A Day in the Life

Photo of the four volunteers on our way to attend a wedding. Sarah and I had to wear saris for the first time in honor of the occasion. (Left to Right: Cameron, Sarah, Tyler, Me).

I wore a sari for my first Indian wedding last month, but that was a special occaison. After almost two months in Kerala, my life has begun to take on a regular routine. My work at the Nicholson Girls’ Higher Secondary School and in the nearby town of Tiruvalla has finally settled into a pattern that I can now share with you. Here is a breakdown of my average day:

• 7:00 – Wake up. All the girls at the school are already up by this time. They get up sometime between 4:30 and 6:30, depending on their age. In the morning some of the older girls study, and all the younger girls do exercise drills.
• 8:00 – Breakfast.
• 8:30 – Read the daily South Indian newspaper.
• 9:30-10:00 – Teach Christmas carols to one of the classes. In December the school will perform a carol service, and I’m in charge of teaching the girls English Christmas carols for them to sing at the program. These songs include traditional hymns like “Away in a Manger” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” as well as some less common songs that are personal favorites of mine, such as “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
• 10:00-12:30 – Morning classes. I teach a few conversational English classes every morning. The purpose of these classes is to get the girls’ comfortable speaking in English because in Kerala everyone speaks to each other using their native language, which is Malayalam. I teach a wide variety of ages: preschool (where they are just learning the English alphabet) through eighth grade (where some are fluent in English).
• 1:00 – Lunch.
• 2:00-4:30 – Afternoon classes. Twice a week I teach afternoon classes at Nicholson. The rest of the week, I spend my afternoons in Tiruvalla doing other work. For example, I’m helping a local ecumenical organization that explores progressive perspectives on contemporary social issues in India. These issues can include concerns over identity politics, poverty, homosexuality, social discrimination based on caste, etc. It’s a great opportunity for me to get out of the close environment of the boarding school and engage more actively with relevant issues of social justice in Kerala.
• 4:30 – Afternoon tea. This is a necessary part of everyone’s day in Kerala. I have my afternoon tea and snack with the students. It’s a great time to sit and talk casually with them as we munch on sweet rolls, bananas, or vegetable-filled croissants.
• 5:00-6:00 – Free time/ Recess. I often spend this time playing games with the students. Basketball, badminton, duck-duck-goose, jump-rope, Uno, etc. The exception is on Mondays, when I teach a class at an evening school hosted by a local church. This evening school is particularly for children from poorer families who can’t go to regular school or who need extra help with their homework.
• 6:30-7:30 – Malayalam lesson. I have a fabulous Malayalam teacher at Nicholson who tutors me every night, as I struggle to learn the local language.
• 8:00 – Dinner.
• 8:30-11:00 – Me time. In the evening I get time to myself when I can read, write in my journal, build the next days lesson plans, etc.

Daily Joys and Challenges

My days here are filled with major and minor joys and challenges. Everyday something fills me with delight, but everyday I also face problems and challenges with which I seriously struggle.

One of the greatest challenges for me is the language barrier. English is one of the official languages of India, but in Kerala, no one really speaks in English. I learned when I arrived here that India is broken into fourteen different states. The divisions of these states are based on language. So, each of the fourteen states has its own language (and its own unique culture too), which everyone speaks there but which isn’t spoken in any other state in India. That’s why everyone has to learn English and Hindi in school. In Kerala, the language is Malayalam, and although every student learns English in school and college lectures and admission exams are in English, all daily conversation in Kerala is conducted in Malayalam. And, of course, since people don’t regularly speak in English, many of the students and teachers aren’t completely comfortable speaking English. So I have to work through this language barrier everyday in the classes I teach and in my relationships with the students and teachers at the school.

So, of course, I’m very motivated to learn Malayalam because I want to understand people when they speak and I want to strengthen my relationships with improved communication. I study with a tutor every night, and slowly, I am learning. But Malayalam is supposedly the second most difficult language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese. There are 56 letters in the Malayalam alphabet, but since all the vowels have a separate symbol that is used in the middle of words and some letters contract to form new letters, I think there are closer to 100 letters in Malayalam. And some of the letters represent sounds that I can’t pronounce correctly no matter how I try. Hopefully, this gives you some idea of how much of a struggle Malayalam is for me. But as I said, I am learning. I know the alphabet. I can count to 100 and say the colors. I know 20-some verbs, and I can say that “I have one older brother; his name is Benjamin.” But it’s very difficult. And I can’t express complicated ideas in Malayalam, and sometimes, even in English, abstract concepts are lost in translation. So at the school, it’s often difficult to talk about my opinions on climate change, or the unequal distribution of wealth in India, or gender and racial discrimination. I should point out that this is not always the case. I’ve had some wonderful conversations with people both at Nicholson and outside of the school, but the language barrier is always present in some way, shape, or form, and deep, meaningful communication is sometimes a challenge.

But despite the challenges, my life here is also full of joy. Every day holds something that delights me. Often these joys come from simple, small things, like a successful Malayalam conversation with one of the kitchen workers or eating my favorite Kerala food for breakfast. Here are some of the other daily joys that fill by new life here in Kerala:

• The smiles of the students when they tell me about their family or their favorite foods.
• The way some of the teachers will take my hand or touch my arm when they say hello as a sign of my inclusion in the sorority that exists among women here.
• Being greeted by people on the street who recognize me from one place or another.
• The many different kinds of bananas that I am always sampling. I’ve had at least seven or eight different kinds since coming to Kerala, and they’re wonderful. Most are miniature bananas and are sweeter and smoother than the one kind of banana we have in the States.
• The way the fifth grade girls, in whose dormitory my room is located, will sometimes knock on my door in the evening, just to say goodnight.
• The lingering smell of sandalwood soap after I bathe.
• The openness of the girls who bring me the stories and poems that they write in English so that I can help them with their creative writing.
• The sweet-sour taste of passion fruit.
• The practice of 4pm tea and the opportunity it provides for relaxation.
• The peace of sitting quietly in my room in the evening as I reflect on the past day.
• The joy of recognizing, of truly seeing, all the beauty that surrounds me here.

Adjusting to India

Me with the three other volunteers in Kerala and Father Thomas John, our site coordinator. (Left to right: Sarah, Cynthia, Cameron, Father Thomas John, Tyler)


It was raining at 3am when our flight arrived in India on September 2. As I stepped outside the airport, Kerala hit me like a wave. The heat, the smells, the people, the car horns (even at 3am). The rain. September and October are the months that end the rainy season in Kerala. It doesn’t rain every day, but more than once I’ve had the pleasure of falling asleep to heavy rain or thunderstorms. It has now been three weeks since I arrived in Kerala, and I am amazed at how quickly I’ve adjusted to my new life here.

Food:
The food in Kerala is wonderful. I know many Americans (including myself) who say, “I love Indian food.” As I’ve learned over the past few weeks, there is no such thing as “Indian” food. The food I ate at Indian restaurants in the U.S. is very different from the food I’m eating here. This is Kerala cuisine. The staple food in Kerala (and in most Asian countries) is rice. I think I’ve eaten more rice in the last three weeks than I have in the 22 years that came before. But I’ve also tasted rice in a greater variety of forms than I ever knew existed. Rice paddies, rice noodles, flat rice bread, raised rice bread, rice I sweet drinks, rice with curry, boiled rice, baked rice, etc. Each rice dish has it’s own distinct flavor and texture, and I’m only now beginning to differentiate between some of the dishes.

I admit that, although the food here is excellent, I’ve had many moments in the last three weeks when I’ve longed for cold cereal for breakfast or a plate of spaghetti for dinner instead of another unknown and very spicy curry. I’ve caught myself missing all the familiar comfort foods, like peanut butter or brownies or minestrone soup. It has certainly taken time for me to get used to the spicy, rice-heavy foods in Kerala. But I think I have (mostly) adjusted to the new cuisine. This past week I’ve been excited about certain foods here that I know I like: packed rice noodles and coconut for breakfast, potato curry and flat rice bread for dinner. I’m pleased to say that Kerala’s cuisine has welcomed me with open arms and that, after three weeks, I’m happy to embrace it back.

Clothing:
After our first week in Kerala, Sarah (the other female volunteer) and I adopted Indian clothing. Now in public I almost always wear a churidhar. Churidhars are the outfits traditionally worn by young women, although they are becoming more common among women of all ages because they’re more comfortable than saris. A churidhar consists of full-length baggy pants, a short-sleeve tunic that falls approximately to the knees, and a scarf that drapes back off the shoulders. The whole ensemble is a little tricky to put on because the tunic is tailor-made to fit your body. I also find the outfit a bit stifling in Kerala’s hot, humid climate. If I were in this climate back home, I would be wearing shorts and a tank top. But, of course here, showing that much skin would be inappropriate. As I adjust to wearing the churidar, I have discovered that they are actually very comfortable, and because they include less fabric than a traditional sari, they’re probably also cooler. More importantly I’ve found that when I’m wearing a churidhar, everyone is more welcoming and friendly with me. That’s not to say that people in Kerala aren’t normally friendly, but it’s somehow different when I’m wearing Indian clothing. The women in particular seem to appreciate my (rather clumsy) attempt to take part in this aspect of their culture, as though my clothing were an acknowledgement of the value and beauty of Indian culture, which, I guess, it is. Churidhars, like saris, are beautiful, and they seem to me all the more beautiful because they are expressions of the culture from whence they come. With coordinated colors and patterns, they act as paint brushes on the streets, lighting up the towns and the countryside of Kerala. And when I wear my churidhar, I feel included and welcomed into this colorful solidarity of Indian women and their culture.

Weather:
Kerala is too hot for me. Perhaps that’s because I grew up in northern Minnesota where winter lasts about six months and “summer” only two. Yet, September in Kerala, which feels like an unusually hot Minnesota summer, isn’t even one of the hot months here. Summer comes in March, April, and May, and then it will really be too hot for me. I think it’s the humidity more than anything else. The air is heavy and damp with about 80% humidity every day and 100% on the days when it rains. Slowly, I’m adjusting to the hot, sticky weather. Now, when I walk into an air-conditioned building, the cold air is shocking to me, and I’m actually glad that most places, including houses and schools, do not have AC. Living in this climate will be a continuous challenge for me, but I think it’s a challenge that I can meet.

Since my early morning arrival in India on the September 2, I’ve been trying to discern and describe the air here and particularly the smell of the air. Of course, I’m not in a large Indian city like Delhi or Calcutta, which are full of smells of people. All I can say for certain is that the air in Kerala smells different than the air at home. It’s not the stereotype of Indian air that smells of spices (unless you’re near the kitchen). I think the air is sweeter and dustier here than it is in Minnesota. It is full of life. Like the air in a sports stadium full of people is alive, but also like the scent of a greenhouse, full of the smell of green growing things. But maybe it’s just the humidity. The texture of the air. It presses against you, hugging you as though to welcome you.

New Beginnings

In a few weeks, I will begin a new chapter in my life. On August 31 I will leave the country and fly to Kerala, the southwestern-most district of India. I will spend the next year there serving as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) through the Presbyterian Church (USA).

I’m excited about the joys and challenges that this next year will bring. I will be keeping this blog as a way of charting my experiences over the next year both for myself and for any family and friends who are interested in hearing about my time as a YAV. Although I won’t have much to post here until I’ve been in India for a little while, I can, for now, give you an overview of the work I will probably be doing next year.

I will be living and working at the Nicholson Syrian Girls’ School in Tiruvalla, a boarding school for girls with the equivalent of grades K-12. I will be teaching spoken English classes to a variety of age groups and maybe a literature class or two for the older students. I will also probably be leading the school choir and helping students with creative writing exercises, such as writing poetry and short stories. If you want to learn more about the Nicholson School, you can visit the school’s website at www.nicholsonsyriangirlsschool.com.

Look for some updates on my experiences in India (after I actually get there) in September and October!

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can.
-J.R.R. Tolkien