Stampedes are nasty, nasty things

It’s been a while since the last blog post. We’ve just been too busy, I guess. And then my mom wrote, asking where we were, worried cause I hadn’t updated the blog lately. Really mom, we’re ok.

Did I mention I almost died today?

Today is India’s Republic Day, and they hold an air show/parade/military demonstration that we’d never been to before. So today we decided to go with the kids - along with 100,000 other people who had tickets for prime seating along the parade route. Bad idea.

Around 9:30 this morning we got to the reserved seating area where we had bought seats to see the 2 hour show. But the line going in was long and there were literally thousands of people waiting and trying to get into a single entrance to the seating area before the show began.

We were in the middle of a large waiting crowd when the surge began. We started getting pushed from behind. Then the side. The swaying went back and forth. People started yelling. We got nervous. A young girl was being pulled from among people’s feet and lifted above heads to her frightened father. I had my arms around Eliyas, but I wasn’t in control - the crowd was. I was struggling to stay on my feet. Jen and Asia were behind me, but I couldn’t see them. Or help. I was totally, completely freaked out. I thought for sure we’d end up getting trampled in the madness.

I began to pray out loud. Real loud. And then suddenly the barriers that were containing the bulging crowd broke and people began running in different directions. We saw an opening and we pushed our way out of the crowd to an open area. And we shook. Wondering why in the flip we even bothered coming to something so crowded.

We finally found our seats once the pushing and shoving of the crowd wound down. The show was decent. Later, as we left, we could see shoes left behind at the spot where the near-stampede took place. And a baby bottle left lying in the dirt.

I kinda feel thankful to be alive.

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