves water, and plastered it to my toe. It was really sweet.
For the first few days, I camped out on the mountain, which was alternatively really cool, and a bit too far removed from Indian society, once all the workers went home at 5 pm. I just moved into a room in a family’s house in the farmland right outside of the Tibetan Colony in Bir. I’m so much happier now that I can eat Indian and Tibetan food at restaurants, rather than whatever I manage to fry up on an outdoor stove. I feel like I am finally settling in.
More adventures to come!