India: Trains, a wedding, cattle truck, and deviled eggs

Good grief. It's been forever since I last posted. I started writing this post a few days ago. I've been able to take some video with N.'s nifty gadget, and hope she will help me download them on here soon.

Last Friday I got up at 6:15 am, and by 9 am, was riding a train to a village two and a half hours away. It could not have been a more pleasant day to travel. We had cloud cover, the humidity was relatively low, and the air was cool. The train was an experience. I'm pretty sure the brown stuff on the floor next to my left foot should have been in a toilet. Five beggars came: a woman held out a blind man's hand for him, a young girl came down the main aisle doing flips (she got the most money), an old woman whose right foot had a lump the size of a baseball on it, and a man who dragged himself, sitting upright, across the floor. The best part was sitting across from a young muslim man. He was excited to communicate with us, and did so through hand gestures and writing because he was deaf and couldn't speak well. His family was opposite us across the aisle, and his young sister was particularly excited to read our names after we'd written them down.

A brief summary of some church terms. A "branch" is the smallest unit of church members who meet together, governed by a Branch President and his two counselors. A "ward" is a large unit of church members who meet together. In Utah there are mostly wards while here in India, we attend the West Marredpally Second Branch (this branch is actually relatively large, and if attendance stays high, might become a ward). A bishop and his two counselors govern a ward. Several wards are grouped into a "stake" governed by a stake president and his two counselors. Stakes are grouped into regions with Area Authorities. At the top, a Quorum of the Twelve (whose titles are "Elder") is presided by the First Presidency: two counselors and our prophet, who is currently President Thomas S. Monson.

Whew.

We were riding the train to attend the wedding of the sister of a young man in our branch. Did we know either of them? Of course not, but here, the more people who attend one's wedding, the merrier the party is. We went to the wedding with a family who attends the branch, Pr. and his wife, B. I love them. They have two children, an eightish boy, Jf., and a young girl (who seems to be the doll of branch gatherings, she is very cute), Je.

After the train, we hoped on a bus for an hour. It is interesting to be in more remote areas. I'm fairly certain most people in remote areas don't EVER see white people (off a TV screen, anyway), because they stare a LOT more than city people. After the wedding, we wondered if we had detracted from the bride's spotlight by attending. I don't know the answer.

We still arrived late to the wedding, but that didn't seem to matter much. They made us sit on the front row. I was glad--I was able to see much more of the ceremony. The VIPs were sittign under a four pillared canopy, decked out with different colors of flowers. The bride was beautiful, and draped in gorgeous cloth and sparkly stuff. The groom was clothed in a white suit and white turban (which was taken off later in the ceremony), with gold trimmings. Both had a sort of orange/yellow paste smeared on the tops of their heads. They both sat cross legged on the ground across from each other, with the groom with his back facing us and the bride facing him. This arrangement made it a bit difficult to see all the proceedings. Family members wearing their best outfits stood and sat around them. Two priests, wearing white, sat on the left.

The priests were the narrators of the wedding. Periodically they would start chanting what I know know are called Vedic chants. They reminded me of cattle auctioneers by how fast they spoke. Precise, pitch perfect, and perfectly in time with each other. This is a short youtube video that can give you an idea of what it sounded like. Only they were much faster, and they were both actually smiling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d4wrvKBCdA

A lot happened during the ceremony, but I don't know what it all symbolized. At one point the head priest had a green coconut that he passed to the bride, but it didn't appear like they did much with it. For half an hour the priest put handfuls of sparkly stuff into the hands of the bride and groom so that they could pour it on top of each other's heads. Gold glitter, blue glitter, multi-colored glitter, multicolored puff ball things, more glitter...by the time they finished and stood up, there were two mountains of color six inches high in front of them. I was in awe of their composure. I imagine glitter getting down into your shirt is a lot like hay, and highly uncomfortable.

At one point the groom stood up (a major feat. If I had sat cross legged for as long as he had, my legs would be numb. And he stood up without help AND without toppling over). He draped a long necklace/medallion/flower thing around the bride's neck and tied it. I wondered if that was the first time they had touched (this was an arranged marriage, more on this later). As he put it on her, many of the women crowded on the right side so they could see better.

The bride later put something around the grooms neck too.

A precious moment to me was seeing the loving, grateful look the bride gave a young woman who had helped her with something. I wonder if she was a best sister or best friend.

There were two girls sitting behind the groom to his right, with their backs to us. The older one's head tipped to the right side like she was bored. Maybe she was just tired.

Then the bride and groom stood up and both faced the crowd, with the groom on the left side and the bride on the left. It looked like the priest tied their sleeves together. After a bit, family members stepped forward to give them gifts. It almost looked like they were going to sing "Heavy, heavy hang over, thy poor head...." ;) Many of the gifts were gold necklaces that they draped on the bride. Several of my team members commented on how hot the bride must be. Again, she was perfectly composed.

We were told that the young man had been living in San Francisco and was taking his bride back to America with him. Dad told me once how his students would be hesitant to tell him they were going home for their arranged marriages, and he would tell him he had had an arranged marriage too. He would tell them how his mom and my mom's mom were in cahoots to get the two of them married. :) I liked hearing how his students would come back totally in love with their brides.

After lunch, P. arranged for our team and the 16ish young men from the ward (who had arrived the day before and slept somewhere in the village over night) to go see a lake and temple. We couldn't fit 24 people into an auto, so P. arranged for a cattle truck to come get us. Imagine a truck about the size of four autos, with iron-bar sides with peeling white paint. Thankfully most manure had been shoveled out, and what was left was dry. It was a piece of home. ;)

Somehow, we all fit. The guys from the ward are fun to be with. They are rowdy, but in good humor. We careened down roads, and about 40 minutes later ended up at a huge lake, big enough I couldn't see where it ended, and with several tropical islands a ways off. We climbed down to it, and there were huge grey-brown boulders everywhere. I saw a 12 inch lizard with a bright orange head. P. actually encouraged the guys to go swimming. It took them awhile, but then a lot of them did. When several of them skinned down to their underwear, our team went back to the truck (at this point, our team consisted of six girls and Mike, HELP's executive director).

Pretty soon the rest of them came up, and we were able to travel to the Thousand Pillar Temple, located in Hanamakonda. (Nice pics on the internet). We literally had ten minutes there. We took off our shoes before stepping onto the temple, all carved out of black rock. (My gut says basalt, but I really don't know. They called it "black stone"). The priests were excited to see us, and showed us how the decorative carving was so thin it was almost filigree.

The bus ride to the train station was entertaining. The guys in the group sang songs (from Bollywood, B. told us) really loudly, and only sang louder as we took pictures of them.

We got home about 11 pm, utterly exhausted. We hadn't eaten since lunch, and were grateful for the dinner Sister A. had cooked.

On Saturday I tried an idly and a vada. An idly is a steamed rice and black lentil cake, and a vada looks like a doughnut and tastes potato-y. Both were very bland. I'm glad I tried them, because I suppose Indians view them a little like Americans view mashed potatoes, but I won't buy them again.

On Sunday, I was asked to prepare a back-up talk for this coming Sunday's Sacrament meeting (the most important hour of our three-hour church block because we partake of the Sacrament, renewing the promises we've made with God. After the sacrament, there are usually 3-4 people who give talks). I'm excited and anxious, and would appreciate your prayers.

At 8 pm, we went to J.'s house, our American diplomat friend, to celebrate the Fourth of July. On top of the building she lives at is an astro-turfed sitting area. We had hamburger sliders (tasted so good), pasta salad, apple pie, pudding cheesecake, and potato salad. What hit the spot more than anything else were her curried deviled eggs. Oh, they were good. Instead of fireworks, we got to watch Nature's Lightning Show. It wasn't over us, but it was impressive.