pottery

mom, will you forward these to all the people who i should be sending them to but who's address i don't have? Thanks!

So- I'm just writing a quick update to let you all know about my potter experience! Yesterday afternoon Shaker, the resident coordinater, took whoever wanted to out into the village to go see the potter/priest. For those who don't know we have one tutorial a semester and mine is going to be pottery. anyone who was interested in pottery was going to go out to the village (which is only me), but the other three girls on the trip came out too just to see what it was all about.
So, we took an auto rickshaw to the bus station, and then from there got a bus out to a stop that really looks like it is in the middle of nowhere. from there we walked for about 15 minutes on a dirt road scattered with cow pies, winding through a sugar cane field. The whole time a group of little boys on their way home from school were following us. At the end of it we got to a Sivite temple without any covering- just a lot of statues under a huge banion tree.

The potter came to visit us when we were walking into the village, and as we all walked towards his house more and more children began to follow us. By the time we were at the potter's house there were dozens of children surrounding us. First the potter set up a manual wheel, and put clay on it and we all took turns spinning it for him as we watched him work. When i was spinning the wheel he told me that i was getting to distracted by watching him, and not remebering to spin it fast enough. atleast i'm observant though? So then we all took turns making these little cups to keep oil in to light for puja and prayer, and the potter turned the wheele. None of us was very good- it was really really hard because his technique was so specific. He got really excited when it was my turn- and said that the first part of the process i did perfectly, and then i rushed too much on the second. Anyway, either he recognized me from the one time we met before (at this welcoming function that was this weekend), or he thought i had a lot of potential- because he told Shaker that I was going to be his student. I like to think he just thought I could get good.

Anyway, this entire time the children were standing around watching and more and more from the village were gatherine around, along with some elderly people, and some parents with babies. Towards the end we started to talk to the children and they got really really excited. They all wanted to shake our hands, and anytime we said anything in Tamil they'd laugh hysterically. Near the end they got out a paper and a pen and had us all write our names in Tamil over and over again like autographs. It was nice to be able to interact with all of the children, and they were all so excited to meet us (Shaker said we were probably the only foreign visitors they had ever seen in their village)- but the entire thing was also a little disheartening because all of the children were a little bit dirtier than the city children that we see shoppig with their parents- and they were all sick and coughing a lot.

It was an interesting experience though- and one i'm probably going to have to get use to because i'll be spending about three hours a week in the village doing potter with the potter. It sounds good to me, because i like how quiet and nice the village was. Oh, there were water buffalo everywhere, and dozens of paraqueets up in the palm trees above us- it was a really nice setting. I guess I'll be learning how to make little oil cups first, and eventually will work my way up to figurines of gods and other characters.

anyway, things here just got really stressful, so i have to go.

much love,


--- catie