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Published: October 6th 2008
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That’s last night’s tally alone, of course, but it was my first decisive victory in the ongoing war, so I thought I’d brag a little. This war would have been practically a suicide mission had I not possessed a magic weapon - what we call the Kocu Bat. (“Kocu” - koh-soo - is Tamil for “mosquito.”) The Kocu Bat is a rather ingenious piece of equipment which comes to Tamil Nad via China, according to my host father. It looks more or less like a tennis racket, except the strings are wires that, when you press a button, send an electric current through them. So, if you see a kocu buzzing its nasty little way towards you, you simply pick up the bat, push down on the button, swing the bat through the air, and basically incinerate it. It makes this lovely little snapping sound, sends off a couple sparks, and sometimes even smokes a little. A completely addictive toy. Sometimes I stick out an arm or a leg to lure the mosquito within bat range, just to get a little power kick. Mwahahahaha.
But seriously, I wish they had this product in the states. It’s pretty great.
Anyway,
it’s getting down to crunch time here - our classes end next Friday, so I have a bunch of papers and proposals to write - but we got back from our Kerala tour last week and I wanted to share my pictures. Kerala is the state to the west of Tamil Nadu. It’s run by a Communist government, and they have (supposedly) the highest literacy rate of any region in India (Tamil Nadu comes close).
We did a lot of stuff with boats in Kerala - a boat tour of a wildlife sanctuary, a houseboat trip on our way to Cochin, and a trip through the backwaters in canoes (we learned a couple Malayalam rowing songs!). It was much cooler in the mountains where we visited the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the parks involved in the tiger conservation effort in India. That was really welcome - although the hundreds of leeches we encountered on our mini-trek through the refuge were not! I got a leech on my arm but our guide got it off using tobacco powder. We also saw Kathakali dancers. Kathakali is a Keralan form of dance-theater that tells stories of the deities through music, song,
and very very specific hand, eye, and body gestures. It was a treat - although we saw a shortened tourist version, as they usually go on all night!
In Cochin we visited Jew Town, where the once large community of Cochin Jews used to live - they’ve mostly emigrated to Israel now. The synagogue’s floor is covered with imported blue Chinese tiles, and perhaps twenty glass chandeliers hang around the bima - it’s very beautiful. Currently the community is comprised of five families, and eleven members - of which only four are men, so unless “six tourist men” come, as I was informed, there can’t be a minyan. (“Do you know six tourist men?” the caretaker asked me eagerly.) However, there were about 100 people there for Rosh Hashanah. The caretaker of the synagogue told me that Jewish families scattered here and there throughout Kerala come to the synagogue in Cochin for the high holidays.
The last night in Cochin, some friends and I had a little adventure. We really wanted to eat some fresh fish - and what fresher fish than the fish you catch yourself? So one of the members of our gang bought some fishing
line, a couple hooks, and tiny prawns for bait. Then we went down by the docks in Fort Cochin and fished. Well, actually what happened is we got there, sat down, stuck the hook and line into the water - and were promptly corrected by two or three of the eight Indian men already fishing there. First they taught us the correct technique of holding the line. Then they re-tied the hooks on for us. Then, they gave us a bamboo fishing pole, because we had no clue what we were doing. Then…they laughed at us. And we laughed at us. And we left empty-handed (although not without a lot of encouragement from our onlookers to stay on in the hopes of getting something - or at least, providing more entertainment for the locals).
So, still in remarkably high spirits, we headed over to the fish market where we bought one red snapper and four prawns. There were five of us - that seemed a fair amount. Except, one of us was a vegetarian. And the red snapper was huge. When we took the fish over to a nearby restaurant, I think they really doubted our abilities to eat
that amount of food. We got to watch them cook it - I couldn’t really tell exactly what he did with it, but I think he stuffed it with ginger and garlic and fried it in some spices. From the photos, you can tell how much of it we were able to consume. I think we astonished our hosts, and possibly ourselves. Then it was a frantic race to get a rickshaw to catch the last ferry over to our hotel, to jump in the vans to get to the nighttime train. All while stuffed with fish.
And I got my nose pierced! Well, yes, it was already pierced. But I'd been thinking for a while of getting some Indian jewelry, which is generally much larger and more flamboyant than American nose jewelry (I still got one of the smaller options!). The only thing is that the Indian hole is much larger than the American one - and it is a significant difference. I accompanied a large group of girls who went to get theirs done. It looked super painful! The man thought he could just shove the Indian jewelry into my nose, and he certainly tried, but in
the end he had to re-pierce it with the larger gauge. Luckily it wasn't very painful since there was already a hole to begin with!
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such adventures, Leah! but i'm confused about one thing - your classes end friday? end completely?