“He let us alone and I think he maybe had mixed feelings afterwards whether he did so in too great a degree. But I think he had a lot of faith in the group as a whole. And I know he had great faith in the power of India. He believed in the creation of our intellectual curiosity with the power of India. I think he assumed a little too much about the power of bringing together of those two things. The students have a way of slipping out of responsibility and it’s so easy for human beings not to confront it. When we were in the villages he would come and visit you and talk to you and then leave. And the visit would be for a couple of hours. It was scary because you were at a place like I lived at, a government rest house, but I was the only person in this building and there was a government official who sort of was in charge of looking after me. I remember he spoke very little English so we couldn’t have really a conversation. And you know you have to go to the bathroom. You have to defecate on your own in the fields. I wasn’t watched formally but everybody was seeing everything, most of the time. You’d get these containers of water–leaves and water. But what’s actually the most difficult thing is you have to build up your muscles in your legs because you have to squat in a way. It takes a little time and of course it’s really very, very difficult. India is just full of intimidations.

–Dale Riehl '72