Magic show, churches, Dvds...

this last weekend the eight of us went away to a town about three hours south west of Madurai called Tirunelveli. It's not really a village, but it's a lot smaller than Madurai. We drove down there in the evening and stopped and got dinner on the way. By the time we got there I was so exhausted. I've been going to sleep here around 9.30 every night, so staying up until about 11 was kind of extreme. I guess there's just something about being here that makes me sleep more regularly- go to bed at 9.30 and get up at 7.30 everyday. (the family that lived below me goes to sleep around 10 each night and gets up, i think, about five am!)

So, our first day in Tirunelveli we drove to a village nearby where there are a lot of waterfalls. people here flock to waterfalls because many of them are considered to be sacred. This means that if you plan on doing your laundry there (which a lot of people do) you have to bring extra money- because it's extra to wash your clothes in holy water.

That day we also went on a small hike up through this herb jungle. it's the place i've been in India so far that has the least amount of trash. It's also the only place I've been that had anything posted about not dumping trash. It was a pretty walk, and when we got to the top of this hill we could see for miles all around us- into small villages and over farms and ponds and mango groves. We hiked back down and sat under a huge tree and Dr. V. gave us a lecture on the different types of herbs that we could find around us, and the history of herbal medicine in Tamil-Nadu. It was pretty impossible to pay attention though, because there were so many monkeys doing interesting stuff all around us. Right behind Dr. V was a man selling many different types of fruit. So, i got pretty interested in watching him throw rocks at the monkeys and wave a machete thing at them whenever they got too near. At one point his back was turned for just a second and a monkey jumped down and ran off with a jackfruit in its mouth (jackfruit are huge- probably about one and a half times the size of a human head).

The next day we all separated and went out with our field assistants to do practice interviews. The idea is that if we mess up really horribly on these interviews it's not that much of a problem because we're far enough away from Madurai that we're not effecting any relationship we're going to need to have for the next year. My field assistant is a guy named Eugene. He's Catholic (which is why they put us together), and pretty shy, but really nice. I think he's probably around 22- but that's just a guess. So, Eugene and I took an auto to this catholic church. There were two parts to the church, which was pretty small. The older part was about 300 years old, and the newer part was about a decade old. I interviewed this really old woman who didn't speak any English. Her job was to keep the church clean- sweep it etc, and light the candles during mass. Eugene translated everything back and forth, which made the interview a lot less intimidating, but also a lot more difficult in many ways. For example, she mentioned that the caretaker had died, and so they were needing to hire a new one. I didn't really understand that part of the interview, but i found out later that I was supposed to be interviewing the caretaker as well as her (no one told me this) and that he had died the day before. I think my reaction (because i misunderstood what she was saying) was something like: "oh." So, i'm guessing she thought I was fairly insensitive.

Anyway, the interview went pretty well. It was nice to talk to someone instead of just observe what goes on in the church. It was so interesting to her her perspective on all of the rituals, and all of her beliefs.

In Catholic churches here if you pray for something, like your brother getting well, and he gets well, the you make an offering of salt to God to thank Him. So there are big baskets full of salt in the churches. Then when someone goes to the church to pray they take a little bit of the salt and put it in their mouth. So Eugene was explaining this to me after the interview, and I kept asking him why they put the salt in their mouth- or why it is salt that they offer- and he laughed and said he didn't know- that it's something he's done a lot in his life, but he doesn't know why they do it. So we asked the woman and she just sort of gave a reply like: we do it because it's tradition. I thought it was interesting that all of these people are doing this thing and they have no idea why. I later found out from my academic advisor here that the first Christian converts in India were salt farmers on the coast. So when they were converted to Christianity they took the Hindu ritual of offerings into Christianity with them. But the only thing they had to offer was salt. Then as the religion spread across India, the practice of offering salt spread with it. An interesting progression anyway.

That night after we all did our interviews we decided to go to a magic show. It was one of the most memorable and strange things i've ever witnessed. the entire thing was set to really loud upbeat music- some electronic "instrumental" versions of Aqua songs, and some songs that sounded pretty Tamil- but didn't have words. The music was so loud that people in the audience were all plugging their ears, but they didn't seem upset about it like people in the US might be (i think). They were all just watching the show and casually plugging their ears. The stage was constantly filled with women dancing in sparkling outfits- which was probably a really good diversion for the magician. The magician was so loud and energetic. He spoke all in English with a really heavy accent. His mannerisms and intonation were so animated it was sometimes impossible to understand what he was saying- but it was always amusing. His tricks were, for the most part, really convincing and impressive. At one point he asked for a male of over 18 years to come up onto stage and assist him. So nate stood up and ran up there. Everyone in the audience was so excited that a white kid was up on stage, and everyone was constantly cheering and laughing for him. So after a short introduction the magician put nate's head in a guillotine and dropped the blade, and somehow nate's head magically stayed on. When he left the stage people in the audience stood up and as he walked by them they took his hand and shook it. The next day some girls in an elevator recognized him and got really giggly and excited.

Since our trip to tirunelveli things have been pretty regular. Last night a few of us decided to go run some errands in the city. I tried to go to the post office but found that it was impossible. the line was so long, and because so many people were cutting, the longer we stood in it the farther from the front of it we got. So eventually we abandoned hope and left. We went to the tailor to get some more appropriate clothing and then Nate and Laura and I decided to wander around. We asked the Tailor how to get to the palace. He told us that the palace was closed for a week because they're shooting a music video for a Hindi film. He explained that they wont let anyone but foreigners in- so if we went there and didn't speak any Tamil to them and acted like any run of the mill tourists they'd probably let us in. So we left and took a cycle rickshaw to the palace. We just sort of walked in and started to look around. They were still building the set within the palace, and we could see men making costumes and people setting up lighting. A man approached us and told us we had to leave. We told him that we really wanted to see the palace because it was our last night in Madurai. It was really hard to not speak Tamil to him. Although my Tamil isn't great- it's always so helpful to be able to speak atleast just a little bit. And people are always so much more friendly when we speak in Tamil. The man was still a little reluctant to let us look around, so we told him we'd give him 30 rupees (which is about 75 cents). So he walked us around the palace. It was one huge open room with a ton of Gigantic pillars and very ornate carvings all around the high ceiling (where there was a ceiling). It was also really interesting to see them building the set (which is a huge swimming pool in the middle of this huge palace room), and see them setting up all of the lighting equiptment and making all of the props and decorations. I really wish I could go back and see them filming- but it seemed like that would be out of the question.

After that Nate and Laura and I decided to head back towards the temple. We decided to walk, and found a restaurant that was called "Modern Restaurant". We went in and they led us upstairs to an open roof with tables set up. There were eight other white people up there- from the Chezch Republic. They didn't speak any Tamil though. The waiters all seemed really excited that we spoke a little Tamil, and we told them we only wanted to speak in Tamil that night. they got really excited and all gathered around us the whole time we ate. They kept bringing us extra sauces to try and asking us what we thought of each. They brought out something that was "really spicy" but i think it was one of the least spicy things i've had since I got here so maybe there was a communication error. Before we left they all gathered around and wanted to take pictures of us. Nate's birthday is next week and so he told them he's coming back on his birthday, and he'll bring a copy of all the photos for them to keep. It's nice to just have really good interactions with people in Tamil finally.

We left and decided to go to this little road that sells all electronics stuff. I've been there once before- and both last night and the first time I was there I didn't see a single woman on that street. It was really intimidating the first time, but last night it seemed much more manageable. We went to a shop on the street and they brought out a ton of DVDs for us to look at. I think I ended up buying about 20 DVDs for about 50 cents each, and one CD with 180 Tamil cinema songs on it for about 75 cents. The movies seem to be okay quality (with the exception of one- but he warned me ahead of time). The only problem seems to be with the audio in that it's maybe a little quieter than it should be. or maybe my computer just has really horrible speakers all of a sudden.

Anyway, it was a pretty fun night all in all. I came pretty close to adopting a puppy that was following us around for awhile. (not really but it was so cute) It kept chasing its tail and jumping up and down around us. I was pretty glad though when it found a pile of trash and stopped following us eventually.

Speaking of puppies, Emily's puppy, Choolie (which means "cowlick" in Tamil) is at my house right now, so I think I'm going to go help entertain it.

I hope you are all well!

--- catie

ps, you may notice that I added my webshots account to the links on the side, aswell as Laura's webshots account. She has more photos up than I do (about a quarter of which are photos I took), so you may be interested to look through hers as well.

Take Care!

more photos

just thought i'd let you know that i updated my webshots account... so there are some more photos there if anyone's interested.

Weekend update

FRIDAY:
this friday emily and laura and i had made plans to go with our family to celebrate the festival Naviratiri. I don't really know a lot about the festival. I know it lasts 9 nights. for the first three nights they worship Durga, the second three nights they worship Lakshmi, and the third three the worship Saraswati. I guess as a result of this goddess worship it's a family female dominated festival. the women downstairs had made plans to take us somewhere (we weren't really sure where) at 6.00. So Laura and Emily got dressed up in Saris, and I wore a Salwar Kameez ('cause my Sari petticoat doesn't fit right)and we met our family downstairs. They said we were walking to a house near where the program house is. When we got there we went inside and were led to a small room with a huge "gobra" set up. It was basically a huge display of dolls- all set up on different levels of this elevated platform. Most of the dolls were gods and goddesses, but some were of cricket players or little toy trucks. So we sat there and had slightly awkward broken tamil conversations with the people who lived in the house, and then they decided to sing a song. It was really relaxing- sitting there on the floor with these women singing these slow tamil songs over a recorded chant that was playing quietly in the background. The room was really hot and pretty suffy from the insence- but it was comfortable too somehow. Then the women brought out Prasada and gave us little bags with beans and coconut and bananas and bangles (where were too small for any of our hands), and flowers for our hair and sandlewood paste for our forheads. Then we said goodbye and I thought we were going to head home but our mom from downstairs said we were going to another house. We ended up going to three houses to see the Gobras, and then a few after that to meet our family's family around our neighborhood. Everyone was so nice and so excited to meet us. it was one of the first times i've been introducted to someone and not felt like it was someone just showing off a white person- it was more like the women from downstairs wanted us to meet their family- not just that they wanted their family to meet us. Then today I saw my mom's mom and recognized her as i was biking by and she smiled. i guess it's maybe just a reassuring feeling- like i wont always be quite the foreigner.

So by the time we went around to all of these houses we were all really tired and hungry and our family invited us back for dinner. the family we live directly above is working class. they have two children and both the husband and the wife work as ironers on the street. they're really traditional in a lot of ways- very religious- but are pretty progressive in others - like the fact the wife and husband work together. The family who's house we went to for dinner is right next door to us. They're really well off and have huge bedrooms with beds (most people here sleep all in their entry way on the floor), and they have a water filter, a big TV, couches, a dinning room table, and a son in New Jersy. Anyway, we went to their house for dinner and they fed us so many delicious dosai until we were so full and i had to hobble up to bed.

SATURDAY:

Saturday we drove out to a village to see a kind of colony where all the work that's done is done with the Gandhian mentality. Everything that can be done by hand is done by hand, even if a machine could do it- and most of the dyes for the fabrics are all natural (i guess there's a movment in India to get rid of chemical dyes by 2010!). It was interesting to see all of the places where people were working- making honey, making food, weaving and dying fabrics. There is also a school on the grounds so there were a lot of young boys playing cricket. We went into a small classroom for little kids that were mostly orphans and they sang songs for us in different languages that they're learning. Our guide for the day was this guy who was probably in his 20s. He said that he was born on the colony and went to school there and now he's working there. The people didn't get paid a lot to work there, but they got good benifits and retirement plans- which seems pretty progressive to me.

I guess that was mostly my weekend. Although- last night was the last night of Naviratiri, and so all of the trees have lights in them, and all of the cars have flowers and banana leaves on them. We saw dozens of rickshaws lined up in a field that's usually empty- all really decorated. We were wondering what they were doing there and then about 3 hours later they all drove by our house on parade- honking their horns, full of screaming children. And our litte brother Ajit ran after them- really excited to see them pass by.

Today i went to the potter and he took some pictures of me and his nephew and neice and the potters wheel. I will maybe post them up online later this week. Pottery is so thereputic. no matter how tired or stressed or exhausted from India I am- it always makes me feel better.

that's it for now. I hope you're all well! keep me updated on what you're up to!

much love,

--- catie