Randomness

Here are some random thoughts and images from our trip.  They’re in no particular order and there isn’t really a rhyme or reason to this post.



The front entrance of the classiest hotel in Tezpur is at the red
signs you see in the upper right corner.  Nice trash heap, eh?



We stayed in what is considered the classiest hotel in Tezpur.  The rooms were clean and serviceable, but the American equivalent would be a lower class Super 8.  The staff was excellent and their attention to service is amazing.  Still, it is interesting what surrounds the hotel.  A trash heaps is just 15 yards from the front entrance and on the same corner there is a rickshaw stand where people use the wall of the hotel as a restroom.

The typical Indian cookshack.

When we were in the field the team ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a few bananas for lunch.  Our translators and the Nationals we worked with had their own food.  On the day that we set up two clinics, we stopped midway between the clinics for our translators to have their lunch.  I was able to get some pictures inside the average kitchen of the rural farmhouse.  It was fascinating to watch all of these people prepare food over a wood fire using the unique earth and brick “stovetop” and I couldn’t believe the cooks were able to stand the smoke of the fires.

A view from the roof of the hotel.

Traffic circles abound in India.  One of my favorite pastimes was to go to the roof of the hotel and watch the traffic and street people of Tezpur.  A policeman stands at the kiosk in the center of the circle and tries to bring order to the chaos.  The variety of vehicles used in India is amazing.  Everything from trucks to handcarts to motorcycles and three-wheeled taxi’s go through the town.  Cattle and goats roam the streets freely.  Eventually you get used to the constant racket of horns, voices, and engines.



The crowds in the markets are
overwhelming to most Westerners



There are markets everywhere.  As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s hard to drive more than a quarter of a mile without seeing some shack or another selling something.  We would be in the middle of nowhere and there would stand a shack selling chips, candy, and cel. phone service.  Other places would have a collection of these shacks and open-air markets for produce and other foods.  It wasn’t uncommon to see a half-butchered hog on top of a table by the roadside.  Walk up, tell them what cut you want, and the butcher knife will accommodate.



I can't imagine the daily grind,
pain, and monotony of sorting
and piling stones by hand.



We passed through a road construction site on our travels.  In America we’re used to seeing heavy equipment everywhere, hauling gravel, cleaning areas in preparation for overlay, and leveling roadbeds.  In India there is no shortage of manual labor.  This image of a woman sorting stones is a great reminder of how hard life is for most Indians.  I can’t imagine the toil of squatting for hours, sorting stones and placing them just so, in order that the roadbed has the correct slope.  It has to be grueling.  No unions, evidently.

On our last day we were able to explore a little bit more of Tezpur.  This included a trip to a Lutheran church site near the river.  It was a beautiful spot with a great view.  Just behind the church there are ruins from an ancient Hindu temple.  Shown in this picture is our main Indian partner, Charles Golla.  He's explaining to us that the image carved in stone here is of a god ripping apart a child.  Mark and I decided that when the earthquake destroyed the temple, God was basically saying "That's enough of that."