Sunday, January 27

Sunday, January 27, 2008
This morning we all enjoyed our showers—realizing that we might not have them at our next stays. We decided that we had too much luggage to haul around on and off trains, and asked Munesh if we could send back one or two bags with him to Raipur that we could retrieve when we returned back there near the end of our travels. He said that would work fine. We also needed to check out of our rooms, Munesh said that we could store our luggage in the district governor’s room during the day so we moved it into his room. We were a little surprised that his room was much more modest than our rooms. It seemed we were in the largest, fanciest, most western rooms in the hotel—another example of how royally we were being treated (sometimes unbeknownst to us).

We were scheduled to give our presentation at the conference at noon so after moving our luggage we went down to get a vehicle to take us to the conference. We arrived around 11:15 and wanted to make sure that our PowerPoint presentation was working. Another session was in progress so we sat down to listen and wait. We waited, and waited and waited, and finally at 2:00 gave our presentation. There was not a very large crowd at this point, but they were very attentive to our slides on Iowa.

After our presentation we had lunch and then slowly made our way back to the hotel—more photos and exchanging of cards took time. At the hotel we changed into our jeans and went down to relax in the lobby (since we no longer had a room). The coordinator at our next city told us that our train was not leaving until 10:50 p.m. It was a long time to wait, but we went for a little walk around the city streets by the hotel. There are not many sidewalks in India so we had to be mindful of all the traffic—I’m not sure if we will get used to it. When we got back to the hotel, Munesh was checking out and said that we could use their room to wait in until it was time to catch our train—yeah! It gave us a chance to order dinner from room service and to use a nice western bathroom before boarding the train. We also rested a little on the very small twin beds and realized how tired we were—we thought this might make it easier to sleep on the train.

We arrived at the train station around 10:30, only to learn that our train was an hour or two late. It was another experience that we will not forget. We were given glimpses of how poor many in this society are, and the lack of comforts that they have, so many of which we take for granted. One of the most shocking for me was the second class cars on the train that had people so packed in that they were literally hanging out on the steps—I have no idea how they survived the long train ride just hanging on to the handles and one step. Inside it looked like they could not move around at all—I suppose they all just slept standing up because they were all wedged in together so tight. All of a sudden the sleeper cars that we felt were so crowded seemed luxuriously spacious, and extravagantly furnished. The smells were again overwhelming—especially just after a train departed—the toilets drain directly on the tracks and the odor was a little stifling. We noticed that many of the Indian women drape the scarves of their saris over their face to help a little with the aroma.

Finally around 12:20 our train pulled in the station, and we were much more organized and careful getting all of our luggage into the car, and finding our seats. Some people were already on the train so it was not quite as hectic and crowded boarding the train. We are slowly learning how to travel here in India. After stowing our luggage and getting a sheet and pillow we were ready for “bed”.