For those who are not following the plot closely, I am now working for a company called IDEX (www.idex.com - and yes, I’m working on a web overhaul), which ostensibly is a free standing “national leader in the fields of community development and sustainable tourism” (my official marketing blather, thank you) but which is actually part of a nebulous, overlapping and incestual three-organization nexus, consisting of one NGO, one travel company and one specialist startup trying its best to occupy the volunteer tourism space.

I haven’t quite unpacked the twistings and turnings of this three-headed beast, but as far as I can tell, the aetiology goes something like: mother and son help found NGO (named Lok Rang) which goes on to rack up considerable $ from the likes of UNICEF and the Government of India for doing community development work (i.e. midwife education, fair trade work with local artisans). Son then decides to start travel company (Rex Tours) specializing in straight ahead tourism in India’s foreign tourist heartland. In touring Europe to pump up the travel company, son finds out about volunteer tourism, at which point he decides to start volunteer tourism company (IDEX), through which foreigners who want something more substantial than “ten days of Rajasthani color and culture” can work in a community development project in a real, live Indian village. Whose community development projects, you asked? Well, Lok Rang’s of course.  From there, the overlappings only get trickier, as in: who owns those jeeps I’m always getting driven around in? And who owns the huts where the volunteers stay? And who is running these community development projects in the real live Indian town of Shiv? And who is paying the drivers? And who is running the “rural camp”? And what are all of Rex Tours equipment doing the main Lok Rang office? I’m assuming at this point you get the picture. As one might say in Hindi – sab sab parivar mei hei (its all in the family).

None of which is to say that there aren’t plus sides to life as an employee of the Lok Rang-Rex Tours-Idex chimera. For example, depending on my mood and the type of people I’m talking to, I can either be working for an NGO (and hence be out for the little people and all that’s good and right in the world) or in the tourist industry (and hence be out for profit, greed, exploitation and superficial experience). Or else, if it’s someone I want to get rid of, I can try to explain the real story, at which point there eyes glaze over. Also, because my boss is mostly busy with the actual travel company, which I’m guessing is the cash cow (although those UNICEF grants can’t be bad for the bottom line) I am basically free to do whatever I want with IDEX in terms of making marketing materials, building an orientation program (Yes, I am responsible for orienting people to India), dictating operating procedures business development, you name it. Plus, even if the whole thing is definitely on the shady side, my boss is a totally straight up guy who is a pleasure to work with, whenever he’s in the office. Oh, and he pays me in cash, which feels good, even if it ain’t worth that much.

Now that all that’s crystal clear, I can get on with the travel blog aspect of this entry regarding my recent journey out to the deserts of western Rajasthan. Did I say desert? I meant: utterly imposing wasteland. Well, perhaps that’s not fair, but in the name of bridging that always problematic gap between language and reality, I can’t help but ask – how is it that something like - “The Arid high plateau of South-Western Rajasthan is broken by wild cliffs and hill ranges. Irrigation dams or deep wells are the source of water for the fields in the oases lying within the Valleys” (http://www.webindia123.com/Rajasthan/land/land.htm) - sound appealing and intriguing, when in actuality what is being described is one of the world’s most forbidding and inhospitable corners? In the name of a bit of narrative pace, I’ll leave that question for the moment but, if you have some insight into what exactly is so magical, fantastic or otherwise swell about deserts, do fill me in. 

In any case, IDEX’s one and only zone of operation is in Western Rajasthan, specifically in a town called Shiv, and so, as I’m revising, organizing and promoting IDEX activities these days, everyone agreed that it would be a good idea for me to see what things looked like on the ground. Accompanying me to Shiv were the three IDEX guides, and eight volunteers – seven Danish college girls and a sole 32-year-old British management consultant who has since quite the program (she wanted to work harder). After a twelve hour overnight train (painless) and a two hour local bus ride (cramped but painless), we arrived at the rural camp, which consists of a number of “ethnic huts” (don’t even get me started on what the hell that means), which are actually quite comfortable and have running water and air cooling devices.

The basic drill at the rural camp is that the volunteers get carted from there on a daily basis to local primary schools, where they sort of go through the motions of teaching English to the little ones for three hours or so. We visited the schools, which are dilapidated but functional (though I was sad to hear that the teachers sometimes don’t show up). We visited a lot of local officials in order to try to set the volunteer program, now in its second season, on a more official footing. I taught the volunteers a bit of Hindi. Thankfully, the workload was light, as the late September heat was still absolutely crushing. As is probably obvious, I’m a little sceptical about the ultimate value of this sort of program, although I’m actually less cynical about everything than it might seem from my little asides. In any case, it was a great treat to get to see life in this sort of setting, both in Shiv, a village of 12,00, and at the district headquarters in Barmer, where, after a rather scary ride on some stranger’s scooter, I found a really great dealer of Barmer hand printed textiles. Having enough Hindi to distinguish myself from a tourist, I got a chance to interact with a few folks and, perhaps more importantly, to experience the physicality of the area.

After a couple of days at the rural camp, I was pretty confident that I had a sense of the place. Plus, as there was lots of rumblings about the guides being unhappy with the Lok Rang staff, and as there were obviously a few too many hangers on sponging off the whole scene (e.g. brother of Lok Rang director who sidelights as a Vedic astrologer and thinks Confucius got all of his material from India), and as there were rumors in town and even news articles about a former Lok Rang board member from Shiv who had since quit and was making accusations of some sort of impropriety, well, yeah, it was time to go. Luckily, Shiv is on the one real road in this part of Rasjasthan, so it was easy enough to sit on that road and hail down the hourly bus for Jaisalmer, a total favorite of Western tourists that I thought I would check out as a detour on the way back to Jaipur.

As for Jaisalemer, I don’t have so much great to say. People rave about the 12th century fort, and rightfully so, cause it’s old and really cool looking and fully integrated into the city, but after that little moment of “wow, cool fort”, the charm wears off pretty quickly, at least in the Sept. heat. Because, though I’m sure its much more pleasant in the cooler months, when the famed sunset is an aesthetic/spiritual experience and not just a long awaited respite from the heat, in the end Jaisalmer is just another Rajasthani tourist town, which isn’t such a bad thing, but also ain’t that ground breaking. Like: enough “hello, friends” already, I don’t want to come in your shop; in fact, I don’t even want to be in your dirty, smelly town, so if you don’t mind mujhe bataie - train station kha hei? (please tell me – where’s the train station). Ok, that was really a low blow, b/c Im sure Jaiselmer is great if you’re with someone and the weather is cool, and Im sure all those vendors really do want to be my friend. Anyway, the body known as Isaac has now been in close proximity to the fort and town known as Jaisalmer, and pictures have been taken to prove this fact, so at least there’s that.

From Jaisalmer a very long and slow train dominated by pilgrims going to pay homage to a certain Baba Ram Dev in Jodhpur took me back to Jaipur. A rather unpleasant ride, but I did have the pleasure of taking an image of said Baba Ram Dev that was handed to me and showing it to the Canadian tourists sitting next to me while informing them “this is a picture of God”. Then I made them eat the prasad being handed around.