Our friend Jayson Paulose is a native of Kerala, and he came home for Christmas on the 21st. We had to visit him (he insisted) and see his neighborhood and his house. So we did.
As we observed before, there's a lot of religious diversity in Kerala. Jayson's family is Syrian Orthodox - a branch of Christianity reputed to have been founded in the 1st century by St. Thomas, when he came to India. Mackenzie was happy to see a Christmas tree in the Paulose household.
Jayson's father is a business school professor, but he moonlights as a tour guide in his spare time. Dr. Paulose showed us around the backwaters of Kerala and brought us to a dozen churches, synagogues, mosques, and Hindu temples, explaining the religious and historical significance of each.
Here's the Church of St. Thomas Kottekkavu - founded by Thomas himself, not far from where he first made landfall.
Here's the Chennamangalam synagogue, the second-oldest synagogue in the British Commonwealth (the oldest is the one on Jew Street that we saw yesterday.) All of the funding for restoration came from American Jews.
Our driving route happened to take us past a local Hindu temple ceremony. There were three elephants in full battle regalia, with guys standing on them, and a bunch of other guys beating drums in a circle. Photo-op!
Dr. Paulose also took us to Cherai Beach, one of the nicest beaches in India. The December weather was balmy and the waters of the Arabian Sea were warm. Jayson wrote "wheee" in the sand.
Jayson insisted we had to try dosas (a South Indian street food.) They were delicious!
Jayson is sad because his juice box came without a little straw.
No comments:
Post a Comment