Spring Trips: Cultural Immersion in India, Greece
Over spring vacation, Groton students explored the world beyond the Circle on two Global Education Opportunities (GEOs), traveling with faculty to India and Greece.
Fourteen students and three faculty leaders journeyed to India, and nineteen students and four faculty members explored Greece.
In India, they immersed themselves both in the remarkable vigor and dynamism of today’s India, as well as in the rich and unique spiritual life of one of the world’s oldest and most diverse civilizations. The group spent a few days exploring Delhi, including visiting a Sikh temple (Gurudwara) and a Jain temple in the old city. Then the group headed south to Agra via Fatehpur Sikri, the site of the sixteenth-century capital of the great Mughal emperor, Akbar. In Agra they awoke at 5:00 a.m. to see the magnificent Taj Mahal at dawn then, during the afternoon, explored Agra’s Red Fort, with its attendant palace.
After venturing north by train to the bustling city of Dehra Dun, just beneath the foothills of the Himalaya, Groton's boys and girls were hosted, respectively, by the Doon School (for boys) and Welham Girls School, both among India’s premier boarding schools.
In between activities—including cricket, soccer, dance, and cooking classes—students visited the city’s market, an organic farm, a migrant community, a Tibetan Buddhist college, and a Tibetan Buddhist women’s monastery, and took in a Bollywood (Hindi) movie at a new mall. At Rishikesh, a small city at the headwaters of the Ganges, students encountered India’s famously aggressive Rhesus monkeys, and then the students (not the monkeys) had lunch in an ashram as guests of an esteemed yogi. Later that day the group took a safari through Rajaji National Park and saw wild elephants, boars, Langur monkeys, and other unique and impressive wildlife (though no tigers—only fresh tiger tracks).
From Dehra Dun the group ascended the Himalaya (by car) to the nearby Hill Station town of Mussorie, from which they hiked to Everest House, where British explorer and cartographer George Everest did much of his groundbreaking survey of the world’s highest mountain range. The final stop was two days in Varanasi, the holiest city in Hinduism. There the group visited Sarnath, the site of the Buddha’s first teaching, and at sunset took a boat ride on the Ganges, serenaded by three young classical Indian musicians as the boat passed blazing funeral pyres and loud, highly organized offerings to the gods.
After sunrise on the Ganges, students ventured through a cremation site and walked through the narrow, congested lanes of the city’s oldest quarter, dodging a seemingly endless multitude of people of all ages and faiths, as well as stray dogs and cows. The group then flew back to Delhi and boarded a plane for Boston.
Meanwhile, an equally memorable spring break “Odyssey” was beginning in Athens, where students witnessed the rich texture of history and culture, first visiting the Tower of the Winds, surveying Hadrian’s Library, looking out over the ancient Agora, and gazing at the sheer northern wall of the Acropolis.
After a dinner worthy of an ancient Greek symposium, students arose early to ascend the Acropolis. Making their way to the city’s iconic citadel, they paused to consider Stoicism at its birthplace, the Stoa Poikile. They read St. Paul’s message to the Athenians in the very place where he delivered it, atop the Areopagus, and marveled at the architectural genius and timeless beauty of the Propylaia, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheion, graced with the unforgettable Caryatids.In the following days, the group toured the archaeological sites of Eleusis, home to the Eleusinian mysteries, and, in Corinth, climbed the impressive Acro-Corinth, listened to recitations of Tennyson’s Ulysses, and heard a reading of St. Paul’s “Letter to the Corinthians” at the very place where St. Paul gave the original speech.
A visit to the Peloponese included the Mycenae, the fabled home of Agamemnon and the Mycenaeans, and Epidaurus, a sanctuary dedicated to the God Asklepios, which offered the opportunity to sing, declaim, or dance interpretively for a captive audience from the orchestra of one of the best-preserved theaters in the Ancient World.
Later that evening, the dancing continued, with four Greek dancers leading and insisting that no one hang back. It was a rollicking affair: many in the group not only twirled around on the main floor but also stomped rhythmically on top of tables and smashed plates with joyous abandon. The following day in Olympia, physical exertion was balanced with rest and reflection. A two-hundred-meter foot race in the stadium was heated, but the surrounding fields lush with poppies and warm sunlight invited reading and relaxation after competition. Groton, it turns out, spent our time in Olympia in very much the same manner as the ancients used to do.
After a night ferry to Crete, the group visited Knossos, the legendary home of King Minos, learned about the Bronze Age culture of Crete, and were mesmerized by the artifacts found in the Heraklion Museum. Equally memorable: gorging on Cretan honey and delicious lamb dishes. The trip ended back in Athens, with a visit to the National Archaeological Museum, the Athenian agora, and the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, where students dipped their feet into the Aegean and reflected on the trip.
Opportunities for global education continue this summer, as GEOs focus on cultural immersion in Tanzania, science and aeronautics at NASA in Houston, and soccer in Ireland.—Tommy Lamont (India), Scott Giampetruzzi and Amy Martin-Nelson (Greece), faculty GEO leaders
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