Death, Schedule, and House Visiting...

Death
Finding a time and place to blog is more difficult than I anticipated!
During the end of our end of October retreat, Becca (one of my volunteer comrades) received a phone call and found out that her local supervisor’s wife, Mrs. Mathew, died from sudden kidney failure. Although she lived a long and full life, no one expected her death because she looked healthy and had a considerable amount of energy. When I visited Becca during the last weekend of September, Mrs. Mathew showered us with tea time snacks and talked with me briefly. Less than a week later upon meeting her, she was gone, and her death reminds of how fragility and temporal nature of life.
Since Mrs. Mathew was a wife of an Achen (pastor) and former college principal, her funeral became quite the social gathering. My local supervisor knew her and ran in the same social circle, and I went with her to the funeral. After a long, sweaty auto-rickshaw ride, we arrived to the Madriram Society, a compound composed of an orphanage, hospital, senior citizens’ home, and church, and the place was teeming with people. The day was unusually hot and sticky, and the crowding felt even more sweaty, congested, and muggy in the Madriram Society church and grounds. Mournful, wailing hymns continued throughout the afternoon and were amplified through the buzzing speakers. Although I sat with my Thomas John Achen, his wife, John, and Becca during part of the long service and the viewing of the body, I saw and chatted with many different acquaintances. The funeral displayed this intricate, long web of social networking in Kerala. Everyone seems to know everyone else and feels obligated to participate in the mourning process. I did not expect to attend a funeral or thought that I would learn so much about culture through a funeral. May Mrs. Mathew rest in peace.

My Current Weekday Schedule:
5:30ish a.m. Wake-up, plan my morning devotional for the 11th and 12th graders, hopefully go running if it isn’t too dark or raining
6:45-7:20 a.m. Lead morning prayers and devotional for 11th and 12th grade (yay, for daily 5-7 min. mini-sermons)
8 a.m. Breakfast
9 a.m. Morning teachers’ prayer
10 a.m.-1 p.m. I usually teach a spoken English class or two (they only last 40 minutes) for any age group varying from preschool to 8th grade. Since I have such a lack of resources (no printer, no copier, very few English children’s books, etc.; I am lucky if I have blackboard with chalk available), I find difficulties in teaching some of my classes because I want to do things such as making Halloween crafts. The preschool students are especially difficult to work with due to the language barrier.
1 p.m. Lunch
2-4 Another class during this time
4:30-6 Playing on the playground, teaching volleyball, or working with English Club (we’re working on a Christmas carol program—rehearsals start this week)
7:30 p.m. Teachers’ prayer
8 p.m. Dinner
9-9:30 Bedtime

The Ultimate House Visit
Since October 10th-13th was the holiday of Puja (a Hindu festival which celebrates education and learning), I went to visit my fellow volunteer, Ariel, in a town—Mavelikara—about an hour away. Ariel lives in a college women’s hostel (dormitory) and was alone because all of the college students went home for the holiday. On Sunday, we decided to visit Ariel’s teacher friend, Saloma. In Kerala, you do not usually call or tell someone that you are coming to visit their house; instead, you simply drop in, say hello, and are given massive amounts of food. Using the hostel auto-rickshaw, we were dropped off at Saloma’s home, and Saloma welcomed us into her home and introduced her family: her husband and two sons. After a house tour, conversation, and trying to put together a puzzle, we also met several of the neighborhood children and a few of the neighbors. Although we ate lunch not much earlier and expressed that we felt full, Saloma cooked some tapioca and fish curry for us. (Here, kappa—tapioca—is prepared and eaten like potatoes. A classic Kerala cuisine pairing is kappa and meen, fish and tapioca.)
Soon, Saloma suggested that we go visit her sister who is named Bina and also teaches with Ariel and her. After getting permission from Ariel’s hostel mother because we would get back probably after dark, Saloma, Ariel, her two children, and I piled into an auto-rickshaw and traveled to the south where the roads kept growing narrower and bumpier. After about an hour, we arrived to Bina’s house. Since it was close to tea time, Bina brought out fried bananas, sticky sweet rice balls, Kerala rice coconut cake, some mix (an Indian version of Chex mix), and tea. Bina’s family (husband, two children, and mother-in law) gathered around us in the living room and asked general questions, and then a neighbor came and brought us some appam, another Kerala version of rice and coconut cake. Waiting in expectation, everyone stared us and wanted to watch us eat the abundance of food before us. Being an excellent guest, Ariel started sampling everything, and feeling already way too full from the meen and kappa, I followed suit because of the peer pressure and the staring. I love and appreciate the hospitality of Kerala but struggle with these near force feeding situations of hospitality.
After Ariel and I finished our sampling of food, the collective household went to the neighbor’s house to meet all of the fellow neighbors. Suddenly, a woman brought out this sticky brown mass of rice, molasses, and spices on a plantain leaf—a special biysam which was dedicated in their Hindu temple earlier in the day--and someone grabbed my hand and slapped a blob of the biysam in my hand. At this point, I began to panic because I could not take any more “hospitality” (i.e. eating), and also, the biysam looked incredibly unappetizing and not sanitary*. However, I quickly swallowed down the biysam in order to avoid offending the neighbors who offered their special, holy biysam to me.
Then the 21 year old neighbor invited us to her wedding on January 21st and ran quickly inside her house to get something. Soon, she proudly presented a photo album to Ariel and me. Inside the album, we saw photographs of her fiancé who is in the Indian army. Although this young woman has met and corresponded with her fiancé, this whole situation baffled me because I would be terrified about marrying a man who I have met only a few times. Then we met some other neighbors who were walking up the road. Since it was getting late, all of Saloma’s and Bina’s family hopped into the auto-rickshaw and on a motorcycle (I never knew that it was possible to fit four people on a motorcycle), and we traveled about two kilometers in order to reach the beach.
With all of the children and adults, we played near the shore and enjoyed the sunset. One of the children took hold of my hand, and we jumped in the waves. Then a larger wave came, and we got soaked. Then, Saloma, her two children, Bina’s two children, Ariel, and I crammed into one auto-rickshaw and headed home. During our ride, Saloma told us that she wanted to take us to Hyderabad for Christmas, said that she would teach us to cook Indian food, and asked when I could come back to visit.
Although I do grow frustrated with the force-feeding, the hospitality of Kerala astounds me. In one day, I received an invitation to a wedding, was asked to spend Christmas with a family, and met about 30 people in six hours. What a crazy day!

*A day later, I got some sort of food poisoning and had to rest for a few days. It was probably from something that I ate during from this house visit; in my opinion, I blame the biysam.