Love Feasts

On Easter Sunday I woke up at 5AM to the voice of my supervisor, Prabhaa Miss, waking up her 12-year-old daughter, Anoopa, and I to dress for church. I spent Easter weekend with them, eating delicious food (including American Mac and Cheese that I prepared for them!), watching Mollywood (Malayalam) films and playing various games: ludo, snakes and ladders, carrom, and rummy. Easter Sunday service was at 6AM and I needed at least 45 minutes to put on my new Kerala sari, a cream colored sari with gold colored trim. Anoopa sat next to me, laughing and giving advice, “Save that part for later,” “It’s too loose there,” as I successfully, though not skilfully, wrapped, pleated, tucked and pinned. We drank a quick cup of milky, sugary coffee and slowly walked down the street to the church, a Church of South India dalit church. Though the service was in Malayalam and the church smelled different than Easter in the States, I still felt the joy of the resurrection and the celebration of the holiday in the same way I have in the US.

When we returned from church at 7:30AM, we began cooking aapam to go with the stew Prabhaa Miss had prepared the night before. Aapam is a Kerala specialty, a yeasty dough cooked so that the edges are thin and lace-like and the middle is thick and soft. As I sat down to our Easter breakfast I felt sadness to be without my family for a third Easter in a row, mixed with Eastery joy while celebrating with my Indian family in a new way. It may be the only Easter in my life spent in a sari, eating aapam and stew. It was also very nice to leave behind Hallmark and the Easter bunny, replacing commercialism with ludo, carrom and the company of an exuberant and precocious 12-year-old.

After the Easter holiday, I returned to the hostel and was welcomed into the lives of my other Indian families. I visited the church’s Vacation Bible School program and was just in time to partake in a Love Feast, or Sneha Virunnu. It’s the VBS day when everyone eats lunch together in the one-room Lower Primary School neighboring the church. Each child opened her newspaper roll to reveal a bright green banana leaf, which served as a plate for the rice and curry within. The teachers walked around monitoring each class and their Love Feasting. Salama Miss shared with me some of the aapam and chicken curry she made (with love) and then I joined Anisha, a friend my age who helps at the LP School, to go to her home for a Love Feast with her family. After eating lunch with Anisha and her abundantly welcoming family, we sat on their porch facing the local paddy fields while they pulled out a harmonium (imagine a free-standing accordian that sounds like a pipe organ) and a violin and they played a few chords. Then they helped me practice the Malayalam alphabet and we laughed hysterically as I attempted to pronounce letters in what sounded like Baby Speak.

This is how I have happily spent much of my summer vacation (April and May) in Mavelikara, enjoying the company and love of my Indian families. I leave tomorrow with my fellow volunteers for a month of travel to the north where I will see for the first time the many tourist sites for which India is famous. Whoo-hooo!