Email: Sudie Niesen

Dear Friends,

As I write I am listening to the sound of the monsoon rain. The onset of the rainy season marked the end of Kerala’s summer and, with it, the end of summer holidays. Schools reopened on Monday, and we have now reached the “home stretch” of our YAV year.

Touring India

When our schools closed for summer holidays in April, Team India journeyed north for a month-long tour. After a surprisingly pleasant 48 hours on the train the six of us arrived in Delhi. Sue and David Hudson hosted us during our stay in Delhi. They’re serving, respectively, as the PC(USA)’s regional liaison and area coordinator for South Asia. Having embraced the practice of Indian hospitality, the Hudsons welcomed us into their home with hugs, delicious (sometimes American!) food, and lively conversation. We were extremely grateful for their boundless generosity, especially when a bout of food poisoning caused us to cancel our trip to Rajasthan and recover on the Hudson’s couch. As Ariel, John, and I lay on our deathbeds, we could not have asked for better honorary parents.

Our time in Delhi, Agra, Mussoorie, Dharamsala, Amritsar, and Goa was a wonderful (and intense) discovery of India’s diversity. We witnessed new people, religions, languages, and landscapes, all of which contribute to the country’s rich and multi-faceted culture. As with our visit to Andhra Pradesh at Christmas, this tour highlighted Kerala’s relative development and offered new insight into the desperation of many of India’s citizens. For instance, in Keral,  beggars (mostly adults who have lost an appendage or the ability to walk) frequent train and bus stations. Yet, in Delhi, beggars line street corners waiting for traffic to stop so they can approach auto-rickshaws and car windows. Many of these are children bearing the scars of abuse and mutilation—scars that attract the sympathy of passengers. These people are evidence of a country that is becoming increasingly polarized; much like in the United States, the gap between India’s rich and poor is only widening.

Agra, the home of the country’s most majestic monument, was a striking example of the discrepancy between rich and poor. After an early-morning visit to the Taj Mahal, Team India decided to scrap the city’s remaining tourist sites and visit “the real Agra.” At this point we were traveling with Pulkit, my best friend from Miami University who is currently living in Delhi with his parents. As a Hindi speaker, Pulkit was able to explain to our auto-rickshaw drivers that we were traveling on a budget and preferred not to pay a fortune on entrance fees. Thus, they gave us a non-traditional tour including a riverside farm with a view of the Taj, a local Hindu temple, and a couple craft shops. We found a crumbling city full of laborers who have likely never been inside the gates of India’s main attraction. Yet the poverty stands against a backdrop of immense natural beauty, rich history, and vibrant culture. India is a land of contrast. To view my pictures from our tour, visit my web album.

Aluva in May

Since many students and Chacko Homes honorary grandparents spent the summer holidays visiting their families, and teachers did not return to school until the 18th, May proved to be a quiet and relaxed month here in Aluva. This gave me the opportunity to focus on some relationships I had not previously nurtured. As a result, I am now a very poor rummy player (I’ll lose my chips to a table full of ammachis [grandmas] in no time), and I can identify pepper plants and cashew trees. My idle time was dedicated to contemplating my year while standing at the nine-month mark, significantly over “the hill.” I have been pondering how much I have focused on obstacles rather than possibilities or chosen to retreat rather than engage. Once I return home, I think I’ll inevitably wonder how this year could have been different. I cannot (nor do I think I want to) change my experience until now, but I’m determined to approach the next to months with renewed motivation and commitment.

For one week of May, John and I (along with some Malayalam-speaking friends) joined Ariel at her work site to host a camp for her lower primary students. These children, many of whom come from the nearby Dalit community, attend the C.S.I. (Church of South India) Kallumala School where Ariel teaches a few days a week. We spent our mornings with the children reading stories, singing ridiculous English songs, playing games, and (my favorite) doing arts and crafts. In the afternoons we visited the homes of children and teachers in Ariel’s community. Although the India YAVs live within 100 kilometers of each other, share common challenges of cross-cultural living, and act as a support network as we navigate life in Kerala, the nature of our site placements allows for great diversity of experience. Each of us will certainly go home in August with memories of a YAV year that was entirely our own. Though I have visited all the sites, Ariel’s is the first I truly experienced. It was wonderful to participate in the life of her community, meet her friends, and see how Ariel and her site have embraced each other.

For pictures from the camp visit my blog.

School starts again

On June 1, students returned to Christava Mahilalayam, filling the corridors with the familiar, smiling faces I so greatly missed during the holiday. While the school’s reopening brings with it the less-loved aspects of teaching (after the first week, my voice is a bit tired), I am thrilled to return to my community and my routine. Yet, amid the joy of this reunion, conversations often turn to my quickly approaching departure and the task of saying goodbye.

After school lately I have been visiting a student who used to live near U.C. College and, therefore, shared my bus stop. Because family lived so close to me, I spent so many afternoons at their home that I began referring to them as my “pseudo-host family.” Recently they moved out of Aluva, increasing the commute from a five-minute walk to a half-hour drive. So I now reach them by school bus. As I talked with my student and her parents over tea on Monday afternoon, the topic turned to my remaining days in India. We discussed our time together and the upcoming task of saying goodbye; by the end of the conversation, I found that my “host mom” and I were both on the verge of tears. Two months suddenly feels so short.

A couple weeks ago I had to say my first goodbye: a friend from the Mandiram Society (Becca’s site) left for Utter Pradesh (UP) where he will be serving as a missionary for the next year. Just next to Delhi, UP is a two-day’s train journey from Kerala; they have different food, a different language, a different climate, and a different culture. In many ways, my friend’s year of service within his own country is comparable to mine in a foreign land. The weekend before he left for UP, my friend invited us (the other YAVs and me) to his home. We spent two days visiting with his family, eating delicious and exotic fruit (much of it straight from the back yard), and playing in the rain. On Sunday we worshipped with his home church and were able to participate in his commissioning. As I prayed with the congregation and watched them say goodbye, my thoughts drifted back to my own commissioning last August. At that point I was experiencing a mix of emotions—excitement, fear, sadness, anticipation. India was a great unknown, but I was coming with the support of a loving family and faith community.

Now it seems I have returned to that place of mixed emotions. I am excited to return home to friends and family, most of whom I will have not seen for eleven months. I am excited to begin the next phase of my life at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and The University of Texas at Austin’s School of Social Work. And, yes, I am excited for my skin color and my native tongue to be signs of belonging rather than signs of foreignness. Yet going home means leaving another loving and supportive community and relationships I have come to truly cherish.

Last Sunday was Pentecost, a day when we celebrate the Spirit breaking down barriers and reaffirming our oneness as God’s people. Though a tongue of flame has not yet rested upon my shoulder enabling me to speak Malayalam (I’m still waiting), I have taken great comfort this year in a certain universal language. Hospitality and welcome, smiles and laughter, the wonder of children and the waves of strangers are all things that transcend cultural divides. These are the things that have helped create home in a foreign land.

I hope this letter finds you well.

Peace,

Sudie