Arriving back at the house at 10:30AM from the cycle adventure the night before, Matthew informed me that we would be leaving at noon for Grace Carmel school, the hostel/school/orphanage that he’s been volunteering at every summer since his gap year. I hopped into the shower to clean off the layers and layers of dust that had been worked into my skin and hair throughout the night of cycling, ate a small breakfast and took a quick nap. Not exactly feeling refreshed, I awoke at noon and we headed off to the bus stand.
The good things about the bus to Kanchipuram are that it only takes 2 hours (and departed immediately after we got on), only costs 100 rupees, and is well air-conditioned. The bad things are that it has Tamil music blasting at ear-shattering volumes throughout the entire trip, and it’s essentially an imported city bus (like the citi4 buses in Cambridge or the OC Transpo buses in Ottawa) so the seat backs only reach the middle of your back (no chance for sleep!). Ah well, it could definitely have been worse.
We were picked up from the chaos of the Kanchipuram bus stand by the school’s P.E. teacher who brought us to a nearby sports equipment store where Matthew picked up some cricket bats, footballs and bouncy balls for the kids. Then we headed out of the city and into the country on a VERY bouncy drive to the little village of Arpakkum. It was my first time out in rural India (in the daytime) since arriving in Chennai and it was cool to see huge patty fields and rows of coconut trees. We passed through Arpakkum and continued on an even bumpier road up to the school itself. I almost knocked myself out on the roof of the van a couple of times and didn’t find it hard to believe that the road had been closed due to rain the weekend before.
We arrived at the school to two barking dogs and a swarm of little boys who rushed up to embrace Matthew. The girls hung back shyly but as I stooped to pet the dogs, they started to come over to greet “Aunty” and I said hello. Realizing that Sofia (the lady who runs the school and hostel) wasn’t around to introduce me to, Matthew encouraged the kids to give me a tour of the place. The little girls needed no more encouragement and I was swiftly surrounded on all sides by the little ones. The fingers of each of my hands were split among 3 or 4 little ones while my forearms were grabbed in multiple places by still others, and we walked along awkwardly as I tried not to tread on any of them.
Despite the awkwardness of not being able to brush the hair out of my face or wipe the sweat off my brow (because both hands were perpetually held by the children), the tour was awesome. I was shown the makeshift cricket pitch, the football (soccer) field, the coconut and banana trees, the little garden, the site of the future swimming pools and future additional school building (currently acting as an impromptu dance floor though!), and I was pressured into eating some ridiculously raw guava (one of them I couldn’t even bite into no matter how hard I tried – those kids must have teeth as tough as nails!) which, in case you’re curious, is disgusting.
Beautiful wild rose and smiling faces in the garden.
The girls wanted to pose with the car.
Another great collection of smiles.
Along the way, I was asked if I spoke any Tamil and I made the mistake of saying that I’d love to learn. They proceeded to inundate me with a million different phrases in Tamil that they wanted me to repeat. They took particular joy in getting me to ask “Uncle” (Matthew) all kinds of things, like where he was going, or what we were eating for dinner. Funnier still was the fact that with my terrible accent and his own limited knowledge of the language, Matthew couldn’t understand what on earth I was saying either!
It turns out that I’m awful at repeating spoken Tamil (Tamil written phonetically in English characters is much easier) and I think I let down a lot of the children with my poor performance. Sadly I was also pretty terrible at remembering all of their beautiful Indian names. Most of the kids are from Orissa, then there are quite a few from Tamil Nadu, and a handful from Kerala. (Funnily enough, whenever I said I was from Canada, they often heard “Kerala” and would enthusiastically point out other kids who were from Kerala “like Aunty”.) That being said, they all have long elaborate names – like Abhirami, or Jacinta, or Sumitha, or Darshini – which, given one at a time, might not be so bad, but was absolutely impossible to remember when being told in batches of five or more!
Just as I began to really start sweating on the tour, I was handed a cup of hot chai (just the sugar hit I had been lamenting to Matthew about half an hour earlier) and was thankfully given some space and a seat to pause and sip it1. But it wasn’t long before I was encouraged to hurry up and finish though so that my tour could continue We headed into a grassy area where the children informed me that they sit around and tell stories. At this point, some of the older girls emerged from their room and I was treated to an impressive Bollywood dance performance.
Then it was time to watch part of a movie before dinner. The movie was in Russian (no subtitles) and I could make about zero sense out of the weird alien vs. warrior / dreamland vs. reality plot, but no one seemed to mind. We sat on wooden benches around a projector and despite having kids sitting all over my legs/lap and others leaning against my back/shoulders/sides, the ceiling fans kept me relatively cool. Partway through the movie, Matthew called me away into Sofia’s room for a quick dinner. We were served delicious homemade chapathis with masala, and the break from the kids was also a nice breather (literally? haha).
Sisters!
Grumpy twins, haha.
Siblings. Seliki was the most enthusiastic tour guide!
Beautiful sisters dressed in their finest!
We emerged from dinner just as the kids had begun to disassemble the arrangement of wooden benches and remake it into a dining hall formation. I took the opportunity to play with the dogs. Benny is a small furry dog who spends most of his time panting from the heat and (presumably) wondering what he’s doing with such long hair in such a hot country. He’s extremely cuddly and good-natured, except that he gets very jealous if you pay any attention to the other dog Patu.
Patu is a very skinny short-haired mutt who was gifted personally to the orphanage by Trisha (one of the most famous Tamil actresses in Kollywood) who rescued it from the streets. He’s slightly larger than Benny (though Benny clearly rules the roost) but still quite small and has tons of energy. Unfortunately, he also has a bad habit of trying to nip/bite you whenever you try to play with him. I don’t think he means to play quite so rough but he really has a thing for using his teeth as much as he can! For example, when I reach my hands around his neck to rub his head, he turns his head to the side to grab my wrists with his teeth. And when I tried to get my hands away from his face and instead reach over him to pat his back, he went for my forearms. And if I didn’t lean down to play with him when he jumped up at me then he’d grab my skirt with his teeth and pull! His nips didn’t really hurt but they were harder than any other dog I’ve played with, and he had sharp teeth which left scratches all over my wrists and hands by the time I finished playing with him. Needless to say, Patu is not very popular with the children (particularly the little ones) so I’ve promised myself that I’ll bring him a good chewtoy the next time I visit and maybe the kids can play with him using that instead.
Patu!
Awwwwww, what a cutie.
Heading into one of the girls’ rooms, I found myself surrounded by a lovely group of pre-teens who asked me a million questions about myself. I tried to explain how the shiny white beauty of the snow in winter makes up for how cold it gets in Canada but I’m not sure they were buying it. Then they wanted me to sing for them. I stalled for time by asking them to sing a song themselves first but was immediately intimidated by how lovely their voices were when they began! Oh well, I figured it made very little difference what they thought of my singing voice and started singing I Will Survive (I don’t really know why). I think they enjoyed it (at least I got a round of applause?) and I was mercifully spared a second round of songs by a summons to come and finish the movie.
Hanging out.
Sadly the plot didn’t get any better but it was funny to watch the kids self-police the movie by fast-forwarding through any romantic/love scenes, and any scenes where the lady’s warrior outfit was not deemed to be appropriate enough, haha.
When the movie ended, Sofia came to me to show me where I would be sleeping. She had moved a bed into one of the girls’ rooms and kindly placed it under one of the ceiling fans. Keeping in mind that it was one of only two beds in the entire building (the other one was her own bed which she gives up to Matthew when he stays over), it was more than I was expecting. The others in my room slept on blankets, sheets and mats on the floor, as they did every night. Some of the girls had pillows but most just put their heads on bundles of clothes or bags. Some of the older girls slept cuddling the very littlest ones. Each girl has a small trunk on a shelf in the room which contains all of her posessions.
I chatted with one of the older girls Christi for a little while (she’s studying biotechnology at one of the universities in Kanchipuram). She’s a lovely girl (the first thing she said to me was “Nice specs Aunty!”) and we talked about travelling, food, jobs and our mutual love for Legolas from the Lord of the Rings. She got me to try on a set of bangles from her modest collection and when I remarked on her gorgeous earrings she was adamant that I should have them. I told her they looked far better on her and politely refused, but was incredibly touched by her generosity.
It wasn’t long before the late-night cycling from the day before caught up to me and I began yawning. Much to the disappointment of the girls, I asked for permission to hit the hay. Despite having quite a good screen, tiny little bugs were falling from the open window and onto my bed. As I was drifting to sleep I felt one fall on my face next to my ear. There’s nothing less conducive to sleep than worrying about something crawling into your ear in the middle of the night. So I draped my hair across my face for the remainder of the night and all was okay. In any case, the sleeping situation was miles better than the night before and I slept soundly.
When I woke the next morning (bright and early at 6:00), the task was to get everyone ready for church. All of the kids have a good wash, don their very best outfits, and comb their hair especially nicely. The girls are supposed to dress in white but if they don’t own anything white in their little trunks then they just wear the nicest dress they own. For one girl, this was a frilly neon orange velour dress held together with safety pins all the way down its back, and for another girl it was a white lacy princess dress with an outer layer literally tattered to shreds. Still others only had t-shirts full of holes and shorts two sizes too big. I made another mental note to bring them more clothes next time I visited.
Hanging out before church.
As I was packing up my things in the room, I noticed a stick on the ground and thought “ah-ha! this would be perfect for Patu!”. When the little dog walked by, I called him in and picked up the stick. Seeing Patu run away at top speed, I realized my mistake. It’s not uncommon for people to hit animals in India – I see it often with dogs on the way to work, and I’ve noticed it with cows and goats on the streets too. Then again, it’s not uncommon for people in India to hit their children too (at home and at school) so I think it’s a symptom of a bigger problem. I did try to tell the children not to hurt Patu whenever I saw them hitting or pushing him away forcefully, and I know Matthew has tried hard in the past to stop the teachers at Grace Carmel from hitting the children, but I think for now it’s a bit of a losing battle – from what I can see, India is proud of its traditions and relatively stubborn, so change comes very slowly. Interestingly though, there is a very famous Bollywood actor Aamir Khan who is trying to tackle some of the biggest social issues in India both through his movies and his Sunday morning talk show. For example, we watched a movie of his about a dyslexic child who is excellent at creative things like painting but rubbish at all of the “serious” subjects because of his dyslexia. Not surprisingly, he’s seen by his family and his teachers as a huge disappointment – but one teacher sees his potential and fights to make the others realize his value.
Once everyone was ready, we loaded onto the bus – over 100 people squashed into a 50-seat school bus! Each seat sat three kids with three others on their laps, and the aisle was absolutely crammed with kids standing. Remembering how bumpy the road was on the way up, I was anticipating adventure. And oh boy, it was hilarious! I sat in the middle of the back bench so had no seat in front of me to brace against. Next to me on the bench were two tiny little girls that I worried I would knock out with my elbows as we bumped along, and right in front of me (standing between and around my legs) were three other little girls struggling to stand up straight in the aisle of the bus. On my lap was a cute little girl who kept almost slipping off because of the smoothness of my skirt. It was HOT – especially when we stopped for a good five minutes for petrol and there was no breeze whatsoever, and especially with a warm body on my lap – and the road was every bit as crazy bumpy as I remembered. But the kids didn’t seem to mind, and I think they enjoyed my facial expressions as I went back and forth between laughter and terror, sweat dripping down my face.
The school bus.
We finally arrived at the church and the service had already started (of course) when we piled into the open-air room. The ceiling fans kept the temperature at a reasonable level and I was offered a plastic lawn chair to sit on. I opted to sit on the floor mats with the little girls instead which turned into a huge ab workout – imagine sitting on the floor for three hours without having a backrest and without having hands/arms to prop yourself up with because they’re in constant demand by the little ones! Anyway, it was totally worth it because the little girls were really fun to be around (they didn’t care much about the mass being given either) and we played little games with rocks, including some of the ones my Mum used to share with us from her childhood. They always tried to include me in their antics, and I taught them a little game too.
I had forgotten how closely your every movement/sentence/exposed inch of skin is scrutinized when you’re in the presence of little kids. Both of my rings and my bracelet were tried on by many of the little darlings (and some of the older girls as well!), and my half-gone green nail polish was a huge hit. The dozens of mosquito bites on my calves (from sleeping outside the night before) were also fascinating, and they were intrigued by the fact that my fingertips turn white/red when squeezed. The hair on my forearms was stroked and complimented for its softness, my fingernails were groomed, and one little girl even started peeling the dry skin off my heels.
The service itself was really something else. Men and women sit divided on the floor and women cover their heads with the white scarves of their salwar kalmeezs or the pallus of their saris. The main priest spoke in Tamil but his apprentice repeated it all in real-time in English so at least I could understand what was being said. Even still, I found it hard to hear the words because of the accented English and the fact that both men were talking at the same time which made it hard to focus (I guess not to mention the distractions from the heat, the discomfort from the floor and the constant questions/probes from the little ones). When I did finally catch some of it, I heard the valuable piece of advice that it’s the woman’s responsibility for maintaining the peace in the household and helping all of the others with their problems. I tuned the rest of the sermon out entirely after that.
It was certainly a much more animated service than any other I’ve seen. There were many moments where everyone was asked to stand up and shout “Praise the Lord!” over and over again, raising your hands towards the sky and shaking your arms and body as quickly as possible from side-to-side to convey the intensity of your faith. Interesting.
Hanging out after the church service.
After the sermon was over, we were all served lunch (rice, sambhar and a tiny bit of fish curry) which I thought was a really nice thing for the church to provide. I met a group of the local Kanchipuram girls over lunch and was therefore saddled with another heap of complicated names to remember. They were really sweet though and told me they were looking forward to seeing me again at the service sometime soon.
The kids from Grace Carmel were devastated that Matthew and I weren’t staying another night with them, and begged me many times not to go. I promised them I’d be back soon though and when the kids left for their Sunday school classes, Matthew and I headed off to the bus stand and returned to Chennai.
It was a really incredible weekend with some of the sweetest, most lovely children I’ve ever met.
An Indian Adventure 