India Part 2

January 1, 2012

"We made it through the Delhi airport with no problems at all.  My favorite was the little girl in front of us as we were getting of the plane: 'Oh! It smells like India!' (I, surprisingly, didn't find the smell nearly as bad as I was prepared for).  The other highlight was while we were waiting on the plane for our final flight to Bhubaneswar.  There was music piped in and it sounded like some sort of tribal Indian kind of music, but was immediately followed by some sappy Muzak version of 'That's What Friends are For.' We were cracking up!  We arrived in Bhubaneswar at 7:00 pm local time (8:30 am in Indy).  26 1/2 hours of travel!!  Asim and Mamata met us at the airport.  They took us out to eat and we tried some new things.  Poppers were kind of like a tortilla chip, but were the size of our plate.  They were lighter in texture than a chip and had a strong (not salty) flavor.  It was pretty good.  It was served with chicken kabobs, fried prawns and garlic chicken with fried rice.  After dinner we started the drive to Cuttack.  Traffic in India is kind of insane.  They drive on the left...mostly.  Because really there are no lines and people just seem to drive as fast as they want and pass whenever they want and just keep honking at everyone.  I was sitting in the front seat and I was slightly scared for my life.  There are all kinds of vehicles on the road--trucks, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and rickshaws (both motorized and bikes)  There just aren't words to describe the feeling of chaos on the streets. We arrived at The Shelter around 10:00 pm

"It is January 1!  It's weird to thing that we are up for breakfast and it's not even midnight back home.  Last night after we arrived at The Shelter, we attended a New Year's Eve service in the chapel with about 30 of the older girls.  Today we went to church in the morning.  The children all sat on the floor in the center of the room.  women and men sat in chairs around the sides and back--segregated from each other.  The service was about 1 1/2 hours long.  They introduced us and welcomed us each with a fresh bouquet of flowers.

"We came home from church and slept a little bit before going to Asim and Mamata's for lunch.  We tried to ask about what we would be doing and Asim kind of shut us off, so we waited until Mamata got back in the afternoon to talk about plans.  We started brainstorming ideas and good thing--because she was ready for us to lead a craft and game today!!  It was pretty stressful but we had a lot of fun with the girls.

"We were invited to a wedding feast this evening.  It was a great way to see some of the culture there.  The setting was beautiful--outdoors in a large courtyard-type place.  I thought it seemed like a LOT of people, but Mamata said it was small.  The couple was married several days ago.  In india there are 2 celebrations-the bride's party and the groom's party.  We were attending the groom's party (the bride was from Calcutta).  They were on a stage greeting guests and taking pictures with everyone.  Food stations were set up around the perimeter so we had some variety of foods.  Indian food is okay, but I can see myself getting tired of the spices pretty quickly.  We learned that December is the season of weddings--the temperatures are cooler and most families are together because of the holidays.

"Hoping for a good night's sleep... So far I feel kind of overwhelmed by my desire to "do" more and be with the girls more and how that conflicts with our desire to be and do what our hosts expect of us.  I hope tomorrow (the start of the week) will be a little different and that they can accept our help more and not feel like they are playing host/hostess so much. We knew it would be challenging, but I'm so grateful for this experience we are having."