One of the struggles for me as a blogger is figuring out how much you, the average reader, want to hear about my experiences in India. I know my mom would love to hear every single detail, but if I'm sitting in your shoes, I probably won't read a blog entry if it's more than a few paragraphs. Despite that, the past couple weeks have been pretty eventful for me, and I hope to do them justice in this post. So, sit tight and put your reading glasses on.
The week leading up to our project trip was pretty slow, but I had a couple unique experiences toward the end of the week. I had the chance to hike to a nearby village with a local Indian believer who has a ministry with about 10 villages, offering them medical assistance as needed, teaching English in their schools, and sharing the good news with them. He has been doing it for about 10 years and has established quite a rapport with the villagers, as evidenced by the many people who stopped to talk to him during our trek. The day that I went, we took a 1.5 hour hike down the mountain to one of the “closer” villages and visited a gov't-run school of about 30 5-year olds. I was asked to share a story with them (through an interpreter), which I was not expecting at all, so I stumbled through the story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. But the nice thing about having a translator is that he can tell a much better version of the story than the one that you tell him. Besides that, I didn't do much during our visit, mostly just watched the man do his thing. I really enjoyed it though...his ministry seems pretty legit. I had fun trying to interact with the kids too despite the language barrier.
The next day, I got to be part of the first phase of an EMI project. Three prospective ministry partners came to our office to figure out how to get EMI's help designing a boarding school and campus in eastern India. All our full-time staff happened to be out of the office at the time, so 2 other interns basically gave the rundown on what we do, and I just sat in on the meeting. It was really cool to hear the 3 men give their vision for the project and how they want to share the good news with youth through Chr-st--n education. We closed our meeting with a pr---r for them, which I thought was awesome. It was a reminder that EMI is so much more than a typical engineering firm.
That night (Feb 19th), my fellow intern Pavan and I caught an overnight sleeper train to Delhi to meet up with our project leaders and the volunteers flying in from the States. We again practiced with the Delhi ultimate frisbee team – my only athletic activity so far in India, sadly – and visited a slum school run by the client we would be working with all week. The school visit was similar to my village visit in many ways – more cute kids, more frustration by the language barrier, and more encouragement about what G-d is doing through the Indian ch-rch.
We caught an early train the next morning bound for the northern state of Punjab, by the Pakistan border. We were greeted at the rail station by our client, a sweet old Indian man in his 70s with a very corny sense of humor. Think John Matthews in 15 years. The 8 of us on the team spent the first day in a hotel just getting to know each other, sharing our life stories, how we got to this point, and our expectations for the trip. The team was made up of me and Pavan, Danna and Ryan (co-leaders, soon to be bride and groom), and our volunteers – Man (architect), Zach (architect), Megan (civil eng.), and Sharon (graphic designer).
The next five days were spent on the 4-acre site surveying the property and figuring out the site plan for the future school and orphanage. A typical day started out with team devotions in the morning, followed by work, chai break, work, lunch, work, chai break, work, dinner, team meeting, and free time. Monday was a fairly introductory day. The client gave us some background on his ministry – his testimony, how the ministry began, and his vision for the campus. He came from a large Hindu family with 10 siblings, but G-d saved him at an early age, essentially by showing him the futility of worshipping a g-d made out of wood instead of the living G-d. His father died when he was just 7, and he felt like an orphan for the rest of his childhood, which ultimately has led to his heart for orphans. Hearing him share his story and vision was a highlight of the week for me. When I'm back in the office designing septic tanks or whatnot, it's easy to forget the ultimate purpose of my work, but hearing the client's story and vision is a motivating reminder of why I'm here.
As for the actual work there, it was pretty slow for me Monday and Tuesday. The architects were busy, but there wasn't a lot of civil work to be done. Later in the week, I kept busy by doing a little surveying, playing in the mud to figure out what kind of soil is on the site, and drawing the existing facilities in AutoCAD. The majority of my work will be done when I get back to the office, but the week on site was still helpful for getting a first-hand look at the design issues that will come up.
We left the site on Saturday and stayed in a hotel for the next couple days while we wrapped up our work and did a little sightseeing. We stopped by the Golden Temple, the mecca of the Sikh religion and holding place for their holy text. We also went to the India-Pakistan border crossing, where a border-closing ceremony takes place every day around 5. It's a pretty unbelievable spectacle that draws thousands of spectators on both sides of the border (every day!) and involves high-stepping military officers, an MC to pump up the crowd, yelling from both sides, and a simultaneous lowering of both nations' flags. From what I gathered, it was mostly just a show of patriotism and a mutual gesture of goodwill between 2 nations that generally don't get along.
After a final wrap-up meeting with the client Monday afternoon, we left Punjab Monday night on another sleeper-class train and arrived back home in Mussoorie Tuesday morning. It feels good to be home and settled in for a while. On Wednesday, I started Hindi classes at the local language school, which will be 2 hrs/day every weekday, so that has been keeping me busy lately. It's weird to be back in the routine of daily homework.
That's probably enough of an update for now. Thanks for slogging through this post.
