Monsoon

Monsoon season, in my opinion, is wonderful. Right now, Kerala is in the north-west monsoon, which is smaller and shorter than the south-east monsoon. The south-east monsoon usually begins in June and ends in August; the north-west monsoon is just in October, and has less rain. Still, during this monsoon, nights and mornings are pleasant, and the daytime high is usually only around 85F.

For practical reasons, this is nice. It means I sweat less, which means I can drink less water, shower less frequently (as in once a day, since Malayalis often bathe several times a day) and wear my churidar twice before washing them, thus doing less laundry.

But monsoon season is wonderful for impractical reasons too. It's just plain beautiful. Around 4 o'clock, every day, the sky turns from a bright, shiny blue to a brooding gray. Clouds begin to gover the sky. By 6 o'clock, without fail, Kerala is shaded by that pinkish-greenish light that comes before a big storm. Palm trees sway in the wind and people begin shutting their windows. As the sun sets, thunder and lighthing strike. The clouds keep the lightning bolts from being seen and instead, the lightning illuminates whole sections of the sky. The thunder gets louder and closer. Plants shiver in the wind. Everything feels expectant and electric.

And then it rains. Huge drops of rain turn paths not into muddy slop but into small rivers. Water sloshes down hils and jets out of gutters. The roar of the rain on tin roofs can barely be heard over the whoosh and splash of the raindrops as they fall through the air and onto the pool-like ground. Everything smells like fresh water. The rain usually doesn't last more than an hour. When it ends, everything is still for awhile, as though reeling from the rain's assault. Insects are quiet, birds remain in their trees, and even people wait cautiously before venturing out again.

It's awesome.

I'm going to miss the rain. Every time it rains, I wonder - is this the last time that I'll see rain until June? This thought makes me want to soak in as much rain as possible, as if I could save it for a not-rainy day.

Last Monday night, there was a particularly beautiful storm. The next day, I learned that that night is considered expecially sacred to Muslims, as it is believed to mark the night that the Koran was delivered and that creation began. Quite appropriate, if you ask me.

A Clarification and My First Joke

After writing the last blog entry on Friday, I felt very dissatisfied. I was afraid it sounded like I was discounting or trying to diminish the reality of the suffering of the oppressed. To compare that kind of suffering to culture shock is unfair, because the former is much worse than the latter.

By comparing the two, what I intended to convey was that, as an American middle-class volunteer, I will probably not ever experience the oppression of the outcasted, even that of the Indians around me here. I will only be in India for one year. The promise of a future of air conditioning, safe drinking water, ovens, and all sorts of commodities that are denied to the oppressed and that we take for granted in the US, is there to soothe me when I “suffer” here. And as an American, I am treated well here; I’m constantly looked after here and kept out of the grime as much as possible. The culture shock that I’m going through is in reaction to encountering differences. Some of these differences aren’t so bad; some are. And this kind of suffering, or encountering of unpleasant differences, while not even coming close to the suffering of the oppressed, is probably the most acute “suffering” I will experience during my year in India.

Last week, one of the water tanks at Mandiram got clogged and filled with dirty water. Somol, one of the foster girls, and I stood on the terrace/roof of the orphanage here and watched the men on the roof of the building next door as they fixed the water tank. In the US, we might have looked into the huge tank of nasty water, wondered what kind of machine could suck out so much water and called a plumber. But the men here had calmly grabbed buckets and were emptying the tank by hand, lowering themselves halfway into the muddy water to scoop it slowly out. I feel like that situation could be a metaphor for a lot of things, one of them being this: As an American in India, I get to see some of the unpleasant things that the average citizen on the world deals with. But, generally, as an American, I will not get my own hands very dirty. I might stand on a separate terrace/roof and watch others get dirty, but I cannot stand with them. Because even though I am closer to some of the unpleasantries here than I am in the US (although there are still many unpleasantries in the US), I am still going home to a very pleasant place within a year.

On a different note, that same occasion brought about my first Malayalam joke. As Somol and I watched the brown water being poured out of the water tank, I turned to Somol and asked, “Kapee veno?” meaning “Do you want some coffee?” She laughed and repeated the joke to everyone who came up, so I’m pretty sure it was a success.

Culture Shock

I think that perhaps it is time for me to talk a little bit about culture shock.

To be blunt, the majority of people here are blunt. This is probably the biggest issue I am dealing with at this point. They will ask you about your zits (“Is that a mosquito bite or a pimple?”), how much everything you buy costs, and I have even been asked what people in America do when someone passes gas. They will tell you that you look tired, and even if you try to explain that it might just be the lighting and actually you are feeling very awake, they will repeat that you look very, very tired and have very dark circles under your eyes. If I have not seen someone in a few days, they will ask me, “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you! I thought maybe you forgot about me or didn’t want to see me,” which makes me feel like a horrible person, when in reality I’ve just been busy, and I’m not expected to see everyone everyday anyway. Even after I explain that, they will still heap the guilt on me. And if I cannot come up with a Malayalam word or phrase right away, or do not understand what someone has said to me in Malayalam, I often get asked, “Aren’t you learning Malayalam?” or get told “You will never learn Malayalam.” It’s rough on a person’s self esteem. I’m learning to let things like this roll off my back, but it’s still hard.

The difference between the sexes has also become an issue. Women here are not allowed out after 6pm, have to wear special clothes to cover our bodies, and our contact with men, especially unmarried men, is very limited. In fact, I was asked not to contact the Mandiram Hospital chaplain because he was a widower and did not want to be around young women, in case, well… you know. Another volunteer told of her experience at a seminar where the speaker told his audience of women that they are expected to give themselves over to their husbands completely and that men suffer brain hemorrhages if they shop for over 20 minutes.

And while I am adjusting to a lot of things around me, I am still occasionally shocked by cars weaving around other cars, just missing each other by an inch or two, and by the trash that covers the road. I still feel inconvenienced by the small sizes of most stores and overwhelmed by the number of people inside of them. I still want to hold the items that I am purchasing instead of the clerk holding them. I still feel awkward when holding another person’s hand as we walk down the street. And sometimes, I still forget to take off my shoes before I enter my room. I am adjusting. But I have a ways to go.

My idealistic self wants to think that culture shock does not exist. True, I have grown up in a different culture than the one here in India. But differences don’t have to mean problems! I should be able to accept the differences, love the differences and grow from them. But, in some ways, my idealistic self is wrong here. The differences in ways of doing things, saying things, feeling things, etc. have led to problems for me. But I think the silver lining is that I’m learning a lot about myself through these problems. And I’m learning more about India through them, too. I wanted to be a volunteer so that I could learn more about myself and about other cultures and ways of life. So, in a way, I asked for these problems when I asked to be a volunteer.

When the volunteers get together, and we are gathered around a huge table filled with delicious food, we like to joke: “Yes, we are called to suffer.” With our showers, our 3 meals a day (plus tea), our nice clothes and our disposable income, we often don’t feel like we are suffering. But maybe, as Americans, working through cultural differences is one way that we are suffering. “We are called to suffer” so that we can understand those around us and their sufferings; perhaps going through culture shock is the closest we can come to truly understanding.

Teaching, Titanic, and Travel

This past Friday, I became a teacher. Every Friday, for one hour, I will be teaching a conversational English class for nursing students. By myself. As the teacher. The one teacher. Oh my goodness.

Actually, the class went fine! The students were not as scared to talk as I thought they might be, and they all wanted to ask questions, which they did, even in the middle of me asking them questions! And I’m glad they did, because it made the class much more interesting.

One of the things I had learned from the other volunteers is that young Indians (at least around these parts) love the movie Titanic. And sure enough, during class, I got multiple requests to, “Sing the Titanic song!” I never did sing it, although I told them that I would next class. I hope that they forget I made that promise!
The other most interesting part of class came when I asked the students where they wanted to work after they graduated from the nursing school. I was expecting answers like, “At the Mandiram hospital,” or “In Kottayam.” Instead, I ended up having to do a poll of countries they wanted to work in. Only one student wanted to work in India. Two or three wanted to work in the Dubai (a huge number of Indian immigrants migrate to the Arab world). And more than 25 wanted to work in America. I am glad that these young women have the drive to want to travel and see the world. I am glad that they have such adventurous spirits. But it also saddens me to know that so many of them want to leave India. The flight of skilled labor from developing countries is certainly a problem. But even more, it made me sad to think that the majority of these 25+ women may never get the opportunity to go to America and live out their dream. It takes years and years to get an American visa; someone once told me he had been waiting 7 years to go to America. He is expecting to receive his visa in 2009. How long with these nursing students have to wait? And what will happen to India’s hospitals after they leave?

On the Language Barrier

Before I begin - note that there have been changes to the websites listed on ther right! The other YAV/YAGM blogs have been added, and some of their photo albums have also been added! I cannot always promise that the blog entries will be family friendly, but the other volunteers are always full of great insights, so their blogs are worth reading if you're interested in knowing more about life in India.

And on with language...

Malayalam consists of 15 basic vowels and 36 basic consonants. That’s 51 basic letters, about twice the size of the English alphabet. And those are only the basic letters – combinations of letters have their own letters, and the 15 basic vowels have their own representation when used within words. An actual vowel letter is only used if it begins a word. For example, the word “achen,” (meaning father or priest) begins with the letter “a” then the letter “ch” then the symbol for the letter “e” then the letter “n” and then a symbol to indicate that no vowel will follow the “n.”

Many of the Malayalam letters sound the same to the English ear. There are, for example, two “l”s, two “r”s, four “t”s and four “n”s. Some letters aren’t even part of the English alphabet! And the list goes on.

Basically, Malayalam is difficult for English-speakers to learn!

However, I’m trying. The vast majority of people at Mandiram speak only Malayalam. Only a small handful speak English. If I am going to become part of the community here, I am going to have to learn Malayalam. Community building is difficult without a common language, but somehow it’s still happening. Yesterday, I went to visit Agnes, who knows very little English. Our conversations are usually fairly frustrating. Yesterday’s (in Malayalam) went something like this:
Me: I went to Palai. (note: Palai is often pronounced Pala)
Agnes: Pali?
Me: No, Palai. Pala.
Agnes: Pala?
Me: Yes, Pala. I went to Pala.
Agnes: Pala? No. No Pala.
Me: Yes, Pala. Palai? I went to Palai!
Agnes: No Palai. No.
She tries, and I try, but we are not always able to find a common ground of understanding. Still, Agnes always offers me food, stops channel surfing the minute I show interest in what’s on t.v., and tries her hardest to teach me Malayalam.

And every morning, while I read the newspaper or study Malayalam in the office, the maid is there cleaning. She is very sweet to me as well. She will sometimes help me sound out long Malayalam words and we will often compare newspaper articles from the Malayalam papers to the English ones. I’ll find the word “Korea” in a Malayalam headline, or see a picture of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Malayalam paper, and she will point to my paper and and we will compare pictures. Or she will show me a moving article in the Malayalam paper and I will try to find its equivalent in the English paper so that I can read about it as well. Our verbal conversations do not go much beyond “How are you? Did you eat breakfast?” but there is still a bond between us.

Interactions like these reassure me that despite my shortcomings (like not knowing Malayalam), people will still accept me. That is a wonderful, amazing gift. And knowing that there are more people I could be talking to and learning from gives me the inspiration to keep trying to learn the language.

Farming in India

Last week, all of the India volunteers gathered together for the first time since we arrived at our placement sites. The reunion was, in a word, glorious. We could speak at a normal pace and without enunciating every syllable. No subject was taboo. And, most importantly, we shared our struggles and moments of triumph and realized that we aren’t alone in them. It’s reassuring to know that you aren’t the only person who finds (blank) frustrating.

We met at a retreat center in the town of Palai. It is beautiful there! We were situated on the top of a large hill, with lots of palm trees and grass, and even passion fruit (called fashion fruit by the natives) growing outside our rooms! The center was built out of wood – something we hadn’t seen in a long time.

On Friday, our group met with an organization called INFACT (Information For Action). They are working with local farmers to help set up sustainable farms that can both provide families with food and a livelihood.

The farmers of India, like the farmers of many other countries, are struggling to break even. Forecasters predict booms in one crop, and farmers are encouraged to grow that crop. Sometimes this leads to an overproduction of that crop, and businesses can then easily buy it for much than the forecasters had originally predicted. Sometimes businesses work together to buy the crop at a lower price than the farmers expected. Either way, the farmers are left with much less money for their crops than they expected, leaving them unable to pay off the loans they took on to grow the crop. The end up in debt and are forced to pay back their loans several times over. Meanwhile, the businesses process the crop and sell it to the public for a much higher price, meaning that the farmers who produce a crop like coffee may not be able to buy it back after processing. Sadly, the rate of farmer suicides in India is very high, due to the hopelessness that surrounds the lives of the farmers in this situation.

In essence, INFACT is trying to cut down on the middleman. They want farmers to get a fair price for their crops and they want the public to be able to buy the products at a fair price. They are setting up webs of farmers to work together to produce various crops (perhaps even teaching them to process the crops themselves) and sell them directly to surrounding neighborhoods, or ever barter between themselves. They are also encouraging farmers to grow multiple food crops instead of just single cash crops, making for a more stable income.

The best part of the trip to INFACT was getting to see one of the founder’s farms. Neat rows of plants were completely absent. In their place was vast greenery without order (but with reason). Some crops had been purposely planted (coco and vanilla) but most crops were left to grow where they were naturally found (coconuts, ginger, banana, etc.). Even the weeds were left alone, because they were believed to add to the eco-system that helped the crops grow. And it all worked! The farm produced enough food to feed the whole family and they were able to sell surplus to make some money. We got to eat dinner at their house as well. It is a meal that we will not soon forget. Prepared in a traditional kitchen, where the children were allowed to draw on the walls, the food was fresh and delicious and the conversation was inspirational. Even the kids had a lot to say about their farm and the conscious way they lived their lives. We were all fully impressed by the family’s intentional way of living and left with happy tummies and a lot to chew on.

Downs-to-Ups

Down to Up #1:

This morning, I woke up excited and nervous. I was going to be attending my first BIG Indian wedding! I bathed, dressed myself in the churidar a friend had selected for me, and ran down to breakfast.

Ratheesh, my friend, connection to the groom and accompanier to the wedding, was already seated at the breakfast table. He began asking me questions in broken English about the wedding. After a very confusing and frustrating conversation, he asked me, “What you will wear to the wedding?”
“This,” I responded, motioning to the churidar I was wearing.
“This is no good,” Ratheesh said. “This is very bad.”

I began to panic a little. “This is all I have. This is my best churidar!” I told him. He shook his head and said more to me that just made me even more confused. But I could tell that he was concerned, and wasn’t completely convinced that we should go to the wedding after all.

I sulked back to my room after breakfast, feeling rather like Cinderella. Neither of us had proper clothes for our respective balls, and I was beginning to wonder if I should just stay at Mandiram that afternoon. I changed into my ugliest, least favorite churidar, hung up my nice churidar to keep it clean and wrinkle-free, and headed back out to run a few errands.

While I was out, I ran into Ratheesh. He took one look at my fantastically cheesy churidar and said, “This is better. This churidar, wear to wedding.” Really? This one? But he was serious. I ran back to my room, put on make-up (for the first time in a month), and left for the wedding.

The wedding was lovely. It was a Catholic wedding, so the service was just like any Catholic service. Only there were around 1,000 people there – rows and rows of people. The bride was beautiful. She wore a white gown for the ceremony and a deep, dusty purple saree for the reception. The food was very fancy: a fish dish, mutton biryani, and ice cream. The whole ordeal was larger than life, and I had a great time. I don’t know why Ratheesh decided to like my ugly churidar, but it completely turned my day around.

Down to Up #2:

Last week was Mandiram’s 73rd year anniversary. To celebrate, there was a church service at 6:30 every evening, with a new guest preacher each night. It was wonderful to be able to celebrate with, and as part of , the community. But for me, these services also meant having to sit still for two hours as the still-incoherent sounds of Malayalam floated over my head. Each night, my neighbor showed me the selected Bible verses in English and I would ask her later what had been said. It was somewhat of a trying affair, especially when I found out what kinds of things were being preached, from women submitting to their husbands to temperance.

So yesterday’s simple chapel service was like a breath of fresh air. The perfect execution and air of flawlessness of the services last week had been shed. Microphones faded in and out, elderly men and women sang in off-key, warbling voices at the top of their lungs, and the music leaders had trouble keeping time with the music. The little girls I sat with kept squirming in their seats, and we not-so-secretly made faces at each other throughout the entire service. After one of the leaders accidentally burped into the microphone, I knew that my imperfect, silly and adored church had been returned to me. I still didn’t understand the sermon; perhaps I would not have liked it. But I understood the atmosphere of the service, and I was perfectly content to rest in its beautiful flaws.