Reflection of India

Like I have said a million times, I am still trying to process everything I did and saw in India. I am exhausted! My teacher told me that there are two types of people in the world: The ones that have been to India, and the ones that have not been to India. I feel so thankful that I can now say I have been to India. It is so much more than I ever could have imagined. The poverty, the people I met, the experiences that I had are still flooding my mind. I wonder what will happen to the mother that I met who had a 3 day old baby and who was sitting on the corner of a busy street. I wonder what will happen to the children that I saw that were begging for food, or to the babies that were sick, or to the helpless and the homeless. There are so many faces, images, colors, and smells that I keep thinking about and can’t seem to shake off. As I wash India out of my clothes (my sink water was literally black from all the dust and dirt), scrub India off my fingernails and out of my hair, piece together newspaper clippings, tickets and postcards in my scrapbook, download pictures and listen to India tunes, my mind is crowded with thoughts. I want to share everything I saw, everything I felt, and take you to where I have been. However, India is an impossible place to describe in a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph. To help me out, I will leave you with the words of Mark Twain who said,  “"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most astrictive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!"

Gandhi!!!

The next morning we went to the Bahai house of Worship. The building is shaped like a huge lotus blossom. I thought it would be cool if it was designed to open and close and it would have been really pretty if it were pink, but it didn’t open or close and it was just white. We attended a brief service and then we went to the Gandhi Museum. This Gandhi was really amazing, because the museum had you start in his room and then walk through to the courtyard and finish where he was shot and killed. Essentially, the museum was designed to take you through the last day of Gandhi’s life. It was really moving. They had Gandhi quotes that lined the path all the way to the courtyard and then they had a house that was part of the museum that gave a timeline of his life. Then we visited the Sikh Temple. We had to take our shoes and socks off and “wash” our feet in the water. I say “wash” because the water was like black, so it was more of a symbolic, religious act then a literal sparkly clean that you might think of when you think of “bath”. I really don’t know all that much about the Temples or the Indian religions and so we just observed the prayer and then had to bow as we left and then they handed us some dough to eat (although, none of us ate it) and then we went and looked at this pool that was blessed by a god and then we went to the airport to fly back to Chennai.

Last day in Delhi

The last day, a few of us went to a market near the hotel which was filled with people and silks, food, shoes, kitchen appliances, toys…you name it, they were selling it. The markets are hot and dusty, busy and crowded. But, we were so glad that we had some free time to go explore and we had a really good time. Then we headed back to the train station. While we waited on the platform in the dark, little kids jumped off arriving trains and begged for our soda bottles, cereal, scarves, watches, bracelets, jackets and sweaters. Little kids (about 4) were holding infants (little sisters and brothers) and the ones that weren’t begging for food from us would hop off the platforms and go through the trash on the train tracks. Homeless with no legs or arms were begging for money. Huge rats were wandering around the platforms and in between luggage. We boarded the train and headed back to Delhi.

Day 3: India

We got to the hotel and we went to the Agra Fort of the Mughal Dynasty, created by four emperors. The walls are 20 meters thick. Fatehpur sikri is a city that has been preserved for the past 400 years and the city was abandoned because they could not get water. Then we went to the Taj Mahal. I have seen lots of famous monuments but nothing could have prepared me for the Taj. I walked through the garden and made my way around the entrance and there was the Taj. It is such an incredible monument. India is so busy and non-stop that when you get the Taj it feels like time stops. It is quiet and calm and serene. As I walked up the path the Taj just gets more and more beautiful. It is something that you can’t capture in a picture. I had to keep pinching myself that I was there and I was looking at the real thing. It was amazing. The next day we went to Mother Teresa’s Ashram. I didn’t really know what to expect, but when I studied international social work I had the opportunity to visit a lot of orphanages. However, this was so much more overwhelming then I ever could have anticipated. First, a nun who worked with Mother Teresa met us and she showed us around the orphanage. The first room had newborns that were sleeping in rows and rows of cribs. Some of them had braces on their legs to keep their limbs growing the right direction. Then we went into the next room that had a large blanket on the floor about 15 newborns. They were all crawling around and these were the babies that would be adopted to Indian families. We got to hold the babies and play with them. Then we went into the next room where the disabled children were. They were sitting in beds and these children, we were told, would not be adopted. It was so hard to see such severe disabilities and suffering. Then we went to another set of rooms across the courtyard where the disabled babies would eventually go when they were older. These rooms held the disabled adults that ranged from ages 6-80. The orphanage and the nuns who managed it were providing love and care for so many disadvantaged children and adults and while it was good that these babies, children and adults were being well taken care of, it was so, so sad. I am still trying to process everything that I saw.

India: Day 2

Day two was the start to my adventures to the Taj Mahal. We had to fly to Delhi. They don’t have gates at their airport and so you just take a bus straight to the plane. We watched Friends on the airplane, which made me laugh…HAHA. It was a super nice flight. Then we got in and took a bus to the hotel. The hotel was so excited that we were coming that they met us at the doors with flower necklaces and blessed us as we came in and had a HUGE flower welcome arrangement in the lobby. The next day we took a train (the Taj Express) to Agra. The train is wild. There were monkeys (like the ones you see at the zoo (BEHIND GLASS)) just wandering around looking for food. The station is so crowded with billions of people going all directions. We rode first class…but India just smells, and so it was smelly—not our version of first class. They sell Chai and tomato soup and all kinds of Indian food…none of which I was adventurous to try... all of it totally random. Nothing on the train is labeled and there are no announcements for where you are or where you are going and so you have to just ask people around you…lucky for me, I was traveling with SAS and so I didn’t have to stress out trying to figure out where we were. It was so early in the morning that everyone outside was waking up and so as we were traveling I watched people wake up out the window, look through trash for food, and gathered around small fires. The poverty here is so heartbreaking.

India Day 1

I am still trying to process everything from India. The first day a group of us went out. We actually got pictured in the paper!!!--as drivers were ambushing us! We caught a rickshaw, which is a motorized scooter that holds two people. On the way to a market we got in a fender bender—also minute one. Our rickshaw driver was talking to the other rickshaw driver and a car pulled out in front of him and he swerved into us and we got sideswiped by a van in the oncoming lane, but we were all ok. We went to a consignment store (which drivers are tipped for if they take us there) and so everything was really over priced. Then we went to a restaurant and had yummy food and then we went and got silks. I didn’t opt to have a sari made because I would never in a billion years wear it in Portland, but I got lots of scarves! Some of the girls I was with got beautiful sari’s made... really beautiful! Then we went to a Temple. We left our shoes with our driver and bought flowers as a peace offering to leave at the shrine. I don’t know very much about Indian Culture and so I just kind of followed the group and left the flowers at the alter to be blessed and they took them and then I was blessed and then they hand you this mint type leaf and then there are candles and incents and whatnot. It was nice. My first impressions of India: Crowded, busy, poor, beautiful…takes your breath away by how many scents, sounds, colors, textures, garbage, rubbish, children, and poverty there is. India is like no place I have ever been before and I don’t think it will be like any place I will ever go. This was day one.

Mauritius

Hey All,

I just got back from Mauritius, which is an island off the coast of South Africa. If you hold up your left hand with your palm faced toward you that is the shape of Mauritius and so you can always find it on a map–or so my cab driver told me. Have any of you ever been in the MAC store and seen the screen savers of the white beaches with the perfect umbrella and endless turquoise water? Well, that is EXACTLY what Mauritius looks like. The first day that we got here, a group of us just threw a dart at the map and picked a beach to go to. For those of you that know me well, you know I am not fond of swimsuits and so you all would have been so surprised to actually see me in the ocean—even I couldn’t resist passing up the warm water and white sand! At one point I was chasing after a vollyball and actually fell into the water and got soaked from head to toe. However, I did end up talking about how much I miss cold Cannon Beach, warm chai, big bonfires in the rain and sweaters and boots (as I re-applied sunscreen).The rest of the day we just relaxed and had time to catch up with each other because we had all been so busy on various trips in South Africa and had midterms on the ship. We went to this really good Indian restaurant for dinner.

The next day I went on an SAS trip to see the volcano and the largest waterfall in Africa. We stopped at the Ghandi Center and learned about the do-do bird that went extinct a trillion years ago and all about the flora and fauna. We went and saw the 7 sands, which are the 7 sands of the world and they are all different colors. Then we got some free time at the beach before heading back to the ship. This was a short stop because we were only stopping for fuel. It was like a tiny spring break.  Now I am back on the ship and we are heading to India. I have a lot of presentations and tests coming up and so there is lots going on! I want to send a special thank you out to mom, Emma, Eli, and Julie for sending me “REAL” mail! You are the best! You made my day and all of your notes are up on my wall! I am half way to home! More to come soon! Love to everyone!