The Indian GSE Team visited DG Wilson Ray’s club last night in Red Springs. The meeting began with President Kathy McGirt calling the meeting to order and introductions. A delicious pot luck dinner was served.  The Indian Team was introduced by Team Leader Dr. Bharat. Each team member introduced themselves and Sushchitra entertained us with a traditional Indian classical dance.

We are here feeling at home, away from home after meeting Nancy. I love this place. Great hospitality and loads of love, care, and pampering from Nancy. Enjoying every moment. No sleep yet. Thank you all.

Suchitra

While in Bokaro, we spent the day in an Indian village with PDG Surrendar. This is a project of his to help train the villagers in new ways to grow crops, produce clean drinking water, educate the children, and health issues. We had the opportunity to help serve the children of the village lunch. It consisted of rice, dahl, potatoes, and roti. The plates were made of woven banana leaves and while a bit hard to hold the food, did the job just fine. We were served the same lunch plus tandoori chicken with coke.

Hello, all!  We had a wonderful time on January 26, India’s Republic Day.  We began the day in Gaya.  We visited an elementary school for their celebration.  They seated us as guests of honor.  We helped raise the flag, listened to many emotional speeches about the occasion, and even got to inspect the students who were standing at attention.  It was humbling to be part of a celebration for a holiday in which Indians take such pride. 

After our school visit, we got in the car for a long drive to Patna, the capital city of the state of Bihar.  As soon as we arrived, our rotarian friends picked us up and whisked us off to the governor’s mansion.  At first we thought they were talking about the District Governor for this rotary district, but no.  They took us the to the governor of Bihar!  I haven’t even met an American governor.  They took us into a nice conference room, where the governor joined us and asked us some questions about our trip.  He then invited us to a tea where several Bihar VIPs were attending in honor of Republic Day.  It was very nice to meet and mingle with so many established, influential people. 

The rotarians in Patna have been very good to us.  We’ve seen a lot of rotary projects, a school, a hospital, and many other fascinating sites.  Dr. Kandelwhal (I hope I spelled that right!), the DG, and his wife, Dr. Poonam, have taken excellent care of us.  With our trip almost at the end, we have been doing a lot of reflecting on our experiences so far.  Though there have been a few rough moments, we have many many fond memories, and we are leaving India much richer in friendships than we were when we arrived.  I know that we will keep in touch with many of the wonderful people we have met, and I want to take the opportunity to say thank you to all who have helped us along the way.

 I especially want to thank my host famlies – The Kalsi family in Ranchi (Navjeet, I told the DG that you should have a very important position in rotary someday soon, because you’ve taken such good care of us this whole trip!), Ronny & Marian D’Costa in Jamshedpur, Rajdeep and Amardeep Kumar (and family) in Bokaro, Gagan and Vinita Dhudani in Dhanbad, the Sahay family in Giridhi, all the rotarians in Rajgir, the Prakash family in Gaya, and the (other) Prakash family in Patna.  I hope I spelled all of your names right, and I know you will forgive me if I have made a mistake.  (I’m writing this from memory, and though I have grown a little more accustomed to Indian names, I still struggle with spellings and pronunciations at times.) 

 Thanks to you all, and I will see my US friends in a couple of days!

 Love,

Rebecca

If you go to India always carry with you:

– Kleenex pocket packs
– bottled water

Believe us — we know.

– Arleen

In Gaya, my host family had a fourteen year old maid named Kanchan. She was very sweet but refused to believe that I couldn’t understand her when she spoke in Hindi. I asked my hostess if she went to school, and Dr. Mrs. Narayan said that she taught her at home, and was completely responsible for her, all the way until she got married. My hosts in Giridih encouraged one of their grown servants to complete his Indian equivalent of a GED, and told him that he had to send his daughters to school, too — not just his sons.I haven’t been in a house yet that doesn’t have servants. They’re not quite members of the family, but they have all been treated with respect and responsibility. Are you listening, John? Can you have people lined up to do my cleaning, laundry, and 7:30 a.m. bed tea making? (Of course, we’d have to pay them in rupees…)

– Arleen

We are wrapping up our trip in the state of Bihar. We started out in the state of Jharkhand, which was carved out of Bihar in 2000. Jharkhand is rich in minerals so we had a lot of tours of industrial areas: diesel engine plants, coal mines, wire rope factories. Bihar is rich in history, however.We started our visit in Rajgir. To get there we had to cross a very curvy mountain road. We kept having to tell our drivers to slow down. When we stopped for a break at the bottom of the mountain we were all pretty woozy. Thankfully the rest of the trip was uneventful.

We were a little apprehensive about our accomodations in Ragjir – the schedule listed host families, but all of the addresses were “Ordance Factory.” When we got there, we found out that we were actually staying in the guesthouse of the government-owned ordance factory. It’s a pretty new project, though, so there wasn’t any ordance around yet.

In Rajgir we saw Nalanda, an ancient Buddhist university, and many Buddhist temples. The air is better here – fewer open coal fires and a higher elevation.

After Rajgir it was off to Gaya and Bodhgaya to see where Siddhartha got enlightenment. What a beautiful place! The place was crowded, but we were pretty much the only ones taking pictures. Everyone else was praying or just looking around reverently. We have sacred places in America, but except for some Native American areas, I don’t know if we have anything as holy as this.

– Arleen

Well, I had written a nice post updating you all on our adventures, and when I hit “publish” I lost the internet connection.  I didn’t have the umph in me to write it again, and Nancy did a better job than I did in capturing the moment, anyway.

For the last three days Muslim music has been blasting through the city.  Today is a Muslim festival celebrated by both Sunnis and Sufis.  One group is celebrating a victory, and the other is celebrating a defeat.  (Sorry – without a fast internet connection I’m too lazy to look up the name of the festival or which group is observing which event.)  The music goes on day and night, with just enough intermittent pauses to keep it from becoming white noise.  We thought it would stop today, but it seems to be going on and on. In the past few minutes the drumming has actually kicked up a notch. It does provide an interesting backdrop to our chick movie day, though, lest we forget where we are…

– Arleen

Today is Sunday and after about a 10 days of back to back meetings, vocational visits, and traveling, we are finally having a day off. We are in Giridih at our host coordinator’s house watching AMERICAN movies. We were scheduled to leave this morning for Biharsharif but due to unforseen circumstances found ourselves staying one more day here.

We had a choice to have more activities or have a rest day. Guess what we opted to do?? You got it!!! So we gathered at Brooke’s place (aka Raju’s) and brought all of our american snacks for a movie and junk food day. We have eaten peanut buter on toast, trail mix, protein bars, chips, baked beans, swedish fish, milkway bars, sprite and coke. Yes, somehow we managed to smuggle all this in through customs and we are enjoying. We really are having a great time and there is so much to write about

We’ve been to the library project started by Maysville Club in Dhanbad, seen TATA steel, polio hospitals, eye surgery, schools, and had such great hospitality that I am not sure I can put my shoes on alone anymore. Will someone please come drive me around???

We have limited access and our phones are in an iffy state so please don’t be upset or concerned if we don’t post as often as we were. Rest assured that we are safe and are in touch with Indian Rotarians every minute of the day. We are well taken care of and as team leader, I’ve learned to make my voice heard. Hard for me since I m so quiet and reserved huh?? (A small joke.)

Anyway, keep reading and making those comments. We will post even after our return. Can’t wait to share our adventure.

Nancy

Our first host city, Ranchi, had fame thrust upon it when it became the capital of Jharkhand, a state carved out of the state of Bihar in 2000.  Suddenly, a quiet little town was a state capital.  It grew at a furious pace, and the infrastructure couldn’t keep up.  Roads are narrow and traffic is heavy.  Piles of trash – the parts that even the scavengers have no use for – line the streets.  Dogs and cows roam the streets in droves.  The people, however, are friendly and all the food I had was very good.  The Rotary Clubs did a wonderful job organizing the conference.  District Conference is a hectic time and I think that most of our impressions of the city were formed while driving (I mean being driven!) back and forth to the conference hall.  There are waterfalls nearby that will have to wait for another visit, and I’m sure there are other pleasant places as well.  We just didn’t see them.

And now we’re in Jamshedpur, at the opposite end of the development spectrum.  Home to a large Tata steel plant, the town just celebrated its 100th anniversary.  From the start, Jamshedpur was designed to have tree-lined streets, parks, and recreation areas.  The Tata company maintains many of those areas, as well as residential complexes, for the use of their employees.  The city feels much less gritty and desperate than parts of Ranchi did, and the residents look more relaxed.

That’s probably because TISCO (Tata Iron and Steel Company) is the godfather of the town — in the spiritual sense, not the Mafia sense.  Employees have access to corporate owned hospitals and medical services for free.  The company operates schools for employees’ children and tuition is ridiculously small.  New mothers get three months paid maternity leave.  There is a generous pension plan.  If an employee is hurt on the job, his or her salary continues even while work is missed.  In the unlikely event that an employee is killed on the job, a job is created for one of the deceased’s dependents or family members.  100 years after its founding, the streets are still lined with trees, the parks are still clean, and the people are happy.  Why shouldn’t they be?

Peace,
Arleen