February 24, 2016
Chennai Airport
Varghese and Suja just dropped us off. The homeward journey – via London – begins.
Yesterday was a good day. My bio-clock is still a bit off, so I was up very early and had a chance to do some writing. After a wonderful Indian B-fast, Varghese and I headed back to the HBI center, where I preached (Luke 6:20f) at a chapel attended by their church planters, doctorate of ministry students an assorted others.
[coll_smart_padding max=”5″]
I then met with Malini to discuss the Christ Church partnership, staging, next steps, etc. (Apparently last night the guy who was showing us around the slum was threatened for “trying to do too much.” He thinks the prayer meeting for the boys who’s father died was the issue. There is fear that “the Christians will now want to steal the boys.” He is not deterred. A few months ago a man making similar charges chased him away with rocks. The next day they met and talked and now that man is a huge supporter of the Drop In Centers).
Around noon we drove to Nepal for a brief visit. (Varghese told me it was ten minutes walk and that we could easily cross the border. It turned out to be an hour away (by car) and it’s a bit more difficult for an American to get in and out of Nepal than an Indian, but we got it done!) There is a difference between Southern Indian (and southern Indians) and Northern Indian (and Northern Indians), and there is a small difference again between Northern Indians and Nepalese. As in all of India, the colors are bright. We rode a rickshaw around a public market and then turned around and headed back.
The traffic was so bad that we needed to have people bring our luggage from the HBI center to the airport because we would not have been able to get back to HBI and still catch our flight.
For those heading to India I have assembled my list of driving tips:
Given a choice between brakes and a horn, the horn is more important. By the way, you cannot drive until you speak “horn.” They must study it in high school. It is completely beyond me.
Lane lines are considered an interesting novelty to decorate an otherwise boring road. In general, you should be able to get two vehicles and a cow in each lane. If a bus or truck in involved, the cow may not fit. But it might, so you can certainly try.
If you are going more than fifty miles an hour, there should be six inches between you and the vehicle in front of you. Under fifty, four inches is plenty.
A moped is a wonderful family vehicle. You can take all the kids (and any nearby goats) with you to the market and return home with groceries for a month.
Red Lights mean STOP, unless: 1) you are in a hurry; 2) you are driving a big vehicle; 3) its early in the morning; 4) you were able to make eye contact with the other driver and communicate your dominance, at which point he knows that he (she) must yield.