Bidar and Basavakalyan
On Tuesday, January 8th, after an 8 hour train trip, we arrived in Bidar where we were taken to our host homes to rest. I think all of the team did just that but myself as I had been invited by my host to the once day a year annual harvest festival to mark the start of the sugar cane harvest. It was really just a large group of friends sitting around (men on mats under a tent with lots of food and women under a tree on a blanket also with great quantities of food. I had the opportunity to meet a fair number of the doctors and dentists and politicians in town…most of whom are Rotarians.
On the 9th we were fitted for sari blouses but the tailor arrived nearly two hours after the assigned time so our day got started around noon rather than at 9 as planned. We were off to Fort Bidar, used as a mountainous fortification under several generations of kings between 800 and 1300AD. One feels so finite when there is such age and majesty and size surrounding you and this was no exception. By 1:30 when we were due to be back at the Club for lunch the temps were pushing mid 90s. Following lunch the team all went off to the engineering college with Basavaraj (one of our incoming team members who will be visiting us for the months of April/May). He also took them to a Bidri craft center…traditional stone crafts made of iron and zinc so that they remain very hard and shiny. That evening we met with three clubs jointly to do our presentation, charter and pin members of a new Rotary and a new Rotaract (for 18 to 25 year olds) and I got to as the only District Dignitary present award 8 Paul Harris Fellow Awards. I understand that 3 of the 5 newspapers are funning feature articles with photos tomorrow.
This morning after breakfast, we were off by Road to Basavakalayan by road. 80Km and not fast moving, Our first stop was at the dental College of Bidar where they wanted to show us the mobile Dental Clinic they had gotten from a matching grant from Missouri USA District 6060. With the equipment they carry aboard, they can treat or assess 8 chairs full of patients outside the van under an awning and do surgeries on two in the chairs inside. Serious procedures such as complicated extractions, crowns, root canals must be referred back to the dental college but with this vehicle they can assess and treat 100,000 patients that would have no way to get to the dental clinic.
Following that stop a visit was made to a government primary school with children 6-12 years of age. The sit on slate floors and study all day with no desks or chairs. The local clubs have been buying desk chair combos for them, are putting in a well and a water filter.
On to the School for the blind where not only are the students blind but the principal, vice principal and several of the teachers are as well. We had the joy of presenting to them braille writers from the Rotary Clubs. Next the adult vocational center for the blind where groups of men and women sat around the property playing music, weaving, preparing food. They have just gotten a grant to start construction of a 20x30 foot hall for the school so students have shelter in inclement weather, We also dispensed braille writers, and white canes to those at the center.
On to Basavakalyan Clubs (2) for our presentation and lunch. We got there at 2:30 and they’d been planning on us for both breakfast and lunch! Time is very otherworldly there. After the presentation, they showed us the schedule which had us visiting 5 Hindu temples, an ancient fort, first parliament, a hospital. We told them we could not see any of them as we needed to be back in Bidar at 6 and it was already after 4 and it was a 2 hour drive. They offered to lead us out of town. In doing so we ended up at two temples and a hospital where several of the Rotarians were in a “forward thinking physician’s conglomeration". They have 8 different specialists, a lab, X-ray, infusion room to treat typhoid fever and it reminded me for all the world of the hospitals here of 40 years ago. Wonderful and congenial hosts who insisted on taking us to their homes in the hospital complex and serving us coconut milk and fresh squeezed juices.
I thought we were done till we ended up at another temple at 6:30PM. The team went off to explore and I had a private session with some children coming home from school. After the car overheating and needing to stop to rest on the way back, we arrived back here at 8:30 with dinner scheduled for 8. We have not been so dirty to this point so came home and tried to wash the grime off as best we could. One of the women bowed out to rest while the rest of us went into town for dinner at 9:15 and home by 10:30PM. Tomorrow we are out of here at 9am for Gulbarga by car ( a three hour drive) and the whole process starts in a different area. Most of us plan to ship home some of the many gifts we’ve received from clubs while here (glasses, vases, statues, books…things that will be difficult to find room in luggage for anymore.)
It’s now well after midnight so I am going to try and get this posted along with some photos. I don’t know what kind of communication facilities we weill find on this next leg of the journey, Oh…It’s been a week and Chris still doesn’t have his luggage. The last we heard it would be midnight tonight which is already past.
I’ll be in touch soon.~~~~~~~~Cherie