Mara and Kara and the Goat Shopping Excursion
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After the hospital on Wednesday, Sunny informed us that it was impossible to get a goat because we had a previous engagement at our driver Jose’s house. We have wanted to visit Jose’s house for a while, but unfortunately our schedules have been a little hectic up until this point. Only Shema came with us, so there was at least someone to act as a Malayalam intermediate. Jose picked us up and we parked at the bottom of the hill and walked up the driveway where we were greeted by several of his nieces and nephews. Here, Jose’s awesomeness increased tenfold as we discovered that he is adorable with kids. We went to his parents’ house first and met his mom and dad, who occasionally brings us the paper in the morning. Jose surprised us by making a full dinner for us and expecting us to eat all of it. This meal included: perottas, beef curry, grapes, plantains, oranges, jackfruit chips, donuts, an assortment of sweet and peppery Kerala snacks, 7-Up, and of course he bought us ice cream for dessert. This was probably the exact moment that Shema decided we were completely mad. We ate as best we could with Jose’s entire family standing over us and took a few pictures after dinner to commemorate the event.
Our last day at Pushpagiri hospital turned out to be much like our first day there. We were again kidnapped by a nun and taken to the hostel to eat lunch. Afterwards, the nun let us in to the medical college and we were granted access to a number of student exhibits. One of our favorite stops was the forensic science museum where we got to see many different and gruesome ways to die. Although some of the pictures were quite interesting, we aren’t sure you need a degree in forensic science to figure out whether or not someone died by getting run over by a train. Also on display in the forensics room was a life size paper-mâché dummy as a hanging victim, though we are not sure what the purpose of this was, besides being a really cool craft project. Upon returning to the waiting room, we asked the nurses if we could take pictures of them, which ended up turning into a huge photo shoot. Jobi, at the end of the day, told us “thank you for your cooperation.” We aren’t really sure what that meant, but agree that we seriously underestimated Jobi’s affection for us.
After lessons on Saturday we attended a fundraiser of the MMM school which was a magic show. Sunny made us sit in the front row and threatened to volunteer us when the magician asked for assistants. We think Sunny should have volunteered himself, as he is absolutely entranced by all magic. We hope he knows it isn’t real. The magician and all of his assistants had makeup caked on their faces to make them look white. The show was entertaining, though we were practically deaf after the first half from sitting right in front of the speakers. The last act confused us as it wasn’t a magic trick per say, but rather an enormous tribute to India, complete with outfits crafted from the Indian flag and a the magician and his assistants prancing around the stage waving flags and singing “I love my India.” The crowd seemed to like it at least.
Sunday we rushed home from lessons eager to buy a goat and discovered Sherin was home on an unexpected leave from the seminary. He was adamantly protesting the purchase of the goat. His exact words were “Why not an elephant?” However, we were not to be deterred and piled into Jose’s car with Sunny and Gracie for a relaxing afternoon of goat shopping. The first house we stopped at had two cute white goats but unfortunately the owner was not home. The second house was not quite so strait forward. We parked about a kilometer down the road and headed down a trail into a rice paddy, into a bean garden, where (of course) we met some people Sunny and Gracie knew, through a cricket match and down the same road we parked on. We then proceeded to trick the goat breeders into thinking our visit was a social call then acting surprised to see they had goats. In the meantime we were entertainment for their neighbors, who piled on to the property line to get a good look at us. Sunny immediately found the goat of his dreams, a nice brown and white one that was innocently chomping on some grass. While we were more interested in the baby white goat wobbling around, we agreed Sunny’s choice was a good one. After Jose confirmed that Sunny’s favorite goat was acceptable (Jose owns a cow. Apparently this means he is also a goat expert) we bought the goat for 2000 rupees and led it away to the car, being followed of course by the residents of every nearby house. Getting the goat into the car turned out to be a little tricky. We had to pick her up and place her on the floor of the back seat. Thankfully Jose remembered a tarp to lay down first just in case the goat got a little nervous. On the way home, Sunny informed us that he had already selected a name for the goat: Makku, as a combination of both of our names. We are very honored to have a goat in India named after us. Sunny was very enthusiastic about his new pet and took pride in milking her that very night. Kara discovered she likes the milk; however to Mara there is no justifiable reason to drink warm fresh goat’s milk. At least she tried it though.
Monday we met with our professors for the last time. We only met with Dr. Thomas to return a book as he is very busy retiring and has a bunch of parties to attend. We turned in our final Gandhian Thought papers to Dr. Manni and rode around in the backseat as he commandeered the car to run a few dozen personal errands. Because of this we got home a little late and when we did, we found a very sweaty Sherin walking around with Makku. We commented on how nice it was to see him making friends with the goat, to which he replied “I hate this thing.” Apparently, after being spooked by a dog Makku had made a dash for freedom and Sherin had run after her. Makku had made it all the way to the school where she decided life was no longer worth living and jumped from the second story roof on to the ground. Sherin caught her rope mid-leap and hung on, afraid that if he let go, Makku would get away again. Unfortunately, this meant that the goat was suspended by the neck a few inches off the ground where she waited for about 10 minutes until our neighbor Thomas came to the rescue. We knew Sherin was against the idea of a goat, but we never suspected he would go to such lengths and try to hang it. Since this incident, the relationship between Sherin and Makku has been greatly repaired. Sometimes he even would strap leaves into her collar so she could eat continuously as desired.
On Tuesday we decided to take a walk down to the corner store for some Pepsi. Our planned twenty minute walk turned into a twelve kilometer romp through the surrounding countryside. We hoped to only walk as far as Thadyoor, just down the road, but after reaching there our curiosity got the best of us and we just had to find out what was beyond that. Our faith in our sense of direction has been severely shaken as we thought we were just making a large loop, but instead we ended up in Kuriyanoor. This turns out to be near Kozhencherry, which normally takes a rickshaw and a twenty minute drive to reach. However, this three hour walk did have its bright spots. We found a large waterfall that we hadn’t been aware of till then, and we also found a bat fried on the power line that was casting the Batman symbol shadow down onto the pavement.
The next day we went into Thiruvalla to get some shopping done. We went to Joy Allukas, the largest sellers of gold and diamonds in Asia. The store was actually a ‘wedding center,’ which means it has ten times more gold than any place should ever have. It also has a collection of saris, shirts, shoes, and anything else you would need for a wedding. Sharon assured us that they would never let us try any of the large wedding necklaces on but when Kara went over to take pictures of the display, they asked her which necklace she like best. To our shock after pointing to a large flower one, they took it down and proceeded to help her try it on. Mara also got to try on a necklace but also the matching earrings, each one of which were made of 59 grams of solid gold. The necklace itself would normally go for 1.2 lakhs, which for India is a huge amount of money. After the successful shopping spree, we went to a large hindu temple in Aranmula. We attempted to walk around, but as you are required to remove your shoes we were unable to take the intense heat of the side walk and had to retreat back into the shade. Sharon found this very entertaining, as he was able to walk around with no trouble and informed us that we were very weak. However, as our feet hurt for days afterwards and they were rather pink and tender, we decided that it wasn’t just weakness but actual burns from how bloody hot it was.
We had a long talk with Sunny back in his shop about sexual exploitation of women in Kerala. We enjoyed getting close enough to Sunny that we can discuss these types of things with him openly. It gives us a true picture of Kerala, though we really enjoy watching Sunny try to dodge around saying actual terminology, and considering the amount of English he knows it is actually pretty impressive.
Thursday and Friday consisted of packing and cleaning the house. It’s hard to fit three months of India into our two tiny suitcases, and we were glad some of our clothes were trashed enough to leave behind. Saturday morning we said goodbye to Theodical and traveled down to the very tip of India to see the sun rise. The cape is actually not in Kerala, it is in Tamil Nadu, and we were slightly disappointed to see that we could no longer read the signs as they were in Tamil. We watched the sun rise on the beach, and after a quick breakfast headed to The Rock. The Rock is just a big rock off the coast where a Hindu temple and a large statue of some man who died while meditating on the island have been built. Here we remembered that white people are a rarity in Tamil Nadu, and once again found ourselves surrounded by Tamil boys who just wanted a picture with us. This time at least, most of them respected the sanctity of the temple and kept their hands to themselves. Sunny, who was laughing the entire time we were being mobbed, suggested afterwards that we charge 10 rupees a picture to sustain ourselves throughout the summer so we don’t have to go home.
We went back to Kovalam and walked around on the beach for a few hours but then it was time to say goodbye to Sunny, Gracie and Shema. We were absolutely miserable for a few hours after their departure, enough so that we found the need to console ourselves with Pepsi and ice cream from a restaurant on the beach. The surrounding intrusive shopkeepers who saw us asked us if everything was alright instead of their usual line “Miss, come look in my shop. I give you good price.” However, as we have already begun planning our return trip to Kerala, we view this separation as only temporary. We spent our last day in India swimming in the ocean and finishing some last minute shopping. We tried for about 30 minutes to find a restaurant that would serve us our last traditional Kerala meal. It frustrated and confused us immensely that tourists come to India and are able to or don’t make the effort to sample local cuisine. Despite our sadness and reluctance to leave Kerala, the last days as Kovalam were a fitting end to our journey, as that is how we began our adventure in January.
Little adventures:
Mara-“You just concentrate on driving that junk bucket, okay?” to a man who was staring so much at us that he almost crashed his creaking bicycle.
Kara- “Etra vayasunda?” to the cab driver. (she thought she was asking him how much the fare was, but really that phrase means ‘how old are you?’)
Mara-(holding newspaper) “What happened to this elephant?!”
Kara- “It’s dead.”
Shema- “No, it is not dead!” (grabs the newspaper)
“Oh, sorry. It’s dead”
We were feeling rather self conscious about our hygiene, or lack of hygiene, and were debating on if other people thought we smelled or it was just us. Kara asked Sunny “do we smell bad?” to which he replied “sometimes.” We panicked and quickly ran to change our clothes. Only when we returned did sunny try to explain that he was confused by the question and thought we were asking him if he smells. Mara at least remains fairly certain that he only told us this to make us feel better.
Mara- “I like to think the goat is just practicing talking” about Makku, who maas loudly if no one is paying attention to her.
We bought a package of Tang for Sunny so he can drink it in his shop and Gracie won’t know. However, we are more than a little worried about him storing the Tang powder (which he may or not be allergic to) near the fertilizer powder (which he definitely is allergic to). Sunny hid the Tang in his shirt in order to sneak it to his shop.
We are currently in the Dubai airport enjoying our ridiculous 20 hour layover. Our next plan of action is a nap, and then we are going to see how our stomach handles some McDonald's for the first time in months. We plan to post one more entry focusing on the things that are hard to adjust back to in America.
See you all back in the States!
Our last day at Pushpagiri hospital turned out to be much like our first day there. We were again kidnapped by a nun and taken to the hostel to eat lunch. Afterwards, the nun let us in to the medical college and we were granted access to a number of student exhibits. One of our favorite stops was the forensic science museum where we got to see many different and gruesome ways to die. Although some of the pictures were quite interesting, we aren’t sure you need a degree in forensic science to figure out whether or not someone died by getting run over by a train. Also on display in the forensics room was a life size paper-mâché dummy as a hanging victim, though we are not sure what the purpose of this was, besides being a really cool craft project. Upon returning to the waiting room, we asked the nurses if we could take pictures of them, which ended up turning into a huge photo shoot. Jobi, at the end of the day, told us “thank you for your cooperation.” We aren’t really sure what that meant, but agree that we seriously underestimated Jobi’s affection for us.
After lessons on Saturday we attended a fundraiser of the MMM school which was a magic show. Sunny made us sit in the front row and threatened to volunteer us when the magician asked for assistants. We think Sunny should have volunteered himself, as he is absolutely entranced by all magic. We hope he knows it isn’t real. The magician and all of his assistants had makeup caked on their faces to make them look white. The show was entertaining, though we were practically deaf after the first half from sitting right in front of the speakers. The last act confused us as it wasn’t a magic trick per say, but rather an enormous tribute to India, complete with outfits crafted from the Indian flag and a the magician and his assistants prancing around the stage waving flags and singing “I love my India.” The crowd seemed to like it at least.
Sunday we rushed home from lessons eager to buy a goat and discovered Sherin was home on an unexpected leave from the seminary. He was adamantly protesting the purchase of the goat. His exact words were “Why not an elephant?” However, we were not to be deterred and piled into Jose’s car with Sunny and Gracie for a relaxing afternoon of goat shopping. The first house we stopped at had two cute white goats but unfortunately the owner was not home. The second house was not quite so strait forward. We parked about a kilometer down the road and headed down a trail into a rice paddy, into a bean garden, where (of course) we met some people Sunny and Gracie knew, through a cricket match and down the same road we parked on. We then proceeded to trick the goat breeders into thinking our visit was a social call then acting surprised to see they had goats. In the meantime we were entertainment for their neighbors, who piled on to the property line to get a good look at us. Sunny immediately found the goat of his dreams, a nice brown and white one that was innocently chomping on some grass. While we were more interested in the baby white goat wobbling around, we agreed Sunny’s choice was a good one. After Jose confirmed that Sunny’s favorite goat was acceptable (Jose owns a cow. Apparently this means he is also a goat expert) we bought the goat for 2000 rupees and led it away to the car, being followed of course by the residents of every nearby house. Getting the goat into the car turned out to be a little tricky. We had to pick her up and place her on the floor of the back seat. Thankfully Jose remembered a tarp to lay down first just in case the goat got a little nervous. On the way home, Sunny informed us that he had already selected a name for the goat: Makku, as a combination of both of our names. We are very honored to have a goat in India named after us. Sunny was very enthusiastic about his new pet and took pride in milking her that very night. Kara discovered she likes the milk; however to Mara there is no justifiable reason to drink warm fresh goat’s milk. At least she tried it though.
Monday we met with our professors for the last time. We only met with Dr. Thomas to return a book as he is very busy retiring and has a bunch of parties to attend. We turned in our final Gandhian Thought papers to Dr. Manni and rode around in the backseat as he commandeered the car to run a few dozen personal errands. Because of this we got home a little late and when we did, we found a very sweaty Sherin walking around with Makku. We commented on how nice it was to see him making friends with the goat, to which he replied “I hate this thing.” Apparently, after being spooked by a dog Makku had made a dash for freedom and Sherin had run after her. Makku had made it all the way to the school where she decided life was no longer worth living and jumped from the second story roof on to the ground. Sherin caught her rope mid-leap and hung on, afraid that if he let go, Makku would get away again. Unfortunately, this meant that the goat was suspended by the neck a few inches off the ground where she waited for about 10 minutes until our neighbor Thomas came to the rescue. We knew Sherin was against the idea of a goat, but we never suspected he would go to such lengths and try to hang it. Since this incident, the relationship between Sherin and Makku has been greatly repaired. Sometimes he even would strap leaves into her collar so she could eat continuously as desired.
On Tuesday we decided to take a walk down to the corner store for some Pepsi. Our planned twenty minute walk turned into a twelve kilometer romp through the surrounding countryside. We hoped to only walk as far as Thadyoor, just down the road, but after reaching there our curiosity got the best of us and we just had to find out what was beyond that. Our faith in our sense of direction has been severely shaken as we thought we were just making a large loop, but instead we ended up in Kuriyanoor. This turns out to be near Kozhencherry, which normally takes a rickshaw and a twenty minute drive to reach. However, this three hour walk did have its bright spots. We found a large waterfall that we hadn’t been aware of till then, and we also found a bat fried on the power line that was casting the Batman symbol shadow down onto the pavement.
The next day we went into Thiruvalla to get some shopping done. We went to Joy Allukas, the largest sellers of gold and diamonds in Asia. The store was actually a ‘wedding center,’ which means it has ten times more gold than any place should ever have. It also has a collection of saris, shirts, shoes, and anything else you would need for a wedding. Sharon assured us that they would never let us try any of the large wedding necklaces on but when Kara went over to take pictures of the display, they asked her which necklace she like best. To our shock after pointing to a large flower one, they took it down and proceeded to help her try it on. Mara also got to try on a necklace but also the matching earrings, each one of which were made of 59 grams of solid gold. The necklace itself would normally go for 1.2 lakhs, which for India is a huge amount of money. After the successful shopping spree, we went to a large hindu temple in Aranmula. We attempted to walk around, but as you are required to remove your shoes we were unable to take the intense heat of the side walk and had to retreat back into the shade. Sharon found this very entertaining, as he was able to walk around with no trouble and informed us that we were very weak. However, as our feet hurt for days afterwards and they were rather pink and tender, we decided that it wasn’t just weakness but actual burns from how bloody hot it was.
We had a long talk with Sunny back in his shop about sexual exploitation of women in Kerala. We enjoyed getting close enough to Sunny that we can discuss these types of things with him openly. It gives us a true picture of Kerala, though we really enjoy watching Sunny try to dodge around saying actual terminology, and considering the amount of English he knows it is actually pretty impressive.
Thursday and Friday consisted of packing and cleaning the house. It’s hard to fit three months of India into our two tiny suitcases, and we were glad some of our clothes were trashed enough to leave behind. Saturday morning we said goodbye to Theodical and traveled down to the very tip of India to see the sun rise. The cape is actually not in Kerala, it is in Tamil Nadu, and we were slightly disappointed to see that we could no longer read the signs as they were in Tamil. We watched the sun rise on the beach, and after a quick breakfast headed to The Rock. The Rock is just a big rock off the coast where a Hindu temple and a large statue of some man who died while meditating on the island have been built. Here we remembered that white people are a rarity in Tamil Nadu, and once again found ourselves surrounded by Tamil boys who just wanted a picture with us. This time at least, most of them respected the sanctity of the temple and kept their hands to themselves. Sunny, who was laughing the entire time we were being mobbed, suggested afterwards that we charge 10 rupees a picture to sustain ourselves throughout the summer so we don’t have to go home.
We went back to Kovalam and walked around on the beach for a few hours but then it was time to say goodbye to Sunny, Gracie and Shema. We were absolutely miserable for a few hours after their departure, enough so that we found the need to console ourselves with Pepsi and ice cream from a restaurant on the beach. The surrounding intrusive shopkeepers who saw us asked us if everything was alright instead of their usual line “Miss, come look in my shop. I give you good price.” However, as we have already begun planning our return trip to Kerala, we view this separation as only temporary. We spent our last day in India swimming in the ocean and finishing some last minute shopping. We tried for about 30 minutes to find a restaurant that would serve us our last traditional Kerala meal. It frustrated and confused us immensely that tourists come to India and are able to or don’t make the effort to sample local cuisine. Despite our sadness and reluctance to leave Kerala, the last days as Kovalam were a fitting end to our journey, as that is how we began our adventure in January.
Little adventures:
Mara-“You just concentrate on driving that junk bucket, okay?” to a man who was staring so much at us that he almost crashed his creaking bicycle.
Kara- “Etra vayasunda?” to the cab driver. (she thought she was asking him how much the fare was, but really that phrase means ‘how old are you?’)
Mara-(holding newspaper) “What happened to this elephant?!”
Kara- “It’s dead.”
Shema- “No, it is not dead!” (grabs the newspaper)
“Oh, sorry. It’s dead”
We were feeling rather self conscious about our hygiene, or lack of hygiene, and were debating on if other people thought we smelled or it was just us. Kara asked Sunny “do we smell bad?” to which he replied “sometimes.” We panicked and quickly ran to change our clothes. Only when we returned did sunny try to explain that he was confused by the question and thought we were asking him if he smells. Mara at least remains fairly certain that he only told us this to make us feel better.
Mara- “I like to think the goat is just practicing talking” about Makku, who maas loudly if no one is paying attention to her.
We bought a package of Tang for Sunny so he can drink it in his shop and Gracie won’t know. However, we are more than a little worried about him storing the Tang powder (which he may or not be allergic to) near the fertilizer powder (which he definitely is allergic to). Sunny hid the Tang in his shirt in order to sneak it to his shop.
We are currently in the Dubai airport enjoying our ridiculous 20 hour layover. Our next plan of action is a nap, and then we are going to see how our stomach handles some McDonald's for the first time in months. We plan to post one more entry focusing on the things that are hard to adjust back to in America.
See you all back in the States!
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