Karkala festivals and fun (TC)

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Monday 28 – Tuesday 29 January 2013

I’m falling behind with the blog as we are so busy! Other team members have updated our activities from the last few days so I will try to keep this brief.....

We have spent Monday and Tuesday in Karkala where the Rotarians were delighted to meet us all. They had a packed itinerary for us including visiting a church, an artisan centre where we saw some fantastic carving from the students and a museum of old artefacts from the area. My favourite part of the day was the visit to the Rotary hospital where Dr. Asha Hedge works. Although Di has visited a lot of hospitals here, this was my first and it was really interesting to visit a place which specialises in care for women and children. The hospital looked very clean and tidy. I had commented that I had not seen any pregnant women in India, and I got my chance here. Women in India seem to hide their pregnancy well with their sari so it’s hard to tell if somebody is pregnant.

There were many babies in the hospital, sharing a bed with the mother to help them bond. We also heard a couple of very sad stories of the patients. I was also interested to learn that expectant parents are not allowed to find out the sex of their baby here. This is quite a new system in India and was introduced by the Government to protect female babies, less desired in India as they cost families more through marriage.

Our trip to Karkala also took us to a beautiful waterfall for a picnic, a Jain temple at the top of 200 steps and a traditional festival where communities meet and can have their social problems solved by village witch doctors. It was explained to us that people who have an unfaithful husband or a husband who drinks too much could bring their problems here to have them solved. We did a lot of people watching at the festival and we didn’t see any two ladies with the same sari. The variety and colours of the women’s outfits are amazing!

On our second evening we attended a meeting and a house warming. It was like no house warming you have seen before, with hundreds of people coming along to see the house, share dinner in a outside canteen and watch the various blessings take place.

In Karkala, I stayed with two different hosts. Ananthakrishna and his wife Raja had a beautiful home, built by their son in 2005. They were very proud of their house, car and four granddaughters. They had to leave to attend a wedding in Banaglore so I spent my second night bunked up with Nicola. Thank you to Dr.Asha and her husband Prakash for taking me in unexpectedly! And for feeding me up on dosas and fruit!

Tracy x

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