A visit to our village

The Rising Star property is actually within jurisdiction of Thotanaval village, a very small hamlet running along both sides of the road that goes by the campus. The village has maybe two hundred people, most of whom work in the fields and live in very humble circumstances. About forty children from the village attend our school as "day scholars," meaning they do not live in our hostels with the colony children.

Vickie and I walked the quarter mile or so to the village one afternoon just to get some exercise and greet the local folks. The first interesting sight was this little girl and one of her family's prized possessions. Cows have free range all over India and often represent most of a family's wealth.

Many of the people live in very basic dwellings consisting of poles in the ground, a basic framework of bamboo for rafters, and thatch of leaves. These leaves are from the Palmyra palm, which bears a fruit shaped not unlike a small coconut. The fruit inside looks and tastes like a fist-sized litchee. The Tamil people call it "nung gu."

Like any town, the gentry live in nicer homes. This family compound has a much larger house, a smaller place for the animals, and a wall made of the same nung gu leaves.

As families can afford it they build more permanent homes out of brick. This is not American-style brick veneer on a frame house, but rather a two-deep wall of bricks mortared together and covered with plaster. The bricks are all made locally, so you can see the color of our clay. Wooden scaffolding, of course; what else would you expect in Asia? I'm not sure if the cow is supervising construction or just minding her business.

We eventually made it to the little store and celebrated with a cool orange drink. The girls were very friendly and enjoyed practicing their English, but they declined to drink with us. When I offered to buy them a cookie they brightened up and seemed to enjoy the treat. Notice the older girl in her school uniform. Apparently the code is that government school kids wear blue and private school kids wear maroon.

The village Hindu temple is sporting a new coat of paint; we endured several nights of blaring music as they celebrated some festival or other. The Hindu deity Ganesh is very popular in these parts--he is the elephant-headed son of Shiva, the elephant head motif indicating his ability to bestow great blessings. He is aided in all things by the sacred cobra, of course.

Our little chums wanted to show us where they live and have their photo taken again. This family is better off than many, having a plastered brick home with electricity.

Our return home reminded us that our little bungalow is really more than adequate in these parts. It certainly seems roomy to us now, and I am reminded of something Matthew said the day after returning from his two-year mission to Madagascar: "Why is our house so big? Why do we live in such a big home?" By the way, the sand is much easier to care for than a lawn, and doesn't require near as much water.

We hope all of you are doing well. Please leave us a comment. We would love to hear your thoughts.

School days

Peery School for Rising Stars opened the school year on June 2 with 171 students. We now serve about 180. The building was just dedicated in March, so everything is brand new. We are in one wing of a planned two-wing school that will have a grand entry and assembly area between the wings. We hope construction on the entry and other wing begins soon because we are filled to the limit. We have classes in lower kindergarten (age 4), upper kindergarten (age 5) on up to 7th Standard (Grade 7), with a special Tamil-medium class for a few older students who came to us with no prior English schooling.

Each day begins with assembly, during which the students do some stretching exercises and recite a Hindu prayer, a Tamil prayer, and the Lord's prayer; all of which is standard practice in schools, whether private or government sponsored. An older student then offers a proverb for the day, such as "many drops make an ocean," and the students recite it in both English and Tamil. One student then reads a few headlines from the newspaper in English and another reads the same from the Tamil paper (see www.hinduonnet.com). This is followed by "announcements," meaning a message from me, the principal. I welcome the students, compliment them on their dress and behavior, and then announce the Clean Classroom award from the previous day and the Rising Star Respecter award recognizing a well-behaved and respectful student from the previous day. The selected student wears a special star-shaped badge for the day. Announcements are followed by singing/chanting the Tamil anthem and the national anthem, after which the students are dismissed by classes to go to their rooms. This is a photo of morning assembly:

Two of our house mothers also teach, one in LKG and the other in UKG. I am impressed with their efforts and the amount of learning expected. The teachers start right in with English instruction, explaining in Tamil as needed. Teaching and learning involves much more Tamil at this stage because the little ones have obviously had little or no exposure to English. The red outfits are our school uniforms, but not all the kids have them yet. Vickie, as hostel director, is in charge of student clothing and we just received an order from the local tailor that was almost a month late. We also provide a uniform to each of the local village students who attend our school. This is our LKG class led by the dynamic young Shama. The students and teacher are applauding a youngster that successfully recited 1 to 10 in English.

Our students also have a Tamil class each day so they can gain literacy and facility in their own tongue. The Tamil people are one of the original Dravidian cultures in India, with a written tradition of literature and poetry spanning more than 3,500 years. Their culture has essentially avoided the centuries of invasion and crossbreeding that typifies northern India, and they have a strong sense of ethnic and cultural identity. Padmavathi, our Tamil teacher, is an energetic and well-prepared instructor--no wasted learning time in her classes. Notice the beauty of the written Tamil script on the chalkboard.

We have been fortunate to hire some well-educated instructors for our little rural school in the boonies. Some of our teachers catch a 6:45 bus to be at school be 9:00. I am especially impressed with our new science master, Yayathi. He has a B.Sc. in botany and a M.Ls. in library science. He exudes lots of energy and the students really seem to like him. June 16 was his third wedding anniversary so he did the typical Indian thing and brought treats for the staff. His beautiful daughter will turn two in September. Here he instructs our 7th Standard students in the room that will become our computer lab. We have the furniture and we have ordered the hardware, all made possible by donations from the U.S. and expert consulting from a couple of wonderful volunteers.

All work and no play makes Raja a dull boy. Our Physical Training program is in full swing even though our school yard is an uneven recent construction site with broken bricks and debris scattered around. Johnson, our PT master, spent the first couple of days having the students clean up the area. Now the PT classes are going strong and the kids love the break. Interestingly, part of the curriculum is essentially military parade drill. I love it though--our students are greatly benefiting from learning some discipline.

Excursion to Mamallapuram

On the Saturday before school started we went with the volunteers to visit the little seaside town of Mamallapuram, on the Coromandel coast. This area has huge granite outcroppings and is famous for its stone carving. They have protected a large area as a sort of park and people come from all over to visit. This is a photo of an interesting formation called "Krishna's Butterball."


There are several ancient temples and yoga contemplation caves carved right into the rock, usually with Hindu deities or figures from Indian legend.


This lighthouse looks out over the Bay of Bengal. As I took this photo I was surrounded by goats and monkeys that live in the area. I set my water bottle down and one of the monkeys grabbed it and took off with it. He dropped it against a rock which caused a small split in the bottle. The monkey promptly turned the bottle up on its bottom and drank the water as it poured out of the split. No wonder Darwin thinks we're related. Summer, this lighthouse is for you.


We made our way down a street lined with little shops selling clothing, jewelry, rugs and tapestries, and stone carvings. The volunteers had fun bargaining for purchases of Indian clothes and jewelry, and I dusted off my old haggling expertise honed in Silk Alley and the pearl markets of China to give them a little help. Vickie made a few small purchases, but we are waiting for awhile to decide what we really want for souvenirs.

The shopping street leads right down to the sea shore. The locals have long boats similar to the ones in Thailand for hire, and I also saw fishing nets in some of them. The surf was refreshing and everyone enjoyed cooling their feet. This photo shows two temples on a jutting point of land behind Vickie. She purchased the embroidered bag for about half the price the man originally wanted and it has been handy for lugging her stuff around.

Returning to the school's residential hostels can be traumatic for the younger children after spending six weeks home in the colonies with their parents. The older kids generally seem to enjoy being at school--it's like a year-long summer camp, I suppose. But brand new preschoolers are a little more skeptical. This beautiful little one felt right at home with Vickie Auntie. Our next blog will detail the beginning of school and scenes from a typical day. Feel free to comment below; we would love to know your thoughts.