More ‘did you know,’ bonfire in school, GAS…

Dear all

Once again it’s time for my weekly update. It’s Sunday afternoon (nearly 1pm), and I’m sitting on my bed, typing this post while waiting for my photos to finish downloading. I’m really glad my parents brought me the (half-broken) laptop, because it makes things like reading and answering my emails, as well as managing photos, so much easier!

Today’s post is going to be a bit of everything. Sorry! Hope it’s not too confusing!

Here are a couple of ‘did you know’ facts for you that I didn’t add last time:

Did you know that in India, it’s the men who wear mini skirts? Women aren’t allowed to show their legs (I haven’t worn anything that’s not to my ankles since I’ve been here), but the men are. In fact, there isn’t even a ‘decency limit’ to the shortness of their ‘skirts!’ Their ‘skirts’ are actually dhotis (white long pieces of fabric that men wrap around themselves) or lungies (dhotis with colour). For more formal events, the men wear them long, so they reach their ankles, but when walking, shopping, chatting with friends on the street, at home, etc. they lift the bottom edge up and tie the fabric in such a way as to leave them with a ‘mini skirt.’ I’ve seen some really short ones, too. And I mean REALLY short. But somehow that doesn’t bother anyone other than Cristy and me. We’re actually thinking of buying ourselves lungies for around the house (even though the whole town would probably hear about it within a day)…

Did you know that in India, civil weddings do not have much significance? If you want to be ‘properly’ married, you have to have a certificate from a church (if you have a civil wedding, it’s only valid for 3 months). And for many Christian denominations, you can’t get a certificate of marriage from you church unless you completed Sunday School exams. Yes, you read correct, exams. Simi, our ‘anyeti’ (little sister), who lives downstairs, just completed her ‘9th standard’ Sunday School exams. Now in December, she’s got a 4 week break, and next year she’ll do the ‘10th standard’ Sunday School exams. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter whether you pass or not, as long as you have a certificate saying you studied for and took the exams up to 10th standard (pass or fail).


Now to an update of my life in India:

Highlight of the weekend: We got gas! After being without gas for 1.5 months, we FINALLY received a full cylinder yesterday, and can now resume practising our cooking skills. It feels really nice to have that independence back (not having to wait until the stove next door isn’t being used anymore to boil our water, etc.). Time to celebrate by cooking! :)

Last night we finally had a bonfire in school with the hostel kids. Cristy and I were both really excited. On Friday we’d bought 400 crackers and 69 small chocolate bars, so we could make Smores with the 4 packs of marshmallows my family had brought from Singapore. The kids didn’t know about the Smores, and we were really looking forward to surprising them with a special American treat (with marshmallows from Singapore – whatever is foreign around here is special. The kids’ pens are better than mine, but they want mine because they’re from Singapore! Foreign equals ‘glamour’ – I’ve banned my students from saying that word because I hate the way they use it to describe me, as if I was better than them: my hair, my skin colour, my clothes…).
Yesterday afternoon Nobby sir, the man in charge of the boys’ hostel, asked Cristy whether the kids could watch a movie after the bonfire, and she said yes, telling him we’d be done around 8.30pm (we planned on starting at 7.00pm).
At 6.30pm, we left the house with all our things and started collecting wood and preparing sticks while the kids were having their dinner. When they finally dash out of the dining hall at 7.00pm, one of the older boys comes up to us and tells us to ‘hurry!’, because they want to start their movie at 8.00pm. The other kids started asking us about what we were doing with all the sticks, because as it turns out, they didn’t know about the bonfire (even though we’ve told them about it for 3 weeks). Their highlight of the evening was the movie, and they let us know all right!
Anyway, we got the fire going, sang some songs (for about 10 minutes), and then, under immense pressure from the older boys, got out our Smores things and started distributing them to the kids. We were constantly under fire from the older boys though, to ‘hurry!’. The kids finished their smores in about 5 minutes, then came to demand more (not ask, demand). The teachers weren’t any better. They reminded us that they hadn’t gotten any. No asking with the magic word was involved (people around here laugh when we say ‘nanni, which means ‘thank you’ in Malayalam. At first, we thought it’s because they think foreigners are incapable of learning a few phrases in a different language, but then we discovered that that wasn’t the case: people around here don’t say ‘thank you,’ and that’s why they’re so surprised when they hear us saying it). We finished 1.75 packs of marshmallows, but decided not to distribute the rest and instead have another bonfire (that ISN’T followed by a movie!). Quite a few of the students were very sweet, though, and came to say thank you to both Cristy and me. The students are absolutely wonderful here (most of them)! :) We could do without the teachers, but the students make whatever you do worth it!
The kids got the fire site cleaned up within 5 minutes, and then we all went into the dining hall, where they had set up the principal’s TV. We watched ‘Classmates,’ a new Malayalam movie. However, the quality was so bad it looked like it had been filmed 20 years ago. That’s because the VCD was probably a burnt copy of a burnt copy of a burnt copy (maybe add a couple more ‘of a burnt copy’ – it was hard to tell how many times it had been copied due to the terrible quality). Therefore, the VCD also froze up about every 5 minutes, so because I didn’t really understand the major drama that was going on and I needed some other form of entertainment, I decided to accompany each freeze-moment with an ‘ayoh!’ (‘zimply’ an expression with no meaning), which I picked up in Singapore, but which they use in India, too (at least in Nedumkandam). After a while, though, I felt guilty for ruining the intense drama, so I decided to stop saying it. However, when the next ‘freeze’ came around, many of the students turned around, awaiting my expression, so I resumed my ‘ayoh!’ duty after that. :)
The movie incorporated drama, horror, action, romance, comedy and mystery (including many songs, one of which has become really popular in Kerala – you can hear it wherever you go), but because Cristy and I didn’t understand most of it (I don’t think anyone else really got it, either), we decided to come up with our own plot, which was loads of fun. :)
That was our ‘bonfire.’ Had I just arrived in India, I would have been really disappointed with what happened, but having been here a while and knowing the culture and people better, it didn’t come as a big surprise (I’m sorry to say). That isn’t to say Indians are unfriendly people! The kids are wonderful, but Cristy and I are having more and more problems accepting the way the school is run, and the teachers (who treat the kids so terribly sometimes, I can’t stand watching and have to leave the room). So we try to show the kids as much love as possible (which is really all we can do during our stay here), and hope that they’ll see that they aren’t what the teachers treat them as sometimes.

I'll go to school soon to post this.
Sorry this turned out to be so long. Hope it was somewhat interesting. :)

PS: Guess what! We’re not making Porotha for the hostel kids today. I guess I’ll have to wait until January until I can do that… :(