Last Week in Kumbalam

Saturday, Dec. 3, Kumbalam and Kollam

I went to Kundara this morning to continue my research related to my travels. I’m making slow progress. I wish I had a faster connection and more time on the computer. I’m worried about running into reservations problems, since I am traveling at a high-tourism time in India.

I finished reading Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. I gave it 3 stars out of 4, but I was disappointed in it. I had heard such good things about it that I expected more. I felt the criminal aspects were not as tight as they should have been. It was obvious from the beginning which of the two verdicts (guity or not guilty) would occur. Also, I found the newspaper man’s inability to move on with his life 15 years after a failed teenage relationship to be implausable. I now have only one book left of the ones I brought from Texas in August.
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In the evening we all went to Tangasseri. A new cathedral was being consecrated. Joseph is friends with the bishop and many of the priests, so all of us piled into his SUV (including Prameela) and went. It was a tight squeeze with Abin having to sit in my lap and one of the girls having to sit in the lap of another girl. But we made it. We arrived after the cremony and mass had ended. That was on purpose so we could see the building well and so that Joseph could visit with everyone. It’s very nice with a carved marble alter, carved wooden doors, many stained glass windows, two stylized towers and a central “dome” fashioned after a lighthouse, etc. We all saw people we knew. One young man from Kundara who I had seen just this morning approached me immediately and introduced me to his friends. Two students from the Tangasseri campus of the school were there. A former teacher at the school was there, too.

Jerry saw the teacher first and told me he wanted to say hello to her. I encouraged him to go do so, but he insisted that I go, too. He’s usually so outgoing and confident, but he became unbelievably shy and nervous when we approached her. He grabbed my hand as we walked that way-something Indian boys and men do, although it’s not common for Jerry to do so. When we got there, I had to do most of the talking. Jerry stood halfway behind me. He squeezed my had tight, pulled my fingers individually, curled my fingers popping the nuckles, etc. I couldn’t believe how nervous he was. Yet he was obviously happy to see her. Finally, he spoke a few words. She was his English teacher, and I was explaining that he speaks English best of all the hostel kids as he kept mum.

Sunday, Dec. 4, Kumbalam

It’s 2:00 a.m., and I am up. The past week I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night. My mind races, and I can’t go back to sleep immediately. I don’t know why. I was so tired last night that I fell asleep just after returning from the cathedral at 8:45. The others were still in the dining room having dinner which I skipped. I didn’t even hear them going upstairs which is usually a noisy procedure with everyone saying good night to everyone.

One reason for my waking up initially is that my nose is stuffy with the passages swollen almost shut. I could hardly breathe. It’s probably allergies. It’s definitely not a cold. I don’t know what I could be allergic to right now. This is the first night for it to happen, and I haven’t noticed anything different in the air.
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While sitting on the porch reading the newspapers this morning, I heard fireworks going off-LOTS of fireworks. It sounded like too many too close together to be planned. My guess was that the fireworks in a small shop must have all gone off. I watched the sky for smoke, but I didn’t see any. Even Prameela came out to look, thinking it wasn’t right. When the kids returned from church, however, they said it was part of the celebration of a saint’s day there.

The front page of the Express newspaper has a scathing editorial today about U.S. congressmen touring India-Dan Burton in particular-“talking wildly about how India should behave.” They call him “loud-mouthed Burton” who claims to be an authoirity with a simple, instant solution to every problem in India. “Ignorance is a bessing. It frees you from the moderation that knowledge imposes. When ignorance is combined with arrogance, it ‘frees’ reckless minds to the extent of their running amok.” U.S. Congressmen and others of the American Establishment “have exaggerated notions of their own importance and the importance of their military-economic power.” “Ill-qualified experts like Burton constitute the pool of America’s international wisdom. That is why any country that has been guided by that wisdom has ended up in dictatorship and worse…. The dangerously slanted minds of the present helmsmen-the President, his ‘Vice-President for Torture,’ and his Secretary for Offence-have made the record bleaker than at any time in the past. They have given meaning to Bernard Shaw’s words: ‘An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.’”
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I’ve been doing trip planning today. I have to go back to the cyber café to check on night train schedules, then I can make hotel reservations for Goa and Mumbai and train reservations for Mangalore to Goa and Goa to Mumbai. I also have planned my route through Chile. Somewhere in Chile or Argentina (probably the latter) I need to cut back by 4-5 days or change my date of travel (no cost) from Argentina to Mexico. I’ll wait and see. The main reason for all this planning, in addition to needing to select the best places to see, is that I will be traveling at the height of the tourist season in Goa, Argentina, and Chile. I will have to make some reservations for hotels, trains, and ferries in advance to avoid problems and delays. Therefore, I need to determine when I will be where.
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Joseph has left and Prameela is on another rampage. I am so tired of it. I don’t think he understands what things are like when he is away from here. Right now I would like to pack up and leave! And what set it off was something I think Joseph would consider to be a good teachable moment. One of the boys, while cutting grass with a sycle, found a cocooned butterfly pupa. He brought it into the hostel attached to the leaf and showed it to me. It was a beautiful silver colored one. I was excited, and suggested that we keep it in a window so we could try to see it hatch and fly away. Prameela yelled at the top of her lungs when he showed it to her, made all the children sit and start doing school work quietly, and continues to yell off and on an hour later when something bothers her. She’s locked the front door. In other words, she’s taken over in a mad fit and I’m miserable.
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I’m worried about leaving Jerry and Jinny. They are nice kids. It must be difficult for them to be the poorest of all the children. Neither has decent shoes. Both wear clothing that is tight and wearing out. I know Joseph will watch out for them, but I also know he can’t do much for them. He has to expect the mother to provide for them, or she might just abandon them to him. I’m thinking of buying each of them a pair of shoes and leaving them as gifsts to get when they return to school in January. (They will go stay with an aunt over the break. I don’t want them to have the shoes earlier, because I don’t want the aunt or the mother to know that someone has relieved them of the burdon of providing things for them.) Jerry has only a rubber pair of flipflops and a cheap pair of cleated football shoes. I’d like to buy him some leather slip-on sandals. Jenny has a pair of plastic shoes. I think I can buy leather sandals for both of them for about $6-7 total.
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Well, the day finally passed. Joseph was gone until about 7:30 and then went straight to bed. He no longer eats with us more than 1-2 meals per week. Jerry came to me and talked a long time. Among his questions: What is envy? How can you tell if a person is happy? How can you tell if a person likes you? Among the topics discussed were: What constitutes enough income. Costs of loans. Delayed gratification. Psychology. Importance of saving no matter how much is earned. Importance of living on a budget within your means. Etc.

Monday, Dec. 5, Kumbalam

I had trouble sleeping again last night. Almost every night I awkan, and my mind starts racing with various thoughts and plans. Eventually, I turn on my light and read a while. Then I can relax and fall asleep again. I hope the pattern ends when I begin traveling again.

I’ve started reading Possession, A Romance by A. S. Byatt. It won the Booker Prize in 1990. I’ve only read 30 pages so far, but I’m not impressed yet. The main character is a dull academic, an English Ph.D. doing postdoctoral research for his major professor who has specialized in an obsure poet. Whether it gets better or not, I’ll have to keep reading it; it’s my last book. The local bookstores have nothing I want to read, so I’ll have to get to Kochi next week before I can find a good bookstore.

Life is getting busy. I have a to-do list for this week and have started another for when I am in Denmark. This week’s list includes more research on trains, making hotel and train reservations, buying train tickets, buying rope for my workshop, photocopying materials for my workshop, buying resfreshments for a party on Thursday and the workshop on Saturday, etc.