St. Olaf Global Semester 2017

Hello, this is Rachael. Today was our final presentations for our Religions of India course at HMI. First this morning, we had devotions, which are a daily practice at HMI. Our group led devotions today so Prof. Ripley spoke about travel and pilgrimage, and then several of us sang Blessing, arrangement of an Irish Christian blessing which has become a favorite of the St. Olaf choirs. Next, we had a talk by one of our beloved hosts, Shribala, on how to continue interfaith dialogue in our lives after leaving HMI. After that, we began a long day of presentations. Our three Indian classmates presented first, discussing their final papers on peace as practiced by various religious groups, on the role of women in different religions, and on how interfaith dialogue should be carried out in our everyday lives. Then our group began a twenty-part series on the religions of India, sharing our individual research presentations on the history, practices, rituals, ethics, etc. of Hinduism, Islam, S...

(10/28/2017) Hello! Macy here to give you the update for the day of our Halloween celebrations! The day started late for most of us, as we took advantage of a much needed empty morning to sleep in. After a late breakfast and a cup of coffee, many of us decided to work on our presentations for our HMI class. On Monday, we each will give a seven to eight minute speech on different aspects of religions of India, from Hinduism to Islam to Zoroastrianism. Others chose to work on their Halloween costumes for the night, scrounging supplies from HMI and our suitcases. Finally, after dinner, the spooky festivities began! We gathered in the dining hall and admired our friends as Gandhi, Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Pennywise and Georgie, Princess Fiona and more before moving on to Halloween song trivia! Afterwards, we got into groups and competed for how many water bottle flips we could each flip in a minute. One team dominated with a cumulative score of almost 70! Finally, we played a game ...

                 Hi Everyone, it’s Olivia. Today was a hard, but powerful day. We learned about poverty in India through a Catholic organization called Montfort Social Institution. The impoverished often do not have the necessary access to necessities, such as water, food, and education. The government largely ignores these communities’ rights in the Indian constitution leading to lack of housing rights and inadequate relief funding. This system prevents people from being able to easily leave these situations. One group that we visited had lived on their land for 80 years and they do not have a lot of opportunities out.                 However, there are organizations trying to make a change, such as MSI. MSI tries to help teach marketable skills to the communities, rather than simply giving money. We learned this when we broke into different groups to visit these ...

Hi, this is Hannah once again! So today’s good news is that we learned how to meditate and the bad news is that today officially marks our halfway point for the semester. Which I am definitely very sad about.  This morning we had our optional yoga session, just as we do every morning. We are practicing for our yoga demonstration/performance which will happen on Tuesday.  After breakfast, we piled on the bus to visit the Art of Living- Brahma Kumaris Centre, a retreat center where we learned all about meditation. We were able to try meditating with our speaker, who guided us through the process. There are three key steps to meditating, which I will share with you now: Steps to meditation: journey inwards journey upwards connecting with the supreme Now you all know the secrets, so feel free to try this at home.  After meditating, we toured the small museum they had at the Brahma Kumaris Centre, and followed this with lunch.  Our activit...

Hello honorary Globies! It's Sophie again, here to take you through a whirlwind Wednesday. Like many of our days here at HMI we had a lot of learning and exploration packed into a very short time. We started with a workshop on the Dalit communities, a marginalized people comprising about 8% of the population in India. Dalits are literally outcastes from society - they fall outside of the Hindu caste system and are considered the 'untouchables'. The workshop led by a Dalit advocacy group was extremely powerful and helped us all to contemplate the exploitation and oppression these strong people endure. Despite laws that declare all people are equal and there are no castes, Dalits suffer from an enduring stigma against them and the lack of respect for their culture and traditions. After lunch, we met with another group of people who live on the outskirts of society. We talked with two transgender women and learned about their lives and struggles to live, work, and remain sa...

Hello Global Semester blog readers! It's Clare again. This time, I'm lucky enough to share our visit to the '72' Jain temple with you. The morning began with yoga at 7 a.m. for some, catching up on sleep for others and another savory breakfast for most. After a couple hour break to do some work, we began our two hour bus ride to the Jain temple and community. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the elder and president of the community. He led us to the foot of the temple, where we took our shoes off - this is becoming a regular part of the globie experience - and began our tour. The temple is called the '72' temple for its 72 statues that line the inner side of the outer wall of the temple. There are 24 to represent the past, 24 for the present, and 24 for the future. After a few minutes on the roof to see the shrines there, we entered the main room of the temple. Our guide shared how to pray, a dance done to please the almighty, sprinkled us with holy ...

Hello everybody! Maren here. It’s the beginning of our second academic week in India and hard to believe that we are halfway done with Global semester. The time is flying by, and next week we will also fly — from Hyderabad to Chennai — which means that we are starting to prepare for our final quizzes, speeches, lectures, and yoga sessions at the Henry Martyn Institute. The atmosphere feels slightly chaotic. Not necessarily in a bad way, but simply because we are cramming one month’s worth of religious material and questions into fourteen days. In my mind, sorting out exactly what religion means right now to anyone, or even just me, feels almost impossible. At night, I’ll sit down and try to organize my thoughts only to find my mind racing, trying to grapple with all of the experiences, people, and religion that we have encountered. Today in class, we talked about defining God. Not only from a Christian standpoint or a Hindu perspective, but in the eyes of diverse thought tradit...

Hi everybody! It’s Anna again, and I’m going to walk you through our second Sunday in Hyderabad. We were #blessed with a late start to the day, which for most of us meant sleeping in before we hit the road at 10 to visit a Sikh temple (Gurdwara). It’s always intimidating to enter someone else’s place of worship, because we don’t want to disturb or disrespect any services that are going on, but I continue to be blown away by the warmth of the welcomes that we receive wherever we go. Immediately after sitting down in the temple, we were greeted by women around us who asked questions, shared stories, invited us to their homes (!!) and helped us understand parts of the service. Their kindness was most definitely my highlight of our visit. After touring the school and health clinic associated with the temple (with services for all members of the community, not just Sikhs), we sat down together for the highly anticipated Langar meal, a weekly lunch served for visitors that’s also vegeta...

Hey friends and family, it's Adam! After many jam-packed days here at HMI, attending lectures, visiting temples and mosques, rigorous academic work, us Globies were blessed with a day of rest and recovery. Some of us participated in a morning yoga session, but many of us took the opportunity to sleep in! But of course, us being the adventurous Oles we are, we could not sit still for too long, not when there are so many beautiful places in Hyderabad to explore! We decided to spend our afternoon wandering through the citadel of the Fort of Golkonda, a medieval structure built on top of a rocky cliff that overlooks the city. We had so much fun taking photos and running through the greenery. The photo here is one I took of Sophie, Hannah, Clare, and Alexandra at the very top! 

Greetings, friends and family! Alexandra again to update you on our time here in India. Today marks the end of our first whole week in Hyderabad! Woohoo!! At our group meeting tonight, we realized we have all been dealing with some new symptoms we hadn't been feeling in Egypt. The first, of course, is that we are exhausted. Some of us emotionally, most of us physically. Our tongues are also always burning, often times we are like dragons breathing fire. We have all been seeing so much color, in the lush green garden, in the bright salwar kameez and suits, in the fruit, vegetable, and flower stands dotting the city. We are experiencing a heightened sense of adventure to see everything around us, partnered with a feeling of being overwhelmed by all there is to take in. We keep hearing loud booms of firecrackers celebrating Diwali even after the holiday has passed. We smell spices, bread, and tea. And we all crave a tea break around 11am and 2pm. We are constantly in awe, ...

Hi! Today was our 49th day of Global Semester, which means we have spent 7 weeks on this amazing journey. We started off the day with another interfaith devotion; this morning was a Sufi performance. We once again had the opportunity to enjoy the loud and amazing Sufi music. After devotion, we headed straight to our first lecture of the day which was on Sikhism. Throughout this lecture we learned that Sikhism is not an "ism" in the sense of Hinduism, rather Sikhism means "student of spirituality/life." We then moved into a rather theoretical discussion about where God is for various religions which led our professor, Dr Raminder Kaur, to the question: "If God is everywhere, where are you?". She informed us that in Sikhism we are space and God is inside us; this was a concept that was difficult for most of us to grasp. After a short lunch break, we were back in the classroom for our afternoon lecture on Islam from Dr. Qadeer Khwaja. This lecture w...

10-18-17 Hi it's  james      Our day started as it usually does, us attempting to navigate the spicy breakfast foods of Hyderabad, apparently known for having one of the spiciest cuisines in all of India. From breakfast we went to our daily devotion. Today, devotion was a Hindu Carnatic music performance. After about an hour of being serenaded by the vocals of the two sisters doing all the singing for the group, the devotion section came to a close and we were off to our first lecture of the day. The lecture was a continuation of one we started yesterday on India society, looked at it in both a contemporary and a historical context. It turned out that this continuation unexpectedly took us all the way to lunch. Lunch came and went and we made our way back to the lecture hall for the second lecture of the day. This personally anticipated lecture was based on the modern formation of India's political system. India is sometimes referred to as the nation ...

Hi everyone! This is Peder, posting for Tuesday, October 17. We began this day at devotion, hearing a beautiful musical performance from Sikh Keertans. The performance lasted roughly an hour and was such a peaceful, calming experience. After the daily devotion, we got on a bus to travel to the Ramakrishna Math to hear from a Hindu Monk who teaches and resides there.   He spoke to us about Hinduism as a whole and the philosophies Hinduism consists of. Upon returning to HMI, we attended lecture with Dr. Yugalu Rayulu as he spoke to us about Indian history and contemporary Indian society, breaking for chai halfway through. At night, we were lucky enough to attend HMI’s Diwali Celebration. It was a crowded, beautiful event, consisting of many prayers, songs, and dances from the community. Afterwards, there was a feast with unbelievable rice, curry, bread, and chai. Many of us finished our meals sweating from the spice, but it was certainly worth it and one...

Little did we imagine, when we first roused ourselves from our bizarre malaria-medication dreams this morning, that we were embarking on a never-ending chain of events that filled every minute of our day from 8am to 8pm. We began this morning with yet another surprisingly spicy breakfast, then filed into HMI's gorgeous outdoor prayer hall for morning sharing and devotion time with other HMI guests. Next was orientation, led by our lovely coordinator Sribala, for our 2.5 weeks here in Hyderabad, then bussed out to visit HMI's Community Development Center. Here we learned about the programs for young children, at Aman Shanti Primary School, and for older girls and women, at the Community Center. It was amazing to see the talents and products of these women, from their hand embroidery to their sewing patterns to their henna skills, which we can all attest to first hand (pun intended! )! After a very late lunch, we were out again, but this time on a pleasure cruise--SHOPPING! ...

Hello! It’s Erin once again, and I’m here to take you around our second full day in India. With nothing official on the docket for class, we all quickly got to work on what to do with our free time. Most of the group waited until after lunch to head out to the Laad Bazaar and nearby Charminar mosque, but a smaller group of us decided to forge out on our own and leave a few hours earlier. That proved to be quite the experience, since we needed to use the infamous “tuk-tuks,” or open-air taxis, to get to the market from HMI. However, I think I can safely say that tuk-tuks are my new favorite way to travel!!! After getting used to whizzing around corners and close calls with other cars of course, I got to enjoy all of the beautiful colors and aromas coming from the street vendors. After arriving at the Laad Bazaar, we decided to climb the Charminar minaret for an overlook of Hyderabad’s Old City. From there we saw endless streets of colorful clothes and vendors selling fruits, w...

Hello folks, Will here with the blog post for today! After a wonderful Indian breakfast, we headed into the city for a brief period of time to load up on  ₹ ₹ ₹'s (a.k.a. rupees- the national currency). With a little problem solving skills (that are being developed quite well on this trip) used on the ATM, we were able to allocate some funds and head back to the bus. Once we were all set, we drove around the city for about an hour, just getting a good visual for what we are going to explore soon. After that, we had a little down time so some people caught up on sleep and others worked productively on other assignments. As we were working, a massive storm rolled in and we took a little study break to hop in some puddles.  The day was concluded with another great dinner and a game of telestrations put together by the wonderful social committee. We're looking forward to learning and exploring more of the city in the future!

       Hello again all you globy followers, Matthew here to tell you guys about our very first look at India! After a night full of planes and a quick stop over in the nation of Bahrain, we finally landed in Hyderabad. Green grass was the first thing that many of us noticed, and o boy, did we miss it. After getting all our visas checked and our baggage claimed, we were ready to begin the next leg of our adventure. As we walked out of the airport, we were assulted by the rapid rise in humidity, and immediately began perspiring perfusely. I can't speak for everyone, but as soon as we boarded our air conditioned bus, I was out. After a 40 min bus ride that felt like all of 7 seconds, we arrived at our new home, the Henry Martin Institute (HMI). After a brief period to drop our bags off, we were treated to a delicious lunch that I was told was a mild introduction to Indian food....        After lunch we had the remainder of the afternoon to rest, wh...

Hello, it's Rachael again. Today is our last day in Cairo. We leave for the airport at 4pm for yet another overnight flight. We've grown accustom to these and now anticipate at least one day a week that won't really get to sleep. That being said, most of us took advantage of our opportunity to sleep in this morning, then spent the day packing and cleaning our apartments. We also said goodbye to the places and faces that we have grown close to this past month. For some of the group, that involved a last lunch out with Egyptian friends. For me, that meant one last run on AUC's indoor track. It's feels crazy and a little sad to think that it's already time to leave this place but we're looking forward to all of the adventures and experiences that India will bring. See you in Hyderabad!

Hello! It's Kate back again. Today we wrapped up our month of lectures and tours with our final. The test was in essay form with three options, two of which you had to write on. Although I and several other people had been very nervous for this test in the week leading up to it, especially because of the large time period that was covered in class (5000 years!!) I found that once we started it went better than I had expected. The questions had many themes within them to try and cover several of the topics we learned about including Ancient Egyptian history, Islam, the art and architecture of Egypt, and the social structures within Egyptian society. After the test people headed to Zoobas, a favorite place to grab lunch on campus, or to get some celebratory lava cake, which has been enjoyed several times throughout our stay here.   The afternoon provided some downtime before we headed to our Arabic professor’s house for tea. He and his family were very welcoming and we tho...

Hello! Brodie here. Today, we spent our morning touring St. Simon the Tanner Monastery which is located in an area called “Garbage City.” The informal city there is home to about 90,000 people and of those, 90% are Christians. The area gets its name from the mounds of trash around the area and from the livelihoods of the people–– they are the trash collectors of Cairo and have been for many, many years. There are no government contracts with the people of the city, and their living is made purely from collecting, sorting, and selling useable items as well as raising animals (ex. Pigs, goats). To make it through the small, rough streets of the city on our way to visit the monastery, we had to trade out our big bus and opt for two smaller buses (which may have still been a little big..). St. Simon the Tanner Monastery is home to the largest church in the Middle East (it seats 20,000 people!) and when we arrived at our destination, many of us were quite confused–– there was no church to b...

(10/9) Hello again from Egypt! Macy here. Yesterday was a day of learning and rest! The day started with a discussion of Sufism and the previous night’s performance. We then moved on to our first presentations of the semester. Each Globie will give a presentation of a research article during the trip on a topic related to the course, as a part of our Oral Communication GE. Our first speech was on Muhammad in contemporary Christianity, given by Hannah. She reviewed for us the debate over whether Muhammad should be accepted as a prophet within Christian canon. The second presentation was given by Maren on Mohammad and the crucifixion. She explained for us the author’s thoughts about Islam and its position towards the crucifixion of Jesus. After class, the group dispersed for a day of homework and rest before our final exam in a few days. Many committees met up to work on the study guide, while others got caught up on journaling or sleep. After ...