Yet another car whizzed by us, driving even deeper the feeling that we were moving as slow as snails on this nearly deserted stretch of highway. Why were we going so slow, as if it would cause us harm to get anywhere near the posted speed limit? The road was in excellent condition, there were only a handful of cars traveling on this divided highway, no other dangers that we could see. But, the futility of trying to argue these points with our driver was like a wet blanket thrown over our conversation. His broken English wasn't sufficient to understand why we were frustrated, and our complete lack of Hindi prevented any real expression on our part. An onlooker could have only laughed at our attempts to explain "slow slow bad, fast fast good!" Our driver was convinced that his slow driving was absolutely vital for safety, given the hour (3 am), and all we could think about was "why did we get up at 1 am if we aren't even going to arrive for sunrise???"
What led to this bizarre impasse? Well, it all began the week before, actually with our previous blog post. You see, the flight we were waiting on to take us halfway around the world wasn't taking us directly back to Africa. Actually, we were en route to a much needed vacation, in India! The much-anticipated flight lasting a marathon 15 hours landed us in Delhi, a place so unlike anywhere we have ever visited, but so familiar at the same time. Before getting into any more description of this once-in-a-lifetime trip, let me finish the experience that we have already begun.
Suddenly, the car began to slow. As our driver maneuvered towards an exit, he said we were stopping for bathrooms and coffee, "10 minutes." By the time the car came to a halt at this nearly deserted gas station, the time had become 15 minutes, and our frustration was reaching a boil. True, we told ourselves, we do need a bathroom break anyways after 2 hours on the road. However, as we waited in the humid, mosquito filled air for our driver, and waited, and waited, we had to do something! Out came our phones, Google translate to the rescue (we hoped)! After settling on the phrasing to fully express ourselves, we typed it in and watched several lines of curly Hindi text appear. When our driver finally reappeared, we insisted that he read it before getting back in the car. We can only imagine how incomprehensible the translation must have been, but the point was made! Finally, he looked at us with a dawn of understanding, and promised we would reach our destination by 5:30. Holding true to his word, the speedometer finally reached the speed limit, for the first time all morning.
Unfortunately, despite his belated burst of speed the damage had already been done, and we did not arrive at our destination until after 6. Why the rush, anyways? What I haven't told you yet is just where we were going. Our destination was the Taj Mahal, our goal to be there for photos at sunrise. In the end, it didn't matter that much. The clouds obscured the actual sunrise anyways, so we were still there for first actual sunlight striking the white marble. Worse, though, was that restoration work was being done on the Taj Mahal, so scaffolding and tarps covered parts of it. This, of course, was a big let down, because it ruined any chance of capturing that iconic photo which the whole world has seen of the majestic building. Still, it was worth the drive, and something to not be missed when we were already so close. After the Taj Mahal, we continued on to the Agra Fort, which turned out to be a much more interesting place, and just as impressive if not nearly as white. Needless to say, we slept for much of the drive back to Delhi, and we told the driver he could go as "slow slow" as he wanted!
Beyond our trip to the Indian icon, we also had the pleasure of taking a Delhi food tour, of attending meetings with the only English congregation in the city, and seeing a lot more ancient architecture (is 500 years old ancient? Yes, I think so) as well as getting in a little shopping! The food tour was our first day, and a great way to get introduced to Delhi. It mostly focused on the area of Old Delhi, which was once a walled city surrounded by jungle. Now it's a labyrinth of streets and alleys, home to vendors selling virtually anything you can imagine. One area is touted as the largest market in all of Asia, a statement which we certainly can't refute. As we ate our way through the history of North India (and learned quite a bit in the process), we marveled at the crush of people jammed into narrow streets. Motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, rickshaws, even tuk-tuks all engaged in an endless dance, sometimes slow motion, sometimes high speed; incredibly this dance did not end in loss of life and limb, we are still not sure how. As we would later see, this dance is enacted on streets all around Delhi, in one form or another.
Delhi itself is a huge city, in one of the most populous countries in the world. To imagine how BIG Delhi is, consider that this one city with its suburbs contains more people than the entire country of Burkina Faso! Alternatively, this one city is equal to half the state of California..... Or it's equal to Greece and Portugal added together! With that many people crammed together, traffic is unavoidable. Fortunately Delhi has a well developed Metro system which can get you close to most anywhere in the city. But, again, there's a lot of people crammed into this city..... so the Metro can be packed beyond all imagination! During commute hours, getting on a Metro car becomes an exercise in geometry, somewhat like a game of Tetris using human bodies. This may sound rather calm and peaceful, but the reality is anything but that! Those at the end of the line seem to panic that they may not fit into the car, so they continue pushing in even when physics would seem to indicate that the car is completely full. Turns out, the car isn't completely full! It can always fit another 10 or 20 bodies! For anyone with claustrophobic tendencies, the Delhi Metro is not at all recommended. Outside of public transit, Delhi has a lot to see. We had read that some considered Delhi to be a dirty city, but we certainly didn't feel that way. Of course, our context does include West Africa..... which is where the term "dirty" truly finds meaning.... Some areas resemble Africa almost exactly. But not far away, we traveled expansive boulevards with incredible landscaping on all sides and passed immaculately manicured round-a-bouts.
Overall, that contrast was one of the most striking things we saw in India. Their economy covers the full range, from rich to poor. The rich is parallel with what we might see in California, and the poor is just as poor as anywhere else in the world (which one doesn't see in California!) This incredible economic diversity did make things easier for us. Unlike Burkina, we weren't constantly being asked for money, to our surprise. For such a large city, there were very few beggars actually. One reason may be that Indian religions actively promote taking care of others, meaning that those who are truly in need don't need to go beg on the streets. The most striking example of this that we saw was a Sikh temple which included a kitchen that feeds 20,000 people a day. The dining room is open to anyone, regardless of religion, and.... wait for it.... charges nothing!!! We won't get into the exact religious beliefs here, but we were certainly impressed by this generous side of Indian culture.
As with most of us, a highlight of any trip we take is meeting and being with our spiritual family. We were able to do this at the meetings, but we were quite disappointed to find out that the preaching work is restricted for foreigners in India. Specifically, we couldn't go door to door with the congregation. While we were there, the branch was announcing a new provision for foreigners who had been in India over 3 months, but we never heard exactly what it was. Needless to say, it would be hard to live in India for this reason alone! Despite that, we did meet several foreigners who attend the English congregation. The brothers taking the lead are all Indian, but they have many African brothers and sisters, from both Anglophone and Francophone Africa, even a brother from a Portuguese speaking country. In addition, we met a Russian and a French sister. As would be expected, the French speakers were happy to speak French with us, especially the ones who didn't really understand English yet! Coincidentally, did we meet any "needgreaters" in Delhi? Nope, not one. The few foreigners we met in the congregation were all there for work or education. Yes, I said "few". Maybe it sounded like a lot, but don't forget how huge Delhi is.... and this is the ONLY foreign language congregation in the whole city! One can only imagine that the government restrictions make India (or at least Delhi) a very un-hospitable place for needgreaters.
Overall, though, we found India to be an unforgettable experience, one which we would recommend to any adventurous travelers! Of course, this is just a short detour in our blog about Burkina. Now that we have vacations, detours, travel of all sorts out of the way, we can get back into our routine in Burkina. It promises to be a busy and new routine, with the regional assembly almost on us, visitors from all over arriving soon, and a whole new chapter opening up as we do more at the RTO. Stay tuned for updates!
