IFYE Program & India-International Espionage-Trouble in Beruit-Arriving In India- Bus, Bus- India at a Glance

1970 IFYE's to India- [Bck Row-lft, rht]--Jane Ann, Lois, Emily, Nancy, Larry
[Frnt row-lft,rht]--Georgia, June, Janie, Bill  

'back row-Jane Ann, Lois, Emily, Nancy, Larry
Front row- Georgia, June Janie, Bill

 IFYE PROGRAM & INDIA--   This actual started before I left the Army.  As a young 4-Her I has seen an IFYE, International Farm Youth Exchange, a former Sumner County 4-Her, Wilodene Rusk, speak at Malaby 4-H. One of her slides showed a Scandinavian farmer poling a boat down a river, the boat was loaded with hay and water was only a couple of inches from coming into the boat.  There was lots of beautiful mountain scenery too.  I thought that would be so cool to visit a country like that.   When I was in the Army dad could not keep up the milking and had sold about half the cows.
        One weekend when I was home before getting out of the Army, the folks totally surprised me by saying, ''If you really want to be an IFYE the best time would be right after you get out of the Army''.   [Dad had sold about half the dairy herd while I was in the Army].  I had given up on being an IFYE years ago.  Given a new opportunity I applied through the Kansas State 4-H Office and was accepted.  Before leaving the Army I had driven a few weekends from Ft. Leonardwood, MO. to Manhattan Ks. to attend some sessions.    One of the things they seemed to stressed was pack light on clothes because they were cheap in India, but pack heavy in gifts for our families &......  T.P.,  [Toilet Paper].  
        By the time I got out of the Army I knew I was going to India as an IFYE.  Initially,  I wondered about this as India was a Hindu country and I had a strong Christian belief.  But a strange thing occurred.  I came home more deeply convinced of my religious beliefs but also with a more tolerant attitude of others religious beliefs.  I saw Hindus that came closer to living the 10 commandments than many Christians.  Many lived by what we would consider good Christian morals & values. The only thing they lacked was a belief in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Later, somewhere I read a book, don't remember the title,  saying God had created a way in every nation & culture, for the people to find him & I fully believe it.   
    4-H Considered it a Cultural Exchange, live with the people, try and understand why they do things like they do, and as much as possible live as they do.  When we got to India they were interested in the Agriculture Knowledge could pick up.  In ways it was almost a Mission Trip, you could not visit with someone 5 minutes without getting around to religion.  The wanted to know what Christianity taught & what I believed as a Christian. I had some long discussions on religion  I shared my beliefs and the reasons, and I left it to God if he wanted them to change their lives & beliefs.
       In our orientations at K-State they stressed stereotypes of people of the world. I thought what are the stero-types of India and came up with Beggars and Snake Charmers.   So I decided I would take no pictures of Beggars & Snake Charmers.
       Beggers, I discovered are mostly found only where foreign tourists go and a big majority are manipulated & exploited often deformed by thugs to play on the sympathies of tourists.  Snake Charmers in India  turned out to  be phony.  The biggest fakes/con artist of India. 

    
  NATIONAL 4-H CENTER, WASHINGTON D.C--- is where our 9 member delegation to India met for the first time:   Lois- Mo.,    Bill-Pa,    Janie -N.C.,    Jane Ann -Ky,    Georgia-Va,    Emily-Wi,    Larry & June-Ks.   We were the 1970 IFYE's to India.  

       We were told in D.C. we would be staying the first week with a couple from the Ford Foundation called Mom & Dad Wilcox, Their names were Bob & Marjorie Wilcox.   When we got to India and meet them they said call us Mom & Dad. So we did.  They had been taking IFYE groups coming to India under their wings for  10 years or so.  It is amazing how you can come closer to people in one week than people you have known all your life. 

       
  INTERNATIONAL ESPIONAGE--- Oh yes, my brief experience in international espionage, or whatever,  came as an IFYE.  National 4-H leaders during our training sessions in D.C. ask if someone in the group would take a sealed letter to the American Ambassador in New Delhi, India.  They warned if Customs in India opened it they would deny giving it to us.  No one would accept it and the meeting was just hanging there, so I Volunteered.  I went through Customs ok and I gave it to the American Ambassador at our first meeting with him. He knew my name and was expecting the letter.  Our Govt. is good about saying one thing on TV and in newspapers, but doing something else behind their back.  Example:  Our Govt.  Promised India they would not send new weapons to Pakistan, only repairs for old weapons.  So the U.S. sent big shipments of rifle stocks, barrels and trigger mechanisms to Pakistan.  India said,  ''You're sending new weapons to Pakistan''.  The U.S. said, ''No we are only sending repairs.''  But all the Pakistan Army had to do was put them all together and they had new rifles.  So, I think the letter to the U.S. Ambassador may have been  saying your going to be hearing this and that on TV and in newspaper, but we are really going to be doing thus & so.


ENGLAND & GERMANY---Our first stop after D.C. was London,  England.  There was a layover of some kind.  We got to walk around a little.  Enough to see an English Bobby or two.  In Frankfurt, Germany we were overnight.  It was in Frankfurt airport that they gave us vouchers to take a taxi to our hotel, two maybe.  We went out to the taxi stand and no taxis would take us.  There were long explanations but of course we couldn't understand why as they spoke German.  We went back inside and airport authorities assured us they were the right vouchers.  We went outside again and were refused by taxi drivers.  Finally someone was able to communicate to us that taxi's were only allowed to carry a certain number of people and that we needed another voucher.  We got one and everything was fine.  This all took some time so when we got to the hotel it was around midnight or after.  Some of the group was ready for bed, but Lois, the Explorer,  had found a swimming pool on the 15 floor of the hotel and was wanting to go swimming.  Her thought was, ''How many times are you going to  find a swimming pool on the 15th floor of a hotel?''  So there were a few of us that donned our swim suits and went for a swim.

       
TROUBLE IN BERUIT-- London, England & Frankfurt, Germany,  were kinda normal stops.  However Istanbul, Turkey;   Beirut, Lebanon & Tehran, Iran were totally different.  There were Soldiers all over the airports with Russian made military weapons  with loaded banana clips in the weapons, something that was unheard of & unseen in the Western World in 1970.        
       There was quite an ordeal in Beirut, there were lots of stalls in the corridors in the airport selling all sorts of souvenirs to tourists.  We IFYE’s to India were buying postcards & the stall keepers were offering to mail them.  I’d bought postcards to send home, wrote a quick message on them, bought postage & had given them back to the guy to mail.  Lois had done the same thing a few stalls down.  When we met she ask,  ''How much did it cost you to mail a postcard?''  I told her & before I knew what was going on I had an Iranian guy yelling & screaming in my face in Persian, Luri or something, whatever their language is, he must have understood some English but he sure wasn't speaking it!  I had no clue what was going on but I was trying to talk calmly to him to avoid an international incident.  I sure didn't want those unfriendly  looking guys with the loaded weapons getting involved.  An Iranian came that had a pretty good command of English. He said the guy was saying I was accusing him of cheating Lois.  I said Lois had asked how much it had cost to mail a postcard & I had told her.  I  said I had no idea how much the guy had charged her.  So the fellow started talking to the one doing all the screaming & yelling trying to calm him down.  We all got outside as quick as we could.  After a little bit Lois wanted to go back in, there was no way I was going back.  None of the other IFYE's went back.  Lois went back. I noticed glass windows all along the side so I kinda followed along on the outside so I could see Lois.  Don't know what I would have done if another incident had arisen, I couldn’t have got there fast,  but at least I could keep an eye on Lois.

A New Delhi Street Scene

ARRIVING IN INDIA--    Circling the airport at New Delhi and looking at the unique landscape & activities below in mini-scale I wondered  for a few minutes. ''What in the world have a got myself into?''   I also had the thought,  '' Somebody let me 
off !'', but at several hundred feet, or more, in the air, that wasn't to practical.  In the end India became one of greatest experiences in my life.     
      Upon arrival at the airport in New Delhi India we were taken to the American

Bullock drawn lawn mowers in New Delhi

 Embassy where we visited with the American Ambassador. I gave him the envelope I had been given at the National 4-H Center.  He knew my name and was expecting the letter.   We explained our reason for coming to India and he gave us an idea of what to expect being an American in India.   We met with the  two  Ag. representatives of the Indian Government, Rodge Bautnauger [ Rodge Bought-naw- grrr] and Naitell{not-tea-l} ,first name or last name, don't remember for sure now, they ask a lot of  questions  and we gave the pat answers they knew we would.  Answers based on what we had been told in our session at the National 4-H Center in Washington D.C.   Of course we didn't realize this until after we met them again at the end of our stay in India.  We did sight seeing in New Delhi and nearby Cities; Agra, Udiapur, Jaipur, etc..  We saw the Taj Mahal, Red Fort ,Lake Palace, Palace of the Winds & Fathehpur Siikri, the deserted city,  to name a few sight seeing places.

    

A passenger train going through Indian countryside

 We traveled a lot by train on our sightseeing trip at the beginning of your stay in India and when we would travel from one state to another.   I noticed a sign above train stations that had a long word in an Indian language about 15 letters long.   Later I noticed the same word.  I ask my host what it meant.  He said there was no such   words as Railroad Station in a native Language.  So what it said was, ‘‘a resting place for a chariot of fire drawn by horses’’. I got to thinking about it, when the train is in a station I guess it could be said to be resting:  A chariot carried people, a train carries people; trains of India burned coal so there was a fire; and the steam created horsepower.  So I guess the description wasn't to far off. 

The Steam engines were a sight to behold.  They mostly
ran in the rural areas.  There were Special Excursions
in high Tourist Areas.

       We would discover that Beggars usually congregated where foreign tourist visited India.  And learned most of them were exploited by thugs who deliberately deformed some of them to play on the sympathy of foreign tourists.  At the end of the day beggars would turn the money over to those exploiting them and they were given only enough money for a meal.   That way the people manipulating them were assured they would come back the  next day to beg again.

A New Delhi Garden

       In New Delhi we visited some flower gardens where a little girl, rather poor looking,  wanted to walk and hold hands with Bill and I.  Rodge and Nataiell kept giving all these reason that made no sense so Bill and I let her hold our hands and walk with us.   A couple months later one of the IFYE girls explained the real reason.  India is a country of arranged marriages, any girl or woman who had physical contact with a male other than a family member became an unsuitable marriage candidate. So by holding Bill or my hand, the little girl was doing something taboo in the Indian culture.   That would had made sense but Rodge and Natiell had failed to say that, maybe, thinking we would not understand such a custom. It is also possible she was from an untouchable caste.  I thought of that but ignored it.  Although by 1970 the Caste System was supposed to have been abolished and they were no longer called Untouchables but a Secluded Caste, the social stigma however was still there.


INDIA NOTES AND COINS----An unusual thing about India money was the size and shapes of the Rupee Notes issued by the Bank of India and  & Naya Paisa coins. 

Naya Paisa coins on top row
Rupee coins on bottom row

Back of 10 Rupee note

  There were two explanations that we received in our first week in India from Rodge and Nataiell.  One that there were many in India who couldn't  read or write so they would not recognize numbers.   So the Rupee notes were in different sizes and colors.  The other was that there were many people in India who had lost their eyesight.  Therefore the different size and shapes of coins & size of bills helped those people identify money when they went to the market to make purchases or make a transaction of some type. I found the money so interesting and they had such fascinating Rupee Notes. {dollar bills would be our term}

     

PASS THE CHICKEN--- we stayed in a rather large New Delhi Hotel for part of our first 2 weeks.  Each meal they ask us what we wanted for the next meal.  They would give us the options, we would choose one.  We couldn't figure out sometimes why meals were so long in getting to us, sometimes an hour.  Finally one of the IFYE girls figured out the problem.  If you had told them at breakfast that you wanted Chicken  for noon meal, but when lunch came you said you wanted Fish they had to go out to the market, buy the fish and prepare it.   She figured it out one morning when we were still in the Hotel and saw the kitchen staff dressing chickens out in the back alley.  What was happening, they were going out and buying only food needed, so if you changed your mind between meals they didn't have food prepared.  We learned that if you told them at breakfast you wanted chicken at noon you told them chicken when you came to eat.  Another new experience was only having water on for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening.  Upon arrival we found a bucket in the shower and wondered what that was for, we soon learned you paid attention to your daily schedule and if you weren't going to be in the hotel when the water was on you saved a bucket of water so you could have at least a spit bath upon returning.  Of course water temperature coincided with the outside temperature, no hot running water.

BUS!! BUS !!---I'm not sure how it's spelled in Hindi, but when spoken it sounds like, city bus, school bus.. In our lack of knowledge of eating customs of India, we would eat all the food on our plates the  first several  days.  With all the people in India who were short on food we didn't want any food to go to waste.  The problem was the servers kept trying to put food on our plate!  Rodge and Nataiell told us to use the word ''Bus'', meaning ''enough''.   So we would clean our plate and tell the servers,  Bus !!, Bus !!,  Bus !!   But they would still try and give us more food.  I would cover my plates with my hands, and arms, but they would try to find ways to get around or under them and put food on our plate.    I had noticed that Rodge & Nataiell usually left a fairly large quantity of food on their plate.  I'm not sure who figured it out, one of the girls, I'm sure.  To translate the culture,  eating all the food on you plate meant you wanted more.  Even though you might say repeatedly you didn't want more food, just to be polite, the empty plate signaled that you really wanted more.  So we IFYE's got to where we would leave just 2-3 bites on our plates.  We found the more food we left the less posturing with the servers was required.  What I learned as time went on is that the food would not have been thrown away.  Even though it had been on someone’s plate & part of it had been eaten, some of the kitchen help or other lower Hotel staff would be eating it or putting the food in aluminum containers & taking it home to their family.    This custom was evident later as I was staying with families where farm laborers and other workers would be given food left over by the family.

     INDIA AT A GLANCE—After our 2 weeks of sight seeing I got my 3 state assignments.  Gujarat, Tamil Nadu & West Bengal.    Before I get to my experiences of living in each state I think I will explain some things about India.  
      When India established Independence from British rule and states were created they were not created by geography, religion, economics or any other things, but by language.  They looked at an area and said, ''OK, the majority of the people hear speak Gujariti.  [Goot {like Root}-rah-tea]  So we will call it Gujarat [Goot-rot].  And the people down here speak Tamil [Tah-mull].  So we will call it Tamil  Nadu [Tah-mull- Nah-due].  Which means 'Land Of Tamil'. There were hundreds of dialects in each state also.  The people of North India who spoke Hindi were not interested in learning languages of South India, and people of South India did not want to learn, or teach their children Hindi.  Thinking to do so might give people of North India more control & influence over the government & the country.  So their common language was English, because of the British.   
      The Unclean Hand.  We were told about the unclean hand in our orientations in Washington D.C. at the National 4-H Center.  Toilet tissue was almost totally non-existent in India so the index finger of the left hand had a single purpose.  Thereby rendering the left hand unclean, although the finger was washed thoroughly after being used, rarely with soap though.  They told us that we would be doing everything with the right hand, especially eating, eating utensils was another rarity in India.   I found I adapted easily even though being left-handed.  We were told we would find women working in India in offices & Govt. Buildings and that all fingernails would be long and painted but the left index finger would be trimmed short and unpainted.  Sure enough we found it to be true when we reached India.

      Although a Democracy, India was very Socialistic in attitude.  Example-- farmers wanting to purchase a tractor had to apply for a purchase permit from the Government.  Because North India was more economically & agriculturally advanced they might have to wait 3-4 years to get a permit, while a farmer from South India would get immediate approval because the south was not as agriculturally advanced.

     ''Once a friend, a friend forever'', was the attitude of the people of India. People of India had  very little in material possessions and a friend was of the greatest value.  If you made a friend they considered you a friend for life.  Not just,  I'll be your friend till I move on to the next stage of my life or till I meet someone l like better.   The hardest thing to adjust to was the custom of holding hands.  Since there was no holding hands between a male and female because of the touching taboo.  You constantly saw, boy-boy, girl-girl, man-man, and woman-woman walking together holding hands.  If I visited with someone for 5 minutes, a college student--host brother, they wanted to walk around holding my hand, which is not a custom in American culture, as you well know.  I started out by holding it for a few minutes & then try to casually drop their hand, but it would be less than a minute before the were taking hold of it again.  So I just decided, '' What the heck, it's India.” I don't know that I ever got fully comfortable with it but I learned to accept it.