Day 6: Airport Woes are Learning Opportunities….maybe?

Today we departed for our host communities. It was a mixed bag of feelings to consider the impending separation from this group that cocooned us individually and collectively for the first leg of this journey. IREX staff kept us in touch with the friendly requirement to post in the WhatsApp chat daily and to check in every other day (as proof of life! 😀).

Our sub groups had flights at different times but a large pod of us left for the airport at the same time; a time we thought would be enough to get us through bag checks and security, however, with everything novel there is bound to be a few hiccups. Bag check and security took a little longer than expected (the airport was quite busy) and we only made it to our plane with barely 10 minutes to spare! We arrived in Chennai after about a 2 hour flight to be warmly welcomed by Kritika, our host community contact with whom we had been meeting on Zoom for a little over a month before the trip. She welcomed us with strings of fragrant smelling jasmine flowers ( a cultural feature of Chennai we eventually found out) and water (another hospitality feature that we came to realize). She found us a taxi to take us into Chennai (about 1.5 hours away) and we got to see parts of the city on our way.

Finally met our Star hostess ... Kritika aunty

Sunset in Chennai 

We noted the number of cows that roamed freely on the streets. We were told that cows are kept for their milk and cheese, but after they are past their productivity age, they are set ‘free’ and can wander the city streets. I did not know this at the time, but due to the large number of vegetarians in India, cows are not seen as a source of beef, and are beneficial for milk, cheese and dung (used for farming). Hindu religious practices also involve cow worship.