Elephants, Monkeys and Buses, Oh My!

(Post by Kristie)
After breakfast at the Radisson, we headed on our way to Aligarh. We were quickly enveloped by a mass of cars - seven lanes of them spanning the three lanes painted on. Motorcycles and bikes weaved in and out, the whole time we heard honking horns. The horns are encouraged - especially by the buses, whose backsides proudly display "Blow Horn" to let them know where you're at.

The trip was a sensory overload of people and cars and more people and auto rickshaws and colors and dust and a few more people. We were all so very tired, but tried very hard to stay awake, dozing just a few times. We saw many interesting things on the way - monkeys and elephants and dogs (Gina - they looked Paraguayan purebreds!) and buses and waving children on the backs of buses who giggled when we smiled. But in all that there's something we didn't see - an accident. It's magic. Jesse keenly observed, "I think the white lines are merely a suggestion."

After arriving in Aligarh, we were graciously welcomed by some of the Rotary members and leaders, and were treated to a delicious lunch. From there, we settled in at our host houses - Jesse and Jason stayed at the first house, Amy and I traveled to another, and Brian to yet another - to take naps. Glorious naps.

Finally, we experienced our first Rotary Club meeting of the trip and were welcomed warmly by the members and their families. It was great fun to see children laughing and playing with each other at the meeting, and they were very fun to talk to afterwards. The meeting consisted of several presentations to Rotarian doctors who had been performing volunteer work at a free medical clinic. We gave our presentations, and then were presented with banners from the district as well as a "gift of love" - a trophy with our names printed on.

Now we're off to bed for a good night's sleep. We'll be here for a few more days, as our hosts smartly built in a few days of rest for us to regain our energy.

And a quick note for friends and family that are new to blogging - if you'd like to leave a comment, you can do so for all of us at the end of each post. Eventually posts start rotating off the front page, FYI.

Love to all back home!