Hey Baby, Guest Birds Are Here

Katie and I have found ourselves in Auroville.

I don't want to be too quick to judge, but so far....um....it's nice. (eye roll) I really started to get attached to Fort Cochin, but Katie and I are determined to get the most out of this trip so we agreed on a change of scenery. So we headed for the hills to Kumily. Which is suppose to be a really special place, the home of tea and spice plantations. Which really just ended up being a wet, cold and miserable destination. Both Katie and I got altitude sickness and because we were two of the only Westerns in the town, we were rigorously targeted and harassed by touts.

We didn't visit a single tourist destination. No boat rides, no Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, no day or evening treks. We just stayed there two nights, got spices (30 pounds I think) and got the heck out of there. Everyone at home will get a nice organic spice package of cinnamon, turmeric, coco, curry, pepper, coriander, chilly powder, etc. Katie and I are still working out the details on sending it home. (DHL) If anyone has any good ideas of how to ship things cheap internationally please let us know. Getting through customs will be comical.

So then we took a car to Madurai and stayed there for about 10 or so hours until we caught a train (6 hours) to Villapuram and then an hour and half car ride to Pondicherry. We stayed in this amazing French style guest house that couldn't have been quainter.

So now that we're caught up, we'll share with you a little about this far out place that we're going to be spending the next week in. Auroville.

Auroville is a universal township in the making for a population of up to 50,000 people from around the world. They come from some 35 nations, from all age groups (from infancy to over eighty, averaging around 30), from all social classes, backgrounds and cultures, representing humanity as a whole. The population of the township is constantly growing, but currently stands
at around 1,700 people, of whom approx one-third are Indian.

On the surface, Auroville can appear rather incomprehensible. It is an intense and challenging experiment, attempting the seemingly impossible, and one needs to be ready to actively participate in such an adventure. The meaning of Auroville only becomes clearer in the context of the vision of its founders, which has stimulated people from all over the world to join in this 'laboratory of evolution'.

To be a True Aurovilian

BACK to the Kristen chronicles:

Katie and I called the day we got to Pondicherry to set up a tour, trying to be formal and respectful of this charming and wonderful place. So we called the visitors center and no one answering the phone spoke English. Ok so we took a rickshaw to Auroville. Still no one really speaks English and if they do they don't seem particularly interested in speaking it. So I wait with our mountain of backpacks and new travelling companion 'The Spice Bag' and Katie investigates the scene and works on finding us accommodations. Yippy she finally finds us a cheap place for two nights. Well yeah it's cheap, it's a hut! Now we are in the back woods, sleeping in a hut with mud walls with the lizards, mice and a trillion different bugs. 100 feet from an open public squat toilet structure. Ok so we made it through the first night.

We go to guest services to find out how to navigate around this dark muddy maze and the person there is ZERO help. The only English he knows is "leave your shoes outside". Well thank you Mr. Guest Services Man for being a fountain of useful information. Now Katie and I know all about Auroville and how to navigate this lovely experimental community in the middle of nowhere land during monsoon season. So we pull out the map Katie was insightful enough to purchase yesterday. As a wonderful Indian woman said to me today "Nothing is free in Auroville." I disagree being wet it free, bug bites are free and getting lost in this muddy maze is free.

So resourceful Katie and I created a financial account (auroville works on a cash card system) you put money in an account and just submit your number everywhere to pay for food and other goods. We then got our hands on a moped. Auroville is very spread out.

The we called and visited a number of guesthouses and finally found livable conditions at a community called creativity. Creativity is a collective community of about forty people, in the South-West of the Residential Zone. The Aurovilians who conceived of Creativity were residents in need of houses, as well as people who wanted to study how the Auroville housing shortage could be met by building modest apartments, at low cost and environment friendly. Some of the aspects they studied, before starting, were: cost-effective building/maintenance, low environmental impact, functionality of design for a commune, and the suitability for residents of varying ages and nationalities.

Just our luck. Luck, Luck, Luck, Luck

We called them yesterday and they didn't have any openings then we go yesterday at the most perfect moment and speak with Lloyd (the steward) who mentioned that if we came a moment sooner he couldn't have helped us because his head was in his number and the person who was suppose to stay at least another week decided to move on and travel to Goa. So we move in
today.

So.... The thing about this place so far is that is, Yes Experimental! It looks very good on paper but in reality it's pretty rustic and people seem very distant. Katie and I are not sure what brings everyone here, because it seems very individualistic. Do people live here because they want unity or is it because everyone just wants to live off the grid. I don't want to say too much because I have only been here for a limited period of time. But, I will say this Auroville really needs a dose of Colleen Anne Reed. A ball of developmental, creative, pleasure seeking, community mobilizing, spiritual, fun, positive, family supportive energy. Mom i know you are
living in the a lower gear these days but, Auroville needs you.

Last night we headed to dinner at Solar Kitchen for some dinner. The Solar Kitchen building has been designed as a major collective kitchen for the Auroville community and was finalized in December 1997. Since then it has served lunches in its Dining Hall and in the same time sent lunches to different outlets like schools or individuals. While we were there we experienced the full breath of the monsoon season, it feels like we were in the middle of a hurricane.

We took advantage of the break in the torrential rain to drive home. We quickly found out that there were trees down everywhere though, blocking our way back home.

So we lifted the bike. Over the tree.

We finally made it home last night to our hut. And we were never so relieved to be sleeping in it, with all the bugs and mice, etc. The guest house experienced some of its own devastation. Check out the bathroom:

This morning as we tried to check out, one of the residents called out to the host "Hey Baby, Guest birds are here". Guest birds?! We love these people.

*Some text has been taken directly from the Aurovilled website*