A New Mission Heads for Delhi

They're off! The first of this year's St.Stephen's mission team have landed in Delhi and started their journey through a whole new life experience. Read about their trip here: http://dehlimission08.blogspot.com/

I met the teams in January when they did their fund raising event. The challenge was to have a team photograph outside as many of London's curry houses as possible. As there were 2 teams it was turned into a little bit of a competition. The "Big Curry Race" started at 9am and finished at 5pm or as soon as any form of public transport was used. I joined team one as a few of their members were not able to make the day and one requirement was to have 8 folk in each photograph. We lost the Challenge as we only hit around 114 (!) curry houses in the time, while the other team reached a 120 odd. Both teams won though, as it was a superb opportunity for the teams to get to know each other. Nothing like walking the streets of London chatting to start to get to know someone.

It was great fun. Specially as the evenign was concluded with a fine meal.. What else than a curry!

I will not be joining either of the teams this year as I am retuning on my own in March to do a month with Asha. More on that later, but briefly, I hope to be able to work with and teach the children in one of the slum settlements a little English.

Articles in the Cross Section

I'd hoped to have a few words from different members of the group who went to Delhi. In the past few monthly church newsletters, The Cross Section, we've had little pieces about the lead up to the trip. The April edition, has a few articles and feedback from various team members. To see this newsletter, select the link: Cross Section April 2007. (You will need to have the reader required to see this - for more information - see here)

I'm still hoping to get the link to the mini video that was out together using our photos. We'll get there!

Sue

Feedback from the Trip: Something to Listen to!

On Sunday, we all got together again to do feedback for the St.Stephen's congregation. We had decided to dress up. You've seen the ladies outfits so here is an idea of what the men wore. (It did take them longer to warm to the idea, but by the end of the week, they all looked very fine too.)

What we hadn't bargained on, was the very fine weather we'd had the previous week was replaced by chillier temperatures. I woke to hear driving sleet against my windows. (I'm in an attic room, so the sound was particularly clear!) My first thoughts were about the light cotton Salwaar Kameez, really meant only for an Indian climate, and the near zero UK temperatures! Anyway, we all wore our wonderful wraps and so were warm. Nervous energy about standing up to talk also heats the body!

We each had something to do in the service. The feedback section was recorded. It starts with a Bible reading by Val and then follows with Libby introducing the trip and then the rest of us have a few moments each to give you a flavour of various aspects of the trip. This mp3 recording is just over 30 mins long. This second recording is shorter. Introduced by Chris, it is followed by the "Arky Arky" song we sang with the children on the Friday and in the final prayer meeting we had.

Enjoy!
Sue

On the Road to Agra

Isn't it the way of things? There I was in New Delhi, with time on my hands after a day's work and being in the slum, just before dinner and filled to overflowing with words to write and no Internet access... Now I am home and I have access in the lounge and in the kitchen and sitting on my bed...but no time. Well, that's a not exactly correct. I have time, but having spent the day typing and editing and reading and writing, I'm not always up for another few hours of writing at the end of the day!

I'm starting to pick through my photos and can tell you a little more about day 2 and our visit to the Taj Mahal...

On the road to Agra
This was as much a part of the adventure as the work in the slums! Along the way we saw elephant, cows, monkeys on chains and a camel train.
I found the smog incredible. It was one of the things that I would keep commenting about, the air pollution. For pretty much most of the day, you can see the air. We left Delhi for Agra at 7am and it was closer to 11am before the air was clear and by then we were some miles away from Delhi.

As we approached Agra, we picked up our guide for the Taj Mahal and Red Fort. We had to leave our vehicle a mile away from the Taj and catch an electric bus, to prevent exhaust fumes from getting close to the buildings. This struck me as pointless with the levels of particles in the air as it is.

I have a number of snaps of the Taj, and you know the scenes, but this is one of the first views you see as you approach.

I won't bore you with loads of Taj Mahal pictures, but it was a fascinating building to see and learn about and is really, very impressive. Keep an eye on the photo blog, I'll add a few more there.
After the Taj, we headed for a nearby fort, the Red Fort, if I recall correctly. Again an impressive structure, this time built in a red sandstone. If I can persuade other members of the team to add to this blog, maybe one of them will give you some of the history! I kept taking photos of the Taj, now seen from across some fields.

A Little Bit of Cricket...

I have asked the team to send me thoughts from our week away. Here is one from Richard. (I have taken the liberty of adding a few snaps.)

From the moment we arrived, the beautiful children of Zakhira made us so welcome, their happy faces and excited voices being in stark contrast to the physical surroundings. With communication generally limited to non-verbal means, it soon became apparent that a number of our young male hosts were keen to teach us a thing or two about cricket. On a makeshift dirt wicket, the youngsters systematically destroyed our rather limited bowling attack with them appearing to take particular pleasure in dealing with Barry’s deliveries off his rather intimidating 40-yard run-up. Indeed, the biggest hazard they faced was avoiding losing balls down the open sewers which provided a unique boundary to the playing area. It was humbling to engage with these children, who despite their daily hardships, possessed smiles that appear to belie our logic. With more time, we may also have been able to engage some of the older men who appeared pretty disinterested at first but were beginning to show some interest towards the end of the week.

Thank God for these children and I pray that, with Asha’s assistance, they are blessed with opportunities to fulfill their future ambitions.

(Click image for larger view)

The Weekend Before

Perhaps it's time to start at the beginning...

We landed in Delhi at 2am and were met by our driver and another escort. Naively as men offered to help with bags, some of our group handed them over and so there was a bit of a maelstrom as we made our way to our vehicles. Our escorts trying to look after a bunch of innocents, shielding us from the wily taxi drivers hoping for fares! No harm came to us and our bags safely stored in one car, while we were bundled in to the next.

First impressions of Delhi - poor air and crazy driving - even at 3am. First stop, YWCA, Ashoka Road near Connaught Place.

After a leisurely start to the day, we set off to a local market. The girls needed Salwaar Kameezes. We needed to have these to visit the homes in the slums. Here the ladies model them. Left to right: Val, Caroline, Sue and Libby.

The shop was filled floor to ceiling and the counter was a fabric chaos when we left. (Click on images to see larger view)

It was fun finding and trying these on. Libby, having been through this before, was our guide, while the men hung around patiently. The market was not touristy, but was a good introduction to beggars and children following us around.

The food markets reminded me of South Africa, as the produce is that of a warmer climate and so were abundant with fruits and vegetables that are familiar to me. Not quite so familiar were the cooking stalls . The ground was littered with bowls made from dried leaves, which were dropped once the meal was consumed.


Tomorrow , the road to Agra.

I have started adding ad hoc photos to my photo blog here: Fun with Images

Bye for now
Sue

About a Queue: Delhi Aiport Departures

We're back safely. In the course of the next few weeks, I'll be updating this site with more news about our trip and am hoping to collect views from the rest of the team on the trip, in the hope of providing you with different perspectives of the brief and very full trip.

There are a few things to do before getting back to work - I took just short of 600 pictures which need to be whittled down to a sensible number. I'm going to aim at cutting to 200, which I think is still a fairly reasonable number and still probably too many for anyone to be interested. Fear not, I'll only put a few up here. My home is bit of a jumble; washing done and drying, shoes ready to be scrubbed and put out to dry and a pile of post to tackle. It was only a week! How did that all happen?

Delhi Airport
Now there's an experience! As I mentioned in my last entry, we had to leave for the airport at 3am, so we were up at 2am. My room mate, Sue Jackman, and I were ready quickly, so with time to spare, slept again 'til we needed to be downstairs. Then vehicles were packed and off to the airport for around 3.35am. (The reason for all this time keeping will become evident soon). Delhi airport only permits passengers in the through the doors, so we had to find our way through the crowd outside to the entrance, where we were permitted to enter once Libby had shown them our ticket. Then we joined the first queue, to get our bags scanned and labeled. From that queue we joined the next queue for checking in. This one snaked alarmingly, but we had buckets of time and so chatted as we moved. Once checked in we turned to go through security. It was now 4.35, an hour since arriving at the airport. As we were flying at 6.55am, Richard wondered (aloud) what we'd do to kill time...
We joined a few of the many queues for passport control. Half the group in one and the rest in another. Our queue did not budge. Not that the other queues were making much progress. It was no competition, but we came second, getting through that exercise in an over an hour. Time, it appeared was marching on and it was now closer to 5.45am and we still had a queue to go! The final hand baggage check which took us an hour and a half and meant that we not only missed boarding time, but the gate closing time and the scheduled take-off time. During all this, there was a shift change and so a brief period of time when no-one was being screened at all! There was very little panic though, as we were aware of the many people behind us in the queue also waiting to get onto our plane.
By the time I got to my seat it was 7.30am and apparently still between 150 and 180 people to clear the security checks! Certainly the plane was quite empty. We left at 8.30am. There was more calmness than I have known at any of the many airports I have flown from.

Tomorrow, the first of the photos...
Sue