Diagnosis: Diwali

I have a case of mountain fever, with a touch of frazzled nerves. The tourists came up in droves, starting last Friday, for Diwali, and were an especially rowdy group. With fireworks. Lots of fireworks. One even threw a firework AT me and a friend while we were strolling around the lake.
So I've been feeling a little antagonistic towards this town, school, this country, bovine creatures and their offerings to every street and footpath, incessant honking, the monsoon....

A little homesick, a lot cranky, certainly not in the mood for Diwali.

But then monkeys were playing outside my living room this morning!
Le singe ne fume pas une pipe, Eddie. Mais les singes sont sur le tuyaux!
And no school after lunch!
Afternoon visit to temple for Diwali puja!
The chance to wear a sari can work miracles.
So can impromptu photoshoots of gorgeous silk kurtas and new saris!
(No cameras allowed inside the temple...)
Evening sweets! and (sigh) more fireworks.
Dark mood banished....

Happy Diwali ~ Namaste.

sigh....

A Tuesday morning pause: no classes until 1:00 and my mind wanders from a daunting pile of planning and marking. Staff computer lounge on main campus. A full-of-light room; skylights and tin roof overhead (a full-of-noise room, too, when the rain pelts the tin roof) and a whole-southeast-wall window. The giant eucy tree outside of ever-changing bark colour and pattern, and tiny pert green and blue birds that gently tap at the window panes.

I am contemplating a nose stud. They are just so beautiful; a little point of light near the eyes, near the smile. Spencer's sells little bindi packs for 5 rupees and I got a set of 10 stick-on diamondesque jewels yesterday. Left side? Right side? This is one to contemplate for at least a month.

chats et chiens

The monsoon has arrived.
Apparently, what we had before (warm sunny mornings, mist rolled in and temperature dropped at noon, heavy rain between 3 and 5, clear evenings) was just "weather."
Last Saturday night, I walked out of a social gathering to heavy heavy fog. Woke up Sunday morning to the sound of rain falling--first time waking up to rain in Kody.
It has been alternately foggy, drizzling, or full-on downpouring since.
They say it'll be like this til the end of November.

My ayah hung the washing out to dry on Monday afternoon. Rain? No matter; the clothesline is strung under a 6-foot-deep roof, well protected from all but the most driving side-pour.
Tuesday: clothes don't seem to have dried at all. Hmmmm.
Wednesday: clothes are wetter than when they emerged from the washing tub. Curious, I observe the line from my doorway in the middle of a particularly drenching bout of rain. No raindrops reach my laundry. It is definitely not getting rained on.
Thursday: yes, still getting wetter; and drawers are getting very empty. Is my wet laundry absorbing moisture from the air? Yes. My wet laundry must be absorbing moisture from the even wetter atmosphere.
Logical solution: string a clotheline in the sitting room and keep the fire going til the clothes dry.
25 matches, several bins' worth of crumpled newspaper and good kindling later...no go. No fire. Even paper won't burn. It just sort of steams. The kindling will catch....then sizzle, then go out. Logs? Hah.
This could present a problem. I'm already working with a meagre wardrobe. 6 more weeks of damp or dirty clothes?

Noah and the Archaeoceratops

KIS is a Christian organization. At the elementary school, the students learn a verse of scripture every week and have regular classes in Religious (Christian) Education. Last week, the coordinator mixed things up a bit; instead of a Bible passage the kids learned about Noah's Ark, and the Arky Arky song.
(Remember? The animals, they came in, they came in by twosies, twosies,
The animals, they came in, they came in by twosies, twosies,
Elephants and kangaroosies, roosies,
Children of the Lord....)

Every grade level at KIS elementary studies a different theme each month; Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and specialist classes are all supposed to integrate this theme. I loosely tie Art units to the theme: for instance, 4th grade is starting a geology unit, and we are going to do clay, and learn about the physical properties of clay that make it mouldable, how it forms naturally, etc.

I brought Two by Two, my favourite Barbara Reid book from Canada, with the intention of using it to set up a unit on plasticene. Two by Two tells the story of Noah's Ark. So when the Arky Arky song sprung up all over campus, I thought, Aha! Opportunity to integrate Art plan with Bible Studies instead of the usual themes, and score major brownie points with my boss. And, I am just about to start a new unit with my pre-K, KG, gr1, gr2 nightmare class....we could start plasticine instead...yes...perfect. Hmmmm, how could it work? 1 class singing the song and talking about the story, then read-aloud Two by Two...talk about how the pictures were made...look closely at the pictures. Next class, get familiar with plasticine and just play. 3rd class; make animals from the Noah's Ark story, or just make your favourite animahhhh----

Uh oh.

Grade 1/2 just started a new theme: dinosaurs. They have been drawing dinosaurs, talking dinosaurs, and playing dinosaurs out the wazoo for the last few days and I see no reason for this to let up until the end of October.

In fact, I've already told the class that for their next unit, we are going to be writing stories and making books about dinosaurs. (so cool: texture-rubbings in various colours, then free-form cutting of dinosaur shapes and dinosaur-era fauna to produce collage illustrations, a la another really cool kiddie-lit author, Eric Carle. Except he uses paint instead of rubbings...doesn't matter).

Someone is going to want to make a plasticine dinosaur.

Someone is going to ask whether there were any dinosaurs on Noah's Ark.

Someone is going to ask WHY there weren't any dinosaurs on the boat...which leads to....Miss Mac? Miss Mac? Are there dinosaurs in the Bible, Miss Mac?

Hmmmm. Can I run with this? Could we turn it into an integration of flood-story and fossil-record evidence that the earth is way way way way older than the Bible says?

Is it possible I won't get severely reprimanded for planning (delighting in) this project?

Maybe we can write a story as a class. And then illustrate it. With texture-rubbing collage scenes and photographs of plasticine sculptures. About why Noah wouldn't let the dinosaurs on the Ark. "How the Dinosaurs Went Extinct; the Biblical Version," just so.

My inner scientist/archaeologist/secular humanist cringes.
The part of my brain that isn't sure whether this will offend certain member of this community quavers.
But the writer, illustrator, rebel-teacher, in me wants so badly to nudge the kids in this very creative direction...

Potential plot-lines:

1. Noah lets the dinosaurs on the boat, but when they walk up the plank it cracks in two (cracks in twosies?) under their weight. They fall into the rapidly rising flood waters and drown.

2. While Noah builds the boat and his sons and their wives gather food and other supplies, the dinosaurs decide to record this epic event by painting and drawing the humans and all the animals on some cave walls in southwest europe. The dinoartists get so into it, they miss Noah's All-Aboard call. In the meantime, glaciers descend from the north, covering all of Europe under a sheet of ice three miles high. When the dinoartists emerge from the cave, finally happy with their art, they starve and freeze to death in the glacial climate.

3. Noah was going to let the dinosaurs on the boat. When all the various dinosaur species showed up at the loading dock, Noah said that due to space restrictions, only one dinosaur species would be allowed to board, to continue on the name of all dinosaurs forever and ever. Understandably, the various species thought this was a little unjust. Their chicken-sized brains were incapable of coming up with any solution other than to charge the loading dock, a dino free-for-all competition to save themselves from extinction. T-Rex decided (1) he was king of dinosaurs and so should be the one allowed on the boat, (2) this was an excellent opportunity to feed. He ravaged the melee, killing every dinosaur and enjoying a most excellent meal. Unfortunately, the meal turned out to be his last: just as T-Rex stepped onto the plank to board the boat, his mate at his side, a very small meteor (about the size of a pea) plummeted from the sky and struck T-Rex directly in the temple. Instant death. T-Rex toppled sideways off the plank, knocking his mate off balance and carrying her with him. They fell into the rising flood waters and drowned.

4. Noah decided that that the dinosaurs were too big to come aboard. However, he recognized that some of the dinosaurs were aquatic, and encouraged them to swim behind the Ark along with all the other swimming creatures. They did. Unfortunately, the Ark (with the swimming creatures in tow) was drifting somewhere over the north of Scotland when the flood waters started to recede. Just as the Scottish Highlands were about to emerge from the water, the Ark turned south, and the swimming creatures followed, including Mr. Swimming Dinosaur. Mrs Swimming Dinosaur was last in line, and got trapped in a valley-cum-lake, where she remains to this day (Mr. Swimming Dinosaur died of grief).

5. Noah, wisely, decided that adult dinosaurs were simply too large and ate too much to be permitted on the boat. However, in the interests of future biologists, he brought two dinosaur eggs aboard. They would be carefully nurtured aboard the ark, and allowed to hatch, grow up, and reproduce in the new, post-flood world. Unfortunately, on day 39, someone forgot his scientific ideals, got hungry, fried the dinosaur eggs and enjoyed them with three rashers of bacon, black coffee, and toast.

Baby Face

Just a quick one to say THANK YOU to my family and friends, all over the world, who sent birthday wishes today. And THANK YOU THANK YOU to my big Kody family for your birthday wishes, cards, gifts, hugs, and one helluva good birthday dinner (pad thai loaded with fresh, colourful, crisp veggies; coconut chicken curry, brown rice, heineken acquired godknowswhere, and my favourite warm blueberry cake....HEAVEN). I feel truly blessed to know and be stuck on this mountain top with you all. Even in the ridiculous rain (Bonfire? Meh. No point having one til the marshmallow shipment arrives, anyway).

Down the Mountain

At the end of first quarter, KIS packs up and disperses over Southern India for field trip week. I begged off of the elementary chaperone list, and onto the 8th grade bus heading north to Bylakuppe. In 1961, the state of Karnataka granted 1200 hectares of land to TIbetan refugees. Since that time, the Bylakuppe settlement has grown to support approximately 5000 Tibetan monks and 10 000 refugee laypeople.

It was my first trip down the mountain since arriving in India some 2.5 months ago. Therefore, in addition to experiencing vastly different, very Tibetan Bylakuppe, I had the shock of train and bus travel on the Tamil Nadu plains and a visit to Mysore city; my first taste of unquestionably Real India(s). (Please read this for context in which I use the term Real India).

This post threatened to be about 5000 words and 3 weeks overdue so I'm taking the visual route instead...enjoy the pics and remember you can click on them to enlarge!





Bylakuppe's Golden Temple: to enter, you first walk the monastery perimeter (several hundred meters), a covered walkway lined by fluttering prayer flags on one side, and prayer wheels on the other. I spun every single wheel, accumulating the equivalent merit of having recited the mantras contained within about a hundred thousand times. Maybe. Also pictured: the Golden Temple's 60-foot gold plated Buddha.



When I entered the temple it was empty and silent, long rows of mats, low tables and prayer books lying still before the awesome golden Buddha. A long low horn broke the silence, followed by countless hurried footsteps; hundreds of monks poured into the temple, prostrated to the statue, and took their places. I stayed as long as I could, for about 20 minutes of chanting, drumming, recitations, tea-drinking.










Monks debating: most evenings, monks at a certain stage in their training gather for paired debates on the texts studies and discussed that day. One monk (standing) poses questions, delivered with a dramatic step, wind up and loud clap. The seated monk responds. We were granted special permission for female students and chaperones to enter the monastery after dark, in order to watch roughly 2000 monks debate in a monastery courtyard buzzing with question, response, sharp clap after clap.













Thangka studio: specifications for even the tiniest details of content, dimensions, and colour are laid out in Buddhist scriptures.









Tourist monks from Bhutan







Tourist monks who wanted to pose with a fig tree


We played football (boys) and volleyball (girls) against students from S.O.S. Children's Village, a school and home for orphans and child-refugees whose parents are in Tibet. Many of these kids crossed the Himalayas on foot to get out.














Morning assembly and the rush to class.