Mara and Kara and the Holi Days
8:14 AM Edit This 2 Comments »
Monday we woke up with the intention of going to MMM school, but were confused to see that none of the school buses had gone out and the school yard was oddly silent. This confused us, as the night before the TV reported that the public holiday that was supposed to be on Monday had been moved to Tuesday (apparently television has powers like that over here). So, we had yet another unexpected free day. We took a long walk, where we ran into Presanthe who was waiting outside a house for a client. He was rather confused as to what we were doing out, telling us that early morning was when sane people ‘exercised.’ The afternoon brought darkening skies and distant rumblings of thunder, but we were hesitant to believe that it was going to really rain after almost two months of zero precipitation. However, Mother Nature wasn’t fooling around this time, and the area got hit hard with a huge storm. Towards the end of it we went for a walk on a new route, which gave us a whole new set of residents to confuse. We saw some interesting sites, including a not so young boy running around stark naked. We also spotted Sunny walking around with an umbrella, which amused us greatly for some reason.
The next day was the real holiday (but for some reason MMM still had school… someone needs to explain to them how a holiday works) so we went into Kottayam to meet with our professors, who prefer to meet with us not on working days as to keep the interruptions to a minimum. This lesson session brought only a short lesson with Dr. Manni, as he packed us off to a friend’s house who has given lectures on Islam for previous groups. He is also the head coach for the Mahatma Gandhi men’s football team, so was very happy to meet some fellow footballers. However, this may have been a drawback, as he was much more interested in talking about soccer tactics than he was about Islam. He settled on using analogies about football to teach us about his religion. Not only did this lesson turn out to be more about sports than beliefs, we received a broad overview on sex education as well. While we are glad that he was so frank with us, we’re not sure that every rule in the Qur’an is to better an individuals sex life, as he implied on numerous occasions.
We went back to Santa Maria on Wednesday, as we had told them that we would attend their Food Fest day. All of the kids were very excited to get the cooking underway, but we were a little hesitant about the numerous knives that they pulled out of their backpacks, pockets, and various other areas of their persons. We were even less excited to see several boys sword fighting with their knives as a teacher looked calmly on. Once we were sure that we were in no danger of receiving flesh wounds from any of the students, we helped seventh standard cut vegetables for the pizza. We weren’t totally out of the clear for hazards to our health, as the makeshift kitchen turned out to be the chemistry lab which was in need of a good cleaning. Cutting the onions turned out to be an adventure, as every single kid had tears streaming down their cheeks and Mara had to go stand at the other end of the room to recover, although Kara remained unaffected and dry-eyed. After all of the cooking was done, we got to go around and sample all of the class’s food. Our favorite was the chocolate shakes; the kids preferred to stick to more western foods, as Kerala food is ‘too hard to make.’ Second standard didn’t get this message however, and made ridiculously hot chutney to eat with some kappa (tapioca). It has been the spiciest thing we’ve ate here so far, including the various mango pickles that we’ve sampled.
After lunch, we were fortunate enough to participate in a Holi celebration. Holi is a Hindu festival that occurs more in the north of India but Santa Maria still decided to celebrate. It involves throwing brightly colored powders and water at each other and smearing it into each other’s face, hair, and clothes. We were instantly targeted by all of the kids, and soon were unrecognizable. We made sure to give it right back however, although Mara wasn’t able to get revenge at our friend Alex after he threw a handful of green glitter into her mouth. We looked absolutely ridiculous. On our way home, we asked Dr. Oomen to stop at Sunny’s shop so we could show him our change in skin color. Sunny couldn’t stop laughing long enough to put together a coherent sentence. We did our best to scrub off all of the color when we got home, although Mara had some stubborn purple spots on her eyebrows that hung around for a few days. When Gracie came home, she informed us that all of Theodical was talking about our bizarre appearance. Don’t people have anything better to talk about? That night while watching TV, we got to see Sunny on the news announcing the details of the Bishop’s jubilee celebration. And Sunny says he’s not important….
On Thursday we were fortunate enough to receive an invitation to visit and observe the methods of the Sri Atmanda School. Or, lack of methods, as the mindset of the school is to do whatever the kids want to do. There was a million white people there (apparently the area has a moderate French community) who looked weird to us. We can’t decide if it’s because we haven’t seen a white person in so long or if they really did just look funny. While it was nice to see another school, and as surprised as we were to see that kids actually do learn something, we were disappointed to learn that ‘we shouldn’t ask about the tuition, as it’s not even comparable ramble ramble dodging the question ramble.’ We’re glad to see that education is based off of how much money you have in a country where money is sometimes scarce.
Little Adventures:
We managed to turn our walk into a long loop, and upon reaching Theodical swung by Sunny’s shop to say hello. There he informed us that Kara had ‘one big package’ at the post office. When we inquired how big, Sunny replied, “I think one lorry come…” Kara may have fallen for it. (For those of you who don’t know what a lorry is, it’s a truck).
It didn’t really hit us until this week how much Sunny has been lying to us. He likes to say he is an ‘ordinary man,’ but he’s not. He knows everyone in Theodical and everyone knows him, and he’s also in charge of a million different things. We like to tell him how important and popular he is and watch him try to deny it.
“You came here as white girls, but you aren’t leaving that way.” – A Santa Maria student after the Holi celebration.”
“That man… small elephant.” –Gracie, on the rather large contestant on Star Singer.
The next day was the real holiday (but for some reason MMM still had school… someone needs to explain to them how a holiday works) so we went into Kottayam to meet with our professors, who prefer to meet with us not on working days as to keep the interruptions to a minimum. This lesson session brought only a short lesson with Dr. Manni, as he packed us off to a friend’s house who has given lectures on Islam for previous groups. He is also the head coach for the Mahatma Gandhi men’s football team, so was very happy to meet some fellow footballers. However, this may have been a drawback, as he was much more interested in talking about soccer tactics than he was about Islam. He settled on using analogies about football to teach us about his religion. Not only did this lesson turn out to be more about sports than beliefs, we received a broad overview on sex education as well. While we are glad that he was so frank with us, we’re not sure that every rule in the Qur’an is to better an individuals sex life, as he implied on numerous occasions.
We went back to Santa Maria on Wednesday, as we had told them that we would attend their Food Fest day. All of the kids were very excited to get the cooking underway, but we were a little hesitant about the numerous knives that they pulled out of their backpacks, pockets, and various other areas of their persons. We were even less excited to see several boys sword fighting with their knives as a teacher looked calmly on. Once we were sure that we were in no danger of receiving flesh wounds from any of the students, we helped seventh standard cut vegetables for the pizza. We weren’t totally out of the clear for hazards to our health, as the makeshift kitchen turned out to be the chemistry lab which was in need of a good cleaning. Cutting the onions turned out to be an adventure, as every single kid had tears streaming down their cheeks and Mara had to go stand at the other end of the room to recover, although Kara remained unaffected and dry-eyed. After all of the cooking was done, we got to go around and sample all of the class’s food. Our favorite was the chocolate shakes; the kids preferred to stick to more western foods, as Kerala food is ‘too hard to make.’ Second standard didn’t get this message however, and made ridiculously hot chutney to eat with some kappa (tapioca). It has been the spiciest thing we’ve ate here so far, including the various mango pickles that we’ve sampled.
After lunch, we were fortunate enough to participate in a Holi celebration. Holi is a Hindu festival that occurs more in the north of India but Santa Maria still decided to celebrate. It involves throwing brightly colored powders and water at each other and smearing it into each other’s face, hair, and clothes. We were instantly targeted by all of the kids, and soon were unrecognizable. We made sure to give it right back however, although Mara wasn’t able to get revenge at our friend Alex after he threw a handful of green glitter into her mouth. We looked absolutely ridiculous. On our way home, we asked Dr. Oomen to stop at Sunny’s shop so we could show him our change in skin color. Sunny couldn’t stop laughing long enough to put together a coherent sentence. We did our best to scrub off all of the color when we got home, although Mara had some stubborn purple spots on her eyebrows that hung around for a few days. When Gracie came home, she informed us that all of Theodical was talking about our bizarre appearance. Don’t people have anything better to talk about? That night while watching TV, we got to see Sunny on the news announcing the details of the Bishop’s jubilee celebration. And Sunny says he’s not important….
On Thursday we were fortunate enough to receive an invitation to visit and observe the methods of the Sri Atmanda School. Or, lack of methods, as the mindset of the school is to do whatever the kids want to do. There was a million white people there (apparently the area has a moderate French community) who looked weird to us. We can’t decide if it’s because we haven’t seen a white person in so long or if they really did just look funny. While it was nice to see another school, and as surprised as we were to see that kids actually do learn something, we were disappointed to learn that ‘we shouldn’t ask about the tuition, as it’s not even comparable ramble ramble dodging the question ramble.’ We’re glad to see that education is based off of how much money you have in a country where money is sometimes scarce.
Little Adventures:
We managed to turn our walk into a long loop, and upon reaching Theodical swung by Sunny’s shop to say hello. There he informed us that Kara had ‘one big package’ at the post office. When we inquired how big, Sunny replied, “I think one lorry come…” Kara may have fallen for it. (For those of you who don’t know what a lorry is, it’s a truck).
It didn’t really hit us until this week how much Sunny has been lying to us. He likes to say he is an ‘ordinary man,’ but he’s not. He knows everyone in Theodical and everyone knows him, and he’s also in charge of a million different things. We like to tell him how important and popular he is and watch him try to deny it.
“You came here as white girls, but you aren’t leaving that way.” – A Santa Maria student after the Holi celebration.”
“That man… small elephant.” –Gracie, on the rather large contestant on Star Singer.
2 comments:
ha! great quotes! :) And yes, the white people look strange because you haven't seen them in so long. I was a little scared when I returned home ;)
Just read your blog in it's entirety. I can't begin to explain how jealous I am of you two. It's awesome that you guy's are experiencing so much of a the culture. Love the blog and can't wait to hear more stories and see some pictures!
Jealous and Admiring,
Tim
Post a Comment