What It Means To Be

Scene 1: Krishnapanicker (Yes, that is his name), one and the same winner of the aforementioned smiling contest, is sitting on the porch of the appachens’(grandpas for those of you joining in on this post) home—short, bare-chested, barefoot, and hairy. As per our custom he says, “Hello!” and dazzles me with that amazing grin. That is the extent of his English, but why the heck does he need more? I amble up to him and sit down, having with me by happenstance the little travel journal so graciously given by PFOJAT (Thanks again!). I spit out a little of the Malayalam I have learned, asking him how he is and then pointing at various objects whose vocabulary I have learned: Chair! Window! Ground! Crow! Eyebrow! After this little exercise, I decide just to sit there and gaze at the little garden and birds. I idly start flipping through my journal. Watching me the whole time, this wonderful old man reaches for my journal and opens it. A lot of the people here know the English alphabet, so I start saying the letters that we see. He doesn’t seem to go for this. Instead, he finds a very poorly drawn map of India that I had done during some note-taking for orientation. He goes through the surrounding seas and oceans, parts of Kerala, and important cities of India, trying to teach me his home. Then he takes my pen, finds a random page, and in big, shaky writing, scratches out the word ‘Malayalam’ using the Malayalam alphabet. He says the word to me, disarms me with the smile again, and we part.

As I said, he needs nothing of the English language besides his “Hello!” I am the one who has to learn language and culture. Knowing this, he becomes my teacher.


Scene 2: I am wandering around and decide to step into a room in one of the ammachee (grandma) buildings that I have not spent much time in. I can’t verify it, but I think this room is for the youngest ammachees. They definitely strike me as younger than the rest. Anyways, as I walk in, they are all lying on their beds as though napping, so I quietly turn around to leave. Immediately they all pop up and beckon for me to stay. They all pat their beds for me to sit down, so I sit on the only empty bed, choosing not to choose between them. We start out with a new and favored game in which I read or try to read their name tags and learn names. If I get it right, it is cause for great celebration. If I screw it up, it is a cause for great hilarity. After this, we exhaust the topic of my family. My family is a very popular topic, perhaps because many of them have lost or been abandoned by their families. So, don’t be surprised if many South Indians know your names, ages, and professions, guys! (There is of course so much more to share about my family and that I hope to share, but our limited Malayalam/English stops us there). Finally, we turn to food. We can never go wrong with food, because they are so amused by my eating, and the cook is making sure that I know the names of the different foods. So they start shouting out different foods and asking if I like them. Dosha? Chore (rice)? Fish? Beef? Upamawa? Parotta? Egg curry? Sanbar? Upon my expressed dislike of sanbar, a very common item consisting of watery stew, curry spices, and soggy vegetables, they all contort their faces in agreement. The whole room is delighted that we share this aversion to one of the staple foods. I exit with all of our faces lit up happily.

Sometimes I feel isolated by language, culture, my ignorance of both (though I am learning!), and homesickness. Don’t worry, I am very happy here, but feelings of isolation are inevitable every once in a while. These ladies show me that they also miss their families, and they can dislike some of the food, too. We have much in common. People are people everywhere. They are my teachers.


Scene 3: I go up to the hospital to visit patients with the hospital chaplain on a Thursday. Now, Thursday happens to be the day he climbs the hill to the psychiatric ward. I am a bit nervous, not knowing what to expect. We go to several different rooms, all inhabited by one patient and at least one family member. It is incredible to see the care and longing for healing given by these family members. The patient we visit first, a lady in her thirties, follows us into the next room to pray with us for the woman suffering from depression and paranoia. This second woman’s husband is very jolly and welcomes us heartily. We make our way to an older mother with her adult daughter. Upon seeing us, the daughter sits down in the corner, turns away, and refuses to talk to us. During prayer, the mother starts crying and kisses our hands in thanksgiving. We finally end up in a bigger room with several beds and several patients. It turns out that this is the “poor room,” for those who can’t pay for treatment but thankfully get it anyways. Without an insurance plan, and without going into incredible debt for being there. What a concept! Anyways, this group of people is elated to see us. One man is lying in his bed and doesn’t notice us, so the others arouse him in order to ensure that he won’t miss out. They don’t have family members with them, so they become family members. One man comes up to me and asks me to compare America to Kerala. “Which one is more beautiful? What is your name? Why are you here? Will you come back tomorrow? I like you very much.” At some point in the clamor of this room, the jolly husband mentioned before hears the joyous uproar, wanders in and starts visiting the patients with us. We close in a big circle of prayers and ‘praise the Lord’s.

I am learning much about the brokenness of the world, about social injustice, poverty, and illness. They show me that resilience lies in love. They are my teachers.



These past several weeks I have been preoccupied with that awful question, “What exactly am I going to do here?” With much anxiety I came up with quite the list. I will be serving meals to the residents, taking some part in daily chapel or Sunday worship services, teaching communicative English to first year nursing students, visiting hospital patients with the chaplain, taking Malayalam ‘classes’, doing documentation work for the Kerala Council of Churches, giving a lecture or two at a local gender and culture studies program, doing some manual labor, doing some kind of tutoring with Balika Mandiram (the girls’ home), leading an English Bible study, and eventually exercising with the appachens. No worries, several of these ‘duties’ are only one or two hours a week, if that, so I am not going to be overwhelmed by any means. As you can see, though, even I, who consider myself to be laid back and happy in just existing and going with the flow, cannot easily escape the western mindset of DO DO DO! When I take the time to actually reflect on my time here, though, I remember best and rejoice most in the smile of Krishnapanicker, the delight of the ammachees on discovering commonalities, the prayer circle at the psychiatric ward, the loud gurgling of Manna, the eight-month old, during austere moments in worship. These are the times when I just be. I am absolutely happy to do the things mentioned above, for they are fun, productive, to my strengths, and will have positive gain for me and the institution. It is in the times of being, though, that I see with greatest clarity God’s presence in this world and all of its people. And that is what I need to experience most. So, please pray that I don’t ever lose sight of being for the sake of doing. I will pray the same for you.