Today we left Chennai and took a 3-hour bus ride south on the East Coast Road (sort of like India’s Route 6 on the Cape..) to Pondicherry, a holdover from the French colonial effort in this part of the subcontinent. The people in this part of the country are Tamils – they are physically quite different from farther north, and speak a different language and rarely have English or Hindi. They are more religious, and ornate colorful temples (and little “porta-temples” on random corners) are everywhere. There is also a concentration of Christians here – mostly with the last names of apostles and other Biblical figures (I met someone named George and Paul and thought the Beatles were the influence, but met a David and a Thomas and figured it out).
The ride south on the bus was like every other ride everywhere here- if you close your eyes for a moment you’ll miss something astounding. From trucks and busses crammed with people and goods to families precariously perched on motorbikes to ox-drawn carts going through major toll booths (imagine the Mass. Pike)… and once you have that in your mind, add cows permitted to wander undisturbed through traffic and meandering the median, safe in their holy status. Today we passed shrimp farms, spirulina farms, rice paddies and salt mines. “Back to the salt mines” and “holy cow!” have much more meaning to us now!
At lunchtime we arrived a Udavi School in Auroville, just beside Pondicherry. Auroville was started in 1968 as an experiment in peaceful community living (that is simplistic - please look at the Web site for more). People from 124 different countries came here to live a peaceful, accepting existence. Since then it has grown into a large set of townships including people from all over the world with skills to add to the community. This school is an effort to reach the children of the 13 local Tamil villages in this region, who otherwise might not get school at all, and certainly would live their lives at a subsistence level only. The school has 30 teachers and 40 volunteers who teach the 250 students on the beautiful campus, exposing them to art, language, dance, reading, English, maths, science and more. They may attend this school for 50 rupees a year (just over $1), make their own uniforms, and the experience they get is tremendous. Unlike schools we have seen which are quite rigid and teaching for a particular set of tests, this school offers teachers nearly complete autonomy. The volunteers are people who come from all over the world to immerse themselves in this very peaceful spiritual life, and they add so much (for example, the students are coached in volleyball by a Russian Olympic coach called Vladimir…)
At Udavi we arrived in time to eat lunch with the kids in their communal fashion (though we got spoons, as they typically scoop their food with the fingers of their right hand; plates are scraped onto a stone where the campus dog feasts), then toured the campus, then met to begin our service project, whitewashing a new wall for painting. During that project same of the girls brought out kollam powder and showed us how it is their tradition to make designs using this chalky powder outside their homes each morning. It is a skill typically practiced by women, though some boys joined in too (including Mr. Walczak and Erik!) The end results are gorgeous shapes which essentially wish guests to and occupants of the house a good day. After the labor we talked about our lives in a group, and then the Udavi students (9th graders) did a piece of classical Indian dance for us that was astounding.
Once that was over we all crammed into our bus and rode 10 minutes to a beautiful beach owned by Auroville (therefore not public), where we got our suits on and finally swam in the ocean. In Mumbai it is not done, so this was a huge relief on a very hot day!
After swimming we moved on to Pondi to an amazing heritage hotel, the de l’Orient, which I will post pictures of later. Suffice it to say it is extraordinarily beautiful and peaceful, and the French food is tremendous!
Tomorrow, a fishing village obliterated by the 12/05 tsunami that is nearly rebuilt. It will be a chance for the kids to hear about the tsunami from eyewitnesses and see the havoc it wrought.
The ride south on the bus was like every other ride everywhere here- if you close your eyes for a moment you’ll miss something astounding. From trucks and busses crammed with people and goods to families precariously perched on motorbikes to ox-drawn carts going through major toll booths (imagine the Mass. Pike)… and once you have that in your mind, add cows permitted to wander undisturbed through traffic and meandering the median, safe in their holy status. Today we passed shrimp farms, spirulina farms, rice paddies and salt mines. “Back to the salt mines” and “holy cow!” have much more meaning to us now!
At lunchtime we arrived a Udavi School in Auroville, just beside Pondicherry. Auroville was started in 1968 as an experiment in peaceful community living (that is simplistic - please look at the Web site for more). People from 124 different countries came here to live a peaceful, accepting existence. Since then it has grown into a large set of townships including people from all over the world with skills to add to the community. This school is an effort to reach the children of the 13 local Tamil villages in this region, who otherwise might not get school at all, and certainly would live their lives at a subsistence level only. The school has 30 teachers and 40 volunteers who teach the 250 students on the beautiful campus, exposing them to art, language, dance, reading, English, maths, science and more. They may attend this school for 50 rupees a year (just over $1), make their own uniforms, and the experience they get is tremendous. Unlike schools we have seen which are quite rigid and teaching for a particular set of tests, this school offers teachers nearly complete autonomy. The volunteers are people who come from all over the world to immerse themselves in this very peaceful spiritual life, and they add so much (for example, the students are coached in volleyball by a Russian Olympic coach called Vladimir…)
At Udavi we arrived in time to eat lunch with the kids in their communal fashion (though we got spoons, as they typically scoop their food with the fingers of their right hand; plates are scraped onto a stone where the campus dog feasts), then toured the campus, then met to begin our service project, whitewashing a new wall for painting. During that project same of the girls brought out kollam powder and showed us how it is their tradition to make designs using this chalky powder outside their homes each morning. It is a skill typically practiced by women, though some boys joined in too (including Mr. Walczak and Erik!) The end results are gorgeous shapes which essentially wish guests to and occupants of the house a good day. After the labor we talked about our lives in a group, and then the Udavi students (9th graders) did a piece of classical Indian dance for us that was astounding.
Once that was over we all crammed into our bus and rode 10 minutes to a beautiful beach owned by Auroville (therefore not public), where we got our suits on and finally swam in the ocean. In Mumbai it is not done, so this was a huge relief on a very hot day!
After swimming we moved on to Pondi to an amazing heritage hotel, the de l’Orient, which I will post pictures of later. Suffice it to say it is extraordinarily beautiful and peaceful, and the French food is tremendous!
Tomorrow, a fishing village obliterated by the 12/05 tsunami that is nearly rebuilt. It will be a chance for the kids to hear about the tsunami from eyewitnesses and see the havoc it wrought.
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