Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Nearly 5 months since I arrived to the Home for the Aged and already have to pack! I feel I’ve been in Coonoor all my life and I can hardly imagine another type of life. Although l’ll probably enjoy my un-convent liberation faster than what I feel (by the way: does the word “conventional” have something to do with a “convent”??!)

If look back at these past months, it’s not always been easy. The hardest part was to hold on day after day, to carry on looking after the elderly in a lovingly way, to have faith and trust in God even in front of physical and mental pain. Wake up at 5 am, go and make the beds/help the granpapas get dressed, and maintain the smile on.

Now I see I’ve accumulated an immense treasure! When an autistic gives you a smile, when Parkinson steps aside for a while, when a poor gives you a sweet: its inestimable wealth!! And I got so rich I want to share it with all and sundry!!

The concluding word of my Indian life is: BLESSING! 

Banana Republic

Mr. President

Lights on

DIY flash: bedside lamp fixed to a tape camera, plug hanging like a ribbon, amazing!!     

Blue gold

Running/clean water is still not available to all!  

Mess around

Muddle jumble tangle… and somehow it works! I love how everything is mismatched but some highest instinctive law holds everything together. No order, no straight lines, nothing systematic!! 

Hindi brownies!!!

They came to visit the old people and receive blessings for their exams. I love them!!!!

One of them cried at the sight of some of the residents. The others girls came running to hug her “don’t cry in front of them, please!!!” So sweet Ma!

“No need to cry! This is a nice place to spend the last years in: nice friends, regular doctor, spiritual facilities, comfy bed, good food…  When we are young we enjoy our strong health, so we can help others. Then little-little we grow elder and the others help us. When we die, we pray for the ones who have helped us, and wait for them!”

Simple, clear, and so kind!!!

La cucaracha! La cucaracha! Ya no puede caminar

They are all over the place!!

Dislike. Intensely.

I know I shouldn’t execute defenseless little beings... Whatever. I close my eyes and imagine I’m on KILL BILL!!!  

As Time Goes By

Melancholic last-days-of-summer-camp feeling.

In a little while I will be leaving Neverland, Peter Pan’s islands where the lost ragamuffin kids never grow up! - It’s funny to see that as they are getting older, the aged behave like children again -. They call me their daughter -or they baby!-, offer me tiny stuff to remember them, give me blessings…

“Soon I’ll be going to Heaven and I will wait for you there, sitting on my cloud!” Aaaaaaawwwwwww!

Tiffin surprise

CRAB SUNRISE!

Or rather sunset, bathing in its darkish bizarre gumbo. Mmmmmmhhhhhh.

Where is the sea again? Ah. A few hundred miles away.

Remember that Indiana Jones banquet scene, when monkey brain ice-cream and human eyes filled soup are served? 

Anyways: no waste policy. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I ate it. 

Et vive la mariée!

Although it’s changing in the cosmopolitan parts of India, marriage customs are still deeply anchored in Tamil Nadu. Coupa-Amma and Ragansami-Appa kindly invited me to their first daughter’s wedding, after long anxiety: waiting for proposals, dowry issues, and no boys matching (even astrology has to be checked). If the first daughter in the family wouldn’t get married, the rest of the children would have the same fate. Sed lex dura lex.   

The bridegroom’s relatives are in charge of finding an approved couple combination.  The prospective bride shouldn’t be too dark skinned, of an equivalent caste (that too hasn’t changed!), be less educated than her potential husband, and of course doesn’t get to chose who she will marry!

Nooooo way! I find it outrageous!!!! Poor them!!

“But that’s because of your traditions and your Western pragmatic intellectual heritage! The result is that in your country there are loads of divorces; while in India, whenever there is a problem in the couple, the parents solve it…”

Can such a cultural debate find a conclusion?!

Anywhoooo, the marriage reception was such a treat! The newly-married couple was on stage and the guests would come up to them with gifts and showers of blessings. Tons of beautiful flowers, orchids, jasmines, roses, marvelous saris, all our friends looking at their best, and a scrumptious Tamilian Banquet! Unfortunately I missed the nightfall Badaga dances. Convent curfew!   

Fast and Furious

INDIA: THE COUNTRY WHERE NUNS RIDE DIRT BIKES!!  

(and with nooooo hat on)

I’m probably one of the luckiest girls: been taken by Sister July for the utmost Mysore ride on her motorbike!! And I’m still breathing 

What’s The Story Morning Glory?

6 a.m. Little Sisters of the Poor. Coonoor. Tamil Nadu. India 

Shake That Ass for Me

Physiotherapy coach is one of my epithets at the convent. The workplace is like a good old gymnasium, almost a museum. The only novelty is the brand new bike sponsored by the local Rotary Club, whey!!!

The granpapas and grannies come for weights, massages, heat applications… Shaking and moving around to keep fit! Rheumatisms, aging, pain: give up the ghost!!!! 

Homeward Bound

Local Urbanization

All You Need is… a Dentist!

Worse than the warning pictures on tobacco packets

 Remember being told not to suck your thumb? Brush your teeth? That’s why

Those tiny little cute temples

I say

Ginger business

Harvested, selected, rinsed, dried up under the warm Indian sun, and then it lands… in my lemon tea! 

Sacred rhapsody