Has Liann Found a Future Job?

I talked with a friend from India who owns a company in Sweden. He currently spends 20 days in Sweden and 10 in India each month. We talked a lot about my research and interest in India. Surprisingly enough he was actually impressed at what I am doing! He kept saying, "I know some people who would love to recruit you. Everyone needs a link from America to India."

After our talk I got to thinking...maybe all this wandering around India is actually leading me somewhere! I always thought this was just for the sake of it--some time in India is always a welcome thing. But maybe I'm actually gaining marketable skills!! Maybe just maybe after a bachelors degree and soon a masters degree I will be able to find a company not just willing to hire me, but wanting to recruit me!

And maybe just maybe they'll be turned off by this post if they read my blog, but wow I never thought this weird passion of mine might actually be useful to someone somewhere!

Something Inspiring

Sydney and I met Katie at church in Coimbatore. White people always stick out in an Indian congregation. We asked her what she was doing here in India. She explained that she was working with an orphanage. What peaked my curiosity was when we asked her what was next for her in life and she responded that she hoped to do this "orphanage thing" for the rest of her life.

Sydney and I took two buses and eventually a rickshaw to "Families for Children" and walked into the office one afternoon. Katie took us around the three different complexes and explained each project There were Infants with physical deformities and other waiting for adoption. There were toddlers, young and old girls, young and old boys, a silk making project, goats, special needs children, elderly care, a doctors office, a physical therapy area, a large kitchen to feed the kids, a smaller kitchen for the girls to learn to cook, housing for volunteers, a paper making project, and sewing projects and bag making for polio victims and poor women from the surrounding area.

It was overwhelming and beautiful the way this simple place managed to do so much good. The director of the orphanage has throat cancer and hasn't been able to visit in the last 7 years, but still keeps up reguarly with the staff and knows what is going on. I wouldn't be surprised if she knows the names of all 400 kids living there.

What was most impressive was talking with Katie, a 29 year old single Mormon who felt the need to come to India. She was drawn to this project through a series of events and here she is feeling the contentment that comes when you know you're doing the right thing for yourself.

Sydney and I caught a bus back into town and ate dinner. Sydney said, "Man Liann you must have been hungry." I looked down and realized two things 1-I was just about to slop up the last of the masala with my last piece of naan and 2-I hadn't said much of anything to Sydney since we ordered.

I looked up and said, "Yeah I must have been...Sorry I haven't been talking." Then I trailed off trying to explain.

She said, "It's OK. we just saw something that was very beautiful and inspiring."

"Yeah." We finished up our meal trying to find words to describe what we just experienced, but it was just hard to capture what we both felt other than saying we were inspired. I was inspired, but not necessarily to open up my own orphanage. No, I just want to find some good I can do in some small corner, something I know God feels pleased that I am doing.

The Village Funeral

I was walking back from the main road after dinner. Sydney and I heard some drums in the distance. I turned to her and said, "You want to go check out what's going on?"

"Yeah."

We talked about whether it could be the musician caste celebrating the New Moon at their temple. As we followed the noise we realized it wasn't coming from that temple. We found ourselves in front of a hall used for weddings and large gatherings. We hung around and asked the people at the entrance what was going on. A young man from Kerela explained that his great-grandmother had died and this was her funeral. We were invited in to see the woman's body and snack on some bananas (maybe India's version of funeral potatoes) .

Sydney and I hung around to help send this old woman on to the next world--or maybe just back into the cycle of rebirth. We watched as the women in the family danced and chanted around the woman's body--a song of mourning. Sydney and I attentively stood as the family carried her sheet covered body and laid her on a bench (not unlike the one on which we were just sitting) and then remove her jewelry (the worst was watching one of her daughters try to unscrew the lady's nose ring). The family members who wished to placed oil and herbs on her head and in her hair. Little babies were forced to by their mother's hands to rub the old lady's forehead. Our makeshift translator, a great granddaughter who was going to college and at the moment explaining the ceremonies, choose not to participate. One woman then wash the body with 5 large silver buckets of water. The older men and the women argued about the manner in which to do these ceremonies, yelling over the beating drums and animately pointing. They covered her body in a yellow saffron powder. The different families produced gifts of red and white cotton to cover this old woman's body as her remains would be consumed in fire. They offered the gifts after following the drummers in a circle around the funeral pyre and her body. They put their backs toward the corpse as they tossed the cloth on her body.

The grandchildren and great grandchildren lighted incense and placed it under the bench by her feet. Then the family lighted a camphor flame on a tray with bananas and coconuts and placed it at the foot of the woman. Then each one of the guests, including Sydney and I, at the funeral prayed over a camphor flame touching the woman's feet.

I said a quick prayer for the family. And then followed the men as they carried the soaking wet body from the bench to the pyre they had made out of wood and decorated with flowers earlier that evening. The drummers started the procession. The men hefted the pyre onto their shoulders and walked out to the road. The women followed behind. Some young men went ahead and lighted firecrackers--since this was a celebration. The women weren't allowed to watch the body being burned--that was a role for the men. So, we walked until the women around us stopped. We listened and watched the procession continue without us.

Both Matthew and one of the family members at the funeral informed us that we should wash before we go home. Sydney and I took cold bucket showers in the bathroom and got ready for bed as we told the other girls what we had seen. As I laid on my mat listening to the drums continue late into the night. Wondering how the old woman felt about the celebration surrounding her death.

Even though she was under the sheet I could tell she had a small, frail body. I pictured her among the other widows who gather under the large tree by the musician caste temple and realized they probably didn't make much fuss over her in the last few years, but they pulled out all the stops for her funeral. But maybe we're not to different. We wait until someone's funeral to say all the nice things we've been thinking about him or her, when it's too late for them to enjoy it.

Some Thoughts

Michael asked me to post some of the thoughts I've been working through. Each one of these could be its own longer post, but I thought I'd give you a brief impression of some of things I've been thinking about and struggling through. Let me know what you think.

Poverty--There really are starving children in India. I don't see them every day, but I do walk past nutritionally deficient children in the village. That girl can't possibly be 13 can she?? Strange that I don't finish what's on my dinner plate still.

Feminism--Why has feminism become such a bad word at BYU? Any BYU co-ed who came here and actually talked with these women* would thank their Father in Heaven for those bra-burning women of the 1960s and 70s. I sure have.

*These women=wives who can't travel outside their homes without their husbands' permission, college-age daughters who aren't allowed out past 6:00pm, 14 year old girls who work at factories instead of finishing secondary school because it costs too much money to educate a female, 40 year old women who wear only the sarees their husbands buys for them, and finally women who sleep in the corner with different bedding and use different dishes when menstruating because they are "unclean."

Hidden Environmentalist--Living among my trash here in the village has turned me into an environmentalist. Without the regular garbageman to take my trash away from my home I have to throw it in the pile by the side of the road on my way to the main road. I've started buying 2 liter bottles of water instead of 1 (or usually I just pump my own clean water), I drink out of reusable glass bottles when I buy a cold soda at the nearby shop, and I cringe at all the extra packaging my biscuits come in.

Maybe I would have always been this way had I been on a field trip to the city dump instead of the city's zoo when I was in second grade and third grade. Maybe.

Living a More Simple Life--Between carrying water from the government tap to our host family's cistern every 2-3 days, washing my own clothes by beating them on a rock, sleeping on a thin mat on cement floor, and going "native" by cutting out TP from my bathroom routine things have become a lot more simple. I wish it didn't take coming to India to show me how entirely and unnecessarily complicated I've made my life, but here I am with a "to do" list of things like: eat lunch, write in my journal, and spend time on the veranda with Matthew and Jeeva.

A General Apology

I know some of you (or I at least hope) that some of you are interested in my travels here in India. I have tried diligently to post a least once a week, but you'd be amazed at the ammount of effort that it takes. Partly it's the physical effort of riding into town for an hour and half and then dealing with uncertain power supply (it always seems to go out when you're just about to email or just about to post something...the fates!!). The other part is this...I don't quite know how to explain this. Yes, I am in India. India, the land in the East that people say with a dreamy voice that drips with exotic spices and beautiful colors. But, it's not like this is an alien planet!! People live here--thay have been for centuries. While their culture is different, which does make things frustrating and difficult, but at the same time more interesting and fun to decipher, it's not that different. I don't feel the way I used to about this place. This place is now just a place I've chosen to be for a while. Just like a couple thousand BYU students choose to spend their summer in Provo (like I did last summer). I'm still me, not any better or worse or any cooler or nerdier for choosing India this summer; and yet I feel like we give a certain prestigue for those who have traveled. I kind of hate the idea of using the experiences I have here as conversation pieces that make me the center of attention. So, as I think about posting all my cool stories about the "locals" I feel a bit of unease. I don't know if this is a sign of maturity or if it's just silly. So here it is, a general apology for those who check back regularly and find I haven't posted anything new. Sorry. I'm still alive and enjoying India, we'll hopefully have long poetic talks about it when I get home.