Friday, March 23, 2007

I'm back!

I'm sorry that there has been a big gap between this post and my last in early February. If you have been reading this blog regularly, you know that I am one of a very small group of people in this country: someone who has served in the US Army AND the American Peace Corps. I was one of the first Peace Corps Volunteers. I served in India in 1962-1964 and was in the US Army in 1965-1966.

With my family, I went back to India for the first time in 43 years to visit where I had served as a Peace Corps Volunteer: Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. We were in India from February 16th to March 3rd. To everyones' surprise, I was remembered in Allahabad at the printing college I taught at 43 years ago. I met with two of my teaching colleagues from the sixties and three of my former students from that time. One of them took my job at the college after I left.

The changes in India are huge and what has not changed is just as huge. What hasn't changed is the friendliness of the Indian people and their generosity. Indians came up to us wherever we went and asked what country we were from. When we replied U.S.A., they'd always say: "USA, good country!"

We actually ran across only one or two Americans the whole two weeks. Most tourists we saw were European.

I'll have further reports about this trip if Google allows it. Google is encouraging bloggers like me to sign up for their new blogger system. Results of this campaign have been frequent denials to me to post comments on my old system blog and at the same time, when I attempt to sign up for the new system, denial to complete that. Go figure.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com