upon arrival

Oct. 11

I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. It’s hard to believe. The voyage here was a draining ordeal – a 7-hour flight to Amsterdam, a 4 hour stopover, an 8 hour flight to Delhi, almost 12 hours in the Delhi airport, then an hour’s flight to Varanasi. By the end of the journey (39 hours door to door) we were barely dragging our weary bodies through the airport chaos. We’d slept briefly in all kinds of odd ways and places – on the plane, twisted in the seat, curled up on top of our suitcases in the Delhi airport. The relief of stepping off the last plane and discovering that all of our luggage had actually arrived, and then seeing one of our organizatoin’s managers beaming and waving at us was a wonderful moment of relief.
We were greeted warmly, and driven in to Delhi in a jeep with the luxury of A/C – much appreciated in the 30something degree heat. The drive in to town from the airport, which is on the edge of town, took close to an hour, and Andria (the other Canadian-born intern) and I satred transfixedly out of the window. At first, the streets were tree-lined, and the cars and people were relatively few, but soon the trees petered out, the dusty haze grew thicker, and there were cars and trucks and men and women and children and cattle and sheep and goats all fighting ffor a spot on the narrow road between the jumbled shops and ramshackle stalls selling everything imaginable. The car was hardly moving quickly, but it was still passing things too quickly for me to process and comprehend what I was seeing. Finally, we turned down a narrow alleyway between decrepit buildings, forcing pedestrians to flatten themselves against the wall to let us past, and stopped just behind our new office and home, the Ganga Mahal, giving us our first view of the sacred river Ganga.
We were greeted by several of the WLC managers, and by Meeraji, the housekeeper of the Ganga Mahal, and the woman who will be cooking us two yummy Indian meals each day. Meeraji performed the traditional welcoming ceremony of placing garlands of marigolds around our necks and streaking our foreheads with orange. The garland is hanging by my bedside now, and I inhale its sweetness every time the stench of open sewers and other interesting things wafts overwhelmingly through the window.
We stood on the balcony overlooking the river for a little while, drinking sweet milky chai and talking with our new colleagues, until fatigue overwhelmed me and Andria, and we excused ourselves to pass out for a couple hours in the clean, pleasant little room we’ll be sharing. When I woke at six, to the sound of a bell being rung as part of an evening prayer,I was disoriented and unsure for a few moments where I was. The sun had set, and the Ghat (stone steps to the river) was lit with candles and lamps. The third intern, Prashant, had been out for a few hours. He was here for three months last winter to volunteer, and knew exactly how he wanted to spend his first few hours here – he took a boat out to the middle of the river, where it’s cleanest, and dove in, and then made his rounds greeting old friends around the neighbourhood. He returned just as we woke up, and we sat down to the superb meal of an eggplant and potato dish, daal and chapattis that meeraji had prepared. In the evening we went for a short walk on the ghants, with prashant guiding us, and stopping to greet his acquaintances at the chai stalls. He speaks pretty good Hindi, and so is able to communicate with everyone and do a little translating for us. Though it was early in the evening it was completely dark out, and lamps hung from posts near the river – a part of the lead-up to the Diwali, the coming festival of light, these are lit for the ancestors. We bought little candles nestled among marigolds in a bowl made from a pressed leaf, and lanunched them amongst the others on the Ganga, as a little prayer as thanksgiving. After a quick email-check (we have high speed here in the Ganga Mahal, which is a nice comfort) we collapsed wearily in to bed.