Hello From India

Good Day Everyone,

It is 6:30 AM and I am up.  Can you believe that?  Well let's just say that Jet Lag does strange strange things.  But I slept a full 9 hours last night in a real bed, which was fabulous after getting less than 2 hours sleep and then embarking on a full day tour yesterday. So I'm not sure how witty I'll be at this hour of the day, but I'll give it a shot.

After arriving in Delhi early Monday morning, I was picked up and driven to my hotel, and as I was driven through Delhi, I almost couldn't believe I was really here after all that it took for me to get here.  It didn't even seem real and I had to keep reminding myself where I was.  Walking to the van from the airport terminal I saw a sign in the parkade that said "No Spitting and No Cooking."  Wait a minute here people,  GOOD THING, I didn't bring my camping stove.  I totally could not have used it at the airport!  On a serious note though, it was a reminder to me of where I was now, and the sheer amount of squatters there are in this country.

Yesterday, John (the other civil), Pam (his wife) and myself did a tour of Agra.  We went to the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort.  Our tour guides name was something like Tkjashfdlkajsdf Dkla;sdjfasldkfj Sa;lskdjfl;askdjf,  we asked him to repeat it three times and still couldn't get it, so he told us we could call him TDS for short.  How awesome is that?  My tour guides name was TDS?  Do you know what TDS is?  A water quality parameter!  Total Dissolved Solids!  How fitting, since both John and I are water engineers.  I am so happy I am doing this tour, but I think that after 2 days of being a tourist I will have had more than enough of this scene.  I felt like part of the herd of cattle at the Taj Mahal it was so crowded.  Don't get me wrong though, it was magnificent, and the infrastructure and history in this country are amazing.

In addition to the Taj and Agra Fort, as part of the tour we also had to go visit some "artists" which is an obligatory sales pitch for any tour.  We went to a carpet place and a marble place.  The carpet place, we got to see how they hand make carpets and then they brought us into this show room, gave us each a Coke, and started rolling out all these carpets.  Fortunately they thought I was John & Pam's daughter, so didn't try selling to me as much.  I pretty much milked the role of disinterested daughter, because there was no darn way, I was spending $1700 US on an area rug, hand made or not!  We just sat there and the more they were silent, the more rugs they rolled out.  At one point I was wondering if they were going to roll out every blinkin carpet in the room, but we got up and left before they had that opportunity. The marble place was a bit more interesting and the sales pitch wasn't quite as long, and I kept thinking about the hilarity of what it would be like to have my friends over for supper on one of those marble tables that is worth more than my car and in some cases almost half as much as my condo, that looks like it belongs in a Victorian Palace.  I just cannot imagine playing Dutch Blitz on one of those tables.  Come to think of it, I totally should have told the guy that is why I couldn't buy one.

Anyway today we are touring Jaipur, and I will be more than ready to be done with this tourist image and get into the "real" India for the next almost 2 weeks.  There is a Fort here as well, and probably we'll be listening to more sales pitches.  I think I'll wait to to my craft shopping until we get back to Delhi at the end of our project because you can get craft's much cheaper there if you know where to shop.  These places are all highly expensive tourist traps.  Sorry friends, but I will not be bringing you home marble ornaments worth several hundred dollars.

Well that is all for now.  We stayed at a 5 Star Hotel here last night, which is fancier than any hotel I have stayed in in Canada.  It was nice as I was so tired, and the price of this entire tour, was cheaper than I would have paid for just the hotel room back in North America.  I almost feel a bit guilty, and I'm still reminded of where I am as I look out the window to a mid sized squatter camp, and there is a cow eating garbage just below.

I've been dressing in local clothing in an attempt to try and blend in more, however, yesterday at the train station it seemed to backfire on me as I had guys coming up to me and telling me how sweet I looked dressed as an Indian.  One of them told me I looked like an angel, to which I promptly ignored him and got beside John.  One reason, I'm glad I have him and Pam there to escort me.  Sometimes I feel like I'm being chased by the paparazzi here, with so many average everyday people having smartphones here, they will often just up and take pictures of you while you are on the train or walking down the street.  Let's just say, I'm glad I'm not famous.  

Well I'll post another update again some time.  I'm so excited to get to the children's home and see those kids again!

Jaimee

 We rode in this horse cart to the Taj Mahal from the parking lot.  I felt guilty for the horse the entire time, but it was nice to see how much the driver loved his horse.  I got to drive it, right through a police barricade!  And I chatted with the driver about the horse on the way.  His name is Bubaloo and he is 6 years old.

I finally got to see the magnificent Taj Mahal after this my third visit here.

India- for real?

Some of you know the journey I have travelled these past few weeks.  The journey before the journey.  The state of events that left me no choice but to hold all of this with an open hand, because it made me realize that it wasn't even mine to begin with.  You see, I am supposed to be in an airplane right now, on my way to Germany to spend a few days with a precious friend, and then on my way to India after that, to continue on with a water project at the children's home I was at last year. . . Instead I'm sitting at home typing on my computer and trying to make this all make sense.

I sent my passport away in August to get my travel visa, and thought nothing of it.  I hadn't had any issues the past two times I'd travelled there.  However this year, things were different.  A new outsourcing company, and with it a whole lot of problems.  I've been fighting with them the past two weeks to try and process my visa application in time for my planned departure today.  I fought hard, but my passport was still in Toronto when I needed to make a decision about cancelling my flights. And so flights were cancelled, hearts broken, and plans undone. By all accounts, I was staying home this time around, and my heavy heart felt restless about that.  Restless that I wouldn't get to walk on foreign ground for perhaps several more months, restless I wouldn't hold hands and play games and laugh with abandon at the antics of some silly little boys.  And then this afternoon, grace fell right in my lap. My passport arrived, a day too late, but maybe just in time, I'll never know.  I got most of my money back from the cancelled flights, despite not having cancellation insurance, and was able to book new flights to India leaving a few days later.  I won't get to see my friend in Germany, or experience her homeland with her like I thought I would, and in some ways it feels like that was stolen from me.  But this new reality is better than not going at all.   And you know what?  Through all of this, I have been reminded how much I am loved.  People have encouraged, prayed, and loved me in ways that I won't soon forget.  Thank you for joining me in the trenches, for sending me notes and texts, to those of you that know words are my love language and those of you who don't, thank you for being present these past few weeks.

One of my friends fittingly posted this quote by Elizabeth Edwards on Facebook yesterday seeming to speak to me right where I was at:

"Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good."

You know what?  There is good here.  Despite the disappointment about what was supposed to be, there is joy in my heart about what is yet to come. 

25 Ways You Know You’ve Taken The Road Less Travelled

1.       At the end of your project, you visit the ocean and the beach is deserted, save for your team and several dozen UN Troops on their break.

2.       You show your Mom the location of your next project trip on Google and she responds with “Whaaaaat, that’s right next to Pakistan!”

3.       You travel far into the African bush only to be greeted by a middle aged man who walked 30 minutes because he’s never seen a mzungu (white girl) and he heard you were coming to town.  Upon introductions, he asks if he can please have the experience of touching a white girl’s arm.

4.       Upon exiting the Port Au Prince airport in the midst of all the mayhem, a local porter comes up to your project leader, slaps him on the back and says “Hello, my friend!” because he actually does remember him from trips past.

5.       The sight of security guards with an AK-47 no longer surprise you.

6.       When meeting a village woman in the rural reaches of Uganda who insists on trying to tell you many things, none of which you understand, you’re first reaction is to respond in Hindi (even if you happen to know less Hindi than Luganda).

7.       WASH, DART, and NGO are a part of your everyday vocabulary.

8.       No type or condition of toilet will ever surprise you again.

9.       You’ve eaten things that would make that travel health nurse cringe, and at times it’s best just to close your eyes and pretend it’s chicken.

10.   Your friend in another province casually mentions that a family in her church adopted some Haitian orphans and you happen to have been to that orphanage (and are quite excited when you find that out!)

11.   Most people have never heard of most of the places you’ve been.

12.   You get tired of explaining to people that Africa is not just one big country.

13.   Home will never be quite the same. Once you’ve been, and been broken, “home” becomes a relative term.

14.   You know you’re almost a local when after being in the African bush for a few days your boda (motorcycle) driver comments on just how dirty you are.

15.   You have eaten a mountain of rice for breakfast and drank 10 cups of chai in a day and loved every minute of it.

16.   You have met an orphan in North India who knows more about American pop culture than you do.

17.   Some random and unrelated guy you met in Uganda over a year ago remembers you for the toilets you designed.

18.   You visit a remote village to complete a survey and they butcher their rooster for you and proceed to sit and watch you eat it.

19.   You try to explain to the local you’re staying with just what it is you are doing when she asks you why you spend all day in “the bushes” walking around with weird looking survey equipment.

20.   You find creative ways to describe sewage systems in order to find one that works for the translator.  In the meantime the locals looking back at you can’t contain their laughter for the poor white girl who is standing at the front talking about such things as toilets in public. In the event they aren’t laughing, they are offering their own toilet word suggestions for the translator.

21.     Being woken up by roosters at 5 AM (or 2 AM) is a regular occurrence.

22.   You sent some extra money for the family of your Compassion child, after which she wrote you a letter to inform you they bought a cow, and you got to meet that very cow.

23.   You’ve stayed in a hotel that has bats in the ceiling (and I’m pretty sure you all know how I feel about bats).

24.   You come home and are at a loss to describe to people much of what you’ve seen.

25.   You will never be the same again.

Restlessness and Finding Community

Somehow it always happens around this time of year.  I get restless, restless to be anywhere but here. I walk down the street and two of the little girls in my neighbourhood have a conversation across the block in rapid fire Hindi.  It makes me miss the richness and mysteriousness of India.  I read blogs of my friends still in Uganda, and it brings me right back there and makes me want to get on the next plane back. One of them writes about travelling to Northern Uganda and how being there shatters her into a thousand pieces. I sit back and know, because I too found my soul in shards simply by walking on that ground and so many days I still feel like I'm blindly looking for the missing pieces. By meeting people terrorized by Joseph Kony’s armies, and young people who had been abducted into his armies. That is something that never leaves a person, looking into eyes that have lived things like that.

I walk through my neighbourhood with my dog and I’m reminded how last year I just about had a meltdown from doing this very thing shortly after returning from Africa. How simply walking down the street and seeing the relative opulence almost did me in. How being here and hearing the complaints I heard made me want to look at them long and ask them if they really knew what a hard life was. How in so many ways, I still struggle with those very same things, but somehow they have been tempered. Perhaps I have realized that being there, and then being here changes a person for the rest of time, and how life might just have to be lived with all this in the background from here on in.

But today, as I walk through that very same neighbourhood, even in the height of my restlessness, I am reminded to love my life here. As I’m greeted by name by half a dozen people, I realize that I like the way I’m known here. Because I know that it’s taken this long, but somehow now, I have community here. My neighbour insists I come eat a hamburger and situate myself right smack in the middle of her family reunion because they want me to be part of them. Another comes and tells me in her soft Scottish accent that she would like to water my bush. I walk down the street and get asked about my dog by another half dozen neighbours. They love her, even though she sometimes finds it hard to lay down her fear and trust someone she doesn’t know. That in turn is what I love about them, how they see past that, and see into how far she has come over the last year she’s been mine.  As isolated as I sometimes feel after returning from cultures where community is the absolute essence of life, I’m reminded that it is possible here too, it just takes longer and requires more effort.

I often run in this neighbourhood with Wilson in tow. These people, they see me often, and they wonder what I chase. Sometimes I wonder that myself.  Maybe it is simply, more of this. More life, more community, right here, right now, until that time I step on a plane and land somewhere that isn’t here.

“And yet, the desire for “more” is not inherently bad, but it is often misdirected. What we need is a relentless appetite for the divine. We need a holy ravenousness. Our craving souls can turn and become enthralled by a goodness that is found in the presence of an all-glorious God. There is only one infinite source of satisfaction that can satisfy our bottomless cravings. A taste of His supreme grace is enough to lure an appetite long held prisoner to lesser portions. If stolen water is sweet, lavished grace is sweeter.”

-Jason Todd, Relevant Magazine.