Entry Nine: I <3 Aymanam

Lizzie Revay
Feb 27, 2019
8 min read

Now for those of you who know my home state of Connecticut well, you know that it's basically two parts to one whole.

Part One: actually Connecticut

Part Two: basically New York

I, for one, am from the latter. Therefore traditionally when I speak of "the city" I am not talking about Boston or even the CT capital, Hartford. I am talking about none other then NYC (something I obviously had to downplay during my time at Stonehill due to its promixity to Boston, Mass and for apparent personal safety reasons).

I do, however, have a point in this somewhat strange and random declaration. With the dawn of February, the notorious month of love, I was reminded of the iconic New York logo.

(If you were to ask my students here in India what that logo was they would probably point to the nearest off-brand Yankees hat, to which I then have to explain that no, such symbol represents the baseball team, the Yankees, to which I then have to explain the game of baseball as basically off-brand cricket... but I digress)

I am talking about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York

Because despite the fame that attracts loads of tourist, the fortune it is to live there, and the filthy streets, true New Yorkers love, LOVE New York. This attraction and dedication rarely comes from the big things that tourists visit like Times Square or the Statue of Liberty but the small things like PIZZA (true NY style pizza how I miss you).

And while the little village of Aymanam is no NYC, it has easily nestled its way into my heart.

Its the little things:

Rain Storms:

Sitting in the verandah where there are no true windows locking you from outside.

You hear it first. The wind picks up. Maybe an early soft thunder clap. The continuous noise of animals and insects stops. Then comes the darkness. The lights flicker on and off before the power finally goes out. The clouds descend taking out any of the remaining color of the sunset. Then your sense of smell heightens. I would love to make a candle the smell of Aymanam rain. The smell of rain here is undiluted, pure heavenly rain smell as far as I am concerned. The air chills slightly after a long day of heat and sun.

It is only after almost all your senses are warned and engaged does it start pouring. 0 to 60, there is rarely any of this drizzling foreplay. The rain comes down in torrents echoing off the coconut palms and the tin roof of the deck above. Its hard to hold a conversation when it pours like this, impossible to watch TV, because of its shear and sustained noise.

What I find is the best thing to do in a situation like this is pour myself a cup of tea, sit on the table, and feel the storm, because there's really nothing like it. Occasionally, I turn on a small lamp and crack open a book or catch up in my journal, though I rarely get far in either of these tasks as I am easily distracted by shiny objects (aka lightning) .

For awhile when we first got here, this was an everyday occurrence, it being monsoon season and all, and after two large floods you'd think we would have truly started to hate it. Yet it went away for the winter season, leaving us so slowly you barely noticed you missed it, but now we have been experiencing the occasional summer rain and boy did I miss it.

One side anecdote: Its funny what you remember. One vivid memory I have from my senior year of college, it was raining and I was sitting in my dorm room, alone, lights off, desk lamp on, window slightly propped open. I am half on my bed, half on the window sill, cuddled in my hygge blanket, tea in one hand, book in the other. That is how I managed to go about my day. Now I don't know how I had time to do this, but at the time I did, it was probably one of the only times I felt truly at peace my senior year. It was that night that I went to my first information session for The Stonehill Service Corp - India. Somethings just have a way of working out, I suppose.

Sunset:

I find that there are two types of people in this world. There's the sunrise people and the sunset people, and I don't mean to make vague references to early birds and night owls as I believe these deviations come with their own set of characteristics.

Now, I am personally a sunset person. And this is not because I never been up for a sunrise, I have, in life and in India. Chances are I hadn't slept yet, but that does not impede my ability to watch the sky lighten ever so slowly turning to a faint baby blue and watch the sun burning on the edge of the horizon, blazing with what only could be considered heavenly fire. Something that is truly beautiful and awe-inspiring in its own right.

But as I said, I'm a sunset person.

And I have managed to time my evening run perfectly so that I am outside on the field almost every day able to see the sun setting over the seminary. This is when you truly get the feeling that you are indeed in paradise.

Around 4:30 or 5pm, every color in Aymanam is heightened, better then any SnapChat filter could manage. The blue is so blue, the white so white, the varieties of green standing out in amazing contrast.

As the sun begins its descent, the sky leaches all the colors from the vegetation. Because much like the bridal party in a wedding, the bridesmaids must never outshine the bride. The trees and buildings almost appearing black as you stare at the riot of colors above you

If you are facing the seminary, behind you is a deep sapphire sky. In front of you is a tye-dye of blues lightening to hot pinks, Stonehill purples, and ending in quickly fading Easter yellows. The sky morphing and changing every time you look up from the ground (because of course when running you must look out for snakes.)

You think that what is above you is impossible but there it is.

My students:

Perhaps one of the most laughable parts of my day occurs almost every morning on my walk to school and ultimately to Father Johny's office for the morning teacher's prayer. You have to understand, I basically live at the school, my walk in the morning consists of walking across a small field through the KG portion of the school and then up the stairs to Father's office, easy enough, not terribly exciting on its own.

However what is really entertaining is when the students see you complete this process every morning. Because despite the fact that we have been here for little over 8 months, everyday, there is an endless and excited chorus of "MAM"s and "SIR"s (Picture the birds from Finding Nemo "Mine" "Mine" "Mine").

Second standard students yelling down from the first floor (Me, as an American, would call this the second floor) as we cross the field, little baby LKG and UKG students laughing and running from their seats to the doorway for the three h's: hugs, high fives and hand shakes, all of them just so excited to see you despite having seen you yesterday and the day before. Class one students jumping out of line just to say good morning and ask how we are doing. Its hard to have a bad day when your mornings start like this.

This process also occurs often on our walks and bike rides. Students will run out of their houses or away from their friends just to come and chat with you. And upon your leaving will say good bye at least 5 times, often yelling it down the street at least twice as you walk away. And though I have gone a bit crazy, as I now think I hear "Ma'm" everywhere I go, my head constantly on a swivel not wanting to miss a single opportunity to say hello, it puts a smile on my face to see that we don't just love our students, they love us as well.

Additionally, it warms my heart as I have really seen my students grow in their confidence in speaking English and/or speaking English with me, students who were once very shy and tentative in speaking, now approach with excitement and authority. I have seen their vocabulary expand and their grammar improving. Nothing excites me more, like a student using the past tense properly especially when it's one of those tricky irregular verbs like "go" and "went". Or seeing a UKG student really thinking about the sentence they want to form and then communicating that sentence perfectly. The growth I have seen in my students is one thing that has always motivated me through out this entire experience, it is why I am here and what made me want to do this in the first place, seeing it come to fruition is beyond fulfilling.

Finally, though these three things are not the only instances in which I love my students, watching them look at me with utter surprise and confusion before their faces light up as I speak the small amount of Malayalam that I have picked up through out my time here.

For example, we have all been in a classroom before, either as the student or as the teacher. The teacher is talking and no one seems to be listening, much like the adults in Charlie Brown all that seems to be coming out of their mouth is

https://annotatedgilmoregirls.com/2017/09/30/teacher-in-the-charlie-brown-cartoon/

Well, my students in India are no exception to this, if not more prone to it as I am speaking to them in a foreign language. So in the instances where I fear this is occurring I will often say "Mun-sil-lie-oh?" (മനസ്സിലായോ) meaning "Do you understand?" and without fail the classroom blows up in excitement and suddenly all my students are back at attention if not hard to settle back down. "Ma'm speaking Malayalam?" "Ma'm should I write your name in the monitor book?" You could probably count on fingers and toes how much very basic Malayalam I know/understand but when I do utilize this new found skill, everyone is all smiles.

Honorable Mentions

Now I could go on and on about what I love about being here, but rather then bore you with more paragraphs of text but instead here are some honorable mentions:

The feeling of riding on the back of a motorcycle/scooter through the winding streets of Aymanam.
Star gazing on the roof on a clear night without the bother of city light pollution
Sitting for tea
Feeling like a celebrity because everyone is staring at the two white people. "Just smile and wave boys"
Community
Sitting in the verandah on a lazy Sunday morning
Spontaneous adventure
Everything I have learned about myself and about people

With only one month left you really need to stop and think, you really need to ween out all you can from the remaining time. Through out the experience it was so easy to get caught up in the drama and frustration of cultural difference and forget that these instances are inconsequential to the bigger picture. Recently I have come to recognize that its not necessarily about doing the big things: traveling to different places in the area, getting all dressed up and going to functions and ceremonies, because while these things are important and memorable, its equally if not more important to:

"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things" - Robert Breault

Annual Day

A celebration of the academic year

This year's theme: "Aymanam My Village"