Farmstay

Saturday, June 28^th

We woke up with the sun and had a few hours before breakfast so we decided to walk down the steep hillside to see what lay below. We walked down the steep and narrow path into dense and wet jungle. The trail passed through the yard of a small house a ways down. The dogs all barked at us but the people there were very friendly and waved us through. We saw a river far below and made our way down to it. A short travel downstream brought us to a waterfall and in the trees near it, there were small monkeys were watching us suspiciously as they munched on some fruit. It is surprising to me how lush and green these mountains are. Places in the united states at 3-7 thousand feet are usually cold and arid, but here, it feels like a rain forest. Sagar told me that its because the humid air from the Indian ocean forms clouds at the Himalayas that then sweep south and cause all of the rains. This means that the foothills get a massive drenching.

Good morning Leslie!

The trail down to the river

We came back up to our tent and were immediately brought some pre-breakfast tea. Darjeeling is world famous for it's tea and it is grown all over the hillsides. The tea we were offered is hand rolled by farmers in the area. Technically it is illegal to sell hand-rolled tea because it can't be taxed, but Navin wants the best quality for his quests. Our breakfast was rice with curried potatoes and masala eggs. All of the food was farm fresh and delicious. And of course we had more tea.

Navin's house

A cool idea for a hanging planter

After breakfast, we found out that the hike we wanted to go on was not possible because the national park where it resides is closed for the summer for mating season. All of the places to trek in the area are closed for this reason. Disappointed, we regrouped and decided to just head to Delhi after our stay in Darjeeling and get on with the rest of our plans early so we can accomplish more. Having solved that problem, we went for a swim with some of Navin's family.

Navin built this pool in his backyard that is filled with the overflow spring water that is used for showering, cooking, and watering the crops. It is fresh water so the pool had picked up some algae but it was refreshing nonetheless. We spent the rest of the morning reading and swimming.

Eventually we asked Navin to show us around his farm and he happily obliged. He grows cardamom (which we ate raw and was minty and delicious), ginger, oranges, corn, tapioca, and of course, tea. He rotates different crops in each small plot of land in order to maintain good nitrogen levels in the soil. He also has 3 cows for milk and manure.

Navin showing us around

raw, brown, cardamom seed

Navin told us that until recently, the tea industry was dominated by large company-owned tea farms that produced and sold all of the regions tea. With some support from the government and the work of people like Navin, there has been a shift where companies are buying organically farmed tea from local farming coalitions. The company does the processing and then markets it as organically grown. Right now, Navin is the head of a coalition of over 460 farmers in the region who sell organically grown tea.

Darjeeling tea is special because to make it, the farmers only use the tips of the tea plants. Only two leaves and a bud is picked and then processed, leaving the rest of the plant for other purposes. It is time consuming and therefore expensive to buy elsewhere in the world. Navin is working on selling hand-rolled Darjeeling tea to customers around the world directly. It is illegal to sell in India (and probably internationally) but its another way for the local farmers to make money.

Darjeeling tea. Two leaves and a bud

Every few hours we were brought some more tea and enjoyed the afternoon talking and playing cards. We went on a walk up to Navin's Buddha statue that was surrounded by prayer flags and then continued on down the road we had originally driven down to check out the other farms.

Tibetan Prayer flags

A huge tea field run by a larger company

At dinner we were offered some local homemade alcohol. It was made from wheat but tasted like sake and Navin told us that it is the same process but wheat is cheaper than rice. We went to bed extremely satisfied with the day.

Three things I learned:

1) Black, Green, and White tea all come from the same tea plant. The difference is that black tea is withered while green tea is steamed before they are rolled. White tea is just the buds of the tea plant and is therefore more expensive than Darjeeling tea.

2) It is best to hang a number of prayer flags that it is an integer multiple of your age (for me, I would hang up 22, 44, 66, 88...)

3) Tapioca balls, like the ones we eat in boba or tapioca pudding, come from within the root of the tapioca plant  

A Change of Scenery

Friday June 27^th

We arrived at the train station around 10:30 PM and it was filled with people. We checked the boards but saw no mention of our train. Jack told us not to worry and he asked around to find the platform it was supposed to arrive at. We walked with our heavy packs through a sea of people, mostly laying on the ground with blankets or plastic tarps waiting for the various trains. We got onto platform 2 and sat down. The stagnant air on the platform was stifling and it was already past our bedtimen so I was feeling hot irritable and sweaty, but I kept reminding myself, “you can't get impatient”. There were screens that reported the delay of each train. There were reports of trains being 1, 2, 3 and as many as 7 hours late. We kept hoping not to see our train number appear on that screen with a western-punctuality-standard shattering delay.

Our train arrived right on time and we fought our way on board immediately. If you don't assert yourself then people push right past you. You have to be forceful without ever being emotional about it or taking it too far. We got caught in a stream of people passing in both directions down a single-person hall way. It was a mess with our bags that were as wide as the corridor. Uncle Jack wormed his way through quickly and we tried to batter our way in behind him. Fortunately, there are assigned seats so you don't have to worry about finding a spot.

We reached Uncle Jack in our berth containing our sleepers, number 41, 42, and 43. Each berth contained six beds in two opposing stacks of three. During the daytime, the middle bed is folded down to be the backrest for a seat that is made by sitting on the lowest bed. Only the top bunks will remain beds for the entire journey. Everyone else filed in and took their spots until nearly every bed was full. The train left about 20 minutes late which is practically on time in comparison to other trains.

The ticket man came through and checked our tickets. I had stowed my bag under the seat and Leslie had put hers in the bed. The ticket man seemed very concerned about our luggage and tried to tell us we must hold it the whole way. Uncle Jack talked him down and he moved on. It is nice to see that they were looking out for the tourists.

I was slightly nervous about riding the train for two reasons. First, on Wednesday there was a train crash that killed four people and injured hundreds in the northern part of the state, not too far from Patna. Some people thought the crash was foul play by a communist extremist group while others thought it was human error. Either way, it was not the best news to get the day of our trip. The second reason I was nervous was because we had heard many stories of people making friends on the train, as you do in sleeper class with so many grueling hours to spare, who then offer you food (which is considered rude to decline). These people eat it and then wake up 2 days later in the hospital with all of their stuff stolen. It happened to one of the Jesuit fathers so we heard the warning of “don't accept food on the train” many times.

As soon as the train started to move, however, I felt good about it. Everyone quickly settled down and started stretching out to sleep. I took the middle seat and quickly fell asleep with my head right next to the window for a cool breeze. I woke up to the scream of another train passing the opposite direction a few times but otherwise my sleep was very peaceful.

I woke up around 6 the next morning and seeing Uncle Jack was already awake, I offered to put my seat down so we could both sit comfortably. We sat and watched the many farms pass by growing rice, pineapples, bananas and many other products that can only be grown in the wet, hot planes. As we got closer to our destination, Siliguri, the train began to thin out. Eventually there were only a couple of people around us so we spent a pleasant ride reading, sleeping and letting the country side roll by.

When we arrived at the station (a full three hours late) we secured a ride to the Holy Cross convent where Uncle Jack insisted we should wash up and eat lunch. We quickly ate while we waited for Sagar to arrive from the airport with the jeep to take us up to the farmstay near Darjeeling. He finally made it, briefly met Uncle Jack, and then we loaded our bags into the jeep and were off! Free at last!

our departing pic with Uncle Jack

We were excited at the prospect of being on our own so we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves as our driver worked his way through the sprawl of the plains towards the wall of fog that we knew covered the hills and behind them, the Himalayas. As we drove, we saw a strong military presence in the area due to the proximity to so many borders (Nepal, Malaysia, Bhutan, and China).

The Jeep finally started the hair-raising ascent into the hills. Although still referred to as “the foothills of the Himalayas” these “hills” were massive, steep, and heavily jungled. The switchback road rose quickly and before we knew it we staring a looooooong way down to the valley floor. Our driver seemed unperturbed and maybe even a little annoyed at the steepness of the road, the sharpness of the switchbacks, or the slowness of other drivers. He drove confidently to the point of mild aggression as he passed every other car we came to, honking his horn once or twice before darting into the oncoming lane and speeding by. The experience was mildly terrifying, but like so many things in India, we just had to surrender ourselves to it and trust that this guy had made the drive enough times to do what he did safely. It didn't help that the roads were wet and on the way up we came across a Jeep that was smashed into the cement barrier.

As we climbed higher and higher into the hills we began to see little villages on and off the road, scattered through steep, green hills. As Sagar commented, “Indians live the hell out of everwhere”. The hillsides seemed inhospitable yet they obviously yielded some form of living. The higher up we got, the more people we saw that appeared “Himalayan” as opposed to “Indian”. I'm sure that I'm over generalizing the distinction, but there were many people who looked much more like they were from Nepal or Tibet, having features that were a mix between Indian and Chinese. In many places in these hills, Darjeeling included, the main language spoken is, in fact, Nepali.

When we got to a certain point, we saw little train tracks running parallel to the road. These belong to whats known as the “Toy Train” which is a little coal-powered train that travels around the villages up on top of the hills. We passed it once on our drive up as it was heading down. I will try to get a picture of it if we run into it again.

Eventually, after about 2 hours we got the top of a ridge with houses and shops lining the road and were told that we were in Darjeeling. Darjeeling is at an altitude of about 7000 feet and since we started at almost sea level, you can imagine how steep that two-hour drive must have been. The farm we were staying at was another 16 km away according to our driver but it would take us a full hour to get there. I couldn't believe it would be that slow but then I saw the road we had to go down. From Darjeelng we started a decent into a valley on a steep gravel road that only allowed travel at a few mph. We found out later that it hadn't been serviced by the government in 14 years.

Finally, at long last, the driver stopped the car and showed us to a path lined by large, colorful prayer flags that zig-zagged down the steep hill. We walked in the darkness down to the bottom where we met Navin, the owner of the farm, who showed us our room. We had a large tent with a double bed and a single bed. The bathroom was attached through a zippered canvas door. I went in to go to the bathroom but when I took the toilet seat down, a spider, almost the size of my hand, ran across the toilet onto the floor. The bathroom is exposed to the outside so it gets a lot of bugs (especially gigantic spiders) which is why it needs to be sealed off from the main tent.

Stick bug from our room

Navin invited us down to have drinks and dinner. While we waited for the food to be prepared, we were offered strong beers (%8 alcohol content) and talked with Navin and his friend, Ashish. They both spoke excellent english and told us how they are both from Darjeeling originally and both work on organising the small, organic farmers of the area into coalitions to get fare prices on their produce. Navin is a farmer and grows all his crops organically. He admits that his farm would not be financially sustainable if not for the income from the farmstay he established about 7 years ago. They told us many stories about Darjeeling and this area and how much it has changed over the years. Once food was ready, we ate an amazing meal of rice, chicken curry, dahl and these spicy red peppers that he called fireballs. We retired early feeling exhausted but content.

There are many things that I see or learn that don't make it in to these posts because they don't fit in nicely to the narrative so I decided to start ending each post with a list of three things I have learned. Here are my first three:

1) the handmade snacks on the train cost 10 rupees

2) the hindi word for water is “pani” (pan-ee)

3) The majority of the weaponry in the Indian military comes from old soviet stockpiles.

A Ticket to Ride

Wednesday June 25^th

Over the past two days I spent a lot of time inside. Jack did not seem up for doing anything outside and he was not willing to let us adventure on our own. We mostly read and played cards (I'm about 5/200 for solitaire which was also bringing my mood down). Additionally, our tickets to freedom where still up in the air. We were numbers 18, 19 and 20 on the wait list and I didn't think our chances were too good of getting them regardless of how confident our Uncle was. For the following story to make sense, I have to explain a little bit about the Indian train system:

Trains are one of the most popular forms of travel in India and due to the large population, tickets can be difficult to get on short notice. Tickets come, most commonly, in one of 4 “classes”. The cheapest are the Sleeper class (SL for short) and this is how the general public usually travels. There is no air conditioning and no place to lay down during the day. According to the guidebook, SL is the way to go to see the “real India” whatever that means. The next is 3^rd class, air-conditioned (3AC) which is the air conditioned version of the sleeper class but costs a little bit more money. 2^Nd and 1^st class, air-conditioned (2AC and 1AC respectively) are how the middle and upper class travel and offer more privacy, more space and less noise than the other classes, at a premium of course.

In addition to the different classes, tickets are separated into different quotas. There is the general quota which can be purchased 120 days before departure but usually sells out in the week or two before. Then there are quotas for foreigners, meaning that they reserve some tickets for tourists who have not planned that far in advance. There are also other quotas for women and the elderly but these seem largely unused as far as I can tell. Lastly, they put aside a certain number of tickets that are to be sold the day before departure. These are known as “Tatkal” which means something like “immediate”.

For all of these ticket types, if there are no available spots on the train you can purchase a ticket and be put on a wait list. Then, as people cancel their tickets (which happens pretty regularly) you move up the list and eventually may get on the train, otherwise you get a refund.

Anyway, Uncle Jack thought for sure we would get on the train but talking to the other father's I was not so convinced. Since it was the day before our departure, however, we could try to get the tatkal (immediate) tickets at the ticketing station. Not having left the building in about two days, I decided to accompany my uncle to the station on his motorbike around 9:30 in the morning.

The day was already stifling but the wind from cruising down the streets felt great. All of the sights and sounds were assaulting in the bustling weekday morning in Patna. We went through a small side street and came upon an all-girls catholic school that was just starting for the day. Hundreds of 6-8 year old girls were arriving at the gates. Many came with their fathers on the front of bicycles and motor bikes, while more came by various forms of autorickshaw, packing 10-12 into a single one. They all wore pink uniforms and black shoes. It was both absurd and adorable at the same time.

We got to the ticket station and found two lines of people waiting to purchase various tatkal tickets. A line is actually a gross overstatement. It looked more like a line of people took a running start and threw themselves at the service window. The people in front were being smushed by the people behind and had been forced sideways and forward. It was only towards the end where Uncle Jack stood that the mass of people resembled a line. For the first 30 minutes that we waited not a single person was helped. I had no idea what was going on but everyone was yelling in Hindi and the people behind the desk kept getting up and leaving and coming back to people pounding on their window. The power would flicker on and off causing the ceiling fans to turn off for long and hot periods of time. Eventually things started moving but once they did, everyone seemed to start trying to cut each other in line, or so it seemed. Arguments kept breaking out as people tried to get closer to the window but nobody ever raised a hand or seemed truly angry. Eventually, Jack got to the window but was told he couldn't be helped because he had an American passport and had forgot to bring his Indian drivers license. An hour down the drain but we were still determined, and as Uncle Jack says “this is just how it goes”

Next, we drove another ten minutes to the actual platform and tried to get tickets from the foreign quota. We waited about 20 minutes for someone to come help us and as we were waiting Uncle Jack told me “you can't get impatient, they won't understand that”. That really struck me because the first reaction of most people in America is to become indignant and angry about how PERSONALLY inconvenient this is. In India, its just how it goes.

The man finally showed up but somehow had never heard of the foreign quota and sent us on our way. Another hour down the drain. We went back to St. Xavier's and picked up Uncle Jack's drivers license. and headed back to the first stop, the ticket station. There was no line this time and we quickly got our tatkal tickets to Siliguri in the SL class. I guess in the end a little patience pays off.

 Later in the evening, as the sun was going down it began to rain really hard again. The rainfall changed the color of the sky to an eerie yellow color so Leslie and I just relaxed and watched it for a while. I snapped a few photos that don't quite do it justice:

Sunday Mass

Sunday 06/22/2014

I was awake at 3:30 AM this morning and could not go back to sleep. We had told Uncle Jack that we would go to mass with him and the other father's at 6:30. I have been to mass maybe twice in my life, once for a wedding and once for a funeral and I don't really remember what either involved. Leslie was raised Catholic so I figured I could count on her for queues and whatnot. The one thing I had already learned was don't take communion.

Their church is upstairs in the residence building, above the dining room. It had bamboo coverings over the walls and smelled of incense. There were about 16 comfortable-looking padded stools arranged in the middle of the room but Leslie, Uncle Jack, and I took seats on the perimeter of the room.

I was worried about what I should do during communion and I had asked Leslie the night before about what she thought. She said that I could go up and cross my arms against my chest and be blessed or I could just not go up at all. I asked her again as church was just about to start and she decided to just ask Uncle Jack. I couldn't hear what she said but neither could our Uncle (he is hard of hearing at 87) but he caught the jist and said “Well he better not take communion then”. How helpful.

I realized after writing the following short paragraph that it is a mildly offensive description of what mass involves. It was only meant to illustrate how absurd the ceremony appears to someone who was raised outside of the religion. So, if you are easily offended, please skip the next paragraph

For those of you who may not know, a mass involves a lot of audience participation. There was some off-key singing, some “repeat after me”, some “when I say ____, you say ******”, and of course the repeated use of church gang signs. Eventually we got around to the church sanctioned form of cannibalism. Nervous about what would happen when it came to my turn, I watched, wide eyed, as the little tray was brought out, filled with little tan pogs and a small class of wine. The presiding priest got to go first, after all, it was he who performed the miracle and was likely famished for it. He then offered it to another father and another. Thinking he was going to come around to me and I would have to turn down this holy man, I started to get fidgety. Luckily, he then passed the tray to the father he had just given communion to and in turn that father passed it to Uncle Jack. He gave Leslie hers and when he came to me he simply put his large hand on my head and said “God Bless you”. Easy.

In reality, the mass was not long and drawn out but kept simple and casual. It was actually a pleasant way to start the day. At breakfast afterward, Uncle Jack mentioned that he would like to take us to meet these three American students who where here in Patna working on a project that Uncle Jack described as taking solar energy and turning it into ice.

To get to this mission which was across town we took an autorickshaw (three-wheeled motorized vehicle built to hold 5 people but actually holds up to 8-9) to the train station where Uncle Jack began to ask directions of a man outside the station. Although Jack speaks Hindi like a native, within seconds of his question a large crowd began to form around us people trying to give their advice or just listening. Eventually someone took us over to the place where we could get an autorickshaw to our destination.

The mission was set back in a small residential area and surrounded by a gate. When we got there, they were still having church so we waited outside. This mission is home to the Jesuits but also to a program called SAAP (Solar Alternatives and Associated Projects) which is affiliated with the University of Dayton. Each summer the university sends some students to work on a solar alternative project. This summer, Ohio had sent three students named Jose, Matt and Aaron. While we waited, we checked out the solar projects that were lying around. The pictures below show some solar water heaters that had been made. They create steam in the vessel in the center which is then used to cook and clean.

We met the three young engineers after mass and we chatted with them while they ate breakfast. They had been in Patna for about a month and seemed to be fitting in very well with the locals. They encouraged us to learn cricket from some locals which we will certainly try to do at some point. After breakfast they took us downstairs and gave us the ins and outs of their project.

The goal of the project is to make a solar powered refrigerator that can hold a temperature between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius which will be used to store vaccines in rural hospitals. The refrigerator uses a day-long cycle that involves the vaporization and condensation of ethanol. In order for the ethanol to be volatile enough to be used, however, they needed to create and sustain a near-vacuum in the system. And since vacuum pumps will not be available in these rural hospitals, the vacuum needs to last for the lifetime of the refrigerator. This is where they were having the most trouble because there refrigerator has many different components that kept springing leaks. This project has been going on for three years now and Matt, Aaron, and Jose think they will be the ones to complete it so I wish them the best of luck. We then went back to St. Xaviers by autorickshaw and arrived in time for lunch.

Earlier in the day, I first mentioned to Uncle Jack that we would like to meet my friend, Sagar, in Darjeeling on Friday afternoon. We had made plans with Sagar to meet there and then travel north to Sikkim to do some backpacking. Uncle Jack had made some noises earlier that he did not want us travelling alone an that he intended to accompany us wherever we went. This was making me nervous. When I asked him if it was possible to meet this friend in Darjeeling (which is about 14 hours North-East of Patna by train.) he immediately said no. I asked him why he thought that and he said “well maybe its possible” Later in the day we broached the topic again and had a long discussion about the logistics of the travel. It seemed simple to me but Uncle Jack still felt it would be insurmountable to Leslie and I. He decided we could go but only on Saturday, once Sagar had already arrived and stayed one night to make sure everything was settled by the time we got there. We didn't like this idea either because we didn't want Sagar to have to wait a whole day for us and we basically did not want to be told what we could and could not do. Leslie and I had a pow-wow with Sagar over the phone and came up with some ideas that would involve Sagar picking us up at the train stop on Friday and taking a taxi all together to Darjeeling which was another hour and a half from the stop. Uncle Jack grudgingly agreed to this but has insisted that he will come on the 14 hour train with us to make sure we meet up with Sagar OK. He does not want to let us out of the hands of an Indian guide at any point. I understand that he is just worried for our safety but it is frustrating nonetheless.

Monsoon Season

Saturday 06/21/2014

Today we woke up to rain. Late June through August is the peak of the monsoon season all over India. Apparently the rain was considered “a light drizzle” but compared to my desert experiences in Bend and Claremont it was torrential. The huge upside of the rain is that it dramatically cools off the outside. And what a relief it is.

Due to the rain, we stayed inside for most of the day, reading and relaxing with the other Fathers. In the afternoon, Uncle Jack showed us the garden that is kept on the grounds and the various ingenious devices they use. He first showed us their “Bio-gas” tank which is basically just a large composting bin that is airtight, with a tube coming out of the top. Compost is added to the bin, and as it is broken down, methane gas is released and lightly pressurizes the vessel. The gas can then be extracted from the top and used to cook food with. I am not sure about the practicality of such a device on a small scale but it would be interesting to try to make a small one at home and see how much gas it produces. The leftover material from the container is used to fertilize the garden.

The garden behind St. Xaviers

The bio-fuel producer

We then took a walk around the block to an old Granary that was built by the British in 1786 to prevent famines. The large dome-like structure has two helical staircases that wrap around the dome, opposite one another. For a small fee you can go into the pleasant grounds surrounding the granary and take a stroll to the top to get an excellent view of Patna.

 At the granary and other places that we would walk, the people are always extremely interested in where we are from. On the way down from the granary a younger kid fell into step with me an eventually got up the courage to ask “which country?”. Americans apparently don't visit Patna very often.

A Motorcycle Ride

Friday 06/20/2014

I woke up at 6:30 AM feeling incredibly rested, something that only happens when I am in the throws of serious jetlag, meaning I will certainly crash by mid-afternoon. This, of course, was an hour and a half later than the residence hall bell rings for all the fathers to wake up. Uncle Jack rises a half an hour before the bell (4:30 AM for everyone counting at home) to make sure he is early to say mass at a convent several miles away.

The school has cooks and servants so Leslie and I were able to get made-to-order eggs with our coffee and toast, a seemingly American way to start the day but delicious nonetheless. After breakfast, Jack took us for a walk around Patna. We first went to the hotel at which my parents will be staying at the end of July. (We confirmed the reservation, Mom and Dad, so you're all set to come).

We then walked around a giant oval field called “Ghandi Maidan” that had been originally created by the British to play polo and cricket but has since been opened up to the public. There are still several games of cricket going on at any given time, played by little kids with sticks pounded into the ground so they are knocked over when hit by the ball. We got many stares as we walked around the oval, but none of which seemed malicious, mostly people just seemed curious about why we were here. Since it is open to the public, this park seemed like a place that many travelers (I.e gypsies) made there temporary home. It was not long before we were swarmed by small children begging for anything we could get. Uncle Jack would tell them to please leave and that we had nothing for them but that did not keep them from following us, constantly grabbing at our hands and shirts. It is extremely sad to witness this sort of begging and being helpless to do anything that could truly help these children. We had to simply ignore them until the oldest said a few words and they all ran off.

At the end of our circuit around the park, we met up with one of Jack's “daughters” (orphan girls who he took care of for many years and who are now in their late 20s or 30s and are all doing extremely well). Her name was Shoba (spelling?) and she was shy but extremely pleasant. She is an English teach at a junior college in a city near Varanasi. We hope to visit her if we make it near that area.

 After Lunch, we decided that it was time to get a cell phone for the duration of our stay here. Uncle Jack had purchased a second SIM card a while back for a previous visitor (It is notoriously difficult to get a SIM card here for a traveler because you need to have a permanent residence) so all we had to do was buy a phone that could hold the card. Jack took me for a ride on his motorcycle to the phone store. The ride was a total blast, we were immersed in a see of autorickshaws, motorbikes, bicycles, cows, goats, dogs and people on foot all trying to get somewhere different. “close calls” has a whole different meaning in this scenario, motorbikes and cars will pass within inches of one another and no one thinks more of it. Other cars are constantly driving in the wrong lane as they try to pass one another but there never seems to be a single collision, it really is amazing. Uncle Jack never uses his horn and never “challenges traffic” as he puts it. I felt the confidence of a man who has been riding motorcycles in these conditions for the past 60 years. We made it to the phone store and I got a little dinky Samsung phone for 1250 ruppees (~20 bucks) and we headed back in the same conditions as the way there.  

Arrival in Patna

Thursday 06/19/2014

After another 8 hour flight we finally arrived on Indian soil. Immigration and customs was a breeze so we had plenty of time in the airport to get some food and check in for our next flight from Delhi to Patna.

When we got off the plane and picked up our bags, we walked out of the airport and spotted Uncle Jack immediately and he saw us. With a quick handshake and a few exchanged words, he showed us to the car that he had brought. At first, I thought he was going to drive us which I was really impressed by (and slightly afraid about) but it turned out he had someone who worked at his school pick us up. (I later learned that he still drives a motorcycle which he has had since 1973. All the other fathers claimed that it is the oldest motorbike in the city and possible even the whole state).

The drive from the airport was eye-widening. There were bicycles and small autorickshaws everywhere and the rules of the road were certainly more like guidelines. Car horns are used to say “get out of the way” or “I'm right behind/next to you” or “you crossed in front of me and that's no problem but I want you to know I didn't like it very much” or in many cases for no discernible reason at all. They are used much more liberally than in America but thankfully the horn itself if far quieter and less annoying than American ones so all in all driving is a pretty good time. And as Uncle Jack told us while crossing a bustling street, “no one is trying to kill you”

We arrived at the school, St. Xaviers, which is a walled, very large, plot of land that has a couple 4-story school buildings and a residence hall. Uncle Jack told us a little bit about the history of the school. I don't remember all of the details but the jist is that it began as a Jesuit mission back in the 1920s. It was not widely accepted at the time because of the lack of religious freedoms in the area, and the naivete of the Fathers about Indian culture. Eventually it was taken over by a guy who very much knew the culture and who had been a part of different Jesuit schools around the country. Based on the success of those other schools, the British asked this guy if he would start a school at the mission in Patna. They created a Catholic boarding school that accepted people from all around Bihar and even as far as Jaipur and Nepal. They were so successful with the school that they were asked to start another school in Jaipur and one in Nepal. Eventually the school added more buildings and stopped being a boarding school so that they could service the community and now they have over a thousand students from Pre-K through High School and are extremely well respected by the locals. (School is out for the rest of this week so we haven't seen any kids running around).

Uncle Jack showed us to our rooms which each have beds, a desk, and a bath room with a shower which was far nicer than I expected. We were able to shower off and take a break and then Leslie and I decided to explore the grounds a little bit.

My bedroom

The main corridor connecting mine and Leslie's rooms to the dining hall

Uncle jack came out and told us a bunch of stories about his time here in India. I won't go into all the details but I will briefly retell one story that I really liked.

The Ganges river is a large and sacred river that runs through the northern part of India. Although extremely polluted it is known to give life to the region since the people rely on its waters. The river originates from a glacier in a spot known as “Gaumukh” in the North Central part of India. Gaumukh is an extremely sacred place (as is just about everywhere for one reason or another according to Uncle Jack). Many years ago, Jack and a friend from the missionary decided to travel up there during an off-school period. When others heard that he was going they asked him to bring something sacred back to them and he agreed.

They arrived at the closest bus stop to Gaumukh which was still 12 miles walking distance to the source. Uncle Jack's companion had gotten ill on the travel there and did not want to walk that distance for risk of getting pneumonia. They stayed at a lodge near the bus stop and Uncle Jack met another couple who was going to hire a guide and so he tagged along to split the cost. They set off the next day and arrived at the source of the Ganges around 3pm. Looking for something sacred to bring back he came across some people selling little brass pots. He bought one and filled it up with water from the mouth of the river but not before he blessed it. Holy water in hand and the day slipping by, they decided to start heading back. Uncle Jack arrived to his companion 4 hours later than they had planned at around 1030 at night. The companion asked “well what happened, how was the glacier” Uncle Jack said “It was great, I blessed all of the Northern India!”

I'm not sure why I like that story so much but I think it shows a lot about who my Uncle is. His final quote was not one of pious salvation for those people living near the Ganges, nor did he believe the blessing would actually do anything but he was just pleased at the idea of it and not to mention the beautiful mountain hike he was able to go on.

 We then had dinner along with a bunch of the fathers at the school. The food was delicious and there was a surprising amount of alcohol. Uncle Jack told us there was some sort of party going on that I believe was unrelated to our arrival. We shared a kingfisher with our uncle, heard some more stories and went to bed.  

London Layover

Leslie and I had 10 hours to kill so rather than spend it in the airport we decided to get a small taste of London. 20 pounds and an hour train ride later we stepped out of the underground to a view of Big Ben and a short walk to the London Eye. Here are a couple pics:

A celebration of being able to stand finally!

London Eye on the left, Big Ben on the right

A proper English lunch

All Packed Up and Ready to Go

All packed up and ready to go. These are the 35 pounds of material possessions I will have for the next two months.

After spending the better part of a week hanging out with Emma and the Salisburys, Leslie and I are off. We have more than 48 hours of travel ahead of us as we go from LAX to Calgary to London to Delhi to Patna. Due to arrive in the afternoon of Thursday, June 19th to extremely hot weather.