07-08 India - Rob playing instrument at College Choir Concert in December
Originally uploaded by YAGM
I'm dreaming of a green Christmas here in Kerala. This is the November newsletter, but it's already the second week of December, and I can't help but feel a little holiday cheer. This past week we had both the Kottayam Mixed Voices Christmas concert, and the College Choir carol service. They were a heap of fun and have adequately set the mood for the season, even though this climate is opposite to the snowy plains of Minnesota.
November was a month of traveling hither and thither across Kerala. As a foreigner I receive invitations to visit homes, churches, work places, schools, and villages almost every day – sometimes even from complete strangers. In the past month I've been agreeing to most of these proposals (except for the ones from strangers) and it's taken me all across this great state and yielded many many very wonderful experiences. Actually, these wonderful experiences are so numerous that this newsletter cannot contain them. On my blog you can find a couple articles that contain more details and even a measure of personal reflection about these travels.
At the beginning of November I began visiting a home for boys in a small village outside Kottayam. These boys range in age from elementary to undergraduate and come from mostly very poor families. Our ability to communicate verbally is somewhat limited, but as our activities consist mostly of playing cricket and running around like crazy animals, this doesn't present much of a problem. I also have to be on my toes to respond to calls of "Uncle, uncle!" - which is the rough equivalent to "Look at me!" Usually this means that one of the boys has scaled the wall and is hanging from the fan , or that one boy has successfully trapped another boy in a professional-wrestling-style headlock. What can I say, these guys are charming (if challenging) and I'm excited to bond with them over the next months.
I also checked a life goal off of my list this month - to be a voice actor in an animated film. The Malayalam language newspaper "Malayala Manorama" has a division to develop CD-ROMs for educational purposes. Their latest project is a series of animated children's stories. The disc comes with the option to hear the story read by a Malayali or by an American (I play the part of the American). As a side note, I also made my big screen debut this month in the Malayalam language film Of the People. I play an American, and I have no lines. I can't exactly explain how these people or projects find me, but perhaps it has something to do with being the only white guy around.
I'm also continuing with my normal duties in Kottayam, namely language and culture courses with undergraduates and graduate students, weekly classes with 3rd and 4th graders at a nearby school, nightly visits to the Bishop Mani Theological Institute to help train lay people for seminary entrance exams, and lots of other interactions with the students of C.M.S. College. But in-between all of this I've been squeezing in many music rehearsals and a lot of side travels (which I chronicle in detail on the blog).
I'm starting to feel at home here in Kerala, even though the language barrier and constant stares are not bound to go away anytime soon. I've made some very close friends and I'm enjoying my invovement with the different projects. The diversity and frequency of experiences here far outpaces my ability to fully process them, but I can always "process" later. As always, I cherish your news from home. Thank you all for your continued interest and support. Happy holidays, my friends.
Weekend and Vishnu's: An Adventure
If variety is the spice of life, then uncertainty must be the chili pepper of life. When Vishnu invited me to his home in a rural fishing village one Saturday, I had no idea what to expect and I wasn't even sure how to get there. I hopped on a bus going in the general direction, told the fare collector the name of the stop and desperately hoped he would alert me when we had reached my destination. He didn't, but luckily Vishnu caught site of my paleness shining from within the public bus and shouted at me to get down at once.
He led me through the narrow dirt path to his neighborhood, a collection of about 10 or 15 houses surrounded on three sides by lush green rice paddies. After meeting most of his immediate and extended family along the path we finally made it to Vishnu's humble house, where he invited me in for breakfast. We ate in the dining room / living room / bedroom / entryway. The entire house consisted of two bedrooms, a kitchen and this multi-purpose room. Vishnu, his parents, his two sisters and grandmother all lived together in this house that, in terms of total area, was roughly the size of my room at C.M.S. College. At this moment the fact that even as a volunteer I'm not really "roughing it" hit me like a ton of bricks. But Vishnu was not ashamed to bring me to his home. He did not invite me to his home to expose the horrors of poverty, to pump me for money or even to make me feel guilty. He wanted me to meet his family and he wanted to show me the beautiful paddies and backwaters that surround his village.
Vishnu's parents were away at work when I arrived. They are both daily wage earners (as is nearly everyone in the village.) His father works on a boat where his job is to actually catch fish by hand by diving to the lakebed and scooping up a precious form of fish that hides in the mud. Simply amazing.
After breakfast we decided to take a dip in the lake near his house - it was already blazingly hot outside. I didn't think to bring a swimming suit but, no problem, Vishnu provided me with a towel to cover myself. The downside, the towel was roughly the size of a dishrag. It fell about midway down my thigh and didn't quite make it all the way around my waist. Not wanting to be a wet rag myself, so to speak, I donned said cover and hopped into the water with Vishnu and some of his friends and relatives from the village. It was truly a marvelous time and we spent a good amount of energy diving for clamshells. I definitely lost my towel a few times during the swim, but I always managed to find it again despite the murkiness of the water. You can see a bunch of pictures from this part of the adventure on my web album.
After drying off and redressing we grabbed a quick bite of rice and sambar and headed off for the next adventure, the bird sanctuary. As there seem to be strict host/guest rules here, the boys insisted on paying my entrance to the sanctuary. Well, I thought to myself, I doubt it's very expensive. I was half right. The entrance for each of them was only 5 rupees, but my entrance came to a whopping 45 rupees, three times the others guys' fee combined. But they paid it gladly and we were off. The area was really beautiful but the best part about this walk was the conversation that happened along the way. It was here that Vishnu told me that he had been accepted into the Indian Navy. By accepting the position he has agreed to serve for the next 15 years. He also will have to leave college before completing his degree in order to attend training in January. Unlike in America where people join the armed forces to help pay for their studies, in India when you join the armed forces you must abandon your studies. The upside, however, is job security for the next 15 years, and a pension upon completion. Compared with the staggering unemployment rate in Kerala, this doesn't seem like such a bad decision.
As night approached I hopped a bus back to campus and reflected on the day. I was truly moved by Vishnu's sincerity and generosity. He shared his home, his food, and the foremost thoughts on his mind with me. In two weeks it's likely that I will never see Vishnu again, but I think we will both remember the day in the village for a very long time.
October Newsletter
In Kerala, every day is a surprise. Surprise! There is another college strike today. Surprise! It's a torrential downpour during the dry season. Surprise! No power or running water today. Surprise! You're leading a two-hour class and it starts in three minutes. I'm learning a whole new way to be flexible. This culture has instilled in me something that is really true in all cultures – life cannot be trusted to behave.
Though I've continued regularly with some of the programs that I mentioned last month (choir rehearsals and interaction with students young and old), October was the month of side-projects.
In the beginning of the month I accompanied a group of youths (ages 14-19) on a weekend retreat. These kids were from the Mar Thoma Church, a reformed outgrowth of the Syrian Orthodox Church, which is a unique export of Kerala. I was asked to join them because; you guessed it, they wanted me to lead the singing portions of their camp. Never mind the fact that out of the 30 kids I only recognized two of the faces, I was excited to join in for the ride. The site was located a couple hours from Kottayam town, so we had to take a bus - we took a public bus actually. How do I describe public buses? Have you ever seen that picture of eight or nine college dudes all smashed into a phone booth? It's kind of like that, only horizontal and accelerating at 40 to 50 Mph. It's also exciting watching thirty people expulse themselves from the bus while strangers help hurl the bags, speakers and musical instruments out of the windows to "catchers" below. Long story short, I had a great weekend and met a lot of really enjoyable people. I also saw a very large python (in a cage).
Keeping with the meeting random church people theme, I spent five days at a "Kerala Pastor's and Christian Workers Conference" early in the month. The main speakers, strangely, were Americans, but the true joy of the conference was meeting pastors (Achens) from every corner of Kerala. I heard about pastoral life from the chilly foothills of the Western Ghat Mountains to the impoverished urban slums in the state's capital, Trivandrum. I also met some young volunteers from various states in the north of India (where Malayalam is not spoken.) We compared our experiences as outsiders in Kerala. Was it better, in my case, to be a foreigner and have everyone recognize you as such? Or was it better, in their case, to be an outsider and have everyone assume you're local? We finally settled on some common ground, the Malayalam language is really hard to pronounce, no matter who you are.
At the conference they screened a documentary that was called India Untouched. It was an interfaith, interstate, look at the continuing caste related struggles throughout India. It showed that not only Hindus, but Muslims and Christians continue to face discrimination based on caste. I found the portion of the movie set in Kerala to be of particular interest. Everyone they interviewed said, "There is no caste problem left in Kerala"or "We have eradicated caste," etc. The next shot was of a boarding school clearly divided along caste lines, with the low caste children forced to do the menial chores while the high caste children played freely. Even in my short time here I can count numerous occasions when people have told me, with complete sincerity, that there is no caste problem in Kerala. I've been fortunate this month to have some really enlightening interactions with members of the dalit (oppressed) community. You can read more about those experiences in "Thursdays with Christopher Achen."
On a side-note about side-projects, I also visited the original burial place of Vasco de Gama in Cochin (before he was returned to Lisbon) and began playing in nightly badminton games which have been happening uninterrupted for over 30 years! The excitement never stops, and neither should your letters, e-mails and warm wishes. Thanks again for all of your support.
Thursdays with Christopher Achen
Christopher Achen is a pastor in the C.S.I. (Church of South India) and a member of the dalit community. At present he travels five hours twice a week to receive dialysis treatment. As a result, work on his doctoral thesis (concering dalit Christians in central Kerala) and his work in the church have come to a grinding halt. His role as teacher and his role as student have been put on hold. But since I met him by chance one month ago, he has become an important teacher to me.
It all began one day when a surprise strike on campus instantly cleared my schedule. One of the graduate students, Albin, approached me and said "I have to go fix Christopher Achen's computer, you are coming with me?" I wasn't sure if that was an offer or a command, but I decided I should probably go with him.
While Albin repaired the ailing computer, Achen and I engaged in general "get to know you" subjects, you know, the effects of capitalism on an agrarian society, the plight of unemployment in Kerala and the dilemmas facing of the church today. Though initially I was reluctant to follow Albin on his errand, when he finished his work I found that I didn't want to leave – this Christopher Achen had some truly fascinating insights about important issues in Kerala today.
Ever since that first meeting I've been visiting Achen every Thursday afternoon. I go Thursday because his treatments are on Tuesday and Friday, and Thursday is a solid in-between day. I go in the afternoon because that's when Kochamma (his wife) makes the most splendid Chai (tea) I think I've ever had.
Every week, Achen unfolds the story of his life a little more. He tells me about his struggles to receive higher education despite discouragement from the synod. He tells me about protest marches to the Bishop's house demanding fair representation for dalits in the clergy (this agitation actually got results). He tells me about the disproportionate aid allotted to the already wealthy congregations instead of to the poorest congregations who deal with crumbling churches and dilapidated parsonages.
Last Thursday he left me with an image that I will not soon forget. Mid-sentence he paused, let out a brief, punchy laugh and stated very matter-of-factly, "Jesus has escaped the church." It actually had the same cadence as, "Elvis has left the building." He paused, I laughed. We both continued in open laughter - I mean, just picture it. Jesus, utterly frustrated, hopping off the cross, busting right out through the stained glass depiction of the last supper, and fleeing with Godly speed down the gravel path. I'm not sure about the theological implications of this image, but the point is valid. If the church looks to Jesus as its model for behavior, some of the behavior it has shown would scare the bejeezus out of Jesus. Christopher Achen is my guide through this dark side of the Church, but he is also my encourager in the hope that remains in this ancient organization.
Election Reflection
The process of announcing a new Catholic Pope is a strange one; it involves multiple colors of smoke and very old men. I would place the posting of the results for the C.M.S. College student government on that same level in terms of oddity.
On the top floor of the Physics department a special committee counts the ballots by hand. Each result is carefully written out on piece of paper and hurled out of the window. Everyone sprints to the piece of paper, someone grabs it, shouts out the results, and every member of the elect's party runs and screams and grabs and jumps and dances in support. This process continues on for a couple of hours until all the positions have been named, then the victorious party processes out of the gates into the city, waving flags and shouting slogans. Meanwhile, a veritable battalion of cops armed with helmets and batons look on in case a rival political faction decides to cause trouble. There was no trouble this year, but school was cancelled the following day as a precautionary measure. I have additional photos of the elections and a video of the victory march posted on my album and blog respectively.
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