Christmas in Another World-- Senji Post Christian Church-- Kodi Kanal-- Tamil Girls & Women of India-- Bye, Bye Birdie--The Last Snake Charmer-- God Will Send A Ticket--Sing Me A Song

    CHRISTMAS IN ANOTHER WORLD--One question on the mind of all us IFYE'S when we arrived in India was,  ''What is  it going to be like to spend Christmas in another part of the world?''  I was in Tamil Nadu at Christmas time.  My host father  made sure I got transportation  to a Christian Church for their Christmas program.  It was much like a Christmas Program back home, singing carols  I recognized some of the music,  the reading of the nativity story & short pageant. 
     The one difference was that the lights were  mostly a piece of string  in a small bowl of groundnut oil  or mustard oil.  At the Church Christmas Program the Pastor, was standing too close to one of the oil dishes & the back of his clothes caught on fire, at the first indication of fire several people rushed forward to put it out and the program proceeded.  

A Dawali drawing found throughout the village.

          Also it was the time of year for a celebration to the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, goddess of luck & wealth.   For her to visit your house would mean a healthy and prosperous year, the only draw back, I was told by a family member that she was afraid of the dark, kinda like Santa being afraid of the dark and not leaving presents if the house was dark, so windows and brick fences contained dishes of  oil with strings for wicks that were lighted like candles.  If you went out at night the windows and brick fences  were full of the little dishes of lights, it looked much like the Christmas lights put up back home.  So I really felt very much at home. A really neat thing about the Hindu celebration was the beautiful pictures painted each day in front of the home for a week. The towns were festive whether they were Hindu or Christian.  I learned the pictures were made of very fine colored powdered glass. Each day for a week a new picture was painted each morning. They were just amazing. 
       I was going to a Festival Area with my family and I noticed a Ferris Wheel in the distance. That had seats that only seated one person, which I decided was not odd because of the culture taboo of couples doing things together in public. When we got up close I noticed that it was not operated by an electric motor but what looked like a huge steering wheel being turned by a man.  There was a set of gears that reduced the amount of strength needed to make the Ferris Wheel to go round.  When the seat was at the highest point I doubt if it wasn’t much over the height of a street light.  But for the people of rural India it would probably be the farthest they had ever been off the ground.  There were food stalls with  all kinds of foods & drinks & individuals providing entertainment.

   

Fire works and mustard oil or peanut oil light were part of the Diwali Celebration

   


 SENJI POST CHRISTIAN CHUCH--  My host father at this time  took me to visit the church at Senji Post for a day.   He dropped me off and I visited with the Pastor, Isaac David.  In the church were only half hewn logs for pews and the pulpit was a stump that was beveled to hold the Pastors Bible, the only Bible in the Church.  No Bible curriculum for Sunday School, no organ or piano, no song books,  no material for a Bible Study, no padded pews, or air-conditioning.  Only a Bible for the Pastor to use in Sermons.  I had a long visit with the Pastor & his dedication to the Gospel & the  simplicity of the church really impacted me.  I wondered how many U.S. Christian would continue to attend Church if they had to do so in such meager suroundings.  The image of that little church stayed with me throughout my time in India, & is still there today.  Most of the Christian Churches I found in Tamil had their origin from when the Disciple of Jesus, Stephan, was in Asia preaching & teaching.

   

    KODI KANAL  [cody- canal] --I was taken to visit a most unusual place in Tamil Nadu by my 3rd Family.  It was a mountain plateau near the equator that rose out of the Indian plains to 14,000 feet.  The year round temperature ranged from 75 to 80 degrees.  There were flowers, flowering bushes and fruit trees growing everywhere. It received rain when other parts of Tamil did not and it was green with vegetation.   There was a school there.   That is what my family had taken me to visit.  Many of the children of Missionaries and Government workers from countries around the world that were in India sent their children there to attend school.  I remember wondering if the Garden of Eden might have been similar to  Kodi Kanal.  My family let me sample a lot of fruits there, they were delicious.  One was called the Indian Mulberry, a most unusual fruit I saw nowhere else in my stay in India. { also a picture and explanation in my Larry Paxson Facebook photo albums}  The idea of it being 75-80 degrees year round was really appealing to me.

   

Caring for smaller siblings was a constant job
for young girls

          TAMIL GIRLS---`This was in V.K's village.  I would often walk to the post office to mail a letter home to the folks.  On morning 2 little girls started following me.  One was carrying a small sister on her hip. They had followed me for a while when they called out,  ''Good Morning'', I had continued walking but turned, looked back and replied,  ''Good Morning’’ They both giggled as little girls do.  This repeated itself about 4-5 times.  They'd call, ''Good Morning''. I'd reply, '' Good Morning'', they'd giggle.  So on impulse I turned and snapped their picture.  After I got home [U.S.] and began to look closely at my slides it became one of my favorites & I used it often in slide talks.  Unknowingly I had captured the entire lifetime of the little girls. Because in the background are women taking compost out to the fields for fertilizer.  As young girls they would be taking care of smaller sibling,  as young women or wives they would be spending the day working in the field or in the house preparing grains & food for meals.

The women on the left are dressed in Sari's wrapped in different fashions'

The woman on the right is dressed in one Punjab fashion.  I saw some like this in

Gujarat & perhaps some could be found in Rajasthan.

  

    WOMEN OF INDIA---By the time I was half way through my stay in Tamil Nadu I began to ponder a peculiarity.  I seemed to have noticed an odd thing about the rural women of India.  They either seemed to be young and nice looking or old and wrinkled, none of them seemed to look middle aged.  It was as if on some auspicious day,   at midnight they turned from a juicy plum into a dried up prune.  A lot of  women seemed to use a homemade coconut smelling oil for a skin cream, maybe that's what keeps their skin looking so young, it also has a nice fragrance. They also wore colorful garments in multiple ways, which added to their nice looking appearance.  The Sari was folded & wrapped in many ways.    So the way women were dressed was always interesting.  In some areas women were wearing flower in their hair daily, that always looked nice too.

       
    BYE, BYE, BIRDIE--This happened in a Tamil Nadu family, which one I don't remember now, but the first 2-3 morning I was awakened by the loud chirping of a small bird who had a nest built behind a picture hanging on the wall.  I had noticed a lot of pictures leaning away from the wall in previous homes but this was the first one I had noticed with a birds nest behind it.  First I guess I should explain that windows in home in India had no glass.  They had bars, that would maybe keep a water buffalo from jumping through, but they didn’t keep out lizards and other crawling critters, you found them scurrying up and down your walls day and night.  The windows also had shutters that you would close at night.  So, for 2-3 day I woke with the bird sitting in the window with the closed shutters, chirping loudly.  I thought, “I'm not going to put up with that for 3 weeks.  At first I thought of annilating it.  Then I thought, my family may know about it and if it disappears, they may miss it and I didn't want to have to admit I had been responsible for its demise, so I found a news paper or some cardboard and I chased it around the room for about 30 minutes.  Swatting at it vigorously and making a lot of noise but making sure I missed it.  Then I opened the shutters and let it out.  The next morning it was sitting quietly on the window ledge when I woke. But it had not let out a peep.  I got up, opened the shutters and let it out.  From that time on each morning it would be sitting quietly on the window ledge waiting for me to open the shutters to let it outside.  I maybe should say the bars were close enough to prevent a human intruder from getting through.

    

Making groundnut [peanut] oil,  one of the main cooking oils

    A JEEP RIDE---The County Agriculture Office in the U.S. where there is a 4-H Agent, Agriculture Agent, & Home Economics Agent is quite different than it's counterpart in India.  In India it is more like an army compound.  It has counterparts similar to the U.S. but there is also a person involved in promoting CO-OPs.  An individual that arranges loans for farmers, there are test plots for new seeds  & fertilizers and a person to go to villages encouraging farmers to use  new conservation methods,  seeds & fertilizer.   Then there is a host of workers involved in many aspects of the operation of the Ag. Station.

    The jeep ride involves 3 young men just out of college employed at one of these Ag. Stations.  The concept involves cars too,  everybody wants to sit in the front seat.  These 3 young men were going to take me somewhere.  The driver got in, I was directed to get in the passenger seat and then the other two proceeded to try and find room to sit up front also.  Our family members are big MASH fans so they can imagine 4 people trying to get in the front of an Army Jeep. I had encountered this before so I just got into the back seat without saying anything.  Of course this brought a flood of protests from my 3 companions but I repeatedly insisted I was fine sitting in the back seat.  After awhile we took off to where ever it was we were going with the 3 Indian guys crammed in front and I in the back with the whole back seat to myself.  So much room felt so good that I spread my arms out on the back of the seat and just enjoyed the ride.

        
 THE LAST SNAKE CHARMER--My last family in Tamil Nadu had taken me to a famous South India Temple on one of the last days I was with them.  As we were waiting for a city bus I noticed a very colorfully dressed snake charmer.  I had taken many pictures of  colorfully dressed people in India but he was even more colorful than usual.   He was sitting with his mongoose in a burlap sack, a small rope was tied to a stake & to the mongoose but he could still put the mongoose in the sack  His cobra was in a basket and his flute was on the mat beside him.  So I started to renege on my vow not to take a picture of a Snake Charmer. I thought I would zoom in & only  get him because of his colorful clothes, & not his snake charming paraphernalia.  But just as I was about to push the shutter button he spotted a Tour Bus loaded with  tourists coming down the street. And this is what he did, honestly, this is what he did. 
       He untied the string  and dumped the mongoose out of the burlap sack.  Then popped the lid open on the basket, reached in the basket, pulled up the snake and shook him like,   "Wake up, here comes the tourist.”  Then he picked up the flute and started playing.  I thought,  “OK, you phony, I don't care how colorfully you are dressed, I'm not taking your picture.”  I once ask a host about Snake Charmers and I received this answer.  Some  have the mongoose tied to a stake by a rope as the mongoose is the only animal that can kill a cobra.  The weaving a Cobra does is not caused by the music of the flute but it's posturing towards the mongoose, a mortal enemy.  With or without the mongoose the music doesn’t charm the Cobra.  As for the Cobra, its fangs are pulled or its mouth is sewn shut so it cannot bite. I ask what happens when it starves.  I was told the Charmer buys another from someone who catches Cobras.  So the Snake Charmer may not  even catch his own Cobra's.  I remember once stopping to take a picture of several men gathered around a group of cactus looking type plants.  When I ask my host brother what they were doing he replied,  “Trying to catch a Cobra!” Needless to say I was ready to move on quickly!!

    
     GREEN REVOLUTION---The Green Revolution, as it was being heralded in the U.S. & around  the world  in such publications as Times, Newsweek & Readers Digest & other magazines, & all over T.V. was while I was In India,  they were saying that a new hybrid rice was going to allow India to feed itself.  No more starving people!  A big Whoop that was making news & headlines everywhere!  What I found living in India was the Market Places was piled high with an abundance of the Hybrid rice no one would buy.  The people of India did not like the way it cooked, tasted, or its consistency.  Although the hybrid rice was much cheaper they would rather have 2 meals a day of the old long grain rice than 3 meals of the new rice.  Breakfast often included something made from rice.  They preferred the way the old rice cooked and tasted although it cost more. So while the World was celebrating the new food order in India.  The people of India were quietly going about living & eating as they had for generations.

    
     PERFORMING A RELIGIOUS  CEREMONY--While with one of my Tamil families I visited a community garden with my host father.  A place where families came together to work ground and plants garden vegetables to be shared when the vegetables were ready.  A watchman had been hired to watch the garden but apparently thieves were either stealing the produce & selling it or using it for themselves.  The watchman was very upset, as the thieves had threatened him and his family with bodily harm if he attempted to stop them or report them to authorities.  This was all explained to me by my host father.  The watchman produced several items.  I was wondering if they were gifts or what was their purpose.  My host informed me that perhaps he had never seen a Caucasian person & considered me a god and wanted me to perform a ceremony.  Some things were obvious as to their intention, A necklace, a flower Lei which both obviously went around the neck.  There was a container of sapheran powder for making the red dot on the forehead.  But I almost made a bo-bo there.  So far I had done well about not using my left hand, the unclean hand, but on this day I pressed my left thumb in the red powder.  However I saw this look of shock on his  face & realized my error, so I quickly shifted the tin to my left hand, pressed my right thumb in the powder and made the red dot on his forehead.  He next presented me with a package.  Thinking it a gift for me I was thanking him for it when he motioned for me to open it, He spoke no English, I no Indian language.  I opened it & inside was a Doti, he made the motion of putting it around his waist.  The thought crossed my mind, do I take off the old one, but figuring he would be naked if I did so, I simply wrapped the new one over the top of the old one. I put the necklace and Lei around his neck. This seemed to appease him.  My host apparently lectured him as he spoke to him for a few minutes in a very terse tone.  When my host and I left the watchman was standing there like he was made of stone.  I looked back a few times and he had not moved.  I ask my host if he should contact the police.  He commented that the fellow was demented or high on dope.  I said I didn't think so, that the man had seemed totally terrified to me.  I figured it was some poor soul that been put in a position with a responsibility he had never been required to deal with in his life.  I don't think my host contacted anyone.  I got the impression & was told later that the police as a people group were low down on the totem pole and for the most part ignored or people held little respect for them.  Perhaps because they were easy to bribe by people with money.

   
 TALKING RELIGION----Wherever I went in India people were interested in knowing what Christians believed and what Christianity teaches.  Because their religion so dictates their daily lives and actions, they assumed that everything they saw in American movies, magazines  and on TV, if they had seen one, was behavior in line with Christian teaching. They found it hard to believe I didn't smoke or drink alcoholic beverages. I got the drink and smoke question  about 3-4 time every time I met someone . A phrase I heard over and over, when I tried to explain American Movies & Media did not represent the teaching or thinking &  actions of Christians was, ''Well, Americans are Christians aren't they?''  Which again called for more explanation.

   

    WEDDING SARI---One of my last purchases In Tamil was a wedding Sari.  I bought it because the thread was pure Gold and the cloth was Silk. It was dark purple in color. I am not sure how they made metal into thread but that's what it was.  It was not expensive in U.S. dollar, it was like $20.  I got it with the idea I would give it to the girl I married.  At that time I had no idea who I would be marrying as I had never had a serious girlfriend. Most girls I had date consisted of 2-3-4 dates.  It turned out that I had Mary wear it after she started going with me as I gave IFYE talks.  I really don't remember at what point that was, but she wore it to many.

   

 GOD WILL SEND A TICKET---As I would leave a family in Gujarat or Tamil Nadu a family member or maybe an Ag worker I had spent quite a bit of time with would express how some day they would like to come to America  to visit me.  At first I just said that sounded great and hoped they could.  After awhile I thought I would test their ''if it's supposed to happen, it will happen’’ theory and suggest that they save money and make plans to come to the U.S.  Of course this sounded unheard of them.  I would get all sorts of answers.  One day when I said this to one young man he just shrugged and said he wouldn't need to make any plans.  What he said was,  "If God wants me to go to America, He'll send me a ticket.'' They had that outlook on everything in life.  ‘If God wants it to be, for me, it will happen.’

   

 SING ME A SONG----We would all be brought together when we switched states,  before going to our new states we would meet with local Agriculture Staff & National Govt.Staff .   These meeting were also times we were expected to sing songs. Something I think that has been an IFYE tradition in every county that hosts IFYE’s since the beginning of the program.   Songs such as:  God Bless America, America the Beautiful, Home on the Range, This Land is your Land, Today, the song we harmonized best on, & Old McDonald had a Farm,  were our group favorites.  Since I was the only farmer. They singled me out to name the animals & Bill was to make the animal sounds.  Usually I picked farm animals of the U.S. but once I said ''water buffalo’,’ it caught Bill off guard but he rose to the occasion making a perfect water buffalo sound which is very unique.  I tried it again another time but it wasn't quite right so I never used the buffalo again.

      Just before I was sent to Goa, I think, we were all at a big hotel, meeting with Rodge & Natiell & other India Govt. officials.  We were all telling stories and visiting when about half through the meal I noticed that I had silverware on 3 sides of my plate, English style, and I was eating with my hand.  I sheepishly glanced around the table and noticed about half the IFYE's and half the staff was eating with their hands so I didn't feel so bad.