kolkata day 3

Early this morning when it was still dark outside, I snapped awake from the middle of a bad dream. In this dream I was back home at my house running, trying to get away from a hooded figure wearing a bright, red Indian scarf. I could see no face, but as I was trying to run from room to room, it would suddenly appear and when I closed my eyes in the dream, the image of the being would flash rapidly, repeatedly in my mind. Sometimes it would reach out to me with a shadowy arm. When I woke up, I could not erase the image from my mind. I prayed continually and sang praise songs until the morning dawned and the rooftops were flooded with light. Only then did I finally fall back asleep and had a couple more peaceful hours of rest before waking again to embrace the new day.

I wanted to share this with you because it made it very evident to me that we truly are surrounded by a spiritual darkness in this place. I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a nightmare until last night. When I woke up I was scared, but it was comforting to know that God truly is with us. He is in this place and more powerful than any force of darkness we may encounter. Our Lord reigns and we have nothing to fear. Thank you so much for your prayers while we have been here and please please please! continue to be praying for us and the beautiful people of this country, who are so in need of the love and grace that we experience in knowing Christ.

That being said, I’m excited tell you a little about our day! As usual, it was very full, busy and exciting, so just a forewarning this blog entry will be super long.

After breakfast in the hotel, we boarded our bus and visited a Jain temple. Jainism is one of the lesser common religions here- less than 1% after Hinduism, which makes up about 80%, then Islam with 15%... these are rough estimates, based off of my memory, which could be off... If you are curious, definitely google it! I would, but the internet is pretty iffy here.

What I did learn is that Jainists are strict vegetarians. They respect all animals, even insects- if a mosquito tries to bite them, they will gently swat it away, but never kill it.  In other words I could never be a Jainist. Luckily though, the mosquitoes haven’t been bad so far. Some [Jainists] wear masks over their mouths to avoid inhaling an insect, and they don’t dig in the dirt because they might squish a worm, although I swear I saw someone at the temple digging in the dirt, so I’m confused. Also they don’t eat after dark because you would never notice if you ate a bug on accident. The temple was very ornate, gawdy and showy, entirely covered inside and out with mosaic glass and mirrors, sparkling in the sun and radiating so much heat you felt like you were in an oven. Some parts were very beautiful, although many of us agreed that it was borderline tacky, for lack of a better word.

While it is really easy to focus on the seemingly ridiculous aspects of some different religions, there is a definite sadness that I feel when I see people worshipping a statue, following certain rituals and building elaborate temples for gods that I do not believe exist. But this is real for the Jainists and it is so interesting to me how we believe certain things to be true. Later we walked through the streets of Kolkata and observed the artists creating statues of the various Hindu diety. It was beautiful, skilled workmanship. They created the bodies of the statues from hay and yarn, then coated them with plaster and clay, molding and sculpting the finer details of the faces and hands. But again when you think about that to the Hindu people, these statues embody the spirits of their gods and goddesses, there is once again for me a feeling of despair. I am not sure what I am to do. I have felt that way a lot this trip. Not knowing what to do. But I think we are just supposed to be, to be love to these people. To be love and grace and light and hope. We are called to love as we were first loved, and that is what we are doing the best we can, and we can have faith that God will do the rest. It has been challenging to experience a culture so different from what I have known, but I’ve loved every minute of it!

After the Jain temple we went on a ferry ride down the Ganges River, which was really nice, and the breeze felt so great. The boat was super crowded. The river was brownish green, and large branches would float down; the current was very strong. Many people were bathing in it.

For lunch, we had an amazing banana leaf lunch at a Bengali restaurant. A couple of us tried some really hot peppers that burned our throats and made our eyes water. Bad mistake. Our lunch was a couple of curry dishes, rice, a thin deep fried bread, and a potato/squash/okra/ unknown banana-slug-looking thing. We also had fish, chicken and shrimp- all served on a banana leaf. I thought it all tasted great, until dessert…there was a yogurt custard dish, which some people loved, and a mysterious leaf with unknown spices and red chewy candies that tasted kind of like soap. I did not try the leaf concoction, but I would definitely suggest asking someone who did to describe it to you. Before leaving the restaurant we asked if we could take the dishes, which is not common request among locals, but they said we could. Tracy noted that it was like the equivalent to someone asking to take the paper plates from a restaurant in the U.S. At this restaurant, the dishes are made of terra cotta, and are meant to be used once, then they are just tossed. So, many of us left the restaurant with nice little terra cotta plates, bowls or cups.

Next some of us went with Matt to visit the Film School while everyone else went back to the Hotel. We had a nice little tour of the campus and talked to a couple students. Since I don’t know anything about film, I was a little confused about what was going on half the time, but it was interesting to see the sets where they would shoot, the room full of hundreds of rolls of film, and the audio room where a student was mixing and adjusting all the audio for a movie. Ask Matt or Cameron to fill you in on this part for better details!

After the film school we decided to stop by Science City! It was so much fun. Picture OMSI, but with outdoor areas and rides. We walked through the jaws of a T. Rex and entered “Evolution Park,” stepping into the Land Before time complete with paper mache giant remote control dinosaurs. We even had the super humid rainforest jungle feel. It was great. The “Gravity Coaster” was probably the best part. All 9 of us piled into the roller coaster and we had a thrilling ride. Sandy took a video of us laughing and screaming the whole time. We got to ride through the track twice. There were also some sweet hands-on exhibits like a vertigo tunnel and a giant piano keyboard that you could step on to play. The place was so awesome. We could have spent like three hours there, but unfortunately only had like twenty minutes before we had to jet.

After a long day we ate dinner at a super cute, brightly colored restaurant called the Scoop. A few of us ordered chocolate milkshakes, which ended up being chocolate milk. Then we trekked back to our hotel, exhausted. It was another great day, and we’re packing up and leaving for Chennai in the morning. Thanks so much for reading!


jade ice