It began with a song.
Aai vanneeduka, vaa, ningal Bethlahemil.”
“O Come All Ye Faithful” is one of the most popular Christmas carols in Kerala, and so the Tiruvalla Ecumenical Choir began their carol service on December 6th with this song. I sang alto. We sang the traditional hymn in Malayalam, and I read from an English transliterated version that began, “Vishwaasikalhe vaa…” That first carol service set the stage for a month of Advent and Christmas celebrations that finally left me hoarse from singing, stuffed with a ridiculous amount of cake, and extremely happy.
After that first evening of carols, I sang constantly throughout the month of December. I love Christmas songs, and so it was a joy to teach English Christmas carols to the students at Nicholson School every morning. Equally wonderful for me was learning the Malayalam Christmas songs that the students and other teachers taught me. The school put on two carol programs, and for one of these programs the tenth grade students went caroling. They wore white saris and carried candles down the street singing Malayalam carols to the beat of two drummers. Caroling in 85 degree humid weather was a little surreal for me, but it was also amazingly fun.
Although I attended many carol services in December my favorite was the small gathering I coordinated
with an old-age home located near Nicholson School. A week before Christmas I brought a group of fourteen 11th grade girls to sing carols for the elderly residents of the home. The girls had practiced several Malayalam songs and had prepared some Bible readings and a skit, but even better than the program they put on (which did go very well), was the way the girls interacted with the residents. The two groups of young and old seemed so at ease with each other and so happy in each other’s company. When it came time for me to leave with the girls, I couldn’t separate the students from their new grandmothers and grandfathers. One woman was showing two girls a picture of her long-deceased husband, while another group talked and laughed over their pieces of Christmas fruit cake. On leaving, the girls exchanged hugs and kisses with the grandfathers and grandmothers. Walking back to the school, I was overflowing with happiness at seeing how this group of young and old had so easily come to love each other.
"Dreaming of a Coconut Christmas…”
In addition to the Malayalam songs and bilingual carol programs that filled the Advent season for me, my Christmas this year also included many new experiences that, as someone who grew up in Northern Minnesota, I would never have associated with the holiday season:
• On Christmas Eve I relaxed with the other volunteers on paddleboats in some beautiful backwaters, and I hung out (literally) in a hammock strung between two coconut trees.
• Instead of eating Christmas cookies, I filled my stomach with Kerala’s traditional Christmas food: plum cake. This is basically a regular cake with some raisins, dates, and nuts thrown in. Delicious, but over the course of the month I probably ate one or two entire cakes, and now I think I’d run away if someone offered me another piece.
• In Kerala everyone decorates their homes with multi-colored paper stars. They place light bulbs inside the stars so they glow at night. They’re beautiful, and I loved seeing homes and stores brightly decorated with them this Christmas season.
• While I was traveling with the other volunteers a few days before Christmas, we randomly stopped and grabbed some coconuts from a street vendor. We drank the coconut water with straws, and then the vendor cut the coconuts in half so we could eat the sweet, white meat.
• On Christmas morning I awoke at 5am to the chanting of the call to prayer from a nearby mosque.
• At the carol service at Tyler’s site, the four volunteers were asked to participate in a four-part harmony singing of “Silent Night.” Only eight people were singing the song, and although Sarah, Tyler, Cameron and I can usually hold a melody (and sometimes a harmony) we’re not spectacular singers. Somehow the eight of us managed to butcher “Silent Night” by singing in eight different keys. Luckily our audience, made up mostly of the elderly residents at Tyler’s site, didn’t seem to notice. But that night we welcomed Christmas by making a joyful noise.
It ended with a song.
After spending my Christmas holiday with Thomas John Achen, his family, and the other volunteers, I returned to my site. I got off the crowded train at the Tiruvalla station on December 27th, heading back to Nicholson School where we would begin class the following day. As I walked the 2 km back to the school, I listened to the now-familiar sounds around me: The birds and crickets, the traffic on the road, the intermittent music from a church or temple, a radio playing from the back of a fruit stand, the crunch of gravel under my feet, the bus conductors calling out their destinations at each stop: the joyful music of life and creation that surrounded me this Christmas.
Joy to the world!
The Savior reigns;
Let all their songs employ.
While fields and floods,
Rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat, Repeat, the sounding joy!
