Christianity in Sivakasi and a visit to the women's college

When we got home from work last night, it was already dark and the sounds of many voices were drifting through the streets of the NGO colony (the neighborhood). Apparently a different area family hosts a prayer meeting once a week. There is a large Christian population in Sivakasi. The second and third biggest religions are Buddhism and Hindu. They sang for a long time. The family I am with is also deeply religious. I was wrong before. The father's job is making Bible covers but those are his sewing machines in their living room. He makes them out of very nice, soft felt and velvet with a printed pattern then zips them over gold-paged Bibles written in Tamil (the local language). He seems very proud of his work. The family is nice as can be and very generous even if communication between us is a little difficult. After dinner, I went on the roof to look at the stars and listen to the Indian Christian songs but a bat had another idea and kept dive-bombing me so I had to go inside.

The life here is so simple. There seems to be very little drama within the family; people work hard and make do with what they have and, above all, don't complain. If you don't know what you don't have, then you can't. Advertisements are not at every turn here. All the material goods that people in America lust after-- ipods, digital cameras, computers, other latest gadgets, designer/brand name clothes, fancy shoes, comforters, blah blah etc -- nothing here. I haven't seen anyone with a cell phone on the street though the people in the office do have them. As far as tech gear, the family has a small television and a landline telephone. The women have about four everyday dresses each.

On the flipside of that, I have yet to see a bookstore, a record store, or a fire truck. But, it's only been five days.

Young kids, especially girls, are really excited to see a white woman. These are some schoolkids who were screaming, "Hi!! Hi!!!! Hiiiii!" when I walked to work this morning


There's a church near the house. It has a bell that plays once an hour but it's electric and sounds like a synthesizer.


Today, I went to the local women's college with the family's middle daughter. She's third year but only seventeen so I don't really know what "college" means here. We went in a rickshaw in the morning. The campus is beautiful but very different from America! We saw three peacocks just kind of hanging out in trees or in the bushes (separately). It was "Fine Arts Day" and I, and three other of the writers, were taken all around campus. We saw folk dances which involved balancing a big thing on top of your head and wiggling. It was amazing. The crowd was most impressed with the dancers who lied on their stomachs, or cut a carrot out of another girl's mouth with a knife while wearing a blindfold, or picked a napkin up off the floor with their teeth, all while dancing and balancing the colorful, shiny cone. We met faculty (history, art, English, gym) and met A LOT of students, saw the classrooms and the playing fields and saw the artwork of the girls (drawings and sculptures and floor art sand). We saw some skits early in the day. One of them was in support of traditional Indian values and portrayed an Indian girl who got a job in America. Her friend from India came to visit. The friend from India watched the Americanized girl smoke, drink, dance at a "discotheque" with men and, finally, witnessed a school shooting. The Indian sufficiently shamed the other one into going home. It was... weird.

The floor art sand room's theme was "War and Peace". Most of the subjects of the floorsands was the violence between India and Pakistan in the north. At the end, a group accosted us, seemingly solely in honor our being there, to encourage world peace and goodwill. The president of the student association, who got a job in California next year, was wearing a crown and carrying the Indian flag. The rest of them had signs like a picket-line, but everyone was all smiles. The school didn't even know we were coming but we attracted quite a lot of attention from the students. The girls were ecstatic we were there and would shout hello from fifty feet away and come out of classrooms to ask us "What is your name? Where are you from? How long are you in Sivakasi?" or crowd into the doorways if we were going around looking at the art. Anytime we walked somewhere new, we were surrounded by a group of 20 girls to greet us. It was kind of like being a zoo animal because they would be in a big circle with us in the middle. Conversation was slow so there were always times when they were just looking and giggling! I think we made Shakeena (the daughter) famous.

Peace parade


Crowded into the doorway to watch us:


Folk dancers


The flight stuff is giving me such a headache. Who would have guessed it's so difficult to book a 3-continent flight? I have spent my whole time in the office since I got here, pretty much, trying to figure out the cheapest way to do this. As of now, I'm going through Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, arriving at 12:15am and then onto Accra at 7:30am. And thus will be my 7-hour stint in the Middle East, assuming the woman on the phone at Emirates has truly extended me the kindness of not paying until I pick up the ticket in Trivandrum, which is 7 hours away from Sivakasi and where I'm flying out of. For some reason, e-tickets into Africa are not allowed for American passport holders coming from India and thus I have to pick up and pay for the ticket in person. As an added bonus, I need to have my outgoing flight from Ghana booked in order to get my visa into that country. Follow all that?

More photos from today

Also, I made it possible to comment without registering an account. I didn't know you could do that or else I would have done it earlier. Sooo, if you have something to say publicly to me you can do it anonymously now.