Mandiram

After a week of eating mountains of rice, riding elephants, studying the Bible in new perspective, getting over jet lag (I much more slowly than the others), shopping for local clothing, learning Kerala’s history, politics, and customs, eating more rice, hoping for sloth bears, dodging cars and buses, watching a parade, partaking in an Onam feast on a banana leaf, experiencing bananas in many colors and sizes, eating more rice, singing as a quartet in front of a no-English church, and acclimating to the beautiful landscape and amazing people surrounding us on all sides with my fellow YAVs and Thomas John Achen, I traveled roughly two hours from our original home in Aluva to my final destination—Mundakapadam Mandirams, about 4 km from the city of Kottayam.

I came to this community with only the knowledge that it takes care of the destitute elderly, runs an orphanage for girls, and operates a hospital. My imagination took me to a sterile compound, a hybrid of American-style nursing home fully equipped with the accompanying smells and a M*A*S*H-style tent hospital. Don’t ask me where it came from, but that’s what my image was. Man was I mistaken, and thank goodness! In Malayalam, the language of Kerala that I am going to need to learn very quickly, Mandiram means home. For me, home connotes, indeed mandates, the presence of family. Truly that seems the best way to characterize this place—one giant family. There are the grandmas (ammachees) and grandpas (appachens), the majority of the population here, and a lively and inspirational bunch to boot. At the risk of over-generalizing, think of Ma and Pa Kettle, but in India and quite a bit older. Then there are the parental figures—the administrators, wardens, doctors, nurses, cook, and groundskeeper. These people amaze me with their selfless love for every person here and their skills in making everything run smoothly. Finally, there are the children. The girls of the orphanage range in age from 8 months to high school. I fit in this category as well, as I am the baby just opening my eyes to the new world around me and trying out my first sounds of the language (I think it is actually a joke amongst the staff that I am a baby, and they have to babysit me). There are so many parents and grandparents here to love us! So, as a family, they all eat together, worship together, work together, fight with each other, laugh with each other, and the separate groups even sleep in barrack-like rooms together. Thus the fighting with each other.

A steep climb up the hill will bring you to the hospital, which cares for the surrounding towns along with every resident. Mandirams also reaches into the wider community with a child sponsorship program aimed at getting poor children through school and developing their leadership skills through seminars here, as well as with involvement in an alcohol abuse clinic. Finally, Mandirams is very active in the faith community. It is a truly ecumenical organization, with leadership from the Church of South India, Mar Thoma, and Jacobite Orthodoxy. Throughout the week there are worship services led by these organizations as well as by local musicians and Pentecostal evangelists. This diversity of Christianity, coupled with the tangible feeling of familial love, keeps faith and spirituality vibrant and active. Indeed, Jesus is at the very center of all that takes place here—loving one’s neighbor, loving God with heart, soul, and mind, and in the most direct sense taking care of the poor, widows, and orphans.

I have not yet decided exactly what my role will be here. There are so many wonderful options to take part in, and there is the larger community around me that still needs to be explored. For right now, though, my days are full and content with pure existence, just being here with the family—serving as the butt of the joke while the ammachees try to teach me the Malayalam for everything in sight and then roll over laughing at my pronunciation, watching serials that surely give The Young and the Restless a run for its money, as well as cricket, with the appachens, being in constant awe of how much food these grandparents can put away (reciprocated by everyone’s amusement at how little I am able to eat in comparison), chatting with the few English speakers, singing, laughing, and learning with the staff. I know that there will be bumps along the way, that I will come up against challenges too big for me, get homesick, witness the fruits of social injustice, experience loss, encounter continual instances of culture shock, doubt, and question my beliefs. I am ready for it, though, because even if it wouldn’t pass all of the board of health regulations for sanitation and sterility in the U.S. and Korean Police Action front, it is so full of life and love! (Also, along with all of you fellow YAVs out there, I know a few fingerholds if all else fails)