Second week

---

Second week
Saturday evening we were invited to a women's festival being held in the women's hall of residence on the campus. The building was lit up with strings of coloured lights, and there was a stage for the dancers. There were Bollywood style dancers, and modern dancing, and one girl who did robotic style body popping to rapturous applause. The audience tended to scream and cheer through the performances more than at the end. We were invited, fairly forcefully, up on to the stage, and it seemed churlish to refuse, so we went up there thinking we could do the twist (we are mostly that generation), but the music they played didn't lend itself to twisting so we all did our individual thing and the audience send to like it. Luckily the lights were in our eyes and we couldn't see much apart from the little lights of 50 or so phones recording us. Maybe we'll be on YouTube under 'Geriatrics making fools of themselves’.
Sunday we had a two hour drive to the town of
Kanyakumari at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu (and India) where the Arabian sea, the Indian ocean and the Bay of Bengal meet. Apparently you can see both sunrise and sunset on the sea from the same spot.
We took a boat trip, very crowded, but we all were given a flotation jacket, to the island where Swami Vivekananda meditated for three days and nights. There was a big meditation chamber and a footprint, (allegedly) of Pavarti, Shiva’s wife.
There is a second island with a huge statue of the father of Tamil Nadu's poets,Tiruvalluar, who lived approx 35 BC. The statue is the height in feet of the number of poems he wrote. There was also a Gandhi monument, as some of his ashes were scattered here. From this monument we could look down on the square, thronged with people, buying nuts, bags of what looked like candyfloss and fruit, and buying from a string of stalls selling items for 20 and 30 rupees, or having a ride on the horses up and down the square. There aren't many white faces to be seen here, and we are often asked to be in a selfie with a group or family.
Monday after more painting, eight of us talk to the first year Secondary school teacher trainees. An English volunteer is teaching them about psychology, and they requested help with English, so we had a group of about eight students each. The group I had were all bar one going to teach English so their language was quite good. They were chatty and interested, and applauded my age and length of time I'd spent teaching. At the end of the hour they wanted a selfie with me. They were a mixture of Hindu and Christians, and would all have an arranged marriage at some point. They seemed quite happy with this. ‘It is our culture’, they said. Their hobbies were much the same as English students; listening to music, watching TV, dancing, reading, and one liked playing sport. They all had a uniform of pink saris, while the Primary trainees we'd seen the previous week had red and gold saris.
After this, Charles took a group of us for a walk up to a temple, and on the way we saw a large deer,peacocks, wild pigs, chipmunks and monkeys. Charles said he had seen an elephant there once before and a man up there said if we waited till 6 o'clock we might see a bear. We weren't sure that we wanted to; it felt spooky enough hearing the dry leaves rustle on the palm trees.
We went past what was going to be a canal; approved by one government, but the idea was scotched by the next government. There was a dam further down the river but the yearly monsoon in October and November was very short so there was very little water. On the west side of the Ghats there are two monsoons each year, but the eastern side has only one.
Tuesday was more painting, and the four of us who Bryan, the coordinator, had specially mentioned as worthy of praise because we had done most of the high painting, felt obliged to do some more and finish it. Then we carried on with painting the window grilles and shutters. In the afternoons the workmen sometimes carry on with more skilled work. If there is more to do we will go again on Friday before the inauguration on Saturday. Considering how brightly many of the houses are painted I think we are lucky that the colours chosen for the building are a pale green for the walls, and dark green for the sites and window grilles, with the inside diamonds of the grilles painted pale yellow. I would have hated to have been painting a virulent bilberry colour that I have seen on quite a few houses.
Tuesday afternoon we drive up to a country park in the hills to a waterfall. You aren't allowed to swim but you can stand under the waterfall fully clothed. Several of us did this. The locals, mostly young men, screamed and shouted under it; it wasn't cold but it was a forceful deluge and very invigorating. There were loads of monkeys playing; we'd been warned to be careful as they might try and grab our things, but they left us alone. There were notices telling us not to feed the animals, otherwise they get to associate humans with food.
The weather this week has been a little hotter, about 37 degrees and we are glad that our rooms have fans. It's tiring working in the heat, and we are often glad of an afternoon nap, though we are kept quite busy most of the time. We're often in bed by 9pm which is usual for Toni I think, but is very early for me, but I seem to need the sleep and rarely wake before the alarm goes off at 7.30am.

---