On Saturday, November 7th, we started around 10:00 a.m. with Father George and another of his colleagues, Father Shaji, to go to the backwaters again at Kumarakom. We were expecting something very similar to our houseboat cruise, eight days earlier, but this was actually very different. We got into a small, old-fashioned, covered boat, with six seats and a grizzled boatman running the engine, then headed off into the canals. We were much closer to the water this time, and the route was different: a two-hour circuit that coincided little, if at all, with our previous trip. We floated along tree-lined banks, past houses large and small, past women doing their Saturday wash, slapping clothes against rocks, past other boats small and (very) large, past kingfishers and a kite (sort of like an eagle) that I saw dip into the water, in full flight, to grab a fish.
At one point we came to a pool where red lotus flowers floated. Father George pulled some out of the water, to grace the common table.
About halfway, we put ashore at a place where they were selling coconuts. There were two varieties, yellow and green. Four were chosen out, a hole was chopped with a machete in one end of each and we were given plastic straws to drink the coconut water, clear and a little sweet. When we were done, our coconuts were chopped in half and the meat was scooped out and given to us to eat.
Then we got back on the boat, shoved off and cruised on, heading into Lake Vembanad. The boatman said that when there was wind, it piled the lake up into high waves, but this day there was absolute calm, as we glided amid clumps of floating, flowering plants (the invasive water hyacinth?). All too soon, our two hours were up and we came back to shore.
On the way back, we stopped at an experimental state fish farming station, where Father George bought a back of water, containing a number of tiny tilapia, along with fish food, to put in their fishpond. In six months they'd be big enough to eat.
When we got to Kottayam, we visited two more churches. First was Good Shepherd, where Pope John Paul had visited in 1986.
The second was the cathedral, designed by a Spanish architect and built in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It's neo-gothic design was unlike that of any of the other churches we had seen.
Finally, Father George took us into a jewelry store. Mary Joy's jaw dropped at the amount of gold and diamonds on display, and clearly being purchased by crowds of people. In India, most of the billboards are either for clothing or jewelry, and instead of putting savings in banks or stocks or bonds, people buy gold ornaments, especially for weddings (as a part of the dowry and gifts or simply for display). There are at least 20 jewelry stores in Kottayam alone. In this one, Mary Joy was shown an elaborate gold and diamond neckpiece, for sale at 900,000 rupees or $15,000.
That evening, there was a Syro-Malabar Rite mass at the small church at the bottom of the hill, the culmination of a week of celebration of the feast of the church's patron, St. Martin de Porres. That felt sort of odd: a Latin-American saint for a church in India where services were based on a middle-eastern model. After mass was delayed by a massive rainstorm, Father George dropped Mary Joy off there to hear the music, then picked her up 45 minutes later--eastern-rite Catholic churches, like their Orthodox cousins, tend to have lengthy masses. Up the hill, We could hear the heavily-amplified singing. At the end, as in most Indian celebrations, there were fireworks, but they ended before Mary Joy and I were able to get around to the other side of the building to see them.
At one point we came to a pool where red lotus flowers floated. Father George pulled some out of the water, to grace the common table.
About halfway, we put ashore at a place where they were selling coconuts. There were two varieties, yellow and green. Four were chosen out, a hole was chopped with a machete in one end of each and we were given plastic straws to drink the coconut water, clear and a little sweet. When we were done, our coconuts were chopped in half and the meat was scooped out and given to us to eat.
Then we got back on the boat, shoved off and cruised on, heading into Lake Vembanad. The boatman said that when there was wind, it piled the lake up into high waves, but this day there was absolute calm, as we glided amid clumps of floating, flowering plants (the invasive water hyacinth?). All too soon, our two hours were up and we came back to shore.
On the way back, we stopped at an experimental state fish farming station, where Father George bought a back of water, containing a number of tiny tilapia, along with fish food, to put in their fishpond. In six months they'd be big enough to eat.
When we got to Kottayam, we visited two more churches. First was Good Shepherd, where Pope John Paul had visited in 1986.
Finally, Father George took us into a jewelry store. Mary Joy's jaw dropped at the amount of gold and diamonds on display, and clearly being purchased by crowds of people. In India, most of the billboards are either for clothing or jewelry, and instead of putting savings in banks or stocks or bonds, people buy gold ornaments, especially for weddings (as a part of the dowry and gifts or simply for display). There are at least 20 jewelry stores in Kottayam alone. In this one, Mary Joy was shown an elaborate gold and diamond neckpiece, for sale at 900,000 rupees or $15,000.
That evening, there was a Syro-Malabar Rite mass at the small church at the bottom of the hill, the culmination of a week of celebration of the feast of the church's patron, St. Martin de Porres. That felt sort of odd: a Latin-American saint for a church in India where services were based on a middle-eastern model. After mass was delayed by a massive rainstorm, Father George dropped Mary Joy off there to hear the music, then picked her up 45 minutes later--eastern-rite Catholic churches, like their Orthodox cousins, tend to have lengthy masses. Up the hill, We could hear the heavily-amplified singing. At the end, as in most Indian celebrations, there were fireworks, but they ended before Mary Joy and I were able to get around to the other side of the building to see them.
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