Christmas Celebration

SGB and I (now in Palolem, in Goa) went to a midnight mass at the big church in the larger town nearby.  Unfortunately, almost the entire thing was in Konkani, the local language here (the few exceptions occured during the sermon, when the priest frequently said "you are ugly" and "you are beautiful".  Between that and the fact that the service didn't really get under way until about 11:30 (despite a scheduled start time of 11), I spent most of it trying to go to sleep while Sarah kept pinching me to keep me awake.  Also, there wasn't much to get the congregation engaged in the service.  All singing was done by an abysmally out-of-tune voice, guitar, and keyboard ensemble, who had the misfortune of having their mistakes amplified and broadcast throughout the church and to the people sitting outside.  We just got to sit, stand, or kneel whenever everyone else did.  At about midnight a tremendous cacophony of exploding fireworks erupted just outside, but seemed unconnected to the actual service, as the priest kept right on talking.  Beforehand we'd decided that we didn't want to wait until 1:30 to leave, and had asked the trishaw driver to come pick us up at 12:30, so, gratefully, we snuck out as soon as possible after the end of the sermon.  Of course, between the time we'd arrived and then, the seating area set up outside the front doors of the church had entirely filled up, so we had to walk by several hundred people on our way out.  I'm glad I was able to make it to a Christmas service of some sort, but it would have been nice if it had been earlier.

 

We'd wanted to see if there were any Christmas parties happening along the beach, and ended up walking all the way down to the end where a big bash was going on.  It wasn't particularly Christmas oriented, but afforded a good opportunity for dancing.  Somehow that almost always wakes me up.

 

Things here have been terrific so far, if sometimes a bit exhausting.  India's really cool.  More later.

Excerpted from letters to be sent...

20/12/05 - The Kathakali dancing was interesting, but difficult to follow.  It involved heavily made up dancers playing different roles w/ lots of narrative singing and loud drumming.  The dancing itself wasn't very active, but was quite precise, with the hand gestures alone amounting to a kind of sign language.  Unfortunately, we didn't understand any of the languages involved, so after 2 hrs. we slipped out during an interlude between scenes.

 

21/12/05 - At the moment I'm cruising along the backwaters and canals of Kerala, between Alappuzha (Allepey) and Kottayam.  It's beautiful out here, going from village to village, with paddy fields stretching out behind the palm-lined shore.  Earlier, as we were approaching one of the docks we saw a little boy with his backpack on, running to get to the ferry we're on, racing us.  He made it with enough time left over to wait in the short line.  Just a few minutes ago we passed a dock where the only passengers waiting were a family of goats.  The man who makes sure the boat stays against the dock (either by tying or just holding it there) shooed them away, as one passenger got off.

 

Yesterday, as we were taking the tourist cruise from Kollam (Quilon) up to Alappuzha, we went by an ashram, with huge highrises for housing pilgrims.  The guru there is known as the "hugging Mama" because she gives everyone a big hug after darshan (teaching, I think).  We weren't able to get off and visit, because the boat didn't stay for very long and we don't have time to stay overnight there.  That worked out though, because according to a couple people who got on the boat when we did stop, a couple days before there had been a big event, w/ the President of India visiting.  After that the guru had left, and the place was pretty quiet.

 

When we got into Alappuzha, we were informed that a music festival was going on, a 10-day affair, and after finding a guest house, doing some laundry, and washing up, we headed into town, and found the street by the main temple packed with vendors, a giant, lighted sign, and the street overhung with lights and silver streamers.  A group was performing classical Indian music inside the temple grounds, and it was broadcast from loudspeakers all along the street.  One thing we forgot to bring was earplugs.  We'll have to go find some soon.  For this ferry ride we've been using wads of toilet paper to block our ears.

End of ISLE

Okay, here's a brief run-down of what's been going on w/ me for the past couple weeks.

 

The 6th and the 7th (Tuesday and Wednesday) I mostly spent reading through students' final papers and checking in library books.  The evening of the 7th we had a belated Thanksgiving celebration, with all the students, their families, and professors.  It was quite a success, with lots of good food, both American and Sri Lankan.  Of course that also meant a lot of clean-up for us and the center staff, but it was worth it.

The next two days, the 8th and 9th (TH and F), were given over to students' final oral presentations, which lasted all day.  Then I had choir practice on the 8th, and on the 9th our choir took part in a larger dance, drumming, and music concert, and I had a small solo.  It was fun, but strange, as the music we were singing was very different from most of the other stuff being performed.

 

There were a few more library books to be checked in, and we had a pleasant final tea with students and families on Saturday the 10th.  Afterwards Sarah and I went out to dinner with all the students at a "Chinese" restaurant here in Kandy (it's very different from China).

 

Then the real work began.  Except for an evening out with some close friends on Sunday, saying good-bye to students going to the airport Monday night, and an extra choir rehearsal on Wednesday, we've spent most of our time since then typing up some very long evaluations (3 from each student, 1 for homestays, 1 for Sinhala language class, and 1 general program evaluation), finishing preparing the library for next year, figuring out and sending off grades, and putting the finishing touches on our own report.  It's been very tiring.

 

We finally finished up the afternoon of the 15th, packed hurriedly, and went out to find a place to stay.  Unfortunately the place near-by was a little too expensive for us, so Sarah had to come with me to another choir rehearsal, along with all our bags.  Afterwards we were able to get a lift into town, and from there we got a three-wheeler up to a little guest house whose owner we'd met once.  He was very excited to see us again, and we moved right in.  We then went out to an art opening at a hotel nearby, where we ran into some friends.  On our way back we stopped for a light dinner, then returned to the hotel and some much-needed rest.

 

The next day was spent chilling in Kandy.  On Saturday Sarah and I said good-bye to a few people, had the final choir concert (that I'm a part of) and hopped on the choir van returning to Colombo.  We'd called ahead to a place near the center of the city and arrived there a little before midnight.  After showers and some brief, quiet celebration, we turned in.  Sunday was spent doing a little shopping in the city and then making our way out to Katunayake, where we were finally able to cook the JiffyPop I've had for several months.  It was good, but we had to get up really early this morning, about 3:30, in order to get ready and then go to the airport.  Our flight left at 8:15am, and about 45 mins. later we touched down in Trivandrum.  We made our way to a very clean budget hotel, got some money, lunch, reserved railway tickets for tomorrow, everything taken care of for a few hours.  We also tried to go to a really cool-sounding museum and art gallery, but they're closed on Mondays.  Boo.  This evening we'll go see a Kathakali dance performance though, which should be cool.  Okay, write more sometime later.