Greetings from Phulwari Shariff! Sophia and I arrived safely and have been adjusting to the new climate and culture. We have only been here for 4 days but have already experienced a lot and made many new friends so I’ll try and give a few of the highlights!
…
Travel
Our journey here was long but not bad. Sophia and I flew from Dayton to Chicago, spent our 10 hour layover exploring the Chicago airport (and doing lots of people watching!) and then got on a 15 hour flight to New Delhi. After landing in New Delhi we were able to get a taxi to our hotel, where we stayed for one night. The taxi driver, named Ar Jun, was very kind to us and gave us his number, telling his “American sisters” to call if we ever needed help or felt unsafe. Our hotel was an incredibly fancy 5-star hotel and we were very well taken care of. Everyone bowed to us when greeting us and we received very special treatment from free water bottles to chai (tea) being brought to our table at breakfast – I don’t even think I had to carry my luggage once! I felt like royalty. The concierge even arranged our taxi back to the airport for us while we were checking out. During our entire journey, I never had to arrange any sort of transportation or ask for help because most times someone just came up to us, asked what we needed, and then did it for us.
We then flew from the New Delhi airport to Patna, and this was probably the hardest part of the journey. Both Sophia and I were ready to be done travelling and the flight to Patna was quite turbulent. I kept waiting for the oxygen masks to come down because it felt very unsafe, so that was a bit unsettling. We did get off the plane outside though, and that was really cool. I have never done that before and it felt kind of like I was in a movie! The Patna airport was very small and only contained one room that had a baggage claim area and a bathroom. We met up with Fr. Paul, the director of Solar Alternatives and Associated Programs (referred to as SAAP for the rest of my blog posts), and drove to the church compound. 2 days, 3 planes, 4 airports, and over 8700 miles later we had finally arrived!
Food
Breakfast consists mostly of rice, peanut butter toast (thank goodness for peanut butter), and sometimes there is chapatti which is kind of like a soft tortilla that is usually eaten with some sort of fried vegetable mixture of okra and onions.
There is one family that lives next door to the compound, and the women all gather outside in the morning to cook and have tea, so they usually offer us chapatti and chai or lemon tea around 10:30 which is kind of like a second breakfast.
Lunch is rice and a yellow lentil soup thing (I forget the name of it) that goes on top, usually accompanied by spiced potatoes or some other kind of vegetable and then a cucumber and carrot salad.
And dinner is…. Rice and chapatti and vegetables! Are you seeing a pattern yet? We sometimes have fish or chicken with dinner also which is a nice change.
I have also tried samosas, which is a fried triangular dough with spiced potatoes and lentils, gulab jamun, which are little sweet fried dough balls, and litchi juice, which is a strawberry flavored drink that all the little kids LOVE.
Climate/Toilets
Alright I will address the questions I am sure you have all been asking… 🙂 yes the climate is very hot. The best way I can think to describe it is if you get close to a campfire, you can only stand there for a minute until the heat becomes uncomfortable. Well, take that uncomfortable feeling and multiply it by pretty much all day every day and you have the weather in India. I have been adjusting to it well though and I don’t really notice it that much anymore. I have been drinking lots of water and applying sunscreen and thankfully our rooms are air conditioned and have fans so if I get too hot I do have a place to cool off for a bit.
The living arrangements here are very comfortable and so I have my own bathroom and it even has toilet paper! I am very grateful and also very lucky, because not everyone has it that way. Most of the toilets here are pretty much holes in the ground, and I have encountered some of those in the airport bathrooms/at the compound. I haven’t had to use one yet but I’m sure at some point while travelling that will be my only option as “western toilets” aren’t that common here.
People
There are several people that live here on the compound with us. Fr. Paul lives here, along with Fr. Jesu, but we haven’t met him yet because he is travelling right now. Our cook, Paulina, lives here with her husband and her children Rosemary, who is 7, and Lawrence, who is 1. Across the compound there is another building where Manish and his family lives. They have two children – Michael, who just turned 2, and Maria, who is 8. Issa is Maria’s… cousin? And she is probably 6 or 7 years old and follows Maria around. There are three younger women who are Manish’s sister in laws and they live here also.
There are always other women who show up with other young children or very little babies and I don’t know who they are or how they fit in to the family, but they are all kind to us and usually smile or shake our hands and say “Jesu” which is a greeting/blessing. They are all very good at making sure we are well fed!
It seems like the compound is a sort of safe place/orphanage for the parishioners, and I am learning that just because someone is called mother or father doesn’t necessarily mean they are a blood relative. The saying “it takes a village” is very true here. Everyone takes care of each other, which is really beautiful.
Mass
I have had two opportunities to go to Mass, and I also got to do a rosary procession around the church on the feast of the Visitation. There are two things I really love about Catholicism here – the first is that I am seeing the universality of our faith in action. Everything is said in Hindi, but I understand the entire Mass/rosary and can usually follow along in English because I can pick up what is happening. It is actually doing a good job of challenging my faith because I have to focus and remember the order of the Mass and what prayers come when! I was really excited when they did the sprinkling rite at Mass on Sunday because my first thought was “they’re celebrating Easter joy just like at home!” and then my next thought was “well of course they are, they’re Catholic!” – it makes something that I usually take for granted so much holier.
The other thing I love is we are not allowed in the church with our shoes on. Celebrating the Mass and receiving the Eucharist barefoot is a really humbling experience and it actually gives the Mass a more comfortable and relaxed feeling.
Michael’s birthday!
The last thing I will write about is the big event that happened this week – Michael’s birthday! Michael turned 2 years old and we had a huge celebration for him. Everyone from Manish’s family to some nuns from Calcutta (Sister Eden and Sister Flora – such compassionate women) to villagers and friends attended the party. We sang happy birthday to Michael (same song as we have) and then a cake was placed in front of him. Each family member came and presented him with a gift, took a picture, and then smeared cake on his face for a “blessing”. Sophia and I were invited to come up and we got cake smeared on our faces also which was very fun. We then had lots of food and hung out with everyone until the evening was over. It was a great celebration and everyone was excited that we were there – they kept putting food in front of us, taking pictures with us, and asking lots of questions about where we are from and why we are here.
…
This week Fr. Paul is travelling to Calcutta for a few days and since Sophia is still adjusting to the culture change (she has been in a bit more shock than I have), we will continue to rest and hang out and will hopefully get started on our project later in the week. We are planning to work on a solar oven and a solar refrigerator, so stay tuned for more updates on that.
I am working on uploading some pictures onto the computer we have here and hopefully will share those later.
Namaste 🙂
An Indian Summer 