Chahalka Muslim Village

1/25/09
Up at 8:30 to find no shower just a bucket and water spicket-wish I had brought a face cloth like I usually do. I woke this morning to hymns of prayer from the nearby temple. I was neat. I went out on my balcony and could hear birds but could not see them. When they finally flew I saw they were beautiful yellow, green and red parrots. I also saw a peacock making a nest. India reminds me a lot of Honduras in many ways. Sights, smells, horns honking, terrain, color schemes of homes/businesses. The one thing that is different is most things are in English verses Spanish as well as in Hindi. They seem to have many of the same colorful flowers as they do in Honduras. There is not a lot of grass so it is very dust as the area we will mostly be in is desert like. I have seen some poverty but not to the extent I thought I would so far. The temperature during the day was probably about 70 but at night I’m guessing was around 45. I just ran out of my room to Chris’s because he said there was a whole group of large monkey’s out off his balcony. By the time I got there with my camera they had moved on. Hopefully I will see them before the end of the week. He said they were about 3’ tall. WOW neat. Well we are off to the work site. I am looking forward to the adventure! Just before we left for the farm for breakfast I was able to see the monkeys! They were about 3’ tall, grey, white, black and tan colored. There were one’s with red faces and ones that had white tuffs of fur encircling their face. They seemed to be eating the young branches of the trees. After breakfast at the farm we headed to the village. In Chahalka there are approximately 3000 people (500 families) in the village, 1500 being children. Each family has up to 9 children because they don’t believe in birth control. We were greeted with garlands of marigolds. On the work project the ditches had already been dug. First job was to fill it with large stones on the bottom then we mixed concrete and filled the bottom of the foundation with that. I was able to hold 4 babies today. The first one was a newborn maybe a week or less. That was special. The kids were very inquisitive and liked to throw stones at me & pinch my bottom. They really liked it when we interacted with them although with all the work there wasn’t much time for that. Hopefully we will have time to play with the kids in future days. Then we left at around 6pm and headed to the farm for dinner. I was ready for bed! I kept nodding off while we were all sitting around the fire pit waiting for dinner. We finally ate at 9PM. The food is fantastic. Poor Kim is still not doing well. She slept all day at Sanjiv’s house. Then we headed back to the hotel at 10PM. Poor Kim threw up on the way home. It’s about 10:30 so I should be heading off to bed. Did find out where the light switch was- attached to the table which was covered with a sheet next to the bed. Hope to get some much needed rest.

Off to India

1/23-24/09 OFF TO INDIA!!
I met Elias Thomas at the airport in Manchester @ 8:3o. We were able to check our bags through to Delhi. Elias proceeded to create quite a stir at security with his knee replacement. Our flight was delayed an hour so we got into Newark later than expected which was fine because our flight was not due to leave until 8:40 for Delhi. We then had lunch at Galligers which was rather pricy! $61.00 for 2 sandwiches and drinks?! Then we went on a search for a power cord for Elias’s PDA….we visited 4 stores from one end of the airport to the other but came up short. We then met up with Sean & Kim who had flown in from Newfoundland and then met Chris who was able to get an earlier flight. We went back to Galliger’s for drinks and finally met up with Boon and Diane from San Antonio, TX. Flight left on time and shortly after takeoff Kim became extremely ill. The flight was about 14.5 hours and she was sick the duration of the flight. We flew approx. 7800 miles at speeds of up to 620 MPH w/temperatures as low as -80 degrees F @ an altitude of around 3700-3500 feet. I got my first taste of India at 3500 feet. I was sitting towards the back of the plane in the middle but thankfully on an isle seat. I was sitting next to a guy who lived outside of Dehli and worked for IBM. We had a great conversation for about 3-4 hours on topics surrounding the Indian culture. Topics on religion, cast system, history of India & of course why you don't eat with your left hand! After several hours of conversation I told him I needed to get some rest. After falling asleep I was awoken to him holding my face with both hands and kissing me on the mouth. I was confused & disoriented when I woke but promptly asked what in the name of god was he doing. He told me he was captivated by my beauty! What a line! How many drinks have you had I asked! I said this is totally unacceptable. Don't touch me again! Keep to your seat and I'll keep to mine. I stayed awake for about another 4-5 hours and couldn't stay awake and fell back asleep. I awoke to him sleeping with his head on my chest and his hand on my thigh. I again scolded him and said that this was not acceptable behavior in my culture. He said "What, I didn't do anything! In my culture this is totally acceptable". So needless to say I hugged the isle the remainder of the flight! Upon arriving in Delhi we met up with Devon after clearing customs. It was about a 2 hour ride to Sohna where we checked into our accommodations-hotel and then headed off to Sanjiv’s “farm” 2nd home about 10 min. away. Poor Kim was sick the whole way there. After going about 2 miles down the road there was a huge traffic jam with dozens of large commercial trucks. So we got off our bus and walked about mile in-between these large commercial trucks with no flashlight. That was interesting to say the least. They decorate their large trucks to the hilt with garlands, flags, stickers, flashing lights and flowers. Sanjiv met us with his car and took us the rest of the way. Upon arriving as his home Sanjiv, Josna & Ollie had a lovely Indian meal prepared for us. We got back to our rooms at about 3AM. I stayed up til around 3:45 packing my bag for the next day. I couldn’t find the light switch so I had to sleep with all the lights on for the remainder of the evening.