India In Review: The Plight of a Brown American in India

Despite it's status as my motherland, I never felt a strong draw to come to India. When I knew I was coming to Asia, I added it to the long list of countries I planned to visit because... you can't go to southeast Asia and not visit India. My original plan was to spend eight days here. I had it all mapped out. A day here, a couple days there, eight in total and then I'd be off. I ended up spending 27. And not because India was that particularly great, honestly. A lot of it had to do with poor planning on my part, and forgetting to take into consideration the amount of time it would take to travel. I mean... India is BIG. Like... really big. Let me put this in perspective for you:

India's outline superimposed on the United States
... and some of Canada... and  some of Mexico (via buzzfeed..com)

This all seems so obvious, but it worth saying aloud. India isn't this singular entity of India like I used to think about it as from half-way around the globe in my comfy San Francisco apartment. The different parts of India are very, very different. And I wanted to make sure I saw all of the things I had originally set out to see, from the north all the way through the south. Which meant I was here for a month. I still didn't see everything. Some places I wish I had spent less time. Other places I still didn't get to see at all. But overall, I'm happy with the way this trip turned out.

A lot of what you hear about India is totally true. There is poverty everywhere. Everywhere. People talk about how in India you can see the extremes of wealth butted up right next to each other. My friend KB explained that the reason you see slums surrounding multi-million dollar homes is because the people that live in those slums are the people who built those mansions, so they live close by out of necessity.

I'm reminded of an episode of The West Wing where Donna goes to visit Gaza and is reporting back to Josh. "When you get... into the streets, what hits you about Gaza isn't the overcrowding or poverty. What strikes you is something else: idleness. The sense of the people waiting but with no expectation. It's hard to convey."

I'll caveat all of this by saying that while I was here for almost a month, my interactions with the locals were almost exclusively limited to transactional encounters: hostel proprietors, shopkeepers, waiters, cab drivers, ice cream guys, and ticket sellers, so that likely is coloring my perspective on the situation. But I saw a lot of people here who don't seem to have a lot to do. I don't even know that "idleness" appropriately captures it. I think "resignation" is better. People seemed resigned to live the hand they've been dealt. Even the shopkeepers sit outside of their shops all day, waiting for the couple of sales they might make in a day and not doing much else beside talking to the shopkeeper next door. I guess it's no different than a lot of places in the U.S. but somehow it feels... sadder because it's in India.

There's also a sense of comradery and intimacy among the people here that you don't see in the U.S. Complete strangers talk to one another as if they've known each other their whole lives. People can sound like they're arguing when really they're just having a normal conversation.

I can imagine that it must be incredibly difficult to be a woman here. Most everything seemed to be done by men. Occasionally there'd be a woman in a position of authority, but they were few and far between. Rape was a topic that was a common occurrence in the news. I honestly don't think it's any worse a problem here than it must be in many other parts of the world, but I think it get's a little more attention here because 1) I think there's a bigger international spotlight on India than there is on a lot of other countries, and 2) India is a lot bigger, so as a sheer numbers game, it happens more often here than in smaller countries, but still makes national/international news. Still, I met plenty of female travelers who told me about how many people they knew were shocked and scared to learn that they were traveling by themselves through India.

The servant class is fascinating to me here. Like in Bangladesh, it's totally normal to have servants and drivers here. While staying with KB, I heard her explaining to one of her servants about how the Earth revolved around the sun. This servant was a teenage girl. It's hard to say how much of her lack of educational opportunities had to do with her being female and how much had to do with her just being part of a lower class, but in either case, it was maddening and saddening to see. Servants don't even really interact with the people the serve, outside of anything transactional. They might talk a little, but not really. They're there to serve, not be friends. It's amazing. Amazing in the "I'm amazed that that's how this works," not amazing in the, "this is awesome!" sense.

Personal space and personal hygiene are also very different here than they are in America. By personal space, I really mean lack thereof. There are no physical boundaries between the people here. When you're waiting in line, the person behind you is always pushing your forward. And not by accident, they are actively pushing you forward, even if there is no place forward for your to move. It's not rude in this culture, it's just how it is. Body odor is also all around you. I never got used to it, but it also wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be in most cases. But sometimes it can almost knock you off your feet. No one here seems to notice.

I ate with my hands more and more as the trip went on. If you've never eaten a full meal with your hands before besides buffalo wings, I highly recommend trying it at least once. You feel connected to your food in a way that you don't get when you're one step removed when using utensils. You get to know your food on a deeper level. The consistency of it. The temperature. The texture. It adds a completely new layer to one's gastronomic experience. If you do try it out, don't be shy. It's not like eating a bag of Cheetos where you try to only use two fingers to minimize the amount of Cheeto dust you have on your hands. You've got to dive right in. Get a little messy. Remember, you're going to wash your hands when you're done anyways, so have at it. Also remember, there's no wrong way to do it.

Certain aspects of the infrastructure are huge problems here as well. Most of the places I went to were one giant trash dump. A story I left out of my experience in Amritsar was when I was killing time before heading out to the Attari border. I bought some ice cream but I held onto the wrapper until I could find a trash can because I refused to contribute to India's pervasive trash problem. I finished the ice cream and went to another shop to buy water. After I purchased the water, I asked the shopkeeper if he knew where I could throw away my trash. In response, he waved his arm out in front of him, gesturing toward the vastness of... the street behind me. Which was already filled with trash. Later that day, I had an almost identical experience after I returned from the border. I was holding onto the plastic water bottle, and one of the friendly locals went out of his way to tell me I should put the bottle behind the tire of a parked car so that it would get crushed.

The train system here is abysmal. First off, the booking system could use a massive overhaul. If I'm in India's shoes, there is no question in my mind that I invest a few million dollars and a few months to hire an IT consulting firm to redesign the flow of train bookings. The payoff in efficiency would be enormous. As a foreigner, it's incredibly difficult to book your own tickets. You're basically forced to go through a third party. It's almost impossible to book a ticket a couple days in advance, you've got to do it way before that. And then there's a limited number of last-minute tickets that become available for purchase at a certain time of day, so there's a mad dash to get them before they're gone. For a significantly higher price. Some train classes you don't have an actual seat, so you have to get their early and rush to get a good place in line so you can guarantee your spot on the train. There's a officer there with a long wooden stick to beat anyone into submission if they're out of line, or trying to cut the line, or get too rowdy. Trains are also perpetually late for what seems to be no good reason.

Sanitation is a disaster. Water is a disaster. Public safety standards are a joke. Construction workers don't wear helmets. They're just guys off the streets who needed jobs.

All of this is to be expected in the third world, but it doesn't have to be like this. And I have to imagine this is changing. I'm sure if I had come here 10 years ago, today it would look completely different. The last time my dad was here was a decade ago. When I was making this trip, he warned me that it would be hard to get cash because there are no ATMs. But of course there are ATMs! They're everywhere! Progress is happening, albeit slowly. I saw this ad in an airport from HSBC and I totally believe the headline is true:

It was a totally unique experience being a brown American in India. It definitely had it's pluses and minuses. On the one hand, if you weren't paying too much attention to how I was dressed, you wouldn't immediately know I was a foreigner. This meant I got hassled on the streets waaaaay less than a lot of the other travelers I met. Fewer people asking me for money or trying to sell me something (though I still had quite a few people doing both). It also got me out of some hairier situations because I could play the dumb foreigner card. On the other hand, once people realized I was a foreigner, I was treated the same, if not worse, than other foreigners. As soon as I opened my mouth to talk, prices became doubled. I got a huge variety of reactions from people when they found out I was American. Some people were in disbelief. I got the question "are you sure you're not from India?" more times than you would think. Other people would get frustrated. Why wasn't I talking to them in Hindi? I know you're from America and you don't know Hindi, but... why don't you know Hindi? I know you don't know Hindi but... why aren't you talking to me in Hindi right now? There were even some twinges of anger or disgust. People's body language and tone of voice were conveying an impression of, "how dare you not speak Hindi right now, stupid American." I also totally caught some people way off guard. When I was exploring Delhi with met my first hostel friend, a white Englishwoman, she would talk to me in her English accent and the people around would look and think "oh, an English tourist." But when I spoke back to her with a strong American accent, those same people would do a total double-take and you could tell were thinking to themselves, "WHAAAAAT!?!?!?!"

It's been an interesting role reversal being in India. If you look at me from a sociological perspective, it would be fair to say that my race (genetics) is Indian but my ethnicity (culture) is... American. It might seem kind of weird to think of "American" as an ethnicity, but it is. And I really do identify more as American then I would as Indian or Guyanese. So in America, I match ethnically, but looking totally different racially. In India, I match racially, but am totally different ethnically. At home, I often forget that I look totally different than the white kids I hang out with. I remember one time back in high school I was having a conversation about how at lunch the school yard was fairly segregated by race, with "us white kids" on one side of the lunch area, before I realized I had lumped myself in with "us." I guess it's the product of growing up in middle class America constantly surrounded pretty heavily by white people. In India, I often forget that I looked the same as these people. It's hard to convey how weird that it, by the way, not remembering how you look to other people. When I saw Indians in India, my brain thinks "foreigners" which is closely connected to "doesn't look like me."

This was my first time really being surrounded by brown people for an extended period of time. This must be what it's like to be white in America. Which I guess I never really knew because I'm not white. I think the self-image I have of being American is what has made it so hard to identify people who look like me. Which then also feeds into the very confusing mental state of not knowing how much I really should be identifying with this culture. Regardless, I understand India so much better than I ever did before. And I understand a piece of my history so much more than I did before. I think one of the biggest takeaways is that mentally, I need to stop denying that I'm Indian when people ask me where I'm from, and rather embrace the fact that I've got a long, rich history with this country and it's people. I might not know exactly which people or where in this country specifically, but that doesn't really matter.

I grew a lot as a traveler as well. This is my first time traveling outside of the country on my own and I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. And I did. (To some extent. I still knew people in a few places here who helped me out along the way. I think Cambodia will be the real test though. I don't know anyone, don't speak the language, and don't look like the people.) I booked hostels, navigated transportation, made friends, organized my own trips, fed myself, washed clothes, (washed myself!), kept myself relatively healthy, changed money, avoided getting mugged, avoided getting arrested, exposed myself to new cultures and experiences, and became a lot more comfortable with being on my own. I was sick here. A lot. And it rained here. A lot. And I got cheated here. A lot. I could have gone without all three, but I do think they contributed to the sense of "if I can do this, I can do anything" that I'm taking with me from India.

50 Things I hadn't done a month ago:
1. Lived out of a backpack for a month straight
2. Worn the same two sets of clothes for a month straight
3. Visited a Hindu temple
4. Took part in a Hindu religious ceremony
5. Walked through the streets barefoot
6. Saw the home of Mother Teresa
7. Went to Victoria Memorial
8. Explored an Indian slum
9. Got a shave
10. Ate a cheese naan
11. Celebrated a birthday by myself
12. Taken a train for 24 hours
13. Used an Asian-style toilet
14. Stayed in a hostel
15. Made hostel friends
16. Ate a Maharaja Mac
17. Used Indian rupees
18. Purchased a foreign phone
19. Rode on the back of a motorbike
20. Visited Jama Masjid
21. Almost got arrested
22. Visited the Red Fort
23. Climbed over a barbed-wire fence. Twice.
24. Got lost in an urban jungle
25. Had the best biryani in New Delhi
26. Rode in an auto (the Indian kind)
27. Meditated in the Lotus Temple
28. Visited the Taj Mahal
29. Learned how hand-crafted rugs, marble work, and tapestries are made
30. Visited Qadian
31. Went to Bahishti Maqbara
32. Visited Hoshiarpur
33. Climbed up the White Minaret
34. Visited the Golden Temple
35. Fell asleep in the Golden Temple
36. Rode in the back of a van with a malfunctioning door
37. Saw the Attari border closing ceremony
38. Went to the premier Indian vacation spot, Goa
39. Befriended an Indian shopkeeper entrepreneur
40. Went to the land of my people (maybe), Kerala
41. Became someone's first international friend
42. Saw a Kathakali show
43. Went to Jewtown
44. Got an Ayurvedic massage
45. Took a 6-hour cab ride
46. Went to an Indian hospital
47. Stood on top of a waterfall
48. Visited the Connemara Tea Factory
49. Went on a spice walk
50. Rode an ELEPHANT

Thank you, India!

How it started

How it ended

Leaving Qadian

I woke up at 4:45am for morning prayers on my last day in Qadian. It was sad to be leaving. After prayers, I took another walk over to Bahishti Maqbara and spent about 20 minutes there before going back to the mosque again to say a few last prayers and take some last photos.

Everyone I met had been so welcoming and the last day was no exception. At 9am they asked me if I wanted breakfast. My cab hadn't arrived yet so I said yes. Breakfast was simple: eggs, toast, and jam. They asked me if I wanted tea, I said no, and they brought it anyway, as usual when I say no. I'm always glad to have the tea, it's a great way to finish the meal. All of my meals here have been pretty simple, which was actually nice. I think anything fancier would have felt out of place.

My cab driver was Ahmadi and spoke great English, which meant that unlike my cab ride here (which was in total silence), I learned a lot about Qadian on my way back to Amritsar.

I'm so glad I came here.

The Best View in Qadian

Minarat-ul Masih, Qadian

Today I got to go to the top Minarat-ul Masih (aka the White Minaret), the most famous minaret in Ahmadiyyat and the main symbol for the Ahmadi community! (Minarets are the tall, skinny towers attached to mosques, from where the call to prayer is recited.) It's the highest point in Qadian and has a breathtaking 360-degree view of the city. The person who took me up there was a graduate form Jammiah who has lived in Qadian for a decade and he said he's only gone up here two or three times. It's hard to describe the feeling of being up there. Time felt so short, I wanted to just stay up there and soak up more of the view of Qadian.

I went for another walk through town today. I thought I had only gotten to see part of the bazaar yesterday, but as it turns out I had pretty much seen the whole thing. Qadian really isn't all that big.

Later in the evening, the same guy who took me up to the top of Minarat-ul Masih came back on him motorcycle to give me a tour of all the other historic places in Qadian. This, for the record, is the second time I've ridden on the back of a motorcycle in India. We went to see the Ahmadiyya Library, Jammiah, a few mosques, and a handful of other historic buildings.

Inner courtyard of Jammiah

A huge portion of this city used to be owned by Ahmadis, but when the partition between India and Pakistan took place, a lot of Ahmadis had to abandon their homes and many of them moved to Rabwah, Pakistan. When that happened, a lot of those abandoned places became occupied by others or by the government, and the Ahmadi community has been slowly buying back those buildings / that land as it becomes available again. For right now, the city of Qadian is sort of split up between the different communities that live here, with the mosque and much of the surrounding land on one side belonging to Ahmadis, and the other part of the city belonging to everyone else.

View from the top of Minarat-ul Masih

Today was another day filled with a lot of prayers throughout. Having taken this time off, it's pretty easy for me to actually do that since I don't have other responsibilities, really. Prayers have been pretty all-encompassing, but it's left me wondering that for the people who have their jobs and their lives outside of the mosque, how can they possibly do all of this too? Qadian for me in inextricably linked to religion and prayer. And I've met a lot of people here who have dedicated their lives to Islam and their actual jobs are related to work for the mosque, but what about everyone else? How can you live in Qadian and not come to the mosque for prayers. I guess if you live here and you don't work for the mosque, then being in Qadian is just normal life for you. Like how I saw the Golden Gate Bridge all the time, and it's still cool to see, but to me it's not the super-amazing thing that people fly in from all over the world to traverse. Because it's just my local bridge.

The Most Spiritual Day of My Life

Bahishti Maqbara at dawn, Qadian

Muslims pray... a lot. Among other things, this includes five daily prayers that are performed at various times throughout the day. Today was the first time, I think in my entire life, that I said all five daily prayers, at their proper times, and inside of a mosque. My day started around 4:45am for the morning prayer which happens before sunrise. I was surprised at how many people were at the mosque for prayers, though this is Qadian so I guess I really shouldn't be. After prayers, I met up with AC and his family who took me to Bahishti Maqbara, which translates to "Heavenly Graveyard," and is a cemetery where Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and many other important people in Ahmadiyyat are buried. I was surprised at how beautiful it was; definitely not your run-of-the-mill cemetery. We said some prayers there, then came back to the guest house for breakfast. AC and his family left after breakfast so I'm now officially on my own here again. I'm sad to see them go, but I'm so glad they were here. I feel a lot less on my own now, even though they aren't here anymore.

Main bazaar area, Qadian

I decided to go for a run through Qadian. I haven't gone on a run for a while because my ankle started hurting on my last run and I wanted to rest it up for a while before starting my trip, since... I kind of need it to be traversing through Asia. But it's been feeling great so I went for it. (Also, and this is an excuse more than anything, I don't have a lot of clothes, so logistically it's a little challenging from an "I have to wash stuff but it needs time to dry and I also have to wear stuff" perspective.) Going for a run is apparently not a thing people do in India. I got a LOT of curious stares from people, and not just because I blatantly looked like a tourist.

For as important a city as Qadian is, it's pretty amazing to see on my run how... ordinary it is. Like many other small towns here, it's relatively poor. There's a really happenin' bazaar with lots of shops and people selling fruits, street food, clothing, and other some other things. A lot of roads aren't paved or are in severe disrepair. I stopped to get some minutes added to my Indian phone and was chatting with the Hindu guy behind the counter. He was telling me that the city is ~25% Muslim, and the rest are Hindu, Sikh, a few Christians, and other Muslims (I've heard from multiple other people that there aren't any other Muslims left in Qadian, so I'm not sure about this one). In any case, he said that everyone gets along really well and that Qadian is an incredibly safe city, even to walk around at night (I've heard this from other people as well).

The guy in my dad's photos...
and now in mine!

My father had been to Qadian about 10 years ago and back them he took photos with someone who worked here. He miraculously saved those photos all these years and when he found out I was coming to Qadian, he printed out some copies of those photos and asked me to give them to the guy when I came. I was incredible skeptical for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that there would be absolutely no way that 10 years later I was going to know who to give these photos to. Nonetheless I humored him and took the photos with me. I had to take extra special care so make sure they didn't get wrinkled and I didn't have a hard folder in which to put them. I was shocked that when I got to Qadian the photos actually survived in pretty good shape, especially considering all of the travel they had to go through. Today I asked around and it turns out the guy in these photos still works here! He does security at the main entrance to the mosque now. I tracked him down, introduced myself, told him the story of these photos and gave them to him. And wouldn't you know, he was SO happy to receive these photos! He couldn't believe my dad had kept them all these years and that he thought to send them with me to Qadian! Seeing how excited he was to receive these photos made all of the effort to get them to Qadian in one piece totally worth it.

I came back for Jummah (Friday prayers) at 1pm. I met someone earlier in the day who was going to show me around a little more, but we got our wires crossed about timing so we ended up not meeting up after all. But when I came back a few hours later for the late afternoon prayer, I met a teacher from Jammiah who did a little impromptu tour for me right there. He was an awesome guy and he speaks great English (like everyone else from Jammiah), which was a huge plus for me. I stayed in the mosque for pretty much the rest of the day offering some extra prayers. Concurrently, there was a local youth convention called an Ijtema that was happening this weekend. Part of that are various religious competitions, including one for recitation of religious poems (they aren't writing them, just reciting one from a handful of ones that have already been written). After the last of the five daily prayers, I went to go listen the poem competition. At this point it was around 9pm and I was exhausted, so I went back to my room in the guest house. Just after I closed the door, someone came knocking and it was NK, the man in charge of external affairs for our sect in Qadian. He was the one I was in contact with to arrange the car to get me to Qadian and he arranged my stay here. We've communicated over phone and text, so it was wonderful to meet him in person. He had been traveling for several days, and the first thing he did when he got back was to come see me. Don't I feel special? This guy is kind of a big deal, so it was awesome that he was doing this. It turns out that since DRH is such a big deal here, and that I'm from his mosque, that they've been treating me even more extra special than how special they already treat anyone who visits Qadian. We talked for about 20 minutes and he even helped me plan out the next few days of my trip and made arrangements for someone to look into flight options for me for the next leg of my trip.

I finished off the day by reading a few chapters of the Holy Quran, the Muslim holy book. The Quran is supposed to be read aloud and in its original language of Arabic, which is what I do when I read it. I don't actually understand the words, which I wish I could, but it's good to at least be able to read it aloud.

Spending pretty much the entire day in supplication was a pretty unique experience. The longer I spent in prayer, the more meaningful this whole experience became and the more I began to realize how powerful being in this place is and how special it is to be here. I found myself praying for things I had never even thought to pray for before. I found myself want to stay and pray for even longer, which is a feeling I've really only ever had when there have been tragic events or difficult decisions to make. The longer I'm here, the more I feel the significance of this mosque and of Qadian. The history of this place is my history too. The events that transpired in this town set a course that ultimately shaped my upbringing and who I am today. Qadian itself is no longer just a concept to me anymore. I am here now. It is real.

Qadian and Your Islam History Lesson of the Day

Ahmadiyya Gate, which reads:
"Love For All Hatred For None",
the slogan of the Ahmadiyya community

My train was only an hour late to Amritsar, which isn't bad I think. Everyone here seems to expect things to be late so no one gets mad when it actually happens. I'm headed straight to Qadian for a few days and will be back to check out Amritsar afterward. I was picked up at the platform by a missionary here who sent me with a driver to Qadian. Neither of them really spoke much English, but we were able to get by.

Here's your Islam history lesson for the day. Qadian is a really important city to people of my particular sect of Islam: Ahmadiyyat. The sect was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who was born in and lived in Qadian, so this city is basically the hometown of Ahmadiyyat. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be a reformer of Islam; he didn't bring any new laws, only reviving what the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had already brought to the people. Ahmadis across the world are heavily persecuted by other Muslim sects. At the heart of this persecution is that all Muslims believe that Muhammad (pbuh) is the "seal of the prophets," meaning that no prophets would come after him. Ahmadis interpret that to mean that no law-bearing prophets would come after Muhammad (pbuh). But since Ahmadis still believe in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet, other Muslims consider this blasphemous and Ahmadis are considered by both Sunnis and Shias (the two major sects of Islam) to be non-Muslims. As a result, in Muslim countries like Pakistan, Ahmadis cannot openly practice Islam while also calling themselves Ahmadis without risking jail and/or death. That is to say, the persecution of Ahmadis is actually part of the law in these places.

Baitul Zikr mosque, Qadian

Qadian is a relatively small city tucked away in the north of India, in the state of Punjab and very close to Kashmir. Ahmadis from all over the world come to visit Qadian because of it's historical significance. I'm staying for free at the mosque's guest house here, which is conveniently a two-minute walk away from the mosque itself. I'm also being provided all of my meals and pretty much anything else I need. My room is air conditioned which is awesome because it's SO hot here (like everywhere else in India I've been).

When I got to my room I got settled and thought to myself that it's pretty amazing to be here, but I really wish my dad was here. I know Qadian is important, but beyond that, I don't really know what I should be doing here. It would have been nice to have dad to show me around and explain things.

The call to prayer happened soon thereafter to I walked over to the mosque to say prayers. When I returned, there were some people staying in the room next to mine. They looked really familiar and when I walked up to them one of them said my name and it turns out it was my old friend AC from my mosque in Philadelphia! (We used to live in Philadelphia before moving to California, so my family has a lot of ties to that community.) AC was in Qadian with his parents for a couple days. It just so happens that they were taking a trip to Hoshiarpur (another important city for Ahmadis that I had planned on seeing while I was in Qadian) so they invited me to come along with them. I was so happy to have them there as my surrogate family.

Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission in Hoshiarpur
with my friend AC

Hoshiarpur is about a 90-minute drive southeast of Qadian. It's significant because it's the place where Mirza Ghulam Ahmad went on a retreat of sorts and where he is said to have received an important revelation from God. In Hoshiarpur we saw the room where he stayed for his retreat. It's tucked away in a random street. There's a small sign adorning the entryway but other than that, there's nothing else that would belie the significance of this place to people who didn't already know. When we took pictures in front of it, the people across the street were definitely looking at us wondering what was going on. After saying some prayers there (this will be a common theme throughout my Qadian trip) we headed back. As soon as we started driving, it began to pour rain. When it was coming down the hardest, a tree fell on the road no more than 20 feet in front of us. Luckily we were able to sneak around it along with the 20 or so other felled trees in our path.

The man who was driving us turned out to be the superintendent of Jammiah, which is the Ahmadi missionary training school. He took us to visit the school, and it was there that I found out that the head of my local mosque in LA had actually funded the building of this school! A few people earlier in the day had mentioned his name and I thought nothing of it, but now I totally get it. He's kind of a big deal here. He has built a mosque here as well so basically all of the Ahmadis here know who he is. Afterward, the superintendent took us to his house and gave us tea and cookies. It was incredibly generous of him to spend the day showing us around.

Back at the guest house, I had dinner with AC's family and then AC took me around the mosque to show me all of the historically significant things. He knows a LOT. He's been here a few times but he's also an incredibly devout Ahmadi. I guess I won't be so lost here after all.