Okey dokey, so because of a lack of electricity more than likely, no internet for the past 2ish weeks and an excursion on Wayanand this past weekend plus a few days, I have not written in quite some time…so we’ll see what I can remember…
Wayanand. This place was awesome! We left Karnataka on Saturday afternoon and took the train to Kerala. On the first day we did tourist sight-seeing things. We went to a place called ‘Soochipara Waterfalls’ and it was so beautiful. We had to hike a little ways to get there and we couldn’t swim in the water because we are girls and it wouldn’t be appropriate but either way, the place was really neat. We also saw a dam and were able to take some dam pictures : ) Lastly we went to Ekkhal? Caves. We were walking/running up it (depending on who you were) when I heard a noise and I looked over and saw a bunch of monkeys swinging on the trees. It was totally normal for all the Indians there. I think that monkeys in Wayanand are like squirrels or maybe white-tailed deer in PA because after that we saw them quite a few times. We also stopped a few times to check out some trees with various fruits or other things on them. Mr. John, the man whose homestay we stayed at and led us around all weekend, loved showing us different plants. We looked at rubber plants and saw how they were milked. I mean I guess since I can’t milk cows at home….well I haven’t actually done that in quite a few years, but you know….here I can get my fix by milking rubber trees : ) Feels like home! Haha We also stopped at a bamboo factory and saw many finished bamboo products and a loooot of bamboo trunks waiting to be made. I was able to get a bamboo mask to go along with my mask from Haiti which I’m quite excited about. And Mr. John also decided to stop on the side of the road at some random man’s house to look at the pepper he was drying in his front yard. The man led us to his backyard and showed us some of his other trees like banana and coconut and then opened a coconut for us to eat and drink the juice from and we had a huge grapefruit type thing from his backyard-and it was totally cool and normal for us to be doing that. We didn’t know him, were eating random fruits from his yard and taking pictures and then we left and went on our way. Whatever.
Day 2 in Wayanand we went to an NGO first that works with tribal communities. The one sister then took us to one tribe and we sat and talked with them for a little bit and then we went to 4 other communities in a different area. The people there take care of the forest/jungle they live in. They don’t leave the tribe very often but they go to the market sometimes if they can’t grow what they need or don’t have enough for everyone and some students go to school. Elephants, peacocks, deer, wild pigs and the occasional big cat are normal creatures for the tribal people to see wandering through around their houses or in the areas that they go to get their food. They marry within their tribe unless it’s a love marriage and they marry someone who then enters into the tribe like one lady we met. It was a really neat experience. We also got to see a guy climb a coconut tree and that was awesome! He just scampered up in his loongie (piece of cloth tied like a skirt) and started cutting the fruit down. Then he’d move the tree and get it to sway and jump to another tree. He had some crazy back muscles and abs going on because of all that climbing and so all of us girls are thinking we need to find us some coconut-climbing Indian boys : ) hahahah oy vey.
Day 3 we visited a tribal school, the beach, did some shopping and tried some new things. The tribal school was a good experience and parts of it reminded me of home again. The school was started because the tribal kids were not going to school much anymore because of various reasons. The teachers and students would treat them differently because they were from a tribe, they had a different mother tongue because every tribe has their own unique language and the students didn’t enjoy it. They were never explicitly told to sit in the back but it was an underlying rule in the classrooms basically that the kids from tribes had to sit in the back and be segregated and everyone was going to treat them differently. So one man got to know some tribes and decided to start his own school for them. They learn how to play instruments, make handicrafts, work together and do things with agriculture. The students are now the teachers. The older ones go to get their Masters some other places and then come back and teach everyone what they learned. I think they only do a few hours of what we would call classroom education where they are sitting and listening to a teacher and discussing things but then the rest of the time they are planting/harvesting/weeding/dancing/playing & singing music/making crafts/relaxing. Education is pushed a lot in the U.S. and so part of me is concerned that they aren’t getting too much knowledge on mathamatics or science or language comprehension but on the other hand, now instead of not really ever going to school and learning, they are consistently going to this tribal school. So at least now they are learning something and getting some sort of education. Who knows if they’ll ever need math or science if they only live in their tribal area then maybe all they need to know and more they can learn at this school. I don’t know. I think it would be a really interesting place to come back to for a few months or more and just learn from them. Later that night when we were on our way to the train station to head home we stopped on the side of the road and got to taste some sugar cane juice. Yum! It’s just sugar cane pressed so the juice comes out and then at this particular stop, they added a bit of lime/lemon-if you ever get the chance to try it-do it! We also stopped at a little lake/aquarium on the way. It was the sketchiest aquarium I’ve ever seen by far! There were a few cement basins holding a lot of fish and then a few tanks with a few random fish in them. They also had a statue that we all thought was a mermaid but it was god and they had a statue of an eel we think except for it was very rusty and the top half was cut off with the wires popping out of the top of it. Hahahaha luckily we only had to pay 2 Ruppees to see it. I also was able to buy some homemade chocolate there which was the best chocolate I’ve had since I’ve been here-it’s what I’ve been waiting for this whole time!
So now I’m back in Mangalore and we still don’t have internet. This guy has come to our house at least 3 times already this week and he still can’t fix it so who knows and he is very very unreliable because he was supposed to come two more times and he never showed even though we talked to him on the phone a few times and each time he said he was coming. So I’m sitting at an internet café now and I thought I should update this thing.
Lastly, this week since we got back from our excursion has been interesting. Wednesday was the grand finale for Vishwas Trust festival month. They had all their competitions like caroms, storytelling, singing and drawing and so Wednesday they handed out the awards and there was some entertainment. …guess who participated in the entertainment? I was part of a group dance that us students did. There were 7 girls and one guy at the end and we all did the first and the last stanza together and then one girl danced by herself in the middle of the song. The video is slightly choppy for some reason but you can get the gist of it…hahahaha oh my gosh it’s ridiculous but it was a lot of fun. (I'm going to try and post it once we have internet at home b/c in this cafe its taking for-ev-er!)
p.s. I just found out-I placed third for women in the half and Alison placed third for women in the 10K :) A nice surprise
p.p.s. NEW SISTERS ARE COMING TO AMERICA SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!
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