Out with a bang...

Our last days in India turned out to be more exciting than we expected.

We unfortunately missed our flight out of India on April 20 because we didn't have the correct document that were required by our visa's. We ended up staying an extra 10 days and went through quite a few adventures that we will hopefully laugh about later. We recorded all the details of our struggle with the Indian police and officials we dealt with during this whole process so feel free to ask us about it sometime, but here's an example of one of our days fighting to get registration and exit papers to leave the country of India.

Wednesday 25.4.2012 [the perfect example of Indian Stretchable Time]

·         Went to the Sub-Treasury Office in Kadapa to get forms to pay our late registration fee

·         Told to go across the street to buy the forms – 2 rupees per page

·         Brought the forms, each with three sections for duplicates, to a man who was supposed to fill them out

·         Man didn’t know how to fill out late registration fee forms

·         Took an auto back to the Special Branch of the Kadapa Police Office to get help. Our guy there filled out an example paper and took 6 passport photos each from us for the papers from the night before.

·         Auto ride back to the Treasury office. Man makes a mistake on all three forms that he doesn’t know how to correct.

·         Our friend Vara takes an auto back to the SB to ask, we wait for a full hour while he asks this one question. (the treasury office is like a sauna with no fans)

·         He comes back and the man in the treasury office takes his time filling out three copies for all three forms and then asks for a tip. We sign our names 3 times and get a stamp.

·         Go to the bank. Nice police man cuts in line for us so we can pay 4,800/- fee.

·         Took an auto back to the SB (once again) to deliver the receipts)

·         Total time for above events = 3.25 hours

·         Speed shovel rice and pumpkin curry into our stomachs

·         Jump on a bus back to Vempalli to meet an officer from Pullevendula who was coming to check us out at the school. (1.5 hour trip)

·         Rain storm comes. Water flows down the bus floor.

·         10 minutes before reaching the school, the officer calls and says we need to write a letter signed by our principal saying when we came to the school and how long we stayed and then deliver it in Vemula.

·         No current.

·         Arrived at the school with 20 minutes to write and print letter.

·         Eat mash melon (cantaloupe) from the principal's wife Suvarta first.

·         Drink tea sent by Chandu

·         Principal slowly makes his way to the office

·         Write the letter frantically, then type it.

·         Carry printer from the office to Head Master Jesu Das house to use his battery. Barely enough power to print 3 sketchy copies.

·         Principal Israel professionally stamps and signs them.

·         Jump in the van with Ramana and Vara (Chennai Super Kings) and speed off to Vemula Police Dept.

·         Arrive at the office. Sit down and wait while one guy checks out our letter and signed papers to the Superintendent and Vara tells our story (yet again).

·         Told to hand write a letter requesting residency documents (what a joke!), the person we were writing it to told us exactly what to write.

·         Took 1.5 hours to fill out six copies of a half sheet of paper with our name and address

·         One man staples our passport photos on with 4 staples each. Police officer (him only) removes all 24 staples and pastes them on. (first he tries to use trevors photo as a sticker and ruins it)

·         Drank ½ cup tea

·         Missing one ½ sheet of paper. Ramana goes in the van to get one more.

·         Left in the van and picked up  a guy at some office and went to Pullevendula police station.

·         Talked to officers—gave them a US dollar

·         Sat in the head officers office—AC is too cold. Vara tells our story AGAIN.

·         Waiting. Too much telegu spoken, don’t really know what is going on.

·         Drank some coffee. Try to speak to the unresponsive staring head officer.

·         1.5 hours later receive a document called “CERTIFICATE” that states our name, address, and how long we’ve been at the school. Also that we have committed no crimes during this time. One paragraph long.

·         Correct the mistakes in the paragraphs. [I’m not Brooke Bauer d/o Mark Bauer Christopher Krall. Age about 21 years] Wait for a new copy.

·         Check the new copy, get it stamped and signed and then go on our way.

·         The Head Constable says he will come and check us out at the school the next day, we invite him for food at 11 am (ps. he never shows up for food the next day after we make a feast for him)

·         Arrive back at school 9:00 pm.




Let's just say we were excited to reach America yesterday evening. This experience tacked on the end of our Indian adventure made me appreciate home a whole lot more. We are all happy to be here, but our friends in India will be dearly missed. I hope to see some of them again some day in the future. 


Can't wait to see you all!


-B