I lived in Mavelikara, Kerala from 2006 to 2007. Fast-forward to January, 2011 and I'm returning to Kerala for the first time in four years.

Monday, December 18, 2006

My Christmas Gift to You



Merry Christmas Friends and Family! Below is my Kerala Christmas gift to you. Thank you for your support and encouragement.

Kerala-Style Chicken Curry
Chicken 250 gms
Coconut Milk ½ Cup (thick)
Coriander powder 2 tsp, Red chilly powder 1 tsp
Pepper ½ tsp (lightly roast and grind previous 3 to a fine paste with water)
2 Onions sliced, 1 small piece ginger sliced
4 flakes garlic sliced, Curry leaves 1 sprig
Coconut oil ¼ cup, Mustard Seeds 1 tsp

-Heat oil in a deep pan
-Add mustard seeds, fry
-Add the sliced ingredients, saute
-Add the masala paste, fry until the oil separates
-Stir in the chicken pieces, stir to coat and cook a few minutes
-Cover and cook until meat is tender
-Pour the coconut milk, simmer and remove from flame

A Christmas Poem


So last year the volunteer at my site performed a piano recital for the Hostel Christmas Program and it is ALL I have heard about the past few weeks. I cannot play the piano, so I wrote this poem and, amazingly enough, had the guts to recite it for the Christmas Program on the 15th. In no way do I aspire to be a poet, thank goodness!

"I will never forget this holiday,
Celebrated with new warmth in the Indian way,
A glow of red replaces the cold of snow,
Preparations and decorations brightly show.

This is a holiday spent with new friends:
ente koothookaree.
Girls who've taught me to sing and dance,
To eat with my hands and laugh at every chance.

In the end it's not so different, you see,
The Christmases of you and me,
Just like humanity,
The facade may differ but inside is only similarity.

So Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,
A wish for the world, as is only right,
A prayer for the homeless and those in need,
And thanks for happiness and grace, indeed."

Never Thought I'd Say...

-"50 Rupees for a rickshaw ride! Preposterous, I'm walking." (50 rs = just over $1)
-"Please pour in my palm some of that yellow curd with whole peppercorns so I can drink it, yummy."
-"I can't wait to take an ice-cold shower!"
-"Fresh grape juice is my favorite!"
-"Look, my fellow American volunteers, there's a white girl in a bikini on the beach, scandalous!"
-"9 girls sleeping on 3 twin beds...no problem!"
-"Mineral water or boiled water?" "Boiled please!"
-"May I wear pants outside the house?"
-"How much does 1 gram of gold cost?" (at the jewelery store)
-"Can you teach me how to starch my clothes?"
-"I don't mind sleeping on a mattress of coconut fibre."
-"I handwash all my laundry."
-"Watch out for the ants in your pastry." "Oh, I don't mind the ants."

A Hindu Pilgrimage

On the train from Kottayam to Mavelikara, in my attempt to find the "Ladies Bogie," I found instead the bogie filled to the brim with excitement: two Christian politicians from the local Panchayat and a hoard of Hindu pilgrims to Sabarimala. The 90-minute ride was action-filled. The pilgrims chanted and burned incense while the politicians hounded me with questions and advice on where to travel. As the pilgrims, all men dressed in black, left the train I wished them a safe journey to Sabarimala and they smiled in surprise. Little do they know, and better that they do not, I purchased an orange lunghi for myself, one of the typical outfits of a Hindu pilgrim.

When Mary Kochamma, the head warden of the hostel, saw my orange lunghi for the first time she laughed. The lunghi is reserved for men only and is quite the scandal for me to wear even around the hostel where I live. It is a long piece of fabric (cotton) wrapped around the waist like a long skirt. Perilously loose, men comfortably re-tie and tuck their lunghi constantly. The idea of a woman wearing so "little" and the possibility of the lunghi coming loose make it inappropriate for women. I reserve my lunghi for the evenings at the hostel.

Kochamma immediately untucked my lunghi and re-wrapped it the way older, Christian women wear something similar. It involves much less freedom of movement and a cute little tail of pleats hanging from the backside. She said, "Women cannot go to Sabarimala because of our periods." She proceeded to say, "You could dress like a man...hair up."

Sabarimala is a temple dedicated to Lord Ayyappa, protector of the forest. The temple is located in the Periyar Tiger Reserve. We are in the middle of pilgrimage season, where Frontline estimates that about five million pilgrims will visit.

There are new programs in place to ensure care of the nature reserve during pilgrimage season, which is a valid concern in a country where disposal of plastics is so difficult. Among new laws and regulations is one program I found particularly reassuring on many levels during a long bout of frustration for the Dalit community (the lowest caste who often live in colonies or "slums"). Several groups of Adivasis (people indigenous to India, often very poor) who lost their ancestral land when the Mullaperiyar Dam (1895) and later the Tiger Reserve (1978) were established were alloted space for eco-friendly shops, rent-free. The expectation is that they will be "guardians of the forest", keeping the pilgrimage paths clean, being careful of waste and using rubber trees supplied by the government for fuel rather than using trees from the reserve.

Pilgrim season will come to a close soon, but I will continue to wear my orange lunghi and never again will I sit in the boring "Ladies Bogie!"

*Factual information about Sabarimala and the Nature Reserve were taken from Frontline, December 15, 2006, "The Journey is the Destination").
*The lunghi is similar to the white wrap Gandhi was known for wearing.

Encounters of the Natural Kind

My Encounters of the Natural Kind may have begun on the farm in Pennsylvania where I lived as a little girl, but these daily tidbits rival any previous story I had from my childhood!

-It is common at weddings to receive a small lime with your meal as a gift to take home. I went to a Hindu wedding this past Wednesday (which means there was delicious vegetarian food!) and took home my two limes to make juice. The only ingredient I needed in order to finish making it was sugar. I went into the kitchen and asked Eeche, "Panchasara theramo?" as I proudly displayed my water and squeezed lime mixture. She led me to a steel canister. Taking off the lid and steadying the canister on the shelf of her bosom, she stuck her hand in the sugar and poured a large handful in my cup. I watched the huge grains of suger fall with a "ting" in my metal cup and wondered silently about the black specks I noticed falling with the white crystals. As I poured my sugar into the juice, I shrugged when I realized the black specks were ants. A little extra protein for my lime juice!

-Mice run around the hostel like little rats of Nymph secretly causing the daily power-outtages that we naively blame on the "low-wattage," (if only the Indian government knew it might take care of the nuclear energy issue). One day a student presented to Ammamma a tiny trapped mouse cowering at the bottom of a wooden trap. "They destroy our clothes," she said. I wanted to let her in on the secret of their success in stealing our energy and building their own little "Special Economic Zones" in the walls of the kitchen: tax-free auction of grains of rice and the occasional bit of fruit. I decided not to.

Instead I watched in stupid horror as Unni, the youngest of the hostel staff, dunked the wooden cage into the hostel lilly pond. He held the cage under water for less than one minute and the frantic ripples in the water soon dissipated. I was watching from my room and Unni noticed. He flashed his rockstar smile and held-up the dead mouse by its tail. I made a face at him and shut my window. I heard him laughing as he walked past to throw out the mouse...I'm sure they're plotting revenge.

-Today I asked Ashwati to introduce me to her cow. She scampered me to the back of her hut and pointed to the two cows in an attached room in the back. The lively 4th grader grabbed the rope running through the cow's nostrils and pulled its head to face me. She explained something I didn't understand, then took my reluctant hand and made me pet the complacent cow. She gently patted the cows protruding tummy and said, "baby." Good, I thought. A baby cow means more money for this Dalit family of five.

-A few weeks ago The Hindu reported the attack of a small herd of inebriated elephants. The elephants had imbibed an unidentified alcoholic substance (probably
"Toddy," an alcoholic drink made from fermented coconut water), and in their rowdy drunken state had wreacked havoc. I think this may beat UW-Madison's Halloween parties.

Message for Hostel Prayer

This is the text of a message I gave during one of the nightly 6PM prayers at the hostel. My first "homily-ish" piece. Yikes.

ACTS 3: 1-10

I was once given the opportunity to visit a hospital for people with leprosy. I met a man there. He had lived with leprosy for over 10 years. He had been abandoned by his family, his loved ones and before this hospital opened, by society. Was it fear, I wonder, that enabled those he loved to leave him stranded? Allowing leprosy to take over his body, leaving only his mind in tact? I sat down next to him not sure where to look. His grey, empty eyes? His toothless, gumless mouth? The stubs of his legs? I took his hand in mine, no fingers, just a palm. He began to sing. I listened. He swayed and bounced a bit, he was dancing. I joined. This man was happy. This man made me feel joyful. The room stopped smelling like a hospital. It was magically transformed into a cacoon; a safe place where the toothless sing and the legless dance.

As I left, he asked me to remember him. “Remember me when you see birds flying in the sky,” he said. And I do. He couldn’t see the contours of my face, my happiness or my fear. But he looked at me and knew how to show me what is real in this world.

Outside the Beautiful Gate lies a beggar asking for rupees. For dollars. For pounds. For Euros. He was not invited in. Peter and John see him, “Look at us,” they said. The three men made eye-contact. Peter and John acknowledge the beggars personhood in a way never done before. The beggar expected to receive money. Instead, Peter took his right hand and helped him to stand. The beggar found himself “strong.”

Sometimes it is the most simple act that is most meaningful. The acknowledgement of ones humanity. Eye contact between two people. A loving touch.

Something I believe the United States lacks that India has perfected is community living. Ones water bottle is shared without question. Holding hinds while chatting forces deep connection. Homes are open to visitors without an invitation needed, “just come over.” Cousins are the equivalent of siblings. Chaia seems to always be prepared, ready in a minute for the thirsty visitor.

I feel lucky to live in this community. A place where I am free to celebrate my faith and, in some ways, more importantly, free to learn about the faith of those who are Hindu or Muslim. I am lucky to learn from you.

I have been in India now for 10 weeks. I’m slowly learning about the complexity of Indian culture, most obviously through learning Malayalam. A language with over 50 letters in the alphabet, many of which still sound the same to me: “Nga, nja, na, naa?” I still have much to learn.

I’m confused by the hierarchy that rules. Here at the hostel it is final years above first years. In society it is men above women (though in many ways a woman leads your country). India heralds Gandihi’s life, empowering the Dalit community and exemplifying ahimsa and satyagraha for the world. Yet here in Mavelikara, in the Lower Primary School, children melt on hot days without fans and a walk through the village at 5A.M awakens the homeless families sleeping under store fronts.

Do we look at these people everyday, acknowledging their humanity? Or do we quickly walk by, not stopping to speak to the families eating breakfast on the sidewalk and the children dressed and powered for school, coming from one room homes and holey-thatched roofs?

I believe God is challenging us in this passage. Yes, this passage describes a great miracle, one of many. But is also exemplifies a reality that exists now, in 2006. Both in the U.S. and in India. Forgotten people sleeping outside. God is challenging us to act. To empower others. To acknowledge their humanity. TO LOOK AT THEM. To take their hand, maybe a palm without fingers, and help them to stand, or sing, or dance.

In Matthew 6: 21-23 Jesus says very bluntly what is expected. ACTION. It is not enough to praise God.

So I place a challenge before us all. Or maybe two. Te first is to acknowledge, maybe with a nod, a smile, a wave, those around us. The second is to take your faith, whether you are Hindu, Muslim or Christian, and let it inspire you to act on the injustices you see.

In this room, we capture a piece of a generation: 18-26 year olds. When we read the newspaper, it is about what our parents’ generation is doing. We are next. What can we do better? Let’s start thinking now. What is your vision for our world?

Your Gandhiji said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” So what is that for you? Will we walk inside the temple to pray without acknowledging the beggar outside?