Quarantine

Quite an up and down week this has been – both physically and emotionally. My brother, Silvano, arrived for a short visit, and the kids were so very glad to have him stay with us. He was always at their disposal for board games, a round of scopa, or reading stories. For them having him here meant having a fragment of home in our midst and when he left just seven days later that feeling of home became a gaping hole.

Silvano had no time for sightseeing; he just wanted to get a taste for where we are living and the kind of work that is being done here in Kiran. He went along with all of us to the morning assembly where all the children and teaching staff gather for chants, a brief meditation and the pledge of allegiance. Then the idea was that he would visit some of the Kiran units, but he unexpectedly found himself enlisted to help in the massive preparations for the 2 October festival. Along with Petra, he got busy trimming the hand-made invitations that would be delivered to the 1500 guests invited to the festival.

We did, however, manage to get out over the weekend to visit Sarnath, the site where Buddha gave his first public sermon after his enlightenment, and also to have Silvano meet with priests from a Chirstian ashram in Varanasi.

The helter-skelter journey to Sarnath on Saturday was just as memorable as the sacred site itself. We had to go on two motor-rickshaw trips: one from Lanka to the train station and then another to Sarnath. Each time we attracted a crowd of drivers as I tried to bring the price down – I’m beginning to get the hang of haggling over prices – and both times it ended with the drivers cursing each other for having accepted what they considered too low a fare.

Our first ride was conducted by a one-eyed teenage rickshaw driver – after all he was the cheapest – who was intent on showing off his skills by weaving us one-handed through the insane traffic and urban squalor of Varanasi, while with his other hand trying to find the time zone for Italy on his mobile, then taking pictures of himself and his tiny rickshaw crammed with Westerners. He was feeling cool and we were in for quite a ride.

All together it was over an hour and a half of heat, dust, noise, jolting pot-holes, and unspeakable odors before we completed the mere 25 kilometers to Sarnath.  Indeed this historical Buddhist pilgrimage site, surrounded by temples representing various Buddhist schools and cultures – Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Tibetan – was a green haven of peace. We visited the archaeological remains of what was once a great complex of monasteries supporting as many as 3000 monks when Buddhism was at its apex in India during the reign of Ashoka. The museum here houses some beautiful sculptures of the Buddha; there is one in particular from the 5^th century whose perfect poise, gently closed eyes, and exquisitely carved halo emits an almost tangible sensation of serenity and freedom from want.

It was not long after our visit to the museum, while admiring the Tibetan Buddhist temple, that I began complaining of a persistent irritation in my left eye. The night before we had noticed that Federica had had a mild case of pink eye or conjunctivitis, but by morning she already looked much better without any medication. I assumed I had caught it from her, but mine was definitely not a mild case as the eye got progressively redder and puffed up, and by evening I was having typical flu symptoms. The following morning I looked like I could be cast for a remake of Raging Bull – the conjunctivitis had infected my right eye as well, and now both eyes were completely bloodshot and so swollen I couldn’t open them. So that Sunday I just laid in bed all day while Silvano went to the ashram with the boys, Dr Moreno, the medical doctor in Kiran who had arranged the visit, Urban, the president of the Friends of Kiran Society in Switzerland, and Sarah.

 

It was an interesting visit for Silvano as he saw first-hand that the peaceful coexistence of such strikingly different religious traditions – Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist – in a city like Varanasi with its 5000 year history as the most sacred Hindu city in India, is extremely delicate and complex. On the surface it appears there is a sincere desire for dialogue and mutual respect, but the intransigent belief that there is only one exclusive way towards salvation is an insuperable hindrance, even when in the name of peace and brotherhood the conviction is kept silent.

Well, by the time they all got back to Kiran that evening  the conjunctivitis had infected everyone except for Federica and Alessandro. Dr Moreno came round the following morning with eye drops and other medication and, with a concern for containing the illness, asked us not to leave the guesthouse for at least 5-6 days. In effect the whole family, including poor Silvano, was being quarantined. I also had to make my first trip to an Indian hospital. Fortunately Moreno was with me and had arranged the appointment beforehand. The Varanasi hospital is scattered around the city with the separate wards located in buildings along the frenetic, narrow dusty streets of the city. We had to take off our shoes before going up the stairs to the front desk where there were two people in plain dress – indistinguishable from the others present – whose job it was to escort patients to the doctor’s office, shuffle papers and have them signed. We didn’t have to wait at all and after a very quick examination the doctor told us that there was an epidemic of eye infections in Varanasi and that it was highly contagious.

We then had to go out to the incredibly busy Lanka high street. There we found a row of pharmacies one after the other that in no way differ from any of the other shops in Lanka: no entrance doors but just shop counters with people crowded around and spilling out onto the pavement, pharmacists taking orders and magically producing what was asked for from shelves stacked high with pharmaceuticals, and then calculating the sums on scraps of paper. Witnessing this apparently chaotic scene – though there had to be some hidden order which I could not perceive – I smiled as I pictured in my mind our pharmacy back home in Castelfranco Veneto: the pharmacists dressed in perfectly pressed white smocks, every square centimeter sterilized daily, a meticulous interior design of glass, mirrors, marble floors, and glamorous lights – in short a place where you need to shower, shave and put on your finest suit and shoes just to walk in the door. In the end, though, the hygienically challenged Varanasi pharmacy would heal our eyes.

And so, confined now to the guesthouse, the feeling of home in our midst became quite strong indeed. With no school, no getting out to run around, no going to the sports academy for field hockey, there was just mom, dad and uncle Silvano to keep the children entertained. The only distractions were Chanda and Clementia, the caretakers from the girls’ hostel, who would come with food and chai. They were very generous in making sure we were well-fed during our quarantine.

After a couple of days we “snuck out” to go for a bike ride in the countryside. This was definitely the highlight of the week. Silvano and Leonardo on one bike and Alessandro, Federica and me on the other. We simply headed down one of the little roadways outside the Kiran compound, without a map or any idea of where we were going, and got a much closer look at the small village life that completely passes you by when travelling by car or bus. To start with, people would quite literally run towards us from the fields or from their homes, to get a closer look, wave and say hello. It was as if some great national hero were driving through their village. I would imagine that in a city like Varanasi, which attracts visitors from all over the world, these villagers have seen Europeans before, but perhaps it was the first time they had seen adults with children riding bikes along these remote roads.

We were also struck by the way the people share their small living spaces – the tiny one-room bungalow and piece of land – with their livestock. Just outside the entrance to their homes are their goats and cows and sheep, producing an inevitable mix of mud and manure, which many of the adults and children walk around in barefoot. There is a very spontaneous and casual intimacy with the land and the animals, and everything they produce – from what is useful to what is waste. Little or no distinction is made it seems between what is man’s and what is nature’s. I do not mean to romanticize the poverty. There’s no question I’m sure that if they had the means they would live differently; however, my impression is that their vision of reality allows them to very freely mingle with all aspects of the natural cycle.

The day Silvano left, we all took the long trip to the airport together to send him off. Even though I had told the kids that it would be over three hours there and back, they wanted to come along. They didn’t really show it, but I realized later on that evening that it was tough for them to see him going back home. For the first time since we had arrived Alex asked to skype with nonni and the cousins, and while we were skyping with them one of Leonardo’s best friends called and then later so did his classroom teacher.  They were really excited to talk to everyone, but when we got back to the guesthouse it was clear that for the first time they were really feeling homesick.

Paul

25/09/2010