The One with THE Bodhi Tree, a 64 Foot Buddha, and an Awkward School Ceremony

The Bodhi Tree.

Thankfully we were able to make time for a day and a half of sightseeing in Bodh Gaya. Unfortunately Julie was feeling ill, so we were left in the hands of a tour guide named Dhirendra for a day. Dhirendra is the most rushed and stressed Indian man I have ever met. He talks a mile a minute and had plans for us every 5 minutes. We essentially jogged to the Bodhi tree with no time for taking pictures as we had to meet the head of the "Buddhist Association" for a blessing. I am still not sure what the Buddhist Association is (and my google search has not helped much) but the man was kind and gave us a blessing under the tree. We were then given 20 minutes of "free-time" to explore and take pictures. I sat for a while under the tree and just watched the monks and religious groups doing their different rituals. It is incredible how different the energy was in Bodh Gaya compared to Varanasi. After I took a few pictures we were dragged past a line of people waiting to see a state of the Buddha by Dhirendra so that he could take a group picture. I have been very conscious while in India of the cultural differences, so that I offend as few people as possible. I feel that Americans often have a bad reputation for not being respectful of the cultures that they step into and I have been putting in a lot of effort to offset that reputation. Anyways, for the first time in India I felt utterly disrespectful, as I was forced to cut a line of people and then turn my back to the Buddha statue for a series of pictures with a not-very-happy monk.

After this we got into cars and headed into the country. I got my first real look at 'village life' as we drove on a small dirt path out to a school. When we arrived at the school I immediately realized I had no idea what we were there for. There were two lines of about a hundred school children awaiting us. I was lead to a small girl who placed a necklace of beautiful orange flowers over my next and then walked down the path to the school as children threw flowers at me. We were then seated behind the children at a table lined with a white table cloth, and all I could think was that we must have been mistaken for some important donors or volunteers. We then were part of a large assembly/ performance where the children danced and we broke open large vases filled with paint to symbolize the commencement of Holi. Dhirendra was telling us that we were being treated essentially as royalty because we were such important guests essentially because we were white. I struggled to appreciate the experience overall because I hated being treated so special when I have done nothing for the schoolchildren or the village communities. It was a little reassuring to know that we helped make the celebration special for the children, but overall it just felt very wrong to me.

The HUGE buddha statue

After the retreat we were able to get in a morning of sightseeing. During the retreat we could see a huge Buddha statue from across the town so we decided to go there first and stop in on temples on the way. It was really interesting to compare the different wall paintings/ architectural styles of the temples. Each country has a different mosque built sometime in the past 1500 years. Overall I really enjoyed my time in Bodh Gaya and the opportunity to see a city which is so heavily imbued with Buddhist culture. 

Us playing bananagrams at the train station encircled by
at least 30 Indian men

Baby pigs (for you Kelly)