Breakfast this morning was wonderful. Boiled eggs, corn flakes, idila, fresh squeezed orange juice, grapes, apples, and buttered toast. Our hostess really outdid herself.
Then it was "on the road again." We only got to stay with this family for one night. Before completely leaving the town we visited and took a tour of the hospital (sponsered by rotary of course).
They gave us bouquets of flowers and Pepsi, water or Fanta. The tour- it's still a hostpital, so we've mostly seen it all, but this one let us in to their pediatric ward. I gave away my flowers to a cute little girl, and then my mother's flowers to a little boy.
Then we all got on a bus (this time our luggage fit inside and they had another car for some of our group with extra room for luggage) and headed to Bardoli.
It didn't take long- about 30-40 minutes. We stopped at a school (college) where the rotary district 7670 (ours) did a matching grant witth district 3060 (mumbai area) to help. Apparently, Prakash really got this started. It was neat. Because of the grants and money raised by rotarians the school now has computer labs with more than 90 computers. They also have a pharmaceutical school with many advanced technological units.
Then it was time for lunch. We were supposed to go to a sugar mill, but because the group ( the ladies) wanted to go shopping in Surat (and see the big textile market- since the men won't put it on the schedule :P) Prakash canceled that. It's a good thing, too. Even without shopping, I don't think we would have had time for everything- especially the drive to Surat.
Anyway. Lunch was... interesting. We ate a place called Red Chilis. They believed in spices too. Instead of the regular one order for the whole table, we ordered individually. And they had american food! So, I got french fries (:D) and alfredo pasta.
Well... they sort of had american food. My mother got pasta with pesto sauce. Indians love spices, and they drenched the pesto sauce with them. My mother said her taste buds are permanently scarred. My pasta wasn't spicy but they added sugar to the alredo sauce. Not a good effect. I ended up having some pizza and french fries (they got the french fries right!) and then a chocolate brownie for dessert. Haha.
Then it was off to Prakash's village. Or really, the village his parents grew up in. It took us a bit longer to travel there- around an hour (more or less).
Once we arrived, we were greeted by I think the whole village (a lot of them anyway) in their (relatively new) temple. Prakash said a bunch of things in gujarati and some in english, but I was so tired I don't remember any of it. Then we were offered ponk. Green millet, noodles made from chick pea flower and fried, candy coated fennel, and chutney (i stayed away from the chutney- super spicy). Yum, though.
Then we got to tour the village and the local school (grades 1-4). We also went through what was Prakash's parent's home. The houses reminded me of american houses, in the early to mid 1800s. Very Little House in the Big Woods. Heavy decorative doors and furniture. (like, Zorro. haha) The school was great- I don't think the children spoke any english- but smiles, waves, and laughs go a long way. I took several photos and then a video. Then I showed them the video on playback on my camera. I don't think they had ever seen themselves in a video, maybe not even seen video at all. I was their new best friend. :)
As we were getting ready to leave, I was offered a ride on a motorcycle. So, of course, not to miss out...
It was actually quite a nice ride. There are a lot of bumps on indian roads, but on a motorcycle (or a bicycle) you can go around them. Also, the driver was great. This was his "car."
Then it was back on the bus and on the road to Surat. About 2 1/2 hours later (that's 1 hour indian time :P) we arrived and met our new host family- Maganlal Talaviya and his wife (Bharati). They had to hire an auto rickshaw to carry all of our luggage. I was worried that it would fall out, but it arrived safely- before we did.
They live in an apartment-again on the top floor. But this apartment is not so tall-only the 5th floor. It's still quite a view though.
We had about an hour of rest (I worked on this dreadful blog) and then we went to a joint rotary club meeting for a bunch of clubs in the area. There was also a GSE there (group study exchange). The meeting went way over time, and then we also had dinner. I think that indian rotarians are trained to give americans as much food as they can. :P
So, now we are finally home and we just finished some wonderful ice cream- with strawberries.
Strawberries in January. :)
**word of the day: Jay Krishna (gujarati) - welcome
**more: Shala (gujarati) - school
**even more: Shiksh (gujarati)- teacher
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