Chennai in the Rear View Mirror

It has been a difficult and discouraging visit to Chennai, and we feel a certain sense of relief to see it behind us. When Ray fell ill, that was enough to put our program into turmoil, but it was considerably exacerbated by the rains. Thunderstorms continued to dump water on our heads, on the streets, into the parking lot of the hotel, into the hotel, into our rooms, into the elevator shaft—do you get the picture? Due to Ray's illness, he could not take the pulpit on Sunday morning, so that task fell to me. I was not expecting to face 800 to 1000 smiling faces! Fortunately, they remained smiling, and Emmanuel must have done a good job with the Tamil side since the message was well received! When we got back to the hotel, the parking lot was filling again, and by supper time it was coming in the front doors. We were hearing reports of flight cancellations, and the vehicle people were doing lots of hand-wringing about how long it might take to get to the airport in the morning, and jacking up the prices! To make a long story short, we have arrived in Bagdogra, India. It's a suburb of a bigger centre called Siliguri, and you may be able to find that one more easily. The longer version—it's been a long, tough day. We were up at 4:45 to attempt a run to the airport through the flooded streets of Chennai. The hotel was back to taking on water after another night of thunderstorms, so we had to wade into the water to get to the vehicle. The vehicle price had more than tripled, but we were stranded, and they knew it! We made the trip successfully, and were promptly informed that our flight was delayed, so we had an extended stay and they wouldn't even let us check-in until 8:30. After that things got better. The flight was about 1 hour late, but we had the same plane from Chennai to Kolkata to Bagdogra, so at least we didn't have to worry about connections. Once here, we have made connections with the school, and met with Naresh over the program at his school for tomorrow and Wednesday! It feels very good to see the prospects of a good program coming together. We feel very badly about how little of our program worked out in Chennai, and even though it's in the past now, we feel like there remains unfinished business there—another time, I hope!