Tag Archives: travel in India

Woodstock School

Getting Ready for Woodstock School – Some Practicalities

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So my daughter will be going to Woodstock School. Given my obvious enthusiasm for the place, you may assume that I’m ecstatically happy about this – and I am. But there is also plenty of room for doubts and worries and sorrow. What do I do with feelings like these? What I always do: write about it! <wry grin>

First, there’s the practical side: we have a lot to do to get ready. So, for the benefit of other current and future Woodstock parents, I figured I might as well write about that.

Health

Every seasoned traveller knows that before travelling to (what used to be called) third-world countries, you need to get shots. Ross and I went through this two years ago in preparation for our trip to India in the summer of 2005. The travellers’ health clinic of our local health agency in Lecco was able to advise on and administer everything we needed. Ross made an appointment to check what was needed this time around. Since she’s still a minor, I had to go with her.

Turns out we had forgotten to get her Hepatitis A booster that was due 6-12 months after the first one – the nurse scolded us, but didn’t seem to think it was really a big deal. She gave us a lecture (again) on when Ross should take malaria prophylaxis, and that was that – at a cost of 45 euros.

Enrico is concerned about health care for Ross at Woodstock – not that she has any special needs, he’s just worried about health in India in general (although, during our trip in 2005, it was me who got sick, not Ross).

There wasn’t much information on the school or SAGE website about this (an oversight now being remedied), but I know that the school has its own health center with nurses and a doctor, and that Landour Community Hospital (LCH), where many Woodstockers were and still are born, is just outside the school gates. I also know that India can boast world-class healthcare these days, at least in the big cities – indeed, “health tourism” is becoming a booming business.

As it turns out, LCH is getting a facelift (maybe much more – I don’t have details yet), thanks to my classmate Sanjay (who has also revamped the school’s kitchens – an area of natural interest for him as he’s in the restaurant business). So the quality of care available right on Woodstock’s doorstep is improving.

There is also some sort of catastrophic health insurance available through SAGE I think, we’re waiting to hear about that from them. I’m not sure it provides for a medical evacuation to the home country, but someone mentioned that it would pay a ticket for a parent to come in case of serious hospitalization. I’ll report the details when I have them.

The SAGE package we received recently includes a medical history and a form to be filled out by our family doctor with data from a physical exam, plus Ross will have to get blood, urine, and stool tests. This all makes sense – the school needs to know up front that these kids don’t have health problems when they arrive. But it’s going to be a mad scramble to get it all quickly – SAGE wants these forms back by June 1st.

Normally such tests might be free or subsidized in the Italian health care system, but waiting times can be so long for non-emergency testing that I’ll probably have to pay to have the lab work done privately. At least the exam by the family doctor shouldn’t cost.

What to Bring?

It may seem ironic for a school in India, but my greatest concern in this category is warm clothing. Woodstock is 7000 feet up in the “foothills” of the Himalayas, where it’s plenty cold and snowy in winter, and most of the buildings are far too old to have anything like central heating.

For this reason, the school year traditionally ran from late July to late June, with the long vacation from early December to mid February. It could still be bitterly cold even in late February – I remember one year when music practices were suspended because our fingers were too stiff to play.

Lucky Ross: the school calendar is changing this year, with classes starting August 8th, vacation December 14-Jan 22, and graduation May 30th. The idea is to align Woodstock with US schools and colleges, in part to have more time to prepare for AP exams in the spring. So the students will be in Mussoorie for much of the winter – brr!

Ross initially pooh-poohed my suggestion of long underwear (SO unfashionable). I have tried to explain to her that you’ve never known real cold until you’ve had chilblains. I’m buying her the long underwear anyway – and she’s more convinced now that she’s seen it on the packing list we just received from SAGE. At least she recognizes the depth of motherly love demonstrated by my offer to give her my very warmest ski socks (I have a fetish for socks, and my feet are always cold).

Ross has also been put in touch with a current SAGE student whose advice she can ask on what else is and isn’t needed.

One major purchase will be a laptop; though the school has computers for student use, Ross is accustomed to having her own: at home she uses my “old” desktop, and she can’t imagine life without it close at hand to organize and PhotoShop her photos.

Student Visa

I dread facing the Indian consulate in Milan again, it’s always chaos. We will have to go there to get Ross a student visa for India, but we can’t do it until after June 1st (at the earliest), because the visa is good for exactly one year. Getting the visa should be straightforward – the school is sending a “bona fide student” letter vouching for her status. But I’m always afraid that something will go wrong with this, so I won’t really rest easy until she’s got that damned visa in her passport.

It’s amusing to compare and contrast all this with my own thirty-year-old memories of preparing for Woodstock.

Your thoughts?

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Italy travel

Pinching Italians

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Recently asked on the Fodor’s travel forum: “We’ve been told it is customary and acceptable for men in Italy to pinch women’s bottoms. Is this true and, if it is, what is the customary and acceptable response?”

Over the years I’ve lived in Italy I’ve been asked this question several times. And it always makes me laugh because, while it may once have been normal behavior for Italian men, I experienced this kind of thing far more in India (where it’s called “eve teasing”) than I ever have in Italy.

When I was a teenager in India in the late 70s/early 80s, foreign women were considered “easy” and therefore worth a try (verbal or physical), though Indian women out alone were also harassed. I don’t understand what drives men to do this. How stupid do you have to be to believe that some woman whose bottom you grab or to whom you say “Hey, sexy baby” is going to swoon into your arms?

By the end of my high school years in India I had been groped and “hello darling’d” enough to know how to avoid it (as far as that was possible). When I returned for a college year abroad in Benares, I was surprised to find myself the only woman in our group who was never bothered at all. In retrospect, I think I went around that year with such a forbidding expression that no one dared come near me. (I am also taller and heavier than many Benarsi men, which may have scared them off.)

I didn’t know much about Italy when I first began travelling here, so it never occurred to me to expect such. (I was always accompanied by Enrico in any case.) And, in all these years, it’s never happened. Except once, riding in a very crowded bus in Rome, I got groped. If I could have identified the culprit I would have slapped him, but of course these slimeballs judge their situations very carefully, and I didn’t want to slap the wrong man.

An Italian colleague tells me that she’s been groped a few times in the metro in Milan. It’s called palpeggiamento, and the favored technique is the mano morta – the “dead hand” left dangling where it will brush up against something, but the culprit can claim innocence if confronted.

My colleague’s response is to step back hard onto the guy’s foot with her sharp high heel, then turn around and say sweetly, “Did I step on you? I’m soooo sorry.” This or something similar would be the response of most Italian women – who do NOT consider being fondled by strangers to be expected or tolerable behavior!

Someone else in the Fodor’s forum said that her daughter, on a study abroad year in Florence, had been warned by her university to expect verbal and physical harassment, and that the best response was simply to ignore it. She duly was hassled, and, as instructed, ignored it.

It seems to me that the administrators of these college programs are encouraging bad behavior by instructing their students to put up with it, when no one else in Italy would, and the girls themselves would not tolerate such treatment back home. So the Florentines obligingly perpetuate their grandfathers’ myth of the butt-pinching, wolf-whistling Italian man. (Perhaps if we pointed out to these young men how desperately old-fashioned this is, they would be embarrassed into stopping.)

Then there are the American women tourists who, having heard all the stories, claim to feel disappointed if they don’t get grabbed in the street – they feel they’ve missed out on a quintessential Italian experience. Umm, well, the guy who pinches your bottom is surely not one you would actually want to have sex with – it’s not exactly a smooth approach, is it? Wait for the one who hands you a good line and buys you a good dinner. Quite a few tourists have had a great vacation this way, and some have even ended up married!

(On the other hand, don’t be surprised or shocked to learn that he’s already married. Adultery is something of a national sport, and what could be easier or safer than a fling with a woman who will soon be leaving?)

Some Italian terms for seduction can be found here (along with a lot of very rude words).

So… ever been pinched in Italy?

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Shopping and Mehndi in Mumbai

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India Vlog 2005: August 14

More shopping. Yuti went around with us to places near the Gordon House, including Fabindia, where I bought a cotton bedspread in blue, green, and purple, to go with some silk throw cushion covers I had bought on a previous trip – for the spare bed in my home office. I also bought a shirt or two, and presents.

Mehndi

In the evening, back at the hotel, we had mehndi (henna) painted on our hands, something Indian women traditionally do for big occasions, especially their own weddings. A complex design covering both sides of both hands such as we had done is called bridal because it’s most often done for brides (along with their feet).

The artist was a Muslim woman named Mumtaz, who brought along a young (Hindu) apprentice. They had not met before, so the conversation between the two of them (in Hindi) was interesting. The Hindu girl was trying to express solidarity, or at least non-prejudice, with Muslims. She mentioned that she had a Muslim friend named Farzana. She asked if Mumtaz had children. Two sons, was the reply. “What are their names?” I forget now what Mumtaz said, but they were typical Muslim names. “You people have such pretty names,” the girl remarked.

Even more fascinating was watching Mumtaz work. She told me that mehndi was a family craft that she had learned from her mother, grandmother, and aunts. Note that the film is NOT speeded up – she really did work that fast. Nonetheless, it took over an hour each to finish me and Ross.

As I watched, I realized that the paper doodles I’ve done for years are probably influenced by mehndi patterns; both are decorative ways to fill space. Though hands and feet are more fun to doodle on, and a well-chosen design, such as the vine pattern on Ross’ fingers, can enhance a graceful limb rather than just covering it.

Mumtaz agreed with Ross that for me to do one hand and one foot would be weird, so I ended up with both hands done. At which point I couldn’t film anymore!

As the mehndi dried, it began to flake off, showing the initially very orange color of the skin beneath:

Eventually we rubbed it all off with towels, trying not to grind the crumbs into the hotel’s bedsheets and carpet. Here’s how it looked then:

By the time we got home two days later it had settled into a rust color. Over time it faded, and was completely gone in about two weeks.

Initial reactions back in Italy were mixed. While Ross got compliments (“Ooh, pretty! Like Madonna!”), I got a lot of strange looks. People would glance at me and then do elaborate double-takes, sometimes frowning in confusion. But one man that I see frequently on the train gave me a huge smile. Someday I’ll have to get to know him and ask what that was about.

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India Videoblog: Jaipur – How to Tie a Turban

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We ate lunch at the Surabhi restaurant and turban museum, where the waiter was delighted to discover that I speak Hindi – though not enough to follow everything he was saying. “I feel sad because I don’t speak much English, so I can’t converse properly with the customers,” he said. He was very concerned that Ross didn’t look happy (she was hot and tired). His solution, while we waited for lunch to arrive, was to demonstrate how to tie a turban.

This is only one of the many kinds of turban traditional in Rajasthan, as we learned when we visited the turban museum, which has examples of around 50 different types of turbans, most of them incredibly complex.

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