I committeed to a Jan Term class sometime in September 2022 because it was required for graduation and because I felt really brave when I clicked the button saying I'd travel to India with seminary classmates in January. 2023 felt very far away - at least four classes away - and I was excited to go somewhere I'd never been and to be under the care of professors I deeply respect and wanted to know better. We spent the fall semester meeting periodically, reading material about gender issues, religion and politics, caste, and religious diversity in India. Our group of 11 total didn't know each other well - in all honesty, I'd never met any of my classmates in person until our first travel group meeting. I decided that was a bonus because we would spend much of our travels getting to know one another so we'd likely be on our best behaviour until we got comfortable with each other and by then it would be about time to come home. Cynical? Maybe. I prefer to think of it as an introvert's plan for existing in a very extroverted, public two week journey that caused me more stress as it approached. As the days and months passed and January drew near, my bravery began to melt away. My seminary account had been charged for the portion I was responsible to finance, my airline ticket bought, and yet still I pondered with increasing frequency ways I may wriggle out of the commitment to travel. I was intimidated by the 12 hour flight leg between New York and Qatar, I wasn't excited about being away from my family for 16 days, I knew I'd be missing work for 2 weeks and, honestly, the snarky voices of my homey comforts grew louder and more aggressive by the day.
Our family had a lovely Christmas despite the growing cloud of anticipation laced with anxiety brewing inside me. I ordered my outlet adapter, packed up medicines I thought I may need while away, even got a new suitcase with a lock built in. Having a staff meeting the morning of my flight was a welcomed distraction from waiting all day to meet my travel group at 3pm. As luck would have it, our kids weren't scheduled to go back to school until January 5th, so the four of us struck out at 2pm to head to Decatur and meet up with my group to shuttle our way to the airport. Once Philip and the kids hugged me bye and left the parking lot, there was no option. I was India bound.
Our flight left at 7:30pm on January 4, we had a layover at JFK until 11:30pm and our next stop found us in Qatar twelve hours later but I had no idea what day or time it was. The Qatar airport was remarkable - the most impressive offering at the airport was the option to pay and take a shower. Honestly, it was the best $27 I'd ever spent. We had been travelling 20+ hours at this point and I'd been surrounded by people and that $27 got me a private suite, complete with hot water, good smelling soap and the luxury of a hairdryer. I had 25 minutes of silence and was able to wash travel weariness down the drain. Then I took some time to journal.
"It's somewhere between January 4th & 6th of 2023 and to my list of firsts, at age 46, I can now add:
- Surviving a 12 hour flight
- Showering for $27 in the Doha, Qatar airport spa
It is surreal to be sitting in Qatar and I've bought the family World Cup t-shirts since it was played here a month ago. The airport here is a modern, sleek affair with a Harrod's, Hermes, Louis Vuitton and more. The people around me are a delicious representation of God's creativity and I am enjoying hearing many languages and witnessing different cultural traditions in people as they pass by in a robust variety of clothing.
It is a joy to have a travel group I don't know too well, but with whom I share an identity as CTS student. I have no idea what time it is or what time zone we are in. We find out our departure gate soon and have one more 4-hour leg to go before we reach Kochi. I suppose the current time is immaterial - I think when we deplane the final time it will be 8:30am and I will be walking in India. I'm fascinated to discover the treasures of such a vastly different place and drink in the culture and bask in the sights, sounds and smells. I'm completely anxious that an overnight bus ride awaits us at some point, but figure it will only include our group and that is likely to beat the flight from NYC to Doha.
I am keenly aware this is the longest I've ever been away from Philip, Lydia and Henry and my heart already aches to see their faces and hug them tightly. I feel deeply guilty about missing Henry's 18th birthday and wonder how I will make that up to him. Philip is doing all manner of house and life stuff and I know that when I get back that Henry and Lydia will look like grown adults and I may not recognize our house. Alas, I anticipate the homecoming even in the midst of anticipating arriving in India."
We boarded our next flight and landed four hours later in Kerala, India. Kerala is the state - we landed in the city of Cochin. We got to Customs at about 8:30am on Friday, January 6th, local time and my travel companions and I calculated it was 10pm on Thursday, January 5th in Atlanta. We were 10.5 hours ahead but the long travel day and our immediate jump into exploration seemed to erase the time difference.
Suffice it to say, a group of 10 people coming from the US to South India can be alarming to Customs agents so we split into different lines and waited our turn to share we had come to explore India as tourists. There were many light skinned people in the line ups so I didn't stick out as much as I had imagined. I learned later that Kochi is a good entry point for foreigners and it is also the place where Christianity originally entered India; being that we were coming to India on a seminary study trip, it made sense for us to enter here as well. We crossed through the Duty Free shop en route to baggage claim and immediately our being in a new place was obvious. Once we gathered our luggage, we met up with our second professor, who had arrived earlier to visit with family, and we boarded the van that would be our primary mode of transportation for the next 4 days.
We went straight to our hotel - The Grand Hotel - a 45 minute adventure ride from the airport. It seemed that lines on roads were for decoration as I observed the intricate dance that cars performed to the tune of a cacophony of horns that spoke their own language to one another. It was good that I was tired because the weariness dulled the anxiety that being a passenger in India induced. Somehow the chaos was ordered - it worked. We dropped our bags and headed straight for the coast where we experienced the redefinition of winter and toasted one another with our green coconuts that had been equipped with straws for us to drink of their water. We watched local fishermen lower their nets into the Arabian Sea and draw them back from the water with hopes they'd be full of fish. The fishermen stood poised to welcome our group as apprectices and invited us to participate in hauling in the day's catch...for a small fee. After, we walked our coconut toting selves down the street and through a lovely garden that opened up to The Seagull Restaurant. We shared a variety of Indian favourites as we dined al fresco overlooking the Arabian Sea. We were sitting on the banks of the Arabian Sea. That evening I journaled some more:
] "After lunch we traveled to a Portugese/Dutch Church where Vasco de Gama originally was interred -there was evidence of various colonial impacts to the church, most notably the facade which had been stuccoed. There were fans inside that were designed so that people would stand outside the church and operate by pulling ropes, so the worshippers inside enjoyed moving air. While it was a fascinating engineering feat, the images that came to mind felt oppressive - I began to see India's complexities beginning to emerge.
Our next stop was a neighbourhood, literally called "Jew Town", because it had been inhabited by a Jewish community up until the creation of Palestine when most of India's Jewish residents relocated. However, there is still a synagogue in the Square and we bore witness to the ways secularism in India doesn't imply an absence of faith - instead, it illustrates multiple faith traditions existing alongside one another. There were lots of shops and markets that we perused and we were consistently invited in. I found myself overwhelmed by the enormity of the current reality and could not really absorb what all of our options were. Tiredness was setting in and we made our way back to the Grand Hotel for a brief taste of rest before dinner. Dr. Moore-Keish led us in an Epiphany devotion before we retired for the night. I'm sure sleep will come easy.
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