We arrived late that night at our hotel in New Delhi. We checked in at the front lobby, they held our passports at the front desk and didn’t have computerized check in. I had to sign by my room number in a really large notebook. Our room was huge, actually 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms with a small kitchen area, living room, and a balcony overlooking the street. You had to have the key in this box on the wall to have electricity on in the room.
In the bathroom, I soon discovered a smell that came home with me in my suitcase. A moth ball is placed in all the drains to prevent odors from sewage with a plastic pitcher near the drain for cleaning oneself. With the heat, the bathroom was not cooled, the moth ball smell becomes intense. This occurred in both places we stayed!
We had 4 ladies rooming together for the night in Delhi, 3 to start and then one that got in from Brazil during the night. We crashed and then had to get up fairly early to get our luggage downstairs and eat breakfast because we had to catch a flight from New Delhi to Guwahati. 2 of my roomies got up early for a run and by the time I was up, they were all chatting on the couch! Even in India, I had a hard time with early mornings! I ate my first taste of fresh naan for breakfast, with toast and fruit jam, fried looking doughnut type things, and ½ of an omelet. The hotel reminded me of something from an Indian Jones movie with all of the decorations, textures, and colors.
We all met in the lobby after breakfast, where many people who had been on a mission with Op Smile started trying to remember the names of all the team members. This is where I first heard rumors of the top secret, so called “Name Game”. (More elaboration to follow on this anxiety causing but super funny and fun game that had us all laughing out loud). We hopped on the buses that took us to the airport. The airport had all kinds of cool food, lots of vegetarian snacks and sandwiches! When we went through security, all of us women had a separate, covered stall that looked like a shower with a female to search us. The airplanes were parked in rows with names that amused me….IndiGo & SpiceJet.
The plane we boarded was out on a runway and just like in the movies, we had to walk across the concrete and go up a little covered staircase to board! The King Fisher plane was only air conditioned when it was running so it was fairly hot while we waited to leave. The flight attendants were beautiful and it reminded me of what the chubby Indian man told me on the plane from the US. He had said Indian airlines only hire single, young, beautiful people to work and that they have really clean, new airplanes and great service. All of which seemed to be true! We had another full, Indian meal on the plane ride and landed at around 5pm in Guwahati where once again I noticed all of the military presence. Once we landed, we all gathered our luggage and headed to bus/van type vehicles. We took an approximately one hour drive to our final destination. We had to dodge many a people, cars, bikes, cows, goats and even tiny baby goats on a main road going at fairly high speeds without traffic lights or many signs. There was a lot of honking, a lot of stop and go and alot of poverty that could be seen as we made our way deeper into Guwahati.
We arrived at the hotel, got settled in and then headed to our first team dinner and meeting. At the team dinner there was more whispered mention of “The Name Game“. Our food options were amazing, we had a huge, fresh, Indian buffet. I had the pleasure of listening to the founder of Operation Smile, Bill Magee. Both he and his wife Kathy had come on this mission! He gave a very inspiring message that brought tears to my eyes. It was such an honor to listen to him as he talked to us about Operation Smile and said that when you have a dream, even when people say it isn’t possible, that there is a way that just hasn’t been thought of yet. It is so true! We all got to introduce ourselves and heard from each of our team leaders about the schedule and how things would run. Then we headed back to our rooms to get some sleep.
My roommate was a hysterically funny gal named Sharon who had been on 17 missions. We soon realized that the electricity was going to be intermittently off and on. It lasted only a few seconds and did make for some super exciting elevators rides during the rest of the mission. Our beds had small, flat mattresses that turned out to be very comfortable. I placed some drops of eucalyptus citriodora around our mattress to keep any bugs away, rubbed in some DEET and we hit the hay with breakfast starting a 630 am the next morning. Game On!
Full album can be seen here!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024493&id=1034451463&l=7f1d9f3457
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