Has it really only been a few days? What wonderful, rich, and exciting, and humorous days they have been!
Great news-we're all over jet lag! Still tired at moments, but now on the Indian +9 and a half hours time zone. I'm feeling great-I thought that adjusting to the time change would be really difficult for me, and I asked a team of you to pray specifically for that (THANK YOU!!!!) , and God is SOO good because thanks to your prayers I had no difficulty adjusting at all! In fact, by the third day I was good to go-so thank you so much!
Please continue to keep teammate Rachel in your prayers-she finally received her visa after all these weeks but also got sick in the process and went home. She won't be arriving until some time this week and will be arriving about a week into orientation-please be praying for her health, for her journey here-a long journey to make on one's own, and for her adjustment here.
So what all have we been up to? Well, Riba and her husband and their three little precious girls left and we miss them already. They were such a delight to play with and made our arrival and first two days joy-filled days. Since then, we have begun a little study of Malayalam, Bible study, and cultural orientation. Ian and Nicole and myself sit out on the veranda and sing songs, study, and learn from Achen. We've only just begun orientation and I'm looking forward to learning so much more.
On Friday, we left Achen's house for the first time since we got here and went to Chattala to Bishop Moore Vidyapith, where Ian's site will be. Right now the festival Onam is happening in Kerala and it is a very big deal-I think it's up there with Christmas! All of the schools have Onam celebrations and we went to Bishop Moore on their day of Onam festivities. As we arrived, we saw hundreds of children dressed in beautiful traditional Onam dress, each girl with her hair done up and laced with flowers and ornamented with many jewels, each girl, from the littlest to the oldest. Orange and yellow flowers were everywhere. It was an absolute explosion of color. We began to tour the school and as we did, all the students stared at us, smiled at us, followed us, and touched us. Some even handed us paper to get our autographs! Everywhere we went, smiling and giggling faces decked in the most beautiful outfits peered out at us.
The Onam festival lasts for ten days, and there are many traditions associated with the festival. One such tradition is the making of elaborate designs on the ground out of flower petals. At the school, the students compete in the flower design competition, and many other competitions ranging from martial arts to flower-arranging!
Shortly after our arrival we were kind of processed in to the large assembly through a row of people decked in flowers, and led up to the stage in front of all the students where we sat with the headmasters! Mind you-we were wearing t-shirts and feeling most under-dressed for the occasion! Some speeches were made and each of us was introduced to the multi-colored cheering throng and given a bouquet of flowers from a little girl! We were led up to the front of the stage to assist with the lighting of the traditional Onam lamp, and then were seated as the guests of honor in the very front row for the grand Onam performance- a vibrant and fascinating performance consisting of traditional dance, song, and drama related to Onam tradition. It was fascinating: in a song called the butterfly dance a girl in the middle representing the butterfly swooned while the girls around her chanted and sang. A children's choir with an unbelievably uniform sound sang, and there was a sort of 'boat race' where kids from each of the four houses of the school 'raced' in little cardboard boats...it was hilarious. The students were funny and charming in the final closing number where everyone came on stage, including a little girl and a little boy dressed up as 'foreigners' with shopping bags, binoculars, and sunglasses! Hilarious!
After the performance, we watched a traditional Onam game kind of like the pinata, and then were greeted by swarms of students, all asking us our names and how we like Kerala. It was wonderful to meet them and such a joy to be surrounded by so much love, warmth, and smiles. They were all very polite, asking "How do you do?" and offering their hand. (Random aside: at Bishop Moore they have prefects, Head Boy & Head Girl, and four competing houses, just like at Hogwarts! )
We were taken to an office where we enjoyed a traditional Onam meal eaten on a banana leaf (though our banana leaf at the time was actually one made of wax paper!) The people who served us watched us eat, which is something to get used to. In general, we are treated with such honor with lavish introductions and much special treatment-it is rather overwhelming, and extremely generous.
We spent most of the day at the school and then returned to Achen's place, and in the evening Nicole and I were taken by Achen and Kochamma to select the fabric for our first churidars (traditional dress). They will be sewn for us and we will pick them up in a few days.
Surprise singing! Today was another whirlwind day of many new exciting things. This morning we attended church together at Holy Trinity Church of South India where Achen assists. It was a two-hour service mostly in Malayalam. (Aside-barefoot church is quite enjoyable.) Breaking from his Malayalam in the middle of the service, the pastor suddenly introduced Ian, Nicole, and myself, and then asked me to sing a song for everyone. ?! I was pretty unprepared-Achen had told me this might happen but I thought he meant just in interactions with people, not in the middle of a sermon in the middle of a very liturgical service. I said, "Now?" and Achen encouraged me to come up to the microphone! I did not have a song planned, but suddenly thought of "How Great Thou Art" and sang only the chorus to it because I was too shocked right then and there to remember the verses. They were most appreciative and started humming along-turns out this was a good choice because this hymn in well-known here. And then I sat down shaking. Turns out nothing shocks you out of jetlag faster than being asked to unexpectedly sing a song in the middle of a two-hour service in Malayalam. Whew.
It was wonderful to meet people after church, and from there we went to a wedding that Achen was officiating-interestingly, a marriage between a Christian woman and a Hindu man. Here, I went with Binu (Achen's son) to sing with the little choir at the wedding. There were three hymns-two of which Binu and I had practiced last night together. The service was in English, and as it was being filmed there was a man holding a REALLY bright light that he shone behind the videographer.
There was an extremely funny moment when we sang the second hymn, which I did not know at all. The videographer came over and filmed the choir with the blaring light behind him. So here I was, standing with about five other singers, being filmed in this blaring light, and I didn't know the song at all.
I was shaking with silent laughter at the thought that when the couple looks back on their wedding video, in the middle of the choir stands a clueless blinking white girl who is trying really hard not to laugh and has no idea what is going on. Captured forever on film. Too funny.
After the wedding, we were taken to a wedding reception for a different couple. Here wedding receptions, at least for Christian weddings, consist of just a lunch, but you invite everyone you know! It was HUGE-held in a big auditorium. We enjoyed lunch and then had a chance to meet and congratulate the couple.
First choir rehearsal and my highly unsuccessful debut as a concert pianist: Later in the day, Binu was going to a choir rehearsal for a local choir and invited me to come with him. This choir of about 20 people has already begun rehearsing for their Christmas concert, and I was very interested to come and observe how this particular choral rehearsal was held and to perhaps participate. (Perhaps, haha.) Again, during a time of prayer, I was asked to sing a song. You'd think I'd be more prepared this time, but not really. From now on, I'm just going to be ready anytime, anywhere!!!!
The choir started rehearsing, and the director asked me if I wanted to help at the keyboard. I sat down and he said, "What a treat to have a full-time pianist with us! We are always using tracks and we so excited to have you play the accompaniment for us!" He also said that I would be joining them each Sunday night for rehearsal.
Whoops.
I told him that I can play parts but not really accompaniment...and it was a spiritual and a song I'd never seen before. So I flubbed all over the piano as they watched me try to play the accompaniment. The choir didn't know where to come in because I couldn't play it correctly, and it was just a mess, and I was causing a lot more confusion than being helpful. I did my best to just play the bass line, but even then if I messed up, they'd sing whatever note I played, so I was not really helping. We had to stop because I couldn't keep a steady beat, so I really just played melody and took things in smaller chunks. Eventually, the choir director turned on a loud steady beat that pretty well drowned out what I was playing, fortunately, and gave them a steady beat to keep them together. It was both embarassing and also really funny. I just kept smiling and trying to play something. The choir director was very gracious with me, as was the entire choir, and very understanding, but I was nonetheless happy to get away from the keyboard. So I'll think twice next time I offer to play keyboard. I don't know, I felt like a real fool, but sometimes I can actually play- I just don't know if I can play it or not until I'm up there and see the piece! Thanks to the warmth and great friendliness of the choir, and my profound apologies, I was able to laugh really hard about it with them. After rehearsal, I had the chance to meet many of them and felt very warmly welcomed. This turned out to be a great moment of humanness, of failure, and of laughter.
God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good-ESPECIALLY TODAY!
Lord, thank you so much for the love of the people here, for the ability to laugh and the many opportunities to do so. Thank you for the unexpected requests to sing and the opportunity to flub all over the piano. Thank you for my humanness, and for others' forgiveness. Thank you for the many celebrations of life today. Thank you for the unexpected, and for the exhaustion of a day filled with surprises and memories. Amen.
Great news-we're all over jet lag! Still tired at moments, but now on the Indian +9 and a half hours time zone. I'm feeling great-I thought that adjusting to the time change would be really difficult for me, and I asked a team of you to pray specifically for that (THANK YOU!!!!) , and God is SOO good because thanks to your prayers I had no difficulty adjusting at all! In fact, by the third day I was good to go-so thank you so much!
Please continue to keep teammate Rachel in your prayers-she finally received her visa after all these weeks but also got sick in the process and went home. She won't be arriving until some time this week and will be arriving about a week into orientation-please be praying for her health, for her journey here-a long journey to make on one's own, and for her adjustment here.
So what all have we been up to? Well, Riba and her husband and their three little precious girls left and we miss them already. They were such a delight to play with and made our arrival and first two days joy-filled days. Since then, we have begun a little study of Malayalam, Bible study, and cultural orientation. Ian and Nicole and myself sit out on the veranda and sing songs, study, and learn from Achen. We've only just begun orientation and I'm looking forward to learning so much more.
On Friday, we left Achen's house for the first time since we got here and went to Chattala to Bishop Moore Vidyapith, where Ian's site will be. Right now the festival Onam is happening in Kerala and it is a very big deal-I think it's up there with Christmas! All of the schools have Onam celebrations and we went to Bishop Moore on their day of Onam festivities. As we arrived, we saw hundreds of children dressed in beautiful traditional Onam dress, each girl with her hair done up and laced with flowers and ornamented with many jewels, each girl, from the littlest to the oldest. Orange and yellow flowers were everywhere. It was an absolute explosion of color. We began to tour the school and as we did, all the students stared at us, smiled at us, followed us, and touched us. Some even handed us paper to get our autographs! Everywhere we went, smiling and giggling faces decked in the most beautiful outfits peered out at us.
The Onam festival lasts for ten days, and there are many traditions associated with the festival. One such tradition is the making of elaborate designs on the ground out of flower petals. At the school, the students compete in the flower design competition, and many other competitions ranging from martial arts to flower-arranging!
Shortly after our arrival we were kind of processed in to the large assembly through a row of people decked in flowers, and led up to the stage in front of all the students where we sat with the headmasters! Mind you-we were wearing t-shirts and feeling most under-dressed for the occasion! Some speeches were made and each of us was introduced to the multi-colored cheering throng and given a bouquet of flowers from a little girl! We were led up to the front of the stage to assist with the lighting of the traditional Onam lamp, and then were seated as the guests of honor in the very front row for the grand Onam performance- a vibrant and fascinating performance consisting of traditional dance, song, and drama related to Onam tradition. It was fascinating: in a song called the butterfly dance a girl in the middle representing the butterfly swooned while the girls around her chanted and sang. A children's choir with an unbelievably uniform sound sang, and there was a sort of 'boat race' where kids from each of the four houses of the school 'raced' in little cardboard boats...it was hilarious. The students were funny and charming in the final closing number where everyone came on stage, including a little girl and a little boy dressed up as 'foreigners' with shopping bags, binoculars, and sunglasses! Hilarious!
After the performance, we watched a traditional Onam game kind of like the pinata, and then were greeted by swarms of students, all asking us our names and how we like Kerala. It was wonderful to meet them and such a joy to be surrounded by so much love, warmth, and smiles. They were all very polite, asking "How do you do?" and offering their hand. (Random aside: at Bishop Moore they have prefects, Head Boy & Head Girl, and four competing houses, just like at Hogwarts! )
We were taken to an office where we enjoyed a traditional Onam meal eaten on a banana leaf (though our banana leaf at the time was actually one made of wax paper!) The people who served us watched us eat, which is something to get used to. In general, we are treated with such honor with lavish introductions and much special treatment-it is rather overwhelming, and extremely generous.
We spent most of the day at the school and then returned to Achen's place, and in the evening Nicole and I were taken by Achen and Kochamma to select the fabric for our first churidars (traditional dress). They will be sewn for us and we will pick them up in a few days.
Surprise singing! Today was another whirlwind day of many new exciting things. This morning we attended church together at Holy Trinity Church of South India where Achen assists. It was a two-hour service mostly in Malayalam. (Aside-barefoot church is quite enjoyable.) Breaking from his Malayalam in the middle of the service, the pastor suddenly introduced Ian, Nicole, and myself, and then asked me to sing a song for everyone. ?! I was pretty unprepared-Achen had told me this might happen but I thought he meant just in interactions with people, not in the middle of a sermon in the middle of a very liturgical service. I said, "Now?" and Achen encouraged me to come up to the microphone! I did not have a song planned, but suddenly thought of "How Great Thou Art" and sang only the chorus to it because I was too shocked right then and there to remember the verses. They were most appreciative and started humming along-turns out this was a good choice because this hymn in well-known here. And then I sat down shaking. Turns out nothing shocks you out of jetlag faster than being asked to unexpectedly sing a song in the middle of a two-hour service in Malayalam. Whew.
It was wonderful to meet people after church, and from there we went to a wedding that Achen was officiating-interestingly, a marriage between a Christian woman and a Hindu man. Here, I went with Binu (Achen's son) to sing with the little choir at the wedding. There were three hymns-two of which Binu and I had practiced last night together. The service was in English, and as it was being filmed there was a man holding a REALLY bright light that he shone behind the videographer.
There was an extremely funny moment when we sang the second hymn, which I did not know at all. The videographer came over and filmed the choir with the blaring light behind him. So here I was, standing with about five other singers, being filmed in this blaring light, and I didn't know the song at all.
I was shaking with silent laughter at the thought that when the couple looks back on their wedding video, in the middle of the choir stands a clueless blinking white girl who is trying really hard not to laugh and has no idea what is going on. Captured forever on film. Too funny.
After the wedding, we were taken to a wedding reception for a different couple. Here wedding receptions, at least for Christian weddings, consist of just a lunch, but you invite everyone you know! It was HUGE-held in a big auditorium. We enjoyed lunch and then had a chance to meet and congratulate the couple.
First choir rehearsal and my highly unsuccessful debut as a concert pianist: Later in the day, Binu was going to a choir rehearsal for a local choir and invited me to come with him. This choir of about 20 people has already begun rehearsing for their Christmas concert, and I was very interested to come and observe how this particular choral rehearsal was held and to perhaps participate. (Perhaps, haha.) Again, during a time of prayer, I was asked to sing a song. You'd think I'd be more prepared this time, but not really. From now on, I'm just going to be ready anytime, anywhere!!!!
The choir started rehearsing, and the director asked me if I wanted to help at the keyboard. I sat down and he said, "What a treat to have a full-time pianist with us! We are always using tracks and we so excited to have you play the accompaniment for us!" He also said that I would be joining them each Sunday night for rehearsal.
Whoops.
I told him that I can play parts but not really accompaniment...and it was a spiritual and a song I'd never seen before. So I flubbed all over the piano as they watched me try to play the accompaniment. The choir didn't know where to come in because I couldn't play it correctly, and it was just a mess, and I was causing a lot more confusion than being helpful. I did my best to just play the bass line, but even then if I messed up, they'd sing whatever note I played, so I was not really helping. We had to stop because I couldn't keep a steady beat, so I really just played melody and took things in smaller chunks. Eventually, the choir director turned on a loud steady beat that pretty well drowned out what I was playing, fortunately, and gave them a steady beat to keep them together. It was both embarassing and also really funny. I just kept smiling and trying to play something. The choir director was very gracious with me, as was the entire choir, and very understanding, but I was nonetheless happy to get away from the keyboard. So I'll think twice next time I offer to play keyboard. I don't know, I felt like a real fool, but sometimes I can actually play- I just don't know if I can play it or not until I'm up there and see the piece! Thanks to the warmth and great friendliness of the choir, and my profound apologies, I was able to laugh really hard about it with them. After rehearsal, I had the chance to meet many of them and felt very warmly welcomed. This turned out to be a great moment of humanness, of failure, and of laughter.
God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good-ESPECIALLY TODAY!
Lord, thank you so much for the love of the people here, for the ability to laugh and the many opportunities to do so. Thank you for the unexpected requests to sing and the opportunity to flub all over the piano. Thank you for my humanness, and for others' forgiveness. Thank you for the many celebrations of life today. Thank you for the unexpected, and for the exhaustion of a day filled with surprises and memories. Amen.
The festival sounds really awesome! I'm glad you got to take part in that right when you started! Best of luck for the next couple weeks as you get settled!
ReplyDeleteI love your sense of humor in potentially awkward situations. I will be praying for you as you transition into your called area. What a blessing your acclimation time seems to have been for everyone.
ReplyDelete