Home Sweet Home!

Hi! Here are pictures of our house. It is divided into two flats and we have the upstairs one. I wrote this whole great blog entry earlier that got wiped out by a power outage and I cannot bring myself to re-write it. Luckily, there are other things I can write about.

It is almost 9:00 p.m. and I've been home about an hour from a long visit with our neighbors. We met them one evening when we were on a walk and they invited us in to their house. The house is recently finished and is very nice and fancy. But it doesn't look much lived in, because it isn't. The owners, Jacob and Leena live with their two children in Abu Dhabi. They are from Kerala, but have lived in Abu Dhabi for 16 years and have recently built this house back here in Kerala. They have actually been working on the house for the last 3 years. They come for a couple of months in the summer, and I think they plan to move here eventually. When we first met them they were with Leena's sister and her daughter, who live in Toronto and were here visiting. They went out of town for 10 days, but I told them I would come for a visit after they got back. They are leaving again for a year soon. So, today I went for a visit and ended up staying for 3 hours. I took them some little sweets we had picked up from the bakery. Leena showed me around the kitchen and introduced me to some of the cooking utensils here. She explained many Kerala dishes in detail and showed me the various ingredients. Most of them I am familiar with by this time, though I haven't known how to put it all together. Specifically, we went over how to make Dahl, which is a lentil curry, and how to make sambar which is a common soup here. I think I've got it. I'm going to write it all down tonight, so I don't forget, and make an attempt after we get back from Kovalam. I told her I would take her some to test.

Girl time here is awesome. I didn't realize what an exciting time this is for women in India. Not that they all see it that way, but from my perspective. Male and female roles are much more traditionally defined here. Women don't wear pants or anything that shows above their ankles. Men and women never hold hands or touch in public. Let me just say here, that I am just talking from my own very limited perspective. But I'll go on. Women don't have much of an active role in participating with the public. The man is strongly the head of household and does the decision making and speaking for the family. That is not to say that women don't exert a lot of influence behind the scenes; they definitely do. They are also dignified and intelligent and complex and totally admirable, and so are the men. But they have limited choices and freedoms in the society here, because they have little or no authority. This is built into the customs of the society. Here is an example. In America, we can understand some of the difficulties involved in divorce, financial and social difficulties for instance. Now imagine a society where these ideas are so tightly institutionalized that instead of 50% the divorce rate is 0.1%. Not all, of course, but some of this difference is because of the physical and social peril a woman would face if she divorced. She really cannot leave her husband unless her parents are very rich and want to take her back, and then they may set her up with a job and a house. It is even so bad that women are badly burned or murdered by their husbands or in-laws if they are not to their liking, for any number of reasons. I don't know how common this is, and I do know that it is illegal (of course), but I've read that only a very small fraction of these instances ever result in any conviction.

But I am lucky because I get to go "behind the veil" as Mark says, where women will sometimes talk to me about these things and what they think of it. When I am in a woman's home, and there are no men around except maybe young boys, it's time to sit back and let the estrogen flow. I get to hear the nuanced details around family life, who did what and when, but there is a lot in those details. With some women it is just looking at pictures and mementos and telling about our friends and families. With others talk turns straight to where they make their stand in their families, refusing to spend all day in the kitchen or demanding to take part in major decisions, what they teach their daughters and sons and how their husbands and parents and in-laws react to it. Many women, more and more are working outside of the home, and I have anecdotal evidence that more women are feeling empowered to leave bad relationships and take steps toward having more personal freedom and autonomy. There is so much variation in this from person to person, just as there is everywhere.


So it is really interesting being here. I follow the social customs for women, but I don't stress out about it. I am a western woman and everybody knows that, and I also have the deepest respect for Indian society. I try to reflect the best aspects of my native society in being who I am while demonstrating an interest and openness to the Indian way of life. I wear what I want around the house, and I occasionally wear western clothes out, but always following the rules of keeping my legs and shoulders covered. I have no doubt that Indian society will go down a road of righting these conditions of injustice and oppression. Our views and progress on women's rights in society are having a major effect here, but that is not to mistake our path for India's. Each culture has to deal with things on its own terms to some extent. But people are just so intelligent and thoughtful here that I feel very hopeful about how India will adjust.

OK, enough serious stuff, how'd you like those pictures of our house?

Aargh. These pictures don't go with what I wrote and it's all because I didn't feel like rewriting what I wrote before. Oh well, I tried. Love, A