Wednesday December 28
Actually, this post will have zero content about flamingos, as we did not see a single one. I felt I should make the title about these fantastic fuchsia birds, anyways, just because I love them and wanted to get to say something about them. So if you are a bizarre bird enthusiast (like myself) Chilica Lake, is not the place for you. However if you enjoy herding rare dolphins, in a sketchy, cramped boat with the bite of a chilly sea breeze on your face then you are in luck! And it is very likely that a minimum of at least one of your, twenty, co-passengers will have a large collection of Bollywood-style music they can blare from their cell phone, for you.
Upon our arrival, I realized how accustomed we become to Vijayawada, in the last three weeks. Not only had we sort of gotten used to it but we had not really noticed that where we are staying there is a fairly high standard of living, compared to much of Indian. Vijayawada is a notably clean Indian city. We have not encountered the same signs of visible poverty there that we have seen in other places. There is not the same quantity of scrawny, dirty, half naked women and children begging for money. There is not the same dominant presence of flee-ridden stray dogs fighting in the streets. In Vijayawada there are many nice areas with fancy shops and ice cream parlours. There are slums but the poverty is more contained to them.
When we arrived in Bhudaneswar one of the first people I saw was a woman about my age, despite her poverty you could tell you was a very beautiful woman. She seemed to have a sort of hazy film over her eyes. She had her sari sort of loosely wrapped around herself, and no blouse on, so that she was descent but only minimally as she was washing herself out of a bucket. She was squatting down about ten meters from the road bathing. Her back was exposed as she washed and her shoulder blades jutted out of her body as she moved to clean herself. Her spine haunts me still, the way it reared out of her back like a tent pole fighting to escape her over stretched skin. I wasn’t sure if she was looking at me or if she could even see me her eyes were so misted over. I hadn’t eaten yet that morning and so had bought a bag of chips on the street to tide me over. The site of her ravaged body made me feel ill.
This post has been a little bit intense so I would like to end it on a lighter note. We are having a wonderful time together despite the fact that things did not go as we expected. We managed to find a Dominos Pizza in town, nothing to console a weary traveler like comfort food. They even had alfredo pasta! And pizza also seems to be a very spiritual thing for me these days. (That was meant as a bad joke, just to clarify.) It’s been a nice escape away. And we are still at the beach!
Actually, this post will have zero content about flamingos, as we did not see a single one. I felt I should make the title about these fantastic fuchsia birds, anyways, just because I love them and wanted to get to say something about them. So if you are a bizarre bird enthusiast (like myself) Chilica Lake, is not the place for you. However if you enjoy herding rare dolphins, in a sketchy, cramped boat with the bite of a chilly sea breeze on your face then you are in luck! And it is very likely that a minimum of at least one of your, twenty, co-passengers will have a large collection of Bollywood-style music they can blare from their cell phone, for you.
We left for our little vaca late the night of Boxing Day. We were just jittering with excitement to have some time to alone together. This was feeling like quite a luxurious treat to have a three day beach holiday together. Our giddy countenance led to some rather careless errors that dampened the mood of our adventure.
I have quite nice camera equipment, photography is a hobby of mine. To put it into perspective we have been traveling with roughly $1 500 CAN in camera equipment. Which for a couple who lives off of less than $20 000 a year, is a significant asset. Usually as relatively experienced travelers I sleep with this camera tied around my body. However we had paid a little extra to stay in a higher class car where only two other passengers in our section with us. And the main doors of the car are locked at night. We felt safe in this car and were at ease. We were distracted by our enthusiasm. N had fastened the camera bag to a shelf about four inches from my face. I am an extremely light sleeper so this seemed sufficient.
I have quite nice camera equipment, photography is a hobby of mine. To put it into perspective we have been traveling with roughly $1 500 CAN in camera equipment. Which for a couple who lives off of less than $20 000 a year, is a significant asset. Usually as relatively experienced travelers I sleep with this camera tied around my body. However we had paid a little extra to stay in a higher class car where only two other passengers in our section with us. And the main doors of the car are locked at night. We felt safe in this car and were at ease. We were distracted by our enthusiasm. N had fastened the camera bag to a shelf about four inches from my face. I am an extremely light sleeper so this seemed sufficient.
In the morning only the strap of the camera bag remained, securely fastened to the shelf. I was in shock at first, then devastated. This is probably one of my most cherished material possession. Worse than this was about an half hour later when we realized that because we always carry this bag on our person, it also contained both our credit cards and our bank cards.
By God’s grace we were able count our many blessings and choose to have a good time anyways. I will list a few of His provisions. We had prepaid for our hotel online, which we never do. I had taken all the recent photos off the camera onto the comp, so all our memories were preserved. We cancelled all our cards once we arrived at our destination, nearly twelve hours later, and no money had been taken. We had more cash on us than usually do so we knew we would be okay for our three days here. We have a bank card for another account back at the mission with enough money to last us until we return home. God is good! We were left unharmed and the rest of our other possessions were left untouched. Yea I can’t deny it sucks but in the big scheme of things we got really lucky. In hindsight, we were kind of asking to get robbed with how careless we were.
By God’s grace we were able count our many blessings and choose to have a good time anyways. I will list a few of His provisions. We had prepaid for our hotel online, which we never do. I had taken all the recent photos off the camera onto the comp, so all our memories were preserved. We cancelled all our cards once we arrived at our destination, nearly twelve hours later, and no money had been taken. We had more cash on us than usually do so we knew we would be okay for our three days here. We have a bank card for another account back at the mission with enough money to last us until we return home. God is good! We were left unharmed and the rest of our other possessions were left untouched. Yea I can’t deny it sucks but in the big scheme of things we got really lucky. In hindsight, we were kind of asking to get robbed with how careless we were.
N had fallen asleep that night listening to teaching on a rather ironic passage, on his ipod. It rang really true for us after the fact!
“If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming. He would not have let the house be broken into. You also must be ready because the son of man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Luke 12:39-40)
When Christ returns we won’t have the chance to be more careful next time. This was a very good reminder for N and I in how we conduct our lives. Obviously a person can not survive if they never sleep through the night in fear of the thief coming but wouldn’t you set your life up differently if you were always in wait! I will be on my guard much more readily in both accounts from this point forward. And if you can learn anything from the petty pain this has caused me please hear this for what it is. Please be ready for the thief in the night!
We were traveling to Chilica Lake where there is a very large bird migration from November to mid January. We had planned the trip so we would arrive right in the middle of the migration for the best chances of bird viewing. I’m almost embarrassed to say that I had already planned where I was going to hang the flamingo snaps in our apartment. More embarrassing I had preplanned the photos I was going to get.
We got off the train in Bhudaneswar and then took a two hour bus ride to Puri. N found it very interesting that we could take the bus in India for a two hour trip there and back for half the price of a single adult bus ticket, at home. Puri, where most of the tours to Chilica Lake are base out of, is not a really a big international tourist destination. It seems to be more of a popular vacation for Indian tourists. Right from the get go we were encountering more challenges getting around than usual. There is much less English spoken in this area compared to the other places we've been to in India.
When we arrived in Bhudaneswar one of the first people I saw was a woman about my age, despite her poverty you could tell you was a very beautiful woman. She seemed to have a sort of hazy film over her eyes. She had her sari sort of loosely wrapped around herself, and no blouse on, so that she was descent but only minimally as she was washing herself out of a bucket. She was squatting down about ten meters from the road bathing. Her back was exposed as she washed and her shoulder blades jutted out of her body as she moved to clean herself. Her spine haunts me still, the way it reared out of her back like a tent pole fighting to escape her over stretched skin. I wasn’t sure if she was looking at me or if she could even see me her eyes were so misted over. I hadn’t eaten yet that morning and so had bought a bag of chips on the street to tide me over. The site of her ravaged body made me feel ill.
In Matt 25:40 Christ said,
I tell you the truth brothers whatever you did for one of the least of these…you did for me.
But I walked past. After our stupidity on the train I was not sure we had enough money to feed ourselves for our stay here. I though of myself. And I walked by. Now she haunts me. I will never forget her. I will never forget her foggy watered over eyes. I can tell myself all kinds of things to justify why I walked past. I can tell you all kinds of things to make it seem okay. The fact is it wasn’t, I knew it then and I still know it now.
We have SO much. We have access to SO much. I am not trying to make you feel guilty. It is not guilt that I am hanging onto myself. I am reminding us of our duty. Either you do it or you don’t but it remains yours to do. Why then I ask you, as I ask myself, to we keep coming up with stupid reasons to hang onto fifty cents. To hang onto five dollars. When you stand before your creator at the end of your life I don’t think you’re going to reach into your pocket and say to yourself, “phewf those two quarters are still there!” In fact I think if you find them there you’re going to feel kind of sick. Why do we desperately cling to caring for ourselves in this life. Why do we violently defend ourselves. This life is short and our comfort here ultimately matters little. I urge you friends to prepare for what is to come.
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| "Beach View" Hotel |
We spent most of yesterday getting ourselves organized.
I am trying hard not to just list off everything that upset or disappointed me about this weekend. I mention that only because I'm sure it's hard to tell based on the amount of negativity. I was not exactly impressed by the whole experience. Our beach view hotel, did not have a view of the beach. And that was maybe actually a blessing in disguise I realized after seeing the beach. The tourist and life guards on the beach were however extremely amusing so that did help to make up for all the nasty of the beach. The life guards wear these hilarious white pointed plastic elf hats. I think so that you can identify them but they look so ridiculous.
Then today we got up at the crack of dawn, which seemed highly unnecessary, and we took a bus two hours to Chilica Lake. We got on a boat which we thought would take us across the lake to see the bird migration and maybe some rare dolphins. The whole process was kind of caotic. We were told to be at the bus to leave Puri at 6:30am and we got back at around 5:30pm. We had only junk food to eat all day. I do so well on minimal blood sugar levels, not!
I am trying hard not to just list off everything that upset or disappointed me about this weekend. I mention that only because I'm sure it's hard to tell based on the amount of negativity. I was not exactly impressed by the whole experience. Our beach view hotel, did not have a view of the beach. And that was maybe actually a blessing in disguise I realized after seeing the beach. The tourist and life guards on the beach were however extremely amusing so that did help to make up for all the nasty of the beach. The life guards wear these hilarious white pointed plastic elf hats. I think so that you can identify them but they look so ridiculous.
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| Dead dog on the beach |
Then today we got up at the crack of dawn, which seemed highly unnecessary, and we took a bus two hours to Chilica Lake. We got on a boat which we thought would take us across the lake to see the bird migration and maybe some rare dolphins. The whole process was kind of caotic. We were told to be at the bus to leave Puri at 6:30am and we got back at around 5:30pm. We had only junk food to eat all day. I do so well on minimal blood sugar levels, not!
We drove around the lake most of the day. It was strangely cold, for India. I couldn’t even make fun of the people in balaclavas today, as I was shivering in my scarf and sweaters. I even sunk so low as to put socks on in my sandals. Although I’m pretty sure that’s stylish here. Since everyone does it I am less ashamed, anyways.
We saw a couple of dolphins surface for air which was cool but that was about it.
We saw a couple of dolphins surface for air which was cool but that was about it.
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| These are legitimately beach life guards ...they wear these hats on duty! |
Please do not feel sorry for us. We are not feeling sorry for ourselves.
We are really feeling the prayer support and if you’re the type that does pray please continue to remember us, as we learn so much here.