I wrote a bunch of journal entries in my journal to share with Y'all (for my great american friends, I thought you'd appreciate that) I'm going to try and keep them short and just make multiple blog entries for you to follow along with instead of writing it all in one entry. Hope you enjoy!
Part 1:
We arrived in Patna after a long 7 hour train ride to Delhi and then 12 hours from Delhi to Bihar, Patna. The culture and atmosphere is similar to Rishikesh. It's unfortunate to once again be in a situation where you are surrounded by beggars who constantly ask for money and know that there is not much you can do for them. At the train station, a child approached us with one leg crawling on the ground asking for money. After giving him candy and refusing to give him money, he crawled off to a pile of bags, grabbed his fake leg and placed it on and then ran away laughing as if he had cheated us. That was a huge culture shock for the team who hadn't had any training and just arrived off of the plane the same day.
On the train, people would cough, sneeze and choke their lungs out without covering their mouths or doing any of the typical sanitary gestures that people are taught in North America. Even turning to the person sitting next to them and coughing on them as they spoke was fine. Often, the guy sitting next to me would pick his feet and then tough another guys hands as he was attempting to explain palm reading. This to me was culture shock as I tried to stay as far away as possible. Another guy on the train bought 1 ticket to which he and his wife would share. Now, imagine that you're the man and you and your wife won't fit on the same platform to sleep. What would you do and where would you let your wife sleep? Bingo, the floor! That is exactly what this man did. Set her on the floor without sheets, a pillow or blankets and then he slept comfortably on the bed. Surprised, I gave up my blanket to her so that she could at least stay warm during the night.
Upon arrival, it was easy to tell that Patna was not a developed area. What we did not know at the time was that Patna is one of the regions where people don't want to go to and don't want to help because they are so poor there. It is also known as the Christian Missionary Graveyard because many Christians prior have gone and have been killed. It has since changed a little and is not quite as dangerous but we were still told not to leave our hotel at night or when the sun goes down. Another reason you can tell Patna is not as developed is by the amount of people you see urinating on the streets. As you drive down the street, people would randomly just stop, turn, drop their pants and take a leak wherever they wanted. There weren't any designated places except the ponds or water areas. Anyway, we waited at the station for a while because the people picking us up were a bit late. The pastor drove us to his church for service and then the children came out and placed the flower necklaces that they had made around our necks. At first I was very surprised and enthusiastic to wear it. Then as I looked down there were ants all over the flower necklaces, at which point I found myself confused at a crossroad of whether or not to wear it. In the end I decided to wear it since I didn't want to offend the hosts but it was very itchy.
Part 2:
After traveling around and going to the first site visit it ended up being a very long morning. At this point we've been dropped off to eat lunch at a restaurant. Lots of people were exhausted including myself and from what I experienced that day, the system works on hierarchy. I think that since I'm one of the younger people on the team, the hosts do not listen to me as much and since I'm asian, they don't really view me as a "traveler" or "north american" When I met the clients, they would say hello to the team along with the name of the person and shake their hands while looking at them in the eye. As I was introduced, the old guy just grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the way as he said hello so that he could meet the other people who were older and looked more western. It was a tough start but I didn't mind too much since we were taught about this during our training in Colorado. We checked out the 2nd site after lunch and then went to have the programming meeting with the client. He explained that he has multiple sites around the city that he is renting out for different programs and then he plans to put them altogether onto the once site that he recently purchased that has a total area of approximately 6000sq.ft. Essentially, by the end of the meeting we understood that he wanted to build a skyscraper with multiple stories having different programs on each and a large auditorium on the top floor with an extra high ceiling. It is definitely going to be interesting to see how this project turns out.
