Drinking Fishing Eating Sleeping
Yesterday afternoon I spent a few hours out on the ocean with Arul (the fisherman who is 26), his uncle, his cousin, and my friend Vinith from the stone carving shop. Once out at sea, we anchored the boat, cracked a few brew doggers, and enjoyed the afternoon sun. I learned a bunch of new Tamil words, went swimming a few times, and learned how to steer the fishing boat. Overall, it was a great afternoon out on the water and it culminated with an agreement to go fishing again the following morning at 4:30am, but this time, Vinith would come, because he had never been fishing before (surprising since he is the one who introduced me to Arul in the first place!).
Skip ahead 6 hours…………..
I woke up bright and early at 4:30 this morning, hopped on my bike, and went into the village of Kullapalayam to pick up Vinith to go fishing. The previous afternoon Vinith showed me where his house was, but in doing so, took different routes to and from the house, so with my unparalleled sense of direction it shouldn’t have been a problem finding the house. But, you have to remember that this was 4:30am, it was pitch black in the village due to a power outage which was due to a strike by the workers (welcome to India), I was showed the location of the house in daylight, and all of the streets in the village have no road signs and look the same. Final Outcome: I got lost. It took about 8 or 9 minutes, 2 or 3 circles, and 3 encounters with packs of dogs. Side note: the dogs here act in gangs, meaning that once one dog barks at you (all dogs bark at white people it seems) other dogs come and bark at you too, often times surrounding you like you are about to be gang-beaten. So, you don’t really want to stop your bike at night when you are being barked at and followed by dogs (which may or may not be rabid), but this is hard when you are lost and the streets are really narrow and curvy. Final Outcome: I yelled at the dogs to try to scare them off, thus, waking villagers. I eventually reached Vinith’s house and had to ring the doorbell to wake him. Vinith told me to ring the bell to wake him but he didn’t tell his family I was coming, so when I rang the bell his whole family came out of the house….this is 4:30 in the morning. Vinith later told me that when his family came to the door they started asking each other why the white man was there in the middle of the night. Following this encounter we were off. On the way out of the village we passed a cow in the middle of the street that appeared to be sleeping on its side with it’s legs fully erect, in a somewhat rigor mortis position. I thought this was both normal (because cows do what they want here) and a little odd but didn’t think about it again until I dropped Vinith off after the fishing trip, when I passed the cow again and it was in the same position. The cow was dead. The rest of the fishing trip was uneventful; it consisted of another great sunrise, helping out the fishermen collect fish (since I knew what to do this time), and a lot of Vinith sleeping; he couldn’t handle the early morning wake-up!
After a morning nap (10am-1pm) I headed over to Srinivasan’s (my airport driver who has since become my friend) house for lunch. He lives in the village of Edyan Chevady, about a 13-minute bike-ride away. Lunch was great, although I was the only one who ate. I have learned that this form of Indian hospitality is quite common, which is to invite people over for meals but to serve them and make them the center of attention. Srinivasan invited a whole crew of his family over so I got to practice my Tamil a bit and I was excited about that. One thing I wasn’t excited about however, is that I drank the village municipality water that I was given. I knew I was going to the village for lunch so I brought my own water supply, but when the moment of decisiveness came, I couldn’t bring myself to bring out the water, because I thought it would be too disrespectful to my host. Hopefully my intestines are currently fighting off whatever was in the water! The rest of lunch consisted of a chicken leg, some fried fish, rice, dal, some other liquid (sorry, I don’t know the name) that you put on rice, and curd, which to my palate, was gross. The curd tasted like stale sour cream, but I drank it down like a good houseguest. Following lunch we watched a Tamil movie which had English subtitles and which lasted 3 hours. That is how long Indian films are………
Side note one: In south India liquids and dals are put onto rice so that you can more easily clump it together, thus, facilitating its entry into your mouth.
Side note two: Srinivasan had a banana tree, two cashew trees, a chili plant, a lemon tree, and jasmine flowers in his backyard.
OK, it’s time for some fishing trip pictures……..I brought my digital camera this time! By the way, I HATE the quality of the images on this site!
PS- Tomorrow I am taking a trip to Tiruvanamali with a friend of mine. Every full moon tens to hundreds of devotees go to this temple-town to do a 14km walk around a sacred hill. Expect some good stories…..
Fish in the boat
Other fishing boat
Vinith (left) and Arul (right)
Blowfish
Fishes
Arul's father with his catch
Stew Countdown: 5 days
Skip ahead 6 hours…………..
I woke up bright and early at 4:30 this morning, hopped on my bike, and went into the village of Kullapalayam to pick up Vinith to go fishing. The previous afternoon Vinith showed me where his house was, but in doing so, took different routes to and from the house, so with my unparalleled sense of direction it shouldn’t have been a problem finding the house. But, you have to remember that this was 4:30am, it was pitch black in the village due to a power outage which was due to a strike by the workers (welcome to India), I was showed the location of the house in daylight, and all of the streets in the village have no road signs and look the same. Final Outcome: I got lost. It took about 8 or 9 minutes, 2 or 3 circles, and 3 encounters with packs of dogs. Side note: the dogs here act in gangs, meaning that once one dog barks at you (all dogs bark at white people it seems) other dogs come and bark at you too, often times surrounding you like you are about to be gang-beaten. So, you don’t really want to stop your bike at night when you are being barked at and followed by dogs (which may or may not be rabid), but this is hard when you are lost and the streets are really narrow and curvy. Final Outcome: I yelled at the dogs to try to scare them off, thus, waking villagers. I eventually reached Vinith’s house and had to ring the doorbell to wake him. Vinith told me to ring the bell to wake him but he didn’t tell his family I was coming, so when I rang the bell his whole family came out of the house….this is 4:30 in the morning. Vinith later told me that when his family came to the door they started asking each other why the white man was there in the middle of the night. Following this encounter we were off. On the way out of the village we passed a cow in the middle of the street that appeared to be sleeping on its side with it’s legs fully erect, in a somewhat rigor mortis position. I thought this was both normal (because cows do what they want here) and a little odd but didn’t think about it again until I dropped Vinith off after the fishing trip, when I passed the cow again and it was in the same position. The cow was dead. The rest of the fishing trip was uneventful; it consisted of another great sunrise, helping out the fishermen collect fish (since I knew what to do this time), and a lot of Vinith sleeping; he couldn’t handle the early morning wake-up!
After a morning nap (10am-1pm) I headed over to Srinivasan’s (my airport driver who has since become my friend) house for lunch. He lives in the village of Edyan Chevady, about a 13-minute bike-ride away. Lunch was great, although I was the only one who ate. I have learned that this form of Indian hospitality is quite common, which is to invite people over for meals but to serve them and make them the center of attention. Srinivasan invited a whole crew of his family over so I got to practice my Tamil a bit and I was excited about that. One thing I wasn’t excited about however, is that I drank the village municipality water that I was given. I knew I was going to the village for lunch so I brought my own water supply, but when the moment of decisiveness came, I couldn’t bring myself to bring out the water, because I thought it would be too disrespectful to my host. Hopefully my intestines are currently fighting off whatever was in the water! The rest of lunch consisted of a chicken leg, some fried fish, rice, dal, some other liquid (sorry, I don’t know the name) that you put on rice, and curd, which to my palate, was gross. The curd tasted like stale sour cream, but I drank it down like a good houseguest. Following lunch we watched a Tamil movie which had English subtitles and which lasted 3 hours. That is how long Indian films are………
Side note one: In south India liquids and dals are put onto rice so that you can more easily clump it together, thus, facilitating its entry into your mouth.
Side note two: Srinivasan had a banana tree, two cashew trees, a chili plant, a lemon tree, and jasmine flowers in his backyard.
OK, it’s time for some fishing trip pictures……..I brought my digital camera this time! By the way, I HATE the quality of the images on this site!
PS- Tomorrow I am taking a trip to Tiruvanamali with a friend of mine. Every full moon tens to hundreds of devotees go to this temple-town to do a 14km walk around a sacred hill. Expect some good stories…..
Fish in the boat
Other fishing boat
Vinith (left) and Arul (right)
Blowfish
Fishes
Arul's father with his catch
Drying fish
Early morning fishing
Prawn resting/dying on net
Stew Countdown: 5 days
posted by Jon at 12:04
5 Comments:
Phenomenal stories. I am soooooooooo jealous.
Nice catch!! - and great pics.
Jon--Sounds like you're having a fabulous trip. You've created such an adventure for yourself. I love to ehar about it! Miss you:)
Vinith and your other friend look nice. The fish in the boat look like they are crying for help. It makes me feel good to see your hand (holding the blowfish, good color, no festering wounds). Always a mom! You are taking such great advantage of this opportunity....in such a Jon sort of way. :-) And, as always, your pictures are terrific. They capture so much (and with excellent techniques and composition). Look forward to the next installment. Talia has a new "big girl bed". She insists that the crib still be left in the
room too though. Just in case.
I was there for the night yesterday and I said well maybe I will sleep in the bed tonight too and she looked at me very seriously and said (after a while), "no grandma. You sleep in your own bed. Love ya.
MY MAN!
Reading your blog daily. Don't complain about the quality of the pictures because Liati and I think they are amazing! She is inspired to paint one of them (not sure which one because there are a lot of good ones). Tel Aviv is awesome. I started my Ulpan class this week. I've got that smokers memory so my memorization is sketchy. Combine that with an EARLY class start time at 8:15 and my brain is really grinding. I find that I write and read a hebrew a lot better. I got a bike here too so it's fun learning the city. I'm going to see Subliminal rap concert in Jersalem on Wednesday and also planning a weekend trip to Eilat. OK, gotta go out now with Liati. TAKE CARE BRO!
SAC
ps I added your blog as a link on mine. Did you check my blog out yet? www.djsac.blogspot.com
jon, sounds like you're having an awesome time and making lots of friends...you should make your blog into a print journal when you come home. miss you, be safe.
love leah
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