July 20, 2014: Kottayam, Kerala
We flew into Kochi airport and our host, Pyari, and his brother-in-law, Hari, picked us up. They had to borrow a vehicle large enough to accommodate Cheri and I (and our luggage!) and it took them 2-1/2 hours to drive us to the area of Kottayam that where his school is located.
Kerala is amazing! Forgive my "single story" approach to things, but it looks far more like the images of India that I hold from childhood. (Jungle book, etc.) than anywhere else we've seen thus far. Lush and green and tropical.....
There is so much to say about the state of Kerala. Pyari, our host, explains to us that overall the economic conditions in Kerala are much better and more stable than other areas of India because of the rubber plantations and other agricultural commodities. So far, we have seen teak, clove, cinnamon, tapioca, pineapple, nutmeg, cacao - I could go on and on!
And he is right - you simply don't see evidence of the grinding poverty that we witnessed in Bengaluru. There are incredible houses here (we are staying with one of the teachers overnight on Thursday and his house is spectacular!) and everywhere we look there are people moving to and from work, many carrying their crops to market, etc.
As I mentioned earlier, the states of India are divided based upon linguistics and the language spoken in Kerala is Malayalam, one of the modern languages that arose from Sanskrit. We're trying to learn, but phonetically it can be challenging to wrap our mouths around the language - they have 56 letters to our 26! We learn immediately that instead of "namasthe" we learn to greet our friends with the traditional "namaskarum," which delights most, but gives pain to the teachers of Malayalam that we meet along the way... :)
I am concerned that we will never want to leave. The climate is mostly delightful, something that we had not expected, and the people are absolutely heavenly - warm, intelligent, beautiful - and always, everywhere, we are welcomed with grace and enthusiasm.
We flew into Kochi airport and our host, Pyari, and his brother-in-law, Hari, picked us up. They had to borrow a vehicle large enough to accommodate Cheri and I (and our luggage!) and it took them 2-1/2 hours to drive us to the area of Kottayam that where his school is located.
Kerala is amazing! Forgive my "single story" approach to things, but it looks far more like the images of India that I hold from childhood. (Jungle book, etc.) than anywhere else we've seen thus far. Lush and green and tropical.....
There is so much to say about the state of Kerala. Pyari, our host, explains to us that overall the economic conditions in Kerala are much better and more stable than other areas of India because of the rubber plantations and other agricultural commodities. So far, we have seen teak, clove, cinnamon, tapioca, pineapple, nutmeg, cacao - I could go on and on!
And he is right - you simply don't see evidence of the grinding poverty that we witnessed in Bengaluru. There are incredible houses here (we are staying with one of the teachers overnight on Thursday and his house is spectacular!) and everywhere we look there are people moving to and from work, many carrying their crops to market, etc.
As I mentioned earlier, the states of India are divided based upon linguistics and the language spoken in Kerala is Malayalam, one of the modern languages that arose from Sanskrit. We're trying to learn, but phonetically it can be challenging to wrap our mouths around the language - they have 56 letters to our 26! We learn immediately that instead of "namasthe" we learn to greet our friends with the traditional "namaskarum," which delights most, but gives pain to the teachers of Malayalam that we meet along the way... :)
I am concerned that we will never want to leave. The climate is mostly delightful, something that we had not expected, and the people are absolutely heavenly - warm, intelligent, beautiful - and always, everywhere, we are welcomed with grace and enthusiasm.
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