my perilous journey to Kodai

I have had such a wonderful stay in this city. The Varughese's have shown me a wonderful time including a tour of all the tourist hot spots and a 3 hour hike to a beautiful rocky overlook. (Pictures will be coming later.)

Beautiful, green Kodai mountainside.

Dolphin's Nose, the destination of our hike.

Sitting at a safe distance, there were sheer drop-offs, with George and Kalyan

A friendly puppy that showed us around.

I am so thankful that I was able to make this quick visit. It almost didn't happen. I was a little nervous about traveling to this spot by myself, but I just went for it. I new I'd have to ride 3-4 buses to reach Kodai from Sellipatti and have to change from bus to bus being completely illiterate (in Tamil). Luckily, all of the bus drivers/staff were very patient and extremely helpful to me. All went well until we reached Madurai (major city of 1 million). Before our bus reached my stop, all of the passengers were made to exit. I followed one man who was going to the same bus station I was, and found out from him and some other passengers that there was a city-wide bus strike. No buses would be heading to Kodai that day.

So, what's one to do? I called up my the Varughese's and they advised me to take a taxi for the last leg (120+ km) to Kodai. This was depressing both environmentally and monetarily, but what is one to do when the buses stop running? And the taxi service took full advantage of the situation (me being a foreigner and the bus strike) and charged me 1 1/2 times the normal taxi amount. It could have been worse. I used my almost nonexistent bargaining skills to knock off a couple hundred rupees, but still ended up paying a large sum. But I was very relieved to have a kind enough taxi driver and arrive in one piece (no small accomplishment considering the extremely narrow and curvy two-way road that we drove on very fast the whole way to the top of the mountain!!). But the driver sounded his horn going around the curves and I managed to control my car sickness, and we had a good trip to the top.

I'll be interested to see how my next solo journey by train to Delhi will go. This will be my first train experience in India and I'm excited (and a little nervous). I'll write again once I reach the North!

And first look at Kodai

I'm up in the clouds!

Kodai Lake

O glorious, mountainous hill station that it is. I have forgotten what it is like to be cold and to not be sweating 24/7. This is a very welcome change! In Sellipatti, the weather reached 100 F or above with 3,000 percent humidity besides. Here in Kodaikanal, it gets up to 80 at most and lows of a chilly 65 F. I have to sleep with blankets; what a novelty!



I am staying with the Varughese family, who I connected with through my good friend, Laura. I have had a wonderful visit so far. My hosts, George and Gigi, have been incredibly kind and hospitable. They have been making me feel quite at home. I wish I could stay longer already! The Varughese's are from the state of Kerala originally, which means I've been eating some amazing Keralan food, including lots of curries, chicken and coconut. Gigi's a fabulous cook!

Gigi and her two children, Roopan and Kalyan.

Pilgrim's rock. There's a tiny cross placed by a pilgrim at the top of the rocky peak at the left. You'd probably need a magnifying glass to see it, though.

A Last Look At Sellipatti

Here it goes. A ton of pictures for you.....

My house in Sellipatti. The bowl-shaped mortar (minus the pestle) closest to the front is kind of a community resource. There were many different women from are street coming over to grind various food items in it. I love village interdependence!

My street from the doorway to my house.

A beautiful old woman. Some of the villagers told me to take her pictures, so I did. She didn't seem to mind.

Kandasamy and I in the front entryway of the house and a two-wheeler that I sometimes rode on the back of.

A friend, Isvolea (or something similar-sounding) and my favorite baby, Achina. This was Achina's typical style of dress- no clothes but TONS of jewelry.

Flowers are high fashion in South India. My mother would "stitch" them together and pin them in my hair for me on most mornings.

A beautiful crane-like bird with a banana plantation in the background. Just down the road from the village.

Planting sunflower seeds. This was clearly a job for the 65 and older crowd. My host grandmother is the woman in the front.

My host sister, Sankari, rolling paper tubes that will eventually be filled with gunpowder at the firecracker factory. She gets 1 rupee (2 1/2 cents) for every 100 she rolls. But it's something to do during the hot summer vacation.

This woman wanted me to take a picture of her hair. She kept making praying motions and looking toward the sky, so I think her dreads must be some expression of her Hindu faith.

Brinjal growing.

A natural pharmacist friend invited me to celebrate the anniversary of his father's death. This involved a priest giving puja's (some sort of ritualistic prayers) and then a feast with the whole family. It was a neat experience to take part in.

The priest standing in front of God and doing his thing.

On the day of my departure with my host mother, Jeyanthi, and Sankari.

Traveling, present and future

Here we are preparing supper. They wanted me to cook something for them, so we made groundnut stew with fresh coconut, banana and pineapple on top. I thought it was really good. My family thought it was interesting. They ate it anyway.

So, you can see I'm still here. I've found that it takes close to 1/2 an hour to upload pictures from the nearby town of Thiruvengadam. I am only posting limited pictures for now. When I get to a bigger city, I'll post more again. I'll try to be more descriptive in the meantime.

I've just returned from a trip to the big city of Madurai about 100 km away from my village (a 3 and 1/2 hour bus ride). I was able to visit the Association of Arulagam, a hostile for exploited/abused women and their children. It was an incredible experience. I was very impressed and encouraged to see the 35 or so women seeming cheerful and purposeful in their life at Arulagam. And I was super depressed and disgusted to hear some of the stories (from the staff) of women who have been through Arulagam. Let's just say that wife beating is widely socially acceptable, and wife suicides are widespread as well.

But, these women that I met, will have a good shot at a new life. At Arulagam, they are taught skills such as weaving, basketmaking, etc. that can help them to find jobs after leaving the hostile. Several of the women were also illiterate upon arrival, and they are now in literacy classes.

To have heard a little of what these women have gone through and to see how kind and friendly they were to me was extremely humbling. At Arulagam they refer to each other as 'Sister'. They were constantly checking in with me: "Sister, have you eaten....Sister, are you happy?" It was very sweet.

I am planning to volunteer with Arulagam for my last month or so in India. I am pretty excited about it.

Next week I leave for a short visit in the hill station of Kodai (think cool weather!!) and then onto Delhi by train (a 2 day journey). I plan to spend the hottest month of the year in India, May, in the hilly city of Mussoorie visiting my friend Dan Shetler, who is doing a 3-year Mennonite Central Committee service term.

Swinging from a Banyan Tree near the village.

I am excited about my travels, but I will also be sad to leave Sellipatti and my friends there. I will probably also miss the quiet, unpolluted, community-based village life.

And again

Another funeral. Unbelievable! This time there was much less pomp. There were firecrackers at the celebration, but not the drums, etc. as in the last funeral. Apparently, it was the out-of-towners that insisted on all the razzle-dazzle of the last funeral. The deceased this time was a 70-ish year old woman who was jaundiced and had asthma. The villagers new she her death was imminent for a while. And yeah, it was the same sort of thing. A lot of people came to the funeral and to visit my host family (and stare in amazement at me).

The exciting part of this funeral was that the funeral procession went right by our door. The preparation for the event included adding a powder that smelled like chlorine to the sewer running the whole length of our street, sprinkling ash around the doorways to prevent disease from entering, and lots of loud firecrackers. In the actually procession flowers were strewn about and a bunch of men carried the body on an open stretcher to the burial grounds. I noticed that the dead woman's mouth was bound. Kandasamy tells me this was to prevent the spread of bacteria.

Yesterday, I also got to explore some nearby temples(within 20-30 kms), including an "underground" Jain temple carved out of one piece of rock. I have some pretty incredible pictures that I'll post when I have the capability.

Birth and Death and Everything In-between

It seems that my stay here has been quite eventful. Power outages continue to happen frequently. My host, Kandasamy, says that they have been unusual until this year. He also told me that the power cuts out every time there is lightening. This makes more sense. We have storms most evenings (some more forceful than others) and loss of electricity about as frequently. I don't mind at all. I'm particularly fond of thunderstorms and candlelight. Power outages are an event!

The sister-in-law of Jeyanthi, my host mother, recently gave birth to a baby girl. Kandasamy and I happened to be in the much larger town nearby, while she was in labor. I didn't actually get to see the baby (I didn't want to intrude and wasn't specifically invited into the hospital room), but I spent some time waiting outside with other relatives. I don't know if Jeyanthi's brother and sister-in-law actually live in our village or in the town where the hospital is located or somewhere else, but a bunch of people traveled from my village to visit the family in the hospital.

And, yesterday, the funeral of Kandasamy's primary school teacher was celebrated. And I say celebrated, because it was pretty much a village-wide party. In rural areas, such as Sellipatti, everyone in a village takes off of work for a funeral. It's basically a holiday. Hundreds of relatives from the outside come to town and everyone joins in the festivities. I witnessed a performance of singing and dancing involving 4 male actors. Well, or maybe 2 males and 2 transvestites; they were men dressed as women in any case. I wish I could have taken pictures, but it wasn't appropriate. Anyhow, these people accompanied by several drummers and a horn player sang and danced and performed to express the sorrow the family must feel, except the atmosphere and dancing were upbeat. I don't know if all funerals are like this one. Perhaps if it had been someone other than a seventy-something year old man that had died, the mood would be more somber.

In addition to crossdressing, drumming and dancing, there were also firecrackers and a parade (funeral procession) with the body carried and completely enclosed in colorful and shiny ornamentation, much like a parade float. If this is a funeral, I can only begin to image what weddings must be like! Oh, and Kandasamy says this is the first death in the village in the last 10 or 12 years, so now I feel lucky or honored or something to have been able to witness such a happening.

The funeral procession was apparently going to "burial grounds" where the body would be burned. The teacher, was the first son in the family, so his body must be burned. Apparently, the second or third child can be buried, but the first must be cremated. Kandasamy also said that the brains of the first child are removed and used by "magicians". I don't know exactly what any of this means, but it is fascinating to be sure! I will have to look into Hindu burial practices to figure such things out.

You knew it was coming....

An ode to food. Let it be said that South Indian food is pretty fantastic. Here are some pictures to prove it: Chilies and lentils drying at my house; idli (rice cakes) and coconut chuntney; and brinjal being sorted.

I also particularly love dosas which are rice/lentil creations poured into a thin batter and fried. They are very similar in composition to Ethiopian injera, and eating them makes me feel right at home. My family, because they are Hindu, eat primarily vegetarian food. But today is a holiday, so we had chicken curry for lunch. Excellent and very spicy!!

I am still helping to pick brinjal and occasionally following Kandasamy on business and other friends around town. I am learning a lot about his organization A.C.T.-- Ambiha(sp?) Charitable Trust-- of which he is a director. So far they've provided free medical care for the community (the eye camp is an example) some AIDS education, organic farming, support for an orphanage and I'm not sure what else. Kandasamy hopes to get foreign funding to start an caring facility for "orphaned" elderly people. I am not really sure how all of this is accomplished largely by one person. Pretty impressive.

Okay, more pictures. First, is Ajith a neighbor boy and close friend to the family posing for the camera. Second, a bunch of neighborhood kids in front of the town's temple. Last, the views of my town from the town's water tower. I climbed all the way up the ladder barefoot (ouch!) and attracted some attention and suppressed laughter, if you can imagine.

After Nearly One Week...

in my village of Sellipati, there's a lot to recall. I've had the priviledge to participate in several activities. Nearly every day, I wake up before 6am and pick brinjal with one or two other members of my host family. The brinjal is less exciting than the big, purple vegetables I am used to, but I have made an important discovery. The brinjal is white, oblong and remarkably similar in appearance to eggs. No wonder it is called eggplant!

On Sunday we conducted the eye camp for people for 20 or so surrounding villages at the nearby government secondary school. I served as unofficial photographer, ambassador from the U.S., Very Important Foreigner and as an American participant in the eye camp. Apparently the eye camp was expecially for old persons, the oldest participant being 96 and still getting about on his own. Amazing! I have some really great pictures, but I think it is beyond this computer's ablilty or the browsers's ability to post them. I also got a lovely tour around the school compound with a few of the students. We visited two temples (chapals [shoes] off, pigment dotting forehead) and peered into the inner rooms.

Though the humidity here is very oppressive, we've been lucky enough to also have some rain (and reprieve from the heat) accompanying it. It rains most evenings at least briefly and cools the air for a time.

My host family has been extremely kind. They continue to make sure I have the best of everything- the best bucket for picking brinjal, the best teacup, etc. etc. They've also taken to stringing night-blooming lilies and pinning them in my hair. Really very sweet and I smell good for once!

Today is the first day that I'm venturing out into the town by myself. I was dropped off here, but I will walk myself home in an hour or two. I think with the few trips that I made here I can do it without getting lost. And hopefully I will be able to travel here more frequently than before. We'll see how it goes.

I've been enjoying myself greatly in our little neighborhood. I rarely leave the house, but the neighborhood usually ends up coming to me/us. I think my house must be a gathering place for a lot of the village. Women often come by to use our large mortar and pestle or to visit and meet me (often staring, smiling and some speaking in Tamil that I don't understand). Once, when the power went out for a couple of hours (this has happened a few times since I've been here), a group of people gathered around our two LED lamps to chat or prepare food. Women and children often bring the smallest children to see what reaction they will have upon seeing me. I am the first white person they've ever seen. They probably don't even know that white people exist. Needless to say, I still often incite tears or at least suspicious looks. But finally, yesterday, the most beautiful baby I've ever seen let me play with her and hold her. It only took 5 exposures for her to get used to me. Actually I think she was attracted to my camera, but I'll take whatever love I can get. Especially from her- Achina.

Alright enough writing and still no pictures. I will try another internet cafe next time and see if I have any luck at posting.