Hello
everyone. I'm sitting outside listening to the ox next door and trying
to avoid the misquotes, and I thought that I could give everyone a
little update on the trip since this is my first chance at free
internet. I think I'll start from the beginning of the trip and see how
much I can remember; We started in Minneapolis at 1130 on Sunday at the
airport, of course our flight was delayed going to Detroit, and we had
to run to catch our flight to Amsterdam. We made it and that flight was
pretty good, we watched some movies and slept a bit. In Amsterdam we met
up with our pastor Chris Nelson and hung out until our flight to
Mumbai. That flight got a little long but wasn't too bad. In
Mumbai we
were supposed to get picked from the airport up by our hotel's taxi, but
my Mom had the foresight to ask the crew of our flight if we could
catch a ride on their bus. The trip from the airport to the hotel was a
quick reminder that we had finally arrived. Stepping out of the airport
doors we were greeted with a huge crowd of people all packed in around
metal railings, some holding signs with names, some without. We continued to walk with the crew to the bus and got on. The ride to the hotel reminded me of my short visit to Mexico City last month; there were small shops lining every street, although it was 11:30 at night there were still people at every street corner, and the traffic was crazy. Actually it is hard to compare the traffic in India to anywhere I've been. The combination of cars, buses, motorcycles, motorized rickshaws, and pedestrians taking up their own lane is unique and pretty scary. After riding the bus through city streets for a half hour, I thought that a turn down a smaller street would be a nice rest. I was incorrect; this smaller street led to a pretty fair sized hill. I was in the back of the bus and could hear/feel the engine really working about half way up the hill. Another few feet and the bus stalled. The driver tried to restart and we were heading
backwords down a blind curve. Thankfully the driver realized it was a lost cause and put the break on. The hotel finally came the roughly half mile and picked us up. By this time I was more than ready for bed, and I fell asleep when my head hit the pillow.
We woke up the next day were planning on seeing the sights of
Mumbai only to look out the window at monsoon season rain. When I asked about seeing downtown I was told that it would take 8 hours, 3-4 of which would be driving to and from. My Mom and I decided that it would be easier just to hang around the hotel (which was one of the nicer ones that I've ever stayed in) and check out the surrounding area. We left for the nearby market by
moto-rickshaw after lunch. I would compare the rickshaw experience with the Wild Thing, with a price tag of only about 80 cents instead of $40. I bought my customary local club jersey, but this time it was for a Cricket team instead of the usual soccer. We also went to the supermarket and tried out some local candy, which was a little too sweet for my taste. The
moto-rickshaw ride back to the hotel was even more fun because our driver seemed either very tired or under the influence of some reaction slowing substance. As we got out of the vehicle I had to remind him that we had not yet paid and consequently I told him how much we owed. We than killed time back at the hotel till our 10:30 taxi ride for our 1:00 Am flight to Chennai.
As we headed off, our driver, who didn't speak much English, said that he was taking us to the International terminal. We responded that we were taking a Domestic flight and that he should take us to the corresponding terminal. Of course when we got to the Domestic terminal we quickly found out that there were no flights departing after 12:30. As we started out for the other terminal, I asked how long the trip would be. It took 3 queries, and the best answer I got was "it is very hard to estimate time in
Mumbai because of traffic, but most likely 20 min." When we hit the traffic jam at the beginning of the road to the airport, the driver said he knew a shortcut. We flew down a one lane road behind the airport packed with semis for short time until that too became congested. After finally waiting out that jam of course the car was out of fuel. By the time we got to the airport we were cutting it pretty close to making our flight. Stepping up to the ticket counted we learned that the computers were down and that check-in was going to be a process, especially with the discount fares that we had. We ran to and cleared security, than ran to our gate, only to find that not only was our flight boarding from gate 2A, but a flight to London was also. We watched the gate agents yelling at security, and finally found our way onto our plane. A short flight later and we were met in Chennai by our pastor Chris and our three Indian guides, Joseph, Thomas, and Ruth. We waited with them for the rest of our group to arrive from their flight from London. When they arrived we all became a crew of fifteen very jet-legged Americans.
We all rode in 2 vans to our first lodging of the trip, the Lutheran Seminary in Chennai. We spent the morning resting there, than had our first real Indian lunch. I think I can safely say that anything tastes amazing when your eating it with your hands. It feels like I was really meant to be in India all along; I've been fighting it and eating with a fork and knife my whole life when I am really meant to eat with the silverware that I was given at birth. After lunch we went to the
Parktown School in Chennai.
Parktown is a boarding school that serves the poorest of children in Chennai. We were greeted with song and flower petals at our feet. It is amazing how happy and playful children are, no matter their situation in life. Walking down the streets around the school we saw were some of the students spent their nights, covered by a tarp at the most. The school had five floors, and we spent time in classrooms on each one. Not many of the children spoke much more English than hello, but asking them what their name was and taking their pictures was really amazing. When we got to the top floor they put on a performance as a thank-you. It was hard to accept their thank you when I had known nothing about their school before that day, but it was amazing nonetheless. Than we left and went to one of the biggest shopping centers in Asia. It was quite a contrast to the school. By the time we got to the mall all of us were ready for bed, so after dinner in the food court we went back to the Seminary and quickly went to sleep.
I still need to catch you up on our last 2 days but it is getting pretty late and we are getting up at 6 tomorrow to go to a Hindu temple and walk up the sacred mountain, so I better get some sleep. I'll try and post more about the day+ pictures tomorrow.
I'll start with this picture because it represents one of the main themes that I experienced in India: people. There were people everywhere. It is hard to really explain; we stayed in large cities for a couple days, but we were mostly in smaller "towns", and I really couldn't tell the difference in population. As far as I could tell there was traffic all day, every day. The closest comparison I can make to the traffic is to Mexico City and the amount of people NYC, but even those seem like a stretch.
This is a picture at a boarding school that we visited. We visited a total of 5 schools on our trip. I wrote about it a bit in the other posts but the visits really stuck out as the reason we went to India. The kids at these schools are supported by Lutheran Partners in Global Mission, an organization started by a couple from our church. I think this picture captures the attitude of the kids perfectly; they know what type of opportunity they have and they take every advantage of it by listening and doing what their told. For them going to school, if only till the 12th grade, means not having to work as day labors doing backbreaking work for almost nothing from the age of 15 on.
I took this picture at Lebanon home for women. The women here were either widowers or left by their husbands. Because of this they have no real way to support themselves. At the Lebanon home they weave all different types of things like scarves, bags, etc. They depend on travelers like us to bring them back to the US for sale where we live. It was amazing to see a large open room full of women in all stages of the weaving process, and than to see the final product.
This is one of my favorite pictures that I took, its the view from the mountain in Tiruvannamalai. We got up at 6:00 and walked through the ashram at the bottom of the mountain. The ashram was founded by the Yogi Ramana Maharshi who lived on the mountain for some time. Check out the Wiki for him, it's pretty interesting stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi.
