New Zealand: Land Before Time

About 130 million years ago, in the mid-to-late Jurassic period, the land that today comprises New Zealand was torn away from the southern supercontinent of Gondwana.

Because this split occurred prior to the evolution of marsupials and other mammals, and because New Zealand was so far removed from other land masses, it meant that throughout nearly its entire existence New Zealand would be devoid of mammalian life.

Other than a native bat, which presumably somehow flew here in geologically recent times, and sea mammals such as seals, New Zealand has gone through it's evolutionary past in relative isolation form the rest of the world and with out the impact that the advance of mammals has had elsewhere. As a result New Zealand has one of the worlds most unique ecosystems. In fact about 80% of the flora and fauna in New Zealand occurs only in New Zealand and no where else.

FORESTS

A walk through New Zealand's remaining native forests is in some ways like a real life "Jurassic park", and gives some indication of what the world was like millions of years ago. The progenitors of New Zealand's forests stemmed from Gondwana and its existing species have developed in relative isolation from the changes that have occurred in forests elsewhere in the world. In some areas massive kauri trees with diameters of over twelve feet wide still scrape the sky. Much of the forest is filled with the dense foliage of strange tree ferns that look to those who are not used to them like overgrown house plants.

BIRD LIFE

In the absence of mammals, birds came to occupy a dominant role in New Zealand's ecosystem. Up until just a few hundred years ago the largest herbivore in the New Zealand's forests was the moa, a giant flightless bird which reached 12 feet in height and weighed up to 550 pounds. Prior to human contact the Moa's only predator was the Hasst's eagle, the largest predatory bird to have lived, with a wing span of up to ten feet.

Today New Zealand's bird life remains exotic, with ground dwelling parrots, kiwis and other flightless birds. I found it particularly strange to be in an alpine environment in which snow occurs year round and at the same time being surrounded by group of Keas, large parrots that have adapted to living in the mountains.

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New Zealand's exotic flora and fauna are a major draw

for foreign travellers, however, the fact that these creatures have had no inherited defences against human predation, or against the other animals which humans introduced into their environment, has made them especially vulnerable. Both the Moa and the Hasst's eagle's extinctions are attributed to hunting and forest clearance by the Polynesian ancestors of the Maori, who for several hundred years shared New Zealand's environment with these giant birds. Only recently has the devastation that the impact of European settlers and the animals that they introduced have had on New Zealand's ecosystem begun to be understood. Today, travellers that arrive to New Zealand by airplane are run through a rigorous search and screening process. Having your bags run through a machine and searched is something we are all getting used to, but in New Zealand their primary focus is not drugs or terrorist threats, it's invasive species. My tent was quarantined until they could determine that the tiny grass seeds that they detected were not a potentially threat to native species.

Village Visit

Wanting to get a closer look at village life in Fiji and an idea of what life was like prior to European contact, I made the necessary preparations for a trip out to the island of Nacula, one of the furthest in the island chain of the Yasawas group. I stopped off at several islands along the way and made friends with a German traveler name Henrick, who agreed to make the journey all the way to Nacula with me. For the last leg of the trip we had a local fisherman drop us off at a tiny cove on the southern edge of Nacula, and he pointed us to a trail that would presumably lead us towards the village itself.


The path took us over the spine of the island where only a tall grass grew, above which we could see the sweeping panoramas of this and other islands. After some distance the path dipped down into a valley and we began to see signs of farming, planted rows of sweet potato, banana and bread-fruit trees.


Then, through some foliage and into a sunny clearing we could make out a number of thatch-roofed homes and wonderfully colorful laundry hung out to dry. It was deftly quiet, and though we had been anticipating it, Hendrick and I found ourselves at a a loss as to how to make first contact with the village and its inhabitants.

For some time we just stood there and I had just begun to suspect that no one was around, when from out of one of the huts came a joyous voice which proclaimed - Bula! There was no mistaking its meaning of welcome, and we replied with the same. A woman emerged with a flower print dress and instructed us in awkward English that before we are allowed to visit the village we must first meet its chief. We soon found ourselves following her lead down the narrow footpaths that meandered between the fifty or so identical homes. By each dwelling we were met with the same greeting and families gathered at their open doors and windows and smiled out at us as we passed.

The Meeting House

At the other end of the village there was a slightly larger structure built of the same materials as the others, which we were invited to enter and then asked to sit on the many reed mats that were spread across the floor. This we were told was the village meeting house. The woman who we had followed asked us to wait here for the chief and instructed us that when he came we should make a sevusevu, a small customary gift. Fortunately we were prepared and I had with me a small amount of kava which I understood was the traditional gift on such occasions.

Kava bundle at market

After a while the chief entered and sat cross-legged before us on the floor. He was a robust middle-aged man in a t-shirt, but he still maintained some degree regalregality. He graciously accepted our gift of Kava, which I presented by putting on the floor in front of him. Henrick and I introduced ourselves, and he invited us to look around at the many pictures of him and his family that adorned the walls of the meeting house. In one was his brother who we learned was a captain of a large ship and could be seen posing in his uniform. In another there was a few of his nephews proudly displaying a rugby trophy. Our meeting with the chief was brief. At its end he said that he would appoint his niece as our guide for as long as we chose to stay in the village and he introduced the young girl that had been waiting at the entrance, then he left.

I looked up at what appeared to be a large bone or tusk hanging from one of the rafters of the meeting house. When I asked our new guide about it, she explained that this was the Tabua, or the tooth of a sperm whale. In Fiji they are presented to important guests and exchanged at weddings, births, and funerals she explained. The particular tabua hanging in this meeting house was very old and showed that it had been worn by the many times it had changed hands.

We soon found out that our new guide, though shy, spoke a fair amount of English. She attended a boarding school on one of the "closer islands", Mondays through Fridays, at which half of her instruction was in English.


We followed her out and began our stroll through the rest of the village. On the way we passed what we were told was the home of the "oldest man" in the village. He was half way up a tree nailing something down when we met him. He was pretty limber for an old-timer. I shook his outstretched hand and he gave me a broad toothless smile, and said Bula of course. I told him that I was a history teacher, here to study Fiji's history. I asked if a lot had changed since he was a child in the village. He got what I had asked, and through our guide who translated he said
"When I was little we would cut the bananas before they were ripe. It would take us over a week to sail our small boats to the mainland. The bananas would ripen along the way and be ready by the time we made it to the market. Now we wait until they are ripe before we cut them and we use an outboard motor."

So, that pretty much sums that up.

Our next stop was the "store" which was really just a couple of shelves in a corner of one of the village huts. To see how little was actually available for purchase in the village drove home just how self sufficient it really was. Only a few staples such as tea, sugar, and flour were imported from the mainland. The rest of life's necessities were either fished from the sea, plucked from a tree, or were harvested in their village's gardens. This village apparently planted only three crops - sweet potato, pineapple, and bananas, and none of these required much looking after.

The church was by far the biggest structure in the village, but was still quite small. It was made of concrete, with windows along its side which opened to let in the sea breeze. Outside sitting under the shade of some marvelous trees, the likes of which I have never seen before, there was a group of women who, hearing of our arrival, had laid out their wares on blankets for us to survey. Our guide explained that these women make jewelery and such out of shells, which they sell to the boatmen who bring the goods to their village store, who in turn sell it to the shops on the mainland. They seemed eager to skip the middle man in this case, but it was still a remarkably low pressure sale. I purchased a large nautilus shell.


Near the coast at one end of the village there was a group of young men busy around a bunch of materials sprawled out on the ground. To my excitement I found out that they were constructing one of the village homes which I learned was called a bure. They were a fun bunch and were happy to let us investigate their progress. I brought out my video camera and one of the more gregarious guys gave me a full narration of the methods and materials involved in creating one of these traditional structures. It was pretty amazing to see it all come together. In what seemed like no time the framework was completed and they were explaining to me how the reeds were woven together and tied up to create the walls and ceiling.

The thing that I found really fascinating was what the villagers did with these homes when a hurricane struck. They told me that their traditional bures could be untied, disassembled and covered, keeping the materials protected. When it was over they would simply reassemble their bures. However, the newer construction that included boards, nails, and concrete would be torn apart and have to be completely rebuilt.

Like the rest of my experiences in this village, this got me to thinking about the merits of simplicity. Wandering around the village was an interesting look at life in a comparatively isolated corner of the world. There were of course signs of change everywhere. Several homes had electricity which was supplied from a generator. Some of the boats appeared to be made out of fiberglass. People had radios and other things bought from the mainland. But not much!

Trouble in Paradise

Gazing out the window on the short ride from the airport to my guest house in Nadi, I could see
the tropical beauty for which Fiji is so famous. In the distance were the great green peaks of the rugged interior and along the road were brightly colored homes on small plots with palm trees, and hibiscus and frangipani flowers blooming in their tiny yards. It was the spitting image of a holiday in paradise brochure. On the radio however, it was a different story. As my taxi driver and I careened around one beautiful vista after another, we listened in silence as a newscaster launched into a scathing rant about the inefficiency and negligence of the current interim government. For from without bias, it was absolutely merciless. It seemed that mud-slides during the recent rain had destroyed a number of villages on the north side of the main island, one of which had not received aid in three days. The newscaster made it abundantly clear that the blame was squarely on the incompetency of the current regime. After a good deal of this I turned to the driver and said something of the effect of "wow, that guy really has it in for the government" to which he replied, "yes, but of course here in Fiji we have a radio station for every persuasion."

He turned the dial, and after a few commercials, but right on cue, another newscast was releasing a statement that made it clear that the stranded village was a result of the previous regime's failure to modernize agriculture in the sector, and that the situation was further evidence of the type of mismanagement that made its removal necessary. It went on to describe the improvements that the current regime had already begun to implement in order to rectify the failures of their predecessors.

Not the kind of politicizing you would expect such a beautiful place to produce, but there was no chance that these mud-slides and the havoc that they the reeked could be left to blame on the rain alone.

In fact Fiji is no stranger to political instability - four coups in just 15 years have left their mark. The first took place at 10am on Thursday, May 14th, 1987, when Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka (number three in the Fijian army), and 10 heavily armed soldiers dressed in fatigues, their faces covered in gas masks, entered the House of Parliament in Suva and forced the legislators inside to board army trucks at gunpoint. The resulting chaos has been a severe blow to the islands' economy and strained race relations in an ethnically divided society. Like most current events these coups have their origins in much more distant historical happenings.

Much of the political instability in Fiji has its routes in the ethnic tensions that exist there, and the foundations of a multiracial Fiji were laid in the late 19th century, when Fiji was a British colony. The first colonial governor of Fiji, Sir Arthur Gordon, introduced Indian indentured laborers to work on sugar cane plantations. Indians began arriving in 1879, and by 1916, when Indian immigration ended, there were already 63,000.


To come to Fiji, the Indians had to sign a labor contract or girmit, in which they agreed to cut sugarcane for their masters for five years. During the next five years they were to continue to work on the plantation, but they were allowed to lease small plots from the Fijians and plant their own cane or raise livestock. More than half of the Indians decided to remain after their contracts expired, and today their descendants make up the Indo-Fijian segment of Fiji's population.

In a rare example of good natured concern for its native subjects, the British decided to safeguard Fijian culture by prohibiting indigenous Fijians from commercial employment and protecting their land by law. The result was that Fijian land cold not be sold, only leased. To this day 83% of the land in Fiji is inalienable native Fijian land which can not be sold. Instead it is leased out in small plots, mostly to Indians. The effect has been that the Fijian chiefdom system has been largely maintained and the traditional Fijian way of life can still be seen throughout most of Fiji.

But this system, with its European capital, Fijian land, and Indian labor, has had its consequences. Fijian's have had little motivation to modernize, accumulate capitol, or invest in business. Instead they have been content to sit back and collect off of leased land. Indo-Fijians however, unable to purchase native protected land, have invested in their own businesses. Today it is estimated that less than 100 of the 5,000 businesses operating in Fiji are native Fijian owned. By 1946 the census held that Indians had already outnumbered native Fijians 120,000 to 17,000. Add to this the fact that Indo-Fijians pay nearly 80% of all taxes collected in Fiji, and their cries for equivalent political representation becomes obvious. Yet, the constitution has explicitly reserved the post of president, prime minister, and army chief for ethnic Fijians.

Prominent Fijian nationalists insist that Indo-Fijians must content themselves to be second-class citizens, or at least let indigenous Fijians run the country. They claim political leadership as a birthright by virtue of their status as the indigenous people of the country. They claim that any government in Fiji must legally safeguard native Fijian's position as the "taukei ne gele" or "owners of the soil." Even prior to the first coup in Fiji, at a rally protesting increased Indian participation in government, Apisai Tora, a prominent Fijian Nationalists, stated that Fijians must "act now" to avoid ending up as "deprived as Australia's aborigines."

It is an interesting historical and moral dilemma in Fiji. On the one hand you have an indigenous peoples' struggle to maintain sovereignty over their land. On the other hand you have victims of a racially discriminatory system, who, if left to legitimate representative democracy, could only expect to play a significant political role in the society.

The Final Cut

During the first leg of my trip I shot over thirteen hours of footage. It's been among my most safeguarded possessions during my travels and has managed to survive at the bottom of my backpack in these special water-proof cases. For the brief time I have been home between legs of my trip I decided to set myself to the task of turning these tapes into something I can use in my classroom. Just labeling and cataloging it all took days. A lot of it I took with the intention of using it to illustrate specific historical events. It's from the inside of museums which allowed me to film in them, and from major historical sites like the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, and the Eiffel Tower. With a little editing these segments will help me tell their stories to my students.
Other footage that I took is more random and does not fit so obviously into any single historical topic. I tried to make a habit out of taking out the camera every time I saw something that I thought my students might find interesting. The result is thousands of clips that provide small glimpses of every day life in the various countries I visited. Some of this turns out to be the most interesting stuff in my opinion. It has the potential to give my students a sense of the things that aren't noteworthy enough to make it into a chapter in their text book, but that illustrate the material and cultural differences that exist in their world. Through this footage I can take my students on a walk through the narrow alleys of Cairo, into a bustling train station in India, and on to an orphanage in Rwanda. Having shot the footage myself, I can answer any question they have about what they are seeing. Suddenly my students can feel they have interacted with parts of the world that they had not before. I place a lot of value on this kind of experience in the classroom. At a time when our actions and decisions are increasingly felt by people on the other side of the planet, I think it's essential that a world history course introduces students to what life is like for others around the world. It has certainly been my experience that it is harder to overlook world events that take place in parts of the world that I have been to. The old adage "out of sight, out of mind" has a flip side - once you have seen a place and interacted with its people it is hard to not care about them. A major goal for me is to try to use this footage to extend this sense to my students.

To edit I use a software called Final Cut Express HD. Basically the interface has four main windows: the Browser, where the original source media files that you capture from your camera are listed; the Viewer, where individual media files can be previewed and trimmed; the Timeline, where media can be brought together into a sequence; and the Canvas, where the edited production in the timeline can be viewed. Then of course there are a variety of filters that give your footage different looks and transitions to help connect clips in a way that is easy for the viewer to follow. It might sound complicated, but within a few days of when I installed the program I had four short film segments that were in roughly finished form. It's a lot of fun.

Holy Sites of Jerusalem

Discussing anything remotely connected to religion with students can be risky territory for a teacher to tread, but to avoid a subject for this reason has dangerous consequences. To teach a unit on conflicts in the Middle East and not include the religious significance that people have attached to specific sites within the region gives students an incomplete picture. My students come from different backgrounds - some are Christians, Jews and Muslims who have inherited their own cultural perspectives on middle eastern issues. Most don't feel any connection to the people or land involved, and seem frustrated by this lack of understanding. They hear people talk about "crisis" in the middle east and they see it constantly on the news. Without an understanding of it, I see students resigned to the assumption that people in the middle east are simply prone to fighting, that the situation is a "stupid mess". While in Jerusalem, I set out to take a tour of these sites and try a straightforward historical approach to the religious significance that people have attached to them. My goal was to make myself better prepared to answer my students' questions about "what all the fighting is about over there".

The Temple Mount ר הַבַּיִת‎ "Har haBáyit"

The Temple Mount is an area of only thirty-five acres in the southwest corner of the old City of Jerusalem, but it is arguably the most contested real estate on earth. It has been the epicenter of the Jewish religion for almost three thousand years. According to classical Jewish belief, the temples that have been built on this site have been the primary resting place of God's presence in the physical world. Today all that remains of these temples is the mount or raised platform on which they were been built. The First Temple constructed by the Jews in the 10th century B.C.E was destroyed in 587 B.C.E by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E By Titus of Rome. Lamenting the destruction of these temples is a central tenet of Judaism. According to Jewish scripture the mount is to be the site of the third and final temple, the rebuilding of which will signal the coming of the Messiah. Ever since the Second Temple's destruction, a prayer for the construction of the Third Temple has been a formal part of the thrice daily Jewish prayer services. Preventing Jews from carrying out the construction however, and a paramount source of contention between Jews and Muslims, is the existence of two of Islam's holiest structures that are built on top of the Temple Mount.

The Noble Sanctuary الحرم الشريف "Haram al-Sharif"
The same structure that is known as the Temple Mount by Jews is referred to by Muslims as "Haram al-Sharif" (The Noble Sanctuary). It is their third holiest site, proceeded in importance only by Mecca and Medina in modern Saudi Arabia. The primary reason for its significance to Muslims is the belief that Muhammad arrived here after a miraculous journey aboard the winged steed Buraq, and it was from this point that he ascended into heaven. For Muslims this is the place of Muhammad's last step in his religious journey before he met Allah and received the Islamic faith. Built on the site are two major Muslim religious shrines, "Qubbat as-Sakhra" قبة الصخرة (The Dome of the Rock) , and "Al-Aqsa Mosque" المسجد الأقصى (The Furthest Mosque).

The Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock was built in 691 C.E. by Caliph Abd al-Malik, half a century after the death of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. It is the most visible structure in Jerusalem. It is not a mosque, but a shrine. Like the Ka'ba in Mecca, it is built over a sacred stone. This stone is believed to be the very place from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven during his Night Journey to heaven. It is the oldest Muslim building which has survived intact in its original form. It also boasts the oldest surviving mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) in the world.

Adding to the tension, according to Judaism this same stone is the site where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac (Muslims believe that this event involved Abraham's other son Ishmael and occurred in the desert of Mina where millions of Muslims offer pilgrimage every year). According to Jewish tradition, this was also the rock upon which the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the First Temple. During the existence of the Second Temple, the stone was used by High Priest who offered up incense and sprinkled the blood of sacrifices on it during the Yom Kippur Services. Rabbinic legend also alleges that the entire world was created from this stone, hence the name אבן השתייה, or Foundation Stone.

The Western Wall הכותל המערב "HaKotel HaMa'aravi"

A part of the Temple Mount known as the Western wall is regarded by many as the holiest location currently accessible to Jews. It is believed to be the last remnants of the fortifications of the second temple, and it is sometimes called "The Wailing wall", in reference to Jewish mourning over the destruction of their temple. Jewish men and women can be found praying at the wall at every hour of the day and night, though a "Mechitza," or divider, separates the men's section of the wall from the women's section. It is also a tradition to deposit a slip of paper with wishes or prayers on it into the cracks of the wall, and looking closely, one can see hundreds of tiny, folded papers left by visitors to the wall. Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are held here, and boys and girls of age travel from all over the world to have their ceremonies held by the Western Wall.


The Via Dolorosa
The Via Dolorosa (Latin for "way of grief") is traditionally believed to be the path that Jesus walked on the way to his Curcifixion. Along the path are nine of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which each mark a site where an event occur ed in the final hours of Jesus' suffering. The last five stations are inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At each site there is a small church or shrine and some kind of depiction of the event that occurred, such where Jesus collapsed, where he met his mother, where his face was wiped, and where he was stripped of his clothing. The object of the Stations is to help the faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage of prayer to the chief scenes of Jesus' sufferings and death.




The Church of the Holy Sepulcher:
A "sepulcher" is a burial tomb, and the Holy Sepulcher derives its name from the Christian belief that it is the place where Jesus was buried and resurrected. Control of the church itself is as contested as Christianity is divided. Three major Christian denominations; Greek Orthodox, Latin and Armenian, control their own coveted turf inside and manage the church by consensus. Upkeep of the structure has been neglected due in large part to disagreements between sects over who has jurisdiction over what portions of the church. For instance, the ladder that can be seen at the window over the main entrance has been there since 1852, and has not been moved because it was present when the status quo was officially established and to do so would require the consent of each denomination. Interestingly, worries about Christian rivalries run so deep that a Palestinian Muslim family has had custody of one of the most coveted portions of the church for centuries - the keys.

At the entrance to the church is the stone of Unction or of Anointing. It is a polished red stone about six meters long and one meter wide. According to tradition it was here that the body of Jesus was anointed and prepared for burial. Christian Pilgrims come from around the world to kneel and pray before the stone.


In the center of a large rotunda lies the empty tomb of Christ or The Edicule. It was built around the remains of the excavated cave that Jesus was believed to be set in before he was resurrected. The interior of the Edicule is lined with marble and decorated with pictures, hangings, lamps and candelabra, which are numerically divided between the different Christians sects that share its control. There is almost always a line of people waiting to enter the Edicule, and no more than four people can be admitted at one time.

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The tragedy is that these sites, revered for their connection to prophets of peace, have created such a volatile element in the situation in the Middle East. After conversations with people from various sides within Jerusalem, the one thing that was clear to me, was that an offense against one of these sights had the potential to cause an immediate full-scale war throughout the region. An indication of that potential can be seen by the reaction to Arial Sharon, the former prime minister of Israel's controversial actions on September 28, 2000. Accompanied by hundreds of soldiers, he made a walking tour of the Muslim controlled Noble Sanctuary. Palestinians perceived it as a threat to their holy sites and a confirmation of their fears that Israel intended to exert control over the entire Temple Mount. Days of rioting ensued, peace talks were disrupted, and violence spiraled into a full-scale intifada. It's one of history's great ironies that Jerusalem, which translates into "city of peace", has come to be trigger so much war and bloodshed.

















Evidence of the conflict over these sites is everywhere, in spray paint on the walls and in the security present around each site.

The Militarization of Public Space

For me, the most poignant indication that when I had entered Israel I had stepped into a society that perceived itself as under siege, was the teenage girls with machine guns. They're everywhere; waiting for the bus, in front of you at the check-out line, shopping at the mall. To me, they looked exactly like my students in every way; listening to their ipods, chewing gum, fussing over their hair - except these were teenage girls armed to the teeth, each one in uniform with a fully automatic machine gun slung over their shoulder. It drives home the the message - public space in Israel is militarized.

A few months before I arrived in Israel, Katushka rockets were raining into parts of the country on a daily basis. At the same time the Israeli Defense Force was busy with a bombing campaign that nearly leveled the entire infrastructure of its northern neighbor Lebanon. It was war, but it was also business as usual here. Within hours of Israel’s declaration of statehood in 1948, six nations declared war on it. A quick look at the modern nation of Israel's sixty years of history reveals varying degrees of armed conflict within its own borders, punctuated by periods of outright war with its surrounding neighbors.

It made me curious about the effects this constant state of heightened security had on "ordinary life" in Israel.

This was a display at an Israeli toy store. Further down the isle were the stuffed animals.

On the trail of the Mahatma

I decided that beyond the larger context of studying the history of India's independence struggle, I would attempt to gain some insight into the life of its most central character - Mohandas K. Gandhi. I approached this goal in a variety of ways. I figured it would be important to let Gandhi tell his own story, so I decided to read his own book - Hind Swaraj or "Indian self rule". In it he defines the principles on which he founded his stratagey of Sattyagraha (non-violent non-cooperation). He explains the tactics he desired for Indians to deploy in their struggle for independence. He also explains how India's independence from Britian was dependent on the Indian people's ability to achieve self-sufficency and break their dependency on Brittish goods and obediance to Brittish laws. I believe that his writing is quite revolutionary for recognition of how Indian's own participation in the system constructed by Brittish rule prevented India's liberation and supported a political and economic systems that kept them enslaved. Reading his own words gave me a kind of insight into him that can not be duplicated by looking at other biographical works.

HISTORICAL SIGHTS
I also visited a number of sights in India that are historically significant to India's independence struggle and to Gandhi's life.

Gandhi's ashram: where he and his disciples planned their acts of resistance and from where he launched his historic Dandi Yatra or salt march; the event that signaled to many in India that Indians could break their domination by simply refusing to obey the injustices they saw in British laws.

I visited three Museums in Delhi, Ahmedebad and Mumbai that were dedicated to educating the public about Gandhi's life and works. In these museums I saw . Perhaps the most striking thing was the meager nature of his possession. The fact that someone could weild such power and influence over people, yet have sufficient self-control to limit their material wealth is incredible.

I also saw a number of sites that were connected to Gandhi's death. I saw the bullet that took his life, and the bloody cloth dodi that was the last article of clothing he wore(he hand-spun it himself of course). I visited a photo exhibit of the ceremonies of national mourning that took place after his death and I went to the site where that ceremony had its culmination and where he was cremated in front the perhaps millions of mourners.

I also visited a department store that was founded by Gandhi's followers and still attempts to adhere to Gandhi's philosophy in the conduct of all of its businiess transactions - a difficult thing to do and still compete in an economic system that favors profit motivated companies. In the process I'm sure I cemented my position in my history department as the resident "Gandhi-ophile"/dork, but having followed him around a bit and seen his belongings, where he lived, and the sights that were significant to the events of his life, I think that I have become more prepared to share his story and reflec on its meaning with my students.

Freedom at Midnight: and the story of India's independence

I am glad that while in the course of traveling through India I stumbled upon the book "Freedom at midnight" co-authored by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins. Reading into their nearly hour-by-hour account of every major and minor event that made India's independence possible, while at the same time traveling within the society that is in large part a result of those events has been a unique way to gain perspective on what is in many ways the most remarkable independence struggle in history. The book is a worthy companion to anyone who is trying to understand the historically strange story of how the people of India gained their independence.

What makes India's eventual defeat of British rule in India so unlike many similar stories of struggle between colonizer and colonized people throughout history is of course the role that non-violent non-cooperation played in it. The thought that one can actually put an end to one's oppression by using methods that demonstrate to one's oppressor that they are unjustly causing suffering, and that this alone could be effective, is a notion that should not be overlooked by anyone proposing to teach valuable lessons in social studies. In no other event in history were as many individuals working with peaceful methods and in unity towards the overthrow of violent domination and oppression. the scale at which it was attempted in India and the variety of tactics which were developed there to achieve it, make the study of India's independence important for every society. As a model it provides an entirely different set of tools for creating positive change. Those strategies are practical for any institution or individual who is inclined to make something which they believe is "bad", be "good", and do so without being what they consider "bad" themselves. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the history of India's non-violent revolution is - that it worked.

"Freedom at Midnight" tells this story with such attention to detail that it reads like a drama unfolding. These two authors have created a portrayal of this revolutionary event that includes the perspective of every angle, not just the major players.

Getting Around

Just crossing the street in India can be a challenging activity, especially when you're not familiar with its pace and etiquette. It can have a daunting look, with its constant flow of rickshaws, whole families piled on top of scooters, camel drawn carts, buses bulging at the seems, and of course a tranquil Hindu cow meandering through the traffic. Just when you think you know what to expect, a nine-year-old boy manages to drive his herd of forty goats straight down one of the busiest streets of the center of Calcutta, changing everything. I don't know what academic value there is to it, but I wanted to dedicate some space to a description of some of the more interesting ways of getting around in India.

AUTO-RICKSHAW

First, and perhaps a personal favorite, is the auto-rickshaw. It is the way to do local transport in India. If they were street legal back home I would import a fleet of them. Like little black and yellow beetles they whiz around on three wheels, turning on a dime. Powered by a two-stroke moped engine, they scoot through the chaos of Indian traffic, emitting there constant high pitched honk. The horn is used in India as part of a complex alert system that allows other drivers to know where everybody is at all times without anyone having to turn their head - or maybe they just really like it. When you get inside see if you can tell how the driver operates the brakes, the gas and changes gears all at once. A thirty minute ride should be about forty rupees (a little less than an American dollar).

CYCLE-RICKSHAW

A cycle-rickshaw is also an option in most of India, although it can be a slightly uncomfortable thing when you find yourself behind an elderly man straining to peddle you through the choking smog of India's streets. Almost all cycle-rickshaws are not owned by their drivers, but are rented out by the day from a larger company. They offer a great pace to tour an Indian city by, and I have sometimes arranged to stick with the same driver for a whole day of sight-seeing. On one occasion I had a driver let me take him for a spin and it was hard going, with only one gear. I can only imagine what it is like when you're hauling a whole family around back there, as they often are.

HAND-RICKSHAW

Last in the rickshaw family is the hand rickshaw, or jin riki sha in Japanese, literally meaning "man-powered vehicle". It was designed in about 1870 in Japan, and it soon spread throughout the colonial networks which were in Asia at that time. It is a light wooden cart with large diameter wheels, generally also in wood, drawn by a man running between two long shafts that project in front. Insofar as it required only one man to pull another, it was at the time an "advance" over previously available vehicles.

Today they are banned almost everywhere in the world, and the last sizable fleet

of hand rickshaws can only be found in Calcutta, where the rickshaw wallah union has resisted prohibition. In 1992, it was estimated that over 30,000 rickshaws were operating in the city, all but 6,000 of them illegally, or lacking a license. The large majority of rickshaw wallahs rent their rickshaws for a few hundred rupees per shift, so if they seem desperate for business it is because if they don't get enough customers it comes out of their pocket.

I saw hand-rickshaws when I was in Calcutta when the monsoon had first struck the city. No one was happier to see the rains come than them. Within days the street are flooded waist deep and hand-rickshaws become the only means of transportation capable of navigating much of the city.

BUS

You could take a bus, if you're crazy. Perhaps the most comfortable area inside is the small compartment for the driver which has seating for around five. The only drawback is your bird's-eye view of the near misses and potential head on collisions. And of course the blearing Indian duets that are blasted over the radio in an attempt to keep the driver awake.

Train
Indian trains are in a category of their own when it comes to travel in India. The Indian Railway System is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, and it is also the world's largest commercial employer, with more than 1.6 million employees. It manages to transport over six billion passengers a year - that's roughly the equivalent of the entire population of the planet. Then there is the almost 750 million tons of freight moved along it tracks a year. It's pretty amazing that it call comes together and for the most part works.

There is nothing quite like sitting by the open door of an Indian sleeper train and watching the countryside roll by. For three or four dollars you can take a train from one side of India to the other. It may take a few days to get there, but you may find that the trip there is as much fun as wherever it is you are going. Food and beverages are available at every stop, you just have to listen for the call of the different vendors who call out their trade along the tracks when you pull into the station. When you come to complete stop they'll streaming down the eisle and coming up to the windows. I recomend the tiny packages of biscuits, the somosas, and if you're feeling crazy the fresh fruit.

When it's time to sleep the back of the bottom bench smartly folds up to form the middle berth, and what was your little living room suddenly becomes sleeping for eight , although that's just an estimate. Depending on the diligence of the TTE (traveling ticket inspector) you could have any number of people sleeping in your compartment during the night. I recommend the upper berths as you can turn in early or sleep in late at your leisure. There are three little fans that operate from a switch down below. Bring a little blanket to use as a sheet or to cover you if it's somewhere cold. Don't worry, the gentle sway of the train, the long fading whistle, and the click-clack of the wheels clamoring down the track, conspire to form a rhythmic symphony that lulls you into a dreamy sleep. Don't be surprised when a group of traveling musicians wake you from your slumber - when you pay them they'll go away. In the morning you wake to the sing-song voice of the chai wallahs making their rounds, "Chai, Chai, Chai....". The train pulls into a tiny little village station and you catch a glimpse of the India between its cities; a place where the pace has changed little for thousands of years. Village women dressed in saris of every color and laden with jewelry from head to toe scramble on with their goods to bring to the market in the next village. There is never a dull moment.

The train is also the place to experience the remarkable generosity of Indian people. More than once I have had the happy chance to share my compartment with an Indian family that takes out their little tin lunch-box containing the food for their journey, and insists that I get my share and give everything a try. It is a great opportunity to get your questions answered about Indian history, the caste system, arranged marriages, religion, philosophy or anything else you are curious about. Don't worry, they'll have plenty of questions for you too.

This is the toilet on the train, don't use it when you're at the station because it's just a hole that leads down to the tracks below.

Getting your ticket

Getting a ticket for an Indian train is something that takes some getting used to. To prevent being cut, Indians que up without an inch to spare between them - don't be surprised if someone has a little lean on you or drapes their arm over your shoulder. Personal space has an entirely different definition here. At the front of the line there is a bottleneck of Indians trying get a hand into the tiny hole through which you are supposed to speak to the reservationist. If you're lucky enough to make it up to the reservation's he will give you about twelve seconds to make sense to him, if you don't it's on to the next person begging for his attention. In some stations there is a separate window for "freedom fighters" and "foreign tourists," so if you fit into either of those categories you could save some time, unless you are uncomfortable accepting special treatment when there are so many other who have to wait.

There are cars with a number of different classes in an Indian train. What was called "3rd class unreserved" when I was in India last, is now euphemistically called "general seating". It consists of wooden seats in rows. General seating cars are always the first and last on an Indian train and it can be a real battle just to get on board. Once inside it is perfectly possible for there to be absolutely no place for you to sit or lay down even if it is an overnight train. In my experience once you make it clear that you intend to stay, someone finds some space for you somewhere. Once settled people are remarkably tolerant of one another considering the conditions they are forced to share and if it's good enough for the mahatma, who always rode third class, it's good enough for me.