Mungpoo somemore

Dateline: Mungpoo, Darjeeling District, West Bengal, India; March 13, 2011—A week has come and gone. Internet is not a thing readily available on this mountain so you won’t be hearing from me on a regular basis while I am here. Twice I have been able to check emails via a staff member’s computer with cell phone connection, but I suspect this and other travelogues from the current leg of my journey will be sent from New Delhi the night before I fly to my next appointment; Bulgaria.

I arrived in Mungpoo 24½ hours after departing Kathmandu. Someone was surprised we made the trip in such good time. Assuredly, it was not a good time in quality even if it were good time in quantity. For the last 2½ hours on the first bus (we took four different vehicles on the trip), we limped along with a broken fan belt. Water kept boiling over so we would stop, someone would find some fetid pool, scoop up a bottleful, and replenish the radiator. But we were “home” now. Having not eaten a meal since lunch the day before, the school had some rice and vegetables set aside for us. This meal was my introduction to Everest-sized proportions. The students ate a lot of food in the Philippines when I was there last fall, but here it is as if the physical needs of a reincarnated Norgay Tensing lives on in all of the youth of Nepal, and all of the students here in the school, as well as the surrounding region, are Nepalese. For some reason England gave West Bengal, formerly a part of Nepal, to India after WWII. And can these young men eat! Being taller than the average Nepali, the students must have mistaken me for a bottomless pit like themselves. For the first few days I struggled to empty a plate so loaded with food it could have served as a serving platter for an African family. Why go to all the effort? Conditioning. First, we were always being reminded of the poor starving people in China while we were young as a means of getting us to eat everything on our plates. And we are not far from China, Mongolia, Bangladesh and Tibet here, so, I forced down herculean proportions of rice, vegetables and legumes. Second, when I was in Marine bootcamp, we would be marched to the chowhall and entered its confines with the drill instructor’s charge ringing I our ears: “Get in, get it and get out!” “Sir, yes sir.” That all changed a few days ago when I started shoveling abot half my (the plates are served already loaded) onto a clean plate and eating just what was needed.

Eating presents an interesting challenge here. Of course we have rice about every meal, and we eat two meals a day. It is good, whole rice with one problem; stones and sand. One of the daily tasks devolving upon the students is to sit at a table with a mound of rice and go through it one grain at a time, separating all the foreign matter, and there is a lot of foreign matter in this rice. But still, after all that meticulous labor, it never fails that while we’re eating our meals, an ominous crunch, crack or groan will signal the familiar news that someone has found one more piece of terra firma. This has been my experience a number of times and I just hope my teeth can survive this leg of the journey.

Typically, the seasoning of the food in India, as well as Nepal, registers somewhere between blistering and cauterizing. This school has chosen wisely not to promote the flaming seasonings which all the students grew up with. The students are now used to the more bland, but very tasty, meals. India, South Korea and Mexico lead the world in esophageal and stomach cancer according to some reports. The report authors, as well as this writer, believe it is as a result of aromatic oils which cause the burning. All hot spices contain such substances as capsaicin, myristicin and eugenol. These aromatic oils irritate the alimentary canal from beginning (mouth) to end (anus). A study conducted by Yale University and a college in Mexico found that tobacco increased the risk of lung cancer by 1000% while hot peppers increased the risk of esophageal cancer by 1700%. So, I’ll probably keep my stomach here, but the teeth are in more jeopardy.

There are nine students in the school in Mungpoo. One of them, Jisoya, came to my room the other night wondering if I would be willing to share some of my Keynote (PowerPoint/PDF) files. Of course I was so he produced a flash drive and I plugged it in. He told me there were some pictures on it I might be interested in. In the village in which he lives, the Hindu’s rose up against the Christians, all of the Christians. They swept through the village, which was quite large, burning the homes, cars, motorcycles and possessions of the Christians. They also burnt their churches. The coup de grace of this Indian form of the Night of Chrystal was the killing of the Christian pastors. This is not an uncommon event today in India. Religions intolerance is rearing its deadly head with new boldness. It seems as if many of the major religions of the world have built their power and congregations, not so much by appeal of logic and purity of doctrine, but by force of arms and appeals to the flesh. Thus you have pilgrimages, indulgences, “honor killings,” candles, saffron and works. Jisoya has lost everything.

What are Jisoya’s plans? Go back to his area and open a school like the one he is now attending and also open a lifestyle center where he can minister to the physical needs of the villagers, Hindu’s included. This is the caliber of the men I am working with.

God’s blessing,

Don