February Adventures

In February, we spent several weeks in Madurai at the home of Sheik Dawood and Bathu Begum--parents of Ismail.   The girls enjoyed living in an extended family and delighted in Shahrukh, the youngest grandchild.  I enjoyed the spectacular food cooked by the talented woman of the household.   From Madurai, we took a quick trip to Coimbatore to visit relatives and received a tour of clothing factories from Hasina's nephew.  (see Isabel's blog entry)

The girls and I went to a village temple festival with anthropologist Sara Dickey and her family.   The excitement and energy of the festival trumped the oppressive heat and provided me with many photographic opportunities.   The girls were not thrilled to find themselves even more of a spectacle than usual but they did get to see a village.  (Not all field trips have to be fun do they?)  The photo album "Madurai and More" contains many portraits from our trip to the village.  You will notice babies and children with black smudges on their faces.  The smudges serve to mar the perfection of the children and protect them from the consequences of envy or admiration.  

Catherine

P.S. Clio's birthday was celebrated back in Chennai.  We spend the day south of Chennai at the Crocodile Bank.  Despite the heat, it was enjoyable.  After viewing the crocs, we visited the puppies we had met three weeks earlier at our stay at the Tamil Nadu Hotel. (see Clio's blog entry) 

 P.P.S.  The girls and I leave Chennai on March 24 for Switzerland to see Melinda and family.  We will all travel together to Corsica.  We will arrive stateside on April 14th. 

To view pictures from our latest adventures, click on the slideshow entitled, "Madurai and More".

 

Our Trip to Coimbatore

     We got up early to go to Coimbatore with three other people: Hasina, Nida, and Babu.  We drove for five hours, during which we were quite cramped and uncomfortable.  We visited the house of Hasina’s nephew, who owned garment factories.  We went up the stairs of his house, to see the clothes catalog containing the pictures of clothes that were to be exported to stores in the United States and Europe.  Upstairs we also saw a fish.  It was huge, gold colored, and it moved in crazy jerks and glides, all over its tank.  It was an Arowana.

       We went to three factories that day.  The first factory we went to had twenty machines in one room, ten to each side, with an isle in between.  One side was embroidering ten, black and yellow New York T-shirts.  The other side was starting a complicated, gold embroidery pattern on a white T-shirt.  At the end of each of the rows of machines, there was a computer.  The computer counted the number of stitches, and stopped when one of the machines made a mistake.  When a machine made a mistake, all the other machines halted, waiting for the mistake to be resolved by the machine or by one of the workers.  Most of the time, though, the machine would automatically fix itself and then resume work with all the others.  All of the machines did everything in perfect unison.  The machines were moving so fast, you couldn’t see them, but you could see the designs growing. 

     We left that room and went to another, where two people were working with a fusing machine.  They straitened out two huge pieces of cloth as they entered the machine. At the end, the cloth was fused together to form one piece.  Next to the fusing machine was a person with an extremely sharp razor, cutting out the logo for one of the New York T-shirts.  

We left the factory, and went to another.  This one was a huge workroom where some of the people were taking the embroidered cloth and assembling clothes. Then, some of the clothes were stamped and approved, while others were put in a stack to be taken apart and redone.  The approved clothes were put on hangers, ironed, and then folded into boxes, ready to be shipped.  We were generously given some approved clothing from the pile.  It was near the end of the day, so we headed home quickly, so we could get some sleep.  It was a very educational trip, and we all enjoyed it.

Isabel

Puppies at a Hotel

 

     We were at a hotel when Isabel and I saw a dog and we could tell that she had puppies so we followed her until we found them.  There were six, four-week-old puppies and they were all female. They lived under a stout bush.

 

    We played with the puppies all weekend. When we went on a walk to see a big, dead puffer fish their mother followed me.   We fed the puppies some egg and they liked it and ate it ravenously.

 

    Yesterday, for my birthday we went and visited the puppies again. One puppy had been adopted and two were missing.  I went looking for the missing ones and found one behind a tree root far away from her siblings.  I found the other one, after a long time, hiding behind a refrigerator.  Their bush had been chopped down so they now live under a huge stack of chairs.  I look forward to seeing the puppies again.

 

Clio