Further up and Further in

The abandonment is official. This blog is finished. This is where I should be writing about the things that I miss about India, you know, the colors, the chaos, the food, the cows, etc. More than anything, the friends we made there and especially the children living at Pathway. India was a study in contrasts for the three of us, I think, the gap between the rich and the poor, the good and the not-so-holy. I'll save my speeches for the soapbox. After the experiences I've had in the last 11 months, I feel like nothing can faze me. From here it's further up and further in.

When Lisa found out in April that she needed to choose a return flight to the States on or before July 9th, I decided that I would change my return flight to July 23rd (a week or so earlier than planned). But I didn't tell anyone in my family until June, when I let a brother and two sisters in on the secret (none of whom are living at home). It just worked out that my bro was in State College the weekend I was coming home, so he and his wife and a friend of ours came to get me from the airport. However, when I got to the airport in State College (enormous....two whole gates), no one was there. Just like when I got home from my mission. So I got out my laptop to check my email to see if there was some complication that perhaps my brother had emailed me about. Two of my sisters were already online, poised and ready to keep my mom distracted while I snuck into the house, as we planned, and then my mom logged on! And she was so disappointed. She hadn't talked to me all weekend, and she had been hoping against hope that I was being sneaky and coming home early to surprise her. So when she sees me logged on, she writes, "Aren't you on your way home? I thought you were gone all weekend because you were coming home. Now I think I'm going to cry." I told her I'd talk to her soon, and at that point, my greeting committee arrived, and we made our way towards the house. Here's the video, the rest of the story:

All these *last* and *end* posts are so dismal and Armageddon-like, but...there needs to be some closure. I've posted the best of the last batch of pictures. If that's not enticing enough, be enticed by more pics of Lisa and I in sarees and the kids' dance party on my last night at the farm. You can find the photos here.

Well, kiddos, this is almost the end. I have a few final things to say about my time in India, and a few more pictures to post, but I have now returned to the Western hemisphere. Lisa also left India two weeks ago. My brother and sis-in-law came to pick me up from the airport, and I snuck into our house and surprised my fam. My brother videotaped it, so I'll try to post it before this blog is more or less abandoned...

I'm posting pictures of when Lisa and I were dressed (note: we did not dress ourselves...still haven't figured out how to put on a saree) in sarees, shortly before each of us left.

It's strange to be home. I miss the unpredictability of India already. My time there seems like a dream now, except for the Tamil phrases that escape my mouth now and again. And the head bobble. Who's going to help me satisfy my never-ending curry craving? I don't have time to make curries and sambars and rasam and idli and tamarind rice on a regular basis. I tried to eat some chicken last night, but I don't think I can stomach it yet. Slowy I'll ease myself back into the non-veg culture. Perhaps.

I have a theory about the popular figures in music and film here in India. Especially in Tamil Nadu, since most of my experience in India has been here. See, all of the male music and film stars, almost without exception, are very unattractive. Which is unusual compared to most of the rest of the world, I believe. This is what I think has happened: since there are many beautiful women here, the men would like their wives (or future wives) to be thinking that they are pretty hot, because most of them are in comparison to the stars I see in films and plastered on billboards. It keeps the women satisfied and not expecting much. Take this guy for example. He's apparently a beloved and attractive musician around these parts.

A big problem--and I believe this is really what it's all about--is the mustache. I just can't believe they like it. And they do...the minute young men here can grow a mustache, they do. But why, I ask, why? Why? At the present time, the number of attractive sorts of men I have seen here numbers somewhere around 10. Or possibly less. The count (not that I'm actually counting--I just want it to be understood that the attractive ones are extremely few and far between) would be much higher if most men didn't have those little slugs growing above the upper lip. Ew. (Disclaimer: any offensive remark I make about molestaches is not in any way directed against members of an older generation and especially any member of my immediate family).

Finally, after 10 months of wondering what business these men, in this day and age, and in the prime of their lives, have growing mustaches, I decided to do a little investigating. Don't try to tell me it's because mustaches look nice. That's simply not true. The only man I can think of who ever looked good with a mustache (besides my father, of course) is Tom Selleck. I believe that to be indisputable. However, there seem to be some Tamil sayings about 'staches, like "A man's glory is his mustache" and so on. And there's one region in particular that takes great pride in growing their mustaches, and growing them well, up in Rajasthan. Here's what I found:

Telugu proverb (translated): You cannot ask someone to smell your mustache to find out what your grandfather had eaten.
Thiruvalluvar (2nd century AD Tamil poet): Blessed is the man sporting a mustache, for it is only he that will be lavished with Dosais.
Telugu proverb: No food to eat, but aroma oils for mustache.
Kannada saying: It didn't bother him that he fell as his mustache didn't get soiled.
Local saying: Some mustache is better than no mustache.

And then I found this, a BBC news report from 2004 about police officers receiving incentives for growing mustaches ( I refuse to use the British standard spelling of moustache, by the way, because it looks too much like 'mouse' and then I think of a mouse's tail above the upper lip). The best part is the quote from the district police chief about what a mustache does for ya: "Moustaches are improving the personalities of our constables. They are acquiring an aura of their own. They are creating a positive impression on the local people and getting a lot of respect."

Is what he says true? Do people look at mustachioed men, as he says, "very respectfully and pleasantly?" What about those who can't grow mustaches? Don't we deserve respect? This subject is by no means closed. I may have a number of future rantings and ravings on mustaches. Not that this wasn't long enough. But it could be possibly discussed for days on end. I hereby propose the Stache as the first topic for discussion at the fabulous curry function which shall be held in August in Utah. Date, time, and location TBA.

Other names for the mustache: stache, tache, tash, mo, soup strainer, flavor saver, cookie duster, molestache

Well, we've narrowly escaped the mange this week (known in humans as scabies). At least we hoped we escaped it. Can't really know for a few weeks, since the mites burrow into your skin and lay eggs. If there are eggs planted in our skin, then the eggs will hatch, and we'll know for sure. There are several new children who were admitted who have the ailment, and they've been in quarantine all week.
Treatment involves being quarantined, being scrubbed down using scalding hot water to bring the skin mites to the surface, and sitting around naked for 24 hours covered in topical medication. Mmm-mmm. That's what I call good times. And my question is, who would do the scrubbing and the administering of the cream? And who's going to keep me company? And also, all the bedding and clothing and other linens have to be washed in scalding hot water and hung in the hot sun to dry. Who's going to hang my laundry out on the line? I can't do it. I'll be naked.
What does this have to do with photo albums, you ask? Should photo albums and nakedness really be included in the same post? The answers are no and probably not. Just thought I'd mention the mange. We don't have it. We do have new photo albums, however. And we thought you might like to see them...I find flickr a bit unwieldy (when I'm trying to carry it around). This format is much easier to browse. Some choice photos from the past 10 months are linked to in the sidebar under Photo Albums in three basic groupings (kerala trip aside). Don't worry. There will be no more pictures of scabies in the photo albums. Enjoy. And be glad you don't have to hang your laundry in the hot sun while naked, scalded, itching, and covered in a topical cream.

We're back. Mostly. We arrived in a rather sleep-deprived state this morning on a train that reached Chennai an hour later than it was supposed to...and we stayed in Chennai for the day instead of going back to the farm immediately to avoid any trouble that could be caused by supporters of the political party BJP who have been encouraging strikes around India against rising oil prices. There was supposed to be a strike today in Tamil Nadu, we already hit one last Friday in Kerala, yada yada yada. I'll address that this weekend when I have more time. The point is: the photos are here. In case you've been dying to see them. You can also click on the photo above or the post title if you don't like clicking on the word 'here'. I understand. That's why I've provided options. So there you go. Until the weekend.

It's been a good week. Much to my delight, mangosteens grow in northern India, and are findable here in Chennai. I told Lisa I thought we should have a mangosteen-a-day countdown until the time we leave, and so far we've been keeping up, more or less. A little more towards the less, but good enough.
I think the reason why I love mangosteen so much is because it reminds me of my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor of all time...a sorbet (ice cream's not my favorite thing): Purple Passionfruit Sorbet (flavor graveyard link). It was retired sometime around 1999. It is described on the Flavor Graveyard site as being "A ripe rapturous swirl of raspberry-blackberry and passion fruit sorbets. This deep purple treat made fruit lovers quiver." Everything about it was delightful and enticing: a blend of two shades of purple (raspberry and blackberry) and a cream-colored twist of passion fruit tanginess...that's what the mangosteen is like. The contrast of the purplish-red with the white fruit and the tangy yet sweet taste is more than I can resist.
A true friend once brought me back some Purple Passionfruit Sorbet in a cooler from Idaho when we learned after returning to Utah for school that it was not sold at any location so close to the Rockies. I still don't understand what is was about our location that made it so impossible to get the sorbet made in heaven there. Maybe the presence of the sorbet would have made the Rockies tremble.
There was once a time when I worked at a Ben & Jerry's scoop shop for 2 months or so, and I am still haunted by the memory of the only frozen delight I have ever truly loved.

Lisa was looking up theatre locations for the Da Vinci Code, released in most of the world around the 18th/19th of this month, and found, to her astonishment, that the release date in India is as yet undetermined. Then we recalled a meeting we attended in the church of a friend of ours a few weeks ago (a Protestant church) where a young man who was giving a talk said, interestingly enough, that his friend's faith was shaken after he read Da Vinci Code. Apparently there are quite a few protests being staged by Catholic groups (and other Christian, Hindu and Muslim groups that are supporting them) to oppose the release of the film. We just thought it was funny because it's pretty obvious that neither the book nor the film were a part of Dan Brown's doctoral dissertation on symbology and a Great Conspiracy. It's fiction. Not a cause to be losing faith.
There was a hunger strike started by a Catholic group in Mumbai, and the group's general secretary states that the purpose of the hunger strike was to show the extent to which their feelings have been hurt. Hmm. Somehow I think it doesn't pull as much weight as Gandhi's hunger strike. The strike lasted about 2 days, and they believed their strike to be victorious, though the police did prevent them from burning effigies of Dan Brown.
I have to say that the Christians here seem to have a bit more of a persecution complex than they do in the States, which they may have good reason to hold, since only 2% of India is Christian. Still. Losing faith over the Da Vinci Code? Maybe Christian church leaders in India could point out that the work is fiction and the movie is far from a documentary instead of raising such a scandal about it. Which may result in more people going to see the film (if ever released) out of sheer curiosity.

Lisa and I were walking from our quarters to the school last week and saw this jackfruit tree with its enormous near-ripe jackfruit and we were shocked that we hadn't noticed it before. Jackfruit was something we both ate on occasion in Brazil (jaca)...we'll see how it compares. They have jackfruit chips here, which I imagine we'll sample at some point.




I think God must have created jackfruit just to stir things up a bit. Why not create some fruit that's ridiculously enormous? Bigger than La Bamba's bigger-than-your-head burritos? Reminds me of Lisa's story about the pig that ate the horse. Maybe she'll tell it.