India: January 2005

Written by Kristen on Monday, 24 Jan 2005

We had the privilege of traveling to India during the month of January as part of a group with my school, Chapman University, in Southern California. We had planned this trip months before the tsunami and traveled in Mumbai, Pune, Jamkhed, Bangalore, Thally Village, Koplar Gold Fields, Dehli, and Agra. We began in Mumbai after a 27 hour plane flight and stayed in a YWCA for about 5 days. We saw many projects the Y was involved with and had the chance to see the Arabian Sea. We drove through the Red Light District, many slums, and most of Mumbai. We took a train to Pune and then took a bus to Jamkhed, where we stayed at the CRHP Guesthouse. We saw their work with the Jamkhed village in terms of teaching healthcare and awareness.

While in Jamkhed, we visited a rural village that had evolved to a functioning small town. We also visited a local farm and helped lay some pipes, played with beautiful children (Pooja, one of the girls, has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen), and went pomegranate picking with them. We then went back to Pune and caught a flight down to Bangalore, the Silicon valley of India. We did a bit of shopping and attended a few lectures about the Dalits before we headed off for our rural village experience. We stayed in a house right outside the Thally village and took long walks back and forth to the village. We got to meet with a few women groups and learned how the women in a village lived. The family we stayed with had some fun bugs and the cutest boy I’ve ever seen. He was about 10 or so and had the cutest puppy in the world, named Browny. The kid only knew a few words in English but it didn’t matter because we played cricket/Frisbee/baseball with him for hours on end. We were sad to leave the village but excited to have a western toilet again (haha j/k) when we visited an Ashram and learned about meditation and holistic living.

We returned to the UTC (United Theoligical Center) for another day before we headed up to Delhi. In Delhi we became tourists and were able to visit the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort.

The Red Fort, in my opinion, was way cooler than the Taj. The fort is where the king who built the Taj was imprisoned by his son until he died. We were in Delhi for a few days before we took a 20 hour train ride back to Mumbai where we met up with our first host and had a nice dinner. We sadly said goodbye to India and got on our plane to come home. 20 hours of sunlight and a total of about 25 hours sitting on a plane later, we arrived home to good ol’ America, home of the nice cars, clean roads, and white white people.


I have a new respect for the land of the free and the home of the brave. India smells awful (even though we grew to accept it), there is NO trash system, and there are people EVERYWHERE. India is amazing, folks. We saw hundreds of thousands of beautiful Indian women, men, and children, beautiful countryside, and some of the most poverty stricken areas of the world I had only seen in pictures until I saw them in person. Children littering the streets in the red light district of Mumbai, men sitting around outside their shops while the women worked in the fields, and rural villages with no water or electricity were just a few of the things we saw on a daily basis.

Fourteen students, including myself, saw firsthand Indian hospitality when Dalits gave us everything they had when they had nothing and we had it all and people would come up to our group and help translate or guide us individually when we were lost and then disappear without even letting us know their names. This trip has changed my life and I would not have been able to do it without the help of the people who supported me.

Regarding the aftermath of the tsunami, the best thing that I have seen Americans do is to find a credible organization to donate financially to. They have most supplies there and it is easier as well as much cheaper to purchase them locally. Lastly, the pictures of the starving children you see on television and in the ads that get tossed in the trash are not lying. These children are real and they are living the life you see in the pictures. Seeing infants sitting naked on the streets amongst heaps of trash and animals, children playing in open ditches with stagnant waters, and young teenagers getting married to men twice their age is slowly being transformed by organizations such as the YMCA and YWCA as well as many other groups teaching basic healthcare and educating kids in schools. Thank you for your support, everyone who helped me along the way.

PS as a side note, i pierced my nose... interesting story actually. Two other girls and myself all wanted to get it done (well, I didn't but I did anyway). We ended up wandering around Bangalore trying to find someone who could a. speak english. and/or b. have a needle. After multiple failed attempts, we found a place. It wasn't the most sanitary place nor the most... skilled, but none the less, I've had it pierced ever since. :)