Language, Langurs, Luke

This is the sunset from my front porch. I’m in Landour, in the state of Uttarakhand. I’ve been taking Hindi lessons at an altitude of 7,000 feet at the Landour Language School. So, hopefully by the end of my four weeks here I’ll be equipped to talk to most people in Northern India especially those Emma and I will be meeting on our treks. I didn’t think I’d find myself in school after just graduating but here I am racking my brain with three language classes a day. However, I’m finding the joys and difficulties of learning a new language to be quite refreshing.

The Professor
As I stated above I’m staying at a mountain top apartment with views of the Himalayan range and the city of Mussoorie. It was freezing when I first arrived so once the sun went down I went to bed (about 7:30). It’s getting much warmer now. I’m renting from Professor Uniyal (who we call the Professor) and his Ethiopian wife, Emu, who showed me that protecting the compound from the Langurs (tribe of large white monkeys) was necessary to protect springtime plums and a well landscaped complex. The dogs can't reach the Langurs in the trees so Emu throws rocks at them while the Professor shoots at them with his BB gun. Feeling the duty to protect the precious leaves of the plum trees and the flowering plants that the Langurs relish, I was inspired and made a slingshot with my 16 year-old neighbor Luke. We found some Y-shaped sticks and started whittling. Then, following the design that Lelo (my grandfather) taught me I used inner tube, leather, dental floss and rubber hose from the bazaar. So well made is this slingshot that since its construction the Langurs haven’t returned and I haven’t even had to use it yet. (Though I really don't want to hit one of them I just needed an excuse to make a slingshot.)

Tea Time at the School

The Language School is run out of a church and was founded almost a hundred years ago to teach missionaries Hindi. Consequently, many of the students here are Christians. I've gotten quite close to my American neighbors Luke and his father Jeff, who teaches at a Ministry School in West Bengal and deals in gemstones. So, I invited Luke to go on a hike with me to the top of Flag Hill, the tallest mountain I could see in the hazy distance. With some rough directions and weak Hindi we headed for the peak. We cut through rhododendron forests and small villages. We scrambled over limestone cliffs where I searched and found one fossil. I even found a spring time offering of cowdung figurines and harvested grains near the mountaintop.

Luke

Along the way we mostly talked about religion and politics the two subjects not to be brought up at a bar. But we were hiking so it made for some great conversation especially since we disagreed on both these subjects. We covered all the bases: creationism, evolution (I'm a geologist), abortion, taxes, God, equal rights, Hinduism, Christianity. I found it fascinating that two Americans who purportedly come from the same culture had two irreconcilable belief systems; mine based on science and experimentation and his based on faith in God and Jesus Christ. Nonetheless we got along great and the hike was unforgettable as we reached the peak eight hours after leaving the Professor's compound. Our legs were dead on the way back and it was getting dark so we caught a couple shared jeeps for the thirteen kilometer return trip home.