Hi
So I have been in Kerala since mid June and in Thiruvalla (pronounced Tee - rue - vay - lah with the emphasis for the vay- lah and the tee - rue barely spoken) for 4 weeks so here are some observations on my time so far....
I don't know whether Kerala is more conservative than Sikkim or whether the "glow" of being in India has worn off but I'm definately having a harder time in Kerala than Sikkim. Anyhow Kerala feels very conservative, especially in the ordinary town that I am based in. Women are expected to know their place and keep to their place and I feel like screaming most of the time. The dress is very traditional - sarees for older women, salwar and kameez for teenagers and dresses for small girls. Small girls have short hair untill about 7 - 10 then they grow it. I have hardly seen a woman with short hair and when I do, I want to go up to her to congratulate her (but of course I don't). On the buses, the women sit at the front of the bus and the men at the back and never the two shall meet. Except on state buses, when the women sit at the back of the bus and the men sit at the front. I have rarely seen women working - most of them are in the homes being mothers and housewives. The shop keepers, waiters, cooks etc are all men. But some women do escape to university and study and get degrees and some must get some sort of professional job, at least before they get married but it's hard to come into contact with them. The teachers at the school where I work on Mondays and Tuesdays are a mixed group of young, single women, married women and a couple of older unmarried women - so some women who are married work..... nb no male teachers at the school therefore I suppose it is safe for the women to work there!
Kerala is also feels wealthier than Sikkim - and statistically it is so. It became a state in the 50s after independence and has been dominated by the communist party. So it has the highest literacy rate in the whole country - hurrah. Also it has big links with the Middle East with many men working there. It was explained to me that this happened because the Communist Party gave the land from the land owners to the people who actually worked the land. Therefore the landowners lost their source of income and looked around for another source of relatively easy income.... hence ties with the Middle East. My landlady's husband is working in Dubai and oneof the blokes from the milk shop is just here on holiday from Kuwait and is returning this week. The houses feel more substantial here and it's harder to spot "poorer" housing. I haven't seen anything yet which compares to the mud houses/lean-tos that I saw alot of in Sikkim, except for the some housing in the backwaters.
Whoever said that whatever happens I would lose some weight in India was entirely mistaken!! Keralans eat like there is no tomorrow - huge mountains of rice all eaten very quickly. And there is no hanging around after you have eaten enjoying a post-prandial chat and letting the food go down. It's jump up and let's get on with the next thing.... which in women's cases is the mountain of washing up. I am even getting into this mentality myself. After last night's nice meal of dahl, chappatti and beetroot thondor, I dashed up straight away to do the dishes, thinking "must crack on or the ants will be out again". I have learnt that the high incidence of diabetes here in India is due to the amount of rice people eat, as well as the amount of sugar. I'm hoping that I'm OK and shall be escaping soon and hopefully getting my blood sugar level down to a more acceptable level. In the meantime, I am blooming with a very rounded tummy, despite the amount of sweating I am doing in this incredibly humid climate.
I have TV in the flat (I can watch BBC world news and some crummy American channel in between adverts every 5 minutes) and I do have a cold water shower and a western toilet.... but I do miss my lovely room in Sikkim with the most amazing views, washing from a tap and using the squat toilet. I miss the kids in Sikkim. The children here are lovely but I don't really get to spend much time with them to really get to know them. In Sikkim I was working in the same small school 6 days a week for 2 months... here I do 1 session a week with 15 different groups in 6 different settings. And I won't really have a sense of the countryside here in Kerala, apart from the back waters which are truly lovely and very peaceful but feel worlds away from Thiruvalla with its crazy traffic and ribbon development between town centres. I don't get a sense of fields here or the lay of the land. The landscape is dominated by very tall tropical trees so no sense of the landscape unfolding in beautiful vistas.
Malayalam is very hard language to learn and you know I am not the most gifted linguist but I am having a stab at it. I can now say my name is Bee, how are you, I am fine, count 1 - 10 and say the colours. I am learning now to say "sit down and listen to me" which I realise is fairly crucial when working with children! I am also able to pronounce reasonably correctly the place names of the towns where I work so I don't need my written prompt card when I get on a bus.
Off to what is known as the supermarket but doesn't sell everything... but it does sell peanut butter and white sliced bread which is my stand-by snack food when all else fails or when I am too tired to cook.
cheers
bee
So I have been in Kerala since mid June and in Thiruvalla (pronounced Tee - rue - vay - lah with the emphasis for the vay- lah and the tee - rue barely spoken) for 4 weeks so here are some observations on my time so far....
I don't know whether Kerala is more conservative than Sikkim or whether the "glow" of being in India has worn off but I'm definately having a harder time in Kerala than Sikkim. Anyhow Kerala feels very conservative, especially in the ordinary town that I am based in. Women are expected to know their place and keep to their place and I feel like screaming most of the time. The dress is very traditional - sarees for older women, salwar and kameez for teenagers and dresses for small girls. Small girls have short hair untill about 7 - 10 then they grow it. I have hardly seen a woman with short hair and when I do, I want to go up to her to congratulate her (but of course I don't). On the buses, the women sit at the front of the bus and the men at the back and never the two shall meet. Except on state buses, when the women sit at the back of the bus and the men sit at the front. I have rarely seen women working - most of them are in the homes being mothers and housewives. The shop keepers, waiters, cooks etc are all men. But some women do escape to university and study and get degrees and some must get some sort of professional job, at least before they get married but it's hard to come into contact with them. The teachers at the school where I work on Mondays and Tuesdays are a mixed group of young, single women, married women and a couple of older unmarried women - so some women who are married work..... nb no male teachers at the school therefore I suppose it is safe for the women to work there!
Kerala is also feels wealthier than Sikkim - and statistically it is so. It became a state in the 50s after independence and has been dominated by the communist party. So it has the highest literacy rate in the whole country - hurrah. Also it has big links with the Middle East with many men working there. It was explained to me that this happened because the Communist Party gave the land from the land owners to the people who actually worked the land. Therefore the landowners lost their source of income and looked around for another source of relatively easy income.... hence ties with the Middle East. My landlady's husband is working in Dubai and oneof the blokes from the milk shop is just here on holiday from Kuwait and is returning this week. The houses feel more substantial here and it's harder to spot "poorer" housing. I haven't seen anything yet which compares to the mud houses/lean-tos that I saw alot of in Sikkim, except for the some housing in the backwaters.
Whoever said that whatever happens I would lose some weight in India was entirely mistaken!! Keralans eat like there is no tomorrow - huge mountains of rice all eaten very quickly. And there is no hanging around after you have eaten enjoying a post-prandial chat and letting the food go down. It's jump up and let's get on with the next thing.... which in women's cases is the mountain of washing up. I am even getting into this mentality myself. After last night's nice meal of dahl, chappatti and beetroot thondor, I dashed up straight away to do the dishes, thinking "must crack on or the ants will be out again". I have learnt that the high incidence of diabetes here in India is due to the amount of rice people eat, as well as the amount of sugar. I'm hoping that I'm OK and shall be escaping soon and hopefully getting my blood sugar level down to a more acceptable level. In the meantime, I am blooming with a very rounded tummy, despite the amount of sweating I am doing in this incredibly humid climate.
I have TV in the flat (I can watch BBC world news and some crummy American channel in between adverts every 5 minutes) and I do have a cold water shower and a western toilet.... but I do miss my lovely room in Sikkim with the most amazing views, washing from a tap and using the squat toilet. I miss the kids in Sikkim. The children here are lovely but I don't really get to spend much time with them to really get to know them. In Sikkim I was working in the same small school 6 days a week for 2 months... here I do 1 session a week with 15 different groups in 6 different settings. And I won't really have a sense of the countryside here in Kerala, apart from the back waters which are truly lovely and very peaceful but feel worlds away from Thiruvalla with its crazy traffic and ribbon development between town centres. I don't get a sense of fields here or the lay of the land. The landscape is dominated by very tall tropical trees so no sense of the landscape unfolding in beautiful vistas.
Malayalam is very hard language to learn and you know I am not the most gifted linguist but I am having a stab at it. I can now say my name is Bee, how are you, I am fine, count 1 - 10 and say the colours. I am learning now to say "sit down and listen to me" which I realise is fairly crucial when working with children! I am also able to pronounce reasonably correctly the place names of the towns where I work so I don't need my written prompt card when I get on a bus.
Off to what is known as the supermarket but doesn't sell everything... but it does sell peanut butter and white sliced bread which is my stand-by snack food when all else fails or when I am too tired to cook.
cheers
bee
No comments:
Post a Comment