Madurai & SEED 9th Annual Day

After my tropical beach vacation in Thailand I flew down to Madurai to visit my host family and attend the 9th annual day for the SEED Center. I've lived in Madurai for a significant amount of time and let me tell you....it's a whole different beast! Even for a 'town' of over a million people, it feels more like a village. Cows, goats, bullocks, and horses roam EVERY street. And everyone knows everyone. It's the kind of town where if you buy blue bangles near the main temple at 11am, by the time you reach home 20-30 minutes away, your family already knows that 1) you bought bangles 2) what color they are 3) where you bought them 4) how much you paid for them and 5) who you were with. One has to be VERY careful as there are NO secrets in Madurai. I loved living there, but am glad to be experiencing a metropolitan Indian city this time around.

A South Indian meal on a banana leaf prepared for me by one of the SEED volunteers mothers.

My host mom trying to negotiate with a cow so she can back her scooter out into traffic.

My host mom cooking deliciousness--a scene I have enjoyed and benefited from for 10 years!

A SEED student, volunteer and good friend of mine! She is currently trying to persuade her parents to postpone her marriage 2 more years so she can get more work experience.

Two more SEED volunteers (and a former student) who are also my role models!

The SEED students playing group 'janken pon' a game the Japanese ALTs taught them during an English camp in 2005.

Welcome to SEED's 9th Annual Day!

The Annual Day event had dancing, singing, and speeches! It was a fun afternoon and evening of community and togetherness for the 3 SEED centers in Madurai.

Some artwork done by the SEED volunteers! They should really market and sell this stuff! It's beautiful!

Some of the SEED students demonstrating some of the their art projects
during the art exhibition!

Happy NEW YEAR to all the SEED Centers!

Mini Adventures in Thailand

Over the past few weeks I've had a few big adventures--a week in Thailand and 3 days in Madurai, and lots of mini-adventures in between. I'm back in Chennai now and back at work...it's always sad to see the holidays and vacations end, but it is nice to get back into daily routine for awhile...until the next vacation that is! I'll let the pictures narrate the stories!

Thailand is just a hop, skip and a jump away from India, but it took two flights and about 8 hours to get there. Plus, there was a potential immigration problem in India--my innocent smile solved it. And then in Thailand they didn't want to accept my domestic ticket--again, smiling seemed to do the trick! :) I arrived after an all night flight just in time for breakfast and a day exploring the island.

On my first day on the island, my parents took me literally around the ENTIRE island. We stopped at a beautiful beach for lunch, at the elephant safari to feed the baby, some sight-seeing, and for a little shopping.

No visit to Koh Samui is complete without a stop at the BIG BUDDHA!

My parents rented a jeep for my visit. It was great to have wheels to get around the island, but it was VERY small and barely sat 2, much less 3--with no shocks whatsever! No wonder Thai massage is so popular!

Hot Damn! I haven't seen a super market like this in....hmm? Actually, not sure I ever have! It was incredibly huge and so well organized. It was clean, the food looked fresh and delicious and there was almost NOBODY in it--EVER! I had to sneak a few pictures and then I was told by the staff that photographs were not allowed. Sadly, mega super markets mostly cater to the tourist industry in Thailand, and with the global economic crisis and the airport closure, there are almost no tourists in Thailand this year. Places like these are really suffering! Moral of the story: go grocery shopping in Thailand!

Lucky for me, my parents are in Thailand for several months and are staying in a bungalow, not a hotel. We were able to eat breakfast at home, make our own coffee, watch the news, and generally just relax in their flat when we weren't out and about or on the beach. And lucky for them, their bungalow complex comes with a restaurant next to a pond (with killer koi) and the swimming pool. The cooks are fabulous and everything I ate there was amazing: crispy chicken salad, lemon chicken salad, mixed vegetables, green curry, and of course pad thai to die for!

How can you beat this, really? Swim in the ocean or in the pool--take your pick! Both are amazing. And here is the best part...because all the resorts are hurting for tourists, they don't seem to care if you just walk in and go for a swim. So that is what we did...over and over again. It was like a luxury resort pool tour of Koh Samui. I wish I could have stayed longer cause I only got to see a handful of pools.

Absolutely the best pineapple and mango you've ever eaten! This very hardworking man walks up and down the beach all day with this hanging on this shoulders waiting for hungry tourists to buy fruit or roasted corn from him. It is worth every baht! The mango melted in my mouth!

Besides beaches, pools and finding more delicious food, we visited a few temples as well. This one was particularly beautiful...a temple sitting in a lotus floating on a lake. Besides big bellied Buddha and 10-armed Buddha, they also had shrines to Shiva, Ganesh and Parvathy. I guess Hinduism made it to this tiny little island! And surprise, surprise, surprise...the Evangelicals have made it to the island as well. We were invited to a Christmas service at the Evagelical Mission. Out of curiosity and hoping for some traditional christmas carols, we went. We lasted about 20 minutes before we started poking each other and asking how best we could sneak out. The best part was their version of the Christmas story which they adapted to their context to make it easier for the kids to understand. In their version, Joseph and Mary are turned away at the inns because it's high season! Gotta love it!

How did this happen on vacation? I got dragged into helping my parents teach two classes! I guess it is only fair after I dragged them around my classes in Japan. But still...I was on vacation! It was interesting to compare Thai and Indian schools. Even though my parents think these kids are a bunch of trouble-makers, they were angles compared to the inner-city Chennai kids I teach! Although, there was one boy in the 6th grade class who put a plastic bag over another kids head and tried to suffocate him. He learned the wrath of Sista K real fast and was great for the rest of class, he even completed the assignment!

Yet another delicious meal--hot pot Thai style! They give you the hot pot and you go through a line and pick out all the vegetables, meats, fish, and noodles that you want to add to it. My mom was a bit skeptical of the meat because it was just sitting out and she saw the waiters putting unused raw meat from another table back onto the buffet. Whatever! It all tasted great!

Beach time!! I want more beach time! Notice how blue and clear and clean the water is. In India, I live 10 minutes by walk from the beach and it looks and smells like a sewer. So sad!
One of the days we took a few ferries to another island for snorkeling. There wasn't enough time (there never is) but it was great to be in the water with lots of brightly colored fish of all shapes and sizes. Oh, tropical vacation, I love you!

Another pic from the beautiful snorkeling island! Also notice, how very little clothing one is allowed to wear in Thailand--shorts, bikini tops, exposed skin? What a refreshing change!
Oh, tropical paradise, why did I ever leave you?

A Christmas Eve Mai Tai! I think this is a new holiday ritual for our family. No more egg nog. No more mint hot chocolate with Baileys! We're buying pineapples, rum, fruit juice and orchids for our next Christmas celebration.

Christmas eve dinner on the beach, feet in the sand! We ate chicken satay, pad thai, massuman curry, and fruit for dessert. Who needs traditions when you have tropical beaches in Thailand? I sure didn't miss the ridiculous shopping frenzy, plates of Christmas cookies or all the obligatory cards and gifts. Family, good food and a few Christmas carols in the background...what else do you need?

Christmas Day dinner the bungalow staff put on a HUGE spread of food. There was a present exchange, I got a dry iron--so useful! I love useful gifts! But it was raining for most of the evening, so we sat and ate under an umbrella. Our contribution was our famous fudge--always a big hit. That's one tradition that's hard to give up!

Going back to the airport is always bittersweet, especially when they don't want to let you on the plane cause your ticket is invalid! Again, just smile--it seems to work! I took FULL advantage of the Bangkok airport experience because where I come from I can't eat fresh green leafy vegetables or drink deliciously expensive corporate coffee. Desperatly conservative conditions at home also call for desperate credit card measures--my first ever stop at Duty Free!

Urging Fellows NOT To Take Night Buses

I’ve been trying to visit Madurai, my ‘native place’ in India since I arrived. It hasn’t worked out for lots of reasons, but last weekend I was finally able to book bus tickets. I actually hate taking overnight buses and avoid them whenever possible. Only under very unusual circumstances would I ever consider taking a bus between Madurai and Chennai (10-12 hrs!), but given the upcoming holidays all the trains were booked. It was either now, or wait until November. So I booked an overnight sleeper (full bed) on the way and a semi-sleeper (reclining seats) for the return.

Sadly the excitement and anticipation of my weekend trip to Madurai to visit friends and family was quickly dashed at 6am on Saturday morning when my bus crashed into a Toyota Qualis carrying young men to a DMDK (political party) rally in Chennai. A few people in my bus were injured, but five people in the vehicle were killed. They were all my age.

The front of my bus, notice the windshield fell out.

The back of my bus off the road! Thank god we didn't land on our
side or continue down the ravine.

The Toyota Qualis totally unidentifiable. This pictures has been cropped
to remove gruesome details.

I was sleeping when we hit them and went off the road. I realize I had nothing to do with the accident and I am not at fault (although my bus driver was arrested and was driving on the wrong side of the road). But the fact remains that I was in a vehicle, which was responsible for taking 5 lives. The accident could have been much worse for our vehicle, but luckily it wasn’t. I feel very lucky to be alive, and to be physically fine. But five others young people were not so lucky. There are families, wives, children, and friends that are grieving for them.

The typically Indian response is to ‘move on’, ‘it happens’ or ‘deal with it’. And those kinds of responses drive me mad. I realize those are the things I need to do…and I will do them. But I’m trying to figure out exactly HOW to do that…HOW to honor and remember lives lost. HOW to process my own feelings about being at the scene of a deadly accident. And HOW to make sure I’m not sweeping it aside as so many Indians seem to think I should do.

AIF has offered to help me find a local counselor to talk to. I do appreciate their concern and support, although I think this is something I would rather deal with on my own. And from now on I’ll be taking trains wherever I travel.

Article in The Hindu

Salvador Molly's Friends & Family Night

SAVE the DATE!!

Monday, Sept 22nd!

Come...Dine 'for' us - the kids at 'SEED' (tutoring) centers in southern India!

Come to Salvador Molly's - Monday, September 22nd!
For directions, click here.

Salvador Molly's has generously offered to donate 20% of their sales that evening to support education for slum children in Madurai, India through Asha, a non-profit agency. Click here to make an online donation. Please specify that the money is "FOR SEED - Madurai (Adams)".

See you there!!

Christmas in Madurai, India

Christmas of 2007 will go down in the family history book as unique and special. As a family we made a conscious decision to celebrate this year with as little of the traditional materialistic fanfare as possible. On Christmas Day there were no stockings, no cinnamon rolls, no tree and no presents from Santa. As much as I love all of those traditions, it was refreshing to wake up and acknowledge the day as most any other day. Instead of focusing on unwrapping unneeded items for hours with obligatory 'ooh' and 'ahh' or 'i've always wanted....' (but not really meaning much of it), we headed off for a day of fun and celebration with some truly amazing kids and volunteers!

Instead of cinnamon rolls and coffee we ate masala dosai, onion othappum and idli at our favorite local restaurant, Meenakshi Bhavan. We took one of the SEED Plan volunteers and her mother out with us to celebrate the Christmas morning! We only found out later that it was the FIRST time her mother had eaten in a restaurant. At the risk of sounding colonial, it was fun to be able to give her an experience she had not had before. It wasn't a fancy restaurant, it wasn't extravagant by any stretch of the imagination, but her life situation has never given her that opportunity to be served. She has always served others.

After breakfast we convened at the SEED center with all the volunteers and other visitors and got into two vans headed for the other two SEED centers in Sambakudi and Thathenary. Each center was decked out in decorations, drawings and the students at each center had dances, songs and speeches prepared to celebrate the day!


Our very small contribution to the festivities was cake for each of the centers. In the US cake is purchased by size, in India you purchase it by weight. So in total, we purchased over 9kgs (20lbs) of cake for the 3 centers! It was ALL happily devoured! We also sang with each of the groups. It wasn't very elaborate, but we also sang some pretty enthusiastic rounds of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas". I didn't know it could be so much fun (or loud)!

After visiting the two outlying centers, we returned to Madurai and went back to Meenakshi Bhavan for meals! All the volunteers and visitors crammed into the restaurant and gorged on rice, sambar, rasam, vegetables, papads, curd and sweets. Again, this was the first time some of these volunteers had eaten a 'South Indian meal' as such!


After lunch we had one more event at the main SEED Center in Karumpalai. Two of the kids were dressed as Ms. & Mr. Claus! They must have been cooking under that outfit, but they didn't seem bothered and played the part for the festivities! At one point they did a dance and gave out presents from their little bags. It was all very very cute!

No function or event at the SEED Centers is complete without lots of singing and dancing!!! It is what they do best! It is always great fun to see their amazing choreography and new cinema dance moves!



It was a very very Merry Christmas!! It wasn't traditional, but it was very memorable--spending time with amazing kids and volunteers, being together as a family, sharing and celebrating with so many people in a different country! And there were no presents to return, no decorations to put away, no tree to dismantle, and no after Christmas sales to bother with!! I think this is the kind of Christmas I'd like to recreate in the future!