Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Happy Holidays
Hi everybody that reads this. I'd just like to wish you a happy holiday. My plans for the holidays are up in the air but I know I will have a good time and I hope that you do to who ever and where you are.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Journey
The journey started in Bokaro at a Rotary Youth Leadership Camp this was were I met the other exchange students in my district It is also were I met about 50 local Indian kids who wanted to become great leaders of tomorrow. The camp was a two day camp in which the kids all slept in small rooms with 15 other kids. The first night was scary and involved little sleep as everybody there was so excited to be out of their houses for two nights. They all want to tell the three foreign exchange boys their favorite joke, and stories. They next day was full of lectures that were very insightful and helpful if you have never heard them before. I was impressed with the Indian kids’ ability to pay attention and take notes during the exercises. I also took some good notes about what the speakers looked like and other interesting art. We had very little room to walk around and even less time to do so.
In the end I spent most of my time talking to the other exchange students and ex-exchange student. The current exchange students include Yuki from Japan, Ramona from Switzerland, and Gui from Brazil who is now an ex-exchange student since he is headed back to Brazil the other ex-exchange student was Sebastian from Argentina who is in his thirties. We talked about being exchange students in this part of India and about the ups and downs.
The most interesting part of the camp for me was the show. It is probably the strangest thing I have been apart of. There were four groups at the camp and they all performed a short play and a dance. One thing to know is that Indians take their dancing very serious and they only group dance it is never by themselves or with a single partner. As my group tried to prepare they just kept bickering and were all stressed out. Everybody was so upset because they thought they were all going to get laughed at. My group never liked my comments like “so”, “we can make it a comedy”, or “why don’t we just improvise”. Soon enough my group had split up into boys and girls. It was hard to get anything done since everyone thought they needed to be leaders since they were at a leadership camp. After awhile the boys had an interesting skit and it was time to rehearse on stage. The skit didn’t go all that well in rehearsal and the dance didn’t go all that well either that is until I had seen too much. I just went and jumped on stage so that the girls wouldn’t be the only ones being embarrassed. I just stared pulling all the cheesy moves like the robot, the hand on knees switch, and what ever popped into my head. I guess they didn’t know about the cheesy move because everybody afterwards was saying what a great dancer I was. When the time for the real show rolled around the plan for the dance was for me to do random stuff in the middle of the stage for three minutes. It was apparently a fairly large success. The skit went off fairly smoothly even though I was never told my lines.
At the end of the camp I was exhausted but a greater journey was only ahead. The next day I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and crammed into the back seat of a car meant for three but needed to fit four of us exchange students. Indian roads aren’t very good and that is especially true in the states of Jharkhand and Bihar within the first couple hours of driving I was angry enough to punch the Hamburglar. My head was being thrown like a rag doll back and forth slamming up against the side of the car. I don’t know why but around the third hour of driving I threw up. I didn’t feel sick or any thing it must have been like after riding a rollercoaster people just sometimes vomit. Soon after the car was on its way again we passed a couple of cities and town as I sat half way between being asleep and awake.
As I came out of one of my half sleeping trances I realized we had stopped and the others were talking to a man about what had happened. Some one had been hit and the locals closed the road down until the police could come and make a settlement with the family and that generally takes a couple of hours. So we decided to play some card. It was a strange sight for many of the Indians around us since they would come an stare at us for a minute or two and then continue on there way. After about an hour of playing card a man approached us. This is a Rotary moment and all Rotarian should smile after reading this. It was a Rotarian from the near by city of Giridih. He then took us to his Mica factory were the do all sorts of things with Mica. After about an hour of that he took us to his friend’s restaurant we ate and ate we sat the eating small portions of almost every dish on the menu. We topped it of with some coffee and by the time we finished the coffee the road had been cleared and the car was on its way again.
We continued to drive and drive all day trying to get any little bit of sleep. The road would have short stretches were we could reach 80 KPH but we usual putted around at 40 KPH. It was supposed to be an eight hour journey but be 1:00 we knew it was going to take longer. As dark began to fall I realized that I had to pee bad so I thought that I would wait for a place were there weren’t a lot of people. This is harder then it sounds since there are a billion people in India so I finally gave up and decided go and join the rest of the people and pee anywhere. Well seeing a white boy is a strange sight for most Indians so naturally I get stared at especially when I go to the bathroom (the open field).
It was another hour before the drive figured out that he didn’t know where Munger was. We struggle to find out that we were going to pick up another man that knew where Munger was. When we finally reached the man it was around 9:00 o’clock and too late to show up at the Ashram. It was decided that we need to stay at a house/hotel/apartment I’m not sure what it was. I was happy to see the bed and was sleeping within minutes. I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and using a towel for a blanket. This wasn’t all that bad until the fan stopped working it was a cool night but that wasn’t what I was worried about within three minute of having no fan I had plenty of followers. The followers were mosquitoes and while the power was out I was being eaten alive for three straight hours I could either cover my legs or my face with the towel. The next morning I look like I had chicken pox I was happy since I had a least gotten seven hours of sleep equaling my previous two day total.
The final portion of the drive was supposed to be an hour drive but it is in India so I knew that this wouldn’t be true. About twenty minutes into the drive the car came to a stop again. There was another dead body. This time there was no being rescued but at least it was only a three hour wait as I was cooked in the midday sun. I took a nap to pass the time. Like always the road does get cleared eventually. When we finally reach the Munger Ashram we were 22 hours late. The Ashram was wonderful after the journey it was clean and quiet.
In the end the journey was worth it and I’m glad I did but I never want to do it again.
In the end I spent most of my time talking to the other exchange students and ex-exchange student. The current exchange students include Yuki from Japan, Ramona from Switzerland, and Gui from Brazil who is now an ex-exchange student since he is headed back to Brazil the other ex-exchange student was Sebastian from Argentina who is in his thirties. We talked about being exchange students in this part of India and about the ups and downs.
The most interesting part of the camp for me was the show. It is probably the strangest thing I have been apart of. There were four groups at the camp and they all performed a short play and a dance. One thing to know is that Indians take their dancing very serious and they only group dance it is never by themselves or with a single partner. As my group tried to prepare they just kept bickering and were all stressed out. Everybody was so upset because they thought they were all going to get laughed at. My group never liked my comments like “so”, “we can make it a comedy”, or “why don’t we just improvise”. Soon enough my group had split up into boys and girls. It was hard to get anything done since everyone thought they needed to be leaders since they were at a leadership camp. After awhile the boys had an interesting skit and it was time to rehearse on stage. The skit didn’t go all that well in rehearsal and the dance didn’t go all that well either that is until I had seen too much. I just went and jumped on stage so that the girls wouldn’t be the only ones being embarrassed. I just stared pulling all the cheesy moves like the robot, the hand on knees switch, and what ever popped into my head. I guess they didn’t know about the cheesy move because everybody afterwards was saying what a great dancer I was. When the time for the real show rolled around the plan for the dance was for me to do random stuff in the middle of the stage for three minutes. It was apparently a fairly large success. The skit went off fairly smoothly even though I was never told my lines.
At the end of the camp I was exhausted but a greater journey was only ahead. The next day I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and crammed into the back seat of a car meant for three but needed to fit four of us exchange students. Indian roads aren’t very good and that is especially true in the states of Jharkhand and Bihar within the first couple hours of driving I was angry enough to punch the Hamburglar. My head was being thrown like a rag doll back and forth slamming up against the side of the car. I don’t know why but around the third hour of driving I threw up. I didn’t feel sick or any thing it must have been like after riding a rollercoaster people just sometimes vomit. Soon after the car was on its way again we passed a couple of cities and town as I sat half way between being asleep and awake.
As I came out of one of my half sleeping trances I realized we had stopped and the others were talking to a man about what had happened. Some one had been hit and the locals closed the road down until the police could come and make a settlement with the family and that generally takes a couple of hours. So we decided to play some card. It was a strange sight for many of the Indians around us since they would come an stare at us for a minute or two and then continue on there way. After about an hour of playing card a man approached us. This is a Rotary moment and all Rotarian should smile after reading this. It was a Rotarian from the near by city of Giridih. He then took us to his Mica factory were the do all sorts of things with Mica. After about an hour of that he took us to his friend’s restaurant we ate and ate we sat the eating small portions of almost every dish on the menu. We topped it of with some coffee and by the time we finished the coffee the road had been cleared and the car was on its way again.
We continued to drive and drive all day trying to get any little bit of sleep. The road would have short stretches were we could reach 80 KPH but we usual putted around at 40 KPH. It was supposed to be an eight hour journey but be 1:00 we knew it was going to take longer. As dark began to fall I realized that I had to pee bad so I thought that I would wait for a place were there weren’t a lot of people. This is harder then it sounds since there are a billion people in India so I finally gave up and decided go and join the rest of the people and pee anywhere. Well seeing a white boy is a strange sight for most Indians so naturally I get stared at especially when I go to the bathroom (the open field).
It was another hour before the drive figured out that he didn’t know where Munger was. We struggle to find out that we were going to pick up another man that knew where Munger was. When we finally reached the man it was around 9:00 o’clock and too late to show up at the Ashram. It was decided that we need to stay at a house/hotel/apartment I’m not sure what it was. I was happy to see the bed and was sleeping within minutes. I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and using a towel for a blanket. This wasn’t all that bad until the fan stopped working it was a cool night but that wasn’t what I was worried about within three minute of having no fan I had plenty of followers. The followers were mosquitoes and while the power was out I was being eaten alive for three straight hours I could either cover my legs or my face with the towel. The next morning I look like I had chicken pox I was happy since I had a least gotten seven hours of sleep equaling my previous two day total.
The final portion of the drive was supposed to be an hour drive but it is in India so I knew that this wouldn’t be true. About twenty minutes into the drive the car came to a stop again. There was another dead body. This time there was no being rescued but at least it was only a three hour wait as I was cooked in the midday sun. I took a nap to pass the time. Like always the road does get cleared eventually. When we finally reach the Munger Ashram we were 22 hours late. The Ashram was wonderful after the journey it was clean and quiet.
In the end the journey was worth it and I’m glad I did but I never want to do it again.
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