Posted on February 16, 2017 under Faces in the Crowd with no comments yet

 

“ I am not angry at God or anyone else for being afflicted with leprosy.”

Meet John Ponnya.

John was born in Tirunelveli, India and he and his three brothers and three sisters were brought up on a farm. As the eldest of the siblings, it fell to him to work on the farm. Going to school was not an option. His father was a rice farmer and things were not easy. He became an important part of the farm operation as he learned how to drive at an early age.

Around the time he was thirty, he started experiencing health problems and inexplicably lost a finger. After several trips to the doctor, it was discovered that John had contracted leprosy, a dreaded disease. He was immediately abandoned and asked to leave the house. He was devastated and felt like an outcast, a feeling that he carries with him to this day.

Leprosy is a contagious disease that affects the skin, mucous membranes, and nerves, causing discoloration and lumps on the skin and, in severe cases, disfigurement and deformities.

And so began a life of wandering, searching for a place to call home.  He moved to Kerala where he had no choice but to beg as those affected by leprosy were shunned, making employment all but impossible. His travels took him to Alappi, followed by Trivandrum and then Marthandam. Very often, he and others affected by leprosy ended up sleeping on railway platforms, catching the attention of local police. All the while, his leprosy progressed in severity making life all that more difficult.

It was in Nagercoil, where he shared a railway platform with many others, that a life changing event was about to unfold. One member of the group, a proclaimed leader of sorts, petitioned the government ( unsuccessfully ) for some kind of shelter for the group who simply could not find or afford a home. A local priest,  recognized their plight. He had a friend in the neighboring town of Kanyakumari. Her name was Sister Stella, a member of the Daughter’s of Mary at Stella Maris Convent, a Roman Catholic congregation committed to the plight of the poor and disadvantaged.

Sister Stella , the superior and Sister Archana Das were the driving forces behind this initiative.

The Sisters owned a parcel of land adjacent to their convent and offered the land as a place to start a small community for people with leprosy. Small thatched homes were constructed later with the hands of local youths and the Sisters themselves. These were replaced years later by concrete structures supplied by the government. John and his wife, Ayasha have lived there for the past twenty two years. They raised four children , two of whom  are deceased.

Ayasha operates a small convenience store which serves only the residents of the immediate community.

“ My dream is for the business to grow to a point where I don’t have to beg any more.”

Despite a life time of challenges, John is remarkably upbeat. He has a gleam in his eyes and laughs easily. His faith is unshakeable and he knows that some day his suffering will end and that the good Lord will be there to accept him when that time comes.

John did not choose leprosy. Leprosy chose John. He has done his best.

 

The leprosy community is badly in need of water taps. There are 60 homes and only 10 outdoor water taps to supply all the water required for cooking, cleaning and bathing. We are conducting a fundraising campaign to raise the money required to install 50 new taps. The taps are $100 each. To donate please go to:

Supporting The Daughters of Mary in India

Posted on February 13, 2017 under Monday Morning Musings with 3 comments

The Candidates at Sunset Point. Kanyakumari, India.

Confounding India.

The story that I posted on Saturday elicited a few interesting comments. A few people (?!) are seriously questioning my sanity. If you were too busy shovelling snow back home or removing sand from between your toes in Florida, take a minute and read, “ A Fine Grind,” an account of my first bus trip in India. As I have said countless times in my reporting, over the past 3.5 months, if you are a person who doesn’t like change or uncertainty, India is probably not the place for you. But if you are adaptable and have a very good sense of humour, you will manage very well over here and learn a lot about a fascinating country. You’ll also learn a lot about yourself.

Sitting outside the office at the B@B is like a meeting of the United Nations. We have the opportunity to chat with people from all over the globe. Many of them had travelled to India several times and find something new with every trip. And just about every one of them says the same thing. There are a few times when everyone of them ( myself included )  neared the breaking point. You have one of those days when there are transportation glitches, power outages and poor internet connections… and probably another fistful of irritants. You’re ready to get the next train out of town and head straight for the airport… if the train is on time and hasn’t been suddenly cancelled! You’re standing on a street corner of a busy city, helplessly lost and you get ten different sets of directions to where you’re supposed to be going. Your inner thermostat is nearly off the chart and you’re thinking, “ get me out of here.”

And then something magical happens.

This past Saturday was a busy day and it was filled with some of the aforementioned “irritants.” Sometimes they accumulate over a few days, or a few hours. I wasn’t particularly stressed. The common refrain among foreigners is , “ it’s just India.”

So, I’m sitting on the patio of the B@B and an auto rickshaw pulls up. With considerable difficulty, the driver assists a man out and on to the ground onto a small wooden platform that serves as his mode of getting around, as his legs are atrophied and many of his fingers are missing. I immediately recognize John, one of our neighbors from the leprosy community next door. Now, John has a reason to complain as he didn’t go looking for leprosy in his youth. It found him and changed the course of his life. He is not bitter. Far from it. You’ll read his story this coming Thursday. He has stopped by, not to complain about  the lack of water taps in the colony. He has come by for a few minutes to thank me for listening to his story ( when I did the interview ) and to tell me ( through a translator )  that he loved me. All this, with the biggest smile on his face. You feel a bit ashamed for complaining about poor internet.

I dusted off my BEd. last week and returned to the classroom to teach English as a second language to 14 young women who are in the early stages of preparing for a life of vocations. Prior to their arrival, I had been told that they knew no English and that I would really be starting from ground zero. And so, I planned accordingly and consulted with some ESL instructors who graciously gave me several lesson plans starting with the alphabet, days of the week and numbers.

Anyone who has taught elementary school , especially the kindergartens and grade ones, will totally understand what’s coming next. Eons ago, I remember substitute teaching for a classroom of grade ones, something I had never done before. I prepared a week of lesson plans. Before lunch time on the first day, the children had completed every single task , every handout, every picture to color and were looking for more… by noon… on the first day. I remember going to the staff room at lunch time with a slight look of panic on my face, wondering what in the hell I was going to do for the rest of the day, let alone the rest of the week!

My first clue that the information given to me about the girls’ English proficiency was inaccurate happened at 6:00 a.m. on Day 1. Mass. It was an English mass and they were easily able to read every word of the liturgy. I had a flashback to the grade one class. I thought to myself, “ maybe they just memorized this at the convent and really didn’t understand a word that they were parroting.”  Wrong.

I had an interpreter with me when class began at 10:00 that morning. I started by introducing myself, giving some family and work background. I paused to let the translator explain. She looked at me and said, “They understand every word you’re saying.” I turned on the air conditioning to hide the perspiration forming on my brow. The week of lesson plans sitting on my computer’s desktop waiting to go up on the big screen, were completely useless. As fervently religious as the young charges in front of me appeared to be,  no one prayed harder for divine intervention at that point in time than me.

I dusted off another old skill: stick handling ( from my Junior Bulldogs days ). I stick handled my way through the rest of the day and then spent the evening ( and a restless sleep ) trying to develop a curriculum for “Intermediate ESL students.”

It’s just India!

Have a great week.

Posted on February 11, 2017 under Storytelling with 2 comments

 

The wheels on the bus go round and round

 

The quest was simple enough. Hop on a bus and travel 23 kilometers to the town of Nagercoil, India to try and find some coffee, fit for human consumption. Prior to leaving Canada last October, I pondered all of the challenges that I might encounter. Was I worried about malaria, dengue fever, war, insurrection, typhoon or tsunami? Not for a minute. No. As a self- professed coffee snob, I was worried most about the availability of good coffee. With the supply of Just Us coffee from home and a few pounds of Turkish dark roast from Abu Dhabi nearing extinction, it was time for action.

 A friend purchased a bag of store bought coffee awhile back. When I finally ran out of the good stuff, I was forced to use it. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The words ” fresh ground” took on a whole new meaning when I took the first mouthful. It indeed tasted just like fresh ground.

My friends, Ninian and Carol have travelled by bus to Nagercoil on numerous occasions and as they were going there again, I decided to tag along to learn the ropes about bus travel in India. When I inquired about the departure time, my friends told me that we would find out when we got to the station, such is the unpredictable nature of travel in India.

We didn’t have to wait long before boarding our bus but before we did, I noticed a curious looking cleaning crew. With the windows of the bus wide open, crows hovered inside and outside waiting to see if there might be some crumbs lying around. As we stepped onto the bus, I happened to peer at the tires. I am bald but I can tell you that there was far more hair on my head than tread on those tires. The look of the driver’s seat, steering column and dashboard made it appear than the bus was a gift from the new government when it achieved independence 67 years ago.

The bus was not crowded when we left the terminal but slowly it filled along the route. It wasn’t a tough decision to give up my seat to an elderly lady as my knees were pressed up against my chin. By Indian standards the bus wasn’t crowded but if you were just a smidgen claustrophobic or you didn’t like saunas, then this is a mode of travel you might want to avoid.

Ninian and Carol hopped off the bus a few stops before the main terminal in Nagercoil. Prior to leaving the convent, I had taken a picture of my last bag of coffee which showed coffee beans. Even with the language issue, I figured that the picture would make communications much easier. Wrong. I showed it to everybody with a mile radius and many looked puzzled as if they were viewing abstract art. I had several “ hot leads” but I finally realized that it was not to be and would be ordering my coffee on line.

I wandered back to the bus terminal. I decided to go home right away rather than wait for Ninian and Carol. Because of its strategic location, this is a large terminal and not easy to figure out if you’re a first timer like me. I didn’t count them but it looked like there were fifty bays for the buses to arrive and depart. However, because of the sheer volume of buses, the parking lot is used for picking up and dropping off passengers. If you’ve ever been to Disney in Orlando Florida, it resembled on of their mammoth parking lots.

There was no ticket booth ( you buy your ticket on the bus ) and all but one of the signs above the bays were in Tamil except one. It said Kanyakumari. I leapt for joy. I figured that they might have had to arrange a search and rescue party to find me wandering aimlessly in the parking lot after several days of being on the missing person’s list.

There was a short queue of people at the platform and even though it seemed like a stupid question, I pointed to the sign and asked the person in front of me, “ Is this the bus stop for Kanyakumari?” Several people nodded. Another curiosity about people from India?  They have a peculiar way of nodding. It’s more of a swivel and you’re never sure if they’re agreeing or disagreeing with you.

The bus pulled up into the bay. Just to be sure, I asked the driver if the bus was going to Kanyakumari. His nod was a definite “No.” He pointed to the immense parking lot. My translation was , “ it’s over there in the middle of all that chaos. Good luck.” Now the parking lot area resembled an ant hill that had been kicked by a couple of nasty young boys. There were people running in all directions trying to catch their buses. Someone pointed me towards my bus. Once again, I engaged the bus driver, as I stood beside his bus ,underneath his window. His arms were flailing and I honestly couldn’t make head nor tail of what he was trying to tell me. He finally waved me off . It is a good thing I moved because a second after his warning, he expelled a stream of orangey red saliva very close to my feet. He pointed to the back of the bus. I got on.

The bus was just about to depart when the ticket agent informed me that this was NOT the bus to Kanyakumari. I was expelled… like the saliva. It took several more tries before I was convinced that the unmarked bus stand underneath a lamp pole, was indeed good old bus #303. Several dozens of us clambered on. The bus moved a grand total of two feet when the driver abruptly turned off the engine. We were instructed to get off. Several dozen of us clambered off the bus into a replacement bus.

I was told later that this was all quite normal. Business as usual, as they say. The replacement bus might have been a millennium gift as it was very modern with good tires, reclining seats and plenty of leg room. For some reason I felt drowsy and closed my eyes as we exited the terminal. In the blink of an eye, we arrived at the terminal. Had I slept so soundly for 45 minutes in the middle of the day? No. The bus went around the block and returned to the terminal that we had just left. Several people got off the bus and several more got on. Sorry folks. I have no explanation for this bizarre sequence of events.

We finally got out on to the open roads. I put my head on the head rest and a warm breeze blew through the window. I had my eyes closed as I tried to recreate the previous half hour of my life. And just like that, my face was covered in hay. As the bus passed two large hay wagons, some of their contents dislodged and started coming through the windows.

The cost of travel to and from Nagercoil? 19 rupees or about .58 cents. Yes. For that princely sum, I could have gone to a local coffee shop and purchased four cups of Indian coffee but I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun.

Even though the trip was slightly chaotic, it wasn’t too much of a grind.