To sum up my two week trip to Madurai, I thought I’d just post an email I sent today to a Grinnell friend named Dean. I was in Madurai to surprise other friends studying abroad there with a program called SITA, and he had previously offered me some tips (thanks, Dean).
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Sri Meenakshi Temple
Hey,
The trip was great! After sleeping off some of my train ride hang over, I used your directions (specifically, “across from ICIC Bank” was an essential bit of info) and got an auto ride over to the SITA center. “Hey,” I said to the two students sitting out in front of the building, “my name is Linn. Are Kelly and Blake here?” “Oh, you’re Linn,” they re-stated. “We’ve heard about you. Kelly said you haven’t been answering her emails.”
They led me back to the computer lab, and Kelly, Blake and (unexpectedly) Mike Kober and I had a little hug-fest. Fan-tastic! Kelly and Blake called me “sneaky,” and I was very happy with this.
"Avvai Shanmugi"
I’m on my way back to Chennai now, where I’ll start an intership with The Hindu tomorrow. During my great two weeks in Madurai, I visited Meenakshi Temple twice (the newly repainted gopurams were reopened on April 8), drank beer and read Hemingway at three different rooftop restaurants, cooked pseudo-Mexican food w/ Mike’s family, saw a goat have its head sawed off in sacrifice at Pandykoil, feared for my life climbing Yanai Malai, got better at riding on the backs of motor bikes and off the sides of buses, got solicided for donations to a Muslim madrasah and for investment in a coastal tourist resort, learned useful words like “poodum,” danced to “Cotton Eyed Joe” at a surprise birthday party (to an utterly astonished audience), and bought several great DVDs, including a Tamil remake of Mrs. Doubtfire (photo above). I give it one and half thumbs up, but two big thumbs up for the fight scene where Mrs. Doubtfire levels five crooks at the market.
All the best,
Linn
Filed under: Travel
This week I’ll be headed to the small land-locked country of Lesotho to visit a couple newspapers and stay with two Grinnell friends for Thanksgiving. Bryan and Jenny are doing a year-long Grinnell-funded teaching program, called GrinnellCorp, at a girls school in a small town called St. Rodrigue, way up in the mountains. (Here are some photos from a Grinnell faculty trip there a few years back.) I really can’t wait to see friends and have a breather from the big city.
Lesotho's shiny new flag.
Fun fact: Lesotho just got a new flag in 2006. According to the BBC, the government wanted to replace the shield-spear-club insignia of the old flag with a traditional hat in order to represent the country’s “peace with itself and its neighbors.” Now there’s a thought!
(More importantly, this could also help Lesotho’s grade here.)
My travel plans: Leaving Joburg Monday by train to Bloemfontein, where I’ll stay overnight. Then on to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, on Tuesday, where I’ll meet my friendly guides. They’ll be the first Americans my age that I will have seen in four months. Back in early December sometime, probably Monday or Tuesday — (Happy Birthday, Dad!).
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Update, 7 December
Got back to Joburg on Wednesday, after a wonderful time seeing Grinnellians in beautiful, beautiful Lesotho. It was a week of recuperating relaxation, good conversation, lots of yummy food and enough exhilarating exercise to work it off.
A village like the one where GrinnellCorps Lesotho is based -- and bright with spring greenery and blue skies, just like it is now!
And it couldn’t have come at a better time. It had been a couple months since I’d last left Joburg, and living and working here full-time was leaving me disheartened and cranky. I felt like I wasn’t being adequately adventurous, I think, and being robbed three times in three weeks didn’t help my mood either.
Anyhow, a week among friends, close to nature and away from rich-world, urban amenities — electricity, drinkable water, paved roads — left me reminded of why I’m here, resolved to travel more and rejuvenated in spirit. Bryan, Jenny and I talked politics and travel tips over candlelight, and swapped Grinnell gossip over crank-up radio tunes and tacos (yes, real tacos!). We fried up a grasshopper one morning, drank a hilltop beer one evening at sunset and killed a chicken in the yard on Thanksgiving.
All in all, it was a great week, and I knew it would be from the first moment.
“Hey you!” I shout.
“Linn?! You made it.” [Hug] ”How was the trip?”
“Oh, fine. A day and a half of buses can make you go nuts, but people were super-helpful.”
“Well, feel free to go and chill at our house.” [Pause] “Oh, but you can’t take a bath, ’cause there’s a chicken tied up in the tub.” [Chuckle]
Filed under: Travel
Where I'm headed for the weekend.
I’ll write more on this later, but I’m heading out of Johannesburg today–to a small city called Pietermaritzburg, near the southeastern coast. There’s going to be a big case coming to the High Court there involving the leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, Jacob Zuma. For the past three years, he’s been fighting legal battles related to a $5 billion arms deal he was involved in while vice president earlier this decade. He has a lot of popular support, however, and his supporters believe that he’s the victim of a political conspiracy.
So you can bet that PMB, usually a sleepy, colonial-looking farm town, is going to be hopping tomorrow. I’m excited to leave the city, too — and to be taking a bus, rather than driving, for once.
Update: Zuma’s case has been dropped for the time being because of irregularities and possible political meddling in the prosecution. From the BBC.
