The adventures of 2010-2011 exchange student: Cameron Houser - December 2010
June 14, 2011 by cladmin
This month I have been very busy. My family and I celebrated the Muslim New Year . I have also continued hanging out with my Indian college friends. But I have also started hanging out with the other Exchange Students more often. We often meet for birthday parties, to see movies, or just to hang out. My friend Marion hosted a really fun party where we all made delicious crepes! I have also joined a gym with my friend Christian. It makes the days go by even faster when you get up earlier and have more of a schedule. Time in Mumbai is flying by!
In the middle of December, we went on the Kutch Trip. Kutch is in Gujarat; about 8 hours away by train. It is a truly beautiful place. We spent a lot of time at Kutch Festival events, which were going on at the time. The first day we spent at an Ashram, or compound. This one happened to be a ROTARY funded orphanage. It only had the bare essentials but it was a pretty nice place. It was also much colder, not cold enough for snow, but cold enough that you had to wear a jacket at night. Thus all the Ashram workers wore these scarves . . . but only on their heads, and in combination with their dusty clothes, gave them the appearance of some crazy desert people out of a Star Wars movie. There were also seven of the cutest puppies I had ever seen living at the Ashram. They were much cleaner than the dogs of Mumbai and were so innocent and adorable.
The first night we went to a festival which included a parade displaying the culture of Kutch. It was full of color, traditional dance routines, and some pretty ingenious floats. They even allowed some of the exchange students to join in with some of the danced. We all had a lot of fun.
The next day we visited a large mountain with an incredible view of a white desert. The desert is white because it's created by the lowering of the sea which leaves large salt deposits, thus allowing nothing to grow and leaving a thin white layer of salt on top of the ground. Eventually the desert meets the Arabian Sea. There was also a bridge showing the India-Pakistan border. It was extremely beautiful and we all spent about an hour just in one spot trying to get the perfect picture.
Later on we actually road our bus to the same white desert and took a camel drawn cart even further into the desert where a large temporary stage had been built. It was a little disappointing, because we thought we were going to actually ride the camels, but it was fine because we did get to ride them the next day. While we waited for the play to begin we watched on of the most beautiful sunsets I had even seen. The bright orange light slowly sinking into an endless expanse of white sand, truly unique and beautiful. Soon after sunset, a full moon and some lights illuminated the stage and we watched a play about Ram. Ram is an incarnation of the Hindu God, Vishne, is is usually viewed as the "Ideal man". We didn't understand a lot of what was spoken, but most of us had seen this story before. Finally we had a late night camel cart ride back to the bus and then back to the Ashram.
The next day we visited a large mansion; it used to be the palace for the king of the area and is still owned by the same family. It wasn't anything spectacular until we went on the the roof. The terrace offered a great view of the surrounding jungle and the sea in the distance. It also had some great architecture and we spent almost and hour taking pictures of it and each other.
Later that afternoon we went to another beautiful beach, though slightly polluted. It was still a great improvement over the beaches of Mumbai. We got to go on horse and camel rides as the sun set, all for less that a dollar. The camel rides were actually cool, they are much higher than a horse and can move faster than you would think! We we got back to the Ashram, we ate dinner, had a campfire and played some slightly childish but fun games.
The last day we went to a large white temple with some incredible sculpting. Later we visited yet another small mansion/museum. Right after we all went shopping in a nearby bazaar. Riina (a friend) definitely enjoyed the shopping, but I couldn't find anything in my size! Later on we went to a small ROTARY funded and somewhat abandoned looking amusement park, but all the rides were free and we just had fun goofing around with each other and riding bumper cars! At around nine p.m. we headed to the train station. Our train departed at around 11 and after a long and slightly stressful ride we arrived safely home the next afternoon.