Strange Coconuts - Fourth graders, please help me classify.

 I was strolling down the path yesterday scratching my bug bites, minding my own business, when suddenly I espy a very strange, odd looking coconut. It has clothes on! It talks! It smiles. It has a name, too! Have you ever heard of a coconut named Joseph?  BUT WAIT!!

MORE STRANGE COCONUTS! Let's see now. There's that Joseph Coconut again and there's a Sangeetha, Theresa, Tamilelakkya, Priyanka, Papitha, Ambiga, and Pasitha. That Deepenraj coconut is the highest, biggest coconut - and he's got legs and feet. Imagine that. Please help me identify this interesting sub-species of coconuts.

Not to be redundant, but . . . . . . . . . .

ANOTHER DEADLY VENOMOUS SNAKE! (hyperventilating). This snake is called a Krait Snake. One of my fellow volunteers found it in HER BEDROOM. (breathing into a paper bag) The Krait is one of the top four deadly snakes of India - which is one of the top four deadly countries of the world. This little guy crawled in from who knows where. (big deep breaths) Look him up on Wikipedia. I've got to run. I'm busy hermetically sealing myself into my room with duct tape. HELP!! That big black blob is the "Shadow of Death".

The Masked Avengers

Why should I worry about a thing with these stalwart, formidable, superpowers around to protect me? Dang, if they just weren't so cute, they would be scarier. But they will do in a pinch.

Construction of a "Yoga and Meditation" center is going on just outside my window. It's about the size of a comfortable yurt.  It has a metal roof, which means that for ten months of the year it's going to be so hot in there, you will basically bake your brains while you're meditating. That probably WILL rearrange your negative thought patterns.

The workers are interesting. I'm pretty sure they spend most of their day talking about women. This is the rhythm of the work: rev up a circular saw, pound constantly and angrily on steel pipes all day, yell obscenities in Tamil, hawk and spit all day, laugh lasciviously, cough constantly, repeat. I'm not sure what they are doing with the circular saw. The building is cement and brick. But then I'm no authority on building yurts. I'm pretty sure their coughs are tubercular in nature and that's not very funny. Coughs like that have an unmistakable chronically sick, "never going away" sound. I hear it in some of the children, too.

 It's starting to heat up here in India. It's a kind of heat that makes Houston in the dead of summer look like Vail, Colorado. The Indians here are finally beginning to take off their ear muffs. 70 degree temperatures in the early mornings are not for the faint of heart.

It's been an exciting couple of days here at the Ashram. First, the 'fire marshalls' came yesterday. They arrived in full military uniforms with nary a firesuit in sight. They marched crisply behind a Desoto Fire Truck that stopped just milliseconds before mowing down a row of suddenly quite attentive children. Then they stacked some palm fronds and started a fire. I thought we were going to have s'mores there for a second, but nope. The palm fronds were supposed to be a grass hut. It was indeedy quite the demonstration. The 'grass hut' was gone about as fast as a dried out Christmas tree and the whole thing was pretty impressive.Most of the children live in grass huts when they're not here at the Ashram, so the speedy demise of the palm frond hut was not a lesson wasted.

Then we had a 'track meet'. Try to imagine girls performing the high jump in long pants, covered by a long dress and with a long scarf tied around their necks. They cleared the bar every time until it got impossibly high and I doubt anyone, even in the states, could have cleared it. I couldn't help but think that the track coaches in America need to seriously recruit in India. These kids RUN like greased lightning and they are so fun to watch. They are inherently graceful and they run like gazelles. In long pants and skirts . . . . . . .and barefoot. No Phil Knight Nikes within a 100 miles of this place. Imagine what these kids could do for a track team in America.

One more thing. In India, the children call everyone Auntie, or Granny. I make my students call me Mrs. Johnson except for one child who isn't even in one of my classes. She has gravitated toward me since the first day I came. Poor thing. She has terrible judgement. Anyway . . . . . . word gets around. Everybody knows they have to call me by my name. As I have pointed out on more than one occasion, I couldn't possibly be their Granny. I'm the wrong color. Okay, where was I? Oh right. Anyway, this little fourth grader with the poor taste in people came up to me today and said, (in perfect English, I might add) "For everyone else, you are Mrs. Johnson, but for me, you are always my Granny." The kid has 'checked' me with her king.

BJ

Good things about India . . . . . .

I'm writing this post because my dear mother is afraid the Indian authorities are going to think I'm important enough to read this blog. Then they're going to cook up some excuse for arresting me and I'm going to wind up in an Indian jail, a far better option than an Indian government hospital. So, in the spirit of objectivity, well, no . . . . . . I'm never objective, I thought and I thought. I thought some more. I pondered the question: "What good things are there that I can report about India? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .still thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Okay. I've got something.

(1)  I get to go to school every day in my pajamas. They are actually called "Ali-Babas", but the effect is still the same. Actually, pajamas would be a step up.

(2)  Nobody here knows what I actually look like. The humidity makes me look like a 'Ghandi-like' version of Shirley Temple. Why bother to comb my hair in this heat and humidity? Or take a shower for that matter. Everyone else smells worse than I do.

(3)  I can swear and nobody will understand what I just said. For example, I get to say, "Sit down and shut up you little S---" and everyone thinks I just said, "Stand up and let's have a party." Groovy. I also get to say "groovy" and nobody here dates me back to the sixties.

(4)  When I walk by, all of the Indian teachers stand up and bow. I am able to nurture my Napoleonic delusions of grandeur freely.

(5)  I get to lie in bed at night and hear the craziest animal calls and shrieks and roars. I feel so protected by the flimsy screen on my window.

(6)  The full moon in India is so bright, it's difficult to look at. I'm serious. In Oregon, the moon is definitely sandbagging. It's got way more wattage than it pretends it has.

(7)  I can bobble head. I can bobble head that Brahmin jackass in the Administrative office and he doesn't even know what I'm saying. I love bobble heading. I have said some of the meanest things that way. Just today, I told someone I was thinking of killing them and I sincerely hoped they wouldn't take it personally.

(8)  I get to look into a 100 pairs of beautiful brown eyes and realize that I can and I am making a difference, one child at a time. I have to pretend I'm Nanny McPhee sometimes, but I always get to break the spell sooner or later and earn a hug from some needy child.

(9)  I am adjusting to a life absolutely devoid of comfort and realizing that I don't need comfort - but I do need to know that for a few brief months, I touched lives and lives touched mine forever.

 

Vanilla Mary

(10) I met Vanilla Mary. And I am forever humbled. Vanilla Mary is illiterate, but speaks Hindi, Tamil, and English flawlessly. She earns about $100 per month. A few days ago, she came to me and asked if I would help her fill out a donation slip. She can't even write her name. She gave 12 percent of her meager earnings and 'thanked God' for her blessings. The wet spots on the donation slip were my tears. I, who have so much . . . . . . . . . .

So, there you have it. Ten things I like about India. And you all thought I couldn't be anything but a cranky cynic, didn't you?

alu Kalai Vanakkam.  I'm learning Tamil. Wait just a SECOND . . . . . .didn't I come here to teach English??

Calling Mrs. Ottley's Fourth Graders

Wait a second . . . . . . I need your help identifying a species. Now which one of these pictures has the real monkey? I'm confused.

Chengalpattu's 'Hospital'

Well, it's been a pretty thrilling day here in India. We were visiting a small coastal 'resort' town when our driver suddenly received an emergency call from his 22-year old 9 months pregnant wife. So we jumped in the car and raced back to the 'hospital' with him. On the way, we had a flat tire. Please note the lack of tread on the tire, signifying the high value and esteem we volunteers enjoy. We're lucky the tire didn't blow. Either we would have killed someone on a scooter or in a rickshaw, or a gigantic cement truck or bus full of oh, probably 100 people would have killed us.

But the tire and nearly being killed isn't the real story.

The other photos are of the 'hospital'. I would have taken some pictures of the inside which, incredibly, is actually worse than the outside. I always hesitate out of respect for the dignity and privacy of the people caught in such nightmares as this hospital in "Chengalpattu" - the closest town to our rural area. What I 'saw' were scenes out of a horror movie; long, filthy rooms filled with the sick, some in beds, some not, surrounded by relatives trying to care for them as best they can. No medical services such as IVs or monitors of any kind were visible. Just very sick people everywhere.

 Our driver's young wife is scheduled for a C-section tonight at 10PM. She'll be lucky if she lives and does not die of infection. But here's some beauty in this story. Already, she's surrounded by half a dozen people who obviously love her and are concerned. I felt like an interloper, yet the family was, as usual, unfailingly gracious. Just being around them makes me want to be a better person. I want to tell them that when I go. But how? How do I tell them that I will remember their courage and resilience forever? I won't be able to do it without crying and then they would try to give me their houses to make me feel better. That just won't do.

So-o-o-o-o-o-o. I'm trying with considerable difficulty not to turn this into a soapbox on healthcare reform. So I'll shut up and just let the pictures tell you a sad story from a sad country about the sad options available to the sad, unfortunate poor. This experience is still fresh on my mind. I want to hit somebody. One of these stupid, dumb cows would do just fine. That would make me feel so much better. Just go out into the field and deck a poor, unfortunate, unsuspecting cow.

I'm Going to LIVE!!

I was rummaging around in a Harry Potter closet for some food to eat and you'll never guess what I found. A FLASHLIGHT! Yes, a flashlight. That works! No more heart-stopping sudden pitch black darkness when "Old Faithful", my former infamous flashlight shorted out at the most inopportune moments. I will say that I have developed some rather intricate dance moves in the dead of night trying to cajole "Old Faithful" into just a few more seconds of life giving light.

When I get home, I am going to become a professional Rumba dancer. I think I've got the moves. Rapid hops to the front, back, and simultaneously to the sides.  A few light on the feet twists and turns and some graceful HUGE leaps into the air. I make Michael Jackson look . . . . . . . .well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .dead. (That wasn't nice)

There is always a silver lining in every cloud. Why, yes, I do live among the most dangerous snakes in the world. Yes, I do have a healthy desire not to step on one. Yes, 'Old Faithful' was a blessing after all. I am now going to be on PBS dancing the Rumba for the big prize money. Who was it that said Ginger Rogers could do everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels? I am now a member of that elite dancing group. And I learned how thanks to 'Old Faithful'.

Some of you thought I would never be caught dead in India. It's true. I don't want to be caught dead in India. Yesterday, I made the mistake of asking someone what somebody was burning alongside the road. BIG MISTAKE. Here in lovely, rural India, when someone dies, there are no mortuaries . . . and no cemeteries, something I failed to note.

Thank you, God, for my new flashlight. And the paper clips.

Your friend,
Betty W. Johnson
ODL 567982 - Just in case I need to be identified before the bonfire.