India Trip: Training and Traveling

I've now been back in the States for a few days; safely returned from my international adventures. Now, I'd like to share those experiences with you! This is the first in a series of blog posts because to tackle EVERYTHING that happened in one post would be impossible.

So, I'll start with the time I spend up in Cascade (or really, Warm Lake) for training.

My family drove me up there on Monday and it was a tough drive. I was starting to get quite nervous (though excited, too) and there was some drama with my visa still. Here I was, getting ready to fly out in three days, and my passport had still not been returned with my Indian visa in it. I was just a little on edge. :)

I arrived up at camp and for a while there were only a few of us there. I spent a little while visiting with my first team member, Janet, until the rest of our India group arrived.

Training itself went very well. The speaker for the week was Brian Hogan, a former missionary/church planter in Mongolia. He had some truly AMAZING stories to tell! I enjoyed his teachings to no end. In between morning and evening sessions with him, we had workshops on building our testimonies and learning to tell stories. The latter was my personal favorite. I wonder why? ;)

We also had lots of meetings just for the India team. We went over etiquette and other basic things we'd need to know about Indian culture and we each learned parts of a Hygiene teaching to do in India.

For the India team, most of the recreation times were actually team meetings. The one 'recreational' thing we did was climb a mountain. If you know me very well, you know that I do NOT like heights. I didn't want to go on the hike, but since everyone else was going, I figured I could handle it. Serves me right for giving in to peer pressure. :P Anyway, I pretty much thought I was going to die, climbing up that mountain. It's amazing how any reluctance to get yourself dirty goes out the window when you're trying not to die. I got so filthy! When we got to the top, I wanted to cry, because I thought going down was going to be even harder. Thankfully, the route we took down was MUCH easier than the way we took up. And I'm typing this, so I obviously didn't die. :)

That was on Wednesday. Thursday we packed up, had our last morning session, and headed out after lunch. All the girls drove down to Boise together in a big van and all I really remember about it was that it was very windy because we had the windows open and I was nervous about getting to the airport on time. :)

But get to the airport we did. And guess what? We then spend 26 hours traveling. The first international flight was 11 hours and I don't think I slept at all, though not for lack of trying. It was not too fun. But there were a few good movies on the flight. I saw The Eagle, The Lincoln Lawyer, and Beastly on one of those two flights. I can't remember which ones now. We had a four hour layover in Munich, Germany and after writing and sending a postcard to my family, I spend the rest of it dosing off in my chair.

Being in places where the majority of people were speaking something other than English was a completely new experience at that airport, but one which I have now become accustomed to. :)

Anyway, we finally made it in to New Dehli at 7:00 in the morning local time. Though it didn't feel like morning, I think I was running on adrenaline. Getting to our hotel was an adventure, since we missed the person who was supposed to be meeting us at the airport.

So we hired a taxi. Let me tell you something about driving in India. It's scary. I drove today for the first time since I've been back and I was in awe of how orderly the roads are. The best way I can describe driving in India (especially once we got to the smaller city of Agra) is like a giant game of Chicken. You yield if a vehicle is bigger than you, in a better position to get in front of you, going faster, or just has a more aggressive driver. When you're walking on the side of the road, don't move suddenly, because someone is probably calculating just how many inches of space he needs to give you, in order to pass someone and not kill you. It's intense. They don't use blinkers, but they do use horns. A lot. And they drive on the left side of the road. Unless it suits them to do otherwise. And forget stopping to look at intersections. Anyway, enough on my tangent. It's almost scarier to think how quickly I got used to this.

Our taxi driver said he knew where he was going, but really didn't. We had to go into a tourist center to help us find our hotel. Eventually we made it safely, though, and our first hotel was surprisingly nice.

And that's where I'll leave the story for now. Next post will cover Days 1 and 2 in India. Till next time!