India: Transfers and First Day

Thus begins the India Saga of Ivy. :)

Hello, friends and family. I made it. :) Thursday at 8 am my Visa arrived in the mail, 30 minutes later my dad drove me to the airport. It was odd being by myself. This is the first extended adventure of my life where I am unaccompanied by anyone from my family.

Imagine my gratitude when two familiar persons saw me, smiled and waved. It was a blessing to find out that two neighbors were going on the exact same flight as me, and least for the first leg of our respective trips. It was comforting.

Another blessing was that our flight was delayed for about two hours. This allowed me to write and mail a lengthy letter to my brother. I hadn't been able to write him well for about three weeks.

A few other blessings: I made each of my flights. I had connections in Chicago, Paris and Abu Dhabi before arriving in Hyderabad at 3:30 am. I was able to sleep for about five hours on the flight to Paris, and about another three hours between the other flights. On the trip to Paris, I was offered an aisle seat by a couple from Colorado so that they could sit to each other. I happily obliged. :)

A plug for Etihad airlines: the trip to Abu Dhabi was immaculate, and the food impressive. If ever given the chance, have the Arabic spiced chicken in yogurt sauce for dinner. I think Etihad finds the most polished and stern and well-spoken flight attendants possible. Between them, the flight attendants on the leg to Abu Dhabi spoke about 12 languages, Romanian and Slavic among them. This is when I wish I had kept up with my French. (Random phrases and surprisingly accurate sentences popped into my head while I was in the Paris airport).

I used my first squatter toilet in Abu Dhabi. I laughed. I bet my dad is laughing as he reads this.

In the Hyderabad customs line I met one of my new teammates, C., for the first time. Glad we could go through together. She arrived at the same time we did coming from Mumbai. I forgot to define "we": G. is a fellow teammate that traveled from SLC to Hyderabad on all the same flights I had, though our seats were never next to each other.

G. and I each lost our checked bags somewhere along the line. I'm grateful I listened to Dad and packed all the non-essential items into it. /I'm also glad to have bought toothpaste this morning. I didn't know brushing one's teeth could be so enjoyable. :) It took two hours for us to finish filling out paper work for our lost bags, and it was about 6 am when we were able to go to our new apartment. I was so grateful our country leaders picked us up. We could have ridden the bus, but by the time we finished I was drained.

I really like our apartment. It has an iron gate in the front, the building looks like the outside is plaster and it is painted a cheery yellow. There are four bedrooms, three restrooms (with porcelain toilets!) and a small kitchen. One room has air conditioning, so i've been told the team has "sleep overs" every night to share the luxury. We all have our personal space in whatever bedroom we're in, but we all put our sleeping mats in the AC room at night.

We had a meeting with CARPED, an organization led by a man who reminds me of me. I finally understand what people have been trying to tell me, to "focus". He has TONS of ideas of areas he wants to expand in, including setting up beehives for 770 women and setting up a community science center which includes a demonstration square foot garden. I decided not to help with beekeeping, and to encourage him to find a local beekeeper to help him. I can't fathom setting up a bee program in five weeks when I know so little, when it is very much a long-term project.

This is long enough. I'll post another update soon. :)