India #3 First Day April 21, 2009
We left USA on tues, arrived in Delhi Wed at 8 pm, slept over. Met in our room at 7:30 for a devotional. Ate a great breakfast, drivers picked us up for airport at 8:30, flew to Varanasi at 10 am Thurs. Bro & Sis Tanner met us in Delhi and flew with us. We got to hotel at 12, met at 1 to go shopping. We walked down an alley and found an ancient weavers' shop. They led us in and to our astonishment we watched old men on swaying benches weaving most awesome cloth. Click click went my camera- not doing it justice. They explained in detail history and technique. Our mouths' dropped as our minds could hardly take it all in. They took us upstairs, sat us down, brought us drinks, and gave us a show of their wares. AWESOME experience. I now know fine weave. We met Barry in the lobby with news Dr. Thacker had arranged for cars and a boat trip down the Ganges River at 5:30. I passed out granola bars and fruit snacks and we were picked up and driven almost to our graves once again on the roads of India. How to explain the fear, agony, and humor of our drives is beyond me. I am wishing for my old trusty video camera for the loss of words. It is beyond description. Maybe another time.







We were met by 30 small children with large, sad, desperate eyes, offering small candles/flower petals in a tiny ceramic bowl to light and float in the river. A 17 yr old boy and I had a great converse. His folks both gone to the beyond, he's had several jobs supporting himself. He wanted to look at his picture, then he shook my hand and we connected.
By the time we arrived, the light was dimming quickly. We boarded a very nice, large boat with an chugging engine as the African Queen. We chugged up stream passed all the old Palaces and passed 4 funerals burning their dead to push their ashes into the filthy river. We watched 18 Holy Men in perfect synchronized chanting, bell ringing, smoke moving, candle streaking, etc routine - with a chanting and bell ringing crowd on land and in a hundred small, medium, and our large boat in the river..




















If you can imagine this spectacle. The boat Captain's man put paint on our foreheads-a smear on the men, and a dot for the women. (when he came to me, I had watched him smear a long stroke across his forehead. He didn't want to touch me (they do not like to touch woman). He held the cup of paint out for me to use. I smeared it on like he did dads. He got the silly look on his face and took it away from me and wiped off my smear and He put a thumb dot on-for female. We were then offered a dark tea-which dad and I took, he drank a sip, I held it trying to figure out how I could dump it w/o being caught. 10 mins. latter they came for empty cups, and I gave them mine full-nothing was said. They brought potato chips, cashews, a coke, and sweet cookies. I took them and carefully maneuvered them into my backpack. It was a very long ceremony. My head nodded and I know I fell to sleep over and over-we are sleep deprived. Finally we chugged back and walked through another smaller ceremony just finishing at the port. The worshipers all came down to the river to bathe, or splash onto themselves. Naveen told dad that it is their way of connecting to their ancestors. Their ashes were scattered into the river and now they splash their remains onto themselves

Dad was a wonderful teacher. They didn't get his hu mor at first, but as he went on, he had them 'hi fiving' and doin the 'moon walk'