I woke up feeling a little better today. I had a good breakfast and I was ready to tackle the day. Last night at the debrief we quickly heard about the attack at the Taj Hotel back in 2008. Today, we learned about the terrorist attack at the Taj Hotel in more detail and we watched a documentary about the attack.
The behavior of the hotel workers during the attack was astonishing. I was completely shocked to hear that not a single one of the hotel workers fled during the attack. All of the stayed back to help the guests. We learned about how the Taj Hotel selects its employees based off of their behavior and interactions at school instead of their grades. They want employees with a certain kind of character and attitude. I don’t know if the employees’ behavior during the attack can be completely contributed to India’s cultural belief that a guest is considered God and of the upmost importance.
I think it has a lot to do with the character of the individuals that they hire at the Taj Hotel. I believe this because we learned that there is a hotel nearby called the Trident Hotel that was also attack like the Taj was. One huge difference is that not all of the workers at the Trident stayed to help their guests, many of them fled and thus they had more casualties than the Taj Hotel had. So if it solely came down to Indian values, then why didn’t all of the workers at the Trident stay?
After we learned about the attack, we went on a tour of the Taj Hotel. The Taj Hotel was beautiful and exceed all of my expectations. I am glad that we stayed here and this made the perfect final place to stay on the study abroad trip.
When the tour was over, I went to the market with Caitlyn and Kate to flex my bargaining powers. This was the first time I was really able to bargain on my own, all the other times I had been in a group or someone else had jumped on it first. I wasn’t extremely great at bargaining because of my soft, gentle personality but I did manage to get a Real Madrid jersey for 500 rupees – I had talked the man down from 750 so I consider this a success. It will be strange going back to the US and not being able to bargain prices down for almost anything that you want.
Tonight was bittersweet as it is that last night that everyone will be together. Tomorrow after the Tyson visit, those of us going on the rump trip will be heading to catch a plane to Delhi and then a train to Jodhpur.
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