Hello Viewers!

So, after spending a little over a month in India, I've finally composed a site for everyone to check out.  It was an unforgettable experience, unparalleled to anything I've checked off on my bucket list thus far.  I've included rich images, a couple of photo essays, and some stories of my journey.  Some are happy, some are sad and some are a little in between.  Enjoy the photos and the poetry, and have a wonderful day.

Hugs,

Tess 

Jess

Jess is the best,
A woman in red
She makes her bed
Sings the soundtrack to drive in her head


a night call, she's a little night crawler
hates things on the wall 
she love to laugh until she balls
Jess is a little sassy brawler


A baller in the streets
Laughs and chats with all the people she meets
Struts her stuff, like a diamond in the rough
She's tough.


Courage is the fire inside
It keeps her up at night to fight the good fight
Greater than the sum of her parts is her quest
A drum beats in her chest.


That's Jess, She's the best
A rookie one can count on,
She takes one for the team,
An Indian's dream, she takes charge sight unseen


We are a great Team
7 thousand miles and still going
She's my little energizer
My laugh maker, an incomprehensible talent
Couldn't have made it without ya.


That's Jess. 

Kalamandalam Regi

The chant of Kalamandalam Regi
Is heard as the train approaches,
Dip- day- da- ha, dip- dip- day; day breaks
And Regi journeys to us, hearts embark.

Hums of Malayalam, heard in the bush.
Bird's approach and we scream, 'yay, Regi's here'.
Her smile is as large as an ocean,
Her heart glows like a bright moon.

Her patience, her ease
Her grace, and her understanding
 Regi appears, a weight is lifted
The ocean settles, the rain stops

Our feet stop hurting
Laughing and joking our face is Throbbing.
Regi is here and has saved the day. 

Shop Keepers

Their Pride
They Organize
They Work
Their Family

Their Hunger
They Wake
They Give, we take.
Their Price

Their Worth
They Make
They Create
Their World

Their Happiness
They Make
They Want
Their Price

Their Achievement
They Respect
They Love
Their Life

Shapes

Kathakali men, playing women,
A dance tradition
Souls of freedom, timeless and ephemeral 


Kathakali girls and boys
Colors of the world
Dancing, smiling tapping and laughing


Mudras and red feet
Spikes on one hand
A thousand year old tradition
One condition, theater.

The Food of India and the women who ate it! 

The Girls and I before dinner at Dal Roti, in Kochin, India.  

This photo is a sampling of the food made by Mary John, the host mother of Kalatharangini, it was amazing, and
different everyday.  

The amazing dinner the girls and I had at a restaurant called Dal Roti in Kochin, India.  

A photograph taken during my cooking lesson at the K. John's home.  This is  was a tuna chili dish Mary was making for her guests that night.  I think she put about 10 pounds of chili in it.  Yummy, but acid fire to the tongue. 

This is a yellow fish curry the girls and I made during a cooking class in Kochin, we had a blast.  

A woman selling roughage in Cheruthuruthy, India.  

A fish seller's morning catch in Kochin, India.

The meal that Emily and I were given after 24 hours of not eating,  catching trains, and missing flights.  It was slightly anti-climactic to say the least.  

   Pretty Girl. 

I do what I'm told
Living in the road
I'm walked on and ran over-do I know I'm Indian, I don't know what that is.
I don't know rich, poor or more, I only know me.

I'm a little girl, hungry and scared.
I dance, I twirl, I smile a sad smile.
I do what I'm told.

Passengers have food, so many satisfied. Are they walked on, or sat on, or hit?
Are they Indian? My mother tells me they have money, they have food.
I dance.  I do what I'm told.

My hands are deep like the river but nothing fills them, they are empty like my eyes.
I am an Indian girl, my eyes are chocolate brown, my hair the color of black silk, my tears crystal white.
I'm hungry, I smile, can I dance for you?

My mother cries as the passengers walk by, her tears are fixed like when the sun rises.
What did I do?
My brother laughs but I'm still hungry.
I do what I'm told, can I dance for you?


An Indian girl
Where will I go? What will become of me? I want be like the passengers in the train.
They don't look hungry.
They don't smile, or dance.  

Pink In the Morning

Wake up sunset silver lining
Wake up moon that never ceases shining
Wake up to coconuts- to the beat of the honking tuc-tuc drum.
Wake up Kerala, open your sun.
Wake up school busses filled with children
Wake up heart beat, sweat dripping, swollen feet.
Wake up chai tea, bananas and me.
Wake up pink sunset.

Wake up burning garbage, wake up hungry children wherever you are.
Wake up pretty city, pink lady, circle shady.
Wake up to workers, flips flops and chanting.
Wake up to Mosquitos, Kerala, and me.


Wake up night, and wake the day, the morning is calling
to everyone it warms.  We are in bed, a pink morning is ahead.

This is Emily.

She gets it

The reflections of myself in another
A blonde bomb, an unbound reservation,
Running scared through the Agra unknown,
She's got me in her crosshairs
Like hungry birds to an American porterhouse.  

Not found here, just samosas and shit, deep culture mixed with grit,
And a stench so bad it makes you laugh,
She knows, she understands, the unknown empty hands pull us, hurt's us, it begs for fulfillment,for anything that meets its demands.

Emily gets it. Our eyes lock and fill with an ocean we wish we were near but greatful for the tears, we push on, a cobra on her head, a monkey on my lap, I wink at a rickshaw, she looks at handcrafts.  She laughs, I smile, and think of some food.  It's been a while, but we push on.

A bath, some ice cubes, water baby.
Luxury, maybe, but not here or anywhere, everywhere we see, a cavalcade of poverty.
How one sided are we, how blinded can a nation be by what they will never see.
Oh burning garbage of Kerala, how I miss thee.


Thanks for being here with me, sharing this new world, and struggling in each moment, right next to me.  I let it hold me, and now it's time to let go.  Back to burning garbage we go.
Back to Kerala, back to green, back to jungle.
A lot forward, and a little happy back.  

New Delhi

Pounding the pavement the sounds of kids voices jingle the air, in the distance, I hear someone scream. 
Keep India green, those words are smeared with shit across a silk screen, it sheens and gleans and sparkles in the sun as the smell permeates my head and explodes into everyone, save a trash can cause it's not there or anywhere it doesn't exist.  The smell of piss and street food I won't dare dismiss but never miss the sight of garbage for miles covering every surface that the eyes can reach all the way up to the Taj Mahal the piles of waste pile and topple the tippy tappy top of the kiddies and dogs dying in the street.  I just want a piece of meat.
Gotta keep pounding the pavement- gotta keep goin'. So much money I don't have, can't stop, no, go away, NO, No,No NO!!  I can't help you, kid.Go away.  Get away from me, you smell, you're starving, I don't trust you, you just make me feel bad kid- don't you get it?  I'm emotionally spent, I can't kid, I don't have anything left.
I gotta keep some for me kid, otherwise I'll end up like you.  Guilt pounds the pavement -  a hollow woman is her leader, helpless coward.  Where did she go? India ate her- it messed with her flow.  She has no bird in her cage to sing. To sad to document, to tired to lift her head too tired.
She sleeps.

Lonely Truck