Wednesday

We arrived in Ahmedabad around 6:45 am, local time, nine-and-a-half hours ahead of Indianapolis. No one lost luggage (good thing), and it was overall a very smooth process considering 20 of us were travelling together halfway across the world! Our host families picked us up at the airport, and four of us are staying with one family. The women are all staying in one place separate from the men. Our family is very hospitable and generous, and they fed us breakfast, lunch, and dinner on that first day. We slept in the morning – slept hard, I might add – and after lunch they took us into the old city to meet our bus for the afternoon. Our whole group took the bus to Gandhi’s Ashram, a very special/honored place in Ahmedabad. It was from here that Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1917, and lived in community with all different castes and people. It was also from here that many national and world leaders came to meet with him and he developed many of his plans for non-violent protest and action. It was a very spiritual place for me, and I found myself reflecting on how Gandhi’s influence has spread over so many different nations and leaders. Following that, we returned to our host families and after dinner, we retired early for the night.