Rickshaws and Revelations

I’m sorry this has taken so long and honestly I am just trying to share with you before I arrive in Vietnam and fully succumb to the potential that it has for me!

India…well honestly I didn’t know what to expect from India. So many people were so hyped up and I just didn’t feel like it was going to my place. There is something about this whole experience that when you reach halfway and you realize that traveling becomes normalcy you have to make a conscious effort to be tuned into the culture around you. India for me was somewhere I had to really tune in.

Chennai is interesting. South India is starkly contrasted with north India. It is traditional and older, the ideals and morals are more conservative and the city is not the India you see when you think of India, the Taj Mahal and the Ganges river and all that. It is an over crowded, polluted, city full of color, cars and a bunch of people who look so opposite from me I felt like I was in a zoo with all the looks I got. The first day was my friend Charis’ birthday and she was so excited to be able to get to go visit the US consulate in Chennai. I thought it sounded interesting so I tagged along. We arrived to the consulate only to be told that all the employees were on lunch, so we ventured off to find ourselves the first of many real Indian meals. Lunch was at a restaurant called Palimar and we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. We petitioned the women beside us for help ordering and both ended up with traditional south Indian dishes called Thali. Thali is rice, naan, and about 8 different cups of sauce and vegetables that you mix in with the rice. All of this you eat with your hands, which I have to say is the brilliant thing and I think something I plan to continue at home. Not only is it so fun and makes you feel like a little kid, but the food legitimately tastes better. I promise it’s true and the people there say it too. The oils on your hands combine with the food to enhance the flavor. I am pretty sure though that the second you step off the ship all the oil on your hands is replaced by straight up dirt and dust that is in the air.
After lunch we headed back to the consulate where an incredibly nice guy named Kevin greeted us. He was so humble and took us around for two hours showing us the building and answering any and all questions we had. By the end of our visit Kevin had negotiated a rickshaw for us to take to a nearby market for some shopping. Which we did and then after much confusion and exhaustion we found our way back to the ship to meet up with more girls to go out to dinner for Charis’ 21st birthday celebration. Dinner was eaten at the Taj hotel and it was beautiful and delicious. There were 8 girls total and we spent three hours eating, talking, laughing and enjoying our first night in India.
For the next few days I was able to do a home stay with an Indian family that was part of the Rotary Club. I could not have chosen a better trip for this port. To see the Taj Mahal is incredible, but to live in the home of a family and share in their life and be let into their love is something so unique. We were met at the bus and told by our “mother” to “come along”. Our mother’s name was Vidya, and her husband who we met briefly, but raced off was named Ramarajan or Ram. We piled into the car with Vidya and her driver, a common thing for many higher-class Indian families to have, and she took us straight to St. Thomas’s Basillica. It was absolutely gorgeous, colorful, and bright, such a beautiful thing to experience in a country so drenched in Hinduism. After our trip to the church we piled back in the car headed to Aishwarya’s(the fifteen year old daughter) school. We ate a wonderful lunch at the Indian version of the Rainforest Café. Let me paint a picture for you. It was covered in “brush”, so much so my hair got in it while I was sitting at the table. From the ceiling they had tied stuffed animal monkeys to strings, and they were just hanging by the arms. During our meal a man dressed in a gorilla costume came out and stood behind a lady dining a table over. He stood there for at least two minutes just waiting for her to see him and jump, which she did and it was funny! My sweet family then took Stephanie and I shopping, where they treated me to a top. I cannot even describe to you how kind these people were. Our day finished out with a trip to the beach, a rotary club meeting, which we attended in the families traditional Indian attire and then back home for some dinner and late henna before falling asleep.

The next day we toured with our group again and left our families. We saw temples and street vendors, were attacked by men selling marble kama sutra figurines and girls with beaded necklaces. The day ended with a birthday for an eighty year old man, complete with Vedic chants and traditional South Indian Thali for dinner. The last day of the home stay our SAS group went to a rotary club hospital we were able to implement our $100 solution and provide the hospital for additional medical supplies to better treat their patients. I’m sorry I know I have rushed through my days and time, but India was such a scheduled place it is so generic to share my activities. So I wanted to turn my writing more to thoughts and attempts at comprehending what was going on.

I have spent a lot of time after leaving India trying to understand myself. Why I wasn’t as touched as many people or just devastated by what I saw. It was different do not get me wrong. In many areas the standing water was so drenched in pollution that it wreaked of feces as you passed. There were people begging for food, but almost so many you become desensitized to the physical poverty. There were little girls, beautiful, tiny little girls selling necklaces. Walking around hassling tourists for money, it bothered me to see such precious children have their youth be spent on wholly surviving. But I had to come to an understanding of something in India, and what a blessing it was because the Lord has been working into it.
I have seen so much here, through this whole experience. I have seen joy, happiness, pain, tears, hurt, hunger, desolation, depression; you name it this world has it to offer. In all of this though one thing has to remain, God is good. No matter what the circumstance, God is good. No matter the hurt, the pain, the injustice, God is good. I have never been so sure of the verse in Ephesians that states, “This battle is not against flesh and blood, but the spiritual forces of evil…” There is nothing in this world, which can lead us to understand further our God than that He is good, no matter what our human corruption has brought. This world is not about fighting poverty or ending the widespread devastation, yes we must contribute, but there is no life in the spiritually dead. That is where our minds and hearts have to wage war in this Earth. Our love must be deeper than giving our money or our hands, we must give our thoughts to those things beyond our actions.
India shared with me lessons that the Lord continues to unveil to me in my heart, but I learned something brilliant in my moments there. We must give without hesitation. There is nothing more appreciated, nothing more deeply moving and thought provoking than a person who gives without hesitation. I find myself in the midst of all this learning, so overwhelmed and unbelievably inept to carry out the challenges I learn. It is so disconnected to experience and learn and then return to this ship, where your bed is made for you and your dishes are picked up. My greed immediately rises up again to be hesitant to give in everyway, not just of my materials, but of my time and my heart.
I stayed with a family in India who spared no expense. Not a single thing was kept from me. No question went unanswered, I never even began to feel a pang of hunger, I slept in the parent’s bed, I did not spend a dime, yet I am quick to withhold from those closes to me here. I am quick to be cynical and slow to be giving. It is amazing how the depths of your heart are revealed and never prove you to be a good or descent or person(well myself at least).
So as I approach Vietnam and I have heard so much of the war and the desolation caused in the lives of so many I can only cling to one thing, God is good. No matter where I am, whom I am with, God is good.
I miss you all so much and cannot believe I am finally going to Vietnam. It is such a weird thing to be approaching a place with such deep personal ties to my life. I cannot wait to experience this culture and get to know the country that gave me one of the most treasured gifts in my life, my sweet little Hannah. I am so looking forward to the next five days and all it holds in store. Love you all!