d-i-s-t ENTER!

It has been a full week since leaving Lucknow last Wednesday.

A monkey outside the office where we worked.  I didn't keep track, but a team member told me they came at the same time each afternoon. 

Wednesday we presented our design to the client and around ten of his employees.  I had the opportunity to start, explaining the architectural design, implementation, etc.  We had been working very hard up until this point, as it was a matter of eight days we had to begin, design, and re-design after our first progress meeting.  It was beneficial working closely with the engineers on our team to gain a better understanding of their own design process and how it relates to architecture.  They received the design well, so everyone was pleased; we were on a bit of a tight schedule, so we finished presenting, enjoyed our last home-cooked Lucknow lunch, and I was also able to get some henna.  Yes!  The niece of the ministry director painted it on Jenna, the other female on our trip, and myself, and I must say she did quite a lovely job.  I really like henna, so even though we didn't have time to go to the market, we still received some beautiful henna.

Our work was broken up by play-time with the kids.

Huberth, our team leader, + I in the coolest room of the office.

Our final presentation to the client before heading back to Delhi to complete the conceptual design; progress after seven days.

After a nice, cool train ride back to Delhi, we had to go to sleep soon thereafter because a taxi came to pick us up at 6am for our adventure to Agra, to see the Taj Mahal.   The Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the world.  Our culture has built up this grand construct and anticipation of going to these ancient, important places.  And with good reason, it's beautiful and rich in culture, craft, and heritage.  So, I think we surround the place itself, in our minds, with all kinds of rainbows and unicorns, as though it is on as much physical display as cultural.  And yet, what was interesting in terms of this, is that the Taj Mahal site was almost wedged into the urban fabric of the bustling, old, ragged area of Agra.  Right outside there are little shacks of stores, a stream of sewage, and plenty of shop-owners heckling you to buy their t-shirts instead of their neighbors'.  Once inside, it is quite a beautiful place.  If you think about it, we always see photos of the outside of the Taj Mahal, and that's because we're not allowed to take photos inside, but also, we are only allowed inside of a very small amount of it, an equivalent perhaps of the accessibility of Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom (yes, Disney reference... my mind has been comparing the 'imitation' thing to the 'real' thing of many places I've been visiting, with my large Disney-going background and working on some Disney design at my last internship).  


We were plenty tired, hot, and very thirsty by the time we made it past all the grounds and to the mausoleum, so we made it out in good time and proceeded to drink, and drink, and drink juice and water.  That is when hydration tastes best, after all.  


After a horse-buggy ride back to the parking lot, and getting a flat tire fixed on the taxi, we finally arrived home to our flat in Delhi.  The next day involved relatively little travel, as we started work in the office, then proceeded to spend my teammates' last few hours together enjoying a little bit of Delhi; three of our team members were here for Lucknow only, and either headed to Prague as a pit stop or back to the States.  They are missed!  But the rest of us interns had to go to sleep soon enough to wake up for our 4am taxi, 5am train ride, to arrive in Jaipur mid-morning.  We had the opportunity to go to Elefantastic, an elephant farm where you get to play with, feed, paint, and ride the elephants.  It was an experience!  Good: I really enjoyed riding the elephants bare-backed and 'steer' it by riding on the head.  They are so massive, you can feel its body, bones, and whole self sway back and forth with each stride.  It's also fun when they enjoy playing - at one point one reached its trunk over to grab something in my hand while I was playing with another one - so many elephants!  I also got to paint a design on one of them.  Later in the afternoon we let the elephants leave, we enjoyed some good chai, then we drove over to meet them at a nature preserve where we went on a 'safari.'   There were lions and tigers, in cages, which is probably for the best.  Oh, and for the bad: I'm not exactly meant to live the life of an elephant trainer.  We didn't eat dinner, after a long day beginning at 4am, until around 1030, then were supposed to wake up at 4am the next day to help send the elephants off to wherever they were going for the day (accidentally slept through that one, whoops...).  But the weekend didn't end there; we were delivered to Amber Fort, an  ancient, extensive palace high on a hill, then swung over to Nahagargh Fort, a smaller place, but some monkey were hanging out, taking a nap in a barred off room, which was cool, then we headed down into the city and stopped at Jantar Mantar, a really cool astronomy site where an old astronomer (dubbed a title signifying he was 125% genius) created all of these monuments that captured different aspects of the world's cycles, ranging from time of day to season to zodiac.  It's amazing to think such large concepts were grasped and captured to view - a phenomenon - before modern technology.  It was finally time to head back to the train station, jump on the right one, sit back, and watch the countryside pass by.  It ends up I wasn't watching out the window much because I didn't realize I was in a backwards-facing seat.


The last couple of days have definitely smoothed out as we've been working regular hour days in the EMI office.  It's nice to switch between the two, but especially so because we start each day with worship songs or a devotional discussion.  Today we discussed judgement and how, as Christians, we typically view this as a negative thing, that God judges us when we do bad things and, pretty universally speaking,  NO ONE likes that!  We don't like when God, nor man, judges us, because we like to be in control and make up our own rules.  But God's judgement upon the world also brings justice and law, and we should certainly give thanks for laws, as anarchy is nothing to embrace, when man is in control.


I also had the pleasure to listening to a sermon of my good ol' pastor, Richard, back in Seattle.  He discussed our need to not just listen to the Word, but actually take action.  As a lover of the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he read a quote that I find relevant to my current state of affairs.

Ricky, the ministry director's wife & children's home organizer, and myself, before parting.

We didn't have time to go to the market, but the client family's niece did some henna for me.  I was so excited, and she did a great job!

In Agra, we took a mile-long horse buggy from the ticket booth to the entrance of the Taj Mahal.

Entry building to the Taj Mahal.

Me + a wonder of the world.

Tired, thirsty, and hot outside the mausoleum.

Clinging too much to our desires easily prevents us from being what we ought to be and can be.  Desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of the present duty make us conversely all the richer able to bless when people desperately need blessing. _D.B.