Ecsflemings's travel blogs:
|
|
  | |  |
Second day in Guwahati
Entry 9 of 17 | show all | print this entry |
|
The meetings with the RDs took up all of Friday and Saturday morning too. Jim explains to them how to get Associate Instructors helping them grade courses and give others ministry. He also explains how helpful it would be to have enthusiastic Promoters in each assembly. He is challenging the RDs to see 40,000 Emmaus courses used in India. Currently, there are only about 10,000 reported. In a country this size, 40,000 courses would still be a drop in the bucket. He has told them that when Emmaus is distributing this many courses with a good completion rate, he will come back for more conferences. Please pray that these men would catch the vision to get people studying the Word of God by using Emmaus courses.
This afternoon, we plan to do some sightseeing and hopefully some shopping. Tomorrow we go to meeting in the morning and then, in the afternoon, fly to Hyderabad, via Kolcata (Calcutta), arriving late, so we won't be on line until Monday sometime, if we can get on then.
LATER:
After the meetings finished we went to the bank and then I spent about an hour at the Internet place while Jim went back to the compound to pay the bills for the conference and find out what was going on for the afternoon.
It was finally decided that a brother from the chapel who has a moto-shaw would drive us around to see some of Guwahati.
The sky had darkened and it looked like rain, but it's not rainy season, so we took off with another brother, Joby John, as our tour guide cum translator. We drove along the Brahmaputra River and then wound up a hill to a Hindu temple. The marble stairway leading to the temple was lined with shops selling colorful red and gold cloths for offering food sacrifices on and marigold garlands for the gods. We even passed two calves wandering down the hill.
In the Hindu religion cows, monkey and rats are special gods and are protected and venerated. In north central India it is illegal to kill cows. While we were in the country, two South African tourists were beaten for allegedly eating or carrying beef. They call this part of India the "cow belt" because there are so many Hindus.
As we arrived at the top where the actual temple was it was drizzling. To go in to the temple area you must remove your shoes. Since the ground was wet, we decided to just look. Then it started to rain in earnest so we began our descent, but it started to pour, so we took refuge under the awning of one of the shops selling Hindu worship paraphernalia including, sacrifice cloths, brass incense burners, photos of various deities, candle holders, and stick on "dots" for foreheads. These can be bought in various colors in felt or faux gems to match outfits as well as the traditional red.
While we waited store owners covered their goods with pieces of plastic and people hurried by in the rain or under umbrellas. One boy guided a Hindu priest in saffron robes up the hill, sheltering him under his umbrella. Across the way there was a blue Hindu shrine with swastikas decorating it. Finally, Joby asked if the shop keeper had any plastic bags. With bags over our heads and an extra over my shoulders we cautiously made our way down the hill to where the three-wheeled moto-shaw and driver waited.
From there we drove back toward the compound to the Pan Bazaar to look for scarves. They didn't seem to understand what Joby was saying to them so finally Jim and I set out by ourselves and told them we'd meet them back at the compound. We wandered up and down narrow indoor alleys lined with shops, amazed that there could be so much for sale that we were not interested in. From the muezzin the mullah called faithful Muslims to the mosque to worship. The rain had stopped but the streets were wet and we had to be careful where we stepped.
In one stall we found some scarves like I had found last year in Chennai. We began looking at the different colors when they invited us to sit down in the sari shop across the alley and they brought all the scarves they had like that for us to look through. The price was 100 rupees, about $2.25. While we sorted through all the colors and discussed which ones would be useful as headcoverings and gifts, they served us small plastic cups of sweetened milky coffee. Finally we chose 5 that we liked and then said we would pay 400 rupees. They said, "Fixed price. Fixed price." So we packed up our things and got up to walk away when suddenly they said, "All right. Four hundred." Pleased with our purchase we looked some more before returning to the compound where Joby and the driver took us to Jesson Kenneth, Assamese Language Coordinator's for dinner.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by ecsflemings, from India or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
Send a message
2 votes 
