Grandma goes native

Last night we went to the Pathway Christmas program and catered banquet. Here you see Sister Dosdall in her new churidhar, eating Tamil style, with fingers, off a banana leaf. The pictures of the performance didn't turn out very well, but there was two hours of singing and skits from the three facilities, the highlight of which was the nativity pageant acted out by the mentally handicapped children. "Mary", who could not even walk, was carried to the center of the stage where she held her baby doll and smiled sweetly through the performance, while costumed donkeys and sheep and shepherds and wise men all did their things.

Brickies ot work

If you think you have seen everything in India, here is a video clip from Bengladesh another missionary couple sent us.

Everything is different here.

Chennai (formerly Madras), capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, population over 7,000,000 (that is 70 lakh. One lakh = 100,000 and one crore is 100 lakh. Large numbers here, like government expenditures in rupees, at the rate of about 50 to the U.S. dollar, are not reckoned in millions or billions.)

Anything and everything goes in the same space on the streets. Busses, trucks (lorries), cars, 3-wheel autorickshaws, 2-wheelers carrying entire families, bikes, pedestrians, oxcarts, stray cows, goats, dogs, all going in every way they know how.

Anything goes

Even a kid’s merry-go-round on a push-cart.

Autos

Autos are the most common for-hire transport in countries where very few can afford a car. There are 37,000 of them in Chennai alone. The driver in front has motorcycle-type controls, and in the two passenger spaces behind there are as many people or cargo as can be hung on them. They evolved from the Vespa scooters of the 1940s and were first sold by Piaggia in Italy in 1948. Now a couple of Indian companies dominate the world market. I don’t know how I worked in research in a major world automotive company and never became aware of them. This is only one example of U.S. smug arrogance which is really a manifestation of ignorance.

At beginning of first auto ride

With so many sizes of vehicles together, all traffic control markers such as lanes and lights are universally ignored. Anyone seeing a prospective space dives into it. You better have either size or agility. The saving grace is that traffic seldom moves very fast. Nevertheless, I am convinced that God loves the Indian people and has reserved his choicest guardian angels for them.
If this picture had been taken at the end of the ride, grandma’s eyes would have been wider. Who needs Cedar Point?

Cows earn their respect

People can’t afford to kill cows and eat them. They need them too badly. Cows pull plows and oxcarts carry loads of farm produce and building materials both in the country and in the city. They provide milk, ghee (100% butterfat) for frying, and the fuel (dung) for cooking. They control vegetation and weeds, and are part of the garbage disposal system.

City sidewalks

On the sidewalk in front of a shop, a man milks a cow. On the cart to the right are propane bottles being delivered to homes for cooking, under a government subsidized program. There is no home heating, and no natural gas pipeline infrastructure.

The alternative to oxcart

Those are 75kg. (180 lb.) bags of rice, and the vehicle is a heavy duty tricycle. He may be able to pedal it after he has delivered a few bags off his load, but for now….

Commerce

This is the wholesale district near the harbor. These narrow streets are lined with shops each specializing in a particular type of goods. Shopkeepers in the neighborhoods come here to buy for their little stores. Many people and much goods move through here.

Shrine

Hindu shrines of varying size are everywhere in the neighborhoods, many for a long time. Buildings may fall down and the character of the neighborhood may evolve, but the shrines are always maintained and built around, however inconvenient their positioning may be. Here is one in the middle of the wholesale district.

H.U.D. special

Amid the concrete apartment buildings (wood is scarce and only used for furniture) are the palm-thatched huts with no utilities.

Oh, well...

Though there are water and sewer pipes in the city, many living in huts still get their water from ancient wells. Surface contamination is severe, especially during monsoons.

Speaking of monsoons

Monsoons here last from October to mid-December, and failure of the rains produces great anxiety about the coming year’s water supply, whether from reservoirs or wells. Streets fill and become as impassable as in a U.S. blizzard. Better carry an umbrella so you don’t get wet.

Town house

We live on the third floor (really fourth, because here they number G, 1, 2, 3…)of an upscale high rise, with marble floors and granite countertops, but no hot water except an on-demand electric unit for the shower, cook on what I would call a campstove from a propane bottle in the kitchen, and have electricity about 90% of the time (which is better than in the countryside).

Up on the roof

Laundry is hung out to dry on the rooftops of apartments surrounding ours. Used billboard posters become tarps to enhance the waterproofing of palm thatch.

Country estate

We also enjoy life in the countryside, 60 miles out of town at Pathway school. This is our cottage there.

Paradise

We walk the half mile from our cottage to the school down this lane, through banana, mango, and coconut orchards.

On campus

The school , established in 2001, has a classroom building for K-12, two “hostels” (one for boys, one for girls) where the 187 students live, and two more under construction to consolidate into one campus another facility for handicapped children. The school is fully accredited, college prep, with all classes from about grade 5 and up taught in English (which is the ticket to the growth industries in India) except for the required course in Tamil. They develop both languages in parallel, though they enter the program speaking Tamil only.

Kids

The children are bright and loving. Admission priority is given to orphans and abandoned children ages 3-5, though some may have one living but destitute parent. As we get to know them, it is unthinkable that these could be street children with no food and no hope for the future. More about them later.

Food

The dining hall is well equipped to feed such a bunch. Note the granite topped tables (a common material here) and the big pot of rice. The director’s wife has a degree in nutrition, and the kids are well fed.

More food

We are well fed also. I have before me a Dosa, which is a large, thin pancake, like crepe. A second is artfully presented rolled into a cone shape.

Grandma goes bananas

The school is in the midst of a 65 acre farm which provides bananas, mangoes, beets, rice, etc. for the school, as well as milk from their herd, and some produce to sell.

Hey, Mr Tallyman, Tally me bananas.

A farm worker with the typical Tamil wrap-around skirt, pulled up and tucked in a knot for free movement while working.

Bunkhouse

Inside the hostels where the kids live, two-dozen to a room with a communal bathroom, doesn’t offer much privacy but it is luxurious compared to the alternative.

Seventh Star home

We also visited another nearby orphanage where a couple has taken in 34 children in addition to their own two, living in about 1000 sq. ft. with not near enough funding. Part of our work for Latter-day Saint Charities is to try to figure out how they can become self-sustaining, possibly with a grant to initiate some cottage industry. These children attend the local government school, where they get very little English.

The alternative

This is how they sleep at Seventh Star. Yet they are fortunate, because, like the children at Pathway, all are either orphaned, abandoned, or have only one parent who could not afford to feed them. They can be students instead of beggars.