Announcements
PJ Jones contacted the Hailey, Idaho, Rotary Club regarding the use of their proprietary Road Apple Roulette fund raiser. The engineer who helps their club with this event was to call PJ and Pete Blanksma back with the details. It's expected that our club would be required to pay a small fee to their club for the use of the idea! More details to follow.
Kathleen McNalty gave details of the Adopt-a-Senior program within our club. Club members sponsor a graduating high school senior by giving them gift cards for merchants or money. Several club members donated to the cause by having Kathleen bill them on their quarterly invoices.
Robin DeRock gave advance notice of the green-purple-yellow unicorn wig making its way around the club. If you find it on your doorstep, gets some pictures of your wearing it, and pass it to another member by putting it on their doorstep! And, of course, you have to wear it for the weekly Zoom meeting that week! Pictures will be posted on this blog and on the Wenatchee Sunrise Rotary Club's Facebook page. Robin passed it on to Wayne Massing who has passed it on to....read next week's blog to see who now has it!Brags and Confessions
Ruth Dagg said her son got married on the beach in Florida, and only the bride, groom and pastor were in attendance. They will plan a bigger celebration in October of this year. She also said that her daughter fled the Washington DC area because of all the sirens and protesting, and ended up at the beach house in North Carolina.
Earl Crowe, President Elect, said that his daughter Emma has transferred from Portland State to Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Portland State was having some financial difficulties. All of her credits transferred from Portland State to CWU. This transfer saved her over $12k/year!
Program
Zackary Banken, our club's outbound Youth Exchange student to India, was our speaker today. He gave a very detailed and informational slide show on his living in India for the 2019-2020 school year.
His host Rotary District was 3060. His host city of Surat, the "Diamond City", has a population of about 4.5 million people, and is in the the Northeast part of India. Within one of the host families, a host brother was an outbound Youth Exchange student to Mexico and a host sister was a YE student to Germany.
Their Indian neighborhood areas are called societies. During various festivals and events, the societies come together to celebrate or compete.
His school, called the Millennial School, required a 50 minute bus ride each way. This school required that the boys wear ties as part of the school uniform.
Upon arrival, he completed an orientation class with 7 other exchange students from the US, France, Mexico, Columbia and Germany. He met a Vermont girl who he knew from a previous YE event.
The local Rotary Club took the students on a day long trip from their school. The Rotary Club meeting were very formal and usually took place after an evening meal.
Zackary learned Hindi, although Gujarati and English is also spoken. Their meals were mostly vegetarian. Tea was service at least twice a day. Meals were usually a flat bread with various "gravies" or spreads on them.
Surat has many textile industries. Many of the host families or relatives were involved in either the manufacture of the textiles, dying them, or selling them.
India's religions are Hindu (80%), Muslim (40%), and other (6%).
The rupee is the currency in India. 70R is equal to $1 USD. All the Indian paper money had Gandhi's picture on them.
Transportation is very cheap and is mostly powered rickshaws. OLA and JUGNOO are the Indian equivalent to our UBER. A typical ride would be 35 rupees ($.50 US).
From having over 330 million different Gods in India, there are many festivals to celebrate. The Garba Festival (the family goddess celebrating the womb) is 9 days of dancing. The Diwali festival is like New Years and our Christmas combined, and is the festival of lights. The Uttarayan festival is the festival of kites. Different societies (neighborhoods) and families fly kites. This festival was the subject of the book "Kite Runner". The Holi festival is a celebration of the end of Winter and the start of Spring, and is also celebrated as the victory of good over evil.
The Rotary Youth Exchange took the students on a tour of Southern India. In Munnar, the students toured tea fields first started by the British colonists. A tiger reserve was also visited.
The cultural tradition in India regarding marriage is that the wife moves in to the her new husband's home and lives with his family.
Zackary attended the Rotary District 3060 District Conference in Goa, a former Portuguese colony. There the students practiced a dance routine for 10 days before performing for the District Rotarians. At that event, the 50th anniversary of that district was celebrated.
During his visit, the CoVid-19 virus struck. He had only 1 week's notice before departing India to return to the US. At that time, there were many wearing masks in Mumbai, the largest city in India. Her arrived back home at the end of March, having had 2 months cut from his intended stay.
Questions that arose after his presentation were:
Q: What was the biggest surprise on your trip to India?
A: That English was spoken in most of India due to the British influence there when India was a British Colony.
Q: What were some of the courses you took in school there?
A: The schooling is arranged in 3 tracks: Science, Humanities, and Business. He was in the Science track along with 10 other students. The British Advancement Standards were used to advance between the different grade levels.
Q: What were the meals like?
A: Most meals were vegetarian. His first host family was 100% vegetarian, but NO eggs. Milk was okay, however! The second host family was non-vegetarian and ate meats. There were usually just 2 meals a day. There was a small snack for breakfast.
Q: Were there any Chuck Norris jokes? (asked by Jim Huffman)
A: No Chuck Norris jokes, but they had lots of fun with the Bollywood people.
Q: What was your favorite food?
A: Dosa, which was a crepe with different kinds of fillings. He tried to make them at home, without success!
Q: What were the different factories like?
A: The factories where the fabrics were dyed were very smelly, and the textile weaving factories were very noisy from all the machinery.
Q: What were the local Rotary Club meetings like?
A: They had a club of about 50 members, and the meeting were on Thursdays after dinner.
Zackary thanked our club for making it possible for his Youth Exchange trip.
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