Clay Pots, Smoke, and 1.5 Million Women

     In Trivandrum, home to Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and others, there is always a festival celebrating something.  This past weekend, it was Pongala, a Hindu festival that draws 1.5 million women to worship a goddess called Devi.  I was invited to attend with a Hindu friend but opted out, so she described it for me afterwards.  The women fill the streets, sidewalks, and empty lots surrounding the temple for kilometers.  They bring with them clay pots, dried coconut leaves, and all the fixings for a sweet rice dish that the goddess is said to like.  They sit down and wait for the holy fire to be passed from the temple to light their fires, around 10am.  The whole city is filled with smoke.  They cook their rice dish (payasam), then wait for the priests to come and sprinkle holy water from the temple into it, around 2:30pm.  That's a long time to be sitting on the street in the hot sun, I thought.  The payasam is supposed to be an offering to the goddess, but I guess it is usually brought home and eaten because my friend gave us some.  Would you eat it?  This festival has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for largest religious gathering of women.  Very interesting.

Delhi and Agra

      Last week, we flew north to a homeschool conference outside of Delhi.  The conference was great.  We met a lot of friends, learned some good stuff, Cora took her exams, and they even had a big field (with grass!) that the kids could play football (soccer) in.  Delhi was very dry and dusty, the dust covering everything to the point that the whole world looked almost black and white.  The only refreshing site was the mustard fields, a sea of yellow and green against the drap backdrop.  We took a bus from the airport to the conference center in Rajasthan, which should have taken 2 hours.  After 4 hours and many wrong turns, we arrived.  One of the wrong turns led us down a dirt road that got bumpier and bumpier as we went until it was almost impassable.  We saw bullock carts, camel carts, donkey carts, horse carts, and herds of goats.  Finally, when we approached a 5 foot deep trench across the road that really was impassable, the driver decided he "probably" took a wrong turn!  You never know in India.  The nicest hotel really could be down a road like that.
      On Saturday after the conference, we took another bus to the Taj Mahal.  It took us a total of 11 hours on a bus only to be at the Taj for 3 hours, but it was worth it.  The place is amazing.  The marble has such a high percentage of crystal that the whole building seems to glow.  The colored designs are all precious stones from around the world that have been inlaid.  The pictures won't do it justice, but here they are anyway:

Delhi was a lot colder than we were prepared for, since we live in the tropics now and own very few cold weather clothes.  We had to go out and by Evie's first footy-pajamas.

Cora dressed as Naya Nuki for a Character dinner at the conference.  Umah hand-stiched this for her while she was here.

The Red Fort, across from the Taj Mahal.  We didn't get to tour it because it was under renovation.

Pretty fancy for a tomb, huh?  The inside is totally empty except for 2 marble caskets.

One of the three entrance gates.  Each gate was built for a different wife.  The more he liked the wife, the bigger and fancier the gate was.

The colored design is all precious stones, and the black is an arabic prayer.  Each side of the Taj Mahal is identical except for the prayers.

The hand-carved marble and inlaid stones.

A boat on the Yamuna river, just next to the Taj.

The wall around the Taj.  Evie finally slept after crying almost the entire time we were there.  She wasn't so impressed by the whole thing.  But we have pictures to say she was there!

This camel cart was for the tourists, but we saw others just like it hauling produce, rebar, bricks, just about anything.

Umah and Papa are here!!!

Alicia's parents came to visit for a month in January.  It was such a blessing to have them here and be able to share with them our life here in Kerala.  Although the month seemed to go way too fast, we were able to do quite a few short trips around the area.  The best part, though,  was just having them here throughout every day.  Enjoy the pictures:

We drove about 1.5 hours out of the city to the 2nd tallest mountain in the state, Ponmudi, in the Western Ghats. 

It was an exciting ride and an absolutely beautiful view.  This is our family plus our friend and driver, Hareesh.

My little mountain climber

My even littler mountain climber.  Sadly, the drive home was a little too excitiing for her. 

She was car sick the whole way, vomiting all over the car, Jay, and Mom!

We also went to Neyyar Dam and saw monkeys in the woods along the way.  It was sooo neat. 

They came to about 8 feet from us.

Mom and Dad, touring the Indian jungle on elephant-back.

Auto rides - not as relaxing as the smiles might suggest.

  

Is that the right head on that dress?

We attended the wedding of one of our language helpers a few weeks ago, which gave me the occasion to buy my first saree.  In Kerala, sarees are still the norm for formal functions.  A friend took me shopping at a place that is 5 floors of everything cloth, one whole floor being devoted to saree material.   I was overwhelmed.  We looked through yards and yards and yards of material before finally settling on a turquoise one with gold trim.  Then we had to pick the material for the underskirt and take it all to be stitched.  Being clueless about how to put one on,  I asked a friend in our flat to wrap me and she was thrilled.  Evidently, wrapping a westerner in a saree is quite a privelege.  It was way more complicated than I thought.  Thankfully, she pinned it all over so I wouldn't have to redo it at the wedding.  Then came the jewelry.  No saree is complete without lots of bangles, a necklace, and a bindi (which I opted out of).  I have to say, it was really pretty comfortable.  The only challenge was figuring out how to handle it while using a squatty potty!  Here is a picture of the final product, along with a few of Evie's new dud's she got for her birthday.

Evelyn Joy - One year old!

Today, we had Evelyn's first birthday party.  It's hard to believe she is one year old already, but then there were times I thought this year would never end.  We are very thankful for our little Evelyn joy, who has brought a lot of joy (and a lot of sleepless nights) to our lives this year.  Planning a party at home can be a little stressful.  Planning a party in a new culture can be just scary, at least for me.  You think you are figuring things out, then something happens to totally bewilder you.  For example, Indians eat everything with their hands.  Hot food, cold food, dry food, saucy food, even sticky food  ... or so we thought.  Then the other night we ordered pizza, sat down with an Indian friend to eat it and he said, "Can I get a fork and knife?"  What?  Yes, they don't eat pizza with their hands.  Anyway, the party went... and here are some pictures:

Cora's present to Evie.  Pointing is one of Evie's favorite things to do.

 

"You got me a stool!  I love it."



Evie's first motorcycle, a gift from a local friend.

 

"I like driving."



We used to call Hareesh our friend-driver-language tutor-general helper-rip-off consultant.  But actually, he's our friend-driver-language tutor-general helper-rip-off consultant-party decorator.

I guess I'll claim them as mine.

We had a confetti bomb.  Fun, but hard to clean up, especially without a vacuum cleaner.

We had a tea time party (4:00) and served samosas, Shawarma, and of course Chai.



Some boys from our flat enjoying the cake.



Jay is usually the biggest one around here, but not when Jayaraj is present.

"It's all about me."

 





Evie was surprisingly neat with the first piece of cake in her life.



Bangaluru

We took a trip to the big city last week to join some American friends for Thanksgiving.  It was really nice to share an american meal with them, do some shopping we don't have here, and get a hamburger at Hard Rock Cafe.  Cora enjoyed playing with some american friends and a little girl near where we were staying.

Golden Times

It is Hindu tradition here to have a celebration when a baby turns one month old.  We were honored to be invited to such a celebration for Hareesh's nephew a few weeks ago.  I will try to explain the event, although we really don't understand it.  We arrived in time for breakfast, which consisted of rice noodles with curry sauce and, of course, Chai.  After breakfast, the crowd (about 40 family members) gathered outside around the mother and naked baby.  There was some sort of food offering laid out in front an oil lamp and a fire with a pot of rice atop.  The mother sprinkled a liquid onto the offering with a branch.  Then she sat and held the baby while, one-by-one, all the women of the family came and placed gold jewelry on him.  Gold bracelets, gold anklets, gold necklaces, gold waste chains, gold rings, gold, gold, gold.  As you can imagine, the baby was not too fond of this.  It is my understanding that this is done regardless of a family's economic status.  When the last item had been bestowed, those gathered let out a loud whooping sound (think Native American war cry).  We returned to the house and gifts were given to Mommy and Baby.  Before leaving for home, we had a traditional Kerala Sadya for lunch, which is rice and various vegetarian sides served on a banana leaf.  Yummy!  You will notice in the pictures below that the baby has large, black smudges on his face.  They believe that it jinxes a child to call him/her beautiful, so they try to marr the appearance.  We had a wonderful time with Hareesh's family and are thankful for the experience.



We took this photo on a walk around Hareesh's village. 
Coconuts, bananas, and tapioca plants can all be seen here, staples of everyday meals.