More visits in Guwahati

This last full day in Guwahati was on Sunday and this was the third place that our team visited. The couple who lived in this place were well off since he had some kind of executive position in the Bank of India. One could see the office tower that he worked in from his place. We had a worship service here and the group picture is of their members.


The next picture is of a family whose son was a friend of Andrew McMillan's. His mom and dad and two sisters are standing in front of him. Next is a picture of a teacher named Medha Bharadwaj. She is in her kitchen making chapattis. She helped me do some shopping on Monday and helped bargain for me since she knew the value of things. On Monday morning we stopped at another friend of Andrew McMillan's Rahul and he had a sister whose name was Mona Lisa.
So now I can say that I shook the hand of Mona Lisa! I went with our driver Kuldeep to meet up with Medha while the rest had a lunch made for them. After shopping Kuldeep drove me to a place called Pantaloon where I met the rest of the team. After going back to the hotel for a bit of a break we went out once more Monday evening to Samuel and Chandrima Salam live. Mary Salam, her son Spirit, and her husband Richard (who is from England) were also visiting. I gave a Hotwheels car to Spirit and he soon overcame any shyness that he had.They served us a wonderful meal of rice, chapattis, cucumbers, dahl, lintels, pineapple slices, boiled eggs and water. We finally got back to the hotel at 8:30. I took a couple of pictures showing the view from about 8 stories up of the street. People throw their garbage by the curb on the street so it leaves an unsightly mess (and a smelly one too). Some places in the city are kept a little cleaner than others. At our hotel a street cleaner came by and scraped up the soggy garbage with a couple of squares of wood. He piled it in a hand cart. I suspect that the hotel pays for the service.

My observation is that there is quite a contrast in life style of the families that we visited in Guwahati. The bamboo building did have a smoothly finished concrete floor but the only thing separating their unit from the next was bamboo matting with a drape hanging over the wall. The ceiling had a bamboo matting as well to cover the tin roof material and the fan was held in place by wire wrapped around a bamboo support. They did have a TV and all the adults had cell phones that were newer than mine. At banker's home they had a wide screen TV, two cars in the garage and marble floors, an elevator, air conditioning.