The Last Word

The time has come to close out the blog. We want to thank all of you who read about, and shared in, our adventures. We are all safely back in South Dakota, re-immersed in our old routines – so much so that the experiences we had in India and Nepal feel somewhat unreal, like a very vivid dream but not quite all the way to a solid memory. Yet when I think back on the trip, one thing really does stand out in my memory – how fantastic the students were. I can’t imagine going out of the country for the first time to a place as difficult and exotic as India. One should start traveling by visiting England, then perhaps venturing to France or Germany, and taking the big step to someplace like Greece or Turkey before plunging into a trip to India. But the guys jumped in with both feet and were superb. My husband and I had three young men with us. We would say “they are our students” and people would look confused thinking they had misunderstood, or look suspicious thinking we were making a joke or some obtuse reference (making them students of the world). Everyone was much more comfortable when they thought the students were our sons. So we got in the habit of simply calling them “the boys” which people found acceptable, understandable, and comfortable. We were proud to claim them as our “family”. I can’t imagine how much more proud their real parents must be of these amazing young men. They took problems in stride and were gracious visitors who were unfailingly polite, culturally considerate, and were adored everywhere we went. Not least of all by us.

I also want to take this opportunity to express my thanks once again to all the people who made this trip possible. Thank you to the administration at SDSM&T, from the President, Dr. Wharton to the Provost, Dr. Hrncir to Dr. Kyle Riley, the head of the Math and Computer Science Department – we couldn’t have done this without you. To all our new friends at the India Design Center – thank you, we miss you. You were the best part of our trip. And finally, to the folks at Rockwell-Collins, especially Arlen, Roger French, NN, and Param a special thank you for having the vision to dream up this experiment and the courage to make it happen.

Travel changes you. No matter how much or how little you have traveled in the past, each new journey leaves an indelible mark. How have I been changed by this trip? I have a renewed sense of how fortunate I am and what a privileged life I lead. But I also see that people with what looks like very little to me are capable of finding joy in the world – they don’t need to be constantly entertained by electronic gizmos or to engage in “retail therapy” to be happy. They have each other and it is enough. Don’t misunderstand me – I suspect any one of the people I met would trade their life for mine, but I am impressed by the capacity of the Indian people to be happy with what they do have. I gained an appreciation for the rising Indian spirit of nationalism. India has been a nation of fiercely independent states tenuously held together by a fragile central government. But there is a spreading sense of national identity and pride – a feeling that the good times are just around the corner. I contrast that to what feels like a cloud of gloom hanging over the US, to our shared vision that the future is not all that bright. And I wonder why. We have everything, and perhaps that’s the problem. We are in the position of holding on to what we have rather than reaching for something we want. The latter is an exciting quest, the former creates a constant state of worry. And I was reminded once again how much I enjoy traveling to other countries with students. I get to see the world through their young, optimistic eyes. I get to experience their sense of wonder, their delight in the strange and exotic. It’s addictive. I want to do it again, with new students and new locations. I don’t know where, why, how, who, or when I will have the chance to do this again but I do know that when you want something, opportunities have a way of appearing. I will be watching for them. Namaste.

TL

Welcome to Nepal

We have just about come to the end of our journey and are now enjoying the last few days of this amazing adventure in Kathmandu, Nepal. I never thought I would go to Kathmandu. It just sounds like the end of the earth, rather like Timbuktu. We flew from Delhi to Kathmandu on Jet Airways. The flight was packed – every seat was taken. I don’t know why that amazed me. There are a billion people in India so every flight is probably packed (and all the flights we have taken so far have been). But I must say that I saw something I haven’t seen for years on our flight to Goa – open overhead compartment space. Really. Half the bins were empty! Back to the flight to Nepal. Flying time was one hour and 5 minutes so naturally they served a hot meal. I can’t get over the stewards and stewardesses on these flight. They are the hardest working people in the sky. We had beautiful weather coming in so we had eye-popping views of the Himalayas. Spectacular doesn’t capture it. We landed and were met by the travel agency and whisked off to The Yak and Yeti Hotel. It’s a lovely hotel and we are very comfortable here. I have been a lot of places but a few things here still took me by surprise. For example:

– There is a shortage of diesel fuel so there are intermittent blackouts. Power will go off and, I assume, come on later from a backup generator. When we were in Nagarkote, there were hours when the power (and hence the heat) were on and times when they were not. We were well-informed and I don’t think it was a real hardship, it was just unexpected. We are pretty lucky in the US to have such a good power generation and delivery system. A sad side note is that deforestation had increased rapidly since the price of fuel has risen and availability has dropped. The result is not only forests disappearing but also a really dense smog layer over the Kathmandu Valley that prevents you from seeing the Himalayas. The reason people come to Nepal is to see the mountains. The 18% of the GDP that comes from tourism is threatened by this terrible pollution problem. We never saw the mountains from the ground – only from the air.

 – Kathmandu has over 2 million people! I pictured a small town in the middle of green fields. Nope. It’s a big city with nice areas and severe slums, old historic sites and modern billboards, markets being run out of shacks and hawkers to drive you crazy at the tourist sites. Our guide said the city has grown rapidly recently because of the guerilla activity in the countryside. We didn’t hear much about the civil unrest that was taking place in Nepal a few years ago but it was horrendous. Things have calmed down but there is a sense of unease about the future since the king and the entire royal family were slaughtered by a deranged prince (who later “died”) and an unpopular distant relative tried to take up the throne only to be forced to abdicate. So no royal family. Unfortunately, other civil institutions were not in place to take up the slack. So no constitution. People seem a little concerned about where the country is going – the direction is not yet clear.

– Only 25% of women are literate in Nepal. There is a hesitation to educate girls since they “join other families and are not a good investment”. We were here for national Women’s Day where the main speeches were about trying to stop the trafficking in girls to India for prostitution. I asked our guide what one thing would make the biggest difference in the future of Nepal. His answer: education for everyone. Again, we take a lot for granted in the US. Nepal does not have compulsory education and it doesn’t even have viable educational opportunities for the people who want their children to be educated. In Nagarkote, we ran into some women from the Seroptimists (?) who run a school for girls in a local village. They had stories to tell, some harrowing and some marvelously uplifting. I don’t know their names but if they run across our blog, I salute you and name you Women of Valor who are doing what the rest of us only dream of doing – making a difference.

– The Buddhists and the Hindus appear to live side by side in perfect harmony and accommodations have been made by both religions to find ways of joining the two belief systems. I don’t pretend to understand it all but Buddha has been named an incarnation of Vishnu in Hinduism and a reciprocal recognitions has been made by the Buddhists. There are also local variants that I found pretty interesting. For example, there is The Kumari. This is a young girl who is selected by the priests as the incarnation of one of the Hindu gods. She lives in a house, never leaving except on special occasions, is tended by priests, wears ceremonial garments and very heavy eye makeup, and makes appearances at the window sporadically. She came to the window while we were in the temple and the guides were thrilled that we had been able to glimpse The Kumari. When she reaches puberty, a new Kumari is selected. The infant girls are rounded up and tested to see if one meets the criteria. There are physical requirements (black hair and brown eyes and a list of other attributes) as well as a “bravery” test. The girls are exposed to noise and music to see who becomes scared. Then the finalists walk through buffalo heads (stuffed, I’m guessing) and the bravest one becomes The Kumari. I had never heard of this before so it was fascinating. What happens to the old Kumari? Well, she has a tough time since no man will marry her (for fear of dying young) and she isn’t exactly ready for the real world. The King used to give the ex-Kumari a stipend to live on but now there is no king, so the future of the current Kumari is uncertain. Nepal has been very interesting and the mountains are amazing. I would love to come back here and get out in the countryside more to experience the nature in Nepal – before it is gone.

Through the Looking-glass

There are times on this trip that I feel like Alice in Wonderland, like I have fallen down the rabbit hole into a world where things are not quite “right”.  One such moment was visiting a McDonald’s.  Yes, we went to McDonald’s.  I find going to McDonald’s to be an interesting thing to do whenever I visit another country just to see the differences.  We had talked about going to McD since we left home partly because of an episode of the Big Bang Theory.  If you haven’t watched that show, you’ve missed some classic TV comedy.  One of the characters (Raj) is worried about being deported back to India and he is bemoaning all that he will miss from the US including McDonald’s Big Mac.  He says  “In India all you can get is a Chicken Majaraha Mac and the special sauce is curry which, in India isn’t all that special”.  So, of course, we went in search of a chicken Majaraha Mac and… we found it!  Unfortunately, Ed and I found it too spicy to eat but the guys had no trouble.  Also on the menu was a McSpicy Paneer and a Paneer wrap (paneer is a kind of Indian cheese that is like a firm cottage cheese).  I do believe that one of America’s gifts to the world is McDonald’s french fries.  No matter what country you are in, they’re terrific. There have been several McDonalds’ in India but the one we stopped at was in the Delhi airport.  The Delhi airport is fabulous and so is the Hyderabad airport.  An important travel tip : never fly into or out of Mumbai.  It’s a nightmare.  So we are dreading the flight out of India in two days – through Mumbai.  Groan.  Before I end this, I’d like to mention two other  moments of cultural dissonance that cause double-takes.  One was walking into the Agra Fort to see a bunch of women in beautiful saris and baseball caps.  The other was seeing a man walk his ox while on a cell phone.   This is a culture in transition and it’s interesting to be able to see the past and present together.

 

India is…

I thought I’d put as bunch of random thoughts together in a single blog under the title of “India is…”  so here goes.

 India is…

 …Exotic.  With the exception of Botswana, this is the most exotic place I have ever been.  And in some ways this is more exotic than Botswana since Botswana is natural and all natural things feel somewhat familiar.  But India is culturally exotic.  The sights, sounds, smells, personal interactions, ways of thinking are all diffrerent.  Not better or worse, just different. 

 

…Polluted.  The air quality has been pretty poor.  I don’t know if it is the time of year or if it is always like this but I have never felt like I could get a clean breath of air since we landed.  India is also covered in plastic bags and, when the bags aren’t covering the ground, plastic bottles.  The plastic bags problem is so bad that there are “plastic free” zones in the country!  This is also a very entrepreneurial country.  If there was an economic incentive to pick up all that plastic, it would probably happen overnight. 

 

…A stunning smile.  It appears to be the birthright of every Indian to have a killer smile.  I have never seen so many bright, genuinely happy smiles in my life.

…Young.  I continue to be amazed at the number of young people here.  That one fact makes the country feel vibrant and energized.  I sense a feeling of optimism, dynamism, and eagerness to change things.  But I also sense that they are aware that some things may be lost in the transition and they are wary of that.  For example, I read an article in an India health magazine about how Indians view pleasure and happiness.  That was a fascinating read.  It started out by talking about the shift from a “sequential” life to a “concurrent” life.  What that means is that the traditional life pattern is to get an education, get a job, become established in your career, then find (or have someone find you) a spouse and get on with the family phase of your life.  Things are changing and people want to do the career and family phases simultaneously.  What will that change?  I suspect a lot.  I see “bachelor herds” of young, single men working in IT jobs, hanging out together after work, bonding and having a good time.  Even before I read the article I had observed that there is not the cultural imperative to “pair off” that I see in the US.  The article confirmed that observation.  I suspect workplace interactions will change once the bachelor herd mentality wanes.  Work may become less improtant.  It will be interesting to see. The article also warned against letting outside influences define happiness for you – the mentality that “if you buy this you will be happy”.  It isn’t going to work.  The article then warned against becoming like the US, which it called “a nation of unhappy lottery winners”.  Wow.  That’s pretty profound and pretty accurate.

…Labor intensive.  The US spends a lot of energy eliminating payroll expenses. People are asked to do more and more taks that are peripheral to their main job in the interests of downsizing and keeping labor costs low.  India is the exact opposite.  For example, there are three people at our hotel who appear to have the job of simply standing at the front door.  They are greeters and just generally in the business of noticing if you need help with anything.  Walmart not withstanding, that doesn’t happen in the US.  There is a woman at Rockwell who comes by several times a day to see if we need water.  The hotel in Goa had legions of people who watered the grass by hand with hoses.  In the US, we would have a sprinkler system installed by the end of the day.  There were four waiters for 5 tables of people.  There was a man cleaning the sidewalks all day with a palm frond.   I wanted to mail him a broom.  The guys building multi-story buildings were carrying cinder blocks on their heads, one at a time, up several floors of steps.  In the US, we would have a crane there to eliminate the time and labor that was consuming.  It may be that cranes are in short supply but I don’t think that is the only issue. The mentality isn’t about peak efficiency.  The idea is for everyone to have something to do, some way to contribute.  If one person could take 4 jobs, what would the other 3 people do?  That’s just not a good plan.

….Colorful.  I’ve mentioned the clothes, but the building are often painted in bright colors as well (particularly in Goa – less so in Hyderabad).  The Good Carriers are highly decorated – they are my favorites.  Color is everywhere and is a large part of the charm of the country.  Strands of fresh marigolds are used in religious offerings and hung on roadside shrines.  You can buy marigolds in bulk at the grocery!  Small shrines are present at the entrances to many businesses with an image of a God cast in brass surrounded by flower petals carefully arranged in a pattern.  In Goa, they took that to new heights with leaves carefully arranged in shallow water with flowers in the center.  It was stunning.

There is a lot more but this post is getting long.  I’ll post more observations later.

What to Wear to Work

This was a topic that caused some anxiety for me prior to our departure.  I could not find a definitive statement about the dress code in the offices of Hyderabad, so I will now give one for the rest of the world to reference.  It’s surprisingly simple.  The male “uniform” is dark slacks (some jeans are seen but not many and they are neat and pressed) and a neatly pressed button front shirt with a collar – a typical US dress shirt.  Long-sleeved and short-sleeved are equally represented.  Closed shoes appear to be required. Essentially every woman reporting to work was wearing a salwar kameez.  That is a wonderfully attractive garment in three pieces : a top that is knee length, generally short-sleeved, and made of a variety of fabrics, fairly fitted pants that coordinate with the top, and a matching long scarf that is artfully draped in a number of configurations.  Almost all women wear sandals. As Michael and Ed and I stood and watched about a thousand women enter the India Design Center (IDC) we were struck that no two women had on the same outfit.  The variety in pattern, color, texture and adornment is endless – and beautiful.  Every woman looks lovely in this “uniform” while still looking modest and professional.   I’m envious.  The striking thing to me is that the men have adopted western dress but the salwar is a traditional outfit that has transitioned to the modern workplace.  As I watch the little scooter taxis pull up on the dusty roads, I can’t help wondering how everyone manages to look so crisp and clean and neat.  We look somewhat disheveled at all times.  Again, I am envious.  The women who are not in a salwar tend to be in head-to-toe covering black outfits, including face shields.  The sort of outfit one would associate with Saudi Arabia.  I am told that Hyderabad has a very large Muslim population and many of them are quite traditional.  Again, I am struck by the fact that a woman wearing such an outfit will be riding alone on a scooter on her way to work in a coed environment.  I just find that interesting.    India really is “the Land of Contrasts” which I believe was their tourism campaign before the award-winning “Incredible India” campaign.

Oh No!

We are only a few short days from our departure and things have been hectic.  Sunday night the team gathered for some nice Indian food from Curry Masala (owned by an SDSM&T alum!) and looked at pictures that John Weiss, a faculty member in our department, took while he was in India 5 years ago.  The pictures made us all anxious to get there!  I loved how colorful everything was.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that John takes fantastic pictures.  The depth of focus, composition, lighting – he said we were only looking at the best ones, but the ones we saw were a wow.  If I only get to see one thing that he saw, I hope I get to see the colorful trucks.  They have flowers on the hood!

Monday morning brought an unexpected complication – I’m sick.  Ed and I are still holding our breath hoping that I can kick this before we leave on Monday.  Right now, the bugs are winning.  The guys have been working hard to get all their class work arranged, had to present their Critical Design Review this morning (where they did a fine job), pack, and now…start to worry.  I know this because it’s the pre-flight sequence I usually go through.  Rest assured, team, on Sunday night you will be convinced that this is a BAD IDEA and you will be wondering why you are doing this instead of staying here doing the things you always do in the comfort and safety of your own rooms.  I have almost never left for a trip where I didn’t wonder at the last minute why I was going.  It’s called “inertia” and it manifests itself as fear before a trip.  You can be equally assured that I will also be sitting up in bad wondering – what have I gotten myself into?  But here’s where I have the advantage.  I’ve done this so many times that I know the overwhelming odds are that we are going to have the adventure of a lifetime.  And I will be telling myself that repeatedly as I try to fall asleep Sunday night!  Everyone please send good thoughts my way for a speedy recovery.  I cannot get on a plane in my current state…

One Week from Tomorrow!

I read over the previous posts and saw four weeks, three weeks, two weeks, and now, unbelievably, almost suddenly – one week.  We have spent the last week checking and double checking our packing, documents, and arrangements.  We are very close to ready.  I suspect we will still go running out of the house, breathless, worried that we haven’t gotten everything done.  It’s pretty much a requirement for a big trip.  People keep asking me “Are you nervous about going?” or “Are you scared?”   The answer to both is “YES!”.  Terrified.  But not for the reasons you might think. My fears are all from the fact that we will be in loco parentis – we will be taking other people’s children to a place far, far away (to borrow from Star Wars).  My traveling companions are wonderful people and I have no reason to be concerned about them except for the abstract fear of something happening that I can’t control.  Ethan is sturdy, smart and dependable.  He is the Dalmatian that rides on the fire truck.  Michael is like a golden retriever – smart, loveable, happy, fun, excited about life and not afraid to show it.  Colton is the Doberman in the pack.  Dobermans are among the smartest dogs, tend to be quiet, and are frequently misunderstood.  Ed is the wise old Bassett hound lying on the porch who has seen too many rabbits run by to chase them all. And when he does chase one, he knows that he won’t catch it and wouldn’t really enjoy it if he did.  The pursuit is the fun part.  And me?  I’m a border collie.  Always working.  Always trying to keep things in control, rounding things up, keeping order.  Together, I think we will be a big pack of fun.  I sense that the guys are getting more comfortable being around us, which was my goal before we left.  I want them to feel that they can trust us, come to us with problems, ask us for advice – and know that what happens in India, stays in India (except for what gets posted on the blog!).

TL

How to get to India

The team was pretty self-sufficient when it came to the technical side of the project, but making the travel arrangements was clearly my bailiwick.  Neither Ed nor I have been to India before, although we had both turned down two trips previously and regretted it ever since.  I have always wanted to see India.  To smell India.  To taste India.  So how do you do that?  Well, step one is to figure out how to get there physically.  Several airlines will get you from Rapid City to Mumbai and all of them take a really long time.  With good reason – India is half way around the world from us.  The guys are flying to Denver then to Newark then direct to Mumbai.  That last leg is a doozy.  It’s a good thing the guys are so young since I think that trip would literally kill me.  But they are young, fit, tough – guys in their prime ready for an adventure.  Ed and I, on the other hand, are…not.  So we fly to Denver then to D.C. then to Istanbul then to Mumbai.  It takes longer but it gives me a chance to get out of the plane and walk around (I have a problem with DVT).  Since we arrive at different times, we will have the challenge of finding each other in a very busy airport in a different country.  Our Indian students are trying to help us out by finding a customs agent who will look after the guys until we arrive.  Then we have to transfer to the domestic terminal (wish us luck) and fly to Hyderabad.  None of this sounds very easy to me but we are intrepid!  So that’s the first hurdle – physically getting there.  But there are other pitfalls on the road.  What shots do we need?  Happily not too many but the team did need some (we were in good shape from the Programming Team Egypt trip that didn’t happen) and we will need to take malaria pills while we are there.  The biggest danger, I think, will be the inevitable gastric upset that occurs in different countries, so we are preparing for that as best we can.  We have a great travel doctor in Rapid City, by the way, Dr. Stocks.  He is top-notch and a pretty cautious guy who likes to prepare for everything he can think of.  I like that.  The roadblock is visas.  You need a visa to go to India.  India has several kinds of visas and none of them appear to be particularly easy to get.  I can only assume that when you have a billion people (literally), you really don’t need anyone else coming in, thank you very much.   As of this writing, we still do not have visas.  We are anxiously awaiting our papers.  So we have flights, we have shots and pills, we hope we have visas coming.  The next challenge is what to pack.  Speaking just for myself, I travel like a hermit crab – I carry my whole life on my back.  I don’t think that will be a good plan on this trip so for the first time, I am trying to pack in one small bag.  The good news is that India is a treasure trove when it comes to clothing.  I am hoping to pick up a few things while we are there.  So we are trying to get away with a roll-aboard and one small bag each.  If we succeed, it will be a first and a personal triumph.  When we went to New Zealand, we took 200 pounds of luggage – no joke.  So this should be interesting…

TL

Next post : comparing Rapid City and Hyderabad.  I’m curious to see what I can find.

3 Weeks from Monday

The trip is getting close enough that it is starting to feel real.  Planning a trip is always a fun exercise, then comes the pain and anguish of actually making the arrangements, then when it is all set and you can forget about it for a while, it starts to feel unreal – like it isn’t really going to happen.  Then you write something like “3 weeks from Monday” and – wham!  It feels real again.  There are logistical challenges to putting a trip like this together.  The big one is that India is a big country.  Other than Hyderabad, where should we visit?  Certainly the Taj Mahal but where else?  If you know someone who was coming to the US for 3 weeks, where would you tell them to go? It’s a tough questions.  We got a bunch of guidebooks and read them cover to cover.  That didn’t help.  Then we realized that India in not only a big country, but a really interesting one with a lot of variation – and it all sounded good.  We put together a wish-list, then I set about to make actual travel arrangements.  Some of what we wanted to do, we couldn’t afford (the weekend at the  beach had to go, sadly).  Some of what we wanted to do we didn’t have time for (it takes too long to get to Ellora and Ajanta or Amritsar).  Some places don’t have airports close by.  Some cities are so crowded that we can’t reasonably get around there in  a short time (like Mumbai).  So after several iterations (and I would like to note that Collette Miller from Dakota Travel is a saint.  She put up with constant changes in plans until we had an itinerary we liked that we could afford.)  we had things nailed down.  The big stops are: Hyderabad for a week to visit Rockwell-Collins, a week on a train across Rajistan (cultural highlights), and 3 days in Nepal (to see the Himalayas).  Even with those stops, we really won’t get to experience southern India – which I am quite certain we want to do (so Ed and I are looking at a Christmas trip on our own at the end of the year).  I am looking forward to everything we have planned but the three things I am most excited about are Udaipur, the Taj Mahal, and Mt. Everest.  I wonder what the rest of the team is looking forward to most?

Next post – more on logistics.  India is half way around the world and it takes serious planning to go there.

TL

Introduction to India and Nepal

We are all pretty unfamiliar with Indian culture so Beth Riley, the International Initiatives Coordinator from the Ivanhoe Center, set up a “learn about India and Nepal”  meeting with a group of students.  I want to thank Amit Gautam, Ravi Shankar, and Aakriti Sharma (all from India) and Prashanta Gyawali from Nepal for meeting with the team and answering our stupid questions.

How do you greet people in India?  Press your hands together and say “Namaste”.

Is that appropriate even in a corporate setting?  Yes.  The international companies will have folks who are used to shaking hands and saying hello but the traditional greeting is always in good taste.

Can you hug people?  Nooooo.  I’m a big hugger so I will have to remember this.  In my defense, lots of people I don’t know feel like they can hug me.  I must be a sort of human Ewok.

Is it ok to cross your legs?  Yes.  We were worried about showing the bottoms of our feet (potentiall disrespectful) but we were told not to worry.

What will be our biggest challenge?  Navigating the crowds.  There are a lot of people in India.

We were given a list of foods from Mumbai, Hyderabad (where we hear the food is so hot we faint-hearted Americans may not be able to eat it), and Delhi.  I must confess that this part of the discussion had everyone on the edge of his or her seat.   Indian food is amazing and we are all looking forward to eating there!

Maybe one of the team members can post the food they recommended…?

Next blog : what it takes to prepare for a trip of this magnitude.