"Does India feel like home?"

Tuesday, December 12, 2006
8:13 PM Hyderabad Time
On Base

READING: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
by Barak Obama
IPod MUSIC: none


Before I left the States my Mom asked me if going back to India would feel like home. And I was like, “No.” (thinking, why would it?) But this is my third trip to the Subcontinent in less than two years. Last time I was here in Hyderabad for the majority of my 13 weeks. I didn’t really realize it before I got here but on my arrival it had only been 9 months since I had previously left. And no, Mom, India doesn’t feel like home, but some things are rather familiar.

Some things have changed here on base: They now sell Diet Coke at the general store. There is wireless internet, though its reach is limited and it doesn't always work. There are some sort wild turkey-like birds. There are a couple of new pieces of equipment in the edit suite.

But lots things are the same. A lot of the people are the same and I’ve surprised myself with how many names I've remembered. Apparently, I am not the same; though as I was recognized, several people told me I had put on weight. (All those restaurants and catered meals on the road this year didn’t do me any favors.) It wasn’t pointed out in a negative way, just in a descriptive, Indian sort of way.

The weather is tropical, lovely and the same. There have been some slight road improvements, but Hyderabad, or at least the Hyderabad I have seen so far this time is pretty much the same. The extreme poverty is the same, but still shocking, some of it close to base, some of it close to the 5-star hotels, great restaurants and other stomping grounds of the rich.

God is the same. And here in India, free from many of the distractions of home, I pray the continued growth in my relationship with him will be the same.