Paint Gun The Cow?

I woke up to find that all of the cows and goats in Madurai looked like this.

This is to celebrate the end of the South Indian harvest festival, Pongal.

To celebrate, I went to our friend's house (Sateya and Nateya) and watched a lot of Tamil music videos and ate a lot of sugar cane. It's nice because you're so blatantly eating something that resembles a tree you feel like you're eating health food. Although, there is something strange in being invited over to someone's house and then chewing up tree bits and spitting them on the floor (but everyone was doing it!)

Because it's a harvest festival everything related to harvesting is celebrated and worshiped. So, one of the last days was dedicated to the sun. To greet the sun, the families below us (and everyone else in Madurai, really) drew huge elaborate Coloumms in front of our house.


This is Danu to the left, stirring the colors to spread in front of the houses.












This, on the right, is one of the designs already completed. Emily is helping with the other one.


















Me in my living room- eating some sugarcane that Emily brought over.


So, other than that things have been mostly academics. Although, i probably have lice? Will get that checked out.

Hope you all are well!

--- catie

Cooking Class

Today I had my first cooking class of the semester. The woman I'm learning from is an elderly woman named Achee, and is part of the Chetiyar caste. I'm learning at her house, which is about a half an hour bike ride from the program house.

A note on biking in India:
So, when we got to Madurai the program gave us each a cycle and told us that we had to pay for the upkeep of these cycles. Sounds fair, right? Well, I think the longest my bike has gone without needing to be fixed is probably four days. Mostly I've been either desperately trying to balance on the back of Emily's bike, or borrowing whatever bike isn't being used when I need one. So, this week I went to the cycle fix-it man who works on the side of the road (the larger-scale shop this time. Before I had been messing around with going to the guy who works under the tree near my house, but now I actually am investing in the man who sort of has a covered area on the side of the road), and I asked him to give me two new tubes and two new tires (my old tires were cracked actually). So, now I finally have a cycle that actually works.

Anyway, today I followed Sekar to the cook's house. This was a little complicated for me because it's a fair distance from the program house, and I was biking on much bigger streets than I'm use to. It was mostly not a problem except that Sekar was on a motorcycle, and we made a lot of right hand turns around five point intersection/roundabouts. After a few times of thinking I was going to die we got there fine and with a little confidence gained on my part. On the way back I had to go without Sekar, so it took a little more work on my part. Mostly when I got to really big intersections I'd watch the other people around me to see how they handled it. In general in India I've found that if you want to make a right hand turn (equivalent of a left hand turn in the USA) then you just turn right into oncoming traffic and go there for as long as you can before you have to dodge into the left side of the road. This works especially well if you're a bus or semi, and not so well if you're a cyclest- but I'm managing.

Anyway, Achee is really nice. She lives in a really really nice house- complete with furniture and fans and quite a few rooms from what I could see. She lives with (i think?) her daughter in-law and her son and their two children (a girl who's four, and a little baby who turns one in a week or so). They have two servants (that I met) who, I think (?) live with them. One is a girl who is probably about fifteen and helped out in the kitchen the whole time. The other is a girl who is probably about ten and took care of the baby the whole time I was there.

She started out by showing me all the different ingredients we were going to be using. We made three dishes using pretty much the same or similar simple ingredients. They were all dhal dishes that could go with either chapatee or rice. At one point she said that we would normally be just using a mixer, but she would show me that traditional methods. so we went outside, and her kitchen-helper servant ground all of the ingredients on this granite slab using a granite rolling pin. She told me it wasn't very hard, but that it just takes a lot of practice. They also said that because of her posture while she's doing it, and the way her arms, shoulders, and hips move- it's really good for your health. But people aren't using that technique anymore, and so they lose some of the benefits of cooking.

Throughout the entire class she would sit me down and we would go through the ingredients together and the process together, and I would write it all down (In English, but with the names of the dishes and some of the ingredients in Tamil- By the way, it's interesting when someone tries to teach you how to spell in Tamil. It's not like in English when someone says letter after letter until you have a word. In Tamil they just tell you the sounds. It would be like spelling words out based on their syllables instead of the letters. like: SOW- UUN- D instead of S-O-U-N-D).

Then she would go through all the ingredients we had used and would tell me all of the different properties of the ingredients. This was my favorite part, probably. She would first tell me what vitamins and minerals each thing was high in. She would then tell me what types of people those foods were best for- babies, elderly, pregnant women, people with fevers, etc- And would explain the different ailments that the different ingredients helped cure. She would then tell me different old wives tales about them- like wake a baby up and give it a table spoon of honey right away- and then the baby will learn how to talk earlier and will be extremely articulate. She also said honey is a health food? Sounds good to me!

In the end I sat and ate an Amazing meal while she and the girl who had been helping her out watched me. That was a little awkward. But, they were really nice. At one point I mixed a side dish with the main rice dish and the girl started laughing- but they were really nice and explained that you don't traditionally mix those at once. Just eat a mouthful of one, and then a mouthful of the next.

All in all, it was really really fun! I told her about my family's general interest in food and cooking and the relationship between food and culture and she seemed really excited about that. She was also excited to get American recipes and dessert recipes from me. We'll see how I do!

--- catie

my house!

I realized that I hadn't put up any photos of my house- so here are some for you (minus Laura's room, 'cause it was too messy apparently?)

This is a picture of our kitchen. We just got the stove yesterday. I cleaned it today (was fairly disgusting) and have so far only used to to boil water for tea.

This is the other side of my kitchen with all of our new pots & pans! And our somewhat grimy sink with (2?) faucets)

This is our living room- (Emily got me that plant, named 'Hercules" for my birthday). And you can kind of see into Emily's room from there.
Our living room again, with another new plant and a curtain over the door which Emily's dog, Chooli, sort of ate a corner of.

This is our God Closet in our livingroom. We keep two brooms, one mop, and an old dirty mat in it.

This is my bedroom! bed, window (with SuperStar looking in), map of the world, prayer beads i picked up somewhere.. etc.

hmm...well, i was going to put all of my house photos right on the blog, but for some unknown reason (user error, i'm guessing?) the internet wont let me do it anymore. BUT, if you want to check out the other few photos (9 or so) of my house, they're on my webshots account- so feel free to go look at them if you're interested! sorry I couldn't make this simpler. I tried. ohhh computers... imeanme...

http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/556956963BbQLuK

So, there you have it.
I hope you all are well

--- catie

In Conclusion: I'm allergic to Madurai

I've spent the last month or so gallivanting around Southern India, for those of you who didn't know.
the numbers don't add up right, but i feel like this is how it went:
3 weeks with Emily, Emily, and Nate in Kerela
1 week with just nate in Karnataka
3 weeks with Emily Dingman harassing our new friends, Jay & Braleigh in Palolem, Goa.

really maybe it was a total of two weeks before i got to palolem and less than three weeks there--- but i think how it feels is more important anyway.

i suppose there's too much to update on, really- but maybe i'll just give you guys a run-down on the highlights.

* I have learned that knowing Tamil has two effects on purchasing things
a) the shop keeper is so delighted that you speak Tamil that you get an automatic price reduction
b) the shop keeper is delighted that you speak Tamil and engages in a long (for foreign language- five minutes maybe?) conversation with you and then guilts you into buying from them at a still relatively high price.
as a result of this (along with Goa being more expensive) I ended up spending much too much beyond my alloted budget for this vacation.
* The medical system in India works! I went to the doctor after a month of denial towards some illness (i was fearing worms?). The doctor barely asked me any questions, poked my stomach a little, told me i had a intestine lining infection, and prescribed me four or five different types of medicine. I was reluctant to take any of them, and wanted to just stick with my 'water solves all' solutions- but i took the pills and was better within two days! now i'm a believer (lie- i'm a half-believer. but it's a step in the right direction, right?)
* Travel agencies almost always (in my so-far experience) try to con you into something. In fact, come to think of it, almost anyone at any given point is trying to con Someone into Something. It's just a matter of which end of it you end up on. I'd say I'm doing pretty good--- minus a few hundred rupees here and there.
* Travel books are either complete lies or completely outdated. Either way they lead to adventures you weren't really expecting.
* I realized while being stranded at a provincial train station in Karnataka called Murdershwar, that it's all about your mentality and not really about where you end up. Nate and I were more or less just pushed off of the train and told to find our own way to the beach(after bribing the conductor to at least take us as far as he could). Instead of panicking we decided to just sit and watch the sparrows, and wait for the next train to come, and see how it went from there. I blame this mentality (mostly inspired by the sparrows, to be honest) for our good luck on catching an easy train to Gokarna within a few hours.
* My impression of monkeys will forever be altered from a jovial ooo-aahhh, arms flailing and imaginary tail swinging about the place, to nails extended teeth barred and sharp growling barks. This can be attributed to a run-in Emily and I had with a pack of monkeys in Tekkidy, on our way back from a trek through a Tiger preserve. Luckily I had an apple, and Emily had a life vest to protect us with. I have to admit I thought of all those books that say never to throw food when an animal is attacking you (because it might just think of you as a food source--- but i'm pretty sure this monkey did already)--- but the apple did the trick. I tossed it aside, and in the second the monkey turned to see where it went Emily and i managed to skirt around it and were headed in the right direction away from it. Anyway- my views on monkeys have definitely changed in the last month.
* For Christmas Emily and Jay and Braleigh and I got stranded on the most extreme weather island i've ever been on. For quite the deal we got a boat to take us out to butterfly island. they dropped us off with a tent, food, water, some beer, some firewood (complete with nails--- i guess in case we needed some?) half a liter of petroleum and a rusty lighter. The food was delicious- a few whole fish, cheese-olive naan, salad (onions and cucumbers mostly), finger chips, and pineapple & oranges. Braleigh took to the christmas spirit, and with the help of emily's pocket-knife chopped off all of her hair. We tried, at first, to just burn the cut off hair- but decided that the fumes might attract some sort of jungle cat, and so instead she just filled a bag with what she cut off and be lit it the next morning.
The tent they left with us was probably one of the more useless things i've ever seen in my life. I like to think of technology as the lazy-man's best friend. We make things and all of a sudden some tasks are easier, right? (technically this is all debatable on so many levels, but i'm going to just leave it as a general statement and probably not come back to it. feel free to comment though!) Anyway- i feel that when this tent was designed it was made in such a way as to completely ignore all needs, solutions, and creative designs found useful up until this point. The tent was pretty much a ground cloth with a dome attached to it at each corner. this made it a pretty nice wind tunnel that quickly filled with sand (which was lucky, because the sand was, at times, pretty much the only thing holding it down). We ended up spending a good portion of the evening designing ways to make the tent stationary (settled for filling bottles with sand and putting them, along with Chooli into the tent).
It was a pretty rough night, all in all. I probably only didn't freeze to death because i slept on top of Chooli and uncomfortably close to Emily and Jay (and Braleigh for that matter... although Jay was in between us. it was that close).

On christmas day we awoke to find that Santa wasn't aware of butterfly island, and had neglected to visit us. So we played cards, and ate oranges for breakfast (atleast one christmas tradition kept!) the boat was scheduled to pick us up at 1 in the afternoon. Pretty quickly the beach got unbearably hot, and so we decided to just jump into the ocean- clothes and all (it feels amazing!- and then there's less laundry to do?). The waves were pretty strong, and lots of fun to play in. But I got pretty tired pretty quickly, so Jay and I sat out on a rock. It kept getting hotter and hotter as we waited for the boat. We were all pretty hungry, and Jay and I started cooking snails with a lighter and eating them (not too bad, really). Besides the hunger and the heat the wait wasn't so bad. we had some (now warm) water, and there were dolphins jumping around in the distance- it was pretty nice.
But we waited- stranded at butterfly island, until our boat came. Then the boat got us about half way back and broke down. So we had to wait for another boat to come and tow us back. but for some reason, instead of towing us straight back, they took us in about four or five circles before heading to shore. We finally got back, ate, and I went to bed probably around 8 or 9 pm. All in all a pretty good Christmas
* New Years really just amplified my distaste towards men in general, and more specifically, grabby Indian men. out of the four of us I definitely received the least amount of harassment. This is due to a) a general (soon to be world-wide, I think) obsession with Braleigh Nelson. b) Emily's small size and sweet nature and c) a convenient misconception that Jay has some claim on me (Braleigh's theory on the matter). Anyway- the night just resulted in a lot of harassment and an eventual hide-out in our house, which was fine with me.
* The highlight of New Years Eve in Palolem, however, was the fireworks. It seems that people delight in firing explosives into crowds of dancing indian tourists and foreigners. Furthermore, it also seems that these dancers delight in the fireworks erupting either feet infront of or above them. The effect is especially powerful when the dancers are showered in falling flames. This always results in people cheering out and laughing uncontrollably. For me it mostly resulted in hiding out behind whoever was closest to me.
* Bonoffee pie is the most delicious thing in the world... probably. I couldn't possibly do it justice, so just take my word for it. If you ever find yourself in a situation in which you can consume massive amounts (or really any amount at all) of Bonoffee pie, rejoice. because it is amazing.

Actually, let me give you all a quotation from Jay's blog (hope he doesn't mind?)
"For those of you who have never had the pleasure to indulge in Banoffee pie I feel in many respects great pity for you. It isn't a fledging sustainance apparatus or a pitiful attempt at combining two good things to make them better. Banoffe pie is an artistic bid at making the world a better place, at this, it doesn't succeed, but, it could be easily characterized as the embodiment of edible indulgent bliss.

I have devoured four different pieces of Banoffe pie from four unique restaurants. Each piece was made from a combination of buscuits, bananas, butter, cream and condensed milk. At first thought one would assume that eating four seperate pieces of the same thing would yield the same result in every case. If you think this you are wrong, about EVERYTHING. Each solitary piece of Banoffee pie was unrepeated, unique and produced an arrestingly contradistinctive result."
* With that in mind, one of my new years resolutions was to eat less sugar.
* Another new year's resolution is to do more art (this seems to be a recurring resolution. by this time i should probably be spending about 87% of my time doing nothing but art. i guess i should resolve to keep my resolutions?). So, i bought a little journal, and have done five drawings so far, but have fell behind since i left Goa.
* I was lucky enough to make friends (?) with Braleigh and Jay's friends in Goa- mainly the staff at a restaurant, Baba's Little Italy. One of them was a waiter named, Prem, who has inspired me to use the word "Prem" as an ajective and noun. I think people can get "Premmed" or be too "Prem"... maybe no one can be too Prem? Anyway- it got me sort of excited to become less afraid of men in Madurai, and more eager to be friends with them (but still... minorly afraid of friendship with men here).
* On the way back Emily and I took an auto to the train station, getting there about fourty minutes early so that we could make sure to get Chooli in her compartment with plenty of time to spare. However, when we got there the parcel man told us there is only one dog allowed on the train at a time, and a girl had already come to reserve it. We were told to bribe the man with 1000 rupees (about 25 dollars), but he wouldn't take it.

At this point we started examining our options. my first impulse, i must admit, was to stay in goa forever. luckily emily was there to shake me to my senses and explained in somewhat great detail why we had to go back to Madurai. So we started examining our tools and decided what we Really needed was a basket. However, there was no basket to be found. We did have a blanket, however- so we decided to wrap Chooli in it, baby-style. This mostly worked except that Emily has never (she admitted) held a baby before, and looked really awkward pretending her blanketed dog was a person. We walked to the platform to wait for the train and noticed that behind a tea-stall there was a pile of cardboard boxes. We started examining them. The tea-vendor saw us, and was inappropriately excited to give us one of them. So we ventured to a quiet part of the platform and hid behind some other white people. Emily put Chooli into the box and i went to look for some string. It became really apparently really quickly that there was no way that Chooli would stay in the flimsy box unless it was bound shut with something much stronger than the loose pieces of string I collected from around the platform. Eventually an Indian man came over from the group of people who had gathered around to watch, and whispered to us: put the stuff in the box- put the dog in the bag. So, Emily and I figured with nothing to lose (except for some expensive bags?) we might as well try. My bag was slightly bigger so I dumped everything of mine into the cardboard box and the two of us began stuffing the dog into my bag. As we were doing this we began to hear the train approaching. So pretty frantically we were shoving paws and tails and ears into the bag and zipping it as quickly as we could. Emily put my bag on, I grabbed hers, and we tried to lift the box up. Mostly this was difficult because the box was reluctant to not fall apart. We ended up trading the box off back and forth as we ran down the platform- being jostled around by other passengers- afraid that two weeks of dirty underwear were going to end up scattered around platform 5. We shoved our stuff onto the train and found our compartment just as Chooli started getting out of the bag. the family we were sharing our compartment with looked a little surprised, but were really comforting. This was a relief because many indian families hate dogs (if it were my host family they may have found the heaviest object near by and thrown it at Chooli). But this family told us "No Problem!" and they told us to be quiet for 10 minutes until the conductor passed, and then we'd be fine. So we hid Chooli up on a top bunk and draped a blanket across. Then Emily spent the night up there trying to keep her quiet. Somehow we managed to get to bangalore without having to offer bribes to anyone else. We got off of the train and dumped poor chooli out onto the platform where dozens of people started, mouths open, at what had just fallen out of our bags.

Then we had about five hours in Bangalore. We were pretty exhausted, and not really too interested in the city- so we just looked for a quiet place to sit down at the train station. We quickly realized there was no such quiet place inside the station, so we ventured out onto the road. We found a pretty shady spot, put the cardboard box down and sort of collapsed onto it. It was honestly the most comfortable sidewalk i've collapsed onto in a really long time! And we were in just the right place to get harassed by a crazy man for three hours, which made the time pass pretty quickly! he wasn't a dangerous type of crazy man- he just liked dogs a LOT. he kept going and finding stray dogs and picking them up and bringing them to us. then he'd ask us if we were hungry, and then he'd start hitting the dog until it ran away. Then he'd leave and go buy buns, and tear them up and throw them at our feet until Chooli ate all of them. then we'd make him leave, and a few minutes he would come back and repeat this all. I think the weirdest thing he did was to suck on his fingers and then try to touch Chooli with them. Pretty harmless though, all in all.

Anyway, Emily and I made it back to Madurai this morning, where I promptly felt sick again. SO--- i really think I am allergic to it here- and maybe have to go back to Goa?

Well, i guess that's sort of the shorthand update for things. How did everyone else spend their holidays? I'd really really like to know!

Thinking of you all

--- catie