Friday, October 30th in Pattiveeranpatti

Today was a nice day in Pattiveeranpatti. We spent time around the school, talking to teachers and coordinating which classes we will be teaching next week. We want to take smaller groups of kids and do a lot of speaking with them, because we think their writing and grammar is already very advanced, but could use practice in talking. The teachers are very excited about us doing this with the students. The Bethania children are so far behind these kids it's quite sad. It's a shame how they don't get this level of education at their public school in Kanivadi.

We spent a lot of time around the house and kitchen, watching the cooks prepare our amazing food. We learnt the proper technique of making the very popular curd rice that's always served at the end of meal. Sometimes it has a spicy red "pickle" sauce too. Otherwise it cools down the mouth after a spicy meal. It's made of rice and milk and different spices.

In the afternoon, we went with the older students to visit another school nearby. This was a bigger school, from kindergarten to 12th grade, and where most of the students from Chandra's elementary school will go when they graduate. This school had a big exhibition on display of historical political cartoons and different artifacts. We took the school bus over. As soon as we got off the bus, we were literally swarmed by hundreds of kids. They all asked "How are you?" "What is your name?" "What is your native place?" "How many siblings do you have?" "You are sisters?" They were very sweet, it was pretty overwhelming though. Even teachers came up to us in the hoards of children to ask us questions. Most were very surprised that we came all the way from America, and asked if we took an airplane. They were even more impressed when we told them we had. They said our names were beautiful, even though after we said "Kelsey" and Paige" they laughed for a while and tried to pronounce them unsuccessfully. The teachers from Chandra's school were trying to get us to follow them into the exhibition building, but we literally couldn't move through the courtyard, we were surrounded by so many kids. They all spoke English quite well, and wanted us to speak Tamil to them. None of our key phrases really seemed to fit at the time.

We finally were able to go inside the exhibition building, full of children all in one line slowly moving past all the tables. There were long tables full of Tamil political cartoons from different eras. We couldn't understand most, but some were pretty interesting. Early ones included Churchill, Stalin and Wilson. There were many of Gandhi- the stereotypical picture of him short, bald, old and with glasses. Many showed Gandhi standing up to Churchill, Stalin and Wilson and the tables turning on the British as India gained its Independence. One showed a British man holding a baby India, that then grew into a man and held a frightened old British man. One showed a tiny Gandhi in front of Churchill, Wilson and Stalin, that grew till he towered over the three leaders. Some dated back over 80 years. The more recent ones were interesting, despite less recognizable political leaders. There were cartoons of the earth crying, and one of a artificially beautiful Miss India being crowned Miss World while Mrs. India was dressed in rags, pregnant and surrounded by starving children. There were a tables of currencies. They had ancient Indian coins and bills, one that was really big, about the size of half of a piece of paper. They had foreign currencies too- from Saudi Arabia, Canada, and American dollar bills. It was a pretty impressive collection, especially at this rural school. There were students at every table eager to tell us facts in articulate English about the pictures or money at every table with pins stating their rank in their class.

After coming back to Chandra's and resting a while, we spent the evening with Chandra, her daughter who has come down from Chennai for the wedding, and other relatives. We sat around and had tea and snacks while we looked at old photo albums. It's funny how the women decades ago still seem to wear the same style shuridas and sarees as they do now. There were old photos, like one of Vijayasarathy and his five siblings about 50 years ago. It was nice to see all of Chandra's family and cute grandkids. There were pictures of people sitting around the table we were sitting at, talking and eating just like us. There's a feeling that this is the way things have always been done, with relatives always stopping by the house in the evenings, sitting around to eat, talk, and joke. The strength of Indian culture is so apparent, and it feels like the important aspects of the lifestyle have always been there and always will be. Indian music, food and style are all so powerful. It's different than a lot of other countries that listen to American music, watch Hollywood films and dubbed American TV shows. Everyone here enjoys Tamil movies with their own movie heroes like Vijay and Lawrence and their own beautiful Tamil and Hindi music. We're really enjoying experiencing this beautiful, powerful culture.

Tomorrow we're dressing up and heading to Madurai for a visit to the huge, famous Temple and for the wedding of Vijayasarathy's sister's grandson!