just a little note – some of the pictures on this post are in “slideshow mode” so the whole picture will fit – make sure to click the arrows to see all of the pictures!

Fun Adventures

This week Sophia and I had two really fun experiences that I am excited to share with you! The first experience was we got to go out to dinner with Fr. Jesu, Fr. Stephen, and two sisters, one of which was celebrating her 25^th Jubilee as a sister of Notre Dame. The restaurant seemed very fancy and clean which we were grateful for! We had rice, daal, noodles, and fried cauliflower with “sprite” for dessert which tasted more like minty sparkling water.

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Sophia and I have been really trying to get one of the priests to take us to see a Bollywood movie, and with Fr. Stephen visiting, he was able to help us persuade Fr. Jesu to agree 🙂 we drove to St. Xavier High School and sat and talked with Fr. John and one other priest while Fr. Stephen looked for movie tickets. Fr. John was very inspirational and one of the things he told us was “it doesn’t matter what your religion is. I don’t care what you believe. All I care is this – that you believe in a personal, relational God. A God who is compassionate and a God that you can trust.”

Unfortunately, Fr. Stephen couldn’t find movie tickets because it was a Saturday. That is something that has taken some getting used to – there is no weekend culture here in India. Everyone works from Monday to Saturday, with Sunday being the only day off. So instead we went to a science museum! It was an enjoyable experience, although Sophia and I found it a little boring/hilarious because since we are both engineers, we already understood a lot of the concepts for each of the “exhibits”. The workers were incredibly excited to have Americans in the building though, and took extra care to explain everything to us in detail, so we just had to smile and pretend like they were teaching us things we didn’t know! They wanted to take pictures of us enjoying every exhibit, which was a bit awkward. Another thing Sophia and I found funny is that they had the incarnation of Krishna as part of their explanation of evolution.

After exploring the science museum, we attempted to go to the Gandhi museum, but it was closed because it was Saturday. We changed our plan once again and went to a walkway that looked out at the Gandhi Sepku bridge/Ganges river that I mentioned visiting a few weeks ago. It was as we were looking out that the rains finally came – we have been looking forward to monsoon season for a while as we are a bit tired of 110+ temperatures! We took shelter under a bridge while it rained and then Fr. Jesu picked us up and took us back to St. Xavier’s for lunch and a short rest.

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Make new friends but keep the old

After Mass today we met two new friends – Priya and Pragya. They are so sweet and kept asking us to say things about ourselves and if we would let them be our friends. We of course said yes! I hope we will get to hang out with them more.

I made an unexpected new friend this week who decided it would be fun to jump through my window and join me in my bathroom while I was showering! That was an experience that I will not go into too much detail on here… (hi dad don’t worry I didn’t get rabies) but be sure to ask me about it later! 🙂

I also got the chance to talk with some of my friends back home. I had a really lovely video call with two of my roommates/sisters, Meg and Lianna. And I also got to chat with one of my best friends, Annie! Both conversations were filled with laughter and questions. One thing I became more aware of is that I have never been this far away from home for such a long time. Yes, I have spent several months at a time away at college, but home has always been just a 40 minute drive away and every now and then I get to spend a few days with my family. This summer is different because I am in such a far away place and literally everything is so unfamiliar to me. I am making lots of new friends and am having a very enjoyable time but I definitely miss the people I love most.

Memorable Mundane-ness

Something I have noticed here is that not every moment is exquisite or magical. The ETHOS program does a good job of promoting itself, and the pictures and stories you see and hear about contain the best and brightest moments. But even in the crazy cow-filled streets of India there is a bit of boring, everyday life. I have been trying my best to notice the mundane moments and find joy in them also.

The three mundane things that stick out to me the most from this week all involve food, and perhaps it is because I REALLY miss American food!

Sophia and I have promised to cook an American meal for Fr. Paul and Fr. Jesu. We were listing off foods to try, and one of the foods we talked about was grilled cheese. We were explaining how you make grilled cheese and how gooey and delicious it is, when Fr. Paul asked “so, what kind of cheese do you put in it?” Sophia and I both chimed in – “American cheese!” which, to us Americans, is a legitimate type of cheese – you know, the square (probably not real) packaged yellow cheese. Fr. Paul, however, thought it was the funniest thing ever and was laughing about American cheese for the next 20 minutes. I didn’t know cheese could be so funny!

Fr. Paul is quite the barista, and LOVES making iced coffee for us. It seems every time we walk in the kitchen for a break from our project, Fr. Paul goes “iced coffee??” with a delightful twinkle in his eye. And then when he puts the cup to his lips, he closes his eyes and goes “Mmmm! Oh yes, tasty. Quite good.” It makes me smile every time. Sophia and I are in the process of finding a job for him at starbucks for whenever he decides the priest thing isn’t his calling anymore 😉

Not only is it monsoon season, but it is also mango season!! We have enjoyed sooo many mangoes from the tree in our backyard. I could never describe the taste of Indian mangoes to you because they are just so sweet and so special – definitely nothing like what we have in America. Fr. Paul and Fr. Jesu have different ways of eating mangoes, and often argue over how Sophia and I should eat them so we “don’t disrespect the mango and make it unhappy” 🙂

Be present where your feet are planted

My dear friend spoke these words to me on the phone, and I have been pondering them. I know lots of people are going to ask me about India and I still don’t know how I will answer. So, I will start with where my feet are planted in this moment.

Right now, my feet are planted in a messy discomfort that is filled with moments of loneliness, pain, sorrow, and uncertainty. There is lots of time for reflection and growth which is beautiful but also really difficult. However, in all of those moments, there is also much joy. I find moments where I am thinking to myself “I’m not ready to go home yet”. Moments where I am laughing until my sides hurt. Moments where I find myself in awe of how far I’ve come, and how far I still have to go. I would describe India as a beautiful chaos, where so much is happening all at once and yet time seems to stand still. It is reminding me that my life is a beautiful chaos also and that while I definitely don’t have it all together and I still have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going next (specifically thinking about when I come home… job hunting?? graduation?? yikes.) all will be well.

Okay that’s all for this week 🙂 until next time!

This week was probably the hardest week yet. Sophia and I had quite the unexpected adventure…

Project

This week, Sophia and I planned to continue testing on the solar oven. We were able to determine that the modifications we made last week did increase the temperature inside the oven, and we were excited to move forward. However, in the middle of testing on Wednesday, we experienced a slight road bump that changed the course of our entire week and so unfortunately no significant progress was made on the project for week 3.

Hospital Visit

Yes – you read that right! From the beginning of our trip, Sophia has had more trouble adjusting to the climate than I have. She had been feeling sick on and off throughout the first 2 weeks, but was taking some medicine Fr. Paul had given her and was starting to feel more settled. On Wednesday, her symptoms came back with a vengeance and Fr. Jesu and I made the executive decision to take her to the hospital. Fr. Jesu told us that Sophia would be able to see a doctor and evaluate her symptoms, and then if necessary, she would be admitted.

What we weren’t told is that when Fr. Jesu called Fr. Paul to inform him of Sophia’s condition, Fr. Paul called the hospital and told them to admit her straight away. So when we arrived at the hospital, we were immediately whisked to the ER and nurses swarmed Sophia, closing the curtains so I could not see what they were doing. It seemed like in a blink of an eye they were bringing in needles and poking Sophia while a child screamed behind us and next to me nurses were slapping another woman into consciousness. Have I mentioned yet that I don’t do well with medical stuff?? The nurses were laughing at me, because at this point I will admit I was crying just as much as Sophia was. The entire experience was incredibly overwhelming.

They brought us to an air conditioned room and hooked Sophia up to a saline drip while an ultrasound was ordered for her. The ultrasound was an interesting experience also – the room was small with a single curtain to give the women some privacy, and your shoes had to be removed before entering. There was a sign outside the door that said “determining sex of baby by ultrasound is illegal in these premises” which was depressing as we later learned that this law helps to keep women from having abortions if their child is not the sex they want.

After the ultrasound, we went back to air conditioned room where we stayed for 3 days and 2 nights while Sophia continued to received medicine via her IV. The staff was SO kind to us – from bringing me extra sheets so I could stay to the dietitian taking our food orders (she even brought me french toast for dinner and was able to find some mashed potatoes for Sophia!) – they definitely made our stay as comfortable as possible, given the circumstances.

Visitors

We received several visitors throughout the 3 days in the hospital. The first and most common visitors were the nurses. Along with Sophia’s medical staff, we would occasionally have 6 or 7 nurses come in all at once and just stand in the doorway to stare at us. We definitely provided plenty of entertainment for them!

The janitor, Monica, came in to sit with us a few times. She only spoke Hindi and every time she talked, it seemed like she was telling me her whole life story. I would just smile and nod, and I wish I could have communicated with her more.

We received a visit from the Jesuit Provincial who stopped by to talk to Sophia for a few minutes. That was kind of cool and he asked us what we were doing and gave us a few ideas for travel once out of the hospital.

Our friends Sangita and Rajesh also came to visit us – Rajesh trains some of the nurses at the hospital so they heard through the grapevine that we had been admitted. Sangita brought Sophia a rose and sat with us for a few hours, showing us pictures and telling us stories to keep Sophia’s mind off of the discomfort. Both Sangita and Rajesh took me to the canteen (a small outdoor shop) for lunch/a break from sitting in the hospital room, and I was very appreciative of that. At one point, there was a dust cyclone while we were walking to the canteen and that was a crazy experience also – it seemed like the hospital “excitement” was unending.

Finally, there was a very sweet nun who brought Sophia communion at one point. This was funny for us, because Sophia isn’t Catholic. It took a few minutes and lots of hand motions, but eventually the nun understood that I would take it instead. However, she prayed over me like I was Sophia and was going on and on about my health and new life and healing and it was both peaceful but also very ironic.

Challenges

The first major challenge of this whole experience is that pretty much no one spoke English. It took almost a whole day to get the nurse to tell us what Sophia’s diagnosis was – not because she didn’t want to tell us, but because she simply didn’t understand that we had been asking for it. We were not told what medicines Sophia was receiving either and I had to do a lot of observing as to what the nurses were doing/writing down to make sure everything was safe. There were also several times where Sophia would call for a nurse for something, explain what she needed, and the nurse would just stare blankly at her and then leave without returning.

Another major challenge was staying calm. It was clear that Sophia was uncomfortable and anxious, and I had to make sure that I was able to talk her through what was going on and remain calm, especially when she was in pain. This was very hard for me to do especially when I was so uncomfortable, and I had to make sure to excuse myself from the room if necessary so I could breathe for a second.

Takeaways

We arrived back at the compound on Friday, and Sophia was prescribed several medications and 2 days of rest. We are getting ready to go into week 4, and these are the things we’ve learned:

1. We need to take MAJOR precautions from the sun. Just drinking lots of water and putting on sunscreen is not enough. We have increased our arsenal with oral re-hydration salts, more salt on our food, energy drink powder, and extra breaks throughout the afternoon.
   
2. Apparently people in India must not get very emotional?? The nurses found it amusing that we were both so upset about being in the hospital and shook their fingers at us several times saying “no cry today”. There was one particular moment where Sophia was having a really rough time, and a nurse actually brought out a newborn baby to show us to cheer her up.
   
3. We have really great people supporting us here. Everyone was so kind the whole time and really put forth an effort to make us comfortable. The hospital we stayed at was actually founded by the Jesuits, so I know that with the connection to Fr. Paul and Fr. Jesu, we received extra special care.
   
4. My mission here is still to love – even in the gross, uncomfortable, scary moments! I walked past this sign in the hospital and it made me smile. It was a good reminder throughout the hospital visit.

5. I never ever EVER want to be a doctor 🙂 (although I’m pretty sure I already knew that. This DEFINITELY validated it!)

Sophia is on the mend and hopefully I will continue to stay in good health – thanks for all the extra prayers and love you are sending our way! Hopefully next week I’ll have a more travel-related adventure to share 🙂

Sophia and I are through week 2 and so much has happened this week! We have finally begun working more in depth on our project and have also visited many different places. It has been a good week 🙂

Influential people

This week I met several different people and everyone has been so incredibly kind. We have had dinner and snacks and so so so much chai – Sophia and I are usually giving each other side looks during meals because just when we think we have cleared our plates someone comes from behind and fills them up again! There are two people from this week that have really stuck out in my mind though, and I want to introduce you to them.

The first person is Sister Flora. I might have written about her last week, but I don’t think I really captured just how much she has done for me. From taking me sight-seeing to holding my hand after Mass to always greeting me with a smile, she has really brought me so much joy. She is kind of like my Indian grandmother, and reminds me a bit of my Mimi back home! I am so grateful to be living in community with her.

The second person is Angel. I don’t have a picture of her, but our meeting was unexpected and also really inspiring. Angel is a young woman about my age who works at a cancer hospital just down the road from the compound. I met her at the church while waiting for daily Mass, and when she found out I hadn’t been in the city yet she simply took my arm and all of a sudden we were riding around town and she was showing me everything. We went to the hospital where she works and there were people lying on the floor everywhere waiting for treatment. If you know me, you know I don’t do well with medical situations but this was totally different and incredibly eye opening. And yet here was this young woman, who walked nonchalantly through it all, only stopping once to instruct some men about fixing a water leak. Not only was she clearly powerful in her profession but she also made time to go to daily Mass and to show me around the city in the blink of an eye. And she has promised to take Sophia and I to the zoo at some point!

Travel!

I was able to explore a bit outside the compound this week – a lot of that thanks to Sister Flora 🙂 She took me to the Gandhi Sepku bridge, which is the longest bridge in India. There I was able to look out at the Ganges River, which was a lot clearer than I expected it to be.

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Sister Flora also took us to the Queen of the Apostle’s Church, and we were able to meet several people and explore a Catholic gift shop. The church was beautiful.

We also got to experience the Bihar museum with Fr. Jesu (the other priest that lives at the compound) and some of his friends this weekend, and that was both exciting and overwhelming. The museum was similar to what you would expect of a typical museum, except that we were the only white people in the entire place and everyone knew it. We sort of acquired a gathering of followers, and several people stopped us and asked for pictures or would just jump into ours. At first it was fun, but then it began to feel like we were one of the museum attractions, and it was hard for me to enjoy the museum without feeling like I was being watched.  

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Fr. Jesu’s friends were very kind to us the whole day, and the woman of the house (whose name escapes me… names are so incredibly hard to pronounce and remember here) was so excited to take us to the market and buy us clothes. We went into a shop after leaving the museum and she kept pulling things off the racks for us to try. It was like we were her own children! I have been adopted into so many families just within this week and it is awesome.

Project

Sophia and I finally began working on our project! For right now, we are working on a solar oven. Long story short, the refrigerator has been a bit dismantled amidst the move (after this summer the Jesuits won’t be at this particular compound anymore) and would require a lot more work to get the ball rolling on the project. We were able to complete some initial tests on the oven, and have already redesigned a few of the components to increase the heat transfer (nerd alert!).

Mostly my days consist of incredibly important meetings…

…with my boss supervising our work

And of course, taking measurements, making calculations, and drawing out our designs so we can communicate with the workers, who don’t really speak English. We have found that pointing and drawing is the best way to communicate.

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Other Good Things/Observations

• It is really hard for people to pronounce my name, which I find ironic because I think that everyone’s names here are a mouthful. I have been telling some people that my name is Mary, because that seems to be more palatable – I think the double L’s are difficult for this culture. Everyone seems to be able to understand the name Sophia, though!
• I have been asked to do readings at Mass throughout the week, and I am grateful that everyone is willing to let me be a part of their community. The daily Masses have usually been said in English, and so it is easier for me to follow along.
• In the evenings, I sit on the roof and watch the cricket games that are played in my backyard by some of the young boys in the community. They are very excited that a white girl wants to watch them! I have also watched several Bollywood movies with Niraj, who is another intern here. He speaks both English and Hindi and it is nice to have someone who can sort of act as a translator for us. We have also listened to Justin Bieber a few times with him 🙂
• You can see in the pictures above – Sophia and I were able to get henna! We made a new friend named Insha who lives next door to the compound, and she was very happy to try her new patterns on us. I think we will be seeing a lot of her throughout the summer.

That’s all for now. Until next week!  

Here are a few pictures from week 1 🙂

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!

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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.

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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 🙂

First of all, meet Sophia! She is my fellow red-headed travel buddy for India this summer. I am excited to share many joys, struggles, and adventures with her.

Yesterday, Sophia and I got the opportunity to celebrate Holi, which is a Hindu Spring Festival celebrating the triumph of good over evil characterized in the legend of the demon-god Hiranyakashyap and Lord Vishnu. Holi is celebrated by rubbing colors on each other’s faces and giving hugs. Or, in the case of excited college students, tackling each other and doing your absolute best to get the color in someone else’s eyes, nose, and mouth.

I think my favorite part about this celebration was how much joy filled the air. Everyone was happy and there was lots of dancing. The Indian students were so excited when Sophia and I decided to jump in one of their dance circles!

This experience has given me just a small taste of the culture I will be immersed in this summer, and I am so looking forward to it. T-50 days!

I am embarking halfway across the world to a place completely unknown to me. I have been asked why I wanted to do this, and the answer is in this quote. I want to be love to others. I want to fall in love with a new culture, to show love to its people, and to let them show love to me. I may not do great/astounding/world-changing things while I am in India, but I will strive to do many small things with as much love as possible. And perhaps I will learn a little bit about life along the way 🙂

Pray for me as I seek out my engineering vocation and for all of the challenges I may encounter that come with journeying into the unknown.