"Please, what is your good name?"

Our view on the way up the mountain

If you visit India, you just might be asked this question.  This is the way that some Indians say, "Hi, what's your name?"  It's just one of the interesting things that comes out when traveling cross-culturally.  A few people on our team were confused when the packing list for our retreat called for a torch.  Torch is the British term for flashlight, but several of the guys pictured themselves carrying flaming sticks through the jungle.  Everything got straightened out though, and we headed out on our trip.
We took the metro to the train station and boarded our "boogy."  I don't know why ours was called a boogy train, but it was.  Our train had hard, padded benches that flipped up into beds.  This was nice because we left Delhi around 10:00 or 11:00 pm and got to the end of the line around 5:30 am.  We had a whole section to ourselves, but the rest of the train still stopped to load and unload other passengers.

Monkey!

When we woke up in the morning, we were passing rice paddies and corn fields, and the mountains were looming in the distance.
Our stop was at the very end of the line.  We unloaded everything from the train and loaded it back into Jeep-like vehicles to make the climb through the mountains to the retreat center.
The retreat center was set in a beautiful area. We were surrounded by high mountains with deep valleys and misty clouds.  A few lakes were scattered around as well.  Monkeys wandered around in the trees and occasionally sat on the railing of the girls' dorm.

I found part of a huge butterfly!

Our accommodations were not five-star, but they worked!  Sometimes the lights in our room worked and sometimes they didn't.  Sometimes the sound worked in the meeting hall, and sometimes too much power tripped the breakers.  The girls got to use a miniature water heat to heat buckets of water to take a "shower."  It was quite the trip, but we all survived and several of us thrived!  We were all glad to be away from the Delhi heat and humidity.

Hudson in a paddle boat with friends

Our partners from Delhi were very excited to be at the Sattal retreat.  Some of the activities included soccer, boating, hanging out, water balloon fights, singing, hiking, photography, etc.
We also listened to Todd speak at several different sessions.  His messages were very encouraging to our team and to our partners.  It is our hope that our lives will be changed because of this retreat.  Be sure to ask us more about it when we all get home on Tuesday!

Our whole group!