The motel room was wonderful last night but I woke up with awful abdominal pains. Maybe from too many eggs? We moved to Gadag and every bump in the road was torture. By the time we got to Gadag I was feeling better but still not feeling right. We were greeted by the Rotary of Gadag and shown an ancient temple which had a store room of 500-600 year old documents. I was not feeling too good and accidently left my camera on the bus so I don’t have photos. The documents were written in Sanskrit(?) and on leaves and homemade paper of some kind. They were just wrapped in fabric and stored on shelves behind glass doors in the temple. The preservation was at a minimum, really, and the man opened them up to show us. I just hope they last another 500 years!
We wandered through a commerce expo but it was under a huge tent with no breeze and felt like 110 degrees or it would have been very interesting. We all went to our new host’s homes where mine was a woman for the first time. She has a PhD in English which is really helpful and she let me go right to bed to rest before a late lunch. Her mother cooked a great meal but I had no room to put it and couldn’t eat much. I went sparingly on the onions and raw cabbage.
One thing that is probably not helping the bronchitis is the air quality here in India. The air makes NYC air seem like it’s been purified. When we first got off the jet in Mumbai, we all noticed this nasty, strong, smoke/smog smell. Within a few hours it went away because we got used to it but it is still there. The haze layer is thick. It is not from the higher industries we have visited, they are definitely doing their part to prevent air pollution, but from the trash that people burn and the sugar factories. Belgaum and Kolhapur had a lot of sugar cane and factories and they produced a black smoke you could see for miles. Also, everywhere you go there is trash burning. I really haven’t seen much in the way of garbage disposal in India, just a few ignored dumpsters in Darward(?). The people really don’t produce much trash like Americans do, but they have no methods of disposal. Most of the trash seems to be plastics, wrappers, and packaging. All of my hosts’ homes have had an absence of trash cans leaving me with a little dilemma occasionally. They use towels instead of paper, fresh foods instead of packaged, etc. everywhere you go there are piles of trash, I mean, more trash than I’ve seen in my life. Everywhere. And there are always smelly little fires going to burn it up. There are dogs, buffalo, chickens and sows rooting in the garbage for anything they can find. Jennifer has become a vegetarian too. They also burn off the fields to freshen and fertilize them. I’m sorry if I grossed anyone out but it’s the truth. And cockroaches are getting to be a pretty common sight although I haven’t seen one rat or mouse yet, it probably would get eaten by a stray dog anyway. I am grateful to be staying in Rotarians homes which are quite clean and comforting.
We visited a music school for the blind and were given a beautiful performance by several of the musicians. They asked if any of us wanted to sing and Elizabeth got up and did an Italian opera solo that was amazing. We visited the Rotary school and I still find it amazing how they can do so much with so little. In America, schools are always looking for funding for this, that, or the other thing, and cutting programs for lack of money, while here they have no money, ask for little, build their own desks, sit on the floor if they have to, have only a few books to speak of, yet the children are possibly better educated than American children. They seem to progress at the pace they need with children of various ages in the same grade. Also, all of the children are tri-lingual: Hindi, English, and the state language. We peeked at the books they were using and saw what lessons were on the board and they are doing very well with almost nothing. It is really admirable. It rather reminds me of America a century ago where the children walked several miles to school in a small one or two-room school house (these schools do have a room for each grade) and each student progressed as they gained the knowledge to go to the next level. They aren’t being pushed and shuffled through just to get a diploma and then can’t count change at the food store. These children are really learning.
We also went to see a weaving mill and saw the Rotary eye clinic.
We wandered through a commerce expo but it was under a huge tent with no breeze and felt like 110 degrees or it would have been very interesting. We all went to our new host’s homes where mine was a woman for the first time. She has a PhD in English which is really helpful and she let me go right to bed to rest before a late lunch. Her mother cooked a great meal but I had no room to put it and couldn’t eat much. I went sparingly on the onions and raw cabbage.
One thing that is probably not helping the bronchitis is the air quality here in India. The air makes NYC air seem like it’s been purified. When we first got off the jet in Mumbai, we all noticed this nasty, strong, smoke/smog smell. Within a few hours it went away because we got used to it but it is still there. The haze layer is thick. It is not from the higher industries we have visited, they are definitely doing their part to prevent air pollution, but from the trash that people burn and the sugar factories. Belgaum and Kolhapur had a lot of sugar cane and factories and they produced a black smoke you could see for miles. Also, everywhere you go there is trash burning. I really haven’t seen much in the way of garbage disposal in India, just a few ignored dumpsters in Darward(?). The people really don’t produce much trash like Americans do, but they have no methods of disposal. Most of the trash seems to be plastics, wrappers, and packaging. All of my hosts’ homes have had an absence of trash cans leaving me with a little dilemma occasionally. They use towels instead of paper, fresh foods instead of packaged, etc. everywhere you go there are piles of trash, I mean, more trash than I’ve seen in my life. Everywhere. And there are always smelly little fires going to burn it up. There are dogs, buffalo, chickens and sows rooting in the garbage for anything they can find. Jennifer has become a vegetarian too. They also burn off the fields to freshen and fertilize them. I’m sorry if I grossed anyone out but it’s the truth. And cockroaches are getting to be a pretty common sight although I haven’t seen one rat or mouse yet, it probably would get eaten by a stray dog anyway. I am grateful to be staying in Rotarians homes which are quite clean and comforting.
We visited a music school for the blind and were given a beautiful performance by several of the musicians. They asked if any of us wanted to sing and Elizabeth got up and did an Italian opera solo that was amazing. We visited the Rotary school and I still find it amazing how they can do so much with so little. In America, schools are always looking for funding for this, that, or the other thing, and cutting programs for lack of money, while here they have no money, ask for little, build their own desks, sit on the floor if they have to, have only a few books to speak of, yet the children are possibly better educated than American children. They seem to progress at the pace they need with children of various ages in the same grade. Also, all of the children are tri-lingual: Hindi, English, and the state language. We peeked at the books they were using and saw what lessons were on the board and they are doing very well with almost nothing. It is really admirable. It rather reminds me of America a century ago where the children walked several miles to school in a small one or two-room school house (these schools do have a room for each grade) and each student progressed as they gained the knowledge to go to the next level. They aren’t being pushed and shuffled through just to get a diploma and then can’t count change at the food store. These children are really learning.
We also went to see a weaving mill and saw the Rotary eye clinic.
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