Monday, January 28

Monday, January 28:
This morning we arrived in Bhubaneshwar around 8:30 in the morning. We slept pretty well on the train ride but were glad to be at our destination—all of our luggage also made it and we were very careful to each keep track of our bags. We received quite a work out carrying our luggage up and down the stairs to get over the tracks and out of the station—we were hesitant to use the porters, but after our strenuous work-out decided that next time we might. Our site-coordinator, “Jack”, who was a GSE team leader to Alaska last year, took us to his guest house, which also contained his office. It was a large guest house with several bathrooms where we were all able to take bucket showers with hot water. It felt wonderful to get “freshened up” as they put it here after sleeping on the train in our clothes. We also had a chance to download all of our photos onto the laptop and our flash drives.

As is the tradition we were provided food—I think Jack gave special instructions for our food since we were served french fries, toast, jam, hard boiled eggs and fresh fruit, along with tea, coffee and water. It was again comforting to eat food that we knew and our stomachs were used to. Jack’s office had internet access so we had to chance to check our email, but the connection was very slow so we were not able to update our blog. Then Jack took us to a private club where we had lunch—again we were treated to many different dishes—this time however, it was a “Chinese Restaurant”.

After lunch we were taken to the ASHA home, “House of Hope”, that a Rotary Club in Bhub… and a partner club in Muenster, Germany founded, sponsor, and run for children whose parents are lepers. The school had 20 children, whose parents must both have had leprosy. The children live in the home, and attend public school. Their parents are allowed to visit every Sunday. The house was very clean, and the children were neatly groomed in their uniforms. There were two new computers for the children to use, and the rooms had several bunk beds—everything was neatly picked up. After touring the house the children sang and played for us—both in English and Hindi. They were very charming and we were all moved by their smiling, beautiful faces. Two women lived in the house to help care for them. After the visit we went back to Jack’s guest house to change and pack up our bags. Next was our presentation at a joint Rotary meeting for several clubs, and a chance to meet our host families. As in the Indian tradition, we started the meeting an hour or so late so we did not get to the club for dinner until around 10:00 p.m. After little sleep on the train we were all very tired so we were not very good conversationalists. We were not very hungry, so when our food arrived around 11:00 we tried to politely take only a little bit—of course all of our hosts were watching to see whether or not we like the food so it was difficult to say no and not eat much. I think we were as exhausted as we had been the whole trip and were very eager to get to bed!