Final Adventures

Our final group excursion to “God’s own country” was beautiful. From the time we stepped outside of the small 2 seat-by-2 seat plane it was evident what God’s life is like…in paradise. Although India is a tropical country all over, here in Kerala the green is dispersed much more densely. While driving through the cities, there are many more coconut and palm trees towering above and in-between. The roads were much curvier in and out of the green scenery. Our initial destination was on a houseboat, our own personal houseboat for eight people, own chef, and with four bedrooms. Aside from a few cockroaches, the casual, slow ride for twenty-four hours was extremely relaxing, a true Indian experience, greeted with a coconut and straw for everyone for some refreshing coconut water. It finished with a homemade breakfast meal of omelets and toast as we watched the river banks narrow as more houseboats, trees, and homes came into view underneath the early morning sun.

Kerala is the most developed state in India. It recently ranked as high as developed nations in the Human Development Index in terms of education, income, and health. That is pretty amazing for this country. As I learned in my Social Legislation and Policy class, when it comes to inheritance laws here in India, every state follows the same law except for Kerala. While in the case of a female death: in all of India the successors are her children and husband; in Kerala, as one example, the first in line are her children and her mother. As we learned Kerala had a specific land reform which was the only state to successfully follow this allowing for families to establish little home gardens. These ideas pretty much sum up, in my opinion, a very successful place.

It was more than the history and the logistics of the state which I enjoyed. It was my fifteen-foot high jungle journey on top of a cloth and elephant. Additional, was our discovery of many local spices and spiders among the jungle under the rain. I ate numerous “Kerala meals” or “Kerala thali” which consists of a circular tray, rice in the center with a popaddum, a fried crunchy thing, any many curries or gravies surrounding. Coconut is among the most common with vegetable, dal, tomato, and fish curries. We saw many wild elephants in our boat tour of a national forest reserve. Unfortunately among the 900 sq km of the reserve there are only thirty to forty tigers, so there was no sighting. Our adventures continued with monkeys coming to our windows every morning while at the reserve searching and pleading for food. We finished our excursion with an ayurvedic massage, the first massage of my life, a typical Indian one famous for working all senses using a herbal oil with music in the background. It was definitely an experience..... Our last night was spent at a fancy hotel near the airport with buffet dinners and breakfasts, a little bit of consumerism to prepare us for our return home to the U.S. in three weeks.

It was a great final group excursion. Although I still have four weeks left in India, including one safari and a true vacation week to the west coast, it was the final group trip we participated in all together amidst beautiful scenery and delicious food.

Northern Exposure

Constantly I had heard from the MCC students, colleagues from my field placement, and from other encounters, that North India is much different then South India. I remember even before I came to India, when I spoke with people about this adventure and even to Indians in America, and my response to my destination was Chennai, they were sort of taken aback. Most had never been to the south, and explained that they did not really know what to say about the south because the regions are quite different. For the past couple months that I have been here in India, I have been curious to investigate these comments. I was so excited to go to Delhi, for this purpose, along with the monuments and history that the city contained.

I felt that I got a lot out of our excursion to Delhi. For one thing, I loved our visit in Agra to the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. I think our tour guide did a wonderful job of giving us the history, keeping it interesting, as well as keeping his patience when our excitement would take over causing our fingers to snap vigorously on our cameras. In and around Delhi, and in Agra as well, there was so much history and culture. Old buildings and facilities towered above the coconut and palm trees as we drove through much of the traffic on the streets. The Taj Mahal was beautiful. It is difficult to describe how magnificent it is. I guess I can say that I was extremely happy and satisfied that we went around sunset to see the Taj, even if there was a large mob trying to break back out of the tomb. Of course, the day we scheduled to see the Taj turned out to be on the national holiday, Gandhi's birthday, the busiest day after Christmas. It made for a great story!

One thing that appealed to me about the Taj, was its history. Although, our guide did a great job of providing us with that information, I still do not feel like an expert by any means. Yet, the idea that one man built a tomb, something so marvelous and enormous, only for his wife, the woman he loved, is pretty amazing. I am not a crazy romantic, and India has made me even less so if anything, but it was very inspiring to see the Taj, all the work, effort, and dedication that went into it. The idea that it was all a promise for someone was quite moving. I felt, “why can’t there be more displays like this in the United States.” In a nation so young, sometimes it seems that similar passions and commitments are not as prevalent, which is sad in many ways.