India, Day 7 - My second arrival.
When we last cracked open the volume entitled "Steven in India," I was traveling south. I dodged the monsoons of India's northeast corner to go a little further south and bob back up out of reach of the deluge. My second host and I passed fields of tea and roads of corn, and we arrived safely in the little town you see below. What makes this town unique in India? The poverty and the lack of mobility, that's what. This area has the lowest education rates in India. I visited some schools, and I can say that the teachers are well-intentioned and do all they can, but when there are very few visible options for graduates or non-graduates within a hundred miles, what incentives do students have to continue?
At any rate, the welcome I received the moment I stepped out of the Bolero was intense. Very few white faces are seen in this area, and my own epidermis was more than just a novelty, it was a beacon. A mob of kids materialized all around me as soon as my feet hit the muddy ground. Young children and young adults. Cute and homely. They all appeared around me with their lips bulgingly wrapped around the enormous teeth common to the tribes of the region. These smiles were quickly unsheathed when I smiled at them. They shook my hand and held on to it in the Indian way as they asked my name and learned as much about me as they could in as short a time as possible, just in case I wasn't staying. And, as always, the people of India never glance when there's time to stare. And boy do they know how to stare. The unblinking gaze is rarely a sign of hostility or rudeness, it's simply how the culture operates. Whoever didn't come directly up to me stood at the edge of the throng and gave me a firm and unblinking once-over--their gazes can be glimpsed in the background of a few photos.
Back Home
Sometimes, coming back is the hardest part. It has been a very...unique year for me. I have to come right out and say it: I'm exhausted. Not that I'm complaining, I mean, good Lord, I've had opportunities open up this year of which I didn't have the audacity to dream before they did. I graduated from UWF in the spring, went to India over the summer, went to Britain for a couple of weeks after that, came home to find the new family home ready for occupancy; I mean, who'da thunk? Needless to say, I thank God for these blessings.
The only downside to this year has been the discovery that I am a homebody as much as I am a wanderer; I think it's a 50/50 split. I love to travel, but in the three weeks I spent at home between India and the UK, I felt like every day was a race to experience as much "homeness" as possible before leaving again. I wanted to eat my favorite meals, see all of my friends, go to all of my favorite places and do it all now. Now that I am home to stay for a while, I feel more at peace than I have felt since I began seriously preparing to go to India four months ago in June. And it's a good thing too, because as tired as my body is, the last thing I want is a restless mind. And, after the trip to the UK, my funds are sufficiently depleted so as to afford the luxury (weird enough sentence for ya?) of having no choice but to stay in my hometown for a while.
In a way, India messed up my five year plan. My plans, post-UWF, involved developing my photography work into a more profitable venture and simultaneously finishing a novel over the fall, seeking publishing, and applying to work for a television production company after the new year. Neat and clean. But now, I feel tugged in a slightly different direction. I saw too much and established too many relationships during my service in India to proceed with a completely conventional career. No matter what I end up doing long-term, I want to support missions overseas, India and otherwise. I cannot tolerate the idea of a career that will eclipse my ability to help meet needs in India, because in my perhaps-too-emotionally-biased opinion, the needs of my brothers and sisters overseas are far more important than working my way up to a corner office on the top floor.
Life has checkmated me into facing some hard decisions. My perspective is different than it used to be; perhaps in a good way, perhaps in a less-good way. Time will tell. Coming back to the US, I view the priorities of many people as absolutely absurd, and the hysteria on both sides of the upcoming election is, for lack of a better word, laughable. I have a hard time both listening to and talking with people about certain subjects.
So, that's where I am right now. Whenever internet service is reestablished at the new place, I will resume my standard routine of displaying photographs and inflicting my written rambles upon the public via the blog; in the meantime, I'm currently ghosting in and out of coffee shops to write and edit. Pray for me, if you like, as I look inward, look forward and look around for the best path to take. Real life is tough.
On holiday...
In case you're not keeping track of my whereabouts, shenanigans and miscellaneous small doings on Facebook, I want to give a quick update/explanation/apology for the sudden absence of my India recap. Before going to India, my sister and I began making plans for a trip to the United Kingdom. Tolkien nerds that we are, we thought that it would be amazing to spend September 22nd (the birthday of both Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, recognized internationally as Hobbit Day) in Oxford, where both J. R. R. Tolkien and his friend C. S. Lewis taught at Oxford University while writing most of their respective works of literature. We even planned out a note-by-note weekend in which we would visit the authors' graves, C. S. Lewis's Oxford home-cum-scholars' residence, The Kilns, and eat dinner at the historic Eagle and Child Pub, where Tolkien and Lewis' literary group used to meet on Tuesday mornings,
We made some fun plans, but when the mission to India became a reality, I voted that we defer the Britain trip to the spring. However, my sister, being the go-getter that she is, insisted that we go anyway before any more possible life interventions that would make it literally impossible for us to make time to go. As such, after I arrived home from India, I had about three weeks to rest up, suffer through what was left of some lingering stomach problems and pack another bag of clothes before I was back on a plane bound for London for "Steven and Meg's Literary Sojourn," as we affectionately titled our itinerary.
We touched down in London, but our first port of call was Oxford for our celebration of Hobbit Day. I had blocked out four days to scope out Oxford on my way back home from India, but due to the aforementioned stomach problems, I spent most of my time in Oxford commuting between my bed and the water closet. Being as it may, there was still plenty for both of us to discover when my sister and I arrived a month later.
Oxford was a joy; I have discovered that it always is. We followed through in our Hobbit Day plans to the letter, and while at the Eagle and Child, I experienced the utter joy that is English ginger beer. The overall fun of the trip was compounded by our spending time with friends both old and new who reside in Oxfordshire. Leaving Oxford, we traveled back to London, stayed in a bizarre hostel in the Brent borough (seriously, this place was kooky) and continued the literary theme of the trip by visiting points of interest related to Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter, including the newly-opened Making of Harry Potter tour at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden, where I noticed for the first time that Dobby had a soul patch. We even found ourselves in the theatre district one night and took in a dynamite show of Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre.
I write this update from Cardiff, where Meg and I have come to see the new Doctor Who Experience at Porth Teigr before we begin working our way northward to visit the Bronte Sisters museum in Yorkshire and finish our trip in Scotland with a ride on the Jacobite Railway and a few more visits to sites of literary interest in Edinburgh. This is my sister's first trip outside of the United States, and I am happy that we have not had a single bad experience apart from the sheer strangeness of our accommodations in London. As hopeless Anglophiles, every day is an adventure for us here, and it has been great to have some time to chill out and catch up after my summer away from the family in India. And, given my previously declared love of breakfast food, I wake up every morning thankful for the glorious experience that is the full English breakfast.
Speaking of India, my posts on that subject will resume as soon as I arrive home. In the meantime, I have a few iPhone snapshots up from our time in Britain thus far. You can be assured a few more (and better) when I get home and dump my camera card.
India, Day 7 - Escaping Monsoon Floodwaters
Going to my next location on Sunday afternoon, I was happy to be on the move again for two reasons. The first reason? It meant that I had been in India in a week and nothing had gone wrong. Unlike so many other, similar trips to the country, my journey was proceeding according to plan. That was good, and it put my mind a little more at east. I loved my first hosts, but I wasn't in India with the goal of staying in any one place for too long.
The second reason was the flooding. The rains had not been torrential, but they had been steady. As close as I had been to the mountains, rain and runoff had gotten together and wreaked havoc on the local landscape. The water table had reached the saturation point, and pleased with itself at this feat, was creeping up still higher to invade bottom story rooms all over town.
My elevated seat aboard the Bolero gave me a good view to photograph the floods as I left town. The further we drove away from the mountains, the drier conditions became. Flooded and potholed streets gave way to better-maintained highways to take us southward, and instead of sodden ground, we were treated to the aforementioned sights of farmers spreading their corn out to dry on the roadways. India is a country that never fails to show visitors something new and interesting at every turn. That day, a drive of two hours made the difference between floodwaters and roadside threshing floors. Contrasts like that always remind me of a moment a year ago when a street vendor saw my friends and I taking in the spectacle of costumed and bedazzled beggar children outside of a temple. He laughed in a knowing, chortling sort of way and called out "Incredible India, am I right?"
Yep.
India, Day 7 - The tea field.
A quick photo stop while trucking to our next location. What a great smell. If you've never smelled fresh tea growing out of damp earth, you need to. North India produces some amazing tea.
