Kanjirapally... Queen of Manaland

Greetings from the not-so-sleepy town of Kanjirapally...
In another net cafe, this time a more porn friendly place with little private booths with curtains being blown all over by the ceiling fans and held cleverly in place for me by my hairclip. Here with Babi, the cousin bride-to-be who has been designated for all intents and purposes as my keeper by Mummy and some auntys. "Lina wants internet!" "Lina wants to go to beauty parlour!" Since the phones are down at our house, mummy will run off to the next uncle's place and call her and with a beep beep she'll pull up a bit later in her white Zen. (It's like a Ford Fiesta for 2006 - very cute and fits in between autorickshaws!)

All is well... settling into a pattern of sorts. Wake up - coffee, than walk of some sort, then breakfast, then either TV, Sudoku, or shower... then usually something happens or otherwise I just read or wander around the property. Then lunch... usually by then at least 1 family member has dropped in, oftentimes with a baby who is played with and watched and held and tickled. Then... a plan formulates for the evening, maybe a nap, maybe another shower, and then after dinner if there's nothing good on TV it's off to sleep as early as 8pm sometimes.

It's hard to say "sometimes" after only what...5 days though? Supposedly this is all adjustment period anyways.

I've started writing down what we do each day becuase they've all been smushed together into a blur of eat/sleep/eat/sleep/drive somewhere so far. So let me tell you, since this is in fact a blog where I can subject you to every boring detail :)

Dec 2: walked to an uncle's house with Daddy, and came back thru the rubber estate (of course meeting a few relatives along the way). Went to another town up higher in the hills (Eramaly) and saw a bunch of crazy fellows on pilgrimidge (sp?)... tried to get the net to work at an uncles house and instead went to the internet cafe. That was what... at maybe 6, 7pm at night? The strangest thing (maybe normal here) was that me and Babi were the only girls out. This is definitely a testosterone heavy place.

Dec 3: Walked down the other direction of the road with my traveling companion Aunty Leela and was invited in by a nice family living by the river... big fatty looking like a film star... got down from his bike and started chatting us up... we ended up sitting in his living room with his mom, dad, brother, etc for almost an hour while they tried to get us to have tea or something... and now we're invited to the his wedding! Now THAT is some killer hospitality :)
Went down to the cathedral to see Amma (Daddy's mom's grave). She passed away I think in the 70s sometime... her husband is the head of this particular branch of Panthiruvelils (my hubby's family for those who don't know) and he is 96 years old. Amazing fellow. Anyway, that night we went to the Police uncle's (Joy is his name) house for a lil' family reception, and he and his wife hacked down some coconuts for everybody and we had fresh coconut water. I have video ;)

Dec 4: BEAUTY PARLOUR! A vague cousin of ours, Christy, owns a salon in Ponkunam (which means "Golden Hill") - that's the next town over. Lil' kutty town... dusty musty and bustling for sure. There, in a very mexican looking strip mall sort of complex, is Christraj (Christ is king!) Salon where Christy aunty, for 10 RUPEES (yes folks, that is about 25 cents) will thread your eyebrows. Heard of threading? It's the more torturous version of waxing... not sure how it's done, as my eyes were shut so tight, but I now have the exact same eyebrows as every other Panthiruvelil lady in the family. It hurt so badly on one side that I thought I'd puke... had to do Louise Solomon yoga breathing. But out the window of this tiny salon, all of 7 by 15 feet, was the most magnificent view off the top of the "Golden Hill" - over fields, and forest, and palms and up up up and away into the distance, more and more hills of green...

And today... today I woke up at 4:15. A.M. FOUR FIFTEEN. I am not sure what crack I am smoking that makes me wake up so early. I had set my alarm for 4:45... decent, right? Well woke up 30 min prior like a shot in the dark, and was so excited about the prospect of "going to church" and what to wear and all... couldn't get back to sleep. There's a lil' church - mini version of the big cathedral down in Kanjirapally where our friend Tommy will get married on the 28th of this month - it's probably about 1 mile total from our house? That's where sweet cousin Babi's been going every morning... there are some more pious cousins but they've gone back to their husband's place I guess, and Babi says she's got nothing else going on and it's Advent anyway, so might as well go. (BTW, while I remember it, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO MY SIS AND TIM!) So Leelama Aunty and I set out while it was still dark down the road, to emerge at the end of the lane (which really is Panthiruvelil Road, we found out when we reached the other end!). There, of course, we met somebody who was a cousin, old classmate, or some sort of relation to Aunty, and together we trodden onward like good Christian soliders. The roads here are curvy, hilly, and imagine about as big as a residental street in the U.S. They are paved quite nicely, but considering there's no sidewalk or even place along the road for pedestrians, it does not fit people, dogs, cows, bikes, motorcycles, scooters, busses, trucks, and cars. So walking, like driving, is quite an adventure!

Anyway, we reached church. You take your shoes off in church - leave them at the door, like a temple, or Japanese house ;) You take your shoes off in the net cafe. You take your shoes off pretty much everywhere. But them, some people don't even have shoes I guess.

Ah! Back to church: It was a lovely feeling to be there (aside from being stared at by all the school kids), hearing a Catholic service in what must be a more old-school fashion than America - it was almost entirely sung. Beaaaautiful. Of course, didn't understand a thing as it was in Malayalam, but followed the basic principles of a mass and made enough sense. What was amazing is how attentive the younger kids are. There's a school here, probably the closest local K-10/12 school, called St. Joseph's, and I think a lot of kids came from there. Little girls between 8 and maybe 14 in uniforms... others in this party dress looking skirt that seems ubiquitous for younger girls here in Kerala, little bows in hair, and all paying attention, standing still (as there are no benches - just a few in front for the old people!) and before leaving, stopping to pay respects to Mother Mary. Very very sweet.

Upon leaving, shoes retrieved and all, the troop of altar boys took to gathering up and staring at me... I'd smile and wave at one, who would then do the same, giggle, and then get ribbed by his friends. Next time, I'll call one over for a little conversation. No reason to be shy... for them OR me!

Today Daddy (as is called my father in law) had to go to Kottayam to get the car serviced... that's the "city" closest by, about 45 km away. Apparently he may be gone til evening, and sadly Mummy and I don't have another method of transportation so we might just have a nice quiet day at home. Her knees hurt her, so she doesn't like to walk too far. But she loves watching stuff on TV fitting her OWN taste, as opposed to Daddy's - he's a BBC, CNN, and Malayalam news fellow (with the occasional hour of watching Tamil film songs on Sun TV), wheras she'd prefer to watch an english movie or Oprah or Animal Planet. It would be nice to veg out in front of the tv for a bit today...

We don't have a phone at home - it went out with some heavy rains about 2 weeks back. Some fellows came to fix it (only) and they said it's in the cable. I said to daddy, "Why can't they fix it?" He explained that they are "linemen" and only linemen, whereas we need cablemen to dig and fix it. Everything is very specialized here!

FOr example... went to buy some outfits at a local place: one guy shows the outfits, one guy holds them, one guy bags them, one guy prints a bill, one guy gives the receipt, one guy takes the money, another gives the change, and at last, you give your stamped paid receipt to one lady who hands you your purchases. By the time all that happens you've forgotten what you've bought.

I am going to post this in case the power goes out or something... been typing for way too long to lose all this!

Love to all,
Lina